I Am Link

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--- Watts Up - While I'm wary of Jake Gyllenhaal's upcoming movie Demolition entirely due to the fact that it's the director of the insipid Dallas Buyers Club making it (no I haven't seen his other movies), Jake working opposite Naomi Watts, who's apparently in line for the lead female role, is promising. But tell me this line, from that linked article, isn't confusing as fuck:

"Watts would play a pot-smoking customer service representative for the company behind a vending machine that eats the protagonist's money."

That is a weird fucking sentence.

--- Into The Past - FX might've passed on Charlie Kaufman's prospective television show - BOO! BOO! - but they did just announce that Fargo is renewed for a second season so I'll cut them a little slack. I loved Fargo. Some details are out for what the next season will look like - they're jumping backwards in time, to look at the lives of Molly Solverson's parents, apparently.
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--- Xena Onatopp - Lucy Lawless is joining the cast of The Agents of SHIELD! Lucy Lawless is joining the cast of The Agents of SHIELD! While the second half of the show's first season actually began to get really good, the show still needs some oomph in the personality department, and... well hiring Lucy Lawless drags in a whole lotta oomph. A whole heckuva lotta oomph! I hope her character can then make the transition to the Marvel movies from here - I wanna see her punch Robert Downey Jr in the face if it's the last thing I ever see.

--- Down Girl - I haven't seen Toni Collette's new movie A Long Way Down yet (co-starring Pierce Brosnan and Aaron Paul) so thankfully she keeps talk of it brief in this interview and moves along to the more pressing and important topics, like how people still adore Muriel's Wedding. My fave bit actually comes after that, where she's asked about "Hollywood's gender imbalance" and if it's tough for her to find roles and she immediately says, "Well, not personally." One thing I've never stopped being in awe of is how much work Toni gets. I adore her and will watch her in anything, but she works SO much. It does surprise me. She's atypical.

---  Hair Today Gone Tomorrow - Ha ha I love that the out-cry over Corey Stoll's terrible wig on The Strain was so loud that the producers have felt the need to address its reasons for existing. Giving him a step forward to transform from (clearly his hair will be falling out at some point) is nice and all, I get it, Guillermo Del Toro... but shouldn't that thing have been convincing as actual real honest-to-goodness hair at some point, to make its loss effective? Or are you telling us that it's actually one of your monster creations sitting onhis head, and it will sprout legs or wings and attack someone soon? I'd be down with that if that's what you're saying. Short of a wig-monster though that thing gets the gong, dude.

--- Round The Clocks - Are any of you familiar with James Thurber's children's book The 13 Clocks? I was not until this morning; Neil Gaiman wrote the introduction for an edition of it and for some reason he's been touting the book all over the place lately; here's a prime example (thanks Mac). Gaiman's calling it "the best book in the world," which is kind of high praise, ya know. I'm curious.

--- All About Billy - Steven Spielberg's Cold War spy-thriller with Tom Hanks is gearing up to shoot this Fall and a bunch of cast has just been announced - blah blah this person that person hey look it's hot-piece Billy Magnussen! See a lot of him (and when I say a lot, I mean all of it) right here. We sure like Billy!

--- Blood Brothers - Somebody watch the thirty minutes of test footage from James Franco's attempt at making a movie out of Cormac McCarthy's book Blood Meridian and tell me whether he shot any footage of his brother Dave bathing naked in a river or something similar; that'll get me to sit through it. Otherwise...

--- And finally, Guy Ritchie is keen on making a movie about the Knights of the Roundtable next and apparently his RockNRolla star Idris Elba is keen on slipping into some sexy chain-mail for him. Idris would play Arthur's elder trainer and trusted friend named Bedivere. I feel like there's some fun puns to be had with that name. Anyway all I want is Idris Elba reenacting that creepy armored sex scene from Excalibur. Yeehaw!