I Am Link

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--- What A Dick - Have you guys read what Jared Leto has to say about the rumors that he might play The Joker in the DC villain-fest Suicide Squad? If you haven't be prepared to want to rend yourself limb from limb and set fire to your eyeballs once you do, because it's the word "insufferable" distilled to its brain-searing essence. There was a hot minute when he was squeezing his junk on stage where I got confused, bewildered, the lights were all in my eyes and those old familiar stirrings stirred... well I'd like to thank him for talking me back from the ledge with his insipid fucking obnoxiousness once again. Please someone make him go away.

--- Liked Mike - Here's my Understatement of the Day: We lost a major talent in Mike Nichols, y'all. In some ways it feels like an outlier that I'd mourn the director of so much Broadway stuff, but as Joe Reid gets across in his wonderfully observed run-down of what a great adapter Nichols was, his focus ran the gamut far and wide enough to bring us all under the umbrella. I was thinking of doing a list on him but I don't think I will have the time; anyway Silkwood is probably my favorite of his work. My love for Silkwood runs very very deep.

--- Big Bentley - On the opposite end of the spectrum from Leto's unhinged ego here we have a nice little chat with Wes Bentley (thanks Mac), who seems genuine and grateful to have gotten his groove back after busting that terrible drug habit that sidelined his career for so long, and who comes off as humble, imagine that.

--- Last Wives Club -  Well now there's a great big question mark about what director Steve McQueen's doing next - we know he's working on that series for HBO, for one; then yesterday we heard he is making a bio-pic of Paul Robeson. And today comes word via Variety that he's adapting the ITV series called Widows, which is a thriller about the widows of four criminals coming together to finish the crime that killed their hubbies. I mean that sounds like fun, I want him to make that, he needs to have some fun. (Not to mention Michael Fassbender could definitely fit into this one somehow.)

--- Nobody Loves An Albatross - I still haven't watched the original but I'll take any excuse to post about Idris Elba these days (as I proved yesterday) - his well-liked series Luther is being rebooted for US television, with the original folks (Idris included) producing. And the BBC is actually bringing the character back, as played by Idris, for a two-part miniseries. What I wanna know is, when is No Good Deed coming out on DVD? I can't believe I missed it in theaters; I need that shower scene!

--- Wand Lovers - Speaking Of the Beeb (and I feel like I'm talking about British television a lot lately) they are apparently adapting the massive magician fun-time book Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, I had no idea. They've already released the first image from it! Have any of you read the book? I did when it was a big deal when it came out in 2004 (has it really only been ten years?) and I remember liking it, but I don't remember a ton about it now. Remembering how gigantic that book is I even wonder now the hell I ever read all that.

--- A Knight's Tail - And speaking of Idris again, the role he was momentarily mentioned for in Guy Ritchie's King Arthur movie starring Charlie Hunnam, that of Merlin, has gone to Djimon Honsou, so I guess Ritchie had a visual in mind for Merlin. But I'm down with Djimon, anyway.

--- Future Past - This seems like an odd fit - Paul Greengrass, he of the Bourne films and Captain Phillips, is planning on adapting George Orwell's 1984 into a new movie. I suppose the story's timeless but I do feel like it presents a problem, adapting a work about the future that's set in our past at this point, right? It feels like it's a thing that now has to be addressed. Anyway I haven't read 1984 since high school, how about y'all?

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