Will Ferrell and Richard Linklater Make (Separate) Baseball Movies: Links You Need to See

Share:

Fans of Boyhood and the Before Whenevers will be thrilled by the day’s concentration of Richard Linklater-based news. The director’s name has been circulating for two separate reasons today: his baseball movie and “spiritual sequel” to Dazed and Confused got an official release date today. And, Linklater’s now been named the frontrunner to direct the Jennifer Lawrence-starring film, The Rosie Project (based on Graeme Simsion’s novel). It doesn’t sound particularly like a Linklater movie: it’s a romantic comedy about a scientist who designs a 16-page survey to find his wife, and is taken by surprise when one candidate completely fails his survey but wins his heart. Perhaps, however, it’ll seem more Linklater-y when we ultimately find out audiences won’t see the film for a seemingly arbitrary number of very many years, as the director waits for his actors to slowly age along with his characters, who become jaded yet more grounded, weary yet wizened, their bond metamorphosing with time.

“There is life in this 47-year-old arm,” boasts Will Ferrell in the new trailer for another baseball movie. Ferrell Takes the Field is, actually a true, non-mocku-documentary, though the premise is itself intentionally funny. Ferrell partook in spring training with 10 different MLB teams, playing different positions for each, and filmed the process. The proceeds of the doc, which will air on HBO, will go to cancer-fighting charity organizations.

But, very thankfully, there’s a whole world outside of baseball and its filmmaking enthusiasts. Why, there are streets with “weird things embedded” in them, skyscrapers so high they’re using architectural exoskeletons to keep them standing, and this hyperrealistic sculpture of a fallen angel, which is perplexing pedestrians. If that last image isn’t the type of thing that’d stop you in your tracks, perhaps these striking photos of Taye Diggs as the new Hedwig (of Angry Inch fame) on Broadway will satisfy. This might also do it: for those still going back and forth in their certainty about whether the Jon Snow at the end of GoT‘s last season was a dead or a living Jon Snow, a new line of memorial toys released by HBO has another strong hint suggesting the best. Snow was not included in the line of depressing miniatures.

Even better than that, though, is Judy Greer discussing making out with Lily Tomlin in Grandma. When in a brief interview, Out asked whether her role in Grandma was her first LGBT character, she said:

I’m going to say you’re right, but I might look back later and be like, “Oh, but I did do that.” Though my role in Grandma is super “out,” in terms of making out with a woman — which is awesome. Especially when the woman is Lily Tomlin.