Beauty vs Beast: Love Bound

Jason from MNPP here back from turkey break and prepping a fresh "Beauty vs Beast" for y'all to feast upon. The Spanish provocateur Pedro Almodovar's latest film Julieta (which our pal Manuel reviewed right here via the New York Film Festival) opens in the U.S. in just a couple of weeks and so the Museum of Modern Art is celebrating all things Almodovar with a great big retrospective, starting tomorrow. The series runs through mid-December and they're showing pretty much everything he's made - don't miss out!

And so in turn for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" I'm asking you to look back to Almodovar's 1990 romantic comedy of kinky kidnapping, Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (aka ¡Átame!) and its rope-crossed lovers -- Ricky (Antonio Banderas), fresh off the psych ward, and Marina (Victoria Abril), the actress and recovered drug addict who finds herself on the receiving end of Ricky's deranged affections.

PREVIOUSLY Last week's contest between Gaston and The Beast from Disney's Beauty & the Beast went back and forth and back and forth between the two big strapping hairy-chested menfolk in belle's life for awhile, but in the end true romance won out - y'all softies - and The Beast took it home with 55% of your vote. Said Nick T:

"Kudos to Gaston for having such a great song, but The Beast is such a lovely character. Even if my memory of him is blurrier, it's still warm."

Debuts on this Day: Psycho, Spider-Man, Flatliners, Stardust

On this day in history at it relates to showbiz...

The Director and I

1787 Mozart competes his chamber piece "Eine kleine Nachtmusik" which has shown up in dozens of films over the years, many of which are classics. Here is but a small sampling of films that have used it in the past 40 years or so: Picnic at Hanging Rock, Alien, Sophie's Choice, The Bride, Hope & Glory, Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, GI Jane, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Milk, and April and the Extraordinary World.
1896 Oscar nominated director Walter Lang (The King and I, 1956) is born
1897 Jack Haley is born. Enters screen immortality when he gets the part of the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz when Buddy Ebsen has a terrible allergic reaction to the makeup...

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Links: Banderas, Cho, Parsons, Jones, Holtzmann, and More

TV
Vulture provides an A-Z glossary of all of Stranger Things mad sci-fi referencing  from Alien (1979) toVideodrome (1983)
Comics Alliance American Gods, Bryan Fuller's adaptation of the Neil Gaiman book, gets its first logo and a promotional image 
EW Impromptu Smash reunion. Katharine McPhee invited Megan Hilty on stage with her Sunday night at a LA jazz club - and yes they sang Smash songs.

Movies
Playbill Fences sets its release date for December 16th
Antagony & Ecstasy looks back at His Girl Friday - the Rosalind Russell role was a male role in the source material.

The Root Leslie Jones of SNL & Ghostbusters fame was hounded by racists on twitter - they're feeling so bold these days thanks to the GOP -- fans rallied behind her
Salon "Free Jillian Holtzmann" on why Sony isn't saying that the most popular new Ghostbuster character is a lesbian
AV Club talks to John Cho about Star Trek, gay sulu, and Asian representation in cinema
The Guardian Antonio Banderas to play Gianni Versace in a biopic. The Versace estate is not pleased calling it "fiction" 
Coming Soon Fifty Shades Darker set photos
The Guardian on film franchises with the most episodes: Jungle Jim, Godzilla, and a few more
Awards Daily wonders if the political turmoil will turn the Oscars nostalgic rather than brave (see also 1968 Best Picture winner Oliver!) 
Towleroad Twenty year-old actor Ross Lynch is going from Disney Channel fame to serial killing? He'll play Jeffrey Dahmer, pre-murders, as a troubled teen in a new film.
Variety Sigourney Weaver will be honored for her career as this September's San Sebastian film festival 

...and Anton Yelchin's parents sent a beautiful message to friends and fans and the industry...

Beautiful. Anton Yelchin's parents thank Hollywood in ad @THR: 'Grateful for your unconditional love of our son' pic.twitter.com/01yn7owcL5

— Janice Min (@janicemin) July 18, 2016

Theater
Playbill Jake Gyllenhaal to headline the revival of Burn This. The original hit production in 87/88, which went from Off-Broadway to Broadway for a year-plus long run, won praise for Eric Roberts (Theater World award), John Malkovich (Drama Desk Nomination) and Joan Allen (Tony win)
NYT Estelle Parsons health scare prompts closing of her new play. Send healing vibes her way. She's a national treasure. If you haven't yet seen Season 2 of Grace & Frankie it closes beautifully with an arc about her guest starring role as "Babe," a larger than life friend of the pair who's throwing herself a big going away party. Parsons has done a lot of work on TV but weirdly despite being a highly esteemed actor with an Oscar win and 5 Tony nominations, she's never received an Emmy nomination. 

Miscellania
Huffington Post Jennifer Aniston tears into the media for their obsession with women's bodies and whether or not she's pregnant 
Wicked Gay Blog Dolly Parton working on a dance album with a track called "I'm a Wee Bit Gay" 
The New Yorker "Donald Trump's Ghostwriter Tells All" a harrowing profile 
Logo My Way hosted a contest to redesign the embarassing Trump Pence logo - Love some of these entries
Pajiba on the shitshow that was the RNC's first night with its plagiarized First Lady speech 

April Showers: Antonio Banderas in "Law of Desire"

In April Showers, Team TFE looks at our favorite waterlogged moments in the movies. Here's Manuel on Law of Desire (1987).

Almodóvar is the air again due to Chus Lampreave's passing and his latest, Julieta getting solid reviews (his best since Volver). And since April is “Actor Month” here at TFE let's kill two birds with one stone by looking at a small scene featuring Antonio Banderas and Eusebio Poncela from the 1987 classic Law of Desire.

The film centers on Antonio (Banderas) and his obsessive fixation with a gay film director (Poncela). After stalking him and eventually roping his way into his life, Antonio settles on trying to shape Pablo after his own image. First, he fixes some things around Pablo’s messy apartment, including some tiles in his shower, and then, the next day he takes it upon himself to set some sort of routine for them.

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Tweetweek Beefcake

Behold The Film Experience's favorite Tweet of all time.

Dreamt last night that I won an Oscar, and the first thing I did in my speech was thank @nathanielr.

— Anne Bloody Marie (@WeRecycleMovies) October 14, 2015

You agree that it's perfect, yes?

Sorry to be so self-serving (actually he's not, Nathaniel says about himself in the third person) but that has to be the nicest thing anyone's subconscious has ever dreamt up about me... that I'm aware of.

A collection of other great tweets including beefcake via miners, politicians and actors is after the jump...

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