Beauty vs Beast: Sailors Moon

Jason Adams from MNPP here using this week's "Beauty vs Beast" to memorialize a sad anniversary -- the great German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder died of an overdose on this day in the year 1982. Unsurprising given his extraordinary output over the course of his 37 years on Earth Fassbinder's projects outlived his days, and one finished film came out a few months after he'd passed -- his gorgeously gay and strange Genet adaptation Querelle, starring Brad Davis as a sailor entangled in lusty criminalities in port, and that's where we'll rest our eyes today (since we're also covering LGBT films all June to boot). Much like Lieutenant Seblon (a perfectly mustachioed Franco Nero, awash in long eroticized pauses) can't keep his eyes off his charge, neither can we all these years later...

find bike trails

PREVIOUSLY The first week of Pride Month took us to sweet Translyvania, where Tim Curry's Dr. Frank N Furter easily swanned off with 0ver 80% of your Rocky Horror votes. Said kris01:

"Brad and Janet are cute and everything, but Frank n Furter can create life. Iron Man has a million suits to jerk off too, but can he make people!?"

Beauty vs Beast: Transylvania Time Warped

Hello and Happy Monday, Jason from MNPP here with this week's much antici........pated edition of "Beauty vs Beast" -- since it's Pride Month I'm going to be glancing back at some of my favorite LGBT movies for the next four weeks! How merry and gay it will be. Today we're finding our sexy yet somewhat boring selves stalled on the side of the road on a dark and stormy night with just a strange castle astride a mountaintop ahead seen as refuge, and hey, they seem to be having some sort of a party inside...

survey services

PREVIOUSLY Twas Aladdin's time for the spotlight last go-round, and our animated hero soundly trounced the villanous Jafar (speaking of sneering homosexuals) with a fine upstanding and heterosexual 62% of your vote. Said Ryan T:

"This is TOUGH. Aladdin was like my Disney crush for THE LONGEST TIME but Jafar was like VILLAIN GOALS. In the end I went with Aladdin, because I just can't say no to those big brown eyes."

Beauty vs Beast: Still I Think He's Rather Tasty

Jason Adams from MNPP, fully ready to admit that if you get me drunk enough and put me in front of a karaoke microphone I could sing to you any one of the songs from 1992's Aladdin without having to look at the words on the screen once. I don't know if that's what Disney had in mind but it is what it is and it is how I spent a hefty amount of my time, when I should have been studying, in college. I might not remember anything from that Geology class I was forced to take at nine in the morning but get outta the way when "A Whole New World" comes on. Anyway with Guy Ritchie's live-action version out this Friday, and a retrospective from Team Experience beginning tonight, what better time to "Beauty vs Beast" the original -- I'm shocked we haven't done this before honestly, since Aladdin's got one of Disney's greatest villains...

survey services

PREVIOUSLY A week ago we wished Sofia Coppola a happy birthday by looking back upon her last film Beguiled, and today we're minded what a fool's errand it is for us to ever face anybody off with Nicole Kidman -- even Colin Farrell's hotness couldn't muster up more than 29% against the queen Kidman. Said Ben:

"Miss Farnsworth is the only one who thinks primarily with her head instead of her heart. That's why the only logical thing to do was to cut off his leg, then kill him. Makes sense to me!"

Beauty vs Beast: The Kindness of Strangers

Jason Adams from MNPP here, using this week's brand new "Beauty vs Beast" poll to celebrate the 48th birthday of the great Sofia Coppola, which is tomorrow. We are so lucky to have her! Quite honestly I think the world's been under-valuing her directing career, which's given us one great film after another after another. Her last one, 2017's remake of The Beguiled, is where we're focusing today -- another entirely under-appreciated one if you ask me. While I've long been a fan of Don Siegel's sweaty 1971 version I consider Coppola's an improvement for how it spins itself off into a gothic fable of female empowerment gone to seed. It feels like a sister film to Nicole Kidman's other movie about haunted folks isolated during war-time, The Others -- seriously, go watch them back to back. That'll be an excellent evening at the movies. But until then...

bike tracks

PREVIOUSLY
Switching over to the Elder Coppola, it turns out it was too tough for us to vote for a war-mongering maniac with last week's Apocalypse Now poll, even when he's played by Marlon Brando -- Martin Sheen's "Captain Willard" managed to score 57% of your vote instead.

Summed up by Tom G:

"Shouldn't we NOT be voting for crazy people with too much power?"

Beauty vs Beast: Napalm Mornings

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- Francis Ford Coppola's film Apocalypse Now has been coming up in conversation a lot lately, and not just because my boyfriend kept accidentily getting the title of Gregg Araki's TV show Now Apocalypse backwards. The film is celebrating its 40th anniversary this Friday, and besides doing a screening and conversation about the film at the Tribeca Film Fest last week Coppola's putting out what he's calling a "Final Cut" in August, in theaters and on blu-ray. It falls somewhere between the original release and the 2001 Redux cut, apparently. But no matter the cut it's the tension between Captain Benjamin L. Willard (Martin Sheen) and Colonel Walter E. Kurtz (Marlon Brando) that remains the the backbone of the film, and that's what we're investigating today...

picture polls

PREVIOUSLY Two weeks back most of us still hadn't seen Avengers Endgame, and now two billion dollars worth of us have. But all that money couldn't help Chris Pratt, who lost the contest against Thanos 70 to 30%. Suck it, Star-lord. Said Tom G:

"Just like Jennifer Lawrence ran circles around [Pratt] in Passengers, Brolin literally ran galaxies around him."