Beauty vs Beast: Making Beastly Music Together

Jason from MNPP here with this week's edition of "Beauty vs Beast," wherein we ask you to pick a side either side in one of cinema's many morality plays. It's the birthday of one of our greatest living actresses - Isabelle Huppert is turning 62 today! And talk about still going strong. She's pounding out some of her most exciting and dangerous-as-ever work ever these days; last year's Abuse of Weakness from Catherine Breillat made me weak in the knees. And the project she's in the middle of filming right now, a rape-revenge thriller from Danish provocateur Paul Verhoeven... well even just writing those words in that sequence makes me break out in a hot sweat of expectations.

So today in her honor we look back at perhaps her greatest achievement to date, Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher. Which - usefully for this exercise - is also giving us one of the hardest-to-root-for lead characters ever put on screen. Not that Benoit Magimel's aggresively manicured Walter is anybody's idea of a saint... Haneke's not going to make this easy for anybody. (Understatement of the century.)

Whose team are you on?

Team Walter

Team Erika

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PREVIOUSLY We made like Buffy for her 18th anniversary and got our vampire boyfriends on - but who slayed? It was the peroxide punk who saved the day - Spike too about 53% of the vote in what was unsurprisingly a close battle. It's been raging for eighteen years, after all! Said JS:

"Spike still takes every and all cakes."

Beauty vs Beast: Vamp Thru The Heart

It's Monday which means it's time for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" - Jason from MNPP here again to talk us in. Did you know that tomorrow is the 18th anniversary of Joss Whedon's television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer's premiere on the WB? I'd say Buffy's old enough to graduate from High School but we all know what happened the first time around (SNAKES) so let's not. Coincidentally over the weekend Buffy star Sarah Michelle Gellar was asked what she thought about revisiting the character, what with all these series (The X-Files, Twin Peaks) of yore getting brought back - she doesn't seem terribly keen on the idea, sadly. Anyway I don't know if anybody noticed but Joss is kind of busy right now.

But we can look back! So look back we shall. I've already used "Buffy vs Faith" for this series before so let's turn our eyes unto the main menfolk of the show - yup, I speak of Buffy's undead amours Angel (David Boreanez) and Spike (James Marsters). Put on your shipper hats and go!

Whose team are you on?

Team Spike

Team Angel

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As usual you've got just one week to vote, so dust off your pointy things and prepare to make some hard choices. 

PREVIOUSLY Last week we were All About Eve... actually make that all about Margo, since it was Bette Davis who took the wheel and drove right over Anne Baxter (talk about a bumpy ride) taking a whopping 86% of the vote. Bette will not be denied. Said Akash:

"All About Eve is an ensemble that ends up feeling like a one woman show. THAT'S how powerful Bette Davis is is in every gesture, quip and sashay. One of the greatest performances in American film history and it's unbelievable that one of her Oscars wasn't for this iconic role."

Beauty vs Beast: All About Actresses

Howdy folks it's Jason from MNPP here with this week's round of "Beauty vs Beast," wherein we ask you to take sides between infamous cinematic tête-à-têtes... if you've got a seatbelt I'm suggesting right here outta the gate that you might wanna fasten it because, as the saying goes, bumps ho. Yup, it's All About Eve time. I don't really have an excuse for choosing All About Eve this week - the film does turn 65 this year but that's not until October. Bette Davis' birthday is in April. Anne Baxter's birthday is in May. The 106th anniversary of writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz's birth was three weeks ago, we could pretend it's an overdue hurrah for that? Sure. A belated good job on this movie, Joe! Really though any time is a good time for All About Eve. To paraphrase a certain somebody, All About Eve looked great sixty-five years ago and it'll look great twenty years from now. I hate men.

Whose team are you on?

Team Margo

Team Eve

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Beauty vs Beast: Break On Through To The Other Mother

JA from MNPP here, with our Oscar Hangover edition of "Beauty vs Beast." I actually intended for this week's edition to have nothing to do with the Oscars at all, but I can't help trace its footsteps back to this year's Awards in a sorta roundabout way... our starting point is Dakota Fanning, who is turning 21 years old today. Yes that preternaturally wise moppet can now legally do tequila shots at her local dive, what a world, what a world. Happy birthday, Dakota!

So five years ago Dakota voiced the lead role in Coraline, Laika's very fine adaptation of Neil Gaiman's terrifying book, about a little girl who wanders through a strange little door in her new home only to find a world funhouse-mirroring her own on the other side. And it's there that she meets...

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The connection to this year's Academy Awards is of course the beloved production house Laika - Coraline was its first feature (to lose the Best Animated Feature Oscar), ParaNorman its second (to lose the Best Animated Feature Oscar), and The Boxtrolls its third, which yes, lost the Best Animated Feature Oscar last night to the, in my opinion, desperately inferior Big Hero 6. As indifferent to downright-hostile as I was towards many of the wins last night, this one smacks me as one of the most egregious, and one that the test of time will look upon very poorly. It reeks! Of bad cheese! Justice For Laika!

Beauty vs Beast: Little Drummer Bot

Howdy folks it's Jason from MNPP here, pulling myself out of the snow-heap I was buried under last week to drum up a new round of our "Beauty vs Beast" series, in which we ask you to pick sides between good and evil, movie-style. By this time next week the 87th Academy Awards will have come and gone in an explosion of gold-dust and gowns, so I figure I'll get one more contender in here before it's too late... and what better place to celebrate Oscar Season than with the Best Picture nominee that's all about the blood and the sweat and the brutality that goes into slicing and dicing art down to ecstatic perfection? Replace Miles Teller's drumsticks with little golden men and replace JK Simmons with, well, let's say Harvey Weinstein cuz you know why not, and you get the idea. Enter Whiplash, where losers need not apply.

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You've got one week to pick your picks, and please do furiously hit up the comments, pounding your opinions yay or nay onto your keyboard so hard your fingers draw blood. Although I probably shouldn't say please? Fletcher doesn't like it if I say please.

PREVIOUSLY I go away for one week and before we know it Nathaniel's got us drowning in sexy gingers - he can't help himself! (And we're not complaining!) Last week's competition faced-off Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne two times over, and because we all love them both we were kind enough to spread the wealth - as the mother-son-lovers in Savage Grace it was Juli who came out on top, but it was Eddie and his Jupiter Ascending abs that dominated her goth stab in the dark in The Seventh Son. Said Nika of the latter, winning my heart with pure logic:

"I hated Eddie's performance in Jupiter Ascending, but, boy, he is shirtless. I can't resist."