Beauty Vs. Beast: Ladies of the Night

JA from MNPP here, back from vacation with a brand new round of "Beauty Vs. Beast." So here's the question (or rather the first question): what's your favorite Francis Ford Coppola movie? The legendary helmer's turning 75 today and so we look back through his work - the Godfathers, the Conversations, the Peggy Sues... the super sad undead love stories... listen, I'm not going to argue that his 1992 version of Dracula is his best film - I'd rather make it through the day without y'all calling the men in white suits to my door, thank you very much. But it's surely the movie of his I've watched the most times and have gotten the most pleasure from (give or take some Rob Lowe coming out of the shower in The Outsiders). The old fashioned effects work, Eiko Ishioka's astounding costumes - I wore my copy of the behind-the-scenes book down to a nub.

So this is the movie I'm going with for this week's competition. And instead of going the obvious route and pitting Gary Oldman's head bloodsucker against somebody (certainly not Keanu, but Anthony Hopkins as Van Helsing perhaps) I felt like centering us on the objects of Drac's affections instead. Slip yourself into his velvety slippers and choose!

poll by twiigs.com

They may seem to be two beauties at first but they've both...

... got some beast in them. Ahem. So per usual you have exactly one week to vote and to make your arguments for and against your picks in the comments. Let's hear who gets your undying devotions!

PREVIOUSLY We've got two rounds to close up here since while I was away last week Nathaniel had some superhero-sized fun and asked you guys his own query Avengers-style - twas Black Widow who triumphed, dropping down from the rafters and wrapping her leather-clad thighs around The Hulk's throat til he went limp, taking a full 3/4s of the vote. No smash for him. As thefilmjunkie put it:

"I'll have to reevaluate everything I thought I knew about life if Black Widow loses on THIS site of all places."

Looking two weeks back to our Talented Mr. Ripley showdown y'all found the cruel sexy stylings of Dickie Greenleaf too irresistable to, uh, resist - we're all no better than Tom; all we want is Dickie's sunlight upon us. Henry summed it up nicely:

"It was Dickie all the way. I'll take a beautiful bitch (been there, done that) over a plain bitch (been there, done that) any day."

Three Terrible Ideas Involving Lesbians, Vampires, and Lennons

Hey, Let's Remake a Hitchcock!
While some of us enjoyed Gus Van Sant's maligned Psycho (1998) experiment in "recreation" (hey, it's more honest than "reboot") -- generally we're forgiving of artistic experiments in comparison to parasitic cash-grabs --  remaking Hitchcock movies is never a good idea in the strictest sense of the word "good". Think of the relief on the internetz when that new version of The Birds didn't take flight. See, Alfred Hitchcock is not like so many great auteurs of yore that today's audiences aren't familiar with. If there is any classic Hollywood director that contemporary mainstream audiences still 'get,' isn't it Hitchcock? The latest of his features someone wants to remake is Rebecca (1940). Maybe there should be a law against remaking Best Picture winners? I do not trust anyone in 2012 with "Mrs. Danvers". Back away from the apparitional lesbians*!

Hey, Let's Keep Making Vampire Pictures!
Doesn't anyone in Hollywood worry about bankrolling trends long past their sell-by date? While it's true that vampires never go completely out of style they do sometimes hibernate, burrowing deep into the ground until they're ready to engage again (a la The Vampire Lestat), in terms of pop culture popularity. So after two plus decades of vampire madness doesn't it seem like that bubble could burst at any moment and someone will lose bazillions of dollars? As far as I can tell 2012 and 2013 are already so stuffed with vampires onscreens both large and small that eventually audiences will be wearing garlic when they approach the TV or multiplex. But they've decided to make another one called Harker in which Jonathan Harker is no longer a Keanu Reeves like lawyer but a Russell Crowe like investigator for Scotland yard.

Hey, Let's Adapt Movies No One Saw Into Broadway Shows That Are About Famous Musicians Whose Songs We Don't Have the Rights To!
Remember that biopic about John Lennon's pre-fame years called Nowhere Boy? It had one of those long torturous 'what year does this film belong to' releases 'round the world but never caught on. It's the film that introduced us to Aaron Johnson (Kick Ass, Albert Nobbs) who we now seem to be stuck with. It also introduced him to director Sam Taylor Wood and they're happily co-habitating and child-rearing three years later. But I'm losing the point. One of the distracting things about the movie, which made narrative but not emotional sense was the absence of Beatles. Now moneyburning people are adapting it into a Broadway musical. Who pray tell would spend $100+ a ticket to see an original musical about the founding members of the Beatles that is not a Beatles jukebox** musical???

*Nick introduced me to the term apparitional lesbians. I'm forever grateful because it's so damn useful. And fun to say. Try it.

** I hate jukebox musicals. I'm not suggesting someone should make one here, just that that's what audiences would want if they went to a show about John Lennon.

Eiko Ishioka (1939-2012)

Deneuve with Ishioka on Oscar night 1993The cinema lost one of its few truly unique visionaries this week. We've paid homage before and multiple times. 73 year old costume giant Eiko Ishioka, who didn't work in the cinema frequently enough for our tastes succumbed to cancer on Thursday.

We first fell in love with her work via Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) and it was hardly an idiosyncratic crush. Millions were instant converts and she won the Oscar for her spectacular creations, from inside out red musculature armor to dazzling perverse lizard-like bridal wear for vampire brides. Just stunning stuff.

I'd be very disappointed/surprised if some goth girl somewhere hasn't tried to copy Sadie Frost's indelible vampire bride look for her wedding night.

Sadie Frost in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992)

Best single costume of the 1990s? Maybe.

In the past decade Ishioka wowed again through Tarsem Singh's filmography (The Cell, The Fall, and Immortals)

Bjork, Grace and a few more film pics after the jump...

Kellan Lutz filming a scene from Immortals (2011)

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