Beauty Vs Beast: War of the Plastics

JA from MNPP here, bringing our weekly "Beauty Vs Beast" competition to North Shore High School for Mean Girls Week, The Film Experience's ongoing celebration of the film's 10th anniversary. That's right, it's time to pick a side - will you put on your bathing suit even if you're a lesbian and stand in defiance of Regina George, mean queen of the Plastic machine, or will you side with her, the devil you know, in the face of Cady Heron, that cruel interloper from the carcass-strewn wilds of the home-schooling system? Take a stand (and make sure to get your pink shirt back too)...

poll by twiigs.com

You've got one week to make your preference known and to scribble down your thoughts in the Burn Book that is the comments, so have at it.

PREVIOUSLY Last week we went mutant-crazy and asked you to choose between Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and whaddya know, evil has triumphed! It was closer than usual but Fassbender found the metal-core of your affections and yanked it his way, 60%-wise. Kate spoke truth to most everybody's feelings regarding the difficulty of this choice...

"I'd actually call it draw, myself. Xavier and McAvoy are the emotional core/grounding force of the film, while Magneto/Fassbender provides a kind of electric energy that jolts the audience. Their powers mirror their dramatic function in XMFC. Both of them are needed for the film to work."

Beauty Vs Beast: Happy Mutant Monday

JA from MNPP here wishing you a very happy Mutant Monday, which is the brand new holiday that comes right after Easter Sunday, as of right this second, says me. Why am I making up this brand new holiday here off the cuff (besides more holidays meaning more days off from work, of course)? Well... because it suits my immediate purpose of course, which is to turn James McAvoy's birthday (which yes, is indeed today, he's turning 35) into an epic celebration! And by epic celebration I mean to have this week's edition of "Beauty Vs. Beast" ask one of my favorite questions...

Who do you prefer between the heads of X-Men: First Class? The Dudes of Future Past? Charles Xavier please do meet Erik Lehnsherr...

poll by twiigs.com

X:Men: Days of Future Past hits in about four weeks, but you've only got one week to answer this question, and please do take to the comments to tell us why you're picking which side. Speaking of...

PREVIOUSLY ON Last week was another birthday, that of the great Robert Carlyle, and we spun ourselves back to the year 1996 to tackle a Trainspotting showdown... who did you choose? You chose good health low cholesterol and dental insurance, you chose life, you chose Renton (Ewan McGregor). With 3/4s of the vote! Maybe it would've been more of a battle if I'd listened to par though...

"With all due respect to Renton, the true beauty in Trainspotting is Sick Boy."

Yes, No, Maybe So: "X-Men: Days of Future Past"

In my superhero clogged mind, Spider-Man 3 has remained the gold standard of a dubious honor: by the time it had arrived you could justifiably feel like you'd seen the whole movie what with the multiple trailers, numerous clips and stills and two previous features with the exact same cast. X-Men: Days of Future Past has been teasing its teases and characters and counting down to its trailer for what feels like forever but it retains at least some mystery. I hope this is our last taste before the movie opens on May 23rd. It's not likely but I can dream. 

Because I am a glutton for punishment and The X-Men were a huge part of my developmental process as a human being (you don't even want to know how obsessed I was from the ages of, like, 8-18) will do like what we did with Maleficent. A Yes, No, Maybe So™ reaction to (almost) every last piece of the trailer.

Deep breath before the plunge. Okay let's go...

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TIFF: "Gravity" & "Eleanor Rigby: Him / Her"

Here's to grand ambition, the spiritual cousin of self-sabotage; whatever scale filmmakers are working on, it's a thin (blood)line that separates them. An noble arguable failure and an unwieldy arguable success from the Toronto International Film Festival will illustrate…

GRAVITY
The very talented multi-hypenate filmmaker Alfonso Cuarón has been MIA from cinema for the past seven years. He's presumably been huddled over various computers or engulfed in endless meetings trying to work out the logistics of bringing this epic outerspace survival drama to the screen. [more...]

Click to read more ...

I Link You and Link You and Link You

You Should Be in Sweden attends the Stanley Kubrick exhibit at LACMA. It ends in June so go see it!
JazzT here's another enticing image from the exhibit. Oh Nicole. Any mask you'd like me to wear is fine
Pitchfork Another new David Bowie video starring an Oscar winning actress. Marion Cotillard instead of Tilda this time 
Mother Jones a 17 year old coder invents a program to block spoilers on Twitter
NY Post Producer Scott Rudin lashes back at NYT critic. These stories always embarrass me for the showbiz people - (remember when James Cameron wanted someone fired for the thumbs down on Titanic?). Being criticized is just part of show business. You always look silly when you freak out about it. It's an honor to be so well employed / watched that you are even susceptible to bad reviews, don'cha think? 

Empire Dominic Cooper joins the cast of the new Dracula starring MNPP's favorite punching bag lust object Noted Homosexual Luke Evans. I'd be excited for this since I like looking at both of them but I'm so worn out on vampires. Which I never thought I'd say but here we are post the Aughts when vampires are more ubiquitous than they've ever been as if they're still trying to wrestle back the Ubiquity Crown from the hordes of brain-dead zombies who don't even know that they won some pop culture battle.
Electric has an infographic comparing The Great Gatsby to the wealth of the stars of the movie
Pajiba on Netflix's current strengths and weaknesses as it attempts to become both a distribution platform and a content creator 
Observations on Film Art Kristin wonders whether or not studios understand the power of fanbases and direct access to filmmakers they can get via Twitter and set visits and the like
In Contention Ben Affleck's follow up to Argo doesn't betray any steroided auteurly confidence. It's just another Denis Lehane adaptation of the novel "Live By Night". It's almost like something he woulda signed on for before Argo.
MNPP Today's mood via Barbara Stanwyck and Clark Gable 

Oh and Also... James McAvoy on the set of X-Men Days of Future Past via Bryan Singer's active picture-snapping Twitter account. He tweeted this one with a Pacino-style "Serpico!" descriptor. When last we left the X-Men they were in the swinging sixties and Professor X had just been paralyzed and hate yet to go bald. Here we are in the seventies I suppose though it's probably not worth getting hung up on time periods since Days of Future Past (one of the great X-men arcs) is all about messing with them.

poll by twiigs.com

P.S.
And if you still can't get enough of our "Greatest Best Actress Losers" poll, check it out: Tim, Michael and Glenn shared their individual ballots on their fine blogs Antagony & Ecstasy, Serious Film and Stale Popcorn.