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Entries in Pan's Labyrinth (12)

Saturday
Mar212020

Beauty Break: Ram's horns for our Aries readers

The Zodiac calendar begins today so for all of you Aries out there we salute you. Some notable Aries celebrities: Keira Knightley, Reese Witherspoon, Lady Gaga, Elton John, Jessica Chastain, David Oyelowo, and Ewan McGregor. So... pretty good company. 

After the jump a beauty break of ram's horns in the movies. Rank them in terms of who makes you horniest? 

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Saturday
Nov162019

Tweetweek: Physical Media, Cute Dogs, and "Forin Langages"

You have to stan Guillermo Del Toro for that hilarious read of a very dumb consumer. After the jump several other curated tweets because they were either amusing or thought-provoking...

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Monday
Oct072019

Horror Actressing: Maribel Verdú in "Pan's Labyrinth"

by Jason Adams

As long as there have been haunted houses there have been housekeepers keeping them, and the role of the housekeeper in a horror film is a tried and true one that film-makers can and have spun off a dozen different ways. There's the strange and sapphic Mrs. Danvers (Judith Anderson) in Rebecca; there's the seemingly good-natured but with a hell of a secret Mrs. Mills (Fionnula Flanagan) in The Others; and there's the bluntly unfriendly type typified by Mrs. Dudley (Rosalie Crutchley) in The Haunting who gets to speak the immortal line, "In the night. In the dark."

Guillermo Del Toro, would of course be familiar with all these tropes, which is why I think his spin on the role with the great Maribel Verdú in Pan's Labyrinth is so fascinating...

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Monday
Oct312016

The Furniture: Feasts of Flesh in Pan's Labyrinth

"The Furniture" our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber

Pan’s Labyrinth, like most of Guillermo del Toro’s films, is busy with visual imagination. There are monsters and fairies, though it’s not always certain which is which. There are dramatic colors and haunted shadows, which push even the more terrestrial sequences toward the fantastical. And there are little flourishes, not all of them thanks to the digital effects team.

 

In fact, physicality is among the film’s greatest strengths. Sets were built for both Ofelia’s dream world and the all-too-real Spanish Civil War narrative that frames them. Del Toro doesn’t rely on either digital backgrounds or pre-existing locations. Instead, he leans on the uncanny power of tangible design, like these Harryhausen-like models that stand in for an underground kingdom.

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Monday
Oct262015

Beauty vs Beast: Frankenstein's Rib

Happy All Hallows Week, everybody! Jason from MNPP here - you know how demons on Buffy the Vampire Slayer would always take Halloween off because of what a cliche it seemed to be, attacking that night? I've found myself battling the same kind of fatigue this season - I haven't got the spirit, I tells ya! I'm having to work hard at it - last night I actually carved a pumpkin while watching The Nightmare Before Christmas (which is the horror fan equivalent of Mrs. Claus taking a peppermint bath while making the Elves sing her carols from the foot of the tub) but it still didn't take. Maybe seeing Vincent Price's daughter at a screening The Abominable Dr. Phibes (my fave VP flick!) tonight will help? If that can't nothing will, I fear! Well here, another stab at it -- this week's edition of "Beauty vs Beast" is going all classic Universal Monster on ya...

PREVIOUSLY Two weeks ago we primed ourselves for Guillermo Del Toro's Crimson Peak (which I adored and which I will forgive you all for not going to see if you go this week for Halloween) with his film Pan's Labyrinth, facing off sweet little Ofelia and her Fascist Step-Dad Vidal -- y'all a buncha softies; Ofelia took it home with 3/4s of the vote. RobMiles makes the best case for her, especially the last point:

"I think the point of Ofelia eating the grape is that as well as not having had supper, she doesn't always do what she's told, which also happens at the end of the film, when she doesn't let the Faun hurt her baby brother. That is linked to the Doctor in reality, who doesn't obey Captain Vidal and euthanizes the captured soldier instead of keeping him alive for more torture.

Plus without her eating the grape, we wouldn't have had one of the most thrilling scenes in any film I've seen, when the Pale Man awakes and chases Ofelia. I was literally gasping for breath when I first saw it."