Friday, August 4, 2017 at 10:00PM You know the drill. Here's all the new stuff on the major streaming services with a handful plus of random titles freeze-framed (whatever came up when we messed with the viewing bar, no fudging). What will you be watching this month and which movies would you love to see covered in depth?
The lists and screengrabs are after the jump.
Monday, April 6, 2015 at 1:29PM 
Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- you know who's been in love with Paul Rudd for twenty years? This guy's been in love with Paul Rudd for twenty years. Almost exactly - Clueless came out in July of 1995 and I think it's safe to say that 95% of everyone who saw Clueless in theaters fell in love with Paul Rudd that summer twenty summers ago. Well today is Paul's 46th birthday and here on the verge of what's probably his biggest role ever (a literally little superhero movie called Ant-Man) it seems a good time to look back...
... to something small, super small, that changed the course of his career. Even though Wet Hot American Summer wasn't a hit when it came out in 2001 I can still remember it being a topic of conversation, how everybody was a bit surprised at how funny Rudd was in it. He'd done light romantic comedies a la Clueless before but his work in WHAS was diffrent - raunchy, and going-for-broke. And as the Apatow School of Comedy took over the decade, Rudd slipped himself right into the zeitgeist.
As for Wet Hot it was a cult movie pretty much immediately - I've certainly been banging the drum for it from my microscopic corner of the internet for a good long while now, and that dedication's been rewarded with Netflix's upcoming Wet Hot series, which will premiere on the streaming service on July 17th (aka two days before the 20th anniversary of Clueless. Weird right?)
As for this week's "Beauty vs Beast," I'm focusing in on a single scene in the 2001 film (one I've probably re-enacted to my boyfriend's chagrin far too many times when I'm asked to pick up some mess I've made) in order to face off two of my favorite characters in the movie - in the left-hand corner we've got Andy (Rudd), the Camp's bad boy, and in the right-hand we've got Beth (Janeane Garofalo) the responsible-ish Camp Director.
PREVIOUSLY As Nathaniel noted in Friday's edition of April Showers last week was ALL about Mommie Dearest, and this contest was no different - and it wasn't Mommie's first time at the rodeo, and it showed. at 80% Joan Crawford (Faye Dunaway) trounced the competition like... well like those rosh buses, and that talcum powder, and Christina herself. Although it was par who made the most sense:
"Team Christopher! [mostly for having the sense to stay out of this mess until the end]"
Saturday, January 10, 2015 at 9:59PM Vanity Fair Melissa McCarthy and other funny ladies in talks for Ghostbusters reboot. I'm rooting for Jillian Bell myself who is mentioned. Yay.
Buzzfeed a definitive ranking of Disney Prince butts - as great as it sounds though I'd place Prince Phillip higher because my imagination works (I love that former Prince BD Wong even replied to his ranking on Twitter)
Vulture let us all worship Charlize Theron who has demanded (and been given) equal pay to her male co-star for The Huntsman. It's not like people went to the first movie for Hemsworth...Insane. Sexism by the numbers.
The Film Grapevine Birdman and the unexpected virtue of Contrivance
A Socialite Life Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone photobomb someone actually trying to take a photo of them
Slate on why Wes Anderson movies have never been popular with the Academy Awards before (presumably) now. Fairly good reasoning
MNPP Wet Hot American Summer will become a Netflix series and the original cast is all returning
RogerEbert.com on the women in Selma: the unsung heroines of the movement
THR Samuel Goldwyn Jr dies
Theater Mania The Color Purple is coming back to Broadway (already?) with Jennifer Hudson as Shug
Good Long Reads
IndieWire great piece on the definitions of patriotism and exceedingly pro-gun messaging of American Sniper. Please do not let this film be nominated for Best Picture. It's just not what we need right now...especially given how many people have been killed by guns lately in the States...and still no gun reform.
Grantland Wesley Morris on Selma. Love this sprawling, provocative review / thinkpiece. I've been totally appalled and confused myself at the way the media has latched on to the Lyndon B Johnson depiction but Morris makes a great point here that helps clarify, for me, the anger and nitpicking:
A quick survey of film history suggests that the depiction of racial themes in America has always been the province of white directors, whether it’s something as spectacularly diabolical as D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation or the antebellum revenge of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. These great-man movies tend to reflect the aspirations and identities of the people who make them, which is how so many stories ostensibly about black life wind up with white interpolators. DuVernay understands the fraught, imbalanced legacy a film like this pulls her into, and she’s been as fair as she needs to be. This is not a film that undermines or questions Johnson’s ultimate contributions to the improvement of black life in this country. (It very easily could have mentioned the two decades in Congress he spent opposing civil rights legislation.) Inasmuch as there are villains, they are Wallace, Hoover, and Selma’s sheriff, Jim Clark. But because this isn’t Johnson’s story, those accustomed to seeing the president as hero (or protagonist) ultimately seem dismayed by how little of the president there is here.
The bold is mine, not Morris's. People who are angry about Lyndon B Johnson's depiction really ought to look beyond the myth and think about reality. And once they do, rather than be disappointed, they should be as generous as DuVernay is who depicts him as an imperfect man who makes a great progressive decision which changes history.
Tuesday, September 23, 2014 at 7:00AM Alexa here with your weekly art appreciation. In my frequent perusals of the pop culture artwork shown at Gallery1988, Danielle Buerli's work has always stood out. Danielle is an illustrator working out of Zurich, Swizerland. While in art school, Danielle's illustrations began to emerge from the page, and now she primarily creates diorama environments with found materials, often with inspiration from popular culture.
Here are some examples of her wonderful movie tributes (more after the jump... )
"Milk Plus"
Friday, August 26, 2011 at 8:01AM The Hairpin has a huge piece on Ava Gardner's career, femme fatale posing, and storied romantic life. I always always forget she was married to Mickey Rooney because it just seems so wrong.
My New Plaid Pants Thursdays Ways Not To Die... Fashion Faux- Pwned (Serial Mom)
The Critical Condition looks at three (unfortunate) differences between "The Help" as a book and The Help as a movie.
Movie|Line first pics from Bel Ami --not an historical epic about the gay porn studio -- wherein Robert Pattison sexes up various actresses we like: Uma Thurman (pictured below), Christina Ricci and Kristin Scott Thomas
The Wow Report congratulations Carrie Fisher on her new look. Jenny Craig worked wonders!
Cinema Blend Universal keeps dropping film projects. What's going on?
Grantland predicts the Worst Supporting Actress for this year's Razzies. Agreed that Blake Lively's got at least a nomination sewn up for Green Lantern.
Socialite Life Michael Ian Black recalls his sex scene with Bradley Cooper in Wet Hot American Summer. (Cooper is the only holdout so far on a sequel.)
IndieWire Jim Carrey's video love letter to Emma Stone. So random.
Finally, did you hear about the big Scarface reunion party to celebrate a special edition BluRay release? Scarface himself Al Pacino, Oscar winner F Murray Abraham, 80s character actor Robert Loggia and 80s hunk Steven Bauer were on hand. But without Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio (what, was she too busy?) and especially without Elvira herself, Michelle Pfeiffer, what is even the point? I'm assuming Pfeiffer wasn't there because she's filming Tim Burton's Dark Shadows in London at the moment. But if The Avengers cast can leave Cleveland for a 10 minute walk on at that Disney convention last week, shouldn't they have flown La Pfeiffer cross the Atlantic to class up that party a little?
