Beauty vs Beast: Sugar & Spice & Everything March

Hello and happy Monday everyone, Jason from MNPP here with another edition of our "Beauty vs Beast" series - Louisa May Alcott's book Little Women just turned 150 this year and it's hotter than it's ever been. There was a BBC version with Maya Hawke and Emily Watson and Angela Lansbury that aired here in the US in the spring. Then this very weekend there's a modernized retelling hitting theaters. And then of course the one sucking all the air out of the room - Greta Gerwig's all-star edition set for next year, whose cast is so stacked we'd be here all day if I try listing off everybody - just look at the IMDb page.

Anyway a lot of us (even if we're excited to see all of those actors in one place and under her direction) aren't entirely sure why Greta's making this new version - not when there's Gillian Armstrong's perfectly lovely 1994 adaptation already, anyway. Winona Ryder as Jo, Christian Bale as Laurie, Susan Sarandon as Marmee, Kirsten Dunst as Amy, Claire Danes as Beth (cough cough)... these are the people I picture when I picture Little Women. And then one second later I immediately remember Amy burning Jo's manuscript and I see red...

picture polls

PREVIOUSLY I'm not sure if it was mostly Riz Ahmed Lust or if it was just that Jake's character is so (deliciously) despicable, but y'all surprised me and went and gave Riz/Rick your prize on last week's Nightcrawler contest with nearly 60% of the vote. Lou's a loser!

Anyway maybe it's just simply what Nick T said:

"Rick's just a nice cute guy who doesn't even know he's in over his head and Jake's a mean ol' lizard. Easy call."

1994's Unsatisfying Best Actress Race

1994 was our year of the month for June so before the month closes, a couple of more forays into that year. Here's Nathaniel R responding to a reader request during the Supporting Actress Smackdown to discuss the actual leading nominees.

It's an age old question and the answer is (nearly) always the same. 

Q: What happens when all the best stuff in a film year is within genres Oscar doesn't care for?
A: The Academy sticks to their traditional loves even if it means providing history with a weak shortlist that they'll judge harshly!  

Some recent years have suggested that Oscar is loosening up in this regard. The swell of new members might be helping along with the increased visibility of critical passion (the plethora of precursor awards constantly saying "but this is great! won't you please look at it?" seems to have shifted Oscar voters a bit more towards critical passion and away from "Oscar Bait"). But overall they stick to what they love (dramas, message movies, epics, biopics, etcetera). This is especially true of the Acting branch which rarely met a teary face it didn't fall for and continually sticks up its nose at laughing or screaming or unusual faces given their aversion to comic genius, horror films, and auteur experimental or sci-fi/fantasy work. Which brings us to 1994's BEST ACTRESS LIST...

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Months of Meryl: The House of the Spirits (1993)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

#20 —Clara del Valle Trueba, paranormal matriarch of a prosperous South American family.

JOHN: Yes, paranormal. But please, take your expectations about Meryl Streep as psychic (and Glenn Close as her scorned, sexually repressed sister-in-law) that may be levitating midair and place them firmly on the ground. Actually, go ahead and place them below the Earth’s surface, and then you might be ready to endure one of the absolute worst films Streep has ever been caught in. The House of the Spirits, an adaptation of Isabel Allende’s titular novel, chronicles the tumultuous history of the Trueba family, a prosperous South American dynasty headed by Esteban Trueba (Jeremy Irons), a peasant turned plantation owner turned conservative senator, who marries Clara del Valle (Streep), the youngest daughter of a wealthy, liberal family, and did I mention that she can move things with her mind and predict the future?

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The Furniture: The Age of Innocence and the Living Museum

"The Furniture" honors the Production Design of The Age of Innocence (1993) for its 25th anniversary year. The Martin Scorsese classic is newly available from the Criterion Collection. (Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.)

by Daniel Walber

The final act of Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence leaps through time. The ever-roving camera comes to a temporary rest in the home of Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis), married to May (Winona Ryder) and entering the longue durée of family life. But this relative physical stasis comes with the sudden acceleration of time. Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker fast-forward through years of business, leisure and child-raising. After nearly two hours of social whirlpools and lingering formalities, suddenly it’s a new century.

But despite the speed of this sequence, it’s important to pay close attention. On the wall of Newland’s family home rests one very famous painting. Somehow, through the magic of cinema alone, our hero has ended up with JMW Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire. 

It’s an icon for his last days, a masterpiece of a bygone era being towed away...

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Beauty Break: Love in the Tub

Happy Belated Valentines to you and whomever or whatever you love.

Today's Beauty Break is inspired by The Shape of Water which begins with Eliza (Oscar nominated Sally Hawkins) masturbating in the tub and that's also where her fish-man ends up as you can see in this image above.

After the jump please enjoy beautiful photos or film stills of various movie stars in bathtubs...

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