Beauty vs Beast: Devils in the Dakota

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- you wanna know what's unlikelier than a young Catholic girl being impregnated with the Antichrist thanks to a pact with the Devil made between her role-seeking actor-husband and her elderly mousse-loving neighbors? Unlikelier than all that is the fact that I have never used my favorite movie, aka Rosemary's Baby, for this series before. Somebody call Dr. Shand to lure me off of this ledge with some of his sweet recorder music before I make myself the next Terry Gionoffrio over this. 

Did I think the choice between Rosemary (never Oscar nominee Mia Farrow) and Minnie (Oscar winner Ruth Gordon) would just be too difficult a choice to subject our brains to? I must admit I find it personally impossible. I cannot! So I leave it to you. Just keep reminding yourself that this is no dream, this is really happening...

PREVIOUSLY Where are the Wild Things? Well last week the Wild Things were celebrating Neve Campbell's birthday. And y'all gave her bad girl Suzie a win to top it off - 70% of you voted for her over co-star Denise Richards. Said Ez:

"Aw, this film is so rooted in my '90's teenage girl experience. I saw it with my buddies for the first time at a sleepover birthday party. We all squealed at the Matt/Kevin shower scene! We were big Party of Five fans (I remember that it aired on Sunday nights after The Nanny in Australia) so we were totally there for Neve. So for nostalgia's sake, my vote goes to Neve :)"

The Furniture: A Nightmare in Sleepy Hollow

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

Sleepy Hollow is an excellent October movie. It has well-placed jack-o-lanterns. Every frame shivers in the autumn chill. Washington Irving’s Hudson Valley falls under perpetually overcast skies, sapping the harvest season of its color. Rather than admire the changing leaves, Tim Burton emphasizes those aspects of fall that foreshadow the bitterness of winter. 

This harsh climate swept up three Oscar nominations, including a win for production design. It’s a testament to Burton’s fanatically specific vision. Location scouting began in Irving’s New York, but the perfect town wasn’t there. It wasn’t in New England, either, nor even in Old England. After all of that searching, the design team ended up building an entire 18th century village from scratch at Leavesden and Shepperton Studios in the UK.

The final product is an expressionistic, spooky riff on colonial life. The credit goes to production designer Rick Heinrichs, whose collaboration with Burton goes as far back as 1982’s Vincent. The set decorations were by Peter Young, who first worked with the director on Batman. Their version of Sleepy Hollow, New York is a clever blend of historical realism and nightmarish fantasy...

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George Sidney Centennial: "The Three Musketeers"

by Nathaniel R

After looking at three popular musicals Anchors Aweigh (1945), Kiss Me Kate (1953), and Bye Bye Birdie (1963), in our mini George Sidney Centennial celebration, we're closing up with his other primary mode: the adventure flick. Curiously those films also feel like musicals even when they aren't. Case in point is The Three Musketeers (1948) and the subliminal feeling that at any moment a song and dance number might break out. That's not only because glorious Gene Kelly is the star. This feeling radiates outward from the ebullient movement of all of the swordsmen. It's also firmly embedded in the swooning romantic overtures that happen instantaneously between Gene Kelly and each of the women. Lana Turner is the devilish Lady de Winter and June Allyson is the saintly Constance and, in case you're wondering, no one will ever accuse this movie of subtlety or evolved gender politics. Still the love scenes are memorable for their queer duet of completely earnest and purposefully comic registers.

While The Three Musketeers, MGM's second biggest hit of the entire decade, never abandons its swashbuckler adventure commitments to make room for the theoretical song and dance number, it does make quite a few overtures to other identities. This treatment of the Alexander Dumas story is also a romantic comedy, a slapstick farce, and even a stylized melodrama...

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Transparent Season 3. Part 2 - Heading for Disaster

by Chris Feil

Transparent thrives on impending personal cataclysm and the middle portion of its third season is no exception. Per usual, the Pfeffermans are on track for explosions big and small coming not soon enough for their own good or too fast that they can't see it as its happening. When Eric left us off, Maura (Jeffrey Tambor) had made the decision to fully transition, Sarah (Amy Landecker) was still struggling to get spiritually arrested, and Alli's (Gabby Hoffman) was continuing her relationship with the shifty Leslie (Cherry Jones). In this next section, Judith Light's Shelly takes a backseat, while Josh (Jay Duplass) begins a series of oncoming crises.

Episode 4 - "Just the Facts"

Maura opens the episode with a visit to her plastic surgeon to see the potential outcome from her planned facial reconstruction. She's beginning to see the belabored process of intrusive and endless therapy visits required to fully transition, but the projection of her future self staring back at her is all too promising to get discouraged...

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The Girl in the Box Office, Best Seller Nation

Best seller adaptations don't always equal big opening weekends (see Light Between Oceans) but The Girl on the Train was one of the lucky ones opening strong despite middling reviews. Was Emily Blunt the top draw or the book itself? Perhaps it was just excellent timing with few adult thrillers in the marketplace, most of the Oscar contenders waiting for November and December launches, and The Birth of a Nation struggling with a weak launch that's making Fox Searchlight's $17 million Sundance bet look like a losing hand.

What'cha think? And what did you see this weekend? 

TOP TEN WIDE
01 The Girl on the Train $24.6 NEW Review
02 Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children $15 (cum. $51)
03 Deepwater Horizon $11.7 (cum. $38.5) 
04 The Magnficent Seven $9.1 (cum. $75.9) Review
05 Storks $8.4 (cum. $50.1) 
06 The Birth of a Nation $7.1 NEW More
07 Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life $6.9 NEW
08 Sully $5.2 (cum. $113.4)  Review
09 Masterminds $4.1 (cum. $12.7)
10 Queen of Katwe $1.6 (cum. $5.3) Review