Beauty vs Beast: Bustin' Spies Makes Me Feel Good

Well here we are and it's Monday and I'm Jason from MNPP and this is your weekly "Beauty vs Beast" moment. Ya ready? This Friday (otherwise known as my birthday!) Paul Feig's loooooong awaited and ultra discussed reboot of Ghostbusters comes out. Maybe you've heard something? Something about ovaries or something? I don't know. All's I know is the reboot's got four of the funniest lady-people who make funny today in Melissa McCarthy & Kristen Wiig & Kate McKinnon & Leslie Jones, and I'm all in. Hell, I even liked the much-reviled trailer.

In fact the only thing that's given me a sad face in the lead up to Ghostbusters was when I scanned through the cast list and I realized that Rose Byne's not in the movie. How great would Byrne have been playing the dastardly William Atherton role from the original? But then I did just re-watch Feig's previous film, the gets-funnier-every-time-you-watch-it Spy, and speaking of...

PREVIOUSLY Two weeks ago (sorry for the July 4th lapse) we celebrated the 30th anniversary of Jim Henson's film Labyrinth by pitting a pretty girl against a Golbin King, and this time around David Bowie's bulge came out on top with almost 3/4s of your vote. Said Glenn:

"The tights are most definitely not a con."

Review: Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates

This review was originally published in Nathaniel's Towleroad column...

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates starts out giddy with a bouncy firecracker of a credits sequence. Please take that literally as the credits involve a trampoline, fireworks, and two gleeful stars Mike (Adam Devine) and Dave (Zac Efron) in mid air. Their joyful abandon is short-lived. A scene or two later we're at an intervention with their parents (Stephen Root & Stephanie Faracy) in which we see these same high-flying images again from a less zhushed-up perspective in home wedding videos their parents play them. The inseparable brothers, always each other's bachelor dates at these gatherings, egg each other on until disaster strikes. Property destruction and ambulance calls follow them... 

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The Furniture: The Spy Who Loved My Supertanker

1977 is our "Year of the Month" for July. So we'll be celebrating its films randomly throughout the month. Here's Daniel Walber...

Looking back at the films of '77, the clear production design stand-out is Star Wars. It won the Oscar and changed the world, though not necessarily in that order. Science fiction was crossing over, pushed even further by fellow nominee Close Encounters of the Third Kind. But why talk about harder sci-fi when you could focus on the futuristic gadgetry and technological excess of the James Bond franchise?

The Spy Who Loved Me is a remarkable showcase for legendary production designer Ken Adam, who passed away earlier this year. He built models of the Pyramids, a cavernous office for the head of the KGB and a decadent underwater lair for nefarious shipping magnate Karl Stromberg (Curt Jurgens). But the real showstopper is the interior of the Liparus supertanker, the site of the film’s climax. Or, rather, the liveliest of its many climaxes. This is a Bond film, after all.

This was Adam's sixth contribution to the franchise, and he made a point of outdoing his prior work. The set for the Liparus was to be an entirely new sound stage, among the largest ever constructed. 

The final product was gigantic, 334ft by 136ft. Cinematographer Claude Renoir couldn’t actually see from one end to the other. Adam had to call in Stanley Kubrick, with whom he had worked on Dr. Strangelove and Barry Lyndon, just to figure out the lighting...

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Thoughts I Had While Staring at the "Table 19" Poster

Manuel here. There is nothing funnier (I guess?) than a wedding, which explains why Table 19 is the latest comedy to tackle the hilarity of seeing two people profess their love to one another in as public a venue as one can imagine. I joke, though I have to admit this sub-genre has many great examples to justify its continued deployment: Father of the Bride, Bridesmaids, My Best Friend's Wedding, Muriel's Wedding, Four Weddings and a Funeral. Heck, even Wedding Crashers and The Wedding Singer have their charm.

Will Table 19 join that esteemed group? Let's take a look at its poster:

- Can we all agree this is a pitch perfect teaser poster? It gives you a sense of tone and setting with one simple image. I do wish we'd gotten fancier nail art though.

- "Don't Fit In. Take A Number" strikes me as a better tagline for a comedy set in a deli, a butcher shop, or somewhere else where you'd take appointments. (Rather than a wedding where you just get a number assigned to you, no?)

- What I love about this cast is that it perfectly captures the very spirit of a random table at a wedding. What could they possibly have in common but mere contiguity? Just thinking of the comedic stylings of Stephen Merchant hilariously (one hopes) clashing with those of Craig Robinson is surely one of the selling points.

- The promise of Kendrick and Kudrow in a film is enough to get me to buy a ticket, though now I'm wishing Kudrow had invited the Pitch Perfect star to do an episode of Web Therapy.

- So glad Revolori (so great in The Grand Budapest Hotel) will be back in our screens. Now if only he'd dragged Mr. Gustave himself with him as his +1. They'd fit right in with the teaser poster's color scheme.

- Is June Squibb the best recent example of an Oscar nomination breathing life into a character actress' career? I didn't much care for her in Nebraska but I've been happy to see her pop here (Girls) and there (Getting On).

- January 2017? Oy. I'll try not to read too much into that release date but I already foresee it getting lost in the shuffle of the New Year cinematic doldrums (Oscar players aside).

Oh, and the trailer is up but they had me at the cast and I'm too scared to realize the parts may be greater than the sum, so take a look at give it your own YNMS in the comments.

Will be RSVPing (sorry!) Yes to Table 19?

Ask Nathaniel

Let's do another Q&A column. I'll pick 8 to 10 questions to answer this week. So ask away. [Please note that questions requiring top ten lists or big essays to answer are less likely to be answered them simpler ones.]