Beauty vs Beast: Somebody's Kindness of Strangers

Howdy y'all Jason from MNPP popping in to clear my throat and let out a rollicking "STELLA!!!" in honor of the master Tennessee Williams birth - he was born in the town of Columbus, Mississippi (three hours south of Memphis) on this day in the year 1911, and went on to basically shape the entire Southern United States with his writings; I'd argue he's had more of an effect on our modern view of the sub-Mason-Dixon than maybe anybody but Margaret Mitchell did. And to think a gay man did that!

Anyway for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" let's zoom in on his most famous story, the one about the Streetcar Named Desire that you take to the one called Cemetery that you take to Elysian Fields. And yes that means we're facing down arguably two of the greatest movie performances ever put on screen - Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois and Marlon brando as her brother slash ape in law Stanley Kowalski. But whose side are you on? Do you wanna sparkle in that rhinestone tiara or swap sweaty tank tops with Stan?

survey software

PREVIOUSLY Right after the Oscars we riddled you about a pair of the night's meme-worthy moments and it turns out that you'd rather ride on a jet-ski with Dame Helen Mirren than get Armie Hammer's weiner flung into your face (PS y'all crazy) to the tune of 55%. Said AlexD:

"This was impossible. But it seems reasonable that a proud queen like myself would only turn down Armie's hot dog for a real queen, Helen Mirren herself. And jet skiing at that!"

What will you give Keira Knightley for her birthday?

...apart from 33 spankings, which Fassy has already claimed.

What did you see this weekend?

by Nathaniel R

Weekend Box Office (March 23rd-25th) Estimates
W I D E 800+ screens	L I M I T E D excluding prev. wide
1. 🔺Pacific Rim: Uprising $28 NEW	1. 🔺 Isle of Dogs $1.5 on 27 screens NEW CAPSULE
2. Black Panther  $16.6 (cum. $630.9)  PODCAST	2. 🔺 The Death of Stalin $1 on 140 screens (cum. $2) REVIEW
3.🔺 I Can Only Imagine $13.8 (cum. $38.3)	3. The Leisure Seeker $315k on 117 screens (cum. $717k)
4. 🔺 Sherlock Gnomes $10.6 NEW	4.  Thoroughbreds $160k on 117 screens (cum. $2.7) REVIEW
5. Tomb Raider $10.4 (cum. $41.7)	5. 🔺 Flower  $125k on 57 screens (cum. $190k)

6. A Wrinkle in Time $8 (cum. $73.8)  REVIEW	6. 🔺 Getting Grace $107k on 60 screens NEW
7. Love, Simon $7.8 (cum. $23.6) REVIEW	7. A Fantastic Woman $100k on 121 screens (cum. $1.6)   REVIEW  | OSCAR WIN
8. Paul, Apostle of Christ $5 NEW	8. Foxtrot  $76k on 26 screens (cum. $270k)
9. Game Night $4.1 (cum. $60.8)  REVIEW	9. The Party $$47k on 70 screens (cum. $677k)
10. 🔺 Midnight Sun $4.1 NEW	10. 🔺 Itzhak $41k on 29 screens (cum. $115k)
🔺 = new or expanding its theater count numbers (in millions unless otherwise noted) from box office mojo

What did you see this week? I did a triple feature to try to not fall any further behind with Pacific Rim: Uprising, Isle of Dogs, and Unsane.  Curiously, Pacific Rim Uprising, the #1 film of the weekend, was the only theater that wasn't jam-packed. Then again this is NYC so directors are more of a draw here so Soderbergh and Wes Anderson pulled them in. Especially Anderson. The movie is such a delight. I'd totally be okay with him making every other movie of his as an animated feature.

Drag Race: Tens Across The Board!

Nathaniel R retakes the crown Ruviewing duties from Chris Feil who is on a well deserved short break.

True story. Shortly after I queued up to watch the season 10 premiere online it froze on this image. Was it a meta acknowledgement of all the grumbling about the just completed All Stars 3?  Try again sooner is what they did and the results are sooo promising. 

"10s! 10s! 10s! across the board," was RuPaul's rallying proclamation in promos for the tenth anniversary season of RuPaul's Drag Race. That's a lot to live up to but the show, newly expanded to 2 hour episodes essentially (90 minutes + Untucked), is ready to gag you honey. The premiere episode, to borrow from chatterbox Monique Heart, delivered giving us the 'ooh ah ah sensation'...

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"ACS: The Assassination of Gianni Versace", Finale

by Jorge Molina

Episode 8: “Creator/ Destroyer”
Though the penultimate episode is a deeper origin story for Andrew, we open again a Versace vignette: their only appearance in the episode. But this one does not feature Edgar Ramirez, or Penelope Cruz. We see Gianni as a young boy in Italy, developing a passion for dressmaking. His mother is supportive enough to not only understand this passion, but fosters it. “You can do whatever you want in life, but you have to work for it.” Despite his classmates’ teasing and the repression of other adults, Gianni takes on the craft from his mother.

The show continues to make thematic connections between Andrew Cunanan and Gianni Versace, implying that their life paths and goals were remarkably similar. They are both immigrant stories chasing the American Dream against a system and a society that constantly looks down upon and underestimates them. They are two different sides of the same coin. I think the show is oversimplifying a much more complex issue and boiling it down to thematic parallels, but it is effective in the context of a somewhat fictional miniseries... 

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