Beauty vs Beast: Political Animals

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" where we are wishing the grand Dame Angela Lansbury a happy 92nd birthday today! It's difficult to believe we still have an entire year before Rob Marshall's Mary Poppins Returns film comes out (Xmas 2018) but we're still hoping, as we did when she was cast, that Landsbury's got something lovely to work with in the film - we don't get to see her on-screen nearly as often as we'd like to.

But she's such a legend... how could I possibly find someone to compete? Well "somebody" already had the gumption to do it herself - in 2004 a working actress by the name of Meryl Streep tackled Lansbury's still delightfully against-type turn in the remake of The Manchurian Candidate. So let's put these two ladies in a room and see which one walks out...

PREVIOUSLY Did everybody watch Mindhunter over the weekend? I did not so don't say anything if you did. But feel free to share your thoughts on last week's decision on David Fincher's original serial-killer vision Se7en, in which y'all chose Brad Pitt over Kevin Spacey 57 to 42%. That needs explaining! Said Huh:

"Spacey gets a lot of hate nowadays but anyone who thinks Brad’s performance here is better and adds more to the film than Spacey’s is nuts."

The Furniture: A Plaster Haze in The Beguiled

"The Furniture," by Daniel Walber, is our weekly series on Production Design. You can click on the images to see them in magnified detail.

Sofia Coppola’s The Beguiled is no sprawling epic of the Civil War. The Farnsworth Seminary for Girls, where Miss Martha Farnsworth (Nicole Kidman) presides, is no Tara. There are no ballgowns or battlefields. There is only a big lonely house, the seat of a plantation that has decayed into an isolated finishing school for an especially isolated handful of girls.

Corporal John McBurney (Colin Farrell) is thrust into this setting, his leg wounded and his uniform bloodied. The resulting tension simmers for days, weeks even, before exploding in nocturnal chaos and violence. All the while the house stands silent, forcing these emotions up and down the stairs and into small, dimly-lit corners. There is a forever haze about this place, though never quite hot enough to break into a sweat.

This tightly-knotted mood owes a great deal to production designer Anne Ross, a frequent collaborator of Coppola’s, as well as art director Jennifer Dehghan and set decorator Amy Beth Silver...

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Beauty Break: Michelle Pfeiffer's Cover Girl Comeback

by Nathaniel R

Hollywood's greatest blonde is back after a way-too-long hiatus and she's the covergirl for both Variety for their Women in Hollywood issue and in the "Edit" insert of Net-a-Porter for their "white" issue (the clothing trend not the race!). And with these fine profiles / interviews come photos. So let's share beautiful portraiture and the best quotes after the jump...

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The Link and I

Link time. Here we go...

Screen
/Film Deadpool 2 and X-Men Dark Phoenix have both wrapped, both due in 2018
/Film Turns out Beyoncé was offered Plumette before Gugu in the recent Beauty & The Beast movie. Insane that they offered Beyoncé a teensy part when Belle was right there. WTF, Bill Condon?
Coming Soon Gong Li will lead Martin Campbell's next thriller Ana -- the tone is said to be similar to La Femme Nikita.  We'd be super excited because Gong Li is always welcome in leading roles but Campbell's new one The Foreigner with Jackie Chan isn't exactly winning raves
Film Society Helen Mirren named as the honoree at next spring's Chaplin Award Gala in NYC. Robert De Niro was the honoree earlier this year

 

Into Todd Haynes talks about Wonderstruck and about meeting with Barbra Streisand to talk Gypsy !!!
Variety it's official The Current War has moved to 2018 as the Weinstein Company sorts itself out
Tracking Board Sandra Bullock's Netflix thriller Bird Box casts Patti Cake$' breakout Danielle Macdonald 
Variety Alfonso Cuarón talks about the Lumière festival, The Shape of Water, his new Mexican film Roma his first since Y Tu Mama Tambien
Coming Soon the young cast of those four Avatar sequels hit Disney World (only one of them is playing a human character). 

Page Turners
The Guardian Tom Hanks has written a book of short stories
NPR there's a new book out on the ultimate screen classic Casablanca

Stage 
Playbill Sir Ian McKellen will provide the voice of the demon in a new stage adaptation of The Exorcist
Playbill Kelli O'Hara likely to reprise her Tony winning performance in the West End production of The King and I next summer in London
EW Whoopi Goldberg & Maggie Gyllenhaal to star in a Damn Yankees concert, how fun!

More Sexual Harassment Stories
NYT Sarah Polley on the switch she felt moving from actress to director in terms of respect
Variety Eva Green has joined the chorus of women who have awful Weinstein stories to tell
BBC Woody Allen reacts to the Weinstein allegations
TFE Björk's harassment story (in case you missed it)
Boy Culture model/actor Ronnie Kroell speaks about how harassment happens to men in Hollywood, too. There are gay Weinsteins out there

and something a little lighter to end with...
Medium a hack for men (using The Rock as a mental example) who dont want to be accused of sexual harassment

Congratulations to Fassy & Vikander?

By Nathaniel R

Sadie Sadie... Married Lady?

Rumor has it that Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender, who've been dating for about three years, were married Saturday at a hush-hush ceremony in Ibiza...

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