Beauty vs Beast: Savors & Sinners

Jason from MNPP here feeling hysteria and heresy running through my veins on this Monday morning. I got to see Ken Russell's 1971 film The Devils on a big screen again this weekend (one of the benefits of living in a city the size of NYC is this chance happens every couple of years, and I grab the chance every damn time).

It being what it is (translation: a Ken Russell movie) the experience kind of infiltrates your consciousness for a little while. You close your eyes and all you can see is Oliver Reed beating his big burly man chest and Vanessa Redgrave twisting her humped and habited self into knots... it's not a bad place to be in, honestly. I must like it - I keep going back. Anyway as long as we're for the moment happily poisoned by the mad nuns of Loudun we figure we'll drag y'all there today too with this week's "Beauty vs Beast"...

PREVIOUSLY We waved goodbye to this year's Oscars and its closing SNAFU, making you choose sides between the former Bonnie & Clyde at the maelstrom's center -- you came down with Faye Dunaway (that makes her sound like a disease) to the tune of 58% of the vote. Said brookesboy:

"Have to pick Faye. She is a legend and I love her. I love Warren too, but I agree with those who say he saw the card first and should have signaled to the stage hand right away. Faye was impatient because it was going on too long. But neither are at fault. This should never have happened. No matter how terrible this fiasco, they both looked great and got to present Best Picture. How very cool. They should always only have classic Hollywood stars presenting Best Picture. That needs to be a rule."

Mt Linkmore

THR Shin Godzilla wins really big at the Japanese Oscars while massive anime hit Your Name takes 3 prizes. A film called Her Love Boils Bathwater (????) took both of the actress awards. Gimme.
TFE ... ICYMI Shin Godzilla came in at #18 at the US box office in terms of foreign film success last year (just behind critical darlings The Handmaiden and Elle)
Two Dollar Cinema had a fun blog-a-thon called 'Mt Rushmore of Movies' in which bloggers could just any fourpart tribute - I only hear about blog-a-thons after the fact but I'm happy some people are still doing 'em. Entries include: four characters with great beards, best movie cameos, movies where romantic leads don't end up together, and more

Much more film & TV news, videos, and linkage as well as Barry Jenkins & Damien Chazelle's friendship after the jump because this is a super long post. It's impossible to keep up as of late!

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The Furniture: A Scenery Buffet for the Battling Burtons

Editor's Note: "The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. We strongly suggest going forward that you click on the images to see them in their more detailed large glory. Many older films were of course designed for giant screens, not thinking of their eventual home as phones or small TV set. 

by Daniel Walber

 Franco Zeffirelli is not a man of subtle tastes. When he’s lucky, his opulent excesses achieve camp status. But when he’s not, it rolls over the audience like an 18-wheeler full of circus elephants. This has generally been the rule for his theatrical productions, some of which have nonetheless become war horse mainstays at major opera companies.

And so it may come as something of a surprise that the director’s overzealous artistic passion actually works quite brilliantly in his film version of The Taming of the Shrew, which opened 50 years ago this week. It turns out that his style is perfect for the frenetic madness of William Shakespeare’s screamiest comedy, heightened to a fever pitch by the deafening roars of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.

The setting is Renaissance Padua, introduced by way of a delightfully pastoral matte painting. Not content simply with a city in the rain, Zeffirelli showcases a rainbow. Two-dimensional sheep mingle with their three-dimensional, breathing brethren...

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75 days until Michelle Pfeiffer returns to us...

Important dates in the RePfeiffal of 2017...

Michelle Pfeiffer as Ruth Madoff in "Wizard of Lies"

April 29th Michelle Pfeiffer's birthday. She turns 59
May 20th The HBO premiere of Wizard of Lies starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro in a TV movie about the Madoff scandal
June 19th 25th anniversary of Batman Returns (1992)
And Every Saturday ...new episodes of Pfandom
Sept 17th Emmy Night - will she be a nominee for Wizard of Lies? It premieres just before the Emmy eligibility cutoff
Oct 13th Darren Aronofsky's Mother opens in movie theaters starring Michelle Pfeiffer, Jennifer Lawrence, Javier Bardem, and Domnhall Gleeson
Nov 22nd The all star remake of Murder on the Orient Express opens in movie theaters starring Michelle Pfeiffer (in the Lauren Bacall role), Kenneth Branagh (in the Albert Finney role), Judi Dench (in the Wendy Hiller role), Daisy Ridley (in the Vanessa Redgrave role), Olivia Colman (in the Rachel Roberts role),  Johnny Depp (in the Richard Widmark role) and Penélope Cruz (in the Ingrid Bergman role). The original was nominated for 6 Oscars in 1974, including two for acting: Bergman and Finney. How will the remake fare with critics and the Academy? 
Dec 11th 25th anniversary of Love Field (1992) which was unfortunately Pfeiffer's last Oscar nomination
Dec 25th Who cares. Santa comes way early in 2017 with the best gift: Bringing La Pfeiffer back 

and...

Michelle's last Oscars appearance. Pictured with Julianne Moore & Kate Winslet backstage which is too much actress bliss for one photo

March 4th, 2018 The 90th Academy Awards. Cross your fingers for Pfeiffer as nominee, or at least presenter. Her last Oscar appearance was singing Jeff Bridges praises for the Best Actor presentation for Crazy Heart (2009)

No Date Yet The Sundance drama Where is Kyra? has no concrete release plans yet :( 

Box Office: Wolverine slays while Get Out stays...

I dont know where this photo is from but I love itDespite the R rating, or perhaps because of it, Logan opened much stronger than its 2013 predecessor The Wolverine (which eventually racked up $414 million globally). Logan will easily become the highest grossing Wolverine film by the end of its run thanks to what will surely be strong word of mouth... something this particular solo franchise has never experienced.

In other box office news: Jordan Peele's hot button horror film Get Out held spectacularly well, dropping only 21%; Best Foreign Language Film winner The Salesman expanded to over 100 theaters; and most importantly Best Picture winner Moonlight returned to wide release in theaters even as it was just released on DVD / BluRay adding another $2.5 million to its gross. This weekend it became A24's second biggest hit in the US by passing The Witch (still their biggest hit globally though). Moonlight will end its run as the lowest grosser among the 2016 Best Picture nominees but $25 million isn't too shabby at all for a serious black gay art film with no bankable stars. In fact it's kind of a miracle. It just needs $60,000 more in ticket sales this week to beat Ex Machina and become A24's biggest US hit.

TOP WIDE 
01 Logan $85.3 NEW Reviewed
02 Get Out $26.1 (cum. $75.9) Reviewed
03 The Shack $16.1 NEW 
04 The Lego Batman Movie $11.6 (cum. $148.6) 
05 Before I Fall $4.9 NEW

TOP LIMITED 
01 A United Kingdom $625K (cum. $1.8) 271 theaters
02 The Salesman $266K (cum. $1.8) Review, Interview 115 theaters
03 Kedi $234K (cum. $577K) Reviewed 13 theaters
04 Bitter Harvest $94K (cum. $392K) 75 theaters
05 Everybody Loves Somebody $65K (cum. $1.8) 60 theaters

Logan didn't have a post-credit scene due to the nature of its actual content but moviegoers were treated to this amusing Deadpool 2 teaser above with a cameo from Stan Lee and a full moon from game Ryan Reynolds, still loving his role as the merc with a mouth