Beauty vs Beast: Cillian Time

Howdy and Happy Monday, folks, Jason from MNPP here with your "Beauty vs Beast" for the week - this time around we're wishing the great and still somehow under-rated Cillian Murphy a happy 40th birthday! He hits the milestone on Wednesday, and we couldn't be happier to watch him age - his smooth-skinned preternatural prettiness was kind of too much to look at once upon a time. Time has made him seem more human, less alien and terrifying, which on the one hand is a loss, but I think that he's a great enough actor that it's one he can overcome with ease.

Anyway in his honor we're stepping back to a role that, contrary to everything I just said, showed him at his most human and his most terrifying all at once, with Wes Craven's terrifically entertaining 2005 thriller Red Eye. Cillian Murphy plays Jackson Rippner (yes really!), the viscious cat to Rachel McAdams' determined little mouse Lisa, and they Tom-n-Jerry each other all over an airplane. S'good times!

PREVIOUSLY We put on our best brave face to face off the mother-daughter team of Terms of Endearment, and in the end it was "Big Momma" MacLaine who stuck her head through the sunroof to victory, taking about 64% of the vote. Said Suzanne:

"Aurora is winning because Shirley MacLaine is one of the great screen actresses but somehow doesn't seem to get enough credit. Also because I voted for her on each of my electronic devices."

The Furniture: Black Narcissus's Maddening Matte Paintings

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

In movies, if perhaps not in life, people can be driven mad by mountains. In films by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, they can be driven mad by paintings of mountains.

Black Narcissus is the story of a group of Anglican nuns who trek up to an abandoned cliffside palace in the Himalayas to establish a new convent. Deborah Kerr, cinema’s most consistent nun, is Sister Clodagh, the young mother superior. Her mission is doomed from the beginning, of course, though not necessarily because the locals reject their presence. Rather, it is the landscape that overwhelms their emotions and breaks their faith and their vows.

Powell and Pressburger did not shoot on location in India, however. The set was built at Pinewood Studios. [More...] 

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Review: The Nice Guys

It’s Eric, with thoughts on the new Gosling/Crowe comedy, The Nice Guys.   

I’ll bet this project looked amazing on paper.   Bring writer/director Shane Black back to the comic buddy picture world where he started with 1987’s Lethal Weapon.  Set the film in the disco-cool world of 1977 Los Angeles.  Hire two accomplished dramatic actors, Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe, to play the leads, two low-life losers on the fringe of detective work unexpectedly uniting to hunt for a girl involved in a series of murders in the porn industry.  Throw in a cute daughter for Gosling’s character for some sweetness.  

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Angry Birds, Angrier Superheroes.

Team Red took the box office crown this weekend. No, not the metallic team red but the feathery one. Despite an unfashionably late arrival well past the Angry Birds craze that swept phones years ago, the family audience is insatiable these days. Not that the other Team Red, Iron Man and His Amazing Friends had anything to worry about having crossed a billion globally already. Here at home Captain America Civil War leapfrogged both Zootopia and Batman v Superman this past week to become the 2nd most popular film of the year (Deadpool is still #1... for now). Neighbors 2 and Nice Guys weren't as lucky because adults don't go to movies anymore without their children but wait for streaming (sigh). In platform releases, Love & Friendship (which is so damn enjoyable) and The Lobster had successful if minor expansions. 

Arrows indicate losing or gaining screens

TOP WIDE RELEASES
🔺01 The Angry Birds Movie $39 NEW
▫️02 Captain America: Civil War $33.1 (cum. $347.3)  Review
🔺03 Neighbors 2 $21.7 NEW 
🔺04 The Nice Guys $11.2 NEW Shane Black, Review
🔻05 The Jungle Book $11 (cum. $327.4)  Articles
▫️06 Money Monster $7 (cum. $27.1) Jack O'Connell
🔺07 Darkness $2.3 (cum. $8.4)
🔻08 Zootopia $1.7 (cum. $334.4) Reviewish
🔻09 The Huntsman: Winter's War $1.1 (cum. $46.6) Review
🔻10 Mother's Day $1.1 (cum. $31.2)

TOP TEN LIMITED
Excluding previously wide.
🔺01 The Meddler $777K (cum. $2) Review
🔺02 Love & Friendship $582K (cum. $780K)  Review
🔺03 The Man Who Knew Infinity $550K (cum. $1.6)
🔺04 The Lobster $408K (cum. $1) Reviewish 
🔻05 Sing Street $350K (cum. $2.4) Review, Who's the MVP?
🔺06 A Bigger Splash $338K (cum. $787K)  Reviewish
🔺07 Weiner $85K NEW 
🔺08 Maggie's Plan $66K NEW Review
🔻09 Hologram for a King $65K (cum. $4) Review
🔻10 Compadres $57K (cum. $3.1)

What did you see this weekend?

I caught The Lobster (unmissable in its singularity) and Neighbors 2 (enjoyable if not as funny as the original)

Cannes Winners 2016

Despite what was generally regarded as one of the strongest Cannes lineup in many years, George Miller's jury wasn't having the critical consensus. At all. They didn't remotely follow the "buzz" whilst handing out their honors...

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