Beauty vs Beast: Give Thanks For Christina Ricci

Gobble gobble folks, Jason from MNPP here starting off Thanksgiving week wishing you and yours a happy holiday if Turkey (or Tofurkey) Day is your jam. Whenever I think of this holiday I feel a warm feeling in my belly, and it ain't from phantom mashed potato memories - it's because this holiday makes me think of Christina Ricci, and thinking of Christina Ricci always makes me feel warm and happy inside. I'm not the only one who associates the day with her - Nathaniel himself has done a post about her twin Turkey Day speeches in The Ice Storm and Addams Family Values before. It's a tradition, and it should become an annual association as far as I'm concerned. So pass that stuffing and let's spread the Ricci love...

PREVIOUSLY We're getting over our Hunger pains this week in more ways than one - the Hunger Games franchise is finito and as far as last week's Beauty vs Beast is concerned hand Effie the Victor Crown. She sashayed right over top of President Snow with over 80% of your votes. Said denny:

"As much as I think Sutherland is aces as President Snow, Banks was a downright revelation as Effie, completely disappearing into the role in a way that was so unexpected. So she gets my vote. Plus: "THAT. is MAHOGANY."

PGA Documentary Nominations: Are They Actually Bad Luck for Oscar?

Precursor awards are like microwave popcorn. It takes a second for the bag to heat up and then things really start popping. Today the Producers Guild of America named their nominees for Theatrical Documentary Features. The Producers Guild Award winners will be presented on Saturday, January 23, 2016 in Los Angeles. 

Documentary Feature Nominees

• AMY (Reviewed, Top Box Office Doc Hits)
• THE HUNTING GROUND (Top Box Office Doc Hits) 
• THE LOOK OF SILENCE (Reviewed)
• MERU (Top Box Office Doc Hits)
• SOMETHING BETTER TO COME

The only one of these titles I hadn't personally heard of before today was Something Better to Come, a poverty-doc about children living on a gabarge dump in Moscow. More on what this list does and doesn't mean for Oscar after the jump...

Click to read more ...

Podcast: Room, Brooklyn, Spotlight

Nathaniel and Nick are back, after an unexpected podcast hiatus, to catch up before the Thanksgiving holiday. 

43 minutes 
00:01 Intros, Carol's opening, Hateful 8 gossip
04:30 Split feeling on Room
11:19 Saoirse Ronan in Brooklyn
20:06 Complicated platform releases, audience confusion, and dismissed "flops" of October including Truth
32:25 Delayed reaction to Black Mass
34:40 Spotlight's conflicts, arc, quality

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversation in the comments won't you?

Brooklyn, Spotlight, Room

Review: "Creed"

Our newest team member Chris Feil saw the latest in a long dormant franchise early. Here's his review - Editor

Making good on his mainstream sensibilities post-Fruitvale Station, Ryan Coogler returns with Rocky reboot/sequel/spin-off Creed. Born after his legendary father Apollo's death after an affair, Adonis (Michael B. Jordan) attempts to forge his own boxing path without the Creed namesake, recruiting his father's notorious opponent and comrade Rocky Balboa. Similarly, the film tries to have it both ways, attempting to be a sideways stand-alone film while borrowing heavily on the iconography of the original. It is a bit of a left turn for cinema's current trend of cut-and-paste nostalgia, giving Coogler's film a much needed edge for a tired genre, but cursing it with enormous shoes it falls short of filling.

If Fruitvale showed us anything about Ryan Coogler's potential, it was that he could both emotionally invest the audience with a charismatic subject and that he knew how to structure a film's most intense scenes for their maximum dramatic effect. These skills make him the perfect candidate for a mainstream actioner that pulls on the heartstrings, and Creed provides a solid larger platform for him to deliver those goods. Unfortunately still present is his diminished sense of confidence and clarity of vision in extended dialogue scenes, lending to an overall flabby structure. He knows what we want as audience and how to give it to us, but here he has a tricky time transitioning between story beats.

more...

Click to read more ...

YNMS: Hello, My Name Is Doris

Manuel here. I caught Spotlight this weekend and among the endless trailers I had to suffer through before getting to watch Todd McCarthy’s dazzling film, the only one that piqued my interest was Hello, My Name is Doris. The Sally Field film premiered back at SXSW and is now scheduled to come out March next year. If the image above hasn’t already clued you in, the film gives the two-time Oscar winner the showiest role she’s had in years. The film was written and directed by Michael Showalter, who you might remember as “Coop” from Wet Hot American Summer (and Netflix’s recent prequel series).

“She’s like a good weird.”

That's how one character describes Doris and you really can't beat that for a description of Field's latest role. And so, without further ado, let’s put the trailer to our patented Yes No Maybe So test:

YES

Click to read more ...