Beauty vs Beast: Anna and the King

Every Monday morning I wake up excited to see what face-off Jason has challenged us with so I thank him as ever for this series.  But he's out of town so I'm filling in. Let's go with a musical since he's unlikely to pitch them. A Tony-seeking revival of The King and I is currently in previews on Broadway (we're seeing it next week!) starring Kelli O'Hara, who is The Deborah Kerr of the Tonys (she always loses). 

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Team Anna

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Yul Brynner or Deborah Kerr? All westerners who are funny, young lovers, and everyone else should vote. Does your vote change if we replace this with different actors in different adaptations (Chow Yun Fat & Jodie Foster, anyone?). Make this impossible choice and explain yourself in the comments. It's a puzzlement!

Last Week
Paul Rudd's Andy thanks you for your votes, all 57% percent of them over besting that task-master Beth (Janeane Garofalo) who made his eyes (and torso) roll in Wet Hot American Summmer to hilarious effect. He'll make out with you so long as you don't taste like burgers. We can't wait to see Beth and Andy again when this funny movie becomes a series... with the original cast no less.

SanFranCinema spoke for many when he said:

Paul Rudd has been the Object of My Affection for as long as I can remember. You'd have to be Clueless to vote against him. Paul, I Love You Man!

MTV Movie Awards: The Winners

Manuel here, pretending he’s still part of the demographic for the MTV Movie Awards. Amy Schumer (“Half of you don’t know me and half of you think I’m Meghan Trainor” she quipped at the start of the show) hosted the show which might just as well have been called the “Shailene Woodley” awards. After Jennifer Lawrence and her Hunger Games dominated the past couple of years, unlikely movie star Woodley emerged as the clear winner last night. On top of her MTV Trailblazer award, her film The Fault in Our Stars (the first non-franchise film to win the Movie of the Year award since Wedding Crashers in 2006!) took home 3 awards. Indeed, original and non-franchise films pretty much dominated, even as the show seemed intent on reminding us that Furious 7, Avengers Age of Ultron and plenty more of summer sequels are out or on their way.

I wish I could find that J-Lo reaction to Schumer's Gone Girl/latina joke because it was EVERYTHING. Oh wait...

In other news, Bradley Cooper may be 3-for-0 at the Oscars, but he won “Best Male Performance” over presumed favorites Chris Pratt (whose Marvel film went empty-handed), and Faults own Ansel Egort, Meryl Streep won her very first popcorn award and Zac Efron won “Best Shirtless Performance” for his beautifully psychopathic performance in Neighbors which sounds about right, don’t you think?

Check the full list of winners below

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Pay Homage At Your Own Risk!

Best wishes to Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergaras as they prep for opening weekend of Hot Pursuit (which I hope is fun) but good luck living up to this reference. You'll need it times ∞

Box Office Machina Sparks

Scott Eastwood (Son O' Clint) headlines the new Nicholas SparksFurious 7 and Home dominated the charts just like last week and Cinderella logged its fifth consecutive week in the top five -- she's got legs, that girl with in the glass slippers.

The only new wide release The Longest Ride, came in third. It's on the lower end of the nevertheless very consistent scale of Nicholas Spark adaptations. They've never opened below $10 million but average out around $17 million for a first weekend. The Notebook (2004) remains the most successful overall though it also opened in the lower end of the range. So only time will tell how popular the latest one is.

WIDE RELEASE
01 Furious 7 $60.5 new (cum. $252.5) Review
02 Home $19 (cum. $129.5)
03 The Longest Ride $13.5 NEW 
04 Get Hard $8.6 (cum. $71.2)
05 Cinderella $7.2 (cum. $180.7) Review

The point is that Nicholas Sparks is as much of a brand as, say, Marvel movies or Bond pictures. The plots and actors may vary from film to film but you mostly know what you're going to get.

This snarky dismissal made me giggle: 

No, I WON'T be seeing the new Nicholas Sparks movie! I expect to see a man hold a lady's face, not simply adjust her hat

A photo posted by Stephen Merchant (@stephenmerchant) on Apr 11, 2015 at 6:40am PDT

No, I WON'T be seeing the new Nicholas Sparks movie! I expect to see a man hold a lady's face, not simply adjust her hat

Meanwhile in limited release While We're Young continues to perform for Noah Baumbach despite its initial mixed response with criticss, and Ex Machina, Alex Garland's directorial debut was the biggest movie in limited release with a quarter million despite only 4 screens. The other strongest "per screen average" belonged to the Juliette Binoche/Kristen Stewart duet Clouds of Sils Maria which we'll talk about real soon.

What did you see this weekend?

Tweets For Your Amusement

Some of the best tweets of the week for your pleasure or in case you missed them. I'm off to a friend's birthday party. More movie, tv, and Tony-aimed stage stuff later. It's going to be a busy blog week. 

I still have VHS copies of many films that never made it to DVD. Keeping all my DVDs too. Every time an old format dies, we lose stuff.

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) April 8, 2015

I keep saying this and everyone should.  Let's stop losing so many movies, okay, Hollywood.

Does anyone else think "don't be a weirdo, don't be a weirdo" over and over when entering social gatherings? Cause I don't.

— Anna Kendrick (@AnnaKendrick47) April 8, 2015

Inevitable. pic.twitter.com/oLjmk89UaU

— Richard Lawson (@rilaws) April 10, 2015

Young Jake Gyllenhaal, Emma Thompson, Clouds of Sils Maria, Kevin Rahm, and more after the jump...

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