Beauty vs Beast: Liverpool Lovers

Happy Monday, Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" -- we'll be wishing one of TFE's favourite actors a happy 33 this week when Jamie Bell celebrates his birthday on Thursday. We love Jamie and are hoping for good things from his turn as Elton John's right-hand-man Bernie Taupin in Rocketman this spring... and yet we can't help but feel like it's another bridesmaid role. Why won't Hollywood let Jamie shine? He was the lead in the indie crime thriller Donnybrook which came out a few weeks back -- did any of you catch that?

Anyway for this week's poll we're probably dooming his chance to shine, again, by pitting him against one of our most beloved actresses (and one who's in the biggest movie of this past weekend, to boot) -- his co-star in 2017's Film Stars Don't Die in Livepool, the queen Annette Bening. This movie got lost in the Oscar shuffle last year, which remains a damn shame -- both Bening and Bell are stunningly good as the dying actress Gloria Grahame and her late-life love Peter Turner. But now you gotta pick!

polls

PREVIOUSLY And speaking of Captain Marvel stars, Brie Larson might've crshed the box office this weekend but she got her bum handed to her in last week's Scott Pilgrim poll -- Ramona Flowers used her crazy big sledgehammer to drum up 64% of the vote. Said Bushwick:

"Can we get these two actresses together again?! Preferably in a film that garners Larson another nomination (and Winstead her first)!"

Review: Captain Marvel

An abridged version of this review was previously published in Nathaniel's column at Towleroad

by Nathaniel R

Captain Marvel‘s “Vers” (Brie Larson) can’t remember a thing about her past life. She has only known this: training with her mentor Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) and fighting with her fellow Kree warriors in Starforce. 

Their mission is to wipe out the evil shape-shifting alien race known as The Skrulls. Though Vers can’t recall her origins, Marvel Studios has their origin template memorized by now, 21 films into their world-conquering juggernaut franchise. It’ll involve:

• comic sidekicks (☑️☑️☑️)
• training sequences (☑️)
• losing an early battle (☑️)
• questioning old beliefs (☑️☑️)
• forming new alliances (☑️☑️)
• and the hero/heroes finally coming into their own, more powerful than they were before (☑️)

Cue end credits. But we'll get to those in a minute...

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Murtada's Sundance Awards

Murtada Elfadl closing out his Sundance coverage. Thanks, Murtada!

My first ever Sundance was a blast. So much so I’m already making tentative plans to return next year. Please indulge my 'jury of one' as I hand out awards in traditional categories and ones made up just for your reading pleasure. Please note that I only had time to see 23 movies. Some of the more popular ones I missed included the documentary One Child Nation , Shia LaBeouf's vehicle Honey Boy and the popular comedy Brittany Runs A Marathon. So take all this with a grain of salt...

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Sundance: Great acting in "Clemency," an education in "The Report"

Murtada Elfadl reporting from Sundance

Should we react to movies based on content or artistic merit? I struggled with two movies at Sundance this week which had incendiary, important content and tackled either a crucial part of history or provided necessary social commentary. Artistically, however, I found both Clemency and The Report lacking...

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List-Mania: Glenda Jackson & Lots of Triple-Crown Acting Trivia

This is a update/reworking of two previous posts about Triple Crowns!

Glenda Jackson is the oldest performer (82) to complete the Triple Crown

Since I'm on record as being annoyed that all anyone cares about is the EGOT it's time to celebrate our preferred obsession: The Triple Crown of Acting. That's when a performer manages the Emmy, Oscar, and Tony. To date only 24 actors* have accomplished this, with Glenda Jackson being the most recent recipient as of this past Sunday night at the Tony Awards. Triple Crowns have become much more commonplace in the 21st century since actors move much more fluidly through the three mediums than they did in before the turn of the century. TV has totally lost its stigma for movie stars and Broadway is more welcome to very short runs freeing major stars up to continue with their movie and TV careers without as much scheduling trauma.  A TRUCKLOAD OF TRIVIA AFTER THE JUMP...

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