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Entries in Beauty vs Beast (252)

Monday
Jun092014

Beauty Vs. Beast: Swan Against Swan

JA from MNPP here - it's time for some "Beauty Vs. Beast" yo! We're getting our Aronofsky on this week - I chose to take us back to 2010 for a Black Swan face-off for the specific reason that today is Natalie Portman's 33rd birthday (Happy birthday, Nat!), and it was only after that I mentally connected it to last week's Girl Interrupted face-off - only now, seeing them side by side like this, do the paralells seem striking - two crazy gals feeding off each other's craziness, Winona Ryder talking about oral sex... it's a real double-feature. And I suppose "double" is the operative word...

 

So pirouette yourself to one side or the other between now and next Monday, folks!

PREVIOUSLY And as for last week's Winona versus Angie showdown, y'all made like the Oscars and gave your love to the big show on the sidelines of Girl Interrupted - Jolie took the title with 62% of your votes. Said David:

"She drove poor, fried-chicken-hording Brittany Murphy to suicide in the first 45 minutes and she was just getting started.... Angelina Jolie wins this by a mile."

Monday
Jun022014

Beauty Vs Beast: Two Girls, One Nut

JA from MNPP here with this week's round of "Beauty Vs Beast" fun - it's only the start of the week here but I think it's pretty clear that we've already got to cede ownership of the whole seven days to the biggest female movie star in the world. Not only did Angelina Jolie have her biggest box office opening ever with the Sleeping Beauty re-write Maleficent (which, well, I feel so very alone among my online-critic friends having really enjoyed the movie) but she's turning 39 on Wednesday to boot. You got this one, Angie.

This fall marks the 15th anniversary of the Winona Ryder vehicle Girl, Interrupted, meaning we're coming up on 15 years since Angelina's Oscar win and adjacent meteoric rise to top of the heap. So let's look back there for this week's cinematic tête-à-tête...

 

Light a candle for Angie or Winona in the comments - you've got one week to grab one of them by the hand and make your break for it.

PREVIOUSLY And speaking of mental patients, last week we came in like a lion to leave with the Silence of the Lambs, facing down the two serial killers at the black heart of Jonathan Demme's 1991 Oscar horror - I don't think anybody was too srurpised to see Dr. Lecter walk free on this one. As Sonja put it...

"I mean.... he's literally "eating" all the other psycho killer wannabes for breakfast."

Tuesday
May272014

Beauty Vs Beast: Lions Vs Lambs

JA from MNPP here - last night I learned that one way to know a specific horror movie has left a deep mark on your brain is if you can identify it down to a scene just by hearing the screams of the actor(s) in said horror movie. It's like Name That Tune, but the nightmare version. I was minding my own business last night watching TV when what should erupt from the other room but horrible, blood-curdling shrieks. Thankfully I immediately knew the shrieks and felt no need to call 911 - my boyfriend was watching The Silence of the Lambs and those were the cries of Catherine Martin (Brooke Smith) as she first gets a good look at the walls of the hole she's been tossed in by her captor Buffalo Bill.

A terrifying moment, to be sure, in a movie filled to the brink with them. And that alone might've been enough to inspire this week's edition of "Beauty Vs. Beast," but if you add on the second season finale of NBC's series Hannibal just aired this past week (please tell me we've got some fans up in here - it's blowing everything else on TV out of the water right now) along with the fact that last week was Brooke Smith's birthday (love her) and it's Ted "Buffalo Bill" Levine's birthday in two days, and we've smack-dab in a cannibal maelstrom. What a delicious place to be!

Instead of having her face off against one of the killers it seemed best to leave Clarice Starling out of this competition - partially because she'd clearly be the easy winner, but moreso because the film itself uses the over-the-top grotesquerie of Bill as a mask to deflect us from Hannibal's true face. Are we fooled? Do Hannibal's manners trump Bill's, uh, dancing skills? Let it be known!

 

You've got until Monday to vote, and to spill some love and chianti out for your picks in the comments.

PREVIOUSLY Last week we pit the difficult-to-love ladies of Notes on a Scandal against each other, and y'all told Sheba to find herself another park-bench to sit on, the spot next to Baraba (Judi Dench) was taken. Armondo summed up the thought process it seems like most of us went through in the choosing...

"Sheba is hot and all, but apart from being immoral, she is so superficial and selfish that you cannot help but find her grating. It is like she has never matured and still thinks she is a young girl without nothing to worry about. And she is guilty of her own downfall (though she still thinks herself blameless). Barbara in the other hand is just a sociopath and a weirdo, but she's still aware of the effects of her actions (for better or for worse). So there's that at least."

Monday
May192014

Beauty Vs Beast: To Covet A Heart

JA from MNPP here, with perhaps one of the least cut-and-dry editions of our "Beauty Vs Beast" competition yet -- in honor of Cate Blanchett being awesome at Cannes let us compare and contrast the beauties and the beasts (mostly the beasts) within the two wicked school-teachers at the heart of 2006's Notes on a Scandal.

Let's get our moral compromise on...

 

Well which is it gonna be, folks? The flighty pederast or the cruel closet-case? Choices, choices, choices. And please let us know what your reasons are for choosing what you choose in the comments. It's an up-hill battle loving either of the ladies.

PREVIOUSLY Last week we we were riding in hot on the back of Zac Efron (full stop) ... and Seth Rogen in the comedy-hit Neighbors - where did your loyalties fall? At 60% of the vote we kept it high and tight and Hollywood pretty with Efron, although Seth definitely put up a good fight - he's got surprising stamina, that one. MeIAmMariahTheElusiveChanteuse (aka Greatest Name Ever) captured the crude center of the conundrum:

"My heart is saying Seth, but my hole is saying Zac. So conflicted."

Monday
May122014

Beauty Vs Beast: The Boy-Men Next Door

JA from MNPP here - judging by the box office receipts a few of you joined me this weekend in going to see the first big comedy of the Summer of 2014, Neighbors, which had dumb beauty Zac Efron face off against the comparatively beastly Seth Rogen. ("Beastly" is not necessarily a pejorative here, especially judging by the hearty pro-Rogen contingent that showed up when I "Do Dump Marry"'d these two alongside co-star Dave Franco over at my site last week.) Enough of us showed to bounce a superhero sequel in just its second week, at that! So since it's the hot topic this Monday morning (and Zac finally has a post-adolescent hit on him) it only seems right to devote this week's "Beauty Vs. Beast" to the boy-men at its surprisingly gooey center...

 

 

You've got til next Sunday to spank out your case in the comments, so have at it.

 

PREVIOUSLY ON

Last week we stepped into the ring with a tune on our lips thanks to the Broadway version of Rocky and asked you who KO'd who, and finally coming out with the championship this time was the titular Italian Stallion himself, with just under 60% of the vote. I think some of those votes might've been less than Stallone-inspired though, and might've had more to do with the Tony-nominated lead of the stage show; as John T put it...

 

"Write-In: Andy Karl (...drool)"