Beauty vs Beast: The Battle of Halloweentown

Jason Adams from MNPP here, wishing everyone a Happy All Hallows Week as well as (thematically related) a Happy 25 to Henry Selick's now-a-holiday-classic The Nightmare Before Christmas for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" contest. It seems strange to remember that when NBC came out it only got mixed reviews but I was there, I am old, and I remember it - it's stood the test of time though, and now I can't imagine Halloween or Christmas without Zero the Dog and the rest of the colorfully spooky gang. (The annual argument over whether the film is a Halloween Movie or an Xmas Movie that I could do without.) 

bike trail guide

PREVIOUSLY The winner of last week's PJ Soles contest was... drum-roll please... PJ Soles! PJ Soles is always our winner. Okay okay specifically it was her Halloween character of Lynda who won over her role in Carrie, with a vote of 69% (that number would totally make Lynda giggle). Said Rob:

"Norma was horrible and got what she deserved. Lynda was a totally lovable airhead. GO LYNDA"

Ladies Love Cool De Palma

by Jason Adams

It's the 78th birthday of the director slash living legend Brian De Palma today. Did everybody watch Noah Baumbach & Jake Paltrow's 2015 documentary aka an excuse to listen to Brian De Palma tell movie stories for two hours? I've watched it four times now and I'm still nowhere near sick of it - I wish they'd just release the hundreds of hours of raw footage they took so I can just wade in there and never come back again.

Anyway I decided that the best way to celebrate one of my favorite movie-makers today (as he prepares to maybe make a Harvey Weinstein movie next, a real tighrope of a proposition there) is to celebrate a few of the great roles he's given actresses over the years. Here are five favorites (well technically six but you can't make me choose between the first two) -- feel free to add your own in the comments!

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Mission Accomplished: Ranking the Mission Impossible Series

By Spencer Coile 

Anytime the latest entry in an action movie franchise is released, it is celebrated as 'the best' in the series. No film series has better exemplified this than the Mission Impossible franchise. What makes this series particularly special is that it set the standard for filmed reboots of classic television shows. It may not have been the first, but it certainly is the most consistent. Perhaps most importantly, it knows when to take a break. 

The release of Mission: Impossible – Fallout is a clever reminder in the age of comic book adaptations arriving every month that Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) will always be there to save the day. But how exactly has the series evolved over time? And is Fallout actually the best in the series thus far?

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Pfandom: Scarface

P F A N D O M  
Michelle Pfeiffer Retrospective. Episode 9
by Nathaniel R 

Michelle Pfeiffer was not an overnight success, nor was Elvira Hancock in Scarface (1983), a true star-making role. That's hard to fathom now that the movie is so embedded in pop culture but the early fame attached to the movie was Pacino Ham and de Palma Excess specific. Pfeiffer's Movie Star Ascendance was four or five years away but with Scarface, The Actress inside her arrived...

So the natural place to focus is Elvira Hancock's own entrance. We first spot that gangster's moll when Tony (Al Pacino) does, turned away from us in a backless gown in the home of local crime boss Frank (Robert Loggia). She descends into the scene by elevator, like a trophy encased in glass. Her body language is all impatience though not in the practical sense or she might have glided down the stairs with more speed. The sleek teal gown is cut down to there in front, saving all its fabric for Pfeiffer's lower half.  It flows with her every shift in movement, dancing around her legs as if it's already at the club Elvira's so eager to get to...

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Months of Meryl: Still of the Night (1982)

Hi, we’re John and Matt and, icymi, we are watching every single live-action film starring Streep...

#7 — Brooke Reynolds, a Waspy urbanite and unlikely femme fatale with a shady past and a killer blonde bob.

MATTHEW: No actor, not even the oft-cited Greatest Actress of All Time, is immune to the inevitable and indisputable stinker. Seven projects in and just touching the surface of true-blue movie stardom, Meryl Streep finally made her first real turkey...

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