Beauty Vs Beast: King of the Ring

JA from MNPP here, getting ready to rumble with a brand new edition of "Beauty Vs. Beast" for youse guys... we're running up the steps of the Philly Museum of Art and giving a victorious twirl (a very manly twirl, mind you) this week in honor of just having seen Rocky: The Musical.

It wasn't entirely by choice - my mother was in town and I'm always forced to see things I otherwise wouldn't (last visit it was Jersey Boys, which I'm still recovering from), and since she's a huge fan of the Sylvester Stallone's 1976 Oscar winner it seemed only right to hit up the stage version. Especially on the heels of its Tony nomination for Andy Karl as Best Actor in a Musical...

... but since we the people of The Film Experience seem to be cursed right now, Karl was a no-show at our performance. I can't say if the show would've popped more with him up there or not - his nomination makes me think so, but as it was the entire thing seemed reliant less on small things like music and character and more upon its admittedly spectacular staging. Ben Brantley nailed it - you kind of forget how bored you were for the first 3/4s when the boxing-ring rolls into the audience for the last act and shit goes bananas. It's empty calories, sure, but you walk out on a high.

That said what does come across well with the stage-version is the even-handed equinimity that Stallone & Co. treated both the the men-in-gloves with - yeah we're there with Rocky the whole time, but Apollo Creed isn't a stache-twirler. Both men have their faults and their strengths, and that's what's always made the showdown, spectacle or no, one for the ages. Apollo's established so well that by the sequel they become buddies and when evil Ivan Drago shows up in Part IV, well, not a dry eye in the house. And that brings us to today's showdown!

poll by twiigs.com

Which man will be standing in the end? Place your bets in the comments and prepare yourself for a grueling fifteen rounds over the next seven days of duel - see you back here next Monday when we'll crown the king of the ring.

PREVIOUSLY ON Last week was all about the Mean Girls, what with its ten year anniversary being heralded far and wide across the web and beyond (Tina Fey's ears musta been ringing something fierce) - so which Plastic exerted dominance over all the tables of the cafeteria? Who else? We all gave Cady a big "Boo you whore" and threw her under the bus - long live Regina George. Said Paul Outlaw:

"If Lindsay Lohan hadn't grown up to become an adult version of Regina George, Team Cady would probably be walking away with this. (Team Regina here.)"

Tony Award Noms 2014: Much Movie-to-Stage Madness

The Tony Award Nominations are upon us. 8:30 AM is, I think, officially my favorite time each day. It's always when award nominations for anything are announced. Plus I've already had a cup of coffee, am wide awake and have usually already written something. The curse of the Early Riser. The 2013/2014 Broadway season  -- at least for the musicals -- was completely dominated by movie-to-stage transfers or classics that have become movies and are back on the stage again but most of the transfers didn't fare as well as you might have expected.

Ever adorable Jonathan Groff and Lucy Liu announced the nominees this morning with A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder leading the tally and Hedwig and the Angry Inch close behind. A complete list with commentary follows

Click to read more ...

Box Office: Cameron Diaz Still Sells Tickets

Hey kids, it's Nathaniel. Amir is busy Hot Doc'ing it up in Toronto (yet another springtime festival!) so I'm here to quickly recite the box office chart. The producers of the Christmas release Annie (previously discussed) must have breathed a huge sigh of relief at the box office receipts for The Other Woman in which Diaz and her two new frenemies (Leslie Mann & Kate Upton) plot to destroy Jaime Lannister who is sleeping with all of them on the down low. Yep, people will stay come out in droves for Cameron Diaz in comic mode. Annie will open big... it's got several marketing hooks even before you get to audience love for funny Cam. 

I haven't yet seen The Other Woman yet but I hear it's quite regressive. Consider this scathing provocatively titled review at The Stranger...

The point of this movie is not sisterhood, but making sure women band together in the name of heterosexual competition. Cameron Diaz is too sexy, Leslie Mann is too frumpy, and Kate Upton is boobs, but boobs that are not good enough to keep a man goddammit. Nicki Minaj joins this horror show as the Sassy Black Secretary™ (it’s 2014, right?)...

THE TOP TEN
01 THE OTHER WOMAN $24.7 *NEW* 
02 CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER $16 (cum. $224.8) Review
03 HEAVEN IS FOR REAL $13.8 (cum. $51.9) 
04 RIO 2 $13.6 (cum. $96.1) 
05 BRICK MANSIONS $9.6 *NEW* 
06 TRANSCENDENCE $4.1 (cum. $18.4)  
07 THE QUIET ONES $4 *NEW* 
08 BEARS $3.6 (cum. $11.1)
09 DIVERGENT $3.6 (cum. $139.4) Review
10 A HAUNTED HOUSE 2 $3.2 (cum. $14.2)

In addition to Tribeca Film Festing, I went to Estelle Parson's new play The Velocity of Autumn in the hopes of catching at least one potential Tony Best Actress nominee before the announcement. But get this: Estelle called out sick so I was stuck with an understudy! The understudy wasn't bad and I liked the play about a very old very cantankerous lady armed with molotov cocktails in her Park Slope brownstone because her children want to put her in a nursing home. And yet it's so obviously a star vehicle (there are only two characters, Tony winner Stephen Spinella plays her son) that I was missing the expert comic timing of the Oscar-winning Parsons throughout. She would have maximized the punchlines and elevated it. The understudy switcheroo hasn't happened to me in a long time though so I made my peace with the theater gods quickly 'bout it. They've been good to me for the past several years and we've all called out sick from work in our lifetimes.

But I still fear the Tony nominations on Tuesday because I've seen like nothing that will be nominated this year. I was concentrating on Off Broadway too much I guess.

WHAT DID YOU SEE THIS WEEKEND? 

I'm Just A Girl Who Can't Say No (To Links)

HAPPY OKLAHOMA DAY! For serious that's what it is today so any of you reading from the Sooner state enjoy yourselves just a little bit more for the rest of us today

I'm just a girl who cain't say no,
I'm in a turrible fix I always say "come on, let's go"
Just when I outta say nix!

It's also Earth Day today and we'll celebrate when we look at Pocahontas for "Best Shot" tonight. Have you rescreened in yet to choose your shot. You've only got 6 more hours to get your link in. We'll post at 10 tonight

And now, the linkage...

Rope of Silicon David Cronenberg apparently wrote a book due out this fall and Viggo Mortensen loves it and the mad director also made a trailer for it involving a plastic surgeon and a naked woman
Allure's Nude Issue" has 4 actresses talking about their bodies while naked (Nia Long, Minnie Driver, Mrs Channing Tatum, and Kristen Bell). Shameless click-bait sure but also interesting interviews
The Black Brick Road of Oz a complex webcomic with partially animated visuals that seems to be retelling The Wizard of Oz through a twisted Alice in Wonderland kind of lens
New York Theater the Outer Critics Circle nominations are in which means the Tony nods are ever closer. Of the musicals that are Tony Eligible, they seem to like “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder”, "Rocky" and Disney's “Aladdin” best. Their Off Broadway favorite is clearly "Fun Home" with Michael Cerveris

Coming Soon Rachel Weisz and Toni Collette to star in Miss You Already a British drama about friends falling out. Interesting combo of actresses, right?
Awards Daily Foxcatcher gets a release date of November 14th. Great choice, SPC
Pajiba wonders what happened to Alison Lohman. She hasn't made a movie in a long time
The Wire Archer will return to its spying roots next season after an experimental latest season
Vulture Whoa, I hadn't heard about this (because I don't watch ESPN) but on Monday's they're reairing those Battle of the Network Stars specials that were so popular in the 70s and 80s - a precursor to modern shows like Dancing With the Stars only populated with less has-beens and more stars that were actually popular at that moment showing off their athleticism
Empire pics from Denzel Washington as The Equalizer. Funny that his great actor cred can remain so intact when he keeps pissing away the years in all these C grade projects, right? I guess one Flight every few years or so we'll keep you in critical good graces. That's a lesson other male stars with Denzel's bad taste (and there are so many of them!) should have probably learned

Directors Fortnight at Cannes
In Contention Sundance hits Whiplash and Cold in July have been accepted
Playbill this is the first we're hearing of a movie called Pride but its set to debut at Cannes and has a pretty stellar cast Bill Nighy, Imedla Staunton, Paddy Considine and Dominic West among them. It's a true story about gay activists raising funds for striking miners in the UK in the 1980s.

Today's Watch
Nicole Kidman gets sassy with an ABC news reporter. Be prepared for your interview, kids

Pulitzer Prize Winners

Congratulations to this year's Pulitzer Prize winners. 

FICTION - "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt
DRAMA - "The Flick" by Annie Baker
HISTORY - "The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 1772-1832" by Alan Taylor 
BIOGRAPHY - "Margaret Fuller: A New American Life" by Megan Marshall
POETRY - "3 Sections" by Vijay Seshadri
GENERAL NONFICTION - "Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation" by Dan Fagin
MUSIC - "Become Ocean" by John Luther Adams

Have any of you read or listened to any of these? I'm intrigued by the description of the Drama winner "The Flick" since it's film related:

The Flick, a still from the Playwright Horizons production last year

a thoughtful drama with well-crafted characters that focuses on three employees of a Massachusetts art-house movie theater, rendering lives rarely seen on the stage.

Many Pulitzer Prize winning plays end up as movies eventually. You can see past winners after the jump including three recent Oscar nominated films...

Click to read more ...