Beauty vs Beast: Sibling Rivalries & Sexual Reveries

Hello and happy Monday, everybody - Jason from MNPP here with another round of our "Beauty vs Beast" series! This week we're turning our eyes to the 20th anniversary of Don Roos' The Opposite of Sex, which is tomorrow. The film came out on May 22nd 1998, and all good gays (and gay-adjacents) have been quoting Christina Ricci's surly sexpot DeDee and Lisa Kudrow's snide spinster Lucia ever since. But what if I told you you had to choose??? That's not a hypothetical - I am actually asking you to choose. Right now!

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PREVIOUSLY She might not have taken an Oscar earlier this year but Saoirse Ronan can comfort herself that she's now won one of these polls, I guess - her Hanna trounced Cate Blanchett with 70% of your vote. Said Lady Edith:

"Joe Wright gave Saoirse her start and then handed her Hanna which solidified her amazing talents. We get to see the whole range of emotions from her. No disrespect to Cate but I want Saoirse to win this and trounce her evil Mom."

Cannes Closing Ceremony - the Palme to "Shoplifters"

by Nathaniel R

The 71st edition of Cannes has ended. The closing ceremony started all fiery with Asia Argento reminding the audience that she was raped at the festival and Harvey Weinstein used to use Cannes as his "hunting ground" but after that impassioned speech, this settled quickly into the usual Closing Ceremony format of jury introductions, and strange presentation of awards in which "presenters" don't actually do the presenting but then turn to Madame President (in this case Cate Blanchett in a dress with a bow the size of her entire body on its back) to read out the winners.

So here's one last gif-heavy look at Cannes, which is really our first look (since the films have yet to open anywhere) at the winners from the closing ceremony. Many of these titles will go on to further glories at other festivals and hopefully in theatrical release in the US and some will definitely be Oscar foreign language film submissions. But even if this is the end of their awards run, winning prizes at Cannes remains a very big deal...

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Beauty vs Beast: Bad Girls

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" which is tackling the 49th birthday of one of modern cinema's more obscure and under-rewarded actresses, maybe you've heard her name in passing -- a Cate Blanchett? If you have you're one of the lucky few in the know! Okay okay so she's currently swanning around southern France in millions of dollars in fabrics being the grande dame of the movies, so you probably have.

But this week's competition is facing her down with a real buried gem, somebody only the mosy diligent of cineastes has heard of and whose film adaptation of a serious difficult piece of theater just hit theaters this past weekend... a Saoirse Ronan? Rack your brains, maybe that name sounds familiar. Anyway in 2011 these two forces of nature faced down in Joe Wright's (still under-appreciated if you ask me) film Hanna, and here we are...

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PREVIOUSLY Last week also tackled a bad mother figure situation with the monsters of the Alien franchise and I think since it was Mother's Day you made the right choice, giving Mama Queen Alien Bitch 70% of the vote. Said AmandaBuffamonteezi:

"No better time to say YAAAASSSS KWEEEENNNN!!!!!"

Cannes "82 Women" protest on behalf of female filmmakers

by Nathaniel R

82 women walked the red carpet today at Cannes protesting the lack of female filmmakers represented at the festival over the years. The number 82 is the number of films directed by women that have been in the main competition lineup since Cannes began 71 years ago (3 of which are this year). All the famous talented women from this year's jury led by Cate Blanchett were there along with the Godmother of the French New Wave,  recent Honorary Oscar recipient AND nominee Agnes Varda. Blanchett and Varda gave the speech in English and French which went like so:

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Cannes begins. Is this the most stylish jury ever?

This blog post's title is rhetorical. We all know it is.

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