Beauty vs Beast: Franchise First Class

Jason from MNPP here hoping everyone here in the States had a good holiday weekend and outside the States then just a plain good weekend, period -- I spent a good three hours (including something like half an hour of trailers) of my weekend in the theater watching the new X-Men movie, as did a few of you (not enough to make the studio happy though) and I gotta say I agree with Nat's take on it - mediocre stuff that needed to embrace its silliness more often. I'd love for just one superhero movie to be about something other than superpowers being the worst burden in all the world, ya know?

Anyway I found myself thinking a lot about Jennifer Lawrence during and after the film - god she seemed miserable, didn't she? She delivered her lines with all the passion of a smurf cadaver. That said I wouldn't be surprised if they could coerce her, with dollars, to revisit Mystique in the future... but for the time being at least she has no contractual obligations to her two big franchises. If she chose to from here on out she could make nothing but David O. Russell movies. (Imagine...) So let's look back at what was.

PREVIOUSLY It was Cillian Murphy against Rachel McAdams in a random Red Eye revisit last week, and it was Bay Breezes for everybody - McAdams' flight-bound final girl took just over 60% of the vote. Said Derreck:

"Team Lisa because she was quick and resourceful. They had the oddest chemistry going on to the point where if he wasn't all terroristy, it would have been nice if they went out for a drink at the end of the movie. But you know, murder and all tends to get in the way of that. Always the years, always the love, always the murder."

Beauty vs Beast: Cillian Time

Howdy and Happy Monday, folks, Jason from MNPP here with your "Beauty vs Beast" for the week - this time around we're wishing the great and still somehow under-rated Cillian Murphy a happy 40th birthday! He hits the milestone on Wednesday, and we couldn't be happier to watch him age - his smooth-skinned preternatural prettiness was kind of too much to look at once upon a time. Time has made him seem more human, less alien and terrifying, which on the one hand is a loss, but I think that he's a great enough actor that it's one he can overcome with ease.

Anyway in his honor we're stepping back to a role that, contrary to everything I just said, showed him at his most human and his most terrifying all at once, with Wes Craven's terrifically entertaining 2005 thriller Red Eye. Cillian Murphy plays Jackson Rippner (yes really!), the viscious cat to Rachel McAdams' determined little mouse Lisa, and they Tom-n-Jerry each other all over an airplane. S'good times!

PREVIOUSLY We put on our best brave face to face off the mother-daughter team of Terms of Endearment, and in the end it was "Big Momma" MacLaine who stuck her head through the sunroof to victory, taking about 64% of the vote. Said Suzanne:

"Aurora is winning because Shirley MacLaine is one of the great screen actresses but somehow doesn't seem to get enough credit. Also because I voted for her on each of my electronic devices."

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