Beauty vs Beast: The King and... Who?

Jason from MNPP here. Tomorrow is the 97th anniversary of the great Yul Brynner's birth, and while there are several options we could tackle for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" (The Ten Commandments being the most obvious) I decided to go with the most awkward for me - 1956's technicolor musical The King and I, because I feel like we could use a colorful musical right this minute. There's just one problem, which is what renders this "awkward" - I haven't ever seen The King and I. Whoops!

I know the basic gist - Deborah Kerr plays a school-teacher who moves to Siam and she and the King (Brynner) teach each other about their different cultures and fall into something like love. But specifics? Notsomuch. So here's the deal - I will go home and watch The King and I this week, pinky swear, and you guys tell me in the comments what your "Pros" and "Cons" are for each character in place of me listing them. Deal? Deal!

PREVIOUSLY Last week we went looking for the best Wingman of the Top Gun bunch, and as I figured might happen the current anti-Cruise zeitgeist carried Iceman (Val Kilmer) up into the stratosphere with 52% of the vote. Tom Cruise, your career is in the Danger Zone! Said Travis:

"I'm just very concerned for the well-being of anyone that would vote for a tiny troll over the delicious Iceman."

15 Days Until Oscar: The habit, get into it.

15 is today's magic number. As far as I can tell -- though I am not Pope-infallible-- 15 women have been Oscar nominated over the years for playing nuns or nun apprentices... what are they called, novitiates? novices? problems-like-Maria?

Let's pray for them together after the jump. Which of these nominations do you most approve of and why is it so hard to win for playing a Sister or Mother Superior? 

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Linkbusting

Alanis Morrisette had a baby daughter. Named her "Onyx Solace"
MNPP Chris Hemsworth's Australian commercial
Film School Rejects Where is Shelley Duvall?
Coming Soon First photo of Colin Firth on the set of Kingsman: The Golden Circle 
Christian Siriano of Project Runway fame, got married in black - guests (a celebrity who's who including Danielle Brooks and Christina Hendricks) wore white 
Revelist on Poussey & Soso's relationship in the new season of Orange is the New Black (spoilers) 

Mike's Movie Projector remembers Deborah Kerr's iconic nun characters 
Towleroad apparently Christoph Waltz kissed Tarzan in the original cut of The Legend of Tarzan. Test audiences were perplexed
i09 Kiefer Sutherland takes a supporting role in the remake of a film he once starred in, Flatliners (1990)
Pajiba whiny women-fearing Ghostbusters haters are still at it, giving the movie a 3.5 rating on IMDb before the pubic has seen it
Times of Israel talks to Quentin Tarantino about his career. Sadly he's still planning to quit after a 10th movie so we only have two left. I hated The Hateful Eight but I'd rather not see him quit altogether
Interview Jon Favrea (The Jungle Book) talks to Idris Elba about his career thus far
Theater Mania Marisa Tomei is starring in The Rose Tattoo at the Williamstown Theater Festival. If only she'd get roles that good in film! (Christopher Abbott co-stars)
Michigan Avenue Scarlett Johansson was recently honored in Chicago with a "Renaissance Award" and talked about her love for her job and for playing The Black Widow
AV Club looks at the collaboration of Woody Allen & Scarlett Johansson in their "Together Again" series
/Film Carrie Coon will play the chief of police in the third season of Fargo. Ewan McGregor co-stars. I guess I have to start watching.

The Furniture: Black Narcissus's Maddening Matte Paintings

"The Furniture" is our weekly series on Production Design. Here's Daniel Walber...

In movies, if perhaps not in life, people can be driven mad by mountains. In films by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, they can be driven mad by paintings of mountains.

Black Narcissus is the story of a group of Anglican nuns who trek up to an abandoned cliffside palace in the Himalayas to establish a new convent. Deborah Kerr, cinema’s most consistent nun, is Sister Clodagh, the young mother superior. Her mission is doomed from the beginning, of course, though not necessarily because the locals reject their presence. Rather, it is the landscape that overwhelms their emotions and breaks their faith and their vows.

Powell and Pressburger did not shoot on location in India, however. The set was built at Pinewood Studios. [More...] 

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Beauty vs Beast: Full Metal Maria

Tis I, Jason from MNPP, here, with another week's new edition of our "Beauty vs Beast" series. So over the next several days The Film Experience is going to be diving into the cinematic realm of Artificial Intelligence (known as "A.I." to people in a hurry and Haley Joel Osment fans), and to get the ball rolling I figured we'd make ourselves like science-fiction and hop in the way-back machine to the year 1927, when a little chap who went by the name Friedrich Christian Anton Lang, known to his friends as Fritz, made a little movie called Metropolis. In case you don't know the story, it goes like this: Boy meets Girl, Girl Gets Clones Into Evil Robot, Dystopian Nightmare Explodes, and a Kiss, The End. Somewhere in there dancing happens, and it is crazy awesome.

But thanks to a ferocious performance from actress Brigitte Helm you really couldn't get more of a clean split between the two Marias to choose from - Original Maria is all Goodness and Light, while her robot counterpart is Sex and Chaos. But what Sex and Chaos! Where does your heart belong?

Whose team are you on?

Team Maria

Team Robot-Maria

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PREVIOUSLY While I was out of town last week Nathaniel took the chance to sneak a musical (a genre I'm somewhat allergic to) in - can I just tell you that even though I've lusted for The Ten Commandments era Yul Brynner a'plenty I've never seen The King and I? So I'll be damned if I know the right choice for this round, but y'all went with Anna (Deborah Kerr) by only a slight margin (54%). Said Jija:

"I'm maybe biased because I'm Thai but I find Yul's performance ... irritating. I don't expect accurate history or anything. It's a very lovely musical but I can't get past his overacting, silly gestures and ..that accent. He's very cartoonish. Deborah Kerr, on the other hand, is everything."