Ten Coolest Celebrities Born on Christmas Day

It must be weird to be born on Christmas day, if you celebrate Christmas that is. As a kid do you only receive one present or do parents double up or are there other arrangements to give you what your siblings go with two unwrapping holidays each year. Happy birthday to anyone reading who has this very specific life circumstance. Merry Christmas to any of you who celebrate and Happy Tuesday to any of you who don't! We're trying our best to be inclusive.

Perhaps you're taking a wee online break away from family festivities today? We don't imagine you'll be doing much intense reading today so herewith a list about Christmas babies with pretty photos for you.

TEN BEST SHOWBIZ CHRISTMAS BABIES
They were gifts to their parents on Christmas day and also, as it turns out, gifts to the world through their big showbiz careers as either actors, producers, writers, musicians, personalities or all above the above. We've selected the ten greatest ever (in alpha order) after the jump...

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Beauty vs Beast: Who's The Maverick Now

Jason from MNPP here - I think that most of us have mixed (to put it mildly) feelings about Tom Cruise, who is celebrating his 55th birthday today (yes, he was Born on the Third of July). But there's no arguing that his radar for Big Mainstream Action Movie Success has seemed fairly fine tuned for all of the four decades that he's been batting in the major leagues. Well... until The Mummy this summer, which more than just being a bad movie (he's had plenty of those) felt like an actively bad choice for him particularly. The role didn't fit him and he didn't manage to make it fit him by the sheer force of smiling will that his stardom's been so foundationally built upon.

So perhaps that why now he's finally stepping back into the role that made him a star in the first place, and asking us to remember when something as simple as a jet plane and a pair of aviator glasses was all it took to throttle the box office - the Top Gun sequel, subtitled Maverick, was finally made official this week - it will be out in two years (July 2019) and it will be directed by Joseph Kosinski, who worked with Cruise on the (underrated, says me) sci-fi flick Oblivion. So let's look back ourselves, here on this Patriotic Eve, at the movie as American as American Military Might...

PREVIOUSLY I was about to say that we couldn't have made a more wild swing, celebrating Tom Cruise this week to having celebrated Peter Lorre last week, but you know... not really? Perhaps as Cruise grows older he can embrace his diminuitive weirdness to similar effect. Anyway as for last week's Maltese contest it was Bogart who won, but barely, with just 53% of the vote. Said Tom:

"I think both are lucky Mary Astor isn't here. But as it is I vote for Sam. He does such wild and unpredictable things."

Beauty vs Beast: Follow That Bird

Jason from MNPP here, delicately fondling every cane in sight in honor of the birth of one of my favorite all-time scene-stealers, Mr. Peter Lorre, who was born on in this day in the year 1904. I, like many of you, probably first knew Lorre without actually knowing him, via his animated likeness always popping up for a quick n creepy gag in Looney Tunes; funny enough my mom wasn't rushing to show me Fritz Lang's masterpiece M as a child. But once I did see M... wowza. And Casablanca. Double wowza! And Hitchcock's original The Man Who Knew Too Much -- wowza squared! And on and on... but for today's "Beauty vs Beast" let's pit him against that other favorite of the Looney Tunes animators, his co-star in John Huston's 1941 classic noir The Maltese Falcon...

PREVIOUSLY I'm sure some of you are still wearing your Nicole Kidman party hats - the celebration never ends! - but let's take stock of last week's Moulin Rouge competition oh right shocker Nicole Kidman won. She took 58% of your vote over poor suffering Ewan. But y'all were torn. Said Sawyer:

"The Hardest One Ever. As usual, it's Nicole by a nose."

NYFF: How Bogart, Fellini, and Ginger Rogers inspired "20th Century Women"

As part of NYFF Directors’ Dialogue series, 20th Century Women’s Mike Mills was interviewed by artistic director, Kent Jones. Here are excerpts from the conversation as reported by Murtada.

Bening, Mills and Elle Faning at NYFF premiere

Dorothea is Humphrey Bogart
Mills based the main character in 20th Century Women - Dorothea played by Annette Bening - on his memories of his mother. She used to always tell him “In my next life I’ll be married to Bogart”, so while writing the movie Mills would ask himself what would Bogart say whenever he was stuck. To him Dorothea was like many of the characters Bogart played; underdogs who don't win, fail valiantly, make great jokes along the way and always help the weakest person in the room.

Ginger Rogers in Stage Door
Dorothea was also inspired by the character Ginger Rogers played in 1937’s Stage Door. She is as subversive, wisecracking and knows her way with a witty putdown as Rogers’ Jean Maitland.

Working with Bening
Mills believes Bening was the only actor who could play Dorothea. He talked about how she’s exactly the right age, looks beautifully natural which is rare in actresses of her age and calibre. She also reminded him of his mother because, while professional, she has no interest in pleasing anyone, even her director. She would listen to his stories but kept her process private, so he had to learn to give her space. He loved what she delivered because she continously surprised him. While she worked out the character’s psychology, Bening did not work out the beats of every scene, opting for freedom and intuition.

Casting is Key

Mills movies are personal and based on his memories, in addition to Bening, Christopher Plummer played a character based on his father in Beginners (2010). So to avoid being precious he hands full authorship of the character to the actors or as he put it “give them the keys to the car”.

Federico Fellini
Mills revealed that 20th Century Women owes a big debt is Fellini’s Amarcord (1973). They both have multiple narrators and are love letters from their authors’ to where they grew up.

20th Century Women was the Centerpiece selection at NYFF and will be released on Christmas Day by A24.

Beauty vs Beast: Thoroughly Modern Mistress

Happy Monday, everybody -- Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" poll here for you to ponder. I've been trying to use older films for this series lately since it's more likely you'll participate if you've, you know, seen the movie at hand, but this week it just couldn't be helped; we have to go current. Not only is it director Noah Baumbach's birthday later this week (he's turning 46 on Thursday) but just yesterday Nathaniel admitted (MUCH TO MY HORROR) that he didn't much like Baumbach's new film Mistress America. What what what? I... disagree. (Here's the review I wrote.) While I can't say MA kicked my beloved Frances Ha to the curb or anything quite that psychotic (it would take a miracle or a nuke to come close) I reveled in Mistress' heady mix of madcap silliness and sadness - nothing's made me feel quite so simultaneously goofy and gallant in some time. What a script; what a sharp-edged choreography of words and full-screen wiliness. Anyway hopefully you have seen it by now, and can judge this week's contest for yourselves...

PREVIOUSLY Yesterday the 1954 Supporting Actress Smackdown put that year to bed for this month at TFE, but wait, one last thing -- who successfully won Sabrina, says y'all? It was a shockingly close battle between the brothers, but in the end William Holden's, well, William-Holden-ness, beat out Bogie. Said Leslie19:

"All William Holden, all the time. Who else can sit down on champagne glasses with such aplomb?"