Shelley Winters @ 100: The Middle of Her Century

We're celebrating the centennial of Shelley Winters. Here's Glenn...

That Shelley Winters has an autobiography isn’t surprising. But that book also had a sequel, Shelley II: The Middle of My Century. Hollywood loves a sequel, after all. And what a title! These 474 pages have been sitting on my shelf for a few years now since I picked it up in a secondhand book shop and unfortunately, like many books on my shelf, I have never finished it. No slight on Shelley, of course. I’m just slack.

For Shelley’s centennial, I thought it would be fun to pick quotes from random passages based on completely arbitrary rules...

Click to read more ...

The Donald Sutherland essentials

by Cláudio Alves

I don't know about you, but I love to find which people share the same birthday as me. That's especially true of artists who I admire. It's not like sharing a birthday means a whole lot, but it's nice to know that there's something in common between you and one of your idols. In my case, birthday twins include the cinematic genius Wong Kar-Wai, the fabulously talented Diahann Carroll, the eternal gangster James Cagney, Weekend star Tom Cullen, Best Supporting Actress nominee Barbara O'Neil, Sibyl director Justine Triet, and, of course, this piece's focus, the great Donald Sutherland. Our special day was just yesterday. 

Despite never having been nominated for a competitive Oscar (he received an honorary in 2018), Donald Sutherland can be counted among Hollywood's most respected thespians. With a career spanning from the 1960s to now, full of memorable hits and influential classics, complex performances, and scene-stealing turns, Sutherland is an actorly institution all by himself. In honor of his 85th birthday yesterday, here goes a list of some of the movies anyone must watch if they're fans of the actor… 

Click to read more ...

8 Days Until Oscar. Do "Moonlight" or "Arrival" have Oscar twins from the past?

With 8 days to go until Hollywood's High Holy Night let's compare our two pictures with 8 nominations each this year, Denis Villeneuve's thinky sci-fi drama and Barry Jenkins' ravishing memory/identity drama. While both films might come up empty handed on Oscar night they each have a reasonable shot at one or two statues -- Moonlight could theoretically win Supporting Actor and/or Adapted Screenplay and Arrival's best Oscar shot is probably in one or both of the Sound categories unless it surprises with Adapted Screenplay itself in what could arguably be a five way race if Moonlight is not as strong as pundits suspect there.

ARRIVAL	MOONLIGHT
Their 8 Nominations
Picture	Picture
Director	Director
	Supporting Actress
	Supporting Actor
Adapted Screenplay	Adapted Screenplay
Cinematography	Cinematography
Production Design
Film Editing	Film Editing
	Original Score
Sound Mixing
Sound Editing

In the categories where they're competing which film do you prefer?

For extra fun, though, let's find out if the either of these films have any exact Oscar doppelgangers from the past shall we?

Click to read more ...

Beauty vs Beast: Meet The Solos

Jason from MNPP here, telling you something you maybe weren't sure of: did you know there's a new Star Wars movie out this weekend? You heard it here first! It's called Rogue One and it's probably going to make several dollars. At least. We've used the Star Wars universe for our "Beauty vs Beast" series before (see right here) but there are so many characters to choose from (and duos at that) I could probably do a new one once every month and never run dry. But for now I feel like celebrating the greatest galactic love story of our time (not to mention of a time long ago)... and I do mean "celebrating" as "forcefully shoving them apart and making you people choose sides" of course...

PREVIOUSLY We were feeling Jackie Fever last week and so we took on Oliver Stone's JFK -- unlike the Oscars though we ended up favoring Kevin Costner's terrifically righteous star turn as the conspiracy-mad prosecutor Jim Garrison with 63% of our vote - said Edward L:

"I had to vote Jim Garrison too. It was close...but the "just can't find it" line swayed me in his direction (and made me laugh)! ... I don't think the Academy had had their fill of Costner, I think it was simply more the case that Best Actor that year was very competitive and there was simply no room ultimately for Kevin."

Beauty vs Beast: Grassy Knoll Ethics

Jason from MNPP here with an under-the-weather edition of "Beauty vs Beast" - apologies if I am brief and lacking some spark today, I'm staring at my computer screen from the business end of a box of kleenex and with one too many sudafed capsules dotting my system. I bring up my sickness not to be (entirely) self-indulgent but to explain why I didn't make it out to see Jackie this weekend as I'd planned - every cough feels like a cinematic betrayal right now.

So until me and Natalie can rendezvous with our matching pink pillboxes I will ask you today to look backwards at the previous biggest Kennedy assassination movie on the books, Oliver Stone's JFK. I don't remember the Oscar race that year but I'm kind of surprised Costner wasn't nominated for the film - maybe they'd had their fill with Dances With Wolves the year before? Tommy Lee Jones was nominated for the movie though, for the poodle-mopped conspiracy sissy at the center of the mystery, and so I ask you...

PREVIOUSLY We're on an Almodovar kick thanks to the retrospective at MoMA right now so last week we climbed into bed and slipped our hands into the sex ropes for Antonio Banderas in Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! - he took 56% of the vote over Victoria Abril's 44. Said thefilmjunkie:

"If I were voting with my head I'd probably go for Marina, but my vote for Ricky was guided by more, um, prurient interests. I have no shame. I regret nothing."