Beauty vs Beast: Won't You Remember Me

Jason from MNPP here on this chilly March afternoon thinking of leaving it all behind and boarding a train out to Montauk -- tomorrow marks the 15th anniversary of one of the Great Films of the new century (née millenium), Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which rescrambled our brains for the first time on March 19th 2004, and we've never been the same since. Have you watched it lately? I watch it basically once per year, which guarantees I have one great big sobbing session at least once per year. Anyway we've already done one of our "Beauty vs Beast" contests for the film's leads before, so today we'll dive a little deeper into the film's exceedingly fine stable of supporting players -- on one side we have the delectably weaselly Patrick (Elijah Wood) and on the other the more-confused-by-the-minute Mary (Kirsten Dunst), who both enrich the film's main romantic thrust in surprising and sad ways...

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PREVIOUSLY Y'all truly surprised me with last week's contest that pit Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool's lead lovers against one another -- Jamie Bell took the lead early on and never looked back, taking 65% at the end; it's very rare for actresses to lose here on TFE! Why do you think it happened this time? Said Mareko:

"I'm #TeamGloria in life (what an underrated talent) but lean toward #TeamPeter in this movie. Annette and Jamie really are sublime together, and isn't it interesting that she did back-to-back movies set in 1979? Imagine Dorothea Fields and Gloria Grahame in the same universe, living a mere hour away from each other!"

Posterized: Dr. Seuss and "The Grinch"

by Nathaniel R

The children's book author Dr. Seuss (also known as Theodore S. Geisel) is such an icon part of popular culture that he's even had his own postage stamp. But did you know he was also a screenwriter? In addition to the screenplay of the fantasy family film The 5000 Fingers of Dr T (1953) he wrote the script for the Oscar winning documentary Design for Death (1947) which was a documentary about Japanese and what led to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Far outside the wheelhouse that was! But mostly when it comes to the screen when we think of Dr Seuss we think of the once-perennial TV airings of How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

 The bulk of screen adaptations of Dr Seuss's work have been in the short film format which makes sense, given the short visual books he wrote. Of the many shorts based on his work the following were all nominated for Oscars: The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1943), And to Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street (1944), Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950 - OSCAR WIN), and Gerald McBoing! Boing! on Planet Moo (1956). One short based on his work,  Daisy Head Mayzie (1995), was Emmy nominated.

But with the release of The Grinch (2018) today, let's look back on all the feature films (and the three most prominent TV specials) that are Dr Seuss related. How many have you seen and will you be seeing The Grinch? The posters are after the jump...

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"I dont know. You erased me."

Months of Meryl: Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004)

John and Matthew are watching every single live-action film starring Meryl Streep. 

 

#31 —Aunt Josephine, an agoraphobic, grammar-obsessed, hermetic eccentric.

MATTHEW:  Who says Meryl Streep doesn’t make movies for kids? In 2004, Streep lent her talents to Brad Silberling’s film adaptation of A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket’s (née Daniel Handler) acclaimed literary series that, over the course of 13 novels, chronicled the many misfortunes and menacing adventures of an orphaned trio of children...

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Link Factory

• Mashable badly seeded March Madness brackets are terrible storytelling
• Film School Rejects picks the 18 best movies of 2018 thus far (weird-ass rankings if you ask me, especially with Isle of Dogs below A Wrinkle in Time... and the kind of obnoxious indie supernatural ovie The Endless)
• Decider looking back at an old Tiny Toons episode about representation in 1990
• Screen Crush man died when head got stuck in seat at movie theater (I'm going to have nightmares)
• E! Online Arnold Schwarzenegger has emergency open heart surgery

• Tracking Board  Twice delayed X-Men adjacent movie The New Mutants has been a nightmare to make; Fox keeps changing their mind about what they want it to be. While we all might complain from time to time about Marvel Studios (who are far from perfect -- especially in regards to gender) at least they seem to know what they want every time and how to get there. Even if what they want has been a bit formulaic until recently.
• Cartoon Brew it only took 32 years (oy!)  for a woman to get to direct a Pixar short
• AV Club here's another cute report about that movie which is called Bao and about a dumpling that comes to life
• My New Plaid Pants Klaes Bang, of The Square fame, made a gay short film
• Jim Carrey I somehow missed that in his spare time the seemingly retired movie star has become a political cartoonist. A pretty good one, too. This reminds me of the first time I saw him. Anyone remember his short-lived sitcom Duck Factory in which he played a cartoonist?
• Vanity Fair a good pilot season for South Asian actors - lots of roles in all sorts of shows
• Deadline the cast of Sex & the City supporting Cynthia Nixon's run for NY Governor
• Theater Mania Desperate Measures, which was so so wonderful in its premiere engagement (we talked about it here) is getting an open ended run off Broadway soon. Here's hoping the hilarious original cast is available.