Good Morning, World

Howdy folks, it's Jason from MNPP here -- over at MNPP I do these posts pretty much every day that are titled "Good Morning, World" or some variation thereof (click here for some NSFW-ish examples) where we take a look at a moment of actorly exposure, morning-themed, in a movie. You know, something to wake us up, get us going, in the day. Well this morning I was just now staring at the first picture of Matt Damon on the set of the next Bourne movie, which just began shooting yesterday, and I felt incredibly bright and bushy-tailed, I tell ya what. So here's that!

First day of principal photography complete and happy to report, BOURNE is back! #Bourne2016 pic.twitter.com/ncIILnGKWr

— Frank Marshall (@LeDoctor) September 8, 2015

Here's the sitch though: I have never seen a single Jason Bourne movie. Not one! Not even the one (ones?) with Joan Allen. I love Joan Allen. I adore and worship Joan Allen. So this post is two-fold: 1) Wowza look at Matt Damon (do you think him and Ben Affleck are in some War of the Pecs?), and 2) Yell at me to watch the Bourne movies... but give me some good reasons. Yes you can just say "Joan Allen," I will accept that answer.

Beauty vs Beast: The Red Jungles of High Society

Jason from MNPP here with this week's episode of "Beauty vs Beast" for your fun-time entertainment -- while it's certainly not as important numerically as the approaching 100 year anniversary of Ingrid Bergman (which we're celebrating with great enthusiasm here at TFE) I think it's a happy enough happenstance that today marks the 113th anniversary of the birth of the terrific actress Norma Shearer and we should likewise celebrate her. And what better way than with that grand dame of cinematic cattiness, George Cukor's 1939 classic The Women? Shearer plays the betrayed society wife Mary, whose husband can't resist the shopgirl charms of (one two three - hiss!) Miss Crystal Allen, played by a totally game Joan Crawford. There's no way to play if you don't enter the kennel...

PREVIOUSLY Last week we also took on a "good wife" trampled by some dark-haired hussy, facing down Joan Allen and Sigourney Weaver in The Ice Storm. And the hussy won! The hussy always wins. (As we'll probably find out in another week when this Women poll's results come in.) Said Joe:

"Both women were brilliant in this. This is my favorite Ang Lee film. I'd give the edge to Sigourney. Outside of the Alien films, this is her best work. It's SHOCKING that she was not nominated for an Oscar that year. I mean, Minnie Driver??"

Beauty vs Beast: Mothers in the Storm

Jason from MNPP here wishing all of you a happy Monday and a happier August - where has the time flown? I've been off "Beauty vs Beast" duties for a couple of weeks because of real-world-stuff that's all quite boring, but I'm back now and rarin' to go. Positively rarin'. Today's pick it a little random but not really when I lay it out -- there was that article about Brokeback Mountain's upcoming 10 Year Anniversary last week which got me thinking about Ang Lee and then yesterday's Supporting Actress Smackdown got me thinking about Joan Allen and yadda yadda I re-watched The Ice Storm last night and yadda yadda here we are. See? Simple. More difficult I think will be the choosing... but let's reach in the bowl and fish somebody's keys out...

PREVIOUSLY Whilst I was away Nathaniel whispered my favorite siren song of sweet sweet Gyllenhaals and asked you guys to pick your favorite Jake flavor -- he's basically a box of Neopolitan Ice Cream; they're all so delicious, why choose? But choose we had to and straight-up Beautiful Jake (a la Brokeback and Love and Other Drugs) beat out his more Beastly iterations. Said San FranCinema:

"Had to vote for Beauty. Brokeback Jake...I just can't quit him!"

Smackdown 1995: Joan, Kate, Kathleen, Mare and Mira

Presenting the Supporting Actresses of '95. A chain smoking First Lady, a porn actress with dreams of hairdressing, a young romantic who lets her passions get the best of her, a famous musician who just wants to live quietly, and an astronaut's wife worrying for her husband in the stars.

THE NOMINEES 

1995 was a shockingly strong year for lead actresses. Though things were less crowded with possibility that year in the supporting competition (notice the leads crowding in here too) Oscar's roster here was exciting too, not just for its range of acting styles and characters but for an all first-timer field. Kate Winslet, Joan Allen and Mira Sorvino were all fresh faces just beginning to win mass attention. Mare Winningham and Kathleen Quinlan were the veterans, and though they'd both had previous awards attention (and Emmy win for Mare when she was only 21 years old and a Golden Globe nod for Quinlan for 1977's  I Never Promised You a Rose Garden), it had never gotten this glamorous: OSCAR NOMINATIONS!

THIS MONTH'S PANELISTS

Here to talk about these five turns are returning panelists Nick Davis (Nicks Flick Picks) and Guy Lodge (Variety). Your host Nathaniel R also welcomes three new panelists Kevin O'Keeffe (Arts.Mic), Conrado Falco (Coco Hits NY) and new Film Experience contributor Lynn Lee. You've read their brief 1995 memoirs and you can also listen to an indepth conversation on the companion podcast.

And now it's time for the main event... 

1995
SUPPORTING ACTRESS SMACKDOWN 

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10th Anniversary: Joan Allen, Family Struggles, and 'The Upside of Anger'

a special anniversary tribute from Adam Armstrong

Are you close with your father?”

This was asked of me recently at a social gathering for a graduate school program I may attend in the fall. Not knowing how to respond, or rather, unwilling to respond honestly, I answered by saying, “Yes, you could say so.”

This is the scenario people who come from a family in which the dynamic has been disrupted from a parent abandoning the unit loathe, yet know all too well its inevitability in conversation.

So does The Upside of Anger, which is celebrating its tenth year in release. The film chronicles the means by which a family copes and moves forward with their lives after the patriarch has left them, presumptuously thought to have run off with his younger secretary to live in Sweden. The family, one all too relatable in this modern familial climate of increasing divorce rates, is comprised of a bitter mother and her brood of children, all of whom in some way fail to meet her and each other’s expectations. [more...]

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