Feeling Positively "Wonderstruck"

By Spencer Coile 

After the sting of Carol's snub for Best Picture just two years ago, Todd Haynes is coming back, hopefully better than ever. His new film, Wonderstruck, will be premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in a few short weeks, but will also be released through the partnering of Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions. Slotted for a limited release of October 20 with an eventual expasion in November, the studios are giving Haynes' latest effort the awards season push many fans believes he deserves.

As I am sure many of you know by this point, Wonderstruck (based off the book by Brian Selznick) reunites Haynes with Julianne Moore (at long last!) after their collaborations on Safe (1995) and Far From Heaven (2002). It tells two parallel stories-- one taking place in 1927 and the other in 1977. Moore will be joined by Michelle Williams, Amy Hargreaves, Oakes Fegley (the lead of last year's Pete's Dragon), and newcomer Millicent Simmonds. 

The last time Amazon and Roadside partnered up, they produced Manchester by the Sea, which led to the biggest box office either company had seen and two Oscars for the film. Clearly, signs are positive for Wonderstruck. While we wait for the film's premiere at Cannes, let's cross our fingers and hope that sins of Carol's merciless snub will not be committed again. 

Once More with Tweeting

 In this edition of Tweetweek, Shailene Woodley's arrest, Moonlight fever, the best Supporting Actress winner, a Scarlett Johansson look-a-like, and things overheard in locker rooms. It's all after the jump...

Is this because of "The Descendants"? pic.twitter.com/lYd2p1WGk4

— Jordan Veilleux (@veilleuxwho) October 11, 2016

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Beauty Break: World Lion Day

Today is World Lion Day so let's gaze at those utterly majestic felines posing with actors and actresses because it's an excuse to honor them. A beauty break gallery after the jump featuring Kirsten Dunst, Joanna Lumley, Buster Crabbe, Gregory Peck, Cara Delevigne and more...

Tippi Hedren with her pet lion "Neil" in the 1970s

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Beauty vs Beast: Koo Koo Ka Choose

Howdy and Happy Monday it's Jason from MNPP here on this, the day that the great Dustin Hoffman is turning 79 years old. How do you think he now views the concerns of his most famous character Benjamin Braddock of The Graduate, from the opposite vantage point of age? Of course he's much older now than Anne Bancroft was as Mrs. Robinson (now that I think about it I'm actually right around Mrs. Robinson's age myself! Weird!) so he probably looks back at Ben with tired eyes at this point. Heck I do myself, although I don't know if I entirely sympathize with Mrs. Robinson's self-destructive behavior either. But where do you stand? That's right it's time for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" ...

PREVIOUSLY We are smearing our sad clown make-up off this morning and waving an over-sized glove goodbye to International Clown Week - last week's competition of clown couples in Short Cuts fell on the "Julianne Moore & Matthew Modine" side, probably because of the film's still infamous full-frontal fight scene - said Mark, speaking truth to privates:

"The genius of Moore is you watch her face in this instead of her special lady place."

Beauty vs Beast: Send in the You-Know-Whats

Howdy folks it's Jason from MNPP here wishing everybody a candy-colored start to a candy-colored week - that's right, today marks the first day of International Clown Week, held every year right at the start of August, aka the best time to make that make-up run right off your face and give you the time honored "Creepy Clown Effect." But while (in a weird but total coincidence) I may have just started re-reading Stephen King's It this week I'm not going to make you think about Scary Clowns today - oh I know for some of you there is no other kind, but I'm going to try to temper that with Auterism because...

... hey remember that scene in Robert Altman's 1993 masterpiece Short Cuts where Claire (Anne Archer), a professional clown, and her husband Stuart (Fred Ward) get blasted at dinner with new friends Marion (Julianne Moore) and Ralph (Matthew Modine), and instead of the partner-swapping you expect to happen they all just put on clown make-up and dance around instead? I sure do. It's one of the many right turns the film takes when you've braced yourself for a left. So let's face off these two couples for "Beauty vs Beast" this week...

If you need a refresher both couples are in the middle of personal crises -- Marion & Ralph (Moore & Modine) are the couple who have the long fight about her cheating whilst Juli proves she's a natural redhead, while Stuart has just told Claire (Ward & Archer) that he and his fishing buddies fished around a corpse all weekend long. In the grand tradition of Altman-esque character studies, they're all a bit beastly.

PREVIOUSLY Last week we ventured to Mortville with John Waters and his muses for a look at one of his most underappreciated efforts, Desperate Living (and the poll showed just how underappreciated the film remains, with one of our tiniest voting totals ever) - it was Queen Carlotta (Edith Massey) who was carried by her loyal litter of man-servants to the victory, taking 55% of the vote. Said Ken S:

"I'll teach you to arouse royalty! - Team Carlotta all the way!"