Beauty vs Beast: Sugar & Spice & Everything March

Hello and happy Monday everyone, Jason from MNPP here with another edition of our "Beauty vs Beast" series - Louisa May Alcott's book Little Women just turned 150 this year and it's hotter than it's ever been. There was a BBC version with Maya Hawke and Emily Watson and Angela Lansbury that aired here in the US in the spring. Then this very weekend there's a modernized retelling hitting theaters. And then of course the one sucking all the air out of the room - Greta Gerwig's all-star edition set for next year, whose cast is so stacked we'd be here all day if I try listing off everybody - just look at the IMDb page.

Anyway a lot of us (even if we're excited to see all of those actors in one place and under her direction) aren't entirely sure why Greta's making this new version - not when there's Gillian Armstrong's perfectly lovely 1994 adaptation already, anyway. Winona Ryder as Jo, Christian Bale as Laurie, Susan Sarandon as Marmee, Kirsten Dunst as Amy, Claire Danes as Beth (cough cough)... these are the people I picture when I picture Little Women. And then one second later I immediately remember Amy burning Jo's manuscript and I see red...

picture polls

PREVIOUSLY I'm not sure if it was mostly Riz Ahmed Lust or if it was just that Jake's character is so (deliciously) despicable, but y'all surprised me and went and gave Riz/Rick your prize on last week's Nightcrawler contest with nearly 60% of the vote. Lou's a loser!

Anyway maybe it's just simply what Nick T said:

"Rick's just a nice cute guy who doesn't even know he's in over his head and Jake's a mean ol' lizard. Easy call."

Tweetweek and the Wonder Women

Hooray. SquareSpace has fixed their Twitter problem so now tweets can be displayed properly again. Essentially we like doing these roundups for two reasons. One, it's easy to miss good stuff on twitter in the presence of an endless stream of stuff.  Two, some of you don't use twitter and are probably more sane for it but you shouldn't be denied seeing amusing, insightful, or otherwise shareable brief thoughts on topics both deafening and underdiscussed.

And while we're on the topic of underdiscussed... 

Thoroughly enjoyed Rebecca Hall as a sexy stick in the mud in Professor Marston & the wonder women. pic.twitter.com/N6L9a9Lpf6

— Murtada (@ME_Says) October 20, 2017

Wholly agree with Murtada on this one! I'm sad that we didn't give Professor Marston and the Wonder Women its due here at TFE. Maybe when it hits DVD or streaming we can all dig in together? Surprisingly solid with Hall acing her complex leading role (as per usual).

After the jump topics from Mindhunter through Into the Woods to Call Me By Your Name and beyond...

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Björk's "Danish Director" Statement

By Nathaniel R

Catherine Deneuve, Björk, and Von Trier at Cannes (2000)

The floodgates have opened post Weinstein and now everyone wants to speak out. This morning Björk issued a statement about her experience working with "a Danish director," a hilariously coy non-naming of names since she's only starred in one movie, Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (2000) after which she never appeared in a movie again, unless you count her performance art collaboration with her then-boyfriend Matthew Barney on Drawing Restraint (2009). Which, well, the sexual violence was onscreen in that one with Barney and Björk carving each other up while naked underwater and turning into whales or some such. You know how that happens.

Here is her statement which is worth parsing due to its unexpected Dogville allusion...

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Review: Kirsten Dunst in "Woodshock"

by Chris Feil

“Remember when we used to play in the woods together?” Woodshock begins in dreamy, creepy breathiness. That breathy quality carries throughout the entire film, a curious debut from Kate and Laura Mulleavy (otherwise known as fashion wunderkinds Rodarte). The film itself plays in the woods, a little bit touched with mystical wonder and a little bit okay with getting lost. It’s kind of like having Alice recount her trip down the rabbit hole while coming down from some serious Wonderland substances, but without getting to witness the magical land yourself.

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Coppola's Turning World

She was the still point of the turning world, man.

As many of us have begun (finally) seeing The Beguiled, the latest from Sofia Coppola, I was instantly struck by the above line from The Virgin Suicides. It is spoken in reference to Kirsten Dunst's Lux, but it also feels representative of Coppola's work as a whole. Although her cinematic world alters between films, Coppola still seems fascinated by individual characters, individual experiences. 

Many of us are fighting a heat-stricken summer malaise, and for some reason, this thought was comforting. The world keeps turning and rearranging itself, but some things remain the same. May we all find solace in that sentiment as we head into our 4th of July week ahead.