Beauty vs Beast: Here Come The Bridesmaids

Jason from MNPP here -- you want to know something shocking? Alright "shocking" might be me overexaggerating (thank you for that new word, Ryan Lochte) but I was shocked anyway - I have never done an edition of "Beauty vs Beast" for Bridesmaids. Doesn't that seem absolutely impossible? I went back and forth through the archives myself a couple of times to make sure but it's true. I couldn't believe it - I saw it was Kristen Wiig's 43rd birthday today and I thought to myself, "Well maybe there's something besides Bridesmaids that I can do, since obviously I'd have done Bridesmaids by now," but nope, no, haven't, kuh-rrrrrrazy!

So let's! I've seen this movie so many times at this point (if it is on cable, and it is always on cable, I will stop my life and I will watch it) that I managed this entire post without having to cheat and look up things to jog my memory. It's already a modern classic, at just over 5 years old. But where do our loyalties lay when it comes down between these two troublesome girlfriends...

PREVIOUSLY For the Material Girl's birthday we Desperately Sought the answer to "Does anyone appreciate her acting ability?" and speaking of shocker, we do! She grooved into a 2/3rds win over Rosanna Arquette. Said Mike in Canada (and now you know!):

"I'm can't bring myself to vote against either of these fantastic women, so I'll conscientiously abstain, and just wait a week to find out how much Madonna won by."

Beauty vs Beast: Who's Those Girls

Jason from MNPP here, letting you know for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" that sometimes, at night times, I close and lock the door so no one else can see and... I dance! I dance all by myself! And tomorrow we will all dance (for inspiration) because tomorrow Madonna, the one and only, is turning 58. So now is not the time to haggle over her acting skills - let's just accept the fact that the world would be a less fun place if the she-lady of white lace gloves had never stomped into it, and look at what is probably her best (fictional) turn on-screen, in 1985's Desperately Seeking Susan.

I had never seen this movie until earlier this year when our estimable host Nathaniel dragged me to it at a screening at the Metrograph here in NYC, can you believe that? Speaking of, Metrograph is doing an entire retrospective of the Material Girl's movies later this month, including showing Susan once again, and I highly recommend catching it on a big screen - it's like being dropped into the fanciful 80s East Village of magicians and thrift shops of your dreams. The entire cast is stuffed with about-to-be-somebodies like Aidan Quinn (humina humina) and Laurie Metcalf, and the leading goofball two-some of Rosanna Arquette & Madonna are a true pop delight.

PREVIOUSLY Even though it was his birthday, and even though he's a certifiable acting legend, poor Dustin Hoffman didn't stand a chance -- we'd all long ago been seduced away by Anne Bancroft's smoky eyes and smokier delivery as the iconic older woman in The Graduate; Mrs. Robinson took just under 80% of your vote. Said Tom:

"As soon as Mrs Robinson wondered into his bedroom "mistakenly" looking for the bathroom, I knew this was a performance for the ages."

I'm linking out... ♫ I want the world to know, gotta blog it so...

Guardian Carrie Fisher is doing an advice column? What happy potentially hilarious news
Salon They're prepping a Rumi biopic and the filmmakers want Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Downey Jr for the leading roles of Rumi and his mentor Shams. Those were real people and Persian muslims. Here we go again with Hollywood's tone deaf casting imperatives... (sigh)
Coming Soon Jennifer Lawrence to star in a movie about Elizabeth Holmes, once estimated to be worth $4.5 billion and now nothing. Adam McKay to direct so we're guessing he got a taste for Oscar with The Big Short and wants more.

MTV Teo Bugbee looks at the career of James Wan from Saw (2004) to The Conjurer 2 (2016)
Village Voice Angelica Jade Bastién on the female gaze of American Psycho
Pajiba gets vicious with a list of 'female equivalents of Sam Worthington' (i.e. generically attractive & completely unmemorable but they keep getting big roles) including Zoey Deutch, Britt Robertson, and Lily Collins (who Warren Beatty will try to make happen again soon in his Howard Hughes movie). But I have to admit Lily James is growing on me so I wouldn't have included her   
Pride Source actress Lea Delaria (Orange is the New Black) thinks "LGBT" needs to go and be replaced by Queer. Actually we're kinda for it as there are more and more letters attached "LGBTIQA"
/Film Helena Bonham Carter and Mindy Kaling are joining Bullock & Blanchett in that Oceans Ocho movie we were fantasy casting earlier 
The Tracking Board ... and speaking of Oceans 11, that movie's director Steven Soderbergh is making a new heist movie himself called Logan Lucky. The cast will include Hilary Swank, Adam Driver, Seth MacFarlane, Daniel Craig, Katherine Heigl, Channing Tatum, and Riley Keough. 

Tony Season
Playbill in counterprogramming for the Tony Awards, TCM will play Alexander Hamilton (1931), the biopic starring George Arliss. Haha.
Gothamist good god, I'm seeing Hamilton just in the nick of time. They're upping the price of premium seats to $849 each and orchestra seats to $179-199. That is insane. I sometimes wonder what would happen if everyone just refused to go to theater priced over $50 for an entire year. It might make the art more accessible / popular. I'm seeing the show next week 

P.S.
And look, two of the greats met each other! President Obama and Madonna. As Madge points out they're both Leos so it's "a cosmic convergence"

A meeting of the Leo's! 🦄. A Cosmic Convergence!! . 2 ❤️#rebelhearts @jimmyfallon

A photo posted by Madonna (@madonna) on Jun 9, 2016 at 1:24am PDT

Podcast Special: 25th Anniversary of Madonna's "Truth or Dare"

Nathaniel, Nick, and Joe revisit the seminal rock documentary by Alek Keshishian  Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991). The film was a blast in 1991, became one of the biggest documentary hits of all time, and proved prophetic thereafter for celebrity culture and reality TV narcissism which hadn't been invented yet. Well, reality TV hadn't; Narcissism precedes Madonna.

Topics include but are not limited to: Our first viewings, Warren Beatty's terror at the project, the Antonio Banderas fixation, celebrity cameos, and Madonna's relationship to both the camera and LGBT culture.

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the convo in the comments...

• What's the story of your first viewing? 
• Have you watched it recently (Hint: it's streaming on Netflix!)? 
• Do you think Blonde Ambition is Madonna's best era?

 

Truth or Podcast

Interview: The Filmmakers, and Stars of 'Strike a Pose' Talk Madonna, Dance Moves and Movie Stars

We're celebrating the 25th anniversary of "Truth or Dare" this week. Here's Jose having a brilliantly fun chat with its dancers who have an unofficial sequel, if you will, making the festival rounds...

Clockwise from top: Carlton, Madonna, Luis, Gabriel (RIP), Jose, Kevin, Oliver, and Salim (aka "Slam")

Jose here. I was four years old when Madonna went on her Blonde Ambition Tour, but I distinctly remember being hypnotized by the woman with the pointy bra on TV that was making the Pope very upset. Fast forward a couple of decades and not only am I a huge Madonna fan, but I’ve made more sense of that specific era in her career thanks to the revolutionary documentary Madonna: Truth or Dare. So I was thrilled when I found out Dutch filmmakers Ester Gould and Reijer Zwaan had made Strike a Pose, a documentary about the male dancers that were so prominently featured in the tour and the film. For Madonna fans, the names of Carlton Wilborn, Kevin Stea, Oliver S Crumes III, Salim "Slam" Gauwloos, Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza, Luis Xtravaganza Camacho and the late Gabriel Trupin (1969-1996), are akin to those of Christ’s disciples. Not only for the devotion that comes with fandom, but also because we have each developed our own mythologies about who these men were (they choreographed the “Vogue” video!)

Read the conversation after the jump...

Click to read more ...