Beauty vs Beast: Black Boys Looking Blue

Jason from MNPP here, still a little stuffed with turkey but ready for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" poll nonetheless - Barry Jenkins' fine new film If Beale Street Could Talk is hitting screens in a couple of weeks, and so we turn our eyes upon 2016's most deserving Best Picture Winner Moonlight to prepare. It seems likely that the film's Best Supporting Actor winner Mahershala Ali will at least be nominated again this year, if not win, for his best-in-show work in Green Book, which I have few qualms with. But it does remind that I never understood why Naomie Harris' work in Moonlight went unrecognized at the Oscars, as she was best in that show for me. Granted her character is much more difficult to root for than Ali's conflicted dealer is...

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PREVIOUSLY Before the holiday we had ourselves a Fassy-Off, facing down two of Michael Fassbender's best perfomances for director Steve McQueen, and I guess TFE loves itself a sex addict because Shame's Brandon swung himself three-quarters of your vote. Said Sarah:

"I love both of these performances but I went with Hunger in the poll mostly because of the "foal" speech he gives which I love but Shame is a real powerhouse performance. It's a shame (heh) how people were so preoccupied with the full frontal that they don't give the performance (and the film and Mulligan) the credit it deserves."

Beauty vs Beast: And Then There Was Fassbender

Jason Adams from MNPP here for a new week's round of our "Beauty vs Beast" poll, wherein we ask you to choose between a "good" guy and a "bad" guy and roll and around and muck up the in between what that means. One of our modern masters in mucking up that in between has a new movie out this weekend - Steve McQueen returns with Widows, out on Friday. If you'd like my long-form thoughts on it here's my review from last week, but if you just want short-form, here: it's great! Go see it!

I will say there's one thing I was disappointed by with Widows though, and that's the absence of McQueen's lucky charm Michael Fassbender, who'd starred in every one of his movies before now. And that's where we turn for this week's contest. (I'm worried about Fassbender in general, who's all but disappeared from acting since The Snowman soiled our cinemas last year - come back, Fassy!)

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PREVIOUSLY Although we should be celebrating Parker Posey every day we really celebrated the heck out of her last week for her 50th birthday - for our poll it was her incest-minded Bouvier twist who took top honors, swallowing up 64% of the vote along with all that scenery. Said James From Ames:

"Jackie O left me awestruck. It’s such a star-making role and performance that it’s almost painful to think on, given that Hollywood never capitalized on this huge talent. My cousin, 10 years younger than me, was obsessed with the real Jackie O and wore that pink suit for Halloween. She didn’t like my suggestion to add brains to the look, and I found out she had never heard of this great film!"

Soundtracking: "Shame"

by Chris Feil

There is reinvention of a golden standard and then there is what Shame does with “New York, New York”. Carey Mulligan’s Sissy interrupts the life her sex addict brother Brandon, played by Michael Fassbender, initiating his decent into rock bottom. But when he goes to see her perform in some anonymously upscale bar, her rendition of Frank Sinatra’s musical calling card similarly halts the film’s syncopated rhythms. Sparsely orchestrated, Sissy goes off-melody and off-tradition, singing an unexpectedly fragile version that McQueen uses to link the emotional brokenness between siblings. Decidedly not the triumph we are used to hearing in a Sinatra horn section...

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Remember When...

...Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender did that incredibly steamy photoshoot together? It popped into my head for some reason today and I'm not mad about it.