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Entries in Michelle Pfeiffer (204)

Sunday
Apr292018

Infinity Tweet 

LOL 

That's definitely a print lesson lost in the age of online media. After the jump warrior unicorns, a Clouds of Sils Maria / superhero fantasy that made me laugh out loud, Janelle Monae and Tessa Thompson, and various bon mots from twitter in general and film fanaticism in particular... 

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Saturday
Apr212018

Jason Reitman & Diablo Cody, Round Three!

by Murtada

By now you’ve all heard about the post-screening Tribeca Film Festival panel that went around the world. The moderator at a Scarface 35th anniversary screening, asked Michelle Pfeiffer about her weight during filming.

As the father of a daughter, I'm concerned about body image. The preparation for this film — what did you weigh? 

The horror! The audience met the question with groans, and Pfeiffer handled it superbly, focusing on her work for the film.

I was at another Tribeca event happening at the same time. One that was markedly devoid of sexist questions and uncomfortable moments. In fact it was the opposite of that...

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Saturday
Mar312018

Pfandom: Scarface

P F A N D O M  
Michelle Pfeiffer Retrospective. Episode 9
by Nathaniel R 

Michelle Pfeiffer was not an overnight success, nor was Elvira Hancock in Scarface (1983), a true star-making role. That's hard to fathom now that the movie is so embedded in pop culture but the early fame attached to the movie was Pacino Ham and de Palma Excess specific. Pfeiffer's Movie Star Ascendance was four or five years away but with Scarface, The Actress inside her arrived...

So the natural place to focus is Elvira Hancock's own entrance. We first spot that gangster's moll when Tony (Al Pacino) does, turned away from us in a backless gown in the home of local crime boss Frank (Robert Loggia). She descends into the scene by elevator, like a trophy encased in glass. Her body language is all impatience though not in the practical sense or she might have glided down the stairs with more speed. The sleek teal gown is cut down to there in front, saving all its fabric for Pfeiffer's lower half.  It flows with her every shift in movement, dancing around her legs as if it's already at the club Elvira's so eager to get to...

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Monday
Mar262018

The Furniture: The Age of Innocence and the Living Museum

"The Furniture" honors the Production Design of The Age of Innocence (1993) for its 25th anniversary year. The Martin Scorsese classic is newly available from the Criterion Collection. (Click on the images to see them in magnified detail.)


by Daniel Walber

The final act of Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence leaps through time. The ever-roving camera comes to a temporary rest in the home of Newland Archer (Daniel Day-Lewis), married to May (Winona Ryder) and entering the longue durée of family life. But this relative physical stasis comes with the sudden acceleration of time. Scorsese and editor Thelma Schoonmaker fast-forward through years of business, leisure and child-raising. After nearly two hours of social whirlpools and lingering formalities, suddenly it’s a new century.

But despite the speed of this sequence, it’s important to pay close attention. On the wall of Newland’s family home rests one very famous painting. Somehow, through the magic of cinema alone, our hero has ended up with JMW Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire

 

It’s an icon for his last days, a masterpiece of a bygone era being towed away...

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Monday
Mar052018

Beauty vs Beast: Oscar's Best Bits

Jason from MNPP here, nursing my annual Oscars hangover but mostly feeling just fine about last night's winners. (The high I got off of James Ivory's Elio Shirt carried me through the whole show, honestly.) As far as a production the show had its highs (loved that cut quartz set) and its lows (really not feeling that war movie montage) but it's the two stand-out visual gags of the evening that will probably stand the test of time are the subjects of this week's "Beauty vs Beast" poll...

 

PREVIOUSLY We've got to give Jennifer Lawrence some credit because she actually held her own on The Film Experience against no less fierce an opponent than queen goddess mother Michelle Pfeiffer herself - Michelle still won last week's mother!-themed poll (of course) with 70% of the vote, but it would've been way worse for most mortals. Still, said Brad:

"Give me a movie where Michelle Pfeiffer taunts and tortures Jennifer Lawrence for six or more hours and I'll be happy forever."