YNMS: Mother!

Jason from MNPP here with our first look at the trailer for Darren Aronofsky's Mother!, or as it's known around these parts That New Michelle Pfeiffer Movie! The exclamation point in the actual title definitely stands for "That New Michelle Pfeiffer Movie!" at least. It's been seven full years since Black Swan came out (I am pretending Noah didn't happen at this point, but perhaps I'll reassess it in another decade) and this feels, at first glance, like similar territory for the director. Watch:

So Jennifer Lawrence is happily partnered with Javier Bardem until Ed Harris and Michelle show up, at which point the walls begin to crumble and swarms of looky-loos come hustling out of the forest? I mean isn't that what happens whenever Michelle shows up somewhere? Let's "Yes No Maybe So" this sucker (and watch me have trouble coming up with the latter two!) after the break...

Click to read more ...

mother! posters... who's next?

by Nathaniel R

Darren Aronofsky's mother! has now released two posters (which you can click to embiggen if you so desire). We already discussed JLaw's version (though they've changed the typeface) but now we have Bardem's. Once you start getting character posters you can usually assume more are on the way.  Since Lawrence's poster is earthy with the nature, and Javier Bardem's is fiery can we assume La Pfeiffer gets air or water?

Fair warning: if there is not a painted character poster for Michelle Pfeiffer, I'm going to burn Protozoa Pictures down.

(In related news I want to make out with whoever designed the new title font and I can't stop thinking about that teaser)

La Pfeiffer Gets Waspy

No, not WASPy though perhaps she is that, too. As you've undoubtedly heard by now -- especially if you eagerly listened to the latest podcast -- Michelle Pfeiffer will co-star with Michael Douglas in Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018). While Paul Rudd and Evangeline Lilly are playing the title characters, so are Douglas and Pfeiffer in a way since their characters Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne were the original heroes that went by those names. Douglas was introduced in the first movie if you'll recall and we were supposed to believe that Janet was dead.

Whether this means CGI-youngered flashbacks or merely exposition scenes with famous faces we won't know for some time but it's a nice treat for pfans and Pfeiffer's first superhero movie since her legendary work in Batman Returns (1992). If we have to hear about superhero movies every minute of every day now, it goes down so much easier if actresses we love are in the mix. See also Cate Blanchett being delicious in every single trailer released thus far from Thor: Ragnarok. 

So in case you've fallen behind on The RePfeiffal, here are your important dates to know

Photograph by Mikael Jansson for Interview Magazine, 2017

The RePfeiffal Calendar
Save the Dates

• July 29th, 2017 Our Pfeiffer series Pfandom returns after a long accidental hiatus. Catch up!
• Sept 15th, 2017 Darren Aronofsky Directs Michelle Pfeiffer opens in theaters (working title: mother!)
• Sept 17th, 2017 EMMY AWARDS. Michelle Pfeiffer and her husband David E Kelley are both nominated. (Wizard of Lies marks Pfeiffer's pfirst nomination. The script for Big Little Lies is Kelley's 29th nomination - 10 of which he won)
• November 10th, 2017 Murder on the Orient Express Starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Some Other People opens in theaters
• Jan 7th, 2018 GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS. Cross your fingers that she'll be nominated / attend whether due to her movies or to Wizard of Lies.
• April 29th, 2018 Pfeiffer's 60th birthday
• March 4th, 2018 THE OSCARS. Cross your fingers that she'll be nominated or presenting.
• July 6th, 2018 Ant-Man and the Wasp (feat. Pfeiffer) opens in theaters 

Still no word on a release for Where is Kyra? though.

Podcast: War for the Big Sick Planet of Baby Drivers

In this episode Nathaniel, Joe and Nick talk three new movies with our usual tangent of asides including Michelle Pfeiffer in Ant Man and the Wasp, Charlton Heston in Ben-Hur, and more...

Index (42 minutes)
00:01 National Critics Institute / Michelle Pfeiffer news
07:44 The Big Sick performances, and it's place within the Romantic Comedy ecosystem
19:00 Matt Reeves's War for the Planet of the Apes, Gary Oldman vs Woody Harrelson, prequel issues, and the original 1968 classic.
30:40 Edgar Wright and Baby Driver, plus Kevin Spacey's sexuality, and Jon Hamm as a movie actor

 You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Related Reading
Nathaniel's first restaurant review
Kevin Spacey as Gore Vidal
Emmy Drama Actress roundtable
Gay pornish Planet of the Apes gif

Baby Driver, Big Sick, Planet of Apes

The Link Where It Happens

Link love time.

• Vulture Michelle Pfeiffer's ten essential roles
• Prizeo Lin-Manuel Miranda offers up the chance to win VIP tickets and a meet and greet at the opening night of Hamilton in Los Angeles with a donation to "Immigrants Get the Job Done Coalition". (And FYI two former Tony nominees Joshua Henry as Aaron Burr and Rory O'Malley as King George are in the company) 
• Vanity Fair on how difficult it is to get a gay film made in today's Hollywood. The headline to this is a bit misleading since it's like "in a post-Moonlight world" but let's be reasonable. Moonlight only made its dent a handful of months back. So most of the films cited didn't have Moonlight to point to when seeking financing

• THR More dirt on what happened behind the scenes on the troubled Han Solo movie
• Nerdist Why Megara is the MVP of Disney's Hercules
• Playbill The glorious Audra McDonald finally makes her West End debut, no big deal after 6 Tony Awards, reprising her Tony winning / Emmy nominated  Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill Billie Holiday role
• Buzzfeed the hardest game of 'would you rather' with hot cartoon dudes. I don't know. Most of these were easy for me but your mileage may vary.
• Variety offers up a franchise report card on the various series that are taking up so much of Hollywood's time and capital. But shouldn't Bond and Tarzan have been included in this roundup?
• Decider lists the '20 best foreign films on Netflix'... though the list would have been more exciting had they editorialized rather than just pulling the RT scores to determine which 20 to feature
• MNPP pic of the day with Edgar Wright at a Baby Driver screening

Exit Video
Check out this glorious montage of NYC (hat tip to Gothamist) as seen through the movies.

New York in Cinema - Supercut from Sergio Rojo on Vimeo.

God, I love living here. And one of my fav things in movies is city street scenes where the main character is just part of a huge walking crowd (the most classic visual example being Tootsie I think). How many movies did you instantly recognize?