Yes, No, Maybe So? "Malavita"... Which is Now "The Family"

It's not every month, hell, it's not every year when we get the trailer to a new Michelle Pfeiffer movie so naturally we have to talk about Malavita again. Or, I guess, The Family as it's been rechristened before release. It's always a pity when a movie ditches a really specific title for one that could work for thousands of movies and thus stakes no claim on personality whatsoever.

Perhaps the trailer itself has personality. Let's watch and discuss.

[watches]

Okay. Only watch that if you're the kind of person who doesn't care about spoilers. IF you are this kind of person i envy you because the movie studios don't care about them either - they love shovin' them into trailers. I get the sense you're basically seeing the whole movie here.  But we gotta break it down anyway as we do because...

LA PFEIFFER IS BACK

YES

• Michelle Pfeiffer saying "merci"
• This might be funny. It's kinda tough to tell in the trailer because so much of comedy depends on good editing and trailers never have a sense of that since they're cutting entirely different scenes and dialogue together for their specific 2 minute effect
• The return of Michelle Pfeiffer's Married to the Mob accent "we're not in Brooklyn anymore"
• Michelle Pfeiffer driving that car with those sunglasses
• Tommy Lee Jones has been on a real roll lately. Does this end the party or continue it?
• and Michelle Pfeiffer as fire starter. Bring it bitch. 

NO

• After Silver Linings Playbook, I'd like to believe that Robert DeNiro is back to acting rather than cashing in but a mob comedy is probably not the place to believe that.
• Whenever trailers show this much of the wink-wink laughs and action, I worry about "those are all the best parts" and there's a lot of ways in which this might be super offensive (xenophobia, "hurting people is hilarious!" immaturity and so on) rather than funny. 

MAYBE SO

 

• Luc Besson, in the director's seat, isn't totally reliable.
• The casting of the kids looks great visually but Dianna Agron coasts a lot on her looks and when you're playing Pfeiffer's daughter... well, she better take it up a notch. Pfeiffer never did that and good lord she could have coasted for decades with the ones she got.
• Also: Can you believe my restraint that I only used one photo of Pfeiffer to illustrate this?

Here's the trailer if you don't mind spoilers.

Are you a Yes, No or Maybe So?

Meow. It's Michelle Pfeiffer's Birthday!

To celebrate the 55th birthday of the one and only I thought we'd resurrect an old post about her Catwoman performance. If she's got nine lives so should this post. Please to enjoy...

Tim Burton's Batman Returns, the best Batman film (you heard me... throw down!) is now 15 21 years old and still one of the best comic book films. The movie didn't change cinema or its genre or significantly alter any careers. But it did send yours truly and millions of other Pfeiffer inclined moviegoers into a pfrenzy, arguably marking the apex of La Pfeiffer's cinematic reign. She was still in Oscar chasing mode (Love Field) and the full fledged move from heavy dramatic lifting into light mainstream fare (One Fine Day) and then blink and you'll miss her erratic appearances (Dark Shadows) was years away.

Ten Best Catwoman Line Deliveries
All the dialogue rocks but these are my favorite Pfeifferian readings

10 "Life's a bitch. Now, so am I"
Blockbusters love to shove quips on the public, in the hopes of catchphrase afterlife. This one’s pretty basic but Michelle sells it with true believer zeal.

9 more purring quips after the jump

Click to read more ...

Top Ten: Non-Nominated Best Supporting Actresses, 1980s Division

Whew. That title is a mouthful. I know you already know what I mean though, you golden fiends. This very impromptu post is brought to you by a recent Tribeca revival screening of Martin Scorsese's indelible King of Comedy (1983) and this Movie Line interview with Sandra Bernhard herself -- to whom I'm dedicating the list -- who couldn't make it but definitely helped make the movie what it is. My one and only back and forth conversation with Sandra -- over Twitter, the sometimes leveler -- involved how freaking robbed she was for an Oscar nomination for that movie. I couldn't believe I was talking to her but I was not the least bit in doubt that she'd agree with me.

10 Best Non-Nominated Supporting Actress Performances of the 1980s

Honorable Mentions: I think Rosanna Arquette's "Surrender Dorothy" bit in After Hours was quite memorable though the rest of the movie has long since faded; I cherish Martha Plimpton in just about anything but mostly Shy People (1987) and Running on Empty (1988) back in her vibrant teenage River Phoenix-adjacent days.

I Apologize To: Kathy Baker in Street Smart, Mona Washbourne in Stevie (1981), Vanessa Redgrave in Prick up Your Ears and Jamie Lee Curtis in Trading Places who all won devoted fans for those performances in their respective years (and some awards buzz though not enough for Oscar) but, believe it or not, I haven't seen any of those movies!

10 Bridget Fonda, Scandal (1989)
and nine more divas after the jump...

Click to read more ...

"VIRGIN ALERT! VIRGIN ALERT!"

All male periscopes down!"

Great Moments in Screen Bitchery #2,029

"Mean girls" have been around forever in High School Movies and then they weren't always the villains -- take Grease 2 for an example. The Pink Ladies are such bitches!

Complete the Sentence...

Michelle Pfeiffer stars in "Malavita" opening October 2013

"While Michelle Pfeiffer is at the grocery store I hope she picks up some  _______________ because ____________."