Beauty vs Beast: A Better Pan

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast," pitting another dastardly villain against a doe-eyed do-gooder and asking you to choose. We've been anticipating Guillermo Del Toro's Crimson Peak for so very long that it feels crazy it's finally out this week; we're not alone - lean out your window and you can surely hear the Hiddleston fans squealing in the streets. So let's look back at Guillermo's last non-giant-robot non-comic-book-demon based entertainment, the roundly admired if not downright adored Pan's Labyrinth. Can you believe that film is over nine years old? Take a look at a picture of actress Ivana Baquero these days if you don't believe me. Speaking of...

PREVIOUSLY Last week was All About Winslet (not that every week isn't all about Winslet really) with her 40th birthday and the release of Steve Jobs (did you guys see it this weekend? Wasn't it awesome?), and so we faced her off with her foremost collaborator, Leo the second time around in Revolutionary Road. Y'all went with Kate, because of course you did, she's Kate. Said Bryan:

"I love both of them in this movie, but the close up of Kate smoking at the table after Michael Shannon's blow-up is actorly perfection. Maybe the most severe and intense she's ever been. I also love how she threatens to scream if he says another word... I wish more casting directors would take note of her ability at playing unpredictability / mental illness."

Top Ten: Horny For Horned Creatures

This top ten list is devoted to Madonna & her minotaurs since "Rebel Heart," the Queen of Pop's 13th studio album arrives in full this Friday.

The minotaurs in particular serve as horny inspiration for this week's top ten. What are the best horned villains, horned beauties or horny creatures from the movies? I was surprised to realize that we don't get that many. It was hard to find enough good characters. The movies haven't been big on the succubus, for example, as mythological fetishes go. TV has far more horned characters but that's thanks in most part to the demon happy and expansive Buffyverse. But we're talking movies. Sorry Hellmouth!

We'll make do with what we have. But please do shout out a favorite if you don't see it here. 

TOP TEN HORNED MOVIE CHARACTERS
after the jump...

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Top Ten: "They Are Groot" - Best Cinematic Trees

"Groot" a walking fighting talking (well, sort of) tree is easily the best character within the #1 movie in the world right now. I didn't like Guardians of the Galaxy but I loved Groot. So here's a top ten devoted to his fellow upright leafy green characters. Trees have often played key roles in dramas, fairytales, and horror alike whether as fantastical homes, formidable characters or mysterious passageways to adventure.

So herewith...

TOP TEN: BEST TREES IN MOVIES 

Honorable Mention: That tree Mowgli was hypnotized in in The Jungle Book, spooky 'Tree of the Dead' in Sleepy Hollow, the Christmas tree Gremlins wield like a weapon, the Swiss Family Robinson's main address, any tree that nimbly supports the weight of Crouching Tigers and Hidden Dragons on its delicate green branches, any tree that gives us opportunities to ogle various Tarzans or George of the Jungles from, uh, below (shush. You're no innocent of ogling!), or virtually any colorful tree in Disney's Alice In Wonderland but particularly the one she reads by and dozes on that dumps her into that trippy world of invisible cats, size-altering portions, and rodents having tea parties.

10  Holiday Trees in Nightmare Before Christmas (1993)
Located in The Hinterlands these seven trees lead you into your various Holiday towns. We only get to see Halloween Town and "what's this?" Christmas town. If only Jack Skellington could have tried them all out. Imagine him delivering Easter eggs or cupid's arrow. Imagine the production design and merchandising opportunities! For all I know these other worlds have already been exploited in bad straight to DVD follow ups but if so I am blissfully ignorant.

Nine more barking great characters / symbols after the jump...

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Curio: Clay Creations

Alexa here. With Frozen being the only thing on my young daughter's mind these days, I've been searching for some non-Disney-manufactured goodies to please her. (Yes, I'm stubborn that way. If we saw the film why not just buy the related merchandise, you ask? Because I'm a curmudgeon.) In my search for the perfect handmade Olaf I fell down an etsy rabbit hole of clay creations.

Some selections from my excursions...

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Oscar Horrors: Setting The Table for The Pale Man

Oscar Horrors continues with Michael on everyone's favorite Guillermo del Toro film

HERE LIES... Pan’s Labyrinth, winner of the 2006 Oscar for Best Art Direction.

I could go through Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth a scene at a time picking out all the brilliant little details that makes its imagery so indelible, but for this post, let’s limit our focus to the film’s most famous scene: The Pale Man. The monster that has a table full of delicious food but only feeds, to use del Toro’s words, “on the blood of the innocent.” There have been thousands of scenes where one form of monster or another stalks the story’s protagonist. It is one of the basic equations of the horror genre. So what do set decorator Pilar Revuelta and art director Eugenio Cabellero do with this one that shakes the viewer on such an elemental level? 

Of course it helps to start with one of the all time horrifying creatures in all of cinema. Del Toro instructed the team to imagine an old obese man who quickly lost a lot of weight, and when that proved insufficiently nightmare-inducing proceeded to erase the face of their designs.

But beyond the surface there are many elements to the scene most viewers will only register subconsciously. Like... 

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