Beauty Vs. Beast - Two Talented Misters

JA from MNPP here with this week's "Viva l'Italia!" edition of our Beauty Vs Beast series - buongiorno and welcome. First a note: I'm going to be out of town next week, so this week's poll will be open for two weeks until Monday April 7th. Where am I going to be, you ask? Well crazily enough I'm going to be in Italy, what a coincidence! (Obviously not a coincidence.)

I didn't choose this week's competition soley due to the fact that I'll be stomping the same grounds that these characters did - oh it didn't hurt, but I've also got The Talented Mr. Ripley on my mind due to the passing of the marvelous character actor James Rebhorn this weekend; he played Dickie's father, the jazz-hater who instigates the whole sordid affair. "I'd pay that fellow a hundred dollars right now to shut up."

That said The Talented Mr. Ripley is giving us exactly what this series was created for - you've got a sympathetic maniac and an unsympathetic victim to choose between, and the film does not make the picking easy. But I'm gonna make you pick anyway!

poll by twiigs.com

Again you've got two weeks, until Monday April 7th, to vote and to make your cases for which ever character you're rooting for in the comments, so have at it. Persuade me - I am actually undecided myself! This is a tough one.

PREVIOUSLY ON As for last week's competition pitting the boys of In Bruges against one another, the puppy-dog eyes plus and the guilty conscience were just too much to resist - Colin Farrell's Ray rode away with precisely 2/3rds of the vote, leaving Ralph Fiennes' Harry cursing (and cursing, and cursing, and cursing) in the dust. As Deborah put it:

"Harry was kind of playing Sexy Beast, whereas Ray was an original."

Beauty Vs Beast - The Boys of Bruges

JA from MNPP here with this week's sorta St. Paddys edition of our "Beauty Vs. Beast" series. I say "sorta" because several factors contributed to me wanting to do a face-off between who we're doing a face-off between, and the lusty leprechaun Colin Farrell making my eyes smile is probably the smallest factor on the list (though Colin being lusty is never negligible, of course).

The main factors were that five of the six pairings so far have been lady vs lady and, though I know we all love our ladies up in here it felt right to swing back to the different-chromosomed side of the fence this round; two, we were just ogling writer-director Martin McDonagh last week at our site; and three, I watched Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel this weekend, as I'm sure many of you did as well, and every time Ralph Fiennes lost his cool therein I couldn't help but think upon Harry.

It's an In Bruges-off, people.

poll by twiigs.com

Sometime before or after you vote and before or after you hit the comments to tell us why you voted the way you voted I would like you to take a moment to appreciate the fact that I made that list of Pros and Cons without using a swear-word once. It was a f**king task and a f**king half, people. Whoops.

PREVIOUSLY ON Last week's poll has closed, SlayerFest 2014 has come to an end, and which Chosen One is left standing victorious? Oh it's Buffy, Buffy Buffy Buffy, always Buffy. Every vampire in Sunnydale and beyond seemed to fall in love with the quippy Summers girl and we proved no different. S'cool, Faith doesn't need you people anyway. Said JS:

"I voted Buffy but most likely I was simply voting for Sarah Michelle Gellar, who gave an acting masterclass for seven years on that show. Faith is definitely the more interesting character, but Faith's best episode was performed by SMG."

We Can't Wait #2: The Grand Budapest Hotel

the brilliant new poster[Editor's Note: We Can't Wait is a Team Experience series, in which we highlight our top 14 most anticipated films of 2014. Here's Michael Cusumano on The Grand Budapest Hotel.)

The Grand Budapest Hotel
Ralph Fiennes plays Gustave H, romancer of wealthy old ladies and concierge extraordinaire at a hotel in a fictional European country caught between wars. Told through the eyes of Zero Moustafe, Gustave’s lobby boy protégée, the tale concerns the theft of priceless Renaissance painting and the battle for a tremendous family fortune.

Talent
Wes Anderson’s latest rivals Gosford Park for the sheer volume of the cast. There are the returning Anderson champs like Tilda Swinton, Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Willem Dafoe and the grand marshal of every Wes Anderson parade, Bill Murray, alongside newbies to Wes World like Fiennes, Saoirse Ronan and Léa Seydoux. Equally exciting is the reunion of Wes and Moonrise Kingdom production designer Adam Stockhausen. (The title Stockhausen squeezed in between Anderson films? A little project called 12 Years a Slave.)

 

Why We Can't Wait
Even if you’re an Wes Anderson agnostic up to this point I don’t know how anyone can resist the ornate visual splendor promised by this film. The trailer was so beautiful I was tempted to put it on my top 10 list for 2013.

Grand Budapest looks like a perfect culmination of Anderson’s career up to this point. Rather than reinventing himself, Wes appears to be trying to see how far he could push his signature style, a choice I’m entirely on board with. Grand Budapest has the potential to be the director’s most purely farcical film that doesn’t feature stop motion woodland creatures. Even operating at his most screwball, though, I would be surprised if Anderson omitted the melancholy soulfulness that has become his trademark.

On a non-Wes related note this looks like the most fun Ralph Fiennes has had on screen since In Bruges. Comedic Ralph is my favorite Ralph Fiennes and it comes along all too rarely.

But We Do Have To Wait
The early months of the year can be a dead zone for interesting film but at least we won’t have to wait long. Anderson’s latest will open Berlinale in February before hitting theaters on March 7.  

Previously
3 Foxcatcher 4 Under the Skin 5 Inherent Vice 6 Into the Woods
7 Snowpiercer 8 Nymphomaniac 9 Boyhood 10  Big Eyes 11 The Last 5 Years
12 Gone Girl 13  Can a Song Save Your Life 14  Veronica Mars 
runners up

Beauty Break: The Fiennes Profile

this photoshoot adorned many a wallRalph Fiennes's original heyday in the mid 90s pre-dated 99.9% of the online movie world we know today (including the existence of The Film Experience in any of its forms) so I've probably never revealed to you how hard I crushed in the 90s. We used to cut his pictures out of magazines to hang them on the wall. My best friend had an even bigger thing for him and thus a veritable shrine. We felt mutual guilt given that this started with, you know, Ammon Goeth. (Don't judge!)

I felt a tinge of that old eroticism again watching the Grand Budapest Hotel trailer last week ("I sleep with all my friends"... friends? what about your fans, Fiennes, your fans!?!). Now, Wes Anderson movies are not usually with the sexytime so I'm guessing Gustav's bedhopping exploits are strictly diegetic.

Those old tingly feelings returned the second he went into profile in the trailer. Oh god, that profile. 

Even when I crudely photoshop it, it's beautiful and timeless... or at least retro timeless like a daguerrotype boyfriend. I've always thought it was beyond perfect, the Most Handsomest and Profiliest Profile in The Movies. 

The English Patient understood that and constantly offered it up in both moving pictures and promotional stills.

And in some perverse way I think the Harry Potter franchise did too, desecrating and perverting its holy planes (sculpted by God himself) by removing the nose entirely.

What are some of your favorite movie profiles? 

Yes, No, Maybe So: Grand Budapest Hotel

Hospitality is all about speed, charm and mind-reading. Get them checked in, ingratiate yourself, anticipate their every need. Movies have to do that in reverse so the new poster (discussed) and the trailer have arrived to charm and anticipate our needs. Will you check into his GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL in Spring 2014? Let's check off our yes no maybe so boxes...

YES

• ohmygod the colorology! I'm in ♥ with all the reds and purples and whites on view here. Wes Anderson movies may all look exactly like Wes Anderson movies but they do change up the color palette, so points for that.
• And speaking of which... I really think costumers and production designers on his movies do not get enough credit. It's insane to me that Karen Patch, for example, wasn't Oscar nominated for her instantly iconic work on The Royal Tenenbaums. This time it's the legendary Milena Canonero (on her 3rd Anderson picture) and Adam Stockhausen (who graduated to Production Designer on Moonrise Kingdom), respectively.
• If Wes Anderson were a hotelier, I imagine he'd have to run a very small exclusive boutique, building the perfect meticulously designed dollhouse rooms for his devout fanbase and repertory actors to squeeze into. I would glady pay rack. 
• Ralph Fiennes as a ladykiller concierge named "Gustav H"
• Tilda as an unrecognizably old rich lady horny for him? 

NO

• Oh noooos. Tilda dies to kick off the plot? That's too little Tilda.
• ...Especially since the cast list is otherwise a total sausage party. 

MAYBE SO

• Why is this trailer square? Is Wes challenging himself with an old school aspect ratio? [update after writing: yep, apparently there are three aspect ratios here] I know people complain about his center framed horizontals but I LIKE horizontal, and love his unique aesthetic.
• Do you think this one will skew too forced whacky? (the roundelay of face-punching, the skiing) or too precious (the secret code, the name of the painting, the "lobby boy" cap)
• ...can a Wes Anderson movie even be too precious? Or, if so, should they all be animated like Fantastic Mr Fox?
• Moonrise Kingdom will be hard to top but he doesn't need to. Even his least satisfying movie (The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou) still has all sorts of corners and hallways and portholes to look into and at.

THE TRAILER

Are you a yes, no, or maybe so... and in what ways? Do tell.