Beauty vs Beast: Sibling Rivalries & Sexual Reveries

Hello and happy Monday, everybody - Jason from MNPP here with another round of our "Beauty vs Beast" series! This week we're turning our eyes to the 20th anniversary of Don Roos' The Opposite of Sex, which is tomorrow. The film came out on May 22nd 1998, and all good gays (and gay-adjacents) have been quoting Christina Ricci's surly sexpot DeDee and Lisa Kudrow's snide spinster Lucia ever since. But what if I told you you had to choose??? That's not a hypothetical - I am actually asking you to choose. Right now!

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PREVIOUSLY She might not have taken an Oscar earlier this year but Saoirse Ronan can comfort herself that she's now won one of these polls, I guess - her Hanna trounced Cate Blanchett with 70% of your vote. Said Lady Edith:

"Joe Wright gave Saoirse her start and then handed her Hanna which solidified her amazing talents. We get to see the whole range of emotions from her. No disrespect to Cate but I want Saoirse to win this and trounce her evil Mom."

Beauty vs Beast: Bad Girls

Jason from MNPP here with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" which is tackling the 49th birthday of one of modern cinema's more obscure and under-rewarded actresses, maybe you've heard her name in passing -- a Cate Blanchett? If you have you're one of the lucky few in the know! Okay okay so she's currently swanning around southern France in millions of dollars in fabrics being the grande dame of the movies, so you probably have.

But this week's competition is facing her down with a real buried gem, somebody only the mosy diligent of cineastes has heard of and whose film adaptation of a serious difficult piece of theater just hit theaters this past weekend... a Saoirse Ronan? Rack your brains, maybe that name sounds familiar. Anyway in 2011 these two forces of nature faced down in Joe Wright's (still under-appreciated if you ask me) film Hanna, and here we are...

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PREVIOUSLY Last week also tackled a bad mother figure situation with the monsters of the Alien franchise and I think since it was Mother's Day you made the right choice, giving Mama Queen Alien Bitch 70% of the vote. Said AmandaBuffamonteezi:

"No better time to say YAAAASSSS KWEEEENNNN!!!!!"

Review: "The Seagull"

by Jason Adams

Nina (Saoirse Ronan) is sweetly exasperated by Konstantin (Billy Howle), whose avant-garde play she has just acted (and flopped) in for a small crowd of friends and relations. "Nothing happens in your play," she says. "It's all people talking. You ought to add a love story."

Anton Chekov, who wrote the maybe-you've-heard-of-it 1895 play The Seagull upon which this movie is based, was of course making a joke at his own expense --The Seagull is really nothing but talk and love stories. Half a dozen love stories are all twisted up, a gordian knot of romantic entanglements...

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Saoirse Ronan Living Her Best Life

Saoirse Ronan went to Magic Mike Live! in Las Vegas for its one year anniversary! We hope it was a belated birthday trip for her 24th, too. (The photo is from the Instagram account of Ryan Carlson who is one of the 13 dancers in the show.)

April Foolish Predictions: Best Actress !

by Nathaniel R

 

Yes, we (currently) think Glenn Close will win the next Best Actress Oscar. Yes, there are multiple reasons why that might not happen but for now we're predicting that it shall. At long last! A number of elements are there to help make that happen on paper, including (and this is no small detail) a fine role that doubles as a nifty meta commentary about Glenn Close's own Oscar history (and more largely the plight of accomplished aging women who gone unrecognized whiles others are fêted). There are things that could derail this prediction of course: an undeniable event performance (think a Monster or a Blue Jasmine  though those never make themselves clear until a film is screened) or considerable career momentum (Saoirse Ronan?) or 'welcome to the big leagues' fever since Oscar loves a young leading lady (Kiki Layne?). But those are what-if scenarios just like Close winning. 

Even if you take Glenn Close as a done deal for a nomination --  which of course you shouldn't since it's nothing is certain this early on -- it still looks like a good year for leading women nonetheless. 

Eight questions to consider for the comments after the jump...

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