October Highlights

October was busy busy busy with two festivals, the classic NYFF and the new Middleburg and our semi-annual Oscar Horrors (though a fourth season is somewhat unlikely given that we're running out of nominees outside of music and sound categories!). Here are 16 highlights from the spooky best-weather month in case you missed any of them. The fall is too too short, don't you agree?

8 Favorites
re: Isabelle Huppert's emails -Nick's scandalous discovery
Kiss Me Kate the peak of George Sidney's fluffy fun as a director? 
Loving those 20th Century Women a first impressions top ten 
Moonlight in Three Acts a tag team review 
Janis Joplin Biopics an incomplete history 
Judy & Liza "Together Wherever We Go" 
Oscar Horrors: Flatliners' Sound a confession of love for Schumacher 
Lion at Middleburg  a new festival, a winning film

8 Most Discussed
Viola Davis will be an Oscar record breaker in January
The Departed 10th Anniversary Oscar Look-back
Glenn Close is The Wife a new fim lined up
Pablo Larrain's Great Year Jackie and Neruda
Gwyneth Goes Grocery Shopping a photoshoot 
Michelle Williams Oscar Moment? Manchester by the Sea 
Oscar Horrors: The Sixth Sense Do you remember your first time? 
Posterized: Emily Blunt are you a fan?

Coming in November:
Jessica Chastain as Miss Sloane, the wonders of Lion and Arrival, Cape Fear's 25th Anniversary, Warren Beatty's Rules Don't Apply, The Honorary Oscars, Disney's Moana and a look back at our favorite film noirs. Any requests? 

Instagram Battles: Which Celebrity Gave Best Costume?

Which celebrity did it up right for Halloween? See all the pics after the jump...

Neil Patrick Harris, David Burtka and children as Hollywood icons?
Naomi Watts and kids as dead people?
Andres Velencoso and dog as A Clockwork Orange?
Kaitlyn Dever (Short Term 12) and friend as Holly Golightly & Eliza Dolittle?
Alan Cumming as monkey? 
Colton Haynes as Miss Piggy
Miguel Alan Silvestre (Sense 8) as Woody from Toy Story? 
Elle Fanning as a fairy princess? 
Chloe Bennett (Agents of SHIELD) as a pinata?
Katy Perry as Hillary Clinton?
Bridget Regan (Agent Carter) as All the Way Mae from A League of Their Own?
or Willam & Tom Daley as Miss Piggy & Kermit? 

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Oscar Horrors: Patty McCormack is "The Bad Seed"

Boo! It's the "Oscar Horrors" finale with abstew

With her blonde pigtails, pinafore dress, spotless Mary Janes, and armed with an elegant curtsy, little 8-year-old Rhoda Penmark is hardly the most intimidating figure. But beneath that childish visage lies the heart of a cold-blooded killer! One that shocked audiences in the 1950s. The Bad Seed preyed on the idea that evil wasn't some devil or mythical monster, but that it lived next door in the most unassuming of places. And worst of all, that evil was a hereditary trait that could be passed on, with no control over your assigned nature. The evil child has now become a staple of the horror genre, from the towheaded Children of the Corn to the twins from The Shining, but one of the first to make her mark (literally - watch out for those deadly shoes!) was bad seed, Rhoda Penmark, brought to life by Best Supporting Actress nominee, Patty McCormack.

I was about Rhoda's age when I first saw The Bad Seed at my friend Vicky's house...

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Beauty vs Beast: The Princesses of Borovnia

Jason from MNPP here -- with most holidays I think it would suck to share a birthday - who wants their birthday on Thanksgiving? Or even worse, Christmas? Everyone else getting presents on your day? What a nightmare. But Halloween is the exception - I would love my birthday to be on Halloween. Costume parties every year! A cake shaped like Frankenstein's head! Or even better - a cake shaped like the Bride of Frankenstein's head! (Because more cake.) 

And you wanna know who I bet has the best Halloween Birthday Parties? Peter Jackson, that's who. I bet he dresses up like the STD-riddled rabbit from Meet the Feebles or like the Mouth of Sauron every year. Damn you, Peter Jackson. 

Oh well - we'll go ahead and wish him a happy day today with this week's edition of "Beauty vs Beast" anyway, and since we're going to be seeing his 1994 masterpiece Heavenly Creatures on a big screen (with Film Experience fave Melanie Lynskey in person!) in just a couple of days thanks to the brand new Alamo Drafthouse in Brooklyn, we'll go with a show-down between teen dreamers Juliet (Kate Winslet) and Pauline (Lynskey). Good luck choosing with this Sophie's Choice, folks...

Instead of doing the usual "Previously On..." here (Eli won last week's Let the Right One In contest though) I want to keep aboard the Melanie Lynskey Express for a minute since we're here and she's wonderful and we all love her so - she's got a new movie coming out this weekend! It's called Rainbow Time and it stars Lynskey as a woman pulled into the weird relationship between two brothers (played by Timm Sharp and Linus Phillips) and the movie's really fine and funny and I highly recommend it. Watch the trailer now:

Happy Halloween, Everyone!

Happy Haloween. Please enjoy this Photo of Oscar nominee and birthday girl Sally Kirkland wearing a live tarantula Halloween isn't only for trick or treating and costume parties though it is most definitely for those things. It's also home to many fine birthdays and events on this day in showbiz history... 

1795 Poet John Keats is born. Two hundred and fourteen years later Ben Whishaw plays him beautifully in the still undervalued Jane Campion movie Bright Star
1864 Nevada becomes the 36th State. Without Nevada no Las Vegas, one of the favorite cities of filmmakers and storytellers. It is entirely untrue that what happens there stays there -- it's always broadcast!
1879 Oscar nominee Sara Allgood (How Green Was My Valley) is born in Dublin
1892 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle publishes the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Movies and TV haven't shut up about the Great Detective since they were invented as mediums. 
1906 George Bernard Shaw's Caesar & Cleopatra premieres on Broadway. 39 years and 11 months later the film version starring Vivien Leigh is released.
1922 Barbara Bell Geddes of Dallas and I Remember Mama fame is born in NYC
1925 Oscar winner Lee Grant (Shampoo) is born. Have you read her recent autobiography yet? 
1926 Harry Houdini dies

Mount Rushmore, River Phoenix and more after the jump...

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