Wookie Wookie Wook-Ahhh!

Have you ever seen the notorious disaster, the Star Wars Holiday Special? George Lucas doesn't make it easy -- you have to be a hacker like the little girl in Jurassic Park in order to get your greedy paws upon it -- but it's possible. I personally had only seen clips -- mostly because I didn't care that much, as Star Wars has only been a thing I've liked fine enough but never been in love with. But I finally sat down and watched it start to finish last week after watching the doc A Disturbance in the Force: How the Star Wars Holiday Special Happened, which is about... well, the title says what it is about. Anyway that doc screened at the Fantasia Film Fest and I reviewed it right here for Mashable. And then I sat down and watched the Holiday Special and... wow. It's indeed a lot. But unlike half of the Star Wars things I have seen, my life felt noticeably richer for having experienced it. Bea Arthur sings with a rat-puppet from Food of the Gods, y'all! Just knowing that makes me stand taller.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982)

Miss Mona: Well I always just thought if you see 

somebody without a smile, give 'em yours!

When I say "Happy birthday!" to Miss Dolly Parton I want you to know that if I could scream that "Happy birthday!" so loud it obliterated the solar system it still wouldn't be an ounce of "Happy birthday!" enough. If she wasn't before -- and you couldn't made the case and I'd have bought your case -- now that Betty White has passed on I think Dolly's the official Most Beloved Celebrity in the World? I always hesitate to make proclamations like that because I grew up around and among extremely close-minded Christian-types who would look down on Dolly for her tarted-up look with the cleavage and make-up and you know, the everything. But the same went for Betty White -- these people definitely looked down on The Golden Girls too. So fuck those people. Dolly is the queen of the world!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Advise & Consent (1962)

Fred Van Ackerman: Mr. President, 

is the Senator calling me a liar?

Senator Bessie Adams: The record must stand as it is,

Mr. President. How the Senator interprets that

record is his own problem, not mine.

I have never seen Otto Preminger's Advise & Consent but glancing at its plot description on IMDb it feels pretty damn timely here today given our current political climate:

"Senate investigation into the President's newly nominated Secretary of State, gives light to a secret from the past, which may not only ruin the candidate, but the President's character as well."

Anyway politics and prescience aside this was the very first film that the legend Betty White, who is turning 97 golden years old today, ever acted in, although she'd done some TV before this... and, you know, she did some TV after this too. Some! I don't have any idea how large her role is then, not having seen it, but I'm sad out of the fifty names on the film's DVD cover they couldn't squeeze her in. Thanks goodness they found room for "George Grizzard" though... (that was sarcasm, what the fuck is a George Grizzard anyway)... (cut to someone yelling at me for my lack of George Grizzard knowledge)... Happy birthday, National Treasure Betty White! Here's to 97 more!

Today's Secret Word is... Funko

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Ahhhhh!!! Funko is doing a line of Pee-wee's Playhouse figures! They're out at the end of May. To be honest I'm not huge on loving Funko unless they do something different than the Big Head Cow Eyes design they're known for; I only have one of those sorts of figures (the stag-man from Hannibal cuz come on). But I do tend to love their little figures, like the ones they did for The Golden Girls and Twin Peaks...

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OH MY BOB I didn't realize that Funko's TWIN PEAKS figures were on sale already YOU WILL BE MINEEEEE https://t.co/CCvhAJgGcg #TwinPeaks pic.twitter.com/a6AsPBvuzf

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 4, 2017

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That said they're different enough that
I'm very into the Chairry & Pterri figures...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Lake Placid (1999)

Mrs. Bickerman: I'm rooting for the crocodile. I hope he swallows your friends whole. You might want to arrest me for that too. Is that a crime? To wish the chewing of law enforcement? 

I suppose they knew when they made Lake Placid that it will forever be remembered because it's the movie where Betty White feeds a cow to a giant crocodile, but it's still the movie where Betty White feeds a cow to a giant crocodile and so I don't feel ill will towards it for being so blatantly manipulative. Betty White feeding a cow to a giant crocodile exists! Hallelujah, the invention of movies worked! 

Anyway to say one wishes Betty White merely a "happy" 95th birthday is kind of like feeding a cow to a giant crocodile -- you unhinge your jaw as far as you can but the enormity of it just won't fit. Just keep on being Betty, you glorious Betty, and we'll be glad.

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Summer Fun is Here To Stay

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I think I've probably posted these photos from Ye Olde Entertainmente Weekley about a dozen times by now, but I sure haven't gotten tired of looking at 'em and I assume you ain't neither. (Double negatives don't make nothing truer.) Anyway it turns out I've got an extra bonus day of vacation this holiday weekend after all, so we won't be here to soothe your boredom again until Tuesday, meaning this is my way of wishing you a Happy Memorial Day. It was either this or post pictures of Betty White eating hot dogs and... well I'm not sure I made the right choice, honestly. But it will have to do. Have a great weekend, people.

I Am Link

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--- Today's Must Read - The only thing more comforting than coming home after a long week and putting my feet up and watching Female Trouble is coming home after a long week and putting my feet up and watching several episodes of The Golden Girls, and tonight has comfort coming because I just whizzed through Frontier's great big Oral History of the show, wherein they interviewed several writers and producers of the classic sitcom, and my nostalgia for all things Sicily Slash St. Olaf is off the charts.

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--- Today's Second Must Read - Friend of MNPP Matthew Eng wrote up a glorious ode to the wonders of Kristen Wiig for Tribeca Film that is very long (I only say that so you're prepared) and worth every single word. I still sting when I think of the fact that I have still so far missed her work in Zoolander 2; I am dying to watch the silly nonsense she came up with in that movie, even if the rest looks played the eff out.

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--- Here's To Your Fuck Frank - This year marks the 30th anniversary of David Lynch's masterpiece Blue Velvet, and I guess it's gotten a total restoration, which will be playing here in NYC at Film Forum at the end of this month! You can watch the trailer on their website; meanwhile The Playlist shares that attractive poster you see to the right there. I love Film Forum for hosting things like this, I really do, so don't take me as ungrateful, but god I wish they had a better actual screen on which to watch such things. I want to watch Blue Velvet on the Ziegfeld's screen dammit.

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--- South Korean Superstars - Well this is helpful of them - Variety rounds up what South Korea's three geniuses are lining up next, after coming to America and, uh, now returning back home: Oldboy and Stoker helmer Park Chan-wook's got The Handmaiden, his adaptation of the "lesbian crime novel" called Fingersmith (we previously posted on that here) -- speaking of, Amazon just bought the US rights to that movie. I think we might see it this year? Then there's Snowpiercer director Bong Joon-ho who has got Okja, that monster movie with Tilda Swinton and Jake Gyllenhaal we told you about here. That should film this year. And then there's Kim Ji-woon, the director of the phenomenal I Saw the Devil, who's re-teaming with his usual actor Song Kang-ho on Secret Agent, a noir thriller, which should also film in 2016.

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--- Kanye's Got No Dignity - You will probably never ever see me linking to a story about Kanye West again, but I couldn't really resist this one - he recently tweeted out a screengrab of his computer screen showing that he is planning on sampling a Sufjan Stevens song! (He got in a bunch of trouble because he was torrenting it, ha.) Anyway it's a wonderful song of Sufjan's - the one called "Death With Dignity" off of his latest album slash masterpiece Carrie & Lowell. Kanye, having recently lost his own mother, probably feels a kinship with C&L, which is about Sufjan's own mother's recent death. Anyway it's a shame Kanye's such a shithead; he can sometimes show good taste.
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--- Shooting The Future - This news is about a week old but it's been shamefully long since I've done one of these link round-ups so I am behind - Sam Raimi is turning George Friedman's non-fiction hypothetical book The Next 100 Years, which tries to guess what will happen here on Earth politically, economically, so on and so forth, over the next century, into a movie called World War 3... so I am guessing that Mr. Friedman has some dire prognostications? Just guessing. Anybody read the book? No word on if Raimi's making this or his remake of A Prophet first.

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--- And Speaking of week old stories about big time directors adapting books I haven't read, Steven Spielberg has cast the leading man (uh boy?) for Ready Player One, his adaptation of the book by Ernie Cline, and it is Tye Sheridan, adorkable Tye Sheridan. RPO is about a teenager who has to navigate a treasure hunt inside a virtual reality world. The film had already cast the great Ben Mendelsohn. And I ask again: anybody read this book?

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--- Farewell Farrell - Since I saw Dogtooth director Yorgos Lanthimos' latest deranged delight The Lobster (starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz) last fall (here's my review) I will probably always consider it a 2015 film, and I keep forgetting it hasn't even come out here in the US yet! And now all y'all have got longer to wait -- for some unexplained reason the studio A24 just delayed its release to times unknown, even though it was supposed to come out in just one week. (thanks Mac) I'll make sure to keep track of it though since I am dying to see it again myself. Anyway at least I have Olivia Colman (who gives a terrific performance in The Lobster) giving a fascinating, weirdly funny performance on The Night Manager (which I am totally digging) right now to keep me warm...

Look At This Spectacular Spectacular Thing!

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Ahhhh they have finally made the Golden Girls Bible! Now we can worship the real and true gods appropriately. Golden Girls Forever: An Unauthorized Look Behind the Lanai is out in April and it's nearly 400 pages of pictures, interviews, trivia -- everything multiplied by everything! Note to everyone I know: expect this for your birthday, your anniversary, your Christmas and/or Hanukkah, and then expect it for every one after that for the rest of your life. By the time I'm don you'll be able to build a life-size lanai of your own out of all the copies of this book!
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13 Phones of Halloween #5

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Today's episode of the "13 Phones of Halloween" is like one of those clips shows they did all the time on The Golden Girls. Picture it: Miami, 1987, we're all sitting around the table in the kitchen eating cheesecake. (I find it tremendously easy to picture this.) Here at MNPP I've done three Thursday's Ways To To Die previously that involved phones. Here are those three.

Reach Out & Throttle Someone -- A look at PJ Soles infamously chesty strangling scene in John Carpenter's Halloween (hey we were just talking about this scene yesterday too!)

Fashion Faux-Pwned -- It takes all the way to the end of John Waters' Serial Mom for Patty Hearst to finally get her white-after-Labor-Day comeuppance, but Beverly Sutphin never forgets

Phone Shark -- This scene from Le Magnifique's opening credits remains one of the most delightfully bat-shit kills we've showcased; come for the shooting a shark in the face...
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... and stay for the half-naked Jean-Paul Belmondo.

Who Wore It Best?

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poll by twiigs.com

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Prince of Persia was on some channel last night and I watched about half an hour of it for the first time since it was in theaters and besides realizing that my semi-scathing review probably wasn't scathing enough (god it's terrible) I also noticed that save all his heaving cleavage (thank goodness) his outfit is strikingly similar to something Bea Arthur would've worn on The Golden Girls. Zbornak style icon!

Greatest Thing Ever of the Day

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(via) Oh my god have you guys seen this Golden Girls dollhouse that was for sale on Etsy? AMAZING. Mass produce this thing and become a millionaire, for real. You can see more pictures of it at the link. I want one!

I Am Link

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--- Jolly Green Kate - I totally forgot that Lost's Evangaline Lilly was going to be in one of the Hobbit movies as an elf, but good god that's good casting. She is one elfin lady. That right there (via) is the first picture of her. She says her character has "a significant relationship with Legolas (Orlando Bloom)" but she won't say what sort of relationship. They're gonna fuck on a dragon, aren't they?

--- Lil Cabin - I'll always link over to a new-to-me behind-the-scenes picture from Sam Raimi's original Evil Dead, even if it's not the most exciting thing ever. It's The Evil Dead! it wins everything.

--- Never World - BD has a few new pictures from Insidious Chapter 2 up, including several looks into that netherworld called The Further where people wear lots of Ghost Make-up from discount stores and stand around in clouds of dry ice. 

--- Rock It Man -  HBO is teaming up with Martin Scorsese again, with Mick Jagger along for the ride, to make a series about the rock business in the 1970s, and it looks like Boardwalk Empire's Bobby Cannavale will star in it, probably.

--- Strumpets United - I almost went and saw the Bette Davis movie Jezebel when it screened at MoMA over the weekend; I've only seen pieces of it (I know) and my boyfriend loves it (big Bette fan, that one), but time slipped away. Glenn went and saw it though and wrote up some thoughts at Stale Popcorn, and things get positively Golden-Girls-a-licious up in there.

--- Bunny Nightmares - Also over at Stale Popcorn Glenn takes a look at the trailer for The Anna Nicole Story, the Lifetime Network movie biopic of the ill-fated reality-star Playboy bunny, which if you can believe it was directed by Mary Harron, the seriously talented auteur behind American Psycho and The Notorious Bettie Page. I haven't even been able to bring myself to watch the trailer. I am hoping against hope that Harron manages to sneak a good movie out of this, somehow.

--- Trauma Gold - Steven Spieberg and Daniel Day-Lewis might be reuniting for a movie about Iraq War veterans and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I smell Oscar number four! Spielberg's making that sniper movie with Bradley Cooper first though.

--- After After Earth - Over at The Film Experience Tim has been taking a look at What Happened To M Night Shyamalan (and Will Smith, as well) through the lens of this past weekend's epic flop After Earth. Here's Tim looking at it just before it opened amid all the bad reviews, and here's him taking on the aftermath. I am so happy this movie cratered, you guys - it restores my faith in humanity a smidge. 

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Which Is Hotter?

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George Clooney as "George" on The Facts of Life

or as "Booker Brooks" on Roseanne (right)?

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poll by twiigs.com

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If you answered C) Bobby Hopkins on The Golden Girls, 

you win. Happy 52, George!

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We Finally Have Shirtless Sufjan

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He posted these pictures on his Tumblr last week. He was in Miami, living it up. Oh and for good measure he also posted a picture of an attractive shirtless gentleman there with him, with a link to a scene from The Golden Girls, because he apparently wants to drive me absolutely crazy. I'm seeing him with friends in Brooklyn tonight! Super thrilled!

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Who Wore It Best?

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poll by twiigs.com

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Happy Thanksgiving!

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Quote of the Dead

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I've been watching The Walking Dead on Monday nights so I'm always a day behind. What have we been thinking of the show? I heard the ratings have been getting stronger and stronger as the season goes along. I'm about 50/50 on it and instead of spending my time saying why I'll just direct you to my friend Sean's thought upon this week's episode which elucidates my feelings precisely. I nodded my head in vehement agreement and then LOL'd at this bit, talking about how he wishes the show threw more curve-balls:

"Of course Daryl’s the guy who says “I say we kill him now and shoot the dead girl in the head while we’re at it.” Of course the abused wife can’t stop once she starts hitting her dead husband in the head with a pick-axe. Of course we have someone who can’t let go of their dead loved one (cf. Romero’s Dawn of the Dead) and someone else whose inevitable death we have to deal with sooner or later while debating whether we do things like that or not (cf. Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead). Of course the CDC couldn’t stop it, there’s only one guy left there, he’s breaking down, and the grounds are littered with dead soldiers. I mean, I read The Stand too. And of course when the door finally opens up, everyone’s silhouetted in enough white light to recreate that Golden Girls episode where Sophia goes to Heaven but Sal tells her it’s not her time."

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I Love That Someone Else's First Thought...

... when they heard of Leslie Nielson's death
was of his work on The Golden Girls, too:
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Although I thought of the scene with him
and Dorothy at the lobster shack myself.

RIP Leslie. I was a huge huge fan of Police Squad when I was a kid but I haven't seen the show in years and years. I adored the Naked Gun movies, and Airplane of course too. And then of course there's his classic freak-out in Creepshow...

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I Am Link

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--- News of the Day - Dude! This story is kicking my ass. Via THR:

"Joe Dante, Xavier Gens Join Horror Omnibus 'Paris I'll Kill You'

Genre masters Joe Dante (Gremlins), Paco Plaza ([REC]) Vincenzo Natali (Splice), Xavier Gens (Hitman) and Ryuhei Kitamura (The Midnight Meat Train) have signed up to direct segments of new horror omnibus feature Paris I'll Kill You, which Instinctive Film and Reverence are producing.

Brit director Christopher Smith (Creep), French duo Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo (A L'Interieur) and German music video director Joern Heitmann will also helm segments of Paris IKU, described as a look at the seedy underbelly of the city of love."

First off, that title. Blam, awesome. Secondly, that list of directors? Double blam, in the face, fully loaded. Still, if somebody isn't stabbed to death with an Eiffel Tower figurine I'm screaming, "Opportunity missed!"

--- Three Sides - Speaking of Christopher Smith, I apparently never got around to reviewing his terrific movie Triangle myself when I saw it ages ago but I agree with everything Glenn says about it in his loving review at Stale Popcorn. As an aside for New Yorkers: Triangle's playing a couple times this weekend at that horror film fest I told y'all about last week, so you can see it on a big screen if you want to. It's worth seeking out whatever way you can get your hands on it, for sure. It's clever.

--- Lady Caves - Michael C.'s piece at The Film Experience on the production design for Neil Marshall's already-a-classic-horror-film The Descent was mind-opening on a couple of levels, not the leats of which it points out that there's not a single real cave in the film, they're all sets, and somehow I never even thought about that. That's some magnificent movie magic, y'all.

--- Dahl Spooks Etc. - After reading that you should head over to Michael C.'s own site Serious Film where he wrote up some more thoughts on that film and four other movies with overlooked scenes of horror for this weekend's impending holiday. I really do need to give The Host another try at some point, I realize this, but I still consider it sloppy and underwhelming. Anyway The Witches yay!

--- Snow Bitch - Beautiful and uber-talented and MNPP fave Charlize Theron was gonna play the lead in The Tourist until Angelina Jolie snatched it up. Now Charlize Theron in maybe gonna play Snow White in that movie with Tom Hardy as The Huntsman aka The Sexy Beefy Heart-lipped Hunstman With A Hot Accent. Charlize and Tom were set to star in Mad Max 4 but that's been delayed a year so they might spend the time fighting witches. Hey Angelina should play the Evil Queen!

--- Salander in Space - Noomi Rapace is seriously for real the front-runner for Ridley Scott's Alien prequel, you guys. They're not just making this up!

--- The Back Way - Slash has the poster for Peter Weir's The Way Back but it stinks so don't bother clicking over. Don't do it, I said! Damn you.

--- Fraida No Ghosts - The dude who made the remake of Wes Craven's Last House on the Left better than it had any right to be is making a movie called The Demonologists next, about ghost hunters that get in over their heads with demons. Basically the story of every ghost movie ever made. But he's a decent dirctor, so we'll see.

--- Reason #5,025 - Why Betty White is awesome:

“I don’t care who anybody sleeps with. If a couple has been together all that time - and there are gay relationships that are more solid than some heterosexual ones - I think it’s fine if they want to get married. I don’t know how people can get so anti-something. Mind your own business, take care of your affairs, and don’t worry about other people so much.”

--- Ring Fog Rosemary - I can't believe SHOCKTOBER! is so close to the end, but Stacie's gotten the list down to 21 by now and perhaps it'll make it even further later today! Reading through the choices at this point is like a fist the size of a large fist filled with lots of awesome punching you in the face until you're blind. It's just like that. Times a billion!
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A New Middle Earth

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Because of union troubles, Peter Jackson is threatening to ship the Hobbit shoot out of adopted Middle Earth itself, New Zealand, and find some place new to shoot. He's saying perhaps Eastern Europe... but I've got a couple better suggestions.

What about Vegas? Can't you just picture Smaug's giant casino now? And I think Elizabeth Berkley would be perfect for Thorin Oakenshield. My other suggestion is Miami, specifically the Golden Girls house. Thank you for being a friend, band of twelve dwarves!

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poll by twiigs.com

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Nobody Puts Ryan Reynolds In A Box

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Didja y'all hear that Boxing Helena 2 is out this weekend? I really didn't think that 1993 flop would ever get a sequel, but I guess once Ryan Reynolds signed on the studios just couldn't get enough of the idea. Julian Sands is a little old for him I think but hey, whatever gets you off, man.

I wrote about that and other movies-of-this-weekend sundries at Celebrity Beehive, is my point. Go forth, be literate.
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