Jon Hamm Five Times

Jon Hamm is interviewed by who else Tina Fey in the new issue of Interview Magazine -- but more importantly than anything they have to say to one another are the photos of Jon wearing some nice snug dad shorts which I have helpfully brought over here to MNPP to enjoy. There are more photos of him at the link in other outfits but I think we can all agree that the five photos of him in this outfit in particular are the money shots. Hit the jump for them all...

I Wanna Be Haunted

Color me shocked -- I did not go into Kenneth Branagh's A Haunting in Venice expecting to walk out of it satisfied, as that hasn't happened with any of his previous Hercule Poirot movies. But (mostly) satisfied I was -- click over to Pajiba to read my review. I actually summon up the name Vincent Price and I am not using his eminence as a cudgel to bruise either! This is easily the best of Branagh's three Poirot movies, and it's not even close. Below is the trailer -- this is in theaters right now!

Quote of the Day

"... I’m a Halloween person, which is odd to me because I’m terrified of scary things. I can’t watch scary movies or even a scary movie trailer. But I love the aesthetic of Halloween more than most holidays. We’re not talking about Christmas, of course—let’s put Christmas aside. Anything that gets Halloweenified in orange and black, or has an occasional bat or ghost or monster, really does it for me. But just to be clear, I’m not interested in terror. I’m interested in a delightful monster or witch. I don’t care for jump scares. Don’t scare me or I will definitely punch you in the face."

Blessings unto us all, I needed some smiles this Friday and Interview Magazine has gifted us with one of their "25 Questions" features with Maya Rudolph! They work like this: 25 of Maya's famous pals asked her a question or two, and she answered them! It's not a terribly hard-to-grasp feature. Anyway the above quote comes in response to a question from author Sarah Cooper; other people doing the asking include half of the SNL casts over the years, Amy Sedaris, Paul Reubens, Natasha Lyonne, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Carol fuckin' Burnett -- endless proof that Maya is indeed that cool. And you'll definitely want to look for the Prince story.  

Do You Like To Laugh

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This post's title is dedicated to those poor sods who would harass people on street corners with that question -- "Do you like to laugh?" -- in order to get them inside of Comedy Clubs here in the pre-COVID Days of NYC. This pandemic's got me down enough that I sort of miss them! Anyway true story I seem to have become nightmarishly picky when it comes to Comedy. I have lots of old stand-by favorites from my more innocent, less jaded youth that I go back to time and time again -- Soapdish! Dirty Rotten Scoundrels! -- but it's not a genre I actively seek out very often anymore.

Truth be told I can be snobbish and weird about the genre. I guess I like Smart Dumb Comedy -- I don't mind a poop joke but you've got to give me something new and exciting with your poop joke. (Side-note: you oughta read MNPP pal Michael's terrific recent piece on the art of the poop joke with regards to Bridesmaids over at TFE.) I am simply incapable of sitting down and enjoying an episode of something as braying and needy as say The Big Bang Theory. It physically pains me, that sort of thing. 

Okay I need a laugh, and I need one now.
What’s your funniest movie ever made? pic.twitter.com/KPsHbsYpT6

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 31, 2020

Of course this pandemic has really put that snobbishness to the test -- we need a good belly laugh, an emphatic guffaw, now and then amid these darkest of days. And so in a fit of want I tweeted out the above question last week, and in return I got a million and a half fun responses that I appreciated a whole bunch. Then naturally I just ended up re-watching Christopher Guest's Best in Show for the thousandth time...

... but I've got a Go-To Laugh List for when I need it now. And if anyone has any further suggestions please do give them in the comments. That said I forward all of this to say make it clear that I have actively been thinking a lot about my weird relationship with comedy -- how I'll almost always if I want to laugh put on a bad horror flick or something Campy like Showgirls before I'll even think to put on an actual trying-to-make-me-laugh Comedy Film -- when lo, behold, a trailer for a new Comedy Series should appear.



That's the trailer for Mapleworth Murders, which stars former SNL writer Paula Pell as a Murder She Wrote type Older Lady Sleuth, and which will feature cameos from lots of Smart Dumb Comedy Now people like Wanda Sykes, Chris Parnell, Nicole Byer, Maya Rudolph, Fred Armisen, Jack McBrayer, Annie Mumolo... I have a really good friend who's a Comedy Fiend and she loves Pell -- I think a lot of Comedy Fiends do. My only interaction with Pell was in the Netflix comedy Wine Country...

... which is a good example of a recent comedy that left me totally and thoroughly cold. Except for Pell, who was its highlight I thought. But with a cast like Wine Country had -- Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph and Tina Fey and Rachel Dratch and Ana Gasteyer! -- I should've been in Chuckle Heaven! So I guess what I am getting at with all of this is... I am dead inside, right? I'm just dead inside. Mapleworth Murders premieres on Quibi on August 10th!

Wine Country in 250 Words or Less

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Wine Country is one of those movies that its defenders defend by saying it's just a pleasure to get the chance to hang out with all of these fill in the blanks -- in this instance the "fill in the blanks" are some of our finest middle-aged funny ladies, many bearing an SNL pedigree. And I agree -- it is a pleasure. So much so that I spent about sixty percent of the film wishing that that was what I was watching -- can you imagine how great a documentary about Tina Fey and Amy Poehler and Maya Rudolph and Paula Pell and Ana Gasteyer and Rachel Dratch and Emily Spivey drinking wine in Napa and just hanging out would've been? 

Instead Wine Country strains towards uninvolving half-baked tensions and lukewarm insights -- I feel like you put a box of wine in the human being Maya Rudolph's lap and got her guard down and got her and Amy riffing on real life there could've been something profound and moving and sweet to come out of that. As is Wine Country postures towards that experience, but keeps ringing false with broad platitudes. I don't begrudge these comic wonders a paid-for-by-Netflix vacation by any means, and I'm more than glad to come along, but it's a little off-putting how Wine Country doesn't ever strain to reciprocate -- it's a one-sided window I ended up feeling left on the outside of, admiring the well-appointed drapes.

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It's Friday Night, I'm Gonna Get Drunk...

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Perhaps I'm just extra bad on the uptake these days but doesn't it feel like Netflix somehow manages to sneak their movies through production without us noticing until they release a trailer for an already finished thing and it's out in a month and you're like WHAT? I DON'T HAVE TO WAIT FOR THAT? That's the thrill I got when they dropped their trailer for Wine Country yesterday -- they managed to gather together SNL queens Maya Rudolph & Tina Fey & Amy Poehler (who directed) & Rachel Dratch & Ana Gasteyer, alongside Paula Pell & Emily Spivey (who wrote) and, uh, Jason Schwartzman...

... (who's looking particularly delicious with that big beard, I might add) for a comedy about some gals drinking wine in the country and I never noticed until this trailer and a date of May 10th (with some theatrical screenings starting two days earlier) were right in front of me? That's nutso! But I like this strategy -- it doesn't feel like we have to wait so long this way. We've got less a month for this and that works for me! Now watch the trailer, goddamit:

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Good Morning, Billy

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I'm not going to go into specifics about Billy Magnussen's role on The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt this season because it's kind of a spoiler for the end part of the season and the show's only been out for five days and you might not all be spazzes like me who've binged the entire thing in that time. But it was a treat, having him show up and start flashing his business, anyway! Hit the jump for a couple more gifs, and if you've seen the whole season feel free to share your thoughts in the comments...

That's Why Jake's Hair Is So Big...

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... it's full of secrets.
(pic via)

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5 Off My Head - Anything But Basic

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It's Rosamund Pike's 37th birthday today which made me realize -- doesn't it seem like it's been super quiet from her since Gone Girl? It's been a year and a half since then and the only thing she's released is some low-rent thriller with Shiloh Fernandez called Return to Sender. That said that might've been done before Gone Girl blew her up, and she does have several things set to come out this year, so all's not lost. I wasn't the biggest fan of Gone Girl and I don't think a revisit will work wonders like it just did for Inside Llewyn Davis since BEN AFFLECK IS LITERALLY THE WORST, but thinking about her in the movie I suddenly felt like making a quick list of five of my favorite Blonde Bitches. So that's what this is!

Mavis Gary (Charlize Theron), Young Adult

"You're good here, Sandra."

Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close), Dangerous Liaisons

"One does not applaud the tenor 

for clearing his throat."

Chris Hargensen (Nancy Allen), Carrie

"Oh, Billy. Billy. Oh, Billy. Oh, Billy. 

Billy. Oh, Billy. Oh. Oh, Billy. 

I hate Carrie White."

Regina George (Rachel McAdams), Mean Girls 

"I like invented her."

Sebastian Valmont (Ryan Phillippe), Cruel Intentions

"I didn't mean to offend you. I just 

picked up on a little bit of that lesbian vibe."

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So what are some of your faves?

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I Am Link

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--- After Briefs - Underwear Model goes legit! Calvin Klein crotch-jockey and sex-beard-enthusiast Travis Fimmel's been trying this acting thing long enough that I guess he's proven he's more than just a shapely pair of buttocks (although he sure is that too!) so he's been hired to act opposite Greta Gerwig and Julianne Moore now. Okay? Okay. Rebecca Miller (yes, daughter of Arthur and wife of Daniel Day-Lewis) is making a rom-com called Maggie's Plan, and they're all in it. Also Ethan Hawke and Bill Hader.

--- Doc Daze Two - The second half of Glenn Dunks and Daniel Walber's conversation on the documentaries of 2014 is up over at The Film Experience; they talk about the Roger Ebert doc Life Itself and the Oscar-nominated pair of Last Days in Vietnam and Citizenfour in this one. I'm still really surprised by how uninvolving I found Citizenfour to be.

--- Boys For Tina - Christopher Abbott, who jumped ship off Girls for a movie career, actually seems to be doing pretty well for himself (he's no David Caruso, at least) - he got good notices for a movie at Sundance and now he's just landed a role in Tina Fey's new movie, The Taliban Shuffle; yes this is also the movie that we told you will star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Tina's main piece. Surround yourself with man-meat, Tina. You go. Lena will understand.
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--- Sausage Fest - There's an interesting piece at Vulture today on Sundance's "White Guy Problem" that I found myself nodding along vigorously to; summed up here: "[The Studios] swoop in, pluck up all the white-guy directors, and leave all the talented female and nonwhite helmers to fend for themselves. If you're a white dude who made a micro-budget Sundance movie with some visual panache, you're sure to end up on studio short lists; if you're not, you'll struggle to even get financing for your next project."

--- River Folk - Ryan Gosling's directorial debut Lost River screened at Cannes last Spring and didn't get too much love, but Ryan Gosling directed it so it's coming out (it'll be VOD, I think) - The Playlist has the first clips and some new pictures from it. It stars Matt Smith, Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan, Ben Mendelsohn, Eva Mendes, and Agents of SHIELD's adorkable Iain De Caestecker.

---  Gal Fridays - Carrie-Anne Moss, who really should've carved out a better career for herself than starring in endless death scenes in volcano movies, has just joined the cast of Netflix's next Marvel series AKA Jessica Jones. This is the one that comes after Charlie Cox's wee-zipper show, and stars the always-welcome Krysten Ritter as a lady-reporter slash hero of some sort.

--- After The Disco - Kate Beckinsale is slipping out of her 3D rubber-suit and trying to be an actress again, and what better way than re-teaming with the folks who gave her her most memorable stab at being considered an "actress" - she and her Last Days of Disco co-star Chloe Sevigny are going to star in Whit Stillman's new movie. The name that jumps out at me is Xavier Samuel but then we were just staring at his ass like a week ago, so he's there on the tip of our tongues (we wish).

--- Fantasy Freak Out - A trio of fantastical short stories by George RR Martin are being turned into a single movie called In the Lost Lands and it's already got Milla Jovovich and Justin Chatwin (mmmmm furry Justin Chatwin) on-board to star. Picture sorceresses and werewolves and barbarians and so forth. The sky will be purple, their breastplates will heave.

--- Pack Mentality - Wow anthology horror movies really are the everything right now - there's that movie Tales of Halloween we told you about previously, with a bunch of directors tackling interconnected stories on a single Halloween night (speaking of STYD has a couple new pictures from that); there's the female-director anthology XX (which just got a pretty groovy poster, seen there); and now there's Holidays, which will have a bunch of horror segments about different holidays from different directors, including Kevin Smith (blecch) but also the dudes that made the terrific Starry Eyes.

--- And Finally, Hooray Final Girl is doing a VHS Week! All week long Stacie Ponder will be yes pondering a movie a day - yesterday she hit up the godawful-sounding 1988 flick Shadow Dancing; the movie may sound godawful, but per usual Stacie makes the awful sound fun. You'll want to hear about Christopher Plummer's fiery niblets.
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That's Jeremy Renner, Noted Homosexual

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This week's edition of "Beauty vs Beast" at The Film Experience is devoted to a couple of moments at last night's Golden Globes that will probably end up being among the more memorable snapshots of the show down the road, head over there for the polls. But speaking of Jeremy Renner (his boob joke nets him some attention over there) after all these years it seems like his closet-case status is getting some real attention - The National Enquirer's gone and written about it. (thanks Mac) You're somebody, Jeremy! A big gay somebody!

I Would Rather

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I quite liked the pairing of Adam Levine & Paul Rudd at the Globes last night, didn't you? Plus it also gave us this beautiful behind-the-scenes picture to commemorate the moment, huzzah. 

Anyway my other favorite thing was Tina & Amy's game of "Would You Rather?" so I went ahead and commemorated that myself in poll form over at The Film Experience this morning. Colin Farrell vs Colin Firth and Edward Norton vs Mark Ruffalo - go vote!!!

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I Am Link

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--- War And Piece - As if we needed more proof that Tina Fey is one smart cookie she's about to nab Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as her leading man in her next movie; it's that one called Taliban Shuffle that the dudes who directed Bad Santa & I Love You Phillip Morris are making, and is based on a non-fiction book about a journalist covering the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Martin Freeman and Margot Robbie have already been cast in it.
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--- Who's Hot - Rolling Stone takes a little bit of a closer look at the Wet Hot American Summer reunion for Netflix, specifically listing off all the junk the now-super-famous cast on their respective plates, and wonders aloud how in the hell they're going to get this thing done. Have faith, people! They've had five thousand years to situate their business, let's give them the benefit of the doubt this once.

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--- Pitt Stops - There's not really much to this story beyond the headline (and a little laying bare of the politicking of Hollywood) but man, the headline give some happy thoughts - Brad Pitt stumps for Tom Hardy During Awards Season. Hopefully this leads to some pictures of Brad Pitt and Tom hardy and their, you know, stumps.
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--- Buy The Bad Man - Miranda July's new book The First Bad Man is out in bookstores tomorrow! How thrilling! Buy your copy via that link so I get money please. Anyway there's a great little chat with her at the New York Times about it, and also talking about that typically left-of-center approach to advertising she took, with the auctioning off of items from the story.

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--- In Bloom - I haven't had a chance to watch these videos but IndieWire chatted with Jake Gyllenhaal (and Rene Russo and Riz Ahmed appear to be there too) about his Nightcrawler performance, you can watch the clips and read some quotes over here. It's hard to actively root against Eddie Redmayne cuz he seems like a sweetheart but I was annoyed at his Globe win over Jake last night.
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--- Have Boomstick - That big Television Critics Association thing was over the weekend in LA and lots of little bits of TV news got dropped; most importantly, Dread Central gathered up the itty bitty bits of info we got on Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series, like they're filming in New Zealand, it should premiere by the end of 2015, and then best of all this story bit: "Ash takes a road trip to banish his demons alongside two young helpers and his trusty boomstick."
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--- Green Thumbs - The full trailer for Alan Rickman's garden based costume-drama A Little Chaos starring Kate Winslet and Matthias Schoenaerts showed up over the weekend, you can watch it over here. Y'all know my deep deep feelings for Matthias but he maybe feels a little out of place in this? But then his line about being a builder makes me think he's supposed to feel out of place... anyway he just looks so IMMENSE in those frilly little costumes, there's a disconnect; it very well might be on purpose.
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--- Your Move - Looks like David Oyelowo and Lupita Nyong'o really want to work together - they're already attached to that Americanah movie and now comes word they're going to make Queen of Katwe as well, which is an African chess drama for director Mira Nair. They sure do make for a pretty couple of people though so I am in.
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--- Hit It Up - If this picture were clearer it'd get an entire post devoted to it but since it ain't, it doesn't - director David Ayer tweeted out a shot of Jai Courtney doing some boxing training for that Suicide Squad movie; hopefully the next shot will be of Jai and his co-star Tom Hardy training together. You know. "Training."
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--- Bond Junior - That cute kid Taron Egerton that's about to be seen in the Bond rip-off Kingsman movie with Colin Firth is of course being mentioned for Bryan Singer's new X-Men movie because look at him, he's so Singer's type - anyway Egerton himself says he's friends with Nic Hoult (I wanna come over and play video games with you guys) so he's got an in or whatever but whatever, or whatever. I don't know what he's saying honestly, but I'm sure he looked attractive while doing so so who cares. Whatever!
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Cheers To Live Tweeting

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I didn't realize until two days ago that the Golden Globes are on tonight; thankfully I'm seeing the Hugh Jackman play this afternoon, not this evening, so I'll be home with plenty of time to get a drink or two in me and say the requisite obnoxious things on Twitter. I know you're all breathing heaving sighs of sweet relief. So yeah, follow me on Twitter here if you don't already, and I'll see you there at the time at the place as the spectacle o' self-congratulation and celebrity silliness unfolds. If you wanna share who you're rooting for (besides Jake Gyllenhaal, obviously) do that in the comments here!

Oh and in case you missed our previous post, 

MNPP has its own Facebook page now, too!
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Follow us, like us, really really like us, et cetera.

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I Am Link

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--- Mountain Man - We've posted a couple of these already (that Jessica Chastain in Crimson Peak picture, those Charlie Cox in Daredevil pictures) but EW's latest issue is looking ahead to next year's movies and has our first looks at a bunch of things; The Playlist helpfully gathered them up in one spot right here. There's Neil Blomkamp's Chappie, there's Tina Fey & Amy Poehler in Sisters, and there's that shot of Jake Gyllenhaal in Everest, seen to the left. Thinking about Everest makes me sad because the studio forced me to remove the pictures of Jake naked on the set from the blog awhile back. Sad. (I mean I still have them on my computer, obviously. And if you google them they're still online elsewhere. I'll go look at them now!)

--- From The Ash's - Apparently also in this issue of EW they talk to Bruce Campbell some about the Evil Dead TV series that he's making with Sam Raimi (I still have to slap myself when I hear this news again, I go all slack-jawed yokel thinking about it) - the whole interview's not available yet but STYD has a couple of brief snippets. This shit is so crazy. So crazy!

--- Look Behind You - I think I even mentioned here at the blog that I wasn't going to watch a trailer for the upcoming hella-hyped horror movie It Follows because I prefer skipping horror trailers since they give the good stuff away a lot of the time, but I caved last night after everybody was talking about how good the new trailer is, and oh my god it looks good!!! I want I want! It has a US date now too - February 27th.

--- Ice Maker - Is it wrong that the name Robert Rodriguez doesn't excite me anymore? In theory, once upon a time, seeing that he's attached to make a live-action version of Ralph Bahski's Fire and Ice, that should sound cool, right? But unless they give him a real budget... I don't know. I'd kinda rather just look at Bashki's art. And I'm kind of sick of all RR's stunt-casting. I think it was hiring Mel Gibson that soured me the most, probably.

--- Climb The Wall -  Zhang Yimou is making an epic movie about the Great Wall (it's also somehow supernatural centered?) in China but it will be English-language and it will probably star Matt Damon. That's all fine and good. But now they've gone and added A Game of Thrones' Pedro Pascal to the cast, and we can truly be enthusiastic!

--- Grief Stricken - Sure I'll link to a couple more Babadook reviews, why not - here's Capone at AICN talking about the movie, making the point that the movie works so well unlike so many modern horror flicks because gosh darn it it cares about its characters, and here's our pals at Kindetrauma finding some echoes of Bava in there that hadn't occurred to me til they said it.

--- Hero Fatigue - This interview with Joss Whedon (done from the set of the second Avengers movie) starts off by telling us how exhausted he is, and from there on out it shows - while he gets a couple of good lines in (tell us more about your underwear, Joss) his rambling is the rambling of a very very tired person who has answered all these damn superhero questions before.

--- And Finally, I can co-sign this sort of manipulation: Over at The Film Experience Nathaniel used The Hobbit's latest subtitle about Five Armies as an excuse to post pictures of some of his favorite movies about the military, specifically the men in the military, specifically all the hot ones. Come for the beautiful boys of Unbroken, and stay for Monty Clift in From Here To Eternity:

Quote of the Day

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"It made me sad when she passed, and it made me mad at the time how available she was. Jan should have had a bigger career. Jan deserved a big movie career. Certainly as big as Rob Schneider's fucking career."

-- Tina Fey paid tribute to Jan Hooks at Elle’s Women in Hollywood Awards on Monday night and all I can say is hear fuckin' hear.

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Three Thumbs Up: Chloë Moretz

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I reviewed Olivier Assayas' new film Clouds of Sils Maria over at The Film Experience last week during the New York Film Festival and I only briefly mentioned Chloë Moretz in there (snidely calling her "well-cast") but she came up in the comments where I had to admit, sigh, I actually think she's terrific in the movie. I mean I loved the movie as a whole so maybe she was the lucky recipient of some happy-mood spill-over, but in a couple of key scenes I actually think she, sigh, nails it. It's hard for me to say! I have struggled against her tide for quite awhile now. But here we are and I'm gonna give her some props and what better way than my most passive-aggressive post series, wherein I select three not-bad performances from folks I otherwise can't tolerate.

The Amityville Horror (2005) - Okay honestly I didn't even remember her being the little girl in this movie until I looked it up, and this is an awful awful awful remake, but anything that makes me remember Ryan Reynolds walking around with a beard on his face and not much else on the rest of his body, well I ain't gonna knock it. (Although judging from that picture Ryan might be the reason she's been forever stamped with that irritating pout, him not knowing his strength and all.)

30 Rock - This has been my go-to performance of hers to prove I'm not a hateful monster spitting in the face of a child for some time; I cringed when I found out she was showing up on one of my favorite shows but she ended up being very funny as Jack Donaghy's nemesis for the three episodes she showed up on."I just had fruit roll-ups for dinner at a strip club!"

Clouds of Sils Maria - Alright so this might be cheating, using the performance that inspired this post in the first place, but don't push me; I'm trying, dammit. And I do have things to say about her work in this movie. She really only shows up a few times but they're all vital to understanding the film, spinning our understanding of Juliette Binoche's character into a series of opposing directions - Jo-Ann Ellis is basically a Lindsay Lohan type, but every time we meet her it's some splintered side of her we're seeing (putting on a good face for her first meeting with Binoche, all the way through to the nasty indifference once the play they're working on together is on) and Chloe really made me see them all as part of one girl. The fun comes in watching the way these different aspects are filtered through Binoche - how she sees Jo-Ann each time, and how she changes because of what she sees. Anyway I really can't underestimate how vital I think Chloe's work is here.

What's your favorite Chloë Moretz performance?

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