TGT11: Actor to Actor #10

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What's the "Actor to Actor" series? First I pick out my twenty favorite performances of the year. Then I mix those twenty names all up and pick out two names at random. And then I imagine what a conversation between those two characters would be like. Rinse and repeat. For fun! So let's get to it. Here's MNPP's tenth and final pair of favorite performances of 2011....

Bridesmaids' Annie Walker (Kristen Wiig) and

Shame's Sissy (Carey Mulligan)

Sissy: Show me that impression of a penis again?

Sissy: Yeah, but bigger. Like, way bigger.

You might have to stand on a chair.

PREVIOUSLY

Jean Dujardin talks to Charlize Theron
Ewan McGregor talks to Rooney Mara
Tilda Swinton talks to Mia Wasikowska
Juliette Binoche talks to John Hawkes
Michael Shannon talks to Charlotte Gainsbourg
Patton Owsalt talks to Tom Hardy

William Shimell talks to Jeong-hie Jun

Michael Fassbender talks to Elizabeth Olsen

Kirsten Dunst talks to Andrea Riseborough

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TGT11: Actor to Actor #10

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What's the "Actor to Actor" series? First I pick out my twenty favorite performances of the year. Then I mix those twenty names all up and pick out two names at random. And then I imagine what a conversation between those two characters would be like. Rinse and repeat. For fun! So let's get to it. Here's MNPP's tenth and final pair of favorite performances of 2011....

Bridesmaids' Annie Walker (Kristen Wiig) and

Shame's Sissy (Carey Mulligan)

Sissy: Show me that impression of a penis again?

Sissy: Yeah, but bigger. Like, way bigger.

You might have to stand on a chair.

PREVIOUSLY

Jean Dujardin talks to Charlize Theron
Ewan McGregor talks to Rooney Mara
Tilda Swinton talks to Mia Wasikowska
Juliette Binoche talks to John Hawkes
Michael Shannon talks to Charlotte Gainsbourg
Patton Owsalt talks to Tom Hardy

William Shimell talks to Jeong-hie Jun

Michael Fassbender talks to Elizabeth Olsen

Kirsten Dunst talks to Andrea Riseborough

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Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... experiencing total Body Fuzion with Peter Sarsgaard. 

(click to embiggen; via)

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Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... experiencing total Body Fuzion with Peter Sarsgaard. 

(click to embiggen; via)

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TGT11: A Moment of 2011 Awesomeness

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This has been a moment of 2011 awesomeness.

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TGT11: A Moment of 2011 Awesomeness

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This has been a moment of 2011 awesomeness.

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TGT11: The Great Movies of 2011 #20-11

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I probably could have made a top thirty for the year if I were (more of) a crazy person, and gone to yammer even more about movies from the year that I loved, but I've got to show restraint once in awhile or nothing will ever get done and we'll be counting down last year straight through the end of this year. As is I feel lousy for leaving in the cold a couple of coulda-been's - namely Raul Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon and Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre and Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff and Leon Ford's Griff the Invisible and Hong-jin Na's The Yellow Sea and... see? I could keep going but I need to stop myself. Let's see what made the first half of our top 20! They're good! I like them!

Margaret (directed by Kenneth Lonergan) -- Like a sprawling novel, this movie has no interest in not following any of the twenty thousand strands that make up our titular heroine and egads does "heroine" seem like too small a word to contain this girl. She's as maddening as she is decent as she is selfish as she is intelligent, and on. The movie's a bit of a mess but so is she, and dulling down any of their sharp edges would have made either of them far less fascinating creatures. (original review)

Bridesmaids (directed by Paul Feig) -- What felt sloppy here the first time  through (the film is kinda long) gets more and more forgiven with repeat viewings... and speaking of repeat viewings, I have watched this four times since it came out on DVD. And I can't imagine it will let up any time soon. I'll be laughing at the sight of Kristen Wiig punching a giant fucking cookie on my death-bed, fingers crossed. 

13 Assassins (directed by Takashi Miike) -- Not that any human being is capable of keeping up with Takashi Miike's output, but out of the dozen or so that I have seen this is his best film since Audition and might even top that, and if you know of my affections for Audition then you know this is love. The slow as molasses build is some of his most restrained classical work and then comes the epic forty-five-minutes-or-so battle royale that takes the film to wild roaring-in-your-seat heights. (original review)

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (directed by David Fincher) -- So much better than the Swedish version, with a far more interesting Lisbeth out of Rooney Mara than I ever got from Noomi Rapace. How Fincher managed to make me enraptured by material I was bored by the first go-through I might never comprehend. He's firing on all cylinders and every recycled tidbit somehow feels alive and icy and hard and sexy and new in his hands. (original review)

Contagion (directed by Steven Soderbergh) -- The night I watched this movie I tweeted that I was buying a giant bottle of Purell as soon as I could, and every morning and every night since then when I douse my hands in it while riding on the subway I think of this movie, and I shudder. (original review)

Weekend (directed by Andrew Haigh) -- A pitch perfect little romance that manages to feel genuine while also packing some heat - when's the last time a straight love story managed that trick? I usually run screaming from what passes for queer cinema these days but if there were more Weekends out there waiting for me, well what a blessing that would be. (original review)

The Muppets (directed by James Bobin) -- I don't think there was a movie that I sat with a stupider giant grin on my face from start to finish more than I did during The Muppets. Oh wait, I was simultaneously crying the entire time, i can't forget that. Basically I'm incapable of being fair-minded where Kermit & Co are concerned, but Bobin and Segel and everybody involved could have messed it up, they could have misstepped, and they did not. Total joy. (original review)

Hanna (directed by Joe Wright) - I'm as shocked as anybody that Hanna comes it at number thirteen on this list, but it gets really crazy from here on out you guys. Not to slight anything that came already but I could rearrange these top 13 tomorrow and it could sit very different and it could be just as right. Anybody complaining about a lack of great movies isn't watching the right movies. All that said, Hanna's fucking rad! (original review)

Beginners (directed by Mike Mills) -- This movie came out of nowhere. Oh sure by the time I saw it on DVD I'd heard everybody say it was wonderful. But I didn't believe any of them. Nothing about it was really calling to me - I love Ewan but he's done a lot of things I haven't loved and this felt like it might fall into that camp. The "Oh yeah that movie" camp. Good god, I am a fool. It treads along the finest of threads, simultaneously melancholy and whimsical, and it soft-shoes like a pro. (original review)

The Future (directed by Miranda July) -- Just beating out her husband Mike Mills' sad little love song, my beloved Miranda July's The Future kind of renders me incapable of speech. The ways she finds to express feelings I've never seen quite captured in the same way, the way she pushes herself into these new little nooks, it devastates me, and it makes me remember there are things out there left to say in the world, about the world, when sometimes it feels like we're just repeating ourselves. The Future might seem to meander strangely, but it's cutting across razor-sharp insights, never as dewey-eyed as it might appear to be. (original review)

COMING SOON... #10-1

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TGT11: The Great Movies of 2011 #20-11

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I probably could have made a top thirty for the year if I were (more of) a crazy person, and gone to yammer even more about movies from the year that I loved, but I've got to show restraint once in awhile or nothing will ever get done and we'll be counting down last year straight through the end of this year. As is I feel lousy for leaving in the cold a couple of coulda-been's - namely Raul Ruiz's Mysteries of Lisbon and Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre and Kelly Reichardt's Meek's Cutoff and Leon Ford's Griff the Invisible and Hong-jin Na's The Yellow Sea and... see? I could keep going but I need to stop myself. Let's see what made the first half of our top 20! They're good! I like them!

Margaret (directed by Kenneth Lonergan) -- Like a sprawling novel, this movie has no interest in not following any of the twenty thousand strands that make up our titular heroine and egads does "heroine" seem like too small a word to contain this girl. She's as maddening as she is decent as she is selfish as she is intelligent, and on. The movie's a bit of a mess but so is she, and dulling down any of their sharp edges would have made either of them far less fascinating creatures. (original review)

Bridesmaids (directed by Paul Feig) -- What felt sloppy here the first time  through (the film is kinda long) gets more and more forgiven with repeat viewings... and speaking of repeat viewings, I have watched this four times since it came out on DVD. And I can't imagine it will let up any time soon. I'll be laughing at the sight of Kristen Wiig punching a giant fucking cookie on my death-bed, fingers crossed. 

13 Assassins (directed by Takashi Miike) -- Not that any human being is capable of keeping up with Takashi Miike's output, but out of the dozen or so that I have seen this is his best film since Audition and might even top that, and if you know of my affections for Audition then you know this is love. The slow as molasses build is some of his most restrained classical work and then comes the epic forty-five-minutes-or-so battle royale that takes the film to wild roaring-in-your-seat heights. (original review)

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (directed by David Fincher) -- So much better than the Swedish version, with a far more interesting Lisbeth out of Rooney Mara than I ever got from Noomi Rapace. How Fincher managed to make me enraptured by material I was bored by the first go-through I might never comprehend. He's firing on all cylinders and every recycled tidbit somehow feels alive and icy and hard and sexy and new in his hands. (original review)

Contagion (directed by Steven Soderbergh) -- The night I watched this movie I tweeted that I was buying a giant bottle of Purell as soon as I could, and every morning and every night since then when I douse my hands in it while riding on the subway I think of this movie, and I shudder. (original review)

Weekend (directed by Andrew Haigh) -- A pitch perfect little romance that manages to feel genuine while also packing some heat - when's the last time a straight love story managed that trick? I usually run screaming from what passes for queer cinema these days but if there were more Weekends out there waiting for me, well what a blessing that would be. (original review)

The Muppets (directed by James Bobin) -- I don't think there was a movie that I sat with a stupider giant grin on my face from start to finish more than I did during The Muppets. Oh wait, I was simultaneously crying the entire time, i can't forget that. Basically I'm incapable of being fair-minded where Kermit & Co are concerned, but Bobin and Segel and everybody involved could have messed it up, they could have misstepped, and they did not. Total joy. (original review)

Hanna (directed by Joe Wright) - I'm as shocked as anybody that Hanna comes it at number thirteen on this list, but it gets really crazy from here on out you guys. Not to slight anything that came already but I could rearrange these top 13 tomorrow and it could sit very different and it could be just as right. Anybody complaining about a lack of great movies isn't watching the right movies. All that said, Hanna's fucking rad! (original review)

Beginners (directed by Mike Mills) -- This movie came out of nowhere. Oh sure by the time I saw it on DVD I'd heard everybody say it was wonderful. But I didn't believe any of them. Nothing about it was really calling to me - I love Ewan but he's done a lot of things I haven't loved and this felt like it might fall into that camp. The "Oh yeah that movie" camp. Good god, I am a fool. It treads along the finest of threads, simultaneously melancholy and whimsical, and it soft-shoes like a pro. (original review)

The Future (directed by Miranda July) -- Just beating out her husband Mike Mills' sad little love song, my beloved Miranda July's The Future kind of renders me incapable of speech. The ways she finds to express feelings I've never seen quite captured in the same way, the way she pushes herself into these new little nooks, it devastates me, and it makes me remember there are things out there left to say in the world, about the world, when sometimes it feels like we're just repeating ourselves. The Future might seem to meander strangely, but it's cutting across razor-sharp insights, never as dewey-eyed as it might appear to be. (original review)

COMING SOON... #10-1

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TGT11: The Golden Trousers 2011 Say Hello

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Well the Oscars have come and gone and rewarded a bunch of stuff we'll have to look up in order to recall come next year, and likewise 2011 itself is becoming a fuzzy half-remembered thing, yet here I stand all the way in mid-March defiantly asking y'all to step into the way-back machine with me. Three months isn't just a dragonfly's life-span anymore - cultural recall's dropping like flies. Or like Rihanna albums - there's always a new one right around the corner so why bother getting intimately acquainted with the last? So goes LIFE.

Point being, we're spending the next five days calling out our favorite things from 2011. There's no unifying theme, I won't be turning this into a jazzy song-and-dance routine a la Billy Crystal (thank goodness) - like my moods this will swing wide and loose. Hopefully there will be entertainment to be had, otherwise... well there is no otherwise. Let us do this thing, fun and all!

TGT11: The Golden Trousers 2011 Say Hello

.

Well the Oscars have come and gone and rewarded a bunch of stuff we'll have to look up in order to recall come next year, and likewise 2011 itself is becoming a fuzzy half-remembered thing, yet here I stand all the way in mid-March defiantly asking y'all to step into the way-back machine with me. Three months isn't just a dragonfly's life-span anymore - cultural recall's dropping like flies. Or like Rihanna albums - there's always a new one right around the corner so why bother getting intimately acquainted with the last? So goes LIFE.

Point being, we're spending the next five days calling out our favorite things from 2011. There's no unifying theme, I won't be turning this into a jazzy song-and-dance routine a la Billy Crystal (thank goodness) - like my moods this will swing wide and loose. Hopefully there will be entertainment to be had, otherwise... well there is no otherwise. Let us do this thing, fun and all!

Good Morning, World

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"This is so awkward. I really want you to leave,

but I don't know how to say it without sounding like a dick."

Good Morning, World

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"This is so awkward. I really want you to leave,

but I don't know how to say it without sounding like a dick."

Another Friday Means...

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... another chance for me to ramble briefly about a bunch of movies I haven't seen over at Celebrity Beehive. This week it's John Carter of Mars and Friends With Kids and Silent House and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and then some awful-looking Eddie Murphy movie that is apparently getting crapped out as well. Check it.

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Another Friday Means...

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... another chance for me to ramble briefly about a bunch of movies I haven't seen over at Celebrity Beehive. This week it's John Carter of Mars and Friends With Kids and Silent House and Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and then some awful-looking Eddie Murphy movie that is apparently getting crapped out as well. Check it.

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I Am Link

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--- Young Girl - The female lead opposite Josh Brolin in Spike Lee's remake of Oldboy has been offered to Martha Marcy May Marlene star Elizabeth Olsen. I think this is terrific casting because my instinctual feeling upon hearing her name was a protective wince over what she'll have to endure, and that's about right.

--- Golden Globs - If you were following me on Twitter during the Oscars then you know I found the evening fairly abysmal - somebody send Billy Crystal to the glue factory, please - but instead of all my negativity why don't you take a gander at the ten things Nathaniel found interesting about the evening. Emma Stone totally was awesome.

--- High Octane - Kristen Wiig is going to star in an action-comedy from the writers of The Descendants. You know the ones - they stood behind a rambling egomaniac Alexander Payne and made fun of Angelina Jolie's leg. Yeah the one is the dean on Community, who I have a sudden crush on. That's them.

--- Hunger Olds - There are a couple new pictures from The Hunger Games over here, with new looks at Donald Sutherland as President Snow and Toby jones as Claudius Templesmith. Have we seen Toby Jones yet? And a better question: who the fuck is Claudius Templesmith? I can't remember. Should I go back and read the books? It's been quite awhile. It's probably better not to, see if I can finagle some surprise from it.

--- Eating Crowe - Seeing this news this morning that Russell Crowe is pretty much for sure going to play Noah in Darren Aronofsky's movie about the man who built that really big boat that one time, I'm reminded that I had a dream the night before last in which I saw new paparazzi pictures of Russell Crowe and he was looking hotter than he's ever looked. (Yes, these are the dreams I have now apparently.) I've never really been wild about Crowe but in my dream he looked very very good, like somebody had whittled him into an ideal form of what he could be. So, being reminded of this, I googled to see what he looks like now, and nope, he's still just him. 

--- Busted - While I'd love to have a third Ghostbusters movie with the old crew around one more time, I am tired as hell of hearing Dan Akyroyd go back and forth and back and forth about what's up with Bill Murray, so I hope his new quote about Murray absolutely not wanting to do it the end, is the end.

--- And finally, Fassy fans this is your chance to put your mouth where his eyes are (so to speak) - head over to Fassinating Fassbender and send Simone a note before March 15th and she'll include it on a birthday present they're gearing up to send the man for his upcoming 35th birthday. And keep it classy, folks. (That means limit the wang mentions to subtle innuendo at most.)
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I Am Link

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--- Young Girl - The female lead opposite Josh Brolin in Spike Lee's remake of Oldboy has been offered to Martha Marcy May Marlene star Elizabeth Olsen. I think this is terrific casting because my instinctual feeling upon hearing her name was a protective wince over what she'll have to endure, and that's about right.

--- Golden Globs - If you were following me on Twitter during the Oscars then you know I found the evening fairly abysmal - somebody send Billy Crystal to the glue factory, please - but instead of all my negativity why don't you take a gander at the ten things Nathaniel found interesting about the evening. Emma Stone totally was awesome.

--- High Octane - Kristen Wiig is going to star in an action-comedy from the writers of The Descendants. You know the ones - they stood behind a rambling egomaniac Alexander Payne and made fun of Angelina Jolie's leg. Yeah the one is the dean on Community, who I have a sudden crush on. That's them.

--- Hunger Olds - There are a couple new pictures from The Hunger Games over here, with new looks at Donald Sutherland as President Snow and Toby jones as Claudius Templesmith. Have we seen Toby Jones yet? And a better question: who the fuck is Claudius Templesmith? I can't remember. Should I go back and read the books? It's been quite awhile. It's probably better not to, see if I can finagle some surprise from it.

--- Eating Crowe - Seeing this news this morning that Russell Crowe is pretty much for sure going to play Noah in Darren Aronofsky's movie about the man who built that really big boat that one time, I'm reminded that I had a dream the night before last in which I saw new paparazzi pictures of Russell Crowe and he was looking hotter than he's ever looked. (Yes, these are the dreams I have now apparently.) I've never really been wild about Crowe but in my dream he looked very very good, like somebody had whittled him into an ideal form of what he could be. So, being reminded of this, I googled to see what he looks like now, and nope, he's still just him. 

--- Busted - While I'd love to have a third Ghostbusters movie with the old crew around one more time, I am tired as hell of hearing Dan Akyroyd go back and forth and back and forth about what's up with Bill Murray, so I hope his new quote about Murray absolutely not wanting to do it the end, is the end.

--- And finally, Fassy fans this is your chance to put your mouth where his eyes are (so to speak) - head over to Fassinating Fassbender and send Simone a note before March 15th and she'll include it on a birthday present they're gearing up to send the man for his upcoming 35th birthday. And keep it classy, folks. (That means limit the wang mentions to subtle innuendo at most.)
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