Good Morning, World

Cheyenne Jackson wishes you and yours a good Monday.

Do Dump or Marry: The Nosfera-Dudes

Director Robert Eggers' magnificent new take on Nosferatu premiered in Los Angeles last evening and all the goth hotties were on hand (including that other Skarsgard buddying up to his Northman director). But most importantly these three hunks knew well enough to get some photos together at the after-party, because they are smart and kind. And if you're white-guy-blind they are Nicholas Hoult, Bill Skarsgård, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. And even if the movie isn't out for a couple of weeks this still seems like a good moment since we have them here to ask our perrenial "Do Dump or Marry" query! Pick one actor to have a single night of passionate embrace with, one actor to drive a stake through the center of, and one to swap blood with to share a darkly romantic eternity together -- in the comments please and thanks! (And then go read my review of the movie over at Pajiba, also please and thank you.) Nosferatu hits theaters on Christmas Day! And yes even better it is in text a Christmas movie! New yule classic y'all!

Kaiju Criterion Attack!

The sound that emitted from the depths of my soul when I opened this afternoon's email from Criterion about the March 2025 new releases and the first thing I saw was the 1989 classic kaiju delight Godzilla vs. Biollante! This is one of the greatest of Godzilla movies that aren't you know the first one or the most recent one -- it is very very silly but the part-plant part-Godzilla part-human genetic hybrid Biollante as a monster is my all-time number two after my childhood and forever fave Ghidorah. Biollante is a baller and director Kazuki Omori shoots the hell out of this movie. It is so much fun. And this disc appears to be loaded with extras -- not to mention it's a 4K upgrade! Quickest purchase ever! Pre-order it right here -- this one is out on March 18th.

But my baby Biollante is just scratching the surface of March's drops -- there is also Arthur Penn's 1975 classic Night Moves with Gene Hackman (pre-order it here) and Alan Rudolph's 19854 erotic drama Choose Me (pre-order that here) -- I can only vouch for Night Moves since that's the only one I have seen (and it's very good with one of Hackman's best performances) but Rudolph's film sounds fascinating and stars Geneviève Bujold and Lesley Ann Warren, two of my faves from that time period. Looking forward to checking it out. 

And then more more more! Charlie Chaplin's A Woman of Paris (pre-order it here), Henri-Georges Clouzot's action classic The Wages of Fear -- which was remade as William Friedkin's equally awesome Sorcerer -- (pre-order it here), and then a 4K upgrade of Michael Mann's Thief (pre-order it here), which is... well more everyone else's taste than mine, but then that's true with most Mann movies. (Except Manhunter -- Manhunter is perfect.) That's one hell of a line-up for our favorite house of physical media come March! But it could just be Godzilla vs Biollante and I'd be dancing in the streets, if I'm being honest. F'ing amazing!

Barry Keoghan Thirteen Times

I've been sitting on my thumbs (I didn't say this was a negative experience) waiting for Arena Homme magazine to drop more of their Barry Keoghan photoshoot that they've been baiting us with for a couple of weeks -- well I think I might have most of it now thanks to the photographers on Instagram (via) and PS these are the same dudes who gave us that immortal Arena shoot of Jamie Dornan, which I like thinking about or mentioning whenever I can. Anyway if more do pop up (like if Arena ever posts the article online) I will update this post with them. But it's another scorcher from our Barry boy so hit the jump and singe your fingertips on these...

Today's Fanboy Delusion

 Today I'd rather be...

... smacking into the weekend with Parker Young.

I am so happy it's Friday, y'all.

(And I am so happy we have Parker, too.)

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Nobody guessed this one yesterday 

so here are five more frames!

Can you guess the movie now?

Good Morning, World

A good Friday from good boy Noah Centineo.

The Critics, We Choiced

This marks my second year voting as a member of the Critics Choice Association and I long ago made peace -- well before I even became a member -- with the fact that my weird personal picks would end up falling through the cracks of a general consensus and not get much representation in the final tallies. It's just par for the course with this type of thing. That's what I have my personal awards for, and uhhh hopefully some time I'll get to those. But today what I have to share with you are the Critics Choice nominations! And there are a few things I voted for up in here -- you can be sure that any nominations for Hard Truths, Nosferatu, The Substance, the two Guadagninos were among my votes -- and that makes me happy. I will glom my hopes onto them. Oh and as a sidenote -- I am planning on going to Los Angeles for the ceremony this year! So stay tuned for coverage from that! Exciting star-fuckery ahead! Okay now let's hit the jump and see the entire list of nominations...

Pics of the Day

It has come to my attention that Josh Hartnett has gone dirtbag blond for his next role as a kick-ass mercenary in a movie called Fight or Flight, and I am going to need to take a moment, or ten. I am going to have to, what's the phrase, hold some space with this. And then there is the matter of the strawberry tee, which is somehow taking it that extra mile? Okay let's just say this is a look I am into and leave it at that. There's been a lot of open salivating this early in the morning and I haven't even finished my coffee yet. Fight or Flight is from a TV director (this will be his first film) and Josh is by far the biggest name in the cast so I have no idea if this will live up to That Look (a lot to live up to!) but I will be there to watch the minute I can to find out. Hit the jump for one more photo of this sexy sleazebag spectacle...

Good Morning, Jonny

Jonny Bailey is in British Vogue right now looking like, well, that -- I know some people feel like our beautiful boy is a little overexposed at the moment, but even if he wasn't literally half-naked there I would have to respectfully disagree; the romantic lead of a as-of-this-moment half-billion dollar box-office success is an openly gay man and we gotta strike while the iron's hot. Get his name and face and everything lodged in the public's consciousness and begging for more. No matter my thoughts on Wicked itself this could be an actually important footprint for the movie to leave. And the Jurassic Park sequel next year will hopefully be the next step. I doubt the general moviegoer knows his name yet -- my mother, my gauge for this sort of thing, definitely does not know his name yet. So go on and flood the market while your simultaneously flooding my jockey shorts, Mr. Bailey. I will keep on cheering. ETA a couple more images have surfaced so hit the jump for them...

Kraven the Hunter in 450 Words or Less

You know that scene in the fourth Indiana Jones movie where Indiana finds himself inside the fake small town in the middle of the desert and realizes all of the families therein are mannequins and the fruit is plastic and it's really just a staged world that the military has set up in order to drop a nuke on? Sometimes I wonder if we sneaked past the security guards and got into the offices of Sony Pictures if it might not be just like that. Nothing but cardboard walls and doors that open onto bricks. Because it boggles the mind that there could actually be human beings behind the decisions they keep making for their superhero movies. They feel like the "monkeys with typewriters" scenario brought to life, or perhaps a league of Coneheads pretending to be Earth people but getting each step just a hair off, one after another, until a smorgasboard of gibberish spills out its ass-end. This is textbook Bad Movie behavior.

But that doesn't mean there's not a good helping of true WTF fun to be had out of Kraven the Hunter anyway. Yes, Sony's latest and opposite-of-greatest stab at the genre somehow manages to make the glory days of Madame Web feel fonder. But none of these actors are to blame. This troupe of thesps know what they're up against and dammit they keep fighting the fight, one camp whisper to another, winding through the marauding CG mayhem. Leading man slash abdominal billboard Aaron Taylor-Johnson is ultimately done in by the movie's frankensteined incoherence, but our boy tries his damndest to yank it together with every one of those big beautiful muscles of his. He does not succeed! But he's having fun most of the time, and he manages to get some of that across whenever the movie lumbers out of his way for a split second. 

But best of all -- Alessandro Nivola as the ridiculous baddie is legit great, lifting the movie unto absurdist heaven whenever he appears. (And not for nothing he looks as hot as he's ever looked on-screen, his tight white dress shirt and strappy little backpack doing the lord's work.) Nivola is a real riot, chewing every dumb line of dialogue right up, and when he does this silent scream thing about halfway into the movie it instantaneously paid for my ticket in full. (Well okay I didn't pay for a ticket thankfully, but this moment would have had I.) None of this is enough to save the movie from itself, but I wasn't angry when I left the theater. Just deeply suspicious about those Sony offices filled with outer space mannequins, is all...

Did You Know I'm Utterly Insane

Luca! Have I not supported you? Have I not praised you far and wide? Well I don't know what I have done to make Luca Guadagnino unhappy and spiteful but I feel personally attacked twice in a row now with this American Psycho remake that he's planning on making -- first with the fact that he's doing it at all since Mary Harron's 2000 film with Christian Bale is literally perfect; one of my favorite movies, period. And now comes the word (thx Mac) that he's getting one of my least favorite It Boys of the moment Austin Butler to star in it? Luca, baby, why? I've found almost everything Butler has done in the past several years of making a name for himself to be phony and try-hard -- no matter the praise they received his Elvis and his turn in Dune Part Two were both flops as far as I'm concerned. Flops! Credit where credit's due -- he was fine playing a pretty boy poseur in The Bikeriders and I liked how Quentin Tarantino used him as a blowhard in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood...

... but I'd say it's his Dune work that landed him this gig and I have no idea what anyone sees in that performance. I find it laughable. I re-watched the movie last week and I still find it laughable. He has no presence in it -- he's the least scary villain since Jared Leto dyed his hair green. I will admit that there's something to be said here about Luca casting someone who reads as a total void to me as Patrick Bateman, the ultimate void. Lord knows I owe Mr. Guadagnino the benefit of the doubt at this point! His remake of Suspiria -- another film that never should have worked but managed to become one of my favorite horror films of all time -- proved my anti-remake mindset before that to be mostly foolish. But going into that I loved all oif the actors he'd hired, and that is just not going to be the case with this if this ends up happening. When I posted the remake's announcement in October I just figured this'd go onto the director's extensive never-happening heap of projects, but this casting news makes it seem like it is really happening. Granted Ellis' book and Harron's movie are very different, and having a gay man approach the material will probably give it a different hook. Also there is the real-world angle of our political reality to mine -- the poison of the 1980s New York Finance Bro misogyny mind-set which has had some, you know, consequences. I don't know. I don't know, dammit! Why can't Luca just be nice to me?

Pics of the Day

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I attended the premiere of Sony's latest stab at superhero dominance Kraven the Hunter last night here in NYC and above are a few photos I snapped of the film's cast introducing the film -- that includes MNPP faves Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Alessandro Nivola, and Fred Hechinger. (If only Christopher Abbott had shown and given me a full quartet of crushes.) Not the greatest quality snaps since I was in the balcony but better than they have any right being -- the latest iPhone camera really is a wonder of modern technology. Anyway Kraven is finally out on Friday, and I suppose I'll have some words to share on the movie itself before the week is out so stay tuned...

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

When I posted that hot Alexander Ludwig snap yesterday morning I didn't foresee this turning into a Hot Alexander Ludwig Photo week, but I am not angry about it -- quite thee contrary. Some photoshoots of some boys just cannot be denied and this...

... right here is one of those photoshoots. There are for Odda magazine (via) and I'd rank it right up there among his hottest -- which is saying something! Alexander Ludwig has been a generous young man in his career. Go swim through our archives if you don't believe me. Or just hit the jump and get this fresh proof...

A Good Night For Good Boys

And yes, that means you.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

No Country For Old Men (2007)

Ed Tom Bell: I was sheriff of this county when I was twenty-five years old. Hard to believe. My grandfather was a lawman; father too. Me and him was sheriffs at the same time; him up in Plano and me out here. I think he's pretty proud of that. I know I was. Some of the old time sheriffs never even wore a gun. A lotta folks find that hard to believe. Jim Scarborough'd never carried one; that's the younger Jim. Gaston Boykins wouldn't wear one up in Comanche County. I always liked to hear about the oldtimers. Never missed a chance to do so. You can't help but compare yourself against the oldtimers. Can't help but wonder how they would have operated these times. There was this boy I sent to the 'lectric chair at Huntsville Hill here a while back. My arrest and my testimony. He killt a fourteen-year-old girl. Papers said it was a crime of passion but he told me there wasn't any passion to it. Told me that he'd been planning to kill somebody for about as long as he could remember. Said that if they turned him out he'd do it again. Said he knew he was going to hell. "Be there in about fifteen minutes". I don't know what to make of that. I sure don't. The crime you see now, it's hard to even take its measure. It's not that I'm afraid of it. I always knew you had to be willing to die to even do this job. But, I don't want to push my chips forward and go out and meet something I don't understand. A man would have to put his soul at hazard. He'd have to say, "O.K., I'll be part of this world."

A wise movie knows that you give Tommy Lee Jones a monologue to deliver and then you just sit back and listen to Tommy Lee Jones deliver it, and No Country For Old Men is a wise movie, perhaps the wisest, because it does this twice -- at start and at finish. I was torn between which speech to quote honestly -- I do love his retelling of his dreams that closes the film -- but the above one, from the film's opening, just feels a little too meaningful to this moment in time not to highlight it here on the day that Criterion has blessed us with the Oscar-winner on 4K blu. 

Anyway I do remain of the mind that Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood is the number one movie of 2007, but this masterpiece from the Coens' is just a trifle behind it in my humble -- and I was a bit shocked when I looked back at my 2007 Top Ten list because NCFOM isn't on it at all! (Funny sidenote: 2007 is the first time I tried posting a Top 10 and other assorted year-end awards and it's amusing, in a semi-mortifying way, to look back at that link to see the state of my still relatively early blogging efforts. Phew. We've come a long way baby.) Then I noticed that I do give a note there why it's not included -- I wanted to see it a second time before deciding where I came down on it. Well I've seen it ten more times by now and baby, it's second. Which one tops for you?

online polls

A Complete Unknown in 350 Words or Less

As with Wicked I don't think anybody needs my thoughts on a Bob Dylan bio-pic given the fact that I have never in my life given a shit about Bob Dylan -- add on top of that the fact that I have never loved a movie by director James Mangold and we're really cooking with gas (as in flatulance). But unlike Wicked and unlike every single one of Mangold's previous movies I actually walked out of A Complete Unknown with a smile on my face and a few tears wiped from my eyes -- this is a solid, totally respectable and enjoyable movie. 

Obviously I'm one of the founders of Team Timmy so you might think me biased due to that, but honest to blog he crafts a real character here -- this movie doesn't feel exhaustingly yolked to the bio-pic conventions of "here I was born and here I died and oh I did some Forrest Gump like shit in between;" it gives us an arc, and characters, to care about. Granted the real life arc it bridges -- "Folk Music can't be Electric or the world will end, oh my gahhhhhhhh" -- is hella silly from the vantage point of now; the film, as sweet as Edward Norton's performance as Pete Seeger is, really never manages to make that line of thinking seem like anything but nonsense. So that conflict never rises above a shrug. 

But the fiery relationship triangle between Chalamet, Elle Fanning (as a semi-fictional take on a real girl that Dylan dated), and Monica Barbaro as Joan Baez (both actresses superb) is beautifully acted and surprising and truly honestly earned my heart. And the film is very good at involving us in the songwriting process -- even if I'm not a Dylan fan the movie made me appreciate his skills as a wordsmith and a world-shifting entertainer. A Complete Unknown doesn't break open the bio-pic mold but it's about as good an example of what's-to-be-expected can be. Gonna be a fine pic over the holidays for those forced to endure family time.

Jonathan Bailey Seventeen Times

As dismissive of Wicked as I might have been -- and remain! -- there is one reason, one big reason, and one big reason alone I am not going to begrudge it its success and you're looking at that reason's nipples right there. Our Jonny boy is terrific in the movie (to be honest none of the actors are my problem with the movie; they're all fine) and we are rooting for him to be the gay superstar leading man we've forever been waiting for. So whatever it takes. Even me clamping my musical-hating yap shut. These photos come via the website Who What Wear and there's a chat with him at the link as well. But pictures! We want pictures. Hit the jump for all the pictures I could scrounge up... 

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?