Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... in the room with Jai Courtney.

Well I will be seeing his movie The Fox now.

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Pic of the Day

What do you think they were talking about?

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

Oh happy day, a new Scott Speedman photoshoot (via) -- these don't come along nearly often enough. I think that show of his -- I had to look it up because I knew it had a generic nothingburger of a title and sure enough it's called R.J. Decker, sure okay whatever -- got itself renewed so that's probably why, and good for him. We love an employed actor we love. I will never watch it but there's always an audience for those things. Are you the audience for it? If so please tell me of the noted adventures of one R.J Decker, I'm all ears. Until then we're all eyes on Scott after the jump...

Greetings From Cheyenne

And salutations, too. But please, allow that photo above that Cheyenne Jackson just shared to distract you while I simultaneously share some annoying news -- it's another half day up in here as I'm running off to yet another pair of screenings for the remainder of this day. The life of a movie critic is a harried, pointless, nothing, am I right? Wocka wocka et cetera. Anyway don't be too distraught because after today's double-feature I'll be here on-blog for the rest of the week, from the moment I sit down at my desk until the moment I take a flying leap out of my office's eighteenth story window each night. (This is just how I commute home, don't worry.) And with both NewFest and Brooklyn Horror coming to an end shortly I'll be up in your business pretty regularly post-that. The yawning abyss of October duties is just about slammed shut -- I've just got a few reviews left to pound out and I can finally be the same amount of human person I was before all of this again. Which never was quite complete anyway, but you know -- close enough. It's what I have to work with! Sees you tomorrow.

Which Is Hotter?

online polls

Put them together and you've got the Golden Girls living-room.

 

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

For a brief second I was surprised to realize I hadn't posted any pictures of actor Angus O'Brien here on the site before, but then I remembered that I never got around to watching Boots -- yes I am part of the problem. Or that problem anyway. I don't know about all the problems. But maybe. Anyway these new and extremely porny photos (via) aren't the only reason he's on my mind -- I also just saw him acting this week for the first time via a short gay horror film called I'm Gonna Kill You that played at NewFest. I almost put "acting" in quotes because his role is pretty small in the short -- I kind of feel like he's just there to show his ass and then get murdered. You know. The usual "gay short film" stuff. All of that said these photos are a great way to kick off this Hump Day so hit the jump and get to humpin'...

Lorenzo Zurzolo Seven Times

La Bola Negra a movie full of (and about) gorgeous gay Spaniards, so it's kinda goofy that it's the Italian actor that I'm posting here -- c'est la vie or whatever! I do what I want! But no less than Penelope Cruz agrees with me -- or at least her character does, since she can't keep her eyes off the Italian either. Me and Penny get it! Anyway I'm using Lorenzo's gorgeous face here to advertise my review of La Bola Negra which dropped at Pajiba today -- read it here. I saw the movie twice just to make sure of my opinion, and sure I am -- I don't really like it very much. I get into the why at the link but honestly the Oscar talk confounds me. Not that I'm going...

... to spend too much time shit-talking the awards chances of an extremely gay movie. It's landing with other people, that's great -- nothing about the film rings homophobic to me; this isn't the "a bunch of straight people love this gay movie and are wrong" thing. This isn't Bohemian Rhapsody. So I will try to keep my outrage to a minimum. I just think the movie's pretty but rather empty-headed. I will 100% go to bat for its score though -- it's got a gorgeous score. It's got lots of gorgeous things (like its entire cast) but I just don't think it adds up to very much. Okay okay I say all this in my review, which you should go read. Right now, right here, let's stare at the gorgeous Italian boy after the jump...

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

The Hair Apparent

This photo that François Arnaud shared over the weekend is a good reminder that when he got his start in Xavier Dolan movies I initially thought of him as a hairdo actor -- his big bouncy bouffant in I Killed My Mother was a thing of awe. In that vein he looks ten years younger in this photo, doesn't he? It has me wondering if it's an old photo or if the bigger hair just does do that much work de-aging him. Or maybe he got something nipped? Whatever, he looks lovely. Anyway that thumbs up of his is my out-the-door gesture because I've got more yes more screenings today that have me, much like François' hair, bouncing early -- both NewFest and the Brooklyn Horror Fest continue through this week so your man is a busy little bee still! When will I collapse? I hope you're taking odds on one of those grotesque betting apps -- someone should benefit from my exhaustion. But then you shall because eventually some reviews will spring up out of it, like flowers birthed from my shitty soul. Bon voyage, bitches. Sees ya tomorrow.

This Used To Be My Slayground

The fine folks at A24 just dropped this surprise teaser poster on us today (via) with word that a trailer is coming tomorrow -- Slayground is from director Jeremy Saulnier, who has only made one movie that was "just okay" (that would be Hold the Dark with Alexander Skarsgard) while everything else he's made is "fucking fantastic." That would be Green Room, Blue Ruin, Rebel Ridge (with Aaron Pierre!), and even his first film Murder Party which I recall liking a lot back in the day. ("The day" being "2007.") We don't have a lot of info on Slayground (previously titled October) right now so perhaps it'd be smart for me to wait until the trailer drops tomorrow to post this, but I... am not doing that. So what do we know? We know it stars Cory Michael Smith which honestly is enough for me...

... he's a terrific actor (and a gay!) who's usually relegated to supporting roles where he steals the entire movie, (remember how good he was in May December?) save small films like 1985 he is absolutely incredible in (my review here). But Smith ain't all -- the movie also co-stars Stephen Root and James Badge Dale (mmm James Badge Dale) and Young Mazino (mmm Young Mazino) and Sophie Wilde and Imogen Poots (Green Room reunion!) and Chase Sui Wonders -- that's a tremendously-appealing-to-me cast already. Also Wikipedia labels the film as "a Halloween-set action thriller film" so that, along with the teaser poster, gives us more of a clue where this is headed. I'm getting Onslaught vibes but hopefully it's better than Onslaught. So... stay tuned! Watch this space! Tomorrow, a trailer! Here is a favorite James Badge Dale gif to get us there (more here):

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Polyester (1981)

Francine Fishpaw: I wish I could be more like you, Cuddles:
always optimistic. I look into my future, and all I see is a long,
dark highway, filled with endless toll booths and... no exits.

The divine Divine aka Harris Glen Milstead was born on this day 81 years ago. This should be an international holiday goddammit.

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Since no one has guessed here are five more:

So what movie is it?

Good Morning, World

How nice of Alexander Skarsgard to take last Friday's post title to heart -- yes these are more photos from the same photoshoot (via), and thank goodness there were more. And of such fine quality too! The man, he knows how to serve. In related news -- Wicker is out this week! More on that later. Like, later later this week. I am not a machine. For now we just sat down at our desk and our wherewithal seems to have stayed on the subway + joyrided (joyrode?) it outta here -- lemme drink my coffee and get back to you. Happy Monday! Hit the jump for more Alex bein' Alex...

Take Off Your Clothes & Go

I had just a couple of small plans this week -- mainly to wrap up my NYFF coverage -- but when I wasn't skittering off to press screenings I was feeling so burned out I could barely type the word "gratuitous." And we all know when that's the case it's shit's creek for us. And here we are, and it looks like Alexander Skarsgard -- this isn't actually so bad? Huh. Anyway I am done finito over fucked for the week -- I cannot possibly do any more work until I go home and collapse for a bit. I have been drained dry yo! (And not by Alex, unfortunately.) Coming next week -- supposedly a NYFF wrap-up, plus brand new reviews of the films La Bola Negra and Wicker and Wildwood, supposedly! (I only haven't seen the latter yet so these are all a work-in-progress.) Until then, collapse with me! Bye!

Crawlers in 150 Words or Less

Coming from your favorite noted arachnophobe it means something when I say that Crawlers is creepy crawly dumb fun -- it's basically an unofficial  remake of Sébastien Vanicek's far superior 2023 flick Infested, but really the logline "apartment building full of killer spiders gets quarantined and the residents must try to survive" is a logline that belongs to us all. This movie is dumber and sillier than Infested was and it really casts a wide net to catch up all of the "unlikeable slasher movie archetypes" it can for feeding to its eight-legged lil' freaks, but I slept very poorly after watching Crawlers all the same, and isn't that the point? To make you want to scratch your own skin off? As such, success.

Jesse Williams Twelve Times

This post is an amalgam of a few different photoshoots of Jesse Williams that I somehow missed over the past couple of years, all of which I gathered up just now to try and staunch the bleeding from the self-inflicted wound of something else I missed that's even more egregious -- the news that the legend Gregg Araki not only announced he's working on a new movie so quickly after I Want Your Sex broke a decade-long dry-spell, but... the bastard's already done filming the thing! And yes it co-stars the forever-dreamy Jesse here, but it's harkening back to his old-school gargantuan cast days a la Nowhere and so it also stars (deep breath)...

... Kal Penn, Michael Chiklis, David Koechner, Steve Guttenberg, Colleen Camp, Giovanni Ribisi, Judy Greer, Margaret Cho, Ashton Kutcher, Wendi McLendon-Covey, and Alison Brie! Good grief. The movie is titled for the moment The Decline Of Fucking Western Civilization (taken from a title-card in his movie Totally F*cked Up) but we don't know anything about the scenario other than that. Thank goodness he's pounding out movies again! And surely he will exploit how ridiculously hot Mr. Williams is, which is even more important. (I daren't dream of my front-row Take Me Out shower scene experience, but I do. I do!!!) Anyway until we get more info about this movie feel free to hit the jump for the Jesse snaps...

Deliver Us To Criterion

While we're still recovering from the swollen holiday schedule robbing us blind, the January load from Criterion usually runs light -- and it's no different for 2027, as they've just announced their releases and it's a small batch indeed. One third of it is 4K upgrades -- those would be John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy and Bong Joon-ho's Parasite (kind of surprised the latter wasn't already 4K, I hadn't noticed) -- and then there's a new set of Martin Scorsese's long running "World Cinema Project" series, including...

Finally! Very happy to see this appear in Criterion's January announcements as part of Volume 6 of Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project, three years after I caught the restoration at the London Film Festival, excellent 👌...

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— Richard Wells (@slipperyjack.bsky.social) October 16, 2026 at 2:05 PM

That leaves just three standalone releases for the month, but they're pretty darn exciting -- first up there is John Boorman's masculinity thriller Deliverance with Jon Voight, Ned Beatty, and Burt Reynolds at his highest Sex God peak. Great movie (now squeal, piggy.) Then second is Mike Leigh's Career Girls, one of the Leigh movies I've never seen -- any fans? It's Mike Leigh so obviously I'll see it at some point -- now that he's retiring I can finally catch up! (I'd gladly remain behind if he wanted to keep working though.) Anyway the final title for Criterion's January haul is another one I haven't seen, Claire Denis' debut film Chocolat starring the great and gorgeous Isaach de Bankolé. Look how pretty he is on the cover below! Good grief.