Gone Sundancin'

Okay I had planned on using the post below this one as my send-off as I'm now off to get lost in the folds of my sofa (not a euhpemism) while watching Sundance movies virtually through this Sunday. But then I stumbled across this vintage picture of one Sundance founder Robert Redford and uhhhhhh let's just say it won the day. See y'all back here Monday and thank you, Mr. Redford! 

KJ Apa Eight Times

I... have very little to say of substance right now. The world is very distracting! Thankfully KJ Apa grew out his chest hair and invited a photographer from Flaunt magazine over to document it so I don't need to say anything. Although a note of side-business -- I'm off for the rest of the week for virtual Sundancing (i.e. I'll be cramming as many movies into my eye-holes as is possibly over five days) so it will probably be pretty quiet round these parts. If and when more Sundance reviews start piling up at Pajiba (my first one went up earlier this afternoon) I'll try to link to them here but I might literally be too busy watching movies. I have a lot to watch! Dozens! So keep your eye on the Bluesky (I'm fully done with Twitter in case you missed that overdue news) or until I'm back proper-like Monday you'll have to make due with KJ (poor dears) after the jump...

The Surreality Doesn't Stop Here

It feels a little weird to be writing movie reviews while our President is dismantling our government around us (whoops there goes Medicaid!) and our opposition leaders just worry about their stock portfolios, but here we are and I review movies for a living so hopefully I can give one or two of you some distraction during a profoundly troubling moment -- at least while the internet is still running anyway! Maybe print out all of MNPP right now, just in case. Anyway yes a movie review, and one from Sundance no less! Over at Pajiba today I wrote up my thoughts on the new movie from Strawberry Mansion director Albert Birney called OBEX, which defies easy explanation -- if you seen any of Birney's previous movies you'll know what I mean. Anyway I get into it in the review. Just know the most important detail of all -- the film's leading lady is the sweetest puppy-dog angel in the world! All hail queen Dorothy! Embrace good things.

A Banquet of Beauties

Since I'm covering Sundance virtually this year there are a few choice titles I am missing out on that I'm extremely -- to put it mildly -- bummed about missing. And right up there at the tippy top is writer-director Andrew Ahn's re-working of Ang Lee's film The Wedding Banquet. I told you about this movie back in April of last year -- it stars Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie Tran, Youn Yuh-jung, Joan Chen (Josie Packard!!!), and the stunning Han Gi-Chan seen above leaning on Bowen's shoulder but we owe ourselves a better look at him, we do:

Swoon. Anyway Ahn (one of MNPP's favorite young filmmakers who's previously gifted us with Spa Night, my beloved Driveways, and the gay rom-com Fire Island) has remodeled Lee's story for 2025 in ways I won't dive into because everyone should just watch the movie and experience it. But I'm going to trip over that exact statement now by sharing the first teaser for the movie anyway because I live in a constant state of hypocrisy. Just don't watch this thing I am posting if you don't want to know like I said you shouldn't!

Thankfully we don't have ages upon ages to wait for the film even if we're missing out on it right this minute -- it is hitting theaters on April 18th! I think we'll probably survive at least that long (fingers crossed, knock on wood, etc) so let's go add this one to all of our calendars. And you can see the poster and several more images from the film right on here after the jump...

Vibin' With The Vourdalak!

The literal only reason the vampire puppet surreal horror film The Vourdalak only made it onto my list of runners-up in my favorite 2024 films was because of a mistake on my part -- somewhere in the editing and endless re-editing process of said list I misplaced the film's title from the document I was working on and I didn't realize it until I'd posted the final list. If the title had been there in front of me and I had remembered it The Vourdalak would have been in my Top 20 and I feel shitty about it! But now you can see the movie for yourself and understand why I feel so shitty for that mistake -- it's now streaming on Shudder.  It's one of 2024's great films, absolutely singular and odd and funny and delightful, and I adore it -- here is my original review. The film is also getting a blu-ray release (thank goodness!) in "Late Spring 2025" and you can buy it on Oscilliscope's website for the time being. I have a feeling a lot of people will be discovering and loving this now that it's more broadly available! 

JAW Me By Your Name

Now here we see a few of my interests rubbing up on each other in a pleasurable way -- underpants model and professional chef pretender Jeremy Allen White is going to follow up his role as everybody's favorite New Jersey songstress with man-fucking! He's going to star in an limited series adaptation of Call Me By Your Name author André Aciman's bisexual tome Enigma Variations for Netflix. Here is the book's description:

"Enigma Variations charts the life of a man named Paul, whose loves remain as consuming and as covetous throughout his adulthood as they were in his adolescence. Whether the setting is southern Italy, where as a boy he has a crush on his parents’ cabinetmaker, or a snowbound campus in New England, where his enduring passion for a girl he’ll meet again and again over the years is punctuated by anonymous encounters with men―whether he’s on a tennis court in Central Park or on a New York sidewalk in early spring. Paul’s attachments are ungraspable, transient, and forever underwritten by raw desire. Ahead of every step Paul takes, his hopes, denials, fears, and regrets are always ready to lay their traps. Yet the dream of love lingers. We may not always know what we want. We may remain enigmas to ourselves and to others. But sooner or later, we discover who we’ve always known we were."

I actually weirdly can't remember if I read this book or not? My brain ain't what it used to be y'all. I don't think I did but if I did it would've been in 2019 and there was so much else going on right then who can remember shit. Anyway on top of this series starring JAW and coming from an Aciman novel it's being directed in full by Oliver Hermanus, the South African director who caught my attention with the gay military drama Moffie in yes ye olde 2019 (I remember Moffie!) and then further when he made the gorgeous Living with Bill Nighy, and then again when he made the queer princeling story Mary & George with Julianne Moore, and who's immediate next project -- a gay love story starring Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal called The History of Sound  that'll supposedly be out sometime this year -- has been capturing my interest every second since I first heard about it ages back for obvious reasons. 

Anyway Hermanus seems to smartly be following the Luca Guadagnino playbook in establishing his cinematic bonafides while remaining very very gay, and we love to see it. This project will obviously remain very much on our radar!

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

Anybody watch Timmy's episode of SNL this weekend? I thought it was fun (I would agree with Dustin's assessment at Pajiba) but then my Timmy bias has been prominent since 2017 and there's no letting go. Even him dating one of those people inexplicably hasn't dented it. Even a goddamned Bob Dylan movie did nothing to hurt it! He made me enjoy a Bob Dylan movie for god's sake!

Meaning he can do anything. I don't think he'll win the Oscar for it nor am I rooting for him to win it this year -- for god's sake give Ralph Fiennes the respect his damn name deserves -- but if he somehow saunters up on the stage I will just whisper "Elio, Elio, Elio" to myself and rejoice in that hallowed name.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

 Today I'd rather be...

... Will Poulter's back-warmer bike bitch. 

Will Poulter's transformation into a sex god is now complete
with this Road Warrior fashion show saunter for the record books.

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

Actor, stuntman, former Power Ranger and current hot hot hot piece Yoshi Sudarso would like to wish us all a bright and happy (and hot hot hot) Monday morning. Thank you, Yoshi! We're gonna need it. (It being you, here beside me, keeping me personally and individually warm please and thank you.)

The Big Bailey Bounce

Posting back to back Jonny Bailey photos won't do anything for those of you complaining he's overexposed but as far as I'm concerned unless he's in this outfit at this link Jonathan Bailey is never exposed enough dammit. Aaaaanyway I am just using Jonny as a fare-thee-well unto the weekend as I'm off to completely collapse mentally and physically for the next two days -- I don't know about you but this week felt one million hundred years long and I am planning to sleep like a motherfucker. Next week we'll finally start with the Sundance content but for now, I gift myself a small extremely needed breather. Have a good weekend and treat yourselves well. We're all we've got. Us and Jonny!

Pic of the Day

We now here have a second photo of Jonathan Bailey in the forthcoming Jurassic Park film titled Jurassic World: Rebirth -- see the first even bicep-ier one here -- and we're continuing on with the theme of "Jonathan Bailey is going to be so hot in this movie fighting dinosaurs that I am going to drop dead right there in the theater" I see. Here below is the full picture which also has his leading lady one Miss ScarJo included:

This movie is coming to us from director Gareth Edwards, possibly an excellent choice given his Godzilla movie mostly rules and Rogue One is fun (save its leading lady who I just cannot with) and I did love his breathtrough film Monsters back in the day -- the first time we saw Scoot! Kinda weird that Edwards hasn't worked with Scoot again, now that I think of it. Scoot would be great in a Jurassic Park movie. Wonder if anything happened between them. Not, like, sexy -- just negative. Anyway JWR is out on July 2nd making it one of the very few things we have to look forward to, like ever. Optimism! Oh and here's a picture I seem to've missed which I've just spotted on the film's IMDb page -- and yes you should be noting those bulging veins in Jonny's forearm because Cinema:

I Feel His Presence Inside Me

There's not much info on actor Eddy Maday to be found online but he's handsome, right? That shot comes via his Insta here, where every other post is about his literal only credit on IMDb, Steven Soderbergh's haunted house movie Presence which is out in theaters today. Anyway playing one of four leads in a Soderbergh movie is a pretty solid foot in the door so good for him -- it's just a shame I didn't like Presence when I saw it at Sundance last year! Here is my re-upped from 12 months ago review, which is why we're really here. I'm usually very on board whatever Soderbergh does but I don't think -- outside of momentary Slasher POV shots -- I can ever get behind first-person camera-work (see also: Nickel Boys), I just find it eternally distracting and distancing. Even if it's a ghost! But that's not Presence's only fault, to my mind -- the last act is needlessly over complicated, scrambling to make sense where it's a ghost story's job to make us feel haunted instead. Whatever, most people seem to like it. I'm an outlier on this one!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Nest (2020)

Allison: You can blame shit on me Sam, but you're 

the one who's going to have to live with your choices.

Sam: I don't have to make choices, mom. 

I'll just find a man to make my choices for me.

A happy 44 to Carrie Coon today! We've just got a couple of weeks until The White Lotus returns for its third season and we're gifted with CC dropped Mike White dialogue like its hot (her AND Parker Posey -- I can barely contain my glee; and you did hear the show's already renewed for a fourth season right? It sppears the trade-off on this timeline was everything else is shit but we get Mike White finally being appreciated properly.) Anyway if you still haven't seen Sean Durkin's 2020 film The Nest (it got seriously lost and underappreciated amid the doom of that year) I highly recommend you seek it out; I think it's brilliant. Here's my review. And even if you disagree there's a Carrie Coon dance sequence that transcends all differences!

You should also go and watch His Three Daughters on Netflix by the way -- the movie got ignored by awards bodies I think because nobody knew which actress between Coon, Natasha Lyonne, and Elisabeth Olsen to focus on because they're all really great in it. A really fine piece of work, that one. 

Rodrigo Santoro Seven Times

What a perfect Friday treat -- a new photoshoot of Brazil's greatest export Rodrigo Santoro from Bazaar magazine (via). And our fella is looking really good, right? It looks like he's finally recovered from losing all that weight for a role like a decade ago -- I wish actors would stop doing that. Christian Bale done messed up an entire generation of our most precious and beautiful treasures. Anyway point being hi Rodrigo! Happy to see you. And now we shall hit the jump to see some more...

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, Jai

Yesterday Jai Courtney shared with us some photos of him celebrating a belated homebound premiere for his Netflix Western series American Primeval, which didn't get a real premiere because of the L.A. fires. Looking it up now I see the series has apparently been a hit (as far as we can gague Netflix numbers for real) -- anybody watched it? I haven't yet but it's got Jai so I will at some point probably. For now I am happy with these photos! Hit the jump for them all...

The Harding of Friedrich

There are several moments that made me gasp in Nosferatu, but none louder than when Aaron Taylor-Johnson revealed the very important and critical detail that his character of "Friedrich Harding" dresses to the left. And let us take this opportunity to congratulate the film's costume designer Linda Muir on her richly deserved Oscar nomination! See two more gifs from this moment right here -- there's another moment in the movie (seen here; thx Mac) where Aaron's constant co-star makes a similar cameo but it was this shot above that really shook me to my core, personally. Stormed my castle, even! I mean -- they're plaid pants, even! This was a message sent directly to me, I know it. In all seriousness I could 100% write a serious piece of criticism on the abundance of phallic imagery in Eggers' adaptation if, you know, I was a serious person. Instead we get bulge gifs! Awooga!

The Goblin King Meets the Prince of Darkness

I've always found it odd that I have no emotional connection to the 1986 film Labyrinth -- I'm the right age for it, I loved The Muppets, and I'd eventually grow up to become a horror freak who adores David Bowie. But the movie for whatever reason never grabbed me as a kid and so I find myself in a weird position approaching today's news from Deadline that no less than director Robert Eggers is apparently working on a sequel to the film.  Alongside yesterday's much-more-thrilling-to-me news that Eggers is working on a werewolf movie it's proof that the box office success of Nosferatu (along with its four Oscar nominations, and even better its high placement on my own Top 20 of 2024 list) has everybody wanting to take a bite of Bobby and that makes me happy. But this is just weird news that I don't know how to react to. I did re-watch Labyrinth a couple years ago (it's on 4K now!) and I still feel very little for it but I guess it will be cool to see what the hell Robert Eggers would do with puppets. Or will this movie be puppet-less? I can't imagine that is a possibility -- the people who love the original would riot. It's hard for me to imagine this movie at all! I don't know! Weird news! If nothing else I hope they bring back Jennifer Connelly.