Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Grifters (1990)

Myra: He was so crooked he could 
eat soup with a corkscrew.

There are a lot of fun lines of dialogue in Stephen Frears' neo-noir The Grifters but that one's my favorite -- that line and a person being beat with a bag of oranges are the things that pop up in my head from this movie way, way more often than might seem reasonable, but then I have a very odd brain, what can I say. Anyway we're obviously not alone in feeling this film because as we told you back in October was happening Criterion has gone and released it onto 4K blu-ray today so go buy it! And I hope they decide to drop some more Frears flicks into their collection in the near future -- I'd totally kill for good releases of Dirty Pretty Things and Prick Up Your Ears! Or if not "kill" perhaps just beat with a bag of oranges...


Five Frames From ?





What movie is this?

We All Fall For Nosferatu


Some terrific physical media news landing in the last 12 hours (for those of you who know physical media is where it's at, and the rest of you who should learn just that) -- first up we've got the official release info for Robert Eggers' Nosferatu, of which you might have noticed I'm a fan (here is my review) -- this movie is out on VOD right this very moment! So if you missed it in theaters... well I think it's still in theaters, so go to a theater dammit. But if you're not able, rent it now. Fine! But that's not physical -- you can pre-order the 4K blu-ray right here, which streets on February 18th. The disc is loaded with special features, including excitingly an "extended cut" which I believe adds like 20 minutes to the movie? A lot of people complained the film was too long as is but I am not one of those people and can't wait to soak in the world Eggers created a bit longer. My assumption is there will be more of the side characters, and seeing as how the relationship between Aaron Taylor-Johnson & Emma Corrin's characters is a thread I really love in the film that felt a bit too brief to me I'd love more of them. (Anyone saying ATJ is the weak link in the film is incorrect -- I think it's his best work ever.) 

But wait -- that's not all! Another masterpiece got an announcement -- the folks at Umbrella Entertainment down in Austrailia have announced their 4K box-set of The Cell director Tarsem's long long long out-of-print 2006 The Fall starring Lee Pace. This movie basically vanished the movie is arrived, flopping in theaters and barely making a dent on home video but last year a 4K restoration appeared and this is the first announcement of its imminent homeward drop. I am recommending patience and some caution here though if you're in the U.S. -- Mubi released the 4K restoration here in the U.S. and my guess is they'll be dropping a 4K disc of their own here in the States that will be far more reasonably priced and just hasn't been announced yet. I ordered Umbrella's box myself because...

... Umbrella is in my opinion making the best, most beautiful physical media sets in the business right now,. But they are pretty expensive and shipping is outrageous if you don't buy enough to get yourself over the free shipping threshold. What I do is I usually wait for several things to be announced over the course of a few months and then I get them all in one big splurge. Thankfully Umbrella also announced a box-set of Thai horror movies and the tremendous 2004 horror film Shutter (first time on 4K anywhere) so that wasn't difficult this time. These all hit in May -- when Mubi announces the U.S. version I will come back and post again!

In more immediate news -- instant gratification, baby! -- three Quentin tarantino movies hit 4K today, including his greatest film of them all 1997's Jackie Brown. That along with both of the Kill Bill films can be bought on Lionsgate's website, where they've begun putting out special editions of their films! A wonderful development for us physical media nerds when a lot of studios seem to be taking the exact opposite approach and turning their backs on physical releases so they can make you rent occasional access to them on streaming services forever and ever, isntead of woning the damn movie permanently as the movie gods truly intended. We love to see it! Coming up next from Liosgate are special editions of You're Next and The Third Man, which can also be bought at that link. Everybody give Lionsgate a hand!


Good Morning, World


Let's make like Beau Mirchoff today, you sexy beasts.
(By which I mean get drunk and get naked.)


Monday, January 20, 2025

Nothing But Blue Sky


I had been holding onto my Twitter account because I'm an addict but seeing the video of Elon Musk give a Nazi salute (twice) during the Rapist-in-Chief's Inauguration ceremony today finally smashed my second-to-last shred of attachment to bits and I'm done posting there. I'm not totally deleting the account (that would be the last-to-last shred) for the time being because I have too much history piled up on there and I want to direct people still there how to find me, but I won't be tweeting anything new. This is to say you should go join Bluesky if you haven't yet and follow me there. Or any of the other sites listed on my Linktree. Or just bookmark MNPP itself -- if I'm posting less on social media then it's more likely I will refocus more energy here onto the site and the other real proper websites I write for. I've seen a lot of people arguing that "blogging" should come back into style since social media is poisoned and I'm kind of like, "Hey I never stopped lol" to that. But I certainly did put a lot of energy into Twitter, tossing out random thoughts that back in 2005 when I started this site might've been their own post. Let's see how it goes. In a year we might all be in a work-camps and in two we'll probably all be nuclear dust. Happy Monday!

Assume The Pose


As I mentioned on Friday I had a review going up over the weekend -- and it did! It did go up. And here I am directing you over to it in case you're like me and spend the two measly days of your weekends trying to not stare at the internet in terror like you do the other five. Click here and you can read my thoughts on La Pietà, the truly bizarre 2022 film from Spanish director Edurado Casanova, who I call out in the review as the place where early Almodóvar meets Todd Solondz. It's very queer, very camp, and very very aggressive, and since those are all things I love I think you can imagine where I fell down on this movie. Oh and it's on VOD so you can watch it right now! What a good way to spend today instead of watching literally anything else you might watch.

Today's Mood


Happy birthday, David Lynch.
 

Five Frames From ?





What movie is this?

Robert Pattinson Seven Times


Here's another good distraction for our Monday morning, to get us up and moving (or down and not moving, whatever your preference) -- some new photos of Pattinson of the Robert kind for Dior's men's fragrance (via)! And weirdly I feel like I can smell these photos? Don't you? I know it's just the sheen they applied to Robby's golden skin but it's as if a sweet musk emenates right off of these photos. So good work, photographer Mikael Jansson -- you did it.  Achievment unlocked. Hit the jump for the entire sweaty, swarthy batch...

Good Morning, World


Happy Monday to to we Americans Happy Martin Luther King Jr Day -- I feel like there is something else happening today I hear but I sure as fuck won't be paying attention to that shit-show. Instead let us enjoy this new photoshoot of human-special-effect slash actor Aaron Pierre for Man About Town magazine (via) -- god he's gorgeous. Beyond gorgeous! He's fully in Michelle Pfeiffer so beautiful as to be somewhat uncanny territory. Like "how do you cast him as a normal person" pretty. Just a perfect, exquisite specimen. Have I gushed enough? (If you only knew!) (Eww it's early, Jason. Take it down a notch.) Anyway I have indeed been forced to come into work today so we will indeed be posting today and so let's get to it... but first hit the jump for more Aaron to get yourself gushing too...

Friday, January 17, 2025

The Saddest Weekend of the Year


That is a photo fo Jonathan Bailey that I have posted before but I need a pick-me-up here on the day after David Lynch died so don't judge. I've mostly spent today reading Lynch tributes, hence the relative quiet -- although I also have a review that'll be hitting Pajiba at some point today or this weekend so stay tuned for that. See -- I haven't been completely sidelined! I am trying to hold Lynch's cheery workmanship attitude at the forefront of my mind -- he would want us to keep writing, to keep making, with every fiber of our being. Anyway the review I wrote was not of Wolf Man -- I mentioned at the beginning of this week I was seeing a screening of that but subway troubles got in the way and I missed that screening, so I haven't seen that one yet! I'm hoping to get to it this weekend even though the reviews do seem pretty limp. But unlike most weekends as of late I do actually plan on leaving the house on Sunday...

... since they're screening a new restoration of Pink Narcissus at MoMA! I cannot miss that! And since I'll be off the couch anyway why not try to be something like a human person and do some other stuff? Imagine that. I think more of that will be imperative to not collapse into total existential despair about the state of everything. Getting off the couch is a good start! (Who even am I and what I have I done with me? Spreading such statements. Filth!) Anyway each and every one of you have a great weekend. Even if it's generally stated that the third weekend of January is always the year's most depressing time. What do they know? Just go buy some of my shit off of eBay since I need to pay for the twenty David Lynch related things I bought in the past 24 hours and that will cheer you up. Oh and definitely do watch something by Lynch this weekend. If I find the time (couch-evading be damned) I'm going to try to watch his shortlived 1992 series On The Air, which has been fully uploaded onto Archive.org right here. It's one of the very few remaining Lynch works I have never seen! Actually now that I think about it that's what I'm doing tonight. Come, join me!



Pic of the Day


Fans left flowers and candles and photos memorializing David Lynch at the Bob's Big Boy statue in Burbank yesterday -- this might be the perfect Lynchian tribute. If you're not aware Lynch went to this this diner every day for seven years at 2:30 in the afternoon to have a coffee and a chocolate shake -- he said he went at that precise moment in the day because that was the time when the milkshake machine was working just right. (pic via) And here is a picture I have posted before, from happier times:


Five Frames From ?





What movie is this?

George Mackay Six Times


Well here's a nice distraction. Filmmaker Xavier Dolan photographed actor George Mackay for a new Gucci campaign! And I have the photos! That one above is going right onto the vision-board but they're all hotness so hit the jump and singe yourselves...

Good Morning, World


Yes I am still fully consumed with the loss of David Lynch -- don't expect this fire to die down any time soon. Sorry to belabor that metaphor and not to be morbid but given it's Lynch I think he would be interested in this himself -- I found myself thinking about his career-long fascination with fire and smoke ("Fire Walk With Me" et cetera) this morning, and the fact that it appears his death came about because of the combination of his previously revealed emphysema from years of chain smoking plus that being exacerbated by the Los Angeles wildfires and his having to be evacuated from his home because of them a few days ago and... well it's comsic and it's eerie, the way all of this is adding up. I miss him so much y'all. The world feels so much shittier knowing he's not out there.


Thursday, January 16, 2025

RIP David Lynch


I felt lucky at least once a week, but sometimes once or twice a day, to be alive at the same time as David Lynch. That might sound outlandish but it's not even the slightest bit of an exaggeration. His work walked with me. It inspired and scared and tickled me. He gave me a fresh way to look at the world -- he didn't just make movies. He reshaped my consciousness. And I don't say that in a religious way -- I never paid much attention to his Transcedental Meditation stuff, at least beyond the effect it had on his work. I mean that his work ingrained itself in my understanding of life, love, everything. 


I cannot possibly overstate his influence, and now he's gone and I don't want to write. I never wanted to write this post, This obituary. As the man grew older I worried constantly about this moment. And now I just want to go to a movie theater and sit in the dark and watch his images for the next month of my life. I want to pay him proper respect and shut everything down for a period of actual, legitimate mourning. And celebration. There was no one like him in my life, and the world does indeed have a big hole in it now. I will no doubt have more to say on the man ahead, but today I can't. Go through our Lynch Archives to see some stuff. Below is his family's statement. Goodbye David, and thank you.



Documentary Like Right Now, Right Here


This is the best news we'll get today, it's all downhill from here -- hell this could be the best news we get all month. (I'll stop myself there lest I depress myself again.) The IFC comic mockumentary masterpiece Documentary Now! from Fred Armisen and Bill Hader is getting a box-set blu-ray release! Pre-order it right here -- hitting on February 25th it's four discs including every episode (which each riff on a different real-world documentary comedically) and loaded with extras. We should've known that Hader, who's practically jizzed himself inside the Criterion Closet (as too would I!), wouldn't let this series go physical media free! I'm just surprised this seems to indicate that the series is done? I figured they'd keep dropping seasons of this for the rest of our lives. Well maybe they will and they're lying when they call this set "complete" -- I'd be fine with being lied to in this instance. It'll just be good to have everything so far in my grimy hands. There are lots of episodes of this series I've still never seen -- it always feels like one to watch sporadically, whenever you need a pick-me-up. I like having it for rainy days. 



Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

John: This shit really sells doesn't it?
Linda: More than you'd think. Surprised?
John: Lady, nothing surprises me anymore. 
We fucked up the air, the water, we fucked up each other.
Why don't we just finish the job
by flushing our brains down the toilet?

A happy 77 to the legend John Carpenter!

Five Frames From ?





What movie is this?

Good Morning, Yura


When yesterday afternoon I posted that Sean Baker's Anora is getting a Criterion release I did a quick search to see what images of Russian actor Yura Borisov I'd posted before so I didn't repeat myself and I discovered that I've barely posted any! Blaspheme! (There is this one post and that is it.) I had hopped onto his bandwagon even before Anora when I saw him the wonderful 2021 movie Comparment Number 6 (here is my review of that movie where I called him "a moody revelation") and I had even gathered up an entire folder of pictures of him to post at some point... then didn't. Well that was the reminder I needed -- I'm only posting one photoshoot of him this morning, but it's a good one...

... even if he's got hair and a beard and looks very very different than the hairless beauty we've seen on the Anora campaign trail. But still a beauty! Let this be my FYC to awards voters -- I'm not a huge fan of Anora but let's get Yura that Supporting Actor nomination -- he earned it. (I actually think he's the best thing in the movie, even better than Mikey Madison. He's the lynchpin without which none of it would work and he judges every moment of that performance perfectly, including his reactions to my biggest problem with the movie, i.e. the homophobia it casually tosses around without ever having anything to say about it.) All that said let us now hit the jump for a whole lot of Yura to stare at...