Feast On This

Having missed Spa Night when it came out in 2016 I only came around to writer-director Andrew Ahn when I saw his 2019 film Driveways at Tribeca that year. But that movie stirred something deep in me (see my review here) so I've been ecstatic to see bigger name actors running wildly toward Ahn ever since -- in 2022 with his sweet queer comedy Fire Island and now this past weekend his updated re-do of Ang Lee's The Wedding Banquet, which on paper feels blasphemous but in practice is turned into a glorious ode to queer family by Ahn. The new film stars Bowen Yang, Lily Gladstone, Kelly Marie-Tran, Han Gi-Chan (seen above, a real revelation in the swoon department), Joan Chen, and Youn Yuh-jung, and as I say in my just-dropped review of the film over at Pajiba -- everybody's great in it but it's Youn who steals the whole thing, giving a performance I immediately fell head over heels for. I love this even more than the performance in Minari that she won her Oscar for (and I loved that movie and that performance). All around another grand success for Ahn, and for the rest of us a soothing super-gay balm in trying times. A warm and funny gift of a film!

Who Wore It Best?

I'm kind of annoyed that the Instagram account Portiswasp beat me to this punch because it'd popped into my head last week when I saw actor Brandon Skelnar (above right) wearing this stylist-fave mesh shirt for Interview Magazine and realized I'd seen it everywhere lately and had since then been meaning to do this exact poll. Alas I was too slow and you can see the entire collection of menfolk who've rocked the shirt at their link. Me I'll focus in on four of the fellas, all of whom (save Skelnar until now) had already been featured  here at MNPP in this nip-barer of a fashion choice. (Glen Powell here, George MacKay here, and Kit Connor here.)

online polls

That said those four aside the correct answer is 

probably actor Ishaan Khatter, because goddamn.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Beau is Afraid (2023)

Mona: You let things happen to you. 

Do you think that makes you innocent?

Happy 76 to Patti Lupone today! I rewatched 

this movie a few weeks ago and my god it holds up. 

Oh and since we're here I guess I should share this:

That's the teaser for Ari Aster's next movie Eddington, which reunites him with Beau star Joaquin Phoenix while adding to the mix Emma Stone, Pedro Pascal, Austin Butler, Clifton Collins Jr., and most importantly my beloved Deirdre O'Connell who's been in everything but recently tore it up as Colin Farrell's sick-headed momma in The Penguin. I'll just admit it right now -- I have not watched this teaser and I still have no fucking idea what Eddington is about, and I plan on keeping it that way for as long as possible. I don't need to know! Just put the fucking thing in front of me already. Unfortunately I'll probably learn more between now and its release date of July 18th. (Probably when it screens at Cannes and all of the fancypants who go to Cannes start jabbering on, sigh.)

Jack O'Connell Seven Times

Wildly I haven't been able to see Sinners yet (I am going this upcoming weekend though) but I have heard from several sources that Jack O'Connell is one of its many highlights and this makes me extremely glad -- talk about a terrific (and yeah let's be honest super beautiful) actor who's gone criminally underutilized for far too long. He's been screaming out for a great director to give him a juicy role for twelve years now since the one-two punch of Starred Up and '71 landed in 2013 (and then there was his breakthrough on Skins before that) -- which isn't to say he hasn't delivered good work in that time. (Go watch Andrew Haigh's miniseres North Water with Colin Farrell and Jack right now.) I'm just glad to hear he's gotten to stand out in a box office hit. More Jack please! Speaking of I have some more from this fresh sexy photoshoot for Hero magazine (read the interview here) for us right on after the jump...

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Nobody was able to guess this movie last week

so here are Five more Frames to guess with!

So what movie is it?

Good Morning, World

All I hallucinating or is our Jacob Elordi
wearing a jockstrap in this picture? 

Anyway our lil' butch boy says Happy Monday.

Guess I Should Catch Up With Surface

I couldn't find any information whatsoever on that photo of Oliver Jackson-Cohen fully mounting Phil Dunster, but since they're both on the second season of the Apple+ series Surface I'm assuming it has to do with that? I watched the first season of the show it feels like ages ago (and posted about it many times) and yet I keep forgetting the second season dropped -- this image however has smacked that forgetfulness right off my face. Dunster wasn't on the first season but he does have a previous work connection to Olly -- they didn't share scenes but they were both in the 2017 miniseries Man in an Orange Shirt, and they both played gay in it! Oliver was partnered with James McArdle in the WWII-era portion of it, while Dunster got railed by Julian Morris in one of the greatest scenes ever committed to celluloid. That was pre-Ted-Lasso though so at that time I was paying more attention to my boy Julian -- no more though! Now I have room for them both in my.... heart. Anyway I doubt Surface will reach those heights, but it gave us that picture up top and for that we are forever thankful. 

Pics of the Day

Jason Momoa shared the first images from his upcoming Apple+ miniseries Chief of War on his Insta last night, which he called his "Braveheart, [his] Last of the Mohicans" -- Momoa himself created the series and wrote one of the scripts, and it tells the epic true story of the 1780s unification of the Hawaiian islands and you can hear him speak with his typical enthusiasm about the project over at GQ today. I look forward to a history lesson alongside all the loincloths then! (First lesson -- Polynesians call their loincloths a "malo.") Fun aside: I posted these same two pictures on Bluesky last night and was told by one of my followers that they were an extra on the series and Jason wore just his malo for the entire time -- now that is making entertainment! Chief of War debuts on Apple on August 1st! There is a very brief teaser for it right here.

Who Wore It Best?

On the left we have an Instagram story from out actor Russell Tovey that dropped a little bit ago, and on the right we have an Instagram story that dropped from out actor Luke Evans also a little bit ago. If these two combined their Thirst-day bulge powers they could devour the world! Anyway we all want to be those dogs right now, but which one would you rather be...

online polls

May For May

Here's a bit of amazing news that dropped while I was away that I didn't realize was as amazing as it is until just now -- Lucky McKee's magnificent 2002 horror flick May is finally getting a U.S. blu-ray release! Starring Angela Bettis, Jeremy Sisto, and Anna Faris, I've long sung this flick's praises so you'd think I'd have been right on this, but I got confused by the film having gotten a U.K. release like last year-ish that I snapped up the instant it went on sale -- this blu from Vestron, which is released on May 13th, is the first for our little pile of states though. For the moment you can pre-order the blu right here, although I can't imagine this will stay limited to Lionsgate's website. But it's loaded to the gills with special features -- as well it should be. What a movie! Here's its trailer if you're unfamiliar:

Good Morning, World

We have writer-director Sebastián Silva to thank slash blame for putting Jordan Firstman onto my radar with his hilarious black comedy Rotting in the Sun (my review here); Firstman's friendship with legend-in-the-making Rachel Sennott has also kept him in my sightline as well. Not that I'm mad about any of that -- I just don't know that I'd have come across (heh) his social-media-based comedy stuff otherwise. But Jordan's whole aggressively gay furball exhibitonist thing is indeed catnip to me, so I find myself happy that Interview Magazine got him to have an X-rated conversation with one of his Grindr hookups about his new comedy album -- we need this kind of horny distraction in the world right now. Or I do, at least. So thanks, Jordan! Hit the jump for a couple more photos...

Jamie Dornan Three Times

See a few more over here.

Quote of the Day

"A lot of people have donated to the David Lynch Foundation. It was something he was very passionate about. People can also follow Agent Cooper’s advice and give themselves a present every day. My father could not believe what was going on in the world politically, and it was very upsetting to him. People can be kind to each other. As much darkness as he was able to swim in and express, there was so much more light in his work. People can do nice things for other people in his name. That would make him very happy."

Y'all should go read Vanity Fair's interview with David Lynch's daughter, the director Jennifer Lynch today -- as sad as the subject is so many of her words moved me greatly. Above is her answer to the final question that she's asked, about what people could do in memorium of her father, and it's a perfect testament to his legacy. As she also says in the chat -- for all the darkness in his work there's just as much sweetness and light and joy. And with all the horrors we're seeing on the news every minute it's important to remember to keep those things alive and vital in your life. They can't win if we don't let them beat it out of us. Fix your hearts or die!

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... making Russell Tovey squirm.

Sometimes you see actors posing in photoshoots in ways that you're not sure they realize what they're really doing -- although the entire conversation in The Other Two (god I miss that show) about the famous brother's armpit photo made me think that somebody along the food-chain always knows. But the gay actors always seem to know, and Russell Tovey...

... definitely, definitely knew what he was doing in his Another Man China photoshoot. I wouldn't be surprised if it was all his idea. "Lemme pull a Querelle," he said. And that's why we love him! (Well that plus the ears, of course.)

Anyway it's a hot slutty photoshoot and when it dropped at the end of last week I was so annoyed I was out of town and couldn't immediately post it. So here it is, a few days late but no less slutty and hot. But I'm giving you what nobody else is -- namely a bunch of gifs that I just made from the video that accompanied the shoot. (Hence his Bottoming Face up top.) Also the video itself. So hit the jump for the entire hot slutty Tovey smorgasbord...  

You Can Count on Criterion

Y'all know it drives my OCD nutty to post a photo with that much text scrawled over it but how can I deny a photo of vintage shirtless furball Mark Ruffalo? One that I don't believe I'd ever seen before at that??? (And you know I tried to find a copy without the text. Alas.) Anyway it's the perfect way to introduce us to the new batch of Criterion Collection movies that were announced yesterday, to be dropped come July -- I'm doing a lot of catching up today so I assume this won't be new news to most of you. But I'm hardly going to let news of the masterpiece You Can Count on Me entering the Criterion Collection in 4K pass us by, dammit. And that's just one title of their July slate...

... which also includes (all of them in 4K!) Mike Nichols' Carnal Knowledge, Fritz Lang's The Big Heat, Stanley Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, and (most excitingly for me) Francois Truffaut's two-decade-long quadrilogy of Antoine Doinel movies. The latter, which all star actor Jean-Pierre Léaud, began in 1959 with The 400 Blows and stretched to 1979's Love on the Run -- I've only ever seen the first movie and have been WAITING for this collection to right that wrong. Criterion always saves us!

Warfare Boys Gone Wild

As you well know -- as you no doubt have scratched into your flesh with a shard of glass! -- I wasn't here on Friday. And so I wasn't able to post a link (from here anyway) to my review of Warfare, Alex Garland's new war movie starring a cast of a thousand hotties that included Charles Melton, Cosmo Jarvis, Will Poulter, Kit Connor, D'Pharaoh Woon-A-Tai, Joseph Quinn, Henrique Zaga, and our boy Noah Centineo seen above in yet another photo from his truly endless Behind the Blinds photoshoot. (See more here, and that post includes a link to three previous posts from the same shoot.) I also wasn't able to share...

... that video of Kit Connor and Charles Melton digging around in the backside of Will Poulter's trousers from the cast's ridiculously baity press run (which I did previously touch upon here) and that won't stand either. But I should definitely now link to my review, which you can read right here. Did any of you go see the movie this weekend? If so let me know in the comments if you agree or don't with what I had to say. If you don't agree it's okay! It's okay to be wrong! That said there are more Noah photos to share so let's get to that (PS if I had one wish -- sorry, orphans of the world! -- it would be to have Noah's perfect mop of hair) and hit the jump for those...

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Nobody guessed this over the weekend

 so here are five more frames!

Okay what movie is it?