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 -- his Elvis and his turn in Dune Part Two were both flops, I say. 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?

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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?

Good Morning, World

Alexander Ludwig here, writing to tell you that I just can't let your host Jason leave bed quite yet this morning, and so he'll be posting a bit later than usual today. In a few hours, probably. If he can move by then. Well it's either that or he's got a screening to go to and that's what is keeping him offline, but let's all go with my first option just cuz it's more fun for everybody. I'm entertained, anyway.   

Harris Dickinson Seven Times

For a second I was sad to see that Harris Dickinson didn't nab a Golden Globe nomination this morning for his work in Babygirl -- even though his leading lady Nicole Kidman did -- but then I remembered these are the Golden f'ing Globes we're talking about, so who the fuck cares. (Not a question - a statement.)  They also didn't nominate the best performance by any actor this year -- Marianne Jean-Baptiste in Hard Truths -- so her and Harris should go paint the town red that night together, take their sexy talented two-some on the road and live it up like the rock stars they are. That'd be a May December romance for the record books! Anyway I'm more enthusiastic about this Harris photo-shoot than I am anything having to do with the Globes so let's celebrate these! Hit the jump for them all...

Our Black Doves Babies

This one totally snuck up on me -- I didn't know the Netflix series Black Doves starring Ben Whishaw and Keira Knightley as spy buddies was even a thing until this past weekend, and then within 24 hours of me knowing it was a thing I had binged the entire damned series. Anybody else find themselves in similar circumstances? The show was impossible to turn off once I'd started it and suddenly whoosh my whole Saturday was gone. Here is the trailer:

Not since itty bitty Sarah Michelle Gellar kicked ass as Buffy have I had to set aside my disbelief that a stick figure (or in this case a pair of them) could rough up so many bigger bads, but it was worth it -- what an entertaining and enjoyable (and gay gay gay!) show this is. I mean our super-spy gets fucked in the bum in the first episode -- bless you, Ben Whishaw. This show was manna from ye heavens. Watch it if you haven't yet! It's set at Christmas too so it's a perfect holiday treat. 

The Final Destination Has a Date

I am pretty sure the above poster is fan-art, but given we don't have any official posters or images for the next installment in the Final Destination franchise I am just going to share it anyway because we have news to share on that front! Today Final Destination: Bloodlines got a release date! it's coming out on May 16th 2025 so scribble that shit in your calendar right now. Since it's been awhile since we've heard much, let's catch up -- this the sixth entry in my favorite horror movie franchise of them all is coming to us from filmmakers Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein who made the 2018 horror flick Freaks (which I suppose I should catch up with before watching their FD movie so I can know what I should be expecting -- it is on Netflix.) I don't recognize any of the actors that are listed in the cast of the film on IMDb but that's par for the course -- the exception being Tony Todd, and I am curious if our man managed to film his role as William Bludworth, the Coroner who intones about Death's Design in every one of these movies, before he sadly passed? 

That would be an incredible send-off if so, so I sure hope they made that happen. Anyway as I theorized back in March when the subtitle was revealed it seems safe to guess this movie might be about people related to people in the original five films -- that makes sense to me, since a thread that's been raised by the films before is Death's Design being mucked up by babies being born by people who were supposed to die, et cetera. All of that is really just plot gibberish though -- the excuse for why we're there, which is the elaborately plotted death scenes, and I hope they used the fourteen years (!!!) between films to plan some doozies. One cool thing to note -- the movie will be released in IMAX! So let's make these set-pieces big and wild, baby! Cannot wait. 

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

It's The End of the World As We Know It

Any fans of Joshua Oppenheimer's documentaries The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence up in here? I count myself as one, a big one, and so I was cautiously optimistic about his new movie The End starring Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, and George Mackay -- my caution stemming from 1) it's a musical and y'all probably know I approach that genre with repidation, and 2) it didn't get that striking of a reception from critics when it played at TIFF and Telluride earlier this fall. Nor did it this past weekend when it hit theaters -- it sits at around 50% on Rotten Tomatoes right now. Except I liked it! Count me among the glass-full half of that 50% -- my review went upnat Pajiba yesterday and you can read it right here if you like. I mention this in the review but the movie it most reminded me of was The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, another musical that bucked the system and made of me a fan. (Indeed Cherbourg is probably my favorite movie musical of them all so Oppenheimer was clever to aim for those vibes.) Anyway I totally get why reception's mixed but don't be surprised if you see this baby end up inside my Top 10 of the year, is all I am saying. 

Good Morning, Kelvin

A good Monday to one and all, which we will christen with this very fine new photoshoot of actor Kelvin Harrison Jr. for Numero Netherlands magazine -- I didn't know that he was voicing Lil' Scar (who goes by the name "Taka" pre-scar) in Barry Jenkins' forthcoming The Lion King prequel Mufasa, which isn't quite enough to make me excited for Mufasa; if Barry Jenkins directing it isn't enough to make me excited nothing would be. (Did y'all see Barry basically saying, "Get me the hell out of here already" in an interview last week? LOL cash that check and run, my man!) But hopefully that translates into Baryr making a real movie with Kelvin because I think he's a wonderful actor and they could probably make flesh-and-blood magic with one another. Anyway speaking of flesh (you saw that one coming right) this photoshoot has some and we're rather pleased with that fact so hit the jump and feel the Kelvin...

John Waters Makes His Cinema 2024 Picks

Why am I at work today? Why didn't anybody tell me it was a holiday? Today is the day that John Waters releases his annual Top 10 list and I'm sitting at my desk staring at my computer? I should be slurping egg nog and making Xeroxes of my ass or something. (That's how you celebrate holidays, right?) Anyway click over to Vulture for the full list from the Prince of Puke himself (he stopped writing for Art Forum but I can't remember why; it was something shitty the magazine did though?) Per usual there are picks I adore (I think our final lists will share three titles this year!), picks that I abhor, and unseen picks that go onto my list to see ASAP. Nobody does it better.

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

Whenever a movie that matters around these parts has a staggered release into the world I feel like I'm a broken megaphone, yelping the same white noise out over and over. So it goes with Luca Guadagnino's Queer, which I saw and loved months ago at NYFF (and reviewed right here) and which got a limited release last week and which is getting a slightly bigger release this weekend. I know I've posted about it a dozen times in the past dozen days but I am nothing if not a good cheerleader when I wanna be. Also a good cheerleader? Actor Drew Starkey, as seen in this brief video for British GQ (via) -- he's getting me excited anyway! And I assume there will be some photos to come from this photoshoot but for now, please enjoy this video of the shoot and a very good morning to each and every one of you:

Pure Love Centipede

Heads-up that Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score for Luca Guadagnino's film Queer will apparently be dropping on all of the streaming services at midnight tonight! That's the playlist above (via). No word on a physical release yet but let's keep our fingers crossed -- that said this one admittedly doesn't have the pop appeal of their score for Challengers (which we all know got not one but two stellar vinyl releases this year) and so I have my doubts, especially given we're still waiting for proper releases of their music from Bones & All and The Killer. Sighhhhhhh.