The Class of Sundance 2025

(pic via) On Monday I linked to one of the last pieces of reflecting on 2024 I'll be involved with, specifically the annual poll for Nashville Scene that I participate in every year. There are a couple more 2024 things to come, I did realize after calling that poll the last 2024 thing I had to do -- namely the Critics Choice award winners will be announced this upcoming weekend and then the winners of my LGBTQ+ critics group GALECA still have to happen! But for right this moment let's look ahead to the future! Yes we might have one! I told you this morning that I was trying to be an optimist today so let's just go with this "future" conceit for the moment. 

Anyway even though Sundance officially ended this past weekend I've still got reviews from it dropping this week and perhaps into next, but I also participated in the annual Indiewire poll of the best movies that screened in Utah according to us critics, and that went up today -- see our picks here and do jot them down! These will be the movies to keep your eyes peeled for as the year goes on. I saw and liked most of the movies that did well here. I won't be reviewing them but I liked Train Dreams and Cactus Pears a lot, and the movie Sorry Baby won nearly everything it was up for on this critic's poll and it is very good. No big surprise that A24 snatched it up -- it will fit in well there. I don't know that I would've given it quite so much love, I personally tried to spread that around in my own votes, but it's an ace first film. 

Callum Turner Ten Times

Semi-flabbergasted that this photoshoot (via) of the disgustingly handsome Callum Turner escaped my greedy eyes last January when he was doing press for his Master of the Air series -- thankful that I have stumbled upon the photos today then as I looked for an image to attach to news of his latest project! Well not "news" exactly -- a review, more like! His film Atropia, which he co-stars in opposite the terrific Alia Shawkat, just won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, and I have reviewed the movie for Pajiba, read it here. I found it an enjoyable if not super deep movie that gets the majority of its juice from those two actors, who are very on point. Anyway staring at Callum is always a privilege so let's do it more after the jump...

Pics of the Day

Okay okay i take back what I literally just said in my last post about Jonathan Bailey in Wicked being maybe not my most favorite thing in the world -- he would go and drop these photos from the set of that movie today and make me look like a damn fool! You win this round (every round), Jonny.

Jonny Inherits The Earth

I have mainly given up watching trailers altogether now -- I definitely didn't watch the one for the new Final Destination movie that dropped this week because when you're a fan as psychotic for a franchise as I am for that one there's no need. (And who else is about to do a full FD rewatch? I am so on that!) Anyway I didn't even bother opening the email I got this morning with the first trailer for the new Jurassic Park movie either. Excuse me, Jurassic World -- I really prefer using the Park nomenclature; y'all don't mind if I stick with that right? There's like half an hour of good content in the full World trilogy and I feel as if they'd be smart to return to the Park name honestly. Give us some hope this won't be more crappy nonsense! That said I saw some photos... okay I saw THIS photo:

I hope they kiss #JurassicWorldRebirth

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— Guy At The Movies (@guyatthemovies.bsky.social) February 5, 2025 at 9:46 AM

... and I decided I should post about it because Jonny. And while yes it's true that Jonny didn't really end up making Wicked any more watchable for me, that (shrieking musical nonsense) was always going to be a steep hill for me to climb. A dinosaur movie with his taut biceps and shoulders on constant display? A far easier sell! It even looks like they get him into a harness and we all doubtlessly remember how hot today's It Boy Alessandro Nivola made that spectacle in his Jurassic turn! (Bring back Billy!) 

Anyway I didn't technically "watch" this trailer, I just went through it to make these gifs with the sound off, but the special effects look great, the colors are brighter than I recall the last couple movies looking -- I have all of my appendages crossed and knotted that this will be a good Jurassic movie. There is no reason for them to not be able to make good movies out of this material! It should be so simple! (How they fucked up so badly having all three of the original film's stars in the last one I will never ever be able to comprehend.) Here is the trailer:

Jurassic World: Rebirth is out on July 2nd. 

Oh and here is the pretty standard poster:

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Nivola in the Morning, Nivola in the Evening...

Everything is obviously shit but I woke up in a good mood this morning and I listened to this song on repeat on my commute which kept the good mood rolling so as I sit here I find myself trying to put optimism into the world. A monumnental task I have set for myself! Thankfully one of our faves actor Alessandro Nivola has done a lot of work on that front this week for us, so let's just take his lead. First off he gave us this new photoshoot via Avenue magazine -- there's also a chat with him there, click here for it. Seeing his smiling face always makes the world smile! But there's even more...

... do you remember that time he wore this tennis outfit in JC Chandor's film A Most Violent Year? I did a big post on it because DUH and hysterically the subject came up in a new chat with him at Vulture! It's mostly about The Brutalist but bless my fellow Pajibite writer Roxana Hadadi, who conducted the chat, for flipping the script over to the internet's thirst for him in these shorts. Here's what he had to say about it:

"Someone once sent me, I don’t know what you call it — a GIF, a meme, something — of that scene where I’m in my very short tennis shorts and there was some repeating thing of my ass filling up the camera frame. I figured somebody had posted it. I didn’t know that this was reaching a wider audience. [Laughs.] But I couldn’t be more thrilled."

That "someone" was me LOL and I am glad this Very Important Subject has been  carried out of this here gay ghetto and into the world at large. Give it light! Anyway I wasn't going to post about this but reader Harrison -- hey Harrison! -- messaged me, egging me on, and I figured since we have a lot of Alessandro to talk about today we might as well relive those shorts. Make a full tennis movie, Alessandro! The people demand it! 

Aaaaaanyway yes, there is even more Nivola News to share this morning -- the actor and exceptional silent screamer has just joined the crazy amazing cast of a movie called (wait for it) Diamond Shitter (lol!) that's to be directed by actor Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who you should know from Jane Campion's Bright Star or the recent terrific spy-series Black Doves. And what do those two properties I cherry-picked out of her sizable filmography have in common? They both also star Ben Whishaw, and yes our boy Ben Whishaw, the great gay hope, is also in this movie alongside Alessandro. Oh plus Eva fucking Green! My god! And also up-n-comer Raffey Cassidy who you should know from The Killing of a Sacred Deer or Vox Lux or White Noise -- Vox Lux was of course directed by Brady Corbet, director of The Brutalist (which co-starred both Cassidy and Nivola!) while White Noise co-starred Alessandro's talnted son Sam Nivola (who's about to be seen on the new season of The White Lotus) -- basically there's a lot of incestuous overlap with these folks coming together and I'm here for it! Good sexy talented people all around. And speaking of sexy people! Hit the jump for the rest of this Alessandro shoot...

Good Morning, World

Chalk this one up as another show I will never have the time to get around to watching, but I guess The White Lotus pretty boy Leo Woodall is playing a gay mathermatical genius on an Apple+ series called Prime Target right now -- that's him cuddling with actor Fra Fee above in a recent episode, but the outrageously talented cast starring opposite Leo also includes Martha Plimpton, David Morrissey, Jason Flemyng, Harry Lloyd, Quintessa Swindell, Stephen Rea, and my Duke of Burgundy love Sidse Babett Knudsen. That said even with that cast I have heard the show is utterly ridiculous and well not to be mean but Leo Woodall playing a mathematical genius kind of feels like... a reach. Gay, on the other hand -- gay he can do! And butt ass naked he can also do, as you'll see in the gifs I have for you after the jump...

Double the Dylan O'Brien

I assume that most of my audience has already seen the pirated sexytime clips of Dylan O'Brien's sex scenes in his Sundance movie Twinless that have been making the social media rounds because, well, I know my audience! I won't link to them here but I don't think the filmmakers should be upset -- they're the best advertising Twinless could've hoped for. Dylan's ass is gonna get asses in seats! And that's good because Twinless is good -- click on over to Pajiba to read my review of it from the fest. Dark funny stuff where Dylan is hot and gay -- this is why cavemen scribbled on walls y'all!

The Blue Sky Boys

I have done one of these posts a couple of times before but now that I have cottoned to the fact that they allow me a random excuse to post a photo of a hot guy against a blue sky I feel less redundant -- this is another reminder that I am fucking done with the Traitor's Twitter Site and if you want to revel in the tossed off nonsense shooting out of my brain that's even too insubstantial for this blog then you should follow me on Bluesky where I've taken to posting pretty regularly. I also deleted my Threads account because I never got the hang of that place and didn't feel the need for a third Meta incursion into my life since I can't delete Facebook or Instagram. For all links relevant to my nonsense you can of course check the right-hand column of this site or you can check my Linktree, which has all the relevant information. In summation go donate to the ACLU, go to a protest, go kick an ICE agent in the nards, and spit in the face of every Republican you see. Thank you and good night. 

Stalk This Movie

Two of the best up-and-coming actors around get a showcase for their fine talents in Lurker, a Hollywood hanger-on thriller that just premiered at Sundance and which I have today reviewed right here at Pajiba. Said actors being Saltburn's Archie Madekwe (seen above) and Never Rarely Sometimes Always and On Becoming a God in Central Florida actor Théodore Pellerin (seen below and seen many more times in our archives). Madekwe plays a famous singer while Pellerin plays the fanboy turned best friend through diabolical means -- if you're getting Single White Female vibes from that description then good, but the movie's actually more interesting than just being a new entry in that stalker genre; it's interrogating our moment in time in a really darkly funny way and I very much dug it. Keep your eyes peeled for this one y'all!

Today's Mood

Harris Dickinson Thirteen Times

Our Babygirl boy Harris Dickinson might not have landed the Oscar nomination for that movie he deserved -- Nicole also deserved one but I'm more frustrated he got nothing, since she sits atop a throne of statues already -- but he's still on the cover of THR this week smackdab in the middle of awards season and that can only mean good things for him going forward. He's got the golden touch, and I say that without -- regrettably -- ever having been touched by him. But he is very good at choosing jobs and then knocking said jobs out of the park...

...  and as I've said in the past I think he's one of if not The best actor of his generation. We love you, Harris! And we love this photoshoot, which has him dressed in a heap of gorgeous clothes I would kill for -- That yellow cardigan! Those tweed pants! I would murder ten grandmothers for those tweed pants. (And if they're Republican grandmothers make it twenty!) Hit the jump for what I've gathered up which I think is the full shoot...

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

This morning Dune Prophecy pretty boy Josh Heuston shared some photos from a recent foggy sexy vacay he went on with us, the world, and we are grateful. Yes I speak for The World. If you missed the great big gratuitous post I did on him back while that show was airing click here -- he is a former model so it's quite the treat! And if not hit the jump for this new treat altogether...

Cooper Koch Five Times

The next few days will be a little spotty here as I rush to finish up all of my Sundance reviews from my Sundance-related absence last week -- apologies et cetera but you've got several reviews for cool movies coming from me soon so that's something! Also something -- this fiery hot photoshoot of actor and gay gorgeousness Cooper Koch for Perfect magazine (via) -- and yes these dropped last week but as I just said I was busy dammit. I'm getting to them now, in between the continued busy-ness at least. Lots of catching up to do. Anyway! Cooper! Koch! Hit the jump for him being ridiculously gratutious in the greatest of ways...

The Cool Critics Take Nashville

One more look back at 2024 (The Oscars who?) from me and then I think that'll be the last you hear about it, because 2025 is turning out to just be So Awesome And All -- head on over to the Nashville Scene where my pal and fellow critic Jason Shawhan gathered up an incredible roster of my fellow critics (plus me) to vote and comment on our favorites of the year that was. The only movie in my own Top 10 that might win an Oscar -- Coralie Fargeat's The Substance -- topped our list, so you know we're pretty fucking cool people. Indeed the overlap between my faves and this list is stronger than anywhere else I've seen! Good work, us.

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

Hey everybody, happy (ish) Monday. I do have to say I'm a bit overwhelmed with the world today (as ought be any person who's looked at the news in the past few days -- oh just a little coup by the richest man in the world while our supposed leaders do nothing, no big whoop) but nobody's coming over here for doom-scrolling. So what I will give you instead is naked Noah Centineo. Twenty-four gifs of naked Noah Centineo from a recent episode of that show The Recruit he's on to be exact. I've got 'em for you after the jump...

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...