All My Pretty Precioussses

I think I'm hardly alone in stating the cold hard dead truth that the three Hobbit movies kinda sorta broke my desire to watch Tolkein's Middle-Earth on the big screen anymore -- I couldn't even tell you anything that happened in them at this point; they went right in one eye and out the other. That said I started watching the Prime series, I think just because it landed in a lull in my schedule, and there's been some fun stuff in it. I will give it this -- it looks very expensive. (And given that Bezos shelled out like a billion dollars for the rights I should fucking hope so.) 

Anyway I wasn't really feeling much enthusiasm about Andy Serkis slipping into Peter Jackson's director's chair to make Lord of the Rings; The Hunt For Gollum, yet another big-screen adventure -- this one about the period in the story where Gollum (who else) had already found the ring but before Bilbo got to him and snatched away his Preciousssss -- even as names like Sir Ian and Elijah Wood and Lee Pace started circling a return to the franchise. To get to my belabored point, made even more belabored by the photo up top giving my game away, they've now announced that dreamboat Jamie Dornan will be replacing Viggo Mortensen as "Strider" aka the name his character went by before he embraced his princely panatloons and became the Aragorn we all came to know and love in the original trilogy. 

God this is so much nerd shit I am barfing right now! I need to go chop some wood or something stat. Anyway gorgeous Jamie is always a yes. I don't even care. I will now be watching this damn movie. And that's before we even get to the other two names that just got cast in it -- the queen herself Kate Winslet will apparently be the film's female lead, playing a character named "Marigol" (this site theorizes that she's Smeagol's grandmother), while our beautiful blond boy Leo Woodall will be playing a cohort of Strider's named Halvard. Does this mean this movie will have a lot of Jamie Dornan and Leo Woodall running around together, all bearded and dirty and huddling beside fires for warmth??? Because that's the movie I'm writing in my head, you best damn believe it. 

Pics of the Day

I sure can't say that I expected a picture of a shaggy blond be-stached and shirtless David Corenswet to pop up in front of me today, or ever, but that only exposes the lack of my imagination -- because here one is! This is the first look at our current Superman in Jonathan Levine's sports-biopic Mr. Irrelevant: The John Tuggle Story, which has David playing a football player... god I don't care about the details after typing out what I've written so far. David Corenswet LOOKS LIKE THAT, he will be wearing FOOTBALL GEAR, I don't need to know who this guy is or why this story is being told, I just need to watch this movie now please. It's out on Christmas Day. (And for the actual details of the story beyond my salivating salaciousness click here; thx Mac)

Mike Mills Doesn't Live Here Anymore

Earlier today what I am still calling a "rumor" broke that Criterion will be releasing Alexander Payne's first and still best movie the 1996 abortion satire Citizen Ruth on 4K soon -- I thought that might come officially with their announcement for July's releases, which I knew would be landing today since it's the 15th of the month... but no. It did not. Maybe next month. We do have the slate of their July releases though and there's no reason to be disappointed -- this is a slam dunk of a month! Starting with a box-set that I literally squealed at the sight of -- on July 28th they're dropping "I'll Remind You of Everything: The Films of Mike Mills", a three-film 4K set that includes Beginners, 20th Century Women, and C'mon C'mon, which are as far as I'm concerned every single one masterpieces. (Here is my review of the latter.) None more than 20th Century Women, which is truly one of the greatest films of... well it feels like the millennium is the marker we're measuring things by now and it's that, but as far as I'm concerned it's one of the greatest films of all time, period. When I think about how Annette Bening wasn't even nominated for Best Actress, much less didn't deservedly win for the greatest performance of her career, I get hives. So let's move on...

... which is easy enough given this slate! How about a double-feature of Martin Scorsese's 1974 masterpiece Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore starring Ellen Burstyn (aka the finest tipped spear through the argument that Marty doesn't know what to do with women characters) alongside Paul Newman's greatest performance in 1963's Hud from director Martin Ritt? I somehow only saw Hud for the first time in the past decade and it's a stunner of a film. Stunning to look at -- and I don't just mean Paul Newman in those jeans...

... although I don't not mean that either -- and stunning emotionally. Newman and Patricia Neal are just absolute fire in this. And of course both of these will be the first time these classics will be on 4K -- if I stopped there July would already be a month for the record books from Criterion. But I ain't! I ain't stopping there. They've also got Neil Jordan's The Crying Game hitting 4K for the first time on July 14th! This movie really got done dirty by the press and comedians at the time, with its focus on  Jaye Davidson's genitals -- this movie is so much richer than the way its title has become synonymous with unexpected trans revelations. It's truly a great film. 

Now we come to the one film of their July's releases that I haven't seen -- Nagisa Oshima's Cruel Story of Youth from 1960, which stars Miyuki Kuwano & Yusuke Kawazu as a pair of sexy teenage criminals on the run... and yes it sounds very Bonnie & Clyde slash Badlands coded, although it came out first, one should note. Criterion's description of it as a film "bursting with vivid color, this visually scintillating, furiously nihilistic film howls with rage" sold me. 1960s era Japanese films that are described as colorful always end up being my bag -- the pop look of these films is very much my wavelength. Anybody seen this one? Moving along to the last two titles -- Hlynur Pálmason's 2025 feature The Love That Remains is getting its disc debut (I saw it last year and it is very good!) while David Lynch's masterpiece (how many times have I used that word in this post??) The Elephant Man, the blu-ray of which has been out of print for awhile now and going for enormous prices, is getting the 4K upgrade treatment on July 7th. Much needed! WHAT A MONTH!

Give Me Your Huddles Masses Yearning for...

... GODZILLA!!!! 

I'd had this NYC reveal spoiled for me yesterday when this trailer premiered at CinemaCon and the news flew everywhere, so I felt fine just now tossing aside my general No Trailers rule and just watching this very brief one minute teaser for Godzilla Minus Zero -- if you didn't want to know this little tidbit and feel spoiled by me I apologize but I seriously doubt you'd have been able to make it to November 3rd without seeing at the very least this image. I'm planning on stopping here if possible -- just embrace the shock and awe of the sight of our big bad lizard friend sidling up to Lady Liberty like a lover-to-be and let your cells tingle with the thrill of it! We deserve this! (And here is my review of the incredible Godzilla Minus One if you missed it.) 

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Jake Gyllenhaal Six Times

Aww how nice Jake has been announced as the "first global male ambassador" for Bulgari -- do you think he gets like a giant watch trophy for that? Or like the master key to every Bulgari store on Earth? Cut to Maggie opening her present at Christmas ten years from now: "Oh great another goddamned watch. Peter, we're going home." Or even worse (since they're a mixed family) -- they're celebrating Hanukkah and getting expensive watches every single night for eight straight nights! What a nightmare it must be to be a Gyllenhaal, truly. But let's side aside their domestic apocalypses for a moment and just bask in these handsome photos of Jake modeling said watches, the cause of his downfall, before the weight of this heavy crown has yet to wield its terrible consequences. Hit the jump for the rest...

Good Morning, World

British actor Daniel Ings has been making a name for himself over the past couple of years thanks to showy roles in Guy Ritchie's The Gentlemen series (which was where I had my "Who the hell is he???" moment) and then as the party-loving Ser Lyonel Barotheon on A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (which is where I think most other people had that moment). Or amybe you know him from Sex Education? (I never watched that show.) But as eye-catching and entertaining as he was on those series I have to admit I am suddenly, now that I stumbled upon these gifs, longing for a return to THIS LOOK which he was rocking circa 2020 on the British series I Hate Suzie opposite Billie Piper. Bring back the bear, Daniel! The bear, the beard, the all of it. Woof! I actually tried to watch IHS over the pandemic but it didn't land with me so I gave up after a couple of episodes -- now I sure feel the fool. Just look what I missed out on!

Wrappin' It Up

As seen down below this week o' mine is pretty crowded with screenings and so I'll be checking out early basically every day  -- last night was the fancy-schmancy premiere of David Lowery's Mother Mary (I saw both Julio Torres and Patti Harrison in the lobby afterwards!)  while tonight I'm off to see the new version of The Mummy from director Lee Cronin. And when I tell you I have avoided all information on The Mummy so I could go in fresh I mean it -- I didn't even know until I decided to look up a picture of it for this post that everybody's favorite shitty boyfriend slash dick-flasher Jack Reynor of Midsommar fame is in the thing. Aww we've missed him. Anyway this is me saying bye, I gotta run. Or rather I gotta "wrap it up" hardy har get it cuz The Mummy... sigh...

Good grief my screening schedule this week is BONKERS (and this isn't even counting the Herzog 3D movie and JOHN WATERS LIVE on Saturday!)

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) April 13, 2026 at 2:20 PM

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Scream 2 (1997)

Cici: Drink with your brains, 

that's our motto.

A happy 49th birthday to the legend Sarah Michelle Gellar today! Yes it's true our beloved Buffy will be turning 50 next year -- I would say don't that make ya feel old but SMG is only a couple of months older than I am so let's just shut up and not think about any of that right now. Jinkies. Let's just celebrate this lady we love so very. Picking her role in the second Scream movie might feel a little random for this post but I maintain that her stellar work at humanizing the character of Cici in such a short window of time is part of why I actually (controversially?) prefer Scream 2 to the first movie. A recent re-watch of the original I Know What You Did Last Summer gave me the same impression -- SMG does Herculean emotional lifting with her screentime in these two 1997 slashers. She's so good! And yeah it blows that the Buffy reboot fell apart but let's hope that now that her kids are raised and she's ready to work again we'll be seeing lots of her shortly. The people demand their Smidge fix!

Highway to Heck If I Know

What have I told you a million times? I have told you a million times, "Don't watch horror movie trailers!" And what have I said simultaneously a million times? "Oh by the way here's a horror movie trailer. Which you should not watch!" Hey whaddya want from me -- if I don't type up a post I'm just sitting here staring at the news and nobody wants that. We allow my brain a shark's forward momentum or panic takes hold. And hey -- speaking of panic! (King of the transitions, this guy right here.) One of my favorite horror movie directors André Øvredal has a new one coming out! Let's hope it's better than his last, the mediocre Dracula riff The Last Voyager of the Demeter, which had its moments but felt studio-mangled and suffered from some bad CG. Otherwise he's the director of Troll Hunter, Scary Stories in the Dark (underrated honestly), and his to-date crowning achievement The Autopsy of Jane Doe, aka one of the Great Horror Films of the 21st Century. All I know about Passenger is it stars a bunch of people whose names I don't recognize plus Melissa Leo and I think it's about  somebody making the mistake of picking up the wrong person while driving. Other than that I saw Bloody Disgusting quote the director as saying he thinks this is his scariest movie yet, and that there's a bunch of stuff this trailer does not give away -- that's nice but I'm still not watching. But y'all feel free!

Passenger is out on May 22nd.

All of Them Staches

Years and Years luvvahs Russell Tovey and Dinoe Fetscher were reunited (both be-stached!!) at the Olivier Awards in the U.K. this past Sunday night -- Dino posted this picture on Instagram alongside several more pictures of himself looking studly in formalwear natch). I always want to re-watch Years and Years when I see these two reunited but then I remember how goddamned sad and scary that series is and my brain moves right along... one day it'll hopefully make for an easier re-watch! But that day is not today!

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

Happy Tyriq Tuesday!

Did y'all see this video below? LOL.

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Triangle of Sadness (2022)

The Captain: My government murdered Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy.. My government overthrew good, honest, democratic leaders of the people in Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, and Bolivia. Along with Britain, we carved up the Middle East, creating artificial geographical boundaries and installing puppet dictators. War itself became our most lucrative industry. Every bomb that's dropped, somebody makes a million dollars. You don't have to know where those bombs are exploding. You don't have to see the grieving mothers and the mangled bodies of their children. Eugene Debs gave this speech in Canton, Ohio, in 1918: 'Throughout history wars have been waged for conquest and plunder... The master class has always declared the wars. The subject class has always fought... They've taught you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command... When Wall Street says war, the press says war.'"

Well that speech hits home in 2026, huh? Anyway a happy birthday to the great Swedish director Ruben Östlund today! I was super sad when I read that his next movie The Entertainment System Is Down wasn't ready for Cannes this year so he's holding it off for an entire year for Cannes 2027 -- what, you're too good for another festival, Ruben?? The supposed reason is he's gunning for a third Palme d'Or -- which would break the record -- but, and I say this as a big fan, this feels terribly presumptious, Ruben. I mean you can think this sort of thing inside of your head but maybe don't let that narrative out into the world -- that shit draws the knives all on its own, my man. That said with a fantastic-seeming cast including Kirsten Dunst, Keanu Reeves, Julie Delpy, Tobias Menzies, Daniel Brühl, Lindsay Duncan, Nicholas Braun and Connor Swindells, and a right-up-his-alley micro/macrocosm class-warfare story about a bunch of people trapped on a long flight where the entertainment system goes down and they all presumably lose their minds, I'm expecting good things. Which is why making us wait an extra year is deviant behavior!

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Charles Melton Six (Plus) Times

You know I am just sitting here innocvently at my desk, just got to work, I start eating my breakfast cereal and I open up instagram and WHAM I am almost choked to death on a Cheerio by these photos of Charles Melton for Men's Health magazine suddenly smacking me upside the face. Obviously this is a rhetorical question and either way the answer is a defiant NO...

... but wasn't almost murdering us with that slutty i-D magazine photoshoot enough, Charles? I'm not getting any younger and there;'s only so much my heart can take. But I belabor a stupid argument -- obviously this is the good sort of surprise. Charles is making our Mondays brighter! Hit the jump for all the photos we've got so far (I do assume more will come because they always do)...

Good Morning, World

I don't really write about music very much here at MNPP unless it's Radiohead-related or it has something to do with a member of Radiohead making a movie score -- I am exaggerating a little but honestly not a lot! So when I got a press release that Claybourne Elder, the Broadway actor and hirsute hunk formerly of Gilded Age fame, was putting out a record of his takes on the "Great American Songbook" (including some from my nemesis Steven Sondheim) I took note of the hot picture of Claybourne on the album's cover and I scooted myself right along. So very much not my thing! But the man has been unloading some all-timer gratuitous press photos of himself in the weeks since -- the stache! -- to the point where I really could no longer ignore. Where I no longer want to ignore! So you win, Mr. Elder. You have dominated me. (No but really... just saying.) Hit the jump for a bunch more...

Please Dacre, Don't Hurt 'Em

Consider this a mea culpa to Dacre Montgomery since I wrote that I wasn't enamored with his performance in this weekend's horror movie Faces of Death in my review -- he is clearly having a whole lot of fun with his big performance and there are a couple of shots of him wearing a skin-tight body-suit thing (just from above the waist) where he is twisting and writhing and he looks super hot. That's not nothing! But I thought he was much better in last year's surprisingly terrific Gus Van Sant crime flick Dead Man's Wire, which I'm ashamed I never reviewed -- I haven't expected much from a GVS movie in awhile but that one reminded me how wonderful a director he can be. Straight-forward, low-key, thrilling and perfectly performed by Bill Skarsgård and Dacre -- if y'all never checked that one out I say do that! It's ace. Okay -- have a great weekend! I'm out. (pics via) 

Today's Mood

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

True History of the Kelly Gang (2019)

Sgt O'Neil: Reminds me of a dog that I once had. It was a mangy old thing. And I am a cruel bastard, so I would whip it every which way. I'd beat on him just for looking at me. So, I figure if you hate on something for long enough, well, he just comes to love you anyway, just for those few moments when you don't.

You might think that quote is a weird one for me to choose as a "life lesson" to celebrate Charlie Hunnam's 46th birthday today with, to which I tell you -- we're talking about Charlie Hunnam. And Charlie could treat mt like a dog and whip me every day and I would love him anyway. I watched his King Arthur movie ffs. This stopped being a hypothetical long ago. Happy birthday, Charlie!