Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Ye Olde Wolfe Movie


Even though I said I was going to get off the couch this past weekend and force myself to go see Wolf Man in theaters I did not -- I am the lyingest liar who ever lied and I hope Christopher Abbott shows up at my door and slaps me. (With what I'll leave up to him.) Anyway obviously that makes it my fault that the film flopped, but I did think about the movie some -- that's the same, right? What I thought about was my god, will anyone make a werewolf movie that works again? I mean this is admittedly an insulting thing to think about a movie I haven't seen yet, but the general consensus appears to be that Leigh Whannell's movie doesn't work and it got me thinking -- what was the last werewolf movie that really did work? That was truly great? I saw and liked last year's Werewolves recently but it's not a "good" movie -- it just knows how dumb it is, it has really fun practical effects, and it leaves us on a high note:


2021's Werewolves Within is a lot of fun too but I don't know that I can quite call it an iconic success -- maybe if it hadn't been released in the depths of the pandemic and had grabbed hold of the cultural imagination, but I do think the movie is a little wobbly on its own outside of just being fun. It's certainly not scary, and I want a scary fucking werewolf movie already! Anyway to finally get to the point -- on the heels of Nosferatu's tremendous box office success (huzzah!) our lord and devilish savior Robert Eggers has announced his next movie and it's going to be a scary fucking werewolf movie! (And we know he won't shy away from some blessed werewolf transformation nudity either!) 

He's calling it Werwulf because of course our favorite history nerd is leaning into Ye Olde English -- the script was co-written with his Northman writer and is apparently stuffed with annotations due to its use of Olde English lol. I love this dork so much. The only other info we have is it's set in the 13th Century and Eggers was going to shoot it in black and white but now he is not doing that. Oh and Focus Features has already dated the movie for Christmas Day 2026 because they are counting their great big checks from the holiday counterprogramming of Nosferatu and saying "Gimme more of that shit please!" If we start getting Robert Eggers horror movies every other Christmas I will be a very very happy boy y'all. Long may our dark prince reign!

Hech of a Summer


And lo, another thing to look forward to! Actors Billy Bryk and Finn Wolfhard (yes he of Stranger Things twinkdom) have written, directed, and are co-starring in a campground slasher film called Hell of a Summer that is coming out in April! That's cool but the thing that makes me happiest about this is the actual lead of the film is my wee little snausage Fred Hechinger of The White Lotus and Thelma fame. MNPP is a Fred Hechinger Fan Club...

... and we support any and all things him. I admit I'm a little wary that thing movie was completed and screened at TIFF two years ago (I am refraining from looking up reviews) but wer're in no matter what! Here's the trailer: 


Hell of a Summer comes out April 18th!


44 Until 17


Just as I can't seem to remember the number in the title of Bong Joon-ho's new movie -- every time I'm like, "Is it Mickey 18? 19? 12?" -- I certainly can never remember its release date because it's basically had 17 of those. But here with this new poster release let's look it up like a proper "reporter" and do y'all a solid -- as of today, January 22nd 2025, Mickey 17 is scheduled to release in theaters in the United States on March 7th. That's 44 days from today. Maybe they can go back in and photoshop Robert Pattinson's head a little bit better on this poster in that time? That is one awkward giant head floating on a tiny disembodied body. 




Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Carrie (1977)

Margaret: I can see your dirty pillows. Everyone will.
Carrie: Breasts, Mama. They're called breasts, 
and every woman has them.

The grand Piper Laurie was born 93 years ago today!
Have some roadhouse whiskey in her honor!

Five Frames From ?







What movie is this?

Good Morning, World


It is a blessing that the fashion magazines seem to have finally realized they need to be gifting us with Aaron Pierre photoshoots -- see also this past Monday -- so at least 2025 hasn't totally murdered us yet! We're three weeks in and we have fresh Aaron Pierre photos to stare at -- deep breaths. If they can just keep giving us this sort of thing twice a week for the next, uhh, two hundred and eight weeks? (Damn you, calculator.) We might survive. (Wow, dark mood this morning.) Hit the jump for them all..

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1946


There is a prompt going around Bluesky (ahh remember harmless fun prompts on social media?) asking people to name a favorite movie of 1975 and it reminded me -- I still have a few entries in my "Siri Says" series left to do! It's been so long since I've done one of these posts (since November of 2022 for god's sake; time has absolutely no meaning anymore) let me remind you what the hell I'm talking about -- "Siri Says" began with me asking my phone to randomly choose a number between 1 and 100 and then whatever number it gave me I would pick my favorite movies of that year. For example the last time I did this all those many months ago I got the number "56" so I shared my favorite movies of 1956. 

The game has sort of changed over time though -- since I only have a handful of numbers left (less than ten) I wrote the remaining years down on pieces of paper and I blindly choose one (since otherwise it would take me a billion years to get Siri to narrow it down to a number I hadn't done before). Yadda yadda I was tired of doomscrolling social media this afternoon so I decided to spend some time on one of these posts (they eat up a surprising amount of effort) and here we are. Today I picked the year 1946. And so now I give you...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1946

(dir. Alfred Hitchcock)
-- released on September 6th, 1946 --

(dir. Frank Capra)
-- released on December 20th, 1946 --

(dir. Powell & Pressburger)
-- released on December 26th, 1946 --

(dir. Joseph L. Mankiewicz)
-- released on April 19th, 1946 --

(dir. Jean Cocteau)
-- released on October 29th, 1946 --

-----------------------------------------

Runners-up: Gilda (dir. Charles Vidor), The Big Sleep (dir. Hawks), The Stranger (dir. Welles), The Spiral Staircase (dir. Robert Siodmak), The Postman Always Rings Twice (dir. Tay Garnett), The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (dir. Lewis Milestone)

Never seen: The Best Years of Our Lives (dir. Wyler), The Killers (dir. Siodmak), The Yearling (dir. Clarence Brown), Paisan (dir. Roberto Rossellini), The Blue Dahlia (dir. George Marshall), Great Expectations (dir. David Lean)

-----------------------------------------

What are your favorite movies of 1946?

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!