Please Try To Have a Good Weekend

Find something you love, and fuck it.

Cuz we all deserve the best dammit.

A Very Barry Weekend

It's Friday so there are new movies in theaters, and this is the part where I direct you to the ones that I have seen and reviewed. First and fore-best there is Andrea Arnold's Bird, which stars the-pictured-here Barry Keoghan and Franz Rogowski as the influential dudes in teenage Nykiya Adams' life -- Keoghan's her sweet-but-fucked-up dad while Franz is some weirdo she bumps into who starts following her around. Here is my review of that -- gist being I loved it, it's proper Andrea Arnold magic. The other movie out this weekend that I have both seen and reviewed is Heretic, A24's horror film starring Hugh Grant that you're no doubt familiar with given how hard they've been pushing it -- here is my review of that. The gist on that one being the very good performances therein cannot wallpaper over a bunch of intellectually-compromised and deeply conservative bullshit. Especially after Tuesday it feels important to call this shit out -- to me anyway. Lots of critics seem to love it. I saw someone today say it presents both sides -- as in believing and not believing in religion -- equally, and it doesn't force us to choose, and uhhhhhh that's a pretty wild bunch of nonsense to say with a straight face. I'm pretty sure the movie makes us choose when the atheist turns out to be a violent maniac while the Mormon girls he torments all all pure and true-hearted. But what do I know, right? (I know you should go watch Bird, that's what. It will make you feel better, I promise. It's Arnold's by far most optimistic film to date.) 

Another Buy My Shit On eBay Post

If dropping a shot of Richard Gere is Days of Heaven won't grab your immediate attention I don't know what could -- a quick heads-up that one of the ways I have been coping this week, and will continue coping over the weekend, is listing shit for sale on eBay. Including lots and lots of movies (especially Criterion titles!) and vinyl and books and all sorts of good movie-related stuff. Here is a link to my eBay page. Like I said -- expect lots more dumped on there over the weekend as I'll be going through my movies once again to weed out redundancies (i.e. lots of 4K upgrading has happened.) With who knows maybe the last holidays ahead that we'll ever celebrate why not buy yourself and your loved ones all the presents?? And help me clear space for my panic room at the same time! Everybody wins when everybody loses! Sigh.

Good Afternoon, Gratuitous Nassim Lyes

This morning I couldn't quite bring myself to call it a "good morning" but after spending the past hour going through several new batches of photographs of French-Algerian actor Nassim Lyes I am indeed inclined toward calling this a "good afternoon." And I want to share this spurt (heh) of good feeling with each and every one of you in the hopes that you might have a satisfied smile on your face as well once you're done looking through these. Nassim first caught my eye back in 2021 in the horror film Kandisha and I did a great big gratuitous post on him at the time -- and believe me it is well worth clicking over to that post too. 

But since then I've seen him in two more movies -- the deliciously ridiculous "Paris floods and is taken over by sharks" disaster movie Under Paris and director Xavier Gens' knock-down-drag-out action thriller Mayhem! (I shared the trailer for that here) -- and they were both a lot of fun and Nassim makes for an ace action-hero. I mean he obviously looks the part (obviously!) but he's got charisma and screen presence on top of the muscles. (Ohh to be that charisma, just so I could be on top of those muscles.) Point being France is lucky to have him and you're all lucky that I have access to his Instagram account which is where I swiped most of these pictures in a bid to maybe make our afternoon a little bit cheerier. Hit the jump for 30+ more photos...

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Morning, World

That is correct, Jeffrey Dean Morgan -- we are still not ready to say "Good Morning" yet. Give us the weekend to sleep and grieve and perhaps Monday we can face the days again. For now....... let's just get through Friday.

Oh Jacob, Oh Richard, Oh Canada

Paul Schrader's new film Oh Canada stars Richard Gere as a feted documentary filmmaker at the end of his life who's asked to reminisce on camera by some former students -- this involves lots of flashbacks where he is played by an astonishingly hot Jacob Elordi, who proves once again my thesis that:

Paul Schrader remains the gayest supposedly straight man on earth

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) October 2, 2024

No but for real though. 

I don't think even Emerald Fennell leered at Jacob in Saltburn as much as Paul does here. (And I am fairly certain the above shot in the movie has less sheet covering Jacob's bum than what is shown above -- that's either another take or a CG sheet for the trailer's sake!) Anyway that's why we love slash are confounded by Paul -- I mean I haven't even gotten to the jockstrap scene. But yes I saw this at NYFF and didn't get around to reviewing it but I liked it -- more than a lot of people seemed to, actually. I need to give it a second view because film festivals are so brutal and this is a slow, meditative, talky movie. But I think it's worth a watch. Here's the trailer:

Oh Canada is out on December 6th. 

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Pic of the Day

Hey look it's a new still of Drew Starkey and Daniel Craig in Luca Guadagnino's upcoming movie Queer! (Here is my review of Queer.) This photo is of particular note because that see-through green shirt that Drew is wearing is extremely hot -- make sure you click on the photo to embiggen it. The fashion in this movie is pretty extraordinary but then that's no surprise -- it's a Luca movie. Maybe since this one's a period film he'll actually snag an Oscar nomination for Costumes again? He inexplicably hasn't gotten one of those since I Am Love 15 years ago.

Morning, World

I am still not quite up to saying "Good Morning" but to each and every one of you reading this I do hope you are good. I appreciate all of the extremely and extraordinarily kind comments on my little bout of word vomit yesterday. It's another day, I am back at my desk, and here are some nice new smiley photos of Barry Keoghan. Let's just try and make it to the weekend without completely falling apart, shall we? We can do it. If for Barry alone!

Thank You For This, Jake

Good doggy.

Ben Whishaw Four Times

 (via)

November 6th, 2024

I don't have any starting point or ending point for this post. I just need to write. I had to come into work today, pretend it's a normal day like that, when I just wanted to stay in bed. I am thankful to be surrounded by people who are all just as depressed as I am by last night's election results but I don't want to talk about it with them. And I don't want to listen to them talk about it from across the office. I don't want to skim social media. This is a post written out of a need to shut everything out -- to just focus on my fingertips typing away without knowing where they're going. It probably won't be interesting as such, but it's helping me get through this morning so I'm just going to go with it -- whether I actually hit publish at the end is right now a question mark, one you'll already know the answer to if you're reading it.

On the subway ride to work this morning I was sitting minding my business when a woman tried to shove herself into the small space between me and another woman. I was already up against the bars on the side, over as far as I could go, but apparently this wasn't enough room and the two women - strangers to one another - both turned on me together all of a sudden. To them I was taking up too much space. I wasn't "man spreading" - I am a six foot three not small man, I just take up some room. But they began commiserating on how this was apparently "Trump's America now." I turned my music up - I was comfort-listening to Tori Amos as I do in times of need -- but they went on this way for the entire ride. I was suddenly emblamatic of Trump's America. 

I had a political tweet that went viral a couple of weeks back where I angrily railed against those not voting or voting third party, saying that those actions would do nothing to help the Gazans experiencing an ongoing genocide. It was an angry tweet aimed at someone I know in my own life who was choosing that path -- not close enough to confront her personally, but enough for me to want to vent. Anyway I had to mute the tweet pretty fast as the comments got extremely aggressive quickly. I'd been avoiding even looking back at it since, but yesterday I did, and I saw a bunch of people commenting that of course a white middle-class man would be so blind to the needs of POC and the poor.

Both of those experiences sit on me today, holding hands. All my life I've felt trapped in this giant fumbling white man's body. As I've gotten into many many times here on this site and in my film reviews I was raised poorer than poor -- when my parents separated when I was seven my mother and I moved into two rooms in the house of my former babysitter where I lived until I graduated from high school. We were on food stamps and welfare. My father often skipped or forgot about his visitation weekends. It was just me and my mom, and I was furious and mean to her much of the time. 

It didn't help that we were deeply Pentecostal, and I spent my teenage years falling darker and darker under that spell, becoming more and more convinced as I realized I liked boys not girls that I was evil and destined for hell. I compartmentalized everything. I really still don't feel like an entire human being -- just a pile of boxes stacked up in the shape of one. My father is rotting in a nursing home right now, dementia apparently eating away at him, and I feel nothing about it. I am numb and angry and broken. And I just don't know what to do with strangers looking at me and seeing the problem. I want to fold up into nothing most of the time.

I don't have any answers. You get older and you think you will have answers -- my beard if full of gray hairs but I feel like a child in so many ways. I just want my friends and my loved ones around me. I want to tell them that I love them. And I want to say thank you to each and every one of you who come here and dutifully read my nonsense -- I am extremely shy in person and this site has been in many ways my only outlet. I have built a persona on here that is an expression of some part of me, but nothing like the person you would meet in real life. I suppose it's just another box. But it's been, and meant, so much to me over the years. To have people come and comment and laugh. To help y'all have distractions from the bullshit at our doors. It does give me a little bit of purpose. So thank you. 

One fucking step in front of the other, I guess.

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Stay In Bed, World

 We can pretend it's all just a bad dream, right?

Seb the Man

I haven't watched Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice yet even though it is now on streaming because I have been mentally incapable of spending two hours watching anything about you-know-who before we know the results of today's you-know-what -- I'm hoping all will go the correct way and then I think that I will feel fine watching that movie. But a different Sebastian Stan movie is hitting streaming today that you might want to give a chance, to distract yourself -- his film A Different Man which I saw and adored at Sundance. You can rent ADM right here. If you're made of stronger stuff than I you could watch both movies, even! Seb might not be America's Ass but he's got plenty else going on! (That link is NSFW y'all.) All that said if you need me I'm gonna be over here doing this pose for the next several hours:

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Suspiria (2018)

Madame Blanc: I don't know how aware you are of what times we lived through here 40 years ago, out of which this piece was made. We learned at great cost through those years the value of the balance of things. Every arrow that flies feels the pull of the earth, but we must aim upwards. We need to get you in the air.

Happy birthday to mother Tilda Swinton! 

And let's all get in the air today!

PS you do know a 4K edition of this movie's out next week right?

Pics of the Day

There is a sexy ass photo of Jeremy Allen White meeting Bruce Springsteen on the set of the Bruce Springsteen bio-pic that JAW is starring in -- I maintain that those jeans on Jeremy should be at least two sizes tighter...

... because who could ever forget how tight Bruce wore his back in the day. But I wouldn't be angry if they started making out. Bruce has still got it!

I say this only for the sake of historical verisimilitude obviously but those jeans definitely need to be tighter pic.twitter.com/Xp90MA0PRt

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) October 30, 2024

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

Haaz Sleiman says it all.
Go vote, sexy people!

ETA oh wait Russell Tovey has something to add!

Good boy, Russell.