Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Buy! Buy! Buy!


And now, for something totally different, let's talk about me (ha) -- I did another round of culling my physical media archives this past weekend and I have listed a great big heaping helping of awesomeness onto eBay for sale, so if you'd like to own a piece of me memorabilia (one way to look at it) or just, you know, some truly incredible movies, then click on over and buy some! Or make a reasonable bid, I tend to accept them (if you're not low-balling me that is). But in all seriousness most of this stuff is stuff I am getitng rid of because I've upgraded it to 4K, not because it's not good, so if you're fine with blu-ray or DVD then there is a wealth of incredibleness on sale over there right now. (And PS I'm going to do a second round of this over Labor Day too.) Including yes my like six month old blu-ray of The Doom Generation, which I'm ditching in anticipation of Criterion releasing their Araki box-set next month. 

And all of my Peter Strickland movies because I have that Curzon box-set of his movies now. It's some really excellent stuff at excellent prices and lord knows I could use the money -- this way instead of me begging for donations (although feel free!) you get something in return. Win win. I've also got tons of art books, movie posters, and vinyl soundtracks for sale too. And with that thus concludes today's moment of solicitation. Thanks for your business!


Anybody Going To See The Crow?


It's out this weekend and I'm surprised to find myself pretty indifferent to see this movie since I'm a genuine Bill Skarsgård fan -- I guess this is where I admit I've never been too nuts about the 1994 movie. The soundtrack -- fuck yes, that is an amazing soundtrack. But the movie's cornball goth aesthetic always felt corny to me, even then. (Sorry, Bail Ling!) Anyway this is really just an excuse to post that photo of BIll's ab muscles on the set of the film -- as if you didn't see through me immediately. But if you're excited for this and if you go and see it, please come back and share your feelings! I am easily persuadable. 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Last Wave (1977)

David: We've lost our dreams. Then they 
come back and we don't know what they mean.  

A happy 80 to the great Peter Weir today! If you've never seen this strange little apocalyptic fever-dream of a masterpiece go seek it out, it's unforgettable. (It is streaming on Criterion right now, as well as being available on 4K blu -- I should probably replace my Criterion DVD at this point.) Anyway you can't go wrong with watching ANY Peter Weir movie. Just masterpiece after masterpiece. I've said this a half billion times but now but what an underrated genius he is.


Jonathan Bailey Six Times


I still haven't recovered from Charles Melton's scorcher of a photoshoot for VMan magazine yesterday, and yet here they are coming at me again with a new Jonathan Bailey photoshoot too -- I might have to go buy this issue if it's gonna be this thick with hot content. That said Jonny's shoot is somber and practically demure compared to Chuck's, save the flex-forward cover image seen (cropped) below, but any chance to look at Jonny we'll accept gladly. Hit the jump for them all...

Five Frames From ?





What movie is this?

Good Morning, World


I can't believe it's taken me this long to post this shot of Josh O'Connor getting the up-shorts treatment in Luca Guadagnino's tennis smash Challengers -- the second I saw it in the movie (read my review here) I flashed right back to this perfectly similar shot...

,.. of Timmy in Call Me By Your Name, which was also filmed by genius cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom. And whether this is a kink of Luca's or one of Sayombhu's I don't care; I just hope they keep working together and making the movie magic happen.

Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Park Chan-wook Is Back To Work!


Fifteen full years ago (!!!) in 2009 I posted about Oldboy director Park Chan-wook following up his vampire film Thirst with an NYC-set adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s novel The Ax from 1997. The book is about:

"... a middle aged, middle class salaryman loses his job after a downsizing, and after spending the following two years downsizing his lifestyle, he decides to overcome competition in his own personal way: chopping down anyone who gets in the way of his path back into fiscal solvency."

Obviously that movie didn't happen then -- he did come to America but he made the great and underrated Stoker with Nicole Kidman and Mia Wasikowska instead. But it looks like he's come back to the project -- The Film Stage has word that he is beginning shooting his adaptation this week (!!!) and it's to be called No Other Choice now. And that is the teaser poster up top too! The film will be shot in his homeland of South Korea now though, and it will star our long-standing crush Byung-hun Lee!

I've long been surprised that the two of them haven't worked together since Joint Security Area way back in the year 2000 before either one of them were really anybody... 

... so this is an overdue reunion we're thrilled to see finally happen. Also announced in the cast are actors Son Ye-jin, Park Hee-soon, Lee Sung-min, Yeom Hye-ran, Cha Seung-won, and Yoo Yeon-seok -- Sung-min was in The Good, The Bad, and the Weird with Byung-hun in 2008, Yeom Hye-ran was in Bong Joon-ho's fantastic movie Memories of Murder, and Yoo Yeon-seok played the young version of the villain in Oldboy (that's him then and now below) but other than that I'm not super familiar with any of the cast. Not that I have anything but immense trust in Master Park! (As long as Robert Downey Jr. is nowhere to be seen anyway.) 


Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Master (2012)

Peggy: And this is where we are at. At the lowest level. To have to explain ourselves, for what? For what we do, we have to grovel? The only way to defend ourselves is to attack. If we don't do that we will lose every battle that we are engaged in. We will *never* dominate our environment the way we should unless we attack! And the city, city's just noise. I know the city. I know its rotten secrets, its filthy lies and secrets. They... invited us here and welcomed us. Only to throw us down. And kick us out. It's a grim joke.

A happy 50 to the great Amy Adams today! I very much hope that Nightbitch, her upcoming movie with the magnificent Marielle Heller, is Marielle Heller's fourth straight masterpiece. And if it gets Amy her long overdue Oscar that'd be even sweller, although I feel as if the whole "female werewolf movie called Nightbitch" thing might limit its Oscar chances. But crazier things have happened! And we'll know how it's being received in just a couple weeks since it's premiering at TIFF on September 7th. (And then it hits theaters on December 6th.) Tell me in the comments -- What's your favorite Amy Adams performance? (Just don't say Hillbilly Elegy. We're pretending that doesn't exist.)



Pics of the Day


Our sweet baby Jonathan Bailey needs to give his entire team a big raise because they keep unloading onto the internet wonders like these costume fitting photos for his series Fellow Travelers and making it impossible -- literally mentally and physically impossible -- to think about anything other than Jonathan Bailey. As if Fellow Travelers , the series where Jonathan Bailey and Matt Bomer fuck like hot gay bunny rabbits in basically every episode, hadn't already given us so much! Hit the jump for a wondrous few more...

I Need The Room Next Door Like Yesterday


The first teaser trailer for Pedro Almodovar's English-language debut feature film The Room Next Door starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton has arrived and it's perfectly fine to watch if you're spoiler-averse like me -- it's nothing but a disconnected series of gorgeous images and music...


... that will get you right in the mood for this, this movie, this movie right here, I need this movie right here inside of my body right this fucking second. Ahem. Excuse me, I got carried away. Almodovar will do that to you. I will be seeing this in exactly 45 days at NYFF -- for those of you who won't be seeing it at any of the fall festivals (it's playing most all of them) it is hitting NYC and LA on December 20th and then it will spread out in January. Here's the teaser:

Five Frames From ?






What movie is this?


Charles Melton Seven Times


If I hadn't pre-scheduled yesterday that very hot photo of Harry Goodwins for this morning's "Good Morning" post this brand new photoshoot of actor Charles Melton for VMan magazine would've obviously snatched the crown away -- but let's just say a second good morning with them! It's like we roll over in bed away from Harry and Charles is there on the other side of us -- tell me that's not a good morning! Hit the jump for the whole buncha hotness...

Good Morning, World


A big bulging gray-sweatpanted thank you to The Gentleman actor and male model Harry Goodwins for providing us with this morning's "Good Morning" via his Insta -- this gives me a good chance to.... well, to do several things, but the thing I am going to tell you about it it gives me the chance to share last week's news that The Gentlemen got renewed for a second season! I was hoping that would happen; I really loved the show, but I could've seen it being one and done for Guy Ritchie. Glad it's not. It's my favorite thing he's ever done. So yay on that. If you want more of Harry click here for our previous posts -- or more specifically click here for a very large gratuitous post all his own. Remember he's a male model too so there's a whole lot of big bulging content to go around!

Monday, August 19, 2024

Putting the Lie in Alien


I posted the trailer for Alien Romulus last week Wednesday (along with a poll making you pick between the first two films in the franchise and, update -- Ridley Scott's original has held firm in winning said poll this entire time) and now that the film is in theaters and made boffo box office I will post the poster for the first time, because I am a very timely person. It's a great poster, right? It gets the job done. I dig it. (I especially like the buzzed head, which feels like a reference to David Fincher's unjustly maligned Alien 3, but I admit when I saw the character with the buzzed head in Romulus I instantly remembered this poster and was like, "Oh well you're doomed.") But the poster isn't actually why I am here -- my Pajiba review of Alien: Romulus went up on Friday, and since I wasn't blogging that day I haven't linked to it from here -- so here, my review. I had a pretty mixed reaction overall, which depressed me -- I feel like between this and Furiosa I've been reluctantly slamming a lot of my sacred cows in 2024! I guess it just proves you can't buy me! I tells it like it is, see? (Hopefully you're reading that in a Jimmy Cagney voice because I was typing it in that voice.)

Petition To Replace All Mall Santas...


... with Aaron Taylor-Johnson in his Kraven costume.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

 Today I'd rather be...

... backing it up for Miguel. (via)

I love this man. This video is literally just him saying,
"Hey you, take a moment to look at my ass." Bless him.

Five Frames From ?






What movie is this?


Swinfan Sequel When?


I tweeted out this photo (and it went a little viral) yesterday (via Jesse's Insta) asking the same question -- if we're getting all of these legacy sequels why not a Swimfan 2 dammit? Jesse clearly still has the speedo goods. Of course that movie was infamously shy about expoiting its leading man to its full possibilities, barely giving us glimpses of him in his speedo save this protional image here: 

And I like to think that if they did a Swinfan 2 now they wouldn't get away with that. So maybe we have moved in the correct direction in some ways! Anyway to get to my point -- yes, Jesse Bradford, still 100% fuckable. Good to know. PS I posted a couple more shots over on the Tumblr.


Good Morning, World


Even though it's a sad way to start out the week we obviously must take a moment to memorialize Alain Delon, the French superstar and "most beautiful men ever captured on film" says me, who died over the weekend at the too young age of 88. Actually given how shitty his political stuff had gotten in the past few years maybe it wasn't too young, but I liked he was still around -- especially after losing Belmondo in '21 -- and since I'm not living in France I could easily ignore the right-wing shit he'd been saying. Out of earshot, out of mind -- I could just watch Purple Noon in peace. Even more so now -- the bad stuff will fade away with his actual person and we'll be left with his astonishing cinematic output. For such a pretty face he sure turned in some legendary performances in legendary films. He certainly wasn't restrained by his beauty.

I think the much discussed "cruel edge" his beauty carried aided him in that regard -- he certainly wasn't bland in his prettiness. I only just watched Melville's Le Samouraï a couple of weeks ago for the very first time (Criterion just dropped the 4K and iut's gorgeous) and as cool as he looks in that trenchcoat and fedora it's not a film that especially leans hard on his beauty -- it feels more concerned with his symmetry, his sharp angles. Melville shoots him like a pencil sketch of a human. Anyway tell me your favorite Alain Delon performances in the comments, if you like! Peronally I'll always love his Ripley the most, I think. But La Piscine, The Leopard, Rocco and His Brothers, L'Eclisse -- you can't go wrong. I'm curious if there are performances later in his career that you consider must see? Like I don't think I've seen anything he did after the 1970s! Did he just coast on being Alain Delon all that time? I mean he earned that. he was Alain Delon after all. But he kept working until 2019. Any recommendations?



Thursday, August 15, 2024

Criterion's Great Big November Stomps Ahead


November is typically a pretty epic month for Criterion releases because they're no doubt hoping for cinematic stocking stuffers to be all the rage over the approaching holidays (it's also the month when Barnes & Noble has another 50% off sale typically for that exact same reason) and sure enough they've announced a great big slate today. Starting with the king of the monsters itself, Godzilla! Ishiro Honda's original 1954 kaiju masterpiece Gojira that is -- they're dropping it in a brand new 4K restoration! I suppose to depends on your mood and what you want from a movie about a giant monster stomping on tiny people -- sometimes you want that to be goofy and have little ones blowing bubbles while the big guys do Pro Wrestling movies, and I judge no one for wanting such a thing. But the 1954 film is seriously excellent, a proper horror film explicitly wrestling with Japan's post-WWII experience, and remains the greatest film in the series til this day. Although Godzilla Minus One did give it a run for its money last year!

That's not the only horror movie getting the Criterion treatment in November -- Guillermo Del Toro's Oscar-winning The Shape of Water is hitting the collection too! Whether TSOW is really horror or more of a romance I'll leave to people who care about such distinctions to tussle over -- what I do know is that winning Best Picture did a number on this lovely movie's reputation, and I hope we can re-embrace it now, with the benefit of time, because I think it's super. And this is also a new 4K release -- I cannot wait to luxuriate in Del Toro's details. 

Criterion is really ramping up the 4K upgrades now that they've started with them -- the 1932 version of Scarface from director Howard Hawks and Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece Seven Samurai are both being upgraded in November, as is William Wyler's Funny Girl starring that Streisand woman. And then there is Peter Bogdanovich's phenomonal 1973 comedy Paper Moon -- I have never been Bogdanovich's biggest fan but most of his earliest movies (this, The Last Picture Show, and Targets) I do fully endorse. Madeline Kahn in Paper Moon alone is worth the purchase price. 

Six titles is more than Criterion usually drops in a month, but those are of course not all -- as was announced last week they're also celebrating their 40th anniversary with an asbolutely monumental box-set of 40 (!!!) films called CC40 which consists of the films most chosen by people who've visited the legendary Criterion Closet. I'm not even going to begin listing off the titles because there are 40 of them and I'd want to list every goddamned one. They are all classics, they are all worth seeing. The set ain't cheap -- it's 650 bucks -- but that works out to less than $17 for each movie, so if you've been wanting to start a Criterion collection of your own then this is a one-stop shop means to do so! Absolutely epic shit!