I know I've posted the above poster for Pedro Aldmodovar's upcoming Bitter Christmas -- which has already come out in lots of places on "the continent" but which will be premiering here on "this continent" at TIFF and then NYFF -- before, because I fucking love that poster. That is a good looking poster, and I would like to buy a copy of it. Alas it seems they've switched over to the poster seen down below which is good, it's fine, I probably would've loved it more if I hadn't already seen the above superior poster. Also knowing this movie used to be called Autofiction, a much better title, makes me wonder what's going on with Pedro right now. You okay, friend?
Anyway while I've avoided any reviews of the film so far I have gotten the vague impression that reception to it has been cool -- have any of you fine folks seen it already? I know you're a worldly bunch. That said I'm pretty excited to be off to a press screening of this movie right this minute, so stay tuned. But if we're being honest the Pedro Almodovar thing I am most excited about this fall is Almodovar Art, the big fancy (and perhaps seriously over-priced) hardcover book that's hitting your local corner book-shop in just a few weeks! I keep checking to see if the price has dropped yet and nope -- it's almost 700 pages so I get the high price-point but come on, some of us Almodóvar fans are poors! I'm going to have to put on a bob wig and large sunglasses and shoplift this bitch under a red trenchcoat like a classic Almodovar character woulda.
Dunno if this is a regular feature for Vogue but they photographed Charles Melton and his dog Neya, a gorgeous husky girl, including an interview about their love -- titled Dogue of course. My mom is a husky lover so I've been around a lot of them and man is Neya pretty -- I suppose a man as pretty as Charles would have to have a dog as pretty as Neya. Pretty things roam in packs! A general rule. Hit the jump for all the photos...
Given it's the buzziest restoration of.. well "the year" doesn't even seem sufficient even though we've only known about its existence since May when it played Cannes -- it's got to be the buzziest restoration of the decade. Anyway given the fact that everybody (including yours truly) is losing their heads over the new re-cut & restoration of Ken Russell's The Devils it's not at all surprising that this is leading NYFF's just today dropped list of "Revivals" screenings -- it would have been one hundred more times shocking if it wasn't there (even though the restoration's one week theatrical engagment lands a whole four days after the fest ends). So yes...
IT IS HAPPENINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
@filmlinc.bsky.social #NYFF
... we are excited about that. But there's an entire list of movies playing, and I'd be remiss if I didn't call attention to the other, less buzzy but just as stunning of a whopper that is, unlike The Devils, actually having its World Premiere at NYFF...
... and that is the brand new restoration of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1950 film Gone To Earth. I have never seen this one and that sounds for the best because apparently producer David O. Selznick took it away from the men who made the masterpieces The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus and cut it up all to hell, and it's only been available in this butchered version for the past 75 years. Until now, thanks to one Marty Scorsese and editing icon legend and genius Thelma Schoonmacher, who besides all of those professional titles was also married to the late Michael Powell. The two of them oversaw a meticulous reconstruction of the filmmakers' never-seen version -- basically we're getting a new movie from the Archers! Holy hell! Here's how NYFF describes the film (and if any of you have seen the old version, share in the comments!):
"This restoration miraculously brings Powell and Pressburger’s Technicolor version of Mary Webb’s novel back to life. Jennifer Jones stars as the free-spirited, nature-loving Hazel Woodus, a woman who refuses to bow down to her father (Esmond Knight), the spiritual clergyman (Cyril Cusack) to whom she is betrothed, or the reckless squire (David Farrar) who desires her. Jones gives a career-best performance in The Archers’ glorious tribute to the otherworldly landscapes where Powell’s father grew up. "
Do I have your attention? Or are you perhaps distracted? Eyes up here, yo. News dropped this morning about the Heated Rivalry home video release -- I love using the phrase "home video", it's so deeply out of date -- and say your thanks because the first season of the hot hit show's hitting 4K + blu-ray + DVD on November 24th. Pre-order it here. Below is a picture of the full set for the 4K Collector's Edition and they totally made it looks like a retro gay porn videotape which is completely and totally hysterical, I love it. (See, my "home video" comment wasn't coming outta nowhere.) Anyway I've got all the deets from its press release after the jump if you so desire...
Okay every day for the past ten years has basically felt like Sally at the end of Texas Chain Saw Massacre, so what makes today so special? It's August 18th aka the day in 1973 the film's title card tells us that the events of the movie take place on. Suitably here in New York it's as humid as a frog's rectum -- I hope where ever you are the blood would congeal to your broiling flesh like a sticky oblivion as well. That's my wish for you today.
I wasn't going to post Colman Domingo's new photoshoot for Flaunt magazine because I'm not a fan of most of the clothes they have him swaddled in -- but then I saw the above photo and decides I really like that outfit at least, and then there's Colman himself, so okay. I will post it. Well part of it. I could not with a few of the pictures, the clothes are too bad. But the acceptable stuff (aka the other shots where he's not wearing a shirt), that I brought. Hit the jump for them to jump-start your Tuesday...
Criterion went and pulled a fast one on me by dropping their November line-up announcement on a Friday, a Summer Friday -- I was too busy being the exact opposite of busy then, so here we are. Three days behind! Somebody slap me to the side of a rocket and shoot me into the future, baby, and yes that's me drawing an oh-so-subtle bridge to the first title we're talking -- Philip Kaufman's beloved 1983 NASA epic The Right Stuff. Finally hitting 4k on November 24th -- two days before Thanksgiving so you know the cool dads are gonna be slipping into their Tryptophan slumbers to the smooth sounds of Sam Sheperd. This movie apparently tells the story of the the original Mercury crew who kicked off the "Space Race" and yes I said "apprently" because somehow, no shit, I have never seen this movie. What? How? I don't know. There are thankfully at this point cinematic bigguns that have still slipped through my fingers, is all I can say, and I look forward to my time ahead watching the aformentioned Sam Shepherd as well as Scott Glenn and Ed Harris and MY HUSBAND FRED WARD rock some tight jumpsuits.
Next up we've got the opposite problem -- I have seen both of these critically-lauded movies, but I wasn't enraptured by either. As for K-Pop Demon Hunters, who the fuck cares that I wasn't enraptured -- I am not the audience for that movie, and the people who were loved it and that is nice for them. The only thing that I enjoyed were the boy bond weaponizing their sexiness and I am sure that shocks less than zero people reading this. Anyway Criterion will make so so much money dropping this disc right ahead of holiday shopping and Criterion making money is good! Physical media is good! This will be some little nerd's first 4K disc and a new obsessive will be born. As for Sophy Romvari's Blue Heron I'd been hearing extremely good things for a long while but when I finally saw it it left me cold. Which is weird because, having been the kid in the 1980s whose anger and isolation probably made everybody else in my family nervous, this was a story I could supposedly relate to. Didn't! Oh well, can't win 'em all. It might work for one of you people.
Our next flavor of twosome is cut down the middle -- there's Sergei Parajanov's 1965 Soviet stunner Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors -- "stunner" or so they say as I have not seen this one. Indeed this is one of those Criterion picks that I'd never even heard of. But it certainly sounds up my alley as they're selling it thus: "modernist landmark fuses folkloric traditions, animistic mysticism, and hallucinatory visual invention" I find all of those words interesting! Then landing on 4K on November 10th is a movie I've seen a dozen times by now -- Sofia Coppola's 2006 masterpiece Marie Antoinette. And I'm not going to say...
... that every single one of those viewings was to see Jamie Dornan play the military fuckboi rocking a tri-corn hat over a come-fuck-me pout, but probably half of them were to watch that. Can you blame me? Anyway this release isn't a surprise as Sofia Coppola was just screening the 4K restoration here in NYC within the past few weeks. But if any a movie was pretty enough (not just Jamie, the entire frosting-coated shebang) to demand the premium format, it's this one. As are the other two 4K upgrades landing in November -- Francois Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player and (just one of my favorite movies of all-time) Hal Asby's Harold and Maude. The latter has been out of print so this makes me wanna dance!
Yes I dance just like that. But wait! Hold up! Stop shaking ya tail-feather, Ruth Gordon! As ever with blessed Criterion that's not all she wrote -- also landing in November (and speaking of out-of-print movies) is none other than David Lynch's 1990 film Wild at Heart making its 4K debut. Hey -- I was just talking about this movie the other day:
I felt a quiver in the air, I guess. Maybe David Lynch's bisexual ghost blew in my ear. I love the thought that I could be haunted by David Lynch. Come haunt me, man! Make me have dreams every night about frog-locusts and Audrey Horne. Anyway -- Wild at Heart. For a movie supposedly so horny and heterosexual I'd argue that Wild at Heart actually rivals Mulholland Drive as Lynch's queerest movie, but really I would also argue that there's queerness in everything he touched over the years when you start looking. For one the gaze in this thing is deeply bisexual, and for another don't even get me started on the Wizard of Oz stuff. (And no need for it anyway when somebody already made that documentary.) That said I find WAH more a collection of interesting scenes and ideas and performances than I do one of Lynch's greatest accomplishments -- I've given it so many tries and I love so much about it but it never really fully coheres for me. But Criterion won't be beating the claim that they're leading up to dropping a full David Lynch box-set with this news, will they? Let's wish that into existence! That and David Lynch's Bisexual Ghost haunting me. Both of those things.
Ghostface: Alright, Kirby, then it's time for your
last-chance question. Name the remake of the
groundbreaking horror movie in which the vill...
Kirby: Halloween, uh, Texas Chainsaw, Dawn of the Dead, The Hills Have Eyes, Amityville Horror, uh, Last House on the Left, Friday the 13th, A Nightmare On Elm Street, My Bloody Valentine, When A Stranger Calls, Prom Night, Black Christmas, House of Wax, The Fog, Piranha. It's one of those, right? Right? [silence] I got it right. I was fucking right.
Terribly sad to hear about the death of Hayden Panettiere yesterday -- Heroes was tremendous for a brief moment in time mostly thanks to her (and our pal Bryan Fuller's writing of her character) and she basically stole Scream 4 from every other person, so much so that they were forced by fan outcry to bring her back from Scream VI; nevermind the weird stuff they did with her character in that one, Hayden ruled in the role. 36 is far far far too young to lose her, especially after how badly the business treated her as a child actor -- she should've had a long life and career to enjoy after surviving all of that bullshit. Might re-watch Scream 4 tonight in her honor. What a great turn that was. (Also it's bullshit that Ghostface pulled the Peeping Tom card -- Powell's movie might've come out a few months earlier but Psycho was obviously far more responsible for "the slasher craze" and I say that as a Peeping Tom fanatic. That's just Ghostface being an asshole which, yeah okay he is about to stab her.)
Former JFK Jr. actor and former-former male model Paul Anthony Kelly is going full pit-flashing forward on the cover of the new issue of VMan magazine -- there is no proper link for me to share with you yet since the article hasn't made its way online -- just these few photos. But what a few! Hello, Paul Jr.!
I'm not going to be mean on a Monday morning because it's bad vibes but let's just say I left Love Story with less interest in Paul than I did entering it, hence why it's been quiet re: him since that series ended -- we'll see how he fares on the new season of American Horror Story I guess. (I don't like the blonde hair though.) Until then enjoy these very fine photos and Happy Monday.
Ashamed to just now realize that amongst The End of Oak Street's coupla virtues that I got into in my review I forgot the absolute best of them all -- we see Dad Ewan McGregor in nothing but a white t-shirt and tighty-whities at one point. How could I leave that out? Once again I state flatly -- never listen to me, I have garbage opinions. I have forfeited my place as an influence (defiant lack of "r") on any person-of-merit's decisions and I will this very weekend throw myself down a well. If I can muster the energy anyway. I have it coming! Anyway yeah that's that for this week -- can you believe August is halfway over? My three-day summer weekends are nearly as evaporated as the icecaps. That's no good. So perhaps I will wait three weeks and throw myself down a well then, if that's alright, so I can get the most out of these weekends. ("The most" out of being a lazy-ass, obviously.) Until then! ("Then" meaning "Mondayor whatever" obviously.) K, bye!
Creighton Duke: That makes me think of a little girl
in a pink dress sticking a hot dog through a doughnut.
Happy 33 to Jason Goes To Hell today! Yes indeed arguably the worst Friday the 13th movie is celebrating its "Jesus Year" as of today and it couldn't have happened to a better worse movie. Okay, truth-time: I haven't re-watched this movie in at least a decade. It's so fucking bad y'all. And yet, on the other hand -- it's also got the best male nudity of the entire series thanks to the exquisite Michael Silver. So, you know, two hands in the bush or whatever.
"I too quit smoking (2013) AND find this type of pictures cool. Also, PSA: if you're feeling like you want to start smoking again, just remind yourself "I do not want my body and house to stink like stale horseshit", then go drink one more glass of water to entertain your hands and lips. Congrats, btw."
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