Speaking Of Physical Media...

... and why would we speak of anything else... the unbelivable has happened! The fine folks over at Vinegar Syndrome have finally, finally, FINALLY, got the rights to release Richard Brooks' 1977 film Looking For Mr. Goodbar  -- and on 4K no less! This film contains my favorite Diane Keaton performance -- which is saying a lot since I'm a huge fan -- plus peak Richard Gere. It also has one of the most disturbing endings ever put on-screen so, you know, that's fun. Anyway this hasn't gotten a release since VHS way back in the day -- the story was that the rights to the music in the film made a new release cost phoibitive but it would appear they got that sorted out! Pre-order the disc right here -- they won't ship until sometime in December but do expect to use up your pateince waiting, VS tends to be kind of slow on that front. Especially when it comes to these big sales. I cannot believe we're finally going to get Richard Gere doing push-ups in a jockstrap in 4K!! Just think how much better this gif will be:

That's not all Vinegar Syndrome has of import this month, though -- they're also releasing Red Rooms, the Quebecois serial killer thriller that I reviewed at Fantasia Fest last year and which I just re-watched a week or so ago and loved even more with a second view. This movie is fantastic. And they're releasing Bent, the searing gay holocaust drama that stars Clive Owen and which features Clive & Nikolaj Coster-Waldau memorably going at it in its opening scenes... 

Heads Up, Happy People

Heads-up, happy people! The vast library of our beloved Criterion Collection is on sale on Amazon right now at 50% off! This will presumably be for the entire month of November as they do this to compete with the same sale at Barnes & Noble that typically starts a little later in the month. That means it also includes pre-orders for movies out before the end of November, which includes Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water, the original Godzilla in 4K, and Paper Moon in 4K! And of course it includes last month's barnstormer of an excellent drop with Todd Solondz' Happiness, a Val Lewton horror double-feature, All of Us Strangers, and that to-die-for Gregg Araki trilogy! And then there's the issue of that massive 40-film 40th anniversary box-set that Criterion is releasing on November 17th -- that's not priced at the full 50% off right now but it is priced at $400, so $10 a movie, which seems like a damn good deal already. Anyway point being click on those links and treat  yourselves to some movies, it will distract you from... [gestures wildly]

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

The onslaught of flirty Pedro Pascal / Paul Mescal / Joseph Quinn promotional content for Gladiator II's oncoming release has been relentless for the past couple weeks and yet I've done a terrible, a downright terrible, job of keeping up with it. This post is not an attempt to rectify that though -- this is a collapse, more like. I give up. I'm also extremely tired and braindead this morning so perhaps we'll chalk it up to that but I couldn't even keep on keeping on looking up an approrpiate "Good Morning" themed photo. No this one of Pedro looking like he's about to snap Paul's neck is more Today's Mood than anything. I need to catch up on sleep this weekend -- October takes a lot out of me. Anyway hello, happy Friday, hope you one and all had a nice Halloween evening. Now let's see if this coffee I'm holding has any effect... 

Hey Paul Mescal if you need to smoke a fag....... pic.twitter.com/BlRwsZG6gI

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) October 31, 2024

Have a Happy Halloween!

I better see somebody wearing this tonight.

(I am actually going out to a party if you can believe it!)

Let me know if you wear something neat 

or watch something cool in the comments...

Halloween's Ways Not To Die

Let's all go to the movies, let's all go to the moooovies, let's all go to the movies... and have ourselves a snack! I know I shamefully haven't done one of our "Ways Not To Die" series in awhile but since it's the greatest day of the year today I figured we should celebrate and what better way than with one of the greatest death scenes in all of cinema? Hit the jump for our take on the movie theater scene in 1973's Messiah of Evil...

Which is Hotter?

A batch of five character posters for Robert Eggers upcoming remake of Nosferatu dropped this morning -- notably twas none included for the titular role, as they have so far kept Bill Skarsgård's vampire look deliciously out of sight (and I hope it stays that way until the movie is out). But since I will take any measly excuse to post about this movie, by leaps and bounds my most anticipated for the remainder of the year, let's put Nicholas Hoult's look up against Aaron Taylor-Johnson's this here Halloween afternoon!

online polls

Nosferatu is out on Christmas damn day!

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Show Us The Hole, Theo James

Even though I am legitimately excited about this just-announced project what, you thought I wouldn't go right for the dirty joke in my headline? You don't know me at all. Anyway yes it's true -- Theo James is set to star in a movie titled The Hole. The jokes they write themselves. But we should only joke a little because the movie will be directed by I Saw the Devil and A Tale of Two Sisters director Kim Jee-Woon, one of the great voices in South Korean cinema, and it's based on an award-winning novel (of the same name) that has a terrific Misery-like premise to it. Theo plays a man who moves to South Korea with his South Korean wife, only for them to get into a terrible car accident, killing the wife. As he's recuperating in the home of his South Korean mother-in-law's house she starts to uncover that he might not have been a good husband to her daughter, and yadda yadda you can expect things to go pretty south from there. South... towards The Hole! That sounds good, right? Anyway I am happy that Theo is making some horror-type movies at this stage in his career -- you might recall that he's also the lead in Longlegs director Oz Perkins' next movie The Monkey...

Nicholas Alexander Chavez Eight Times

It is indeed overdue that I drop down some Nicholas Alexander Chavez gratuity on us (even if I still have yet to start watching his Menendez Bros series Monsters) so here is a sopping wet new photoshoot of the actor and big sexy slab o' man for our old friend Schön! magazine (via). Hit the jump for them all...

Kit Harington Gonna Ride Billy Magnusson Hard

Some news that shoots right up our alley dropped yesterday -- Kit Harington and Billy Magnusson are set to star in a fantastical horse-racing comedy called Chariot! It's about "an oversized jockey" (and no offense Kit but that's some flattery, insinuating you're too big to play a jockey -- we love you pocket-sized!) who gets injured but finds his way back into the sport... with the comedic twist being that the "horse" in question that shows him how to suceed again is really a centaur. And if you can't picture Billy Magnusson as a centaur then you have no imagination. Anyway yes if you've now caught up this is a movie about Kit Harginton riding on (a presumably shirtless) Billy Magnusson's back. And the next time someone says to you that the movies are dead you need to slap them twice across the face, once for each cheek, because this is proof the movies have never been more alive, baby! 

Good Morning, Halloween

Rise and shine, my favorite freaks!
It's our day! OUR DAY!

Barry Keoghan Seven Times

Yesterday we got the Franz Rogowski photoshoot and today we get his Bird co-star Barry Keoghan for Port magazine -- well "co-star" is a little bit of a liberal description since the two unfortunately share no scenes in the movie. But they're still technically "co-stars" I suppose. And once you see the movie it makes sense they don't share scenes -- there's a real swapping out of energies between the two, and what their influences mean to the lead character. Anyway! Bird is a very good movie and you should see it when it hits theaters on November 8th. Here is my review of it.  But back to our Barry boy -- it's a good chat with him in Port, read that too. But I've got all of the photos after the jump...

Five Frames From ?,

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

Swallowed director Carter Smith sent out this photo (click to embiggen) of his lead actor Cooper Koch last week as part of his weekly "All the Dead Boys" newsletter, and as a reminder that Swallowed is getting the fancy blu-ray treatment via Vinegar Syndrome -- buy it here! Mine just shipped out yesterday, which was what reminded me to share this photo of the Monsters star taken at an earlier but no less unshy date. Here is my review of Swallowed -- terrific flick, that. And a good one to add to your Halloween watch schedule if you're in the mood for some creepy queer body-horror goodness. If you don't have the blu-ray it is rent-able on Prime right now. So no excuses! Happy Hump Day.

Happy Birthday, Winona

We love Winona forever, amen.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Being John Malkovich (1999)

Craig: There is truth, and there are lies, and 

art always tells the truth. Even when it's lying.

Happy 25 to one of the many many 1999 masterpieces, and one of Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's many masterpieces. Doesn't that single line from the film feel like a nice distillation of Charlie Kaufman's ethos? He's always uncovering the deepest truths about humanity through artifice and deception, boxes within boxes, pulling back the telescopic lens on us again and again until he spirals our brains into something like Herzog's ecstatic truth. And this movie is where our journey with that genius began (no The Dana Carvey Show does not count) and I haven't regretted a single second since. Anyway did you see the news that Jonze had apparently been working on a big sci-fi series for Netflix that's just been shelved? Boo, I say -- we need Spike back already! It's been ages and ages. Come back to us! On camera, too -- I like to look at you.

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Queer The Trailer Is Here, It's Queer

She's here and she's lovely! The trailer for Luca Gudagnino's Queer arrived this morning -- why do they always have to drop while I'm in the middle of my work commute? -- and you can watch it below. If this is your first time here this is Luca's adaptation of William S. Burroughs' novel starring Daniel Craig as a Burroughs stand-in during his time in Mexico and South America, swooning over a hot but semi-indifferent boy played by Drew Starkey. 

I reviewed the movie right here when it screened at NYFF earlier this month -- I was a fan. Of course I was a fan. What can I say at this point? Luca and I work on very similar wave-lengths. Here's a bit of what I said about the film:

"Queer is a bold act of kindness from one queer to another, excavating an unexpected and impossible love story out from one of our most enigmatic homosexual touchstones. It is a rare gem, haunting and strange, a romance of shivering ache and heartbreak closer to Guadagnino’s Suspiria or Bones and All than the flushed skin and peach fuzz of I Am Love and Call Me By Your Name that Luca-in-lover-mode is known for. It’s dazzling and dirty and sad, like a haunting dream we find ourselves fighting to not wake up from so as to not have to stare at the empty, featureless room that surrounds us."

The trailer kind of splits the difference between the two Lucas and I suppose that's apt -- when I saw him talk about the movie (see some video here) he insisted this was a love story, just for two people out of sync, and that's very true. 

It's weirder than that implies though, especially its last act which I love and understood in my bones but which has thrown a lot of people off. Anyway you'll see soon enough. Here's the trailer:

Queer is out on November 27th!