Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Anomalisa (2015)

Michael: Always remember the customer is an individual. Just like you. Each person you speak to has had a day. Some of the days have been good, some bad, but they've all had one. Each person you speak to has had a childhood. Each has a body. Each body has aches. What is it to be human? What is it to ache? What is it to be alive? I don't know. What is it to ache? I don't know. What is it to be alive? I don't know... Uh, yes. "How do I talk to a customer?" How do I talk to a customer? These are the important questions for a customer service representative. What do I say? Do I smile while I'm on the phone? Well, they can tell, if you're smiling, even if they can't see you. Did you know that? Try it as an experiment on the phone with a friend. Try it. Go ahead. Watch. I'm lost. See I was smiling when I said that? I've lost my love. She's an unmoored ship and she's drifting off to sea. I have no one to talk to. I have no one to talk to. I have no one to talk to. I'm sorry. I don't mean to burden you with that, I just don't know what else to do because I have no one to talk to... Be friendly to the customer. Think of the customer as a friend...

It's the 67th birthday of Charlie Kaufman! Not only that but I just realized this Anomalisa is turning 10 in a few weeks! So this post is what we in the biz call a "two-fer" then. I didn't realize it was Charlie's birthday when I did today's "Five Frames" post (which spoiler alert was for Being John Malkovich) but now that I do realize it's his birthday let's give the man some affection. I re-watched I'm Thinking of Ending Things a few weeks ago for the bazillionth time (which is probably why I brought up Pauline Kael talking about Gena Rowlands earlier this week) and it remains a perfect sparkling diamond in my eye, but I certainly do understand why some people find Charlie's work difficult or off-putting. All the more for me! That said I haven't gone back and re-watched Anomalisa in several years so I'm gonna do that this weekend to celebrate my beloved meloncholy genius. 

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... clapping back at the Frankenstein boys.

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Bonjour, François

Okay okay okay unlike how half-assed yesterday turned out to be here, I should be (knock on François Arnaud's wood) around posting much more today. Phew! And lets's start off with some true hotness to get our juices good and flowing -- actor slash bisexual king François Arnaud (who I just happened to stand beside at a film's after-party last week and y'all lemme tell you, his prettiness very seriously translates to the real world -- my god) was photographed for Nuvo magazine (via) yesterday and we're lucky enough to have the photos and video. I mean obviously -- what if I didn't have anything to post??? If a photoshoot gets photographed in the woods and nobody sees it does the photoshoot exist? Whoa this is all way too heady for a Wednesday morning, my sincerest apologies. Hit the jump and I will shut up and let you just ogle the pretty now...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Él (1953)

Doña Esperanza Vilalta: Francisco is a jealous man. 

Sometimes he thinks you're wrong... and because 

he loves you so much, he tends to lose his temper.

Gloria Vilalta: He deceived you, too.

Doña Esperanza Vilalta: When a man talks with his heart, 

he cannot lie. Listen to a mother's advice... 

Be good to him, and everything will be fine again.

Luis Buñuel's perverse classic Él has made its way into the Criterion Collection today! Here's to hoping they drop more of the Buñuel films made during his early time in Mexico -- that's a seriously under-appreciated portion of his career. Everybody focuses on his early work in the 30s and his late work in the 60s and 70s but there's a ton there in the middle to enjoy too! Él perhaps most of all. Blessings to Criterion for giving this the showcase it deserves. Any fans?

The Fourgy of Our Forever Dreams

My schedule today ended up being a bit more bonkers than I anticipated so I'm hopping online later than I'd wagered (I mentioned my tardiness in this morning's post) -- point being I'm just now seeing that the devils at Vanity Fair threw Jonathan Bailey, Riz Ahmed, Harris Dickinson, and Andrew Garfield on a couch in coordinating little outfits and delivered us a video for our everlasting spank bank eternal. I haven't had the chance to actually watch the video properly yet so I have no idea what they're discussing but...

... there it is, it should be documented. Studied. Frame by frame. Thanks to the commenter who alerted me to its existence this morning -- you will be showered in the afterlife with chocolate truffles and oral sex whenever you like. Dear lord!

Good Morning, World

Morgan Spector busted out of his corset for GQ's "Men of the Year" issue (I should say along with his Gilded Age co-star Carrie Coon) to talk "TV's Hottest Marriage" -- read about it here. (Carrie wasn't so lucky with the corset, poor dear.) Anyway while we all go off and fantasize about Rail Daddy laying some rail on us let me mention I've got a screening this morning and won't be back here until this afternoon. Morgan will take good, thorough care of you in my absence, I promise. 

Man Not There, Woman Under Influence

If I was forced at gun-point (or perhaps in this instance umbrella-point is more apt) to list the ten most beautiful movies ever made, Jacques Tati's 1967 masterpiece Playtime would handily be on said list -- I've watched this sucker projected on the wall of the Museum of Modern Art, for goodness's ake. And I don't mean inside one of their movie theaters -- I mean in the actual art part of the museum they had this several minutes of this film projected on a wall right beside paintings for a few years and every time I walked past it I would sit down on the bench provided and re-watch the footage for the gazillionth time. It's about as perfect as such things go and so the news that Criterion is dropping the film onto 4K disc this upcoming February is some happy news indeed. (And obviously the folks at Criterion agree with me on this film's stature since this FOURTH release they've given it, after DVD, blu-ray, and their must-own Tati box-set.)

Indeed I don't usually start these monthly Criterion release announcement posts with one of their now constant 4K upgrades, but Playtime on 4K is obviously a most special ocassion. The rest of February's hardly a slouch though -- take for instance Sidney Lumet's 1976 media master-class Network, which is entering the esteemed Collection for the first time, and also in 4K. That movie turns 50 next year and feels as timely as ever -- and of course I speak of how we all would still have sex with Old William Holden even if we were hot young things like Faye Dunaway was. Obviously! Why -- what did you think I was talking about? 

Next up on February 3rd there's the 1957 Western 3:10 to Yuma, which I must admit I've never seen -- I've seen the remake with Christian Bale but never the original with Glenn Ford. Should I? Tell me your opinion as if you're talking to someone who doesn't have a lot of patience with Westerns in general. Because you are. Nor do I have a lot of patience for John Cassavetes' much-beloved 1974 drama A Woman Under the Influence, which is getting what I believe is its first standalone release after being part of the Cassavetes box-set previously. I tend to agree with Pauline Kael's infamous opinion here -- that Rowlands is just doing Way Too Much in this movie. I understand why actors love the performance, but as a viewer I'm just not into it. (That said I'm sure this is getting this standalone drop because of Rowlands' recent passing and that's nice for her fans.)

February ain't stopping there, though -- you want a box-set of Ernst Lubitsch's musicals, you say? Well you got it! Their reinstated "Eclipse Series" is unloading four of the champagne-synonymous filmmaker's movies starting with The Love Parade in 1929 right through One Hour With You in 1932. I haven't seen a single one of these, but every time I have seen The Love Parade's title anywhere I think of that being the title of Tobey Maguire's book in Wonder Boys. (Is that weird? I'm weird. God I love Wonder Boys. Put Wonder Boys in the Criterion Collection dammit!) After that there's the great Kiyoshi Kurosawa's most recent thriller Cloud, which also happens to be streaming on Criterion Channel right now -- it's about an online reseller becoming unhinged as he tries to score questionable deals, and yes I related to it an awful lot. Which brings us to the last but hardly least February drop -- the Coen Brothers' 2001 black-and-white Noir-riff The Man Who Wasn't There, starring Billy Bob Thornton and Scarlett Johannson among many others. Here's where I admit I don't think I've seen this since it came out? Which is strange indeed because I remember liking it. Huh. Well now's my chance! 

What out of February 2026's releases has you most excited?

Great Moments In Movie Staches

Edgar Wright's not-great re-do of The Running Man has made me want to revisit some of the many trashy Schwarzenegger movies that I adored as a kid, and from there it doesn't take long for me to start thinking about Carl Weathers in Predator. Glen Powell wishes!

Today's Mood

This photo of Alexander Skarsgård with his twenty feet of bare gams tossed in the air at the Cannes photoshoot for his BDSM-com Pillion back in May is more of an aspirational mood than an actual one -- no one could ever actually achieve this mood lest you actually be Alexander Skarsgård, I think. But one can dream! Or one can just zoom in and in and up Alex's short shorts -- whatever. I think I can safely promise you that Alex isn't offended. (And these two photos are both very large so yes, click to embiggen and zooming is easy.) Anyway I made note of this outfit at the time (twice actually), as I have with basically everything he's worn on the still-going Pillion campaign, but this precise photo only got dropped in the past 24 hours so obviously the flashback was worth it. If you missed my review of Pillion click here. I'm dying to see it again. And again. And again. And...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)

Pontius Pilate: It's one thing to want to change 

the way people live; but you want to change 

how they think, how they feel.

Jesus: All I'm saying is that change will happen 

with love, not with killing.

Pontius Pilate: Either way, it's dangerous. It's against Rome. 

It's against the way the world is. And killing or loving, 

it's all the same. It simply doesn't matter how you want 

to change things. We don't want them changed.

A happy 83rd birthday to the living legend Martin Scorsese! Who's watched the doc Mr. Scorsese that landed on Apple last month? I plowed through it pretty quickly once I emerged out from under all my film festival duties and I came away with two main thoughts - one, it totally could've been a couple of episodes longer. Starting with Cape Fear (which he casually dismissed, much to my Cape Fear loving chagrin) the momentum got moving too fast -- they didn't even mention Hugo! And Hugo is great! That's only a complaint insofar as wanting more of a thing can be a complaint -- otherwise it was great. 

My second main thought though -- well now I have to re-watch every Scorsese movie. I re-watch my faves like The Age of Innocence, After Hours, Taxi Driver, probably once a year. (I made a Top 5 list for Marty's birthday three years ago that hasn't changed.) But there are several that I haven't seen in a very long time, including the film quoted up top (it's been decades) and Raging Bull. So I think over the holidays I'm going to be making a project of re-watching several Scorsese movies. I actually don't think I've seen The Departed since it came out!

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, Dead Man

Hello and happy Monday -- when I posted about noted dreamy Irishman and actor Daryl McCormack being cast in Tom Ford's next movie (along with a bevy of hotties) last week I said to myself (and also Bluesky), "Hmm why don't I post more Daryl McCormack?" I think the dude caught all our eyes and other parts and then some with his star-making turn opposite Emma Thompson in Good Luck to You, Leo Grande a couple of years ago -- then when he popped up in the latest Knives Out movie Wake Up Dead Man, which as an aside just got a new trailer this very morning...

... and I really realized I best get on it. Thankfully today we've got a photoshoot of him to share and do just that -- he's in the new issue of Hero magazine (I haven't read it yet but his chat is with his WUDM co-star Cailee Spaeny) looking typically handsome as hell. As for WUDM (which yes obviously given what I just said I have seen) that is very much Josh O'Connor's movie (as much if not more than it is Daniel Craig's movie, if you can believe it) but what we get of Daryl is good. That's out in "select theaters" on Thanksgiving (yeah you know what Netflix means when they say "select theaters" by now right) and then on the streamer December 12th. And without giving away my review of it let's just say it's probably my favorite of the franchise to date. I digress! Let's show you all of them Daryl pics after the jump...

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A Few Small Beers

I've made no secret of the fact that Paul Thomas Anderson's One Battle After Another is my favorite movie of 2025 -- my review at Pajiba when it hit theaters contained such ecstatic frothing at the mouth somebody shoulda called a kennel. Anyway I've seen it four times in the theater now and will probably try to hit it up at least one more time before it disappears completely (I've got the added advantage of screenings for the awards guilds I'm in, which I've taken full advantage of) but all y'all who didn't make it out to the theater should know that the movie is on VOD now. You can rent it right here. I watched half of it at home last week (via awards screener) and it plays terrific at home too, although I'm sure the year's best scene car chase that caps the movie off won't feel quite so visceral from the sofa. But however you gotta see it, see it. They also announced the physical media release info recently -- the blu-ray and 4K of the film are landing on January 20th, with a limited-edition steelbook of the film coming later in the spring. That later edition will supposedly have a bunch of PTA-crafted special features that the earlier ones won't (hence the delay) but annoyingly it seems like it'll be harder to grab one of those -- it's already sold out on Amazon but some of the botique shops are still selling them for pre-order, like Orbit DVD right here. All that said if you've seen the movie and not shared your opinion with me yet that's what the comments below are for! Next week when I finally see Marty Supreme I'll have seen all of OBAA's main competition for Best Picture (unless the third Avatar movie shatters expectations) and as of right this minute I'm ready to go to war if OBAA doesn't win the top prize as well as Best Director. It's PTA's time dammit. (Jonny Greewnood's too!)

The vinyl for Jonny Greenwood's ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER score is out now!

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) November 14, 2025 at 2:26 PM

Jay Ellis Eleven Times

A couple of weeks ago I shared a photoshoot of actor Jake Lacy that was promoting his series All Her Fault -- it's only right I also share these Jay Ellisphotos that dropped today (via) too then, since they're both on that same show. I mean I was going to share these photos anyway because LOOK AT HIM, but then I looked up what he's promoting and realized it was the same series -- which I have not watched -- and here we are. I suppose I should ask if anybody's watching this show then? It's stuffed fulla hotties apparently so at least one of you must be. For now we'll stuff out hotties here though, or rather after the jump...

A Little Tom Holland Treat

The first official images from Christopher Nolan's film of The Odyssey have started to land (via the new issue of Empire magazine I believe) and I figured it would be this shot of Tom Holland playing the character of Telemachus that would blow up all y'all skirts the best. This movie's not out until July 17th 2026 so we've got some time to decide whether we give a shit -- well I suppose "we" really equals "me" since I'm the biggest Nolan naysayer around. And yet! And yet I did like Oppenheimer. So maybe I'll like this one even more and Nolan will suddenly become a director I appreciate again, which hasn't really been a thing since Memento. (Okay okay I do mostly like The Dark Knight too.) With a cast that includes Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Anne Hathaway, Mia Goth, Jon Bernthal, Zendaya, Logan Marshall-Green, Lupita Nyong'o and Samantha Morton (among others) there'll certainly be somebody worth staring at most of the time... but then Nolan's always gotten big starry casts which he then usually squanders. I'm trying to be optimistic, really! How are y'all feeling about the prospects on this one? 

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Do Dump or Marry: Three Hot Gays

In honor of Russell Tovey's birthday today we will toss him into a heap with two of the internet's favorite homosexuals and force them to wrestle it out for our enjoyment. Our gay gladiators! He and Andrew Scott and Sexiest Man Alive Jonathan Bailey were all photographed at... oh I don't care, some party this week. I can't be bothered to look up what it was. But it seems the right moment to "Do Dump or Marry" the three of them. Do do that in the comments and also wish a Happy birthday to Mr. Tovey! From you and from me and more importantly (like way more importantly) from these two:

Good Morning, Waël

This Friday we're grabbing onto a newcomer for dear life -- his name is Waël Sersoub and he's actually been making movies for a decade. He was apparently in Michael Haneke's Happy End!  I really need to re-watch Happy End. Anyway on Insta I follow the photographer who took that picture and I one hundred percent thought it was a photo of former canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at first -- you can see the resemblance right? And yes it seemed like a big leap in Trudeau's career to suddenly be taking beefcake photos but hey he is dating Katy Perry right now. Who knows? The world works in mysterious, horny ways. Anyway it's not the former Prime Minister of our upper neighbor, it's a French model-turned-actor who I recommend looking up -- he pretty. Ooh he also was in a Matthias Schoenaerts movie. I like to think they made fast friends, him and Matty. Check Waël's Insta right here. Happy Friday!