Happy Birthday, Harry Lighton

The writer-director of Pillion Harry Lighton is celebrating his birthday today and what better way to wish him a good one than to stare at this photo of him getting squeezed and manhandled by his leading leatherman Alexander Skarsgard at this weekend's Pillion screening in London? No better. As noted when I saw these two do a Q&A for the film a few weeks ago here in NYC Lighton is himself a dish, and this image of the two of them all leathered + trussed up at an after-party for the movie is very much going onto my lifetime mood-board. Click here if you missed my NYFF review of Pillion, a truly terrific movie. Out in February here in the U.S.!

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

Yup. It's Monday. Don't know I feel about that. While I go figure that out -- although if I were to shake my Magic 8 ball (not a euhphemism) I'd wager all signs would point to "Fuck this Monday shit" -- here's one thing I am certain of: actor Callum Turner looking all breakfasty delicious as hell in yesterday's spread for The Times. At least that's something! Hit the jump for the photos...

On Your Knees, Joseph Quinn

There is something so Pillion-coded about all of the images of Joseph Quinn modeling for Versace y'all. Grade A sluttiness. Anyway that's just there for me to say good night and goodbye for the weekend with -- my engine, barely fueled this week as it was, is sputtering. I gotta recharge. And if staring at that gif for the next forty-eight hours is how I do it, do not judge. In summation -- go to your local No Kings march tomorrow and also have a great weekend.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Wild River (1960)

Chuck: The most dangerous erosion is not to land 

- it's when your capacity for living gets eroded.

The great the legendary Montgomery Clift was born 105 years ago today. We love him because obviously we do -- gorgeous tortured homosexuals are our forte. Our kin! That said I have never seen this 1960 Elia Kazan picture -- have you? I like having a few Monty treats remaining for a rainy day.

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

Once I have the time to actually watch the gay show everybody's talking about -- i.e. Boots on Netflix aka the one that Pete Hegseth is clearly jerking off to when he goes home at night and closes the blinds -- I am sure that I will have a lot of posts to do from it. I've already started making and filling folders of photos of several of its actors and I haven't even watched a second of the show yet! But I do keep my ear to the ground (yes my ear) for such things, so I am aware! Which is why I have this gif of former Agents of SHIELD actor Brett Dalton swanning about in the nude looking sexier than ever on Boots -- the nude! Anyway if you've watched Boots yourselves tell me your thoughts, and tell me what to keep an eye out for when I get to it. And happy motherfucking Friday. I am real ready for this exact week to end, believe you me. 

Black Phone 2 in 200 Words or Less

I suppose if forced to choose I'd rather be bored than offended, so I guess Black Phone 2 is better than Black Phone in that it's not quite so rigorously homophobic this time out. Otherwise -- shrug emoji? I swear the first hour of this sequel is the same scene played out several times in a row. Little sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) -- who's very much the protagonist this time out -- slips into a dream, a phone rings, ghost kids, wakes up, little more dream, longer ringing phone, more ghost kids, on and on and on until your eyes have rolled down your throat. I don't recall the sound of a ringing phone being quite so annoying in the first film -- it's absolutely relentless here. Call it "Won't somebody answer the goddamned phone???": The Movie. And I've said this before when it comes to Scott Derrickson's movies (re: Sinister) but I will never find Ghost Kids scary. Ghost Kids will never be scary! There's some fun Elm-Street-esque shenanigans in the last half but having re-watched Dream Warriors earlier this week if you can't have a character say "In my dreams I'm beautiful and bad!" then bzzzt, you lose the contest.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Death on the Nile (1978)

Rosalie: Somehow, I don't think Monsieur Poirot 

is a very keen reader of romantic novels, Mother. 

Mrs Otterbourne: Well, of course he is! 

All Frenchmen are. They're not afraid of good, strong sex!

The grand Dame Angela Lansbury was born 100 years ago.

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

We All Need a Little Mads Sometimes

We got a trailer for Bryan Fuller's film Dust Bunny last month along with word that the film is coming out on December 5th -- now we have a clip! Watch it above -- or don't because watching clips from movies out of context is usually a bad idea. I allow people to make up their own damn minds. I am just happy to take the chance to remind you that Dust Bunny is coming and that's a good thing to look forward to. We need those. I myself am seeing it next week at the Brooklyn Horror Fest and you will surely hear my opinion then, so stay tuned for that. 

Good Morning, Gratuitous Charlie Hunnam

My crush on Charlie Hunnam is the longest one I've got going -- twenty-six years running! Since the original Queer as Folk, of course. (Oh how it's burned into my brain.) Just wander through our Charlie Archives if you don't believe me -- some of those Sons of Anarchy posts will probably stop you dead in your tracks, but you'll eventually make it back I think. Anyway said crush shows no signs of slowing -- especially not with the wealth of Charlie content we're getting happily stuffed down our throats in the wake of his Ed Gein series and its success. When I shared that big GQ shoot a week ago little did I know there would be two more great big hot and heavy hitters landing shortly. He did both Interview Magazine (here) and he did Man About Town magazine (here) this week, and hey whaddya know I have both of them for us this morning. Along with some sweet behind the scenes content like these gif of Charlie soaking wet in his underwear because good grief we're living. Hit the jump for dozens and dozens of our Charlie boy...

Night By Nicky

Today ended up being a weird day as I had a screening in the morning and I'm still catching up on stuff from the brain-melting illness that melted my brain over the weekend -- hell I'm not even 100% yet from that, as my boyfriend will tell you via his excrutiating experience of being forced to listen to me hack and wheeze all night long. Good times, good times. Anyway I am making it up to you with 1) that photo of slutty blond Nicky Hoult, as we do love his blond era very much, and 2) a promise that tomorrow will be a more thorough posting experience. Heck I've already got two posts lined up to publish tomorrow morning! So for once I'm not lying. See? 2025 isn't just shit. It's a lot of shit, yes, but not just. I do what I can. 

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Criterion Gives Birth This January

Put another checkmark in the "Fucking finally!" column because one of the great movies that hasn't gotten a proper release since the days of DVD is getting an upgrade on January 27th, 2026 -- yes obviously I speak of Jonathan Glazer's 2004 masterpiece Birth, as that enormous visage of Nicole Kidman's face with the word "Birth" scrawled across it probably let on already. (Sidenote: Birth is coming out on my mother's birthday? How fortuitous.) I'd have a hard nigh impossible time ranking Glazer's films because he's made nothing but masterpieces in his directing career -- one wants to call his a "brief" career since he's only directed four features, but those four features are spread across 25 years (beginning with Sexy Beast in 2000) and that's the opposite of brief. But depending on the day Birth might be my favorite of his. The next day it'll be Under the Skin and the day after that's it's The Zone of Interest, and so it goes. But this is triuphant news nonetheless -- a 4K disc, including a new doc on the movie's making -- now can we get Alexandre Desplat's now-legendary score released on vinyl please??? No, it's never enough. You get one thing, you need another, and then you die. And are reborn in a little boy to go stalk Nicole Kidman!

And as if Birth wasn't chilly enough -- Criterion is definitely leaning into the January-ness of January -- we'll also be getting Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man and John Huston's The Dead hitting 4k that month. I don't think I've seen either of these before? I may've seen the Huston ages and ages ago but I was certainly too young to get it and should revisit. As for Dead Man I'm hit-or-miss when it comes to Jarmusch and I'm not exactly crawling over broken glass to watch Johnny Depp movies these days, but I did really love Jarmusch's latest at NYFF so I can probably be convinced. Opinions on either?

Next up there's Jia Zhangke's tremendous latest Caught By the Tides, which I haven't seen since NYFF 2024 so it's been awhile, but it's a film that flits across my consciousness often -- Zhangke shot the film over 23 years (!!!) with actors Zhao Tao and Li Zhubin and watching them age in real time, watching China change around them -- it's an incredible experience. I suppose it must've been annoying for him when Richard Linklater beat him to the gimmick with Boyhood but I'm very much Team Zhangke on this one. It's an incredible accomplishment. And then there's the latest entry in Martin Scorsese's World Cinema Project series, which honestly has long intimidated the hell out of me. I'll dive into them one day! 

And so we come to the months'f inal three releases (big batch!) -- the second more vital drop this month to my eye is their re-release of Edward Yang's Yi Yi in 4K, which I've talked about a few times since seeing it for the first time just a few months ago; an astonishing film, one of the greats. Then there's the 1985 film of Kiss of the Spider-Woman starring Raul Julia and an Oscar-winning turn from William Hurt. I should probably give this one another chance -- I remember not being nuts about it when I saw it in my 20s. And then to bring us home there's Errol Flynn's best movie says me, the enormously entertaining 1935 swashbuckler Captain Blood. Love this movie; Errol is Peak Errol here.The big sword fight on the rocks is unmissable classic cinema. 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Swan Song (2021)

Pat: In death Rita remembered that she had taste. 

Dee Dee: Taste or dementia? You decide.

A happy 81st birthday to the legend Udo Kier! This movie is so much sweet fun -- here is my review. I just saw Udo in a new movie at the NYFF a couple of weeks ago -- he re-teamed with his Baracau director Kleber Mendonça Filho  (seen together below) for a single scene in The Secret Agent, which... well we'll see if I review that movie still before I say too much about it. I will have more NYFF reviews coming. When I stop being sick. So stay tuned! And happy birthday Udo!

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Josh O'Connor Sixteen Times

Well here's a pleasant enough task to easing me back into blogging duties -- Josh O'Connor is covering GQ this month! I can certainly stare at these pictures for a little bit. It's like a sort of medicine. Anyway it makes sense that he's getting a big spotlight right now, what with four movies out this fall -- don't ask my tired brain to name all of them but there's the new Knives Out (which by all accounts Josh is basically a co-lead with Daniel Craig in) and the new Kelly Reichardt movie The Mastermind. And then that one where he's a cowboy. I have no idea what the fourth one is. Anyway Josh wears leather pants, Josh wears plaid pants, Josh wears NO pants in the photos, so that's what we're really here to celebrate. Hit the jump for the photos...

Good Morning, World

Yes as our good friend actor Garrett Wareing put it there beside his thirsty thighs -- "Onward lol" -- wisdom from the mouths of babes, y'all. So yeah I've been sick as a dog, a very sick dog, for the past several days -- am I back to normal? No no I am not. I was up half the night hacking up my lungs even as I am technically "on the mend" -- I did feel well enough to finally come back to my office today but I'm not sure how much anyone there or here should expect from me. My brain is not right. I mean yes that's always been the case but it's not the right kind of not right right now. I have a constant high-pitched shrieking sound in my left ear for one, so that's fun. But I won't list all my miseries -- I've already inflicted enough self-indulgence on you this morning. I'll try to post some as the day goes along. Thanks to those of you who commented on the last post or sent me messages on Bluesky -- much appreciated. We're over the hump. Or was a wise poet once said, "Onward lol."

Thrust It, Joe Keery, Thrust It

Well I made it to the last day of NYFF before getting sick, so that's something! But sick indeed I am -- it's not Covid, or so two tests taken over the past day and a half have told me. It feels like the same thing I had last year around this time -- an extremely sore throat, is the gist of it. But seeing as how there's literally no symptom of illness I loathe more than a sore throat that's plenty. Anyway you really can't ask me to entertain you in this state, so this is it. Don't ask! I am giving you this gif of Joe Keery doing a pole dance in short shorts and that's all you're getting from me until Monday. Enjoy, and goodbye.