The Criterions Around the Corner

Happy that the Criterion announcements for December 2026 are landing this afternoon before I am whisked away for the next few weeks of New York Film Festival screenings starting tonight -- fortuitous timing for us all. And fortune ahoy because there are a couple of real thrillers here, including as seen above the 4K premiere of Anthony Minghella's Best Picture winner The English Patient! I know opinions are all over the place on this movie but I love every old-fashioned inch of it -- Ralph Fiennes at his most beautiful and romantic, Juliette Binoche winning an Oscar... how can you not love it? This one lands on December 8th so there will be plenty of time to stuff it in deserving stockings. Speaking of...

... I don't know that Werner Herzog's documentary masterpiece Grizzly Man is exactly "happy holiday" material given what a horror show it is, but I personally am extremely thankful. This doc the true story of the nature-lover Timothy Treadwell, who lived amongst the Alaskan brown bears until they gobbled him up, lands on the same day as The English Patient -- it's only a blu-ray, not 4K, but that's probably as good as we'll get given the source material is mostly old video. If you've never seen this movie good god do you have something in store. (Also that cover is gorg.)

Also ahead is Pietro Germi's 1961 black comedy Divorce Italian Style, which stars Marcello Mastroianni (who else) as a married man who falls in love with his much younger cousin -- oh 1961. Never stop 1961-ing. I've never seen this movie somehow? Those deeply hetero sex-comedies of this time period have never really been my bag but I'm sure it's worth seeing. Then there is December's new entry in Criterion's revived "Eclipse" series of box-sets -- this one tackles Afro-Cuban filmmaker Sara Gómez who made a series of short films (and one feature) in 1960s and 70s Cuba. Anybody familair with her work? Criterion's final two releases of December are two 4K upgrades -- there's Ernt Lubitsch's classic comedy The Shop Around the Corner with Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan, and there's a little something called Nashville by Robert Altman. Now that's a movie.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Scenes of a Sexual Nature (2006)

Noel: So, wait, what are you saying? 

All these lines that I... 

those crap lines... they actually worked?

Anna: No, they were shit.

Noel: Oh.

Anna: In fact if you'd said nothing 

I might have fucked you earlier.

Saying nothing is usually the way to go, I have found. 

Anyway a happy 49th birthday to Tom Hardy today!

Figured I'd make some love to his pre-Bronson work...

... and it had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with this gif.

Five Frames From ?

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Good Morning, World

I always find it a bit much when somebody on the internet screams, "Choke me, Daddy!"... even though I have surely done just that myself once or thrice but when haven't I been "a bit much" after all. But when Aaron Pierre  in nothing but underwear started choking out a guard out on this week's latest episode of Lanterns I think we all could be forgiven for having that phrase screaming, shrieking, pounding at the walls of the insides of our heads. Biceps like Aaron's basically make such reactions a prerequisite. Anyway I made gifs -- lots of slowing down, lightening up, and freeze-framing happening because this all goes by far too fast -- so hit the jump to see "Choke Me, Daddy" reach its Final Boss Form......

Golden Indeed

Given how literate and worldly my readership is I'm sure all of you knew that Josh O'Connor is about to do a staging of Clifford Odets' boxer drama Golden Boy in London this fall. That said -- knowing it and actually seeing it in the flesh are two different experiences, as casting an eye upon that photo of Josh makes clear. Lord send me a sugar daddy who can jet me off to front row! This play was of course turned into a terrific movie in 1939 that starred William Holden and Barbara Stanwyck, and it made Holden a star ... and so naturally we must ask the question...

online polls

Russell Tovey is an Industry-ous Chap

It was already a monkey's paw kind of situation going into Industry's fifth and final season, knowing that the show (which has absolutely been on fire with awesomeness for years now) would probably be able to get any actor they wanted to for this next, last round of episodes, all while we know that the show's ending and how much that sucks. But it's double-fold monkey-paw shit today when I have to tell you that we have gotten the wonderful word that Russell Tovey's joining the show... but so is Ben Platt. WHY??? Why can't we just have the good part and amputate that second half??? Ugh. Ugh. Ugh! Anyway the info on who they're each playing is there at the link if you wanna spoil yourself -- I know that gay actiors don't have to play gay characters (no matter what I might have said in the past; I was drunk) but I do find it interesting that two 'mos just joined the show in unison. Let's hope it points us in the direction of where Sir Henry Muck's storyline is headed!

Russell Tovey putting on his businessman glasses to go fuck Kit Harington on the new season of INDUSTRY

[image or embed]

— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) September 14, 2026 at 2:34 PM

Buy Me Beautiful

I know that "The eBay Post" has become like a weekly thing here over the past couple of months but that's only because the hoarding situation was becoming untenable and I really needed to unload some stuff, for spatial as well as financial reasons. Nevertheless here I am doing it again. What, am I going to pass up the chance -- since I listed for sale my DVD of Luchino Visconti's first film Ossessione starring Massimo Girotti -- to post a gif of Massimo Girotti in Ossessione? I think not. Check out everything I've listed at this link -- just think, the holidays are coming up! And I have so many beautiful art books for sale right now that the "For Sale" pile is as big as the piles of the stuff I'm actually keeping. I thin the herd, you bring gorgeousness into the life of yourself and/or the people you love. It's a masterpiece I tells ya. (Help meeeee.)

The David Corenswet Jock Movie

The moment that the first beefcaked-up photos from David Corenswet's football bio-pic Mr. Irrelevant appeared online back in April I knoew this was a movie I was going to be psoting about more when the time came -- well tick tock motherfuckers. The trailer popped up over the weekend and it's exactly the sort of soppy sentimental thing we expected, but damn if David doesn't look incredible anyway. 

And I feel less inclined to side-eye this movie than Sports Bio-pics of the past because -- these movies just aren't made very often anymore? The trailer gives away what seems like everything and this is extremely old-fashioned shit, and there's something kind of endearing about that. I really don't even have a warm place in my heart for any esteemed movies of this genre but I'm glad this exists in 2026. Hell if only so we get to see Superman bouncing in those little shorts. Here's the trailer:

Mr. Irrelevant is out on Christmas Day. 

Hit the jump for a few more gifs I made...

Lee Pace Nine Times

Oh I was hoping that some outtakes from Lee Pace's Flaunt magazine photoshoot that we shared last week would reveal themselves -- and voila! More Lee revealed! We have Lee's stylist Michael Fisher to thank for sharing -- one can never have too much Lee. And since the man is thirteen feet tall it's a literal statement -- just when you think you've reached the end, there's more Lee! Anyway we must seize upon the good things these days and Extra Lee is always that -- and that's why I included some of Lee's photoshoot for Variety last week as well after the jump...

Pic of the Day

I didn't get to see The Screener at Sundance because I covered Sundance virtually this year and hey whaddya know they weren't passing out screeners for a series that's about a screener leaking  and causing total chaos in Hollywood. But sexy mofo Jim Cummings -- the man behind this series as well as the films Thunder Road, The Wolf of Snow Hollow, and The Beta Test, and an adorable MNPP fave -- is premiering the series in L.A. later this month and went and crafted some bespoke posters for the event here that made me smile. Am I smiling because he's making me, by association, think of him naked? I'll never tell. (Because I don't need to. Duh!) But I do really want to see The Screener so hopefully soon! I have enjoyed all of Cummings' work to date. (Well okay except Halloween Kills but that wasn't his fault.)

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Good Morning, World

Did y'all see the news that Cole Escola's "Oh, Mary!" has been filmed for HBO? This is tremendous news but I'm a little sad it wasn't the stage version where Dino Fetscher here plays the teacher character. At least Dino was kind enough to share the above picture from his dressing room (via) to give us a little window into his own, you know, personal process. Happy Monday!

Say Good Night, François

In front of book-shelves, no less! The nerve! (via, thx Mac) Aaaanyway I don't know about you but I'm extremely thankful for this week to be over -- my mood has vacillated between bereft and savage with only brief moments of anything even resembling sane. It's all just a lot, you know? I know you know. I keep telling myself we're in this together and I should do my best to deliver wit and distracting gratuitousness to help us collectively dig ourselves out of the muck -- some weeks it's just easier than others and this has not been an easy week. Next week, as foretold earlier, NYFF press screenings kick off for me and there's going to be fits of silence about as I dive in with my whole ass -- I'm ecstatic to have proper shit to distract myself with because I think part of this week's problem has been that I have spent a lot of it just staring into the yawning, ever yawning, abyss. That's no good. That's what pictures of François Arnaud standing in front of book-shelves are supposed to fix dammit! Okay I'm done. Have a good weekend. Oh and go buy some of the shit I listed on eBay if you have a moment and the inclination. I have added tons of great film books this past week! Kthxbye.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Fury (1978)

Cheryl: Good lord, Pam, if you're 

that nervous, why don't you masturbate.

A happy 86 to the legend Brian De Palma today.

I Walked With a Black Zombie

One of the best movies that I saw at the Fantasia Fest in Montreal back in July was Maya Annik Bedward's horror documentary Black Zombie, which takes a glancing look at the subject of race via the eating-brains genre -- I wrote up my thoughts right here. And happily y'all didn't have to wait long to see it -- it's out in NYC and LA today! I imagine it will play some other places too, or perhaps hit streaming instead -- if I see that news I will share it. But if you're in either of thoise places go see it this weekend! It is super.

ETA oh also available today -- one of the year's best horror films Mārama just landed on Shudder! I wrote some very brief thoughts on it at this link -- if the phrase "Gothic Maori" doesn't make every nerve-ending of yours tingle and immediately run to Shudder then I cannot comprehend you. This movie is also getting a physical media release thanks to Vinegar Syndrome -- in case you missed that here's the link. Fuck Obsession, this one is so much better. 

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Good Morning, World

You can join the DSA here. 

Also, as long as politics are up in our faces this morning -- hey, it's 9/11! As a person who watched the towers burn from the ground and spent that day waiting to find out if my friend who worked in them had survived (he did thankfully) I pretty much have a "shut the fuck up about 9/11" attitude at all times, but especially on anniversaries. My boyfriend had "Trying To Forget" buttons made a decade or so ago and that's deeply my vibe as far as 9/11 goes. I hate this day, I hate being forced to see pictures and videos of it for weeks on end, I hate listening to Republicans pretend they're patriotic and not fascist pigs (that last bit is evergreen). If Hasan Piker's bulge is what it takes to distract me from all of this bullshit so be it. 

Lee Pace Ten Times

I've been sitting here most of today thinking today was going to be a real bust, post-wise -- not much news was presenting itself and I haven't been feeling particularly inspired. Thankfully here at the last minute our favorite pie-maker swooped in and stripped off some clothes for Flaunt Magazine -- bless you for approximately the ten billionth time, Lee Pace! 

Not that Lee has to remove clothing to make our joints ache. Good grief he's a god among men. I haven't seen the Practical Magic sequel that he's promoting (I only just saw the first one last week!) but a good friend of mine saw an early screening and immediately texted me that Lee is naked in it so, you know, there's one reason to see it. But hit the jump for all these Flaunt photos for the time being...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Totally F***ed Up (1993)

Steven: Shit, it's hot!

Andy: Greenhouse effect. Acid rain, nuclear dumping,

no ozone left, the whole planet's a goner.
I give it another five years max.

A very happy birthday to the icon James Duval today!

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