Given it's the buzziest restoration of.. well "the year" doesn't even seem sufficient even though we've only known about it's existence since May when it dropped at Cannes -- it's going to be the buzziest restoration of the decade, I think. Anyway given the fact that everybody (including yours truly) is losing their heads over the new re-cut and 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 y'all. Holy hell! Here's how NYFF describes the film:
"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this morning about the Heated Rivalry home video release -- I love using the phrase "home video", it's so deeply out of date -- and say your thanks because the first season of the hot hit show's hitting 4K + blu-ray + DVD on November 24th.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.
Big time props to the person who cut the new trailer for Ken Russell's renowned and beseiged and terribly controversial 1971 masterpiece The Devils -- this trailer feels like a blapshemous frenzy and that's exactly how it should feel. There is a sequence of quick edits at its tail-end...
... that is legitimately kind of painful to stare at, and yes actually that is also how I should feel watching a trailer for Ken Russell's The Devils. It's a trailer that should come with a warning beforehand! Love it. Anyway as I've said every chance I get -- this remasted Director's Cut, indeed the holy grail, is hitting some theaters on October 16th. Best believe come hell or more hell we'll be there.
My mea culpa for being offline this A.M. -- I had a screening dammit! -- is sharing these photos of Drew Starkey for GQ Hype... as if I wouldn't have shared them either way. Look at our Queer boy! All wet and bothered, just the way we like him. Anyway I haven't read the full chat in GQ yet but apparently he gets real sly about it when Luca Guadagnino's possible American Psycho movie comes up -- he drops a "no comment" when asked but then he also goes and admits that he has read the script. Sneaky devil.
I remain unsure about the entire prospect of making another version of this movie when Mary Harron's film and Christian Bale's performance therein are both perfect things, but Luca already proved me wrong once with Suspiria so I will shut my filthy mouth and I will watch whatever he does. I will admit that I can see interesting ways that a gay man's adaptation of the book would be different from a straight woman's. So it could be also great but different, in a different way? I see that possibility. Anyway I'm rambling when all you wanna do is stare at Wet Hot Drew Starkey, I get it. Sohit the jump for him...
I've been a Callum Turner ogler for several years going -- I was particularly fond of his slutty blond phase (thanks, George Clooney). But reading about the "conservative creep", ideologically-speaking, that's supposedly (I didn't see it) on display in this past weekend's sex-purge rom-com One Night Only alongside his really annoying no-homo-ish quote about how disgusting guys are for wearing spandex at the gym (oh no, penises, the horror) well he has my crush living on the edge. My Spidey-sense is sensing a strong suspicion he's overtime positioning himself as the number-one most hetero-manliest of double-oh Bond options on the table, basically. And it's almost started to feel disingenuous to the point of craven.
Judging by the reviews written by people I trust this movie is hot trash but then I see these photos of Callum Turner and I just don’t know WHAT to think
His constant vacationing with his gorgeous famous wife getting pap-snapped every other day feeds into this; as do his boring fashion choices on red carpets. But am I reading too much into things? Honestly every second I spend thinking about this is one second I'm not thinking about the world being on literal fire, so have some sympathy if I am being totally deranged. I still like to look at him! (Even more if he went blond again.) I just hope he tones this all down once the Bond pick lands, either way. Daniel Craig never ran away from his immense bisexual energy dammit -- he ran straight (heh) into it! And we must not go back in time on absolutely everything! Anyway hit the jump to stare some more at his goofy attractive face if you're into it, and I won't judge (for now)...
I don't understand why there aren't more dinoasaur movies without the word "Jurassic" in the title -- I guess they try every so often, like that one with Adam Driver that I have completely forgotten and will not be spending the time to look up, and that semi-hostile indifference to even trying to remember that turd probably answers my question as to why there aren't more dinosaur movies without "Jurassic" in the title! It's not like these movies can be made for peanuts -- even in the age of accessibility for most to passable movie-making equipment dinosaurs still represent a challenge. (How long until we see some A.I. slop dinosaur nonsense making the rounds? I suppose it already exists and I've just been wily enough to avoid it.)
Anyway out this weekend is another one of Hollywood's sporadic stabs at making a dinosaur movie without "Jurassic" in the title -- and hey, this one is better than that last one. Sorta! The End of Oak Street stars Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway as Greg and Denise, a married couple on the rocks in the mid-1980s who have a daughter Audrey (Maisy Stella) and a son Brian (Christian Convery), and who find themselves and their entire neighborhood sucked through a wormhole to predator-stuffed Prehistory. Thankfully nobody spends much time bothering to explain the inexplicable science of this -- Audrey's a fan of Carl Sagan and gives it a brief go but it's blessedly as hand-wavy as, "Welp well that happened," and then everybody moves on to the chomp-chomp of it all.
What they move on to probably should have been a better movie -- if you're prone to bees in your bonnet over characters behaving stupidly then this movie will feel like that rightly beloved meme of Oprah Winfrey releasing the bees sprung to life beneath your headwear. Beyond waving away the nonsensical science of the family's exceptional situation, writer-director David Robert Mitchell (yes the same man who made the incredible horror movie It Follows; I know) also hand-waves away any legitimate reasons to keep this family out of their boarded-up house. They are constantly, moronically wandering the streets even as they're watching their neighbors get gnawed and torn to shreds.
That's one of the film's more delicious bits, though -- it sure ain't afraid to be vicious. Although most of it's seen from a good distance people do die horribly in this movie, including one genuine shock moment that legit left my jaw hanging. But the movie's meanness in that respect teeters precipitously against its Choose Your Own Family Adventure set-up -- it's not a wholly comfortable fit, and the movie really strains against itself. There is something admirable in its willingness to wind its own tonal path I suppose (it certainly isn't playing safe) but it veers too close to the nastiness of that scene in the first Jurassic World movie where that young woman was tossed around and torn apart by Pteranodons. Gratuitous and grim.
The main issue though, besides how dumb these people keep behaving for no discernable reason, is a phrase I've been using a lot lately -- The End of Oak Street definitely suffers ftom "the conservative creep" that's been affecting so much Hollywood product over the past few years. Wedged-in conversations about religious faith keep popping up, and the film's ultimate goal -- which I promise you isn't a spoiler since it's obvious it's what this movie's about all of five minutes in -- is to make Mom stop being so darn angry and to appreciate her darn family again. While words like "Amblin-esque" will surely be tossed at this flick for all of its 80s nostalgia, a more appropriate one would surely be "Reagan-esque." Shudder, indeed.
"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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