November 11, 2021, 12:41 pm
"I want to work with Andrea Arnold, Lynne Ramsay, and Celine Sciamma, who did Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Those three ladies are at the top of my list. Their films have such strong stories; Celine’s Girlhood has stuck with me since 2014. The performances are so raw that I thought it was real. It let me in so much, and I always find that fascinating, how a director can get actors and actresses to trust them like that."
This quote from Eternals and Green Knight actor Barry Keoghan is actually a year and a half old, from an interview he gave to NME last March when his movie Calm With Horses (a good movie which also starred MNPP fave Cosmo Jarvis and which you should seek out -- here's that trailer) was coming out, but it's making the rounds on Twitter this week thanks to Eternals'release and everybody being like, "Oh right Barry Keoghan kicks ass." But such sentiments must be shared now once they're seen, because... right, Barry kicks ass. If you look at the directors Barry's already worked with at all his twenty-nine years of age -- Yorgos Lanthimos, Christopher Nolan, David Lowery, Chloé Zhao, with Matt Reeves (in The Batman) and Cary Fukunaga (for Masters of the Air, which I posted about here) and Martin McDonagh (for The Banshees of Inisherin) on tap -- it's clear the boy's got taste. But his wanting to work with Arnold especially tickles all of my fancies -- all of 'em! -- because how damn easy is that to picture? They seem like peas in a pod, a perfect match, and I really hope that one happens.
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November 12, 2021, 4:00 am
Hey everybody! That there's
Stranger Things actor
Dacre Montgomery giving you the tongue (
via), which you should actually interpret as my way of saying, "I have another press screening this morning! Sucks to be you!" Sorry. I'll be here come early afternoon, I promise. Just enjoy the tongue! Eesh.
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November 12, 2021, 9:40 am
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November 12, 2021, 10:00 am
... you can learn from:
Evelyn: Don't you like me?
Dave: You're a nice girl.
Evelyn: But who needs nice girls?
Dave: I'm kind of hung up on one.
Evelyn: And you don't want to complicate your life.
Dave: That's exactly right.
Evelyn: Well neither do I, but that's no reason we
shouldn't sleep together tonight if we feel like it.
Fifty years ago tomorrow when this movie was released that line there t the end that the legendary Jessica Walter (RIP queen) speaks would have taken her from the "nice girl" of the start of this passage of dialogue to something else not quite so nice -- I think we've come a little ways in that 50 years, but probably not as much as we oughta. That said Evelyn, with all the stabbing and such, wasn't a "nice girl" for plenty of reasons that had nothing to do with promiscuity, but I'll be damned if you don't watch this movie now in 2021 and root for her the whole damned way anyway. Fuck Clint Eastwood! I do love this movie though, entirely for Jessica Walter reasons, so a Happy 50 to it!
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November 12, 2021, 10:33 am
This shot is from
People magazine's new "Sexiest Man Alive" issue that gave that title to Paul Rudd -- they always have some runners-up included and Orlando's included, looking much sexier than Paul did in any of his photos. Don't get me wrong, Paul Rudd's great (although ten years on I still have PTSD from the crap that was
This is 40 and automatically wince when I see anyone involved with it) but... sexy? Adorable, sure. And to pull off adorable at 52 is something. But Orlando (especially in the wake of the revelation of
his nudist inclinations) just reads as sexier to me. Hrm why don't I let you people decide...
free polls
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November 12, 2021, 11:37 am
In my review of Kenneth Branagh's new film
Belfast, which went up this afternoon
at Pajiba right here, I call the movie his "best in years" which, well, that's a little bit of a back-handed compliment given how terrible I find most of his filmography (at least in the past 20 years). But
Belfast is in no way terrible -- it's maybe not Best Picture worthy (which, if you listen to the people who care about that shit, it very well could be in the running for) but it's a lovely small thing with some very fine performances from its cast. Judi Dench in particular gives a lovely sweet little turn. It's fine enough that I won't be furious if it wins Best Picture, let's say that. Hey that's more than I get half the time! I'll take what I can get.
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November 12, 2021, 12:54 pm
Don't get too excited, I think that photo is faked. But it's a good reminder of the recent in-itself exciting news that Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal are
going to make a gay romance movie for us, and I'll take any reminder of that, any day, any hour, any second! (And anyway -- Josh in those shorts! Phew!) And having that to post is a good gratuitous segue to lead me into my real reason for being here -- the trailer for Josh's new movie
Mothering Sunday was released today, and I have that below.
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I saw
Mothering Sunday at TIFF and reviewed it
right here -- it stars Odessa Young (so good in
Shirley last year) as a maid who's having a torrid affair with the fancy-man son of a neighbor's house (O'Connor) not long after WWI; the movie also stars Olivia Colman (who has one scene where she grabs your heart and smashes it onto the floor in a billion different pieces) and Colin Firth. It's worth seeing, and that's even before we get into how very very very naked Josh is for a bunch of it. Weirdly the trailer doesn't use that as a selling point -- they really should let me cut these trailers; I'd get butts in seats! Butts for butts!
Mothering Sunday is playing one week in L.A. on November 17th
and then gets a proper drop come February 25th of next year.
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November 15, 2021, 4:30 am
Oh right, good morning to you other people too.
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November 15, 2021, 6:45 am
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November 15, 2021, 7:16 am
... you can learn from:
Hana: There's a man downstairs.
He brought us eggs. He might stay.
Almásy: Why? Can he lay eggs?
Hana: He's Canadian.
Almásy: Why are people always so happy when
they collide with someone from the same place?
What happened in Montreal when you passed a man
in the street? Did you invite him to live with you?
Happy 25 to
Anthony Minghella's gorgeous Best-Picture-winning epic, released into limited release on this day in 1996. I feel like this movie was hated for a long time but that people have maybe come around on it some? It definitely got some awards behemoth backlash. Anyway those people were always wrong -- I've loved it since Day One (and I re-watched it a few months ago and it entirely holds up) and I have never understood how anybody could spend any time hating on a film that got Juliette f'ing Binoche an Oscar. Whenever I remember that our greatest living actress has an Oscar I hate the Oscars just a little bit less.
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November 15, 2021, 7:54 am
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November 15, 2021, 9:01 am
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This is sort of a strange format for a post but what the heck, it's not like social media's the hep fresh cat on the block -- if I want to do an entire post just to share with you two "viral" tweets I've had this week that have to do with the good fine
Jamie Dornan I am gonna do an entire post just to share with you two viral tweets I've had this week that have to do with the good fine Jamie Dornan, and that's that. Anyway you probably know that Jamie's very good fine movie
Belfast from writer-director Kenneth Branagh came out this past Friday -- if not well go read
my review at Pajiba. It's a nice little movie. Anyway I didn't mention Dornan much in the review since I tend not to talk about "performance" a lot but he's lovely in the movie, and in return his PR people have been doing a lovely job making us pay attention to him. And I'm nothing if not the unpaid laborer of movie PR campaigns, so I did my part tweeting out some of said stuffs. The most important thing was Jamie posted this video on
his Instagram on Friday:
Just so we're all clear here this is a video of Jamie Dornan, former male model and S&M sex movie star, goofily singing my favorite song of all time in the voice of my favorite muppet, all while those famed calf muscles of his flex in the frame. Just so we're clear. And that is a thing that happened. Anyway my tweet gained some traction (almost at 70K views) because, well, because I was able to steal it off Jamie's Insta and post it to Twitter first, basically. Law of the Wild West, baby! Anyway the second tweet isn't exactly "viral" as I just tweeted this morning, but it's worth sharing -- I threw my patented brand of "humor" onto a photo from Jamie's appearance on whatshisface's show (I don't say that man's name on here) alongside Tick Tick Boom star Andrew Garfield...
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November 15, 2021, 9:31 am
The Hot Professor vibes emanating off of that photo of
Oscar Isaac are enough to shave decades off my life -- I'm Benjamin-Buttoning myself back to being the creep in the front row looking for stray bulges in m English TAs cords again right now and I like it, I like it! Ahem. Anyway that's not why we're here -- I mean that is why we're here on Planet Earth, there is no better reason for existence than everything I just wrote and posted. But this post exists specifically so I can share with you all the first teaser for Oscar's Marvel series
The Moon Knight, which premiered over the weekend due to that Disney even thing that I otherwise paid no attention to.
I've posted about
The Moon Knight a few times now --
this fight training video was a real highlight -- but I'm just gonna tell you upfront that I haven't watched the below teaser trailer yet and I have no intentions of ever watching it. I heard Oscar's going for some insane accent work, and the second I heard that I decided to wait for the show to premiere to discover it that way. I am edging myself on this shit! Anyway we don't have a specific release date for the series yet but
Marvel nerds are theorizing it will come in February or March of 2022 because there's a gap in Marvel's schedule there.
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November 15, 2021, 10:37 am
Love is Strange and
Frankie director Ira Sachs has begun filming his next movie and everything about this one's taking my breath away -- the film will star MNPP beloveds
Ben Whishaw and
Franz Rogowski as a couple who've been together for fifteen years when one of them cheats with a woman (
via). The woman will be played by Adèle Exarchopoulos, also great -- it's called
Passages and Sachs himself
described it as "an intimacy triangle." Whishaw, what can even be said -- I call him our "Great Gay Hope" after all -- and as for Rogowski, well, having just seen Rogowski play gay beautifully in the movie
Great Freedom last week (hopefully more on that soon -- see my previous post
here), on top of all his other fabulous recent performances, well let's just say this one's got me real excited. And then you think this plus
that Josh O'Connor / Paul Mescal romance we're also getting -- 2022 is turning out to be a great big gay time for the movies!
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November 15, 2021, 10:57 am
Happy Criterion Announcement Day! The four titles for next February have
just been unleashed and top billing goes as it must to Douglas Sirk's 1956 grand camp melodrama
Written on the Wind, one of the most over-the-top and enjoyable flicks where everyone is constantly and totally miserable that you will ever in your life see. It's one of my favorite movies -- I've seen it dozens of times and it never fails to perk me up. Guess I'm upgrading my DVD. This one will be a new 2K restoration, no doubt making those psychotic technicolors pop even poppier -- cannot wait to abuse my retinas upon this one.
But wait, there be more -- the Coens' classic Miller's Crossing is also getting the 2K upgrade treatment, and this one sounds stuffed with interviews with everybody involved. Then there's Ann Hui's 1982 "Hong Kong New Wave" classic Boat People, which sees a Japanese photojournalist taking in the horrors of Vietnamese refugees escaping due to the war (anybody seen this one?) as well as Leo McCary's 1939 classic weepie Love Affair starring Charles Boyer and Irene Dunne as star-crossed and doomed lovers in New York. I've never seen this version, only McCary's own 1957 remake An Affair to Remember with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr. I actually don't think I ever saw Warren Beatty's 90s version either? I guess I should do a triple-feature come February!
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November 15, 2021, 2:28 pm
Don't worry. I am not Keyser Soze. I know this post's title has y'all worried. "Have these past fifteen years been all a lie???" I'm not going to start walking without a limp, I promise. I just have that line of dialogue stuck in my head for absolutely no reason I can muster -- am I supposed to re-watch The Usual Suspects or something? I have no desire to. I just can't with Kevin Spacey anymore. I mean I can with Kevin Spacey in Se7en, my love for Se7en over-rules all Spacey-isms. But The Usual Suspects -- who cares? I mean I am sure straight dudes care but we don't care what straight dudes care. And it's weird to consider that movie such a Straight Guy Movie right, what with the Spacey-Singer of it? But a Straight Guy Movie it remains all the same. Anyway that's a new photo of Tom Holland -- speaking of Straight Guys, am I right? -- and now I am leaving for the night. Goodbye.
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November 16, 2021, 7:06 am
I've been doing this for so long I may have posted that photo of
Tyler Hoechlin before and totally forgotten I did, but when I saw it the other day I could've sworn that shot was new to me... just got a flash of what this site will be like as I drip into senility... the same five Jake Gyllenhaal photos posted over and over. (As if that's different from now.) Good morning!
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November 16, 2021, 7:35 am
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November 16, 2021, 7:48 am
Henry Cavill is on the cover of
GQ Spain this month apparently, and these are the photos! Or some of the photos anyway -- I don't have a proper link yet so maybe there will be more once that happens. (These came
via Instagram.) I will obviously update the post if the post needs an update. He's looking good though, right? Seems to be a little less on the bulky side right now -- I mean I love the Superman muscles, lord knows I do, but you save that for special occasions.
Hit the jump to see the cover image...
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November 16, 2021, 9:32 am
... you can learn from:
The Kindergarten Teacher (2018)
Lisa: Talent is so fragile and so rare. And our culture does everything to crush it. I mean even at four or five, they're coming into school attached to their phones, talking only about TV shows and video games. It's a materialistic culture, and it doesn't support art, or language, or observation. Even my own children, who are great, they don't read. You know, you think maybe it's just a phase. But I worry that it's something larger. A lack of curiosity. A lack of reflection. No one has space for poetry.
I am ashamed to say that I still haven't seen this movie -- I always think Maggie's a phenomenal actress and have heard good things about this one, and good grief this quote is just... let's just say that this quote speaks to me. So I need to move it up my list! Any fans? Maggie's celebrating her 44th birthday today and we wish her the happiest!
I saw her directorial debut
The Lost Daughter -- with the astonishing cast of Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Jesse Buckley, Peter Sarsgaard, Oliver Jackson-Cohen (pictured above if you need an extra push to see this), Paul Mescal, Dagmara Dominczyk and Ed Harris -- back during NYFF and it's terrific, absolutely terrific. I hate that I never got around to writing about it but that time was so busy and the film's not out until December 17th (and the 31st on Netflix) so I'll try to do it next month. Unbelievably I haven't posted the trailer yet, so here's that:
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