What movie is this?
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Five Frames From ?
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...
... you can learn from:
Citizen Ruth (1996)
Ruth: I'm gonna stay here. and I'm gonna have
that abortion like I wanted. Cuz I'm a citizen
and... and I got my rights to, um, PICK!
Alexander Payne's funniest film -- I said what I said, Election! -- was released 25 years ago today. Everything I see online says the movie got a "limited release" but I could have sworn this movie aired on TV -- on like HBO maybe? Am I mistaken? Is this a fake memory like that Sinbad Genie movie? Anyway it's a perfect comedy with one of Laura Dern's greatest performances -- no small feat, claiming that title when there are so many choices! And it's also terrifyingly more timely than ever here 25 years on with all of the ridiculous hysteria surrounding abortion even more obnoxious than ever. I recommend seeking it out! You can find the DVD or rent it on Amazon but it's kind of gross that nobody's put this out on blu-ray, right? I mean hello, Criterion? U up?
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Manny Jacinto Twelve Times
Have yourselves a Manny little Monday! Actor and visual astonishment Manny Jacinto is on the cover of this month's Flaunt magazine -- read the interview over here -- which is aptly titled "The Gift Issue" as Manny Jacinto, what a goddamned gift. Hoping more shit-of-note pops up on Manny's IMDb page soon since it remains weirdly scarce; I can't imagine it won't since he was the big take-away from HBO's last Nicole Kidman series, even according to Nicole Kidman herself. Hit the jump for all the photos...
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Pic of the Day
If the sight of Love and Nocturnal Animals actor (not to mention MNPP fave -- see my ongoing Twitter thread for proof) Karl Glusman wearing a leather harness and biker cap whilst branding Andrea Riseborough's ass with a clothes iron isn't enough to get you excited about a movie then you are most assuredly in the wrong freaking place! This is our first official look at Please Baby Please, director Amanda Kramer's upcoming boundary-pushing sex-comedy that she describes in Variety today as "a rather dark, campy twist on West Side Story as directed by John Waters." Hello!
I have already posted about this movie here at MNPP previously, when Glusman shared a pair of photos of himself in his fetish gear on the set -- see those here. I also describe the plot, which sounds real promising in the kinkiest of ways, and which that image above underlines in a delectably florid fashion. Gimme this damn movie now! It's premiering at the Rotterdam festival next month -- hopefully it'll make its way to a place I'll be at (like maybe Tribeca) soon after. We love you, Kinky Karl!
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I Did It All For The Spider-Twink
Okay y'all that's it for today -- I'm off for a screening of the new Spider-Man movie! I have finally nagged myself into a superhero press screening -- the Spider-twink cannot be denied. Wish me luck, and by "luck" what I really mean is "not COVID from going to a probably packed screening in the middle of a pandemic." Sigh. Night, everybody...
Get comfortable, Tom pic.twitter.com/8MhnJf6BhK
— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 10, 2021
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Good Morning, World
Right after Thanksgiving I shared with you three pictures of openly gay Eternals actor Haaz Sleiman -- he was the non-superhero half of the gay couple, if you've seen it; if not he was also really terrific in Tom McCarthy's 2007 film The Visitor with Richard Jenkins, hopefully you've seen that -- from this same thirsty photo-shoot; well today I have seven more thanks to Haaz's Insta, and they're even gratuitous-er. Blessing be. Give your thanks and hit the jumpfor them...
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Five Frames From ?
What movie is this?
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...
... you can learn from:
The Royal Tenenbaums(2001)
Royal: You know, Richie, this illness, this closenessto death... it's had a profound affect on me. I feel like adifferent person, I really do.Richie: Dad, you were never dying.Royal: But I'm going to live.
Happy 20 to this perfect movie.
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Call Santa By His Name
A holiday treat for one and all -- Luca Guadagnino has gifted us with another one of his fashion short films (although at 43 minutes it's not-so-short!), this time for the brand Zara. It's called "O Night Divine" and it has John C. Reilly playing a Santa Claus opposite Hereditary actor Alex Wolff (which gives some context at last to the tweet you'll see down below) -- truth be told I haven't watched this yet but I will soon, ho ho ho et cetera. (via, thx Mac)
Alex Wolff just posted this photo -- that is Luca Guadagnino right??? pic.twitter.com/pVFyb2NKIe
— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 22, 2021
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Pic of the Day
Nestled in between about forty Instagram story videos of Taron Egerton cooking some or other food stuffs the actor sneaked in this thirst-trap gym-selfie today, as if we wouldn't find it! Sneaky, sneaky, Taron, but I have eyes everywhere. PS if you want more, as I am sure you want, click here for my epic Taron thirst thread on Twitter. This has been a bad year in many ways but for sure not this precise one!
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This Goal Wins
I think there are a lot of people who have mixed feelings on The Great Beauty and The Young Pope filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino, who is admittedly A Lot, but I am not one of those people -- I have pretty much swooned myself silly over everything he's done. And his latest, an 80s semi-autobiographical tale called The Hand of God that is hitting Netflix tomorrow, is no exception -- my review for Pajiba is now up, go read it over there if you like. I actually talk about sports, if you can believe it! That's how much I liked the movie. I went there. And I will admit that this one, sprawling at it is, took me two watches for it to click into place, but holy hell am I all in on it now. This is one of the best movies of the year, don't miss it.
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Five Frames From ?
What movie is this?
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A Moment of Manny
Hey, you! In my best Jerri Blank voice, I got somethin' to say! Just a quick heads-up really that I'm distracted with press tickets for Sundance 2022 going on sale this morning. That's where I have been and that is where I will remain for maybe the next hour or so, depending on how it goes. I gift you this gorgeous photo of Manny Jacinto's lithe throat to get you by until that future moment where I return. Enjoy!
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The I-Do's of March
Ohhh I was so distracted with the picking of my Sundance movies this morning that I totally spaced that it's also that monthly holiday known as Criterion Announcement Day! Good day for movie stuffs all around -- good work, everybody. This month's titles will be hitting come March o' 2022 (I used to shortened "'o" there because of St. Patrick's Day obviously), and the first one up is Jean-Pierre Melville's 1970 crime flick Le cercle rouge starring Alain Delon and his mustache. Unbelievably I have never seen this movie -- I'm actually really behind on my Melvilles, I've only seen a couple. This one has Delon playing a thief plotting a heist with Gian Maria Volontè and Yves Montand all while, you know, being Alain Delon. So you know, swoon.
I guess this is where I admit that all five of Criterion's March titles are films I have never seen -- I have never seen the 1997 romance love jones (no capital letters, dammit!) starring Larenz Tate and Nia Long, although I have heard great things about the heat between those two, and...
Nor have I ever seen Robert Aldritch's 1965 disaster movie The Flight of the Phoenix, which has a plane going down in the desert forcing the survivors -- which includes the rag-tag gang of Jimmy Stewart, Richard Attenborough, Ernest Borgnine, Ian Bannen, Dan Duryea, Peter Finch, and George Kennedy oh my -- trying to survive the deadly Sahara. But holy god does that sound up my alley! I love a disaster movie, I love George f'ing Kennedy. You can't go wrong. And finally I have never seen Marta Mezaros'1975 female-friendship drama Adoption, about two women in Hungary who go through some shit -- it actually sounds similar to Pedro Almodovar's terrific Parallel Mothers, which is coming out soon (and which I obviously recommend). Anyway who's seen any of these? Tell me about them in the comments!
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Which Witch is Witch
Well Focus Features sure isn't wasting any time on this horror movie they're premiering at Sundance next month -- it's already got a poster, a trailer, and a release date! You Won't Be Alone stars Noomi Rapace as a young woman in 19th century Macedonia who is turned into a witch by an ancient spirit, who then in turn kills and takes over the body of a peasant girl so she can life some life human-like again. Besides Rapace the movie also stars Alice Englert (Beautiful Creatures hive holla!) and sexy-boy Félix Maritaud of BPM / Sauvage / Knife+Heart fame. Here's the trailer:
You Won't Be Alone hits theaters on April 1st.
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Pics of the Day
I guess West Side Story's leading man Ansel Elgort felt the need to influence that poll I posted last week asking y'all to choose between WSS 2021's Riff (Mike Faist) and Bernardo (David Alvarez) because Ansel just dropped eight hearty gratuitous photos of Faist on his Insta (thx Sergio). Faist was already winning the poll, Ansel! Eesh. Not that we're complaining. After reading this interview with Faist yesterday I'm entirely convinced that Faist is turning out to be the big-time break-out star of the film (which I reviewed here) as well he should -- he's on fire in the movie. But for now let's hit the jump for a little bit of a different kind of fire...
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Spin A Little Web Of Dreams
Did you hear the one about the spider and the man? One bit the other and wham bam web, ma'am. What about the other one about the man and the spider? Or the other? Well I hope your head's full of man spider stuffs because nine movies in (ten including that animated one that everybody loved and which gets a sly little shout-out here) we're arriving at Spider-Man: No Way Home, Tom Holland's third standalone as the character -- which doesn't count all the Avengers movies he's popped up in, of course -- and if you ask me, his best. No Way Home is a superhero smash.
And anyway you did ask me, because you're here reading this, which I take as my permission to continue. But I will be kind, generous, in return for your trust, and I will keep my mouth yapped shut on spoilers. Don't fear! I don't really give a shit when it comes to talking plot any of the time anyway -- other sites I write for demand I get into that stuff but I prefer to write about the vagaries of cinematic sensation over mechanics whenever I can, and this spoiler-aversion gives me the opportunity to indulge myself. So let's! If you've seen the trailer you know plenty enough. Try not to know anything else and the surprises this one's got in store for you are fairly endless.
What's so great about No Way Home is it truly feels like spider-id unleashed -- like somebody decided for once they were truly gonna go all out on the comic book writer sensation that there's only you and a piece of paper and a pencil in front of you and you can make these characters do absolutely fucking anything you can think of, and this movie's gonna do it dagnabit, and it did. I'm not slighting any of the previous Spider-movies -- I rate Raimi's Spider-Man 2 with an even higher grade than I do this one still -- but Spider-Man: No Way Home lives in the place where the last couple of Avengers movies did where endless buckets of money met truly limitless CGI; it's not just the sky that's the limit, it's the furthest reaches of space, time, and all infinite dimensions.
Basically No Way Home is peak pop culture of our moment. Sure I have quibbles here and there about plot mechanics or character choices if I felt like indulging my inner-quibbler, but the deluge of because-we-can fuck-yeahs on displays in this picture are too dazzling and delightful to deny. This is Marvel & Co giving the exhausted and weary people out here the full superhero nonsense of their dreams, undiluted and gone-for-broke, and this thing deserves every damned penny it will make. It's our moment's version of Busby Berkeley put-on-a-show for the weary folks, razzle dazzle 'em, and I whizzed outta this spider-sucker feeling both razzled and dazzled deep down in my happy places. All I can say is a big thanks. I needed this.
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Miguel Ángel Silvestre Four Times
Balls! Miguel loves 'em, and we love watching him play with 'em. Also love the fact that Miguel is always playing "skins" no matter the occasion. Bless him. I wish he was one of the many many many Sense8 actors popping up in the Wachowski's new Matrix movie -- he's even got the backdrop here in that franchise's signature sickly green going on! -- but I guess we can't have it all, no matter what those goddamned feminists used to say. Have I mentioned I'm seeing the new Matrix on Monday? I know there are More Important Critics seeing it tonight but we don't speak of those people. The only person's opinion that matters is mine, mine dammit! Aaaanyway on that slightly psychotic note this is me signing off for the evening, so I can go home and stare at myself in the mirror and curse other critics under my breath apparently. Y'all have a good night, and I'll help you with that some after the jump...
And here's that last shot zoomed in a little, just cuz:
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Good Morning, Gratuitous John Michael Fiumara
After I re-posted those thirst traps of West Side Story actor Mike Faist that went around yesterday a little bird sent me over to WSS actor John Michael Fiumara's Instagram -- he plays the character named "Big Deal" in the film, and you can see why looking at his Instagram. He's a Broadway person, I know he's been in Newsies... as was Faist, so I hear -- did they raid half the Newsies cast for West Side Story? I am picturing Steven Spielberg sitting in the audience with his casting director and a penlight -- "I'll take that one! And that one! Ooh that one too!" That's a fun visual. I hope that's what happened. Anyway because 1) I want to encourage everybody to see West Side Story when they can (here's my review) and 2) he is hot, I snatched up a couple dozen of the most important (read: gratuitous) photos off of Fiumara's Insta and I have them for you after the jump...
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Five Frames From ?
What movie is this?
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