All the Way to Monday with Matthias

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It's always a big decision on who'll get the top-of-the-blog picture when I go away for a couple of extra days, but since I'm already excited that I'm seeing Matthias Schoenaerts new movie -- that'd be The Mustang, his "prisoner loves horses" movie we showed you the trailer right here -- next week, Matty gets the prize. Anyway if you scan down you'll see we pseudo-started our annual awards, The Golden Trousers, with some runner-up stuff -- come back on Monday and I've got some other stuff scheduled for you, although I technically won't be here and properly blogging again til Tuesday. Have a good one, y'all...

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My Favorite Movies of 2018 -- 10 Runners Up

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[As mentioned this morning I'm off-line as of this afternoon through Monday night, but I'm giving you a couple of little preview tastes of our 2018 "Golden Trousers" awards, which I'm hoping to have up next week in full.]

So every year in movies is actually a great year in movies if you really stick your face in the thing, but let's just make one thing abundantly clear -- 2018 was a great year for the movies every which way you looked. My list of beloveds runs verrry long and verrry deep -- I could be giving you a Top 50 total and there'd still be flicks I felt irritable over not making that thick cut. (Pour one out for The Guilty, y'all.) So slicing myself down to a Top 30 is as good as I can do. I can't not mention a one of these -- if I tried I would collapse onto a fainting couch and cough blood into a frilly little handkerchief, I swear it.

So here are 10 movies that juuuust missed 

my Top 20, and in alphabetical order...

Annihilation 

(dir. Alex Garland)

-- read my review here --

Burning 

(dir. Lee Chang-dong)

Cam 

(dir. Daniel Goldhaber)
-- read my review here --

Happy As Lazzaro 

(dir. Alice Rohrwacher)

-- read my review here --

If Beale Street Could Talk 

(dir. Barry Jenkins)

-- read my review here --

Lean on Pete 

(dir. Andrew Haigh)

-- read my review here --

Nancy 

(dir. Christina Choe)

-- read my review here --

The Sisters Brothers 

(dir. Jacques Audiard)

-- read my review here --

Summer 1993 

(dir. Carla Simón)

-- read my review here --

You Were Never Really Here 

(dir. Lynne Ramsay)

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COMING SOON: My Top 20
and the rest of our awards for 2018.

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Who Wore It Best?

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Although they have yet to cast the role I'm most curious about -- that'd be the Sting one! -- Denis Villenueve's Dune has added two more handsome yokels for their flesh fest alongside Timmy Chalamet and the rest: Josh Brolin will play "Gurney Halleck, the warmaster for Chalamet’s family," while Momoa is going to be "Duncan Idaho, the swordsmaster who is fiercely loyal" to the same. Richard Jordan (from Logan's Run) played Idaho in David Lynch's film, while Patrick Stewart was apparently Brolin's character in that...

... and I really have to re-watch Lynch's film now because I in no way remember Patrick Stewart being in it. Anyway while we wait to find out who's slipping into Sting's metallic bikini shorts we might as well entertain ourselves by judging these similarly posed photos from Josh & Jason...

survey solution

Penn Badgley Five Times

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If you feel the need to read the interview with GQ 

that is attached to this photo-shoot, click here. The rest of us, 

we'll just stare at the photos here after the jump...

Pics of the Day

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This is presumably a spoiler for the third season of the show but The Handmaids Tale appears to be filming on the Mall in Washington DC this afternoon -- you can see some more pictures over here. Either they're filming something or Margaret Atwood has proven too reliable a narrator once again and we've gone full extremist. After our President's fascistic press conference today it seems entirely possible! Can you find the Mike Pence in these pictures?

I probably wouldn't normally post these pictures -- even though I love the show -- but I'm actually headed to DC for the next four days myself and now I'm really hoping they're filming over the weekend so I can see some of this myself. Fingers crossed. On that tip I got some good answers from y'all when I tweeted this last week but if anybody has anything they want to add for me to check out this weekend have at it in the comments, your assistance is always appreciated...

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Anybody have any good suggestions for things I should visit in DC when I'm there for a couple days? I've been there before, seen the big touristy things -- looking for the less traveled slash weird stuff. Def gonna hit up the Folger Shakespeare Library, for obvious reasons pic.twitter.com/1agtPAXW2u

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 6, 2019

Butch Boys in the Locker-room

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Do you think that Garrett Hedlund drew the short straw meaning that he ended up having to be the one getting half-naked in the locker-room scene in Triple Frontier, seen above out of the just-dropped second trailer? Everyone else in the scene -- Charlie Hunnam and Oscar Isaac and Pedro Pascal (who it should be noted is sitting very, very close to Garrett) is fully dressed. 

Please note that I am not complaining, but why is this scene even set in a locker-room if they're all not going to dedicate themselves to the moment? This conversation should be happening in the group showers as they lather each other up, duh. I'm disappointed in you, Triple Frontier. I'm also starting to worry that those scenes we saw of Charlie & Garrett rolling around half-naked in the sand might've been during their free-time, now that we've gone two trailers without a glimpse of that. Hrmmm...

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Click here to see the first trailer if you missed it; 

Triple Frontier hits Netflix on March 13th.

Good Day, Gratuitous Pierre Deladonchamps

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Alright I guess this is my last reminder until I hope get to see the film myself a second time next week -- Christophe Honoré's new film Sorry Angel, a movie about friendship and romance and movies and AIDS and all the sorts of things that happen to and with and between Pierre Deladonchamps & Vincent Lacoste in 1990s Paris, is out here in New York today (playing at The Quad) and it is not to be missed.

Here's my review from the New York Film Fest last fall. We've been harping on it all week, but it's so worth the harp. We gathered up a couple dozen pictures of Pierre here in photo-shoots from the past couple of years since he last wowed us, homosexually-speaking, with Stranger by the Lake; hit the jump for 'em...

Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?

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Good Morning, Gratuities

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Howdy everybody, a happy Friday to one and, wait for it, all. That there would be Jason Statham in last year's shark-mediocrity The Meg, which I reviewed right here, saying it "feels like a first draft." Plus more! Meaning I said more than that, even. Read more here. Anyway what doesn't feel like a first draft is Jason Statham's Abs...

... those suckers have been worked over, many many times. And now that I have you thinking about "working over" Jason Statham's abs, try to pay attention to this: this scene from 2018 represents a runner-up in our "Great Gratuities of 2018" awards, part of our Golden Trousers Awards  (aka The Pantys) for last year, which we're finally going to post, I believe, next week. Ta-dah!

This isn't the smartest time of me to get going on these since we're heading out of town early this afternoon and we're not back until late on Monday, making next week a short week, but I really want to beat the Oscars this year -- I mean even at this point post-Sundance most of our brains have wandered away from the films of 2018. So let's get this done! Right, Jason?

Jason says right. Anyway long story not really short we've got some more "runner-up" stuff scheduled for today and I'm hoping to schedule some stuff for Monday too, even though we won't technically be back from our trip, so stay tuned! And next week we'll be giving you our Favorite Movies of 2018, ur Favorite Performances, and more of these Great Gratuities. On that note hit the jump for more Jason, who'll whet your appetite for more and then some...

Corey Stoll Two Times

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There's not nearly enough Corey Stoll scheduled for us in 2019 -- he has one film called The Report on the docket, which is being directed by Soderbergh collaborator Scott Z. Burns and co-stars Adam Driver and Jon Hamm (that is a lot of testosterone on one set) --  but 2020 looks better. He's got Ryan Murphy's Nurse Ratched series for Netflix and he's got David Chase's Sopranos prequel with Alessandro Nivola. I hope his roles are substantial! It always feels like we're never getting enough Corey dammit. (Why yes I am looking at you, First Man.) Maybe Corey will do Shakespeare in the Park again this summer and bust out those leather trousers again...

Great Moments In Movie Shelves #179

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Queen Anne's library in The Favourite isn't just a glory to behold, but it's also of terrible importance to the plot -- one of Abagail's better qualities is her focus on her education in bettering herself; she immediately starts swiping books from it the second she gets a job in the palace, so much so that everybody up to and including Lord Harley makes cracks about it.

Of course it's while she's sneaking a peek at some dusty second-floor volume one night when she learns the steamy truth about the relationship between Anne and Lady Sarah -- book learning is one thing, but experience, real life experience, is a whole nother.

My favorite -- or exscuse me, my favourite, can't forget the British spelling -- thing about this moment in the film is that is quite plainly really Emma Stone standing there getting great big books thrown right at her face; I spasm every time I watch this part, don't you? She earned that goddamn nomination, you guys. 

5 Off My Head: The Looks of Love

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I always walk into Valentine's Day with cynicism -- Corporately Monetized Pseudo Romance, Blurgh! -- but then slowly, as I see people talking their favorite Romantic Movies all day long, my black hearts melts off its stinky exterior and the sappy softy beneath gets exposed. This happens every year and every year I am unprepared for it. Anyway after posting about Sorry Angel this morning and Call Me By Your Name a wee little later my heart-melt happened real fast today -- so fast I've gone and prepared a list for us by lunch-time! Here are five of my favorite "Looks of Love" in movies from the past 15 years -- romantic glances that just make my heart sing looking upon them.

Jack & Ennis, Brokeback Mountain

"You know it could be like this...
just like this always."

Therese & Carol, Carol

"My angel. Flung out of space."

Elio & Oliver, Call Me By Your Name

"Because I wanted you to know.
 Because I wanted you to know.
Because I wanted you to know."

Frances & Sophie, Frances Ha

"It's that thing when you're with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it... but it's a party... and you're both talking to other people, and you're laughing and shining... and you look across the room and catch each other's eyes... but - but not because you're possessive, or it's precisely sexual... but because... that is your person in this life. And it's funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it's this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It's sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don't have the ability to perceive them. That's - That's what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess."

Kevin & Chiron, Moonlight

"You the only man that's ever touched me.
You're the only one."

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Give me some of your faves 

from any movies, any time, in the comments!

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Call Me By Your Name (2017)

Mr. Perlman: We rip out so much of ourselves to be cured of things faster than we should that we go bankrupt by the age of thirty and have less to offer each time we start with someone new. But to make yourself feel nothing so as not to feel anything - what a waste!

I think I should just post a different chunk of Elio's father's speech for every Valentine's Day. By the time we're finished -- it's a long speech -- the world will probably be on fire, so at least we'll go down with grace. What else is there to know that he doesn't say in this speech? Nothing! Anyway I wasn't sure yet just how I was going to wish y'all a Happy V-Day today (or what movie I would be watching tonight) but then Sony went and tweeted the below and, well, was there ever gonna be any other option?

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💘#cmbyn pic.twitter.com/hKNP2hP828

— Sony Classics (@sonyclassics) February 14, 2019