All Week With Alwyn

I have yet to see a Joe Alwyn performance that I would rank above "Fine, I guess" and as I go look at his IMDb page I realize I am saying this having seen the majority of his screen work -- before this weekend's release on Hulu of his Sally Rooney adapted series Conversations With Friends that I told you about Joe has only so far been in ten things, and I've seen six of those ten, and I wouldn't say he left much of an impression on me in any of them... save some thoughts about him being pretty, of course. Maybe Claire Denis will be able to pull some life out of him with Stars at Noon, her next movie that he's the star of (he stepped in to replace her boyfriend Robert Pattinson after Rob had a schedule conflict) -- and last I heard the Luca Guadagnino remake of Brideshead Revisited with him and Andrew Garfield isn't going to be happening, so seems Luca won't be the one to. At least he hasn't shied away from playing gay, having done it in Boy Erased and the second Souvenir. Anyway, I bring all of this up because this is the third time I'm posting a Joe Alwyn post in the past week and I can't really justify myself -- it's just, with that Hulu show hitting, he's what's been available! And, same as Friday, I am using Joe to say goodbye -- as stated then I'm off for the next week for a wedding out of town. And unlike what I said on Friday I was wrong about my return-date -- I'll be back next Tuesday, not Monday. Please make it until then! And to keep you moderately entertained I have nine more Joe pics after the jump...

The Early Hands of Ang Lee

Just when you think you've seen every Ang Lee movie, they go and pull one out that you've never seen! Granted the fact that I'd never seen Lee's first film Pushing Hands -- a 1991 immigrant dramedy about an elderly tai chi master (Sihung Lung) moving from Beijing to live with his Americanized son in New York -- was always only an IMDb search away, but now I know and I didn't have to do any work to find it out and that's what really matters. The fine folks at Film Movement are putting the film out onto blu-ray tomorrow, you can buy a copy here and here is the trailer:

Have any of you seen this one? First films by even the greatest of directors can always be a toss-up but I don't think I've ever seen one that isn't at least interesting in the ways it hints at where the director will be going in their careers. And with a director as notoriously genre-hopping as Ang I think you can still sense glimmers of his fascinations-to-be revealing themselves in this. Anyway I only recently filled in what I thought was the last gap in Ang's filmography for me, having watched Eat Drink Man Woman at the start of the pandemic, so I'm happy to have one more early example of the master's work to pore over. I miss this light humanist version of his filmmaking, and wish he'd circle back to small movies again. 

David Alvarez Three Times

The Luca Guadagnino edited issue of Fantastic Man magazine that I told you about a few weeks ago -- you know, the one with the photoshoot of Josh O'Connor having his sexy werewolf transformation (is there any other kind), that one -- is being real reserved with the dribbling out of the issue's contents, but at some point in the last few days since I checked they did add their interview with West Side Story actor David Alvarez to their site, along with these photos!

You can read the chat here -- it's brief and the interviewer mentions several times that David seems shy so go in with those expectations (i.e.) he doesn't say a lot. But he looks great and that's what matters most, in this context anyway. (And knowing he's shy makes him hotter to me -- we love a shy boy.) As an aside there was some Luca News that broke this morning and I noticed something interesting about it, you can see that over on Twitter. It's not so big I need to get into it here but if you care about Luca, feel free to click over...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)

Alex: I've had this business: 

"Anything is better than nothing." 

There are times when nothing 

has to be better than anything.

A happy 86th birthday to two-time Oscar winner, former MP of the British government, and living goddamned legend Glenda Jackson today! I only just saw John Schlesinger's Sunday Bloody Sunday last year for the first time when they had it on Criterion Channel and man oh man is that is a movie. A relationship drama that plays like an existential horror film -- and I love it when those two specific genres are blurred, don't you? -- the film is still remembered for its taboo-shattering gay kiss between Peter Finch and Murray Head...

... but then that's typical of Glenda's career -- however fancy you think you've been, Glenda got there first. Very happy I got to see her on stage twice in Three Tall Women and then a third time in King Lear over the past few years (pre-pandemic that is) because who knows if that will ever happen again -- she was exactly as electric as you've heard. A happy birthday to this singular one!

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

I was so taken aback by Colin Farrell not wearing his patented short-shorts in these new photos from Saturday (via) that my first thought was to ask if it was atypically freezing in Los Angeles this weekend -- only a second later did I realize he was shirtless and that question made no sense. That's how used to The Colin Farrell Short Short Experience that I have gotten -- I carelessly dismissed his upper half! "Used to" is a nice way of putting it -- "spoiled" is more like it, and I need to work on that because one man cannot be a Short Shorts Army. Colin's led the way and been the bravest of them all, but it's up to the other dudes of Hollywood to pick up their hems and join the fight. Come on, Chris Evans! We want you, Idris Elba!

Gee It's Joe

Have I mentioned to you people that I will be offline for most of next week? I'm traveling for a wedding -- it'll be my first time on a plane in at least three years, probably longer, and no I am not looking forward to that one little bit, thanks for asking -- and MNPP will be closed for business every day next week save Monday. It's pretty bad timing, I have heaps of shit piling up (not to mention I am having to miss out on my Tori Amos concert -- which, as an aside, I have a Tori Amos ticket for sale if anybody wants to send me a message about that!) -- but I suppose it will do me good to be somewhere else for a hot minute. Anyway that's next week -- right now it's the weekend, and we should all go enjoy the weekend. I recommend the new Doctor Strange movie -- reviewed here -- as I very much enjoyed it myself; if you see it tell me what you think! As a parting gift here is one more photograph of Joe Alwyn in Arena Homme magazine, this coming on top of the nineteen photos from that magazine I shared earlier this week. A nice round twenty then! Bye.

Cuz This Is Gay Thriller

Now we are talking! I'm so over gay coming-of-age movies and gay-romances -- gimme a goddamned gay thriller! And that's what we're getting as British actors George Mackay and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett are set to star in a movie called Femme, which Variety is billing somewhat hysterically as a "drag queen revenge thriller" but also, well, truthfully, as that's exactly what it is...

"Femme tells the story of Jules, who is targeted in a horrific homophobic attack, destroying his life and career. Not long after, however, Jules encounters Preston – one of his attackers – in a gay sauna. He quickly realizes he has the perfect opportunity to get revenge on the “deeply-closeted” Preston and seizes the opportunity."

"Drag Queen Revenge Thriller" just sounds a step too descriptive somehow -- it's like using "homosexual" instead of "gay" know what I mean? Anyway I want me some Angry Gays, I want them all over media. Angry Gays fucking up the straights and burning down the world, baby! That's what I relate to, and more with every goddamned day on this fuck-all planet. 

Anyway loving these photos of Mackay, who'll play the closet case Preston -- as for Nathan Stewart-Jarrett you should definitely know who he is -- I saw him in the Candyman remake most recently, and he was on that Generation show (which I didn't watch). And I saw him on stage in the recent re-do of Angels in America (opposite Russell Tovey in the UK and then with Lee Pace here in the US). But I also know him from way way back and best of all with the series Utopia, which is one of my forever faves. Please tell me y'all have found a way to see Utopia by now? I speak of the original British version of course, and no it didn't get any proper release here in the US because they were trying to remake it for a decade and then when they finally did it flopped real hard. But the original rules; I just re-watched it at the start of the pandemic and it still rules. Find it and watch it and you'll get it. ETA it's been brought to my attention that Utopia is on Amazon Prime now -- watch it here! No seriously, watch it. Don't make me come over there and make you, I will.

Mark Waschke, Human Actor

Can't believe I almost forgot about this -- a movie called Human Factors is out in theaters in New York and Los Angeles today that I recommend you seek out if you're in one of those two places; if you're not in one of those two places then you can see the movie much easier on May 24th when it hits digital and you don't have to drive or fly to one of those two cities, which would probably be excessive. I saw Human Factors at Sundance and I reviewed it over at The Film Experience -- I liked it! If I didn't like it we wouldn't be talking right now! No matter how hot the actor Mark Waschke, who plays the father in the movie, was. But as you can see he is very very hot, so that helps. And if he seems familiar to you he's on that Netflix show Dark among other things -- he's been around for awhile. Anyway Human Factors is basically what you'd get if Michael Haneke made his own Rashomon, that seems a good way to sell it. That cues you in to how you'll probably feel like killing yourself -- in the best of ways! -- after you watch it. Here's the trailer:

And here as a bonus, I mean since we're here and everything, is a gif of Mark Waschke and an actor named Howard Charles making out in an elevator in a 2013 movie called &Me -- enjoy:

Pics of the Day

Apparently Billy Magnussen is playing Robert Redford on that limited series The Offer about the making of The Godfather??? Who knew? Certainly not me because I would have mentioned this before, but Billy just shared the photos on his Instagram and...

... there he be! Reenacting some Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Right above that's director Dexter Fletcher in the middle, and we all know Miles Teller (unfortunately) who's playing producer Albert S. Ruddy in the series (and who is also the bulk of what has been keeping me from watching the series). Four episodes of the ten have aired so far -- have any of you watched it? I guess I have to now! Or at least this one (I suspect this is a cameo).

Twenty-Four Seconds

A twenty-four second long teaser for Park Chan-wook's new film Decision to Leave has been dropped on our lucky faces here today before it premieres at Cannes in a couple of weeks, and there is more evocative imagery in that twenty-four seconds than some filmmakers can seem to manage in a lifetime. I've said this before... no seriously, I have proof:

There is no director working today that is better with color than Park Chan-wook and every single shot in The Little Drummer Girl proves it anew pic.twitter.com/YR4VEYTjlZ

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 10, 2018

... but there is no director working today that is better with color than Park Chan-wook, and every single shot in this teaser for Decision to Leave proves it anew. I don't think I will watch any longer trailers when they come -- this is a feast enough until the whole movie itself, baby! 

The smart smart smart folks at MUBI snatched this movie up already before it's even premiered, and are planning on releasing it this fall -- if anyone at MUBI is reading this I beg you, please release it sooner. I will die. I will actually die, if I have to wait for this movie until the fall. Do you want that on your conscience? I am the voice of a generation! Well, some generation. Like, the voice of one of the middling cavemen generations, anyway. Imagine life without that!

Anyway should I say what the hell this movie is? I have said it before -- I've been saying it since I first heard about this several years back -- but perhaps this is a good moment to regroup. Decision to Leave stars Bong Joon-ho regular Park Hae-il and the great Tang Wei (so excellent in Ang Lee's film Lust, Caution) and as a detective investigating a murder and the murdered man's wife respectively, and yadda yadda we all know how these noir-esque plots but of course PCW will make it his own.

Because that's how greatness rolls, baby. Anyway add this one to the pile of movies I am dying for this year -- along with Peter Strickland's Flux Gourmet and David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future (that one just got a trailer today too!) -- this year is turning out to be a goddamned lot isn't it??? Well, I mean movie-wise -- everything else has been 'a goddamned lot" for several years now. But the movies are helping us out, at least. Anyway because I am that spazz I went through this twenty-four second teaser and made gifs of basically every shot except two or three that were too brief to bother with, and if you hit the jump your eyeballs with say thank you...

I've Seen the Future (Trailer), Baby...

As promise-threatened yesterday with that super-ooky other poster for the film that I shared the first trailer for David Cronenber's Crimes of the Future has arrived and this shit is hardcore -- it's like the past twenty years that DC spent not making Body Horror Movies all knotted up and twisted inside his intestines and this beautiful freak-fest just up and burst out one day through his belly-button, fully formed and thick with mess. Oh my god I am so excited my knees are buckling. 

Starring David's favorite pervert Viggo Mortensen alongside the ever-game Kristen Stewart and Léa Seydoux and hey-ohhh who's that hot bearded boy that we see for a split second there...

... oh right, Scott fuckin' Speedman is in this too, huzzah! Crimes of the Future will play Cannes and then it will hit U.S. theaters on June 3rd -- dude that is less than a month from now! As much as I have enjoyed many of the movies that Cronenberg's made over the past two decades I couldn't be happier that he went back to his familiar stomping grounds and decided to throw it all at us at once in one big deviant nightmare -- when your name has become an adjective it means something to people, I am glad he could embrace it again and show us whatcha still got, baby! My man. 

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Gooding Mason, World

Remind me when I'm more in the mood -- i.e. when I didn't just finish a shitty subway commute on a rainy Friday morning that I want real bad to be a Friday evening already -- that I should do a proper gratuitous post on Scream and Booksmart and Love Victor actor Mason Gooding. Because the boy loves taking gratuitous selfies -- the net's littered with them. (His Instagram is a good place to start.) For today I grant y'all just three photos, the above one for obvious reasons (i.e. he's hot and there are gray sweatpants) and the bottom two for obvious reasons (i.e. they're real gay with his upcoming co-star Tyler Alvarez in a movie called Pools, which is about a bunch of bored hot kids pool-hopping one summer. Sounds promising!)

This Was the Day the Universe Trembled!

Fantabulous news today as one of the greatest sci-fi slash horror slash WTF movies ever made, Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires from 1965, is finally getting an upgraded 2K remastered blu-ray from the fab folks at Kino Lorber come July 26th -- you can pre-order it at their site and they've got it pretty cheap already at under 18 bucks! If you've never seen this movie you're in for a trippy treat -- some will call it slow to be sure but it's a whole ass vibe, and one of my all-time faves. 

You'll also side-eye Ridley Scott & Co. pretty gosh-danged hard for pretending that Alien was an original idea fourteen years later when it's legit just a remake (admittedly masterful) of this, with some Sigourney & Giger sprinkled on top. (But oh, what sprinkles.) But Bava's his whole own technicolor hallucinogenic sitch, and I cannot wait to see how this movie's outrageous color-scapes pop with a new remaster. I got to see this movie on the big screen about five years back and I swear to you my entire body turned to happy primordial goo.

Oh I love PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES so much #mondobava pic.twitter.com/oqyr7zH6A8

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 15, 2017

I Quit Smoking Fourteen Years Ago Today

Cue up your best cancer cough and prepare for imminent arousal, as it's our favorite smoke-tastic time of year again -- May 5th, when I annually celebrate the day I stopped smoking cigarettes with a massive collection of photographs of celebrity actor people posing with butts in hand. The smoking kind of butts! Not the other kind -- after all we post the other kind of butts being handled 364 days a year. Today's for the simple smoking sort.

Anyway it's kinda nuts I've been doing these posts for fourteen (!!!!) full years now (click here for the entire archive) and I still haven't come anywhere near to running out of photographs -- I do keep a folder of these all year long to build up to the moment, but still, this is the easiest job I assign myself. And that's probably why I've managed to keep it up! 

But disastrously deadly health side-effects aside nobody's stopped taking these photos in the slightest. And there's something kind of horribly reassuring about that to me? Don't get me incorrect, I am incredibly glad I qui, and I don't recommend anybody start and/or continue smoking... but it remains the second sexiest damn thing I can see beautiful men doing. I'm sorry! It just is and does and I have the proof of it! Now hit the jump for dozens...

Petite Maman The Book

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A post shared by NEON (@neonrated)

I just re-watched Céline Sciamma's recent masterpiece Petite Maman for like the fifth time over this past weekend -- y'all know I balk at calling movies this new-ish "masterpiece" but I've no doubt in my head that this movie qualifies already. Here is my original review from TIFF -- the movie is in theaters right now and you couldn't conjure up a better movie for Mother's Day Weekend, so go see it. I demand it! 

As seen above and below the fine folks at Neon have printed up a 32-page children's book version of the film to giveaway on social media, so hit them up on Instagram or on Twitter with a photograph of your eight-year-old self and the hashtag #PetiteMaman and maybe you can be one of the lucky ones! Oh and y'all should read this recent interview with Sciamma -- she's one of the greats, we're so fortunate to be here to watch her work!

Behold PETITE MAMAN, the illustrated children’s book.

A fable for all ages, this full color 32-page book brings the magic of Céline Sciamma’s film to a whole new audience.

To enter to win a copy, share a picture of yourself when you were 8 with #PetiteMaman. pic.twitter.com/IyGwGvb9Db

— NEON (@neonrated) May 4, 2022

Poster Crimes

Yesterday I was showing the Hostel: Part II poster that hangs beside my bed to a friend -- you know, the one that's just a wall of meat -- acting like I was a big tough man with that the first thing I stare at every morning... and here comes David Cronenberg with the poster for his latest Crimes of the Future blowing that lil' wall-of-meat right outta the water. Ugh!!! Neon shared this on Twitter along with the news that we will have the trailer for this movie tomorrow! I will surely share that the second it's here! 

New Cronenberg Body Horror y'all!!!

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?