my new plaid pants

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

More Like Mad Man

So I went for one of my special escape-quarantine nature-walks this morning (I do this once or twice a week which you'll know if you follow me on Instagram) and I seem to have somehow gotten way, way too much sun, and melted my brains. True, my definition of "too much sun" is usually "any sun at all" but despite my best dodging-it efforts my eyes feel cooked in my skull and I can't much think straight. Point being instead of sitting here and staring blankly at my computer screen for any longer trying to will some entertainment for you all into being, I'm done for the day. Done, done, dunzo. We'll try out this whole "blogging" thing again tomorrow. That said if you already follow me on Twitter then you're probably also aware I am currently binge-watching Mad Men on Netflix, I have been for the past week or so, and there's a stacked and ongoing Twitter thread, linked below, where you can keep up with my favorite bits. So that's something. I can't promise anything, but I can promise something.

I'm watching the first episode of Mad Men -- a show I have never watched (I know, I know) -- and I'm surprised at how young Jon Hamm already looks (compared to today I mean) pic.twitter.com/JpiJJ10FG8
— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) May 15, 2020

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

Having just watched Gillian Anderson's divine Streetcar Named Desire performance again thanks to National Theater dropping it online for a week I wish I could come up with some "STANLEY!!!!" joke here to go alongside these photos of strapping actor Stanley Weber (via) but honestly that sort of thing would be for an entire audience of me, and even then only half so. I'd love to see Weber do Kowalski though. Uhhh, and now I'm just picturing Weber making out with Marlon Brando. Good morning! My point is good morning. And click here for plenty more Stanley Weber, if you like.

Tuesday, May 26, 2020

A Movie About Cheerleaders

In this week's edition of "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" at The Film Experience I found myself stuck on one of my faves, Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof and the surprising ball of sunshine that is Rosario Dawson's Abernathy. I love to talk about this movie almost as much as I love to watch it so be prepared for a lot if you click over! Like QT himself I just can't help jabbering on until everybody's left the room. Damn do I love this flick.

Get Hot Like Jai

I spent some time looking at this picture trying to figure out what that silver thing is beside Jai's sweaty head there -- is it perhaps a boxing glove? -- but then I realized I enjoyed looking at Jai's sweaty head, then downward from there, more. So whatever! Bless that stache. And downward from there.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Jackie Brown (1997)

Max Cherry: You're rationalizing.

Jackie Brown: Well that's what you do to go

through with the shit you start, you rationalize.

A very happy 71st birthday to the great Pam Grier,

giver of maybe my favorite Tarantino performance.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... working up a sweat with Paul Mescal.

I just want it on the record here that I have been having a real hard and conflicting time with the sort of photos that used to bring me such joy, such as these -- the Normal People star is clearly a big crush of mine after slamming through all the episodes of that phenom new series in a day and a half (see all our posts so far) and these athletic short-shorts were clearly and precisely built in a laboratory for me and me specifically to freak out about... and yet! I am so fucking tense about people wearing masks in public -- yes even while jogging; I jogged with a mask on this morning and so were most of my fellow joggers -- and social distancing that I'm having trouble not having all of these old pleasures ruined for me. It took me a ton of effort not to question that Jonathan Tucker photo this morning. It's a tense time!

So many crushes being stamped out during this pandemic by a-holes being papped in public sans masks pic.twitter.com/CX6FxZ6Rsu
— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) May 24, 2020

Wildlife Is Love

I triple pup dare you to look at that goddamned gif and not grin -- in other Wonderful Jake Gyllenhaal news today is the day that Criterion is dropping their Wildlife disc! It was supposed to be last week but as we told you got a teensy bit delayed, as went the world. If you're somehow unaware what the hell Wildlife is well really you should just listen to me right now, go buy the disc, wait for it to come to your house, and watch the damn thing. I'll wait.

Okay it's two weeks later -- you're back? I'll go on. As you have just seen Wildlife is Paul Dano's film starring Carey Mulligan and Jake here as young parents (their son is played by the astonishing newcomer Ed Oxenbould) going through a smash-up -- Oxenbould is great, Jake is great, but it's really Mulligan's show and she turns in maybe her greatest performance to date and with a career and a talent like hers that's saying something. I saw the film a couple of times in theaters and its effect turned out to be cumulative -- the more I watched the film the more hysterically sad I was by its end. That last shot (the one on the poster) is devastating.

(Here is my first review.) Am I biased because I am A Child Of Divorce? Probably! But god this film rings true, profoundly true. The more time passes the more convinced I am I should've ranked it even higher than #9 on my list of favorite 2018 movies -- 2018 was a stupendously good year in retrospect though, wasn't it? We didn't know what we had when we had it, and by "it" I mean "movies." I MISS MOVIES. Sigh. Lemme look at that gif of Jake with a puppy again, I'll be fine.