The Other White Massey

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I am most familiar with actress Anna Massey -- who was born on this day in 1937 -- thanks to two thrillers she made for two of my favorite directors. There's Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy in 1972 and there's Michael Powell's Peeping Tom twelve years the previous, which is the one we're here to actually talk about. Actually we're not here, we're over at The Film Experience, where her performance is the topic of this week's "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series -- click on over for it. But since we technically here right this second before clicking over, and...

... I did just bring up Frenzy, let me add that I consider Hitch's treatment of Massey's character (named "Babs" because of course she is) in Frenzy to be the most misogynistic thing he ever put onscreen. Which, considering some shit Hitch got up to, is saying a lot. He paints Babs as just awful and unlikable every second she's on-screen, and after she's murdered her body becomes a comic prop for some of the pitch-blackest mad-cappery of Hitch's career -- I don't like watching it, to be frank. Thankfully Massey fares better in Powell's Peeping Tom, a stone-cold masterpiece with a truly fascinating character to play, and one who should be considered, as I argue in my piece at TFE, Film's First Final Girl.

Who Wore It Best?

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bike trails

Today's the birthday of one full fifty percent of The Chrises -- Chris the Hemsworth is turning 37 while Chris the Messina is nine years uppers, at 46. Anyway normally I only ask "Who Wore It Best?" when people wear the same piece of clothing but Chris Hemsworth, for all his Aussie Beach Lifestyling, refuses to wear a speedo, so fuck him. He gets the disadvantage in my poll! That said Chris Messina only rocked his speedo for an episode of The Mindy Project, but rock it did he ever -- click here for that post, it's epic and delightful.

I Feel the Need...

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... to familiarize myself with the cinema of 

Perry King all of a sudden. Any suggestions?

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La Dolce Fellini

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Wow wow wow, Criterion has just announced they're dropping a big boxed-set of Fellini films! Fellini's celebrating his Centennial this year, having been born on January 20th 1920, and so they're gifting us with a fifteen film "Essential" boxed-set, dropping on November 24th! I know what I'll be stuffing myself with this Thanksgiving. 

The films included are 1950's Variety Lights, 1952's The White Sheik, 1953's I vitteloni, 1954's La strada, 1955's Il bidone, 1957's Nights of Cabiria, 1960's La dolce vita, 1963's 8 1/2, 1965's Juliet of the Spirits, 1969's Fellini Satyricon, 1972's Roma, 1973's Amarcord, 1983's And the Ship Sailed On, and 1987's Intervista. 

How many of those have you seen? I am embarrassed to admit I have only seen six! Quelle horreur! Although the set also includes, among the special features, his Director's Cut of Toby Dammit, which is something more I have seen -- in fact it's my favorite Fellini of all the Fellinis I have seen. My love for Toby Dammit -- which was Fellini's third of the 1968 omnibus film Spirits of the Dead -- knows no bounds.

Click on over to Criterion to read more about and to pre-order the set now! You can watch the trailer Criterion cut together right over here. What a thrill! Let's pretend this means 2020 will be all better come November...
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Richard Madden One Time

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Cecil B. Demented (2000)

Honey: How can you be a drug addict in
the new millennium? It's so retro.
Lyle: Before I was a drug addict, I had so
many different problems. Now I just have one
-- drugs! Gave my life a real focus.

Unless he manages to pull one more film out of his singing asshole Cecil B. Demented will remain John Waters' second to last film, and Cecil B. Demented is turning 20 today. It got a limited release in nine theaters on August 11th, the year 2000, went wide that Labor Day -- "wide" in this instance meaning it made it into 82 whopping theaters across the country -- and managed to net less than two million bucks. Worldwide! 

It was a flop, and having only just seen it for the first time about five years ago I can't entirely argue with it flopping -- I think its my least favorite John Waters movie? Granted I would rather be locked in a room for months with the worst John Waters movie than be forced to watch a single Michael Bay movie just once, so these markers are circumstantial to the nth. There's fun stuff to be had here. Sporadically. I believe I've got some CBD fans here on the site though, don't I? Speak up for your movie! I love being told I am wrong. And what would you call John's worst movie?

Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?

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Good Morning, World

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There are now 34 days until Luca Guadagnino's HBO series We Are Who We Are premieres -- and speaking of Luca a happy belated birthday to him! -- and our boy and WAWWA co-star Tom Mercier has gifted us with yet another Instagram treat. I now prefer to keep time via these videos instead of boring old numbers. We are now (hopefully) 34 Tom Mercier Sexy Videos away from We Are Who We Are premiering!

Give Me Your Best Antonio

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Just noticed right before I was set to walk out the door and head home that today is Antonio Banderas' 60th birthday! Shame on me for not being prepared to properly celebrate.

Happy 60 to the great great great Antonio Banderas -- may he make movies with Pedro Almodovar for another 60 years pic.twitter.com/n1ySoEuump

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 10, 2020

So in his honor I'll post this circa-90s Greg Gorman photo-shoot and ask y'all to share your favorite performance of his in the comments! And once you do that hit the jump for the rest of this shoot...

Douglass Montgomery Ten Times

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One of my the best of my recent first-time old-movie watches was catching up with James Whale's 1931 flick Waterloo Bridge, which was the only title I wasn't familiar with on TCM's recommend first volume of pre-code stunners called "Forbidden Hollywood" alongside my previously beloved two-some of Baby Face and Red-Headed Woman, and which stars this chap here, Douglass Montgomery You may recognize him as "Laurie" in the 1933 version of Little Women.  He's Depression-Era Timmy!

As you can tell from that photo of him on the right from Waterloo Bridge director James Whale, or at least his camera, was clearly infatuated with Montgomery -- he looks spectacular in the movie, as iconically peroxided a doughboy as any I've seen. Whale's eye is trained like a laser on him looking lovely in his uniform -- I kept thinking of the passages in Gods & Monsters where Ian McKellen playing Whale talks about all of the gay love affairs down in the WWI fox-holes -- you can feel Whale working some stuff out, for sure.

Anyway I found it interesting that these two big early Hollywood roles of Douglass' were for two of its most infamous homosexual directors -- Whale and George Cukor, I mean. There isn't much personal info on Douglass online -- he got married to actress Kay Young in the mid-50s and they stayed together until he died in 1966 -- but I have to admit he set my feelers off. I got a ding on the gaydar from him. Anybody familiar with him and his work? Hit the jump for a few more worthwhile photos...
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Piping Hot Dune News

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One, Timmy was spotted by a fan a couple of days ago making a surgical mask look hella good in Budapest, where it's assumed he's filming some pick-up stuff for Denis Villenueve's Dune movie. Two...

trailer before sept. 🤐

— Timothée Chalamet (@RealChalamet) August 7, 2020

... Timmy says we'll be getting our very first trailer for the flick in the next three weeks! Most people assume it'll be attached to Tenet whenever Tenet drops -- now that Tenet is staggering its worldwide release staring on August 26th overseas I guess that timing makes sense. The US, and only some of the country -- nowhere near me, as far as I'm aware! -- isn't getting Nolan's movie until September 3rd. (And I say "as far as I'm aware" because the only thing that interests me about Tenet is the Dune trailer.)

Pin Yourself on the Kinnaman

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Never have I hated a cute little pink heart more in my life. Anyway Joel Kinnaman has just posted this photo of himself naked, peeing in a lake, so this Monday, among all of the Mondays, has proven itself a good and memorable Monday indeed, pink hearts aside. No seriously -- get out of the fucking way, pink heart!!! (via)

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Quote of the Day II

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Lovecraft Country star and MNPP obsession Jonathan Majors got himself interviewed for The New York Times today! (thx Mac) It's some about that show, which premieres on HBO this upcoming Sunday night (watch the trailer here), and it's some about the all-black Western called The Harder They Fall that he's currently in quarantine for -- on the latter note the NYT set him up with a choice question about actors being "essential workers" and Majors had this to say:

"I believe the arts are a service industry. We doctor different things. We doctor the invisible hurt. We mend the phantom pain. I believe — and I’ll say to anybody — we are essential for humanity. When we all come together, around the campfire or around a television, and experience something together that allows us to move through the world with a bit more confidence, a bit more security, knowing that we are not alone … well, that seems essential to me."

The Books of Bloodening

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We've been hearing about an adaptation of Clive Barker's legendary Books of Blood for so long that I wasn't sure I hadn't already heard the news it is officially happening thanks to Hulu or not -- a dive into the archives shows no mention though, so I guess this is news to me! Hulu just dropped that poster seen above today, along with the word that the anthology film -- they mention it will include "three uncanny tales tangled in space and time" -- will be dropping on October 7th, right in time for our All-Hallowing. Names attached cast-wise are Britt Robertson (from Tomorrowland) and A Star is Born's cutie Rafi Gavron...

... who is like an ideal Clive Barker slab of meat. He's British and pretty but there's something sharp and angular and weird (I mean this in the best way possible) about him. Ideal Barker Material. Oh and also Pushing Daisies star Anna Friel is in there! We adore her! The IMDb page has a few more names, check them all out there. The director is a question mark -- his name is Brannon Braga and this is his first proper film; he's done lots of TV, but nothing I've seen.

No idea which three stories they'll be using, as several have already been adapted for movies (like The Midnight Meat Train and oh you know Candyman) -- anyway I doubt they'll do my favorite, "In the Hills the Cities," even though I was just recently saying how we've got the computer technology now to make that super fantastical story possible. Scanning through the few character names included on the film's IMDb I do see actor Andy McQueen is playing a "Steve" which probably means they're adapting the story "Dread" which is one that...

... has indeed already been turned into a movie, back in 2009, starring Jackson Rathbone. I'm pretty sure I saw that and didn't like it, but I don't recall it in any great detail. The story's about some college students who take their investigations into fear a little (read a lot) too far -- kind of like the torture porn version of Flatliners. Besides that I don't recognize any character names though, so we'll have to be patient, wait for the trailer!
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Let's Be (Uncle) Frank

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I don't know about you but I admit my ears perked up when I read that there was a movie forthcoming that had Paul Bettany playing a prominently mustachioed gay uncle in 1973 -- was that my ears? Something perked. Anyway I was onboard. And the photo above, the first from the film -- which is called Uncle Frank and was written and directed by Six Feet Under creator Alan Ball -- proved that instinct correct.

As does the first clip from the movie, which also stars Little Women's Sophia Lillis as the person calling Uncle Frank "Uncle" -- she plays his niece and yadda yadda I'll let the official plot detail do the detailing:

"In 1973, teenaged Beth Bledsoe (Sophia Lillis) leaves her rural Southern hometown to study at New York University where her beloved Uncle Frank (Paul Bettany) is a revered literature professor. She soon discovers that Frank is gay, and living with his longtime partner Walid “Wally” Nadeem (Peter Macdissi) -- an arrangement that he has kept secret for years. After the sudden death of Frank's father -- Beth’s grandfather -- Frank is forced to reluctantly return home for the funeral with Beth in tow, and to finally face a long-buried trauma that he has spent his entire adult life running away from."

This all sounds terribly up my alley.

I bet there will be bookshelves! Here's that first clip:

Uncle Frank premieres on Amazon on Thanksgiving.

I'll clearly share the full trailer when that appears, too.

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Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... rearranging Dr. Manhattan's atoms. (via)

The only thing better than this set selfie of Yahya Abdul-Mateen shooting Watchmen would be if his co-star James Wolk was sitting on his lap wearing his little villain panties. 

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The Devil in Poster Form

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Netflix smartly chose to play up that endlessly killer cast they've wrangled for Antonio "Christine" Campos' latest flick The Devil All the Time with its first peekaboo that's-who poster -- scan down and you see Tom Holland, Bill Skarsgard, Riley Keough, Jason Clarke, Sebastian Stan, Haley Bennett, Eliza Scanlen, Mia Wasikowska, and pulling up the rear (insert "pulling up the rear joke" here) Robert Pattinson. I don't know about you but sandwiched between Spider-man and Batman seems a fine place to be! TDATT premieres on Netflix on September 20th -- seems safe to assume that we'll get a trailer this week. See some photos from the movie at this link here.

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Quote of the Day

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(click to embiggen) Yes I tweeted these photos out over the weekend but I can't exactly leave them unposted, now can I? Jai Courtney is interviewed in the new issue of, what a coincidence, Interview Magazine -- he is interviewed in Interview by his Suicide Squad co-star Ike Barinholtz, and they have themselves an occasionally funny, occasionally politically caustic chat about The World Now. I chose one of the funny its to share with you because it's Monday morning and I need to steel myself for an entire week ahead with a forced smile:

BARINHOLTZ: A lot of American actors I know are very hurt that they don’t get the roles that a lot of Australians get. I guess what I’m asking you is, do you feel bad taking work away from hardworking American actors?
COURTNEY: No.
BARINHOLTZ: Okay. Follow up question: Will you pledge right here and right now to never again play an American, and leave those parts for those of us who will do them not as well?
COURTNEY: No.

I still haven't watched Stateless, Jai's new Aussie show alongside Cate Blanchett and Handmaid's Tale queen Yvonne Strahovski, have any of you? Similar to what I just said about steeling myself with a smile Stateless just seems like A LOT, emotionally, right now. I hope to have the fortitude at some point though. Hit the jump for the rest of the photos...

Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?

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Good Morning, World

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Not sure why this new photo from Kit Harington's 2017 photo-shoot for the magazine Icon El Pais suddenly popped up (and into!) over this past weekend -- you can see the rest of it from 2017 here and it's a good one -- but I won't argue.

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