I Am Link

.

--- Jock Joe - Joe Manganiello is going to be filming a movie here in New York this summer! And it's set in the Bronx so I better start scouring the Bronx. It's called Stano and it's about a kid who was a baseball star who made a criminal mistake and got sent to prison for 17 years returning home et cetera et cetera you can probably write the script yourself already. It's from the director of City Island, which did give us this, so keep hope alive.

.

--- Killer Queen - Ever since Sacha Baron Cohen bailed on the Freddie Mercury movie because the living members of Queen were interfering with it I've worried that we might be getting a sanded-down version of Freddie's life that omits all the interesting train-wreck stuff about him in order to make the usual "Hey we're singing a song you like!" generic hits-parade thing, and this story here cements all my fears, saying it won't focus on Mercury's personal life at all. What a waste. Do Freddie better, Bryan Singer.
. 

--- Now With Extra Tower - Apparently the folks behind the Dark Tower movie are still planning on making the TV series attached to the film(s), and now we know a little bit more about it - it will be a prequel focused on Idris Elba's gunslinger, and it will be based on the fourth book of Stephen King's series called Wizard and Glass. And yes their intention is for it to star Idris, who I guess will have to shave and moisturize or something. But hey the more Idris the better! And the less McConaughey the even more better!
.

--- Better Happy Than Late - Can you believe I've gone all week without posting - hell without even watching - the trailer for Michael Haneke's new film? You can see the trailer for Happy End right here, if you want to be more thorough than me. I think I'm going to not watch it myself - Haneke's films rely so hard on tone and an accumulation of images that if the trailer flashes anything I'm looking for when I actually watch the film in December I'll just be annoyed.
. 

--- Greta Is Great - The greatest studio in town ("town" meaning "the world") these days is A24 and they just picked up the first movie from the greatest... well, person. The greatest person named Greta Gerwig. Her first directorial effort called Ladybird which stars Saoirse Ronan and that we told you about right... wait a second!! I just did a search and I've never mentioned this movie on here before! WTF. Well it's a thing, and A24 is releasing it. There, now that that's done...
. 

--- Snow Balls - Listen, I am looking forward to The Snowman, even if I ragged a little bit on the trailer yesterday. (And not just because the lead is named Harry Hole, either.) Tomas Alfredson directed Let the Right One In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and those are terrific beautiful movies, and a cast including Michael Fassbender and Rebecca Ferguson and Charlotte Gainsbourg and Toby jones and on and on is a dream. But I am still a little worried that the ominous snow-people shown in the trailer will end up goofy instead of scary, and this ranking of them in The Guardian today is seconding my fears. We will see! I hope in context they work.
. 

--- Divine Women - I haven't read this myself yet but I think it's a safe bet that as soon as I am done typing this endless post I will be doing just that - Interview Magazine had Laura Dern interview Holly Hunter. A million exclamation points! (thanks Mac) There's also a lovely photo-shoot of Holly there too. I'm super excited to see Holly get lots of love this year after a too long absence from movie screens. We need her!
. 

--- Snatch Again - A fifth movie version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers is in the works - the dude who wrote The Conjuring 2 just got the writing gig. The Conjuring 2 was decent, so sure, okay. What's your favorite of the movie versions? If you said anything other than the 1978 one, you're wrong. Actually more accurately if you said anything besides the 2007 one, you're right? But I maintain this mostly:

.

I don't need another Body Snatchers movie
What I NEED is a second goddamned season of BrainDead

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 20, 2017

--- Does The Carpet Match - I've been forgetting to correct this information all week - that hot guy that I told y'all was gonna play Aladdin? Yeah he's not the one. Never listen to a damnw ord I say, people. Disney announced the cast and it's a dude named Mena Massoud who is playing the street rat turned prince. You can read more about it here. Mena is a real looker though! (pic via, thanks Mac)
. 
--- And Finally the trailer for Todd Haynes' new film Wonderstruck (which reunites him with his eternal muse Julianne Moore - don't go getting any ideas, Blanchett!) has arrived and it's lovely. This movie is the Centerpiece film at the New York Film Festival in October, so I guess I will be seeing it then. I am aware that the reactions in Cannes were mixed but Todd's had all year to rework it, and it looks gorgeous...
.
.

Joe Bang For Your Buck

.

Here's a pair of new pictures of Daniel Craig as "Joe Bang" (nope still not over that name - he should get together with Michael Fassbender's Harry Hole!) in Steven Soderbergh's film Logan Lucky that are amusing me this afternoon. I won't name names but a friend of mine saw a screening of LL yesterday and sent me a nudity report - there is none. Boo, Soderbergh, boo! Oh well it still looks fun, and I suppose we can just watch Magic Mike again if we need Steven Soderbergh's lens shoved inside Channing Tatum's shorts.

In related news you should check out these shots of Daniel either going to or coming from the gym that I just posted on the Tumblr. They are worth your time and effort.

.

People Can't Stop Grabbing Matt Bomer

.

Back in May I posted a couple shots from behind-the-scenes of an Out magazine shoot of Matt that showed both the photographer and the stylist getting full on handsy with the man, and now comes that shot above (click to embiggen) of another photographer (Brian Bowen Smith for Modern Luxury magazine) just sweeping him right the fuck up into his arms. I guess there's just something about Matt Bomer we all want to grab. I totally get it.

Which is Hotter?

.

Two things keep happening every day that are making me crazy. One, I keep trying to win tickets to see Oscar Isaac play Hamlet here in NYC, and I keep losing. And two, I keep checking to see if at the very least the Public Theater will be nice enough to release more than just the one picture of Oscar in his underwear in the show. And they don't. Damn them! Well at least I've still got six more weeks to keep trying for either of things - unfortunately I'll never see Jai Courtney's Macbeth, because that just ended its run in Australia. But since we can ask...

.

Do Dump or Marry: The Kingsman Crew

.

JJ just shared a few snaps of the Kingsman crew hitting up the first day of Comic-Con in San Diego for their Brit spy sequel, which officially hits screens in September, and seeing the fine gentlemen called Channing Tatum & Pedro Pascal & Colin Firth & Taron Egerton all lined up like pretty dolls in a row, well, it only made Do Dump or Marrying them an inevitability. So tell me in the comments and since there are four, I don't know, be creative. Oh and here's the new trailer for the film!

.

.

Great Moments In Movie Shelves #108

.

Just a little gratuitous violence and  gorgeous shelvery from Mario Bava's classic 1964 giallo Blood and Black Lace because 1) we just used this movie for today's Five Frames and 2) that Bava retrospective here in NYC that I told you about is still going on and 3) good lord the color, the color!!! So nice on the eyes.

.

Pics of the Day

.

Well we knew that Jack O'Connell was about to tackle the legendary gay role of Brick (once played by Paul Newman) in Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof opposite Sienna Miller in London. What we didn't know what he'd be taking a shower right there on stage! But no worries cuz the people making the show clearly want everybody to know, since that's the first image they released. 

Smart people! (via, thanks Mac) Promisingly it appears that Jack also spends a good chunk of the show in a soaking wet see-through pajamas. so you know go buy your tickets now, folks. There are four more pictures after the jump... 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Splendor in the Grass (1961)

Wilma Dean: Didn't you ever feel that way about Dad? 

Mrs. Loomis: Your father never laid a hand on me until we were married. Then I... I just gave in because a wife has to. A woman doesn't enjoy those things the way a man does. She just lets her husband come near her in order to have children. 

The insane sexual politics of Splendor in the Grass never fail to amuse me - the utter hysteria that Natalie Wood spirals off into over Warren Beatty's hot cock is the most understandable emotional experience I have ever had in a movie theater. 

This is probably my favorite Wood performance, although I'm not by any means an expert on her - I've seen the seminal roles, the Miracle on 34th Streets and the Searchers and the Rebel Without a Causes, but there are plenty that've slipped by. So here on the 79th anniversary of her birth I ask...

What's your favorite Natalie Wood performance?

.

Five Frames From ?

.

What movie is this?

.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... Dominic Cooper's hair of the dog.

I considered saving this scene from this week's Preacher for Monday's "Good Morning" post but it's really not the most substantial view of Dom in his underwear on this show that we've been given, not by a long shot, so I'll just shoot it off quick here.

But I would like to say that I think Preacher's got much stronger this year - the tighter focus has helped it immensely. This week's episode especially - it was relatively quiet (at least compared to some of the nutso spectacle this show's oft indulged in) and really let us dig into Jesse & Tulip's relationship (and giving Ruth Negga the chance to really emote with those eyes of hers is never not welcome). Are we watching? Are we liking? Anyway hit the jump for more...

Taron Egerton, Choice Twink

.

I hadn't realized that four full years had passed since it was announced that Tom Hardy was going to play Elton John in a bio-pic - time flies when you're thinking about Tom Hardy having gay sex on-screen. But I guess too much time flies because Tom isn't doing it anymore! The movie - he might still be having gay sex. Who knows? Anyway Hugh Jackman's favorite muscle-twink Taron Egerton has just jumped on the role, so he's gonna be our Rocketman. Dexter Fletcher, the man who put Taron & Hugh together in the first place by casting them opposite each other in Eddie the Eagle, is going to direct Rocketman. Is there a role for Hugh? Let's just go ahead and make these two the Bogie & Bacall of our time.

And I actually forgot until just as I was about to post this that Taron and Tom Hardy actually have a connection -- Taron played Tom's gay lover in the movie Legend! I mean we didn't really get to see the two go at it - that movie was shyer about its gay stuff than the 1991 movie The Krays, based on the same story, was. But still I like the idea that Elton John probably watched Legend and was like, "Tom hardy can act and all, but what about the younger one...?"

Fantasia 2017: Animals

.

Have you ever walked into one room driven by a distinct purpose only once you get there find that purpose as dissipated as smoke? Is this old age or is it brain damage, or is it old age or is it brain damage? What's the word for sheep? Where am I?

Animals, a surrealist marital yarn from Polish filmmaker Greg Zglinski screening at the Fantasia International Film Festival this month, , tells the story of Nick (Philipp Hochmair) and his wife Anna (a deliciously uncertain Birgit Minichmayr) and his lover and their upstairs neighbor and the apartment-sitter and the ice cream sales-lady (all played by Mona Petri), and the birds and the mountains, and the road between here and there, and the way that some doorways open into rooms other than the ones we were just standing inside of. It's origin is Escher, and its origin shows, both upside down and forwards.

We know that Anna is writing a book about a woman killing her husband, and that Anna stands over her husband with a knife sometimes, sometimes when he's not standing over her with a pillow. She follows Nick to town where he has sex with the woman who killed herself, and then he skins the sheep they hit while she watches, and then the upstairs neighbor or is that the apartment sitter has sex with the man who lost his finger... but that hasn't happened yet. The finger, not the sex. The sex has happened. Does happen. Is happening? And what does the Hitchcockian storm of sparrows have to do with it?

The story, you seem, sometimes it turns. Sometimes it swerves straight into traffic. Sometimes it dances on great big bovine tiptoes. Animals is The Tenant gone wilding - it's the Aussie Animal Attack movie Long Weekend, but taxidermied. It's a weird stuffed and sleek creature, thirteen arms and eyeballs, man. It's a horse of a different color, and they're serving horse-meat here.
.
.

Previously from Fantasia:

Game of Death reviewed here

.

Good Morning, World

.

I think the heat is making Zachary Quinto overheated (or maybe it's just having a gorgeous male-model boyfriend like Miles McMillan that does that) but his Instagram this summer has been too hot to handle (too cold to hold), finally culminating yesterday (although the summer ain't over so let's not say he's done) in that shot of Miles... presenting. (Thanks to Manuel for the heads-up) 

Thank you, Zachary. I've seen some people deriding their exhibitionist streak, but I will not be one of those people. I like to look, they like to show, this is a relationship for the ages. Hit the jump for a few more shots of the duo that I've gathered up...

Fantasia 2017: Game of Death

.

Note: I'm going to be reviewing several movies screening at the Fantasia Film Festival up in Montreal, which runs from July 13th through August 2nd this year! You can find out more info about Fantasia at the link - the fest, which focuses on international genre cinema of all stripes, just turned 21 and is screening dozens and dozens of movies this year. Here's my thoughts on one of them!

The millennials just want to have fun. They lounge around the pool, pretty glistening things, documenting their exuberant inanity on social media - smoking dope and making with the oral sex they're much like the many teenagers we've seen come and go (emphasis on go) in horror movies since time immemorial. 

And just like the stars of Sorority House Massacre or The Dorm That Dripped Blood didn't know they were in the middle of a "Sorority House Massacre" or living inside of a "Dorm That Dripped Blood" these young folks here are sadly living their little party-ready lives unaware that they're about to play the, dun dun dun, Game of Death. Sucks to be them.

Pulled out from the shelves of a dusty room at a stranger's house they find it - a lovingly dated (circa 80s/90s because that's what "dated" means now) electronic contraption a la Simon Says. The so-called "Game of Death" is too good to pass up, and so they play. The game has the cynically disaffected teens press their communal forefingers on a buzzer, and... well I won't ruin the surprise for you. Just picture Jumanji meets Battle Royale (now there's a sales pitch to get the right producer excited) and you're on the right track.

Game of Death takes it early cues from its characters - there's a lot of self-indulgent selfie footage - and I was worried in the first act that absent any root-for-able folks this might be nothing more than another game of millennial whack-a-mole. But once it gets going and the timer's ticking and the teenagers are forced to make their great big gnarly choices the movie spins off in unexpected and interesting directions that I didn't see coming - it's not nearly as dumb as it comes on.

And its style similarly gathers momentum - it just gets prettier and more visually creative as it steamrolls along (the setting of the third act really lets the filmmakers run free), and there's a gleefully nasty slash goofy animated sequence at the mid-point reminiscent of vintage video-game graphics that got me grinning but good. And speaking of the 1980s - if practical effects are your bag then Game of Death has got reach-out-and-touch-it viscera to spare. You can practically feel the intestines squeak between your fingers.

.

.

Game of Death was directed by Sebastien Landry and Laurence Morais-Lagace, and was produced by La Guerrilla (Montreal), Rockzeline (Paris) and Blackpills (Paris).

And stay tuned for more Fantasia coverage!

.

Give Me the Grace To Accept

.

Today sure is trailer heavy. Today is to trailers as what Dolly Parton is to boobs. And on that ultra feminist note, the first teaser trailer for Alias Grace has arrived! Based on the book by Margaret Atwood, directed by Mary Harron, written by Sarah Polley, and starring Sarah Gadon, this thing represents one whopper of a collection of most excellent female energy. Read our previous posts here. And watch:

.

.
The six-part series premieres in Canada on September 25th (it';s a Canadian production) - it's airing thanks to Netflix here in the US but I'm not entirely sure the date's the same for us. Anyway as great as The Handmaid's Tale turned out to be Alias Grace has got an even loftier pedigree, with that director and that writer, so my hopes are even higher here. And that's without even mentioning that gorgeous Edward Holcroft is in it!

My City of Stars

.

Justin Theroux and Cary Fukunaga are having a very serious conversation two feet away from me in this bar

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 18, 2017

.

That picture (via) does not show what Justin was wearing when I saw him with Cary last night, unfortunately - that look pictured was earlier in the day and he'd changed by the time I saw him, and covered up them arms... which I suppose is good because if I'd have been a foot away from them arms I'd probably had to've licked them.

Anyway I tried to overhear what he and Cary were talking about but the bar was too loud and they were being all hush hush conspiratorial, so I have no idea. I do wonder though! Seeing as how between the two of them they've always got fifty irons in the fire it could be anything. I tried to take a sneak picture of the two:

And that turned out nicely. Look at them guns! 

You been working out, Cary?

The two do know each other though - they've been photographed together before and Fukunaga dates (or dated) Margaret Qualley, the actress who played Theroux's daughter on The Leftovers. So maybe they were just being social! So the only thing we have learned from this is this: I'm a terrible spy!
.

Ansel Elgort Seven Times

.

It's tempting with movies one does cotton to to grow irritable listening to praise slung their way, but I'm trying to be Better Than That when it comes to Baby Driver - I was disappointed with the movie myself (here's my review) but Edgar Wright's given me as much if not more pleasure than any filmmaker in the past, so y'all can enjoy your Baby Driver and I'll just shut my yap unless asked. This is me! Shutting my yap! Anyway it's less difficult when eyeballing a half-naked Ansel (who's managed to sprout some chest pubes like a big boy even!) is added to the equation - this photo-shoot (via) for Wonderland is a nice way to keep the peace. I feel the peace! Hit the jump for six more pics...

We Got No Troubles, Life is the Bubbles

.

I wish I had watched this here trailer for Guillermo Del Toro's new movie before watching the trailer for The Snowman (see that post here) because Del Toro's movie trailer reminded me there is magic in the world, if only in the telling of our experience of it, and brought me to actual tears, and I might not have spent the past half an hour feeling quite so cynical about The Snowman's explicit goofiness.

Anyway Guillermo's new film is called The Shape of Water and he's kept the plot and all that jazz pretty close to his vest before this but now we know the gist -- it's Amelie in the Black Lagoon!

It's about a janitor (played by the ever amazing Sally Hawkins) at a scientific research facility in the 1960s who meets a Creature from the depths (very much like The Creature of Universal fame, actually) that is played by his stalwart monster mo-cap genius Doug Jones. The movie co-stars Michael Shannon as a baddie...

... wearing a fitted dress shirt and a shoulder holster, it should be noted (cue the confused stirrings of a new villain crush), and also Richard Jenkins, Octavia Spencer and Michael Stuhlbarg... aka one of the finest casts assembled this fall. Just watch the damn trailer and be transported to a magic place already:

.

.
The Shape of Water is out on December 8th.
.