my new plaid pants: August 2011

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Ripping It Right Off With Garret Dillahunt

That's taken from this video by Tyler Shields that I apparently missed

last month. Only I flipped it around so it runs in the right order.

Garret Dillahunt, underrated hot-piece extraordinaire.

Quote of the Day

Finally getting around to reading this interview at The Daily Beast with A Game of Thrones show-runners D. B. Weiss and David Benioff (Benioff is hot, who knew) and I loved this bit about why they cast my beloved Carice Van Houten as the red sorceress Melisandre in the upcoming season(s):

Weiss: ... she has always been in the forefront of our minds, ever since we saw Black Book five years ago.

Benioff: Melisandre is a tricky role, and very few actresses have all the attributes required. Drop-dead gorgeous? Check. Charismatic and fiercely intelligent? Check. Able to convey a sinister, menacing presence without going over-the-top villainess? Check. In Carice’s hands, Mel is like Lady Macbeth and the three witches rolled into one.

Weiss: When you put it that way … yeah, it is a tricky role to cast. If we hadn’t gotten Carice, we might’ve just had to put Lena [Headey] in a red wig.

They also say the third book A Storm of Swords will have to be split into two seasons, which makes sense and elicits a PHEW from me. But that also means the 4th and 5th ones will have to do the same, don't it? Things ain't getting any less complex, yo!

When Did This Picture Of Ryan Gosling...

... become his picture on his IMDb page, and how have I never seen it, much less posted it, before? I'm slipping. The old age is a'comin, I can feel it. Next thing you know my teeth will all fall out into a bowl of porridge and that's it. That's it!

On that note, Drive is out two weeks from this Friday. Are you so excited you can hardly breathe? Because that's where I'm at. Ever since the trailer hit my anticipation's gone right off the rails.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Earth Girls Are Easy (1988)

Valerie (Geena Davis): Ted, a relationship is like a porcelain nail. If it breaks, you can put it back together again but it will never be the same unless you make a commitment and don't sleep with nurses!

I haven't seen this movie since I was a kid but I'm suddenly overtaken by the immediate need today to re-watch it as soon as possible (maybe as a double-feature with Transylvania 6:5000! Ooh! An 80s Geena Davis cheese-fest!) due to two factors. One, this:

And a happy birthday to Julie Brown, which is what inspired this train of thought in the first place. And secondly, Jeff Goldblum looking good!

No wonder I liked this movie when I was a kid.

See a couple more after the jump.

Happy Birthday, Richard Gere

What The World Needs Is More Nivola

Hey remember that time Alessandro Nivola sang in Junebug and he was awesome at it? Hey remember that time Abagail Breslin cried in Little Miss Sunshine and she was awesome at it? Hey remember that time Elizabeth Shue has tousled slut-hair and looked depressed in Leaving Las Vegas and she was awesome at it? Well then have I got a movie for you! Here is the trailer for Janie Jones (via):

This movie's out in limited release on October 28th.

And Nivola's shirtless briefly, they let us know.

Speaking of him specifically, what's weird - so weird! - is this trailer presented itself to me this afternoon even as I'd spent some time earlier today totally randomly thinking about him and was just about to do a post on how I missed his sexy furry Mortimer-marrying perfectly-assed little self. I'd even gathered up a couple pictures for it! So now with this trailer I had a little more of an excuse for this, which makes me sleep better at night at least. So here's nineteen never-posted-here-before pictures of him. After the jump!

Matt & Cheyenne Are Getting Gay Married

According to Michael Musto:

"They just finished final casting for the upcoming Broadway reading of Dustin Lance Black's 8 [a play about the fight for gay marriage]. Joining Morgan Freeman, Cheyenne Jackson, Marisa Tomei, Anthony Edwards, and Rob Reiner, will be: John Lithgow, Bradley Whitford, and Matt Bomer.

Bomer and Jackson will be playing real life husbands Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo, central litigants in the Prop 8 trials."

There won't be a dry ~~eye~~ seat in the house.

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

In the Dark, In the Night...

Right off the bat let me admit that I have never seen the original Don't Be Afraid of the Dark from 1973. I had gotten an inkling of its reputation over the years from all you OLD people who remember it from when it aired, but I'm a fresh young daisy in pigtails and Osh Kosh jumpers too concerned with apple juice and Lunchables and Thomas the Tank Engine to have ever seen it. I made a decision when the remake was announced to wait and watch the Guillermo Del Toro sanctioned (not directed, but written and produced) take on the material first, since I had the feeling that nostalgia had tinted everyone's memories of that old TV movie rose-colored. So know I had no preconceived biases going in, other than what the new film's trailer told me.

And I liked it! I liked it a lot. I feel like it should be called Do Be Afraid of the Dark, but I'll let that one slide. There's a fine unaffected performance from Bailee Madison in the central role of Sally, the depressed little girl hearing whispers from the floor-boards confirming her worst fears, and Katie Holmes and Guy Pearce do good work as well. (I always forget that I tend to like Katie Holmes in fake things since I find her real-life pact-with-the-devil so distasteful.) The relationships all feel natural, and complicated in the right kinds of ways.

It's hard to tell where Del Toro's influence ends and where director Troy Nixey's starts, so it does come off as a slightly watered-down Pan's Labyrinth - it steps towards the abyss of strangeness but never quite leaps off. But I found the skittering rat-like creatures much more effective than I anticipated - I tend to lean towards less is more when it comes to all CG monsters, but these guys worked for me even as they became more and more prominently featured. They never stopped grossing me out, and the lead one had just enough sinister personality to him to make the jump.

The film does reach a certain point where you throw your hands in the air in frustration at some let's say unwise decisions by characters, though. But right around the time I was finding its spell waning the film itself seems to realize that and steps on the accelerator. I suppose I can guess why the MPAA were unrelenting in sticking the film with an R for a couple moments of brutality, but it's a shame - this is a movie you show to kids and they grow up wanting to be Guillermo Del Toro. Which is what they made it for. So, success!

Close-Up With Cavill's Capeless Super Suit

Now this is what I'm talking about.

poll by twiigs.com

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Tom Hardy Four Times

(via)

The Moment I Fell For... Darlene Conner

By Yorgos!

Around these parts we worshiped and adored Yorgos Lanthimos' 2010 film Dogtooth so much we gave it our #2 spot in our favorite movies of the year. So we've been following his follow-up called Alps since it was announced, and now there's a teaser. (via)

The movie's playing Venice and Toronto but sadly not New York, where I was hoping to catch it. Bastards! It's out in October in Greece; I'm guessing it will get some kind of release here in the US before the end of the year but that'll probably depend on the reaction it gets at the fests. Gimme!

Gratuitous Mark Strong

You have seen Mark Strong in a movie. Recently even! He was McLovin's mobster dad in Kick-Ass. His plots were unraveled by Robert Downey Jr. in Sherlock Holmes. (At least I assume they were - I try not to see RDJ movies unless forced to... thanks Joss!)

He tore George Clooney's fingernails out in Syriana. He helped out Channing and Jamie Bell in The Eagle and he was the red-skinned Sinestro in Green Lantern (He previously caught my attention enough to post upon him there).

He was in Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day and Robin Hood and RockNRolla and Sunshine. He's playing a bad guy in John Carter. (He plays a lot of bad guys, in case you haven't noticed.) And yet somehow I never remember who the hell he is. Maybe it's how he looks like Stanley Tucci one second and Andy Garcia the next, and then maybe like if Elias Koteas and Christopher Meloni and Nestor Carbonell had a three-way baby.

And you wanna know what I think the problem is? Why we can't keep him in our mind too firmly, that is? If my good long scouring of the internet's to be believed, Mark Strong has never done a nude scene. Never-nude alert! Now he's been around a long while so perhaps he has and it's just not gotten online yet, but it was like pulling teeth to even find a little shirtlessness! What the hell, Mark Strong? The time has come. The time is beyond come! Get with the program. Anyway it's his birthday today, and I gathered up the best I could. we'll have to make due, for now. See a bunch after the jump.

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Becks & Jacks, Professional Beach Bums

Not once this Summer have I been able to go swimming! Not once. I've really wanted to go swimming this Summer, too. But nothing! I'm about to run off the pier and just dive into the East River, I am. (That is a very bad idea.) Meanwhile these two are prune-skin from head to toe from all the splashing about they've been up to. I hate you, David Beckham and Hugh Jackman. I hate you both! Now make out and I'll forgive you. Hit the jump for 28 more pictures...

I Am Link

--- Blood Buddies - Over at The Film Experience Nat recapped this week's True Blood which I just watched last night; I really like the embrace of cheese that the show's gone for this season - that freeze-frame at the end was glorious. But it's Nat's mention of Jessica's arc that really got me tingling - I was dreading her and Hoyt busting up but what they're doing with her character is just fucking brilliant. And Fiona Shaw is such a rock-star. Okay if you want me to bitch about something, everything having to do with Lafayette and Jesus can get the fuck up off my TV right now. I hate that they turned my beloved possessed baby story into all that bullshit it became.

--- Hi Ya USA - Takashi Miike's latest movie Ninja Kids!!! (the exclamation points are part of the title, of course) is getting picked up for a US remake, apparently. I skipped NK!!! when it played at the New York Asian Film Festival earlier this year because I know Miike well enough to know which movies of his to skip. And for the reasons I skipped it I could see it making the translation to lowest common denominator American movie well. Lots of opportunities for getting bonked on the head, no doubt.

--- See Saw - Glenn watched Tobe Hooper's masterpiece The Texas Chain Saw Massacre this week and shared some thought upon it here. He even shoehorned in the opportunity to post that pic of Christian Bale in short white shorts doing sit-ups, so go give him some love.

--- Never Die Everdeen - Slash rounded up some post-teaser goodies for The Hunger Games, including a video of director Gary Ross talking about the teaser, and a viral site that's got an inexplicable symbol of some kind sitting there.

--- Fall Ahead - The time has come for Joe's first Fall Movie preview of the year! Celebrate! He touches upon Contagion and Warrior (my review here) and Drive (you guys really have no idea how bad I want to see Drive. It is killing me.) amongst others.

--- Ryan's Ride - Speaking of Drive, Film School Rejects - which calls the film "about as perfect as a movie can get" and say it works even better with a second viewing (where's my first?!?) got this tidbit from a Q&A with the director NW Refn - Ryan Gosling is working on Terrence Malick's next movie.It's gotta be better than The Tree of Life, right?

--- Nooses Up - Ronald D. Moore, one of the creators of the wonderful Battlestar Galactica remake that we here at MNPP have been missing lately for no specific reason other than it ruled, has gotten a Western picked up by ABC. It's called Hangtown and it sounds like Murder, She Wrote slash CSI set in the Wild West. Mkay. Just cast all BSG vets! I haven't seen Jamie Babmber take off his top in far far too long.

--- And finally, if you ever wanted to see what the director who made Nine Inch Nails' video for "Closer" would do with those dancing Kia hamsters, are you in luck! Mark Romanek made this commercial just for you. (via)