Enjoy Chris Pratt's Wiener

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And everybody have a great July 4th!

(And yes this means we're closed til Tuesday.)
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Dominic Cooper Shows Me His Religion

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Finally, Preacher! I have seen the light! I'll never complain about the show again, I swear it. This is the equivalent of Dominic Cooper's character whispering his devlishly delicious obedience in my ear - Zombie Jason reporting for bidding. This is from from a clip from this weekend's new episode -- watch it here:

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That's the terrific Joseph Gilgun, who plays Cassidy, beside him -- naturally I capped the ever-living hell-on-earth out of this clip, so much so that I only focused in on all the Dom shots, but don't let that convince you I don't crush on Gilgun too; it just would've taken me another hour to make gifs from every single shot instead of every other shot, and I wanted to get this posted. So hit the jump for nearly seventy (yes seventy) shots of holy man hotness...

Putting the Gods in American Gods

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(click to embiggen) Two weeks ago we saw the first couple of pictures from American Gods - you know, Bryan Fuller's adaptation of Neil Gaiman's book for Starz - thanks to EW, but at some point between then and now another picture, the one seen above, apparently snuck onto the internet without me noticing... until now! That's Ricky Whittle as Shadow on the left (see a great big gratuitous post of his right here) and that's Pablo Schreiber as Mad Sweeney on the right. (Also yes to more Pablo Schrieber please.) Selling this show as these two big beefy fellas thrashing at each other's not a bad way to sell this show!

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Pic of the Day

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Kit Harington was spotted yesterday in Montreal (via this lucky Instagrammer) shooting Xavier Dolan's new movie The Death and Life of John F. Donovan! (Read about the film here.) On the one hand I'm kind of sad because I guess that means he finished up his bountifully gratuitous run on stage in Doctor Faustus (although I still have a few of those pictures to share, don't let me forget). On the other hand, it's Kit Harington in a Xavier Dolan movie. That's something to look forward to. Speaking of, let's zoom in...

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Thursdays Ways Not To Die

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I Want To Live! (1958)

I only saw I Want to Live! (that exclamation point says everything, really) for the first time back in January of this year but good god does it feel like it's been a part of my entire life already. I can't imagine not knowing the wonders of Susan Hayward (who was born on this day 99 years ago) once upon an innocent time. I mean what was I even looking at, if not her?!?!?

This scene was obviously a big influence on Divine's electric chair scene at the end of Female Trouble, which we've covered for this series before - it didn't feel right not giving love to the original, which is Glamour Incarnate. It's a misnomer calling this a way "not" to die because this is the way to go - with a captivated audience sneering at you and your fabulous diamond earrings. Peace out, ya buncha bores! (You can watch the entire scene right here.)

It's so insane that she won an Oscar for this, you guys. It's... a lot of performance. Not that it's not a fun performance, and... she's certainly dedicated. Anyway I guess they just went for quantity of performance that year. Susan hayward did more acting in this movie than every other actor nominated. Below is her Oscar speech! And hit the jump after it for links to our Previous Ways Not To Die...

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The House of Yes (1997)

Marty: Are you being wise? 

Jackie-O: One day I woke up wise. 

Marty: One day I woke up stupid. 

Jackie-O: What'd you do? 

Marty: I went back to bed. 

Jackie-O: That was wise. 

A happy birthday to the director Mark Waters, who went on from this classic to direct the very good Freaky Friday remake and then up up into the stratosphere with Mean Girls, all of which gave him an awful lot of lifetime credit (which, granted, he's been chipping away at ever since with crap like Mr. Popper's Penguins and Ghosts of Girlfriends Past). Be great again, Mark!

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Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... playing Show & Teller.

Last March Miles Teller showed off some beefing-up pictures of himself, which he said were in preparation for a boxing movie he was doing - well now we know that the movie's called Bleed For This and a trailer (see below) and we've all got a whole lotta leopard-print thong and tighty-whities to go along with it. (thx Luc)

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My feelings towards Mr. Teller veer wildly from moment to moment - he's such a douchebag, King of the Douchebags really, but, well, sometimes you need a little douchebag in your life. And this movie, leopard-print thong and all, is surely leaning into the douchebag... so maybe it'll work? We'll find out when it's out in November, I guess.

“What's up, coke whores?"

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 "It's Pippa Middleton."

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Spider-bum Junior

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When these the first pictures of Tom Holland in his Spider-man costume on the set of the freshly rebooted superhero franchise popped up online last night I showed them to my boyfriend who was sitting next to me on the couch and the only thing he told me was, "Double check his age before you post those." So I did and I'm happy to let us all breathe a sigh of relief - Tom Holland turned 20 last week. Happy belated birthday, Tom! And you can continue...

... to molest yourself in public through your spandex costume some more. We're good! I got the go-ahead. So what do we think of the costume? I like the old-school spandex-ishness of it, honestly - the previous costumes had been getting really thick and rubbery and they'd really begun to feel like something a teenager couldn't have possibly have constructed alone. 

This looks like something a smart kid could've created, or bought and modulated, by himself. I will miss Andrew Garfield's butt-pads though. Anyway I hope Tom's movie works out as well as the Peter Parker scenes in the Captain America movie did, but until then hit the jump for another dozen shots of The Amazing Spider-bulge...

Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?

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Good Morning, Scudder

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I should probably just go ahead and schedule this same post to appear every single June 30th on the occasion of Rupert Graves' birthday for the next oh let's say fifty years -- I can't imagine a day coming when I don't want to be reminded of Maurice and Scudder's morning-after. Rupert's turning 53 today - did anybody watch that Joan Allen show The Family?

I kept forgetting he was on it. (Although Joan Allen really should've been enough to get me to watch the show.) Anyway some YouTuber was kind enough to edit the film Maurice down into just scenes about Scudder (including a couple of deleted scenes) - it's still 50 minutes long (Maurice is a long movie!) but a "Scudder Cut" is certainly welcome:

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Armie's Endless Summer

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From where I sit (in a crumb-caked chair in a hot smelly city) the shooting of Luca Guadagnino's film Call Me By Your Name in the lakes and mountains of Northern Italy looked pretty divine on its own, but ever since filming wrapped on that gay old time Armie Hammer's been really living it up - his and his wife's Instagram accounts have been a veritable smorgasbord of "Armie at the beach" pics. I posted a couple on the Tumblr yesterday but what the hell, here's more. it's a good way to kill the time while we wait and wait for Call Me By Your Name to come out.

I Am Link

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--- Big Dog On Campus - I haven't checked to see how many theaters Wiener-Dog is showing in here in its first week but I assume it's on the smaller side, so I won't nag at everyone to get their ass out to see it just yet, since you might not be able to see it just yet. But the second you have got the chance, do, doody, do. Here's my review from last week. And here's something even better, Richard Brody's outstanding rave for The New Yorker. (Although he's too spoilery so maybe read his after you've seen the movie.) But most importantly go read this chat with Todd Solondz himself, wherein he talks a bunch about the character of Dawn Weiner, the people's princess. (And I adore that illustration by Brian Taylor.)
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--- Euphoric Sisters - I could've sworn I'd posted about this movie once because I will post about Eva Green sitting on a log in a bow if given the chance and this is much more, but I can't find the story in our archives so I guess it slipped through - anyway! Eva Green is going to star in a movie called Euphoria with Alicia Vikander and Charlotte Rampling. Indeed! Green and Vikander are playing "sisters in conflict traveling through Europe toward a mystery destination" and it will shoot in the Alps this summer.

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--- Buncha Lookers - There's been a lot of new about the Looking movie this week since it premiered in San Francisco (it airs on July 23rd on HBO; here's the trailer if you missed it) - here are some fun quotes from the cast on the red carpet, including Jonathan Groff being typically goofy and adorable saying how happy he is about getting to make out with Murray Bartlett (yeah no kidding Jonathan). And a behind-the-scenes photography book is being released later this year - click here for info on that. (thx Mac)
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--- Bonkers For Batgirl - I seriously doubt anything will ever come of this but it's kind of amusing to imagine - in an interview this past week Nicolas Winding Refn said that he'd love to get tossed the keys to the studio kingdom just once to make a great big expensive superhero movie, and the one he'd most like to tackle would be... Batgirl! I'm sure this has nothing to do with the one-time rumor that Neon Demon actress Jena Malone was thought to be playing Batgirl in Batman v Superman (her role got edited out of the final film).

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--- The Doctor Is In(sane) - Some things, like the polar ice caps melting and Fruity Pebbles making milk both colorful and delicious, are just inevitable, and files "Taylor Lautner working with Ryan Murphy" under that same umbrella - Lautner's signed on to co-star in the second season of Scream Queens as, get this, "Dr. Cassidy Cascade." That name is so Soapdish I can hardly stand it. There's a little more info about the show's second season at the link if you're interested - all I care is that Niecy Nash & Glen Powell are back, and they are, sign me up.

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--- Resurrection Crew - We're only what four episodes into Preacher, just before the halfway mark, but AMC likes what they're getting well enough to've just renewed the show for a second season, and a bigger second season at that - the episode count is going up for 10 to 13. Well even if my feelings are a little bit mixed at this point, which we dove into yesterday as we dove on top of Derek Wilson, I'm happy that Dominic Cooper's got a steady job. Who knew after Agent Carter got canned...
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--- River Man - The great and still somehow underrated Michael Sheen is making his directorial debut on a movie about the serial killer Gary Ridgway, aka the Green River Killer of the 1990s; Sheen's also written the script (an adaptation of the graphic novel) and is planning on starring. So I guess he's into serial killers! He's got the eyes for it. I say that with great affection - we can stare crazy eyes at each other all night long, dude.
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--- And Finally file this one alongside the Angels in America piece I posted about earlier under "I have to get my shit together and read these damn things already!" -- here's a big interview with Girlfight and Jennifer's Body and The Invitation director Karyn Kusama that I've been meaning to read all week. Speaking of I should probably go back and watch Girlfight sometime since I have loved both of Kusama's horror films.
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Take Carrie To The Prom

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My old DVD of Carrie's been crying out for an upgrade, and there's no better time than the very near future -- the ever fine folks over at Shout Factory have just announced a super duper blu-ray edition coming out on October 11th (just in time for the film's 40th anniversary on November 3rd). And by "super duper" I mean "super duper." There's a 4K restoration of the film (which is enough reason in itself) plus a blood-bucket's worth of Extras. Here, let me just quoth the press-release because this is Very Important Information when it's about one of my favorite movies of ever:

SPECIAL FEATURES

-- NEW 4K Scan Of The Original Negative 

-- NEW interviews with writer Laurence D. Cohen, editor Paul Hirsch, actors Piper Laurie, P.J. Soles, Nancy Allen, Betty Buckley, William Katt, Edie McClurg, casting director Harriet B. Helberg and director of photography Mario Tosi

-- NEW Horror's Hallowed Grounds - Revisiting The Film's Original Locations

-- Acting Carrie - Interviews With Actors Sissy Spacek, Amy Irving, Betty Buckley, Nancy Allen, William Katt, Piper Laurie, Priscilla Pointer and P.J. Soles And Art Director Jack Fisk And Director Brian De Palma

-- Visualizing Carrie - Interviews With Brian De Palma, Jack Fisk, Lawrence D. Cohen, Paul Hirsch

-- A Look At "Carrie: The Musical" 

Plus all the usual trailers and still galleries and so forth. And if you buy the blu-ray from Shout Factory's website there are a couple of different special editions beyond what you get anywhere else, which include posters and slip-covers, not to mention you get the whole thing a few weeks earlier than if you order it somewhere else. I mean you can see this thing's dirty pillows from outer space and they are glorious.

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Female Colleague: You know, it occurs to me... with all this animus existing against Mecha's today, it isn't simply a question of creating a robot who can love. But isn't the real conundrum, can you get a human to love them back?
Professor Hobby: Ours will be a perfect child caught in a freeze-frame... always loving, never ill, never changing. With all the childless couples yearning in vain for a license, our Mecha will not only open up a completely new market but will fill a great human need.
Female Colleague: But you haven't answered my question. If a robot could genuinely love a person, what responsibility does that person hold toward that Mecha in return? It's a moral question, isn't it?
Professor Hobby: The oldest one of all. But in the beginning, didn't God create Adam to love him? 

Steven Spielberg's stab at Stanley Kubrick was released 15 years ago today. I loved the film at the time but I probably haven't seen it in a decade, save a glimpse here and there on TV - have any of you seen it recently? Does it hold up?

I suppose a better question if I'm asking that is if it ever held up in the first place for you, since I know people's opinions on the film veer wildly all over the place. And it's an interesting moment for the film to be celebrating an anniversary, what with The BFG, the new Steven Spielberg movie about innocent little children going out into the big bad world, hitting theaters.

Pics of the Day

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Everybody who's anybody is spending today reading Slate's extensive oral history of Tony Kushner's play Angels in America, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary - when I say extensive I mean extensive; I'm saving it for lunchtime but scanning down through it it might take dinner too! Anyway what did catch my eye scanning down through it you've no doubt by now taken note of yourself -- apparently once upon a golden age the play included Daniel Craig and Jason Isaacs in its cast, and pictures exist! Not enough pictures, clearly, never enough, but a pair at least. This sort of thing makes one cuckoo crazy for time travel's invention, ya know?

Beauty is The Eye of the Beholder

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Despite what some lesbians would have you believe, blue is not the warmest color... but it is the healthiest one. Look on any pharmacist's shelf and you'll see blue stand in for clean and crisp and good-for-you. So it's somewhat of a shock when Nicolas Winding Refn manages to make blue the sickliest color - he tinges it with just enough green, the sleaze of snot and bile, to expunge its natural sanguinity... and then for good measure he streaks it with, what else, swastikas. Occult or otherwise.

Feel sick yet? Good! Expulsion's the order of the day - nothing's gonna get you to that target weight faster, my friend. It's with the giggles of a little girl that Refn soaks his Woman's Picture in every damn goo you can imagine - sticky, translucent, substantive with ooze - but it comes in rivers, and it comes from anywhere. Red, blue, red. Legs, mouths, eyeballs. All the colors of the rainbow, glitter or gore, hosed off in a drainage ditch and plopped on butcher paper the length of a football field - pose for your life, bitches. This is your moment to shine.

Oh of course it's silly - it's meant to be. The dewy devil's ingenue realizing the power of her milky white coating - everyone keeps commenting: what lovely skin you have, what lovely skin you have. All the better to... well, live well, some say. Strut your hot stuff, baby, this evening, because tomorrow might never die but baby beauty sure as fuck does.

You could call The Neon Demon skin deep, but that'd be pushing it - its very horror comes from touch, from feel, from other people. The skin is glass, high up. It is as rarefied as a crystal urn on a very precarious shelf - please please please for the love of all things unholy look, look, keep looking until your eyes do things they weren't meant to do, but don't touch, don't touch, don't touch. If you touch it will dissolve under your fingers in a wash of hot pink and hair-clots. Well, you killed it. Good work, you.

So the surface, her face, as sure as your face reflected in a high sheen, matte gloss, the extravagance of extensions and injectibles and high-waisted platform holy robes formed from inch-thick auburn Indian rubber - corn-rows coiled down and out like cobra-tails and a model, squatting on a blue carpet, fangs beared... well, what else is there? I wonder, but I don't care. I feel pretty, goddamit. Pretty and whole and positively delicious.

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