Holy Infant So Tender & Delicious

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Alright that's that for 2016, folks - there are a lot of things I could say right now to project negativity and pessimism, since it's mostly what I'm feeling these days, but I do love you guys and thank you for visiting to listen slash gawk at my nonsense, so I'll refrain... until 2017 anyway. A happy and satisfying and sane-as-you-can-make-it holiday season to you all. If you stumble upon anything nifty you think I'd like as always you may share it here in the comments. And I will no doubt be on Instagram and obviously Twitter too a ton over the next ten days if you just can't live without me. (Awww so sweet -- don't die.) We'll see you back here on the site on January 3rd!

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Nico Tortorella Two Times

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Shot by Matt Martin for The Berry -- if you click over there are several more shots, all attached to Nico's own tale of alcohol addiction told through the lens of gay sex, or something.

Hello? Is It Tree You're Looking For?

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The day it came out I devoured Patrick Ness' book A Monster Calls much like a giant monster tree devours little boy's imaginations. But it wasn't until I saw the story put on screen that I connected it with one of my favorite childhood films, Bernard Rose's underrated 1988 masterpiece Paperhouse. In that film a little girl's literally fevered imagination drags her into the strange netherworld of her own design via a landscape she draws, and through this dark and scary process she manages to work out some dark and scary familial issues that she otherwise wouldn't have been able to get a handle on. 

It's about the healing power of putting our worst selves out there - of using our imaginations to sort out the bad stuff rumbling inside of us. Ness' book got that, and J.A. Bayona's film of that book does too. Grief and rage and pain can be beautiful and expressive things - they're as vital and necessary as any other human experience; they show us who we are, deep deep down, and what matters. Life is nothing without them, and it's irritating that you even have to make the case that Art has a duty to explicate such things, but too much of life and the art meant to express it is sugarcoated and spoon-fed; people don't want to seem dreary. Christ forbid you're dreary!

I don't want to make A Monster Calls sound like a slog; it's got several gorgeously animated sequences that look like raining water-colors, and it's got Liam Neeson voicing a strangely well-gluted plant-person (Seriously, check out that tree's butt - somebody spent a lot of time and paid a lot of attention and spent a lot of money towards developing that tree's butt) for god's sake. Lewis MacDougall, all of thirteen years old, gives an incredibly effective performance as a bullied kid with too many ideas whose world is collapsing around him, and Sigourney Weaver and Felicity Jones gives him great support as the ladies in his life who can't help him until he, cue strings, learns to help himself, and until he learns to confront the great big demons with really impressive butts that are tearing up his insides.

Spice Up Your Life

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Last night at MoMA I saw another screening of The Witch with the director Robert Eggers there (see a picture of the director on my Instagram) and he briefly mentioned the fact that his next project is a new version of Nosferatu - he called himself narcissistic for even trying it, but it's been his dream forever and a day. I thought of that reading today's news that Denis Villeneuve, whose excellent film Arrival is in theaters right now and whose sequel to Blade Runner is getting a big press push right now, is in talks to make a new movie out of Frank Herbert's Dune. Dune has been a dream project of Villeneuve's forever too, apparently. And I say go for it - nobody's been able to make a good movie out of it, not even David Lynch, and he put Sting in metal bikini briefs.

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

With a Friend Like Harry (2000)

Harry: You have to overreact.

Has anybody seen this movie lately? I haven't seen it in at least a decade but I have such great fond memories of it and think it's well past due a re-watch. Perhaps over the break! (PS since I brought that up yes MNPP will be closed up over the holidays - starting tomorrow and all the way through January 3rd! Unless something strikes my fancy too hard to share but the annual shut-down is good for my sanity, what little remains.) Anyway a very happy 51st birthday to the actor Sergi López today - you probably know him best as the psycho commandant in Pan's Labyrinth, or maybe from all these naked pictures I posted of him one time.

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Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?

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Good Morning, World

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A very very very very happy birthday to Ralph Fiennes today - how it can be that one of our finest actors gave one of his finest performances this year and his name isn't being cried out from the rafters as a Supporting Oscar shoo-in just shows to go ya how crooked the politicking of the Academy is. But we'll always have A Bigger Splash and that's gift plenty. Thank you, Ralph!

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James McAvoy Two Times

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See more over here. (thx Mac)

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Great Moments in Movie Shelves #86

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It seems impossible that I have never seen the 1975 giallo Nude per l'assassino aka Strip Nude For Your Killer because... well the fucking movie is called Strip Nude For Your Killer first and foremost. But even more important than that, if you can believe that there's anything better than a movie being called Strip Nude For Your Killer, is the fact that the seemingly extra sleazy affair stars Nino Castelnuovo, aka the gorgeous dude who starred opposite the gorgeous Catherine Deneuve in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. (See previous Nino right here.)

And he is naked in it a lot, not just there upside down against bookshelves (be still my loins) but all over the thing, with that super duper extra special layer of 70s giallo sleaze and sweat and semen poured over every single frame.

Good grief. The entire movie is up on YouTube (you can watch that below but it was also released on blu-ray a couple of years ago and I think I'm going to order a copy and watch it in better quality -- so should you!) and I had to work really very hard to stop myself from skimming through the entire thing lest I spoil its every surprise.

I mean even besides all the naked Nino (as if you can just set that to the side) just read the insane (insanely incredible) plot description from the film's IMDb page:

"When a fashion model dies during an abortion, a series of murders begins, starting with her doctor. The next victims are connected to the modeling agency where she worked, Albatross, run by a hard edged and jealous bi-sexual, Gisella, married to a Farouk-like dissolute. One suspect is Carlo, a playboy photographer who has a hot temper and refuses to share information with the police. He becomes the lover of Magda, another photographer at the agency, who's probably in danger. The murderer wears a black motorcycle outfit and helmet. Will anyone discover the murderer's identity before the entire agency dies?"

The 70s were the greatest time 

in all of recorded human history. 

Looks like Nino agrees! So anyway like I said I had to quit skimming it before I ruined the whole thing for myself but I did make a few gifs from what I did watch and you can see them (and the lo-fi YouTube copy of the entire film) after the jump...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969)

Gloria: Maybe it's just the whole world 

is like central casting. They got it all rigged 

before you ever show up. 

This masterpiece of misery seems timely, no?

Anyway a happy 79th birthday to Jane Fonda today!

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Absolutely Slab-ulous

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If you're looking to be genuinely disturbed by a horror movie for the holidays - as opposed to being genuinely disturbed by reality, which we've all got in spades this holiday season - then you should give The Autopsy of Jane Doe a shot. It gets horror. Here's my review of it from a couple of weeks back - I bring it up again now because the movie's got a new poster, seen above, and also it's actually out in theaters and I believe on VOD as of today. I still think the movie it loses its bearings in its last act, but it's a lot of horrible fun getting there... as it goes with so much of life. God I'm depressed.

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Which is Hotter?

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Today is the birthday of both Tom Payne (who plays Jesus on The Walking Dead) and Steven Yeun (who played -- sorry for the past tense there, folks-who-are-behind -- Glenn on the show) but I couldn't find a picture of the two actors with each other, weirdly, so that picture of Jeffrey Dean Morgan molesting Yeun above will have to do. (I think it does.) I'm kind of surprised Payne is higher than Yeun on IMDb's Starmeter listing, but I suppose shouldn't be surprised by anything that pox on fragile actorly egos does at this point. And speaking of smashing some actorly egos...

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If you need more pictures before you make your decision you can see some more of Mr. Payne right here and there's lots and lots of Mr. Yeun at this link.

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Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?

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Good Morning, Gratuitous Patrick Gibson

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So even though I have oh let's say disdain for the acting stylings of the actress Brit Marling (I do not like her, Sam I Am) I began watching Netflix's new series The OA on my commute this morning because I have literally watched a good thirty episodes of The Twilight Zone in the past week and I needed something else to dull my already-dulled morning mind. Anyway I liked The East better than Sound of My Voice and I liked Sound of My Voice better than I liked Another Earth (ugh Another Earth was the worst) so my relationship towards her and her director-comprade Zal Batmanglij is moving in the positive direction, if only minutely so. 

My commute only allows me twenty-five minutes give or take of viewing time so I haven't even finished the first episode of The OA yet, but that did give me time to be introduced to the golden Patrick Gibson and his golden... well, everything. And so I figured this would be a nice thing for all of us to wake up to. So here we are. Have any of you watched the show yet? You may go ahead and offer your opinions in the comments if so, and you may also hit the jump for some more Golden Gibson...

5 Off My Head - Siri Says 2010

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I wasn't sure I'd have time for this today but Siri was kind to me and when I asked her for a number between 1 and 100 she gave me 10 - why is that kind? Because I have already listed my favorite movies of 2010 here on the blog before! Six years ago I was still being decent about getting my Yead-End Lists out relatively on time - heck I got my 2010 Golden Trousers (as they're called) out before the end of January! That's really kind of insane in retrospect. So if you click here you can see my TWENTY favorite movies of 2010 as they stood six years ago..... however! Yes, there's a however. My list has changed since then. Six years makes a difference, it seems. Nothing fell out of the top 20 but things have shifted around. So here are...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 2010, as of 2016

The Loved Ones

(dir. Sean Byrne)

-- released on November 4th 2010 --

Fish Tank

(dir. Andrea Arnold)

-- released on January 15th 2010 --

Black Swan

(dir. Darren Aronosfky)

-- released on December 17th 2010 --

Dogtooth

(dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

-- released on June 25th 2010 --

Scott Pilgrim vs the World

(dir. Edgar Wright)

-- released on August 13th 2010 -- 

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What are your favorite movies of 2010?

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A Serious Man in Fargo

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Somehow this feels like the warning from the end of Ghostbusters about not crossing the streams, but in a totally excellent way - Michael Stuhlbarg, who announced his awesomeness to the world (or at least to me) via the Coen Brothers masterpiece A Serious Man in 2009, has just joined the cast of the Coen-adjacent television program Fargo (aka the best darn show on TV) for its 3rd season. 

I cannot possibly do all the homework this question requires but maybe one of you know the answer (and I am sure the answer's in the affirmative because the math is in its favor) - have any other prominent Coens actors shown up on the Fargo show before? I put prominent in there because Stuhlbarg was a lead and that narrows it down a mite, but I honestly can't off the top of my head think of any overlaps, big or small or in-between. I'm sure y'all will name someone of great import that I'm forgetting and I will feel stupid as dirt itself, so just get that done please.

Sadly Stuhlbarg won't be reprising the role of tormented physics teacher Larry Gopnik - Vulture says his role is that of "Sy Feltz, the right hand man and consigliere of the season's main character, Emmit Stussy (The Parking Lot King of Minnesota)." I'm guessing Stussy's one of the twin roles Ewan McGregor's playing. Besides them the cast also has Carrie Coon & Mary Elizabeth Winstead & Scoot McNairy and gosh golly gee damn can this show cast some actors.

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Milo Ventimiglia One TIme

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Awful Truth (1937)

Jerry: In a half an hour, we'll no longer be 

Mr. and Mrs. Funny, isn't it?

Lucy: Yes, it's funny that everything's the way 

it is on account of the way you feel. 

Jerry: Huh? 

Lucy: Well, I mean, if you didn't feel that way you do, 

things wouldn't be the way they are, would they? 

I mean, things could be the same if things were different. 

Jerry: But things are the way you made them. 

Lucy: Oh, no. No, things are the way you think I made them. 

I didn't make them that way at all. 

Things are just the same as they always were, only, 

you're the same as you were, too, so I guess

things will never be the same again. 

The great Irene Dunne was born on this day in 1898.

Click here to read some fun Oscar facts about her.

What's your favorite movie of hers?

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Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?

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