I had a whole bunch of plans to get caught up on things this weekend that flew to the wayside due to a couple of unforeseen happenstances, the most important of which was I won tickets to see Arcade Fire play in Brooklyn (at the renowned Grand Prospect Hall, no less!) on Friday. I posted a couple more photographs on my Instagram. Oh and there's a video of two songs, which you can watch below. Anyway I am disastrously behind on things, so let's try to catch up tomorrow. Or tomorrow's tomorrow? Or et cetera? Indeed. Bye til then.
Besides being the 25th anniversary of Death Becomes Her (as previously noted) today is also the same for the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie, which stars Kristi Swanson as the chosen one. I honestly don't think I have seen this movie in at least 20 years, probably longer. All I remember is Pee-wee getting staked with a ruler, and Luke Perry being cute (but I only thought so because of this photo-shoot). Should I rewatch it?
There are so many headline worth things happening in these pictures of Hugh Jackman playing on the beach with his speedo-clad trainer that JJ has posted over the past couple of days that I wasn't really sure what to lead with. I mean obviously there's just the boisterous gayness of it all right there up front.
But beyond that his shorts almost fell off not just once...
... but twice. And he also seemed to get a little bit... excited...
while showering with his trainer. And who wouldn't?
Stumbling upon that picture of Stephen Dorff and Wesley Snipes on the set of Blade in 1998 was what convinced me to use Blade for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" over at The Film Experience -- I mean it helps that it's Snipes' birthday today and everything, but knowing I'd have a reason to post that picture was the real incentive. I like Blade a lot though. Especially Dorff in it. (I think it's clear at this point where my vote went, right?)
The series finale of Kingdom airs this Wednesday and judging by where things currently stand I don;'t think it will make time for anymore Jonathan Tucker nudity so I'm glad they managed to stick some into this past week's episode, as a gift to those of us who have appreciated it. And we have appreciated it and then some! Click here to bounce back through our appreciations thereof. And hit the jump for a couple more gifs from this past week's scene...
"I like to see myself as something of a free spirit," says Darcy Baylor, to which her best friend immediately replies, "There's nothing free about your spirit." Since Darcy Baylor is played by Holly Hunter we get it right away. Is there any actress who can seem so steely and yet so delicate at the same exact time as she can? Who can be so simultaneously wistful and erratic? She's a free spirit like a banshee is a free spirit.
Strange Weather is a road trip movie (written and directed by Katherine Dieckmann) and so this conversation takes place behind the wheel, as many of them do - Darcy's on the road looking for answers about the death of her son, only seven years have passed and so those answers have begun to scatter on the wind. Her own shock and grief held her in a daze - the only thing that snaps her free is the realization that the world around her has started forgetting, and she might never know if she doesn't come to.
The world that Darcy walks in is awash in signs of forgetfulness - the sea is rising up and taking away even the roads across southern Louisiana that she is driving. Darcy has an entire conversation with an important character from her past whose wandered into early dementia, their face an uncomprehending mask as she feels for meaning, or glimpses therein. And so Hunter's determination, brittle as it may be, is imperative to sweep together a picture of what was lost as best she can.
Oh what a pleasure it is to spend an hour and a half watching Holly Hunter, an actress of entirely particular and marvelously unique gifts, stretch free and scatter. You get halfway into a film like Strange Weather and you realize you've been dehydrated, parched, thirsty af, for the long cool beverage this movie is providing.
Surrounding her with screen partners as rich in feeling as Carrie Coon and Glenne Headly doesn't hurt - Coon continues to deliver on the promise she's been showing off on TV in The Leftovers and Fargo (where did this woman come from, and why hasn't she been in everything for all my life?) but it's Headly's brief couple of scenes at the midpoint that gave me my favorite lived-in little portrait of smart Southern ladies of lower-class status, and not just because we sadly lost this fine actress earlier this year. The way she delivers the line, "Relax that smart thing, baby," while waving around french-tipped nails... it will stay with me always.
But in the end Strange Weather is Holly Hunter's show and Strange Weather proves it's a show I never want to end, and a show I will always come back to for more. Holly Hunter is a gift, and may she always keep giving.
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Strange Weather is out in theaters and on demand today.
Listen, I know the world sucks right now, so let's all go see Atomic Blonde together this weekend, ogle some sexy half-naked James McAvoy while Charlize Theron kicks all kinds of unholy ass around him, and just pretend for a few hours that things are colorful and fun and crazy but in a good way, mkay? It's a deal. .
I'm off again for a three-day weekend (and it's an incredibly busy three-day weekend at that) which is actually kicking into high-gear earlier than planned cuz I just got a happy surprise in my inbox (that sounds like a dirty euphemism, I know) so I gotta run. See y'all Monday if the world's still here...
Okay this is the third time that the Ingrid Goes West people have suckered me into posting a trailer for their movie by inserting just a little bit more Billy Magnussen footage into each one - see the first one here and see the second one here (it should be understood that what you're actually clicking there are a string of "Billy Magnussen Shirtless" gifs, obviously) and then come back and hit the jump and there will be a few more and oh yeah the actual new red-band (aka more drugs and swearing) trailer they came from too...
Have any of you heard of the 1958 Western called Terror in a Texas Town? I never had until a few weeks back when I saw that Arrow Video was releasing one of their super deluxe blu-ray editions of it and my eye was caught by Sterling Hayden (certainly not the first time that's happened) and so I checked it out and... .
... it's nuts! It's very very strange. And this scene specifically deserves to be way more iconic than it is. Although... well, it's the ending of the movie, so if you don't want the scene spoiled then don't hit the jump where I shall expound upon it... .
... Jude Law playing Nikolaj Coster-Waldau's eye-patch wearing Nazi BFF in the 1997 movie Bent but sure enough there he is. I don't think he's in the film other than this moment, so it's only a cameo - I wonder if he shot any more..... (You know I'm contemplating a three-way with those two & Clive Owen now, I don't even have to say that, right? Right.)
I had read a couple of days ago that we should expect some press stuff for Call Me By Your Name to show up this week and here we are with the very first poster! That's a gorgeous image (love the way their heads are melting together) and I might just pull out the "iconic" word even though that's a fool's errand this early. But it seems that way to me. Does it remind anybody of this:
That's a smart spot to lean into! Anyway if I had to guess I'd say we'll also be getting a trailer very very shortly, and you can expect me to go wild all over that when it arrives. Stay tuned!
Last night the Film Society of Lincoln Center and Film Comment magazine held an advanced screening of the Safdie Brothers upcoming crime thriller Good Time here in New York - the filmmakers were all there as was the film's star Robert Pattinson. Oh and so was I, in case you don't follow me on Twitter, or follow me on Instagram, where I rambled about it plenty as it was ongoing.
(See more shots of Rob right here.) I'm not going to review the movie just yet (it comes out on August 11th so I'll save my thoughts, my very positive thoughts, for closer to then) but you totally want to see it, trust me. I feel like a proud papa, having argued for years that Robert Pattinson is actually really a terrific actor. If you haven't watched the propulsive trailer (which is a great indicator of how vibrant the movie itself is) watch it right here.
Just about six weeks until the new It comes out and their pretty pretty Pennywise is on the cover of Dazed magazine (via) making you reconsider the things you'd do with a homicidal monster clown. We all float down here... in my pants. I've seen the trailer in the theater twice now and it plays even better on a big screen (the scene with the strobing slides especially) so I'm officially there with bells on. Cute little clown bells, obviously.
I posted pictures of Jay Ellis naked on HBO's show Insecureback in November and asked if I should be watching the show then and none of you answered me so I didn't start it - now it's in its second season and they have gone and gotten jay Ellis naked some more and so I am asking again: should I be watching it? They know what they have in Jay Ellis (and in Jay Ellis' spectacular ass, to be certain) so clearly they have some control on what's important all around. Answer my question and then you can hit the jump for more, but only if you answer my damn question! I am watching! .
On his Instagram Tom captioned this picture "Auf der Alm, da gibt's koa Sünd'" which turns out to be the title of a German sex comedy from 1974 (also known as Bottoms Up, which is the greatest title ever) - do any of my German readers get the cultural reference a little better? Is this movie well-known? Anyway the thing is on YouTube so if anybody wants to watch some Alpine booby humor have at it!
I guess Nicholas Hoult has entered the "I only play real world authors who went by initials beginning with 'J'" phase of his career - he's just finished making a movie about JD Salinger and now he's in the lead to play JRR Tolkien, apparently. Weirdly I can kind of see how he could play the both of them, too...
See what I mean? He's not bad casting for either of them. White Men should be the subjects of everything, you guys! Aaaaaanyway the latter movie will be directed by Finnish director Dome Karukoski (I don't recognize any of his films - anybody know him?) and will focus on Tolkien's WWI experience.
As for the former, the Salinger movie calledRebel in the Rye, that's been in the can for awhile (we first told you about it right here, and we shared some pictures from its set right here) and just released its first trailer over the weekend. The movie is out in September.
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Shelves, shelves, suspenders, more shelves, Nicholas Hoult smoking a cigarette and banging on a typewriter, sweaters, sweater vests, shelves, Sarah Paulson, more shelves, Kevin Spacey and Victor Garber pawing at Nichols Hoult, more suspenders, more shelves, more shelves. I'm sold!
In all seriousness there are so many shelves in that trailer that I had to cap every single shot where they showed up, so if you are a person with your priorities in order you should hit the jump and stare at the luxurious and literate mid-century horniness of it all...
Stanley Kubrick was born 89 years ago today. His name's been sullied with a lot of Christopher Nolan comparisons over the past couple of weeks, but Nolan wishes - for all his purported chilliness there's more heart and horror in a single shot of Wendy Torrance standing over a typewriter than there is in the whole of Nolan's filmography. So let's remember what a wizard he wasand rank his movies!
Kubrick only made thirteen feature-length films in his 48 year career, and of those thirteen I have seen nine. I have never seen (I keep saving them for a rainy day) the first four - specifically Killer's Kiss, Fear and Desire, The Killing, and Paths of Glory. But of the nine I have seen, here's how I rank them (and please do keep in mind these are all, each and every single one of them, fantastic movies):
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