Say Good Night, Michael

.

As the prophesy foretold this week has come to a quick and un-showy end - just three short days and I'm done til Monday. Good riddance, I'm already exhausted. Next week is a good one though - Hereditary is finally out next Friday! And so is the Mister Rogers documentary! (Now there's a double-feature.) Oh and the finale of Sense8 that us fans wished into existence pops up next Friday too! So y'all do what you gotta, go watch American Animals and tell me how dumb my "not a review" review was or whatever, stare at these pictures here of Michael B. Jordan and then go stare at the pictures of Chadwick Boseman that I posted earlier on the Tumblr and have yourself a stylish Black Panther fantasy-time; I'll see y'all Monday.

Who Bearded Best?

.

Back in March we did a big gratuitous post for Sam Claflin when the trailer for his boating-thriller Adrift with Shaileene Woodley first dropped alongside the news that he was going to star in a crime-thriller called The Corrupted - well today there's stuff on both those fronts. There's the first picture of Sam in the latter above, which is clearly worth sharing. That's a new look for Sam, and we like it. And as for Adrift, well, that's out in theaters tomorrow. That's all I got. I missed the press screening so I can't tell you if it's worth seeing or not. But hey here's something - it's a big weekend in beards at the multiplex! Let's judge those!

bike tracks

Five Frames From ?

.

What movie is this?

.

American Movie Review

.

Have I become too hard of a cynic in my middle-age? I fear so - signs and symbols keep slapping me to and fro. Take for instance American Animals, the college heist movie out this weekend starring Evan Peters and Barry Keoghan as wannabe bad-asses a la Tarantino but a bit too John Hughes to make it quite there. I watched American Animals with perhaps too much of a side-eye because I didn't believe jack-shit I was watching. 

I don't mean the actors were bad at selling the circumstances (they were fine) or that the directing was weak (it was fine) or anything like that - I mean I went into the film knowing nothing about the true-life story the film's based on and the harder the movie worked at reminding me of its "This is Based on a True Story" bonafides I kept watching it through Fargo-tinted "True Story" glasses. Like uh huh true story sure get a load of these guys nudge nudge. Sure there's a place called Transylvania University. (Whoops there is.) And sure a bunch of kids tried to rob the library of great big bird books. (Whoops they did.)

I spent so much misplaced mental energy watching the film thinking myself clever for poking holes in its fabrications, energy that actually ultimately proved me dumb as a box of hair, that I even convinced myself that the real-life criminals who are interviewed throughout the film were actors themselves - the film plays like an ongoing series of reenactments as these real folks lay out what happened, or what happened as they remember it anyway, and I thought I'd unlocked its secret key and that the movie was doubling down on its fakery. I was actually utterly convinced by the film's midpoint that Spencer Reinhard, the real-life person that Barry Keoghan's playing and who we see on screen, was being played by Barry's Dunkirk co-star Fionn Whitehead!

Whoops... it wasn't. All this makes it a hard film for me to really review because it turns out I watched a movie that this movie was not. I only realized I'd burrowed my brain into the wrong end of the basement when the rug wasn't pulled out by the film's credits - that I'd gone and made the film more byzantine than it ended up being. Since so much of the movie is explicitly about people deluding themselves into being people they aren't, talking about just that, I'd figured hey, what a trick!

What a trick that wasn't. And so... what a review this isn't? Lesson learned, then - don't rob fancy libraries, especially ones staffed by Ann Dowd (I mean for god's sake) and don't out-think movies before they've thought through their thoughts themselves. American Animals might ultimately be half-thought-through but it's not my job to then go and have an over-compensating fit thinking it all the way around the world and back for them. That's no good for nobody.
.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (2017)

Steven: There's a way we can put a stop to all of this. All we need to do is find the tooth of a baby crocodile, the blood of a pigeon and the pubes of a virgin. And then we just have to burn them all before sunset. Let me see, do we have any spare teeth lying around? Teeth, pubes? Nope, none here! Let me see, do we have any here? Pubes? teeth? Nothing in this box either. Where are they? I'm sure they were here earlier. I put them here myself. Who's been moving things around? Fucking unbelievable! I don't suppose you have any pubes I could have, by any chance? Oh, I forgot. You don't have any left. We don't have any of the things we need.

Happy 42 to Colin Farrell today!

.

Bring Nick Robinson Home With You

.

The teen gay rom-com called Love Simon is hitting blu-ray in two weeks (specifically on June 12th) and so all sorts of special features and what-nots (or perhaps even better in the immortal words of Dr. Suess "whoozits") are getting unloaded online in order to best separate you the consumer from that cash money burning a hole in your wallet and or/ purse-shaped object. I liked the movie an awful lot, more than I anticipated given its Pottery Barn leanings, you can read my review here. I really do think it's more interesting than it's gotten credit for. 

.

Also (as I argued in my review) LOVE SIMON is structurally way queerer than it gets credit for - it turns the rom-com inside out, making a void, an absence, half its “rom” - it’s as sound a representation of “The Closet” as I’ve seen

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) May 17, 2018

.

Anyway one of the things they've released to whet your appetite is a deleted scene that features Colton Haynes hitting on Nick Robinson at a bar, and I think it's safe to say that several people just had to close their browsers and go change their pants after I typed that so let's just watch...
.

New video 🎥 Deleted Bar Scene from #LoveSimon starring Nick Robinson. pic.twitter.com/5qLJxCDSBQ

— Nick Robinson Updates (@dailynickrob) May 29, 2018

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

.

What a wonderful coincidence that the wonderful Jonathan Tucker's 36th birthday just happens to today be falling on a Thursday and so we can wish him a happy one with one of our "Ways Not To Die" series of posts, in which we celebrate a death scene from the movies or, in this case, television. 
.

Also coincidentally we've had Hannibal on our minds this week anyway thanks to having just binged the current psychopath show du jour Killing Eve - it's all coming together! Including every gay man on Earth who has seen this scene from the fifth episode of Hannibal's second season, titled "Mukozuke." Let's hit the jump for the rest of this since, needless to say, I really went to town on this one...

The King Fills Out

.

Clarity, sweet clarity! Back in February we found out that Timothee Chalamet's next project was going to be a Shakespeare adaptation from Animal Kingdom director David Michod called The King, and when we posted about it we noticed that Robert Pattinson was listed on IMDb but we weren't sure if that was correct. Today Variety tells us that is correct (thanks Mac). You'll forgive me for not photo-shopping Timmy's face onto that turtle above, it's early. 

Anyway also joining the cast is Lily Rose-Depp, Ben Mendelsohn (whose role in Michod's Animal Kingdom is pretty much responsible for us knowing who Ben Mendelsohn is today) and Joel Edgerton - we already knew that Edgerton wrote the adaptation of Henry VI that the film's being based on, but it's news to us that he wrote himself a role. He keeps doing that. He is smart. Anyway checking the film's IMDb page, which keeps knowing who's cast before anybody else, I see Sean Harris (the British ginger who's in everything - you can currently hear his sinister voice narrating the Mission Impossible trailer) and Tom Glynn-Carney, one of the few remaining Dunkirk Twinks that I haven't devoted time to. I should get on that...

Good Morning, World

.

I was trying to figure out what I actually know Zach Woods from (because I do know who he is) since I don't watch Silicon Valley (his best known showcase) and I decided it must be Veep. Then I remembered he played the tour guide in the Lady Ghostbusters movie. Then I remembered his role as Jesse Plemons' boyfriend in Other People and that was my "A-ha!" (Speaking of, I can't believe I've never posted screen-caps of him in that movie! Let's remember that for another today, then.)

For today we'll just post this goofy photo-shoot the sexy nerd (or, as his girlfriend calls him within the interview here, "Young Lurch") from this month's issue of GQ. It's a fun interview too, I recommend it - I like the part where they talk about his type-casting as a beta male and how he's seen by men (read: straight men, although the writer doesn't clarify that, for shame) versus women:

"I would like to play romantic parts. Like, sexual gods. Corn-fed Midwestern American sex symbols." Men don't really get Woods. They get the funny part, but they don't get the sexy part. They see the spooky features, but not the piercing blue eyes—the calculated awkwardness, but not the sweetness. Much has been made, for instance, of the fact that Woods has a girlfriend. When Woods was on The Late, Late Show, James Corden pounced on him with all the solicitude of my mother: "I find this hugely exciting. You have recently started dating someone," he said by way of welcome. It's "hugely exciting" when someone like Woods is being properly cherished, because he registers as the guy who definitely should get the girl, but usually doesn't. To men Woods is an anti-hero, but to women he's just a hero.

Anyway besides all the stifling fumes of heteronormativity choking me I concur with that assessment. Hit the jump for the rest...

Theroux in the Summer

.

As an addendum to yesterday's batch of pictures here hey look here are some more pictures of Justin Theroux hanging out at the beach this week. (via here and here and here) HERE!

My favorite thing about these shots (besides abs n' beard) are the off-center sight of Emma Stone who is there with him and her gorgeous creamy alabaster skin smartly hiding off in the shadows...

Justin would be wise to look at how great her complexion looks and quit lathering himself up and baking like he does but... well it's probably a little late for that now. Oh well. He's still looking pretty good for now. Hit the jump for a few dozen more...

Great Moments In Movie Staches

.

I know that the aging make-up on Jake & Heath in Brokeback Mountain always gets shit but I am not here for that - the actors work around and with it, and I love Jake's little middle-aged man stache. While it's a later scene that always gets the brunt of the attention ("I wish I knew how to quit you!" and all) this scene where Jack Twist freaks the fuck out on his father-in-law (the always welcome character actor Graham Beckel) is a great one too. We get so few windows into what Jack is like away from Ennis - it's easy after this to see why he wants to spend all that time running away for fishing with buddies. (Besides all the buggering, I mean.)

.

Perky Logan on the Slab

.

To be honest I hadn't posted anything about Upgrade, the sci-fi thriller from writer-director Leigh Whannell (of the Saw and Insidious franchises) and starring The Invitation's Logan Marshall-Green that is out on Friday, because I thought the first trailer was hellaciously goofy, what with the robot-skeleton inside Logan turning him into a floppy cyborg action puppet. But now that I know Logan takes his clothes off at least once thanks to the above image (via; thanks Mac) I... am rethinking my stance. Zoom in...

... and click to embiggen a lot. Anyway a red-band trailer for the film got dropped earlier this week and it's still goofy, hellaciously so, but now with a ridiculous amount of splatter and gore ladled over the goofiness which... is something. Listen, I get that this movie was made to turn your brain off and have fun with, and I want to. I am trying. I will try. Pinky swear. Here's that red-band:

.

.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Strangers (2008)

Kristen: She's watching us.
James: She looks like a ghost.
Do you want me to go talk to her?
Kristen: They don't want to talk.
James: Well they want something.
People don't just stand out there, staring
at us like that. They want something.

A happy 10 to Brian Bertino's super great horror film The Strangers today! Here is my original review from when it came out. And our pal Joe Reid wrote up a nice tribute to the film over at Decider this morning, go check that out. I wouldn't go as far as Joe did to call it the best horror film of the past decade (in very related news hey look Martyrs is turning 10 this fall) but it's excellent and very scary indeed, says me. 

And I'm curious - have any of you seen Bertino's two directorial follow-ups - there's the found-footage-esque Mockingbird in 2014 which I personally dug (here's my review), and then there's The Monster, 2016's movie about a mom (Zoe Kazan) and her daughter who find themselves trapped on a deserted stretch of road with... something... stalking them outside. 

I saw The Monster but a check of the archive shows I never reviewed it - I certainly can't do that now, it having been two years since I saw it, but I remember thinking it fine. Of course with something like The Strangers right out of the gate we fans don't really want "fine" - we're still waiting and hoping Bertino will truly terrify us again.

Bertino got a writing credit on the Strangers sequel, The Strangers: Prey At Night, which came out in March (and which you can rent on Amazon right now) but I'm not sure how involved he ultimately was in the end - anyway I coincidentally watched that over the weekend, so here are my thoughts. It doesn't really work. It follows basically the exact same formula as the first movie - the opening introduction to the characters is pretty protracted; it takes the time to let us marinate in their issues. 

In this case it's Ye Olde Nuclear Family, Dad and Mom and Son and Daughter - the latter's a Bad Girl who they're carting off to reform school when dun dun dun they find themselves trapped with masked marauders in a middle-of-nowhere trailer park. All that is fine - Christina Hendricks is once again the best thing in a project well beneath her talents, and Martin Henderson is more DILF than the screen can handle - but once the scares start coming the film relies on the characters acting tremendously stupid time after time after time after time to the point of audience frustration. At a certain point you're just ready for them all to die because of how dumb they've been. 

Take for instance one scene where one of the characters gets trapped in a car and then just sits there, literally just sits there, and lets the killer walk up and murder them without even so much as swatting a hand. That is a thing that happens. It's incredibly frustrating, especially in light of how gorgeous the movie is at times - there are shots of the lone streetlights hanging above empty roads in misty nighttime air that are breathtaking. But sadly the rest of the movie just doesn't live up to its cinematography's level.

Now We Expect Half Naked Chris Hemsworth

.

(click to embiggen) EW dropped three more pictures from Drew Goddard's movie Bad Times at the El Royale last night including yet another shot of half-naked Chris Hemsworth - see the first one here! - proving Chris has accepted his fate in this world, his olied-up lot in life, and we are all glad for it. A hand for Chris! Also pictured here are Chris' co-stars Jon Hamm, Dakota Johnson, and Jeff Bridges.

EW has a little bit more emphasis on little bit on what the movie is about too, although Goddard is playing the mystery game - which is fine by us because we loved Cabin in the Woods and were extremely happy that movie wasn't spioled for us going in. I hope he can pull the rug out from us again and again!

Five Frames From ?

.

What movie is this?

.

Good Morning, Clint

.

We may have just put Clint Walker to rest last week when he died at the age of 90 but stars ain't like us, as the saying goes - they live forever! And so here on what would have been Clint's 91st birthday we'll say howdy once more. Boy, howdy. Click here to scroll on through all our Clint archives. Boy, boy howdy. Boy.

.