I Feel Like I Win When I Lose

.

.

This scene is my hopeful mood for 2019.

Let's dance while the assholes eat each other.

Happy New Year, everyone!

.

Happy Holidays From Pee-wee & Me

.

View this post on Instagram

If you’d have told my 10-year-old self that one day I would receive a Christmas Card from PAUL REUBENS I’d have said I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I and then fainted (for real though I am legitimately crying happy tears right now)

A post shared by Jason Adams (@jasonaadams) on Dec 20, 2018 at 4:21pm PST

.

And I just got the greatest Xmas present ever.
Oh, and also this:
.

On this day in 1988, the most special Christmas Special of them all (MINE!) first aired on TV! That was 30 YEARs ago!! Now you can watch the remastered version on @Netflix: https://t.co/MCm0YIAdVc!#PeeweesPlayhouse #ChristmasSpecial #secretword #screamrealloud pic.twitter.com/4uDXorqbuf

— Pee-wee Herman (@peeweeherman) December 21, 2018

.

Stan & Hammer & Holidays, Ho

.

Okay so here's the sitch -- as previously mentioned I'm off as of tonight until after New Years. The second of January, to be specific. There's a pretty good chance I might pop in over those twelve days though - there are a few movies I haven't reviewed that are coming out that I probably should, like Karyn Kusama's Destroyer (which co-stars our boy Sebastian Stan here) and the RBG biopic On the Basis of Sex, for two...

.

View this post on Instagram

ARMIE HAMMER & FELICITY JONES talking the new Ruth Bader Ginsberg biopic ON THE BASIS OF SEX at a screening tonight #armiehammer #felicityjones #onthebasisofsex #film #ruthbaderginsberg

A post shared by Jason Adams (@jasonaadams) on Nov 7, 2018 at 7:32pm PST

... but we'll see how it goes; I'm playing that by ear right now. I might just want to collapse on my apartment floor for two weeks with a tub of ice cream and my Suspiria screener and slip out the asshole of 2018 that route. Who knows? But before that I have all that fun I do want to link to a trio of movie reviews for holiday break movies of note, so let's...

Here are my thoughts on Mary Poppins Returns.

Here are my thoughts on Vice.

Here are my thoughts on Cold War.

The quick take on those three is the two on the outside are terrific and the one in the center is a real turd sandwich, but I'll let you figure that out for yourselves either by reading or by going yourselves, since try as I may I am not the boss of y'all. I mean if I could just boss around Sebastian a little bit that'd be plenty...

Happy holidays, people!

.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... googling Kylo Ren with Robin Hood.

.

To This One Boy We Loved That One Time

.

Surprising absolutely nobody Netflix just green-lit a sequel for their hit rom-com To All the Boys I've Loved Before this week, which introduced this Noah Centineo boy to the masses, and the masses liked. I still haven't watched TATBILB myself - my boyfriend did and found it cringey and I have a feeling I'd follow suit so I haven't bothered, and might not. Better to just enjoy the Teen Beat type pics, I think! Actually make that Seventeen - these pictures are from Seventeen Magazine, and you can see the rest of them over on the Tumblr. (Yes the Tumblr still exists, for now. We'll see.)

My What a Big Head You've Got, Matthias

.

Last week I showed you the trailer for Mustang, Matthias Schoenaerts' upcoming horse drama (everybody loves a horse these days!) - well here's the poster, which gets its own post because Matthias, duh. I wish I was feeling clever enough to come up with a clever crack about a gigantic head coming at me from Matthias' middle section but all the horse cock puns seem to be escaping me just this moment, if ever they existed, so just pretend I made you chuckle with all my naughty talk, eh? Ehhh.
.

Blue Sky Sunshine White Sand by the Mile

.

The toughest thing in the world is to turn what's staring you in the face into art. I don't mean to undervalue those that dance out towards the far reaches of their imagination, that's its own sort of tough, but there's something about staring back at the dull space right in front of your face, the flat tactility of it, that can be real intimidating to boundless inspiration. Sometimes it's just a bowl of fruit, ya know? And so I'm always impressed by documentarians who can turn their cameras onto their corner deli and find something beautiful there - people who are able to see the future looking back on their time and place and moment and whittle it down and say this, this is this thing's value right here.

The Last Resort, a sparkling new documentary out this weekend here in New York, takes a look at two guys who tried to be that person for their moment and the two very different roads and conclusions they came to. Their names are Andy Sweet and Gary Munroe, and they were two friends and photographers who turned their lenses on the vibrant Jewish communities of Miami in the 1960s and 70s. 

The most fascinating parts of the doc, besides its introduction to this colorful and singular world that's pretty much gone now, all rainbow rayon sleeves and yellow wigs, ukuleles on the boardwalk, are when it plunks these two men's different visions down beside one another and investigates the ways one artist can see the same space with totally different eyes; how a face in a crowd being filtered into a head and back out onto a flat surface is never the same, all of them snowflakes, one of a kind. 

But more than that - it's about how time susses out which one is worth more than the other; where value comes from, and why. The years chisel away at our understandings of the lost eras we've just been inhabiting and certain images, certain person's personal takes, remain, forming the hard crust around these crystallized pasts. How does that happen? How does an image become more than a single image, but an entire time, an entire culture, a communal experience? The Last Resort tussles with these considerable questions of art and eternity all while making time for matzo balls and beehives - a pretty good deal if you ask me.

.

.

The Last Resort is now playing at The Quad
and at the the Marlene Meyerson JCC.

.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Elizabeth: I have seen these flowers all over.
They are growing like parasites on other plants.
All of a sudden. Where are they coming from?
Nancy: Outer space?
Jack: What are you talking about? A space flower?
Nancy: Well why not a space flower?
Why do we always expect metal ships?
Jack: I've NEVER expected metal ships.

The best version of Jack Finney's classic tale so far (and there have been countless versions, in name or not exactly) is turning 40 today! The 1956 movie is terrific and the 1993 one is super underrated, and just recently there was the criminally under-appreciated TV series BrainDead (sigh, rest in peace), but Philip Kaufman's movie really takes the cake for me. It probably just comes down to I like its angle on the material the best - the cult mentality of personal wellness that it satirizes strikes me as really smart. Plus it's got the best cast by miles...

.

Reboots From the Depths of Hell to Outer Space

.

Let's quick check in on a couple of trailers that popped up in the past 24 hours, shall we? The trailer for the rebooted Hellboy is here, starring Stranger Things surprise sex symbol David Harbour as the titular red menace this time around - more importantly the reason for caring is that this was directed by Neil Marshall, whose Aughts Trilogy of  D movies (Dog Soldiers and The Descent and Doomsday, oh my) still stands the test of time and who's mostly been doing TV (good TV, as in "the best episodes of A Game of Thrones") since. Here is the trailer:

.

.

American Honey star Sasha Lane makes for an inspired sidekick right? Excited about this one, which is out on April 12th. Next up is another reboot, one I'm a little less sold on - the new Men In Black has a truly killer two-some with its Ragnarok reunion of Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson but I'm not seeing much here that looks new? Winking nods to old aliens? Bah. And more than that...

... I don't want Chris to star in a movie famous for its clothes. I want Chris Hemsworth to star in movies famous for its NOT clothes, know what I mean? Emma Thompson looks pretty fierce, at least. We'll see come June, I guess. Watch:
.

Jon Bernthal Six Times

.

Dreamy roughneck Jon Bernthal is currently the last man (emphasis on man) standing at Netflix, Marvel Superhero speaking - they've canceled our beloved Daredevil, our slightly less beloved Luke Cage, and Iron Fist which we never bothered to watch. I'm sure they're just burning off the last seasons of The Punisher and Jessica Jones, last woman standing, though, and once they're done they're done. Oh Jon Bernthal gonna be fine, guys. And speaking of "fine guys" (see what I did there) hit the jump for the rest of this shoot for Men's Health... 

Five Frames From ?

.

What movie is this?

.

Good Morning, World

.

Maybe it's just the holidays in the air 

but I feel like Hamm for breakfast.

.

Good Evening, Gratuitous Arnaud Valois

.

I don't know why last year's other gay masterpiece B.P.M. just popped into my head, besides it being a gay masterpiece and it oughta of course, but I'm glad it did because it made me realize I hadn't looked up its star Arnaud Valois lately, and when I did I found he'd shot a few photo-shoots since the last time that're worth...

... a moment of our day. Arnaud has a couple of projects lined up - he is in a movie with Emma Roberts and Awkwafina and Jeremy Irvine called Paradise Hills that sounds weird, even beside that cast. And he is in something called Mon bébé from the director of LOL (both the French version and the remake with Miley Cyrus). He should be in more, I think! Hit the jump for a couple dozen more shots which show the superficial reasons why...

Pics of the Day

.

Is "longtime bachelor" George Clooney just straight up trolling all of us now that he's married to a woman or what? These are the first pictures from his Catch-22 miniseries for Hulu (yes based on Joseph Heller's classic novel) and this is some of the gayest shit I've seen since whenever Luke Evans last went to the beach, y'all.

Anyway the series stars a never-looked-better (aka more salivated on by his director) Christopher Abbott in the lead role of the ever artful dodger Yossarian, caught in the convoluted bureaucracies of the World War II machinery, opposite Kyle Chandler and Rafi Gavron (recently seen as the creepy hot music producer in A Star is Born) and a bunch of other pretty young things, along with Hugh Laurie & Clooney himself, no doubt making googly eyes...

The six-part series premieres in the spring of 2019 is all we know so far, but assuredly I'll keep track of this one, especially now that I know it's a spectacle of homoerotic uniform fetishism and such. Oh ya got me this time, George...

What's Your Fave 2018 Movie Costume?

.

Mine is Armie Hammer's riding skirt in Sorry to Bother You.

Tell me yours in the comments!

.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Zodiac (2007)

Paul: What do you do for fun?
Robert: I love to read.
Paul: Mhmm.
Robert: Umm, I enjoy books.
Paul: Those are the same things.

Hey ho it's Jake's birthday! Our boy, now assuredly a man (and then some) is turning all of 38 today. I went through our archives (now nine-hundred and ninety-one posts strong) to make sure but sure enough we've been wishing him a happy day every year since MNPP became a thing -- here's the first one we did in 2005, although you might want to check the one we did the next year in 2006 because it's got a ton on vintage Jake pictures worth a click or ten. I mean...

... it don't suck. Really just click through this tag which will show you all the birthday wishes we've sent over the years, year after precious year. It's quite the journey. From Donnie Darko to Gay Cowboy to Instagram singing sensation...

.

View this post on Instagram

Singing with someone as talented as @annaleigh_ashford takes bravery, 10,000 hours of practice, but most importantly helium. Rehearsing Move On from Sunday in the Park with George for the first time in a year for her PBS special.

A post shared by Jake Gyllenhaal (@jakegyllenhaal) on Dec 14, 2018 at 1:05pm PST

.
Who knows where we will end up next? Well besides the dozen projects he's got lined up on IMDb, like that art world satire with his Nightcrawler director or being Tom Holland's Best Frenemy in the next Spider-man. Or even how about four dozen outtakes for that recent Esquire UK photo-shoot (via IHJM), which I will share here after the jump...

Five Frames From ?

.

What movie is this?

.

Good Morning, World

.

Mucho gracias to Matthias Schoenaerts for sharing this little glimpse of his work-out on his Instagram last evening - it really got me onto the hump (day). Happy Hump Day, everybody. PS I am going to be very very very busy at the day-job today so you shouldn't expect a ton out of me today. Tis the season!

.

Here's a Picture of Ben Whishaw...

.

... to make up for my general absence today -- tis a busy week, but Ben makes the boo-boos better right? The shot's via VF, who chatted with him mostly about his marvelously melancholy performance in Mary Poppins Returns. The film's out tomorrow and I thought it was a marvel - read my review of the movie here. I'm planning on going again over the holidays, I am. We need pure and simple joy like this movie's offering these days. (thx Mac)
.

Get High in 2019

.

Speaking of movies from this past year's NYFF A24 has just announced that Claire Denis' sci-fi way far out oddity High Life starring Juliette Binoche and Robert Pattinson is getting released on April 12th 2019, so you should definitely mark your calendars right this second for that one. Feel free to mark them in semen - Denis won't mind. Here is my review from the fest, in which I call the film "a perverse space opera" which is, if you know me at all, terrific praise indeed. Meanwhile I think they should use the above image for the final poster, don't you? It's got everything, and by everything I mean "Juliette Binoche" and "Juliette Binoche's wig" and "Robert Pattinson shirtless." That's everything, right?

Tomasz Kot Four Times

.

(pics via) Director Pawel Pawlikowski fan-frigging-tastic last century romance Cold War is out this weekend in limited release -- read my review of it from the NYFF right here. The film just made the shortlist for Best Foreign Film at the Oscars yesterday and I have a feeling it'll make the final five - it's a real humdinger. Anyway while I prefer Tomasz all sullenly midcentury sleek in long coats and cigarettes as he rocks in the film over the rough-n-tumble look seen above, well, he is working that stache pretty hard...

.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Muriel's Wedding (1994)

Rhonda: I had cancer.
It's all right, they cut it out.
Cheryl: You were so full of life.
Rhonda: I'm not dead, Cheryl.

A happy 50th to Rachel Griffiths today!

.

Five Frames From ?

.

What movie is this?

.