If I had all the funds in the world (and perhaps more importantly somewhere to actually go) that's what you'd see me dressed as for Halloween tonight -- Robert Pattinson in The Lighthouse chic! And with Willem Dafoe's character it's the perfect couple's costume this year to boot. (If you're a throuple somebody could be the seagull.) You wouldn't want to run into director Robert Eggers though -- he'd start tearing pieces of your costume off if they were in the slightest historically inaccurate. Of course...
... Robert Eggers ripping your clothes off isn't necessarily
Anyway this is my way of wishing everybody a Happy Halloween tonight -- I'd love to hear what y'all are dressing up as! I already did the Vincent Price thing this past weekend (see below) so we're taking it easy tonight, staying in and watching something scary TBD. Have a great holiday, land lubbers!
Fresh off spending an evening in his plaid-panted company -- not to mention currently reading The Further Adventures of Elio, Boy Wonder -- I'm feeling flush with Timmy this week, and it's only getting flusher since I just stumbled upon three more pictures from his L'Uomo Vogue shoot (see the earlier ones here and here) and I also just realized that The King hits Netflix tomorrow! ("Tomorrow" as in "Midnight plus one tonight" that is.) Read my review of The King here -- big pile of words briefer I liked it a lot, and recommend you watch it -- I've got plenty else to watch but I might end up watching it a second time myself! Okay and yes by saying I "stumbled upon" these three photos what I really meant was Timothée posted them on Instagram his own damned self -- am I a wizard? I can't conjure up Timmy out of nothing. I just look, and sometimes Timmy happens.
When I started this series 13 days ago I mentioned that there was a specific film that inspired me to devote thirteen days worth of posts to a thing as ridiculous as Horror Cakes -- well here we are the final day and I can now reveal... nothing.
Okay not quite nothing -- I can tell you what movie it was. It was Bong Joon-ho's Parasite (reviewed here), which is out in movie theaters right now doing very very well for a foreign film in the United States. Which is a thing that translates to: not enough people have seen it yet for me to properly talk about this sequence, which involves a central mystery of the film and which, when unspooled at just past its midway point, drops about ten megatons of deep meaning onto the premises.
I also can't, much to my chagrin and consternation, gif the moment's pay-off, because it's a huge pay-off in the film and one of its most bedeviled and striking images, and I'd hate to ruin it for anybody. What I will say is that this movie, which isn't a Horror Film, has one of the decade's best Horror Images in it all the same.
.
.
It's somewhat reminiscent of the "God" conversation in Bergman's film Fanny & Alexander -- "Who's behind the door?" -- which I've noted before I find to be one of the scariest moments in any not-horror flick and so if I'm bringing this shit up know it's for good reason. Anyway let's just say that the rich family in Parasite has a son who has birthday and cake-adjacent trauma and by the end of the movie... that trauma will have been quadrupled.
"Let them eat cake" has never been as pointed. Anyway parallels between the rich family's kids and the poor family's kids in Parasite are themselves rich, and I think this also pays off when it comes to cake -- the gift that poor family's son is given, which has been heavily featured in the film's advertising (see this recent poster), is a scientific rock specimen which set upon a little base, and which...
... is often lugged around just like a cake.
That the rich family gets fluffy delicious cake while
the poor family gets a big cake-shaped rock, well...
... I don't think anybody's arguing that Parasite is subtle.
But effective. It's effective, and it's goddamned true.
That brings this year's Halloween celebration to a close! Click here to see all of the "13 Cakes of Halloween" and if you have any favorite cake scenes in horror movies I didn't talk about tell me about them in the comments. After all, we can be Cake Boys every day! .
Basically the very first thing that I knew about The Witcher, which I had never heard of before Henry Cavill signed on to star in an adaptation of it for Netflix, was that the main dude takes a bath in it one (or several?) times, and it was A Thing that people on the internet were into. Once I saw the art I immediately got why! So point being the minute Former Superman Actor got cast in the role everybody was like, "BATH TIME, BITCHES!"
And sure enough as you see the just dropped trailer
There is a ton of absolutely gorgeous shit to stare at in Greta Gerwig's Little Women -- which I saw two nights ago, see previous post here -- but perhaps none so lovely as James Norton, star of screen and smaller screen, playing Mr. John Brooke, the tutor who falls for the March sister Meg. But then what else is new? James Norton is always one of if not the prettiest things where ever James Norton stands.
Today James Norton finds himself standing on the cover of something called The Jackal magazine, and whaddya know -- pretty, pretty, and yes indeed more pretty. Anybody would be willing to give up their dreams of pretty frilly dresses for making babies in relative poverty for this face, am I right? Hit the jump for the rest of the shoot...
This marks our third post on Naoki Kobayashi, the J-Pop star turned model turned movie actor, in as many weeks -- see the first one here and the second one here -- which lets on that I've gone and worked myself into a frenzy; hopefully now that I can actually see him act in something he'll prove worth the effort beyond just the eye candy. Don't get me wrong...
... I like the candy. But the man has got such a fantastic face (and everything out from there) that I'm hoping he gives me a good excuse to keep obsessing for the long haul. But to step back, that "something" I can see him in (almost) now is Earthquake Bird, the Netflix film that's got him romancing both Alicia Vikander and Riley Keough, to menacing effect. It will hit Netflix Midnight tonight. (ETA Netflix has changed the release to November 15th, apparently. Boo!)
Whether Naoki gets more roles here in the U.S. remains to be seen -- the movies finally seem to be catching on to the sex appeal of Asian men here in the States a thousand lifetimes after everyone with working eyes has been long standing here on this spot, and all the roles can't go to Henry Golding right? But let's watch Earthquake Bird first before we get totally ahead of ourselves on Naoki, I suppose.
Well let's watch Earthquake Bird and let's also look at the dozens of photos that I managed to dig up for this post... and then definitely get ahead of ourselves anyway. By the way a lot of these are off Naoki's Instagram, which I recommend following. But there's more besides all here on yonder after the jump...
... Son is cleaning Dad's guns as a birthday present.
Whatever could possibly go wrong??? .
Oh right. That. That could go wrong.
An excellent reminder that guns are shit, folks.
Thanks to everyone's favorite Final Girl Stacie Ponder for recommending today's Cake when I was trying to drum up more ideas -- I've never actually seen 1984's The Mutilator, which this is the opening scene for, but I'll sure as hell be watching it now. Stacie wrote up her thoughts on this slasher earlier this month at Final Girl right here. I'd of course seen the ridiculous poster and knew the film's hysterical tagline before, which is what it's probably best remembered for now, although I don't know about you but...
... I can no longer read the words "Bye Bye" without hearing them in Dennis Nedry's voice. "You didn't say the magic word, bye bye, bye bye, bye bye..." Perhaps that's just my own kink, who knows. Speaking of kinks...
... for all the poster's "girls in bikinis" show-offery a quick glance through the movie just now (it's streaming on Amazon and in much better quality than these gifs attest) shows that there's actually an extended sequence in the film where this very handsome blond jock type here is seen scampering around half-naked while being stalked after a skinny-dip in the local Pool of Doom. Okay, I don't know that it's actually a "Pool of Doom" since this character doesn't actually die in it... I admit it, I just wanted to say "Pool of Doom." Pools of Doom everywhere! Maybe I'll do a "13 Pools of Halloween" list next year. It'll reward us with more beefcake than cakes, at least.
Has anybody watched any of Looking For Alaska on Hulu yet? I last mentioned this show and Charlie Plummer's presence therein exactly one year ago today funny enough -- it's an adaptation of a popular 2005 book by YA author John Green based on his own high school experiences; all I really care is it stars Charlie Plummer, who's proven himself several times over now that he's one of the best young actors we have, and I'll watch him do anything.
Anything! The show's been out for a couple of weeks now so maybe some of you have seen it -- I'm hoping to finally get on top of it now that all of my film fests are over. Anyway Charlie's on the cover of L'Officiel Hommes magazine this month and if you hit the jump I've got the entire shoot for you...
I've been having some issues with Blogger today so not all I'd hoped to plow through's getting plowed. But I'd be remiss at the least not sharing the photos and videos from the Little Women screening I attended last night, most probably! Looks like I won't have my review up today but I can do this much, I think. And yes in case you're wondering Timothée Chalamet was wearing plaid pants at the Q&A, clearly communicating directly to me his eternal devotion via pattern -- read ya loud and clear, love! .
And I shouldn’t be surprised considering how she’s literally never been bad but Florence Pugh really is absolute magic as Amy, that horrible book burning brat — Florence makes you miss Amy when she’s not onscreen! What???
.
Anyway more to come soon but the film's a total treat, and everybody talking on stage (including that insanely talented trio of blonde ladies beaming in via Skype) was so charming they singed my eyelashes off. I'm a little pissed I missed recording the Q&A's final moments where Greta & Saoirse & Florence began doing MIME, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD MIME in order to fill up the space of an awkward moment because I want nothing more than to turn it into a gif and watch it on a loop until I die. THEY DID MIME.
Samantha: This one night
changes everything for me.
I literally just decided as I started writing this post ten seconds ago that I will be watching this very movie tonight, October 30th 2019, here on its 10th anniversary. I've been too busy with a string of film festivals and screenings to get myself into the proper Halloween mood (well except for our Vincent Price dinner this past weekend -- did you see my photos of that on Instagram?) and I'm really jonesing for a horror film, or twenty. I haven't seen this one in several years so what better moment than now? Right, Greta? (Greta says right.)
Posts
