Good Morning, World

Yesterday I shared with you a couple of shots from the set of Edgar Wright's The Running Man where Glen Powell was seen running (heh) around in just a skimpy towel -- well I didn't think they'd give up these goods so quickly but in a set video on the film's Instagram account they show the moment where the towel drops and yup, it's just as meaty and delicious as I remembered it being.

For the record I'm not reviewing this movie so all I'll say is it's not great unfortunately -- as a big fan of the original movie who's also aware that it's not a great movie either, a proper re-working really could've been something. This movie's a big mess tonally, and the third act is absolutely butchered to the point where I had no idea what was even happening. It's really too bad. We deserve a nasty black-hearted satire about a game-show host ruining the world dammit! Haven't we earned that much in 2025 dammit? Anyway at least all of the supporting actors are having fun (Colman especially) -- and this isn't meant as any slight to Glen who obviously I enjoy looking at, but it's just a bad move to waste Katy O'Brian the way she's wasted here. You see her on-screen and you just want to follow her off on her story immediately. Alas. Here's that full video:

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Pics of the Day

Two very important photos from the set of Edgar Wright's The Running Man were dropped online (via) -- having seen the film last evening let me just say that the towel sequence highlighted in the film's trailers are highlighted for good reason. Highlight reel (not to mention spank bank) material! Anyway if you haven't given me your opinion on yesterday's THR throuple poll click here and do that! (And click the images to embiggen a bunch!)

Do Dump or Marry: The Running Men

I'm not being show-offy when I tell you that I'm leaving the MNPP HQ desk early this evening so I can run off (get it) to see Edgar Wright's The Running Man remake (now you do) -- I am merely stating a fact, a statement of truth. This is just what is going to happen. I know how crushed this makes you many Schwarzenegger-heads and I apologize. Y'all can see it Friday! If we make it to Friday. Who knows. We all might be performing in life-or-death game shows by then the way things are going. But until then let's play a life-or-death game of our own by "Do Dump or Marry"ing the three hunks at the heart of Wright's re-do who stunned on the red carpet premiere as seen in these photos -- that'd be Colman Domingo, Lee Pace, Lee Pace's Mustache, and Glen Powell. Now [in my best Richard Dawson voice]  RUN... to the comments and choose! (pics via)

I Wanna Run To Glen Powell

The trailer for Edgar Wright's remake of The Running Man -- okay I suppose we can call it a new adaptation of Stephen King's story, whatever -- has arrived and it looks like an absolute blast. I knew I was in for something special the second we saw Glen Powell smacking his tighty-whities-clad ass two times. We kept a running tally of people who got cast in this last year and the names were wild -- Colman Domingo, Josh Brolin, Michael Cera, Katy O'Brian, Lee Pace, Karl Glusman, Sean Hayes, and William H. Macy just to name the bigger names -- but the trailer mainly focuses on Glenn, Michael, Josh and of course Colman in the greatest showman role previously made iconic by Richard Dawson. And is it just me or...

... is Colman going to get a lot of comparisons to Tramell Tillman's showstopping work in the TV series Severance? That's all I could see. But lord knows I love Colman and he seems to be having a helluva time so bring it on. Everything looks hella fun actually -- this is definitely Wright bringing that sweet sweet Scott Pilgrim energy. (And the presence of Cera obviously underlines that.)  I don't think I spotted Glusman or Pace though -- do you think one of them is that masked man with the grenade? I'll have to go back and listen to the voice. Anyway watch:  

The Running Man (2025 edition) is out on November 7th.
How the hell is this not a summer movie???

Good Morning, World

Colman Domingo, a gay black man, is on the cover of Time magazine -- I'd say that is a beautiful way to begin a day, wouldn't you? Gorgeous, even! Lord knows I'm not religious but this is a hallelujah moment if ever there was one. Congrats to him, you can read the interview with him right here. Y'all know I'm rooting for Ralph Fiennes for a long long overdue Best Actor win but I'll jump right out of my seat with a Fuck Yeah if Colman takes it too. Hit the jump for all the photos...

Colman Domingo Two Times

You Can Run But You Can't Hide From Colman

There are moments -- not often, but more than once -- where I wonder if I might Jekyll out sometimes and sneak off under the guise of a different personality to be a casting director. Some movies just have such Me Casts that I can't imagine anyone else being responsible. Maybe I have a twin I was seperated from at birth and we're communicating telepathically? Anyway that's where I am at today with the news that Colman Domingo has now joined the cast of Edgar Wright's remake of The Running Man -- Colman being perfectly, exquisitely, cast as the evil game show host character that Richard Dawson played in Arnold Schwarzenegger's 1987 (classic as far as I'm concerned) version of the movie. How great is that casting though? Colman has got Game Show Voice and Showman Swag for dayssssss. Anyway he's joining a cast that already includes Glen Powell, Katy O'Brian (our queen from Love Lies Bleeding), Lee Pace, Josh Brolin, Michael Cera, William H. Macy, and my beloved weirdo Karl Glusman. Put this movie down my mouth please!

Today's Fanboy Delusion

 Today I'd rather be...

... man-spreading with Paul Mescal.

I've pointed out before that W Magazine seems to alternate their "Performances of the Year" photoshoots by the year between classy boring images and then really psychotic garbage -- well we're in a classy year as the above photo of Paul proves... not that he isn't giving me dirty thoughts all the same. Such is his power! I do find it weird that all of the men are over-dressed in full suits while 95% of the women are in their underwear though. And this is coming from a gay photographer! WTF Judas. Anyway a good place to find links to all their shoots for this issue is this link via their Instagram -- I gathered up the classy ass images of Paul, Daniel Craig, and Colman Domingo though, as those ones naturally interested me the most. So hit the jump for those...

Colman Domingo Thirty-Two Times

I really wanted to be a little more enraptured with the movie Sing Sing than I ended up being -- it really hasn't stuck with me (although yesterday's news that one of its fine actors finally got exonerated was very cool). But I'll be happy if Colman Domingo manages to score another Oscar nomination for Best Actor anyway, just on the principle of getting more openly gay actors overdue recognition at that backwards instutition. And Colman is terrific in the film, which I suppose is a thing that matters to them as well. (More or less.) Anyway I shared a few photos from Colman's hella fine cover shoot for Variety a couple of weeks ago but now that I have seen there are more photos (via) I obviously feel the need to share them too. So here we are! And there the photos are after the jump...

Colman Domingo is the Spice of Life

See what I did there? He is the "spice of life" like variety is the spice of life because he's on the cover of Variety? God what a wordsmith. Put me in the Smithsonian, I am on fire. Actually okay it is Colman who is on fire in this photoshoot -- you can read the interview here but we all know what you're here for. Hit the jump for the entire fiery photoshoot...

Big Things For Our Boy

God's Own Country and Challengers actor Josh O'Connor is set to star in Steven Spielberg's next movie! I had to google it to make sure he wasn't in War Hose because doesn't it feel like he could've been in War Horse? (Full disclosure - I have never seen War Horse. It's one of I think three Spielberg movies I haven't seen.) Anyway this will be Josh's first movie with the biggest man in Hollywood history -- we don't know much about this movie yet except it's a science-fiction "event film" so this will be Spielberg in blockbuster mode. Four other people also joined the cast -- Emily Blunt, Eve Hewson (aka Bono's daughter who co-starred in The Knick!), Colin Firth, and Colman f'ing Domingo! Yes Colman too! Save Colman this is a very British cast though so I am assuming this will be a British-set science0-fiction picture. Wouldn't it be kind of cool if he made a new Day of the Triffids? I love Day of the Triffids. Those killer plants freak me the fuck out. And it's a timely ecological angle. If it gets announced that this is a Day of the Triffids movie I want my flowers dammit cuz I called it!

Which is Hotter?

Turns out that October 14th is a very gay day as both Udo Kier and Ben Whishaw were born today. Udo is celebrating a milestone -- 80! -- but we already tweeted him birthday greetings, so we turn our happy gay eyes todward Ben now. Or as I've long dubbed him, "The Great Gay Hope" because I've long thought he'll be the first out gay actor to win an Oscar. I will admit that I'm not so sure about that now that Colman Domingo is giving him a hard run for his money -- and now I am trying to picture a movie starring Colman & Ben and what that might be? maybe a Thelma & Louise type thing? Who wouldn't watch that? Only shitheels, that's who. Anyway until then we're gonna face down two of our favorite Bens -- Ben playing adorkable Q in the Daniel Craig James Bond movies and Ben as the stand-in for all of us painfully in love with Franz Rogowski in Ira Sachs' Passages. Two dependable and wispy Ben bests. Now pick!

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All of Us Winners

As I posted a few weeks back I was extremely happy with our film nominations for the Dorians, aka the awards that my critics group GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Critics hand out every year -- we did good then and I am happy to report that we did good again with our winners. Much better than a lot of critics groups have! And I don't just say that because we handed three major prizes to my favorite movie of 2023, Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers... although I don't not say it because of that either. Strangers won both our "Film of the Year" award and our "LGBTQ Film of the Year" award, plus the award for "Best LGBTQ  Screenplay" to Haigh, as well it damn should. But I'm happy with the rest of our prizes -- I mean, Lily Gladstone and Charles Melton as our (lead and supporting) acting winners? 

Can you beat that? (In related news I'm extremely annoyed that this awards season doesn't seem to have offered the two of them a chance to take a photo together for me to use here -- I would like to see that. They would look gorgeous together. Somebody get a photo of them together for us please.) I'm not even annoyed that Greta Gerwig won for Best Director for Barbie, even though I'm not a fan of Barbie, because it's a nice fuck you to the Oscars and I will never pass one of those up. Anyway good on us this year! Hit the jump for the entire press release and winners list...

The Former Year in Queer

I really didn't do much work over the holiday -- if you follow me on social media then you probably caught on that I spent the majority of my time going through the piles and piles of physical media that'd grown up around me and began the ongoing process of listing tons of stuff for sale on eBay -- but I did do one thing and it's a good important thing. I wrote up my list of favorite LGBTQ+ movies of 2023 for Pajiba -- click here and you can read that and it'll give you a good idea of where my head was at for the year since I haven't posted my actual Top 10 (or more likely 20) of the year yet. On that note I am 100% going to try and get that pounded out before I leave for Sundance in a couple of weeks, so stick around maybe.

Good Morning, Colman

Bless whoever it was at Interview Magazine decided to hire photographer Matthias Vriens to shoot Colman Domingo for their new issue -- Vriens has long been one of our favorite celebrity slash fashion photographers as the man knows how to make it sexy (click here for a few earlier posts to prove our point) and he's gone and done it again with these pictures of Colman. I haven't read the interview yet but it's Colman talking with Natasha Lyonne so I doubt that will be boring! Anyway Rustin is now on Netflix -- have you watched it yet? I had mixed feelings about the movie as a whole but not about Colman's performance -- he's the best. (He's also great -- and deeply sexy, despite the character, just like Danny Glover before him -- in The Color Purple movie coming out soon, but we'll save that for later.) That said now you should hit the jump for photos of his other talents...

Here Are The Movies of Today

Heads up on the movies hitting theaters today, starting with the biopic Rustin starring Colman Domingo seen above. Telling the long overdue story of Bayard Rustin, the black homosexual who organized the march on Washington back in 1963 but got shoved to the side attention-wise because of the "homosexual" part of that Domingo gives a wonderful performance -- I do wish the movie was a little more lively and surprising though. It very much feels like a movie that will be watched respectfully in high school history classrooms for a long time and seeing as how this is a story that needs to be told that's good and all. It's just told very flat, and visually it's got that whole boring Netflix style. And I wish people would stop hiring Chris Rock to act -- he is a terrible actor. Anyway I would've written a proper review of this one when I saw it at NewFest a few weeks back but I had a nightmare audience experience with people using their phones and being total assholes so I didn't feel comfortable writing about it; all of that might've colored my opinion of the movie. It's worth watching for Colman -- just don't expect to be bowled over by the movie itself, I guess. Watch the trailer here.

Then there are two other movies out today that I have also seen -- first there is Sofia Coppola's Priscilla which I reviewed right here. Terrific movie. And second there is the documentary Subject, which I saw at Sundance but never got the chance to write about -- it interviews the subjects of multiple famous documentaries, specifically real life people from The Staircase, Hoop Dreams, Capturing the Friedmans, The Wolfpack, and The Square. And it digs into what that experience was like -- if they felt like their stories were properly served by the documentrarians' takes, and what the aftermath was like. It's all incredibly fascinating, especially if you're familiar with those films -- I'm not sure it would be if you haven't, but maybe? It does raise several questions of ethics that stand on their own. 

And the fourth movie out today is called Fingernails and it stars three of my favorite currently working actors -- Riz Ahmed and Jessie Buckley and Jeremy Allen White! You cannot go wrong with Riz and Jessie and Jeremy. That said I have not seen it yet and I have kept what it's about to a minimum because I want to be surprised by the movie when I do see it. I know it's being sold as a "sci-fi romance" and it's from Greek director Christos Nikou, who has worked with Yorgos Lanthimos and made the 2020 film Apples which... I heard great things about but also haven't seen. Anyway Fingernails is both in theaters and on streaming today so we'll see it soon enough. Here's the trailer:

Happy NewFest 2023!

Today is the opening day of NYC's annual LGBTQ film fest NewFest, huzzah! Everybody in the big city's gonna be getting gay gay gay til their guts explode for the next twelve days and nights -- I already did a brief rundown of what's on this year right here so check that out. I've seen a couple more movies from the fest and reviewed them since that post though -- click here to read my thoughts on Andrew Haigh's film All of Us Strangers and click here to read my thoughts on Todd Haynes' film May December. Both fantastic! 

Tonight I'll be seeing Rustin, the biopic starring Colman Domingo as the civil rights leader (watch the trailer here) and over the next several days I'll see and hopefully review (if my brain doesn't literally collapse like a soufflé) a bunch more, including the swimmer biopic Nyad with Annette Bening and Jodie Foster and the queer western National Anthem starring our boy Charlie Plummer (seen at the top of this post), about which I have heard very good things. And NewFest has an online component that's open to the entire U.S. so if you wanna see something check that out! One of the movies that is streaming I'm very much hoping I get the chance to write about, since it inspired the following tweet:

Ughh just watched a stealth tearjerker and now my face has fully swollen shut from sobbing

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) October 8, 2023

It's a New NewFest!

This is a subject I've addressed on Twitter -- see the thread here -- but there is a documentary about the gay photographer George Platt Lynes (that's one of his typically gorgeous and homoerotic photos seen above) called Hidden Master that has been making the festival rounds this year that I had an itty bitty role in behind-the-scenes. (Really, an exceptionally small role -- but I am thanked in the credits!) Well the doc is finally officially playing my hometown, as today it was announced to be a part of this year's NewFest! It will screen one month from today on October 13th -- it will also be screening virtually -- and you can buy tickets at this link. I obviously can't give an unbiased opinion on the movie given my involvement, no matter how tiny it was, but I've seen the movie several times now and I really do think it's the bee's knees and recommend everybody give it a shot. And NewFest isn't the only place it's lined up -- check the film's website for more information.

Anyway this post isn't just about that film -- as I do every year for NewFest we need to take a look at everything they've got lined up for us this year, running from October 14th through 24th. It's one hell of a line-up -- maybe the biggest they've ever had since I've been going? Their Opening Night film is Rustin, Netflix's biopic of the civil rights leader starring Colman Domingo which I've posted about a ton. Their Centerpiece Film is Nyad, the awards-hopeful biopic of the famous swimming legend starring Anette Bening and Jodie Foster. And their Closing Night film is Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers with Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal, which I have posted even more about than any of the others for, you know, obvious reasons. 

They are also doing a tribute to Todd Haynes and screening his new movie May December starring Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman. They're showing Eileen, the weird slinky little thriller starring Ann Hathaway that I loved at Sundance. And they're screening some of (well I assume "some of" since it's a full-blown miniseries) Fellow Travelers, with Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey (see my post on the trailer for that here). And that's only the start -- I'm far too lazy to type out everything they're showing, so thankfully they have their own website and have done all of that work for me. Click here for the line-up and ticket info et cetera. And after the jump I'll drop the full press release...

Colman Domingo Three Times

The Rustin star looking mighty fine at TIFF. (via)

Be My Bayard

Historical biopics aren't usually a genre I'm too interested in -- not until they make that one about tragic Wasp Woman actress Susan Cabot anyway; I'll camp out for that! -- as they're almost always so staid and formulaic. There are excellent ones obviously -- I just can't really get myself super excited about them beforehand. That said I'm pretty on-board for Rustin, the biopic of gay civil rights hero Bayard Rustin starring Colman Domingo, as he's a man who's story I've been longing to see get the respect it deserves for a very long time, and Domingo seems just the actor to do it. And the just released trailer made me tear up! I mean it still looks super formulaic, but in service of an under-served subject. Watch:

Rustin is out in November. What do we think?