Good Morning, World

Any fans of the show I Love L.A. here on this site? I was an immediate adopter of Rachel Sennott with the great Shiva Baby in 2020 (followed by the also great Bodies Bodies Bodies in 2022 and the super great Bottoms in 2023) which makes it very weird that I haven't gotten to the show yet -- I think the first reviews I saw were dismissive and I decided I didn't want to see her suck so I stayed away just in case. But since then I've gotten the impression that maybe that initial impression had been incorrect. So I ask you, the people, my people,  what you think. If I can't trust you then I might as well climb into that bath with Josh Hutcherson and drop a toaster on us both!

I don't know why I need to take Josh Hutcherson with me in this secnario -- I guess it's just that if I'm gonna go, I might as well go with a smile on my face. Is this too much murder-suicide talk this early in the morning? (Is there ever too much?) Anyway Josh is also on that show, hence why we're here. Well okay these pictures for GQ are "why" we're here -- the show is the reason he's in GQ. That's some real spider-ate-the-fly bullshit huh? Hit the jump for the rest of the photos...  

Five Nights at Freddy's 2 in 250 Words or Less

Just when you thought movies couldn't get worse than the first Five Nights at Freddy's was, along some the sequel to say "Wait hold up just a goddamned second you say you want one hundred of your minutes ripped violently out of your life with no recourse? We gotcha covered!" Well guess what, Five Nights at Freddy's 2 -- I became a movie critic just so I could have recourse, bitch! Small satisfaction, sure, but hey it's something. The thing that's so annoying about this franchise is the idea is fun and the animatronic monsters are superbly designed (thank you Jim Henson's Creature Shop) and I keep thinking they'll do something with this. Director Emma Tammi even made a wonderful horror movie called The Wind back in 2018. But these movies are so absurdly tedious, so deathly dull, so flat and ugly and boring and offensively dumb, I refuse to believe there's even anybody standing behind the camera. I could be convinced the camera was set up inside an abandoned Chuck E. Cheese, turned on by a breeze, and then just left there to capture whatever. Gently drifting spiderwebs would be more fascinating. These movies are cruel and vulgar tricks -- some real Lucy-yanking-the-football shit. And they didn't even give the Killer Cupcake anything to do in this one! Fuck outta here.

Five Nights at Freddy's in 350 Words or Less

At a couple of points during Five Nights at Freddy's, the fresh Blumhouse film adaptation of the beloved video-game, the phrase "Saw Jr." popped into my head -- but sitting here to write about the movie I feel like actually calling it "Saw Jr." will be misleading for a couple of reasons. First off because that gives the movie more gore credit than its due -- it shies away from anything overly gruesome in order to stay PG-13. But I suppose that's where the "Jr." part comes in? So the more misleading aspect of me calling it "Saw Jr." is that you very much need to understand how deeply and profoundly I loathe the Saw films, and consider them all poorly made trash. So me saying "Saw Jr." will read to somebody who doesn't know that about me as perhaps a compliment. But if I call something Saw-adjacent that's meant the exact opposite of a positive. 

Five Nights at Freddy's is actually better than any Saw movie, I'll give it that -- the creepy creature design from Jim Henson Workshop that brings these lumbering Chuck-E.-Cheese-esque atrocities to life is a whole lot of fun, and that's more than could be said about any single thing put on-screen in any Saw movie. (Loved Cupcake.) But when you're not ogling those designs this movie is dull as a doornail and dead as dishwater, and the more it tries to explain itself the less any of it makes sense. It's morose and unscary and and so over-complicated backstory-wise that you'll feel as if you've been ground up in its gears by its end. There are whiffs here and there of what could have been -- loved the little girl hiding in the ball-pit for instance, but it's delivered with a total lack of tension, and like everything else here it just sits there. I thought the whole idea was these animitronic monsters were supposed to move, but they give life a bad name.

Make Room For James Franco

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Confession Time: I still haven't seen the legendarily awful 2003 film The Room. I've actually confessed to this before, and just recently -- it seems to be the kind of movie you have to see in a theater with a crowd and it only ever plays at midnight screenings, and I just can't with midnight screenings; I'm too old for that shit. Anyway now James Franco is making a movie about the making of that movie called The Disaster Artist and it stars all of the people -- his brother Dave, Seth Rogen, Allison Brie, Zac Efron, Jacki Weaver (???), Hannibal Buress, Kate Upton, Josh Hutcherson -- and I feel as if I might have to bite the bullet and either hit up a midnight screening or watch the film at home, sad and lonely, one afternoon with my little old-person blanket folded over my kneecaps. (The second option sounds awesome the more I describe it, actually.) So anyway James is filming this movie of his right now and he's been spotted changing on the set and he has gone all out with the steroids in attaining Room star Tommy Wiseau's roided-out physique.

So naturally we must ask...

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Chris Disappearing

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Yesterday Chris Hemsworth posted that picture of himself skinnied down for his upcoming "man vs whale" movie In the Heart of the Sea, grossing out those who love him far and wide, forcing me to once again beg actors to stop doing this to themselves. Look at the magic that the special effects wizards were just able to do to Josh Hutcherson & Jena Malone in the latest Hunger Games movie -- there's no need for ruining your beauty for your art anymore, fellas! So let the ghost go.

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Who's Hungry Now

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As I figured earlier I've run out of time today to write up a proper review for the final Hunger Games movie, which I assume every damn last of you are going to see this weekend, so let me just say I thought it was swell, a terrific final installment, and reminded me of everything I liked about Suzanne Collins' book series way forever back when. (What, like five whole years ago?) I left satisfied! Please take to the comments here over the weekend and tell me your thoughts, if you like! And enjoy it, it being the weekend, everyone...

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Josh Hutcherson Seven Times

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Anybody else seeing Mockingjay tonight?

(pics via)

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Liam Hemsworth Eight Times

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I'm seeing the final Hunger Games movie in a week and one day - how about you guys? Already got your tickets? The anticipation feels kind of muted at this point somehow, doesn't it? Jennifer Lawrence is falling over in public again trying to get our attention, even. But I think we might all be Hunger-Games-outed by now. I think splitting the final movie into two was probably a mistake.

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Well let's hope they stick the landing anyway - after all these hours upon hours of watching it would blooooooooooow if they didn't. We'd all have to march on the Capitol (aka Lionsgate) ourselves! The Mockingjay Riots of 2015! (pics via; click em' to embiggen)

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Javier Bardem Hangin Tough

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It's super tempting to ask y'all who wore the classic early-90s "shirtless under unbuttoned overalls" look better between that vintage picture of Javier Bardem above and this picture of Jordan Knight circa NKOTB, but I'd just hate to bruise Javi's tender ego like that (since nobody but nobody beats Jordan) so I'll leave him be. 

In actual news news, Bardem and his wife Penelope Cruz (maybe you've heard of her?) are teaming up to make Escobar, yet another bio-pic of the drug-lord, this time an adaptation of a memoir by a journalist who had an affair with him in the 1980s. But I suppose they can get away with memorizing the dude so soon after the Josh Hutcherson movie since nobody saw that one. The movie's set to film later this year. In summation: Cocaine! S'helluva drug.

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I Am Link

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--- Dead Meat - On Friday we told you about cute-guy Rob Kazinsky's new television show The Frankenstein Code getting picked up; Rob's know via True Blood and Pacific Rim, to us. (He was also in this weekend's flop Hot Pursuit but let's leave that dog where it lays.) Well Rob's Facebook page has already uploaded the first few pictures from the show; that one to the right I think is just the generic "This is Rob Kazinsky" picture (meaning I don't think that's what Frankenstein will look like) but I like it, it being "his arms," so I'll post it.

---  Feminine Wilds - I ate an early lunch today so I can't say I am saving this article at Time from Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler calling Mad Max Fury Road "a feminist action movie" to read over lunch like I usually do with these things, but I will read it when I have a minute today for sure. You might remember we'd heard awhile back that Ensler had been on the film's set to help set it apart, female-wise. Just 4 days! (thanks Mac)

--- Getting Revenge - A couple of super unrelated Stephen King tid-bits from the weekend - he and his son author Joe Hill wrote a short story together called "In the Tall Grass" (have you read it? I have not but it's apparently available as an e-book) and it's getting turned into a movie by Splice (and Hannibal!) director Vincenzo Natali. It's about a monster, in the grass, which is tall, or something. Second tid-bit: apparently Stephen King and I share a love of the TV soap Revenge, which just ended its 4-year run last night, and Yahoo published some of his emails to their writer about the show, and they made me laugh. Lots of gay! I'm gonna miss that dumb show. Also I'm gonna miss Nick Wechsler's hot short ass (or is that short hot ass) seen to the right in a new picture.

--- Men vs Machina - And add this one to the list of "things to do when I have a minute" -- the directors Edgar Wright and Alex Garland sat down and chatted about Garland's new sci-fi hit Ex Machina, and HitFix recorded the whole damn thing. It's almost half an hour long! That sounds right up my geeky alley. (thanks Mac)

--- The Long Cast - I've kind of given up on keeping up with James Franco's personal projects - there have been too many of middling quality to stay on top of. However reading yesterday that both Josh Hartnett and Ashton Kutcher have joined the cast of his latest one - an adaptation of William Gay's "southern Gothic" novel The Long Home also starring Josh Hutcherson - clearly grabbed my attention. Courtney Love is also listed on IMDb and I'm pretty sure Beth Grant's talked online about being in this movie. That's a lot of cast. Any of you read the book? 

--- Lake of Blood - Our pal Stacie Ponder took on one of our series last week over at Final Girl, using "Who Wore It Best?" to give love to one of our favorite horror movies and one of her favorite video-games. Hooray girls n' gore!

--- Professor Pate - I knew if I didn't post this picture the minute I saw it over the weekend it'd already be everywhere and I probably wouldn't bother, but what the hey maybe one of you missed it - James McAvoy finally shaved his head for the new X-Men movie and happily he's got a really nice skull under there. What it called attention to for me is his nose - James McAvoy's got a gorgeous nose and I don't think I'd noticed it before this picture. His gigantic eyes usually steal the thunder.

--- Stepping Back to Ex Machina for a minute - no I still haven't reviewed it, shame on me, but I think you ought to read my pal Sean's thoughts on the film that he posted over at his site; he's extremely critical of the film and made me think back on it in ways I hadn't while watching it, and now I almost feel as if I should see it again and consider it thru his insights.

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I Quit Smoking Seven Years Ago Today

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Tis that time of year again, when my allergies are in full bloom and I celebrate the memory of the days when I purposefully made them worse by sucking down carcinogens. It's now been seven whole years since I touched a cigarette, and it's gotten to the point where I don't even think about having been a smoker any more - indeed it seems strange to me, an echo from another person. My many past lives!

This annual post was what I was cryptically referring to in that "Hugh Dancy is smoking in bed" post I did this morning, in case that wasn't clear. In case you're new to this - every year we post a gallery of pictures of hot dudes smoking to commemorate the anniversary of my quitting. You can see Year 1 right here, you can see Year 2 right here, you can see Year 3 right here, you can see Year 4 right here, and you can see Year 5 right here, and you can see Year 6 right here.

I don't miss cigarettes, but as I say every year that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the beauty of a beautiful man putting it between his lips and... you know the rest. Hit the jump for lots more...

By Liam Hemsworth's Beard

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It seems very strange to me that there's a new Hunger Games movie out now and I haven't said a word, not a word, not a single syllable even, about it. I was there scarfing up the books on the day each one came out since forever ago. But I guess what is there to say at this point - it's here, I'll see it, it will make god pimp money, and I'll kinda pretty much forget about it until the next one. That's not to say it won't be good...

... everything I've heard has said it's good. But actually sitting down and watching the movies feels beside the point right at this moment in time. There's certainly nothing to say til I see it, at least.

I assume everybody's going this weekend? Maybe you already camped out last night wearing your best Effie costume? Well if you'd like to share your thoughts let 'em rip in the comments.

And have a great weekend, everybody!

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Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... catching the big one with Josh Hutcherson.

See, that's a joke on how teensy tiny Josh Hutcherson 

is, get it? The big one? Hardy har, sigh.

These here are some new pictures from Escobar: Paradise Lost, Josh's movie about that's right the South American drug dealer, which somehow stars Josh Hutcherson. Benicio Del Toro is playing Escobar though, don't worry. We already gave some side-eye to the trailer back in September (while simultaneously ogling Josh, natch), see that here.

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Cocaine Does A Body Good

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Because there is no international drama that Hollywood can't find a way to tell through the eyes of a pretty young straight white boy, here's a movie about the infamous Colombian drug-lord Pablo Escabar... starring Josh Hutcherson as the pretty young straight white boy who dotes on his niece. Hey whatever, shirtless Josh Hutcherson, I'll watch it - I don't have any scruples.

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Speaking of I did find a few more behind-the-scenes pictures of Josh and his pretty young straight white half-naked body making this movie, which I'll go ahead and share after the jump.

I Am Link

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--- LOL Forever - Hands down the funniest thing you're gonna read this week - if not EVER (okay that might be over-selling it) - is this conversation between Obvious Child's Jenny Slate and Gabe Liedman and Vulture's Max Silvestre. They're all friends, you can tell, and it had my eyes watering with laughter listening in on them. The part where they're making fun of the guy whose favorite movie was Dancer in the Dark is brain-breakingly funny.

"Yeah. You know what is really cool to watch over and over again is somebody experiencing the dread of just going swiftly blind. That, to me, is really cool."

And then Jenny Slate tells what might be the single greatest story having to do with Todd Solondz's film Happiness that has ever been told. Alright I'm ruining too much, just go read it, it's spectacular. Oh and go see Obvious Child too, of course - it's great, here's my review of it.

--- Super Human - On top of yesterday's news that he's rebooting Predator, write-director Shane Black also wants to make a Doc Savage movie (I knew the name but that was all so I had to look him up - Doc Savage was a pulp character from the 30s and 40s, an adventurer with superhuman abilities, kind of Indiana Jones ramped up to 11). Anyway for the lead Black says he needs "a perfect physical specimen who inspires looks of awe due to the symmetry and perfection that he exudes" so naturally it's Chris Hemsworth that's they're thinking.

--- Over the Moon - I think that some of these leaked online a couple of years ago somehow, I swear I remember having them, but Karen O has announced her first solo LP for release this Fall, called Crush Songs, and it's a bunch of lo-fi songs she recorded in her bedroom back in 2006 and 2007. Supposedly they sound a lot like "The Moon Song," that Oscar-nominated ditty she did for Spike Jonze's Her last year. So if you liked that, you'll like this, and if you didn't like that, you have terrible taste.

--- Viva The Villains - Just the other day we were wondering what characters that Patrick Wilson and Corey Stoll were playing in Ant-Man - well wonder no more, now we know. Corey is playing the big bad guy and Patrick Wilson is playing Stoll's character's cousin - this cousin person is apparently a big deal because he turns out to be a character named Crossfire, who you can read about over here. Apparently this means that Patrick will probably show up further down the road, perhaps in a tight costume, so hooray!

--- All Hail Snow - The first teaser-of-sorts for the next Hunger Games movie, Mockingjay Part 1 or whatever (I can't with these titles), has appeared - it doesn't have actual footage from the movie, but it does have Donald Sutherland being a bad-ass, which is probably even better than actual footage from the movie. Anyway I talked about it and made a weird connection over at The Film Experience, go read about that there.

--- Today's Man - I haven't gotten to watch this clips yet myself so I can't tell you if they rival that footage of Chris Pratt acting goofy in a tank top that we watched last week but The Today Show visited the set of Jurassic World and here you go, watch that here. I mean, just by virtue of Chris Pratt being in the video there's bound to be some adorableness, at least. (I just realized I never posted those shots of Chris at the beach here, but I did at the Tumblr, see them there. They're worth clicking on!)

--- Space Jam - Ridley Scott has apparently decided what he's making next, from a slew of projects - he is going to direct that script Drew Goddard adapted from the book The Martian, which will star Matt Damon as a man stranded alone on Mars. Kind of like Gravity, in the sci-fi loneliness thing, but without all that, you know, gravity stuff. Anybody read the book? I almost bought it the other day but it was expensive and I was cheap - never a good combo.

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Gratuitous Tyler Hoechlin

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It's alright, I'll give you a minute. Take your time. You can probably find a paper bag to breath in in that drawer in the kitchen where the towels are. You know the one. You okay? It's a lot to take in, I know. We'll be alright. Okay. So... wow right? Honestly gratuitizing Tyler Hoechlin properly here at MNPP is so beyond over-due you should all be terribly disgusted with me. It struck me last night when this gif of Tyler in the latest Teen Wolf wandered past me...

...oh dear - the bag, grab the paper bag! Well now you've passed out. It's alright, I can wait again. Although I probably shouldn't stare at that gif while waiting because... oh damn I passed out too. We're not getting anywhere with this! Here we are and half the damned day is gone. Alright... we're all awake now? Like I was saying, I should've gratuitized Tyler forever ago. He has gotten posts here and there in appreciation - especially click here, but also here and here - but he deserves the big stuff.

Well that's not what I meant by "the big stuff" when I said it but now that it's out there yeah, Joe Manganiello is totally what I meant. Well until their sex tape leaks and we all go straight up Scanners, let's just hit the jump and take in the good and proper gratuitous Tyler Hoechlin post that he demands.

5 Off My Head - Catching Fire Off Catching Fire

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I saw Catching Fire this past weekend. You saw Catching Fire this past weekend. We all saw Catching Fire this past weekend. Here are five-ish things off the top of my head that I feel worth saying.

1. I think maybe now that I'm further removed from having read the books (I read the first one probably a couple months after it came out, and then I read each successive sequel on the day they were released) I feel better inclined to look at the movies slightly less clouded by my fannish enthusiasm. In retrospect I've downgraded my opinion of the first movie since the excitement wore off - I think there was a lot of good casting going on, which went a long way (praise be the person who decided Jennifer Lawrence was it), but the film's strangely timid for what it is. Catching Fire, on the other hand, well there's the thrumming of a real passion underneath it all. Director Francis Lawrence really made this feel like a world about to split at the seams. (The first stop on their Victory Tour, the one at Rue's District, is heart-rending.)

2. But why should anybody ever listen to what I have to say when I initially doubted the casting of Jennifer Lawrence way back when? Stupid, stupid, stoopid. She anchors these things with tremendous flair - Katniss is a big old bundle of contradictions, and Lawrence gets them all across with astonishing ease. Watching her face we feel it all churning right there under those apple cheeks, and effortlessly so.

3. Similarly (like Joe Reid, who apologized to her in this most delightful piece today) I had my doubts when Jena Malone was cast as the character of Johanna Mason. Johanna wasn't my favorite character in the books like she was Joe's (and I think he understates Finnick's role - there's more to him than just a swimmer's build), but she's a firecracker and definitely integral to the success of what's to come from here on out. Jena Malone, once upon a time - read: Donnie Darko - I was all over that. I thought she gave a marvelously underrated, surprising performance in The Ruins, too. Then she gave some dumb annoying interview, I can't really even remember its contents so much anymore, but it was so irritating and pretentious and awful that my opinion swerved on a dime. Never doubt my fickleness, y'all. Thankfully though we can put that behind us now, because she is top notch marvelous in Catching Fire. More than anybody up there she makes you feel the rage that the victors are experiencing over the betrayal that this Quarter Quell represents, and the "fuck this shit we're done" that it snaps in pretty much all of them. I knew what was up with Johanna, I read the books, but watching the movie Jena Malone made me feel like I had no idea what this girl was gonna do next. She was thrilling. That scene in the elevator is electric, popping in a dozen different directions at once.

4. Back to Finnick. Sam Claflin is not as horrible as I was afraid he'd be - I actually think he hits a couple of the emotional notes really well. He and Jennifer Lawrence play off of each other fantastically; maybe that's how he got the job. Their relationship is immediately more interesting than the one between Lawrence and Liam Hemsworth, for instance - it's a good thing Hemsworth's pretty blue eyes glow bright enough that you don't care what he's saying, since he apparently doesn't either. Still Claflin just never sold me on Finnick's supposed eye-popping charisma, which is crucial. Jena Malone, that little pinch-faced ragamuffin, pranced him right out of the place.

5. Weirdly the first half of the film works better than pretty much anything once we're inside the Game. Once we're inside the dome, it becomes an hour of running away from CG things, and the tension gets stretched thin. (Although I did get to see a baboon underwater, which is one to check off the "Things I Never Expected To See In My Life" list.) But the build-up to the dome, the interactions between the characters (holla Elizabeth Banks getting stuff to really do this time, and being absolutely ace at it) and the introduction of the new characters, that all pretty much works like gangbusters. That said, I tweeted this right after seeing the film but I stand by it - I really really had to hold myself down in my seat to keep myself from cheering at the end, when... well you know, Katniss does what she does. A moment of triumph that feels earned, and spectacular. And scary and horrible too, since what it forebodes is all that. Anyway the film sticks the landing. Bring on the Mockingjays!

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