Joe Wright's eight-part miniseries Mussolini: Son of the Centurydropped on MUBI last week and it reallydeserves far better than I'm about to give it, but it can't be helped as I'm running woefully behind and fully ensconsed in NYFF stuff right now. But watching our leaders applaud the racist pile of shit Charlie Kirk this morning made me realize how vital and timely the series is, so I really want to highlight it in case you're unaware -- Italian actor Luca Marinelli, who'd already stunned me right outta the gate with Martin Eden a couple of years back, gives what can only be described by ye ol' chesnut "tour de force" as ol' Benito, and it's in service to a deeply traumatic and extremely worthwhile excavation of how Fascism takes hold. Methodical in its brutal detailing of how Democracy crumbles by the eensiest of steps, one norm crossed without a word after another until it's too late and nobody's noticed, this series made me sick to my fucking stomach but in a very necessary way. Can't recommend highly enough. It's all on MUBI. Go watch it this weekend. I shared the trailer back here.
Disgustingly gorgeous and repusively talented Italian actor Luca Marinelli is the star of Atonement and Hanna director Joe Wright's upcoming Benito Mussolini eight-part miniseries Mussolini: Son of the Century, and it looks like he subsumed the former (his handsomeness) to serve the latter (his performance) if the below trailer's anything to go by -- if this wasn't a series I'd say this was red meat for Oscar voters so we'll have to see if this is too arty and out there for the Emmys. "Arty and out there" is my bread and butter though so if I have to take an uglied up Luca for eight hours while he acts the shit out of a role I suppose I'll manage. I can always go watch Martin Eden or The Eight Mountains or go stroll through our archives of photoshoots of him if need be. Anyway this looks absolutely glorious, which is no less than I'd expect from Wright. Watch:
Mussolini: Son of the Century drops on Mubi on September 10th!
Those of us who worship at the altar of Matthias Schoenaerts are not fed well -- he hasn't been in anything since The Regime with Kate Winslet aired ten and a half lifetimes ago (otherwise known as uhh one year ago) and that's the way it's been for awhile -- one project a year, here and there, sporadically. We cannot surive this way, Matthias! Thanksfully there was some news on the Matty front this morning though -- he's signed in to star in a movie called Le Cowboy which has the super original storyline of a criminal roped into doing "one last job" that involves kidnapping a girl but then the two bond... yeah, we've seen this movie a thousand times before. Whatever. I'll watch him put his spin on it! The writer-director is Shane Atkinson whose film LaRoy Texas starring Steve Zahn and John Magaro played Tribeca last year and left not a huge impression on me, but I remember some people digging it.
Anyway that spot of new news made me realize that if we're lucky we might be coming to an end on the Schoenaerts drought -- I had completely forgotten for one that he is playing the bad guy in the Supergirl movie that DC hired I Tonya director Craig Gillespie to direct and which has apparently already been filmed. And he's also somehow in The Old Guard 2 even though (spoiler) he died in the first one, and we just got the first image from that movie last week. (See below.) So that must be coming out soon, I guess.
First look at THE OLD GUARD sequel! (And here's to hoping everybody's favorite ancient crime-fighting homosexuals Marwan Kenzari & Luca Marinelli have added Henry Golding into their mix)
And then of course there's The Way of the Wind, Terrence Malick's now many years in the making movie about Jesus (yes, Christ) that has Matthias playing the disciple Peter. We first posted about that movie getting started SIX YEARS AGO. With Malick though who knows -- he could take another six years. The names in that stacked cast are endless -- Mark Rylance, John Rhys-Davies, Joseph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, FRANZ ROGOWSKI, Eileen Atkins, Aidan Turner, Mathieu Kassovitz. Also since it's Malick half of those people could end up on the cutting room floor -- it could be three hours of Mark Rylance spinning in a field for all we know.
ETA an hour after posting this Netflix unloaded some more images from The Old Guard 2 including one very much confirming Matthias' presence therein, and another one of eternal boyfriends Luca Marinelli & Marwan Kenzari, and far be it from me not to add them to this post!
Unlike our beloved Luca Marinelli there don't sleep on this -- Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch's damn-near-masterpiece The Eight Mountains is out on blu-ray today thanks to Janus Contemporaries and Criterion -- you can pick it up on Amazon for a measly 15 dollars! Fifteen dollars for the best film about friendship you'll see this year, or have perhaps seen in many years. Split into two sections -- childhood and adulthood -- it follows two boys who grow up into two men (played by Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi) and whose relationship shifts with the snow on the mountains surrounding them. It's absolute gorgeousness. Here is my review of this movie. It's also streaming on Criterion Channel right now, so basically just watch the damn thing! It's one of 2023's greats.
There are now (sort of) two Criterion Days per month! Last month they began announcing their "Janus Contemporaries" series, which is an off-shoot of the Criterion Collection that will be putting out Janus movies that premiere in theaters and then on the Criterion Channel -- aka exactly the way you'd pray that streamers would behave with their properties. Give them all physical media releases dammit! Anyway they announced their three November releases today and one of them is one of my favorite films of 2023 so here we are -- Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch's film The Eight Mountains is hitting blu-ray on November 21st (it just hit the Channel this week) and I love love love this movie and cannot recommend it enough. Here is my review at Pajiba from its release earlier this year -- it's about the life-long friendship between two men (Luca Marinelli and Alessandro Borghi) in the Italian Alps and it's one of the best movies about male friendship in years. If you don't have the Criterion Channel and you missed it in theaters, snatch this up! You won't be disappointed. The other two movies they're releasing in November are Godland and the Dardennes' Tori and Lokita, neither of which I've been able to see yet even though, sigh, they're both on the Criterion Channel. I am so far behind on everything!
Have to admit that in the days that have passed since I wrote a few thoughts down on here about the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie that I have been feeling as if I was a little too hard on it. The good stuff that I liked (and I do mention most of it in that review) has bubbled up, while the stuff that bugged me has fallen a little to the side. Which is to say I'm only human, y'all. Of flesh and bone am made. Human. Born to make mistakes. I think most people going to this will enjoy themselves -- the people who's de-boarded the Marvel train who'll see the same issues with it that I did are long gone by now. I do wish these movies would try to be less, but I am definitely losing that battle.
That said if you have to go see a movie this weekend what I recommend is you go see The Eight Mountains, which I reviewed right here yesterday. That movie is as of today, May 5th 2023, my favorite movie of 2023. There's still a lot to come out this year obviously, and I will not be surprised if it things shift around -- tis their way to do just that. But this will be one of the films of the year, have no doubt about that, so see it as soon as you can. What it says about the ways which we change over the years, the way we stay the same, and the way all of that weathers on friendship in particular, felt deeply profound to me. That movie is a gift! So give yourselves a gift! And have a great weekend!
I came really close to missing this one, but at the last minute I'm so glad that I popped my screener in (okay it was digital so nothing got "popped" but whatever) and watched Charlotte Vandermeersch and Felix van Groeningen's film The Eight Mountains this past weekend, because I definitely have my favorite movie of 2023 (so far) right here. Starring our beloved Luca Marinelli alongside Alessandro Borghi as best-friends-since-childhood...
... this movie spans decades and continents as easily as it does grand emotional vistas that mostly remain entirely bottled up -- it's glorious and I couldn't have loved it more, I tell you. Indeed click on over to Pajiba for my review, where I spend a thousand words or so doing just that. The Eight Mountains is playing in NYC right now and expanding to LA on Friday, and then slowly outward from there -- you can see all of the dates at this link. Absolutely under no circumstances should you miss this one! Here is the trailer:
Luca Marinelli and Marwan Kenzari, who play the ancient gay lovers Joe and Nicky (I love that they're immortal super-assassins named "Joe" and "Nicky" lol) in The Old Guard movies, were spotted together on the set in Trieste, Italy this week, and there they are (via). They were of course our favorite part of the first film so we're very glad to see them back being hot and gay for the sequel. (Also big props to Marwan on wearing a mask!) This is the second photo of them that we've seen on set, click here for the first.
A few more photos of Henry Golding modeling for David Yurman have been released (via) -- I wouldn't blame you if you forgot the previous three photos since they were dropped five entire months ago, so you can click here for a refresher. They're just more of the same sexy browns and golds... taking his name literally there, ain't they? Anyway career-wise did you see the first picture of Henry Golding on the set of The Old Guard sequel alongside Marwan Kenzari & Luca Marinelli, the immortal homosexuals we all loved so much in the first movie? I guess Henry is filling the hole left by Matthias Schoenaerts and yeah I'm just gonna see myself out after writing that sentence. Hit the jump for three more pics...
The good stuff is coming at me at a million miles an hour this morning -- maybe you remember last week I told you that Call Me By Your Name director Luca Guadagnino was taking over the next issue of Fantastic Man magazine, and it had a werewolfing-out Josh O'Connor on the cover? Well the magazine's website has updated and gifted us with more more more and more -- including images from inside the magazine including that shot of Luca himself in his underpants above, and ...
... like also some shots of Josh flashing his own very
important business. And oh also there are photos of...
... dreamboat Italian actor Luca Marinelli too! (See lots more of Marinelli here.) Luca & Luca don't seem to be working together yet but one imagines Luca G. won't be able to resist -- nor should he! I aim to live vicariously through Guadagnino's projects and that means he needs to keep casting all of these MNPP faves.
Anyway there's a long chat with Luca that the magazine has already released at this link and our quote of the day comes from that. At the start of the interview he talks yet again about why he cuts to out the window during the sex scene in Call Me By Your Name -- this has been so well-litigated at this point but please, go read my long-form piece on the subject if you haven't! And I'm tempted to use the part in this chat where Guadagnino says he wishes he could kiss Josh O'Connor's ears, because... listen I am fairly certain at this point that Luca Guadagnino and I might be the same person. It's extremely ridiculous, our similarities and overlapping obsessions. But no, I am going to excerpt Guadagnino's quote about Marinelli, because Josh O'Connor has plenty of heat while Luca Marinelli deserves more heat. Of Marinelli, Guadagnino says he has...
"...a sort of rare quality in that the camera loves his face in the way they used to love the faces of actors before the digital advent. There is something timeless about it. And I love his body; his body is very strong and planted on the ground."
Well then put him in a movie, Luca! Anyway I will share more of this magazine when it's available, obviously -- especially when it's available in better quality, because all of these images were snatched off their website and aren't in very good resolution yet. So stay tuned!
Yes that Fantastic Man magazine cover is of the actor and ear-holder Josh O'Connor serving up his best "Early Man" Realness, and double-yes it also says it was photographed by one Luca Guadagnino! (Josh and Luca are making that tennis movie together right now, you might recall.) In fact here let me re-copy all of the type in case some of you don't have Instagram and can't see of what I speak, it's all worth sharing:
"After months in production, its big premiere is about to arrive! The 35th edition of Fantastic Man is a blockbuster issue directed by the Italian filmmaker, LUCA GUADAGNINO. A feature-length volume devoted to LUCA’s obsessions – movies ripe for a remake, bodies to like, people to love, featuring a collection of conversations with amazing actors, artists, musicians, as well as individuals the director calls family and friends. On the front cover, werewolf JOSH O’CONNOR is seen in his full hairy transformation, photographed in Rome at the end of February 2022."
Magazines have really figured out how to make me, personally, buy magazines again. Other names dropped on that cover image: Julianne Moore, Taylor Russell, Chloe Sevigny, Kelvin Harrison Jr, Luca Marinelli (!!!!), and Kyle Maclachlan!
When I stumbled upon this photo of The Old Guard and Martin Eden actor Luca Marinelli last night my first thought was this is too good to be true, that it must be photoshopped -- and it turns out I was right, only not entirely. That is actually a photo of him, just the original version (seen here) also had the actress Alba Rohrwacher in it. They were in a movie together in The Solitude of Prime Numbers and this was a promotional image for it (and there's actually another photo right here) -- anybody seen the film? No matter, we love Luca -- check our Luca archives for lots more of him, most especially this big gratuitous post here. I can't wait for the supposedly forthcoming Old Guard sequel so we can see him reunited with his forever lover Marwan Kenzari -- step aside, Eternals, they're the hottest eternal couple of all time.
Have y'all seen Martin Eden yet? It's one of the films I lost track of release-wise because I saw it at NYFF in the fall of 2019 but then it's release date began bouncing around thanks to the pandemic, finally hitting virtual theaters last fall -- anyway now you have no excuse, it's available to rent online and you really should. Luca Marinelli gives a performance for the ages in it.
Indeed you are, Luca. But as much as I 'd love to have news on Luca's next project, we're here to talk about the next project from Pietro Marcello, the director of Martin Eden, which is also a treat. Especially since it is going to star Louis Garrel, which I suppose is a factoid I spoiled with that photo up top (pics via). Here's the info, via The Film Stage:
"... his new film titled L’Envol (roughly translated to The Flight), which is set to star Juliette Jouan, Raphaël Thierry, Louis Garrel, and Noémie Lvovsky. Loosely inspired by Aleksandr Grin’s 1923 novel Scarlet Sails, the romantic tale will follow “the emancipation of a woman over twenty years, between 1919 and 1939, a time of great inventions and great dreams.” With a score by Gabriel Yared (The Talented Mr. Ripley, A Prophet), shooting is set to begin in Normandy and Hauts-de-France starting this August..."
Okay so Louis is co-starring in the film, not starring, since this seems to be a female-led story this time around. That said if Juliette Jouan is the lead she's a newcomer, because nothing comes up when I do a search. Like, nothing. Weird? I didn't know people could still exist off the internet -- I thought babies all got instant Instagrams the second they popped out. Anyway! This project is all a couple of years away, but right now, right now is the time for more Louis Garrel photos. Hit the jump for six more...
Happy Friday, everyone! We made it through another week! Believe me, I know what an Herculean effort a week is in 2020, so let's not belittle this accomplishment. And let's celebrate the close of it the way we started, with Luca Marinelli in GQ Italia magazine -- here is the rest of the shoot left over from that batch we posted at the start of the week. Luca looking fine with massage us through the weekend. Hit the jump for the rest...
Finally! Feel like I've been waiting on a new photo-shoot of the lover called Luca for ages -- I shot that entire load with my "Gratuitous Luca Marinelli" post way back when and ever since we've been running on fumes. Not that this one's enough, by any means. Two photos? Come on GQ Italia. Do better. I'll give them there is also a a video of the shoot at that link, and on that note if you hit the jump I have a couple (dozen) shots and gifs from said video, not to mention this swoonworthy cover (ugh, his eyessssss)...
... obviously. But I really love the composition of that shot with the puppy on the couch, so I didn't. Until... I did. Whatever, I give you all the options -- too many options really. I'm not making decisions for anybody. You choose your own goddamned adventure. (pics via) On that note...
I keep forgetting to share the most recent trailer for Martin Eden with you, so there that is. I shared one with you way back in January when the film was originally meant to come out in April, but... well the world happened and now Martin Eden is set to hit "theaters" as well as virtual cinemas this Friday. It's a really good movie and Marinelli won Best Actor at Venice last year for a reason. I also recommend everyone check out our "Gratuitous Luca" post circa NYFF last year, when I first saw the film, because he's an inpiration.
Ooh I missed something, a big something, when I posted those new photos from The Old Guard on Monday -- The Old Guard being Netflix's forthcoming comics adaptation starring Charlize Theron, Matthias Schoenaerts, Chiwetel Ejiofor, plus Marwan Kenzari & Luca Marinelli as a pair of immortal homosexuals. Having to do with the latter, obviously -- they also released a clip! A kissy clip! Watch:
I posted the trailer awhile back, right here; The Old Guard
drops on Netflix on July 10th, aka a week from tomorrow!
ETA Oh wait! They just dropped an entirely new trailer
A big batch of new photos from Netflix's forthcoming comic adaptation The Old Guard have dropped online today (via) -- the film stars Charlize Theron as the leader of a gang of sexy immortals who mercenary around the world... a gang of sexy immortals played by the Belgian Beefcake himself Matthias Schoenaerts plus Luca Marinelli (more here) and Marwen Kenzari (more here)... .
... the latter two who're playing a couple. A homosexual couple! Also in the killer cast: KiKi Layne as a newcomer and Chiwetel Ejiofor as the bad guy. We already posted the trailer (here) a few weeks back -- the film drops on Netflix on July 10th. That's just eleven days away! Hit the jumpfor plenty more immortal sexiness to get us there by... .
We've got the first trailer for The Old Guardtoday -- The Old What, you ask? The Old Guard, I said. I mean damn. I said it five seconds ago. Pay some attention. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood who made the ace flick Beyond the Lights a couple of years back The Old Guard stars Charlize Theron as the leader of a group of slightly-immortal mercenary warriors and KiKi Layne as a new round these immortal parts type, and all that's well and good but the real juice far as I'm concerned comes from the cast of menfolk Theron immortals around with...
... namely my main man Matthias Schoenaerts, "Hot Jafar" Marwen Kenzari (more here) and upcoming Italian actor Luca Marinelli (more here). And supposedly from what I hear those last two, Luca & Marwen, are playing a couple!
Yes please. And as if all that's not plenty (and it is, plenty)
the bad guy is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor! We heart Chewy!
Netflix is releasing the film on July 10th!
And oh right here's that trailer:
Click here for some previously posted photos from the film,
and click here for our very first post about the flick. .
It feels so weird when I harken back to old posts, posts I wrote Before All This, but before all this -- last June, precisely -- I told you about a comic book adaptation getting made called The Old Guard that was going to star Charlize Theron as an elite, and immortal, military assassin. Actually what I told you about specifically was who was co-starring with Charlize, which would be Matthias Schoenaerts, Italian actor Luca Marinelli (see more here) and then Sexy Jafar himself Marwen Kanzari (see more of him here). That was the thing that caught my attention. Anyway Vanity Fair has the first batch of photos from the movie today along with a long chat with everybody and the news that the film's hitting Netflix on July 10th. Anybody read the comics? All I need is for Matthias & Luca to be a couple and I'll be good. Please? Why shouldn't I get my Hot Gay Immortal Assassins? You tell me "why not" before I need to tell you any "why yes," okay?
"I too quit smoking (2013) AND find this type of pictures cool. Also, PSA: if you're feeling like you want to start smoking again, just remind yourself "I do not want my body and house to stink like stale horseshit", then go drink one more glass of water to entertain your hands and lips. Congrats, btw."
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