... you can learn from:
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
I don't know that there is a more disgusting factoid around
— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) September 3, 2026 at 11:14 AM
[image or embed]
... you can learn from:
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
I don't know that there is a more disgusting factoid around
— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) September 3, 2026 at 11:14 AM
[image or embed]
... you can learn from:
Nightmare Alley (2021)
Pete: When a man believes his own lies, starts believing that he has the power, he's got shuteye. Because now he believes it's all true. And people get hurt. Good, God-fearing people. And then you lie. You lie. And when the lies end, there it is. The face of God, staring at you straight. No matter where you turn. No man can outrun God, Stan.
I posted about this movie just once previously, when Todd Haynes first talked about it in an interview back in September -- by now you probably know the details: that Joaquin brought it to Haynes himself as an idea and they'd work-shopped it out and Joaquin was pushing to make it NC-17 levels of sexually explicit. But for some reason -- a reason we haven't gotten told yet -- Joaquin balked and walked. I've heard lots of conjecture -- that Joaquin became afraid of the sex scenes or that Joaquin wanted the sex scenes to go further than Haynes even wanted to take them (I have a hard time buying that one), along with various other theories. But nobody who seems to have real answers is giving them out. All we have is Killer Films iconic producer Christine Vachon calling the experience a nightmare on social media:
Fuck Joaquin pic.twitter.com/vxazIQIrIE
— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 10, 2024
Joaquin has done this before -- most directors have spoken about what a total pain in the ass he is, and he's had to be dragged back to movies kicking and screaming several times. I would say I don't understand why he keeps getting work, but indeed the work, when they get it from him, does speak for itself. I don't know that it would be worth it to me, as a creative person being forced to deal with him, but that's on other people to choose -- I don't have to deal with him, I just get to enjoy the fruits of their painful labor. If those directors feel it's worth the effort, it's their choice. Pro-choice, baby!
That said this especially pisses me off because Todd Haynes is 63 years old and probably only has a handful of movies left in him, and this neurotic douchebag just wasted more or less two years of Haynes' creative life for nothing. It's not like it's getting easier for iconoclasts like Haynes to make movies. Joaquin can go roll around in the twenty million bucks he got from Warner Brothers for the Joker sequel -- Todd Haynes is back to the drawing board, ekeing out financing for whatever small movie he can cobble together next. And I don't want to limit my outrage to Haynes' experience -- he has a filmography of notable masterpieces stretching back decades and a million actors who will happily sign up to work with him. Haynes will be okay, especially compared to all of the nameless crew members that just got dicked out of months of work because of, as a wise man once put it...
Anyway I hope Carol star and Joaquin wife Rooney Mara spent all weekend smacking the shit out of Joaquin -- he has it coming. I also wish the best to Top Gun Maverick actor Danny Ramirez, who was set to be Joaquin's co-star in the movie, which surely would've been a huge break for him, probably akin to what happened with Charles Melton in May December. Go and build a whole movie around Danny for us, Todd!
If you're not already following me on Instagram this is me saying "Go do that" because I'm in the thick of the New York Film Festival right now and you'll get to see photos and videos from the screenings and press conferences I'm currently attending, not to mention all of the really dumb photos I take of clouds. Above is from this morning's post-screening Q&A of Sarah Polley's film Women Talking (which I totally loved by the way, in case I don't end up writing a review) -- coincidentally that movie just got a trailer! So I'll share that too.
--- Friends No More -- I'll admit that my enthusiasm for In Bruges director Martin McDonagh has been dulled a bit by the projects he's done since that -- Seven Psychopaths and especially Three Billboards (ugh) were big letdowns for me -- but today's news that he's reuniting with the stars of his original masterpiece, Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson, for his next one well that gives me renewed vim n' vigor, McDonagh-wise. The film will be called The Banshees of Inisherin and will film in August and is about a pair of lifelong friends who're navigating the awkward space where they no longer want to be friends.
--- Step Up -- Another addition to the incredibly stacked cast of that true-crime adaptation The Staircase, which already had Juliette Binoche, Colin Firth, and Toni Collette -- ex-twink Dane DeHaan will now also be sleazing around the joint. I was going to make a joke about how he could play The Owl but I don't know if any of you will get that joke. Anyway I apparently missed the news that the series will also co-star Parker freaking Posey too! Everyone, literally everyone, will be there. get me to this set!
--- Til Death Do -- Kristen Wiig is going to star in an adaptation of the upcoming book called The Husbands, which "follows an overworked mother who, while house-hunting in a nice suburban neighborhood, meets a group of high-powered women with enviably supportive husbands. When she agrees to take on a legal case involving the untimely death of one resident’s husband, she risks exposing not only the secrets at the heart of her own marriage, but the true secret to having it all, one worth killing for." I can't for the life of me tell the tone from that description; it could be dead serious or it could be Desperate Housewives. Even a gender-flipped Stepford Wives maybe?
--- And Finally since I began this post with a crazy stacked cast I'll finish with the same - Apple is producing a psychological-thriller series called Surface from the creator of the High Fidelity series, and it will star several MNPP fave babes including Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Stephan James, Ari Graynor, François Arnaud, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Marianne Jean Baptiste. Good grief -- Get me to that set! To all of the sets! I gotta get the fuck outta my house! Ahem. Surface is described as "an elevated thriller about a woman’s quest to rebuild her life after a suicide attempt, and her struggle to remember – and understand – everything that led up to the moment when she jumped." Gugu is the lead. (And hopefully Oliver & Francois are sharing a trailer.)
Ethan: Well, I'm not an aardvark.
Fake Ethan: And I am not a gorilla.
"You know it could be like this...
just like this always."
"My angel. Flung out of space."
"Because I wanted you to know.
Because I wanted you to know.
Because I wanted you to know."
"It's that thing when you're with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it... but it's a party... and you're both talking to other people, and you're laughing and shining... and you look across the room and catch each other's eyes... but - but not because you're possessive, or it's precisely sexual... but because... that is your person in this life. And it's funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it's this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It's sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don't have the ability to perceive them. That's - That's what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess."
"You the only man that's ever touched me.
You're the only one."
"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."--- Anonymous congratulates us on another year of not smoking, which we celebrated with an enormous photo-dump of sexy smoking pictures as we're wont to do, annually. .