X Marks the Kit

Everything nasty you can say about Bryan Singer deserves to be said but I have to admit that I still have a huge attachment to the first two X-Men movies all the same -- I re-watched them both this past weekend after a very long time and those movies remain aces; they are still, two and a half decades and gazillions of superhero movies / series on, among the very best that the genre has given us. (I can't stop obsessing about the way that Rebecca Romijn's fight-moves as Mystique were choreographed -- like a gravity-defying panther? Just insane and incredible stuff.) Anyway I was never a superhero kid, I never read superhero comics, so it was those movies alone that made me care about the X-Men -- but care I do! So I am definitely paying attention to the rumor-mill booting up on X-Men casting -- today's news is that they've all but chosen Heartstopper star Kit Connor to play Cyclops aka the Jimmy Marsden / Tye Sheridan dude. (What happened to Tye Sheridan anyway? I really like Tye Sheridan!) I am fine with this -- as I've admitted I've never watched Heartstopper but I thought he aquitted himself well in Warfare, which I have seen him in, and also he's very nice to look at. That helps. Plus he's queer! The X-Men are canonically the gayest of all the superheroes...

LOL this scene still rules

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) July 31, 2026 at 8:32 PM

... and yes again I am mainly speaking from my Bryan Singer base of knowledge. But also I have an ex who was huge into the comics and so I have been forced to listen to all the reasons why that's really the case, and he did make a good one. Anyway Kit's good, the [spoiler for the new Spider-Man movie reveal] was also good, and the other possible casting that's on the record -- aka Samara Weaving playing Emma Frost -- is fucking excellent. We worship Samara Weaving in this house. I have long said that she should have Margot Robbie's career, but maybe this will be the spark that makes Margot wish she had a Samara Weaving career at last. 

The Order of Men

I know that Justin Kurzel, the extremely talented director of Snowtown, Nitram, True History of the Kelly Gang, and the Macbeth with Michael Fassbender, is partnered up with Aussie queen (and Babadook mamma) Essie Davis. But every time he starts casting a movie and it fills up with hot dude after hot dude I... look askance. That's all I am saying. The dude casts his movies like he's me casting a movie. And on that note Deadline has word (thx Mac) that his next flick, a crime thriller called The Order, will star Tye Sheridan, Jude Law, and Nicholas Hoult. And let us recall that the last time Kurzel worked with Nicky, this happened...

That said we should perhaps temper our expectations this go-around since The Order doesn't exactly have a plot that screams sexytimes, as evidenced by this plot description:

"The film adapts the book The Silent Brotherhood by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, which chronicles the escalating crimes of the titular white supremacist domestic terror group. It’s set in 1983 amongst the series of increasingly violent bank robberies, counterfeiting operations and armored car heists that frightened communities throughout the Pacific Northwest. As baffled law enforcement agents scrambled for answers, a lone FBI agent (Law), stationed in the sleepy, picturesque town of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, came to believe the crimes were not the work of traditional, financially motivated criminals, but a group of dangerous domestic terrorists, inspired by a radical, charismatic leader (Hoult), who are plotting a devastating war against the federal government of the United States."

Even though there's no mention of Tye Sheridan's role there it's impossible not to have half the script written, guessing where he fits in -- a young dude who falls under Hoult's entrancing but evil spell, but is torn, Jude Law tries to make him see the light, yadda yadda. It'll be interesting to see Nicky play a terrifying villain type though, right? He's been so hot and friendly lately. Even that dickhead Peter on The Great isn't meant to be utterly terrifying. 

Quote of the Day

"Different writers have different, what they call “the regimen of the room,” all these rules. Don’t ever go into the writing room, unless you are planning to write. Don’t go in there and do anything else. For some writers, it’s 500 words a day, no matter what. I’ve been in various writers’ rooms—Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Mishima. Mishima had an upstairs room, and he had a locked door. You unlock that door, and you go down another hallway, which was all dark, to another locked door. So he would lock both doors, and then he would be inside his room. The only thing he could do there was write. His nickname in gay circles was Cinderella, because no matter what he was doing, or what kind of sexual episode was going on, he’d check his watch, and he had to be home at midnight to write."

Because he is Paul Schrader there are about twenty different quotes from his interview in Interview Magazine today that I could offer up to you as our "Quote of the Day." But I couldn't resist him talking about that hunk Yukio Mishima...

... so that's the one that sticks. Paul would know anyway, since he made the movie about Mishima! (And a pretty good movie, at that.) The conversation, P.S., is between Paul and Oscar Isaac -- the two worked together recently on The Card Counter, of course. I wasn't nuts about that movie, but Oscar looks hot in it so it is watchable. Now excuse me while I zoom in on that top picture and try to figure out everything that Paul Schrader has on his bookshelves...

Pics of the Day

Focus Features released some new images (and a poster, see that here) from Paul Schrader's film The Card Counter today and I am of course focusing in on the two that feature Oscar Isaac and Tye Sheridan (click to embiggen) -- in case you missed the trailer it's right here; this movie hits theaters on September 10th so not too long a wait now! Because it's September! Somehow! I don't know!

Bloody Bloody Oscar Isaac

The trailer for Paul Schrader's forthcoming film The Card Counter, starring Oscar Isaac as a you-guessed-it man who counts cards, alongside Willem Dafoe, Tiffany Haddish, and Tye Sheridan, has arrived this morning -- I told you about this movie back in June of 2020 when I was excited about that cast, and then Paul Schrader got real shitty about restrictions being put on filming because of a fucking pandemic killing hundreds of thousands of people, and I will admit -- I got a little less enthusiastic about the movie. But the trailer...

If I hadn't already been sold on THE CARD COUNTER beforehand (I was) then the shot in the trailer where Oscar Isaac slams Tye Sheridan down on a hotel bed and snaps on a rubber glove would have definitely sealed the deal pic.twitter.com/f4bsjC9Bf1

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 27, 2021

... well it maybe reinvigorated some of my interest. Okay I'll just admit it, this cast is gonna make it impossible for me to stay away. But you're on notice, Paul Schrader. Here's the trailer!

 The Card Counter is being released on September 10th.

Twinks In Space: The Trailer

I think you'll all forgive me for forgetting this movie was happening since I posted my original "Twinks In Space" post announcing this movie in April of 2019 and, uhh, some stuff's happened since April 2019. But one of those things was the actual shooting and the editing and all that jazz of the movie itself... which is technically called Voyagers but come on, there's still time to change that title to Twinks in Space -- you know you wanna! 

The main twinks in this case are Tye Sheridan and the original Dunkirk-branded twink Fionn Whitehead -- supposedly the great Kelvin Harrison Jr. is in there somewhere too (not to mention the ever-welcome non-twink Colin Farrell) but apologies to them I was too distracted by the sexual electricity between Tye & Fionn...

... and so I had eyes for nothing else. The film was originally described as "Lord of the Flies in Space" and yeah, that's what it looks like alright. Watch the teaser here:

This was written and directed by the same guy who made that movie that ahd Bradley Cooper taking a smart pills and getting smart... with dire consequences... which makes all of that liquid medication in the trailer snap into place. Drugs is bad! Voyagers is being released "in theaters" on April 9th. And I made a few more gifs, after the jump...

I am Standing to Attention

I imagine (or hope, anyway) y'all don't expect a lot from me for the next forty-eight hours -- I'm gonna try to "write" "things" but I don't know if I'll be able to focus real good. And "forty-eight hours" is of course up in the air -- who knows how long this chaotic-mindset will drag on for? Anyway! Let's give this one a go because this is some news shot straight up my alley -- a Vietnam war movie called The Things They Carried (based on a collection of short stories by Tim O’Brien about the individual members of a single platoon) has just been cast with So Many Hot Actors. Stephan James is one...

... then you pile on top of him Tye Sheridan!

And Bill Skarsgård! And Ashton Sanders

from Moonlight! And Tom Hardy!

Ohh and Martin Sensmeier!

We love Martin Sensmeier. I very much recommend clicking on this link if you'd like to love Martin Sensmeier too, or already do and would like a reminder. Anyway supposedly this book is well-regarded -- I surely haven't read it because I have very little patience or energy for War Fiction, but I'll see the movies once all the Hot Actors get cast in them! Have you read it? Bad news though: the movie is going to be directed by that douchebag Rupert Sanders -- he's not even a good director, Hollywood! No need to toss him a bone. Anyway I'm cheap and vulgar so I'll forget that information the second I see Tye Sheridan in a uniform, pay me no mind.

Paul Schrader's Many Manny Men

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Although I will not be writing it today I think there's definitely an interesting piece to be written about male sexuality and the films of Paul Schrader (who's celebrating his 74th birthday today) -- obviously that subject is key to American Gigolo but it comes up time and time again if you glance across the movies he's written and directed. There's the homosexual leading men of Mishima and The Walker, there's whatever is going on between Christopher Walken & Rupert Everett in The Comfort of Strangers (which I haven't seen but will when Criterion releases it next month), there's the oft ogled It Boys of The Canyons...

I mean who else would've hired porn dick James Deen for their leading man? And it's been awhile since I've seen his remake of Cat People but I recall his camera ogling Malcolm McDowell nearly as often as it did Nastassja Kinski. The list goes on and on. Even Travis Bickle in Schrader's most famous script is stared at half-naked a LOT by the film -- I suppose on its face it's an investigation through the years of Masculinity and what compromises it... and by "compromise" I do mean both what "makes it up" and what "breaks through its exterior."

Abs just seem real important to that exterior, in this case. I think that's what makes Schrader more interesting than many of the other filmmakers that've "investigated masculinity" though -- more honest, I mean. Not the abs (although I don't mind those) -- his unflinching willingness to look at men as both subjects and objects; as masters of their own destinies and commodified pre-packaged snacks sitting on a shelf, subject to the wants and desires of their specific eras. Which is why I'm pretty keen on his next flick The Card Counter (talked about previously here) which is about a veteran turned gambler (Oscar Isaac) and his vengeful young protégée (Tye Sheridan), and which brings me to our real much more frivolous reason for today's post...

free polls

Pic of the Day

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Well speak of the devil -- and the Devil wishes he had a Chunky Bum like Oscar Isaac -- just yesterday we shared several Oscar News Items Of Note with you, one of which was a poster for Paul Schrader's upcoming movie The Card Counter. And today, devil be damned, we have our first official picture from the movie, which has Oscar playing a former soldier who gets into some shit alongside Tye Sheridan. Hence the gun, one imagines. All I care is will this be the movie that finally unleashes the full Chunky Bum on the world? Paul Schrader might not seem the type but he did direct America Gigolo once upon a time, so... Anyway we're tired of waiting, Oscar. Just feed the beast.

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Everything's Coming Up Oscar

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Weird explosion of Oscar Isaac news in the past twenty-four hours -- we don't mind! Especially when there are mustaches and rubber gloves involved. Which...

... there are. But it's a lot to cover so let's dive right in. Firstly (and if you follow me on Twitter you already saw this one) -- Oscar has starred in a short film directed by his wife Elvira Lind called The Letter Room. More importantly Oscar Isaac's Mustache has starred in a short film called The Letter Room. I posted some images and a poster on our Tumblr but there's a trailer too, which you can watch at this link.

Dunno how or when we'll ever see that but when the day comes I will let you know. Probably. Unless I'm dead in which case I apologize in advance. Next up! Oscar has signed on to two big new projects this week. He is going to co-star in James Gray's follow-up to Ad Astra to be called Armageddon Time alongside a big cast of big names including Robert DeNiro, Anne Hathaway, Cate Blanchett, and Donald Sutherland. Unfortunately it's not a disaster movie, at least not in the literal sense -- it's a coming-of-age movie based on Gray's own Queens childhood, set during Ronald Reagen's presidential campaign circa 1979-ish. I think Reagan winning the Presidency counts as its own sort of end-of-the-world scenario.

The other project Oscar's signed up for is Ben Stiller's next film called London, which will be an adaptation of a new short story by The Snowman writer Jo Nesbo. [Insert Harry Hole joke here.] We don't know anything about this one besides all the names attached, but Stiller's real hit or miss for me, at least when he's being serious -- I didn't watch any of that Dannemora TV show he won a bunch of awards for but I tend to prefer Zoolander goofball Stiller over his more serious predilections. (thx Mac) But wait! There is yet more!

That there is the first poster I've seen for The Card Counter, Oscar's movie with writer-director Paul Schrader of Taxi Driver and more recently First Reformed fame. The film also stars Tiffany Haddish, Willem Dafoe and Tye Sheridan, and has Oscar playing a former soldier and current gambler who's trying to reform young Tye, who's seeking some sort of vengeance. Oscar Isaac wearing a uniform while mentoring Tye Sheridan sure sounds like a movie I'll watch! Here's a photo of Oscar with Schrader & Dafoe on the set:

Tye Another One Off

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I don't know that I would have bothered to do this post if I hadn't luckily uncovered the above photo (click to embiggen) from Tye Sheridan's 2018 photoshoot for W Magazine -- when we previously posted that shoot the above shot, which was the magazine's cover image (for obvious reasons), was covered with typographical nonsense, which always gets on my nerves. But there it is without all that crap! Clean unfettered eyeball access to Tye, just how's we like it. Anyway...

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... that there is the trailer for Tye's upcoming thriller The Night Clerk (via),which is what got me googling Tye in the first place. The movie, which is out on February 20th, is about a hotel clerk with a dash of autism who spies on his guests in order to teach himself What Normies Act Like, which obviously leads to danger and disaster and Knives Out It Girl Ana De Armas sexytimes as well? The movie, besides Armas, also co-stars John Leguizamo, Helen Hunt, and Johnathan Schaech, and was directed by Michael Cristofer whose last film was the Jolie / Banderas / Thomas Jane camp-fest Original Sin way back in 2001! We remember that movie fondly because if gifted us a ton of Sleazy Hot Thomas Jane Content...

... so basically we're now hoping that there's a secret sleaze-fest buried in The Night Clerk too. It's got enough of a Sliver rip-ff story to keep that hope alive too, I think. The world needs more campy erotic thrillers, certainly not less. Anyway in summation besides that top photo I scrounged up a few random Tye Sheridan photos that I've never posted before in all of my many former Tye Sheridan posts, and I've got those for your eyeballs after the jump...

Good Morning, World

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I feel tremendous guilt that I haven't had the chance to write up my thoughts on Rick Alverson's film The Mountain starring Tye Sheridan and Jeff Goldblum since seeing it as part of BAM's "CinemaFest" series back in June -- I thought I'd manage before it hit theaters last week but I didn't take Fantasia Fest into account and now I'm several reviews behind for FF even, much less The Mountain. And The Mountain is by no means an easy film to digest -- it subverts expectations every single chance it gets. I mean that as a compliment -- I think it might be a Great Film, possibly? But I gotta see it a second time. So until that happens here are a couple shots of Tye Sheridan in his boxer shorts and a half promise to do better! Oh and this is also me saying you should see The Mountain, most importantly of all.

It's a Little Bit Funny, This Feeling Inside

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Just in time for Gay Pride Month comes the latest entry in the gayest of superhero franchises -- Dark Phoenix is yet another X-Men movie about the queer power of embracing your differences, but together, united freaks fighting as one fucked-up family. The film, for all of its action and spectacle (and there is plenty), is more laser focused in than you expect from these behemoths, though -- in some ways its more akin to the standalone butch-bitch Wolverine movies, just focusing on Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) this time around. We start with her past and work up through her present, trauma stacking upon trauma until they reach the stars, give 'em a slap.

Out there in outer space is where Jean Grey meets her dark fate, a burst of possibly sentient star-flame that cracks her open and worms its way into all her faults as she does what she does, save everybody's asses yet again. (I can't help but feel like I saw this all somewhere before...?) Buried memories spring forth like firework displays, and before you know it her sublimated rage is pouring from her fingers like sparklers and the girl, the girl can't help it.

She's got a lot of similarly scarred folks around her who want to help, with their do-gooder intentions, but unfortunately as has happened with so many of us the wrong sexy person is there at just the wrong sexy moment, filling them holes and  influencing us in all the wrong ways -- who hasn't gone off the deep end for a few weeks cuz a hot piece at the bar with a crude tattoo situated in an unspeakable place gave us the fuck eye? 

In Jean's case the come-hitherer is an alien albino woman (Jessica Chastain) who's chased the tail of that extraterrestrial gas through the solar system and wants a piece of its va-va-voom for her own, and for Jean it's if not lust exactly it's a fundamental commiseration -- a loneliness and anger that compliments, even though in her heart of hearts Jean knows better; even if that twink with the sexy glasses can't stop giving her the puppy dog lips. Jean doesn't want to be a good girl for a minute, and unfortunately for the world and that good boy at home this new lean of hers has some most dire consequences.

And so the ladies hit the road together, making bedrooms burst into celestial visions and Jean flaming into cosmic Georgia O'Keeffe paintings every chance she gets. Petals on a wet black bough, indeed. It's some queer shit, my friends -- as much verbal play as the simple love story between two beasts and a blue shape-shifter gets this movie is a bit of a lesbian hot-house; unfolding ribbons of raw red rooms upon rooms. The secret caverns we whisper our deepest and darkest thoughts into echoing them back unto us as explosions. Excuse me. X-splosions.

Twinks in Space

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You know a casting person has done their job when I don't even have room to use a picture of Colin Farrell -- a movie called Voyagers was just announced, which is describe as "Lord of the Flies in space!" (I added the exclamation point, but really, it earned that), and it will star Farrell alongside Tye Sheridan, Fionn Whitehead, Keean Johnson, Kelvin Harrison, and Isaac Hempstead Wright (BRAN!) among others. Johnson (middle below) was in Alita: Battle Angel while Harrison (left below) you should know from Mudbound. And of course our boy Fionn from Dunkirk and Bandersnatch. There are also actresses listed but well you know, whatever -- you can read their names at the link. I have my own priorities of coverage.

The Power of Fassy Compels You

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Until recently I'd thought that Bryan Singer had directed the forthcoming Dark Phoenix movie, and I was gearing myself up for all the fun that those press rounds were gonna represent -- but no Dark Phoenix is the directorial debut of writer and producer Simon Kinberg. (And wow, imagine making your directorial debut with a 265 million dollar budget -- what a world.) But I imagine folks like Nicholas Hoult and Evan Peters, who've worked with Singer a few times, will probably still get asked, so prep your answers, boys! (Speaking of Sir Ian finally got on the record about that.) Anyway we're not here for Bryan Singer we're here for the new trailer for Dark Phoenix, which was not I repeat not directed by Bryan Singer. And it sure is nice to see Michael Fassbender acting!

Or at least standing around with an angry face while the CG things surrounding him are filled in later, anyway. But we should cherish these moments because dude hasn't acted a single minute since this thing was filmed and as far as we can tell might not do it again, either. (Please prove us wrong, Fassy. We'd love to be wrong.) Here's the trailer:

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Dark Phoenix is out on June 7th.
What do we think of the trailer?

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Fassy's Final X

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I could be wrong because I haven't been paying a ton of attention but this is the first official shot that I can think of seeing of Michael Fassbender & Nick Hoult and so forth for X-Men: Dark Phoenix, the upcoming super-mutant flick that's out on June 7th. The pics, including the one below, come via here where they're also saying we'll probably get a trailer with the Super Bowl. Which reminds me - there's like a Super Bowl happening some time soon, isn't there? I have absolutely no idea, this is the first time I have thought of it since I avoided last year's. Anyway it's good to see Michael Fassbender is really my main point. Who knows if we'll ever see him act again, the way things be going...

Tye Sheridan Five Times

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Well hello! I've got some downtime in between Tribeca screenings and this was quite a thing to bring that downtime up. Tye's on the cover of the new W Magazine (via, thanks Mac) and there's quite the crazy colorful 90s-inspired photo-shoot attached. He sure has grown up right before our very eyes. This reminds me I haven't reviewed Ready Player One... yeah let's keep it that way. How about instead let's hit the jump for the rest...

The Mendelsohn of God Rises

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Okay so this week's apparently done? Gotcha. Time's not slipping through my fingers at all right now. Nope, no panic here. Anyway here's a picture of Ben Mendelsohn of Ready Player One, out in theaters right now, fame, to soothe us over the holiday weekend. I guess you can just pretend he's the Easter Bunny, or Jesus, or whatever... if you need that? I don't know what you people need. I don't even know what I'm saying at this point. On that exceedingly strange note if you haven't voted on our Ready Player One poll yet you can do that right here. I'm gone now! Bye. No, really. Bye.

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Tye Sheridan Six Times

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Hey, I have a question for you people!

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survey hosting

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I ask because I haven't been able to decide if I'm interested in seeing it myself - this is definitely a case of "man I wish I was an important enough critic to get invites to big studio movies" because it'd be swell to get to skip the indecision and just go to a press screening. Alas, I am small fries, and so I must weigh the pros and cons of giving over an entire day's worth of MoviePass credit to something that looks... very loud. 

Once upon a time me missing a Spielberg Movie was unthinkable, but then... well then I grew up. Not to be a dick about it, or anything. Spielberg makes grown-up movies and I tend to not miss those; those seem to be where his heart is now; the big action movies he built his rep on, notsomuch anymore. 

Anyway speaking of growing up look at Tye, you guys. He's all of 21 now and filling out - you can still see that gangly little kid from The Tree of Life in there but I think he's aging well; I hope he sticks around, jumps the hurdle to adult success, I think he's a pretty talented kid. (pics via)