Bad Week For Bloodsuckers

This afternoon I took a brief break from screaming, "KISS! KISS!!!!!" at the above photo of The Northman director Robert Eggers and The Northman star Alexander Skarsgard to write up the news that things are not looking good for Eggers' long-hoped-for remake of Nosferatu, along with the bad word on Kayrn Kusama's Dracula movie too, over at The Film Experience, read it at the link. This shit news sandwich has got me like...

We Assist What We Assist

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We are all fans of Julia Garner by now right? I've sought out her superbly watchable face ever since she tore through the We Are What We Are remake in 2013 but you've really had to be agile, looking for her in small roles here and there, scattered about on TV and indies. I think that might maybe hopefully change now though thanks to The Assistant, her Hashtag Me Too movie (in the crudest sense) out this weekend, which finally gives her the full spotlight with which to shine, and shine she do. 

Anyway you can read my full thoughts on her and on the very fine film that got built around her over at AwardsWatch today, where I'm debuting my very first review for them! Very happy and very proud to be writing for them, so click on over and get that traffic properly trafficking please and thanks.

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Around the Armie in Eighty Days

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We have some Armie Hammer news to share today, whoop whoop! (Unfortunately none of it includes where the hell the above picture originated from or who he's with there, but I'm happy to share that anyway.) First up he's lined up a new movie! He will costar opposite Anthony Mackie in Banker, which sounds kind of similar to Sorry to Bother You or Spike Lee's upcoming BlackkKlansman in that it's about "code switching" and putting a "palatable" white face on the front of a black enterprise -- Mackie plays a banker trying to build a real-estate empire who hires Armie's character (a construction worker) to be the company's front. Banker is being directed by George Nolfi, who directed The Adjustment Bureau. 

Next up we've got news on a project Armie's already done that we were worried about - Hotel Mumbai, his movie about the deadly terrorist bombings in India in 2008 with Dev Patel and Jason Isaacs, among others, was caught up in the Weinstein Company's collapse, but it sounds like things might be sorted out since the film's now premiering in Toronto next month! And yes that means Armie will be in Toronto at the same time as Timothée Chalamet, who'll be there with Beautiful Boy, so let's pray our boys are plotting out their reunion as we speak. If you'd like to see a few more pictures from Hotel Mumbai hit the jump...

I Am Link

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--- The Last Woman - Granted it's been several years since I have re-read Brian K. Vaughn's glorious comic series Y: The Last Man - a series I can't recommend highly enough to y'all, by the way; I have been blathering on about it ever since, after all - but I have no recollection of ever thinking to myself when the series was fresh in my mind that the role of Yorick's mother would be a hot ticket for a big name when they got around to casting the thing... and yet here we are and there's a rumor going around that the first person attached to the series is no less than Jodie Foster to play Yorick's mom. I mean, great! Jodie is great! Silence of the Lambs is my jam! I'm just wracking my brain to remember the importance of Yorick's Mom and wondering how this might skew the focus of the show, is all.

--- Robot Mama - Shooting has begun on the new Terminator movie, which is being directed by Deadpool's Tim Miller and is being billed as the real official sequel to James Cameron's T2, aka we should forget all those crappy sequels (sorry but you'll have to hold me down and lobotomize Jai Courtney's Almost Naked Scene out of me), and holy shit-balls it's a thrill to see Linda Hamilton playing Sarah Connor again. See the pictures over here, and then stay tuned for pictures of Mackenzie Davis butching it up in a dirty tank-top cuz why not?

--- Fantastic Beasts - About a month ago I told y'all about Lovecraft Country, a horror series being produced by Jordan Peele that's basically giving the Old Ones inventor the anthology treatment. It's based on a 2016 book by Matt Ruff that I have not read. Anyway I guess Peele's involvement is enough to get some awesome and exciting names involved cast-wise, including most enticingly drumroll please Elizabeth Debicki! Elizabeth Debicki versus Cthulhu! Elizabeth Debicki could totally kick Cthulhu's ass, you guys.

--- Grand High Excuse Me - For some reason Hollywood has decided to make a new movie version of Roald Dahl's classic book The Witches when we've already got Nicholas Roeg's practically perfect 1990 version with Angelica Huston - don't ask me. But they are getting Robert Zemeckis to direct it, it looks like, and that's not a bad idea if they have to do this. Zemeckis has had a few years of not-quite-up-to-snuffs but this seems like a possibly good match.I don't know. I don't really let myself get too worked up about remakes anymore - the originals still exist for us to watch. So the question turns to - who would you cast as The Grand High Witch?

--- Hulk Out - You might've already read this since it was making the rounds pretty hard yesterday but Vulture's piece ranking the Marvel Movies by gayness is high hysterical work by good ol' Kyle Buchanan - I laughed mightily and long. I had a hard time picking just one favorite bit but then I realized something even more important...
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You know the world has gone off the deep end when I - we're talking about ME here - had totally forgotten we see Hulk's big ass in Thor Ragnarok pic.twitter.com/JoaxqZ4COS

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 20, 2018

--- You Shall Not Pass - There's a documentary about Ian McKellen called McKellen: Playing the Part that's making the rounds starting this week - you can see if it's playing anywhere near you right here - and our pal Nathaniel got to chat with the doc's director for Towleroad, read the interview right here. I saw the doc earlier this week and it's worth checking out if you're a fan of the actor - it reminded me first and foremost what an incredibly brave move it was for him to come out  thirty whole years ago in 1988. Just wow.

--- Tab Up - Last week we heard that the real-world 1950s closeted romance between actors Tab Hunter and Anthony Perkins was getting turned into a movie - this week Attitude caught up with Tab himself and got some good quotes from him on that romance and what we should probably expect from the movie, biographically speaking. It's pretty much like I said - this was not a great romance; I hope the movie stays true to the difficulty of what the two had, even just personality-wise, because that seems more interesting to me than some rose-colored version. (thx Mac)

--- And Finally it's been a very long time since I've done one of these link round-up posts so this news is weeks old, but I can no longer allow MNPP to exist without this news-story written somewhere upon it - Brian De Palma's next movie is going to be a fictionalized and no doubt controversial version of the whole Harvey Weinstein Horror Show. I can't even entirely wrap my head around what that movie will be, but I have already bought my tickets to opening night. In related news and worth reading is BD's recent editorial about how Dressed To Kill is the ultimate American Giallo, which I agree with one thousand percent.

Do Dump or Marry: Goodbye Sensates

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There's been so much movie news this week -- hey did you hear that Dakota Fanning is playing Squeaky Fromme in Quentin Tarantino's Charles Manson movie? Or that Brian DePalma is making a thriller based on Harvey Weinstein??? -- that I've hardly been able to keep up. I am just one man! One very simple-minded little man. Anyway in a less crowded sorta week I'd have spent way more time being excited about the finale of Sense8 that's hitting Netflix tomorrow, but all we've managed was to glare at a hot photo-shoot of Miguel Angel Silvestre so far. Well here, let's do one more thing - let's Do Dump or Marry in the comments these three handsome chaps from the show. From Elle to Argh that's Brian Smith, Toby Onwumere, and Mr. Silvestre himself, who provided us with the top shot on his Insta. Now tell...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Death Proof (2007)

Dov: So is it Shawna and the girls

at the lake house this weekend?

Shanna: Shawna?

Dov: Awww fuck, I didn...

Shanna: No. Now there is one thing every girl

in the whole world whose name is Shanna

has in common with each other -

we all hate the name Shawna.

And we really hate when people call us Shawna.

Remember it's Shanna banana not Shawna banawna.

 ... or you can learn from:

Planet Terror (2007)

Cherry Darling: You're a doctor? 

Dr. Dakota Block: Hmm. I was earlier tonight. 

Cherry Darling: I always wanted to be a doctor,.

Instead, I can do this. [Cherry arches her body up 

in a bridge position] Useless talent number 66. 

I'm very pliable. 

Dr. Dakota Block: You know, my girlfriend had a theory. 

She said at some point in your life, you find a use 

for every useless talent you ever had. 

It's like connecting the dots. 

Cherry Darling: I'm not that optimistic. 

I feel like I'm sinking down a drain and I can't get out. 

Dr. Dakota Block: She'd say, "when you're stuck 

in that spiral, you reach up". 

Cherry Darling: What if there's nothing up there? 

Dr. Dakota Block: Just reach up. 

Grindhouse, the full loaded double fucking feature from Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez featuring both of these movies with fake trailers by Eli Roth and Rob Zombie and Edgar Wright and Rodriguez himself bracketing them, was released ten years ago today on April 6th 2007. And it was a great big belly-flop, box-office-wise. 

Did any of you get to go see the films this way? Harvey Weinstein was a dick about the release so I know it ended up tough to find; they were released separately not long after. Anyway I did get to see the double-feature myself and I loved the hell out of it. Planet Terror is a lot of fun but I'm really glad the critical consensus seems to have finally come around on Death Proof, which is Top 3 Tarantino for me, and which I re-watch every six months or so, never getting tired of it.

I can't believe Eli Roth
never made Thanksgiving though.

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This Is Who Jennifer Lawrence Needs...

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... to be yelling at for being on their damned phone 

and not living in the goddamned moment! (via)

I'm sure whatever Harvey has to say can wait, Alicia.
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Good Morning, World

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Mirror mirror, there's the fairest one of all... howdy, folks! I'm back from my nearly interrupted holiday slumber today - be gentle, please. I've got to get myself re-accustomed to the grind so it'll probably get slow going but we do have a lot of stuff to cover, eventually. For now head over to IHJM if you wanna watch the entirety of this deleted scene from the blu-ray of Southpaw. Do we think Jake can wrangle an Actor nomination? He has got Harvey in his corner but nobody really liked this movie very much. (Never stopped Harvey though.)

I Am Link

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--- Unto The Wonder - Can't believe I haven't gotten around to this news all week - Todd Haynes is reuniting with his main muse Julianne Moore for another movie! It's based on the children's book Wonderstruck (by the author of the book that got turned into Hugo) which tells the intertwined story of two deaf children separated by fifty years and many miles. Anybody read it? Who the hell is Julianne Moore playing? She's good but she's not child good. Maybe I'll ask Todd Haynes tonight when I see him do a Q&A for Safe at FSLC. (Swoon!)
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--- And Speaking of Todd Haynes his great new movie Carol, based on Patricia Highsmith's fine novel The Price of Salt, which I have been blogging about longer than any of you damn people so stop stealing my thunder, is out in a few theaters today! So if you live in a big coastal city you can maybe see it now! Here's my review. It is quite great! Anyway there are literally tons of stories on the internet about it right now, they are really making the rounds, here are just a couple -- Frank Rich's detailed piece about Highsmith and the book is fantastic.  At The New Yorker Anthony Lane has more nits to pick with the movie than I do but as always his writing is rapturous enough all on its own.

Continuing on, deep breath, I haven't read this interview with Sarah Paulson yet (thx Mac) but I have read this one with Cate and this one with Rooney; the latter two are by Carol devotee David Erlich, whose affection for the film on Twitter has been fairly humorous the past couple of months, to put it mildly. Oh and at The Film Experience Nathaniel will be sharing a ton of interviews soon with the movie's cast and crew but he's whet our appetites with a fun little preview today.
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--- The Golden Mockingjay - Can you believe that The Hunger Games has never been nominated for an Oscar? That seems bonkers -- no costumes, no wigs, no nothing. Our palm Glenn Dunks goes through the spots where the films coulda shoulda at The Film Experience and now that I've seen the final film let me just say (I'll try to review it before the day is out but the day is flying by somehow so don't hold your breath) that Donald Sutherland deserves a Supporting Actor nomination dammit. Looking at Nat's predicitons for that category I dare you to compare any of those possibiles favorably to Sutherland's scary good work here. The scene in the rose garden, oh my god, is a master class. And that bloody laugh at the end! And oh god this:
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Donald Sutherland correcting Julianne Moore with the word "Plucked" made all 18 hrs of #HungerGames movies worth every damn minute #PLUCKED

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 20, 2015

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--- Dark Matters - Edgar Wright, who still hasn't begun directing Baby Driver somehow, is at least lining up his next stuff - he's going to make an animated movie! Something something about "shadows" is all they're saying. I imagine this is a ways off since animated movies always take literally forever, but we're thirsty enough for Edgar Wright anything that we'll bite.
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--- Something Special - The trailer for Midnight Special, Jeff "Take Shelter" Nichols' upcoming science-fiction flick with Michael Shannon, Joel Edgerton, and Kirsten Dunst, showed up online earlier this week, and it looks terrific. Such a fantastic cast, and it looks like a typically sideways glance at a genre from the sideways glancing director.
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--- Hateful Delays - This article from the New York Times on all the money that Quentin Tarantino and Harvey Wienstein are blowing on playing The Hateful Eight in 70mm at a handful of theaters across the country when it's out at Christmas still doesn't tell us where those damn theaters are and my patience grows so thin it's invisible now. The article is over a week old and it says the list was going to have been released by now and lies everything is lies. (That is the brand new poster for the movie to the left there, via.)
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. --- Mighty Frightly - One of the writers from Hannibal is teaming up with Chronicle director Max Landis for a horror anthology show for SyFy called Channel Zero - it's already been picked up for two seasons of six episodes, which will air in their programming lead up to Halloween in 2016 and 2017. Now when I read "anthology show" I thought they meant like Twilight Zone or currently Black Mirror, with a new story every week, but they apparently mean like American Horror Story, in that each set of six episodes will tell one story. So two stories total. The first season will be based on the story Candle Cove by Kris Straub. I do not know this story.
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--- And Finally speaking of Hannibal, Bryan Fuller and Gillian Anderson teamed up to re-purpose that helluva stinger from the show's final episode into an ad for PETA, watch it and weep for all of the creatures...

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You's Gonna Hear Jake Rawrrr

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Netflix has put their money where their movie-loving mouth is and are tossing fifty million cool ones at Snowpiercer director Bong Joon-ho to make Okja, his monster-movie with Jake Gyllenhaal, Tilda Swinton, Kelly MacDonald, Paul Dano, and Bill Nighy. Dear lord, that cast. We told you about this movie previously, but still, that cast! It gets me!

In announcing the news the director gets in a swipe at the Weinsteins, who famously held Snowpiercer at ransom, pointing out that Netflix will be giving him complete creative freedom. Bong, you know what would be really artful? If Jake Gyllenhaal was naked the whole movie. ART! 

Anyway there's a tidbit more info about the movie's plot at the link -- it's apparently the story of a little girl who makes friends with the monster, and the little girl hasn't been cast yet, which I suppose relegates all of this awesome cast to supporting characters. Or maybe Tilda Swinton will play the little girl? You know she could and you know it would be incredible.

Harvey's in it for the Long (Gyllen) Haul

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I kind of figured that the two-punch of middling reviews and middling-er box office receipts (both which the film deserved IMO) had killed Southpaw's Oscar momentum, but Harvey Weinstein -- who publicly crowed about getting Jake a Best Actor nomination for the film was back at Cannes -- isn't one to rest on his laurels ya know, and so he's re-releasing the picture on a few hundred screens this weekend, giving it a proper seasonal push. The movie is out on blu-ray at the end of October so this will be a short re-run. 

I kind of feel like this is an investment in Future Jake -- I don't pay a ton of attention to the awards races but I would kinda be surprised if he got nominated for this movie this year; is anybody not named Harvey Weinstein that enthusiastic about Southpaw? Given our coverage here at MNPP had been, you know, enthusiastic, I was obviously Target Audience #1, and save the spectacle of Jake's shredded everything I left the film feeling fairly meh. 

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See My Black & Deep Desires

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Today The Playlist shares a whole bunch of new pictures (and a couple of posters) from MacBeth: The Fun Time Musical starring Sir Michael Fassbender and Mademoiselle Cotillard -- they also share the irritating news that Bastard Man Harvey Weinstein is being difficult with the movie's release since he's crawled up Todd Haynes' ass (granted it's crowded up there; we all wanna be up there) and hasn't been spreading his attentions to other worthwhile awards contenders, like this movie. Apparently it doesn't even have a firm release date yet? Anyway speaking of the word "firm" here's Fassy in a bulging tunic carrying a sword. Hubba hubba, toil and trouble.

I Am Link

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--- Heaven Song - Over at The Film Experience Manuel's series on the LGBT history of HBO has finally made it to The Big One, aka Mike Nichol's epic and brilliant Angels In America, and Manuel's write-up is lovely, go read it. (I didn't know that PJ Hogan could have directed it! That would have been very different.) And the celebration of Angels is continuing tonight when TFE's series "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" takes it on, so head over later too. If I were participating I'd have a really hard (heh) time not picking the shot of Patrick Wilson in his Mormon underwear or when he strips naked on the beach honestly, so maybe it's better if I refrain.

--- Scissorhands Strike - I wish what few reviews there were of Jean-Pierre Jeunet's new film The Young and Prodigious T.S. Spivet, which Harvey Weinstein dumped into a few theaters with no warning a couple of weeks ago because he was stomping his little foot about not getting to have final edit himself, had been better so I would've been inspired to stick it to The Man (aka Harvey) and go see it - as is I make it to an actual theater so rarely these days I must choose wisely. But if you'd like to hear more from JPJ about what a dick Harvey is (and we all want to hear that) then head over to The Playlist, where they've got a few more quotes from the director. I guess I'll see it when it gets dropped with little fanfare on Netflix.

--- Period Devilry - There's no way in hell I am watching this the first trailer for the Sundance smash The Witch, which is about real scary witches (singular or plural I do not know) in 17th Century New England -- the reviews were so stellar I am insisting I go into this thing clean, not having seen anything, as well as I can. I hate that they even put this trailer out so early -- they're not releasing the film until next year! Why are you tormenting me??? It is playing Toronto next month so that's probably why, but still. That there is the poster and I love it -- goats are such creeps.

--- Millennial Monsters - I haven't had a chance to look through this list too thoroughly but Movies Films & Flix did a reader survey and came up with "The Top 21 Horror Films of the New Century" and it's a good list! I would rearrange it myself but there's nothing on it I totally dislike. Probably my least favorite is The Conjuring, but I get why it's there. I prefer the Insidious series myself. Anyway you can tell serious horror people voted because Martyrs made it onto the list (even if it didn't make it to #1 which is where it belongs).

--- Man of Melancholy - Here is a very good chat with Lars von Trier about how he's had to give up sobriety in order to start working again -- apparently this is the first interview he's given since his infamous Cannes comments (close your eyes and you can still picture Kirsten Dunst's embarrassed face, admit it). It skips around a bunch of stuff but it's nice to have him speaking again.

--- Full Metal Bitches - Dammit I wish Tom Cruise would stop making such great action movies so I could boycott him better -- I saw Mission Impossible Rogue Nation against my own word, and it was SO good. So much fun. And you know what felt like a terrific old-school throwback? I feel like there are never any casting surprises anymore - everything's so dissected online - and so the feeling of "Who the hell is this Rebecca Ferguson person?" was so great. Nobody ever sneaks up on me anymore like that. And her part was huge! And she's awesome, and nailed it, and now I can't wait to see what she does next... which turns out is a movie co-starring Tom Cruise's last action-movie female co-star Emily Blunt. It's an adaption of the book The Girl on the Train, which I guess is a big deal right now? Anybody read it?

--- Sewer Dwelling - EW touted their chat with Cary Fukunaga about why his movie version of Stephen King's It didn't happen so hard I really thought he might stick it to New Line, but he's totally reasonable, boo:

"Ultimately, we and New Line have to agree on the kind of movie we want to make, and we just wanted to make different movies. It’s like a relationship: you can try to make the other person who you want them to be, but it’s impossible really to change. You just have to work."

Come on Cary, dish! And while you're at it, take a dump on True Detective's second season! Let down your man-braids, dude!

--- And Finally over at Word & Film my friend Tom Blunt tackled on the movies of Jean Genet -- of course there's talk of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Querelle and of The Maids (all the versions) but Tom also found Genet's own 1950 film Un chant d'amour online, which I'd never seen! Wowza! 

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Jake Gyllenhaal Nine Times

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Jake's looking fine in the new issue of Esquire UK! (pica via)
I love this photo-shoot. Classic Jake! 

Also classic is the interview inside - specifically the part where they talk to his Constellations co-star (and rumored sex-partner) Ruth Wilson. The magazine make it sound SO sexless and platonic...

"After the show, they'd go out to dinner with friends. Gyllenhaal invited her to his family's Christmas celebrations."

And then there's this bit from Ruth herself:

"We'd warm up every day, singing on stage and he knows all the lyrics to Drake songs. And Motown and Springsteen. He knows the words to show-tunes too. We went to dinner with my uncle, who puts on musicals at his Norfolk community centre, and he and Jake were singing show-tunes to each other in the middle of Balthazar. He should really do a musical."

Shade, Ruth Wilson! SHADE.

In other Jake news, his film Demolition with Wild and Dallas Buyers Club director Jean-Marc Vallee, just got picked up to premiere at the Toronto Film Festival in September! Between that and Harvey Weinstein's enthusiasm about Southpaw things really are looking good for Jake come awards season. And speaking of the latter hey look a new picture!

Jake The Great

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While Jake's been off in France being all fancy-pants (and also getting into a screaming match with some random lady in a restaurant - hey random lady, you leave my boy alone) that movie Nocturnal Animals he's set to make with Tom Ford that we told you about back in March just got its rights picked up by Universal for a hefty chunk of change - the studio paid 20 million dollars to distribute the flick. 

I was going to say this seemed weird given the fact that Ford's first (and last) film A Single Man only made around nine million bucks, but Nocturnal, as a Noir thriller co-starring Amy Adams, seems to have a slightly more commercial plot than "college professor gets suicidal after his boyfriend dies." So maybe this is money well spent! Have any of you read the book on which it's based?

I was already thinking about Jake as a "movie star" already before reading this news; when I saw Mad Max Fury Road this weekend they showed the trailer for Southpaw and before the trailer played there was one of those brief video introductions to said trailer and it was Jake - you know, where he goes, "Hi I'm Jake Gyllenhaal, I hope you enjoy this trailer for my new movie, Southpaw," or whatever. And I was surprised by this, in a weird way. Jake's obviously been making big movies for a good decade now but he actually felt like a brand, suddenly. Know what I mean?

He really has spent the last couple of years re-branding himself anyway, with hard work and excellent choices, and I think the next couple of years if things click into place he's really going to be one of the big Movie Stars; you know, somebody whose name our mothers and grandmothers would even know. He's apparently got Harvey Weintstein in his corner for Southpaw anyway, and we've all seen that man's pull writ historic by now.

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Jake Gyllenhaal Is A Man, Like Other Men

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I've had a copy of David O. Russell's Nailed - excuse me, Stephen Greene's Accidental Love - all week but I just haven't gotten a chance to watch it yet; I've been waiting six years, what's a couple extra days? It will most assuredly be viewed this weekend, no worries. Anyway since I've been behind somebody beat me to capping the Gyllenhaal shirtlessness therein, click here for it (thanks Mac) - it appears to stay contained to the caveman-ish scene we'd already seen some pictures from (click here for those), but at least now we know that James Marsden is there in his uniform too.

That helps out the fantasy some. Enriches it. Anyway if any of you have watched Accidental Love yet, lemme know what you thought. I am curious! But wait, there is other Jake news! That drug dealer movie called The Man Who made It Snow that Jake wants to make with Antoine Fuqua (we told you about it previously right here) just got picked up by The Weinsteins, so it'll presumably be Jake's next project. He just worked with Fuqua on the boxing movie Southpaw (see pictures of Jake's shredded boxer's form here and here). TMWMIS is an adaptation of a book by Max Mermelstein (that's a name and a half) about that time he turned his small cocaine business into a massive Colombian operation.

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Today's Mood

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I couldn't love these two more if Anna Faris let me blow her husband. (Okay maybe I'd love them a little bit more if that happened.) Head over here for a bunch of pictures of the celebs hanging out after the Globes last night, but be forewarned they start the whole thing off with two of the most frightening images I've ever witnessed. (thanks Mac)

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I Am Link

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--- Queen Please - Ryan Murphy is making a new anthology show called Scream Queens that'll have a rotating setting and cast every season just like American Horror Story, and will have two female leads on "a college campus rocked by murders." And listen I love American Horror Story, y'all know this, and I think this season so far is turning out spectacularly, give or take a clown I don't find scary (it's all about Dandy for me; I want to be Dandy for Halloween I love him so), but Ryan Murphy I hope you were misquoted by EW when you said "We hope to create a whole new genre—comedy-horror" because WTF, you egomaniac.

---  Scare Scare Again - Yesterday there was news that The Conjuring sequel had been knocked out of its release date and people wondered what was up; today comes word that James Wan, the director of the first one (and the first two Insidious movies, which I prefer) who'd moved on to make the next Fast & Furious movie saying he was done with horror, is returning to make The Conjuring 2 after all. He says that taking a one-movie break reinvigorated his horror lust. Good, I am happy to have him back.

--- And Speaking of the Insidious films, Wan's co-writer Leigh Whannell is currently directing Insidious Chapter 3 and DH gathered up several behind-the-scenes pictures right here, with looks at Dermot Mulroney and the returning Lin Shaye. I haven't kept track of where they're taking the story so I have no idea what's happening but Leigh's looking adorable isn't he?

--- Return To Mars - Apparently Disney has let their rights to the John Carter of Mars stories expire after the disastrous performance of that first movie they effed all up, so Edgar Rice Burroughs' estate, who got the rights back, is saying they have every intention of trying to get more movies made. I don't think Taylor Kitsch should be expecting any phone calls, though.

--- Dark Cox - After the exquisite pain of not being able to see the Daredevil panel at New York Comic-Con set me off I am inching my way back towards my beloved Charlie Cox - representing today's baby step is this brief chat with him at THR about the show, and how dark it will be. Hopefully not so dark it doesn't take time to appreciate the finer, furrier things in life.
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--- Dream Weavers - I meant to include a link to Vulture's oral history of the original Nightmare on Elm Street movie this morning when I did my Nightmare post but ended up not really figuring out a way to squeeze it in to a post that was already longer than I intended; anyway the oral history had me cracking me up last night when I read it - love the director of the second (and gayest!) Elm Street movie popping up just long enough to call Harvey Weinstein a gargoyle! But my favorite quote, pretty much just because it's coming from Ronee Blakely and it allows me to picture Nancy's drunk mother saying it, is this one:

"It was difficult sometimes to eat lunch with Robert [Englund] because his makeup was so realistic. His brains were hanging out of his prosthetics."

--- Lizard Tears - IndieWire chatted with Juliette Binoche about some things, including the fact that Quentin Tarantino told her she made him cry while watching Godzilla. What I want to know is, why is Tarantino talking to Binoche? Movie, movie, movie! Put her in a movie, Quentin! Write a kick-ass Juliette Binoche movie right this minute!

--- Sundown Seconds - Hopefully I'll write my own thoughts up at some point but here's what our pal Glenn thought of the remake of The Town That Dreaded Sundown, which just came out this week. Spoiler alert: he loved it a whole bunch, a whooooole bunch, way more than I did, although I didn't hate it or anything by any means.

--- The Magic Word - I hadn't really been paying attention to the just released blu-ray set of Pee Wee's Playhouse because I already have the DVD set that came out a few years ago and figured that was plenty, but reading this interview with Paul Reubens (thanks Mac) has me second-guessing - it sounds like they did an amazing job cleaning it up better than it looked even when it aired. Paul also says an announcement on the Pee Wee movie he's been telling us is going to happen is "imminent" but dude's cried wolf so many times on this, I can't. I can't! This interview is already a couple of days old and nothing's been announced. I am waiting, Pee Wee.