Butch and the Gyllenhaal Kid

When I posted the trailer for Guy Ritchie's The Covenant yesterday -- which sees Jake Gyllenhaal playing a soldier who goes back into Afghanistan to try and save an interpreter they'd left behind -- a commenter said they've grown tired of Jake trying to prove how alpha-male and uber masculine he is with his roles, and I have to admit I'm feeling a lot of that looking at these, the first trio of photos released for the new movie. Beards and grimacing gun-fights and not a Jarhead thong in sight. They're stiflingly mega butch stuff!

On their own they'd probably be fine -- we do love a man in uniform -- but in the wake of him just working with Michael Bay (on a movie I found, expectedly, excruciating), and with the Road House re-do around the corner (the only glimpse of which we've seen so far involved shit-heel Conor McGregor) I gotta echo that commenter -- Jake, we need some Soft Boy Entertainment, stat! It's been a long while since the spectacular 2018 triumvirate of The Sisters Brothers and Velvet Buzzsaw and Wildlife. I need a fix of that Jake at least interspersed with all this dude-ness. I mean at least bring back Mr. Music for us!

I Thought He'd Be Bigger

When news broke last November that Jake Gyllenhaal was thinking about starring in a remake of the trash-classic Road House (one of my life-long faves of trash cinema) with Go director Doug Liman I was... well let's say flummoxed by the news. It's a lot! But I sort of forgot about it being a thing immediately -- one, because the world is even more "a lot" and I get distracted. And two, who the hell thought such a thing would actually come to fruition? Jake announces projects like I announce crushes -- we are easy whores, and our whims are a dime a dozen. And yet here we are nine months later and this news is here to tear out of our wombs like a that little deformed baby in that one movie, you know the one -- Variety is today reporting that the Road House remake starring Mr. Gyllenhaal and directed by Mr. Liman is now a go go go.

"According to the studio, the new take stars Gyllenhaal as a former UFC fighter who takes a job as a bouncer at a rough-and-tumble roadhouse in the Florida Keys, but “soon discovers that not everything is what it seems in this tropical paradise.”

Okay so Jake as a "former UFC fighter" means

that Jake is getting back into Southpaw shape then, I assume?

I can deal with that. But that's not all though! They also announced some co-stars and they include Lukas Gage -- and I wonder if Gage would be annoyed being referred to as "the guy whose ass Murray Bartlett ate in The White Lotus"? I wouldn't be annoyed being referred to as that if given the opportunity; hell I would have business cards made -- and the hot-to-trot Travis Van Winkle...

... (and you can see plenty more o' Travis right here),

and, speaking of Southpaw, Jake's Southpaw co-star Beau Knapp...

... who starred in one of my favorite recent horror films, the wildly underrated Mosquito State. (You should see Mosquito State dammit.) Oh and as if those guys aren't enough to get us excited... did I say Billy Magnussen? That's right. Billy Magnussen!

Remember when Billy humped Jake on the red carpet for their movie Velvet Buzzsaw? I sure remember it. Anyway those are a lot of Jake's former co-stars that he's gathered up, and hot fun ones at that -- this sounds like a party! And I can't believe it didn't occur to me until today -- Jake famously worked with the original "Dalton" himself, Mr. Patrick Swayze, in Donnie Darko. This suddenly makes a little more sense to me? Anyway who knows, the world is insane -- this is hardly the most insane thing in it. We will see!

And With That, Happy 40 to Jake Gyllenhaal

After a full week of celebrating Jake Gyllenhaal, this is it and it is here, folks -- it's his 40th birthday today! We've come so far! You shoulder never ever underestimate my ability to stretch my Jake Gyllenhaal obsession unto total annihilation for all parties involved. On that note, even though I recapped the entire week as it went along, it just feels right to give us a round-up of everything in one final post. So here be links to all of Jake Week!

Day 1: Jake's Finest Nutters

Day 2: Jake's Best Costumes

Day 3: Jake's Best Nudity

Day 4: Jake's Best Partners

Day 5: Jake's Best Movies, Ranked!

I also included some bonus content in the Twitter thread I kept up all week for this series, so make sure you click over and check that out. There are very important pieces of the puzzle to be seen therein. Very important! 

I truly should have made this holy rectangle of space the site's banner for this week pic.twitter.com/OmHOGO68oa

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 18, 2020

Anyway I live in abject terror every day of my life that my fanboying over Jake will ever be seen by his own big beautiful eyeballs so god forbid he read this message himself, but we here at MNPP truly do wish him the best 40th birthday. He's been my favorite actor for 19 years and counting, and I don't foresee that changing any time soon. He continues to challenge himself and do strong, interesting work, and the projects he's got lined up on IMDb (all of which we've covered in minute detail already, of course) all sound like shit I wanna watch. Good work, and Happy Birthday, You.

And now a bonus! Because I am incapable of ever stopping. And also y'all deserve a treat after all this rambling. I noticed when I worked on the nudity list on Wednesday that Jake has a nude scene I've somehow never posted here on the site, which... well, that is a truly, wildly inexplicable thing. It's from Velvet Buzzsaw, he does the cutest little "hey here's my butt" waddle, and I've got the whole thing giffed right on after the jump...

5 Off My Head: Jake + Fill In The Blank

A very happy Day Four of Jake Week to everyone. It's actor and briefs-enthusiast Jake Gyllenhaal's 40th birthday on Saturday, and so we here at MNPP, aka Gyllen-Headquarters, been doing a Top 5 list every single day having to do with our favorite furriest Gyllenhaal sibling. (Hey Maggie -- the gauntlet's been thrown!) On Day One we listed Jake's Craziest Performances. On Day Two we celebrated his most iconic costumes. Yesterday it was cold and snowy here in New York and so we turned up the heat, listing Jake's best displays of his supple, handsome flesh. (As if we needed it to be snowing for us to want to post gifs of Jake's butt, ha.) 

Well today we're talking chemistry. Or better yet, as the noted physicist Dr. Paula Abdul coined it, Vibeology. What is Vibeology? Why, it's the study of the chemistry between you and me. Or in this case, it's the study of the chemistry between Jake Gyllenhaal and his co-stars. No man is an island, even one so oft brooding as Jake, and Jake has sparked off more than most. So today I'm going to give you his greatest screen partnerships, according to me. (At least until Jake and me make our movie together, in which case I will become numbers one through five, natch.)

My 5 Favorite Jake Screen Partners

Tom Holland, Spider-Man: Far From Home

Tatiana Maslany, Stronger

Riz Ahmed, Nightcrawler & The Sisters Brothers

Carey Mulligan, Wildlife

Heath Ledger, Brokeback Mountain

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Runners-up: Jennifer Aniston, The Good Girl; Jena Malone, Donnie Darko; Anne Hathaway, Brokeback & Love and Other Drugs; Rene Russo, Nightcrawler & Velvet Buzzsaw; Michelle Monaghan, Source Code; Sarah Gadon, Enemy; Catherine Keener, Lovely & Amazing 

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Who are your favorite partners of Jake?

5 Off My Head: Jake Shows Off

And Jake Week continueth! In case you've had your head up the backend of a super-pig all week let me explain -- the actor Jake Gyllenhaal is turning 40 this Saturday! We -- in case you hadn't noticed the 1100+ posts we've posted here at MNPP over the past 15 years -- kinda like Jake Gyllenhaal. And so we're celebrating by posting a new Top 5 every single day this week, leading up to the most blessed event. On Monday I listed my 5 favorite crazy-person performances of his. And then yesterday I posted my 5 no make that my 10 favorite costumes that we's worn. 

Well today is Wednesday, the middle of the week, also occasionally known by some as Hump Day. And so it only seems right that today I list something I hinted at during yesterday's post about clothing, which is... the exact opposite of clothing. This should lift everybody's "spirits."

My 5 Favorite Jake Gyllenhaal Nude Scenes

Group shower, Jarhead

Googling whilst gay, Velvet Buzzsaw

Forgot the camera in Love & Other Drugs

Sad suds in Southpaw

Washing by the river, Brokeback Mountain

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Runners-up: Listen I could have listed half of Love and Other Drugs, as Edward Zwick was proper decent to us in that respect (if only the movie had been better). Bless that film.

And I did a compilation post once about Jake's many many many "naked in the bathroom" scenes -- see here -- so there are several more exciting choices as far as those are concerned. I mean he literally seems to spend half of the movie Demolition in the bathroom -- see here.

And he spends a lot of time showing off his manscaping in Enemy. And then, for historical sake, there's this shot in Jarhead, which beat Brokeback to the punch giving us our first glimpse of Jake's butt:

A true milestone, if you ask me! There are also the coulda-been scenes that we have been entirely denied -- I can't even post the caps of Jake papped naked-on-the-set of Everest because the studio freaked out about them and will send letters if one posts them, but if you google that shit it's out there. In the end the scene got inexplicably, hatefully cut from the final film, which went on to deservedly flop for that alone. Fuck you, Everest!

And then there is the most upsetting absence of all -- Jake chickening out and turning down Michael Pitt's role in Bernardo Bertolucci's 2003 hornt-up The Dreamers, opposite Louis Garrel & Eva Green. Can you imagine? I still weep myself to sleep at night over that loss...

Anyway I could go on and on and on. And on. And on! This is probably the lone topic in all of the world which I am the foremost expert on. My Film Studies degree put to excellent use! Ain't ya proud, Mom???

So what's your favorite Jake Gyllenhaal nude scene?

10 Off My Head: Getting Into Jake's Pants

Happy Day 2 of Jake Week, where we're celebrating Jake Gyllenhaal's 40th birthday this upcoming Saturday with a different Top 5 list every single day. Yesterday I shared with you a list of my favorite crazy-pants performances from Mr. G that had him flailing his psycho-stick around for our enjoyment -- well today I am going a little simpler on the one hand, in that this is an ode to the outfits his personhood has slipped into and made iconic, and a little less simpler on the other because I couldn't pick just five. I had to double it. There are too many to choose from! (Sidenote: I tried to talk about actual memorable clothes here -- the time will come for a list of Jake being naked, don't worry.)

My 10 Favorite Jake Gyllenhaal Costumes

His skeleton hoodie costume in Donnie Darko

The Santa hat & thong combo from Jarhead

His blue-shirted Brokeback ensemble

His white boxing shorts in Stronger

His blue polo in Lovely & Amazing

The Mysterio Cape!

(Spider-twink included)

The tight-buttoned dress shirts in Prisoners

The buffalo-plaid in Nocturnal Animals

(Aaron Johnson included)

The business-to-casual red suspenders in Demolition

That open cream shawl he wore

 to showcase his Persia bosoms

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Runners-up: Jake in uniform in End of Watch, 

the Bubble in Bubble Boy, the 

art snobbery in Velvet Buzzsaw, the jean shorts in Okja

What are your favorite Jake costumes?