Today's Fanboy Delusion

 Today I'd rather be...

... flipping for Chris Evans. (via)

Oliver Jackson-Cohen Nine Times

All nine episodes of The Haunting of Bly Manor is dropping on Netflix this Friday -- in case you're all like "the what of the what what" Bly would be the second series from The Haunting of Hill House creator Mike Flanagan (watch the trailer here), based on the Henry James story The Turn of the Screw and starring many the same actors as that earlier run of episodes, including our furry prince Mr. Oliver Jackson-Cohen. Hi Olly! 

Olly here is featured in the new issue of InStyle, both as a photoshoot (which I am now sharing with you) and an interview, which you can read at this link. Quote quote: "I'm six-foot-three, I'm a big man." There's context but... I dunno 'bout you but that's all I need for today to make it through. He's a big man.  As if we had any doubt. Hit the jump for more of the big man...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

To Die For (1995)

Jimmy: Any time it rains, or when there's 

thunder and lightning, or when it snows, 

I have to jack off.

A happy 25 to Gus Van Sant's best movie.

All due apologies to My own Private Idaho, 

but this is a factual statement. Come at me!

web polls

And They Call Him Ferdinand Griffon dit Pierrot

Grab your primary-colored sticks of dyn-o-mite cuz my favorite Jean-Luc Godard film 1965's Pierrot le fou hits blu-ray today as part of the esteemed Criterion Collection yes this very day today -- not to be missed, funky cats and kitties. 

Starring a never swanker Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina as a pair of lovers turned criminals on the run it's really a dissemblage of that idea and movie concept -- shit gets real meta's my point. There was one question I really wanted answered that the Criterion edition's special features -- which are good otherwise! -- doesn't touch though, and that was...

... why did the promotional material materials for the movie pretend JPB was shirtless in the bathtub gun-play scene when he's defiantly not, as seen on the right? False advertising, yo! somebody get me Godard on the phone, I demand answers. (At least we'll always have this photo.) Anyway I dare y'all to prove the following tweet untrue:

Watching this now and obviously looking like Belmondo helps but I don't know if there's a movie I love the men's clothes in more? The mid-60s were just perfection, absolute perfection pic.twitter.com/RBUWxDBx8D

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 27, 2020

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Monty, World

You're probably going to see a lot of Montgomery Clift around these parts over the next couple of weeks since it's the centennial of his birth on October 17th -- hence this week's banner and hence this morning's beachside shot for a wake-us-up. I don't know if you've already been following along but The Film Experience is going to be taking stock of all seventeen films in Monty's filmography every day up until then, click on over to see what's the haps so far -- all good stuff. Indeed I'll have more on that later. For now enjoy that photo up top, which is off of the excellent Monty doc Making Montgomery Clift, which I recommend. (I reviewed it right here.) I know I sure am. Enjoying the photo, I mean. (Indeed I'd click on it to make it bigger.) (That's what he said.)

Today's Mood

I concur, Jai Courtney.

Invasion of the Ginger Snatchers

First things first it seems important to share the above photo of former Dunkirk twink and current Saoirse squeeze Jack Lowden hanging out with his bearded ballet-dancing brother Calum -- you know. Important. Jack's Instagram has been fun over quarantine -- I advocate following him for your recommended daily dosage of ginger goodness. Sometimes doubled! You can't OD on Ginger!

Moving on! Jack is the co-star of a very fine horror movie that's coming out very soon! And yes that is The Great And Honorable Fiona Shaw you see in the above gif alongside him. The movie is called Kindred and IFC is dropping it on November 6th -- it stars Tamara Lawrance (a British actress seen in several TV series over there; she's also featured in one of Steve McQueen's upcoming "Small Axe" series of films) as a young woman in love with our boy Edward Holcroft...

... which marks any character automatically as "smart." Anyway they go to the country to visit his mother (Shaw) and... things get scary. I have indeed already seen this and will review it closer to its release date but I recommend you put Kindred in your calendars, is what I am saying for now. November 6th. That being said this trailer gives away too much, and you maybe shouldn't watch it. I enjoyed knowing nothing going in. But you're an adult and can make your own damn decisions, so here. Choose wisely...

Today's Fanboy Delusion

 Today I'd rather be...

... capturing the Claflin.

I have not yet watched Netflix's Enola Holmes movie myself, but I am happy to report that I walked on my boyfriend half-watching it while he was cooking last week, whereon he admitted that for the very first time he was finding Sam Claflin "hot." Congratulations, Sam! You've made the grade! (via)

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Miller's Crossing (1990)

Eddie Dane: Hey, Tic-Tac! You ever notice

how the snappy dialogue dries up once

a guy starts soiling his union suit?

This great movie was released 30 years ago today!

The Flora and The...

Hello and a belated heads-up that one of my New York Film Festival reviews went up this past weekend -- click here to head over to The Film Experience to read my thoughts on the latest flick from Mexican-Canadian filmmaker Nicolás Pereda called Fauna. It's sort of like David Lynch making an Alejandro González Iñárritu movie but as a comedy. And if that description doesn't make it crystal clear that means I liked it. So many bad wigs! Also the actor Gabino Rodríguez, on the left there, is somebody to watch I think -- he's got a fascinating face, one of those ones the camera really loves to stare at. He reminds me of my beloved Franz Rogowski in his off-kilter way. And he's actually featured in two films at NYFF this year (see also Tragic Jungle, which is screening this week -- that's him in the background down below) so I think we will probably be seeing more of him around.

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

Hi ho and welcome Monday morning, a new batch of Joel Kinnaman modeling Bjorn Borg sportswear have been dropped (via) and they've got me perking up to greet the day -- especially this first one. So much so that I am posting the one of Joel's Insta-stories which was less cropped (meaning more leg) but more written on -- y'all know I hate watermarks but I will make an exception for Joel's thighs in those tights. If you missed Joel's previous excursions for the Borg I recommend clicking here and then especially here. And now I recommend you hit the jump for the remainder of today's brand new bright new haul...

I Do, Mathieu, I Do

 

That wonderful photo there (via) is a swell reminder to me and now to every single one of you that 1) we should all look so good at 53, and 2) actor, director and beautiful 53-year-old person Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 masterpiece La Haine is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and there will be a brand new 4K restoration of the film opening here in NYC next week, on October 8th at BAM's virtual cinema. Pretty sure anybody anywhere can rent that sort of thing (well anybody anywhere in the United States of America, anyway) so I recommend you do just that! Don't make me sic Vincent Cassel on your asses...

Tom Mercier Two Plus Times

Ooh looky here, a Friday bonus -- two more photos AND a video from Tom Mercier's VMan photoshoot (via). If you missed the first batch see 'em here. Now watch this wonderful video, showcasing Tom's dance background (not to mention that torso of his):

 

Kill Me With Content

Per usual October, my favorite month, has only been here for one day and it's already running away from me -- I've still got a million NYFF reviews to write and next week there's the Nightstream Festival and the week after there's NewFest -- but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Hulu's killer All Hallows content, which starts creeping into our homes this week. Today the anthology series Monsterland debuts, which I've only had time to watch the first episode of but which was pretty terrific -- that one stars Jonathan Tucker at his serial-killer-iest (seen above), a true kink if ever there was. You can watch the trailer below. And starting next week on Hulu is the adaptation of Clive Barker's Books of Blood series of short stories -- I posted about that previously. 

And then there's the horror flick Bad Hair, which we just got a trailer for (see that below) and which I totally recommend -- I don't know if I'll have time to properly review it given my schedule but it's a ton of fun, almost a horror comedy more than anything else but I do think it's actually genuinely creepy at times, and I don't want to diminish that. Bad Hair slithers onto Hulu on October 23rd!

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... beasting out with John Boyega.

Oh my god a John Boyega treasure trove! You guys have no idea how hard and for how long I have been looking around for this sort of thing before to absolutely no avail, but all this time if I'd only known about his trainer's Instagram account, which is just non-stop Boyega Gym Porn.

Even better than these photos though are the videos, so I went 

and made a little compilation for everybody! Enjoy!

I mean I was already excited to watch John in Steve McQueen's Red White and Blue segment of his Small Axe anthology this weekend for NYFF (of which I have already reviewed two parts, see Lovers Rock here and see Mangrove here) but this is like an unexpected dessert before the main course.

The Skins I Live In

Think of consciousness as a slug, one that slithers under and through the meat of our animated carcasses. The slug is what animates them really, shooting off electric sparks as it slips and slides in between skin and bone, gristle pressing against its blind mole eyes, its lax tongue trailing behind. Anyway I think that's what dinner conversation at the Cronenberg Household sounds like, now that I've seen two films by David Cronenberg's son Brandon -- it feels like the meat of Possessor, his latest out today, is electrified by that base metaphorical assumption anyway.

The film drops us into its own central science-fictional conceit and expects us to play catch-up, but it's not too hard if you've been at this game long enough, the idea's simple -- Andrea Riseborough plays Tasra Vos (I see Brandon got character naming skills from his pops too), an albinic ex-wife and mother who for work puts on a large helmet and parasite-like invades a select person's consciousness, using that person's body to then murder someone close to that person for money. The host body she's taken over takes the blame for the killing, voila, everybody actually complicit walks away scot-free.

Tasra, while inside the other person's brain, is supposed to take their life once they've committed their crime, a safe-wall of attrition that keeps the set-up from being uncovered, but Tasra has begun to have some slippage once we meet her, and can't seem t pull that final trigger. Her own personal life's in shambles, and she seems to be finding a source of comfort and completion in Being Somebody Else -- although this is a real chicken or the egg scenario since we don't see her backstory; perhaps her life crumbled because she started letting her consciousness worm whore itself around all over.

This all sounds real heady, har har, but in the grand Cronenbergian tradition Brandon turns Ideas into Matter -- Brain Matter that is. He makes meat of the situation! And so Possessor is the stickiest experience in any cinema this year, full of cameras traveling down throats and wounds in extreme close-up and more gore-goo than you'll find at any Halloweentown store at any outlet mall on the outskirts of any suburban village. If you're not into the sight of teeth being rearranged I respectfully warn you off. 

Of course it's more than that -- like his father Brandon has adopted the intermingling of wet thick flesh with cold hard other-than; you know how the Brundle-fly at the end of the film The Fly has fully morphed into a quivering heap of steel slabs and hamburger sweat? Our deep mental, then turned physical, aversion to this co-mingle -- think also of the sexualized bodies twisted in car wrecks of Crash -- is the Cronenbergian sweet spot, and Possessor sneaks its sweet way around its own sort; we watch bodies melt and re-melt like wax in backwards time, beards and body hair sliming unnaturally -- it is beautiful and awful in beautiful, awful measure.

It's a big step up for Cronenberg Jr. -- I liked Antiviral but Possessor is its better in always; it's more assured of its ideas, more simple in its execution. It's weird to call a movie this weird "simple" but Possessor doesn't feel the need to obfuscate itself a la a Nolan movie in order to make itself profound; its ideas are already profound meditations on selfhood in themselves, and everybody works backwards from there -- including really terrific performances from Riseborough and Chris Abbott as the boy she takes over -- whittling it down to a sleek machine of maximum disturbance. 

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

I know, I know, -- you're thinking to yourselves, "What is Jason bringing up Call Me By Your Name for AGAIN? In 2020? In this economy???" Well here's why, lil' missy -- tomorrow marks the third anniversary of my first viewing of the film at the New York Film Festival, when I stumbled out of the theater in a daze (hey, remember movie theaters?), came back to my office, and pounded out one of my favorite (definitely my most personal) pieces of writing ever, this piece here. I'd write about it a million times more -- the longest most substantial piece is here but you can find links to all of the most important pieces at this link -- but you never forget your first... as Call Me By Your Name taught us. Of course we're still hearing about Luca making a sequel -- even just this week Armie talked about it -- but we've still got time before we know whether the "every five years" timeline that Luca's spoken of (he spoke of wanting to meet back up with Elio every five years) is a thing or not. For now, let's just savor the experience that was. Was it ever.