Good Morning, World

I'm not even sure what movie the above Jean-Paul Belmondo moment is from but I'm having me one of my many Belmondo moments after re-watching Godard's masterpiece Pierrot Le Fou yesterday -- as I told you recently it's hitting Criterion on October 6th and I can now report the disc is top notch -- and so here we are. Anybody know the film? I got the gif off Tumblr and it wasn't labeled. Anyway if y'all follow me on Twitter you could probably already sense a lil' Belmondo tsunami was imminent...

Belmondo, fox pic.twitter.com/eSJBke5gHP

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 27, 2020

Quote of the Day

"It would be hard to get me to watch any of my movies once I’m done, but I have been thinking about this one, remembering back to when I was writing it, trying at the time to get across this sense of anxiety, and the earthquake in the movie seeming like a way to do that. The idea of a big one, the big one. And now I’m like, “Oh, we’re in the big one.” I guess I sort of hope that the scene where Evan’s character comes out of the bathroom and is transformed, well, I want us all to come out of the bathroom one day and into the light, and for everything in the mini-mart to seem delicious and amazing and to shake someone’s hand for too long."

That quote from director and awesome person Miranda July will make slightly more sense once y'all finally see her new movie Kajillionaire, which is hitting some theaters today, but you probably get the gist of it enough to see how poignant it is given, and here I gesticulate wildly, all this shit. Anyway now that I have mostly stopped gesticulating I ask you, go here, to this link if you missed it, where I reviewed Kajillionaire, a very fine movie. And the rest of July's interview is over at Interview Magazine. 

PS this is usually the time of the week where I say goodbye until Monday, but we're in the middle of the New York Film Festival so that's not the case -- I've got a review going up at The Film Experience later tonight and there may be more over the weekend popping up, so your eyes and fingertips, keep 'em peeled and glued to this place.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

In the Loop (2009)

Linton Barwick: I can't stand to see a woman bleed 

from the mouth. It reminds me of that Country 

& Western music which I cannot abide.

Just noticed it is the terrific actress Mimi Kennedy's birthday today and even though she works tons -- if you watch the sitcom Mom you're familiar with her -- I can't help it, all I ever picture the second I see her name is her saying, "I'm not a monster" through a bloody mouth to a flustered Anna Chlumsky in In the Loop. Sorry, Mimi! Some moments are just too damn indelible to ever forget. Happy birthday, you no doubt perfectly lovely woman! (Also just noticed she's from my hometown of Rochester, NY!) 

The Human Voice in 150 Words or Less

A rainbow fistful of tubular-formed pill casings. An axe, eloquent in light wood, wrapped in brown paper, tossed nonchalantly into an oversized Chanel bag. Dog acting. A phone rings, causing a mug-cradling Tilda Swinton to snap her head around with precision melodrama. A red suit. A blue suit. A police-station line-up of priceless Ettore Sottsass vases piled just out of reach. Tilda hurls a ceramic. Tilda smashes a champagne flute. A gas-can that looks to've cost more than my education. Fire-engine red, of course. A Krups coffee maker. Fire-engine red, of course. Turtlenecks. Spangled black and gold Aladdin pants. An elaborate ballgown dragging across a warehouse's dirty cement. More dog acting. Scrims. A stack of DVDs including Phantom Thread. Contemplating eating, but thinking better of it. Using said eating as a ruse. A cine-visual Strait-jacket reference. Self-descriptive "melancholy and madness." Dog acting. Melodrama. Flames. Fire engine red, of course.

Which is Hotter?

 

I... have never posted this photo before? It's a shot from his 2018 cover-shoot for VMAN magazine, which I did indeed post at the time (right here), but I somehow missed this one? Very strange. It's got everything -- giant sweaters, Timmy's bony little knees. Everything. (Those two things are now for the purposes of this post my definition of everything.) Anyway I find it comforting there are photos of Timothee I haven't posted before -- who knows what wonders and secrets the world has left to spill? On that note this week we've seen two different designs for Timmy's Dune action figures (via, thx Mac) -- there's the McFarlane one and the Funko Pop one. And since it's lunchtime and I am otherwise engaged, here's a ridiculous poll to pass some time:

polls

Happy New Sufjan Day!

Put on your banjo pants and your favorite star-spangled banners, because The Ascension, the new album from the artist presently known as Sufjan Stevens, is available for streaming on all of your streaming platforms today! The physical release got delayed a couple of weeks -- my big fancy vinyl set is set to arrive in mid-October. But I was able to use my telephone like a futuristic robot to listen to the record this morning on my way to work -- I have a long commute but the record is longer, meaning I didn't make it all the way through by the time I sat down to my desk and started typing things. But I dig the funky beats I have so far heard!

Sufjan sings
PUT THE LOTION IN THE BASKET
on his new record
It has all been worth it

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 25, 2020

 

That photo up top is from a new chat with the singer-man at The Guardian, which I haven't read yet. I just look at pictures now. It's 2020, I don't have to read! Fuck yeah!

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

This month's issue of L'uomo Vogue is looking good! Not only does it contain that Alexander Skarsgard photo-shoot we've been drooling on all week long, it contains this shoot of Tenet actor and Junior-Denzel John David Washington (via). So I might as well ask -- who's seen Tenet? Anybody actually seen Tenet at this point? I barely remember Tenet being a thing until something like this happens but no, in case that didn't clue you in, I have not seen Tenet. Anyway I dug JDW in BlackkKlansman so I hope he got something to actually do in Tenet besides wear a suit and run.

The Knick II: The Knickening

In a new interview The Knick creator and filmmaker of some renown Steven Soderbergh says that a third season of our beloved Cinemax series The Knick is in the works, and that it is set to focus on André Holland's character... and that Moonlight director Barry Jenkins is behind it. We say yes to all of that! When the show ended its second season I recall Soderbergh saying at the time that he'd be open to somebody else continuing the show, but that he personally was done telling his story -- I guess this is what he was talking about! Soderbergh says he just read the pilot script and it is "terrific" -- oh and he adds that he personally is working on a sequel to his movie High Flying Bird, which also starred André. Anyway all of this sounds excellent; I really just have one specific request when it comes to more of The Knick...

Dear @BarryJenkins & @Bitchuation

We demand more Bertie
Please and thank you #TheKnick pic.twitter.com/BiFJ1y8Jij

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 24, 2020

The Nightstream Cometh

I'm feeling a little dull-brained today (more than usual, even) so I'm taking advantage of this coinciding with all this Fall Festival News to simply, happily, barf up the news of them instead of being my usual daringly creative self -- I might apologize but this is probably preferable reading material to at least sixty to seventy percent of you, and that's me being extra kind to my ego. And with that! I don't know if you'd heard but five of the annual regional genre festivals scattered across this beautiful country of ours -- those being the Boston Underground, the North Bend, the Overlook, Popcorn Frights, and our ol' pals at the Brooklyn Horror Fest -- have teamed up Voltron like for the 2020 season turned virtual, to present us with the Nightstream Festival, a massive online horror fest that will run October 8th thru the 11th.

Nightstream will feature almost forty films, including several world and North American premieres; it will feature a bunch of online conversations with filmmakers including one with Nia Dacosta on her forthcoming Candyman sequel slash re-do and one with Mary f'ing Harron on the 20th anniversary of her masterpiece American Psycho. There is a party hosted by Peaches Christ! There's something called "Dinner With The Masters Of Horror" that'll feature Mick Garris, Joe Dante, Mike Flanagan, and more. If you dig horror this is a four-day place to get diggin'.

Anyway today Nightstream announced their whole line-up and as I did earlier today with NYC's big queer-movie-palooza NewFest I will now highlight a couple of films from the enormous slate that immediately popped out at me. Well this being a horror movie fest they did more than just pop out -- they scooped out my eyeballs with hot spoons, they did! The Opening Night film, for instance...

... is called Run and stars Sarah Paulson and no, it is not a big-screen remake of that recent HBO series starring Domhnall Gleeson's beautiful ginger hair. It's the new movie from the director of Searching with John Cho, and is about a teenage girl (no Sarah paulson does not play the teenage girl; Paulson's range is good but not that good -- she's played by newcomer Kiera Allen) who's trapped in a wheelchair who starts to notice weird shit happening around her house. The movie is premiering on Hulu on November 20th, but why wait? Watch it at the start of October, I say!

Nightstream is also screening as their Closing Night picture the latest French nuttery from Rubber and Deerskin director Quentin Dupieux called Mandibles, which is unfortunately not an adaptation of Lionel Shriver's dystopian family drama but is (and I retract my "unfortunately" after reading this description) a comedy about two friends who discover a gigantic housefly in the trunk of their car and figure out how to monetize the thing. Sounds like a Quentin Dupieux movie to me.

Other highlights -- the new movie from Versus director Ryuhei Kitamura called The Doorman starring Ruby Rose; Jackie director Pablo Larraín's dance-epic Ema; Mickey Reese's truly wackadoo flick Climate of the Hunter, which I reviewed out of Nashville last year and which is a one-of-a-kind load of fun; there's a rural horror flick called Honeydew that stars Steven Spielberg's surprisingly hot son Sawyer...

(I guess those are the Kate Capshaw genes.) There's the new flick from Persepolis director and artist Vincent Paronnaud; there's a movie called Jumbo that stars Portrait of a Lady on Fire star Noémie Merlant and the description of which sounds like might be a movie entirely about a big dick? 

"Merlant gives a fearless performance as a shy amusement park worker whose life changes when a new star attraction shows up and immediately enthralls her with  “his” magnificent machinery in this fantastical and heartfelt debut from writer/director Zoe Wittock."

Right? Anyway I am only cracking the surface of everything 

that they've got planned, check it all out on their site! 

James Norton Three Times

You never know whether it's truly fall until photos

starring James Norton wearing some coats appear.

He's the Groundhog of Autumn. 

See another shot over here (thx Mac).

The Hills Are Alive With the Sound of Ahmed

Ever since the very first shot of Riz Ahmed playing a (shirtless) dummer who starts losing his hearing in Sound of Metal was released we have been excited for this movie to come out, and now we're 24-frames-per-second even more excited about the movie because now that first photo is moving!

Yes indeed Amazon dropped the film's first trailer today -- the film is set to play "select theaters" on November 20th and then hitting Prime on December 4th. So December 4th it is then! Here's the trailer:

Of course we can't leave it at just that,

so we've got more gifs after the jump...

What's New NewFest

During my day off yesterday NewFest 2020 went and dropped their full line-up for this year's mostly virtual fest, so today I play catch up! If you've heard all of this already, well you can go to hell. This is for the rest of us. (Not really, I love you!) (Unless you want to go to hell, in which case have at it. I prefer a cooler climate personally.) Anyway NewFest runs this year from October 16th through 27th and we already knew the big Opening Night film was Francis Lee's Ammonite -- see that post here -- so we'll focus in on some smaller but no less exciting stuff! But first, their trailer:

As you see there... hella gay. Right? So gay! I mean I know that's the idea but why they gotta rub all that gay in our faces? I mean when they could be rubbing the gay in our other places, obviously. Don't give my face all the attention, NewFest! That reminds me -- one year ago at NewFest I turned around to talk to my boyfriend at an after-party for one of their screenings and my boyfriend had literally been replaced by Chris Evans. No seriously -- that happened. If only I'd known then what I knew now! By which I mean Chris Evans definitively has a penis and I was about to be locked inside my apartment for eight months. 

Sorry I am really getting off track here. NewFest! We love NewFest! You can see their entire line-up on their website, I'm not gonna go through the whole thing because per usual they have an extensive line-up covering all the queer bases. But the titles that leapt right out at me are Alan Ball's Uncle Frank...

... which I've already posted about previously because it stars Paul Bettany and we love Paul Bettany, especially when he's not under all of that Vision make-up and wearing a mustache. That one is screening at the Queens Drive-in, what a thrill, outdoors and shit. And another one that leapt out at me was...

... Francois Ozon's Summer of 85, aka another one I've posted about before. Several times actually, as I tend to love Ozon films and this one looks like he took a lot of inspiration from Call Me By Your Name. See my previous posts, including its trailer, at this link. Oh and they're also showing Monsoon...

... aka The "Henry Golding plays gay" movie, previously posted about here -- this is from the writer-director of the lovely Lilting with Ben Whishaw. And I've already seen Monsoon and I'll have more to say about that closer to... not right now. Monsoon is getting a release in early November. Of course those are just some big titles -- there are loads more, including some fascinating looking docs (NewFest always has killer docs), one about Keith Haring and one about Truman Capote & Tennessee Williams, among many many others. Again check them at NewFest's website -- tickets are on sale right now!

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

I have no reason to be posting about Louis Garrel and Michael's Pitt's bath scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's 2003 film The Dreamers this morning, except... well it's Louis Garrel and Michael's Pitt's bath scene in Bernardo Bertolucci's 2003 film The Dreamers. It is Reason unto Itself! But seriously I haven't seen the film in a dozen years at least, and it's not its anniversary or anything (although it does turn the very special i.e. not special at all number of 17 in a couple of weeks)... it literally just... popped into my head this morning. Nobody's complaining, I don't know why I am over-explaining myself. Anybody watched this lately? I still can't believe that Michael Pitt's role was real close to being played by Jake Gyllenhaal. THAT is the moment when our timeline went askew! 

Good Morning and Entire Wednesday, World

We've got more photos from Alexander Skarsgard's new L'uomo Vogue photo-shoot! I shared the cover image with you yesterday and then last night, right before I took off for the day, these other equally dreamy photos appeared. And since I knew I was off today (more on that in a sec) I saved them for a treat this morning. If I had to hazard a guess I'd guess that this is what he might look like, roughly, in Robert Eggers' forthcoming Viking movie?  Just, you know, less long-underwear and more Viking-ier. 

Anyway back to the whole "me being off today" thing -- I am taking the day off to catch up on NYFF screeners / reviews! I will also be doing this one day next week. Hey it's less time than I normally take off during NYFF,  given the virtual aspect of screenings this time around. So you just sit here staring at these Alex pictures for 24 straight hours and I'll be back tomorrow with new shit, I promise. For now all the Alex is after the jump...

 

Kit Harington Thirteen Times

Oh thank god, you guys have no idea how badly I was needing a really good Hot Guy photoshoot to distract me from the world. Kit comes through! (Insert comment about Kit coming where ever he wants to here.) These photos (shot by Matthew Brookes) are for the Telegraph but...

... I don't know if there's a proper interview with our Former Jon Snow as it's all paywalled and I am cheap, cheap, cheap. Well cheap or broke, same diff. But I got pictures, do I ever, so I am rich in my own way. Rich with beards and tight jeans, aka all of the ways that count. Hit the jump for the riches...

And the Missus Maestro Goes To...

For awhile there were competing Leonard Bernstein projects that had Bradley Cooper (see here) and Jake Gyllenhaal (see here) both attached to play the closeted composer, but I think that maybe Cooper has thrown down the gauntlet with today's news that he's landed the great Carey Mulligan to play Bernstein's wife Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. Since, you know, the last time Carey Mulligan played a wife it had her married to...

... Jake Gyllenhaal and all. Cooper's movie has a title now too -- Maestro. No word on who's directing it but it'll probably be Cooper again, because a bunch of you people convinced him he did a good job (when he did not) with A Star is Born. That said before the Mulligan news I was totally rooting for Jake's movie -- which was supposed to be directed by Cary fuckin' Fukunaga! -- but this Mulligan bomb's got me capital-F flummoxed, seeing as how she's one of my favorite actresses around. SIGH!

Smile For Your Sins

Thought I'd start with a happy image, one totally at odds with the film itself, before diving back into David Fincher's Se7en for the second time of the day, here on its 25th anniversary. Enjoy that smile while you got it, kiddos. And that goes to everybody, all the time. Now onto the serious business -- I wrote a "Horror Actressing" thing about Se7en, specifically Gwyneth Paltrow's performance in Se7en, today at The Film Experience! Click on over to read it. I know it's "cool" to hate on Gwyneth (and lord knows she's earned her vitriol now and then) but I've always been of the mind she's a terrific actress, and she remains terrific in Se7en in a smaller-than-I'd-remembered part. And I know you're lying if you say you wouldn't want to go back to the mid-90s right now. Even as a gay person who had far fewer rights back then, with AIDS still raging, I would 100% go back there then. Look how simple things were, at least if you were a beautiful blond(e) rich movie star...

Pics of the Day

Looks like Thom Yorke, the frontman to the most important band of my life the one called Radiohead, went and got himself hitched this past weekend! Photographer GreG Williams posted these two snaps on his Instagram congratulating the couple -- Thom married an Italian actress named Dajana Roncione, who just recently starred in his long-form music-video "Anima" for director Paul Thomas Anderson. (Watch that here.) Thom mostly keeps his private life private -- private enough that I always feel gross peeking into it -- but I do know he was with one woman for a very long time, a doctor named Rachel Owen who died of cancer back in 2016, and he had his two kids with her. They had split up a year before she passed. Anyway not to make this about sad things -- I wish my favorite singer of all time all the happiness. Or you know as much happiness as the singer of the delightfully depressive band Radiohead can manage. Happy news during dark days should be embraced!