Armie Gives Bad Head

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A little Sunday morning pick-us-up! The poster for Wounds, Armie Hammer and Dakota Johnson's forthcoming horror film -- I had up until now been calling it a thriller but given that poster I now feel safe saying horror, I mean clearly -- is here, the film having just debuted at Sundance late last night. The film was directed by Babak Anvari, the man who gave us the very good Iranian horror film Under the Shadow (read my review of that here). The poster is very Scanners, no?

Anyway also debuting at Sundance last night -- Armie Hammer skittering all around Park City placing fake cockroaches on everything. It's apparently a reference to the movie, and a tweet I read looking around for reactiona confirmed bugs are prevalent, so, you know, I am fucking terrified of watching this movie now. Bugs are my number one HELL NO trigger. You haven't lived until you've seen me in the same room as an insect, you guys -- it's really something.
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Under Armie's Shadow

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I've been sitting on my thumbs all day thinking about Armie Hammer (yeah I meant what I said) as I waited for L'Officiel USA magazine to actually put the pictures from the above issue online, but so far all we've got is that snap a fan took (via) and my impatience has given way to impertinence because fuck it, I have news to report! Well Variety does, anyway. 

"Following his critically acclaimed role in “Call Me By Your Name,” Armie Hammer has found his next project in an untitled Annapurna Pictures thriller. “Under the Shadow” helmer Babak Anvari is writing and directing, with Lucan Toh of Two & Two Pictures, Christopher Kopp of AZA Films, and Annapurna Pictures all on board to produce.
 The story follows a New Orleans bartender whose life begins to unravel after a series of disturbing and inexplicable events begin to happen when he picks up a phone left behind at his bar. Annapurna is fast tracking the film, having already set a March 29, 2019 release for the pic."

(thx Mac) We have all seen Anvari's film Under the Shadow right? It's a pretty terrific little horror movie - here's my review of it from way back. I was just wondering the other day what he was up to, and here's my answer, and I love my answer, I want to kiss my answer on the mouth with an open mouth. So there's our answer on what one half of our CMBYN duo is up to next - let's hope we hear the Timmy half (which he hinted at yesterday) soon.
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Hey Hammer Don't Hurt 'Em

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I'm guessing the first photo, seen down below, of Armie Hammer and Dakota Johnson in Wounds -- Under the Shadow director Babak Anvari's thriller that's coming out in March -- got dropped online when Sundance announced the film is screening there a few weeks back. But s'new to me so there it is for us today. Coincidentally I'm seeing Armie's other 2019 movie -- Hotel Mumbai, which we shared the trailer for right here -- this very afternoon! What a coincidence. So what I'm saying is you'll just have to stare at this picture and try to remember Armie & Dakota in happier times until I am back tomorrow. Bye until then...

Fresh Wounds

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Wounds, Armie Hammer and Dakota Johnson's new horror flick with Under the Shadow director Babak Anvari is hitting Hulu this weekend, and several new photos of Armie have been released -- there are a couple more at this link where I got them from. And you can watch the trailer right here.

I'm disappointed at how this thing seems to be getting dumped, I've got high expectations! Under the Shadow is fantastic and it got some good notices at Sundance in the spring.I was hoping to get my hands on a screener for review but that doesn't seem to be happening so I'll just watch it on Hulu this weekend with the rest of you.

Great Moments In Movie Shelves #191

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So for Halloween last night I ended up watching two scary movies -- well two and a half if you count the half of 1966's Chamber of Horrors I caught off TCM -- and one of them was Babak Anvari's Wounds with Armie Hammer & Dakota Johnson, which I'll hopefully discuss in a bit, while the second ended up being...

... a re-watch of Guillermo Del Toro's gorgeously technicolor Crimson Peak, which I probably hadn't seen since 2015. (Here's an entertaining piece I wrote on it at the time.) The movie had snuck into my brain on the back of that post I did wishing Mia Wasikowska a happy birthday last week.

The engraving above the fireplace in the library slash music room of Allerdale Hall reads "Ad Montes Oculos Levavi" or "To the hills we raise our eyes," which -- besides being on the Coat of Arms for Cumbria where the mansion is supposed to be, as well as being taken from the Book of Psalms -- seems to me could be a subtle reference to both HP Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness (which Del Toro almost filmed at one point) and Clive Barker's story "In the Hills the Cities," but maybe I'm just mashing up my molehills. Whatever the case we're high up, is the point. Thin air and all. People lose their heads up there.

This is the second proper conversation we've seen at this point in the film between the new bride Edith (Wasikowska) and her fresh sister-in-law Lucille (Jessica Chastain), after a bonding chat involving dying butterflies, and this one seems friendly enough on the surface -- Lucille is a weirdo but she's not quite a terrifying weirdo quite yet, and her barbs aimed at her mother's stern portrait seem harmless enough.

It's only later, once you think back or once you re-watch the film and you know these siblings terribly dirty secrets, that you realize what Lucille's digging at in this scene, flipping through a dirty book and pushing Edith to talk about her sex-life (or hopefully lack thereof) with Lucille's brother Thomas (Tom Hiddleston)...

... oh Lucille, you dusty ol' perv. 

Stick 'Em Up, Armie

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Armie Hammer has been posting some fun pictures on his Instagram from the set of Darkest Dark, his now-filming thriller with Under the Shadow director Babak Anvari - we already posted a good one a couple of weeks ago - but this one of him getting handcuffed is... better. Especially knowing his... predilections....

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Pic of the Day

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I was just looking for an excuse yesterday to post about Armie Hammer's currently filming thriller with Under the Shadow director Babak Anvari, and Armie was nice enough to post this picture of the two of them on the set for me last night - thanks, Armie. You could've done it during the day when i was looking but I suppose you do have other things you're busy with. I suppose! 

Anyway I just wanted to share that the film finally got an official title, after being name-less for too long (now we can call it by its name, as it were!) -- the movie is titled Darkest Dark. Oh and there's an official synopsis too and it sounds way more like a horror movie than I had thought it was from the original basic description we heard way back when; here's the newer scarier synopsis:

"Will’s life descends into a nightmare when he discovers a cell phone after a violent brawl. Friendly and charismatic, he’s been skating across life while in a state of carefully maintained contentment. He decides to keep the cell phone just until the owner returns and everything changes. Then the messages begin. Finally, Will has discovered something unheard of and it’s crawling slowly into the light."

Unknown things crawling are never good! Listen to somebody who went to college and knows. Anyway Darkest Dark is filming in New Orleans right now, so it'll probably be out next year. It co-stars Dakota Johnson (requisite link to this picture) and Zazie Beetz and Karl Glusman, yum.
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Wound Me Up, Buttercup

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For months I've been complaining that Wounds -- the new horror film from Under the Shadow director Babak Anvari starring Armie Hammer and Dakota Johnson, and have you seen Under the Shadow yet, well have ya? -- seemed to be slipping through the cracks, release-wise, and now that I have seen Wounds I can say I understand why. It's not precisely terrible -- these are all talented people involved. It's just one or two degrees off from working, but those one or two degrees, with a project this high-wire, defeats it.

There are moments when it's kind of terrible. There are moments where Armie's called on to sell things I'm not really sure any actor could sell, but they're especially not his particular strong suits -- Armie, despite his ridiculous handsomeness, radiates a shyness, an awareness of always being looked at. I'm not as tall as he is but I recognize this same strain in myself -- we stoop over in order to make other people more comfortable, to not stick out quite as bad. 

This quality worked real well for him in Call Me By Your Name because it made Oliver seem like he was covering something up which he was (until he wasn't), but here in Wounds this douchebag called Will that he's playing shouldn't be as aware of himself as Armie comes off -- this guy's a dumb drunk who's bad for everybody around him and should be played more insidiously poisonous than Armie plays him. Lord knows I can't stand Miles Teller but Miles Teller is more the type needed for this, precisely because I can't stand him.

That's not all on Armie; Anvari doesn't really help Armie out, holding his camera on those weaker moments, and in return a vacuum opens up in the film where a real loathing should be humming -- the central relationship between Will and his girlfriend Carrie (Dakota Johnson) is unraveling and that should feel way more fraught than it does. Instead we get some amusing sniping back and forth at the kitchen table when these scenes need to sting, to be dark and leave welts, and tear asunder. (That said I said about five times I wanted to turn Dakota's terrific line readings into ringtones; she does what she can with a severely underwritten role).

The frustrating thing is you can see that one or two degrees to the side where the movie they wanted to make lives, and there are terrific moments that crawl around that thing -- all the stuff with Brad William Henke is weird and dangerous and grossly effective, up to and including the film's out-there mouth-hanging climax. As admitted on this site before my number one fear is insects so in that sense this shit worked on me; I was fidgeting and squirming, scratching myself and saying out loud "HELL NO" sporadically from start to skittering finish.

My Beautiful Boys

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I was really very mostly off-line the whole time I was away this past weekend, save for watching the six-part doc Wild Wild Country on Netflix - which I highly recommend - so I'm still playing catch-up but late or no I still gotta share these three bits of news on my Call Me By Your Name boys. First things there is that shot above, which is our first look at Timmy in Beautiful Boy, his upcoming movie about addiction opposite Steve Carell. At that link IndieWire says BB is out on October 12th, which is also news to me - god I hope he's good (he will be, duh) and Oscar feels like making it up to him for last month's most egregious slight. Next!

We knew that Timmy was making a Henry V movie called The King with Animal Kingdom director David Michod as of a few weeks ago - we also knew that writer and sometimes-speedo-clad-actor Joel Edgerton was writing the thing. But now we know (via Variety) that Edgerton will co-star in it opposite Chalamet. As we noted when we first reported on this story IMDb still has Robert Pattinson listed in the cast but Variety makes no mention of him in their story. There's a good chance he might be left over from an earlier iteration of the film's cast - I guess we'll have to wait and see. (Boo.) Next!

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This picture makes me love Dakota Johnson so very much pic.twitter.com/9GBY8cJlX6

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 2, 2017

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Now for news on that other CMBYN chap, Mister Armie Hammer. This is another update on a project we rambled about yonder back - we told you in February about how Armie is making a thriller with Babak Anvari, the Iranian director of the fantastic horror film Under the Shadow; well now we've got news on his co-stars and hooray it allows me to post that shot of Armie getting ooogled by Dakota Johnson that I adore so much (a photo that almost singlehandedly, give or take A Bigger Splash, has made me a fan of Dakota forever + ever) because she's on of 'em. (Thx Mac) The other's Zazie Beetz, who's on Atlanta and is in the Deadpool sequel. The movie, which remains title-less, is about a bartender whose life unravels after he forgets his phone at a bar. Sounds Hitchcocky! I like Hitchcocky.
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