And If You Die Before You Wake

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I got so confused halfway through Sleep Tight when I realized that it had the same plot as that Hilary Swank and Jeffrey Dean Morgan movie called The Resident. Was this a remake of that? Was that a remake of this? And what would Jeffrey Dean Morgan making out with Luis Tosar look like anyway? Nevermind that last bit. My point is I read too much about movies I don't watch - I haven't even seen The Resident because I heard it sucked (and, you know, Hilary Swank), but somehow I knew its main conceit, yadda yadda, here we are. 

After a dollop of research I discovered that the two movies actually have nothing to do with each other. Huh. I'd be better primed to speak upon a comparison between them if I'd seen The Resident, let's just stick with the general consensus I heard, which is that it made a giant sucking sound. Which is kind of amazing because here in the the other corner, coming out six or so months later, we have Sleep Tight, which doesn't suck at all. Quite the contrary - it's a tremendously chilling little piece of work. Unsettling and suspenseful, with sequences that that pluck at your nerves like a harpist on trucker speed. This is a movie that would've had Alfred Hitchcock asking for Mommy. 

And all in the service of a monstrous protagonist - the sleight of hand magic that director Jaume Balagueró (he co-directed the first two [REC] films) manages to get us in this asshole's shoes is awe-inspiring. Watching Juan of the Dead (my review) only a few hours later and which failed this sort of test miserably only reminded me that such deft manipulations of audience sympathy as Sleep Tight gets right is not a thing to be admired lightly - this shit takes finesse, and Sleep Tight's got it full up. 

You know how Hitchcock uses the scene of Norman cleaning up Marion's murder in Psycho to get the audience over to his side through the effort of manual labor? Hitch's camera put us right alongside Norman as he scrubs that bathroom down, kind of tediously so - we find ourselves scanning the tiles for splotches of blood, thinking to ourselves, "Oh Norman, don't miss that spot!' And only afterwards when you think about it do you realize, "Good god, what was I thinking?" Sleep Tight is a movie that learned that lesson and uses it masterfully as a tool to plunk us down in the bad guy's shoes time and again, until we find ourselves time and again tense for this guy who we have no right being tense for. He might miss a spot, though!
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Way To Grab My Attention, Magic City

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If you don't have the money for advertising these days, I think the new Starz series Magic City has got it figured out - get your leading men out of their clothes and maybe have them suggestively touch each other a little bit and voila! The internet will do the work for you.

I hadn't even heard of this show until now, but giving me Steven Strait in a pair of blessedly teensy trunks getting his leg patted by Jeffrey Dean Morgan? That ensures I hear about you.

See a few more pictures after the jump, including a look at Jeffrey Dean Morgan's shapely just shy of forty-six year old buttocks.

Who's Laughing Now

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I spoke too soon last week when I posted about the rumors that Garret Dillahunt would be playing next season's big bad on The Walking Dead -- Dillahunt's out (if he was ever in) and Jeffrey Dean Morgan is our man, bad bad man, baby. You can read about it at that link, I won't get into spoilers here, but they are still filming the currently airing season so... who knows when we might see him show up? Anyway I've dug Dean Morgan since he rocked The Comedian's face off in the Watchmen movie; he maintained my interest by getting naked on that show with the other half-naked hot dude (I'm too lazy to look up its name... Magic City! That's it). And now this... Jared Padalecki approves!

I Am Link

All sorts of interestingish casting stuff announced today, along with some other tidbits... let's take a look-see, huh?

--- Inglorious Bastard #1 - The first official casting news for Tarantino's Inglorious Bastards comes out, and... it's Eli Roth? Yes, of course it is... I don't know why I couldn't see this coming beforehand. I thought Roth was just fine in Death Proof, and actually very funny in his own Cabin Fever, so I'm cool with this. Especially if he is exploited in a sexual manner. This being a QT film, however, I have my doubts such a thing would occur. He'll find some way to show a woman's feet though, that much is certain!

--- Like A Snake - Rumors are batting about that Natalie Portman wants to star in (and produce) David Gordon Green's remake of Dario Argento's master-work Suspiria as the put-upon dancer Suzy Bannion. I... am not horrified by this prospect. And my lack of horror horrifies me!

--- Hippie Hippie Shake - Three actors have been added to Ang Lee's gay-Woodstock movie Taking Woodstock - Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Emile Hirsch and Imelda Staunton. Morgan will be the married closet-case sleeping with our lead (played by Dimitri Martin), Hirsch is a Vietnam vet, and Staunton is Martin's mom.

--- In non-casting stuff, the latest episode of Final Girl's short film series, Ghostella's Haunted Tomb hit the interweb the other day, and it's LOL-funny y'all. Zombies, doggies, Cher - it has it all!

--- Hour Long Shower Scene - I can't imagine that whatever footage was left out of Hitchcock's Psycho for censors could make it much better, but it'd still be interesting to see some of it... and apparently it exists, because it was aired on German TV the other day. What? How? I don't know. It seems nuts. But me want now please.

--- Boo Goes The Beefcake - I know I am both A) gay and B) a horror fan, so I ought to probably pay attention to a filmmaker like David DeCoteau, who makes gay horror movies. But... they're all so bad! So very bad. I've tried. But he just seems more interested in making cute guys roll around in snug briefs than actually being scary. I bring this up because THR is reporting that he's set to remake a bunch of classic horror tales, such as "Edgar Allan Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum" and adaptations of works by H.G. Wells and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle" but give them a gay twist. Which will mean... lots of cute boys in snug briefs, I'm sure. I mean, I like looking at cute boys in snug briefs too, obviously, but the scales are tipped so far in his flicks into soft-core and the acting is just non-existent... I just really don't see the point of what he's been doing. It's not scary, and it's not terribly titillating either.

--- On the other side of the queer-horror scale, we have Clive Barker, who actually seems to want to genuinely scare us, and for that I am grateful. Via STYD comes the start of a viral campaign that Barker's doing for the next adaptation of his work (which will hopefully be better treated than the previous one, Midnight Meat Train) called Dread. And it's creepy! God bless creepy.
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I Am Link

--- Halving Hallows - Harry Potter producer David Heyman and star Daniel Radcliffe hint in the vaguest sense of the word hint at where they took the single book of The Deathly Hallows and split it in order to make it into two films. Says Radcliffe:

"...the end takes place 'at a very tense cliffhanger.'"

'K then. You can also check out some pictures from the now-filming set here. Those kids are so grown up now that I feel like an elderly person. Get me a Metamucil Smoothie, stat!

--- With Love - Why don't nobody ever send me decapitated Barbie heads charred and bloodied and stuffed in plastic bags? That's what I wanna know.

--- There's a pair of curious posts at Cinematical worth checking out - firstly, I don't know if they dubbed these films "Non Sequitur Cinema" themselves or swiped it from somewhere, but I like it. It speaks of films like Crank 2 that exist to stab you in the face with loud sexy ridiculousness rather than do typical storytelling stuff like "make sense."

Secondly, they run down the state of several what they're calling "Goth" movies - among them Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and Julie Delpy's The Countess. Do I have to paint my fingernails black if I wanna see these movies too? Is that what they're saying?

--- It Don't Make No Sense - Chris Evans joining a movie called The Losers is like me moving into an apartment building called The Home For Mentally Stable Success Stories. It don't make no sense!

I guess it's based on a comic (what isn't these days) and co-stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Zoe Saldana. What I need to know is, do Morgan and Evans' characters play enthusiastic homosexual lovers? That's what I need to know. Get me Hollywood on the phone!

--- That Face - Club Silencio singles out the wonderful Laura Dern's greatest attribute. I did this once too. Love.

--- Fire Fight - Slash/Film has got some new images, mostly behind-the-scenes, from Neil Marshall's Centurion.
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Good Morning, World

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I'm going to set aside my strong, active dislike of The Walking Dead's season premiere for a moment just so I can bring you these pictures of Jeffrey Dean Morgan (via), because obviously. I might think Negan's the worst thing to happen to the show since Jon Bernthal's southern accent, but I still like to look at El Jeffy.

Pics of the Day

What else? What every other geek will be geeking out over today: the reveals of five characters from Zach Snyder's Watchmen at the movie's website!

The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan)

Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman)

Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley)

Ozymandias (Matthew Goode)

Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson)

I haven't been paying attention enough: do we know if Dr. Manhattan, played by Bill Crudup, is going to be done with CG? Or will we actually get to see Crudup enormous, naked, and blue? Because I'd like that picture soon if the latter is the case.

As for these guys, I'm a little disappointed with Matthew Goode - he's much hotter than that picture is letting on, and Ozymandias is supposed to be super-hot. Maybe it'll look better in motion. Malin looks fantastic, although her pose is stolen straight outta Holly Hunter's playbook in The Incredibles. And Patrick Wilson... yup, still wanna jump on him.
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I Am Thursday's Brief Pair Of Links

Late start today, I've been busy waxing poetic on a certain yellow-bellied somebody over at The Film Experience where I'll be guest-blogging for a few days whilst Nat gets some much-deserved R&R... anyhoo, a couple points o' interest this morning -

--- We Have Our Heroes - though, in the context of Watchmen, "hero" is extremely relative... but they do wear costumes! Mostly. Anyway, the final cast has been officially revealed for Watchmen, and the only new name is Jeffrey Dean Morgan as The Comedian. Morgans's best known, I gather, from that soggy bobble-head-led doctor show on ABC I don't watch, something to do with a heart-transplant and something called Izzies that I've heard mentioned, I don't know. Thomas "Swoon" Jane and Gerard "Swoonier" Butler had been mentioned as being up for the part, but this guy was cheaper. Come on, that's why he got it. Anyway, Patrick Wilson, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Jackie Earle Haley, and Malin Ackerman are all official now, too.

--- My Buffy Alarm Went Off - seriously, it was weird, but I hadn't been thinking about the Buffy comics lately until this morning as I was getting ready for work and I saw them sitting on my bookshelf and told myself I had to check and see when the new issue was coming out and lo and behold, that day is today, the fifth episode of this Comic-Based Eighth Season - this issue a stand-alone story written by Joss Whedon - hits the shelves today according to AICN. Am I weird obsessive prescient or what?

ETA - Dark Horse has the comic listed as coming out on August 1st - that's this coming Wednesday. I haven't made it to the comic book store yet - damn work! - but I'm guessing Dark Horse is right and AICN jumped the gun...? Nevermind! It is on sale! Go buy it now!
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Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... having a stiff one with Austin Nichols.

Without actually ever being gay The Walking Dead has gotten really REALLY GAY this season - which sucks because this season is excruciating and more than ever I am only hate-watching the show. But Jeffrey Dean Morgan's Negan (who is the most excruciating of all) has brought a real weird gay rape fantasia feel to the series. 

So we get this scene, which is set up as if Spencer (that's Austin's character's name) is getting prettied up (he is even called "pretty" seconds before this) to go and flirt with one of Negan's female sidekicks, and instead he goes and well he flirts with Negan himself. And the camera...

... it does linger upon the backside of his khakis. And as he saunters up the stairs Negan says, "Oh crap. Is that for me?" (You can hear the audio over on Twitter, where I tweeted this scene as I watched it.) And you can't see the booze at this point - it's played as if he's taking in tall pretty Austin as his gift.

I don't want to get into spoilers but let's just say this "date" goes about as well as you think it might with a psychopath like Negan. But this episode also features all three of the show's openly gay characters (well the show hasn't mentioned that Jesus is gay yet, but he is), not to mention Daryl who, well, they keep calling him asexual but they're not really fooling anybody.

I don't know that I can make a coherent argument about the show's attitude towards gay men because I don't think the show has a coherent attitude toward gay men, or towards anything, except perhaps empty posturing and self-important nihilism. So of course when the Gay comes, after several seasons of getting shit for avoiding all things Gay, it comes to us in the middle of a story about a man with a great big killer phallus. The Walking Dead is nothing if not always thuddingly, exhaustively literal in its obsessions. Dick is just the zombie meat of the day, it seems.

Good Morning, World

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Anybody been keeping up with Magic City? I still haven't gotten around to watching any of it, even though it appears to be keeping true to its initial promise of Steven Strait and Jeffrey Dean Morgan gratuity pretty actively. 

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Carla Is Silk

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I love me some Carla Gugino (Karen Sisco was an awesome, awesome show) so this news (via Superhero Hype) is of the good variety to my ears:

"Carla Gugino (Sin City) has joined the cast of Watchmen, the Warner Bros. adaptation of the DC Comics limited series... She joins Patrick Wilson, Jackie Earle Haley, Matthew Goode, Billy Crudup, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Malin Akerman in the Warner Bros. movie, which is set in an alternate America that has passed a law banning costumed crime fighters. When one is murdered, the remaining members set out to solve the mystery.

Gugino will play Sally Jupiter, a burlesque dancer-turned-costumed heroine and sex symbol the Silk Spectre who is part of the Minutemen, a group of heroes who preceded the Watchmen. She also is the mother of the new Silk Spectre (Akerman). Gugino is expected to portray Jupiter in varying eras, playing different ages throughout the movie."

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Good Morning, World

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I was just randomly thinking the other day that I should post some Jeffrey Dean Morgan some time, and here it is, his 45th birthday today. What a coincidence!

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The Tiniest Swashbuckler

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I mean no offense when I call attention to Gael Garcia Bernal's height (or lack thereof) - some of my best friends are short people! Not that there's anything wrong with that! (Sorry I'm just seeing how many 90s expressions of inadvertent offense I can cram into this post.) Anyway itty bitty adorable Gael is going to star in a new Zorro movie -- called simply Z, the film will be written and directed by Alfonso Cuaron's son Jonás and it will be set in the near future, where they apparently have no use for extraneous letters.

I guess that Gael & Jonás get along because they already have a film called Desierto out later this year about a border crossing -- it co-stars Jeffrey Dean Morgan with a big beautiful gray beard...

Which is Hotter?

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Today is the birthday of both Tom Payne (who plays Jesus on The Walking Dead) and Steven Yeun (who played -- sorry for the past tense there, folks-who-are-behind -- Glenn on the show) but I couldn't find a picture of the two actors with each other, weirdly, so that picture of Jeffrey Dean Morgan molesting Yeun above will have to do. (I think it does.) I'm kind of surprised Payne is higher than Yeun on IMDb's Starmeter listing, but I suppose shouldn't be surprised by anything that pox on fragile actorly egos does at this point. And speaking of smashing some actorly egos...

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If you need more pictures before you make your decision you can see some more of Mr. Payne right here and there's lots and lots of Mr. Yeun at this link.

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Who Will Watch The Watchmen

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A lot of people hated Zack Snyder's 2009 film adaptation of Watchmen - I was not one of those people. It is admittedly goofy times infinity at times, and the quality of the performances are all over the map, but all things considered I find a lot to like about it. What is good - Jackie Earle Haley, Carla Gugino, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Patrick Wilson's Ass - is very good, and I've found the film immensely rewatchable; I always get caught up in it when it's on TV. Snyder's schtick may've grown wearisome over his subsequent projects but he was still a director worth watching as of this movie.

Anyway the news hit last night that Damon Lindelof, the man behind Lost and The Leftovers, has now gotten his hands on Alan Moore's superhero comic deconstruction, and he's turning it into a series for HBO. I am... of mixed emotions on this. I feel as if my emotions would be less mixed if the actual finale, the final hour, of The Leftovers hadn't been so gosh-darn good - I was not a fan of the show even though I inexplicably kept watching...

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I found the majority of the past 2 seasons of The Leftovers insufferable but that was an absolutely lovely finale (Carrie Coon focus = win) pic.twitter.com/QWFo8DLppB

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 8, 2017

... I might've quit it after the wet fart of a second season but when they announced the third was their last I figured I'd suffer through. Again there were enough goods in the good column to make it worthwhile - Ann Dowd, Carrie Coon, Justin Theroux's Ass.

But I felt very little for most of the characters by the end - they'd become so enmeshed in silly mystery I couldn't even see who they were anymore. Which is the same fate that struck Lost. And so I wonder if Lindelof might again get so wrapped up in Quirk & Circumstance that he can't see Dr. Manhattan's big blue beating heart for his big blue swinging dick.

Although dream casting the series could be fun, too!

Who would you cast now as The Watchmen?

Good Morning, World

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I think I'm far enough away from everything I hated about The Walking Dead to once again want some Jeffrey Dean Morgan in my life, which I realized while watching the mostly execrable Rampage. It was good to see him! Not as good as it was to see this, but good nonetheless. Let's get him back to groping twinks!

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Good Morning, World

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A happy 48th birthday to Jeffrey Dean Morgan! I was checking what projects he's got lined up and he has several but most interestingly is probably the one called Desierto, which he's co-starring in with Gael garcia Bernal and is being written and directed by Jonás Cuarón, Alfonso's son who co-wrote Gravity with him. Sounds like JDM is playing a racist border patrol vigilante hunting down a group of Mexicans trying to enter the US, led by Gael. Hot button! That's filming right now.

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Morning, World

That is correct, Jeffrey Dean Morgan -- we are still not ready to say "Good Morning" yet. Give us the weekend to sleep and grieve and perhaps Monday we can face the days again. For now....... let's just get through Friday.

Great Moments In Movie Staches

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When I wished Watchmen a happy 10 last week I forgot to make any mention of Jeffrey Dean Morgan's superhero mustache, and that shan't stand. No CG required on that sucker -- take that, Henry Cavill. Of course calling The Comedian a hero is a real, real, reeeal reach I suppose. Mustaches aren't for heroes! (Sexy) Bad Dudes only!

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Good Morning, World

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A little Jeffrey Dean Morgan makes any Monday morning brighter.