Aaron Pierre Fifteen Times

Usually I don't bother reading the profiles of actors in Men's Health because -- well I mean come on this isn't Playboy, we're not reading Men's Health "for the articles." And yet I'm glad I did read the one that goes along with Aaron Pierre's new cover-shoot for the magazine because how else would I know that his career got kickstarted by Barry Jenkins sliding into his DMs? LOL it's not quite as sordid as it sounds -- Jenkins went to see Moonlight star André Holland do Othello on stage where Aaron was playing Cassio opposite him, and Jenkins immediately saw the movie star we all saw the first time each of us saw Aaron Pierre. Still -- thank you, Barry Jenkins! (The two went on to make The Underground Railroad together, which allows me to remind y'all for the dozenth time that if you still haven't watched that masterpiece, do.) Anyway let's get back to what we "read" Men's Health for -- the photos! Hit the jump for the whole shoot...

Big Cigars & Even Bigger Estates

The New York Times chatted with MNPP faves Alessandro Nivola and André Holland over the weekend  on their new series The Big Cigar, about the unexpected friendship between Black Panther co-founder Huey P. Newton and Hollywood producer Bert Schneider back in the 1970s, premiering on Apple+ on May 17th -- read it here. But wait! There's more Nivola News! I wish there was enough Nivola News for us to have a weekly column titled just that -- Nivola News. I could make a logo and everything. Anyway he works enough that it feels like it sometimes, bless him. Anyway Deadline reported this morning that Mr. Nivola has joined the cast of the third Downton Abbey movie, which is happening. Not really a surprise, given that the last movie did well (and was pretty delightful to boot.) He joins the cast along with Paul Giamatti, Joely Richardson, Simon Russell Beale (who I can't believe hasn't been on the show previously) and Arty Froushan -- I knew that last name was familiar and sure enough I already followed him on Instagram because...

... he's one of the super hot guys on House of the Dragon. In fact he was one of the super hot GAY guys on House of the Dragon -- if you need a recap of that storyline click here; to be honest I'd completely forgotten all of that myself. I am going to need a real recap on that series when it returns later this year! Anyway I think Froushan himself is gay but don't quote me on that -- his social media and some articles seem to point in that direction but I couldn't find a definitive quote before my laziness took over. It's a real ticking time bomb, my laziness -- answers best show up fast or I'm out! Anyway whoever he's fucking in real life Froushan is a hot one...

... and I hope Downton takes advantage of that. Where did we last leave our favorite hot gay footman Thomas Barrow (Rob James-Collier)? I can't remember how the last movie ended. He was flirting with both the actor and the King's dresser? Am I mashing different movies up in my head? Anyway just throw Alessandro Nivola in there and bring back Charlie Cox's gay character (and as seen below Froushan is in the new season of Daredevil after all so Charlie can just jump on his back, ahem, and ride over) and then have the entire third Downton movie be a bunch of gays fighting and fucking threir way through the 1940s. We've earned it dammit!

Good Morning, World

Today we wish a happy 50th birthday to one of the movies great under-appreciated talents and sexpots Alessandro Nivola, long-time MNPP fave -- if you don't believe us spend a year skipping back through our Alessandro Nivola Archives! They are thorough, perhaps excessively so. Seems like the right time to share a couple of never-before-posted gifs from Laurel Canyon anyway, which alongside Jurassic Park III the year before made up "The Moment I Fell For..." Alessandro. Who didn't? In related news Laurel Canyon just turned 20 this year -- think it's time for a revisit! There was actually Alessandro news yesterday -- he's going to co-star with the great André Holland in an Apple+ series called The Big Cigar and yes they are totally trying to bait me with that title.  The series is about the Black Panther Huey Newton (Holland) escaping to Cuba with help from Easy Rider producer Bert Schneider (Nivola), and yeah that sounds like a lot of story to tell! Very excited for that, and for the several other projects that Nivola's got lined up too. (Thankfully for someone so under-appreciated he works lots.) Happy birthday!

Pic of the Day

Our second official look at Luca Guadagnino's next movie Bones and All, starring his Call Me By Your Name boy-wonder Timothee Chalamet alongside Waves girl-wonder Taylor Russell, has arrived today (via) -- it's pretty similar to that first photo although less Timmy-shirtlessness detected; see the first photo at this link here. This is the cannibal romance I told you about here; it also reunites Luca with CMBYN's Michael Stuhlbarg, Suspiria's Jessica Harper, and We Are Who We Are's Chloe Sevigny, along with Mark Rylance and André Holland. Word is that the movie is "Coming to theaters and festivals this fall via MGM" so you know, stay tuned! ETA here is more about MGM's purchase of the film, with quotes from the folks involved!

Quote of the Day

"Yeah it’s a really curious genre. It’s a road movie, but it’s also like a Bonnie and Clyde romance. And they happen to be eating people. So it’s got a very thoughtful aspect to it about things that we inherit from our parents. A little bit like Call Me By Your Name, in terms of discovering you are gay, something you didn’t know about yourself. How do you deal with that?"

That is Oscar-winner and Shakespearean powerhouse Mark Rylance talking to GQ magazine about his next project, Luca Guadagnino's forthcoming film Bones and All, which will probably be out next year (I recently heard that Luca is editing it right now) and stars Timothee Chalamet and Waves actress Taylor Russell as star-crossed human-scarfing lovers on the run in the 1980s. I posted the first photo from the film right here, and a snap from the set right here, but the one up top (from the same day) I missed and it gives a definite better look at Timmy's hair-do. Electric orange, baby!

The film happily reunites Luca with his Suspiria writer David Kajganich, which I already knew, but I hadn't looked at the IMDb cast list in awhile and a ton of names are on there now -- besides Rylance there's CMBYN daddy-du-jour Michael Stuhlbarg! Chloë Sevigny (who just gave one of my immediate favorite performances of hers for Luca last year in his HBO series We Are Who We Are)! Also from WAWWA Francesca "daughter of Marty" Scorsese! And did somebody say André f'ing Holland??? Then there's director David Gordon Green??? Huh. Oh and holla...

... Suspiria (both versions) star Jessica Harper!!! Then there's young actor Jake Horowitz, who in the past year has been in the sci-fi flick The Vast of Night (seen below, reviewed here), the remake of Castle Freak (anybody seen that?), as well as Mickey Reece's nun-tastic horror flick Agnes, which screened at Tribeca this past spring and just came out on the 10th. I saw that at Tribeca but have kinda sorta forgotten the whole thing now, and should give it a re-watch. Anyway quite the cast, cannot wait, et cetera et cetera!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Moonlight (2016)

Kevin: What you cry about? 

Chiron: I cry so much sometimes

I feel like I'mma just turn into drops.

Kevin: Just roll out into the water, right?

Roll out into the water just like all these other

motherfuckers around here trying to drown their sorrow.

Happy 5 to the best Best Picture winner since 1992.

It Don't Matter If You're Black or White

Well that's just great, now I'm going to have that Michael Jackson song stuck in my head all day. Remember the video with Macauley Culkin and Norm from Cheers and all the face-morphing? What a time to be alive. Anyway! I hadn't seen the paparazzi photos taken in November 2019 of Tessa Thompson and Ruth Negga shooting Rebecca Hall's film Passing here in NYC but I find them fascinating to look at now that I have seen the film, which was shot in beautiful black-and-white. You don't expect those pops of color in their clothes, but then they were most definitely chosen for the way they read on black-and-white film, as seen in a proper still from the movie down below. getting to my point I reviewed the movie, which just premiered at Sundance this week, for The Film Experience, and you can click on over and read my thoughts this very morning if you like. Let's just say I liked it. A whole lot. Oh and in bonus news Netflix just plopped down a pile of money for the film, so I have a feeling it'll be pushed for awards next time around, which thrills me.

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

Good Morning, World

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Have any of you watched Damien Chazelle's series The Eddy on Netflix yet? It stars two fella swe're huge fans of -- Andre Holland and this fella here, Tahar Rahim. One, I have not watched The Eddy yet but I want to, with that cast. And two, these photos aren't from The Eddy, they're from Tahar's other TV series I haven't watched, called The Last Panthers, from a couple of years ago. Anyway it's Tahar's 39th birthday in a couple of days -- he was born on the fourth of July! -- so we figured we'd celebrate while we could; hit the jump for several photos, gifs, and assorted pleasures of that sort...

Garrett Hedlund's a Bad Bad Boy

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I guess I should've held off on today's earlier post about Garrett Hedlund bottoming for Charlie Hunnam a lil' bit since there was more Hedlund-news right on the horizon. Like for one he is apparently dating Emma Roberts right now? Ha, okay. But for another more meaty bit Deadline is reporting that he's going to co-star alongside Tim Robbins and Eighth Grade's Elsie Fisher and the inestimable Lizzy Caplan (!!!) in the second season of the Stephen King Universe series Castle Rock! He and Robbins will be playing father and son, Pop and Ace, of the infamous Merrill crime family who show up across several King books, while Lizzy will be playing, drumroll please, Annie freaking Wilkes! 

That is pretty exciting stuff, y'all. Even though I will miss Sissy Spacek and Melanie Lynskey and André Holland and Bill Skarsgard's Butt from year one, this is helping me out. I haven't read "The Body" in ages -- Ace Merrill, Garrett's character, is one of the main bullies in it (played by Kiefer Sutherland in Stand By Me) and I can't recall if he's as gay as bullies in Stephen King's books usually are; anybody recall? I might be mixing him up with the bad guys from It some. But I sure kinda hope he's playing one of King's queer creeps...

Good Morning, World

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When Boyd Holbrook posted his latest stab at male modeling -- if you haven't scrolled through our great big enormous gratuitous post on Mr. Boyd from way back in the day then you might not know he had an extensive career in being a hot ass male model before he became a professional actor -- on his Instagram last week I was like, wow that is some sexiness. But it wasn't until I went to the brand Zegna's site, which is what the ad is for, that I realized the commercial was shot by no less than Luca fuckin' Guadagnino! And now the sexiness, it makes the sense.

I mean who else would feature an extreme close-up of Boyd zipping up his pants, lol? Anyway of course now after the fact I notice that Boyd actually did mention "his friend Luca Guadagnino" in his original post, but that only opens a whole new can of worms, getting me thinking all kinds of thoughts about their "friendship." What friendship? Where are the photos, Boyd? Where are the photos???

I could see Elio having a fling with Boyd in Call Me By Your Name, couldn't you? (I know you could, and can, and will, and do.) Hey Luca, I know you're listening -- make it happen! But seriously, I know Luca's listening because there are other videos in the Zegna campaign, including one that's of (deep breath) Andre Holland doing pull-ups in front of a bookcase!!!

Luca! You're too too good to me, dude. And I haven't even gotten around to the William Chan videos yet -- if they're good we'll post them later this week. This morning has already gotten away from us with all these gifts! Hit the jump for more gifts, in the way of gifs...

5 Off My Head: The Looks of Love

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I always walk into Valentine's Day with cynicism -- Corporately Monetized Pseudo Romance, Blurgh! -- but then slowly, as I see people talking their favorite Romantic Movies all day long, my black hearts melts off its stinky exterior and the sappy softy beneath gets exposed. This happens every year and every year I am unprepared for it. Anyway after posting about Sorry Angel this morning and Call Me By Your Name a wee little later my heart-melt happened real fast today -- so fast I've gone and prepared a list for us by lunch-time! Here are five of my favorite "Looks of Love" in movies from the past 15 years -- romantic glances that just make my heart sing looking upon them.

Jack & Ennis, Brokeback Mountain

"You know it could be like this...
just like this always."

Therese & Carol, Carol

"My angel. Flung out of space."

Elio & Oliver, Call Me By Your Name

"Because I wanted you to know.
 Because I wanted you to know.
Because I wanted you to know."

Frances & Sophie, Frances Ha

"It's that thing when you're with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it... but it's a party... and you're both talking to other people, and you're laughing and shining... and you look across the room and catch each other's eyes... but - but not because you're possessive, or it's precisely sexual... but because... that is your person in this life. And it's funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it's this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It's sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don't have the ability to perceive them. That's - That's what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess."

Kevin & Chiron, Moonlight

"You the only man that's ever touched me.
You're the only one."

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Give me some of your faves 

from any movies, any time, in the comments!

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A Weatherman of Words

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It's not easy to get ten steps out ahead of your audience these days when everybody's looking for the game, but once again Steven Soderbergh lives to make it look easy -- High Flying Bird is as tricky a caper as his Oceans films but with serious-minded pursuits of the political sort switched in for silly card shark shenanigans. You get a sense of what's up about the time you notice it's a basketball movie without any basketball -- such is the conceit, what with a timely league shutdown its play-field, all the better to dribble one-handed behind your back.

Andre Holland's player rep Ray Burke wants to do the right thing, but how right is right enough, and where does a singular right stop and a broader sense of righteousness begin? His game's a tricksy one and as High Flying Bird coasts along, conversation to conversation, it catches you up in a Hawksian rhythm, the conversational minutiae of smart people smarting out over top of one another, so you lose its forest for its trees, its extra innings for its three-pointers.

That's as far as you're gonna get sports analogies from me, I'm already in over my head, and thank goodness High Flying Bird doesn't rely on my polyester-thin knowledge therein to get the game behind the game behind the game. The answers are all hand-delivered in the opening scene, neatly folded inside a manila envelope and carried around, spot to spot, like Hitchcock's Macguffin, like the bomb that blew up the little boy on the bus -- the right character will spot the hand-off, spill the secrets, and unfurl the what for when the right time comes don't you worry. These are the smooth hands of a master massaging over you -- just enjoy the sensations.

Sebastian Stan Is Number One

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I'm going to try to write up my thoughts on Steven Soderbergh's new film High Flying Bird in just a little bit, but first some starfuckery! The film had its New York premiere last night as part of the "Film Comment Selects" series at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and there were a bunch of famous faces in the crowd. On stage for the Q&A seen up top and down bottom were the film's stars Andre Holland & Zazie Beetz and its screenwriter Tarell Alvin McCraney (an Oscar winner for Moonlight). Oh and this happened:
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Just got pee-shy at the urinal beside a emphatically not pee-shy Sebastian Stan

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 7, 2019

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Let's not fool, that's why we're here. And before you call me forward Sebastian was on his fucking phone at the urinal so I don't feel like I'm being invasive -- he could have been taking pictures of my dick for all I know. (One can dream, anyway.) Seb was only there as an audience member though...

... so my only opportunity to take his picture would have been, uh, there at the urinal, so I demurred alas. He looked mighty fucking fine though, I tell you what. I did manage to grab some snaps of Kyle Maclachlan though...

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KYLE
FUCKING
MACLACHLAN pic.twitter.com/vMo5q73lSl

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 8, 2019

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Kyle is in the film but didn't partake in the Q&A; same with Soderbergh himself, who stayed in the audience and let his actors and screenwriter do the talking for him. Anyway High Flying Bird hit Netflix today, so go watch it, and once I get my shit together I'll review it in a bit.

High Flying Suit

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High Flying Bird could be 90 minutes of that shot of André Holland sitting at a table in that suit and I'd be in - looks like Stevie Soderbergh's got other stuff in mind according to the trailer but I'm just putting it out there, if he wants to release the "André Holland wears that suit and sits like that for 90 minutes" cut I'd pay good money for it. Here's the trailer for the actual movie:

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When we wished SS a happy birthday on Monday we told you this film's released on February 8th, so it's right quick, and it's Netflix we're talking about so that's for everybody (insert asterisks to say that is meaning America at least). Also in this movie is Zachary Quinto, Zazie Beetz, Melvin Gregg, and Kyle MacLachlan, among many others. It's also screening one day early here at FSLC here in NYC as part of their upcoming Film Comment Selects annual program with Soderbergh and some cast in attendance, and I'm hoping to go to that -- check out the whole program for Film Comment Selects right here. As usual it's good stuff!
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

sex, lies, and videotape (1989)

Cynthia: The organ itself seemed like a, a separate thing, um, a separate entity to me. I mean, when he finally pulled it out, and I could look at it and touch it, I completely forgot that there was a guy attached to it. I remember literally being startled when the guy spoke to me.

A happy 56 to director Steven Soderbergh today! To be quite honest I don't like SL&V very much at all, but I remember thinking Laura San Giacomo was good so I'll quote her "organ" speech - it's an instrumental one. Anyway even if I don't love this movie I do love Soderbergh, and I'm fairly thrilled he's got two count 'em two movies coming out this year after he took his little wayward sabbatical...

First up is High Flying Bird, a basketball movie of some sort starring André Holland (who was on Soderbergh's grand television program The Knick, you might recall) as a sports agent who has a "controversial" business proposal for a client played by Melvin Gregg. HFB is out very soon, on February 8th. Then later this year there's The Laundromat, his great big star-studded "Panama Papers" movie with Meryl Streep and Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas and Alex Pettyfer (I love that he gave Alex a gig after he was insufferable on the Magic Mike set) and holla Matthias Schoenaerts y'all...

Pics of the Day

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Earlier this summer the Shakespeare in the Park bunch here in New York put on Othello with Chukwudi Iwuji in the lead and Corey Stoll rocking some swoon-worthy (and sweaty) leather drawers in the Iago role - far be it from the Globe theater in London to get left behind though, for they're currently staging the same show and they've gone and put dreamy André Holland (who is currently rocking it on TV in Castle Rock as well) in an outfit of pure sex all their own.

Is this the first time a turtleneck's been referred to as "pure sex" in the history of the world? I don't know but André is making it happen. He's also rocking a pretty swank embellished military jacket - there's a whole collection of pictures from the show right here (the costumes are kinda nuts, especially the women's, you should check them out) and a round-up of reviews for the show can be found at Playbill. Somebody fly me to London for this, please...

André Holland Three Times

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Tonight's the night that the Stephen King anthology show Castle Rock premiere son Hulu -- the show stars André here as Henry Deaver, a lawyer who returns to his wacko childhood hometown of the title to defend a man imprisoned (played by Bill Skarsgard). His mom is played by Sissy Spacek and his best friend is played by Melanie Lynskey and there, I'm done, you have about ten thousand excellent reasons to watch the show now thanks to those names.

I do have a question though and it's driving me nuts - isn't "Deaver" a surname that King has used before? Am I imagining things? Either I have made it up or it's so obvious your answer will shame me but I did a quick google and turned up whitless. Since this is a show mixing together all of King's Maine writings though it wouldn't be strange if "Deaver" is a reference to something... (pics via)