A Love Letter To Genevieve O'Reilly

I was rightfully chastised yesterday when I mentioned that I hadn't written anything here on the site proper about Andor (even as I haven't shut up about it on social media) so let's right that wrong today with a love letter to the biggest reason for that love -- namely Genevieve O'Reilly's extraordinary performance as the senator-turned-rebel-leader Mon Mothma. She's been playing the character in some iteration since she her scene got cut out of Revenge of the Sith in 2005 -- the character was originally played by Caroline Blakiston in Return of the Jedi, ("Many Bothans died to bring us this information") and no I couldn't have told you any of this nerdy shit a few weeks ago before I binged the first season of Andor right before the second season began. As I've stated on here a million times I've never been much of a Star Wars person; I was way too young when the original trilogy came out to pay them much mind (my parents didn't take me to the movies so I definitely didn't see any of them in the theater) -- Jurassic Park was my Star Wars. But since binging Andor, phenomonal Andor, I find myself wanting to go re-watch all of the Star Wars movies, which will surely turn out disappointing in comparison given that Andor is operating on a completely different level than anything else the franchise has ever accomplished. At the very least after tonight, when the final three episodes air, I will have to go and watch Rogue One again -- Andor is that film's prequel and I have a feeling I'll have a very different reaction to it now compared to the shrug it got from me when it came out in 2016. 

All of that said it's Genevieve O'Reilly we're here to celebrate, and celebrate we shall -- there are several great performances happening on the show (Denise Gough and Kyle Soller as those fascist creeps Dedra and Syril we hate to love, for instance) but, with all due apologies to Diego Luna -- Andor belongs to O'Reilly. Watching her transformation from a life of walled-off privilege to one of dangerous rebellion all due to her steadfast commitment to freedom for all has been wildly inspiring to watch -- I don't know if there will be a better scene on TV this year than the one where she has a breakdown on the dance floor at her daughter's wedding as she realizes just how much her life is collapsing around her. Andor has been so smart about the way it's wielded what we know is coming -- the inevitability of everyone's coming roles in the rebellion (given we already know most of their fates) has enriched every choice instead of undermining the tension. Tony Gilroy (the showrunner) has done an astonishing job forcing us to luxuriate in these uncomfortable choices, and nobody's made a richer feast out of this than O'Reilly. Give this woman all of the awards!

Been a hot minute since I have loved a character and a performance as much as I love this lady right here #andor

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) April 23, 2025 at 11:12 PM

Gael y la Luna

Seeing these new photos of forever besties with benefits Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna (via) reminds me that it's been a very long time since I have watched the movie that began it all Y tu mamá también. I need to get on that, but I do feel as if the minute I re-watch one Cuarón movie I am going to have to suddenly re-watch them all, and I keep holding out for a 4K remaster of Children of Men before that happens. WTF are they even waiting for? That movie has been begging to get a great re-release for ages. Anyway I digress -- I'm using these photos as a smoke-screen for my disappearing act -- I'm headed off to get my new Covid vaccine! And so should you be! See y'all tomorrow. And if you wanna bring either -- or both, both is good -- of these fellas with ya, feel free!

5 Off My Head: Threesome Movies

I know I've told this story here before but in 1994 when the movie Threesome was released I was still very much a closeted high schooler, but I had to see it. HAD to.  This was before the internet so anything with any hint of gay content coming anywhere near my small upstate New York cow town was extremely rare. And yet here was this movie opening at our recently built five theater multiplex! I had to be there! So I sneaked into a screening one night... and bumped into one of my best friends from church. There with her current boyfriend. Her current boyfriend who I had done a little light fooling around with a few years previous. And she insisted on us all sitting together. It was an utterly mortifying experience for me, and probably drove me deeper into the closet for another six months lol. Oh well! 

Anyway threesome movies! They're a good topic for today because of Luca Guadagnino's Challengers being the number one movie in the country, and also totally ruling. So here are five of my favorites!

5 of my Fave Threesome Movies

3 (Tom Tykwer, 2010) 

Design For Living (Ernst Lubitsch, 19833)

The Dreamers (Bernardo Bertolucci, 2003) 

Y Tu Mama Tambien (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)

Splendor (Gregg Araki, 1999)

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What are your favorite threesome movies?

Good Morning, World

Happy Monday (or should I say "Montag") morning from gay German actor Clemens Schick (via) -- haven't had the chance to post about him since I did that great big gratuitous post on him in 2017 so I thank him for sharing this photo on his Insta. Looking at his IMDb I see he's been playing a character called "Ham" on the Star Wars series Andor? Mkay.Sure why not. I have heard good things about Andor -- I am wildly indifferent to Star Wars but maybe I should give it a go? I do love Diego Luna...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Mister Lonely (2007)

Michael Jackson: It's hard to always laugh
when you don't know what people find so funny.

A happy 45th birthday to Harmony Korine today!

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Y Tu Mamá También (2001)

Luisa: Life is like the surf,
so give yourself away like the sea.

A happy 56 to Alfonso Cuarón today!

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Diego Luna Saved My Life Tonight

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I have been for no reason that I can really pinpoint today somewhat emotionally distraught. I don't know why. I just woke up like this.  Blame the Moon. Anyway the first thing that's really made me feel a lick of better is looking at Diego Luna's face, so let's just look at Diego Luna's face. Hit the jump for an entirely random grab-bag of over twenty new and old pictures...

The Batch Ain't Bad (But It's Getting There)

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Phantom Limbs dog The Bad Batch, but it's not the arm that Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) gets shucked by a gaggle of hungry desert ghouls early on in the movie that troubles the most - it's the ghost of Imperator Furiosa's robo-limb in Mad Max Fury Road, and it's the Machine Gun Leg of Cherry Darling in Planet Terror. Namely it's the amputations of better characters played by far far more interesting actresses - they're the real villains of The Bad Batch, because they ain't never gonna let a haughty posturing cipher whose best asset is her winking choice in booty shorts play their cool girl reindeer games. Sorry, Arlen. There's no room at the Inn.

And sad, without such a limp noodle in the lead I really could've gone places with The Bad Batch - there's whole lots to love stuffed and sauteed at its margins. Director Ana Lily Amirpour carries along with her all of the primo stylings she deployed so gorgeously in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, plus a few new tricks to boot; where that movie was all slo-mo atmosphere and strange smoky shades-of-grays this one's burnt embers and bright cannibal chaos, popping with a full regiment's worth of forward-marching funk-a-delic capital C characters, all juggled with confident jazz hands from Amirpour behind the camera. Except the one that matters most.

Still when you've got Jason Momoa peering over both his bifocals and his two massive breasts, saying it all with a sly sheepish grunt and a grin; when you've got Diego Luna shimmying loose-limbed to a skittish beat as he crams cancer sticks down his boot-scooting y-fronts in a neon cowboy fog; when you've got Keanu fucking Reeves doing Late Stage Elvis astride an army of Uzi-wielding sister-wives... when you've got all this local color and flavor for the appetizer and the dessert, well you've got it pretty damn tasty. Just wish some salt could've made its way onto that main course, is all.

In My Dreams I Touch James Norton Too

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I was sad for a minute that we don't get to see James Norton's butt in the just-released trailer for the remake of Flatliners, but then I remembered that we actually see a lot less of Billy Baldwin's butt in the 1990 version of Flatliners than I always remember seeing - basically just a hint of top cheek. I have apparently conflated Billy's Flatliners Butt with his Backdraft Butt, while it's the Backdraft Butt where it's really at.

I mean Billy Baldwin's Butt is where it's at no matter where it's at, but some Baldwin Butts must be judged above others, it must be said. Anyway we do see Norton showering and changing...

... so perhaps there's New Butt Hope after all.

Here's the trailer:

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The Flatliners remake is out on September 29th.
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It's All For You, Demian!

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I've so far refused to watch the opening scene of Alien: Covenant that was released early because I would rather see it in the theater when I sit down to watch the entire movie, thank you very much, but when I went looking for a picture of sexy beast Demian Bichir just now to attach to the news story I am just about to get to I stumbled upon the reveal that in Covenant's already released opening scene him and the well-bearded actor Nathaniel Dean are apparently playing Space Gays?

Huzzah! Hot stuff! I hope their characters, who seem from the outset to be of the expendable crew flavor sort, get some good death scenes. Gays deserve good death scenes too! Anyway today's news - Bichir has signed on to star in The Conjuring 2 spin-off The Nun - presumably he is not playing the Nun, but who knows. Who cares? Bichir is a terrific actor and I don't get to look at him nearly enough. On that note here's him and Diego Luna rubbing noses:

I Am Link

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--- Blow For Diego - The remake of Scarface might have lost its director, Training Day and Southpaw director Antoine Fuqua, but it gained a star and with him my interest - Diego Luna will play the coke-sniffing big friend to little friends himself! Yes, yes, yes, sign me up. Now a suggestion (NOW a suggestion?) -- they should just hire Brian DePalma to make the movie. And Michelle Pfeiffer could totally still play the love interest. You're welcome.
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--- Unholy Woman - Have any of you ever gotten around to watching the horror film The Hallow? It's been on Netflix for awhile; I got to see it on the big screen back in October 2015 it thanks to FSLC's "Scary Movies" series here in New York, and I liked it rather a lot. You should check it out! Especially now that its director Corin Hardy has signed on to make the Conjuring 2 spin-off film The Nun. Based on, you know, that scary nun. The nun was actually my favorite part of that movie, and Hardy's a solid director, so this might be good.

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--- Sex Games - The only reason to give a shit about that space movie out this weekend is it gave people an excuse to talk to Carla Gugino, and Den of Geek was smart enough to ask her about her upcoming Stephen King adaptation Gerald's Game, which we are very very very much looking forward to. And so is she, apprently! She sounds very excited. Anyway she's the best casting decision they could have made, and after watching Ouija: Origin of Evil (which shockingly doesn't suck) we know the director's somebody to watch out for too.
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--- White Man Walking - If they were better quality or more exciting I would've given these their own post, because I am really incredibly enthusiastic in my hopes for the film, but the first two pictures of Michael Fassbender in Tomas Alfredson's The Snowman are  just Michael Fassbender standing around in some snow, so they just get linked. Alfredson is the director of Let the Right One In and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and the film's based on a book series about a serial-killer hunting detective... and yes this is the one where his character is named Harry Hole. We are never ever going to get over that.
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--- Bearded When Wet - While everybody else was all excited that Nicole Kidman is going to play Jason Momoa's mother in Aquaman (if you look closely Nicole's stretched-tight face and Momoa's puffy right pec are actually dead ringers so that's pretty spot-on casting if you ask me) I was paying attention to the news that and actor named Yahya Abdul-Mateen II has been cast as Black Manta, the film's big villain... because dude (as seen to the side there) is certainly a great big strapping bearded gentleman, he is. I guess he was on Baz Luhrmann's Netflix show The Get Down, which I tried to watch but only made it partially through before completely forgetting to finish it.

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-- And Speaking of actors I love working with directors I love (there's a lot of that news today actually) Colin Farrell is in talks to star (well co-star) in the new film from Dan Gilroy, who made the great Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal. A little dampening of my positive vibe here though - Colin would co-star opposite Denzel Washington, who will inevitably devour the scenery and overshadow Colin every chance he gets, because Denzel is incapable of dialing it down anymore. (I don't care what you people say - he's terrible in Fences.) Anyway the movie's called Inner City and it's a legal thriller.

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--- Crazy Pants - Cary Fukunaga is finally doing something! Hurray! I mean one can only spend so much time braiding one's hair, right? His ten-episode Netflix series Maniac, reuniting Superbad's Emma Stone and Jonah Hill in something that does not sound very Superbad-like at all, is set to shoot later this year. Then again he was only weeks away from shooting his adaptation of Stephen King's It and that fell apart, so let's not hold our breath. Those braids won't braid themselves. Maniac tells the story of a couple of mental patients (literal, not figurative) and their elaborate fantasy worlds.
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--- There Will Be Dresses - You probably already saw this but Paul Thomas Anderson has begun shooting his new movie (still untitled) with Daniel Day-Lewis. DDL was spied on set! Pictures here! And The Playlist tells us that it "will follow the life behind the curtain of an uncompromising dressmaker commissioned by royalty and high society," so there's that. Oh and a couple of other people will also act in the movie (even though it could just be a camera staring at DDL and be riveting, obviously) - the great Lesley Manville being one of them! We love her and never get to see her, so good work casting her PTA. But the best news of all is the most obvious news of all - Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood is scoring the movie. Jonny, if you're listening, a thought - write all new material this time. I need to see a member of Radiohead clutching an Oscar before I die.
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--- And Finally hey look it's a picture of Michael Haneke and Jean-Louis Trintignant on the set of their new film together (via), which is called Happy End. It will obviously be a feel-good romp. They worked together on Amour last; Isabelle Huppert is also in the film. If I had to guess this movie won't be until Cannes next spring, but who knows. Ya ain't getting any younger, Michael.

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Diego Luna Seven Times

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I know it's not an either or proposition but I would just like to remind the world that while they were going all "Gael Garcia Bernal this and Gael Garcia Bernal that" after Y Tu Mama came out I sat here dutifully, year after year after year, crowing a sad and lonely "Diego Luna everything!" trombone. Now that he's this year's Star Wars internet boyfriend a la Oscar Isaac I don't want any of you people cutting me in line, is all. I was singing his praises to the heavens for Mister Lonely in 2008, people. Anyway these pictures are from December's issue of L'uomo Vogue (thx Mac) and there are six exceedingly pleasurable more right here after the jump...

Today's Mood

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Diego Luna Crush fully reinvigorated post Rogue One.

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Riz One

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So have any of you seen Rogue One yet? I imagine some of you are dorks enough. I'm seeing it Sunday, which makes me like... a quarter dork? But don't worry I more than make up for that deficit in other places. Anyway if you want to tell me what you think of it you can go right ahead here in the comments, and then you can go back to our Do Dump and Marry poll from earlier this week asking you to choose between the three seen below. I sure wish I had seen this picture Donnie Yen had posted on his Instagram -- it's perfect!

Do Dump or Marry: Rogue Three

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A long time ago in a Magazine far far away the above picture of the Star Wars: Rogue One cast was published and I can't believe it took me all the way up to the film's release to get around to forcing this question upon you folks -- you've got Diego Luna, you've got Riz Ahmed, and you've got Donnie Yen. 

And you've got three choices -- you will DO one, 

you will DUMP another, and you will MARRY the last.

Let it rip in the comments!

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Diego Luna Four Times

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42 days until Rogue One is out!
(via, thx Mac)

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I Am Link

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--- Stroking Joe - This had been a rumor for a bit, but now it's actually a rumor that has become a real and true thing! Those are so rare nowadays! Joe Manganiello is playing the villain Deathstroke in Ben Affleck's upcoming standalone Batman movie. (Which is maybe called The Batman?) Deathstroke is a super-strong assassin, or something. He wears a dumb mask. Anyway this will be Joe's second comic book villain, after playing king of the douche-brahs Flash Thompson in Sam Raimi's third Spider-man movie.

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--- After Gravity - Alfonso Cuarón is finally making another movie! It's been three whole years since Gravity came out, so it's about damn time. This one's on a much much smaller scale, and sounds possibly autobiographical - it's a drama about a middle-class family in Mexico City in the 1970s. It'll be nice to have him back in Y tu Mama territory.
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--- Lucky In Love - The cast for Steven Soderbergh's triumphant return to movie directing (as if we ever believed he'd actually quit it for good) Lucky Logan is pretty incredible already (we'd just ogled Daniel Craig and Adam Driver on the set recently, but it also stars Channing Tatum ) but it just got a face we really enjoy looking at tossed into its mix - Bucky Barnes himself, Sebastian Stan!  He's playing a NASCAR driver which means lots of snug little jumpsuits, I'm sure. No word on if he'll re-use his naked gymnastics routine from The Bronze but we're sure hoping him and Tatum have a routine in mind for us.

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--- It Takes A Cronenberg - I've missed all of the casting news on Sarah Polley's forthcoming television series adaptation of Margaret Atwood's book Alias Grace apparently, because yesterday when I clicked on an article stating that director David Cronenberg has just joined the cast (yes as an actor, which he's done before - cough Jason X cough - but not often enough) I saw a whole bunch of other names that were treated as after-thoughts but popped my eyeballs out. Besides Mr. Existenz the series will star Sarah Gadon and Anna Paquin! In my best Canadian accent - heck yeah!
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--- School's Out - The idea of a Heathers remake should be just terrible. I should cringe, and fuck myself with a chainsaw, at the thought of it. And yet here we are and Leslye Headland, the writer-director of my beloved Bachelorette, is making it into a TV series, and not just that but the spin on the original is actually potentially awesome:

"Set in present day, the outcasts of the past have become the new Heathers. Heather McNamara, for example, is now a black lesbian; screenwriter Jason Micallef (Butter) has written Heather Duke as a male who identifies as gender-queer whose birth name is Heath; and THR compares Heather Chandler to Martha Dumptruck from the original film."

Y'all know how much I love Queer Creeps, and it sounds like this show might just go there full-throttle. There's kind of nothing I hate more than panderingly Good Gay Representation -- I want sneering Vincent Price monsters and assholes, dammit. Go for it, Leslye! Offend all sensibilities!
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--- And Speaking of TV remakes of beloved movies Peter Weir's stone-cold classic 1975 horror film Picnic at Hanging Rock (which was one of my five favorite movies from that year when I recently listed them) is being turned into a multi-part mini-series for Aussie TV. They say they want to follow the original book closer than Weir did - has anybody read it? I wonder if I should read it. Anyway this series doesn't have any director or writer or actor attached yet so I'm side-eyeing it more than I am Heathers.
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--- Stick Jesus - Jeremy Davies was phenomenal on... well, everything that Jeremy Davies has been on, basically. But I was going to say that Jeremy Davies was phenomenal on Hannibal -- remember how good he was on that? So the news that he's joined the cast of Bryan Fuller's new show American Gods is good news indeed! And not just that - he's playing Jesus. No, not Lourdes Leon's father - the other Jesus. Wowza. This show is gonna be so bonkers.
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--- Laura's My Lady - The first trailer for Certain Women, Kelly Reichardt's new movie starring Michelle Williams, Laura Dern, and Kristen Stewart, arrived this week -- click on over to The Film Experience for their take upon it. I mean if you're gonna watch a trailer for a movie that heavy-hitting actress heavy, TFE is the place to do it. I don't even need to watch the trailer though - you saw Laura Dern, I say how high motherfucker.
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--- Oh Silvio - The Great Beauty director Paolo Sorrentino's ten-episode series The Young Pope with Jude Law airs pretty soon in Italy (it won't air on HBO here in the US until February) but he's already set on making his next "shock the home-crowd" piece with a bio-pic about former Prime Minister and all-about cad (that's being nice) Silvio Berlusconi. The film will be titled Loro, which means "Them" in Italian. Back to The Young Pope for a second though - a trailer for that was released this week and over at The Film Experience it got the run-down, check it out.
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--- And Finally, you have all seen the stunner A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night by now, right? I should certainly hope so - I'm actually overdue for a re-watch. (Here's my review from way forever back when.) Anyway director Ana Lily Amirpour's next movie just played Venice and people seemed pretty wowed by it - it is titled The Bad Batch, and it stars amongst others Jason Momoa...

... Jim Carrey, Keanu Reeves, Suki Waterhouse, Diego Luna, and Giovanni Ribisi, and it's a love story set during a cannibal apocalypse... which sounds like something that'd wow one! Anyway the film doesn't have a release date yet so we assume sometime in 2017, but we don't have to wait for footage - two clips have been released, including this one involving more beefcake than the eye can even begin to handle:
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Y Tu Senor Cerdo Tambien

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There's no reason that one has to choose between the boys of Y Tu Mama Tambien - it's fine to love both; nobody's making us not love both! - and yet I always felt as if I had to defend preferring Diego Luna to Gael Garcia Bernal, I guess since Bernal seemed to do a better job here in the US, keeping his name out there. Gael's great, don't get me wrong. But if I was given a full-on Sophie's Choice with the two, it would be Diego that would be going home with me. 

Anyway Diego's been trying his hand at directing over the past few years, and his new movie sounds like something I very much need to see; it's called Mr. Pig and it stars Danny Glover & Maya Rudolph as a father and daughter who take a road trip trying to find a final resting place for his favorite, you guessed it, pig. There's no release date but we do have a trailer!

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I Quit Smoking Eight Years Ago Today

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Here a puff, there a puff, everywhere a puffing poof - well it's that time of year again! For eight years we've been commemorating the fall of the house of nicotine, when I gave up the bad habit for... well, other bad habits. Anyway every May 5th we say "Hooray for me and my lungs!" with photographs of attractive gentlemen-folk doing damage to their own in the name of sexiness.

And here we are again. We've previously posted enough smoking pictures to blot out the sun itself - you can see Year 1 right here, you can see Year 2 right here, you can see Year 3 right here, you can see Year 4 right here, and you can see Year 5 right here, and you can see Year 6 right here, and you can see Year 7 right here. And with all of those that have come before in mind let us now hit the jump to suck down on 50-something more men for Year 8...