A Very John Waters June

I love that Criterion has really taken the concept of "June as Pride Month" to heart and gives all the gays a feast in new 4K releases every year -- take a look at June 2026's just-dropped announcements, which include two yes you read that right TWO John Waters movies entering the Collection! Holy hell! The two movies in question are his 1977 film Desperate Living (perfect cover art) and his beloved 1988 comedy Hairspray -- the latter has been on blu-ray before but the former I don't think has been released since DVD days? And these are both 4K upgrades -- can't wait to see the putrid toxic dump of Mortville that most of Desperate Living is set in be made so shiny clean and in our face lol. Maybe Criterion is working towards a complete John Waters box-set? Dare to dream. What I would give for Serial Mom on 4K! What delightful news, though. 

But the gay pride doesn't end there -- they're also dropping Lisa Cholodenko’s 1998 debut feature High Art starring Ally Sheedy as a lesbian photographer (I think that's what the character has on her business cards) who's over her old love (a tremendously funny Patricia Clarkson) and moving onto the hot new thing played by Radha Mitchell. Good movie! I only saw it for the first time a couple of years ago but Cholodenko rules in general -- can never go wrong with a Cholodenko. 

Next up a couple of tremendous movies from 2025 are being represented -- first there's Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident, which I'm really sad didn't win either of the awards it was nominated for at the Oscars last night, as it was one of 2025's best and we really needed to get Iranian cinema figurehead Panahai on that stage to say some shit about current events. But seriously -- I re-watched this movie yesterday and it's incredible; so light and funny about such a nightmarish topic. And what an ending. The other 2025 is Lav Diaz's Magellan, an astonishing evisceration of colonialism that, in a just world, would've had Gael Garcia Bernal winning acting awards all season long as well. 

There really are a lot of titles being dropped this June -- I wonder if they open the flood-gates then because, besides the gays being courted, there's the month-long 50% Off sale at Barnes & Noble? Anyway this is the "foreign films I'm unfamiliar with" portion of the pile -- and speaking of anti-colonialism, there's Med Hondo's 1979 musical West Indies: The Fugitive Slaves of Liberty, which is set aboard a slave ship traveling through different time periods and locations. Anybody seen it? It sounds like one I'll have to see soon (it is already playing in the Criterion Channel so maybe I'll watch it this weekend.) And then there's Spanish director Carlos Saura’s "Flamenco Trilogy", a trio of films from the early 80s which is the latest in Criterion's newly reinvigorated Eclipse series of box-sets. And finally the last two June drops are 4K upgrades for Stanley Donen's ever-entertaining Charade with Cary Grant & Audrey Hepburn and the Jack Nicholson classic Five Easy Pieces. What are looking you forward to the most?

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?

The Former Year in Queer

I really didn't do much work over the holiday -- if you follow me on social media then you probably caught on that I spent the majority of my time going through the piles and piles of physical media that'd grown up around me and began the ongoing process of listing tons of stuff for sale on eBay -- but I did do one thing and it's a good important thing. I wrote up my list of favorite LGBTQ+ movies of 2023 for Pajiba -- click here and you can read that and it'll give you a good idea of where my head was at for the year since I haven't posted my actual Top 10 (or more likely 20) of the year yet. On that note I am 100% going to try and get that pounded out before I leave for Sundance in a couple of weeks, so stick around maybe.

Good Morning, World

Just a reminder that Raul Castillo, as I told you at the start of this week, is in Cassandro with Gael Garcia Bernal, and that it's not the sort of thing that you want to miss. And it's on Prime right now! Okay that's all -- please do carry on with your morning.

Gael Garcia Bernal Eleven Times

I never got the chance to review Cassandro when I saw it at Sundance earlier this year but the movie is tee-riffic, it's in theaters right now, and you should go see it. This is the luchador (aka Mexican wrestler) movie starring Gael as a real-life flamboyant and gay wrestler by the name of, hmm, let's see, oh right Cassandro. It's a sports movie that works! And besides the riveting story and the terrific acting Gael gets sexy with both  Raúl Castillo and Bad Bunny (see a kissing scene with the latter here) so really what more do you need? Here is the trailer. And Gael (and his mustache) is on the cover of GQ Mexico this month to celebrate the film (if you can read Spanish here is the link) and I have the photos, every last mustachioed one of them, hit the jump...

Good Morning, World

Let's just be clear - I am old enough and cloister myself off from pop culture enough that I wouldn't know a Bad Bunny song if it smacked its big dick in my face. I hope you don't come here for hip! Because we're closer to "hip replacement" at this point than we are the other sort. That said I have now seen Mr. Bunny in two movies -- in Bullet Train, where he didn't make much of an impression (nothing in that movie did except Aaron Taylor-Johnson & Brian Tyree Henry), and in the Sundance-screened gay luchador drama Cassandro, where he shares all kinds of sexual chemistry with (and kisses) Gael Garcia Bernal, and he definitely left an impression in that second one. (That's a really good movie, by the way -- keep an eye out for it.) So I will wish the big bad Bunny man a happy birthday today! Why not? I mean he was born the year before I graduated from high school but I will try to not hold that against him.

The Reign of Queen Harriet the First

Mind you this is just a rumor at this point, and one whose source is totally obscure to me, but some dude is saying (via DH) that the great character actress queen Harriet Sansom Harris (best known for her work in Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza and Phantom Thread, and also the series Frasier!) is playing the lead villain in Werewolf By Night, the MCU special that we told you about way back when that Gael Garcia Bernal is starring in. WBN is at this point being billed as a "Halloween Special" but we don't know much beyond that. The rumor is that Harris is playing "Verrusa, [who] will reportedly lead a cult from the house of Bloodstone." I don't know or care what the fuck that means -- all I care is Harriet Sansom Harris might be part of the MCU! That's awesome and hilarious all at once. Should we be past the point where an actor playing a small role in the MCU becomes news, what with there being ten thousand series and movies piling up? Maybe! But Harriet is special, dammit!

Gael Garcia Wolfman

Marvel continues swallowing up every actor in the known universe -- and some unknown ones (see: Tilda Swinton) -- by snatching the great Gael Garcia Bernal to play a werewolf, yes a werewolf, for a very special Halloween special they're making next year. Specifically the character is from a series called Werewolf By Night, which has been around in one form or another since the 1950s, with its most famous run starting in the 70s with a character hilariously named "Jack Russell." More recently the character's been re-named "Jake Gomez" which, well, that seems more likely where they'll go since they cast Noted Mexican Gael Garcia Bernal in the role. Anyway skimming through the character's Wiki page (which is ridiculously long and convoluted, as with all comic book characters) I see that there's lots of interaction with the Moon Knight, which is the character Oscar Isaac is playing in a series that's hitting Disney+ next year (as we've posted a'plenty) so some overlap there feels inevitable. And "Gael & Oscar together" leads you, in this post's final moments, to the reason why I am even really posting about this. I just wanna see that. Oh and also let's hope for a sexy were-transformation! Those are always important. 

Go With Gael

Oh, I didn't realize this was going to go up today, but... it did. It did go up today! I wrote up my thoughts on Jackie director Pablo Larrain's recent movie Ema, which co-stars Gael Garcia Bernal and which is hitting digital next week, for Pajiba -- read those thoughts here. More than the film specifically I actually write more about how I didn't like the movie when I first saw it right before the pandemic but how now, with a revisit, it's grown a bunch on me. Opinions are fluid! People are fluid! Fluid is fluid, and that photo of Gael is making me feel fluid too...

The Island of Misfit Boys

If you click on over to Pajiba this afternoon I've got my thoughts on M. Night Shyamalan's latest thriller called Old, a title which practically falls to its knees in Vader-ian drama to beg for mean-spirited pun-work... an urge that I mainly resisted since the movie's not an absolute disaster. It's not The Happening here! Let's just say that I do think M. Night can be a lot of fun as a filmmaker and Old indulges his some of his best angels. And then also all of his worst. But I'm getting ahead of myself -- click over and read the review! I get into it all!

Good Morning, World

It's the 23rd birthday of Hereditary actor Alex Wolff... in two weeks, but who knows when the world will explode -- might as well wish him a happy one now, in case we don't make it! That's my recommendation to everybody -- just celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, your next birthday, Easter over the next few weeks, just in case, and then maybe we can celebrate Independence Day -- a real fucking Independence Day, the first one in four years -- on November 3rd. 

Wow this post went off track -- anyway Alex Wolff, everybody! We like him! Looking at what Alex has got lined up ohh, he's in the next M. Night Shyamalan movie -- something called Old which is of course "top secret" right now because god forbid Shyamalan not act like he's Moses coming down from the Mount with his goddamned twists we can see from space. Anyway Old has got an astonishing cast so maybe ol' Nighty's got something good up his sleeve -- it stars Wolff, Abbey Lee, Eliza Scanlen, Thomasin McKenzie, Embeth Davidtz, Rufus Sewell, Vicky fuckin' Krieps, and ye eensy hottie Gael García Bernal. Hopefully, you know, in the service of something! (pics via)

Good Morning, World

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I had absolutely no business attempting to start a new TV show this weekend as I've a pile of movie screeners and seventeen unfinished shows that I already watch staring at me with wet red eyes while whispering cuss words, but I had ten minutes between things and there was Carnival Row on the top of Amazon and so I gave it a whirl and, well, it's a good thing I only had ten minutes because that gave me an excuse when I clicked it off after five. Ever known with brilliant immediacy that a thing is not for you? I felt it when I tried to watch Outlander a couple of years ago and here again I felt it, like a rusty nail through the sole, nope nope nope no thanks. Sorry Orly! 

That said he's looking as good these days as he ever has I think (I think some maturation suits him, and I'm one of those weirdos who vastly prefer him with his natural black hair to the Elven look he became famous with) and the magazines are taking advantage, as recently spotted in Icon Magazine (you should click on that link if you missed it) and now here for good ol' Flaunt. Although I don't know how "good" ol' Flaunt really is since they give us glimpses in the video attached to this shoot of him getting out of that pool in soaking wet white boxer briefs...

... and yet they don't give us any photos of that. Has no one at Flaunt seen Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education? This is the "Gael Garcia Bernal getting out of the pool" reenactment the world didn't know it needed, but needed! Bastard people. It's not like Orlando is shy, for god's sake. Release the tapes! Release the tapes! Free Orly! Ahem. Hit the jump for what they did give us while I go organize our protest (and/or self-immolation)...

5 Off My Head: The NYFF of 2019

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No less than Pedro Almodovar himself designed that there poster for the 57th New York Film Festival (click to embiggen), which has just today announced its Main Slate of 27 movies, all of which you can check out at this link. This comes on the heels of last week's announcement that Martin Scorsese's The Irishman will be their Opening Night picture -- see my post on that here -- and that Noah Baumbach's Marriage Story will be their Centerpiece Film -- see that post here -- as well as the news that Edward Norton's Motherless Brooklyn, an adaptation of Jonathan Lethem's book that stars Norton and Alec Bladwin among others, will be the Closing Night movie. 

Anyway the Main Slate once again this year looks tremendously promising -- every year I do a list of the five movies that I'm most excited about seeing, but since there's easily more than five right now even at first glance I'm going to do this year's list with a stipulation. If the film already showed up in my list of 10 movies I'm most excited for this year, which I wrote back in June, I'm excluding it from today's list. That means you won't see Bong Joon-ho's Parasite or Pedro Almodovar's Pain & Glory or Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire listed below, but believe me -- believe me! -- I wanna see those movies very very much! But NYFF offers such richness that we easy can dig a little deeper...

5 Movies I'm Looking Forward to at NYFF 2019

Martin Eden (dir. Pietro Marcello) -- Not gonna lie, this Italian psuedo-historical drama immediately grabbed my attention because it stars Luca Marinelli, who we've been keen on ever since he got cast opposite Matthias Schoenaerts in another upcoming film called The Old Guard. We're rooting for him... especially showing up at the Q&A. Anyway Martin Eden is based on a book by Jack London, and has Marinelli playing a dissatisfied writer who finds politics and love and class warfare. Perhaps not in that order!

Zombi Child (dir. Bertrand Bonello) -- How the news escaped me that the director of two of the great films of the past decade, Saint Laurent and Nocturama, has gone and directed a zombie movie set in Haiti (which NYFF labels more Tourneur than Romero which sounds plenty ace to me) makes me nuts -- this is exactly the sort of arty nutty thing I should be on and on but good!

Wasp Network (dir. Olivier Assayas) - Assayas re-teams with his Carlos star Edgar Ramirez (who could really use a great role again right about now) to make an epic political thriller about the true story of a group of Cuban defectors who became spies in Miami in the 1980s. You say Assayas, I say how high, but the cast also includes Gael Garcia Bernal and Wagner Moura and Leonardo Sbaraglia (mmm Leonardo Sbaraglia) so sign me up.

Synonyms (Dir. Nadav Lapid) -- I just mentioned this film's star Tom Mercier last week when he got himself cast in Luca Guadagnino's HBO series -- he gives by all accounts an astonishing star making performance in this film, which won the Golden Bear in Berlin earlier this year. He plays a former Israeli soldier who runs away to Paris and finds sexual liberation or something. I don't know, I reached the point where I stopped reading things so it's not spoiled for me, but people I trust a lot have made this film sound like something real special.

Bacurau (dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles) -- This is one that my only connection to -- I did very much like Aquarius but otherwise I'm not super familiar with the directors or any of the actors, that is -- is how NYFF is describing it, but what a description! So I'll let them speak for me here:

"A vibrant, richly diverse backcountry Brazilian town finds its sun-dappled day-to-day disturbed when its inhabitants become the targets of a group of marauding, wealthy tourists. The perpetrators of this Most Dangerous Game–esque class warfare, however, may have met their match in the fed-up, resourceful denizens of little Bacurau. Those who remember Kleber Mendonça Filho’s wonderful NYFF54 crowd-pleaser Aquarius starring Sonia Braga—who appears here in a memorable supporting role—might be surprised by the new terrain and occasional ultraviolence of his latest, codirected with his longtime production designer Juliano Dornelles. Yet this wild shape-shifter shares with that film the exhilaration of witnessing society’s forgotten and marginalized standing up for themselves by any means necessary. With references to the fearless genre works of John Carpenter, George Miller, and Sergio Leone, Bacurau, winner of the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, is a vividly angry power-to-the-people fable like no other. A Kino Lorber release."

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I didn't even room for the new Kelly Reichardt movie!
If you've looked through this year's NYFF line-up 

what looks good to you? Tell us in the comments!

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5 Off My Head: Vote Yourself Raw

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View this post on Instagram

Please, everyone — get out there and do the right thing today. #vote

A post shared by Jason Adams (@jasonaadams) on Nov 6, 2018 at 5:41am PST

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Happy Voting Day, everybody! I don't know about you but I personally am going to have a hard time focusing on anything else today - not even Brad Davis' hairy chest is rescuing me from doomsday thinking. So let's just lean into it and talk about out favorite Political Movies for a second. I'd say that tomorrow that the following list might be totally different but to be honest I could make a totally different list even just thirty seconds from now... hell I could make a totally different list no seconds from now. But let's give this a shot, and list...

5 of My Favorite Political Films

Citizen Ruth (1996)
"You wanna send a message?
I ain't no fucking telegram, bitch!"

Meet John Doe (1941)

"Lighthouses, John.
Lighthouses in a foggy world."

Night Moves (2013)

"People are gonna start thinking. They have to."

Being There (1979)

"Yes, sir, all you've gotta be is white in America,
to get whatever you want. Gobbledy-gook!"
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DicDick (1999)

"Every lie is another brick in the pathway to hell."

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So what are 5 of your faves?

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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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Which Is Hotter?

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Today is the 54th birthday of the great Michel Gondry, the man most responsible for turning toilet paper tubes and chalk into unbridled romance - it's been two years since his last film, the seriously underrated coming-of-age buddy comedy Microbe & Gasoline came out -- as far as I know he hasn't announced what he's working on but I'd love for somebody to tell me otherwise. He did put out an adorable commercial for FedEx last month though:

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Anyway Gondry gets a lifetime pass for me for whatever he does thanks to Eternal Sunshine but he has had an admittedly not-great few years, Microbe excepted - I downright hated The We and the I, his film set aboard a city bus full of grating characters, and reactions to projects like Mood Indigo and The Science of Sleep have been mixed. But it's those last two I want to laser in on, specifically their lovely male leads Gael Garcia Bernal (more here) and Romain Duris (more here)...

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