Quote of the Day

"... Nowadays, the idea of what censorship means is kind of irrelevant. We used to be shielded from this or from that or couldn’t get access. I’m older than you, but still you remember the time when there were restrictions that don’t exist anymore. Everything is accessible. The speed of light makes things move faster because of technology. The evolution moves faster. Information is moving faster. Access is moving faster. Violence is all around us. Accessibility to Instagram wars is a click, swipe, and scroll away. What are the two things that you can now provoke the mind with because these are no longer provocative? 

It’s silence—because we’re so bombarded with noise—and stillness. So now, the most primal, healthy mind, non-medical inventions are now the enemy? It’s amazing because I can take these tools and I can now do something that I think is essential: make art silent and make it still. Then, you piss people off. "

All I still really want to think and talk about this week is Nicolas Winding Refn's film Her Private Hell -- thankfully I'm still getting chances to do just that even though it flopped! I mean even in this interview I'm quoting from above NWR mentions box office isn't something he worries about, so if he's not I won't. I just need him to continue getting opportunities to fly that beautiful freak flag of his because I need it like oxygen. You can read my review of this movie here. Thinking and talking about this movie is keeping me from having to waste any more time getting annoyed at The Odyssey over-hype.. okay I am still managing to get annoyed about that. But less!

Charles Melton Fifteen Times

I guess I must be more zonked out today than I thought I was -- and I been thinking I'm pretty zonked out, even for a Monday -- because it took until 5pm for me to remember I hadn't posted Charles Melton's latest sexy-ass photoshoot! This, the freshest in a long delicious string as he's been promoting both Beef and Her Private Hell, is for Bustle magazine (read his chat here) and it dropped all the way back on Friday, but my three-day-weekend bullshit kept me from posting them. Until. Now. That makes two of today's five posts All About Melton. (See the earlier one here.) Clearly once again I've gone deranged, but who can blame me? More importantly -- who will join me? Hit the jump for the rest... 

Pics of the Day

A brand new genre of photo that I can tell you right now, right here, I will never grow tired of for as long as I live is "Charles Melton on the set of Her Private Hell" -- unfortunately, given the film's microscopic box office take this past weekend, I think I better snatch up and document all the ones I can while they're here, as I doubt we'll be getting many more in the months ahead. I mean I will be talking about this movie... well forever, since I fucking love it (here is my review!). But also at the very least through the end of the year because as 2026 now stands it's my favorite movie so far. And even if a pile of masterpieces drop between now and December this movie will be on my end-of-year list, you can bet your bottom Charles Melton. Anyway at the tail-end of last week several such examples of this, my new favorite genre of photo, appeared, so I dutifully collected them and will now share them after the jump...

Only Hell Forgives

I don't care if this is two posts very nearly in a row on the same day -- since this is it for this staggeringly busy one day week of blogging (I am, I will remind you, currently on my "three-day-weekends through the summer" bullshit) I want to have Chuck Melton top hot and center to remind y'all that you should go see Nicolas Winding Refn's Her Private Hell this weekend. (You can find out where it is playing near you at this link.) I pointed you to my review earlier today but if you missed it then click on here and gape in awe at my pretentious fanboy enthusiasm. I don't care -- whatever, every critic has their faves and I'm no different. And it's not like I've immediately loved everything NWR's done -- I didn't love Only God Forgives when it came out, which is why I'm one hundred percent going to re-watch it this weekend as I'm 100% now convinced that my opinion will have shifted favorably since then. No I haven't seen it since it came out (which is wild) but HPH definitely feels like a companion to it  and I have a feeling I'm more into Refn's Whole Thing now than I was in  2013. I wasn't ready! Anyway I tell you that because if Only God Forgives wasn't your thing you should be warned that Her Private Hell is very very much of that vibe. But perhaps like me your tastes have shifted in the 13 years since? Hopefully we've all grown into the weird sicko freaks we were always meant to be. And with that -- have a great weekend, you weird sicko freaks!

Drag Me To Hell, Charles Melton

So while I was up in Montreal for Fantasia Festival for the past week I had two reviews drop from same said fest, and the first of those is the reason for this post here you are currently reading -- Nicolas Winding Refn's hugely-awaited-by-me (and maybe some of you) latest Her Private Hell was the Opening Night film at Fantasia, and so I dropped my extremely ecstatic review right here at Pajiba. I've seen the movie a couple of times now and it's my favorite movie of 2026 so far -- I fully admit it's not for everybody, but man alive is it for me. Oh and while I was in Montreal...

So not only did I manage to score a HER PRIVATE HELL poster but I got NWR to fucking sign the thing!!! IN GOLD. I am a golden god.

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) July 18, 2026 at 12:53 AM

... I got to meet Nicolas Winding Refn briefly and have him sign my poster from the movie, so that was neat. To use a word that doesn't come anywhere near close enough to encapsulating that experience. Anyway Her Private Hell is out in theaters this week, tomorrow (probably some theaters tonight even) so you can all decide for yourselves soon enough whether you're a cool cat like me or total dingleberries with bad taste -- whatever. I don't judge. That said there's an interview in GQ today with the film's star Charles Melton and they shared some fresh set-photos of him and his greasy exquisite torso modeling his character's leather chainmail jacket, and how am I not gonna share those? Hit the jump for them all...

Melton's World

Well I started today by wishing one hot fella congrats on his Emmy nomination, I might as well end the day doing the same -- and this time for a performance I have actually seen! (Sorry, Colman.) Congrats to our boy Charles Melton for getting an extremely deserved nod for his hysterical turn in the second season of Beef -- I was happy to see that show get a few nominations; I really thought the general consensus (not shared by me) was that its second season was a downgrade. Personally I liked the second season even more than the first, mainly due to Charles' comedic brilliance (and sexual tension with Oscar Isaac) and the utter perfection that is Carey Mulligan every second she exists. Anyway I don't want to do any deep dive on the Emmy nominations because the Emmys fucking suck -- not one single nomination for anything Industry-related is basically an immediate disqualification for any meaningfulness with regards to their entire organization. But if Charles is happy...

...  we're happy for Charles. Anyway I had been hoping that he'd grace us with some more from his Milk Extravaganza of last week, but seeing as how generous he's been lately I won't complain. Not too loudly anyway. I've got these gifs from Beef on hand that I've not shared yet anyway. And just think -- his Nicolas Winding Refn movie isn't even out yet! That's in a couple of weeks and we'll have so so so much to say about it shortly, believe you me. (Yes indeed I have now seen it. I have now seen it!) It's actually opening Fantasia Fest in Montreal which, well I guess now's the time to share I'm going back to Montreal for that again this year, so stay tuned for lots of Fantasia coverage to come. Unbelievably that's... uhh. one week from today? Shit I haven't packed a thing yet. All that AND it's my birthday next week. When it rains milk from Charles Melton's lips it pours milk from Charles Melton's lips. As the saying goes. Okay I've rambled enough. Time for me to head off for my three day weekend. Keep your eyes peeled to Pajiba as I have a review going up tomorrow but otherwise y'all have a good weekend and you can get it started by hitting the jump for more Charles Melton gifs...

Give 'Em Hell Refn

As if unloading that slutty milk campaign on us Charles Melton admirers wasn't enough for this sweaty end-of-June Tuesday afternoon, Neon has just now unleashed the first full-length trailer for Nicolas Winding Refn's Her Private Hell as well -- and as glimped in the first teaser as well as yesterday's sweaty torso poster it appears to be a real "Imagine Charles Melton in a fetish, any fetish, and voila you got it" fest. Leather, uniforms, you name it Refn is gearing Chuck up for our visual benefits. 

I still have no idea what the fuck this movie is about and oh my god I do not care in the slightest -- as with anything Refn has made in the past decade and a half it's all about the vibes and I subscribe to these vibes. A lot of people don't! And I feel bad for them! There are shots in this trailer that made my eyes pop out of my head. 

Literally. My eyes are sitting on my desk right now, I am typing this blind. Anyway this movie was not loved at Cannes but that only made me more excited -- his two T.V. series (Too Old To Die Young and Copenhagen Cowboy) were similarly divisive and I loved every second of them. I would put Refn in alongside Robert Eggers and Wes Anderson as filmmakers who've alienated a lot of people by going off the deep ends with their respective styles but I'm so here for it from every single one of them. Art, baby!

Her Private Hell is out on July 24th. And hit the jump

for more Charles Melton gifs if you think you can take it...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Living (2022)

Sutherland: When a girl like that steals 

your hat, always cheaper to buy a new one.

A happy 45th birthday to the great Tom Burke today! I didn't realize he's been acting for almost thirty years now but it does make sense now that I realize the first thing I ever saw him in was the sleazy Aughts thriller Donkey Punch in 2005 with my beloved Julian Morris -- and repeatedly at that because he's the guy who has the threesome with Julian and a girl and there is a lot, and I mean a lot, of homoerotic tension between the two guys in that scene. 

Needless to say I have seen that one scene more than I've seen any movie on Sight & Sound's Greatest Films list haha. I never really put that together with Burke when he started showing up in classier fare though -- in 2013 there was N.W. Refn's Only God Forgives and then it wasn't until Johanna Hogg's The Souvenir in 2019 that he really grabbed me again. (What a performance that is though.) 

After that I knew who he was proper, so when he popped up in Miller's Furiosa, Soderbergh's Black Bag, and my beloved Oliver Hermanus joint Living as quoted up top -- and I'd say the sequence between him and Bill Nighy is probably the film's peak -- I was always excited to see him. Anyway I think he's become one of our finest actors and I wouldn't be surprised to see him be an awards-magnet for a role in the next few years. Big fan! 

What's your favorite Tom Burke performance?

How Dare You NWR

It would seem that somebody on the promotional team at Neon realized that sweaty half-naked Charles Melton was getting the most attention in the Her Private Hell teaser trailer that got released -- and yes, I led that parade -- because both the image touting the movie's R-rating and now this the first official teaser poster for the movie have leaned hard into Charles Melton's sweaty half-naked torso. Just as all of us would also like to lean into. Anyway if I can't find a physical copy of this poster to hang on my wall at some point I might have throw myself into the sea so let's they print some of these babies off. Just saying, Neon! Send me one and consider me purchased for eternity. I am cheap as fuck. Oh and in related news:

I think Anya Taylor-Joy speaks for all of us

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) June 29, 2026 at 10:28 AM

Pic of the Day

The fine folks over at Neon just shared this image of a shirtless, bloodied Charles Melton on their Instagram to celebrate Nicolas Winding Refn's Her Private Hell getting a R-rating for "STRONG / BLOODY VIOLENCE, SEXUAL CONTENT, AND LANGUAGE" aka all of my favorite things. Seriously if I were to re-write that song from The Sound of Music it'd be like "Blood drops on big pecs and whipping sex kittens" and so on (sorry I am not re-writing that entire song right now, that's all you're gonna get from me). Anyway point being gimme this movie! The baffled and hostile reactions at Cannes only made me more excited than I was before. I cannot wait. Click here if you missed the teaser trailer -- it's out on July 24th! (And yes I am really hoping there's a press screening nine nights before so it can be my birthday present.) 

Private Hells For Everybody!

Nicholas Winding Refn's latest movie Her Private Hell starring Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton among others is about to premiere at Cannes, so today they dropped the teaser -- Thatcher and Melton (and Charles Melton's tits) are the main focus of it so I am assuming they're the main characters, our leading lady and lad. And tits.

As I told you back on the 1st we don't have forever ages to go until we can see this ourselves -- Neon is releasing it on July 24th. Thank goodness. Looks like a perfect Summer Movie -- really all Refn movies are Summer Movies. Everybody is hot and sweaty and mean. Anyway the teaser gives away very little -- just showcases NWR's style, the real star of the show, so feel free to watch: 

Plug Her In, Plug Her In

I'm glad that Yellowjackets actor Sophie Thatcher has broken out from that show -- she was immensely watchable even in movies like Heretic and Companion, both of which I personally found extremely underwhelming. I wasn't in the majority with those opinions, most people seemed to love those movies, but they both felt half-baked to me. But not her work in them! She's great. So I'm glad she's the star of the new Nicolas Winding Refn movie, and I am extremely happy about this morning's new news -- she's going to star in the new movie from The Babadook director Jennifer Kent! Okay the thing I am excited about is that Jennifer Kent is making another movie -- it's been EIGHT YEARS since The Nightingale y'all (make that make sense) -- but Sophie can ride that wave. The movie's called The Girl Who Was Plugged In (which yes could've been an alternate title for Companion) and it's based on a 1974 sci-fi novella by writer  James Tiptree, Jr, and... yeah this is very Companion-adjacent sounding through and through:

"The surreal dystopian tale revolves around a woman who loses her soul to technology in an effort to be loved. Thatcher plays disfigured, suicidal young protagonist P Burke who is hired by a mega tech corporation to virtually operate a beautiful but brainless ‘flesh body’ called Delphi, grown in a lab with the sole purpose of influencing the masses and selling products. "

But I have no doubt Kent will make her own thing, and Companion will entirely slough off our brains watching this. And I'd be fine with that! Doesn't feel like a massive loss to me.

Bisexual Lighting: The Movie

We have a U.S. release date for Nicolas Winding Refn's first movie in a decade y'all! Her Private Hell will be opening on July 24th thanks to the stellar folks at Neon -- this will be after it bows at Cannes this month for those bastards who go to Cannes. (Fuck you, bastard people.)  I've posted about this movie a lot previously because duh -- we fucking worship NWR. But this thing's also got one of his most gorgeous casts (which is saying a lot given his last movie that had both Alessandro Nivola and Karl Glusman in its cast) -- Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu, Diego Calva, Drive My Car star Hidetoshi Nishijima, Parker Sawyers aka...

... the beautiful man who had lots of sex with Henry Golding in the movie Monsoon. Also the model Lola Corfixen and the oldest person in the cast, one Dougray Scott, who nevertheless remains very much fuckable at 60 years old. And listen -- not every movie needs to star a cast of nothing but hotties. But I do look at the ones that do -- the ones being shot by a hyper-stylist like Refn especially -- as extra special gifts. Let's hope that NWR used his decade off making the most gloriously obtuse and sexy disturbing television shows since Twin Peaks as perverted fuel for this big-screen return!

Good Morning, World

I cannot believe there exists a photo left from Tom Hardy's Slutty MySpace Selfie Phase that I had not seen before today, but there one is -- that's definitely circa Bronson in 2008 given the stache and general beefiness. Ahh those were the days! Who knew we'd be longing for the Aughts once upon a day? Good grief.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Bronson (2008)

Bronson: How would you feel, waking up in the morning without a window? My window is a steel grid, I 'ave to put my lips against that steel grid and suck in air, that's my morning... 'cause I got no air in my cell. I have to eat, sleep and crap in that room twenty-three hours of a twenty-four hour day. You tell me, what human being deserves that? Apart from the stinking paedophile or a child killer. I don't deserve that, I done nothing on this planet to deserve that. My bed is four inches off the floor, it's a concrete bed, my toilet hasn't even got a seat on it or a lid, and I 'ave to live like this month after month after month, and the way it's looking it's year after year after year. Now is that's right then so be, but let somebody else 'ave a fucking go at it, 'cause I've had twenty-six years of this bollocks and it's time to come out, and I want the jury at my trial to come and see how I'm living. But I'm not living, I'm existing.

A very happy 55 to our beloved neon mad genius Nicholas Winding Refn today! This is a good moment to remind us all that we will be getting a new movie from him next year -- I told you about his film Her Private Hell back in April when Charles Melton joined the cast, but by all accounts they've already filmed the thing so I'm assuming a next year release. It also stars current it girl Sophie Thatcher (of Companion and Heretic and Yellowjackets fame), plus Drive My Car hunk Hidetoshi Nishijima, Diego Calva, Kristine Froseth, Dougray Scott, and Havana Rose Liu from Bottoms and Lurker. This is one drop-dead gorgeous cast y'all. Can't wait for NWR to douse them all with blood and glitter.

Refn Winds His Way To Charles Melton

Even though Riverdale was made for perverts like me I never watched it, and I can't say I ever foresaw a muse of serious minded auteurs ever coming from the show -- shows me to be such a snob! Charles Melton, fresh off working with Todd Haynes and Alex Garland, is teaming up with no less than Danish provocateur Nicolas Winding Refn for Refn's grand return to big-screen moviemaking -- Indiewire, where I read this news, frames this story in a really odd way though, making it sound like Refn's not been doing anything since 2016's Only God Forgives and positing him as extremely "anti-content", all of which ignores the man spent the past decade making two of the best streaming series of, dare I say, all time with Too Old To Die Young for Prime and then Copenhagen Cowboy on Netflix. I know those shows aren't for everybody but thank goodness they're for me -- they're among my favorites of Refn's work which is saying a whole lot since I think he's a flat-out genius. 

ANYWAY. Back to the new news. The movie is going to be called Her Private Hell and it doesn't just star the cute boy from Riverdale -- it also stars Sophie Thatcher of Yellowjackets and Heretic and Companion fame, and we like her very much and 100% understand why she's the one who's taken off from Yellowjackets. She's got it. I might not have loved either of those horror movies I mentioned, but she was not the issue with either. Almost as exciting to me -- the movie will also co-star actress Havana Rose Liu, who I fell completely head over heels for as one of the cheerleaders in the movie Bottoms...

... as well the upcoming queer thriller Lurker (my review here) -- I think she's got one of the most beautiful faces I've seen among the upcoming crop of actors and I bet Refn's gonna make her a star.  Absolutely magical on-screen presence. This is a hot cast y'all!  There's not a lot known about the movie plot-wise but Nicolas has spoken about making a movie in Tokyo next (and he said it "will have a lot of glitter and lot of sex and violence" -- shocker!) so this is probably that. Nicolas Winding Refn shooting the neon nights of Tokyo -- how has this not happened already??? I need this right now. 

Two Trailers of Sheer Terror!

My head's been all over the place today -- blame those Jeremy Allen White underwear pictures that exploded off my screen like fireworks when I first turned on my computer this morning -- and so I haven't gotten to a couple of important things worth sharing yet. So let's do it rat-a-tat style, a fast drop of too much information and then whoosh I'm gone again like I was never here. First up! There is a docuemtnary about horror master Dario Argento hitting Shudder on February 2nd! (It's coinciding with a screening series here in NYC at the IFC Center.) Titled Dario Argento Panico and from filmmaker Simone Scafidi the doc features interviews with people like Gaspar Noé, Guillermo Del Toro, and Nicolas Winding Refn, aka the hottest nerd-fest in town. Also a bunch of his actors and Mr. Argento himself. Here's the trailer!

Next up we got the full trailer for Diablo Cody's next horror film called Lisa Frankenstein -- I shared the teaser all the way back in October; watch that here if you're like me and don't want too much given away. Which means that no, I haven't watched this full trailer myself. But I have heard good stuff about this movie from people who've already seen it, and I love love loved that teaser, so I don't need to. Maybe you're not me, who knows! Anyway Lisa Frankenstein hits theaters on February 9th, and here's that trailer:

Wait Nicolas What?

If you'd told me right after Nicolas Winding Refn had delivered unto us the masterful Netflix series Copenhagen Cowboy (about prostitutes and criminals and psychopaths and all his usual jazz) that he'd next turn to adapting a series of vintage kid's adventure books, I'd have given birth to a shoe. Right then and there. A shoe would have fallen out of me. From where? Don't ask. But it would have happened. So I am glad they waited a little bit to tell me this news, is my point. I don't need shoes falling out of places. Anyway Deadline is reporting today that Refn is indeed turning Enid Blyton's series of The Famous Five books into a miniseries for the BBC -- are any of you familiar with these books? Because I sure as hell am not.

They were published from the 1940s until the 1960s (you can buy a reasonably priced box-set of all 22 books right here) and they sound very Hardy Boys -- they're about four children named Julian, Dick, Anne, George, plus their dog Timmy (love that the dog gets included!) who go on big adventures during their school holidays. They've apparently been adapted several times over the years, but I've still never heard of them -- that said I think I have a pretty good idea of what they consist of in my head. That that said I still cannot for the life of me picture what Nicolas Winding Refn taking on this project will look like in the end. I guess he felt like mixing it up!

Calling All Cowboys

I can't take another disappointment like Amazon burying Nicolas Winding Refn's masterpiece of a 2019 series Too Old To Die Young -- although I suppose I should be grateful that it's still there available for streaming after the year that sort of thing has had -- so please please please go watch Refn's new series Copenhagen Cowboy on Netflix if you haven't yet! I admit I dropped the ball on alerting y'all beforehand (tbh I was a little annoyed that Netflix ghosted me on screeners) so I never shared the trailer, but I am righting that now: 



I binged the show this past week -- although "binged" might be overstating it, as I didn't allow myself more than one episode a night -- and it's fan-fucking-tastic. Weird and gorgeous, funny and haunting -- it's pure undiluted Refn, and I love that he got somebody to say yes again. It's sliiiightly more accessible than TOTDY ended up being, but it's still a series where a possibly vampire serial killer has his penis eaten by pigs; ain't nobody mistaking this for Two and a Half Men. Anyway it ends on a note that very much begs for another season, which honestly might've just been a cruel joke on Refn's part -- crafting an absurdist cliffhanger with no resolution would fit into this Dada puzzle perfect. That said if you have watched the show tell me what you thought in the comments (and also go read our pal Sean's recaps at Decider, he gets it!)

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Pusher (1996)

Tonny: I once ejaculated a girl in the face,

and she wanted me to piss it off.

Frank: Wait a minute, wait a minute.

You ejaculated a girl in the face,

and she wanted you to piss it off?

Tonny: Yeah.

Frank: [laughing] Pervert! That's fucking sick!

Tonny: It is not?

Frank: It's fucking sick, man. Who was she?

Tonny: Your mother.

Oh, do we love a good "your mama" joke. And

Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher trilogy is full of them. 

A happy birthday to Mads Mikkelsen today! I love

that Hannibal Lecter's birthday's so close to Thanksgiving.