Mike Faist isn't just sweating it out in a sauna with Christopher Abbott this week -- he's also on the cover of this month's GQ (or British GQ at least) and there are a lot more photos (plus words!) over there. But I was really only drawn to the three photos of him in a tank so that's all I am sharing. This interview is, as have several this week, pushing the narrative that he went and disappeared from our lives post-Challengers, but honestly -- doesn't it feel a little early in his career, as much as I like him, to be acting like some gigantic gaping hole (hey, minds up here) was left in his absence? I mean no offense and I get the "strike while the iron's hot" mentality but I feel like Comeback Narratives should be reserved for people my mother could name, or at least recognize. Anyway that's what his people are pushing so whatever, go with grace. I look forward to East of Eden anyway. When I have time to watch the damn thing.
Since Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day didn't leave that much of a mark on this year (I liked it myself) I had to go and check to see if Josh had something else coming out this fall to "justify" his landing a big sexy photoshoot for Another Magazine here at the nascent tip of Awards Season -- Josh does not have anything else coming out this year, and that makes me happy. Not that he doesn't have anything coming out -- that Another Magazine was just like, "We can do a big sexy photoshoot with Josh O'Connor? YES LET'S."
It's what the people want any time of any year no matter the situation, so good on them for getting that. Anyway I haven't read the interview yet but it does involve an upcoming project for Mr. O'Con -- he is chatting with on Saoirse Ronan about Three Incestuous Sisters, their film reuniting Josh with his La Chimera director Alice Rohrwacher. The other two "Sisters" of the title are played by Dakota Johnson and Jessie Buckley and yes this should be your most aniticipated movie of 2027, duh.
Looking at the cast list just now -- Mick Jagger is in it too?? When was the last time Mick Jagger was in a movie? The last one I can remember off the top of my head is Bent. Dude doesn't act very much -- unless he's been off starring on ten seasons of an NCIS show I've never heard of. That happens sometimes. Can you imagine? Anyway -- Josh! Josh is why we're here (hashtag evergreen), and these photos specifically, which have him looking very attractive indeed. Hit the jumpfor 'em...
I'm so glad that Alden Ehrenreich has been able to stick around -- hell you could even say he's thriving, having gotten a Tony nomination this year for his first role on Broadway! Plus Weapons was such a big hit too. He just had a bunch of high profile flops that made me worry we'd lose Steven Spielberg's favorite bar mitzvah discovery and we wouldn't want that. We adore him. Anyway he's doing his adorable thing in the new Carly Rae Jepsen video...
... directed by Slave Play playwright Jeremy O. Harris (cuz sure why not) -- I can pretty much guarnatee this is and will remain the only time I will type the words "Carly Rae Jepsen" on this here website. But good on here -- these are a helluva pair of collaborators. I mean I never got to see Slave Play but I got to see all of the ridiciulously hot Kit Harington pictures from it and that was enough to know me and Jeremy are simpatico spirits. Anyway -- behold! A Carly Rae Jepsen video on MNPP!! You'll never see the likes of this again:
Anyway there that is. Happy Tuesday, lovers!
Alden Ehrenreich in the new Carly Rae Jepsen music video lol
You'd think a person would reach a certain age, one where they've gone through enough of these to have an inkling that everyone dies and most of the people older than yourself who you worshipped as a kid, you're gonna have to say goodbye to them. But even with his openness about the cancer he'd been battling for years I wasn't prepared for my boyfriend to wake me up this morning with the news that Sam Neill had died. I'm sure I'd seen him in something before Jurassic Park -- I'd probably seen The Hunt For Red October; I doiubt I'd seen The Piano -- but he became, from the moment that movie opened, Dr. Grant to me. I actually have a vivid memory of not liking him having been cast in the role since I'd read the book and I'm sure the Dr. Grant that was swimming around in my hormonal 15-year-old head was hunkier. But the child-like (yes, Spielbergian) wonder under a faux-gruff exterior that he brought to the role was undeniable, and without it the movie wouldn't have worked. And it did work -- I went back and saw the movie twenty damn times in the theater, after all!
It took a long time for me to be able to see Neill as anything else -- and I'm sure, even though he more than anyone else in the franchise capitalized on the bank the role brought him, that single-role identification was a little harmful to his career -- but decades on when I finally got around to catching Andrzej Żuławski's Possession, well, if you've seen that movie you know it'll slap the spell off of anybody's face. I think I really only came to appreciate what a fine and versatile actor he was once that happened. So of course I'll find time to re-watch Jurassic Park for the ten billionth time this week but I'm gonna make space for The Piano, Dead Calm, In the Mouth of Madness, Hunt For the Wilderpeople, as well.
I missed the first batch of these Josh Rivera photos when they dropped with the interview at Cero magazine back in June, but thankfully the photographer also shared a couple of outtakes (the first two photos you see here) and those, for obvious reasons, caught my eye. How do photos like this become outtakes? Bad decision, Cero magazine! Bad decision. Anyway as hot as Josh was in Spielberg's West Side Story remake (watching that movie I could not fathom why Maria was ditching him for bland-ass Tony as played by Ansel) Josh really upped the heat next level for his role as Rocky in The Rocky Horror Picture Show opposite Luke Evans on Broadway which... well, I suppose anyone would work out a lot if one was going to play that half-naked sex-god role. I don't say this much but -- thank you, Broadway. Hit the jump for the rest...
How nice to watch in real time a truly talented and handsome young man like Josh O'Connor go from bum-fucking in the mud to starring in an outer space alien epic by the one and only Steven Spielberg. It's been a true pleasure. I know some people knew who he was before God's Own Country but there's when I hopped on the Joshie train, and it's been nothing but choo-choo-choosing him ever since. I'm not a betting man but I do see the appeal of choo-choo-choosing a winner dammit. Anyway I have gone and reviewed said "space alien epic" Disclosure Day today, so click on over to Pajiba to read that -- it's a very weird movie, not really a "space alien epic" at all. But I found it thoughtful and surprisingly moving, especially in the ways it's having a conversation not just with Spielberg's stamp on cinema but with our current lived reality. I mean it's got lots of action scenes too, and nobody does 'em like Spielberg, but it's really... well I'll let you discover for yourself. Just give it a chance, says me. It's a surprise in a lot of ways.
Although it's only three posts deep to date -- and one of them are of the above same gif of Colman Domingo planting a big one on Josh O'Connor while doing press for Steven Spielberg's Disclosure Day, out this week (and which, wink wink, a certain somebody is dropping a review of shortly) -- I have got a "Happy Pride Month" thread started on Bluesky and I will hopefully continue to share personal highlights of faggotry from now til the end of the month. Stay tuned! Bookmark it! Please feel free to reply to it with your own! It's our month now, wha ha ha ha!!! We own the world!
Contunuing the sometimes-successful trend of late of movies made from books getting now stretched out to multi-episode prestige miniseries' length -- think Dead Ringers, Presumed Innocent, Ripley et cetera -- we now have a third filmed version of John D. MacDonald's 1957 novel The Executioners coming our way... which we all know better by its adapted title of Cape Fear. Previously there's been the 1962 movie with Gregory Peck and Robert Mitchum, and then of course there is Martin Scorsese's 1992 remake with Nick Nolte and Robert De Niro -- and now, landing on June 5th, we have Patrick Wilson and Javier Bardem tackling the roles of the good family man lawyer and the evil criminal who comes back to torment him. Plot twist, though -- in 2026 it's not just one but two prosecutors in the family, and so the wife character (previously played by Polly Bergen and Jessica Lange) is now co-responsible for the bad dude's imprisonment. All the better to give Amy Adams something to do in the role. Here, just watch the trailer:
The excellent news about this series is it's coming to us -- well yes it was executive produced by both Scorsese and one Steven Spielberg. That's sort of a big deal. But the actual person running this show is Nick Antosca, and we LOVE Nick Antosca thanks to a couple of series he ran several years back -- specifically the horror anthology Channel Zero as well as the too-too-short-lived series Brand New Cherry Flavor on Netflix. Channel Zero in particular is my beloved, and cemented Antosca as a person I will follow forever. That said -- hypocrisy alert -- I still haven't gotten around to watching his last project A Friend of the Family starring Jake Lacy. I kept forgetting it existed -- repeat with me my favorite refrain, "There are too many damn shows."
Anyway. I'm a really over-the-top fan of Scorsese's film Cape Fear -- it's for real a Top 5 Scorsese movie for me, even while he himself isn't really a fan of it. It barely figured into his recent career-retrospective documentary, which irritated me. I adore how operatic and purple it goes -- I find it riveting, with Lange fluttering her hands in every direction madly and De Niro literally chomping chunks out of the scenery. This 2026 version seems to be aping a lot of that film visually -- there are shots taken straight from it in this trailer. I guess we'll see. I know I'll be watching. And I have to say I wouldn't be angry if Bardem's terrifying flirtations landed on Patrick Wilson this time. Just a thought!
A very happy 79th birthday to the one the only Steven "Stevie" Spielberg! 79's not exactly the world's most interesting number -- although given how exhausting a single year feels these days making it through seven-nine of these bitches is an accomplishment, I'll give him that -- so why am I picking him among the list of celebrity birthdays today to celebrate in particular? Because it gives me an excuse to post the teaser trailer for Disclosure Day, his next movie -- yes this dropped two days ago and surely if you've wanted to watch it by now but since it stars Josh O'Connor AND Colman Domingo I feel as if it needs to have its spot here at MNPP.
What do we think? I think for one I want to see absolute nothing else about this -- I want to maintain all the rest of the mystery; I wanna go in with all the questions that two minutes of footage posits. I will say that if I had to guess this is a "good" alien movie a la Close Enocounters and E.T. though -- a forceful reclamation of optimism in the face of so much not-optimism in the world right now feels very Spielberg to me, and this movie is based on an "original idea" from Spielberg himself. Thoughts?
Sandor: You know why women used to get married, don't you?
Alice: Why don't you tell me?
Sandor: It was the only way they could lose their virginity
and be free to do what they wanted with other men.
The ones they really wanted.
Alice: Fascinating.
Stanley Kubrick's final masterpiece Eyes Wide Shut (and yes I do consider this Kubrick's own film even if it was finished post-mortem -- on that tip there's a great new interview with the film's editor right here that address this subject) has landed on 4K today thanks to Criterion -- you can grab a copy right here. I've had a copy for a couple of weeks but it doesn't feel right to watch this movie before the holidays so I've been saving it. I think I might actually watch it right on Christmas, or Christmas Eve anyway. I should time it so Nicole Kidman says "Fuck." just at the strike of Midnight! What are y'all's thoughts on this movie? I've been a big fan since Day One personally, but I know it's a controversial one!
What, you thought I'd link to my review of the new Jurassic movie with a picture from the movie itself? Hell no! I'm reposting a photo of actor Jonathan Bailey -- see the rest of the shoot here -- because I know what the people want. As cute as he looks in his now branded "slutty little glasses" there's no denying those arms of his. (See also yesterday morning.) And it's kinda sad that the PR campaign for this movie is about to end with it hitting theaters today so let's enjoy this while we got it. Anyway... oh right, my review! Click here to read my Pajiba review of Jurassic World: Rebirth, which is all things considered totally fun. Yes it's a wee bit too cluttered, yes it's too long, and yes its characters do a lot of dumb things to keep the plot moving. I don't care. It's not Jurassic World: Dominion, which was so bad I considered it an assault on me personally, so I left the theater this time around pretty happy and satisfied. Director Gareth Edwards crushes a couple of action scenes, and... did I mention Jonathan Bailey? I really should. Just once.
God's Own Country and Challengers actor Josh O'Connor is set to star in Steven Spielberg's next movie! I had to google it to make sure he wasn't in War Hose because doesn't it feel like he could've been in War Horse? (Full disclosure - I have never seen War Horse. It's one of I think three Spielberg movies I haven't seen.) Anyway this will be Josh's first movie with the biggest man in Hollywood history -- we don't know much about this movie yet except it's a science-fiction "event film" so this will be Spielberg in blockbuster mode. Four other people also joined the cast -- Emily Blunt, Eve Hewson (aka Bono's daughter who co-starred in The Knick!), Colin Firth, and Colman f'ing Domingo! Yes Colman too! Save Colman this is a very British cast though so I am assuming this will be a British-set science0-fiction picture. Wouldn't it be kind of cool if he made a new Day of the Triffids? I love Day of the Triffids. Those killer plants freak me the fuck out. And it's a timely ecological angle. If it gets announced that this is a Day of the Triffids movie I want my flowers dammit cuz I called it!
I am one of those weirdos who think that Martin Scorsese's 1991 Cape Fear remake is one of his best movies -- it's so purple and overheated and operatic and Jessica Lange is fluttering her hands all around and Juliette Lewis is biting her braces and I love it, I love it, I just love it. Nevertheless I am excited about today's news that Javier Bardem is going to star in a 10-episode series remake that has been greenlit of the property -- it doesn't hurt that Scorsese himself (with a little nobody named Steven Spielberg) are the producers behind it. But Bardem is a great choice -- assuming he's playing the maniac Max Cady character. I think he'd be wasted as the Nick Nolte in this situation. Not that they shouldn't make that character interesting too. It's just we haven't gotten Javier playing a big villain in awhile, I feel like, at least not that I've seen, and he's so very good at it. No other casting has been announced but the actual show-runner has been and it's also terrific news -- Nick Antosca, the pervert behind the Channel Zero horror anthology series (as well as Brand New Cherry Flavor, also good), will be doing the actual work. I am a huge Channel Zero head. Pretzel Jack! Ahhh just saying his name makes me shudder. One of the great under-sung horror villains of our times. If Antosca can tap into some of this chaotic energy...
Coincidentally just after I posted this it was announced that Harrison is receiving the Career Achievement Award at this weekend's Critics Choice Awards -- I'm now a voting member of the CCA so I must announce such things! Obviously the man has earned all the honors, and not just for how he commands that whip -- I'm even sadder I won't be there at the awards this weekend now! But as I stated previously I had to choose between that and Sundance and this year it was Sundance. (Speaking of I suppose this is a good changce for me to point out I'll be in Utah starting a week from Thursday so you should expect it to be quiet in here for about a week or so then.) Anyway hit the jump for the CCA press release on Mr. Ford...
While I'm slightly ashamed to give any fresh attention to the movie where John Landis killed three people through an excess of arrogance and negligence, the final two portions ofTwilight Zone: The Movie -- the one called "It's a Good Life" directed by Joe Dante which will be the subject of our post today, as well as the fourth and final segment where Mad Max and Babe genius George Miller reworked the infamous "Nightmare at 20,000" feet story -- are too good to live unloved in the world, and are worthy of seeking out.
Dante's in particular brings me great joy -- the man who made the Gremlins movies unleashed on the story of a tyrannical boy with the ability to wish anything into existence with a cast that includes Kathleen Quinlin, Dick Miller, Nancy Cartwright, and the fellow on display in these gifs, the great "best friend of Monty Clift" Kevin McCarthy??? Yes please. Forced to do "a trick" for the boy's captive audience all seems alright at first until...
... all is very much not alright. (Sidenote: I deeply love the smooth arm movement McCarthy does in the above shot -- what a goddamned professional.) It should be noted that the monster effects in this segment were created by the legend Rob Bottin, who did the monsters in John Carpenter's The Thing -- you can very much see the bridge between those abominations and the Looney Tunes cartoons Dante is referencing throughout this segment -- that rabbit in the hat looks exactly like what would have happened if Bugs Bunny had been taken over by the defrosted alien parasite.
I have heard a lot of people my age had nightmares about this segment and the monster rabbit in particular, but I don't remember seeing this as a kid and if I did I apparently wasn't bothered by it. Man what a hard ass I was. Anyway this thirteenth bunny rabbit is my gift to you, here on Halloween! Check out all the "13 Bunnies of Halloween" right here -- now back into the hat with them until whatever nonsense I decide to count down in 2024...
Lots of Boyd Holbrook popping up this week unexpectedly -- I re-watched both Gone Girl and Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny over the past two nights (I'd totally forgotten he was in Gone Girl at all) -- and along with the fact that it's his birthday tomorrow, well why not let him have tops-of-the-blog honors before I head off for a long weekend? And somehow these two vintage photos of Boyd from his pre-acting modeling days didn't make it into the enormous gratuitous post I did of him back in 2015. (I go back to that post so often -- it soothes me.) Anyway yup, it's a four day weekend. I am off until Tuesday and there are zero movies out this weekend worth talking about so I got nothing to recommend. I'm going to spend it catching up on the quite terrifyingly large piles of blu-rays I have been buying, and going to see a couple of movies at the "Bigger & Louder" series at the Paris here in NYC, which just revamped their system. I am seeing Playtime in 70mm tomorrow, holy shit! Anyway this weekend is just the quiet before the storm of fall movie releases -- NYFF will be swallowing me up by the end of September -- so I'm going to enjoy this breath whilst I can take it. Y'all have a good one and see you in September! (And as always if you see something good, say something in the comments.)
I am admittedly going into Bradley Cooper's Leonard Bernstein bio-pic Maestro with a chip on my shoulder due to my annoyance that Cooper bolted out in front and ruined our chance of getting to see a Leonard Bernstein bio-pic directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Jake Gyllenhaal -- actual Jews making a movie about a famous Jew, imagine that. (That big fake nose that Cooper is rocking remains A LOT to expect us to deal with.) That said the teaser trailer released today certainly makes the film look beautiful, and my feelings about Carey Mulligan -- playing Bernstein's wife, who had to put up with his gay infidelities -- reach to the Moon and back, so... I dunno. We'll see at Thanksgiving when the movie's out. You watch...
... and you tell me what you think in the comments. If it's good there's probably no way Cooper doesn't finally win that Oscar he's been pleading for for years (and no, I don't think he's overdue, as his Star is Born movie was and remains trash.) The fact that he might beat a openly gay man playing a gay man (Colman Domingo for the Bayard Rustin biopic) by playing a gay man while he is presumably straight? Don't get me started.
Let it be known that I went into Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny with exceedingly low expectations -- the second that James Mangold was announced as director all my hopes melted away like that one Nazi's face at the end of Raiders. I found Logan vastly overrated and was nearly bored to literal death by Ford v Ferrari, and so I figured this was gonna be a disaster. And yet here we are -- I actually thought Dial of Destiny was pretty fun! Click here to read my review at Pajiba where I get into it. It's got some issues but it's better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull -- Ford is wonderful (of course he was) and I love love loved Phoebe Waller-Bridge in it. I also loved the go-for-broke ending, and there's a really weird scene where Antonio Banderas shows up with a boat full of shirtless muscle-bound sailor-men that is totally gratuitous aka made for me. And made for any of you reading this, I'd wager! PS in related news if you missed it earlier today I ranked Harrison Ford's hotness at Mashable, which you might also appreciate.
This is a subject I have broached here at MNPP before, but with the new Indiana Jones movie out in theaters this weekend (more on that soon) I was gifted the chance to take this mighty important conversation onto a larger platform -- click over to Mashable to read my investigation on "What was Harrison Ford his hottest?" Very important stuff y'all!
Okay baby -- tonight's Indy 5 night! Spin that dastardly Dial of Destiny because this is really happening. Whatever the hell a "dial of destiny" is. I guess I will know tonight. And I'm not sure if I am excited, terrified, indifferent -- we'll see what the movie delivers and decide then. Which is the way it should be, I suppose -- I just wish I could go in anticipating more. I tried to re-watch Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a few weeks ago and, uhh, didn't make it too far. I think I have tried to re-watch that movie like four times since its release and I never make it all the way through? I definitely haven't seen the ending with the spinning alien nonsense since the first watch, even though that shit's burned into my brain. And not in a good way. Anyway stay tuned for my opinion next week, I will be reviewing this one. I'll be off for the rest of the week for Tribeca stuff -- more reviews will be appearing soon enough! Until then have a good weekend...
"I too quit smoking (2013) AND find this type of pictures cool. Also, PSA: if you're feeling like you want to start smoking again, just remind yourself "I do not want my body and house to stink like stale horseshit", then go drink one more glass of water to entertain your hands and lips. Congrats, btw."
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