Good Morning, World

I literally posted nearly 200 images from Charles Melton's Men's Health photoshoot and video on Monday -- seriously, go see for yourself!!! -- and yet somehow I totally missed this fairly straightforward (yet no less sexy) image right there above? What a world, what a world indeed. Anyway it's a good thing because the second season of Beef is out on Netflix today and why wouldn't I post about that? For one I've been pretty relentlessly plugging it for months now because of its incredible cast. And for another I've actually already watched the whole damn thing! And it's good! I think it might be a little more unfocused than the first season, but all of the leads are excellent, with Mr. Melton and OF COURSE Carey Mulligan being the stand-outs from where I stand. For his part Melton is hysterically funny and surprisingly moving, proving that May December was no fluke; he's the real deal. As much talent as he's got abs! And as for Mulligan... 

Carey Mulligan is one of those notable few performers who, when I think about how much I love watching them perform, I literally well up. I feel immense gratitude every time she acts. I'm basically Team She Can Do No Wrong. What an immense talent she wields. A queen.

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) April 15, 2026 at 4:52 PM

... well as you see above I'm of the mind that Carey Mulligan is incapable of being anything less than absolutely 100% compelling on-screen, and every single time the camera focuses on her here she proves her exquisite skill yet again. I am in awe of her, really and truly -- I'm not quite ready to de-throne the dueling Frenchies of Binoche & Huppert as my picks for the Greatest Living Actresses, but every time I watch Carey Mulligan I question that. I do! She's just so spectacular. Anyway you should watch the new season, it's mostly terrific, and I won't spoil it but there is one moment involving Carey and a wild animal that will probably end up being the funniest thing I see all year. All that plus Charles Melton spends every episode half-naked, as highlighted in the below trailer? What are you even doing here? Get over to Netflix, you fools!

This is literally the only advertisement Netflix needed to make for Beef's second season

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) April 15, 2026 at 2:04 PM

Good Morning, World

I cannot believe that Men's Health has been sitting on yet ANOTHER photo of Charles Melton and his little black speedo all this time! It's been twelve days -- twelve excruciating days!! -- since we saw the last ones. (See them all here.) Haven't they seen the world falling apart all this time? Didn't they understand we needed rescuing? Well we got this one (via) so perhaps this will steer us back toward heaven. They could, I don't know, just drop a new one of these every single day for the foreseeable future -- just spitballing here. (Hear that, Charles. Spitballing.) Gahh filthy innuendoes aside, the real real is that I've got a screening this morning so you'll just have to stare at that photo until I'm back. So spitball that!

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Charles Melton Six (Plus) Times

You know I am just sitting here innocvently at my desk, just got to work, I start eating my breakfast cereal and I open up instagram and WHAM I am almost choked to death on a Cheerio by these photos of Charles Melton for Men's Health magazine suddenly smacking me upside the face. Obviously this is a rhetorical question and either way the answer is a defiant NO...

... but wasn't almost murdering us with that slutty i-D magazine photoshoot enough, Charles? I'm not getting any younger and there;'s only so much my heart can take. But I belabor a stupid argument -- obviously this is the good sort of surprise. Charles is making our Mondays brighter! Hit the jump for all the photos we've got so far (I do assume more will come because they always do)...

Three More Meltons!

How dumb am I (full stop) to've thought that we'd seen the last of the Charles Melton in Men's Health photos after I'd spent half the past week posting, you know, literally hundreds of them. When I posted that hot one yesterday I really thought that'd be that since Beef was now out on Netflix. (Have you watched any? Can we talk about the coyote scene yet???) Thankfully I am the stupidest peron who has ever lived or will ever live, and three more photos have come via MH's Instagram in the past day or so.  So now I'm gonna be smart and say this won't be it -- I'm gonna guesstimate that they're holding on to five thousand more photos to share, and that'll prove my smarts! I'll show you! Okay go watch Beef so we can talk about the coyote scene, the end. Oh and hit the jump for the rest of these pictures as well I suppose...

5 Off My Head: It's NYFF 2023, Baby!

My beloved New York Film Festival has today announced its Main Slate for this the year 2023, and included are the three movies I am most looking forward to for the rest of the year -- and we'll get to what those are in a second, although if you listen to my rambling even just once in awhile you can probably guess. (Since Luca Guadagnino's Challengers moved itself to unknown pastures because of the SAG strike we have to count that one out for the time being.) But per usual it's a tremendous gathering of potential, given the filmmakers included -- Wim Wenders, Catherine Breillat, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Marco Bellocchio, Agnieszka Holland, Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, Alice Rohrwacher... and that's ignoring the Opening and Centerpiece and Closing night films which were already announced, those being Todd Haynes' May December, Sofia Coppola's Priscilla, and Michael Mann's Ferrari. Check out the entire line-up at this link or down below, but first as I do every year here are the five movies from the Main Slate that I'm most excited about...

The 5 NYFF Main Slate Movies I Want Right Now

Poor Things by Yorgos Lanthimos

Yorgos is a man I will follow to the ends of the earth and further at this point, so this should come as no shock -- the only thing that's shocking is it's not my most anticipated movie of the year, but there's one below that's beating it by an inch. The trailer (seen here) makes this look like everything Yorgos does best wrapped in one psychedelic package, and a big-time showcase for Emma Stone's strangest impulses. Bring it on!

All of Us Strangers by Andrew Haigh

I just shared that first image from the film yesterday the second it dropped, and I've been all over news of this movie since minute one. Weekend director Andrew Haigh with a maybe-gay movie starring Andrew Scott and Paul Mescal? Of course I have. 

Anatomy of a Fall by Justine Triet

This won the Palme d’Or at Cannes this spring and its story of a riddle-like murder mystery sounds right up my alley anyway, but it's the fact that it features what is by all accounts an astonishing turn from German actress Sandra Hüller that's got my attention. Like most people who saw Toni Erdmann I have been Team Hüller ever since, and she's wowed me every chance, and this sounds like her biggest showcase since that marvelous earlier film.

The Beast by Bertrand Bonello

Bonello hasn't made a movie I've loved as much as I loved as Saint Laurent since Saint Laurent, but Nocturama came close. And this one stars George MacKay, so hope remains alive. Set in three distinct time periods it's about a woman (Le Sedoux) who discovers her existence has been forever intertwined with MacKay's character. Would that we are all so lucky!

The Zone of Interest by Jonathan Glazer

This is my most anticipated movie of the year, just beating out Yorgos as mentioned above, and probably only because Glazer works so infrequently that we must properly pop the champagne whenever he shows up to keep encouraging the man to keep making his wondrous movies. Add on the facts that this also stars Sandra Hüller (from Anatomy of a Fall above), it has a score from Mica Levi, and it sounds like it's working on a very Michael-Haneke-type of register -- it focuses on a family of Nazis living an idyllic life right outside of a concentration camp -- and how could I not be all in on this?

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Passes for NYFF are on sale right now -- single tickets go on

sale on Sept. 19th. Hit the jump for the entire press release...