You Know I Love Surprises!

The lovely folks over at Vinegar Syndrome have been making this transition towards the 2025 hellscape land softer than it ought to thanks to their dropping OF some truly substantial physical medias upon us -- last month they brought us the forever unreleased Diane Keaton. masterpiece Looking For Mr Goodbar in 4K, and this month they're gifting us with Gregg Araki's stoner comedy Smiley Face starring Anna Faris! If you've been around here at MNPP HQ for awhile then surely you've heard me going off about my love for this movie more than once -- I'm not a "Stoner Comedy" person in the slightest but I adore this one and the shitty DVD has been out-of-print for ages. Pre-order it at this link! It's the little things that will hopefully get us through these difficult times and if I have to devour an entire plate of pot cupcakes to do it then so be it.  

Take An Adam Brody Cake Break

Adam Brody being adorable with cake while wearing big fluffy sweaters -- what more does the world need on a cold December afternoon? Everything might be shit everywhere else but there is comfort right here, at least. These photos are for Stylist magazine (via) and I really feel as if they are in their miniscule way making the world a little bit of a better, brighter place, so let us live deliciously. Hit the jump for the shoot and a video of said shoot...

Good Morning, World

I had neither seen nor heard of a 2008 movie called Death in Love before stumbling across this gif on Tumblr yesterday, but we're never going to ignore Josh Lucas in briefs, that's for sure. So I did a little digging on what the hell this movie is, which revealed... it's an erotic thriller about the Holocaust? So maybe there's a good reason I'd never heard of it? It's about a Jewish woman in a concentration camp who saves herself by having an affair with a Nazi doctor, and the repurcussions of this years later on her adult sons (mom's played by Jacqueline Bisset and the sons are played by Josh Lucas & Lukas Haas). Oh and Adam Brody is there too so him and Josh Lucas can dance together (as seen below) for some reason? 

I will also share with you the red-band trailer, which is super Skinemaxy, just because we've already fallen down this hole this far already -- let's keep going. All this nonsense just to ogle Josh Lucas in his underwear! We have issues. All of that said I must ask if any person reading this has ever seen this really very terrible looking movie. I am fascinated.

Adam Brody Eleven Times

I totally forgot that Adam Brody was even in the Shazam movies -- all the better for him, I'd say! That franchise's collapse won't drag him down like it might star Zachary Levi (and that Libertarian anti-vaxx a-hole can ride himself right off into the sunset for all I care). I forgot Adam was in the Shazam movies that is until I saw exactly that mentioned in the interview at Inverse that accompanies these extremely handsome photos of Adam. Our O.C. boy is now fully an O.C. man, and he's wearing it well. Hit the jump for all the snaps...

Keep Your Promise, Woman!

I was supposed to see Promising Young Woman at a screening in March right as the pandemic was shutting everything down -- I decided at the last minute I wasn't comfortable going to the screening, figuring hey, how long could this shit last, maybe a month? Remember being that naive? Sigh. Anyway! Today we have news on the Carey Mulligan film and apologies if I look at its release date with more skepticism this go-round -- Focus says they are releasing it in theaters on Christmas Day. We will see! But they've given us that new poster up top and below, a new trailer. (The original trailer, way back when, got dropped here.) Watch:

We All Scream At More Scream

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Adam Brody is only related to this news insofar as the directors of his last movie are the news, but don't we like looking at Adam Brody? let's look at Adam Brody as we read this news. The day could use some Adam Brody. Anyway the last movie of his of which I speak is last year's lil' horror phenom Ready or Not (reviewed here), which was directed by Matthew Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (aka 2/3rds of the directing trio that call themselves Radio Silence for some odd presumably dude-bro reason), and those two have just been announced as the directors of Scream 5. 

Yes, as in the Scream with the Ghostface Killer and Nev Campbell and Courtney Cox's bangs, that franchise. (And yes Adam Brody did indeed play a cop in Scream 4.) A fifth one, which might be a total reboot or might be a sequel, we don't know. But a fifth Scream film, even though Wes Craven is dead. I don't know. There's far worse news in the world so I can't exactly get worked up about a Scream movie being made without Wes Craven, but if "Well it's not Coronavirus!" is all ya got, I don't know what to tell ya.

Promising Young Actress

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I liked Marriage Story very much (read my review-ish thing from yesterday if you don't believe me) but I've also spent the past few weeks thinking about how I liked Paul Dano's 2018 parental split film Wildlife starring Carey Mulligan and Jake Gyllenhaal more, and so Carey's been on my brain a lot. I mean "more" of a lot, since she's never far, given how fucking amazing she's been time and time and time again. Anyway this trailer for her new movie called Promising Young Woman really couldn't have shown up at a more apt time, is my point...

... but it still goes the extra mile just looking all sorts of amazing on its own. Written and directed by Killing Eve and The Crown writer Emerald Fennell, and co-starring an absolutely killer bunch of folks -- Molly Shannon! Allison Brie! Chris Lowell! Max Greenfield! Adam Brody! Bo Burnham! Christopher Mintz-Plasse! Alfred Molina! Jennifer Coolidge! Connie Britton! Clancy fucking Brown! -- the movie's has Carey's character getting revenge on all the douche-bros, one douche-bro at a time. Did I mention Chris Lowell?

I know I did, I just really love me some Piz. But he makes the perfect douche-bro, as do all those fellas I mentioned above. But actors aside visually it looks terrific, very Killing Eve with lots of outlandish feminine clothing being weaponized -- the Sexy Nurse's outfit is great and I might have to do a side-by-side With Daryl Hannah in Kill Bill when this sucker comes out. Here's the trailer:

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Promising Young Woman comes out in April!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Bright Star (2009)

Fanny: I still don't know how to work out a poem. 

John: A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out, it is a experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept a mystery.

Fanny: I love mystery.

There are four movies of some note celebrating their tenth anniversaries today. There's this film here by Jane Campion. Then there's Karyn Kusama's horror flick Jennifer's Body, which seems to have finally started getting the respect it deserves now that everybody's hate for Megan Fox has cooled. 

Then there is Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! which I really and truly adore -- mostly for Melanie Lynskey, but I think it's one of his best and I'm a fan. And then finally there is Vicenzo Natali's much maligned Splice, which damn the haters I really enjoyed. I will admit I haven't seen it in ten years, but I think it's one of those movies that got an "F" from audiences that was just too freaking weird for them to get. 

But I digress! I polled y'all on Twitter earlier this week and Bright Star won the poll, just by the smallest of smidges over Jennifer's Body. So Bright Star gets today's post. I am fine with this, as Bright Star is a masterpiece and Ben Whishaw in Bright Star is also a masterpiece. Tell us which of these movies you love the most, or about how much you fell in love with Ben Whishaw here, in the comments!

Ready and Waiting

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There's a moment that comes about midway through Ready or Not that highlights both its best badassery and its worst pandering all at once. It's the wedding night of Grace -- a marvelous Samara Weaving, giving a star turn and then some -- and Alex -- the typically ravishing Mark O'Brien, still lugging around that smooth pale skin and those dimples (not to mention the easy breezy sociopathy that he made look so simple on Halt and Catch Fire) -- and things aren't going the way they should. That is to say that Alex only got his shirt tugged at a little, with his getting good and naked being most brutally interrupted. Such violence already!

If you've seen the trailers you know the deal -- and if you don't know the deal, don't read the reviews! -- Grace's in-laws are psychos who force her into a game of "Hide and Seek" with real dead or more dead stakes. If she can make it through the entire night... well, it's complicated. (So complicated it sort of doesn't make sense?) Needless to say she's gotta run. And run she does. She runs, she climbs, she goes about the stab stab stabbing. Once upon a time it was old lace and something blue -- these days it's crossbows and something red verging on purple and black.

Anyway that moment I spoke of way way back at the start comes once some bad stuff has happened but not all the bad stuff -- Grace is tattered and torn and a little beat up, and she finds herself in front of one of those grand and stately mirrors that rich people always seem to surround themselves with. And the movie takes a moment, alongside Grace, to take it all in. The camera pans, we see what's become of her, and the girl strikes a striking pose. 

It's sort of that Ripley moment, where James Cameron zoomed in on Sigourney's face in the great big yellow work loader, where you feel that "Fuck yeah!" feeling of rah-rah burn up your gut. That's a hero right there! Only now here in 2019 these moments, well, they've come to feel like what they are and what they are in 2019 is an advertisement for an eventual action figure. Grace, with her shredded wedding gown and her dirty Converse sneakers and her chest crossed with Rambo bullet belts and one big ol' gun in her manicured hands, for all the magic Weaving weaves in the role in that moment Grace feels packaged. If the camera pulled back you might see the plastic casing and the stamps on all her fresh accessories -- the Barbie Dream House gone Gothic and the varied cast of Skipper doll killers. Posable, but predetermined. Limbs bend but don't quite snap.

That is to say that Ready or Not serves up fun, but not danger. Weaving and the game cast (Adam Brody is especially on point as the alcoholic brother who wears the hell out of some suspenders) skip from game square to game square with giddiness, but the board's plotted and the cards dealt before the wheel's even been spun. There's a recognizable batch of outcomes, which is of course part of the fun -- nobody actually wants the Monopoly thimble to grow fangs and chew their leg off -- but part of its limitation too. Maybe that whole thimble thing could've been fun, actually? How will I ever know if they never try the thimble thing?

Adam Brody Three Times

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I'm really very annoyed that I haven't gotten to see Ready or Not yet when I very much want to, hence why I haven't posted much about the buzzy horror flick out this weekend. But these photos of Adam Brody in the new GQ are really too adorable not to post, so I'll make this exception. There's also an interview at that link, although it's mostly about The OC and I didn't really watch The OC save a couple times -- I didn't crush on Adam until Jennifer's Body, because I got class, motherfucker.

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Horror Time in the City

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Nothing's scarier than New York in July and August, when the steam sets into the pavement and the rats get that look in their eyes, so its appropriate that we've got some movie options to go along with the sensations already rotting our flesh anyway -- as I already told you about last month the Quad is screening a series of six very fine giallo films starting this very weekend, including the totally gorgeous Fifth Cord which stars that finely mustachioed fellow Franco Nero you see above. Anyway today IndieWire was nice enough to cut together a trailer for the series, you can check it out at this link! I've seen all of these movies save one and they're all a lot of groovy stylish fun. 

The other big horror reveal today is Film At Lincoln Center has announced this year's "Scary Movies" line-up, which contains several HOLY SHIT moments, including the world premiere of Ari Aster's 3-hour Director's Cut of Midsommar (theatrical cut reviewed here) -- can I get a HOLY SHIT? HOLY SHIT! Besides that they're screening the terrific looking wedding night murder game movie Ready or Not (with my Halt and Catch Fire boyfriend Mark O'Brien in attendance), a flick called The Wolf Hour that has Naomi Watts trapped in her apartment during the so-called "Summer of Sam," and Villains, which stars Bill Skarsgard & Maika Monroe as a pair of lovers on the run who come face to face with even crazier crazies played by Jeffrey Donovan & Kyra Sedgwick. Check out the whole line-up here; "Scary Movies" runs August 16th through the 21st.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Jennifer's Body (2009)

Nikolai: Do you know how hard it is to make it as an indie band these days? There are so many of us, and we're all so cute and it's like if you don't get on Letterman or some retarded soundtrack, you're screwed, okay? Satan is our only hope. We're working with the beast now. And we've got to make a really big impression on him. And to do that, we're going to have to butcher you. And bleed you. And then Dirk here is gonna wear your face. [Dirk gives him a look] Relax, I'm kidding about the face thing. The rest is gonna happen. 

I was just thinking about this movie and how vastly underrated it is earlier today when the rumor that Megan Fox might play Poison Ivy surfaced - for the record I am down with that! Anyway then I saw it's also Adam Brody's 37th birthday today so this post became necessary. Adam Brody plus guyliner is sure something special. Adam Brody, where have you gone...

Good Morning, World

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I reviewed the pleasant little comedy Life Partners when it screened at Tribeca last Spring; it stars Leighton Meester and Gillian Jacobs (and yes also an adorable Adam Brody, adorable being redundant when you say Adam Brody) as friends, one gay one straight, dealing with, you know life. As partners. Of the friendly persuasion. It's okay. It's a non-offensive way to waste ninety minutes. Anyway it's on demand now, so you can see it for yourself, or you could just stare at these pictures of Adorable Adam Brody without a shirt on, which is clearly the movie's highlight.

You Got Something On Your Face, Adam Brody

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We've all been there. (via)

Gay Straight Dalliance

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My first review from the Tribeca Film Festival just went live over at The Film Experience - it's for Life Partners, a sweetish little comedy about best girlfriends, one gay one straight, one played by Leighton Meester and one played by Gillian Jacobs, and the man who mucks up their thing, played by Adam Brody, seen above wearing the same Adidas sandals I was wearing like fifteen years ago. Anyway I take the opportunity to talk about Frances Ha a bunch, cuz why not - if there's nobody stopping me from talking about Frances Ha, I'm gonna just talk about Frances Ha.

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Lovelace in 200 Words or Less

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First things first, I think Amanda Seyfried's great in the movie. Weird how I feel like I need to make that clear - I feel strangely protective of her for some reason, even though she's always flaunting her hot-man-hopping ways and making me crazy with jealousy. (To be her, not to have her, of course.) Anyway Mandy's really good as the most famous larynx'd lady in all the world - she's sweet and sad and sweetly sadly sexy too; believably gullible when she needs to be, and dark eyed with cynicism when that hope's all but broken - in a movie that never really seems sure of what it is or where it's going. The double-back structure is clever, that's not my problem with it - the movie just seems distracted by surface even once the darkness rolls in. It never feels like it's asking the right questions, if that makes sense.There's this flat sense of inevitability and obviousness that it never overcomes, and so too much rides out perfunctorily instead of scooping you up by the balls and (dare I? I dare) going deep.

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More Bang For The Buck

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(via) That there is the British trailer for Lovelace, Mandy Seyfried's upcoming porn biopic of the Seventies star. I skipped posting it when the American trailer popped up last week because, bah, no skin! Thankfully overseas they're less prudish selling their movie about blowjobbing with some, you know, seedier stuff. Like Peter Sarsgaard in underpants, hooray! Hit the jump for more caps of that, and Adam Brody, and James Franco...

TGT12: A Moment of 2012 Awesomeness

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This has been a moment of 2012 awesomeness.

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I Am Link

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--- Kneel Before Brody - That right there's a new picture of my best frenemy Amanda Seyfried on her knees in front of I believe that's Adam Brody, for the bio-pic Lovelace, via The Playlist. Once again she's stealing all my parts!

--- Two Women - This is like the lady version of that thing I said last week about Michael Fassbender and Jake Gyllenhaal blowing each other in a alleyway - a conversation between Lena Dunham and Miranda July, aka two of my very favorite women on the planet? Why yes I will gobble that right up, thank you, Interview magazine.

--- Fur Mates - Well I guess Roman Polanski decided to go a little bit older (seventeen and a half years older) with his male lead in his adaptation of the hit stage show Venus in Fur - he's swapped out 30 year old Louis Garrel for 47 year old Mathieu Almaric. The leading lady is still Polanski's wife Emmanuelle Seigner, who is actually pretty much the same age as Almaric (they already co-starred in the fantastic Diving Bell and the Butterfly), so at least Polanski's not aging up the leading man and keeping a young lady opposite him - that's a dynamic it's best Mr. Polanski stay away from. Anyway I hope someday we get to see Hugh Dancy play the part since he played it on stage and I was too dumb to go see it.

--- Hit The Showers - Brian DePalma, ever the most delicate of film-makers (ha), is going to make a bio-pic about Joe Paterno that will star Al Pacino. Oh dear. This is going to end in tears.

--- Live Nude Boy - I saw Picnic on stage a couple of nights ago and I totally don't have anything to say about it other than what Nat just wrote about it at the Film Experience, so just read that. I suppose I could drool about Sebastian Stan's torso, but I already did that much a bunch. (Seriously though, I don't think I breathed for five minutes.)

--- Foot Work - Also at TFE, Michael counts down ten of his favorite dance scenes from 2012's movies. Great list, and lots of great also-ran's mentioned in the comments. Didn't realize it was such a dance-filled year of movies.

--- Lady Jane - I forgot that Jane Fonda blogged some; here's her writing up her Golden Globes evening. I can't decide if my favorite part is where she says she wants to work with David O. Russell or how she watched the actual ceremony in her hotel room.

--- Golden Gun - We blogged about this nearly two months ago back but I guess it's like more official now - Dominic Cooper will indeed be playing Ian Fleming, aka the writer of the James Bond books, for a UK miniseries on the telly. I hope they find some excuse to have Dom and Daniel Craig, like, make out or whatever. I'd write it into the script if I were in control!

--- Hot Boyle'd - Oh and I forgot to link to this before - also at TFE I wrote up some more thoughts about the trailer for Danny Boyle's new movie Trance with James McAvoy Rosario Dawson and Vincent Cassel.

--- Midnight Eats - I've been saying for years that it seems crazy to me that another Gremlins movie has never been made, so the news that they might be inching towards one (probably a reboot, not a sequel) doesn't surprise me at all. In fact, as long as they don't make shitty cg beasties, I am totally on board.

--- A Haunting - Emma Stone has signed on to star in Guillermo Del Toro's gothic ghost movie Crimson Peak, which is terrific news. We love the both of them, and she's got great big eyes the better for being spooked with.

--- High Heist - Sofia Coppola's next movie, the one about those teenage thieves who robbed famous people's houses in LA called The Bling Ring, will be out in June. It stars Emma Watson, who I love anew after Perks of Being a Wallflower.

--- Hello Mudder - Even though he made some good to great movies this year, I still don't click on links just because of Matthew McConaughey's name. It takes a lil' more. Thankfully the name Jeff Nichols is more. He directed Take Shelter. His new movie is called Mud and it stars Matt. It has a trailer now, right here. I will see this. 
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Adam Brody Six Times

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(via)