5 Off My Head: Siri Says 2008

Now that the festival rush of Fall 2025 is behind me I've been feeling the nagging sensation to check back into our long long too-long running series of "Siri Says" posts -- the last one I did was back in January! These posts have gotten increasingly sporadic as the remaining years have dwindled -- when I checked what's left this morning I saw there were only five years out of one hundred left for us to do. Do what, you ask since it's been so long since I've done one? Well the idea is that I had my phone choose a random number between 1 and 100 and then I picked my five favorite movies from the year that corresponds. Once we got down to the teens the process changed a little because it took too long for Siri to get to a number I hadn't already done, so I wrote the remaining years on slips of paper and picked one with my eyes shut. And that's how we ended up with the year 2008 today.

It's the last year of the Aughts we had left to do -- another decade crossed off! And this is another year when I was actively blogging here at MNPP so there's documentation of my thoughts on 2008's movies already -- click here to see what my favorite movies were at that moment. My list now, seventeen years later, has changed a little! Not entirely, but some. So let's get to it. I give you...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 2008

Synecdoche, New York

(dir. Charlie Kaufman)

-- released on October 24th 2008 --

Let the Right One In 

(dir. Tomas Alfredson)

-- released on December 12th 2008 --

In Bruges

(dir. Martin McDonagh) 

-- released on February 29th 2008 --

The Fall 

(dir. Tarsem Singh) 

-- released on May 30th 2008

Lake Mungo 

(dir. Joel Anderson) 

-- released on June 18th 2008 --

-----------------------------------------

Runners-up: Wall*E (dir. Andrew Snanton), The Wrestler (dir. Darren Aronofsky), Wendy & Lucy (dir. Kelly Reichardt), Mister Lonely (dir. Harmony Korine), Funny Games U.S. (dir. Michael Haneke), The Chaser (dir. Na Hong-jin), Timecrimes (dir. Nacho Vigalondo), Happy-Go-Lucky (dir. Mike Leigh), [REC] (dir. Jaume Balagueró & Paco Plaza)...

...  Teeth (dir. Mitchell Lichtenstein), Encounters at the End of the World (dir. Werner Herzog), The House Bunny (dir. Fred Wolf), The Ruins (dir. Carter Smith), Doomsday (dir. Neil Marshall), Cloverfield (dir. Matt Reeves), Hunger (dir. Steve McQueen), Reprise (dir. Joachim Trier)

What are your favorite movies of 2008?

Ballad of a Showering Colin Farrell

The second thing I did after watching this trailer for Ballad of a Small Player, Conclave director Edward Berger's new gambling film starring Colin Farrell and Tilda Swinton, was make the gifs of Colin naked in the shower that you see here, intended to lure you in by me much the same as the shots were included in the trailer by Netflix to lure people like me into posting about the trailer. "Gotcha?" More like "Gotch-us!" We all got good. 

The first thing I did though, even before the gifs, and this one was a surprise, was run to IMDb to make sure that Berger was again working with his usual composer Volker Bertelmann, whose scores for Conclave and All Quiet on the Western Front have been two of my favorite movie scores of recent years. And they are working together again! Yay! So even...

... with Tilda Swinton looking like that (we do love it when she cartoons herself up to eleven) and with naked Colin Farrell, our first priority was the film's music. I feel as if this shows some personal growth? Maybe by the time I'm 90 I'll somewhat resemble an adult. Anyway here's the trailer:

Ballad of a Small Player lands on Netflix on October 15th.

Colin Farrell's Short Shorts Return!

While it's tempting to insert the "It's been 84 years..." meme from Titanic here, it's actually been 1056 days (yes I did the math) since the last time Colin Farrell was photographed wearing short shorts. That's far far too long, Colin! But this is a good sign. Hopefully 2025 will end up being another summer like 2021 was -- man those were the days. If you'd like to re-live them scroll through this link. 

Jack O'Connell Seven Times

Wildly I haven't been able to see Sinners yet (I am going this upcoming weekend though) but I have heard from several sources that Jack O'Connell is one of its many highlights and this makes me extremely glad -- talk about a terrific (and yeah let's be honest super beautiful) actor who's gone criminally underutilized for far too long. He's been screaming out for a great director to give him a juicy role for twelve years now since the one-two punch of Starred Up and '71 landed in 2013 (and then there was his breakthrough on Skins before that) -- which isn't to say he hasn't delivered good work in that time. (Go watch Andrew Haigh's miniseres North Water with Colin Farrell and Jack right now.) I'm just glad to hear he's gotten to stand out in a box office hit. More Jack please! Speaking of I have some more from this fresh sexy photoshoot for Hero magazine (read the interview here) for us right on after the jump...

Garfield's Great Big Globes

Not to overdo it with Andrew Garfield this week (much to my hater boyfriend's chagrin no doubt -- although he did give Andy a compliment last night saying that "the beard makes his face less disgusting" lol; unlike me he's not a fan!) but I loved the green Versace suit he wore to the Globes. And our boy knew he looked good and he was slutting it up like nobody's business...

... with all the extra cleavage emphasis. So we're giving him this little spotlight, our boyfriend be damned! I'm actually really posting now because I forgot to mention the Globes at all in this morning's Andy post, even though I watched the whole damned thing -- did anybody else watch? Winner of the night to my eye was Demi for that truly lovely speech she gave. And our beloved Tadanobu Asano of course!

Tadanobu!!!!!!!! pic.twitter.com/DxrWSNETJC

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 6, 2025

But Tadanobu always wins, just by being Tadanobu. But I am curious what y'all thought of the show, the winners, the fashion. So if you have any thoughts please toss them my way in the comments. And in return I have an entire gallery of Andy being the bearded belle of the ball (with a couple of bonus guests!) after the jump... 

Good Morning, World

I am running late this morning because I couldn't fall asleep last night, and while I was mindlessly scrolling the internet on my iPad in bed instead of sleeping -- I am the king of good habits! -- somewhere I don't now remember I stumbled upong these two pictures of a young Colin Farrell sitting on a bed being his Young Colin Farrell beautiful self. Is this not a good thing to get the day started with? I am tired but I feel better looking at this. 

Burn Penguin Burn

Any watchers of The Penguin up in here?  I wasn't a fan of The Batman movie at all (here is my review) but I love love loved this spin-off series, which added all the pizzazz that that humorless slog was missing thanks to Colin Farrell and Cristin Milioti devouring everything in sight as Oz Cobb and his challenger, the mafioso maniac Sofia Falcone respectively. Actually the entire cast was terrific -- the literal second that character actress Deirdre O'Connell popped up as Oz's mother I knew I was in good hands. 

Soooooo happyyy when Deirdre O'Connell showed up on The Penguin! pic.twitter.com/UQU3nA577I

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 24, 2024

And the show didn't waste her! Usually she gets to shine in the teeniest of roles and then vanish, but The Penguin gave her a shit-ton to do and per usual she knocked it all out of the park. But keep looking at the other actors on board -- Clancy Brown, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Scott Cohen, Carmen Ejogo, Michael Zegen, Michael Kelly, Rhenzy Feliz (who broke my heart), Mark Strong, Theo Rossi...

... and hellooooo Theo Rossi. It's a fucking who's-who of under-appreciated character actors, though. Oh and a special shout-out to the kid actor Ryder Allen who played Young Oz in flashbacks -- he rocked his every scene. 

So good. The show somehow managed to  straddle the line between being too comic-booky and not comic-booky enough (a la the Nolan movies). I know everybody else brought up The Sopranos and it very clearly was what it was going for but I was having so much fun with it I couldn't even hold that against it. Without getting into spoilers I really hope there's a second season because I doubt a sequel to The Batman would have much time for  some of The Penguin's side-characters and I need to see them again! So tell me: any fans?

Good Morning, World

"Good morning" today is suffused with a crippling irony as I could not have had a shittier and more annoying morning, but at least I finally arrived to my desk and found some showering Colin Farrell waiting for me. (Yes I am attempting to just forget my shitty morning and not dwell -- we'll see how that goes.) That gif above is from the trailer for Sugar, Colin's new private detective series for Apple+ that premieres on April 5th. And here is said trailer!

What do you think? I'm always in for Colin.

Down for Colin. Open for Colin. All of 'em.

Charles Melton Be My Love Child

I have learned the hard way not to get myself excited for Todd Solondz's next movie called Love Child, because Love Child has been his next movie for going on a decade now and the football keeps getting yanked away from me. In 2017 I posted that it was going to star Penelope Cruz and Edgar Ramirez, then in 2021 I posted that it was going to star Rachel Weisz and Colin Farrell. The last update was this past December when Elizabeth Olsen became attached to the lead female role -- well today comes word that Charles Melton, hot off working with my other favorite Todd (Haynes), has found himself attached to the male lead opposite her. I've heard variations on the plot over the years but this is its latest update:

"The story follows Misty who is stuck in a loveless marriage to a brutish husband. Junior, her precocious 11-year-old is her only consolation. When Easy, a handsome vagabond stranger, appears, Junior hatches a plan to get rid of his father so that his mother can marry him instead. But things end up backfiring, so Junior comes up with yet another plan, this one even more devious, and with more disastrous—and unexpected—consequences."

So obviously the casting of the eleven-year-old is pretty crucial, but if Todd Solondz has proven anything over his career it's that he's fucking excellent at casting child actors. Then there's also the role of Junior's father, which seems to be a less important role given that every iteration of casting we've had to date has only been for the Misty and Easy characters (and yes, those names are giving me life). Anyway! I am enforcing a strict wait-and-see approach, a barbed-wire-barrier around my heart, before I allow myself to get excited on this movie once again. That said whatever your religion or lackthereof please whisper something hopeful in its name today. Here is how I pray:

Colin & Kogonada Reunite

Big news day today, I can barely keep up, but if Colin Farrell is making a movie I write a post! Them's the rules! And this one's even better than just Colin -- he's reuniting with his After Yang director Kogonada (now there's an under-rated movie if ever there was one) to make a movie called Big Bold Beautiful Journey, and he'll co-star opposite Margot Robbie! The script was written by Seth Reiss who previously wrote The Menu and can I just tell you for a movie I liked but didn't love love The Menu has an extreme rewatchability factor? My boyfriend was watching it when I got home the other night from work and I got sucked right in and that's happened a couple of times now. Anyway there's not much info available on what Big Bold Beautiful Journey is about but there is this much:

"Plot details are under wraps, but the film is described as an imaginative tale of two strangers and the unbelievable journey that connects them."

Yeah like I said basically nothing. That information is something we could have gleaned from the title and the casting. Still this is a massive movie-star cast for Kogonada, who is two-for-two right outta the gate with After Yang and Columbus -- I do hope he has a role for Haley Lu Richardson again though, since she's been a part of both his previous films and we fucking adore her.

Pics of the Day

It's been over a year since I last posted about Jake Gyllenhaal's first foray into television, a re-do of the Harrison Ford legal thriller Presumed Innocent (based on Scott Turow's book) for Apple and they just dropped the first official image -- Jake dapper in three-piece suits, I am here for it. The series is spearheaded by JJ Abrams and David E. Kelley so no slouch in the showrunner department -- also it co-stars Ruth Negga and Renate Reinsve and Lily Rabe and Jake's bro-in-law Peter Sarsgaard (sidenote: is there any modern actor more built for legal thriller than Pete? He just seems perfect for them) so it's got a lot going for it. No word on a release date yet, this was just a glimpse of Apple's 2024 slate. And it also included our first official look at Colin Farrell in Sugar (below), about which we know next-to-nothing exscept he plays a private detective, which is kinda obvious from the photo. Men in suits!

Today's Mood

My synapses are feeling deeply fried today and I need some simple comfort and I don't think there's anything more comforting in the world than these vintage photos of shirtless Colin Farrell falling alseep with a baby goat, so here those are. We'll try to try harder tomorrow -- have a good night, everybody.

Happy Belated 18 to MNPP!

Shame on me -- I missed the favorite birthday of perverts who count down to teenagers becoming legal sexual objects! This here website celebrated its 18th birthday this past Friday -- I started with this nonsense on June 2nd 2005, if you can believe it. I kind of can't believe it. Some of you were maybe not even born when I started this? Good grief. The site is so old-school and out-of-date at this point I think we have maybe swung around to being retro now? I mean I don't really care -- I only think of this as a space to write, and writing here's remained easy even as the technology has far, far, far out-paced my delivery of it. I've sometimes thought about updating things, but that's energy I've preferred channeling elsewhere. Like... into sleep. And not doing that. Important things! 

Anyway my point is even if this place is a time-machine to Internet Past I'm glad y'all still come here and spend some of your days with my nonsense. It's truly been my pleasure. And even though I get paid actual money now (Imagine!) to write on other, fancier websites, MNPP's not going anywhere, so don't worry. Or, alternately, cram that pin into your voodoo doll of me a little harder! Cuz I'm unstoppable, baby! That said I will do as I do on our every anniversary and pass around the donation tin via this PayPal link. (It's also over there in the right hand-column, always, every single day.) If you appreciate what I do here why not toss me a wooden nickel or a wad of chewed gum or whatever lint is in your pocket? I cherish every drop! Thanks for coming back, everybody.

Colin Farrell Tastes the Rainbow

A week ago I shared with you the nominations for our Team Experience awards -- which saw all of us who write for The Film Experience voting on our favorite things movie-wise of 2022. Well today I have the winners! Click on over to TFE to see who won! And spoiler alert that gorgeous laddie Colin Farrell seen above might just have topped his category. (And yes Colin Farrell can top my category any time.) I can't say the big winners correlate too much with my own individual ballot but I never can -- not until I do my own damn awards again. My tastes are so fuckin' singular, guys, you don't even know. Iconoclast in the house, woop woop!

Good Morning, World

You know it's been a long week -- the first full five day work week back from the holidays -- and so I have got a treat for us this Friday morning, a little goose to get us over the finish line with a whisper of a smile on our collective faces. Some saint, an actual literal saint, dug up 1994 video (via) of an eighteen-year-old baby Colin Farrell modeling a red thong on an Irish television talk show and... it's everything. The full video is down at the bottom of the post but you never hear Colin speak; all you really hear is the male host having some gay panic about Colin's butt, which is admittedly entertaining in itself -- he really feels funny looking at Colin's butt, you guys! I do too, but I thankfully got therapy and understand those feelings. And those feelings are hunger. I do love how preternaturally confident little Colin is though -- not an ounce of shyness and he is straight up flirting with everybody (well everybody except for the half-naked female model beside him, funny enough). G'bless you, Twink Colin. Anyway I made gifs out of all of Colin's moments because staring is caring, so let's hit the jump and happy-fy ourselves...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022)

Colm: If punching a policeman is a sin

then we may as well pack up and go home.

Barry Keoghan Eleven Times

Our boy Barry Keoghan is rocking powder blue and skin on the cover of the new Flaunt magazine and we are here for it, baby -- he's so good in The Banshees of Inisherin I'd also be extremely happy if he scores an Oscar nod this year. But then Barry's always good in whatever he's in. It's been that way since The Killing of a Sacred Deer... since Dunkirk... heck it's been ages since I saw '71 (the 2014 movie that also brought Jack O'Connell to my attention) but I remember him being great in that too? Anyway Barry's a forever fave and we only wish good, sexy things for him forever more. So on that note hit the jump for the good, sexy entire shoot...

Do Right By Me, Banshees

The first poster and trailer for Martin McDonagh's The Banshees of Inisherin starring Brendan Gleeson and Colin Farrell -- and yes warm memories of In Bruges should be washing over your entire mind and body right this moment -- has arrived this morning, and good god I love it. I've made so secret of the fact that ever since In Bruges -- one of my absolute favorite movies -- I've disliked to outright loathed everything that McDonagh has done, and been very very very depressed about that fact. Will this be a Lucy-Football situation, and McDonagh's once again weaponized Colin Farrell's eyebrows to make me think we're in for a treat...

... only for it turn out to be another sack of bullshit like Seven Psychopaths and Three Billboards? I sure hope not! What I am really secretly hoping that maybe some of his girlfriend's brilliance -- one Phoebe Waller-Bridge, if you're unaware -- rubbed off on him, which is to say he let her do a pass on the script. I know to some (including probably Phoebe, because she's nice like that) that sounds like sacrilege, as McDonagh is a prize-winning playwright, Oscar nominee, blah blah blergh. My belief in him has really been worn down in the fourteen years since Bruges. But this feels like such an explicit callback to that movie that I can't help but feel he feels that too? Get that Bruges magic back, baby!

The Banshees of Inisherin is out on October 21st.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... snacking with Colin.

(via) I first thought that Colin Farrell was carrying trash bags in these photos and had an entirely other, farrrr dirtier pun in mind for this post -- sadly he's only carrying groceries! But it should still be assumed when I say "snacking with Colin" that I definitely don't mean the surface version. A snack. Snacktime. Y'all know. Nom nom nom etc etera. Hit the jump for several more snacky photos... 

Colin Forth Farrell

Yes it turns out this was exactly what I needed this afternoon for a goose, energy-wise -- Colin Farrell bustin' out his short-shorts! Only call me crazy, but -- have his shorts grown an inch or two? When I think "Colin Farrell and short-shorts" that's not what I want to grow! I know that he's so spoiled us in the past so I don't want to look a gift-hem in the eye but by the standards Colin has previously set these are practically Victorian. Is there a cold wave slamming across California? Should I FedEx him some Snuggies? Do they make short-short Snuggies? They should. Somebody get me Snuggies HQ on the hone. The rest of you hit the jump for the rest...