HAPPY ELVISMAS, EVERYONE!!!

The King was born 91 years ago today.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Kid Galahad (1962)

Walter: Don't push me, Willy. 

I'm a grease monkey that won't slide so easily!

Happy Elvismas, everybody! 

Elvis Aaron Presley was born 90 years ago today!

Good Morning, World

Happy Thursday to one and all and here's a birthday present for my boyfriend since it's his birthday today and he's a forever fan of the King -- some good ol' Elvis spiciness. Happy birthday, beloved!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from: 

Priscilla (2023) 

Elvis: Don't tell me to play goddamn Beatles 

in my house. We're in America, I swear to God.

Sofia Coppola's Priscilla Presley bio-pic feels deeply underrated already to me, less than a year since its release -- if you didn't see it in the theater then now is your chance, as the blu-ray is for sale on Amazon for seven dollars and fifty fucking cents. Do your duty! Elvis served and looked hot as hell while doing it -- now it's your chance. In all seriousness it's a terrific movie, I thought -- here is my review. I doubt we need to worry about Sofia getting to make more movies -- she seems well placed enough in the cinematic firmament to be fine, even if this one under-performed. But I'd rank this one among her best to date. Not that I really think she's ever made a straight up bad movie, even if the one before this On the Rocks was slightly forgettable. But Priscilla is prime her, and should rank as such.

I Did It All For You, Austin Butler

I don't think I've made much of a secret of Austin Butler doing very little for me personally, so consider this post a sacrifice -- basically I am Jesus hanging on the cross right now posting these images of Austin in Esquire magazine for you (here is the interview, which you'd have to hold a gun to my head to make me read). I did it all for you! I guess I'm also sort of the nanny in The Omen? Those two have so much in common, I hope they got together in hell for scones or something, had a little nosh. Anyway Austin Butler. I thought he was okay in Elvis, but his whole "I was liuterally possessed by that dead singer and I literally couldn't stop talking like him" thing really turned me off that awards season. (I preferred Jacob Elordi's low-key performance in Priscilla, although obviously you're not going to get that performance in a Baz Luhrman movie - I get that. It's why I also prefer Sofia to Baz in general.) And I tried watching a couple episodes of Masters of Air but that show's really not for me (i.e. there weren't any scenes like George Clooney included in Catch-22 of Chris Abbott walking around naked). And Austin's performance on that show is very posturey too. 

That said I have seen Jeff Nichols' delayed movie The Bikeriders and his whole posing schtick worked really well for the movie, since that's the character he's playing, and it's the most I've liked him (well except for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood -- he was fun in his itty bitty role in that). It's perfect casting, if nothing else. That said I'm not terribly happy or excited that he got cast in the role of Feyd-Rautha in the Dune sequel -- I would love to be proven wrong but every image I'm seeing is making me feel right. We'll see. Anybody have any strong feelings on the young man either way? Hit the jump for the photos, aka my exorbitant sacrfiice...

Here Are The Movies of Today

Heads up on the movies hitting theaters today, starting with the biopic Rustin starring Colman Domingo seen above. Telling the long overdue story of Bayard Rustin, the black homosexual who organized the march on Washington back in 1963 but got shoved to the side attention-wise because of the "homosexual" part of that Domingo gives a wonderful performance -- I do wish the movie was a little more lively and surprising though. It very much feels like a movie that will be watched respectfully in high school history classrooms for a long time and seeing as how this is a story that needs to be told that's good and all. It's just told very flat, and visually it's got that whole boring Netflix style. And I wish people would stop hiring Chris Rock to act -- he is a terrible actor. Anyway I would've written a proper review of this one when I saw it at NewFest a few weeks back but I had a nightmare audience experience with people using their phones and being total assholes so I didn't feel comfortable writing about it; all of that might've colored my opinion of the movie. It's worth watching for Colman -- just don't expect to be bowled over by the movie itself, I guess. Watch the trailer here.

Then there are two other movies out today that I have also seen -- first there is Sofia Coppola's Priscilla which I reviewed right here. Terrific movie. And second there is the documentary Subject, which I saw at Sundance but never got the chance to write about -- it interviews the subjects of multiple famous documentaries, specifically real life people from The Staircase, Hoop Dreams, Capturing the Friedmans, The Wolfpack, and The Square. And it digs into what that experience was like -- if they felt like their stories were properly served by the documentrarians' takes, and what the aftermath was like. It's all incredibly fascinating, especially if you're familiar with those films -- I'm not sure it would be if you haven't, but maybe? It does raise several questions of ethics that stand on their own. 

And the fourth movie out today is called Fingernails and it stars three of my favorite currently working actors -- Riz Ahmed and Jessie Buckley and Jeremy Allen White! You cannot go wrong with Riz and Jessie and Jeremy. That said I have not seen it yet and I have kept what it's about to a minimum because I want to be surprised by the movie when I do see it. I know it's being sold as a "sci-fi romance" and it's from Greek director Christos Nikou, who has worked with Yorgos Lanthimos and made the 2020 film Apples which... I heard great things about but also haven't seen. Anyway Fingernails is both in theaters and on streaming today so we'll see it soon enough. Here's the trailer:

Jacob Got Me All Shook Up

Having never watched Euphoria -- well I did watch the first episode and immediately knew it was Definitely Not For Me -- I didn't have many expectations talent-wise as far as Jacob Elordi was concerned. He seemed, from a distance, like this generation's Jason Priestley, which is to say the hot guy on the hot teen show of the moment who probably wouldn't really translate to the big screen. And yet I've seen Elordi give terrific big-screen performances three whole times this year? Nobody seemed to like the serial-killer-comedy He Went That Way when it screened at Sundance but I thought he was impressively magnetic and creepy in it. And then there's Saltburn, which... well I will be talking about when Saltburn comes out in a couple of weeks. But that brings us to today's review -- head on over to Pajiba where I am talking Sofia Coppola's Priscilla, which stars Cailee Spaeny in the titular role and Mr. Elordi as one Mr. Elvis Presley himself. And he's great! I admittedly wasn't hugely fond of Baz Luhrman's Elvis but I one hundred percent prefer this quieter, more introverted take on the rhinestone icon to Austin Butler's much-heralded turn. He won't be getting nominated for awards for it -- it's far less showy. But for every notch the volume was turned down my belief in this performance as an actual human being was multiplied upward. The same can be said for the whole movie... but then I do say that in my review! So go read it. 

Pics of the Day

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A post shared by Jason Adams (@jasonaadams)

NYFF is rolling, rolling, ever on, and today I saw Sofia Coppola's Priscilla! More on that to come later, but above you may see a few photos and videos that I took of the film's stars Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi during the press conference. The film is screening tonight and on Sunday and it looks like it's only standy-by tickets right now but hey, try your luck -- hint hint the movie is worth seeing. There is a video included above of one of the film's producers (I am lazy, don't make me look up his name) reading a note from Sofia Coppola saying she wasn't there because she's with her mother, who the film is dedicated to -- we wish them all the best! Too much sad news this week, ugh. So happy the weekend is here. Anyway there are pictures and videos on my Insta from a few other Q&As I've attended in the past week or so -- Yorgos and Haynes and Scorsese, oh my! So do make sure you're following me on Insta!

Love Her Tender

As I said yesterday from the poster for Sofia Coppola's Priscilla movie alone it really seems as if she's captured something very specific about the suburban textures of the moment when their love story takes place -- the late 50s slash early 60s powder-blue rotary-phone yellow-plastic-sofa aesthetic that I personally remember from my great-grandparents house, which remained a time-capsule of that moment all though when I was a little kid in the 1980s. I have such a vivid memory of it, and it's all over this today dropped trailer.

I double-checked Sofia's age and she's several years older than me so I'm sure she also has even more vivid recollections of this vibe, and I can't help but believe it's a big part of why she wanted to make a movie set in this world. She does love a textural vibe!

Even the logo, haha. And even besides that Priscilla Presley as a character fits right in line with her cinema of trapped well-to-do women -- the girls from The Virgin Suicides, ScarJo in Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette. It's all, as I tweeted, very Lana Del Rey. And I am here for it!

Priscilla, the movie, is out in October.

AKA Riley Keough's Grandmother

I was fairly indifferent to Baz Luhrmann's Elvis movie but I am far far far more interested in Sofia Coppola's Priscilla -- that's the first poster above and apparently we're getting a trailer tomorrow. For one Baz's film didn't have squat to say about the fact that Priscilla was fifteen when she and Elvis met, and a film in 2023 that has no opinion on that matter might as well not exist, no matter how many sequins there are on Austin Butler's swinging dick and no matter how many double-chins they put on Tom Hanks. Sofia Coppola's movie though, obviously she's gonna have things to say. Also... she's Sofia Coppola, and that beats Baz any day of the week. (I mean I love Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge too, but come on.) And third -- even though we can barely see anything in it this poster is reminding me really hard of my great-grandparents house, a 60s time-capsule of baby-blues and lemon-yellows; it smelled like powder and everything was satin-lined. That this single image feels so textured is giving me great hope here. Can't wait for the trailer. 

She Was Always On His Mind

While the Jacob Elordi part of this news is the least interesting part of this news for me I am still going to visualize this post with a Jacob Elordi photo because I work with what sells, baby. The news being that directress Sofia Coppola has announced her next movie and it is called Priscilla and it is about Priscilla Presley. Cailee Spaeny, from Devs and Mare of Easttown, is going to play the titular woman herself, based on Elvis and Me, Priscilla's 1985 autobiographical retelling of her relationship with that singer man -- and that singer man is where Jacob Elordi comes in. Have Jacob Elordi and Austin Butler ever been in the same room together? A question for the ages. 

Anyway by all accounts -- meaning this is what Sofia is saying -- she's been meaning to tell this story for several years, well before Baz Luhrmann's film came out and became a sizable hit this year; one imagines that it's hit-stature got the engines revving on this project though, financially-speaking. Still everything having to do with Priscilla was woefully handled by Baz's movie if you ask me -- save a throwaway line about her age it seemed less than interested in exploring the fact that she was 14 when they met. Less than interested, it seemed to actively avoid that fact. And I feel like Sofia will talk about that fact! Anyway I am picturing lots of mint-green curtains swaying in Graceland windows while canister upon canister of Aqua Net is unleashed and I love it, I love every second of it already.  

Every single hair on my body is standing on end at the thought of Sofia Coppola making a movie about Priscilla Presley (this is a good thing) (a very good thing)

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 12, 2022

Good Morning, World

Before you ask no, nope, I have not yet found time to see Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. And I feel kinda bad about it, surprisingly! I'm not Baz's number one or anything but I don't think his movies are uninteresting, and they're always best seen on a big screen so they can envelope you. Whether you get paper-cuts from said envelope tends to change film to film but you'll never hear me say a single solitary bad word about Romeo + Juliet anyway. (I have a couple of issues with Moulin Rouge! but let's not go there today.) 

Add on the fact that I love Elvis Presley and add on the fact that my boyfriend actually went and saw this by himself and you've got no excuses for me for not having seen this. None. Oh well, it's available to pre-order for digital right now and then the blu-ray comes out... well sometime soon I guess. It's weird, there's no date attached. I guess they just do it that way now. Anyway let's make my tomfoolery up to y'all with this new photo-shoot of Elvis star Austin Butler for VMan Magazine, how about that? Hit the jump for the dang thing...

Good Morning, World

I reserve my right to change my opinion on this after I see Baz Luhrmann's Elvis movie -- because he does look hella charismatic, not to mention far more Elvis-y than I would have imagined beforehand, in the trailer for the film -- but for right now I have to admit that I don't really "get" Austin Butler. Not that I have had all that many opportunities -- the only things I've seen him in are Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which he was fun enough in but his role as Tex was hardly enormous, and apparently in Jim Jarmusch's zom-com The Dead Don't Die, which I have no recollection of him in at all. (I did like that movie way more than most people did though.) Anyway that's not really my point -- what I am saying is I am not as of this moment attracted to him. So this new cover photoshoot for GQ here showing up this morning? Ehh. I will share these two photos but y'all can click over for the entire thing and there's lots more photos. But we'll see what happens with Elvis. It wouldn't be the first time that the allure of pure talent got the best of me where my pure loins had let me down. And I hope it does, given that Dune news...

Searching For Edgar Ramirez

In case you hadn't noticed -- and why would you? -- it is January of the year 2022. I don't know. It just is. So yeah, it's January, allegedly, and even though nothing else feels the same the studios are still using January as their dumping ground and so the movies coming out, they ain't so exciting. We do have the new Scream movie coming out next week and that is exciting, but otherwise, me trying to do a round-up of things to watch right now? Not a thrill. There is The 355, a lady spies adventure starring Jessica Chastain and Lupita Nyong'o and Fan Bingbing and Penelope Cruz and Diane Kruger, but I've heard tepid things and...

I know The 355 is all about actresses or whatever but their advertising should feature more of Edgar Ramirez and Sebastian Stan if you ask me, like making out and shit pic.twitter.com/yUM91p5WIB

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 7, 2022

... that would benefit their buzz, don't you think? But nooooooo they know better. Best of luck with that, then. I think we're all gonna be saving that one for airplane rides. (Hollywood has really done Edgar dirty y'all -- he's such an incredible actor when given the chance.) 

There is a good movie out on VOD today (and supposedly in some theaters but I'm not encouraging theater-going at all right now, and I think you know why, but let's try to write a post without naming the pandemic in the room for once) -- it's called See For Me and I reviewed it out of Tribeca last summer, right here. It's about a blind girl named Sophie who is house-sitting for strangers when robbers break in and there's a, you guessed it, cat and mouse game that ensues. It's terrific -- atmospheric, tense, all the things you want from that set-up. I'll share the trailer here: 

Otherwise there is the new Asghar Farhadi movie A Hero in some theaters, but seriously, it hits Amazon in two weeks -- just wait for that please. I will be writing it up up then -- you don't want to see it before you know what I think, right??? Man I'll try anything. Stay home. I am staying home. I am going to watch a bunch of Search Party (watch the trailer here) and celebrate Elvismas tomorrow from the comfort of my sofa, the way Riley Keough's grandfather intended. Have a good safe weekend, everyone. And please tell me what you're watching in the comments! 

Good Morning, World

It's only been two years since Waves and Luce came out but am I crazy and actor Kelvin Harrison Jr. has really grown up a lot in those two years? I don't just mean the muscles -- he had some muscles two years ago in those movies -- I more mean facially; there are times when he's practically unrecognizable to me these days. Including in a few of these pictures he posted on his Insta last night from when he was getting dressed for the Gotham Awards earlier this week. Growing up is weird y'all. (Then again the past two years have been A Lot.) Not that he doesn't look mighty fine! Oh no not that. Clearly. And I'm excited for all the projects he's got lined up -- he's playing BB King in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis movie, and I haven't seen Cyrano yet (I had to skip my screening) but I've heard only excellent things. Hit the jump for more...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Clambake (1967)

Tom: You just said the magic word.

Scott: Clambake? 

Tom: YEAH!

Happy Elvismas, everyone!

Our savior and King was born this day, 1935.

HAPPY ELVISMAS, EVERYBODY! pic.twitter.com/GatuW6t3E0

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 8, 2021

Which is Hotter?

If I had once known that Stranger Things actor (and frequent MNPP presence!) Dacre Montgomery had been cast in Baz Luhrmann's upcoming Elvis movie -- don't get your hips out of swivel, he's not playing Elvis (that role went to Austin Butler, most recently seen taking a can of dog food to the head for Quentin Tarantino) he's playing Elvis frequent producer sidekick Steve Binder...

... I didn't recall that I once knew it today, when I looked at the film's IMDb page here on the occasion of big bad Baz's 58th birthday. Dacre's not the only PYT on the Presley premises -- there's also the dueling Aussie banjos of Xavier Samuel and Luke Bracey to be had (and I sure hope somebody's hadding 'em). But for Baz's sake today we'll focus right in on the top two-some, as I suspect Baz himself calls them come suppertime...

survey services

Good Morning, Elvis

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Happy Elvismas, everybody! Our lord and savior Elvis Presley was born on this here day in the holy year of 1935, making this the 85th anniversary of Religion itself. These here photos were taken in March of 1956 when He was 21 -- there's actually a great big batch of them I found this morning but seeing as how there's a finite amount of photographs in the world that captured His Holy Presence I'm going to stash away the rest for the Ghosts of Elvismas Future. Now go watch some "Jailhouse Rock" and put yourselves in a damn good mood for the day.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Antichrist (2009)

He: Acorns don't cry, you know that as well as I do.
That's what fear is, thoughts distort reality.
Not the other way around.

A happy 10 to what we thought would be Lars von Trier's most epic love poem to depression -- who'd have known that two years later he'd have Kirsten Dunst's sadness become so magnetic that it pulled a planet out of the sky right onto our heads, or that four years later he'd release a two part magnum opus devoted to the sight of Charlotte Gainsbourg getting sexually abused by sweet little Jamie Bell, or that nine years later he'd set up a series of comic interludes involving Matt Dillon, movie star of the 1980s, slicing up Elvis Presley's grand-daughter? Oh Lars, you devil.

In all seriousness though LVT remains, for all his eye-jabbing provocation, one of my favorite movie artists, and I think Antichrist is absolutely gorgeous and scarring and perfect in its own over-the-top  traumatic way. And with Willem Dafoe giving the performance of the year here in 2019...

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Willem Dafoe gives (give or take Elisabeth Moss in Her Smell) the performance of the year in The Lighthouse. He sells a speech at the film's midpoint so soaked in purple prose no mere mortal could deliver it and he delivers it like gangbusters, thereby proving DAFOE IS GOD NOW https://t.co/477bqHQK7n

— His Name Was Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) October 21, 2019

.

... I think it's also important to look back upon the decade this man has had just bug our collective eyes out in awe. Is any actor taking the risks, the real risks, that he is? Not just like taking a break from eating lunch to skinny himself down or rolling around in cow innards for an Oscar like some actors who get called risk-takers -- please point me in the direction of another person with a filmography this decade that includes the giant swings from Antichrist to Fantastic Mr. Fox to Nymphomaniac to Pasolini to John Wick to Finding Dory to The Florida Project to Aquaman to The Lighthouse?

And keep in mind for brevity's sake I skipped dozens of titles there, and these are just from the last decade without even diving back to his work with Lynch and Scorsese and on and on. As you can maybe tell this is just the front tip of the Awards Season spear of my proselytizing pro-Willem, so get ready for plenty such -- I warn ye!

Naoki Naoki, Who's There

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On Monday I shared with you some photos of the extremely handsome actor Naoki Kobayashi and told you of Earthquake Bird, his forthcoming Netflix flick with Alicia Vikander and our fave Elvis grand-baby Riley Keough -- I told you therein that the film is released on November 1st ...

... which I don't know if you've checked a calendar but is only three weeks from now! So it makes sense they're giving us a trailer today -- they might have done this sooner? Netflix always only seems to let us know that movies are coming like, immediately -- and now I shall share it with you!

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My favorite moment in the trailer is that dance scene...

... it hints at between Naoki and Riley -- is anybody else getting total Tokyo Drifter vibes from all the shots where Naoki's in that big suit? And Tokyo Drifter comparisons are never a bad thing.

Anyway I have a feeling that all of the highlights will be Riley oriented, but that could just be my bias. We'll see. The film was directed by Wash Westmoreland, who went from the gay porn comedy The Fluffer in 2001 to directing Julianne Moore to her Oscar statue with Still Alice in 2014 -- that man's had quite a career, I'd say. But I definitely trust him to shoot Naoki for all the prettiness he can wring from him...