A Lotus For Laura

I had kinda sorta given up on Mike White reuniting with his Enlightened and Year of the Dog star Laura Dern after rumors of a fracture in their working and personal relationship had made its way through the whisper-vine to my lowly ears, so I'm extremely happy to see that whatever truth there was in that has been fixed and they're reuniting at last! Deadline just announced this morning that Dern is taking over the role that Helena Bonham Carter vacated last week -- actually I think the role's being completely rewritten, re-fitted to Dern, as the issue was that the character HBC was playing wasn't working in the context of the rest of the season. This is great news -- two of our greatest collaborators together again! I just uhh hope it goes smoothly. For everybody's sake. That's my only wish for now -- I will put everything on that and then later I will start the Enlightened Season Three campaign. Like... tomorrow. I'll start that tomorrow. 

Hold Me Thrill Me Kiss Me Kill Me, Mr. Storrie

Much to many of your no doubt chagrins Heated Rivalry breakout Connor Storrie has been booking roles left right and V-shaped center -- for one I believe he's already filmed his role in Beef and Shiva Baby actress Molly Gordon's upcoming comedy Peaked opposite Gordon and Emma Mackey and Laura Dern and Amy Sedaris and lots of people (it's a comedy about a high school reunion), which sounds right up my alley since every name I just listed off is heaven. But we're not here now for Peaked -- we're here because Deadline is reporting that his next movie might be a thriller called Turpentine from  Compliance director slash The Penguin showrunner Craig Zobel, which already has Melissa McCarthy circling. Those two in a thriller already has me pre-thrilled! The plot, described as "following a deadbeat son who hires friends to rob his own parents to pay off a bookie with disastrous results", sounds pretty Fargo-ish to me, but Zobel makes me think it will be played straighter than the Coens did similar ingredients. But it'll be good to see McCarthy do another serious role -- I wouldn't be angry if this was just The Deep End but with Meliessa McCarthy playing the Tilda role! Although if they wanna go goofier maybe she could play her character like an older version of that roommate from Go! So many possibilities. 

Smoke Em If Ya Got Em, Brandon Sklenar

I cannot speak personally pro or anti this weekend's thriller film The Housemaid because I had to miss my screening of it when I fucked up my ankle a couple weeks back -- all I've heard are mixed things though, and those mixed things trend toward the "It's not nearly as campy as it needs to be" so I'm not exactly running out to see it myself. But when it hits streaming? Sure. Probably. I love Amanda Seyfried (who gives a tremendous performance in her other Winter 2025 movie The Testament of Ann Lee). And this marks the third photoshoot (via) of noted hunk Brandon Sklenar that we've posted here at MNPP (see here and see here) so clearly he's in the plus column as well. Anyway it probably won't be as much torture as I found the latest Avatar movie (the other movie out this weekend) to be, so there's that. 

Oh and I guess Bradley Cooper's Is This Thing On? is also out today but I have nothing to say about that movie -- less than nothing. I saw it during NYFF and it left zero point zero percent of an impression on me. Completely forgettable hetero nonsense that totally wastes Laura Dern. Blergh! All that said you might wonder why I'm running through all the movies out this weekend here on a Thursday... well it's because I just found out right this very minute that my office will be closed tomorrow. So it's looking like a three-day weekend for moi! Huzzah! And then next week's a two day week, and then I'm off for nearly two weeks! I'm not saying this to rub it in your face... I'll leave it to Brandon to rub things in your face. Happy weekend!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore (1974)

Alice: I saw the "Waitress Wanted" sign. 

I said, "Why not?" So I took this job.

Flo: Well let me give you a hint.
Honey, unbutton that top button.

Alice: Really?

Flo: Yeah. If you bend over you get
more tips when you're working.

Alice: You're kidding me.

Flo: I'm not kidding. I got $50 last week.

Alice: Really?

Flo: Yeah.

Alice: Like that?

Flo: Yeah. Honey, forget what I said. 

You do that and I'm never going to get a tip again.

Terrible awful news to hear that Diane Ladd passed away today -- her daughter Laura Dern (maybe you've heard of her) released a statement saying "My amazing hero and my profound gift of a mother passed with me beside her this morning at her home in Ojai, California. She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created. We were blessed to have her. She is flying with her angels now.” I'm just going to assume that last line is a reference to Ladd's iconic role as Marietta in Wild At Heart where she recreates the Wicked Witch's broomstick flight:

I actually almost quoted that role for this post, but then I decided quoting her role as Dern's mother Helen on Mike's White's series Enlightened would be even better but I couldn't find a transcript of the script for that show's legendary episode all about Helen -- one of the great episodes of T.V. period, the end. She was so good on that show. Goddamn Enlightened was a masterpiece ahead of its time. 

Anyway from there that brought me to her lovely and hysterically funny performance in Martin Scorsese's great Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore. I grew up watching the spin-off T.V. series Alice, my mom loved it, so I never saw Scorsese's film until I was an adult -- seeing Ladd's take on the grits-kissing role that Polly Holliday (who passed away earlier this year, marking a real bad year for Flos) had burned into my little brain was a surprise and a joy. She's wonderful in it. Anyway I kind of can't believe she passed away before Bruce Dern did (not to jinx anything -- sorry, Laura!) since Bruce has seemed so frail for so long, and so this came as a real surprise to me today. Rest in peace, icon.

 

Pics of the Day

I thought I'd said all I needed to say about last night's Oscars in my earlier post and we could move on (as I'm always so super anxious to do with awards season) -- but then I remembered that nominee Isabella Rossellini wore a blue velvet gown to honor David Lynch and I started crying again! Just a perfect tribute -- if the show itself couldn't be bothered save a five second placard in their "In Memorium" segment to honor the most important American filmmaker of the past oh let's say fifty years, then at least Isabella and her seat partner Laura Dern got to be front and center and do their own little visual tribute. Sad they couldn't get Kyle Maclachlan and Naomi Watts beside them, but every time they cut to these two it packed a wallop. The Oscars, you might recall with the righteous fury of indignation I too carry, only ever gave Lynch an Honorary Oscar, and his acceptance of it got shuffled off to a side-show. As I've said before that was my breaking point with truly giving a shit about these awards. The break that started with Brokeback officially broke then! Anyway bless these two queens for representing.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Wild at Heart (1990)

Lula: Dell said that trust in the spirit of Christmas was destroyed by ideas being controlled by aliens wearing black gloves. These aliens would get Dell to do all kinds of things. Then he'd carry on about the weather, talk about how rainfall is controlled by aliens on earth. Aunt Rootie told Dell that one day he would realize that the alien wearing the black gloves was him, and him alone.

Ain't that the truth.
A happy 58 to Laura Dern today!

Jonny Vs The Dinosaurs

This was rumored a couple of weeks ago but Jonny Bailey's gone and announced it himself -- he is starring in the next Jurassic Park movie! If you're anything like me the last few Jurassic World movies really killed your enthusiasm for the franchise -- especially that last one which somehow wasted having Sam Neill and Laura Dern and Jeff Goldblum reunited -- and I didn't think they'd get me back on-board with another Jurassic movie. That coming from a person whose entire cinemania derives from the original Jurassic Park movie says something! But then they went and hired Godzilla director Gareth Edwards and I was like... "Well, maybe." But Jonny seals the deal -- we must support our gays! One truly does feel like Bailey maybe can really become the first out gay blockbuster leading man right now -- and since I have very little interest in Wicked this is my ticket! 

Yes I saw Jurassic Park fifteen times in the theater but this is still the best thing to come out of it pic.twitter.com/kgavqmpPEF

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 12, 2023

I'll Get You, My Lynchy

Lynch/Oz, a very fine documentary on the connections between the filmmaker David Lynch and his work and the 1939 American masterpiece The Wizard of Oz, is hitting the Criterion Collection today! You can buy it right here. I saw this back in 2022 at the Tribeca Film Festival and here is my review from then -- I haven't had a chance to rewatch it but I'll seize that soon. I did watch some Lynch this past weekend though and hoo boy do I have a recommendation -- if you've never seen Lynch's filmed version of the 1990 staged "concert" called "Industrial Symphony No. 1: The Dream of the Brokenhearted" then you should. Well if you're a hardcore Lynch nerd anyway. Or if you love out there performance art. It was put on for BAM here in New York and it stars frequent Lynch collaborator Julee Cruise and features music from her and other frequent Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti and... it's a trip and a half. It also has one of the single greatest jump scares that Lynch has ever created which, if you've seen anything by him then you know that's saying quite a lot. I watched this via an old DVD set but some kind soul put the whole thing on YouTube so watch it here:

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Wild at Heart (1990)

Marietta: Buffalo hunting? I've gone buffalo huntin'? 

What the fuck does that mean? Buffalo huntin'!

A very happy 88 to Diane Ladd today!

13 Bunnies of Halloween #4

I'm just now realizing I have never sat down and watched the entire run of David Lynch's short film series called Rabbits -- he calls it a sitcom, but I think we can all agree that David Lynch is nuts. I say that with love! Anyway the entire eight-episode run is on YouTube as seen above -- and there are portions of it inside of Lynch's film Inland Empire of course. We should all spend our Saturday afternoons watching it. And did you know that Mulholland Drive stars Naomi Watts and Laura Elena Harring are two of the people in rabbit costumes? Well they are. Anyway the only place that these shorts have been ofificially released were in a DVD set that came out in 2008 which is woefully out-of-print, going for 300 bucks nowadays, so cherish that YouTube link. One day when we're all dust that YouTube link is all thatb will be left of us!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Inland Empire (2006)

Nikki: I figured one day I'd just wake up and and find out what the hell yesterday was all about. I'm not too keen on thinkin' about tommorow. And today's slipping by.

The fine folks at Criterion were kind enough to wait until today, the day that David Lynch's great Inland Empire was hitting blu-ray, to announce their Flash Sale -- 50% off everything in stock for the next 24 hours! I bought three movies myself already and we'll see how the day carries us. Click on over to buy Inland and a pile of other movies, please -- we gotta keep Criterion going, at least until we get a big boxed-set of Gregg Araki movies. Once that happens life will have reached its apex and we can pack it all up. But only then, Climate Change! You wait til then dammit.

The Son in 250 Words or Less

It didn't seem possible to me that a movie starring Hugh Jackman and Laura Dern and Vanessa Kirby and directed by the same dude who gave us Anthony Hopkins' deeply moving turn in The Father (earning that Oscar if you ask me) could've possibly been deserving of the derision it was met with when it premiered in Toronto a couple of months ago... but gee golly damn were the sayers of nay saying nay the right way as far as The Son is concerned. From its shockingly inept script (I never saw the play but this dialogue is so ham-handed I can't imagine it even working on stage, where theatricality can usually work better than it will on film) to Jackman's at times so-bad-its-camp performance, this movie would've probably just been swept aside if lesser hands had made it, but with this big-time crew yeesh what a disaster. And they're pushing for Oscar attention, no less! Just cut your losses and stop embarrassing yourselves, y'all. Dern and Kirby do try valiantly to make their characters and their dialogue make sense, but there's no doing. The Son's the same inane conversation fifty times in a row, so flatly basic in its understanding of human nature that it misunderstands human nature wholly -- it fully circles around to being obscene about mental health by its end. Avoid at all costs.

Which is Hotter?

Today we wish a happy 48th birthday to the great Aussie director Justin Kurzel, who's batting a nearly perfect score from where I stand. I say "nearly" because his big foray into Hollywood, his Assassin's Creed adaptation, didn't work at all, save valiant efforts by all involved. But look at the other movies under his belt from the past eleven years -- Snowtown! Macbeth! True History of the Kelly Gang! Nitram! (I still haven't seen his segment in the anthology film The Turning.) 

Those are all terrific movies with a strong directorial voice and vision -- he has already fulfilled the promise of when Snowtown knocked me out in 2011 and then some extra left over. There sure aren't many male directors doing a better job dissecting toxic masculinity in our current moment...

... and that he does it, at least partially anyway, by shooting all of his leading men like I would shoot all of the hot leading men that he keeps hiring? And then even more, you add on the fact that he is married to the queen Essie Davis? We got ourselves a king here!

He's also got a pile of killer projects on the immediate horizon lined up -- his sci-fi flick Morning with Benedict Cumberbatch and Laura Dern! (That one is already filmed.) His limited series Shantaram with Charlie Hunnam! (I believe that's also been filmed, at least partially.) And then there's Ruin, his WWII flick with Margot Robbie and Matthias Schoenaerts -- there hasn't been an update on this one in awhile so it might not be happening, but let's will it to be! Justin Kurzel filming Matthias is a thing I definitely need in this life. Anyway in Kurzel's honor -- and to fill a distinct lack of Michael Fassbender posting recently -- let's do ourselves a poll...

online polls

Chomp Goes The Bronto

(pic via) So as detailed briefly on Monday (and several hundred other times over these many years) I fancy myself a Jurassic Park nerd from way back. Saw the original several gajillion times, et cetera et cetera. That said I've been exceptionally depressed and defeated by the most recently trilogy of World movies, and I am sad to report that that remains the case with the new movie, original trio of actors be darned -- click on over to Pajiba to read my exceptionally unhappy thoughts about Jurassic World Dominion, which hits theaters tomorrow. Oh well! We'll always have the first movie. And I suppose it could have been worse -- I could have been literally murdered by a Tyrannosaur Rex! There is that.

The Birthday Beggar-saurus

Yes that is a photo of a fifteen-year-old me (and my cousin) in the year 1993 at Universal Studios Orlando being happily terrorized by Jurassic Park's Tyrannosaur Rex -- I hadn't even seen the movie yet at that point but it was all I cared about, and once it came out a few weeks later I went and saw it ten times in the theater that summer (which remained my personal record until Call Me By Your Name came out). Anyway I post it because that hibernating dino-nerd woke up in my belly something hard this morning when I realized I am seeing the new Jurassic movie tonight -- Jurassic World: Dominion hits theaters this weekend and you can watch the trailer here and you can expect my review in a couple of days. Until this morning I had low expectations, but that dino-nerd in my belly is making me super excited anyway! If nothing else...

... it'll be a treat seeing Laura Dern and Sam Neill and Jeff Goldblum all reunited for the first time since the original movie. I'm really hoping that Dern side-eyes Chris Pratt right off a cliff, I am! 

But wait! Jurassic Park nonsense is not the only reason I'm posting right now -- speaking of looking backwards in the rearview mirror that says "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear" or whatever, I realized over the weekend that I forgot to mark MNPP's birthday last week! I started blogging this site on June 2nd 2005, meaning we just turned seventeen! We're like that Janis Ian song now! Weird to think I have been blogging here longer than I had been alive in that top photo? Ergh best not fall down that wormhole. Anyway thanks to everybody for reading! And as I do every blog birthday I'll now put on my lil' beggar's cap and say -- hey, if you enjoy what I do here, why not toss us a penny or two? 

You can donate right here. Or in

the right-hand column there is a link too.

Thanks y'all!

Dino Dominion

Alongside tickets now being on sale (buy yours here) there's been a big drop of new Jurassic World: Dominion content today, with posters, photos, and a bigger gnarlier trailer than the first one we saw -- they've moved past the "holy shit we got the original trio of Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum to reunite for this!" portion of the press push and now they've arrived at the "Hey we might murder one or more than one of your oldest pretend friends, what fun!" part, which yippee, that's definitely what our collective moods neeed these days. Needless stress, huzzah! Here is the trailer:

I haven't much liked any of the Jurassic World movies so my hopes aren't stratospheric for this, but we will see -- I would love love love to be proven wrong in my pessimism. I very much want this to be good, to capture even a tenth of the magic of the first film. As I've said a billion times the first Jurassic Park was my Star Wars -- I was the perfect age and I went and saw it in the theater fifteen goddamned times! I went every single day the week it was released in 1993. I was a junkie for it. The second and third films have their moments too -- indeed if you follow me on twitter...

Comfort watch time
This scene still makes me cry
Also? John Williams greatest score #NowWatching pic.twitter.com/Tq5yh1k4MX

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 26, 2022

... then you know I am currently doing a re-watch of the movies, although I've only made it through the first two so far. And I'm actively dreading getting to the World movies already -- I haven't re-watched a single one of them after seeing them in the theater. They're so cynical, in my mind, so un-awed by what they're about -- Spielberg really made you feel the weight of Crichton's ideas, but the new ones just toss dinosaurs at us like junk-food. To paraphrase what Jeff Goldblum says to B.D. Wong in the first film -- the Jurassic World CG technicians were so preoccupied with whether they could create every single dinosaur and toss it on the screen in a melee of dino-action that they didn't stop to think if they should. Nothing matters in those movies, it's all popcorn, no weight. Anyway I hope Dominion makes itself matter! At least...

... seeing Laura Dern scream her freaking lungs out makes me care automatically, so there's that. This hits screens on June 13th -- hit the jump for a few more photos... 

Good Morning, Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler

Damn damn damn, just when I thought I was out... the Jurassic World movies have generally been rather terrible and I have hated each one, but seeing Laura Dern, Sam Neill, and Jeff Goldblum all here for the third one... I am not made of stone, I am not made of anything near stone, I am made of viscous gelatinous goo basically, so weak so very weak, and so this has sent me spiraling back to 1993, me being the biggest Jurassic Park nerd in all the land. I saw Spielberg's original film 15 times in the theater that summer. It is a touchstone among touchstones. And so how am I supposed to resist?

I know this movie will be 85% Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard running around and I will be annoyed at all of that -- like the last one, how they had like ten seconds of Jeff Goldblum sitting in a courtroom and stuck every inch of those ten seconds into its trailer to try to fool us. But I don't care! Fool me! For the warm nostalgia I am feeling inside from the Before We Were All Dead Inside times I don't care. It's worth it for the feeling I have looking at these photos right now. Here's the damn trailer:

Jurassic World; Dominion stomps out childhoods on June 10th.

And a happy birthday to Laura Dern today, as well!

Noah Jupe is in Morning

Honey Boy and A Quiet Place actor Noah Jupe, who appears to be growing up, has just joined the cast of Macbeth and Snowtown director Justin Kurzel's next science-fiction movie called Morning, and it's one hell of a cast he's joining -- Laura Dern and Benedict Cumberbatch, namely. Here's the plot via Deadline:

"The film is set in a near future where society has a pill that does away with the need to sleep. With the added help of an artificial sun, there is no end to morning daylight, living and work. However, as a young generation grows up deprived of the world of sleep, they consider rebelling to reclaim their dreams."

Kurzel's last released film was True History of the Kelly Gang, which we gave a lot of play around these parts as 1) it's very good and 2) its cast of George Mackay, Charlie Hunnam, and Nicholas Hoult (in nothing but sock garters), was of specific this-site-interest. Kurzel has another finished film in the can -- called Nitram and starring Caleb Landry Jones and Judy f'ing Davis I actually shared the trailer for it last August and IFC was said at the time to be releasing the film in the first part of this year, but I haven't heard anything since then. Anyway we dig Kurzel and we clearly dig this new cast so sign us up. As for Jupe well I found this photoshoot of the sixteen-year-old so I am posting it after the jump but nobody look unless it's appropriate for you to do so (I personally wrote this post with my eyes closed)...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Citizen Ruth (1996)

Ruth: I'm gonna stay here. and I'm gonna have
that abortion like I wanted. Cuz I'm a citizen
and... and I got my rights to, um, PICK!

Alexander Payne's funniest film -- I said what I said, Election! -- was released 25 years ago today. Everything I see online says the movie got a "limited release" but I could have sworn this movie aired on TV -- on like HBO maybe? Am I mistaken? Is this a fake memory like that Sinbad Genie movie? Anyway it's a perfect comedy with one of Laura Dern's greatest performances -- no small feat, claiming that title when there are so many choices! And it's also terrifyingly more timely than ever here 25 years on with all of the ridiculous hysteria surrounding abortion even more obnoxious than ever. I recommend seeking it out! You can find the DVD or rent it on Amazon but it's kind of gross that nobody's put this out on blu-ray, right? I mean hello, Criterion? U up?

Quote of the Day

Top tier human, MNPP longstanding beloved, and creative genius Mike White has been enjoying some well-earned success this summer thanks to his HBO series The White Lotus, which y'all know I loved -- I wrote about it at AwardsWatch -- but that usually means nothing; I always love things that flop! So I am pleased as pleased punch that this one seems to be a hit! I mean I have no idea what its ratings are but I've seen people talking about it, with enthusiasm, all over the internet the past few weeks, and that's as important a metric as any now right? Whatever, let me have this. So with good buzz comes write-ups, and White's given a big interview to The New Yorker this week (thx Brad) that I can't recommend highly enough if you've ever been a fan. He talks Lotus, he talks being on Survivor, he talks future projects and then about how he's been putting off doing a third season of Enlightened even though HBO has expressed interest (I KNOW). But my favorite section comes when he describes the gloriously-deranged-sounding show he wanted to make with Aubrey Plaza, and what he then says about the current state of TV alongside it, so that's today's quote:

"O.K., so, I wrote a script that I was really into, for Aubrey Plaza and for me to be in. We were playing ourselves, but it was this weird sex comedy set in Sweden. My character was basically a very predatory version of myself. There were some MeToo elements. The script was definitely poking the bear. And so we went around to all of these streamers, and I could tell people really liked the script. But everybody was kind of afraid to do it. There are all these streamers right now, and there’s all this business. It does feel like there’s a lot of places to go and take the meeting. But then, when you go into the rooms to have the meeting, you realize they all want the same thing. There’s not a lot of incentive for them to try something that feels like they might get criticized for it. There’s a very corporatized thing going on. There’s not that big of an upside to taking on something that would cause more problems than it’s worth. 

 It was always hard to make stuff for me. But, back in the early two-thousands, I just felt like there were more people running places who were individuals and had their own individual taste and would take different types of risks. It’s not to say there aren’t cool, risky things being made. But, when they type my name into the algorithm at Netflix, it must come out zeroes or something. When I go to their offices, I get no sense that they have any idea who I am or what I’m doing there. You really feel like it’s some kind of Terry Gilliam “Brazil” version of futurist entertainment."