Today's Mood

I really feel as if Michael Shannon would be right down for making some good trouble with you if you asked him genuinely, and that's why I will love him forever. (More pics here.) Let's storm the barricades together, Mikey!

Leo Woodall Eight Times

I haven't paid a lot of attention to the new movie Nuremberg because 1) that's a lot of subject to deal with at this moment in time and 2) they've been pushing Rami Malek and Russell Crowe in all the (little bit of) advertising I've seen and those are not people who really get me out to see a movie. I had no idea it also co-starred White Lotus and fictional gay math whiz Leo Woodall though! I mean given the rest of the cast (which also includes Michael Shannon) I assume Leo's role is on the smaller side, but... he's playing a person named "Sgt. Howie". I'm already in love. Guess I'll be watching Nuremberg then! Anyway Leo is featured in the latest issue of Sharp magazine (read the chat here) and I've got those photos, I have, so hit the jump for all his adorableness....

Good Morning, World

I know people find Michael Shannon odd, and he is, but I personally am extremely drawn to his kind of odd, so this photo of him laying in bed in the fuzziest pants I have ever seen in the new issue of Interview Magazine -- where he's interviewed by his Bikeriders co-star Austin Butler, sigh -- is to me the coziest thing to greet a week with. I wanna climb in there and spoon so hard! I haven't read the chat yet but I imagine it's mostly about The End, his end-of-times musical with Tilda Swinton and George Mackay that was one of my favorites of last year (here is my review) -- The End is available to rent at home at all the places now so I say do it! It's not the easiest sit -- especially in the year that 2025 has already been -- but I think it's really quite brilliant myself. Anyway happy Monday from me and Big Mikey!

It's The End of the World As We Know It

Any fans of Joshua Oppenheimer's documentaries The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence up in here? I count myself as one, a big one, and so I was cautiously optimistic about his new movie The End starring Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, and George Mackay -- my caution stemming from 1) it's a musical and y'all probably know I approach that genre with repidation, and 2) it didn't get that striking of a reception from critics when it played at TIFF and Telluride earlier this fall. Nor did it this past weekend when it hit theaters -- it sits at around 50% on Rotten Tomatoes right now. Except I liked it! Count me among the glass-full half of that 50% -- my review went upnat Pajiba yesterday and you can read it right here if you like. I mention this in the review but the movie it most reminded me of was The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, another musical that bucked the system and made of me a fan. (Indeed Cherbourg is probably my favorite movie musical of them all so Oppenheimer was clever to aim for those vibes.) Anyway I totally get why reception's mixed but don't be surprised if you see this baby end up inside my Top 10 of the year, is all I am saying. 

Leo Woodall Fifteen Times

Yo ho yet another lovely photoshoot of the lovely Leo Woodall -- formerly of The White Lotus and currently of One Day on Netflix -- graced us with its lovely presence over the weekend! We'll gobble them all up thank you bvery much. This one is for Numero Netherlands and there's a bit of a chat with him there too, if you so desire. There's not a lot of meat to it (certainly less than he's displaying in those biceps, humina humina) but he does mention a pair of upcoming projects ...

... he's doing an Apple+ series called Prime Target with a stacked-af cast including Martha Plimpton, Harry Lloyd, David Morrissey, Quintessa Swindell, Stephen Rea, and my beloved Sidse Babett Knudsen from The Duke of Burgundy. That's a cast and a half. And he's starring in a movie called Nuremberg (I think you can guess what that is about) opposite Michael Shannon and Russell Crowe and Rami Malek and Richard E. Grant and hottie Mark O'Brien. Things look good for Leo Woodall, beyond Leo Woodall looking good! All that said we're here for the latter so hit the jump for more photos...

Boyd Holbrook Four Times

Didn't expect today to be double-dipping on the Boyd Holbrook content (see him here in his tighty-whities from this morning) but I ain't mad about it! No sir eeeee bob. Interview Magazine is chatting him up (well technically they had Michael Shannon do it) since he's on the new run of Justified episodes (not to mention his turn in the last Indiana Jones a couple of weeks back), and these photos came along for the ride. We've been fans of his for a very long time -- click his name above and behold the splendor of our Boyd archives, but specifically check out this post, this post right here, for the goodest goodies of all, i.e. his salad days as a male model mostly) -- and we expect to continue being along for this ride for as long as he'll have us. Hit the jump for the rest of the photos...

Today's Mood

Sing it, Michael Shannon.

The Super Mother Bug

We can finally check one of our most sought after physical media upgrades off of the list, as it's been reported (via) that William Friedkin's 2006 horror masterpiece Bug is finally getting a big 4K blu-ray release next year. Of course this happens not long after I finally went and bought the ancient DVD a few months ago after holding out for ages -- like clockwork! Anyway this isn't about me (or is it), it's about one of the best horror movies of the past twenty years getting some goddamned respect -- this is also a flick that's only gained more relevance in the past few years, if you ask me, what with all of the Q-Anon conspiracy lunacy going mainstream thanks to Republican shit-traitors.  Anyway! Good movie! And we'll get to see Michael Shannon naked in 4K, which will also be swell. Stay tuned for updates once they become available...

Karl Glusman's Come To Give Us a Ride

I am about to make several mostly-unfounded conjectures about this shirtless selfie that actor and MNPP fave Karl Glusman posted on his Instagram a few minutes ago, so bear with me. One, and this one doesn't seem like a stretch -- he appears to be in a trailer. You know, like a set trailer, not a double-wide in West Virginia. A film production trailer where actors stay when they are shooting movies. That kind of trailer. That seems pretty clear. So I looked at his IMDb to see what he might be filming right now and IMDb has two projects listed as "Filming" right now under his name -- a movie called Little Death that has him playing a drug addict who breaks into the house of a TV writer played by David Schwimmer. But the full photo seen down below with the inscription about Fight Club makes me think he's filming the other project right now -- a movie called The Bikeriders that's about, you guess it, bike riders. In this case we mean a motorcycle club. Oh and I guess I should mention this is the new movie from Take Shelter director Jeff Nichols, and Karl's co-stars, include (deep breath) Tom Hardy, Michael Shannon, Jodie Comer, Austin Butler, Boyd Holbrook, Norman Reedus, Beau Knapp, Emory Cohen, Toby Wallace, and Mike Faist. That's one hell of a cast! I suppose that is a project I should plan on paying some attention to then. Thanks, Karl's abs! Karl's abs are always doing good work.

Manny Jacinto Thirteen Times

I think I have no caught back up on Nine Perfect Strangers -- I'd fallen behind during TIFF -- so this new chat in Interview Magazine with actor and beauty Manny Jacinto, who plays Nicole Kidman's right-hand-man on that show, was a treat -- even more so because it's Kidman herself doing the interviewing! It really is a lovely convo, I recommend. As for NPS the show's super trashy but fun, and there are a few actors doing really excellent work on it (the Marconi trio of Michael Shannon, Asher Keddie, and Grace Van Patten,  are my personal faves) -- I know some of you commented before but where do you stand on the show now, if you're watching? Anyway there's lots and lots of Manny to stare at after the jump, let's go do that...

Good Morning, World

So has anybody started watching Nine Perfect Strangers on Hulu yet? I did, I did. (I haven't seen the latest episode yet though.) It's perfectly fun so far, with some keen moments of performance, but I do feel kind of bad for it coming out right on the heels of the similarly plotted The White Lotus from the genius Mike White, by which anything -- yes even a thing starring Nicole Kidman, Michael Shannon, Melissa McCarthy, Regina Hall, Bobby Cannavale, Luke Evans, and the lovely Manny Jacinto here --  would pale in comparison. It feels much more of a piece with HBO stuff like Big Little Lies or that other Reese Witherspoon show, the one where Joshua Jackson wore tighty-whities. (I never bothered finishing that one.) Serviceable but basically disposable glossy trash. We will see. For now let's enjoy this new sweater-tastic photoshoot of Manny for WWD though, right on after the jump...

Make It Huckabees Two

Y'all think I love famous people -- well wait til you get a load of the director David O. Russell. He's always been known for gathering up big casts of name actors -- he might not have had the clout with his first film Spanking the Monkey but what clout he had off of Spanking the Monkey's small success (and I remember that movie being pretty buzzy when it came out in 1994) he immediately threw into casting with his next flick, the road-trip comedy Flirting With Disaster...

... which starred Ben Stiller, Tea Leoni, Patricia Arquette, Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Richard Jenkins, and Josh Brolin. (Plus bonus points for Celia Weston, of course.) And his casts have only grown starrier from there, reaching probably their apex with American Hustle back in... 2013? Is that movie really seven years old? WTF.

This shot of Christian Bale on the set of the new David O. Russell movie is speaking to me in a language I don't understand pic.twitter.com/qVeHQUxtcM

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 13, 2021

Anyway we might have thought that was the apex, but his new project is putting all of those movies to shame. We don't have a title, we don't know what it's about -- except it's based on "an original idea" from Russell himself -- but we just got nine new names added to the already insane cast in the past 24 hours so let's list off the people who're signing up to get berated on set by him. First we heard about Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington. That's already a big movie right there. Then a couple of days ago they added Rami Malek and Zoe Saldana. But then! Last night! Last night the cast added (deep breath) Robert De Niro, Mike Myers, Timothy Olyphant, Michael Shannon, Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Andrea Riseborough, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Alessandro Nivola.

Russell has of course worked with a few of these people before -- Nivola and Bale and De Niro, of course -- but, I mean... did his casting people just come here to MNPP and start grabbing names after that? It's like that meme that says "We're gonna give the gays all that they want" but it's not "We're gonna give JA all that he wants." Olyphant, Riseborough, Shannon, Taylor-Joy and Schoenaerts in one place is literally breaking my brain. Literally. I would take a picture with my phone and show you my brain oozing out of my ears but my brain just oozed out of my ears and so I don't remember how to take pictures with my phone any longer. I am broken. Right, Andrea? 

Save Me, Michael Shannon

.

I don't know why but I find staring at Michael Shannon right this second comforting -- I feel like where ever Michael Shannon is right now Michael Shannon is definitely angrier at the world than I am, something that feels impossible and yet is, no doubt, possible, and that brings me comfort. Michael Shannon shoulders the load. Anyway as a gift to him for being our bearer of righteous fury here's the trailer for his next movie, a southern-fried police thriller called The Quarry (thx Mac) that has him show-downing with Shea Whigham in a desloate Texas town.

.

.

That film, which is based on a book by writer Damon Galgut, is supposedly hitting some theaters (in this economy?) and VOD (much more likely) on April 17th. if you'd like a bonus photo of Michael Shannon, heaven's angel, hit the jump...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life.

... you can learn from:

My Son My Son What Have Ye Done (2009)

Brad: What do you mean by birds?
They're my eagles in drag!

One of my absolute favorite Werner Herzog movies came out ten years ago today, and I feel like nobody but me ever talks about this flick anymore. We cannot let that happen! I mean this thing could coast on its cast alone, which might just be my favorite batch of weirdos ever assembled in one place -- Michael Shannon, Grace Zabriskie, Udo Kier, Chloë Sevigny, Irma P. Hall, Willem Dafoe, Michael Peña, Lorette Devine, Brad Dourif... oh and apparently (I don't remember this, I'll have to check my disc later) Dave Bautista has a cameo as a SWAT member???

But it's not just a tremendous group of freaks... excuse me, risk takers... all gathered up in one place and let loose. Herzog and Shannon and all the rest manage to make an operatic new American Myth out of a random tabloid story they snatched from oblivion. Here's my original review of the film, and here's what I wrote up when I called it my 5th favorite movie of 2009. I recommend you see this if you haven't, or watch it again if you have!
.

Hold Your Loved Ones Close This Holiday

.

This is a very short week! I didn't get everything done this very short week that I wanted to, including writing a proper review of Knives Out, which is out in theaters today and which I can't seem to summon more to say about than just "It's a ton of fun, you should see it!" I mean that. I do, and you should. It's just 1) a movie it's hard to write about because it's an endless series of twists that even just talking about the twists existing feels spoilery, and 2) it's fluff I will eventually watch ten times but doesn't really inspire a lot in the terms of words out of me.

.

Oh man I never get swag, what a treat! I am 100 percent gonna cherish every bit of this KNIVES OUT paraphernalia (most especially that flask) #knivesout #film pic.twitter.com/W5gIDppfQl

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 20, 2019

.

It's a terrific Movie Movie, full of movie stars having fun and clever misdirections and fun sets and costumes, but I don't really know what to say about it beyond that. I mean that, by the way, is plenty. All of those things add up to plenty! But I can't say I feel particularly passionate about Knives Out -- the thing that's most noticeable about it I guess is that it feels so Old Fashioned now, an original story coming from a big studio on a holiday weekend that's full of fresh characters and good actors, so that should be the thing that gets your ass to the theater for it. You won't be disappointed. 

Spectacularly moved? Probably not. For that you should still check out Marielle Heller's Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood if you haven't already, which didn't do great at the box office when it was released over this past weekend but will presumably still be in a ton of theaters this week for the holiday. I reviewed that right here and yes that is the sort of movie that will get me rambling endlessly. One of the year's absolute best.

Your other best options are Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, which just hit Netflix (read my NYFF review at The Film Experience) and I'll also recommend, if you're in New York, the Guatemalan flick Temblores, which is about a closeted gay man whose ultra-religious family refuses to let him find happiness. It's opening at the Quad (and PS its gorgeous lead actor Juan Pablo Olyslager will be there for Q&As) and the film's a rough sit emotionally but worth checking out for what feels like an honest view of the uphill battle we still face in many places. (Including here in the US for too many!) It's some perfect anti-Thanksgiving programming -- family can truly suck.

The other two films out this weekend, The Two Popes (reviewed here) and Queen & Slim (reviewed here), I wasn't nuts about them to put it mildly, but other people seem to be so who knows where you'll fall. If you see any of these, or anything else worth telling me about, let me know your thoughts in the comments! And have a Happy Thanksgiving, go get good and stuffed...
.

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for one thing, and that thing is Michelle Pfeiffer's Instagram account pic.twitter.com/2itScrCgv8

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 27, 2019

So Sharp, These Knives

.

Knives Out director Rian Johnson, of Brick and The Last Jedi fame (or infamy I suppose depending on your level of vitriol towards the latter, ya nerds) has spent this very day tweeting out character posters for the movie -- a lot of the time with one movie releasing twenty character posters you're like "Who cares" but...

... with Knives Out you've got a cast worth caring over, 

and it just keeps going.

All that tweed and all that shelving, 

it's a lot for me to take in at once.

Knives Out isn't out until Thanksgiving which seems like ages away but at the same time seems like the exactly the right time to release a family-based murder mystery -- when else are people going to want to fantasize about slashing their relatives to ribbons then when they've been forced to have an extremely long meal with all of them at once? I relate.
.

Nightmare Circus Folks

.

I double-checked to make sure I never posted these terrifying pasty goblin photos of Bradley Cooper in W Magazine last year and sure enough I was sane, and didn't -- probably both because I hated with the heat of a million suns the movie he was promoting at the time (that'd be his A Star is Born remake), and also that he looks like somebody wanted to make a sexy stage version of Powder. A lot of nos! But here we are today posting them, against better instincts of yore, because there's Bradley Cooper news that I have to talk about, and the dude hasn't been doing photo-shoots much lately -- this is what we've got.

So the news that's brought this horror back into our lives is that it looks like Brad's set to play the Tyrone Power role in Guillermo Del Toro's forthcoming re-do of the terrific 1947 swarthy-noir Nightmare Alley. (We previously posted about this project here.) You'll hear no comment on Cooper filling in for Tyrone "Closet Case" Power from me! Besides, you know, that there "no comment" comment. The story's mainly set at the seediest of carnivals, where Cooper's character is a phony mind-reader who gets in way over his head with a bad dame.

The rest of the cast that Del Toro's gathered up though, well, it's literally quite insane. This movie is also going to star Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara (who are hopefully just playing alternate timeline carny versions of Carol & Therese), Toni Collette, Richard Jenkins, Willem Dafoe, Ron Perlman and Michael Shannon. I mean can you even imagine? Anyway Del Toro says he plans on sticking closer to William Lindsay Gresham's original book, which I've never read but he says it's much darker -- the Tyrone film is pretty dark from what I recall, but lord knows there's stuff you can get away with now you couldn't get away with in 1947; GDT promises a "big R, like double R" rating. And if Michael Shannon bites the head off a live chicken it'll all -- all of life -- been worth it.
.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Revolutionary Road (2008)

John: The hopeless emptiness? Now, you've said it.
Plenty of people are on to the emptiness;
but, it takes real guts to see the hopelessness. Wow.

Do other people love this movie? I love this movie. I was actually thinking about it this past week because I think that it contains Leo DiCaprio's last Great Performance before Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Him and Kate are just knock-out good in this. Oh that they'd work together at least one more time.

Anyway I was looking at Sam Mendes' IMDb page about ten minutes ago because it's his birthday today and I wanted to do a post wishing him a happy one. (Psst that's what you're reading right now.) I thought maybe there was something new about him I could share as long as we're here, and I couldn't remember what he was working on, so I checked...

... and saw he's got his WWI picture called 1917 coming out at Christmas. The IMDb page for 1917 had what looked like a trailer for the film and I mentally chastised myself -- "Oh Jason, you missed another big trailer drop; you're terrible. It's probably been out for weeks, you suck, I hate you, Jason, you piece of literal shit." But then I checked a little further and the trailer's actually only been out for ten minutes! I don't suck! I am not literal shit! Hooray!

.
.

1917 has a killer cast -- Richard Madden and Benedict Cumberbatch and Mark Strong and Andrew Scott and Colin Firth and George MacKay and lil' Tommen from Game of Thrones... it's got everybody! Well... everybody but ladies, anyway. That's okay! More of a chance Dean-Charles  Chapman will have to make out with George MacKay this way. Reenact the kissing scene from Wings, you cowards!

Plunge Your Knives Straight Into My Face

.

Well this one certainly appears to be living up to the hype I have been giving it myself since it was first announced -- we were immediately excited about Rian Johnson's forthcoming whodunit comedy (or as Chris Evans' blithely smirks, "CSI KFC") Knives Out since it stars Daniel Craig, the aforementioned Evans, Michael Shannon, a camp prepped Toni Collette...

... Jamie Lee Curtis, Lakeith Stanfield (with stache), 

Raul Castillo, Christopher Plummer, and 

several other super duper awesome folks...

... we even called it one of our ten most anticipated films for the year of the year when we listed such a list a few weeks ago. But they've just dropped the very first trailer for the film, which is out at Thanksgiving, and man alive if this thing didn't scoot from vaguely exciting straight on up to put this shit inside my fucking face and sew my face shut with it until I suffocate from happiness. Watch:

.

.

Can you even? I can't even.

Start counting the days, y'all.

To All the Stars I've Stalked Before

.

View this post on Instagram

Michael Shannon at a party for WON’T YOU BE MY NEIGHBOR #michaelshannon #wontyoubemyneighbor #mrrogers

A post shared by Jason Adams (@jasonaadams) on Jan 9, 2019 at 5:52pm PST

.

Yours truly went to a "too fancy for my ass" party at Robert DeNiro's Tribeca restaurant last evening for a reception honoring the Mister Rogers' documentary Won't You Be My Neighbor? which was thrown by... Michael Shannon and David Cross, of all people. What a pair! My boyfriend spoke to director Morgan Neville for a bit who relayed - Breaking News!!! - that he does not know what he is doing next.

Anyway you can read my review of that wonderful film right here -- it also just won "Doc of the Year" from my critics group this week and I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see it snatch the Oscar; it's a true crowd-pleaser with the perfect anti-Trumpian message of decency and kindness. It's not my favorite doc of the year (more on that when I get around to listing my favorite things of the year... whenever I get around to that) but I think it's a well-made and moving piece of film and perfectly worthy of praise. And speaking of "things that just won awards from my critic's group"...

... my apologies to Pose and American Horror Story star Billy Porter, whose work for the former just personally won him "Best TV Actor" and "Best Musical performance" from us folks at GALECA this week -- apologies to him for having to deal with sickly, unawake, subway-riding me for a bit this morning...

.

Just realized the guy in the short fur jacket sitting half on me in the subway middle seat as I sniffled my nose loudly was BILLY PORTER (!!!) - what a comedown for him after taking the Golden freaking Globes over with a glorious cape, man (he looked great though)

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 10, 2019