Cold War II: The Cold War-ening

We love it when talented people gravitate toward other talented people, and this news is a big example of this -- the great and talented Sandra Hüller of Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest (hey I was just making a joke about that role earlier this week that I don't think a lot of people got) and Toni Erdmann (I can't even begin to tell you how often Toni Erdmann bobs about in my brain) is teaming up with the great and talented director Paweł Pawlikowski of Cold War and Ida fame. It's titled 1949 and here's how they're describing it: 

"Set at the height of the Cold War, 1949 centres on the relationship between the writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller); actress, journalist and rally driver, as they embark on a road trip in a black Buick cruiser across a Germany in ruins – from U.S. dominated Frankfurt to Soviet controlled Weimar."

Hanns Zischler is a legendary German actor who starred in Wim Wenders' Kings of the Road and Chantal Akerman's Meetings With Anna and has been working steadily ever since -- I just saw him in 2023's terrific brain-bender The Universal Theory most recently. The movie also co-stars the great August Diehl from Inglourious Basterds and A Hideen Life. Talented people y'all! Anyway now that I'm thinking about it I should re-watch Cold War. What a good fuckin' movie. 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from...

Thelma & Louise (1991)

Louise: Damn, Jimmy. What'd you do, take some 

kinda pill that makes you say all the right stuff? 

Jimmy: Yeah. I'm chokin' on it.

RIP Michael Madsen. Always such a cool cat.

Obviously his iconic Tarantino work rules the roost 

but I've always adored this performance in T&L too.

We All Fall For Nosferatu

Some terrific physical media news landing in the last 12 hours (for those of you who know physical media is where it's at, and the rest of you who should learn just that) -- first up we've got the official release info for Robert Eggers' Nosferatu, of which you might have noticed I'm a fan (here is my review) -- this movie is out on VOD right this very moment! So if you missed it in theaters... well I think it's still in theaters, so go to a theater dammit. But if you're not able, rent it now. Fine! But that's not physical -- you can pre-order the 4K blu-ray right here, which streets on February 18th. The disc is loaded with special features, including excitingly an "extended cut" which I believe adds like 20 minutes to the movie? A lot of people complained the film was too long as is but I am not one of those people and can't wait to soak in the world Eggers created a bit longer. My assumption is there will be more of the side characters, and seeing as how the relationship between Aaron Taylor-Johnson & Emma Corrin's characters is a thread I really love in the film that felt a bit too brief to me I'd love more of them. (Anyone saying ATJ is the weak link in the film is incorrect -- I think it's his best work ever.) 

But wait -- that's not all! Another masterpiece got an announcement -- the folks at Umbrella Entertainment down in Austrailia have announced their 4K box-set of The Cell director Tarsem's long long long out-of-print 2006 The Fall starring Lee Pace. This movie basically vanished the movie is arrived, flopping in theaters and barely making a dent on home video but last year a 4K restoration appeared and this is the first announcement of its imminent homeward drop. I am recommending patience and some caution here though if you're in the U.S. -- Mubi released the 4K restoration here in the U.S. and my guess is they'll be dropping a 4K disc of their own here in the States that will be far more reasonably priced and just hasn't been announced yet. I ordered Umbrella's box myself because...

... Umbrella is in my opinion making the best, most beautiful physical media sets in the business right now,. But they are pretty expensive and shipping is outrageous if you don't buy enough to get yourself over the free shipping threshold. What I do is I usually wait for several things to be announced over the course of a few months and then I get them all in one big splurge. Thankfully Umbrella also announced a box-set of Thai horror movies and the tremendous 2004 horror film Shutter (first time on 4K anywhere) so that wasn't difficult this time. These all hit in May -- when Mubi announces the U.S. version I will come back and post again!

In more immediate news -- instant gratification, baby! -- three Quentin tarantino movies hit 4K today, including his greatest film of them all 1997's Jackie Brown. That along with both of the Kill Bill films can be bought on Lionsgate's website, where they've begun putting out special editions of their films! A wonderful development for us physical media nerds when a lot of studios seem to be taking the exact opposite approach and turning their backs on physical releases so they can make you rent occasional access to them on streaming services forever and ever, isntead of woning the damn movie permanently as the movie gods truly intended. We love to see it! Coming up next from Liosgate are special editions of You're Next and The Third Man, which can also be bought at that link. Everybody give Lionsgate a hand!

Did You Know I'm Utterly Insane

Luca! Have I not supported you? Have I not praised you far and wide? Well I don't know what I have done to make Luca Guadagnino unhappy and spiteful but I feel personally attacked twice in a row now with this American Psycho remake that he's planning on making -- first with the fact that he's doing it at all since Mary Harron's 2000 film with Christian Bale is literally perfect; one of my favorite movies, period. And now comes the word (thx Mac) that he's getting one of my least favorite It Boys of the moment Austin Butler to star in it? Luca, baby, why? I've found almost everything Butler has done in the past several years of making a name for himself to be phony and try-hard -- no matter the praise they received his Elvis and his turn in Dune Part Two were both flops as far as I'm concerned. Flops! Credit where credit's due -- he was fine playing a pretty boy poseur in The Bikeriders and I liked how Quentin Tarantino used him as a blowhard in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood...

... but I'd say it's his Dune work that landed him this gig and I have no idea what anyone sees in that performance. I find it laughable. I re-watched the movie last week and I still find it laughable. He has no presence in it -- he's the least scary villain since Jared Leto dyed his hair green. I will admit that there's something to be said here about Luca casting someone who reads as a total void to me as Patrick Bateman, the ultimate void. Lord knows I owe Mr. Guadagnino the benefit of the doubt at this point! His remake of Suspiria -- another film that never should have worked but managed to become one of my favorite horror films of all time -- proved my anti-remake mindset before that to be mostly foolish. But going into that I loved all oif the actors he'd hired, and that is just not going to be the case with this if this ends up happening. When I posted the remake's announcement in October I just figured this'd go onto the director's extensive never-happening heap of projects, but this casting news makes it seem like it is really happening. Granted Ellis' book and Harron's movie are very different, and having a gay man approach the material will probably give it a different hook. Also there is the real-world angle of our political reality to mine -- the poison of the 1980s New York Finance Bro misogyny mind-set which has had some, you know, consequences. I don't know. I don't know, dammit! Why can't Luca just be nice to me?

Caught Butlering

The thing about Austin Butler is... it's complicated. On the one hand I'm not at all convinced he's the huge talent he's being sold as these days. I didn't think he was all that great in Baz Luhrmann's Elvis. He was fine, he did what was asked of him; unfortunately Baz didn't feel like digging beneath the surface. But even more annoying to me is I'm really finding the reaction to his performance in Dune 2 completely overblown -- Feyd-Rautha is a role that any actor could have managed to make an impression with, especially with that make-up job, and I didn't feel Butler went particularly beyond that. Having now seen the movie twice I can confirm that initial impression -- he felt yet again to me like a lightweight playing dress-up. I did not sense legitimate menace or threat from him for a second of that performance.

But there is another hand! The other hand is that I did like him a lot as Tex Watson in Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. And having seen Jeff Nichols' upcoming movie The Bikeriders a very very long time ago I thought he was a stand-out in that as well. It's a character that's all surface cool and sexy while being kind of a dumb nothing underneath that, and hey whaddya know he pulls that off. So... it's complicated. Like I said. 

Which leads me to today's complicated news -- Deadline is reporting that he's teaming up with Darren Aronofsky for a crime thriller called Caught Stealing, based on a 2004 book by Charlie Huston (thx Mac). It's about "a burned-out former baseball player... unwittingly plunged into a wild fight for survival in the downtown criminal underworld of ‘90s NYC." The book cover says it's got a "wrong man plot worthy of Hitchcock" and lord knows I love me one of those -- so if Darren Aronofsky wasn't himself coming off of his worst movie (by leaps and bounds) I might be excited about this right now! 

Alas the stench of The Whale still lingers, and a big part of me worries that nobody involved in the making of that piece of shit really got what a piece of shit it was given that its lead still won Best Actor for it. Aronofsky, who's given me some of my favorite movies of ever, really has to win me back with this next one. A lot's on the line! And casting Austin Butler isn't exactly the homerun I want it to be. But fingers crossed anyway. I hope the boys do deliver a proper Hitchcockian wrong-man movie and we can all skip together hand in hand into the future like one big happy family. Let's keep the dream alive. Let's do it for this guy:

There Will Be No Leftovers

It only took 14 years but Eli Roth has finally gone and made Thanksgiving, the slasher movie that he made a fake trailer for 2007's Grindhouse experience. You remember, when Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez sandwiched their films Death Proof (masterpiece) and Planet Terror together into a double-feature extravaganza, complete with fake trailers and goofy advertisements? Since I had the hots for Eli at the time I was rather excited that his trailer had him in his underwear. You can watch that old trailer here, but the actual movie he made -- which stars Patrick Dempsey...

... (looking hot) and Gina Gershon and a bunch of young people I have no reference for (although I did post a photo of Disney cutie Milo Mannheim's armpits on Twitter earlier this week) -- has an actual trailer today! Thanksgiving is out on November 17th, just in time for, you guessed it, two weeks after Halloween. Anyway this looks like a lot of fun for those of us who love slasher movies and is maybe the movie that Roth was born to make, so I'm excited dammit. Watch:

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Jackie Brown (1997)

Jackie: Ever been tempted? 

Nicolet: What? To put one of these in my pocket? 

Jackie Uh-huh. 

Nicolet: If I did, I'd have to give you one, wouldn't I? 

Or we could take what we want. No one knows 

how much there is except us, right? 

Jackie: Yes. All those things are true. 

Nicolet: After all, it don't belong to nobody, right? 

Jackie: That would be one point of view.

A happy 72 (?!?!?) to Michael Keaton today!

Shame how wasted he was in The Flash.

What's your favorite MK performance?

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...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Knock Knock (2015)

Bel: It's like destiny that we were meant to meet.

Do you believe in destiny, Evan?

Evan: I'm an architect, so obviously I believe in things

happening by your own design.

Bel: Well... I do. I don't think people just pick randomly.

I think that, if we are here together, it's because there's

something we have to learn from each other.

A happy 50th birthday to Eli Roth today! Listen, I don't miss the Aughts era of "Bro Horror" anymore than any sane person would, but I still maintain that Eli Roth's early films -- meaning the original Cabin Fever and the Hostel movies -- were smarter about the xenophobia and sexism that they've been bluntly labeled with as of late. I still think those movies were sending up our shitty American instincts more than they were being a straightforward indulgence of them. That said I'll admit I haven't watched them in a decade, so maybe a re-watch would disabuse me of my romantic notions towards them? But he still made Knock Knock in 2015 and that movie's feminist as hell, and presaged the #MeToo movement pretty smartly. Plus Cate Blanchett loves working with him -- she's re-teaming with Eli for his Borderlands video-game adaptation next, alongside Jamie Lee Curtis and Haley Bennett and Gena Gershon and Cheyenne Jackson and Edgar Ramirez! (Not to mention it was co-written by the dude who made the phenom Chernobyl series!) Oh my! So who are you to question Queen Cate? In summation...

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

Death Proof (2007)

One of my favorite movie endings of all time!

A happy birthday to Kurt Russell today.

Hit the jump for links to all of the previous Ways Not To Die...

Quote of the Day

"When I was 22, I came to Rome without a penny. And I was helping a photographer, and one day a friend of his who was a photographer from De Laurentiis studios asked to take close-ups of me. Those photos ended up on the desk of John Huston. He asked me to meet him in this hotel […] and he looks at me and says, ‘Now undress!’ He wanted to see my body because I was playing Abel (in the Bible) and he needed to see. He looked at me very carefully and then said I could go."

Oh what a delightful surprise for a Thursday -- the website Little White Lies has a new chat with the actor and eternally gorgeous movie legend Franco Nero up where he talks about his 60-plus year career, including that beautiful and precious nugget of information there about its auspicious beginnings, and... I didn't know you had it in you, John Huston. Nero also talks about working with Fassbinder on Querelle -- he says Rainer came up to him in a bar and told him he was going to be in his next three movies -- as well as Tarantino, I recommend checking it out sooner rather than not sooner!

My Favorite Horror Movies! Of Ever!

It's the day I've been waiting for slash dreading -- over at Final Girl my beloved pal Stacie Ponder has shared with everyone my Top 20 Favorite Horror Movies list! Actually my list is actually 21 because I changed my mind after sending it and she gave me the bonus. On that note I say "dreading" because there's nothing more difficult in all this world than narrowing down this sort of thing, and my list could have been one thousand titles long. You make all sorts of qualifications in this sort of whittling down process -- you want to represent yourself, as a whole person, so entries that feel redundant get excised in an effort at a larger vision, if that makes sense? 

Anyway click on over, see my 21 picks with a few rambling thoughts about each one tossed in for good bad measure, and make sure you keep checking Final Girl all month long as Stacie's annual "Shocktober" celebration keeps churning out the quality content. And make sure you're listening to Stacie's podcast Gaylords of Darkness (with the wonderful Anthony Hudson) too! It is literally -- I'm not even exaggerating -- the only podcast I listen to. I'm not a podcast person. But Gaylords got me through quarantine and I'm now a hardcore addict to their weekly fix.

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

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Zoller: Merci for hoisting a German night.
Shosanna: I don't have a choice, but you're welcome.
Zoller: Do you chose the German films yourself?
Shosanna: Oui.
Zoller: Then my merci stands.
I love the Riefenstahl mountain films, especially,
Pizu Palu. It's nice to see a French girl
who's a admirer of Riefenstahl.
Shosanna: "Admire", would not be the adjective
I would use to describe my feelings
towards Fraulein Riefenstahl.
Zoller: But you do admire the director.
Pabst, don't you? That's why you included
his name on the marquee.
Shosanna: I'm French.
We respect directors in our country.

A very happy 42 to Daniel Brühl today! I just saw a trailer for the second season of The Alienist on TV earlier this week, which got me fairly excited as I loved the first season -- did you? The second season, subtitled The Angel of Darkness after Caleb Carr's second book, will premiere on TNT on July 26th. I hope our dour detectives get even pervier this go around -- I demand more of Daniel Brühl demanding that Luke Evans put on his boots. Here's that trailer:

A Movie About Cheerleaders

.

In this week's edition of "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" at The Film Experience I found myself stuck on one of my faves, Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof and the surprising ball of sunshine that is Rosario Dawson's Abernathy. I love to talk about this movie almost as much as I love to watch it so be prepared for a lot if you click over! Like QT himself I just can't help jabbering on until everybody's left the room. Damn do I love this flick.

.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Jackie Brown (1997)

Max Cherry: You're rationalizing. 

Jackie Brown: Well that's what you do to go 

through with the shit you start, you rationalize. 

A very happy 71st birthday to the great Pam Grier,

giver of maybe my favorite Tarantino performance.  

.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Gattaca (1997)

Vincent: A year is a long time. 

Irene: Not so long. Just once around the sun. 

This quote from Gattaca feels meaningful to me this morning for three reasons. One, I was just struck a few days ago with a real strong urge to re-watch Gattaca, right around the time I re-watched David Cronenberg's film eXistenZ -- Jude Law and sci-fi gibberish of the late 90s, I suppose. Anyway I haven't re-watched Gattaca just yet but the time is nigh, real nigh, I think. 

I ♥️ David Cronenberg pic.twitter.com/qBaxJ5oiBx

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 21, 2020

The second reason this quote from Gattaca feels meaningful to me this morning is its relativity towards the concept of "Time" fits right in giving the quarantined state of existence we're all currently living under -- I find myself waking up every day from dreams full of vague crowds milling about, going nowhere, and then spend my days leashed to my couch watching the arc of the sun across the boards of my apartment floor. What is a year anyway?

The third and most important reason -- at least as far as this post's reason for being -- that this quote from Gattaca feels meaningful to me this morning is today is Uma Thurman's 50th birthday. And in case you didn't realize it since she's only worked sporadically over the last decade, Uma Thurman fucking rules. Here are my faves...

My 5 Favorite Uma Thurman Performances

Mia Wallace, Pulp Fiction

Beatrix Kiddo, Kill Bill 1 & 2

Poison Ivy, Batman & Robin

(And yes, I am being serious)

Cécile de Volanges, Dangerous Liaisons

Mrs. H, Nymphomaniac

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

What are your favorite Uma Thurman performances?

.

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

.

Oh man she's not gonna listen is she? 

She's gonna open the box...

You had one thing to do, and that was NOT open the box, lady!

Jeez! Hit the jump for the rest of this scene...