Thursday's Ways Not To Die

It's always a shame when David Corenswet has to go but we do sure like watching him walk away. Hit the jump for the rest...

Today's Mood

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Pearl (2022)

Pearl: Is it legal?

The Projectionist: Doing it, yeah. Filming it, no.

A happy 31 to David Corenswet, who can be seen in Twisters next week (holla) and who'll be offering up a whole different flying sensation next year when James Gunn's fresh new Superman movie comes out -- it was pretty much predestined the first minute we saw David in Ryan Murphy's Netflix series Hollywood that he was manufactured in a factory to play Superman, and I'm happy that turned out better for him than it did for Matt Bomer. (Not that I feel bad in any way for Matt Bomer -- he is Matt Bomer.) I suppose I should hedge my bets and not be so pre-enthusiastic about his casting a full year-plus out -- this movie very well could suck -- but I like to be positive. Especially where beautiful men are involved. (See all of our previous David Corenswet posts here if you need a lot of cold hard proof re: that fact.)

Anyway it's also timely to look back at Pearl today obviously since the third film in Ti West's trilogy MaXXXine came out over this past weekend -- and read my very disappointed thoughts on that film here if you missed them. As I did mention there I did see the movie a second time over the weekend and sad to say it only underlined my issues with the film, which is handily the weakest of the trilogy -- there's just no sustained tension, no emotional development. It's just a bunch of stuff happening while Mia Goth remains cool as shit. I did add a couple extraneous positive thoughts to a Twitter thread I have going -- basically the movie is kind of interesting on a subtextual level because it feels like a movie about being trapped in the horror genre and wanting to break free. But I might just be galaxy-braining all that, looking for some way to make sense of the slop heap they released.

MaXXXine, You Forgot To Put On The Red Light

I thought George Miller's Furiosa was going to be my greatest disappointment of 2024, but here comes Ti West's MaXXXine to kick Furiosa outta the way with one high-heeled boot and snatch that feeble crown. Both subsequent films in franchises that are named after their leading ladies -- does this mean that I hate Strong Female Characters? Or maybe I just hate shitty movies? Y'all decide -- I'm too spent from drowning in disappointment this whole damned summer.

As a fairly rabid fan of both X and Pearl -- I've never been able to choose a favorite between the two as they hit very different joy buttons making it depend on my mood -- it brings me absolutely nothing but pain to share that MaXXXine did next to nothing for me. The giddiness I felt for the first half an hour or so here watching Mia Goth klick ass -- and even though this movie has very little idea what to do with her Mia Goth never stops kicking ass -- speeded out of me like air fizzling from a gently pricked balloon.

I'm seeing it a second time next week and I am fervently hoping that I'll be less down on it after that, but as it stands now on a single watch MaXXXine just feels like whiff after whiff -- it sets up what oughta be homerun after homerun and then just spins its wheels around them, unsure where to go or what to say or do. Nothing feels very propulsive, or meaningful -- ideas are introduced only to suffocate from lack of oxygen.

Stylistically it's sometimes fun, but only on a surface-level -- yes okay you're using the Brian De Palma split-screens, but where is any sense of De Palma's sleaze and perversion? Nowhere, that's where. It's a heap of red herrings lit up by neon signs. There's no urgency, no danger -- Maxine herself is such a force we never fear for her, and she remains so singlemindedly antisocial that the "friends" she's made, the ones who are in danger, never register enough for us to care when their times to bleed come.

I know there's been some retroactive appreciation for Scream 3 over the past several years -- mostly due to Parker Posey's hilarious turn in it -- but all I could think of watching MaXXXine was Scream 3 and not in a good way. There are half-baked meta allusions about the brutality of behind-the-scenes Hollywood yadda yadda but neither film makes them amount to much. And MaXXXine doesn't even have a Parker Posey to rescue it. It's Scream 3 without Parker Posey! Imagine!

Of course Goth is never bad and she gives it her all, but there's just nowhere for Maxine the character as written to go -- not as this movie shows it anyway. The pieces of the mystery that she finds herself in click into their expected place with a complete lack of surprise, or oomph -- MaXXXine feels like everybody cashed their checks and was halfway out the door before the first clapboard could slap Action. This was so fucking depressing.

Great Moments In Movie Staches

Since MaXXXine is out in a couple of days (more on that in a bit) and I keep seeing pictures of David Corenswet shooting the new Superman movie on my social media timelines (have you seen the photo of his Clark Kent yet?) it seemed a nice moment to glance back at David's bestached period fuckboi look in Pearl -- we had it so fine then! So, so fine.

46 Days

There is the official poster for Ti West's MaXXXine (via), the third film is what A24 is calling his "X Trilogy" but which I prefer to call the "Triple X Trilogy." It just has a better ring to me and it isn't just named after the first film. It broadens the scope. Anyway MaXXXine is out on July 5th, aka 46 days from today, hence this post's title. I have still managed to avoid watching the film's trailer -- we'll see if I can make it that whole way. Although hopefully I can weasel my way into a press screening well before that. Tomorrow would be good! I would vbe happy with seeing the movie tomorrow, A24!

The Kings of Kindness

That there is the first official poster for Yorgos Lanthimos' Kinds of Kindness, designed by the great Vasilis Marmatakis who's done most of Yorgos' previous posters -- and like with all the other ones I'm gonna end up buying this beauty too! Anyway along with that they dropped a new teaser for the movie, you can watch it down below. I have not watched it myself -- I watched the first teaser about five thousand times and now I am done watching things until I am watching the movie on June 21st. In similar news no I haven't watched the trailer for Ti West's MaXXXine yet and I don't think I shall! I decided I will watch it after I watch the movie in full. I don't need trailers for these movies -- I just need these movies dammit! 

Pic of the Day

If more pop up in a bit I'll post them but for now here is our first image from MaXXXine, the third movie in Ti West's trilogy following X and Pearl -- that's Mia Goth there taking her X character Maxine to the 1980s (duh) alongside the singer Halsey, perhaps playing "Skinny Marie" the dead prostitute from the beginning of Pretty Woman. I am keeping my nonsense Skinny Marie movie dreams alive til the very end. Anyway still no exact release date on this but my guess is probably fall. (via)

This Cast is Rated X For Exxxtremely Awesome

As you can see at the bottom of this post A24 put out a new little teaser for Ti West's MaXXXine today -- that would be the third film in trilogy that's so far gifted us with X and Pearl, as originally teased at the end credits of the latter -- and really all it lets us know is the cast. But the cast! THE CAST!!! Besides Mia Goth -- which let's be clear, Mia is enough on her own to buy a ticket -- this one will co-star Elizabeth f'ing Debicki, the musicians Moses Sumney and Halsey, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Espisito, and Kevin f'ing Bacon as the Friday the 13th Slasher-O.G. in residence. We're still only getting a "Coming Soon" when it comes to dating this hunka burnin love but let's hope it's sooner rather than never. Debicki! 

Hollywood, here she comes. #MaXXXine pic.twitter.com/EURttoG5hM

— A24 (@A24) April 5, 2023

Quote of the Day

"I love Andrea Arnold. I think she’s an incredible director and somewhat underrated. I watched “Fish Tank” right around the time I was filming “Nymphomaniac,” which was the first film that I ever did. I found “Fish Tank” to be as influential for me as the experience of filming with Lars, and both of those components in that period of time when I was 18 years old really formed my blueprint of what it is that I’m trying to achieve as an actor and the sorts of directors that I strive to work with, and the kind of stories that I want to tell and the kind of filmmaking that most resonates with me. That’s what excites me most is very little plot, extremely character-driven stories where there’s really not much going on outside of whatever it is that a couple of people in the film are going through. For me, that’s always the best cinema."

That was Mia Goth's answer when asked who she'd like to work with by Variety -- my lord, this woman has stolen my heart. Andrea Arnold and Mia Goth together -- can you imagine? Oh make it happen, sweet cinema gods, make this collaboration happen! Anyway the entire chat is worth a read -- she talks about how she chooses projects because of the director and she tells a little bit about what the third film in the X and Pearl trilogy, the one called MaXXXine, will be like. Mia forever, baby. Here's an old picture to make us smile:

A Man For All Reasons

Although his role in Pearl was small I sure did like getting to stare at David Corenswet some alongside Mia Goth's tremendous work in that terrific Ti West entertainment, and yesterday came news that we'll be getting more opportunities of that sort, phew -- Deadline's reporting he'll star in a new FX series from producers Danny Strong (aka Buffy Nerd Jonathan Forever) and one Darren Aronofsky called The Answers, based on the 2018 book by Catherine Lacey (anybody read it) which they compare to The Handmaid's Tale. Here's the plot:

"... set in the near future, where a heartbroken young woman, Mary, joins an enigmatic experiment that promises to hack love, but after moving into an idyllic, secluded location with her fellow female participants, she and the other women start questioning what’s really happening in the experiment, and why they’ve all been tasked with dating the same mysterious man, Christopher Skye (Corenswet). Christopher Skye, a movie star, is a man of contradictions. When we first meet him, we are so taken with his talent, charisma, and raw power, we absolutely believe he is one of the world’s most eligible bachelors. However, the more we get to know Christopher, the more we see his wild neuroses and his deep despair. This is a man who, on the surface, has everything, but underneath feels empty."

Sounds like Sci-Fi The Bachelor, right? Well even though I am sure there's a traumatic twist I can think of far worse things than being forced to date David Corenswet. Far, far worse things. They better have really awful things up their sleeves is my point. I mean Oscar Isaac was really fucking evil in Ex Machina and they barely got me on the robot's side on that one, given how blisteringly hot he was while simultaneously being so evil. Hey don't glare at me -- I was irreparably scarred by childhood trauma, I'm allowed to have some sordid impulses dammit. And believe me I'm much more boring in practice than in theory.

Aaaanyway this isn't the only prestige series back on a recent bestselling book that Corenswet has lined up -- he's also co-starring opposite Natalie Portman no less in Lady in the Lake, an adaptation of Laura Lipman's 2019 novel about a housewife in 1960s Baltimore who tries to solve the murder of a woman that nobody's trying to solve. This series is being run by Alma Har'el, director of Honey Boy, and has already finished production. And then there's a romantic film called The Greatest Hits that David is starring in with actress Lucy Boynton, which I only bring up because the two of them were photographed romping on a beach in their underpants back in October and I forgot to post it! Goodness gracious! So hit the jump for a couple dozen photos of David Corenswet in soaking wet boxer briefs, if you please...

David Corenswet Five Times

Okay so who saw Pearl this past weekend? Raise your hands! Oh wait, this is the internet -- I can't actually see you. Well "raise your hands" means "leave a comment on this post and tell me what you thought about it" then. How's that? I wrote up some words on the movie last week which were laudatory as could be, but I have to admit I was feeling off my game last week; I wasn't super happy with what I wrote, but I wanted to write something before the film hit theaters to convince y'all it was to be seen. But if Mia Goth giving a horror performance for the ages isn't enough (or if Martin Scorsese raving about the movie isn't enough!) then maybe this hot-ass David Corenswet here will be now to push you over the edge? I've posted photos from this photo-shoot before -- right here and right here -- but I just stumbled upon five more outtakes today! Lucky us! Hit the jump for 'em...

Pearl with the World Cheering

Lord love a Goth fan. We've been trumpeting our love for the actress Mia Goth around these parts for years now, although it's a surprise to look at her IMDb page today and realize just what a brief filmography she's still rocking at this point -- only twelve films to her name and that is including Luca Guadagnino's short fashion film The Staggering Girl which didn't really call on anybody save Julianne Moore to give a "performance" more than it asked them to "look good in outfits." And of course Mia Goth is good at looking good in outfits -- excellent even -- but that's just part of her dramatic appeal, starting and ending with that astonishing Shelley-Duvall-esque face of hers that can swing from hayseed to high fashion with just a tilt of the chin. 

Mia had caught my eye right early off the bat with her first turns on film, bursting out of the gate with Lars Von Trier's Nyphomaniac in 2013 (is that movie really about to turn ten?) and then, even more vitally, her co-lead role in Stephan Fingleton's 2015 film The Survivalist -- now there's a movie that's deserving of a reevaluation! I mean I reviewed it at Tribeca that year and loved it so I don't have to reevaluate anything -- I was there and called it correctly! Goth, alongside the great Olwen Fouéré and Martin McCann, all turn in powerhouse turns in a film that actually feels prescient about pandemic times in retrospect. People should talk about The Survivalist more, dammit. 

Anyway it was Goth's other turn in a Guadagnino film that finally and fully turned me into an unrelenting fanboy for the actress -- in Luca's glorious Suspiria reimagining, the best film of 2018, Goth somehow almost steals the entire film away from her showier co-stars, which is saying an awful lot when Tilda Swinton has an extra baby-arm attached to her. And speaking of, one does wonder if her jumping on the chance to play an old lady in X was at least partially inspired by the fun she saw Tilda having -- can somebody ask her that, please? I keep waiting to see it brought up in an interview. 

But yes, let's get to that old lady. I know many people personally who watched X and it never registered for them that the actress playing Maxine the youthful porn star was one and the same playing that scary horny old woman Pearl, so that's not an old wive's tale (so to speak) from where I stand -- they really did fool people with that one. I saw it with my own eyes! And now we get the prequel story -- Pearl (out this weekend) takes us back to the year 1918; Ti West wrote the script while in COVID lockdown and here takes full advantage of the Spanish Flu Epidemic setting he's transported us to as a sturdy little echo. Characters are isolated from each other and distrustful -- Pearl's father has been paralyzed by his exposure and requires full-time care, while Pearl's mother is high-strung and paranoid, demanding the keenest attention to protocol. 

And like so many of us this isolation's gotten to them. Nobody more than Pearl, whose boundless imagination has been left to fester there on the farm, cut off from everyone. She dances for the sheep and cows, convinced she's a magnificent star, and if any of them step out of line -- as one unimpressed goose quick finds out -- it's pitchfork o'clock! When Pearl does sneak into town to watch movies she gets starry-eyed at the slightest hint of razzle-dazzle; deeply convinced she's got that special "It!" that all the It-Girls rock it's hard not to read Pearl as a stand-in for an entire generation of TikTok'ers who believe they're one viral video away from mega-millions, and who then utterly crumble into rage and tears at the first whiff of resistance or rejection. 

In that way Pearl is a old-fashioned warning tract about being careful with your dreams -- this movie is very Wizard of Oz y'all, just instead of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" it's David Corenswet pressing his pants-bulge onto the back of Pearl's dress. Cuz Pearl doesn't want to work hard, she just wants to be rewarded for simple want, believing her want is bigger than anybody else's simply by virtue of it being her own. And everybody who points that out has to go. That said Pearl is proof-positive that Mia Goth's got those goods that Pearl can only stab toward -- Ti West has cottoned on to Goth's greatness, bless him, and given her the demented showcase her talent's long deserved and cried out for. And she kills it, pun intended -- what a turn, what an actress. I could watch ten of these things. 

Good Morning, World

I was reminded last night while watching Pearl, Ti West's slasher-sequel to X that is out this very weekend -- and more on that soon enough, don't worry -- that I had this photo of Pearl co-star and utterly-exquisite-human-specimen David Corenswet sitting in a folder unposted, and so here that is. I had immediately tweeted it out when he's himself had shared it on his Instagram but that's not good enough, not for a photograph of such esteemed stature as that.

Kid Cudi Sock Stuff

Oh man today is gonna be a busy one! No sooner had I hit send on that Lee Pace photoshoot for GQ then did my already-horned-up eyeballs fall upon this Esquire shoot of musician turned actor Kid Cudi looking sleazy-fine and pulling some old school Red Hot Chili sock shenanigans! We missed that one -- let's bring that one back! Anyway I'm terminally un-hip when it comes to music and don't listen to most new stuff so I've never heard any of Cudi's stuff -- I only know him as a friend-of-Timmy and then as an actor thanks to Luca Guadagnino's We Are Who We Are series and to Ti West's horror flick X, but I've liked him in both of those projects. (I also saw him in person at a press screening of the latter and dude is teeeeeny-tiny -- I almost stepped on him.) Anyway this is a hot shoot of a hot dude, hit the jump for it all...

5 Off My Head: The Great and Powerful Greta

Today we wish actor writer director extraordinaire Greta Gerwig a happy 39th birthday! If I was a smart person -- big if -- I'd hold off on doing this post for another twelve months and ring in her 40th with this... not to mention that'll be just a couple of weeks after her seemingly inexplicable Barbie movie comes out! But I feel like, you know, it's that thing where you don't know if the world will be around in a year? Yeah that thing. So I will do this now. What is "this" you ask? it's a list of my five favorite film performances by Greta, that's what. It's been too long since she's graced us with her wondrous screen presence -- six full fucking years, that's how long! The only movie she's been in since 20th Century Women was Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs and that was just voice-work. Of course that is thankfully all about to change with Noah Baumbach's adaptation of White Noise out this fall...

... which, speaking of, NYFF just announced that movie is opening their fest on September 30th! And that there above is the first photo of her and Adam Driver (plus Killing of a Sacred Deer star Raffey Cassidy alongside I am guessing Alessandro Nivola's son Sam behind her? And maybe that's the other Nivola child May behind Greta? I love that Alessandro and his two kids all have roles in this movie.) (But where's Alessandro? I wanna see Alessandro!) Anyway that's a big thing to look forward to coming right at us. Until then we take stock of Greta Past, with...

My 5 Favorite Greta Gerwig Performances

Frances, Frances Ha

"I'm so embarrassed. I'm not a real person yet."

Brooke, Mistress America

"I don't give a shit because I'm not

a friend of Tennessee Williams!"

Florence, Greenberg

"I was thinking this morning that I've been

out of college now for as long as I was in, and

nobody cares if I get up in the morning."

Megan, The House of the Devil

"We're just dropping you out here

in the middle of where ever..."

Abbie, 20th Century Women

"Whatever you think your life is going to be like,

just know, it's not gonna be anything like that."

Runners-up: Damsels in Distress, Wiener-dog,

Baghead, Hannah Takes the Stairs

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What are your favorite Greta Gerwig roles?

Pearl's Got Herself a Man Y'all

I don't know if the IMDb page for Ti West's X prequel Pearl had this information included yesterday when I posted the new poster and told y'all the trailer was coming -- I did go to the IMDb page yesterday to share the link but I didn't scroll down to see if any of the film's cast had been announced beyond Mia Goth, who we already knew about. Point being if I had noticed that actor David Corenswet -- who made an immediate impact on me in Ryan Murphy's Hollywood series in 2020 for reasons that are obvious in the photo above -- was included in the cast I uhh would have mentioned this news then.

I also might have gotten up from my desk, taken the elevator downstairs from my office to the street called Broadway upon which I work, and run up and down both lanes screaming this news. So maybe it's for the best that I see the news today when I am feeling super lazy. But yippee! This news makes me happy! You can make out (with?) beautiful beautiful perfect David in the trailer a couple of times, which I have for you down below, although it's all truly The Mia Goth Show, which is also as it should be. Let's just hope that like in X the movie leers as its menfolk again, what with a man-folk like David around!

Pearl is out on September 16th!

Before Swine

If you're anything like me (and apologies if so) then you've been waiting for word on the surprise prequel to Ti West's X that was announced during that film's closing credits -- called Pearl it will take us back to the character played in the film by Mia Goth under a ton of make-up (that is technically a spoiler but I don't care about spoiling a movie that's been out so long, it's on you at this point). Anyway A24 is finally giving us some news -- there's the poster above which they just dropped on Insta, and news that a trailer's arriving tomorrow. No word on a release date for the movie but as I've stated before my guess is Halloween-time. So come back tomorrow and I'll share the trailer! Read my review of X right here if you missed it the first time. Now I wanna watch X again!

Oops Forgot To Mention...

... that Ti West's horror movie X hit blu-ray yesterday! You can buy it right here. Martin Henderson's itty bitty bikini briefs really kind of demand that you do. And here is my review from way back if you missed that. I've seen the movie a couple more times since then and it's quickly become a real fave. Still no real idea when A24 will release the secretly-filed prequel Pearl that we only found about during X's credits, but I think they'd be smart to drop it at Halloween don't y'all? Go harass them about it then. I can't do all of the harassing!

An X On Your House

Quick update on Ti West's terrific horror movie X (which co-stars actor Martin Henderson, seen above just because why the hell not) in case you missed the news elsewhere -- it's hitting blu-ray on May 24th! You can pre-order it on Amazon right this minute, and I imagine that price point of 40 bucks will drop before the thing ships in fifty-five days if that seems steep to you. (As it should -- forty bucks is ridiculous.) Here is my review of the movie -- I dug it, and have been dying to re-watch it ever since(especially with the news of the prequel already secretly shot). I hope it hits streaming even sooner, and I imagine it will given the route these things have settled into these days.