Who's Getting Safe in August? We All Are!

I don't mean to besmirch the rest of Criterion's just today announced line-up for August 2026 but when the headliner is Todd Haynes' 1995 masterpiece Safe getting a 4K upgrade I'm going to be somewhat hyper-focused. Haynes has several masterpieces under his belt but I'd say this is the crown-jewel -- or to continue the belt metaphor this would be the buckle. And now I need to own a belt buckle that has that famous image from the poster of that woman in her white body-suit lurching like Bigfoot through a field. (Which reminds me that I own a copy of the original Safe poster and how the hell is that not hanging on my wall?) Anyway I couldn't cough up enough superlatives about this movie -- I think it's one of the greatest American films ever made, and it only feels more resonant and affecting with every year that passes. While I'm still dying for Velvet Goldmine to get an upgrade already -- long long long overdue, that one -- the ocassion of Safe in 4K is a hallelujah moment if ever there was one. That lands on August 4th.

Safe aside August will also bring a double-feature of Barbara Kopple documentaries -- her most celerated one Harlan County USA from 1976 is getting the 4K upgrade from a previous release, while 1990's American Dream, about a labor strike in Austin in the mid0-80s is hitting the Collection for the first time. I've never seen the latter so that'll be something to look forward to. 

Next up is French legend Bertrand Tavernier's 1981 classic Coup de torchon starring Isabelle Huppert in a Jim Thompson adaptation about a corrupt cop in West Africa and the dangerous and unprectiable gal he falls for. "Dangerous and Unpredictable" -- has there ever been  a quicker distillation of The Whole Huppert Thing? After that there's James Gray's directorial debut Little Odessa from 1994 -- I have never seen this! Could this be the movie that convinces me James Gray deserves the hype people throw on him? Because I have yet to really get it. With a cast that includes Tim Roth, Vanessa Redgrave, Maximillian Schell, and Edward Furlong... uhh I don't know where I was going with that. With every name that list of names got weirder and weirder and threw me off. Anyway the final August release from our favorite physical media barons is a box-set of documentaries from the Japanese legends Kazuo Hara & Sachiko Kobayashi -- Extreme Private Eros: Love Song 1974 and The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On have both been on my To Watch list for years and years so I embrace this golden opportunity to fill them holes. In summation -- SAFE IN 4K!!!!!!

Charles Melton Three Times

I have chosen to believe that Charles Melton received career advice from his May December co-star Natalie Portman while making that Todd Haynes masterpiece and that's why he's become the "fashion brand ambassador" for several brands in the past couple of years -- not because I don't trust Charles to make his own choices, but it entertains me whenever I think about those ridiculous Natalie Portman perfume commercials for Dior and it makes me chuckle picturing her taking him aside and saying, "This. Do this." Anyway these new photos for Davidoff (thx Mac) are hot as fuck -- no surprise given it's a topless Charles Melton! I probably prefer the sweatier stachier Coach commercial he did just because I have my own personal fetishes but either way god he pretty. Hit the jump for them all...

Danny Ramirez Twelve Times

It's been about 77 weeks since Joaquin Phoenix bitched out of Todd Haynes' gay romance film De Noche in August of 2024 -- that's 77 weeks of one of our greatest living filmmakers' time and output gone, just gone, so let's take a fresh moment to mourn it (all while cursing Joaquin's name under our breath) (or even over our breath). Okay -- better news, better mood, today Variety has officially confirmed the rumor floating about since last summer; that Joaquin's Eddington co-star Pedro Pascal is indeed taking over the abandoned role opposite Danny Ramirez (who bless him has kept himself tightly attached this entire time) and shooting will kick off next month. It's been so very long since all of this began -- did I mention seventy-seven weeks? And that was just the moment the project fell apart; there were months of speculation before that -- that I think I should re-share the plot of the film:

"The story, which echoes classic noirs like “Chinatown,” charts the passionate and unexpected love affair between a cop (Pascal) and a boarding school teacher (Ramirez) in 1930s Los Angeles, when the city is overtaken by corruption and the world is on the brink of war. The two men become targets of the city’s corrupt political machine and are forced to flee to Mexico."

Sounds killer! (No I am not punning on Todd's longstanding relationship with Killer Films, although that's bonus points.) But seriously we love Haynes doing period films and 1930s Noir-tinged L.A. is certainly new for him -- I'll admit I'm detecting a few notes of Luca Guadagnino's ex-pat age-gap homosexual paean Queer in that description (especially their venture south of the border) but as much as I love Queer I have not a single doubt that Haynes will do his own wonderful thing. Break a (Joaquin's) leg(s), Todd! And now in celebration of this news, an older but never-here-posted Danny photoshoot (via) I will share with you after the jump...

Papa Pedro All Up on Lil Danny's Back

A week ago I told you that Pedro Pascal might be taking over Joaquin Phoenix's last-second-abandoned role in Todd Haynes' next movie, which would see him making sweet sweet love to Danny Ramirez. And now we have this photo (via) of Pedro and Danny together? WHAT COULD IT MEAN???? I mean obviously we know what it means -- they're fucking. Cinematically! Cinematically of course. I would never insinuate otherwise. Not without photos. And whoever has those photos you can find my email address in the profile section of the sidebar!

Pedro Pascal's Gay For Play

Let's all make a pact right now -- I'm going to try to post this news without going off the edge, and y'all try to do the same in the comments. Even though I know y'all commenters are maybe even more tired of Pedro Pascal's glass closet omnipresence than I am. And I am very. I'm just mostly of the mind that anything that gets a new Todd Haynes movie greenlit is worth praise, even if Pedro's coming at it with a lot of baggage. That said the project itself has baggage, since I'm sure y'all remember how Joaquin Phoenix bailed on this at the very verrrrry last minute last August and caused the entire thing's collapse. Baggage meets baggage. Anyway I've just now realized I haven't mentioned what I'm even talking about lol -- all y'all who aren't as online as me are probably like WTF, but I doubt many WT-Fuckers are visiting MNPP -- I have a knowledgable clientele, baby. But yes let's step back -- Pedro Pascal might be taking over the lead role in Todd Haynes' gay movie that got nuked when Joaquin dropped out of it. It has a title now that I don't recall seeing before -- De Noche -- and actor Danny Ramirez, who was set to be the co-lead in its earlier incarnation, will be coming back. Good for Danny -- I felt especially bad for him. I can't say I'm looking forward to another round of interviews from Mr. Pascal where he tells us all the details of the death of a close relative one second and then pivots to "I keep my private life private!" as soon as his sexuality's broached, but maybe he'll answer the fucking question for this. Time will tell! In summation, hey there Danny Ramirez...

Keep Gay Hope Alive

A lot of people got dicked over by Joaquin Phoenix's sudden exit a couple of days before shooting from Todd Haynes next-film-to-be, but I felt especially bad for actor Danny Ramirez who was set to play the lead opposite Phoenix in the gay romance -- this could've proved a huge break for the Top Gun Maverick actor, probably akin to what May December did for Charles Melton. That shit's gotta sting  for an actor -- there are only so many chances like this that spring up in one's career, if any. Anyway Variety spoke to Ramirez today and got a few quotes from him on the debacle and he keeps it respectful but yeah, obviously he's disappointed. The choice bit though is he does not say the movie is as totally 100% dead as producer Christine Vachon has been maintaining -- when asked about the movie's chances he said, "The most recent update is ‘hopefully.'" Obviously that could be Haynes & Co, or his agent and people even, being nice to Ramirez and trying to not break his heart all at once, but let's just all choose "hopefully" today and keep the hope alive. I know Joaquin (inxplicably) brings funding but there are surely other big names who'd want to work with Todd f'ing Haynes!

Quote of the Day

"It was tragic in a lot of ways... The most tragic part about it is that Todd Haynes is 62. He’s not old, right? But there is a finite number of films that he’ll be able to do in his lifetime... [He is] one of the most extraordinary film artists of his generation, and the idea that his time was wasted and that a movie is not a result of those years of working closely with Joaquin… That is the tragedy to me. And that I can’t get over, that we as a cultural community, lost the opportunity to have another movie by Todd Haynes. That is just criminal.”

That is Todd Haynes' longtime producing partner -- and general fucking movie icon -- Christine Vachon talking in broad terms at the San Sebastian Film Fest this week about the bullshit that unfolded with the gay romance that Haynes had been working on with Joaquin Pheonix for the past few years -- the one that Joaquin backed out of just a couple of days before shooting was set to begin. And that is basically exactly what I said at the time. It's uhhh actually weirdly similar:

"That said this especially pisses me off because Todd Haynes is 63 years old and probably only has a handful of movies left in him, and this neurotic douchebag just wasted more or less two years of Haynes' creative life for nothing. It's not like it's getting easier for iconoclasts like Haynes to make movies. Joaquin can go roll around in the twenty million bucks he got from Warner Brothers for the Joker sequel -- Todd Haynes is back to the drawing board, ekeing out financing for whatever small movie he can cobble together next."

Anyway preach, Christine. You -- we -- said it!

The Trouble With Joaquin Phoenix

Thanks to to commenter yesterday who reminded me that I needed to address this annoying news (it dropped over the weekend but it seems that I'd already begun blocking it out since it makes me so angry) -- on Friday it was announced (or more likely leaked) that Joaquin Phoenix had abandoned the hot-and-heavy 1930s-set gay drama that he was about to film with legendary director Todd Haynes. And when I say "about to film" I really mean just that -- they were five days from the shoot beginning, which means it would've started filming tomorrow. 

I posted about this movie just once previously, when Todd Haynes first talked about it in an interview back in September -- by now you probably know the details: that Joaquin brought it to Haynes himself as an idea and they'd work-shopped it out and Joaquin was pushing to make it NC-17 levels of sexually explicit. But for some reason -- a reason we haven't gotten told yet -- Joaquin balked and walked. I've heard lots of conjecture -- that Joaquin became afraid of the sex scenes or that Joaquin wanted the sex scenes to go further than Haynes even wanted to take them (I have a hard time buying that one), along with various other theories. But nobody who seems to have real answers is giving them out. All we have is Killer Films iconic producer Christine Vachon calling the experience a nightmare on social media:

Fuck Joaquin pic.twitter.com/vxazIQIrIE

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 10, 2024

Joaquin has done this before -- most directors have spoken about what a total pain in the ass he is, and he's had to be dragged back to movies kicking and screaming several times. I would say I don't understand why he keeps getting work, but indeed the work, when they get it from him, does speak for itself. I don't know that it would be worth it to me, as a creative person being forced to deal with him, but that's on other people to choose -- I don't have to deal with him, I just get to enjoy the fruits of their painful labor. If those directors feel it's worth the effort, it's their choice. Pro-choice, baby!

That said this especially pisses me off because Todd Haynes is 63 years old and probably only has a handful of movies left in him, and this neurotic douchebag just wasted more or less two years of Haynes' creative life for nothing. It's not like it's getting easier for iconoclasts like Haynes to make movies. Joaquin can go roll around in the twenty million bucks he got from Warner Brothers for the Joker sequel -- Todd Haynes is back to the drawing board, ekeing out financing for whatever small movie he can cobble together next. And I don't want to limit my outrage to Haynes' experience -- he has a filmography of notable masterpieces stretching back decades and a million actors who will happily sign up to work with him. Haynes will be okay, especially compared to all of the nameless crew members that just got dicked out of months of work because of, as a wise man once put it...

Anyway I hope Carol star and Joaquin wife Rooney Mara spent all weekend smacking the shit out of Joaquin -- he has it coming. I also wish the best to Top Gun Maverick actor Danny Ramirez, who was set to be Joaquin's co-star in the movie, which surely would've been a huge break for him, probably akin to what happened with Charles Melton in May December. Go and build a whole movie around Danny for us, Todd!

Cory Michael Smith Fifteen Times

Believe me, I am appreciative of the fact that I am following up a post about being fine with straight actors playing gay (as long as they're Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal anyway) with two posts in a row about queer actors -- call it my queer penance! Not that I wouldn't want to post about Cole Escola & Conrad Ricamora, or not that I wouldn't be posting this Numero Netherlands photoshoot of May December scene-stealer Cory Michael Smith. I haven't paid a ton of attention to CMS in the past, but he was so good in May December (and I did really love his movie 1985)... and how did I just remember he also showed up to steal a scene in Carol too? Not once during the May December awards run did that thought occur to me. Huh. And CMS was great in Olive Kitteredge too so I really should be giving him more attention at this point. My bad. Anyway hit the jump for the very hot photos...

Charles Melton Five Times

Yes I posted some Charles Melton photos yesterday -- what of it? The May December beauty didn't get his deserved Oscar nomination so we'll give him the next best thing, i.e. lots of horned-up attention. These brand new photos (unlike yesterday's, which were a vintage of a whole four years old) are from WSJ (via) -- you do wonder if they photographed him thinking they were getting an Oscar nominee, given their drop right here in the middle of that moment. It wasn't just Charles who was cheated, but the poor Wall Street Journal! Won't someone think of the poor Wall Street Journal, for god's sake? Eesh don't mind me I am in a really weird mood today. Hit the jump for the photos....

Charles Melton Twelve Times

This photoshoot of Mr. Melton is actually a couple of years old -- it was for ICON magazine back in 2020, well before Todd Haynes' May December came out and Charles Melton wasn't suddenly just one of the hot guys on Riverdale but actually a legitimately talented actor who also happened to be one of the hot guys on Riverdale. Still I was posting Charles Melton photographs back then...

... since I don't know if you have noticed but "hot guy on Riverdale" is usually enough for me. So I'm surprised I didn't post this then, is my point. But I did not, and that's probably for the best because I now have a bunch of outtakes to go along with whatever was officially in the magazine. So thank the photographer, who posted a couple of these on his Insta today, for the refresh! And hit the jumpfor all of the photos...

All of Us Winners

As I posted a few weeks back I was extremely happy with our film nominations for the Dorians, aka the awards that my critics group GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Critics hand out every year -- we did good then and I am happy to report that we did good again with our winners. Much better than a lot of critics groups have! And I don't just say that because we handed three major prizes to my favorite movie of 2023, Andrew Haigh's All of Us Strangers... although I don't not say it because of that either. Strangers won both our "Film of the Year" award and our "LGBTQ Film of the Year" award, plus the award for "Best LGBTQ  Screenplay" to Haigh, as well it damn should. But I'm happy with the rest of our prizes -- I mean, Lily Gladstone and Charles Melton as our (lead and supporting) acting winners? 

Can you beat that? (In related news I'm extremely annoyed that this awards season doesn't seem to have offered the two of them a chance to take a photo together for me to use here -- I would like to see that. They would look gorgeous together. Somebody get a photo of them together for us please.) I'm not even annoyed that Greta Gerwig won for Best Director for Barbie, even though I'm not a fan of Barbie, because it's a nice fuck you to the Oscars and I will never pass one of those up. Anyway good on us this year! Hit the jump for the entire press release and winners list...

Chuck Makes War Not Love

Even though Charles Melton didn't get his (deserved) Oscar nomination for his performance in Todd Haynes' May December (aka my #8 movie of 2024) it looks like the role put him on the radar of serious filmmakers and he's escaping Riverdale purgatory at last. He's just signed on to star in Alex Garland's next movie, a war film that we have no other info on besides that the Annhilation and Ex-Machina director is co-directing alongside Ray Mendoza -- they worked together on Civil War, which is out April 12th and which I weirdly never shared the trailer for so that is below. With a cast that includes Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Cailee Spaeny, Jesse Plemons, and Nick Offerman? Sign me up.

MNPP's 20 Favorite Films of 2023

Since I leave for Sundance in a couple of days -- have I mentioned that I'm going to Sundance enough yet? I'm going to Sundance! -- I have decided that it'll be the best for us all if I just go ahead and drop my favorite movies of 2023 list right now without a lot (or more, anyway) hemming and hawing on it. Lord knows I could put this off for a few more weeks as I try to get around to some outstanding movies, and rearrange this list every single day as my erratic mood shifts like the breeze, but I think I'll prefer to just not have this hanging over my head as I start reviewing 2024 films. 

Anyway as I've stated already I think last year was a marvel of a year for movies -- excellence abounded. And while I'm cool on several of the ones that seem to racking up a lot of the established awards out there (Barbie is fine and The Holdovers is mediocre at best) there's a lot to love even on the mainstream stages, and several movies in my Top 20 will probably have Oscar nominations come Oscar nomination time. Hell I even like the Nolan movie -- it's only a runner-up on my list and my least favorite thing about it (Robert Downey Jr.'s performance) seems to be the thing marching straight to Oscar gold, but since we're talking one of my least favorite, most overrated filmmakers, this is something!

Yadda yadda I've put off the list as long as I can with my rambling

so let's just do it. Here are my 20 favorite movies of 2023!

20. De Humani Corporis Fabrica

(dir. Lucien Castaing-Taylor & Verena Paravel) -- my review

19. La Chimera (dir. Alice Rohrwacher) -- my review

18. Showing Up (dir. Kelly Reichardt) -- my review

17. El Conde (dir. Pablo Larraín) -- my review

16. Passages (dir. Ira Sachs) -- my review

15. Godland (dir. Hlynur Pálmason)

14. Past Lives (dir. Celine Song) 

13. Rotting in the Sun (dir. Sebastián Silva) -- my review

12. Beau is Afraid (dir. Ari Aster) -- my review

11. Godzilla Minus One (dir. Takashi Yamazaki) -- my review

10. Killers of the Flower Moon (dir. Martin Scorsese) -- my review 

9. Asteroid City (dir. Wes Anderson) -- my review

8. May December (dir. Todd Haynes) -- my review

7. Poor Things (dir. Yorgos Lanthimos) -- my review

6. Saltburn (dir. Emerald Fennell) -- my review

5. Skinamarink (dir. Kyle Edward Ball) -- my review

4. Afire (dir. Christian Petzold) -- my review

3. The Eight Mountains

(dir. Felix van Groeningen & Charlotte Vandermeersch) -- my review

2. The Zone of Interest (dir. Jonathan Glazer) -- my review

1. All Of Us Strangers (dir. Andrew Haigh) - my review

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

Runners-up: The Killer, Anatomy of a Fall, Oppenheimer, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, Eileen, A Thousand and One, Infinity Pool, You Hurt My Feelings, Silver Dollar Road, Will-o'-the-Wisp, Fallen Leaves, Full Time, Bottoms, Priscilla, Return To Seoul, Robot Dreams

Good Morning, World

Sorry I know this isn't "morning" related but I really just needed to make sure that this website had this gif of Charles Melton at the Golden Globes on it. And now it does! And that makes this a good day already. (Goddamn, Charles. Goddamn.)

Good Morning, World

You'd think I'd have realized earlier in this awards season that we'd need to go ahead and add a Charles Melton tag here to the site -- probably right around the time I saw May December on Opening Night of the NYFF and fell in love with it (my review) or perhaps when I wrote my second full-length piece on the movie (read that here)? Obviously Mr. Melton is  having a moment and I've posted about him plenty -- why I just got around to giving him his bery own MNPP Star Of Fame I can't answer. Anyway here he is on i-D magazine looking, you know, like his hot self. Read his chat here, if you feel so inclined. And hit the jump for the rest of the photos...