It's A Scream

There is a new Scream movie in theaters! And I have reviewed it! Click on over to Pajiba to read my thoughts on Scream 6, the latest stab -- hehehe get it -- at this meta-slasher franchise from the dudes who made Ready or Not. And no, spoiler alert, this movie is not as good as Ready or Not. But it's an improvement over the last one, mostly. I mean we see both Mason Gooding and Josh Segarra topless so it kind of has to be, for that alone. 

Happy #Scream6 Day from Mason Gooding pic.twitter.com/AW1tIQjiBK

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 10, 2023

But wait hey look there is another movie out today that I also reviewed today, although this is a far less enthralling proposition in every way -- click here to read my thoughts on Champions, the "Woody Harrelson coaches a ragtag misfit crew of Special Olympian basketball players" movie that the world most definitely was not asking for. I mainly just used this review as an excuse to talk shit about sports and sports movies though, so I guess this movie did serve a purpose in one way. (PS fuck you Woody Harrelson for your anti-vaxx bullshit -- you're as good as dead to me now.) In summation... yeah, here is more Mason Gooding:

We have raised a generation of actors who know their every sexy move will be turned into gifs on the internet, and I like that pic.twitter.com/kusILfRtJL

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 9, 2023

Triangle of the Small Seventh King

Tis the happiest day of the month, Criterion Announcement Day! These titles are all dropping in April of this year, starting with and most excitingly director Steve McQueen's five-film series Small Axe, which screened on the BBC in the UK and on Amazon here in the US. All five, set in the same West Indian neighborhood in London over the course of a few decades, are magnificent -- here is my review of Lover's Rock, and here is my review of Mangrove, and here is my review of Red White and Blue. I never reviewed the other two (because they didn't screen at NYFF like those three did) but they also rule. This set hits on April 25th.

Next up and nearly as awesome -- they've got Ruben Östlund's current awards-prospect Triangle of Sadness also hitting 4K and blu-ray on April 25th! (Love that cover.) Have you seen this movie yet? I've seen it twice but weirdly never reviewed it? I thought I had but... nope. Huh. Anyway I like it quite a bit! Yes it's fairly blunt in its aim but sometimes (I say this often) bluntness is needed. And everybody's absolutely stellar in it -- I'm happy that Dolly De Leon is probably going to get an Oscar nomination but we should also be giving more love to Harris Dickinson, who works real magic with an extremely tricky role.

We should definitely be talking more about the first sequence in the film, the excruciatingly awkward between him and Charlbi Dean (RIP) -- such a barn-stormer. Aaaanyway the other discs hitting in April are all upgrades to 4K from already existing Criterion blu-rays -- they consist of Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (out on April 18th) and Terry Gilliam's The Fisher King (out on April 11th). I should probably try to watch the latter again someday -- I haven't seen it in ages because I hated it back in the day. Perhaps I've grown into it?

10 Off My Head: NYFF's 60th Main Slate!

As I sit here swampy and miserable from the relentless August sun there's one bright light that's not making me shield my eyes out of exhausted horror -- the New York Film Festival has today announced their full Main Slate of movies and man oh man am I excited! And it's not just because when I think of NYFF I think of myself comfortably wearing sweaters in the autumnal cool of late September, but that don't hurt. It's also because once again this fest is offering up the auteurs I come for -- this fall is promising to be a great one for us movie-lovers and NYFF makes it a one-stop-shop every damn time. 

I'll share the full press release down below, but first I'm going to highlight the ten titles from the Main Slate that leapt right off the page at me. Please note I am not including here the four gala films, which were announced earlier this month -- those are Noah Baumbach's White Noise is the Opening Night film; Laura Poitras’s doc All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (telling the dueling tales of photographer Nan Goldin and the billionaire family Sacklers prescription drug empire) is the Centerpiece film; Closing Night goes to Elegance Bratton's film about queer soldiers called The Inspection (see my previous posts about that right here); and finally there will be a special screening of James Gray's coming-of-age drama Armageddon Time. I am going to focus on just the Main Slate titles for this list.

My Most Anticipated 10 From NYFF60's Main Slate

Decision To Leave (dir. Park Chan-wook) -- I have been posting about this movie for two full years now, ever since the first whisper of it weaved its way through rando corners the internet; I shared the first trailer right here. Sounding like a Noir only shot in vivid color it's about an inspector falling for the wife of a murdered man (played by Lust Caution's great Tang Wei). Anyway Park is a Top 5 Living Filmmaker for me so this one's The Event of the fest from where I stand. This is PCW's first movie since The Handmaiden six years back, for god's sake! I am thirsty!

The Eternal Daughter (dir. Joanna Hogg) -- I liked Hogg's Souvenir sequel better than I liked the first one, but I'm glad she's making something else this time, and a lead role for Tilda Swinton will do the trick just fine, thank you. 

Pacifiction (dir. Albert Serra) -- I'm not an expert on Serra's filmography, having still only seen Liberté, his last film, at NYFF three years back. But when i think about memorable viewing experiences at NYFF the first one that comes to mind is Liberté, which they screened for press at nine in the morning and which consists mainly of an excruciatingly drawn-out and grotesque orgy in the woods astride 17th century royal France. It stunned me in a way that was often repugnant and a week hasn't passed since where it hasn't popped into my head. (Here is my review, by the way.) Anyway this new movie stars Benoît Magimel (best known here in the US as the hockey player that Isabelle Huppert's obsessed with in The Piano Teacher) in a "gripping, atmospheric thriller" about a French bureaucrat visiting a Polynesian island that includes "a resort that caters to the prurient exoticism of foreign tourists" and yeah, this sounds like the stuff.  

Stars At Noon (dir. Claire Denis) -- I posted about this one before when it was supposed to reunite Denis with her beloved vampire boyfriend Robert Pattinson; Rob dropped out because of Bat-related responsibilities and Joe Alwyn took over the role instead. Margaret Qualley stars opposite him -- it's an erotic political thriller or something of the sort, that's set in Nicaragua? I'm picturing Denis' version of The Year of Living Dangerously, basically.

Master Gardener (dir. Paul Schrader) -- Speaking of Sigourney Weaver movies, we have ourselves a Sigourney Weaver movie! I personally consider Paul Schrader more hit-and-miss than most critics and film fans seem to but there's no denying he's a writer and a director with a vision and a voice and it feels like it's been ages since Sigourney had a real proper leading role with one of those. That said I don't know if she is a leading role actually -- she plays the owner of a fancy estate garden which is kept up by Joel Edgerton's character, and he's one of Schrader's patented "dude with a troubled past come back to haunt him" types. But let's hope Schrader feels like reminding us what Siggy's capable of!

R.M.N. (dir. Cristian Mungiu) -- Anyone who's seen 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days knows that Mungiu is obviously a great director, but I'm in this one for the plot, which is about a rural Transylvanian butcher whose wife goes mute after witnessing something horrible in the woods. I don't think it's going to be quite as horror-themed as that sounds, but it's the closest one in NYFF's line-up to horror! 

Showing Up (dir. Kelly Reichardt) -- Kelly Reichardt has never made a not great movie, full stop. And this is his first movie since her greatest movie First Cow came out in 2019. Not only that it reunites her with her favorite star actress Michelle Williams! There is no "no" here. Michelle's playing a sculptor in Portland; Hong Chao her landlord. Plot-wise it all sounds lighter than usual, but it will inevitably crack open out hearts and smash them into a million billion pieces because that's what these women do.

Scarlet (dir. Pietro Marcello) -- Per usual most of my reasons for seeing these movies are based on "I like the director's past work" and Marcello's last movie was the great great great Martin Eden -- consider me sold. And this is a French fable co-starring Louis Garrel! Consider me double!

TÁR (dir. Todd Field) -- Field hasn't made a movie since Little Children in 2006, which is totally and entirely inexplicable. But I suppose he only made one movie before that, the indelible In the Bedroom in 2001, so we don't know him well enough to know what's explicable really. All those two movies show is he's a director who should be directing more movies. This one is a big return though, starring Cate Blanchett as an orchestra conductor who loses her shit.

Triangle of Sadness (dir. Ruben Östlund) -- I shared the trailer for this movie just a few hours ago! Watch it here! Harris Dickinson is a male model on Woody Harrelson's super-yacht, cue depraved social commentary. I'm a big Östlund fan and this one seems as tailored to my specifications as The Square was a few years back.

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The New York Film Fest runs this year from September 30th to October 16th, and you can expect lots of coverage from your truly here and on other websites, as I have been doing for something like a full decade now? I should go check and see which NYFF was my first press-accredited one. I've been going since I moved to NYC twenty-plus years ago of course, but I think I've only been official press for about a decade? Anyway it's my hometown beloved, and I can't wait. Now you may hit the jump for the full press release with the full Main Slate...

Apollo's Belt of Sadness

Any trailer that opens with Harris Dickinson strutting around topless is a fine trailer by me -- and here I was already excited about Ruben Östlund's Triangle of Sadness, just by virtue of, you know, Ruben Östlund. If you're all "Ru-who Ost-huh?" -- Ruben Östlund is the Swedish nasty-man director of The Square and Force Majuere, who mercilessly skewers everybody in his sights. Some people love him for it, some people find him obvious and insipid -- I happen to be in the former camp, although I have sympathy for those in the latter. I get their complaints. I just think his films are so visually playful and laugh-out-loud funny that whatever broadness there might be the the topics he tackles doesn't really bother me. 

His compositions are just always so interesting to the eye, ya know? And not in an empty style-over-substance way -- the style really informs the substance. For me, anyway. And it's not like I can pretend I'm exactly a beleaguered lone defender here -- this here movie won the fucking Palme d'Or this year for Christ's sake. The Man is doing fine! He doesn't need me to defend him. Anyway Triangle is about two models, played by Dickinson and Charlbi Dean, who get invited to prance about on a wealthy person's yacht...

... (said wealthy person is played Woody Harrelson), when a Gilligan-adjacent disaster strikes and they all find themselves stranded on a desert island. So it seems he's got the ultra-rich and Influencer Culture in his sights, which yeah -- these are the great targets of our moment. He's not exactly straining for this one. But I'll watch the shit out of it anyway, and don't be surprised if it winds up in my Top 10 of the year. We vibe too hard and I'll be truly surprised otherwise. Here's that trailer:

Triangle of Sadness is out on October 8th!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

you can learn from: 

The Square (2017)

Christian: Okay if I ditch Comic Sans? 

Find something less childish? 

Michael: I didn't pick it. 

It's a 90s all-time favorite.

A happy 47th birthday to the great Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund today! I didn't realize he was still just 47 -- that's good news, as we can hope to get lots more from him, I think. And I'd follow him anywhere after The Square and Force Majeure. Have any of you seen any of his earlier films though? There's one called Play from 2011 that's about childhood bullying, and an anthology in 2008 called Involuntary. I haven't seen anything before Majeure and am curious. Speaking of curious...

... he is currently working on his next film; it's called Triangle of Sadness and that is a photo of him (in the shorts) directing the film's star, Woody Harrelson. Woody's gotten some good attention for his acting over the past several years but I still think he's underrated as far as that goes, so I hope this is as exciting and  awesome a collaboration as it sounds. Co-starring with Woody are Harris Dickinson and the great Croation actor Zlatko Buric (from the Pusher films); here is the plot off Wiki, which sounds ripe for Östlund's brand of dark comedy:

"This dark comedy centers on a fashion model celebrity couple (Dickinson and Charlbi Dean) who are invited on a luxury cruise for the super-rich. The yacht –whose captain is a rabid Marxist (Harrelson)– sinks, leaving the duo stranded on a desert island with a group of billionaire jet-setters and a cleaning lady, with the ensuing fight for survival turning the pre-existing hierarchy upside down and changing the dynamics of the group: the cleaning lady rises to the top of the food chain as she is the only one who knows how to cook."

Good Morning, World

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This morning were wishing our Woody Harrelson a happy 59th birthday with a quick shower clip from the 1992 basketball comedy White Men Can't Jump, which teenaged me watched a million billion times back in the day because I couldn't have been hornier for the pairing of Woody and Wesley Snipes, not if you'd paid me in Woody Harrelson jockstraps. Well maybe then. Probably then. Okay, definitely definitely then. Has anyone seen WMCJ lately? I feel like I weirdly see it mentioned often, but I haven't seen it in decades, literaly decades. I should give it a twirl -- I bet I still have half of it memorized. Anyway hit the jump for a couple more Woody gifs ...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The People vs Larry Flynt (1996)

Larry Flynt: I turned the whole world into a tabloid.

Director Milos Forman was born 88 years ago today.

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Ed Skrein Rescue Us

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So I tried to watch Midway last night and oh my god you guys that movie is actually unwatchable! Just absolute unwatchable trash -- I couldn't even finish it, and if I can't finish a movie that stars Patrick Wilson, Woody Harrelson, Luke Evans, Nick Jonas, Alexander Ludwig, Dennis Quaid, Darren Criss, Aaron Eckhart and our favorite fucked-up Nicky Hoult doppleganger Ed Skrein here all in period military uniforms then you know something has gone very very very wrong. Part of me kind of enjoys the fact that we've got our own hyper-faggy Michael Bay with Roland Emmerich -- The Gays can make Hollywood Crap too, dammit! But man this movie is one long window-shaking fart. Ugh. 

There weren't even nearly enough shots like that of Patrick Wilson from behind! What were you thinking, Emmerich??? Anyway for the forty minutes of the movie I did make it through the only thing keeping me hanging on was looking at Ed Skrein, and as I distracted myself by also googling him while the interminable movie droned on and on I realized that I have somehow never posted this photo-shoot of Ed here on the blog proper? I think it's on the Tumblr but MNPP home-base deserves these shots, especially after all the suffering I went through staring at that movie last night. Hit the jump for the rest plus a bonus one...

Lots of Privates on Display

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Grab the biggest pistol within reach and ready yourself, for the second trailer for Midway is here! Roland Emmerich, gay director of Independence Day and Stonewall, has scooped up all the hot pieces -- Luke Evans and Patrick Wilson and Darren Criss and Nick Jonas and Alexander Ludwig and Ed Skrein...

... and Aaron Eckhart and Dennis Quaid and Woody Harrelson and a ton of young actors who I don't know by name yet but who will inevitably look real gosh darn cute in their WWII uniforms -- for his recreation of the famous battle, out in theaters on November 8th. The first trailer is at this link but you probably don't need that now, since here's the bigger one:

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One thing I will add: did you catch the character posters?

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Good merciful grief pic.twitter.com/15Bg6tgl9p

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 10, 2019

The Poster For Midgay I Mean Midway

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Given the cast that openly gay blockbuster director Roland Emmerich has (putting the ass in)  assembled for Midway, his big-screen telling of the 1942 WWII battle -- which includes Luke Evans and Woody Harrelson and Patrick Wilson and Ed Skrein and Alexander Ludwig and Nick Jonas and Darren Criss and Aaron Eckhart and those are just the name actors, check out the whole twink-full list here --  you'd think that the first poster for the film (via) might look more like a greasy beefcake scene from infamous annual Herndon Monument naval academy pole-climb. Something like...

Maybe they're saving that for closer to its 

release date? Midway is out on November 8th.

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Who Wore It Best?

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bike tracks

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No you're not crazy -- if you've been around here for awhile you know that I did this poll once before back in 2011. But the poll service I used then has gone kaput, so let's ask again here on what is apparently National Hat Day. Not like there's a bad time for...

Fly By Ludwig

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I guess I should probably just sit on my hands for a bit - not a bad proposition, with these pictures in front of me - and wait for Roland Emmerich to finish announcing all the man-meat he's tossing in his movie grinder for his World War II picture called Midway - just a couple of hours ago I told y'all how Darren Criss was joining the cast already stuffed with the likes of Luke Evans & Patrick Wilson & Woody Harrelson & Ed Skrein & Aaron Eckhart & Dennis Quaid & Nick Jonas. And now comes word that Alexander Ludwig here...

... who is mostly known for the TV show Vikings - and you can click thru our archives on the actor right here to acquaint yourself better! - well you can lather him up and throw Alex right on top of the Midway cast and call him the cherry! (Thx Mac) At least temporarily, that is, until some fresh twink gets gathered up into Emmerich's broad embrace. Anyway like I did with Darren -- because why post one picture when you can post a dozen? -- I've got some more pictures for you after the jump...

All The Boys Go To War

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I was watching The Young Lions on TCM last night - if you're unfamiliar The Young Lions is a 1958 movie set in Tunisia during WWII that stars Marlon Brando (as a bleached out Nazi) and Montgomery Clift and Maximilian Schell, and reader, it is sexual. (See some pictures we've posted before right here.) They're all punching each other in uniforms and sweating in their bunkers - typical homoerotic military movie stuff.

Anyway I thought of that movie upon reading the news this morning that (openly gay) director Roland Emmerich has just hired Darren Criss to co-star in his upcoming WWII movie called Midway, opposite the previously announced Luke Evans and Patrick Wilson and Woody Harrelson and Ed Skrein and Aaron Eckhart and Dennis Quaid and, uhh, Nick Jonas. I can't imagine why I thought of a bunch of sweaty beautiful men in uniform. I just... did. So there's a movie to look forward to! To tide us over hit the jump for a couple more from this Esquire shoot of Darren...

I Am Link

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--- Uniform Fetish The Movie - Openly gay blockbuster filmmaker Roland Emmerich - you kind of don't get to call many people that, so I always want to when given the chance - is making a WWII movie next called Midway, and he's just landed... openly... uh... well... you know... openly Luke Evans to star in it. Luke is playing Commander Wade McClusky, a real dude who did real good during that battle. Also starring will be Woody Harrelson and Mandy Moore. And no doubt also a cast of Dunkirk-lite twinks to wear all those uniforms, which aren't gonna wear themselves.

--- Chucky Rises - It's been a very very long time since I last sat down and watch the first Child's Play film from start to finish - perhaps I should have myself a marathon? I actually prefer the goofier later films if I'm being honest - the only dolls I've ever found convincingly creepy were the ones in Stuart Gordon's 1987 psychotic break called Dolls, so Chucky needs the goofiness to land, I've always thought. Anyway they are rebooting the whole thing and remaking the original film, it appears, with a Norwegian director - my guess is to wipe the franchise's convoluted timeline clean (it seriously has gotten tremendously confusing) and try to be straight-up scary. We'll see. If you're not pouring acid on John Waters' face I don't know why we're even here.

--- It Sings At Night - I don't have the same knee-jerk "Hooray!" reaction that a lot of my contemporaries have when new musicals are announced, so I wasn't bouncing around when I read that Lucas Hedges and Sterling K. Brown have signed up to make one - it wasn't until I saw that the thing was being directed by Krisha + It Comes At Night director Trey Edward Shults with music from Trent Reznor that my interest was piqued. That's a fascinating collection of people.

--- The Deer Hunters - I hadn't heard anything about Observe & Report director Jody Hill's new film in ages, and suddenly it turns out it's hitting Netflix this Friday? Which might not be a good sign. It's called The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter and it stars Hill regular Danny McBride and Josh Brolin as pair of TV deer hunters on a trip with Brolin's distant kid. The movie's got a trailer now which you can watch over here. I guess we'll see, and shortly at that.

--- Duck Ducked Goose - Y'all can stop voting on our poll asking which young actor should play Goose Jr. in the new Top Gun movie - the studio went with Miles Teller, our last-place finisher and the least inspired choice, which shouldn't be surprising since this is the same studio that decided to make a Top Gun sequel in the first place. Anyway I am glad I don't have to see this movie now and that Glen Powell can go make something as funny and great as he is.

--- Beaton It - The documentary Love Cecil, about the pioneering gay photographer Cecil Beaton, is out in theaters now and you should totally seek it out - our pal Glenn explains why today over at The Film Experience. I saw this movie a very long time ago because of a weird connection I've got off-line to the filmmakers - I actually saw one of the very first screenings anywhere for anybody, and it's been eating me up to push the movie but I kind of can't. But it's good! See it!
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Good Morning, World

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Twenty-five years ago Adrian Lyne asked a question that captivated movie audiences - would you let your significant other sleep with someone else for a million dollars? - with the film Indecent Proposal. I mean CAPTIVATED. The movie made almost 300 million dollars world-wide! This was the summer of Jurassic Park, which I saw eleven times in the theater, but I also managed to see Indecent Proposal in the theater three times. I went to the movies that summer probably more than I ever have in my entire life - they'd just put up my small hometown's first multiplex (it doesn't even have a multiplex anymore, they closed it a couple of years ago) and I was making bank at the local grocery store, and every cent went to going to the movies.

Anyway yes I saw Indecent Proposal three times in the theater - it was the first Adult Movie that I went to see by myself, and I was captivated. Lucky for me Adrian Lyne has just as much interest in ogling Woody Harrelson as he does Demi Moore - Woody gets all the same soft sexy glamour lighting on his abs, and the amount of time Lyne's camera trains in on Woody's crotch is something to behold. It actually gets a little weird...

But then I have posted about all of this before - back in 2009 I did a gratuitous post about Woody (and his Lil' Woody) in this movie, but that one was filled with stills, and now we're all about the gifs so I figured I'd gif it up for you today and wish the movie a happy 25 in the process. Hit the jump for all the Woody you can muster...

The Moment I Fell For... Allison Janney

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I fell in love with Allison Janney the second I saw her in Ang Lee's 1997 masterpiece The Ice Storm. The black-and-white dress, the bowl of keys - iconic. If I saw someone dressed as her for Halloween I would marry them on the spot. Before The Ice Storm she'd mostly just done small roles in things like The Cowboy Way (a movie only remembered today, and rightly so, for the scene where Woody Harrelson covers up his junk with a cowboy hat) but for some reason she already felt like someone you knew, ya know? Soon enough came The West Wing (which I have never seen a single episode of, by the way) and she'd marched her way into all of our hearts. But every time I see her I think of the key party....

And right after the key party i think of Drop Dead Gorgeous.

What do you first think of when you see Allison Janney?

True Scoot-tective

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Fresh off flashing his fuzzy bum at us on Godless our sweet boy Scott McNairy is headed back to the tube-that-boobs for the third season of none other than True Detective! You might recall this about me but I fucking hated the first season of True Detective that everybody was so nuts over - I was firmly established in the "Matthew McConaughey sucks balls and not in the good way" camp way before the other cool kids joined me. After that there was nowhere to go but up and I, once again against the communal grain, thought the second season a mite better - its main tragedy was it was kind of boring and to tell you the truth I remember very little about it at this point except for Colin Farrell's sad mustache. 

Aww sad mustache. Anyway despite that sordid history I'm excited about a third season because, well Scoot now obviously, but because the main detectives (Scoot's supporting) will be played by the piping hot two-some of Mahershala Ali & Carmen Ejogo.

And then besides those two gorgeous and captivating creatures in the lead, and besides Scoot, and on top of the also-cast Stephen Dorff who we've always got a wet dick for, the entire show is being directed by the great Jeremy Saulnier, the director behind Blue Ruin and even better says me Green Room. Green Room is the poo, take a whiff, y'all. I be in.