Matt Makes A Maestro

Well it looks like Maestro, Bradley Cooper's biopic of the composer Leonard Bernstein, is finally moving forward again -- the last thing we had heard about it was way back in September of 2020 when Carey Mulligan was cast as Bernstein's wife. Cooper is directing and starring in the film for Netflix, this being his first turn in the canvas-backed  folding chair since A Star is Born, and today Deadline says that he's in the process of casting one mister Matthew Bomer to play one of Bernstein's (many, many) male lovers. No word on who, exactly -- Netflix isn't talking. Anyway it's hard not to be excited about this news -- all puns implied -- even if this movie is presumably sacrificing the one that Jake Gyllenhaal was going to make about Bernstein with Cary Fukunaga. I hated ASIB, sure, but I like the thought of Bradley & Matt going at it enough to temporarily forget all of that. Scruples and standards, what scruples, what standards...

Pic of the Day

Indeed that is a photo of director Cary Fukunaga and actors Barry Keoghan and Austin Butler (aka Baz's Elvis to be) chillin' nips-out while shooting Masters of the Air, their upcoming series about World War II that I've mentioned previously a couple of times (including just two days ago) -- no idea of the original source for this, I got it via Film Updates on Twitter. There are so many cute guys in this series -- check out the cast list here -- that I hope we get a storm of gratuitous photos from its shoot! Like where's Callum Turner? Get Callum Turner in there, fellas -- there's plenty of room! In related news here is another photo of note that Barry tweeted out recently that I missed:

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2015)

Minnie: So maybe nobody loves me. 

Maybe nobody will ever love me. But maybe 

it's not about being loved by somebody else.

Happy 30th birthday to the actress Bel Powley today! So tremendously good right outta the gate with this performance here (okay she'd been in several things before this one but this is "The Moment I Fell For" energy if every there was) -- here's my old review of this fairly perfect movie if you'd like to read it. I don't watch The Morning Show so I didn't realize she was on that -- how is she? Anybody watch that and know? I hope she's thriving. And I'm excited to see she's in at least one episode of Cary Fukunaga's upcoming series Masters of the Air, which I told you about previously here. (Also can you believe I have restrained myself and not brought up Alexander Skarsgard and his perv-stache once? Oh damn nevermind.)

Quote of the Day

"I want to work with Andrea Arnold, Lynne Ramsay, and Celine Sciamma, who did Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Those three ladies are at the top of my list. Their films have such strong stories; Celine’s Girlhood has stuck with me since 2014. The performances are so raw that I thought it was real. It let me in so much, and I always find that fascinating, how a director can get actors and actresses to trust them like that."

This quote from Eternals and Green Knight actor Barry Keoghan is actually a year and a half old, from an interview he gave to NME last March when his movie Calm With Horses (a good movie which also starred MNPP fave Cosmo Jarvis and which you should seek out -- here's that trailer) was coming out, but it's making the rounds on Twitter this week thanks to Eternals' release and everybody being like, "Oh right Barry Keoghan kicks ass." But such sentiments must be shared now once they're seen, because... right, Barry kicks ass. If you look at the directors Barry's already worked with at all his twenty-nine years of age -- Yorgos Lanthimos, Christopher Nolan, David Lowery, Chloé Zhao, with Matt Reeves (in The Batman) and Cary Fukunaga (for Masters of the Air, which I posted about here) and Martin McDonagh (for The Banshees of Inisherin) on tap -- it's clear the boy's got taste. But his wanting to work with Arnold especially tickles all of my fancies -- all of 'em! -- because how damn easy is that to picture? They seem like peas in a pod, a perfect match, and I really hope that one happens.

Good Morning, World

Put on your favorite short shorts and crack open a cold one, cuz Daniel Craig's final James Bond picture No Time To Die is out on streaming this very day -- you can rent it over here. If you're a physical collector like I am take note that it doesn't hit blu-ray until right before Christmas, on December 21st, but that can be preordered at this link. When they had that big sale on the complete James Bond Collection (complete except for this movie) a few weeks ago (sidenote: it's still on sale) I snatched a copy of that so I might have to buy this one just so I actually have a complete complete set, even though I had a fairly mixed-to-not-great reaction to NTTD -- you can read my review right here. 

Daniel Craig himself wasn't any of my concern though -- he's the man who made me start watching James Bond movies, and I cherish his run even while I admit it's had its ups and downs and down down downs, and that sometimes those downs had to do with him seeming increasingly bored out of his head. I don't think he ever seemed bored in NTTD; its problems were elsewhere. (Hey Rami, yer ears ringing?) Anyway we got this scene and we got the scene immediately preceding it (the one with those short shorts and the bulge heard round the globe) and for that we cannot complain. Now hit the jump, as I have giffed them for you...

Good Morning, Gratuitous Callum Turner II

It's usually a pretty good sign that I should post about somebody if that somebody's name shows up in more than one totally-unconnected place in a twenty-four hour span, and yesterday actor Callum Turner's name showed up in two places within about a half-an-hour span -- no needs to bait me so hard, Callum! (Wait, what am I saying?) First instance: I read this new interview with Cary Fukunaga & Edgar Wright in Interview Magazine and Fukunaga mentioned he's been hard at work on a new project, so I googled -- the new project is a fictionalized WWII miniseries called Masters of the Air whose cast is chockablock with pasty pretty boys like Callum and Austin Butler and Barry Keoghan (okay I might be the only person who calls Keoghan a "pretty boy" but I stand by that) and so on. This movie's been shooting for awhile now -- here is a photo that Fukunaga took of Callum and co-star Fionn O'Shea:

(Sometimes I wonder about Cary, y'all...) And the second instance was the news that Callum has been cast in the leading role in George Clooney's new movie (speaking of "straight" men I wonder about), which is a 1930s Olympian rower flick (mmhmm see what I mean) called The Boys in the Boat... now I personally think Clooney's a pretty lousy director. But if you saw his Catch-22 miniseries (the best thing Clooney's done, by the way) starring Christopher Abbott and Rafi Gavron and Austin Stowell and a parade of hot young fellas parading about in the tiniest shorts you ever done seen, well, then Clooney turning his "straight eye" on the Olympian rowing team of 1936, pictured here...

... well who cares if it's any good? It will be watchable whatever happens quality-wise, the same way that White Squall remains watchable all these many years on. Anyway these seem like big "gets" for Callum, who's been nipping on the edges of stardom for several years now -- I posted this site's first "Gratuitous Callum Turner" post in 2018 (right here) and since then he's hopped into the Fantastic Beasts cast and co-starred in the most recent Emma movie. Maybe 2022 will be his year. His whole look, which I would call Josh O'Connor adjacent, is fairly popular right now. (I mean it's always been popular with me but pop culture seems to be digging it, I mean.) So let's look! Hit the jump for a couple dozen photos I've never posted before (and a few I have)...  

Bye Bond's Bulges

Did any of you watch No Time To Die over the weekend? I reviewed it here; it made some money so maybe you did go and see it, and if so all I have to say is -- Fuck you! Why didn't anybody snap photos of Daniel Craig's multiple prominent VPL moments and send them to me??? That flick's a bulge-fest but you wouldn't know it going by the internet, save my tweets following the press screening of course (see down below). 

Do I have to do everything? I couldn't pull out my photo in the press screening, for god's sake -- you guys need me to keep getting invited so I can direct you the right places to be, after all. Eesh. The film's been out internationally for three days and not one gif on Tumblr -- this world is definitely not enough; not by a long shot!

Honestly, more than any one actor or any one set-piece, #NoTimeToDie belongs to Daniel Craig's bulge and Daniel Craig's bulge alone. And as such it's a rousing success

— My New Dead Pants (@JAMNPP) September 28, 2021

Good Afternoon, World

It's the last week of NYFF screenings so yes, I'm late. Sue me. I was seeing the great Mike Mills' new film C'Mon C'Mon this morning, which was one of my most anticipated titles of the fest and which spoiler alert did not disappoint -- more on that soon-ish! But here, as my gift to you for my unforgivable Monday tardiness, a new photoshoot of hot director Cary Fukunaga via Esquire. 

No Time To Die, his little James Bond picture, is finally finally finally hitting U.S. screens this Friday -- in case you missed it my review of that movie went up last Wednesday. I was a bit of a "meh" to be honest, but there are pleasures to be had, often including Daniel Craig's whole crotch area. And I like thinking about Cary meticulously lighting Daniel's crotch area, don't you? Think about that while you hit the jump for the rest of this fine shoot...

The Time To Die is Now

It's funny, it's been so long since I have watched a trailer for No Time To Die or given a lot of thought about who is actually in this one -- I haven't thought about any of that much since before the pandemic began, when the movie got first delayed -- that my head was spinning as I looked at the IMDb cast list just now. Besides Daniel Craig, who is of course the main event, there's Naomie Harris and Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw (oh and sidenote: this video:

#NoTimeToDie star Ben Whishaw tells Attitude he'd 'love' to see an out gay British actor cast as James Bond - and he reckons @TheRealLukevans or Bridgerton's Jonathan Bailey would do a 'thrilling' job... pic.twitter.com/sWCLcSZ6gP

— Attitude Magazine (@AttitudeMag) September 27, 2021

...) and Jeffrey Wright and Ana de Armas and Léa Seydoux and Billy Magnussen and okay yes Rami Malek (he's still on notice because of that godawful Oscar win)... oh and Rory Kinnear, we love Rory. I'd watch fifty movies with just this cast. Anyway I'm bringing all of this up because I somehow scammed an invite to the big screening this afternoon here in NYC -- never say that annoying people doesn't work! -- so that's where I am headed now. I am dressed up and everything! Watch out, Regé-Jean Page -- once Barbara Broccoli sees me in my slacks the gig's mine!

Wore my fancy shoes today for the Bond screening (all so I can have a bomb dropped on my head I guess) pic.twitter.com/GIcsurIyle

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 28, 2021

O, Fukunaga

Using director Cary Fukunaga's beautiful face this afternoon (via his cover-shoot for The Hollywood Reporter) to soften the blow that I'm a bastard person who's off for the remainder of the day -- sorry buckaroos, but NYFF screenings are calling me back. Sixteen days to go until No Time To Die is finally out, can you believe it? I got my press screening invite this afternoon so it finally feels real but I won't believe it until I am sitting in that theater and the final credits are rolling and I can wipe the sweat from all of Daniel Craig's Promised Nudity off my brow... is that sweat? We'll find out! Hit the jump for the rest of this fine photoshoot...

Pics of the Day

(click to embiggen) Saw these snaps of Daniel Craig in No Time To Die going around on Twitter this afternoon but actually have no idea what they are, context-wise -- are they from the film, are they from the set? Honestly I'm only sure they're from NTTD because of the scowl on his face and that's how he always looks in the Bond movies. Anyway it's Daniel Craig showing a lotta leg, who am I to care about context? They're new to me and that's all that matters. So is this movie ever going to come out or what? Eeesh. Not that I'm going to a public screening anytime soon, but I'm hoping for a press one.

Idris Elba Here...

... with a very important reminder that Cary Fukunaga's masterful 2015 film Beasts of No Nation, starring me, Idris Elba, is finally being released onto blu-ray tomorrow thanks to Criterion. You can buy it right here. Now let me throw it over to Jason, proprietor of MNPP, so he can scream about how much I, Idris Elba, deserved an Oscar nomination at the least for my his, I mean my... okay I have lost the thread on who's pretend talking. Point being that Idris Elba totally deserved an Oscar nomination for Beasts of No Nation! yes it's a difficult film -- child soldiers ain't easy, who knew -- but worth the effort, and I'm excited to also wade through Criterion's disc which has some stellar special features featured. Especially that interview with the film's costumer Jenny Eagan (aka the same woman who put Chris Evans in that white sweater in Knives Out); the costumes in Beasts were surprisingly vivid and memorable and I'd love to hear how she came up with some of that stuff.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Jane Eyre (2011)

Jane: Am I a machine with out feelings? Do you think that because I am poor, plain, obscure, and little that I am souless and heartless? I have as much soul as you and full as much heart. And if God had possessed me with beauty and wealth, I could make it as hard for you to leave me as I to leave you... I'm not speaking to you through mortal flesh. It is my spirit that addresses your spirit, as it passes through the grave and stood at God's feet equal. As we are.

Cary Fukunaga's (already classic if you ask me) 2011 adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's (definitely classic no matter who you ask) 1847 novel premiered here in new York on this very day 10 years ago. Have you watched it lately? Last July I had myself a little miniature one-day swoon-fest with this movie, Thomas Vinterberg's Far From the Madding Crowd with Matthias Schoenaerts and Carey Mulligan (and you might consider this blasphemy but as much as I love John Schlesinger's film with Julie Christie and -- speaking of swoon -- Alan Bates I definitely prefer the newer version), plus Andrea Arnold's gorgeous and wildly underrated take on Wuthering Heights. And that my friends was a goddamned good day -- I highly recommend all of you replicate it sometime.

Now thinking of doing a triple feature today of Eyre, the Far From the Madding Crowd re-do, and Andrea Arnold’s seriously under-appreciated Wuthering Heights pic.twitter.com/rbnWifN7K7

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 3, 2020

And the Missus Maestro Goes To...

For awhile there were competing Leonard Bernstein projects that had Bradley Cooper (see here) and Jake Gyllenhaal (see here) both attached to play the closeted composer, but I think that maybe Cooper has thrown down the gauntlet with today's news that he's landed the great Carey Mulligan to play Bernstein's wife Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. Since, you know, the last time Carey Mulligan played a wife it had her married to...

... Jake Gyllenhaal and all. Cooper's movie has a title now too -- Maestro. No word on who's directing it but it'll probably be Cooper again, because a bunch of you people convinced him he did a good job (when he did not) with A Star is Born. That said before the Mulligan news I was totally rooting for Jake's movie -- which was supposed to be directed by Cary fuckin' Fukunaga! -- but this Mulligan bomb's got me capital-F flummoxed, seeing as how she's one of my favorite actresses around. SIGH!

Daniel Craig Five Times

While I vastly prefer it when Daniel Craig's photoshoots trend a little more towards the risqué -- see his shoot for GQ in the spring, for a fine, fine example -- I don't think we can really complain about Our James Bond being photographed in some pretty suits and sweaters, and so I give you this new shoot of the second sort for Madame Figaro magazine (via; thx Mac). The rest be after the jump...

Double Oh This Again

This new preview for the new Bond movie No Time To Die has two strikes against it right out the gate -- one, it's focused on Rami Malek's villain character Safin, and Rami Malek is fresh off winning an Oscar for one of the worst, most offensive performances I have ever seen with his abominational turn as some minstrel version of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. It's gonna take time for me to get over that, if ever, and that time is Not Today. And two, the other thing this trailer has against it is we are in the middle of a pandemic and I don't think any new movies should be planning on coming out in movie theaters this year, period. I know some of you have gone but I don't feel responsible encouraging it. So I say that first! But this clip has one big plus and that's why I'm even posting it: more footage of Daniel Craig in suspenders. We can at least enjoy that in this hellscape!

There's Plenty of Time To Die, Actually

I've been slow getting at it this morning so I'm sure all of you have already watched this, the second latest trailer for No Time To Die, Cary Fukunaga's forthcoming James Bond Adventure with Daniel Craig -- y'all have already watched it and yet I have not been inundated with this:

WHY ISN'T MY TIMELINE FILLED WITH THIS SHOT OF BEN WHISHAW IN THE NO TIME TO DIE TRAILER #NoTimeToDie pic.twitter.com/JxNbOzm80v

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 3, 2020

... and that just doesn't seem right. Anyway at the start of this week I was considering sharing the opinion that I was feeling warmth in my heart towards the Bond Franchise because it had sat out this whole Coronavirus baiting game that Tenet has failed so spectacularly -- when I thought that thought I'd forgotten they'd already rescheduled the film for Thanksgiving though, and today's onslaught of trailer and poster and new photos stuck my foot in my mouth for me before I could even speak.

I'm basically at the point right now where I find releasing movies in theaters until there's a vaccine immoral -- even Tilda's speech in Venice yesterday rung a little hollow for me, because as much as I love The Movies, and love them I do, I love life, I love people not dying from a communicable disease that fills their lungs with fluid, more. So should we all. So... I don't know. I don't have answers. I just know that I am glad the theaters are closed here in New York right now so I don't have to make these decisions. On that note here is the trailer for this movie that is supposed to be released into enclosed rooms full of strangers in a couple of months, make of it what you will!

Guess There Is Time To Die After All

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Well! Speaking of Daniel Craig, as we just was, the new Bond movie No Time To Die has just now had its release date delayed from April 10th, aka 37 days from today, all the way to November. This is because of everybody's new BFF the Coronavirus, which has half the globe shut up in their homes -- I suppose turning off the tap of Chinese marketplace dollars was all the incentive the producers needed to hit the pause button. Well at least this gives me plenty of time to go re-watch all of the Daniel Craig films before it's out, like I'd decided to do last night after seeing Casino Royale and realizing I have no real memory at all of what happened in any of them.

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MGM, Universal and Bond producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, announced today that after careful consideration and thorough evaluation of the global theatrical marketplace, the release of NO TIME TO DIE will be postponed until November 2020. pic.twitter.com/a9h1RP5OKd

— James Bond (@007) March 4, 2020

Pics of the Day

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As foretold by the oracle called Me there was a screening of Casino Royale at MoMA here in New York last night with Mr. Bond, James Bond himself there in person -- above is a professional snap taken at the event from a spot much closer in the audience than I sat, and below are some photos and videos I took from the Q&A. The Q&A which included a round of "Happy Birthday" with cake and candles and all that jazz! (As we noted two days ago Craig just turned 52.) 

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Daniel Craig talking Daniel Craig at @themuseumofmodernart #danielcraig #jamesbond #casinoroyale #film #007

A post shared by Jason Adams (@jasonaadams) on Mar 3, 2020 at 7:59pm PST

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For the rest of March MoMA will be screening movies starring Daniel Craig, including among many others Knives Out and Munich and Love is the Devil (one of my faves, which has Craig playing the lover of painter Francis Bacon) and speaking of gay stuff my absolute tippy-top favorite Daniel Craig movie called Enduring Love, which has Rhys Ifans becoming psychotically infatuated with Craig after they survive a hot balloon disaster.

Last night alongside the convo MoMA also debuted a few minutes of a forthcoming documentary about Craig's time playing Bond (which will no doubt end up on the blu-ray for No Time To Kill once the time for that comes around) -- they showed us a bit of his and the producer's decision-making process in choosing one another, including his screen test (which Craig risibly snorted at from the audience to much amusement). Anyway speaking of No Time To Kill, did y'all see the new photo from the set of Craig with director Cary Fukunaga? It gave me some feels...
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If these were action figures this would be the part where we would be mashing their heads together like kisses pic.twitter.com/rR1iXOWzyS

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 2, 2020

Sweet Dreams of James Bond

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The first trailer for Cary Fukunaga's James Bond film No Time To Die with the returning Daniel Craig slipping in and out of every well-tailored suit in the Northern Hemisphere has arrived this very morning, and if you haven't watched it already I have it for you here:

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My first thought upon watching it was... well, this:

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James Bond really does have it all, up to and including every gay boy's dream of a lovingly exasperated Ben Whishaw to come home to after a long day pic.twitter.com/dOXAbLaa4J

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 4, 2019

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But my second thought was gee damn it looks pretty:

That's the super talented Ana de Armas in the last shot, who most of you probably saw kicking ass in Rian Johnson's Knives Out this past weekend -- the Bond movies are sometimes so goddamned good at capturing just the right person at just the right moment, aren't they?

And then there's Rami Malek, proving the opposite. I know I know, he just won an Oscar for a movie that made a billion dollars or some shit... emphasis on shit. I'll try not to carry my continuing loathing over to this but it's been rough, for me, even here a full year later. I have fully stopped watching Mr. Robot, a show I once loved. Sigh. Well I've got until April 8th, when the movie comes out! What do y'all think of this trailer?