No Other Master

Much the way I end up wanting several different versions of posters every time a new Yorgos Lanthimos movie comes out -- and sidenote I can't believe I never linked to the big recent NYT article about Yorgos' longtime poster designer Vasilis Marmatakis, which can be seen here -- I feel the same every time a new Park Chan-wook movie hits. And sure enough his latest No Other Choice has cause for a buffet of movie art beauty. The one seen above is an echo of the main poster, previously posted here -- I already own a copy of that earlier poster but I would one hundred percent also like to buy the one seen here too. Sigh! And don't even get me started on the transclucent one that was being handed out at screenings of the movie in South Korea! I'd kill every person I love to just hold one of those in my hands! Aaaanyway why am I bringing up a movie I have 1) already reviewed out of NYFF right here, and 2) isn't actually out in limited U.S. theaters until Christmas? Because I got some super-powered star-fucking I am super-psyched to mention! I'm about to check another "breathing air with a favorite director" experience off my bucket-list tonight when I see this movie for a third time and it's followed up by a Q&A with Master Park himself! And his leading man, long time beloved hunk Lee Byung-hun, will be there as well! I AM SO EXCITED, YOU GUYS. I'll clearly be posting from it over on my Insta, so keep your eyes peeled there. Did you see my photos of Joel Edgerton and William H. Macy at a screening of Train Dreams last night? They're below if you missed 'em. Tis the busy busy awards-season time of year so expect more star-fuckery to come. 

Some snaps of Joel Edgerton, William H. Macy and director Clint Bentley at tonight’s TRAIN DREAMS screening! #traindreams @Netflix.com

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) November 11, 2025 at 11:22 PM

A Love Letter To Genevieve O'Reilly

I was rightfully chastised yesterday when I mentioned that I hadn't written anything here on the site proper about Andor (even as I haven't shut up about it on social media) so let's right that wrong today with a love letter to the biggest reason for that love -- namely Genevieve O'Reilly's extraordinary performance as the senator-turned-rebel-leader Mon Mothma. She's been playing the character in some iteration since she her scene got cut out of Revenge of the Sith in 2005 -- the character was originally played by Caroline Blakiston in Return of the Jedi, ("Many Bothans died to bring us this information") and no I couldn't have told you any of this nerdy shit a few weeks ago before I binged the first season of Andor right before the second season began. As I've stated on here a million times I've never been much of a Star Wars person; I was way too young when the original trilogy came out to pay them much mind (my parents didn't take me to the movies so I definitely didn't see any of them in the theater) -- Jurassic Park was my Star Wars. But since binging Andor, phenomonal Andor, I find myself wanting to go re-watch all of the Star Wars movies, which will surely turn out disappointing in comparison given that Andor is operating on a completely different level than anything else the franchise has ever accomplished. At the very least after tonight, when the final three episodes air, I will have to go and watch Rogue One again -- Andor is that film's prequel and I have a feeling I'll have a very different reaction to it now compared to the shrug it got from me when it came out in 2016. 

All of that said it's Genevieve O'Reilly we're here to celebrate, and celebrate we shall -- there are several great performances happening on the show (Denise Gough and Kyle Soller as those fascist creeps Dedra and Syril we hate to love, for instance) but, with all due apologies to Diego Luna -- Andor belongs to O'Reilly. Watching her transformation from a life of walled-off privilege to one of dangerous rebellion all due to her steadfast commitment to freedom for all has been wildly inspiring to watch -- I don't know if there will be a better scene on TV this year than the one where she has a breakdown on the dance floor at her daughter's wedding as she realizes just how much her life is collapsing around her. Andor has been so smart about the way it's wielded what we know is coming -- the inevitability of everyone's coming roles in the rebellion (given we already know most of their fates) has enriched every choice instead of undermining the tension. Tony Gilroy (the showrunner) has done an astonishing job forcing us to luxuriate in these uncomfortable choices, and nobody's made a richer feast out of this than O'Reilly. Give this woman all of the awards!

Been a hot minute since I have loved a character and a performance as much as I love this lady right here #andor

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) April 23, 2025 at 11:12 PM

Good Morning, Yura

When yesterday afternoon I posted that Sean Baker's Anora is getting a Criterion release I did a quick search to see what images of Russian actor Yura Borisov I'd posted before so I didn't repeat myself and I discovered that I've barely posted any! Blaspheme! (There is this one post and that is it.) I had hopped onto his bandwagon even before Anora when I saw him the wonderful 2021 movie Comparment Number 6 (here is my review of that movie where I called him "a moody revelation") and I had even gathered up an entire folder of pictures of him to post at some point... then didn't. Well that was the reminder I needed -- I'm only posting one photoshoot of him this morning, but it's a good one...

... even if he's got hair and a beard and looks very very different than the hairless beauty we've seen on the Anora campaign trail. But still a beauty! Let this be my FYC to awards voters -- I'm not a huge fan of Anora but let's get Yura that Supporting Actor nomination -- he earned it. (I actually think he's the best thing in the movie, even better than Mikey Madison. He's the lynchpin without which none of it would work and he judges every moment of that performance perfectly, including his reactions to my biggest problem with the movie, i.e. the homophobia it casually tosses around without ever having anything to say about it.) All that said let us now hit the jump for a whole lot of Yura to stare at...

Good Morning, Gratuitous Aldis Hodge

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I've been thinking a lot about Aldis Hodge and his performance in  the prison drama Clemency since seeing it a couple of weeks back -- we should all be rooting for Alfre Woodard to grab one of the rightfully hers Best Actress nominations for the film next week but we should be making room in our hearts and minds for Hodge too. In the Supporting Actor race, I mean! Alfre doesn't need more competition! But he is that good.

These gifs are from the show City on a Hill, which I didn't realize he was on -- when posting about that show (which I still haven't seen) I really only brought up Jonathan Tucker; I get myopic that way. But now that post-Clemency I'm familiar with what Aldis is capable of I'll be fixing that. That said, I have actually posted about him before -- a photo of him on the show Underground caught my eye... I mean did you see him on Underground?

That sort of thing catches one's eye. Anyway everybody seek out Clemency, it's really moving and well-acted, and we wish both him and Alfre the best of luck when the nominations come out next week. Next up for Aldis is the role of the Supportive Good Guy in the Invisible Man movie with Elisabeth Moss; you can see him looking caring and concerned all over the trailer...

... but I have a feeling he was cast, with his tremendous frame, as a red shirt to show off how dangerous the threat of Invisible Oliver Jackson-Cohen is, i.e. he might not make it to the end. Narratively speaking, looking at that project, that makes sense to me. But we'll see, perhaps it will surprise. Until then we'll just have to make do with staring at the several dozen photographs that I have gathered up after the jump, I guess...

The Girl Had a Shadow

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For the past several weeks I've been using my "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" series at The Film Experience to yammer on about what I consider the best horror performances from actresses in this our year of 2019 -- you can scan through them all here. Well this week brings us to the one I've been patiently putting off until now, here, with what will probably be the last write-up until after the holidays -- Lupita Nyongo's deliciously twinned work for Jordan Peele's deliciously twinned Us. Read my thoughts on it right here. She is as good as they come, folks.

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Screaming So For Timmy

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As long as there is air in my lungs I will use it to make the same comparison between Adam Arkapaw's cinematography for The King and Rembrandt's painting, and since I'm breathing today I went ahead and did just that over at The Film Experience to mark the film's release on Netflix. So go read that. And then go read my review of the movie here. And then come back and tell me I am right, because duh, clearly.
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Antichrist (2009)

He: Acorns don't cry, you know that as well as I do.
That's what fear is, thoughts distort reality.
Not the other way around.

A happy 10 to what we thought would be Lars von Trier's most epic love poem to depression -- who'd have known that two years later he'd have Kirsten Dunst's sadness become so magnetic that it pulled a planet out of the sky right onto our heads, or that four years later he'd release a two part magnum opus devoted to the sight of Charlotte Gainsbourg getting sexually abused by sweet little Jamie Bell, or that nine years later he'd set up a series of comic interludes involving Matt Dillon, movie star of the 1980s, slicing up Elvis Presley's grand-daughter? Oh Lars, you devil.

In all seriousness though LVT remains, for all his eye-jabbing provocation, one of my favorite movie artists, and I think Antichrist is absolutely gorgeous and scarring and perfect in its own over-the-top  traumatic way. And with Willem Dafoe giving the performance of the year here in 2019...

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Willem Dafoe gives (give or take Elisabeth Moss in Her Smell) the performance of the year in The Lighthouse. He sells a speech at the film's midpoint so soaked in purple prose no mere mortal could deliver it and he delivers it like gangbusters, thereby proving DAFOE IS GOD NOW https://t.co/477bqHQK7n

— His Name Was Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) October 21, 2019

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... I think it's also important to look back upon the decade this man has had just bug our collective eyes out in awe. Is any actor taking the risks, the real risks, that he is? Not just like taking a break from eating lunch to skinny himself down or rolling around in cow innards for an Oscar like some actors who get called risk-takers -- please point me in the direction of another person with a filmography this decade that includes the giant swings from Antichrist to Fantastic Mr. Fox to Nymphomaniac to Pasolini to John Wick to Finding Dory to The Florida Project to Aquaman to The Lighthouse?

And keep in mind for brevity's sake I skipped dozens of titles there, and these are just from the last decade without even diving back to his work with Lynch and Scorsese and on and on. As you can maybe tell this is just the front tip of the Awards Season spear of my proselytizing pro-Willem, so get ready for plenty such -- I warn ye!

Bloody Bloody Alice Mitchell

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At what point do we start talking about the fact that Sam Claflin's hateful yet extraordinary performance in Jennifer Kent's The Nightingale (reviewed here) should be in awards conversations but won't be? Now's a good time right? I mean everyone in the film, including its leads Aisling Franciosi and newcomer Baykali Ganambarr, should be drowning in buzz -- these are three of the best performances I've seen in anything so far this year -- but I think this one's just gonna be me sitting here getting hoarse by my lonesome, innit?

Anyway I bring this up right now because, holy of holies, we have news on Kent's next movie! She wants to adapt the lesbian murder novel Alice + Freda Forever, which tells the true life tale of two girls who went bad for each other in 1890s Tennessee, igniting a firestorm of shocked and lurid press attention at the time. You can read up on Alice Mitchell here on Wiki. Lord knows I keep thinking of Heavenly Creatures reading up about it, but that's because we don't have a lot of these stories to turn to! Have any of you read the book? Got ideas on casting? Maybe that old-timey sketch to the right will help? Even though she looks middle-aged there the actress probably shouldn't be older than her 20s. Oh hell, just cast Aisling Franciosi again!

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Nicholas Hoult Five Times

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Two broad-eyed Brit twinks immediately in a row, what is the world coming to -- I can't help that this photo-shoot of Nicky for Style Italia magazine popped up (via) literally seconds after I posted that Fionn Whitehead post. Anyway it gives me a chance to 1) direct you to this tweet from the Golden Globes, and 2) remind all of the Oscar Voters (as if anybody who votes on the Oscars is trolling this place) that Nicholas' hysterical turn in The Favourite would be an absolutely inspired choice for Best Supporting Actor. Hit the jump for more inspiration...

Gone But Not Forgotten is the Perfect Phrase

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Hop in your best bloomers and go spin on a mountaintop, we're celebrating Dame Julie Andrews with this week's "Beauty vs Beast" over at The Film Experience in honor of this week's release of Mary Poppins Returns, a movie I found practically perfect in every way (read my review here). Y'all know how I am about musicals and yet I've been listening to MPR's soundtrack for a week straight now? It's weird! And wonderful. If I can't have my Thom Yorke tracks nominated for Oscars I will so be rooting for the lovely "The Place Where Lost Things Go" to win over that mediocre Gaga song...
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I Am Starting...

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... the Best Supporting Actor campaign for Ben Whishaw

in Mary Poppins Returns right now. More to come

on this movie soon, but it's super and you should see it...

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It only took about ten minutes of MARY POPPINS RETURNS to make me feel like a wonderstruck little kid again, and the feeling never let up. Beautiful music, Ben Whishaw, and a big heart full of optimism. I loved it

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 26, 2018

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I Say A Little Prayer For You

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If you'd like to read a loving ode to most gorgeous restraint head on over to The Film Experience, where I just wrote something like that for Alessandro Nivola's work in Disobedience, a performance I still haven't been able to shake since seeing the movie way back in the spring at Tribeca. I'm a sucker for actorly interiority - the unshowy stuff that never gets good love from Oscar - so I usually end up unhappy come Oscar season, but I'm gonna sing its praises nonetheless. Anyway I'm also asking if y'all have anybody you're rooting for Supporting Actor wise this year, so click over and say!

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Ten Frames From Enemy

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Over at The Film Experience everybody's been chiming in with their off-of-center For Your Consideration's for the end of the year, and so today I gave some good love to Patrice Vermette, the Production Designer for Denis Villeneuve's film Enemy.

You can head over there to read it. I went a little crazy taking screen-caps from the film as I wrote the piece because oh my god it's such a beautifully designed and shot movie I couldn't help myself. There are a couple more lovely pictures over at TFE...

... but I couldn't clutter it up with a thousand pictures... 

... not there at least.

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Here I can do what I want! Wha ha ha!

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Pic of the Day

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Hey remember how I walked out of JC Chandor's A Most Violent Year whispering sweet whispers of Alessandro Nivola wearing 80s-era tennis whites? Well the global appreciation of those short-shorts is becoming A Thing, and Mr. Nivola is being a hero to all of mankind by helping to stoke the flames. He tweeted out that picture last night, giving the costume its first-to-my-eyes honest-to-goodness online presence, saying...

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Thanks to the shortness of my shorts #AMostViolentYear just won best picture at the #nationalboardofreview pic.twitter.com/JJ4lE6K7Cu
— Alessandro Nivola (@SandroNivola) December 2, 2014

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In all seriousness, we should be mounting (fight it, fight the need to swerve this sentence off into a different, dirty direction)  a serious campaign for the costume designer of this movie for the Oscars based on this outfit alone. Yeah yeah Jessica Chastain gets to wear all those showy glam outfits and Oscar Isaac gets to rock those gorgeous camel coats, but this, this outfit, this is where the little golden men come from. This is Keira's green dress; this is Uma's yellow jumpsuit; hell this is what thread itself was invented for.

Have You Seen Nightcrawler Yet?

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I know that picture isn't from Nightcrawler but come on, look at him there, you gonna deny me posting that? Anyway I never pay any attention to box office (that's a game that's burned me too often) but I just checked and the film has made 21 million bucks so far, which is more than I anticipated, so I expect some of you have seen it now. When I saw it and loved it (and reviewed it) most people hadn't seen it yet, so I'm curious now to hear what y'all thought of it. Any thoughts? Share in the comments! It really is one of my favorites of the year so far and I hope I can see it again soon - let's keep the drum-beat alive for Jake to score a much-deserved Oscar nomination, people!
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I Am Link

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--- Rubba Spanx - AICN has the cover of some French magazine with the first mage of what Wolverine's costume will look like in the new X-Men movie (Days of Future Fourgy, I mean) and my first thought was he looks like the circuit queen version of the Micheline Man riding a gay pride float.

--- Pretty Lady - In the continuing FYC series over at The Film Experience the time has come for Amir to wax poetic on the cinematography for Spike Jonze's beautiful beautiful film Her, a most worthy endeavor indeed. 

--- Lay Fey It - I think I was bitching about this just the other day, and that's likely since I'm bitching about it all the time, so I'm glad they've taken my bitching to heart (it was me, all me!) - True Blood is set to add to its shockingly low actual gay content with its last season; they're looking for an actor to play Lafayette's boyfriend, and their casting notice is very specific in that the actor must be comfortable being naked and sexy with another dude lots. Nelsan Ellis does nothing for me in that way as Lafayette, I'd rather we got Eric and Bill and Jason and Hoyt all locked in a room and given super horny pills and let that be the entire final season, but at least they're trying. And maybe they'll get somebody hot for the boyfriend.

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--- Plague Life - Sofia Coppola might be lining up her next project (she's working on the script, at least) and it sounds really interesting - it's an adaptation of the book Fairyland: A Memoir of my Father, which is the author's story of growing up with her bisexual father in San Francisco at the start of AIDS crisis and up through her own father's illness. Seeing as how that description alone is making my eyes tear up, I think I will probably find this movie affecting.

--- Song Dance Man - Isn't it just a delight what an in demand screenwriter that Buffy's Jonathan, aka Danny Strong, has become? Delightful! He already wrote the last two Hunger Games movies (the split-in-half adaptation of Mockingjay) and now he's gotten the gig to write the long gestating Guys and Dolls movie. Congrats, nerd!

--- Elven Gold - Joe Reid was being a smart ass when he tackled Evangaline Lilly's Best Actress prospects for The Hobbit thanks to the obscenely gigantic field of nominees that the Critics Choice Awards announced yesterday... and I wouldn't have it any other way. Cracked me up. And reminds me, I've got to write up my thoughts on The Hobbit today, dammit!

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Making A Splash In Awards Season

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How's that for a top of the morning to ya? I subject you to that juicy moment from the Evil Dead reboot first thing today to tell you you should head over to The Film Experience where I just wrote up some way-out-there dream-journal nonsense about how the movie ought to get an Oscar nomination for its make-up. I totally understand we don't live in a world where such a thing would ever happen, don't call the men in white suits. But imagine such a world! I did.
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I Am Link

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--- Reading Rainbow - A new sexy poster for Lars Von Trier's Nymphomanic is online, and god help me I actually think it is indeed kind of sexy. I do love a naked man wearing glasses, even if it's Shia. And books! Books are sexy, there's just no ifs ands or big butts about it. 

--- Picture This - In his wonderful yearly tradition R. Kurt Osenlund named his favorite 20 shots from 20 different movies this year over at Slate. I always love this piece. Some real unexpected picks this time around, from several movies I still haven't seen. I've got a long way to go before I'll feel anywhere near complete on 2013, y'all.

--- Hot Lizard - Mark your calendars, the trailer for Godzilla reboot, starring Aaron Johnson and Bryan Cranston and oh yeah a giant lizard that shoots lasers out of its mouth, that trailer will be online tomorrow morningish. I just watched Kick Ass 2 last night and I am ready to stare at Aaron more, please.

--- Crossing Guard - Jake Gyllenhaal's bestie Prisoners director Denis Villeneuve is looking at making something called Sicario next, which is about a female cop who heads cross the Mexican border looking for a drug lord, and all hell breaks loose, as is wont to happen when you're in a movie and you cross the border into Mexico. Most interesting part of the story - Thad Luckinbill, one-time actor who got naked on Nip/Tuck (seen to the right there), is a producer now?

 --- Ghost Pop - In the continuing FYC series over at The Film Experience, where we're championing the efforts of 2013 movie-makers in different categories that will probably go unloved come Oscar nomination morning, Tim Brayton hit up the sound design in James Wan's The Conjuring for honors yesterday. Funny enough I rewatched that exact film the day before (the boyfriend hadn't seen it yet) and I still think it's a mess (here's my way back review) but I don't disagree on the sound design, which is mostly pretty great. There's this low hum to the film that I only noticed when Wan & Co would drop the sound out altogether, as if insects had stopped buzzing because a predator was approaching - it hits that deeply buried place inside your gut. That said I still hate the ghost whispering, though. 

--- Clark Junior - Looking much more fresh faced if slightly less fur-tastic, DH has got a picture of Henry Cavill trying out for Superman back in 2004, when he ultimately lost the role to Brandon Routh. This would've been for Brett Ratner or JJ Abrams; Bryan Singer was the one who brought on Routh.

--- Southern Discomfort - Finally some release info for Ti West's next movie - The Sacrament (which follows a dude and his friends trying to get his sister out of a South American cult, with presumably bad results) is getting released onto VOD on May 5th, and then theaters in June.

--- And finally, hey hey hey it's the first real trailer for the third season of Sherlock you guys! Yeah this has been online all weekend so those of you who wanted to see it have already seen it, whatever, I'm just getting to it. 

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I Am Link

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--- Blood Lovers - Stephen Moyer says that he and Alexander Skarsgård have been trying for ages to get the makers of True Blood to give them a sex scene, but they're not having any of it. I want every single one of those assholes fired right this second. It'd be so easy too - that's what flashbacks are for! Bill and Eric lived through the Seventies, man.

--- Give Our Best - Over at The Film Experience the lot of us, contributor-wise, have started sounding off on an unlikely FYC campaign - that is, we're advocating for the our favorites from 2013 that're likely to be totally ignored when actual nominations for the Oscars start happening. Some good ones right off the bat!

--- John Boy - Our pal Nathaniel Rogers got to interview adorable (and shockingly un-shy, ahem) Jonathan Groff about his voice-acting in this weekend's hit cartoon Frozen as well as the upcoming gay HBO series Looking - you can see most of the interview at Towleroad, but Nat dropped a few extra bits over at TFE. Oh and Nat also chatted with Julia Louis Dreyfous. Exclamation points!

--- Spook Shows - I hate how much I'm forced to still pay attention to Harvey Weinstein and his brother, but whatcha gonna do, they stick their grimy hands into everything - in an interview with the New York Times the brothers say they're planning on turning both Frank Miller's Sin City comics and Stephen King's excellent short story The Mist into some sort of television miniseries type events. Frank Darabont, who made the mostly very very good Mist movie not too long ago, is apparently involved in this would-be ten-part series.

--- Pope Of Filth - John Waters' yearly top ten for ArtForum is online now... although I don't think there's a direct link to where he talks about his choices in the magazine, I'm just finding the list itself for now. As always, he's more interesting than most. I wish the girls were less indistinguishable from each other in Spring Breakers; that's what keeps me from totally being on board with it. Also - Sight and Sound's top ten is pretty great too.

--- Candy Dammit - SYTD has the first official (bloody) picture from the new movie by the director of the wonderful yet under-appreciated film Pontypool, which is called Hellions and is about a woman terrorized by a trio of trick r' treaters. (Everybody immediately thought of Lock Shock and Barrel from The Nightmare Before Christmas, right?)

--- Ha Ha Her - Here's seventy minutes of Greta Gerwig and some other people talking about having a "breakthrough year" for The Hollywood Reporter. I don't know where they've been, just now recognizing onto Greta. She should've been on their proper Actress Roundtable. Whatever!
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People Should Really Be Talking About...

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... giving Gaby Hoffmann awards 

for her performance in Crystal Fairy.
She is amaaaaaazing. (I loved the whole movie.)

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