More Hotties Head to Mike White's Place

It was just last week that I admitted to my 90s-brain on the sexiness of overalls (because Joe Alwyn rocked a pair) so how'd I miss this photo of Kumail Nanjiani in the last "Sexiest Man Alive" issue then? I guess I was probably still on the floor from the Joanthan Bailey shoot contained therein but still, no excuse. Anyway! Excellent news this mroning as a new batch of names have been droppeed (via Deadline) as The White Lotus' fourth season cast members -- and yes Kumail is right there up front. He's not the only hot piece in the bunch though, because Mike White loves us -- also named (joining the previously announced Chris Messina and Alexander Ludwig and Vincent Cassel among many) are adorable  Max Greenfield...

... and The Sex Lives of College Girls actor Charlie Hall, seen down below. He's Julia Louis-Dreyfus' son! I had to look back through Charlie's credits to figure out why I was already following him on Instagram and was reminded he played the police officer on Ryan Murphy's Ed Gein show whose mother (played by an astonishing-as-always Lesley Manville) was murdered by Charlie Hunnam. He was great in that role! I know that series got a lot of shit as exploitative but I really dug it. Fuck the discourse. Anyway speaking of "the discourse" I can't wait to see what psychotic behavior Mike White has all of these hotties getting up to in France. How's he ever gonna top last season's bro-cest? I have many perverted ideas, Mike... MANY. Just hit me up if you need any inspiration.  

Kit Harington is Dreadful

Here is some welcome news -- Games of Thrones actors Kit Harington and Sophie Turner are reuniting for a gothic horror movie! Honestly, Kit was built in a lab to play sad-faced Poe-boys so I don't understand why he hasn't done that. Isn't it easy to picture his bosom heaving as a Jack-the-bodice-ripper type? I mean they rebooted Hammer Films and they haven't come calling to Kit yet? WTF? Anyway there's other good news here, besides the thought of Kit in a blousey white poet's shirt standing in a downpour -- the writer-director of this movie (which PS is called, quite perfectly, The Dreadful -- let's just hope it's good otherwise you've handed us critics a lot to lazily pun around with, aka like this very post's title) is Natasha Kermani, whose 2020 movie Lucky was really quite good! Here is my review of that film -- it's streaming on Shudder so do yourself a favor if you haven't already. Back to The Dreadful though -- here's the little bit of info we have on the plot:

"... the film [is] set against the backdrop of the War of the Roses follows Anne (Turner) and her mother-in-law Morwen, who live a solitary, harsh life on the outskirts of society. But when a man (Harington) from their past returns, he will set off a sequence of events that become a turning point for Anne."

Yadda yadda let's hope it's a sexy "turning point." Although -- will it be weird for Kit and Sophie, who plays semi-siblings for eight seasons of Winterfell antics, to get sexy? Whatever, that show was stuffed with incest, we'll get over it. One other Kit-related question I was just wondering the other day though, with regards to their brief turns in the Marvel Cinematic Universe -- do we think we'll ever see his character (Dane Whitman aka the Black Knight) or Richard Madden's ever again? Or does the MCU just wanna forget everything Eternals-related? It seems like you'd have to have an Eternal or two popping up at some point again...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Big Sick (2017)

Sharmeen: I was so worried. We saw on

the news that a train derailed, and we thought

that you were on the train, and you had died.

Kumail: Nobody died on that train, ma.

Sharmeen: But did they look under the train?

That line always makes me laugh so hard -- "under the train?" Her genuine concern and horror. LOL. Love this movie and love Kumail Nanjiani who is turning 45 today! And listen I know he's written and spoken a lot about unrealistic body expectations ever since he did the whole Marvel superhero body-change up thing but I just have to post this picture again, I don't even care -- let's just enjoy this today!

Good Morning, Gratuitous Spencer Boldman

I doubt I'll get around to doing one of these posts for every single one of the strippers on the Welcome to Chippendales show (see also here) -- we will have to move on at some point! But I had to do this one as an apology to actor Spencer Boldman -- he played the perfectly named "Lance" on that show who became the lead dancer thanks to Murray Bartlett's character's obsession with him and I just did not get it. I was the doubting Kumail Nanjiani! It's true. But dude looked different on the series...

... than he does in real life. Not just in the Rocky Horror rip-off dance -- that 80s mullet hair was really getting in my way. I couldn't see the trees for the mullet! But then yesterday I saw Spencer photographed and interviewed as his own hot self for my old friend Schön! magazine and the clouds parted... well really what parted was his shirt collar to reveal that dude is hairy in real life.

And we all know the magic that works. I could see the forest for the trees now -- the forest of thick, lustrous chest hair that is. I'm sold! That said Spencer has been around for awhile (I guess he was in the first 21 Jump Street movie but I'll be damned if I remember anything about the first or the second 21 Jump Street movies) and before this new shoot for Schön! he seems to have been a long-time advocate of shaving his true glory, so most of what you'll see below (mostly stolen off his Insta) is of the waxed-down variety. It's okay! I can see past that now. (As long as he promises to keep the fur from now on!) Hit the jump for a big ol' batch of photos...

Good Afternoon, Gratuitous Michael Graceffa

(Editor's Note: This was meant to be a "Good Morning" post but my office internet has been down all day. So here we are!) So who watched Welcome to Chippendales? The Hulu series that starred Kumail Nanjiani, Juliette Lewis, Annaleigh f'ing Ashford, and Murray Bartlett? (I shared the trailer here.) Naturally I did although I felt like I was always playing a lot of catch-up with it -- anyway I made it to the end right about the time it was ending so we're square. I thought it was pretty good! The story we've seen a million times before -- literally, this exact story about Somen Banerjee and these murders has been told several times before -- but they gathered a terrific group of actors who were delights in themselves, and that's before we even get to talking about the strippers themselves...

Finally catching up on #WelcometoChippendales and holy hell Quentin Plair y'all pic.twitter.com/noT3n5diZv

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 22, 2022

Speaking of I really thought I'd end up doing a big post on Quentin Plair honestly, but despite the show taking full advantage when they had him around 1) his character's arc was truncated and 2) his Instagram isn't nearly self-exploitative enough. One glance at Michael "Mikey" Graceffa's online presence though (especially his Insta) -- hoo boy. He is making up for it for the entire cast!

I need to re-watch Andrew Ahn's Fire Island from last year for several reasons -- one of them being that it was an excellent movie! -- but especially now that I see Mikey here was in the cast; I don't remember him at all. There were so many hot dudes in that movie though that my eyes were crossed most of the time, trying to take it all in. I think he's mostly a Broadway person? He is clearly a dancer. I know this because I have eyes and my eyes are telling me that that is a dancer's butt. Anyway I am sure y'all might know better, what he's done stage-wise. Me all I know is what my eyes are telling me, and... yeah, they're still crossed. Good lorrrrd. Hit the jump for dozens more...

Body By Kumail

I don't know what the hell else I was doing on September 20th when the teaser trailer for the Welcome To Chippendales series dropped, but seeing as I've been following every whisper of every development of the series from Day One it seems truly bizarre that I just realized I'd never posted it. So I'm righting that right now, even though y'all have had weeks to watch it and I have nothing new to add to the conversation at this point. The series has an incredible cast with Kumail Nanjiani in the lead as the creator of the male stripping empire, alongside Murray Bartlett...

... Annaleigh Ashford, Juliette Lewis, Andrew Rannells, Dan Stevens, Roswell, and Robin de Jesús, and it will tell the story of the murder that rocked its g-string kingdom back in the 1980s. The series will premiere on Hulu on November 22nd -- you know, just in time to watch it with your Grandma and Grandpa after stuffing yourselves sick with turkey feast. The perfect holiday entertainment!

Pics of the Day

This morning Vanity Fair has shared with us the first photos from Welcome to Chippendales, Kumail Nanjiani's series about the dude who got that male-stripper thing rolling back in the 1970s and 80s, and then also that whole murder thing that happened that got covered by the tabloids and turned into a TV movie and such. VF has some photos of Kumail in character but they're really boring photos of him wearing ugly suits so you can click over for those -- I only stole the juicy ones. Murray Bartlett seen up top was cast back in January as the (doomed) choreographer, and I guess he's found his niche. Dead gays! I wonder if they'll kill him on Physical? He can have a full trifecta. Also on the show is Dan Stevens in an insanely flamboyant role I spoke about when he was cast -- they haven't given us any photos of him yet, I guess they're saving them. Anyway this show was previously called Immigrant but I guess they took my advice on changing that title because good grief was that title never gonna work! Welcome to Chippendales is a little clunky but at least it's not making the male stripper television program sound like a dour sepia-toned James Gray movie about cholera rats.

Dan is This Man

My opinion on the actor Dan Stevens tends to swing wildly around depending on the project -- if I'd gotten to know him circa The Guest we'd have been good, but I hated him on Downton and I think that gave us a shaky foundation upon which all else has been built since. That said Dan and me are in an upswing right now because that movie that had him speaking German and playing a robot (the movie called I'm Your Man) was an absolute delight and he was absolutely delightful in it -- if you haven't been able to see it yet I recommend you do! (It is on blu-ray and available to stream, FYI.) Anyway that's good news for him getting cast on Kumail Nanjiani's forthcoming limited series Immigrant, which is about the formation of the male stripper league called the Chippendales and that nasty business with the murder that happened. And even better was when I googled the real life dude he's set to play, named Paul Snider:

Oh my god THIS is the guy that Dan Stevens was just cast as in Kumail Nanjiani's CHIPPENDALES series pic.twitter.com/a9AYWIShPx

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 24, 2022

Dan Stevens is about to have some fun, you guys. DH describes Snider as "a hustler and serial schmoozer whose unlikely partnership with struggling LA backgammon club owner Banerjee (Nanjiani) led to the birth of the Chippendales." Snider is also best known for the 1980 murder of his wife, the Playboy model Dorothy Stratten (who'd been sleeping with Peter Bogdonavich), after which Snider killed himself -- all of this then got turned into Bob Fosse's movie Star 80...

.... where Snider was played with grand sexy sleaze by Eric Roberts. This is so much information. Anyway last we'd heard about Nanjiani's series was when mustache-king Murray Bartlett got cast in the series as the stripper-choreographer; actually scratch that I did hear a few weeks later that Andrew Rannells of Girls fame got cast as Murray's boyfriend. And DH says that charmer Annaleigh Ashford also has a role, which is always welcome; like Jake we love that lady!

Dance Murray Dance

Great week for Murray Bartlett and fans of Murray Bartlett, as he's both been rightly nominated for a SAG award for his performance in The White Lotus and won a prime role in an upcoming thing we're looking forward to. The "upcoming thing" is Kumail Nanjiani's limited series Immigrant for Hulu about the sordid true-life story of murder and mayhem behind the exotic male dancer empire known as the Chippendales -- Murray has just landed the role of the choreographer Nick De Noia...

... who (spoiler alert I guess but this is a well-known tabloid story from the 1980s) is the dude who got murdered in the middle of this most sordid and bow-tied tale. I like how the press release describes the character:

"Producer-choreographer Nick De Noia is a charming, fast-talking New Yorker who’s certain he’s God’s gift to entertainment. Just ask him. He is the person responsible for transforming Chippendales from a seedy male strip joint in West LA to the global juggernaut it would one day become. A man of many passions, Nick loves drinking, drugs, women, men–and most of all, show biz."

Post-Lotus this casting almost feels like typecasting it's so dead-on, right? Anyway we're very excited for Murray, dude deserves all of this, and I hope Immigrant is great. Immigrant feels like an awfully self-serious title for this, I have to say, even though the story of the dude Nanjiani is playing will likely warrant that -- I just hope it's not entirely wiped clear of the sordid entertainment value inherent in its beekcake-y premise. I know you have a lot of heavy thoughts of men's body image issues now, Kumail, but it's not all doom-and-gloom!

Kumail Nanjiani One Time

Pic of the Day

Hey look it's another photo of Eternals co-stars Kumail Nanjiani and Bary Keoghan getting themselves into superhero shape! (See the earlier photo here.) I wish it was a better quality copy but I did a search and couldn't find one -- if I do, I'll update. Anyway with Eternals premiering all over the place this week it's the two of them that seem to be having the most fun on the red carpets, and as well they should. They've earned it.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... believing in taking care of myself with 

a balanced diet and a rigorous exercise routine 

with Kumail Nanjiani.

Kumail is on the cover of the new issue of Men's Health (thx Anna) showing off his brand new Eternals bod -- something we've all known was coming ever since he first posted those great big beefcake photos back in December -- and oh lordy it doesn't disappoint. Besides the workout video (which I have dutifully capped the ever-loving shit out of below)...

... and the interview with him, they have had him recreate several icons of meaty man testosterone iconography, such as Patrick Bateman (up top), Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, and the infamous Top Gun volleyball scene. (Of which I'm tempted to do a "Who wore it best?" with Glen Powell in the trailer for the sequel.) It's all so sweaty and veiny and goofy and stupendous I feel like I've gotten my own workout for the day just looking at these things. While I get some rest y'all hit the jump for a few dozen snaps...

Quote of the Day

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"I just shot a Marvel film with the first openly gay superhero, The Eternals. I’m married to the gay superhero Phastos, played by Atlanta’s Brian Tyree Henry, and we represent a gay family and have a child... [there's] a beautiful, very moving kiss. Everyone cried on set. For me it’s very important to show how loving and beautiful a queer family can be. Brian Tyree Henry is such a tremendous actor and brought so much beauty into this part, and at one point I saw a child in his eyes, and I think it’s important for the world to be reminded that we in the queer community were all children at one point. We forget that because we’re always depicted as sexual or rebellious. We forget to connect on that human part."

Part of me worries about sharing this news via an interview with the out actor Haaz Sleiman in NewNowNext last week, because for one he hasn't been officially announced as a part of the cast of Eternals yet as far as I can tell (he's not listed on its IMDB page, for one), and this seems like a weird way for us to find something this big out. Of course the IMDb page for Eternals, which isn't out until the end of this year, only has eleven cast-members on it right now and if I had to guess there are more then eleven people in their new super-team movie. That said Sleiman isn't part of the team, it's Brian Tyree Henry's character called Phastos...

... who is part of the team, and who's to say that this character's home life will end up in the final cut? If you want a really good rundown on the character of Phastos by the way click right here, they've got scans of comic-book appearances through the decades and everything. Basically it's convoluted, like it is with all comic book characters, but it sounds like Phastos is a pacifist who at one point gets trapped in human form and forgets he's an Eternal altogether. In the comics he has to give up his human life to re-join the Eternals; I'm guessing, if this plot stays in, that'll be a gay family he has to say goodbye to?

Anyway, to just ask the obvious question we're all thinking  -- is Bryan Tyree Henry gay? When the "first openly gay Marvel Superhero" was being cast there was talk that the actor playing the gay superhero would be gay -- we were all real excited it might be Richard Madden, since he was "hanging out with" his "buddy" Brandon Flynn at the time -- but I am clueless about Henry's sexuality. That'll be amazing if so, if we can claim him, he was so great in Widows and If Beale Street Could Talk.

As for Sleiman he is indeed openly gay -- not to mention Muslim and on top of that (heh) a "total bottom" as he once put it so eloquently -- and he has been out for awhile; he was playing gay on Nurse Jackie a full decade ago. I didn't watch that show so I mainly recognize him from 2007's The Visitor with Richard Jenkins, a great movie indeed. But Sleiman's Instagram is awful giving, and if you'd like to get a taste of the giving hit the jump, I gathered up a few...

Kumail Nanjiani Three Times

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Via Interview Magazine, where they also get him to answer some quick fun questions. They asked him about the shirtless photos he posted to show off his brand new and surprising Marvel Superhero Body recently that blew up the internet and his answer amuses:

“Obviously, I put those pictures out. I wanted to have them out there because I was like, ‘Christmas is coming up. Who knows what I’ll look like in two weeks?’ And then I posted them, checked a bit later and it was fine. There was nothing. But when I checked it the next time, it was trending. I was scrolling through Twitter, and it was just my torso, after my torso, after my torso, over and over and over. And I was just like, ‘Oh my god! What have I done?'”

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The Last Man Is Cursed, Curse The Last Man

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Okay first fucking things first how has this photo of my boys Barry Keoghan and Kumail Nanjiani shirtless at the gym escaped my eyeballs for forty-eight straight days? Barry posted it on his Instagram on December 20th! That was in an entirely different decade, yo. Granted that was only a couple of days after Kumail first revealed his big boy Marvel Movie physique (see here) so perhaps this tinier wave to those tidals was lost in their wake, but still. This one makes it gayer with one of my faves! Forty-eight wasted days of my life, damn. 

Barry is co-starring with Kumail (not to mention Richard Madden and Kit Harington) in Eternals, which is set to come out in November -- Barry's playing the character called Druig, cousin to Ikaris (aka Madden's possibly homosexual character), and I think he's kind of a bad guy? His Wiki bio says he likes torturing people, including his cousin -- ooh Barry Keoghan torturing Richard Madden, I could so be into that. 

Blah blah blah I'm not here to talk about a blasted Marvel movie! Funny how they swallow everything up, innit? I'm here to talk about the accursed TV adaptation of Brian K. Vaughn's comic series Y: The Last Man, which just dropped a brand new bomb on us today -- Barry is being booted, and the leading character of Yorick is being recast yet again. Dammit all to heck and back! Barry got cast in the show back in July of 2018 and I was happy about it -- I loved the comics, and I love Barry. Talent meets talent, what's not to be happy about? 

Apparently something. I've been covering the Last Man beat since 2008 and they just cannot get this thing off the ground. They were real close this time -- I think a pilot even got filmed -- and THR says that the latest show-runner Eliza Clark of Animal Kingdom isn't recasting anybody else, everybody else that was on board remains. I don't know if Barry's schedule just got in the way, what with the Marvel Movies and all, or what. All I know is I am sad he won't be my Last Man.

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Kumail Nanjiani Two Times

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Now that I have seen these the fruits of Kumail's Eternals work-outs in the flesh I take back all of the defenses I ever made of Martin Scorsese's stance against superhero cinema -- Marvel wins! Sorry Marty you're on your own now. (via)

Eternally Kit's

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The ever expanding cast of Marvel's new superhero group hug called Eternals has just upped its Stark quota up a whole 'nother notch -- on top of Richard Madden comes Kit Harington! Sorry I just really wanted to write that sentence. Pow pow!

That is to say that Kit Harington has joined the cast alongside Richard Madden, his former Game of Thrones brother (or is that cousin?) -- Kit will be playing "Dane Whitman" who is not an "Eternal" whatever the hell an "Eternal" is (sorry I'm taking my time figuring out the new Marvel stuff -- can't I just let the movies tell me?) but is the hero also known as "Black Knight" I guess.

Richard Madden we already know's playing the character of "Ikaris" who is indeed one of them Eternals, whatever they may be... I think they might last a long time, but judging by the name "Ikaris" have some trouble spelling? Madden & Harington will co-star alongside Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan, Salma Hayek, Kumail Nanjiani and his new big biceps, Barry Keoghan (yay), Brian Tyree Henry, and on and on. Okay whatever we're done with words, it's time for a few new Kit pics I haven't posted before, right here after the jump...

Don't Come On Marvel's Parade

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Mahershala Ali playing Blade is such No Shit Sherlock casting I can't believe I hadn't thought of it until Marvel announced it this weekend -- I suppose I hadn't spent a shit-ton of time considering who'd play Blade since Marvel kept insisting they had no plans to touch the comics any time soon and I couldn't see how a vampire fighter would figure into the all consuming MCU anyway, but then Mahershala came along, snapped up two Oscars, and everybody was like, "Ohh shit, right. Obviously." That said for all the cool individual bits of news that came out of Marvel's pop culture Comic-Con domination of the weekend's news cycle -- the new Doctor Strange will be a horror film! Tony fucking Leung is playing the Mandarin! Kumail's Biceps!

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what pic.twitter.com/Eck0YefvkF

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 21, 2019

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For all of that coolness I'm still feeling weary (and already tweeted such) about... well not really the films themselves, which are perfectly fine, enjoyable, disposable products. It's more the way we as a culture are reacting to them -- them, along with the gajillion dollars that the godawful looking Lion King made this weekend too. It's just the cult mentality that turns me off -- Marvel movies are fine, perfectly fine! Really! But the internet swooning like heaven itself has cum on their collective face from a television series' font choice just strikes me as a bit absurd, is all. Call me a nutter but I just want a little more from my money shots.
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Cheers to the Movies of Now

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Horror of horrors Twitter is down, so I guess I'll write a post instead of screaming nonsense into that void right now -- here, let's take a look at the several movies out this weekend (my birthday weekend!) then. Of which I've seen precisely none but oh well, I can tell you what they are anyway. There's the action-comedy Stuber with adorkables Kumail Nanjiani & Dave Bautista playing an Uber driver and his psycho detective passenger respectively, which is mainly notable for giving us their press rounds bromance, which has included a lot of Dave talking up Kumail's new muscles. Hell Men's Health even did a feature on Kumail's Muscles now!

Looking good, Kumail! I love the both of these guys so I'll probably watch their movie on a bored afternoon once it hits streaming -- there's other stuff I'm prioritizing. Like the ridiculous looking "alligator inside a house" movie Crawl, for one! This sort of shit is so up my alley -- disaster movie, animals attack, getting to think about Benjamin Walker because the actress in the lead is his wife.

All I ever wanted! Maybe the third act twist will have Ben showing up in his American Psycho tighty-whities, soaking wet from the hurricane, to wrestle the alligator and save the day. A boy can dream. On to the next movies, one of which I just talked about yesterday -- the dark karate comedy The Art of Self-Defense with Alessandro Nivola and Jesse Eisenberg. And then there is the only one of these that I have already bought tickets to see, The Farewell with Awkwafina, which has been getting killer reviews ever since it premiered at Sundance. I'm seeing it tomorrow morning and the trailer makes me sob, so I fully expect to be a mess from this one.

What're y'all seeing this weekend?

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