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

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

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

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

JAW Me By Your Name

Now here we see a few of my interests rubbing up on each other in a pleasurable way -- underpants model and professional chef pretender Jeremy Allen White is going to follow up his role as everybody's favorite New Jersey songstress with man-fucking! He's going to star in an limited series adaptation of Call Me By Your Name author André Aciman's bisexual tome Enigma Variations for Netflix. Here is the book's description:

"Enigma Variations charts the life of a man named Paul, whose loves remain as consuming and as covetous throughout his adulthood as they were in his adolescence. Whether the setting is southern Italy, where as a boy he has a crush on his parents’ cabinetmaker, or a snowbound campus in New England, where his enduring passion for a girl he’ll meet again and again over the years is punctuated by anonymous encounters with men―whether he’s on a tennis court in Central Park or on a New York sidewalk in early spring. Paul’s attachments are ungraspable, transient, and forever underwritten by raw desire. Ahead of every step Paul takes, his hopes, denials, fears, and regrets are always ready to lay their traps. Yet the dream of love lingers. We may not always know what we want. We may remain enigmas to ourselves and to others. But sooner or later, we discover who we’ve always known we were."

I actually weirdly can't remember if I read this book or not? My brain ain't what it used to be y'all. I don't think I did but if I did it would've been in 2019 and there was so much else going on right then who can remember shit. Anyway on top of this series starring JAW and coming from an Aciman novel it's being directed in full by Oliver Hermanus, the South African director who caught my attention with the gay military drama Moffie in yes ye olde 2019 (I remember Moffie!) and then further when he made the gorgeous Living with Bill Nighy, and then again when he made the queer princeling story Mary & George with Julianne Moore, and who's immediate next project -- a gay love story starring Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal called The History of Sound  that'll supposedly be out sometime this year -- has been capturing my interest every second since I first heard about it ages back for obvious reasons. 

Anyway Hermanus seems to smartly be following the Luca Guadagnino playbook in establishing his cinematic bonafides while remaining very very gay, and we love to see it. This project will obviously remain very much on our radar!

Alessandro I Want For Chistmas...

Because he has three yes count them three movies out in theaters now -- Kraven the Hunter came out last week (read my quick thoughts here) while Brady Corbet's The Brutalist (read my review here) and Pedro Almodovar's The Room Next Door (wonderful but not reviewed by me) are both out now -- we have been blessed with not just one but two count them two photoshoots of Alessandro Nivola this week! This first one is for Sharp magazine and there's a chat with him at that link as well; the same goes for Anthem magazine, and you'll see those photos down below. Before that though, an aside -- there's a chance this post will be our last until the holidays are upon us, happening, and then history. Which is to say I'm not sure if I'll be online tomorrow and after that I'm definitely off until January 2nd of the year 2025. If that's not the case I suppose you'll know when I start rambling on here tomorrow. But if not -- Happy Holidays, everyone! And consider this collection o' Nivola my gifts to you, right on after the jump...

I Need The Room Next Door Like Yesterday

The first teaser trailer for Pedro Almodovar's English-language debut feature film The Room Next Door starring Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton has arrived and it's perfectly fine to watch if you're spoiler-averse like me -- it's nothing but a disconnected series of gorgeous images and music...

COLOR IN THE NEW ALMODOVAR TRAILER, PART TWO pic.twitter.com/YIKMKQv3mr

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 20, 2024

... that will get you right in the mood for this, this movie, this movie right here, I need this movie right here inside of my body right this fucking second. Ahem. Excuse me, I got carried away. Almodovar will do that to you. I will be seeing this in exactly 45 days at NYFF -- for those of you who won't be seeing it at any of the fall festivals (it's playing most all of them) it is hitting NYC and LA on December 20th and then it will spread out in January. Here's the teaser:

The Poster Next Door

The poster for Pedro Almodóvar's The Room Next Door has arrived and in the grand tradition of Pedro Almodóvar Movie Posters it's a work of art that any sane person should want to hang on their wall. The obvious reference is of course Bergman's Persona, with two women's faces intermingling, but them being down at the bottom laid out like a landscape, like mountains, makes me think of the poster for Rosemary's Baby as well. I'm sure that was also thought of. Anyway I'm also including the Spanish version below just to prove that the font design on these is beautiful in any language...

NYFF Ahoy!

Although it seems nuts to be onto the fall festivals already (not that I will miss this hellfire summer in the slightest, mind you) it is indeed the perfect moment for me to take stock of my hometown beloved, the New York Film Festival, since they've officially announced all three of their Gala films now. We'll start with the end, or is that the middle -- today they announced their Centerpiece film screening and it will indeed be Pedro Almodóvar’s first English-language full-length film The Room Next Door starring Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, John Turturro, and Alessandro Nivola. See all my previous posts on this one here -- we've been rather excited about this for some time, because of course we have. 

This will be its U.S. premiere -- it's premiere-premiering in Venice in September. The NYFF screening is October 4th, right in the middle of the fest -- hence it being the "Centerpiece film" duh -- which runs from September 27–October 14. And speaking of those dates -- the Opening Night film that they announced a couple of weeks ago is Nickel Boys from Hale County This Morning, This Evening (a truly spectacular movie, that) director RaMell Ross -- an adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer-winning novel, Nickel Boys stars Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Hamish Linklater, Daveed Diggs, Fred Hechinger, and two young actors named  Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson in the leads; it's about "two Black teenagers who become wards of a barbaric juvenile reformatory in Jim Crow–era Florida." Anybody read the book? 

And then there's our Closing Night movie -- Steve McQueen's Blitz! I've been jonesing for this ever since I first heard about it -- the Hunger and Shame and 12 Years a Slave director is tackling the World War II bombings that devastated London from the ground level, with Saiorse Ronan playing a working-class mum who gets seperated from her little boy in the underground. Blitz also stars, among many others, Harris Dickinson, Stephen Graham, and Hayley Squires -- I have been a massive fan of Squires ever since she wowed in Ken Loach's 2016 film I, Daniel Blake, so I hope her role is juicy too. A lot of people think this might be the movie to finally get Saoirse her Best Actress Oscar, but I don't think enough people have actually seen it yet to know that much. (Having seen her in The Outrun at Sundance though I can already tell you that this is going to be a very good fall for her.)

Anyway that's three films down, dozens more to come -- I daren't even conjecture, they always surprise me, but I find myself getting giddy thinking about it already. If you're planning on attending you can buy packages right here right now; single tickets go on sale in the middle of September. 

Pic of the Day

Alongside this new image from the set we have some very happy-making news today from Sony Classics themselves that Pedro Almodovar's The Room Next Door starring Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore will be out this year! I hope it premieres at NYFF -- Pedro seems to love NYFF. He's always showing up for it. That would rock. See all my previous posts on this movie, Almodovar's first full-length film in English, here -- notably the fact that it also co-stars John Turturro and Alessandro Nivola (mmm). And I see IMDb has added a few other names to the cast -- hello there, Juan Diego Botto...

Good Morning, World

Well it looks like Paul Mescal was still filming The History of Sound, his gay movie with Josh O'Connor from Moffie and Living director Oliver Hermanus, in Italy over the weekend -- either that or Paul was feeling very frisky all on his own! I shared some more-dressed photos on Friday from the set -- it seems they timed the filming of these Just-Paul scenes to coincide with the ongoing Challengers press tour, which Josh has been traveling around with while wearing the goofiest fashions his stylist can throw at him. Anyway in related Oliver Hermanus news I finally started his limited-series Mary & George with Julianne Moore & Nicholas Galitzine over the weekend and I practically finished it too -- just two episodes to go. So I'm loving it obviously but I'll write more once I have finished. Okay that's all, hit the jump for a few more photos and happy Monday...

Nicholas Galitzine Four Times

The series Mary & George starring Nicholas Galitzine and Julianne Moore as sexy ruffled schemers in the court of gay ol' King James I premieres on Starz on Friday (watch the trailer right here if you missed it) and so naturally we're seeing some new photos of Mr. Galitzine popping up -- these ones here are via an interview with The New York Times. He's just too pretty to live, dammit. Anyway that's obviously a promising two-some but the thing that hooked me the most was this series is from Living and Moffie director Oliver Hermanus (who is currently directing that gay love story starring Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor.) He's talented and we we like him a lot! Anyway hit the jump for the rest of the pictures of our pretty little princeling...

Good Morning, World

Only 10 days until Mary & George drops on Starz here in the U.S.! Here is the trailer in case you missed it -- this is the series from Living director Oliver Hermnus starring pretty boy Nicholas Galitzine alongside on Miss Julianne Moore as the royal-fuckers who got one over on the hornt up King James by serving little Georgie-boy here up on a sexy platter. Kingdoms have fallen for much much less! Anyway the show already aired in the U.K. a month ago so perhaps some of you have seen it? I've had screeners for weeks but inexplicably haven't started them yet. I should be lashed... and Nicholas here should be just the boy to do it. 

Make Room For Alessandro Nivola

Extremely happy-making news today with the word that one of our favorite actors Alessandro Nivola has just joined the cast of Pedro Almodovar's new movie The Room Next Door! He joins the previously announced trio of Tilda Swinton, Julianne Moore, and John Turturro -- funny enough when I last posted about this movie about a week ago, I mentioned that it was already a Gloria Bell reunion thanks to the presence of Moore & Turturro; Nivola wasn't in Gloria Bell but he did give what I consider his greatest performance in a different Sebastián Lelio film, 2017's Disobediance. So Almodóvar's English-language debut feature film is turning into a total Lelio-fest (if only Tilda had worked with him) which I am totally down for. Anyway no word on what role Nivola is playing here, but I think we can rest assured that Pedro will know what to do with him. 

Pic of the (Yester) Day

Yesterday on Twitter Pedro Almodóvar's brother and producer Agustín shared this image of Pedro with the stars of his next movie, his first English-language feature film, The Room Next Door! And as if I even need to name them those stars are Julianne Moore and Tilda Swinton! And yes every one of these sentences deserve an exclamation point! Every! One! of! These! Words! Deserve! An! Exclamation! Point! Anyway here is how IMDb describes the movie: "Martha's strained relationship with her mother fractures completely when a misunderstanding drives them apart. Their mutual friend Ingrid sees both sides of the rift."  TIlda is playing Martha, and Juli is the next door neighbor Ingrid. No word on who's playing Tilda's mother yet -- and after re-watching The Eternal Daughter a couple of weeks ago...

... excuse me for only being able to picture Tilda as being capable of playing TIlda's mother. I don't see Pedro going that route, though -- If I understand him (and I think I do) any excuse Pedro would have to work with an older legendary actress that he's never had the opportunity to work with before is the kind of thing one foresees him seizing. Who would you cast as Tilda's mother? 

Oh and one more thing I do want to mention on this subject -- there is one more person listed in the cast of this movie on IMDb and that person is John Turturro! I was weirdly never huge on Turturro (even despite my deep deep love for Barton Fink) until recently, thanks to the one-two punch of his performances in Sebastián Lelio's marvelous Gloria Bell (opposite Julianne Moore!) and on the show Severance. His romance with Christopher Walken of all people is one of my favorite things on T.V. these days. Who the hell had John Turturro becoming one of our great romantic actors on their bingo card? What a time to be alive.

Red White and Royal Twink

I'm surprised that the full trailer for Mary & George -- Moffie and Living director Oliver Hermanus' seven-part mini-series on the gay old tale of Mary Villiers, her son George, and the King of England, starring Julianne Moore and Nicholas Galitzine and Tony Curran -- is less explicit than the teaser I shared back in November was; this longer look has far less anal sex and far more catty chit chat. Which is one assumes truer to the series itself -- there's probaby way more catty chit chat in seven episodes than there is anal sex. That's just the world we live in, unfortunately. Still this looks like a blast and I cannot wait -- it hits Starz on April 5th so only about ten weeks from now! That's not too long, we can probably make it. Just have a lot of anal sex between now and then and it'll fly by.

Good Morning, World

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

Good Morning, World

Happy (?) Monday from naked Charles Melton in May December -- not the happiest of faces to greet the week with, we must admit! But everything else is making up for it. And I include amid that "everything else" a brand new big piece I wrote about May December for Mashable that landed over the weekend wherein I watched the 2000 TV movie All American Girl about the Mary Kay Letourneau affair (starring Penelope Ann Miller!) and compared it with what Todd Haynes is doing in his movie. Click here to read it. And happy Monday! Happyish anyway.

Raise Your Arm If You Love Cinema

Heads up -- or I suppose given that photo I should say arms up -- that two movies I reviewed awhile back are both making themselves more accessible today! First up and co-starring the armpit seen above there's Todd Haynes' triumphant tabloid satire May December, which is now on Netflix after a brief theatrical run -- that armpit belongs to the very good and very hot actor Charles Melton, who has been raking in awards for the performance in the film already, alongside Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman. Here is my review of that from NYFF.

And hitting theaters today (although I think it's a limited release) is Eileen, a Highsmithian lesbo romp starring Anne Hathaway and Thomasin Mackenzie that I saw at Sundance -- here is my review at The Film Experience, where I called it the movie that Carol couldn't be. More preciesly I've come to refer to it as of late as "The Pervert's Carol," which tickles me to no end. So along with the new Godzilla movie which I reviewed earlier there are three, count em three, great new movies to watch this weekend, so treat yourselves.

Haulin' Ass to the Holiday

Shortened day today as we head into the holiday -- MNPP will be closed up for new sexy business until Monday the 27th. It's kind of a slow week for new releases, weirdly -- usually Thanksgiving gets a heap for people to run from their relatives with? But all we've got is Ridley Scott's Napoleon (which I wrote a little about here) and Disney's animated Wish (which I haven't seen) and Dream Scenario with Nic Cage which I have seen and have not written about -- it's fine? It should have been far better, I had high hopes for it because its main idea is a great one. It just decides to lose itself in ideas I didn't find very interesting instead of the ones you do, given its concept. It's not terrible or anything though, and I say that as someone deeply skeptical of Cage. Perhaps youi'll dig it more. All of that said there are a couple of movies from last weekend that are still out that I do highly and deeply recommend -- my pervert lover Saltburn is expanding into a bunch more theaters so more of you will finally be able to see what the fuss about, which makes me happy given it's one of my favorites of the year. Here's my review if you missed it. Same with Todd Haynes' May December -- here's my review of that wonderful weird movie. 

Guess I'm not going to have time to fully review THANKSGIVING which is a shame so here's a brief one: GO FRIGGIN SEE IT, it's so much fun, an old-school slasher blast of hilarious and relentless nastiness that should play like gangbusters with an audience #ThanksgivingMovie pic.twitter.com/BX2EgWXtWB

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 17, 2023

And Eli Roth's Thanksgiving is still in theaters! As stated in the tweet seen above I never properly reviewed that but there are my thoughts -- I'm actually dying to see it a second time and so I might go over the holiday myself. And given what a goddamned hermit I've become that's really saying something. Oh and the new Hunger Games is still out and it's better than it has any right being -- here's my review of that. Other than that I have heaps upon heaps of awards screeners that've been piled up in my inbox so I'm hoping to catch up on things I haven't yet seen this year.. either that or I'll just watch Saltburn, All of Us Strangers, and Poor Things on a loop for five straight days, because all three of those arrived in my inbox yesterday and they're really all I want to watch anyway. But if y'all see something interesting, tell me about it in the comments as always!

Oh and now for one more thing of total self-interest (what's new) -- if you do any Black Friday shopping at Amazon why not do it through this link here, which tosses a few pennies our way? Consider it a tip for me keeping you in Paul Mescal Ass all year long! Or you can buy some of the rad shit I have for sale on eBay right now -- and I add things weekly to my store because I lack self-control and buy lots of things and then decide I don't want or need them and list them on eBay. It'll probably expand exponentially over the next few weeks too as awards merch comes in from the studios that I have no desire to own (I just got a box full of stuff from the movie Air and uhh yeah that's very clearly not my jam). So do continue to keep checking there. Or if you care to (i.e. if you love me) just donate to MNPP via PayPal, which you can do at that link or via the one in the right-hand column. It's the holidays! Love me some dammit!

Seriously though have a great holiday, everyone.

We'll see you next week!

A King Fit For Topping

It had been so long since I'd posted about this project (since January, see here) that it had quite incredibly entirely slipped my mind -- Nicholas Galitzine and Julianne Moore starring in Mary & George, the very queer tale of Mary Villiers and her beautiful son George who she used to seduce King James I with back circa 17th Century England, from Oliver Hermanus, the director of Moffie and Living and the forthcoming gay WWI romance with Paul Mescal & Josh O'Connor. This is a thing and I forgot about it! In my defense there's, you know, a lot happening in the world. 

Anyway a trailer dropped for Mary & George yesterday and it does not appear to be disappointing on all that we'd dreamed and hoped it might be -- it's the great Tony Curran who's playing the horned-up King and we've loved him ever since Andrea Arnold's film Red Road. This is a seven-part series that will air on Starz some time next year -- hopefully not too far into next year! Making us wait for this gorgeoues gay spectacle would be cruel in an election year. We will need the happy distraction. Here's the trailer:

So what do we think? Isn't it everything? It is everything.

Melton Your Mouth

I think that "old" photo of actor Charles Melton (it's probably five years old at most -- dude is only 32 now) will grab your attention long enough for me to point you in the direction of my review of May December, the Todd Haynes film that he stars in opposite some actresses named Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman. I saw the movie at NYFF last month and it rocked my face off; I saw it a second time last week and it rocked my just glued-back-on face off a second time. It's great complex weird stuff -- Haynes back in incredibly fine form. Speaking of "fine form"... that photo of Charles Melton. I mean really. How dare he?

The Melton Between Us

Love this new poster for Todd Haynes' May December (via)! The film is hitting theaters on Friday and then it's on Netflix on December 1st -- here is the trailer and here is my review of the movie from when it openbed the NYFF. I saw it a second time over the weekend (see below for some photos and video of Julianne Moore and Charles Melton getting to do their first Q&A for the film at MoMA now that the SAG strike is over) and it's a film that gets even richer and funnier and weirder with multiple viewings -- there are so many ways to read it, and this poster does an ace job of getting that across. I hope they release this poster, I want one!

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