5 Off My Head: The Steak F*cker Supreme

The sparkling vampire with the iconic up-do is celebrating his 40th today! Robert Pattinson aka RPattz is officially the big four-oh, slamming the door not just on twinkdom but twunkdom altogether. Which is fine by me because our man just keeps getting better and finer with age -- I don't care what people are saying about his wonky accent work in The Odyssey or Dune 3 trailers, as I love it when Rob gifts us a wonky accent. Remember his Pepé Le Pew accent work in The King? 

You probably don't remember that, because who remembers The King. But it made that entire movie spring to life, it did, I swear. Anyway I'm going to finally give you my list of five favorite performances now, and lemme tell you -- one of these is a favorite quite possibly entirely due to the accent he adopts for the film. (I won't say which one and it could go for several but I mean one specifically and if you've seen it you probably know what one I'm talking about.) Anyway it took some time (I still haven't seen a single Twilight movie) but I've fully come to love it whenever Rob shows up anywhere -- I do miss...

... the interviews where he'd gleefully spit out nonsense like how he really jerked off on camera because he couldn't fake an oh-face for that Gay Salvador Dali movie he made, but I guess he's 40 now. He has to be semi-respectable. Hehe "semi." Well clearly turning 40 didn't make me grow up! Take note, Rob!

My 5 Favorite Robert Pattinson Performances

Connie, Good Time

"You know what, tonight, as fucked up as it is, I just think... I think something very important is happening and it's deeply connected to my purpose. And I think that you are somehow connected to it as well. I mean, do you feel me at all? Or do I just sound like a total faggot?"

Thomas, The Lighthouse

"Goddamn yer farts! You smell like piss, you smell like jism, like rotten dick, like curdled foreskin, like hot onions fucked a farmyard shit-house. "

Jackson, Die My Love

"Maybe if I spend a little less time with my hands down my pants and a little more time writing, maybe I'd write something, maybe."

Monte, High Life

"The sensation of moving backwards even though we are moving forwards, getting further from what's getting nearer, sometimes I just can't stand it."

Samuel, Damsel

"Regular horses don't have names,
they're just, uh, you know, regular."

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Runners-up: Mickey 17, The Lost City of Z,
Cosmopolis, Maps To the Stars 

 So what are your favorites?

Saint Juli

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Juliette Binoche, the world's greatest living actress according to me (sorry Isabelle Huppert, I do go back and forth, but Juli is love), was in NYC last evening at MoMA to show off her directorial debut In-I In Motion, a documentary she and her sister made about a dance performance that Juli created and performed in 2007 with the choreographer Akram Khan, and I was there because she's Juliette fucking Binoche and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Above are some photos and videos I took from the Q&A. I thought the doc was terrific but then I cannot be trusted as I could literally just stare at Binoche's face for ten hours straight and never get bored -- she remains utterly transfixing. The first question my boyfriend asked when I got home afterwards was if she cried, and SHE DID -- she knows her audience. She teared up several times during the Q&A because her emotions really are just like Right There at all times and I don't know how exhausting that must be for her but we are all the richer for it. Incredibly this was Binoche's first time ever being on stage at MoMA, a fact that blows my mind -- I have been in her holy presence before at NYFF but this was special all the same. A legend. 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Certfied Copy (2010) 

Elle: After we've seen so many copies of something over so many years, we're not all experts who can stand before an original and understand it. It takes our breath away. Therefore, without the existence of copies, we wouldn't understand originals.

Happy birthday to one of the world's greatest living (or dead) actors Juliette Binoche. I just listened to the "This Had Oscar Buzz" podcast episode on this movie of hers last week, so I've really been jonesing to re-watch it -- it's been a couple years now. I like to take a couple years between watches because I swear to you it feels like a totally different movie every time I do. Just an incredible film, with what might be Binoche's greatest performance. Which, if you've seen a few of her performances, is clearly saying a lot. She is never bad! 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)

Tomas: Some people never change.

Some people are always scoundrels.

A happy 87th birthday to writer-director Philip Kaufman! I had to slap the shit out of myself so I didn't quote my favorite movie of Kaufman's, his beyond brilliant 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers -- I've talked about that movie so much before. Time for some fresh blood! That said I've only seen The Unbearable Lightness of Being one time and I think I was too young for it because it didn't really resonate -- any fans? I feel as if it should resonate given it stars Daniel Day-Lewis and Juliette Day-Binoche and Lena Day-Olin. So I clearly need to revisit. And -- here's a shocker -- I still have never seen Kaufman's 1983 astronaut classic The Right Stuff? How is that possible? That cast includes the veritable hunk parade of Dennis Quaid, Scott Glenn, Sam Shepherd, and Fred Ward! My priorities, man.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Raw (2016)

Justine: I wanted a female roommate.

Adrien: You got a fag; same thing to them.

A happy birthday to the director Julia Ducournau, turning 39 today -- it only seems apt to celebrate the director of the art-house queer cannibal coming-of-age flick Raw here on the day when Luca Guadagnino's art-house queer cannibal coming-of-age film Bones and All is hitting some theaters. (Sidenote: click here for some lovely photos of Raw hottie Rabah Nait Oufella, who plays the "fag" quoted above.) I'd love to know how influenced Bones was by Raw -- there's got to be some overlap. Somebody needs to ask Luca or screenwriter Dave Kajganich about that, please!

Anyway we're dying here waiting for Ducournau's next project after Titane blew our brains out last year -- IMDb tells me she's directing some TV right now, namely The New Look, aka the "Christian Dior versus Coco Chanel" limited series for Apple that stars Ben Mendelsohn as the former and Juliette Binoche as the latter. Also co-starring Emily Mortimer, John Malkovich, and Claes Bang. And if that's not blowing your brains out already they weren't there to begin with. 

Wherefore Art Thou Criterion

It's the happiest day of the month, Criterion Announcement Day! Where the company called Criterion announces all of their new titles for home video release. Today's announcement takes us to the releases of February 2023, but while we'll no doubt be chilly ourselves there in the dead of winter these releases are anything but. Take for example Franco Zefferelli's 1968 take on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which they're dropping onto blu-ray on (awww) Valentine's Day. Anybody else watch this in English class in high school? Do they do that anymore? As much as I love the Baz Luhrmann version I really hope they're not showing that in English classes nowadays. Still, Leonard Whiting's bum was inspirational for many of us so I hope the younger generations will now get to appreciate it in gorgeous 4K. 

Also in February -- Krzysztof Kieślowski's masterpiece "Three Colors" trilogy of Blue and White and Red is getting upgraded to 4K! A grand excuse to re-watch these, it's been ages. Well I've seen Blue several times over the years as that's always been my favorite (Binoche-head that I am) but the other two could definitely use another look. And I have a feeling I'll appreciate them even more now that I've got all of these years piled on me, than I did when I was in my early 20s watching them the first time. That hits on February 7th, while on the 28th Robert Townsend's 1987 film Hollywood Shuffle is hitting the Collection. I have never seen it, which is shameful, especially since the description of the film they share -- a Hollywood satire making fun of how all 1980s Hollywood wants is "an Eddie Murphy type" -- sounds rife with possibility. 

Also getting a 4K upgrade is Richard Linklater's seminal 1993 classic Dazed and Confused, hitting on February 21st. I've never been Linklater's biggest fan but I do like Dazed - I mean it's got Parker Posey so I have to, legally speaking. I haven't seen it in many a year either -- all I really remember is McConaughey, which seems about right, as he was still fuckable then. Anyway last but hardly least on the 28th Criterion is releasing a two-film boxed-set of director Marguerite Duras films, including India Song from 1975 and Baxter, Vera Baxter from 1977. I've not seen either -- I've never seen any of Duras' work! -- but I have always wanted to and this seems a perfect introduction. I mean they both star Delphine Seyrig for god's sake! Delphine Seyrig is one of the jewels in our crown. Anybody seen these?

The Odyssey Stays Home

Weirdly I spent some time on Twitter yesterday talking about Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes and suddenly today there is new news of Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes making a new movie together -- hey if I have this sort of power let me put "Oscar Isaac and Kit Harington Erotic Thriller" energy into the world right now, while I'm at it. As for Ralph & Juliette they've previously co-starred in the 1992 version of Wuthering Heights (which is leaving Amazon Prime in a few days and which is what I was yammering about on Twitter) and then in 1996 again and more famously with the Oscar-winner The English Patient. Those two are off the top of my head -- have they done anything else together? It seems possible. 

Anyway they are definitely doing one more with today's news that they're going to star in a new adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey, with Ralph as Odysseus and Juli as his wife Penelope -- their spin is this movie will be a drama entirely about the moment when the Big O returns home from fighting monsters and men and finds his wife besieged by suitors, everybody having thought him undeniably and reliably dead. The film will be directed by Uberto Pasolini, who apparently is not related to the director Pier Paolo, but he IS related to the director Luchino Visconti? He's Visconti's nephew? That is weird! Weird information! Anyway this sounds great, I will watch this movie, the end.

Did the 1992 version of WUTHERING HEIGHTS with Ralph Fiennes & Juliette Binoche for today's "Five Frames" post and realized -- I HAVE NEVER SEEN THIS WTF??? It's leaving Prime on the 2nd if you wanna join me and watch before then! Any fans? pic.twitter.com/LF8ohc4d5j

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 27, 2022

5 Off My Head: It's Rendez-vous Time Again!

An annual fave here in NYC has just gifted us with something to look forward to -- Film at Lincoln Center has announced 2022's line-up for the "Rendez-vous with French Cinema" series, running from March 3rd through 13th they'll be screening 23 films including new ones from luminaries like Claire Denis, Francois Ozon, Arnaud Desplechin, Jacques Audiard, Mathieu Amalric, and Christophe Honoré! Oh and only the world's greatest actress Juliette Binoche will be here in NYC in person for a couple of screenings! Sacré bleu! (Pictured up top is actor Sandor Funtek, who's in the film Authentik.) I've got the full press release with every title listed down below but I wanna highlight the ones that I am personally most interested in seeing, because this is my site and that's what I do here. Oui? Oui. (Here I'll give you the film titles and directors and my brief reasons for wanting to see them, but if you want the plot specifics scan down to the press release.)

5 Rendez-vous Titles to Rendez-vous With

Fire directed by Claire Denis 

This one's the Opening Night film and stars Juliette Binoche (both Binoche and Denis will be here in person for the screening) and really, what more do you need to know? It is Claire Denis' new movie with Juliette Binoche. Oh how about the fact that Juli's co-star is Vincent Lindon, who just gave the performance of his life in Titane last year? HOW ABOUT THEM APPLES?

Guermantes directed by Christophe Honoré

I contemplated not even writing these paragraphs describing why I want to see these five movies and just listing the titles, because all but one of them come down to the name of the director making the film. Sorry, I'm an auteurist slut! Honoré has a lifetime pass from me thanks to his gay romance Sorry Angel in 2018. I'lls ee all of his movies forever now! (That said no I still haven't watched Love Songs, I keep forgetting! It's a happy treat I am saving for myself, basically.)

Everything Went Fine directed by François Ozon

Ozon always switches things up between films so this one appears to be very different from last year's extremely gay Summer of 85 -- that said I've seen 90% of Ozon's movies and pretty much loved every single one, even if they're the less gay ones.

Paris, 13th District directed by Jacques Audiard

And yes still speaking of directors I trust implicitly -- Audiard I trust more than any of these names I have listed so far. This is the man who made A Prophet and Rust and Bone and The Sisters Brothers, for god's sake. Just a long line of masterpieces in his wake.

Lost Illusions by Xavier Giannoli

Weirdly I was just tweeting about this movie!

Don't mind me I have just fallen down a Vincent Lacoste and Benjamin Voisin looking adorable together hole (anybody seen Lost Illusions, the movie they have been promoting?) pic.twitter.com/p3buoikfjM

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 8, 2022

I didn't even know it would be playing the fest when I tweeted that, but sign me up! (Also a reader who's seen the film alerted me to lots of Voison --who you should recognize from the just-mentioned Summer of 85 -- nudity. As if I needed more reasons!)

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Plots and all of that boring stuff can be perused down below, after the jump -- tickets for the fest will be on sale on the 15th for FLC members and the 18th for everybody else on their website. Can't wait to check these out!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The English Patient (1996)

Hana: There's a man downstairs.

He brought us eggs. He might stay.

Almásy: Why? Can he lay eggs?

Hana: He's Canadian.

Almásy: Why are people always so happy when

they collide with someone from the same place?

What happened in Montreal when you passed a man

in the street? Did you invite him to live with you?

Happy 25 to Anthony Minghella's gorgeous Best-Picture-winning epic, released into limited release on this day in 1996. I feel like this movie was hated for a long time but that people have maybe come around on it some? It definitely got some awards behemoth backlash. Anyway those people were always wrong -- I've loved it since Day One (and I re-watched it a few months ago and it entirely holds up) and I have never understood how anybody could spend any time hating on a film that got Juliette f'ing Binoche an Oscar. Whenever I remember that our greatest living actress has an Oscar I hate the Oscars just a little bit less.

This Project's One Hot Potato!

Well here is some interesting and unexpected news -- French director (one might even say "iconoclast") Claire Denis has lined up her next film called The Stars At Noon and it will star that fellow there above (aka Taylor Swift's man, aka Joe Alwyn) alongside Margaret Qualley (aka Andie Macdowell's popular spawn). This news is via Deadline. The studio behind this is A24, who Denis worked with on her last picture, the very fine High Life with Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche. Speaking of Denis actually already has another movie in the can, that one called Fire, a love triangle story that stars Binoche, Vincent Lindon (very hot right now thanks to his stellar work in Titane), and Beau Travail star Grégoire Colin...

... whose nips were recently immortalized on that film's Criterion cover. Not a terrible claim to fame, that! (Do you think he's annoyed they blotted out his face though? I bet he is.) Anyway back to Denis' next next film with Joe Alwyn & Margaret Qualley, aka why we're here (I do get so distracted whenever half-naked soldiers come up)  -- Deadline says that Alwyn is replacing Taron Egerton, who left for "personal reasons" (ooh intriguing), and that this was also meant to originally Denis' BFF star Robert Pattinson, who had to drop out because of Batman delays. (I posted about this previously.) Cursed picture, this one already! Here's how the plot's described:

"Based on the novel by Denis Johnson, the story is set in 1984 during the Nicaraguan Revolution and follows a mysterious English businessman and headstrong American journalist who strike up a passionate romance. They soon become embroiled in a dangerous labyrinth of lies and conspiracies and are forced to try and escape the country, with only each other to trust and rely on."

Anybody read the book? It's sounding very Year of Living Dangerously to me, or for that matter Denis' own film White Material, which was also about sexy people (in that case Isabelle Huppert, Nicolas Duvauchelle, and Isaach De Bankolé) getting caught up in wars that they're sort of outsiders to. I did not like White Material though, so let's hope this is more of the Denis from her last couple of pictures, since I've finally come around to her. Anyway since we're talking Joe I got some new pictures of Joe! Hit the jump for them... 

Great Moments in Movie Shelves #196

I re-watched Anthony Minghella's The English Patient this past weekend for the first time in probably two decades -- I still love it, I still swoon at it, but I had forgotten this blasphemous scene where Juliette Binoche's character ransacks the bombed out Italian Monastery's library for old books with which to make stairs -- STAIRS!!! -- out of, and you had better believe I gasped. Lord knows I love a Juli but if I ever meet her we will have to words about her signing on to act this scene out. She should have demanded they changed it! The nerve! 

Okay okay I know it's actually a plot point, or at least a plot device -- Ralph Fiennes' bedridden character asks what all the noise was, she tells him of the sin she's been committing with the books, he replies that maybe she could read to him from a book, she says those books are all crispy like him, he says well hey I have a book over there and you can read to me from that and voila, we have the story the film tells unspooled for us. Perhaps even symbolically it works -- "All of these dusty tattered forgotten stories will help us get to where we need to get!" I still hate seeing such violence. This movie needs a trigger warning.

Staircase To Heaven

I thought I had already posted about the true-crime series The Staircase -- telling the unbelievable convoluted decades-spanning story of Michael Peterson and his dead wife Kathleen -- being turned into a fictional limited series for HBO when the incredible duo of Toni Collette and Colin Firth had gotten cast in the series leads. I sure should have posted about that! I immediately texted the news to my boyfriend with about one thousand exclamation points attached. But the archives tell me I didn't post it so I don't have anything to link to on that -- what I do have to link to is today's incredible news that no less than the greatest living actress on Earth, one Juliette Binoche, has also just joined the fucking for-fuck's-sake oh-my-god this cast. 

No word on who Binoche is playing, and I'll admit it's been awhile since I watched the series (I watched it way way before it made its way onto streaming on Netflix) so I'm hesitant to guess -- my memories of the real-life cast of characters is vague -- but wasn't the original series made by French people? I recall there being criticism about the series having the feel of French people looking in on Americans as if in a zoo; of there being a tone of cultural judgement to the series? And goddamn if that criticism doesn't read as supremely old-fashioned here seventeen years on from that first batch of episodes. Anyway my guess is Binoche will be one of the documentarians. 

We shouldn't be surprised that this series is wrangling such an exquisite cast though, given it's being directed by the great Antonio Campos -- he directed the phenomenal film Christine... still his calling card here after The Devil All the Time came and went with nary a whisper. But Christine is so good! I think Campos still has cache from Christine left over. I should add that the wonderful Rosemarie DeWitt is also in the cast of this HBO series -- I mean come on. This cast!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Personal Shopper (2016)

Maureen: I mean there are invisible... presences... around us. Always. I mean whether or not they're the souls of the dead, I don't know, but... You know when you're a medium you just are attuned to some sort of... vibe.
Ingo: What do you mean by- by vibe?
Maureen: It's an intuition thing; it's a feeling. You... You see this door... That's only like slightly, ajar.

An actor I always want to talk more about but never find the time to is the great German actor Lars Eidinger, who's been in so many things over the past dozen years that I've been a fan of -- besides the above-mentioned one he's also got a vital role in Olivier Assasyas' Clouds of Sils Maria; he was on both Sense8 and Babylon Berlin (!!!) and in Claire Denis' sci-fi wackery High Life; then in just the past few months he had a lovely turn opposite Eva Green in Alice Winocour's lovely lady astronaut flick Proxima. He's really become somebody I perk up at whenever he shows up on-screen...

... oh and I'm absolutely dyyyyying to see My Little Sister, the Swiss film starring him and the queen Nina Hoss that's currently playing virtually, but haven't gotten around to it yet. You can already tell that Eidinger is one of the greats. All we need is one great fearless director (somebody like Lars von Trier or Nicolas Winding Refn maybe?) to give him a great fearless role, because he's also...

... I must add, because of course I must, a wildly underrated hot piece and total exhibitionist super-freak who's proven to be wildly unreserved when it comes to nudity. (There's some stuff even I couldn't post down below.) Gosh bless the Europeans! For example just two days ago a NSFW short art-film in which he's turned into a nude human paint-brush was brought to my attention, and...

... you see what I mean? You see what I mean. Anyway today is Lars' 45th birthday and I have this big folder on my computer of Lars Photos that I haven't found an excuse to post before, so what better time than the present? Hit the jump, it's a little NSFW but also totally worth losing your job over, believe me...

Pantys '19: Fave Films, Part One

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By my count I saw 253 new movies in 2019, which works out to about 7/10ths of a new movie every single day for you Rain Men out there. I don't know if that's high or low because I don't usually keep track of how many movies I watch in a year, I just happen to have that number in front of me. But it seems like a high number! And keep in mind this is not counting all of the pre-2019 movies I also watched, which surely brings that number into the billions. 

Point being I watch movies instead of going outside. Have you been outside lately? I do not recommend it. I mean yes, inside also sucks now, since the internet brings the outside inside with us. But shutting out the horrible wailing sounds of the outside world with a big beautiful glorious brand new baby of a film? Now that's the sweet stuff. That I recommend. But maybe you don't have time for 253 new movies like I did? Well hey what a coincidence, that's just exactly what I'm here for. I'm gonna narrow that gigantic number down to the absolute and finest of the very best ones, according to me. Starting... now.

My Favorite Movies of 2019: 25 - 11

25. Parasite

(dir. Bong Joon-ho)

-- read my review here -- 

Indelible Moment: Peach Fuzz

24. The Mustang

(dir. Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre)

-- read my review here -- 

Indelible Moment: Prisoners run free

23. Transit

(dir. Christian Petzold)

Indelible Moment: A ship departs

22. Us

(dir. Jordan Peele)

-- read my review here -- 

Indelible Moment: The house next door

21. The Irishman

(dir. Martin Scorsese)

-- read my review here -- 

Indelible Moment: Hug in the backseat

20. Piercing

(dir. Nicolas Pesce)

-- read my review here -- 

Indelible Moment: Blood games

19. To Dust

(dir. Shawn Snyder)

-- read my review here -- 

Indelible Moment: Bodies in the ground

18. Atlantics

(dir. Mati Diop)

Indelible Moment: Ghosts at the disco

17. This Is Not Berlin

(dir. Hair Sama)

-- read my review here -- 

Indelible Moment: Art Performance Art

16. The Nightingale

(dir. Jennifer Kent)

-- read my review here -- 

Indelible Moment: First Kill

15. Invisible Life

(dir. Karim Aïnouz)

Indelible Moment: So close at the restaurant

14. Peterloo

(dir. Mike Leigh)

Indelible Moment: The horses approach

13. Waves

(dir. Trey Edward Shults)

-- read my review here -- 

Indelible Moment: Father Daughter Talk

12. High Life

(dir. Claire Denis)

-- read my review here -- 

Indelible Moment: The Fuck Box

11. Pain and Glory

(dir. Pedro Almodovar)

-- read my review here -- 

Indelible Moment: A little boy faints

Oh wait I also felt pretty “seen” when Little Gay Pedro passes the f out upon seeing the hot guy naked pic.twitter.com/Kl9VEOaRfj

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 5, 2020

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Coming up later this week: My Top 10 Films,

plus all the rest of our 2019 Pantys. Stay tuned...

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