Good Morning, Udo

As I'm sure most if not all of you are aware two terrible things happened this weekend -- one we lost Udo Kier. The gay legend who starred in half of my favorite movies of all time -- movies from Dario Argento, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Lars Von Trier, Paul Morrissey, Kleber Mendonça Filho, Guy Maddin, Werner Herzog, Rob Zombie, Gus Van Sant, Wim Wenders, John Carpenter, E. Elias Merhige, Amanda Kramer, Walerian Borowczyk and Andy fuckin' Warhol, to name but a few! -- and was the most memorable thing in a full 95% of them. He was a freak legend, an icon, a king, and we adored him very much. You can roll through our archives here -- I should do a Top 5 performances of his when I get a chance, but two late roles worth mentioning are his one-scene showstopper in The Secret Agent, which is rolling out this fall, and of course the incredible showcase for him that was 2021's Swan Song, reviewed right here. Cruel that Covid robbed that movie of a bigger rollout, but catch it now if you haven't yet. 

Udo Kier lives forever! He simply ascended to his true form which is too fucking fabulous for us peons to even see anymore. We’re lucky he ever let us look at him in the first place. Here’s some video I took of him two years ago — icon legend king

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) November 23, 2025 at 7:43 PM

I could go on and on about King Udo, but this brings me to the second terrible thing that happened this weekend -- I fell down some stairs and twisted my ankle a full 90 degrees and I'm laid up as fuck. I'm hopefully getting an X-ray today so we'll see what happens, but I can't imagine it will be too noisy here today given I'm a shell of a human being right this moment. It's not broken -- I can hobble around alright -- but it's also robbed me of what little will I was already barely working with. So talk to me about Udo in the comments, or don't, I'm around-ish. Udo forever! Jason for never!

Eyes Up Here!

I'm sure several of you brainiacs have long been familiar with the 1956 Japanese science-fiction film Warning From Space but I only found out about it this week and watched it on Prime last night and here we are, interupting our regularly scheduled beefcake parade to recommend this wild and wackadoo piece of vintage WTF-ery. The copy that's on Prime is good, a perfectly fine way to first experience the film, but I have to wager the blu-ray that Arrow put out in 2020 is probably even better and you can buy that right here if you're a maniac like me (which yes translates to "I bought this blu ray halfway through watching it on streaming because it was rocking me so hard.") Anyway -- just what the hell is this movie? 

Glad you asked. It's about a race of starfish aliens with one big eye in their centers who beam down to Earth, immediately realize they're hideously ugly and so they then morph into a cabaret singer (I mean obviously) so they can deliver their message of imminent doom to humanity. From there it all gets a little bit Melancholia, a little bit Threads, and yes I am indeed naming some of the darkest movies you can imagine because it really gets that dark at times. But I'd also include Tin Burton's Mars Attacks! to the mix -- hell even David Lynch seems like he might've been influenced by this movie. It's super weird while also absolutely gorgeous to look at in that midcentury sci-fi kinda way.  Point being I'm 100% obsessed with it now and I am here recommending y'all take the trip yourselves if you haven't already. And if you have tell me you're obsessed too in the comments so we can bond over it please!  

Cannot believe WARNING FROM SPACE only entered my life today - I am going to have to spend every day for the rest of my life making up for its absence

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) April 24, 2025 at 9:50 PM

Kingdom Comes Home

Using Alexander Skarsgård's photo here is a bit of a cheat since his role in the third season of Lars Von Trier's series The Kingdom is minute, but I'm never above a cheat! Especially not if it allows me to stare at Alexander Skarsgård. Anyway today is a happy day for us Kingdom-heads as the entire three-season series has been given fresh life thanks to the fine folks at MUBI, who've just dropped a blu-ray box-set of all three seasons and thirteen episodes -- you can buy it at this link. The set includes not just the show (a prize beyond words in itself) but behind-the-scenes interviews, commentaries, a documentary, Danish commercials, and a companion booklet. But the show itself is plenty; I mean where else are you going to see...

... somebody give birth to a full-grown Udo Kier, I ask you? Well besides at any local gay bar on a Saturday night. In all seriousness this series is a bizarre treat from start to finish, one of LVT's greatest accomplishments. And who knows when we'll get something from LVT next? His health ain't great. (And his sanity... well that's never been the greatest.) He is supposedly working on a series of short films called Études (aka Studies) right now but we should all probably tide ourselves over with The Kingdom for now. And it goes excellent with that ginormous box-set of LVT's entire filmography that I told you about earlier today, actually!

Post-Christmas Kingdom Splurge

Just a heads-up in case you missed this news -- Mubi is putting all three seasons of Lars von Trier's brilliant disturbing and disturbingly brilliant series The Kingdom on blu-ray! Beginning in 1994 and ending with a six-episode run last year I'm a little sad they won't have this out in time for Christmas -- we all have that freak in our lives who we can't figure out what to get them, and I know this because I am that freak for everyone I know, and this would've been the perfect gift for me. Alas the set is out on February 6th -- pre-order it right here. I am now glad that I held off from buying the overpriced and out-of-print DVDs of the first two seasons last year when the third season was imminent. If you're unfamiliar with the series it almost seems a crime to tell you anything about it but here's the basic gist -- there's this hospital, you see? And things happen there. Udo Kier... happens. The end, that's all I will say. Oh and that Alexander Skarsgård shows up in the third part! Being a good freak, just the way we like him. 

Quote of the Day

"I love Andrea Arnold. I think she’s an incredible director and somewhat underrated. I watched “Fish Tank” right around the time I was filming “Nymphomaniac,” which was the first film that I ever did. I found “Fish Tank” to be as influential for me as the experience of filming with Lars, and both of those components in that period of time when I was 18 years old really formed my blueprint of what it is that I’m trying to achieve as an actor and the sorts of directors that I strive to work with, and the kind of stories that I want to tell and the kind of filmmaking that most resonates with me. That’s what excites me most is very little plot, extremely character-driven stories where there’s really not much going on outside of whatever it is that a couple of people in the film are going through. For me, that’s always the best cinema."

That was Mia Goth's answer when asked who she'd like to work with by Variety -- my lord, this woman has stolen my heart. Andrea Arnold and Mia Goth together -- can you imagine? Oh make it happen, sweet cinema gods, make this collaboration happen! Anyway the entire chat is worth a read -- she talks about how she chooses projects because of the director and she tells a little bit about what the third film in the X and Pearl trilogy, the one called MaXXXine, will be like. Mia forever, baby. Here's an old picture to make us smile:

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Element of Crime (1984)

Kim: Why do you keep torturing yourself?

Fisher: I have to! I believe in joy!

Kind of hard to believe that director Lars von Trier has been at what he's been at since the 1970s since it wasn't until 1996 and Breaking the Waves that I became aware of him -- hell IMDb lists short-films under his name all the way back into the 1960s, but seeing as how the first one was made when he was 11 I am thinking that Lars himself got on IMDb and went a little cuckoo. If there's a LVT scholar in the house please advise! Anyway this film here, 1984's The Element of Crime, is the oldest film of his I have seen and that's thanks to Criterion -- indeed this very day they have released his "Europe Trilogy" of films onto blu-ray! Pick up a copy at this link if you didn't pre-order back when I previously told you to pre-order. The trilogy includes the 1987 film Epidemic and the 1991 film Europa. Any fans?

The Element of Criterion

If you're an avid physical media collector like I am then you'll know the pain of this only too well -- you'll see that a movie is hard to own and so you'll scour the international sellers for it and find a reasonably priced copy and buy it for only then like a week later to have a new U.S. edition be announced. It's happened to us all. Which brings me to today, where I have ended up now owning two copies of Lars Von Trier's 1984 film The Element of Crime just as Criterion has gone and announced a brand new fancy U.S. edition. A few months ago that movie was on the Criterion Channel and so I watched it and I loved it. 

Watched Lars von Trier's first film THE ELEMENT OF CRIME today (it's on @criterionchannl) and it's got enough mind-blowing shots contained therein for the careers of ten directors pic.twitter.com/CN1kuMtjco

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 6, 2022

I loved it so much that immediately went and bought the out-of-print Criterion DVD. And then I realized, "Oh wait! I should see the other movies of the trilogy, shouldn't I?" So I went and I bought a foreign DVD boxed-set of the entire trilogy, which includes his 1987 film Epidemic and his 1991 film Europa. And now here we are and it's literally six weeks later and Criterion has announced they're putting out a boxed-set of 4K restorations of the trilogy come January. Argh, et cetera! Anyway my ultimate point is -- hey anybody wanna buy some Lars Von Trier DVDs?

Yes, all of that nonsense aside today is indeed Criterion Announcement Day! They've dropped word on the five titles they're putting out in January of 2023 (well four movies plus the above trilogy) and per usual, all gems. Besides that Lars set the one I'm most thrilled about is Mia Hansen-Løve's 2021 film Bergman Island starring Tim Roth, Anders Danielsen-Lie (mmmmm), Mia Wasikowska, and the great Vicky Krieps -- gimme all the Vickys! All of 'em! I'm not the biggest fan of the Hansen-Løve films that I've seen so far -- I tend to like them fine, but not love -- but Bergman Island is far and away my fave of the bunch. It's the Vicky component obviously. That woman is hypnotic.

The other three January titles hitting Criterion are as follows: there is Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese's 2019 film This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection, which is the only one of the batch I've never seen. I have heard incredible things from people I trust though -- have you seen it? Then there's John M. Stahl's classic 1934 adaptation of Imitation of Life with Claudette Colbert -- I will cop to liking the Douglas Sirk version more, but what can I say? I am gay. And finally there is the 4K version of Terry Gilliam's 1988 classic The Adventures of Baron Munchausen -- I have to admit I am kind of surprised they're jumping into the mine-field that is this movie at this moment in time, as Gilliam's proven himself to be a total dick with his hysterical "anti-woke" screeds, all while Sarah Polley has spent the past couple of years going on the record saying what a traumatic nightmare experience this set was for her as a child actor. That said I've never been a huge fan of Munchausen -- if we were talking Brazil or Time Bandits or Twelve Monkeys here I'd be more conflicted. 

Bones & Me

Things sure been quiet in here today, huh? Sorry about that -- my phone was on the brink of collapse from not enough storage so I've been sludging through the laborious process of burning several months worth of photos from it onto discs and yes, this is a thing I do still, as much as I know it dates me. I don't trust having only digital copies in the cloud -- it's the same as why my walls are lined with blu-rays. And as the other week's Warner Brothers debacle proved, I am right! Anyway I mean to do this more often than I do but inevitably I get lulled into comfort of my phone having ten gazillion gigibytes of space on it and before you know it I have to spend an entire day going through this process. I usually do it on the weekend when blogging doesn't happen anyway but I decided to do it from work today. And isn't this the most riveting story you've ever been told? This is what keeps y'all coming back! Jesus. 

Anyway point being the New York Film Fest announced their "Spotlight" screenings today and Luca Guadagnino's cannibal romance Bones and All is playing! (See the teaser here.) NYFF really is the one-stop fall fest as far as I am concerned. See the entire announcement right here -- they're also showing Sarah Polley's new movie called Women Talking, and they're showing all five episodes of Lars von Trier's new run of Kingdom episodes, and they're showing a doc from James Ivory -- do we think we'll get to see Luca and Timmy and James Ivory reunite at the fest??? Oh I'd die. (Especially after Ivory said all those snotty things about CMBYN lol.) 

A Kingdom For My Alex

Approximately twelve lifetimes ago -- that math works out to "December of 2020" -- I told you that director Lars von Trier was going to make a new season of his scary series The Kingdom, which he'd last touched in 1997 with the show's second season. He went on to make movies after that -- adorbs lil' nuggets like Dancer in the Dark and Melancholia and The House That Jack Built; you know, things your gram loves to sip hot cocoa to while knitting her tit-purses. Aaaaaanyway it's been twelve lifetimes since that announcement but today it pays off with the news that the series is premiering at the Venice Film Festival and then MUBI is dropping it weekly-like on their streamer some time not long after. They say "Fall 2022" but I don't fore-see them making us wait too long after the fest ends on September 10th. (But don't hold it against me if they do, as I am truly just a clueless internet Cassandra.) Anyway the series, which is about one fucked up horror hospital, will be titled Kingdom Exodus, and they say that Alexander Skarsgard will be guest-starring on it! Hence that photo up top that I lured you in with. Below is the first image from the new episodes, which looks like it will fit right in with the gorgeous poisoned-pee hue of the original series:

Alex Going Above & Beyond Infinity Again

Alexander Skarsgård has made some hella fine choices career-wise as of late. He's in Robert Eggers' big Viking movie The Northman which is the biggie for me of course, but he's also got a small but important role in Rebecca Hall's masterful flick Passing (which I reviewed at Sundance right here) coming out later this year. And from there one glance back at his filmography shows several already-classics under his belt (yes let's all take a pause since I just talked about being under Alexander Skarsgård's belt........ okay, moving on) -- he's worked with Park Chan-wook on The Little Dummer Girl; he's worked with Lars von Trier on Melancholia; he made Diary of a Teenage Girl with Marielle Heller and Hold the Dark with Jeremy Saulnier and Mute with Duncan Jones and The East with Zal Batmanglij. No not all of those worked, but he keeps jumping on interesting filmmakers and picking interesting projects. Somebody who looks like Alexander Skarsgård doesn't have to do this!

Maybe that's the bare minimum to ask but I appreciate it, anyway. I appreciate not having to watch dreck just so I can stare at him, is my point! Thank you, Alex! Anyway that brings me to today's terrific news about his next next thing, which will be a film (thx Mac) with Brandon "Son of David" Cronenberg, who's fresh off his killer flick Possessor. It's gonna be called Infinity Pool and here is how Deadline describes the plot:

"Infinity Pool follows James and Em, who are young, rich, in love, and on vacation. Their all-inclusive resort boasts island tours and gleaming beaches. But outside of the hotel gates waits something much more dangerous and seductive, beyond the edge of paradise."

The studio Neon, who distributed Cronenberg's Possessor for him last year, already snatched up the rights to this one so they're clearly in the him business. The film will begin shooting in September -- no word on who his leading lady will be -- I'd love to see him reunite with one of his formers like Florence Pugh or Riley Keough, wouldn't y'all? Or, ooh ooh ooh ooh, what about Anna Paquin! We don't see nearly enough Anna Paquin these days!

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...

Return To The Kingdom

If you could have heard the shrill sound that issued up and forth from me first thing this morning upon reading this news you'd have probably punched me in the throat. And I'd have deserved it! Lars von Trier is returning to his TV series The Kingdom! He's making for us a third and final season, following the first two chapters which aired in 1994 and 1997. The show, which is about a Danish hospital full of weird and wacko shit going down -- up to and including one of the most insane things involving Udo Kier that I have ever seen in any media in my entire life (and I have seen some shit involving Udo Kier in my life!) -- almost had a third season way back when but a couple of the actors on the show died and Lars set it aside... I guess not permanently, like I'd feared. Have y'all seen The Kingdom? Stephen King tried to pass off a shitty American version in 2004 -- I am real glad that won't have the final say.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Dancer in the Dark (2000)

Selma: You like the movies, don't you? 

Bill: I love the movies. I just love the musicals. 

Selma: But isn't it annoying when they 

do the last song in the films? 

Bill: Why? 

Selma: Because you just know when it goes really big... 

and the camera goes like out of the roof... 

and you just know it's going to end. I hate that. 

I would leave just after the next to last song... 

and the film would just go on forever.

It's weird to think that a movie that ends the way this movie ends might be Lars von Trier's most accessible movie, but... is it? I admittedly have never seen his 2006 workplace comedy The Boss of It All, I can't speak to that one -- weird that I gun straight for everything miserable Lars shovels at us but the comedy I'm like, ehhh. But I think Björk's beautiful music and the big musical numbers make this movie more accessible than, say Breaking the Waves? Even if they're both heart-wrenching in the end. And, I mean, everything he's made since Antichrist is just... the exact opposite of accessible. (I say that with love.) 

Anyway! I wrote the date wrong in my calendar for this and so I am ten days off -- Dancer in the Dark celebrated its 20th anniversary on October 6th (not 16th!). We worship this film, and its soundtrack, which we still listen to constantly. Thankfully rumor has it that Björk is planning on acting again -- a cast-list for Robert Eggers' Viking movie that got leaked by an over-excited bit-player had her name on it, as we showed you a few weeks back. That's a thrill! It's a shame LVT's shittiness as a person kept her out of the game so long when she gave such a transcendent performance here.

5 Off My Head: Willem at Heart

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The living legend Willem Dafoe turns 65 today, and even I, a staunch Dafoe supporter, feel as if I don't give him enough credit. We take him for granted dammit! The man's been turning in legendary performances for four going on five decades, and they're not all whack-jobs either -- although I admit I favor the whack-jobs -- the last thing I saw him in just a few weeks ago was Abel Ferrera's Tommaso and he plays a totally normal dude in that, and rivetingly. 

The sight of Willem Dafoe laughing and dancing is so blood-curdlingly terrifying to me pic.twitter.com/0mEckaOlam

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 9, 2020

Okay so the sight of him playing a normal dude does almost always carry with it a sense of frisson, as if he might go loco at any moment, but that's because he's just so electric on-screen. Even in something like The Florida Project -- we all immediately think of the scene where he chases off the pedophile, right? His eyes, even in their kindest moments, shoot sparks. 

Anyway narrowing down a list of faves from him for this here birthday was a challenge today just because a true list of faves would be way, way longer than the one I've come up with below, and would court those smaller performances alongside his grand statements. But I love me a grand statement too much; that's on me. Thank goodness we've got Willem out here making 'em, and how.

My 5 Favorite Willem Dafoe Performances

Thomas, The Lighthouse

"Look at ye, handsome lad with eyes bright as a lady."

Bobby Peru, Wild at Heart

"Speaking of Jack, One eyed Jack's yearning
to go a peeping in a seafood store!"

He, Antichrist

"Acorns don't cry, you know that as well as I do."

Jesus, The Last Temptation of Christ

"If I was a woodcutter, I'd cut.
If I was a fire, I'd burn. But I'm a heart and I love.
That's the only thing I can do."

Max Schreck, Shadow of the Vampire

"I feed like an old man pees.
Sometimes all at once, sometimes drop by drop."

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What are your favorite Willem Dafoe performances?

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Gattaca (1997)

Vincent: A year is a long time. 

Irene: Not so long. Just once around the sun. 

This quote from Gattaca feels meaningful to me this morning for three reasons. One, I was just struck a few days ago with a real strong urge to re-watch Gattaca, right around the time I re-watched David Cronenberg's film eXistenZ -- Jude Law and sci-fi gibberish of the late 90s, I suppose. Anyway I haven't re-watched Gattaca just yet but the time is nigh, real nigh, I think. 

I ♥️ David Cronenberg pic.twitter.com/qBaxJ5oiBx

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 21, 2020

The second reason this quote from Gattaca feels meaningful to me this morning is its relativity towards the concept of "Time" fits right in giving the quarantined state of existence we're all currently living under -- I find myself waking up every day from dreams full of vague crowds milling about, going nowhere, and then spend my days leashed to my couch watching the arc of the sun across the boards of my apartment floor. What is a year anyway?

The third and most important reason -- at least as far as this post's reason for being -- that this quote from Gattaca feels meaningful to me this morning is today is Uma Thurman's 50th birthday. And in case you didn't realize it since she's only worked sporadically over the last decade, Uma Thurman fucking rules. Here are my faves...

My 5 Favorite Uma Thurman Performances

Mia Wallace, Pulp Fiction

Beatrix Kiddo, Kill Bill 1 & 2

Poison Ivy, Batman & Robin

(And yes, I am being serious)

Cécile de Volanges, Dangerous Liaisons

Mrs. H, Nymphomaniac

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What are your favorite Uma Thurman performances?

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Breaking the Waves (1996)

Bess: I don't understand what you're saying. How can you love a word? You cannot love words. You can't be in love with a word. You can only love another human being. That's perfection.

A very happy 53 to Emily Watson today!

What's your favorite performance from her?

surveys

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!