Manny Jacinto Ten Times

Look at that -- okay well look at Manny Jacinto half-naked first. That's why we're here. But that's not what I meant when I said, "Look at that." What I meant was glance to the very bottom of this post where I'm getting to use my "Lindsay Lohan" tag here on the site -- honestly can't believe we even have one of those but we've been around that long! The last time I used this tag was 2021 and that was just to post hot photos of her Canyons co-star Nolan Funk. And that's really what we're doing again here since she's being summoned up BECAUSE Manny is her Freaky Friday sequel co-star...

... and he talks about that in the InStyle interview that's attached to these unbelievably sexy photos. (Good god he is disgustingly gorgeous.) The last time I actually posted about ol' Linds herself was in 2018 for one of our "Beauty vs Beast" series. Anyway, because my opinion matters, I am for one fine with her having a comeback. Especially since it gave us this photoshoot of Manny. Take notes, folks -- this is how you can re-endear yourself to me. (It's real easy.) Hit the jump for the whole hot shoot...

Nolan Gerard Funk Five Times

I know Nolan Gerard Funk has worked a lot over the past eight years -- he was just on The Flight Attendant most recently, which no, I still have not watched -- and I know he had worked a lot for well over a decade before that... but whenever I see him I see him sitting in front of me in the audience for the 2013 premiere screening of Paul Schrader's disastrous Lindsay Lohan film The Canyons, surrounded by his family, listening to the audience laugh out loud at his performance. It was awful. I know the ability to live through such experiences is what helps actors have long careers like his, the ability to face humiliations -- he bounced around in a sparkly thong in that film; he is clearly made of sturdier spine than I. Just watching this bad bad night unfurl in front of me though, I get a little nauseous whenever I see him now. Just embarrassment by proxy. I could never do what actors do, is my point. Has The Canyons had any sort of critical reassessment in the past decade? I know Schrader's career bounced back from it mighty well -- there's got to be somebody out there arguing it's good, right? Anyway I haven't seen it since that night and have no plans to, not ever again, but good on Nolan for keeping on. We'll do the same and keep on right after the jump for a few more pictures...

Stabbed Thru the Heart & You're To Blame

I think perhaps I have been the unwitting star of my own substandard body-swap comedy. Perhaps I have experienced -- through a Zoom glitch? It's 2020 and Zoom is hot, gotta hit while the iron or whatever! -- a freak personality teleporting into the mind of my own mother as happened in the classic 1976 body-swap comedy Freaky Friday, or as happened in the classic 2003 body-swap comedy Freaky Friday. My mother hates horror movies, so how else to explain how very very much I hated Freaky, with a capital Hate, the body-swap horror-comedy that is out today?

Most of the ingredients for Most Twu Wuv were there. The film's written and directed by Happy Death Day creator Christopher Landon, and I love me them Happy Death Day movies. I also really love the film's lead actress Kathryn Newton, always so very good as a sneering teenager, as seen previously on Halt and Catch Fire and Big Little Lies. And the basic idea at the heart of Freaky is an ace terrific idea! A serial killer called "The Blissfield Butcher" is all set to slaughter another teen girl victim (Newton) when the ancient sacrificial dagger he has somehow stumbled into the possession of -- I'd say it's a long story but it really isn't, it gets two minutes of exposition at best, which is for the best -- jumbos the ol' magical mumbo and their souls or selfhoods or whatevers get swapped. The Final Girl becomes the Killer, and vice versa. Force these two crazy kids to live in the other's shoes and learn valuable lessons about Victimization, and stuff!

This might sound at this point like I'm angry at the movie for not straining towards Deeper Meaning -- while I hesitate to put my own self into the shoes of an anti-Woke activist I could see one of those deeply deranged individuals shrieking, "Just let the movie be fun! Why ya gotta cram politics into a dumb slasher movie! Wah! Wahhh!!! I crapped my pants!" Et cetera. You know how those people are. Always crapping their pants.

But while sure, I'd have liked the film to have been a little more thoughtful about its rich premise, by a smidge, that's not really my problem. My problem is the big vacancy in what I've referenced so far, and that's the actor who is playing the Blissfield Butcher -- one Vince Vaughn. Vince Vaughn is terrible in this film. Terrible. TERRIBLE. You watch a film like oh let's say just for shits and giggles classic 2003 body-swap comedy Freaky Friday, starring Linsday Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis. A huge part of the joy of that film was watching Lohan act as if she's Jamie Lee and in watching Jamie Lee loose her inner Lindsay. That is the beautiful shining little diamond at the heart of Body Swap Movies. It's the reason for the season, dawg.

Vince Vaughn, once his character is supposed to be possessed by Kathryn Newton, plays Kathryn Newton as if he has never been in the same room not just with Kathryn Newton but with any teenaged girl in his entire life. I have no idea what he is doing. We spend time with Kathryn Newton in the first act, before they switch bodies, and whatever Vince Vaughn is doing has nothing to do with what Kathryn Newton had just done. He limps his wrist, he bats his eyelashes -- Bugs Bunny gives a more convincing portrait of femininity from under his Brunhilde Viking Helmet.

Vaughn isn't the film's only problem but he's the main one -- especially since the filmmakers clearly think he's hysterical and over-use him to the detriment of Newton's screen-time -- and his lousiness infects everything he comes into contact with. Whatever he's doing, being allowed to do, seems in general indicative of a laziness, a slap-dash quality, that Freaky is awash in. Freaky feels as if somebody came up with the idea for Freaky and then they filmed Freaky the next day. As if the script was written by people showing up to set and asking for their lines when the camera got turned on. The laughs come from people getting kicked in the nuts. The scares come from, I don't know, people being stabbed? A horror-comedy that's neither horror nor comedy: discuss. Or better yet don't. 

Princess KStew

.

In news of what I hope will mark the second of a loosely-related trilogy, Jackie director Pablo Larrain has just announced he's making Spencer, a movie about Princess Di that will star our favorite lightly butch former-Twilight star (Robert Pattinson was not the one wearing the pants on that set) Kristen Stewart.

"Like Jackie, Spencer will focus on a critical time period in the princess' life. Specifically, a weekend in the early '90s when Princess Diana decided her marriage to Prince Charles was no longer working and she needed to shift her journey as a royal on her own. In turn, Spencer won't cover Princess Diana's tragic death, which occurs approximately three years after the events of the film...

'You’re able to get into a wider, bigger perspective of who she was. We all know her fate, what happened to her, and we don’t need to go there,' explained Larraín in an interview with Deadline. "We’ll stay in this more intimate space where she could express where she wants to go and who she wants to be." Written by Steven Knight, the drama will take place over three days during one of her final Christmas holidays at the House of Windsor in the family's Sandringham estate in Norfolk, England."

I don't know what I'd want the third film in this "trilogy" of movies about paparazzo-isolated ladies played by paparazzo-isolated ladies to be; I mean we already had Lindsay Lohan play Liz Taylor so that one's gone. Any ideas?

.

The Night She Came Home, Again

.

If you think I've been strangely - you might even say eerily - quiet on the new Halloween movie out this weekend you'd be darn tootin'. I've been avoiding everything like the plague, and writing about it invites looking things up and looking things up invites spoilers. I cover my eyes and ears when the trailer's come on at the theater these past several week - I ain't kidding around with this one. I have my tickets for this weekend, and that's that. We will see. But first! Today's "Beauty vs Beast" is tangentially related, because I used Jamie Lee Curtis as our jumping off point, click on over to The Film Experience to get your freak on...

10 Off My Head - Siri Says 2004

.

After the long, long, long run of the New York Film Festival (though there are still a couple more reviews to come!) I'm trying to get myself back in step with the regularly scheduled blogging, and since we haven't had the time to do one of these in a few weeks I figured this would be a good step in the correct direction for that. In case you don't recall this is the series where I ask my phone to pick a number between 1 and 100 and then I choose my five favorite movies from the year that corresponds with that number. 

And well we've had a first -- this morning Siri picked the number 4. This is the first time we've had a number lower than 10 chosen, given me two choices from Cinema's History to choose from. But as badly as I'd love to choose from such hits as Nervy Nat Kisses the Bride and A Nigger in the Woodpile (yes these are real films, and no I haven't seen either of them) I'm going to go ahead and pick my favorite Movies of 2004 instead of 1904, cuz duh. And since it's such a recent year we're going to pick 10 movies instead of 5, cuz duh.

My 10 Favorite Movies of 2004

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

(dir. Michel Gondry)

-- released on March 19 2004 --

Birth

(dir. Jonathan Glazer)

-- released on October 29 2004)

Three... Extremes

 (dir. Fruit Chan, Takashi Miike, 

and Park Chan-wook)

-- released on August 20 2004 --

The Incredibles

(dir. Brad Bird)

-- released on November 5 2004 --

Shaun of the Dead

(dir. Edgar Wright)

-- released on September 24 2004 --

Enduring Love

(dir. Roger Michell)

-- released on November 26 2004 --

Bad Education

(dir. Pedro Almodovar)

 -- released on February 11 2004 --

Mean Girls

(dir. Mark Waters)

-- released on April 30 2004)

I Heart Huckabees

(dir. David O. Russell)

-- released on October 22 2004 --

Mysterious Skin

(dir. Gregg Araki)

-- released on June 24 -- 

-----------------------------------

Runners-up: Palindromes (dir. Todd Solondz), Primer (dir. Shane Carruth), Tarnation (dir.  Jonathan Caouette ), Dead Birds (dir. Alex Turner), Sideways (dir. Alexander Payne), Kill Bill 2 (dir. Quentin Tarantino), 13 Going on 30 (dir. Gary Winick)...
.

... The House of Flying Daggers (dir. Zhang Yimou), Team America: World Police (dir. Trey Parker), Dawn of the Dead (dir. Zack Snyder), Kinsey (dir. Bill Condon), Spider-man 2 (dir. Sam Raimi), Undertow (dir. David Gordon Green)

What are your favorite movies of 2004?

.

That's Why Jake's Hair Is So Big...

.

... it's full of secrets.
(pic via)

.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

I Know Who Killed Me (2007)

Dakota: So my finger got cut off. But nobody did it. Who's 

going to believe that? Look at you. You don't even believe it. 

Jerrod: Yeah, I do. 

Dakota: [scoffs] That's because I fucked you. 

Dear Brian Geraghty I am so so sorry for bringing up this terrible terrible movie in order to wish you a happy 40th birthday today - it was just there, I could not resist. And if the only way to make everything okay is by fucking you, as Lindsay Lohan has just taught me, I am willing to make that sacrifice. Okay until then in order to make it up to you I will post this super-attractive photoshoot you did for Man of the World magazine...

Click here to see lots of previously posted Brian.

.

Who Wore It Best?

.

The face of lunchtime horror?
 .

Who wore it best?

Dawn

Cady

View results

Powered by FreeOnlineSurveys.com

Dawn0%

Cady0%

Create a poll like this

My old polling service is shutting down so I'm looking around for new ones - we'll see how this one here works out. What do you guys think? I'm not 100% on it but then I'm never 100% on anything change-wise; I was happy with what I was using, dammit. If any of you know of good free poll generators, let me know. I think I can probably make this one work if nothing better comes along.

.

The Moment I Fell For... Garrett Hedlund

.

Let this be a lesson to every aspiring actor out there - it is possible that having sex (okay, "sex") with Linsday Lohan will help your career. I know! I know. It seems... improbable. But Garrett Hedlund's living breathing beautiful proof of it. I never took any notice of him until I saw these pictures from the set of Georgia Rule, but there's been no looking back since. Heck I never even saw this movie, but I never want to because context would totally ruin everything. Thankfully for me and Garrett though I have seen him (all of him, cough cough) in a few things since then, and he's a keeper. Happy 30th birthday, Mr. Hedlund!

Which is Hotter?

.

Make like you're Regina George with your pick of the litter at North Shore High School and choose: is it Jonathan Bennett as Aaron Samuels or Diego Klattenhoff as Shane Oman?

.

poll by twiigs.com

.

There are too many Mean Girls 10th anniversary posts out on the net today for me to even begin to link to, so I'll just point you over to my "Beauty Vs. Beast" post at The Film Experience pitting Regina versus Cady from earlier this week again. Oh and one more thing...

Look at Rajiv Surendra now! (via) Kevin Gnapoor gone wild! And now that there's three fellas I feel like if you want to do a Do Dump or Marry for these three - their characters, of course - you should do so in the comments.

.

Cat Fight Cat Fight Cat Fight

.

The Film Experience is celebrating the 10th anniversary of Mean Girls all week, so following suit we dedicated this week's "Beauty Vs. Beast" competition to the film's front-n-center frenemies... or is that fraitors... or is that mean-em-aitors... ahem... it's Regina vs. Cady, y'all! Who's the queen of Mean? You don't even have to get drunk and rip your wig off to vote. I mean you can if you want to, of course. By all means, don't let me stop you. I'm just saying you don't have to.

I Am Link

.

--- All About Amy - One of the movies I'm most sad about missing at Tribeca because of timing issues (there are only so many hours and so much sanity in a day) is Goodbye To All That, the new movie from the director of Junebug which stars three of my favorite people - Paul Schneider, Melanie Lynskey, and in a small but inevitably memorable (always memorable) turn Amy Sedaris. IndieWire caught up with Miss Amy to talk about the movie and her process and oh my god it's a delightful thing to read. (thanks Mac) Loved this bit about having to adapt her affinity for broadness to different director's visions:

"I'm always like, 'Why'd you hire me?' It's just so hard to pull back, or you pull back a little, and then you feel like you're not doing much. I always like to have some kind of weird character. I need something to hide behind so it's weird if I don't have that."

--- Image Maker - It's weird that I'd forgotten what a fantastic music video director Birth and Under the Skin director Jonathan Glazer was, since he directed a couple of Radiohead videos that sit amongst the greatest things the medium ever produced, but I did, so thankfully this list of his best videos at The Playlist is there to remind me. Their #1 pick makes me cry whenever I watch it, just so you know.

--- Timed Out - I suppose this is sort of spoilery for the next X-Men movie but whatever, I don't really know anything and this is what I figured, it's not rocket science - they'll be using the time travel story-line and this new movie as a way to give most of the old folks (McKellen, Stewart, Berry, et al) the boot I mean "a proper farewell" and swing things into a new timeline where younger prettier things can take center stage. Shocker! Except for Hugh Jackman! He'll be popping those rage roid veins from his forearms til he's in the triple digits.

--- Jobs For Everybody - Last week I wrote about how Danny Boyle and Ewan McGregor had supposedly finally recently made up after Boyle chose Leonardo Dicaprio over Ewan for The Beach, and how that meant we might finally see the sequel to Trainspotting, so I find it funny to read today that Boyle might be making the Steve Jobs movie (the one that David Fincher got kicked off of slash abandoned) with Leo in the lead his next movie - funny because what if Boyle delays working with Ewan for Leo again? Feud forever!

--- Shaky Cam Love In - You probably know that I'm more forgiving for the found-footage genre of horror than a lot of people seem to be - I think there are things about it that work marvelously well. That you-are-there vérité feel can make a movie walk on water. So I'm down with this article over at Fangoria giving love to the sub-genre, although some of the titles mentioned (oh my god Apollo 18 noooooo) need never be thought of ever ever again and you hurt your argument by bringing them up, sir.

--- Hot Mess - I haven't watched any of the Lindsay Lohan reality show, I didn't think I could deal with her anymore, but Kim Morgan's piece at Vulture on it has me aiming for a binge watch once the whole thing's available. Bless Kim for always reminding me of the value of damaged difficult complicated messy interesting women - my exasperation with tabloid nonsense sometimes makes me forget.

--- Knight Down - I am a little bit weirded out by the reaction people have had to the rape scene on this week's episode of Game of Thrones - I agree that the episode's director stuck his foot in his mouth talking about it, but if you're not going to protest scenes like a little child being forced to watch his parents be murdered in front of him, which also happened that episode, then maybe you should step back your indignation a little bit. It's a show about complicated generally horrible people doing complicated generally horrible things, and just because it's the dreamy guy doing it now everybody's all conflicted or betrayed or whatever. Good! Be conflicted! Let's not forget he threw a child out of a window in the first episode, either - I don't recall the internet being split at the seams with outrage then. Maybe don't expect your morality to be kowtowed to a show as amoral as this one, is all I am saying. Anyway the funniest thing about all of this to me was George R R Martin's reaction, which was basically - I don't know nothin' bout no TV show, yo!
.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Mean Girls (2004)

Shane: Why are you eating a Kalteen bar?

Regina: I'm starving. 

Shane: Man, I hate those things. Coach Carr makes us 

eat those when we want to move up a weight class. 

Regina: What? 

Shane: They make you gain weight like crazy. 

Regina: Motherf - Aaaaaaaah!!!

I bring up this random ass moment from Mean Girls 

for a reason. Something must be done. Immediately!

Now comes word that Chris Hemsworth is starving himself for his next role, as a shipwrecked sailor in Ron Howard's Heart of the Sea. He's eating just six hundred calories a day - some salad and some protein. This comes only a couple weeks after we saw Jake Gyllenhaal looking like that skinned rabbit that Catherine Deneuve lets rot in her apartment in Repulsion for his next movie.

.

poll by twiigs.com

.

And of course Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale have already kind of destroyed themselves with this sort of thing - they both aged several years and permanently whittled away at their attractiveness. Look at that picture up top - Chris has only just recently started this starving thing and he already looks older. So what I'm saying is it is our civic duty to switch their protein shakes and protein bars and whatever else we can get our hands on with kalteen bars or liquified ding dongs or something. It's up to us! This horror must end!
.

Nolan Funk Seven Times

.

Via Flaunt, which is calling him Nolan Gerard Funk... did he bring out his middle name in hopes we might not think he's the Nolan Funk that was in The Canyons? That "Gerard" ain't fooling anybody, mister! I kid, sort of, although this dude just depresses me to be honest, seeing as how he brings back memories of the NY premiere of The Canyons where he was sitting right in front of me as the audience snickered at the film, and at his performance therein. That was traumatic... for me!