A Little Tom Holland Treat

The first official images from Christopher Nolan's film of The Odyssey have started to land (via the new issue of Empire magazine I believe) and I figured it would be this shot of Tom Holland playing the character of Telemachus that would blow up all y'all skirts the best. This movie's not out until July 17th 2026 so we've got some time to decide whether we give a shit -- well I suppose "we" really equals "me" since I'm the biggest Nolan naysayer around. And yet! And yet I did like Oppenheimer. So maybe I'll like this one even more and Nolan will suddenly become a director I appreciate again, which hasn't really been a thing since Memento. (Okay okay I do mostly like The Dark Knight too.) With a cast that includes Robert Pattinson, Charlize Theron, Anne Hathaway, Mia Goth, Jon Bernthal, Zendaya, Logan Marshall-Green, Lupita Nyong'o and Samantha Morton (among others) there'll certainly be somebody worth staring at most of the time... but then Nolan's always gotten big starry casts which he then usually squanders. I'm trying to be optimistic, really! How are y'all feeling about the prospects on this one? 

Cosmo Jarvis Three Times

Big day for Cosmo-stans as not only was he featured in that Warfare clip I shared earlier but we've also got news of his next project, and it's a biggun -- he's just joined the vast cast of Chris Nolan's upcoming epic take on The Odyssey (thx Mac). No idea who he's playing in it but he's got a face for skirts and he joins the already announced (the movie is actually already filming) cast of (deep breath) Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, Robert Pattinson, John Leguizamo, Benny Safdie, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Mia Goth, Shiloh Fernandez, Himesh Patel, Elliott Page, Bill Irwin, Samantha Morton, Jesse Garcia, Will Yun Lee and Corey Hawkins. We have of course been in the Cosmo-corner ever since we first saw him opposite Florence Pugh in Lady Macbeth -- it took Shōgun for the rest of the world to catch up but that's fine because Shōgun is ace. And I know I should know better than to expect anything homosexual from Nolan but my god with this cast of actors and Ancient Greece as your setting... I mean we all know what Achilles and Patroclus were getting up to dammit!

Josh Hartnett Two Times

Even though Christopher Nolan had already cast my beloved Florence Pugh, one of my favorite actors, in his next movie Oppenheimer (about the scientist who came up with the grand ol' atom bomb), I had successfully avoided talking about it because, well, because I'm basically done with Nolan at this point. I haven't liked anything since The Dark Knight, and that only somewhat -- I love Memento but that's about where the relationship between me and Chris ends. But he got me today because he went and cast Josh Hartnett in Oppenheimer (news via, thx Mac), and I got no fight on that front -- you put Josh in your movie, I see your movie. Dammit all to fuck -- this is a low-blow, Nolan! Also in the cast so far -- Robert Downey Jr, Benny Safdie, Rami Malek, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, and Cillian Murphy in the titular role. BOOM! (That's the sound of an atom bomb going off, PS, in case you didn't get it)

Pic of the Day

Hello! That's a photo of Andrew Scott playing Tom Ripley opposite Dakota Fanning playing the character of Marge in Showtime's Ripley series, filming right now in Italy (via) -- I told you about this series here. Previously these roles were played by Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow in the 1999 masterpiece The Talented Mr. Ripley, of course, which leads me to this question...

polls

Also in the cast of Ripley is Emma actor Johnny Flynn playing Jude Law's forever-role of Dickie, and we wish him the best of luck with that... I mean I liked him in Emma but this is a big ask. On that note The Daily Mail, where these photos are from, lists the below photo as Dakota "frolicking with a few friends" but do we think that's actually a shot of Johnny below? I cannot tell. 

5 Off My Head: The Comfort of Venice

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Paul Schrader's 1990 film The Comfort of Strangers, starring Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson as a couple contemplating their engagement along the dark alleyways of Venezia, and Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren as the strange couple they find waiting for them there, is hitting Criterion today and I'd say it's a fairly joyous occasion -- I just watched the film last week for the first time and it's a bit of a forgotten, lost treasure if you ask me. Schrader conjures a strange mood from that city on the water that might just be the closest I've seen come to what my own experience visiting it was -- I didn't love Venice in the daylight but when the night came and the tourists evaporated and you find yourself lost in its byzantine streets it's a weird, creepy, darkly magical place, outside of time.

That was my favorite bit of my visit, the memories of that place that I appreciate more than any other, and The Comfort of Strangers manages to roll around in that doomed romantic vibe and make a movie out of it. I recommend! It's not perfect, but not many Interesting Movies are -- most are more all the more interesting for their missteps. Anyway I tweeted about it at the time but after watching TCOS last week I immediately wanted to watch just movies set in Venice and I made a whole day out of just that, and now I am going to make a whole list out of it.

My 5 Favorite Venice Movies

The Comfort of Strangers (1990)

Summertime (1955)

Death in Venice (1971)
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The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999)

Don't Look Now (1973)

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What your your faves? Even if only scenes,
like with Indiana Jones or Casino Royale...

Johnny Flynn Nine Times

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Well I guess the powers that be weren't keen on my suggestion that I, legendary trained actor of the stage and screen, take on the role of "Dickie" in  Ripley, the new Showtime take on Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley opposite Andrew Scott, who got cast as Ripley way back in September. This is of course the role that made Jude Law famous in Anthony Minghella's 1999 film... although one might reasonably argue that Jude Law's Face Etc made Jude Law famous, role be damned. 

Anyway they have instead hired this guy here who goes by the name of Johnny Flynn for the role. His name's been around a bunch as of late -- he's in the Emma re-do coming out next month, and he is playing David Bowie in a movie called Stardust. That said he's actually been bouncing around for awhile, including hey look a little role in Olivier Assayas' wonderful Clouds of Sils Maria...

He's got a great, interesting look -- I love a good facial scar -- but it's a different direction to take the character than Jude Law in his prime was. If any of you have seen Flynn in things -- and he's also a musician I guess so perhaps you know his music? -- maybe you can let us know if he's got the, you know, It Factor that the role demands. Jude, besides that stunning beauty, did bring a necessary cruelness to it -- Dickie just needs to be infuriatingly unobtainable. We need to want to rip the world apart along with Ripley for being denied him. That said I won't deny you Mr. Flynn right now, as I've got a few more photos after the jump...

Little Ben's Big Weekend

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If you are looking for a Big Movie out this weekend you're gonna end up sore -- The Aeronauts is not good, don't see it, read our pal Chris' review at The Film Experience if you need further convincing. Oh and there's Aaron Johnson's Penis in A Million Little Pieces, which is definitely putting the "Big" in "Big Movie," but I already showed you that. That said there are several smaller independent films out today via all of the various platforms that I very much recommend you seeking out, and I shall now list them for you. 

I guess I might as well start with Little Joe, which co-stars our boy Ben Whishaw pictured two times above and which has opened here in NYC at least is at The Quad -- with that title and an openly gay actor you would be forgiven for imagining something about Warhol star Joe Dallesandro, but don't imagine that! You'll be surprised when you actually end up seeing a Body Snatchers riff set in a strange closed-up world of odd botanists fond of rich fabrics. You'll be surprised by Little Joe no matter what you go in expecting, I think -- it's a weird one but I have a fondness for any riff on Body Snatchers and this is the most original one to come along in awhile. 

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MARRY ME BEN IN YOUR MINT GREEN TROUSERS WE COULD BE HAPPY TOGETHER pic.twitter.com/9XSDr3tbMp

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 8, 2019

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Moving on I've already told you about twenty-teen times how you need to see Peter Strickland's latest In Fabric, a bifurcated fable about an evil red dress and the bewigged witches who cast spells upon it -- here's my review from Tribeca this past spring, and here's my recent write-up of the performance from one of them witches, which is amazing. In Fabric is playing at Metrograph here in New York, with Strickland there for several Q&As this weekend to boot!

And speaking of crazy stuff I saw at Tribeca another one from that fest this past spring is just now hitting U.S. theaters -- it's called Knives and Skin and here's my review of it -- it's about a teen girl who disappears one night and how her small-knit community deals with it, and if you have any idea how that might play out throw those thoughts right in the garbage can, they are garbage, because this movie is nothing like you imagine it to be.

Lastly but not leastly -- and along with Little Joe I wish I had it in me to write a proper review of this because it's deserving of one, but my brain just isn't really cooperating with me this week -- is the wacko imaginary friend tale Daniel Isn't Here, which stars Miles Robbins as a young man whose repressed id or perhaps his schizophrenia or maybe perhaps even the devil himself springs forth one day in the form of Patrick Schwarzenegger only to then keep finding excuses to take his clothes off. Funny, I have hot dudes who live inside my head who do the same thing constantly too!

Kidding aside DIR is a pretty fascinating movie with some gorgeous schizoid visuals and some truly ape-shit practical effects (there's one scene that left my jaw hanging on the floor) that's a little undone by a pair of lead performances I found, uhh, underwhelming. Basically I wasn't nuts about what Robbins and Schwarzenegger were serving up. But director Adam Egypt Mortimer has got a great eye and a keen sense of cinematic freak-out which will serve him well if he can line up, uhh, better actors next time around. (There's solid work from Sasha Lane and Mary Stuart Masterson on the sidelines though.)
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Yes, the rumors are true
PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE
is fucking breathtaking pic.twitter.com/p0Nn8EiQqA

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 4, 2019

Oh and the glorious lesbian romance Portrait of a Lady on Fire is apparently playing some theaters his weekend in order to qualify for Oscars -- here's my review of that; it is glorious. The movie, not my review, although who's to judge really? I don't think the movie will get any Oscar nominations since France chose a different movie as their submission for the International prize, but perhaps its breathtaking cinematography can muster a nom. What do I know? Why am I talking Oscars? God. Anyway the film's getting a bigger release come Valentines Day so if you miss it this weekend you'll have another chance then.

The only movies I'm seeing in the theater this weekend are tonight Gabriel Mascaro's Divine Love out of Brazil, which I told you about last week -- it's his long awaited follow-up to Neon Bull, a movie I adored -- and I might see a guild screening of Ford v Ferrari too, if I can muster the energy. I'm really indifferent towards that movie on the surface (cars, blecch), but there's one thing I'm curious about...

Jon Bernthal photographed by James Mangold
(via https://t.co/WZSrhAUHw3) pic.twitter.com/4GKccrQz6w

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 5, 2019

The Talented Mr Scott

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Listen, I have not only known who he is but I have loved Andrew Scott ever since he played Moriarty on Sherlock. But he doesn't seem to have any problem with being called "Hot Priest" thanks to all this Fleabag recognition (he seems more annoyed by "openly gay") and I think it's an adorable moniker, and so I say call him "Hot Priest" if you wanna call him "Hot Priest." I mean maybe don't call him "Hot Priest" two years from now, but Fleabag Fever is still a thing, it just won all the Emmys, so we're allowed. (This is in response to all sort of people on Twitter being pissy about calling him that, by the way. Just don't such miserable scolds, I says.) Anyway...

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I VOLUNTEER TO PLAY HOT PRIEST'S DICKIE

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 25, 2019

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... the point is that the openly gay Andrew Scott aka Hot Priest has just signed on to play Tom Ripley in a Showtime adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley books -- specifically of The Talented Mr Ripley, it seems -- and I say bring that the heck on. I love Minghella's film as much as the next guy but if they can make a new West Side Story with racially appropriate actors then we can get a Tom Ripley who's actually had a dick in his mouth. Now y'all do some dream casting in the comments! Who should play Dickie, and Marge, and Dickie, and Freddie, and Dickie...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Bright Star (2009)

Fanny: I still don't know how to work out a poem. 

John: A poem needs understanding through the senses. The point of diving in a lake is not immediately to swim to the shore but to be in the lake, to luxuriate in the sensation of water. You do not work the lake out, it is a experience beyond thought. Poetry soothes and emboldens the soul to accept a mystery.

Fanny: I love mystery.

There are four movies of some note celebrating their tenth anniversaries today. There's this film here by Jane Campion. Then there's Karyn Kusama's horror flick Jennifer's Body, which seems to have finally started getting the respect it deserves now that everybody's hate for Megan Fox has cooled. 

Then there is Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! which I really and truly adore -- mostly for Melanie Lynskey, but I think it's one of his best and I'm a fan. And then finally there is Vicenzo Natali's much maligned Splice, which damn the haters I really enjoyed. I will admit I haven't seen it in ten years, but I think it's one of those movies that got an "F" from audiences that was just too freaking weird for them to get. 

But I digress! I polled y'all on Twitter earlier this week and Bright Star won the poll, just by the smallest of smidges over Jennifer's Body. So Bright Star gets today's post. I am fine with this, as Bright Star is a masterpiece and Ben Whishaw in Bright Star is also a masterpiece. Tell us which of these movies you love the most, or about how much you fell in love with Ben Whishaw here, in the comments!

There's Something About 1999

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We just mentioned how The Matrix is turning 20 this weekend, which got us to look on back -- what I believe to be the very first big project that MNPP ever tackled, way back in 2006, was a look back at seven years previous: an appreciation of the films of 1999. Now I link to that but I warn you it's pretty basic -- I was just getting my footing with this whole blogging thing then. Still I'd say that was some special foresight on my part, given how we're all going nuts here in 2019 wishing the astonishing run of films from 1999...

... a happy 20th anniversary week after week. Fight Club! Go! Election! Magnolia! The Blair Witch Project! Being John Malkovich! The Sixth Sense! It's endless and astonishing stuff. We were really afraid Y2K was gonna be it -- we were getting out all the good stuff while we could!

So anyway back in 2006 I polled y'all to choose your favorite film of the year (from nine choices I designated) and y'all picked Spike Jonze's film Being John Malkovich as your fave with a hefty 22% of the vote. And hey, that was a good pick! It still looks good here in 2019. I have always had smart readers, awwww. But let's see if we feel differently in 2019. Here's the same nine films -- now vote!

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web survey

Somewhat surprisingly I haven't had to personally re-pick my favorite films of 1999 yet for our "Siri Says" series, and my favorites now would look somewhat different than it did in 2006, but we'll save that for when Siri tells me to do that. (I live to serve.) But y'all please take to the comments and tell me which 1999 films I'm a fool for forgetting for now!

Quote of the Day

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"Nobody wanted to do it. I was working on it, and I felt like we needed a really strong cast, like a famous cast. That wasn’t working out. I asked the usual suspects: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Ryan Phillippe. They all said no.
... What I could have done, and what I probably should have done, was cast more unknowns, not worried about who were the lead actors,” he said. “I was not ready. I’m not sure why. There was just sort of a hiccup on my part. There was something off with myself, I guess, whatever was going on.”

-- Gus Van Sant chatted with indieWire this week (he's got a movie out, don't ya know) and gave good quote, naming names, on the time he spent trying to make Brokeback Mountain and he couldn't get any actors to star in it. He also talks about how he wanted to make something more contemplative and independent out of the short story a la his film Gerry than what Larry McMurtry had written and his heart wasn't in it, so we're lucky Gus stepped away, if you ask me. Actually I don't you even need to ask me - I think we're all pretty clear on being happy with how it turned out. (If you're not happy with how Brokeback Mountain turned out... here is not the place to share that.) He also talks about having been offered Call Me By Your Name (and I'm also happy he didn't make that, funny enough!) so head on over and read the whole thing. Can you picture Brad Pitt or Matt Damon or Ryan Phillippe getting it in the butt in a pup-tent and really meaning it like Jake did? I can't, but I don't entirely mind trying.

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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What a wonderful coincidence that the wonderful Jonathan Tucker's 36th birthday just happens to today be falling on a Thursday and so we can wish him a happy one with one of our "Ways Not To Die" series of posts, in which we celebrate a death scene from the movies or, in this case, television. 
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Also coincidentally we've had Hannibal on our minds this week anyway thanks to having just binged the current psychopath show du jour Killing Eve - it's all coming together! Including every gay man on Earth who has seen this scene from the fifth episode of Hannibal's second season, titled "Mukozuke." Let's hit the jump for the rest of this since, needless to say, I really went to town on this one...

Magneto & Thor Storm the Beach

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I was trying to fall asleep last night and I was doing what I do when I am trying to fall asleep - flip around the internet on my iPad until my Ambien makes it literally impossible for my eyelids to stay open - when I stumbled upon these pictures of Michael Fassbender riding a longboard, cavorting with garden hoses, and deep-throating a burrito, and I tell you dear reader I thought I was dreaming with my eyes still open. 

This is a pun-maker's paradise! Unfortunately for Fassy (dude can't catch a break lately) his valiant attempt at capturing today's Beefcake Headlines was maybe overshadowed by a certain Marvel Superhero also catching some rays on the other side of the world...

Free the Stache, Chris Hemsworth! It needs the sun to grow! Anyway both dudes look fine, and we should stare at them both. I'm not even going to do the poll here I was contemplating, facing them down, because we shouldn't pit these spectacles against each other - we should celebrate it all. Hit the jump for continued celebration...