Do Dump Or Marry: The Top Gun Boys

 

Popping in over the holiday weekend because this set photo from the Top Gun sequel demanded it -- that's Miles Teller, Glen Powell, and Jay Ellis posing their studly stuff from the immediately... well it might be early to say "iconic" so let's say revered, the immediately revered beach football scene. (Iconic.) I might have had a lot of mixed feelings on the movie (read them here) but this scene went into the "strictly positive" column, that's for certain. You can click that image and make it much bigger, but as you do that why not also hit up the comments below and give me a round of the ol' "Do Dump or Marry" for them three fellas? That's where you pick one fella to have one single solitary boink-fest with (Do), where you pick a different fella to pop out the airlock like poor ol' Goose (RIP Goose) had done to him back in the day (Dump), and one fella that you'd unite in holy forever matrimony with, at least until the Supreme Court outlaws gay marriage again (Marry). Have at it and happy Memorial Day, horndogs!

 

 

Good Morning, World

Still thinking about Top Gun this morning, even after I exorcized a bunch of random thoughts and feelings with that review of the sequel that I barfed out yesterday afternoon -- read that here if you feel like getting a little barf on yourself anyway. (And who doesn't?) For those who asked in the comments and on Twitter and since I didn't bring it up in the review at all somehow -- Top Gun Maverick doesn't have any of the homoerotic tendencies of the original. Yes there's a shirtless football scene at the beach (glimpsed in the trailer) that luxuriates in the men's bodies for a minute but it somehow feels less leering that the volleyball scene in the first film -- it stares respectfully, yawn -- and I will say that Miles Teller & Glen Powell (bless them) do try in a couple of moments to inject something in there between their characters, you can see them straaaaaining for it, but the film refuses to allow it to take. It's a chastely hetero affair, I'm sad to report, on top of its other crimes. But really, as ranting as my review got, I still basically enjoyed the experience of watching the film? It hits its marks, the action is top notch -- just like I said don't think about any of it, don't think about any of it at all, lest you undo its spell.

Take My Breath Away Once, Shame On You; Take My Breath Away Twice, Shame On Me

It's fine if you don't think about it. That should be the mantra you repeat to yourselves like you're an updated embodiment of the Last House on the Left poster  -- it's fine if you don't think about it, it's fine if you don't think about it, it's fine if you don't think about it. That mantra applies to so much in our world -- all of it? Let's say all of it! -- but for this moment's precise purpose I speak specifically of the movie Top Gun: Maverick, the 36-years-later sequel that nobody really asked for and yet, if you don't think about it too much, hey it's fine.

It's certainly better than the original film, which in Tony Scott's capably flashy fingers took all of the emptiest impulses of the 1980s and... well... it took them, anyway. It took them and it put them all on the movie screen -- as the poet once opined, it "put 'em on the glass." Tom Cruise as a gleaming toothpaste person in tight jeans, Kelly McGillis as a wide-shouldered haircare ad who melts like strawberry ice cream from Tom's little-boy touch -- and do note here that McGillis, who had the nerve to surrender to being a human being in the past thirty-six years, in nowhere seen by this still expertly surface-level sequel.

No such worries with Movie Star Tom Cruise, as there's not much room for profound humanity to be mined there -- his lip might tremble and his cheek-muscles might flex but not a hair will fall out of place, barely a line will crack that mask. Which is fine, it's fine, if you don't think about it. We need our movie stars, I miss having our movie stars, and Tom Cruise is trying to keep that cold flame alive while the next generation gets famous for posting their bowel movements on Instagram. And so Kelly McGillis is swapped out for the age-appropriate yet looks-ten-years-younger-than-she-is Jennifer Connolly, gleaming like the Penny her character is literally named after. 

Who the hell is this Penny person? Does it actually matter? The script gloms a history onto her and Maverick that stretches to some vague way back but she is just "Supportive Lady," one with very expensive hair who nevertheless lets said hair down like "one of the boys" at the local bar she owns when that is asked of her. She drinks, she laughs, she looks you straight and decent in the eyes right before she goes stock-still like a NPC the second you turn your back on her. She's got a teenage daughter there to represent the possibility of Adult Things for Maverick -- ones he doesn't have to work at too hard of course, because that's the fantasy. That he can play around for thirty-six years and then be rewarded with someone in old age to take care of his messy diapers. The American Dream, baby!

But if you don't think about the messy diapers, it's fine. It's fine! I mean you probably shouldn't think about the film's politics either while you're at it, which insist that technology intended to save human lives is actually awful, that Jon Hamm is actually awful, and that we should instead throw a bunch of young nameless people meat into the war grinder. For America, of course. Oh they have names, nicknames anyway, like Hangman and Ice Cream and Red-Shirt and Douchebag and The Girl One and Dolly The Cloned Sheep and Okay Maybe I Didn't Write Down All of Their Nicknames. Names just enough to fit on their helmets so we know which ones are exploding or which ones are not exploding.

Tom Cruise, who seventeen magazine profiles will remind you does all of his literally insane stunts, of course believes that it's important that we all throw ourselves into dangerous situations for top billing, and so that mindset naturally extends itself to international military warfare. Because why wouldn't it? Xenu didn't fly his spaceship into that volcano so you use your telephones on his movie sets, people. 

The villains of Top Gun 2 are all black-masked baddies straight out of a G.I.Joe cartoon -- no country is ever named and no faces are ever glimpsed; hell I don't think we even see a skin-tone? And we never hear a language out of them either -- in the one interaction that demands communication between sides they both use hand signals. So clearly we should come to the conclusion that the villains of this movie are The Deaf. In the world of Top Gun Maverick all of the deaf people of the world have gone rogue, formed their own evil government, and begun hoarding uranium to kill the hearing with. CODA winning Best Picture was just the first step, and only Tom Cruise, with his large gleaming teeth through which he speaks so crisply and enthusiastically, can save us!

Okay clearly the villain of Top Gun Maverick isn't deaf people, but how am I not left to try to fill in some holes with a movie so resolute in having it every which way but human? Even Val Kilmer's brief scene return as Iceman, which by necessity heaves some real world levity into the film for the briefest of moments, is an odd spectacle of glammed-up suffering, all big scarves and silences, nearly impossible to get one's hands around. Top Gun Maverick, like its star, seem to truly believe in its bones that it's actually possible to be apolitical -- not at all a problematic stance in this year of our lord-almighty 2022 -- and that we as viewers can just cross our eyes a little bit and stare past Kelly McGillis to see the perfect Jennifer Connolly of our dreams who was actually there all along.

The sheer will with which the movie strives to be a nostalgia machine for a world that never was, for the coke-dream of the 1980s that the original coughed up, is so relentless that hey, as long as you don't think about it it's fine. The action is beautifully photographed and edited and scored, Lady Gaga screams over the credits, we see American Flags and glossy abdominal muscles and special effects maybe not in that order. You won't walk out of Top Gun Maverick a better smarter person by any definition of those words, but you will walk out! It probably won't actively kill you in your movie theater seat. And so it's fine. It's fine. 

Pics of the Day

Apparently Billy Magnussen is playing Robert Redford on that limited series The Offer about the making of The Godfather??? Who knew? Certainly not me because I would have mentioned this before, but Billy just shared the photos on his Instagram and...

... there he be! Reenacting some Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Right above that's director Dexter Fletcher in the middle, and we all know Miles Teller (unfortunately) who's playing producer Albert S. Ruddy in the series (and who is also the bulk of what has been keeping me from watching the series). Four episodes of the ten have aired so far -- have any of you watched it? I guess I have to now! Or at least this one (I suspect this is a cameo).

Top Glen 2

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I liked the teaser trailer for Top Gun Maverick that they released back in July way better because that one really properly showed off Glen Powell's shirtless beach football moves, while the full trailer they just dropped on us today really only shows off Miles Teller...

... and ain't nobody asking for that. (I will give Miles props for those abs though -- they might be attached to Miles Teller but those are fine upstanding young abs.) 

Anyway there's other stuff in the trailer, Tom Cruise like... 

flies a plane or whatever. Here watch for yourself:

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Maverick starring Glen Powell comes out on July 26th.

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Too Old To Die Young (2019)

Diana: Soon, violence will become erotic, torture euphoric. As the masses hail public executions, propelled by the wrath of fascism, concentration camps will be rebuilt, ignorance will be exalted, and there will be race wars, for hate will be rewarded and seen as truthful and beautiful. Faith will be reduced to venomous platitudes, a morphine-infested enslavement of thought. Perversity will be dignified. Incest, molestation, and pedophilia will all be praised. Rape will be rewarded. The few will have everything, and most will have nothing, for not all men are created equal. Narcissism will no longer be suppressed, but worshipped as a virtue. Indulging one's impulses will become instinctual. Our identities will be defined by the pain we cause. Pure unadulterated nihilism will be the only solution in the face of glorious death. In time, we will have our own religion, our own dynasty, and with it, we will wake the true fury of the world. And as man implodes in a wash of blood and silence, a new mutation will emerge. And on that day, I will declare the dawn of innocence.

I'm glad I caught that it's Jena Malone's 35th birthday today because the second I heard her deliver the above speech in the final episode of Nicolas Winding Refn's Amazon series Too Old To Die Young -- otherwise known as the best show of the year to those in the know -- I knew I needed to do one of these posts devoted to every word she speaks. (Also a big thanks to our pal Sean, who recapped the show for Decider, for transcribing that speech in his write-up of this episode, making my job much easier here.) 

I do wish that somebody had uploaded to YouTube the scene immediately preceding this speech, where Jena dances around her house to the Goldfrapp song "Ooh La La" in one of the show's most jubilant sequences, because it'd prove to all of you who've stayed away from this masterpiece that there were bright bouncy rewards for its oft brutally glacial pace... but on the other hand I like our little cult who know the truth. Someday it'll appreciated for its genius -- until then, until that "dawn of innocence," we can happily dance with ourselves. Ooh la la, times infinity.

Wound Me Up, Buttercup

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For months I've been complaining that Wounds -- the new horror film from Under the Shadow director Babak Anvari starring Armie Hammer and Dakota Johnson, and have you seen Under the Shadow yet, well have ya? -- seemed to be slipping through the cracks, release-wise, and now that I have seen Wounds I can say I understand why. It's not precisely terrible -- these are all talented people involved. It's just one or two degrees off from working, but those one or two degrees, with a project this high-wire, defeats it.

There are moments when it's kind of terrible. There are moments where Armie's called on to sell things I'm not really sure any actor could sell, but they're especially not his particular strong suits -- Armie, despite his ridiculous handsomeness, radiates a shyness, an awareness of always being looked at. I'm not as tall as he is but I recognize this same strain in myself -- we stoop over in order to make other people more comfortable, to not stick out quite as bad. 

This quality worked real well for him in Call Me By Your Name because it made Oliver seem like he was covering something up which he was (until he wasn't), but here in Wounds this douchebag called Will that he's playing shouldn't be as aware of himself as Armie comes off -- this guy's a dumb drunk who's bad for everybody around him and should be played more insidiously poisonous than Armie plays him. Lord knows I can't stand Miles Teller but Miles Teller is more the type needed for this, precisely because I can't stand him.

That's not all on Armie; Anvari doesn't really help Armie out, holding his camera on those weaker moments, and in return a vacuum opens up in the film where a real loathing should be humming -- the central relationship between Will and his girlfriend Carrie (Dakota Johnson) is unraveling and that should feel way more fraught than it does. Instead we get some amusing sniping back and forth at the kitchen table when these scenes need to sting, to be dark and leave welts, and tear asunder. (That said I said about five times I wanted to turn Dakota's terrific line readings into ringtones; she does what she can with a severely underwritten role).

The frustrating thing is you can see that one or two degrees to the side where the movie they wanted to make lives, and there are terrific moments that crawl around that thing -- all the stuff with Brad William Henke is weird and dangerous and grossly effective, up to and including the film's out-there mouth-hanging climax. As admitted on this site before my number one fear is insects so in that sense this shit worked on me; I was fidgeting and squirming, scratching myself and saying out loud "HELL NO" sporadically from start to skittering finish.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

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... Glen Powell's wingman anytime.

The first teaser trailer has arrived for Top Gun: Maverick with Tom Cruise revisiting the role that made him a big-toothed superstar alongside Miles Teller and our boy Glen here filling in as the beefcake youngster roles that'll get all the kiddie butts in the movie seats; watch it here:

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This movie isn't out until June of next year so I'm not sure why they're teasing it at this point, but I'm not gonna argue with Glen Powell's nipples, not ever, so I'll shut my mouth. Oh fine except for one thing...
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Wanna know who's awesome and still acting? Kelly fucking McGillis. Of course she had the nerve to be a woman who got older so she's nowhere near a TOP GUN sequel

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 18, 2019

Who Ain't Nuthin But a Hound Dog

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While I don't think any of the five names being bandied about are right on I think you can guess my preference of the five, given the above image and my well-documented predilections, for which one I'd choose to play Elvis in Baz Luhrmann's forthcoming biopic. The five actors are Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Miles Teller, Harry Styles (I hesitate to call him an actor -- and don't yell "Dunkirk" at me, nobody had to act in that movie), Ansel Elgort, and Austin Butler. 

The only one of them I don't know is the latter, although I've seen his name around; the other three are either a firm no thank you (Teller and Elgort) or an "I suppose, if you must" (Styles). But I'm not nuts about any of them to be honest, even Aaron who feels a little old at this point? (Which is probably crazy cuz dude is only 29.) Anyway...

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I Am Link

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--- Hammer in Pain - If I'd read this news earlier I would have included it in our earlier Armie Hammer post but what the hey, too much Armie ain't a thing (not to mention I missed that shot to the left) - he's set to star in a movie called Dreamland with Gary Oldman (boo hiss how could you Armie after he stole Timmy's Oscar!) and Evangeline Lilly, from Arbitrage director Nicholas Jarecki. It sounds like one of those multi-strand serious-issue thrillers a la Babel or Traffic that were so popular a decade back, only this time it's about the Opioid Epidemic. There are two male leads - a drug trafficker and a university professor and honestly I have no idea between Armie & Gary which would be playing which. That could go either way!

--- Old and Dead - Although they seem to have taken the trailer off of YouTube (I'll check and see if I can find a working link to fix that) I posted a teaser trailer for Nicolas Winding Refn's forthing Amazon series Too Old To Die Young back in June -- it stars Miles Teller and Jena Malone and Billy Baldwin and John Hawkes, among many. Anyway today DH brings us word that Refn is finally nearing completion on the massive thing, which is apparently ten ninety-minute-long episodes, so basically ten films. That will make up for it being three years since The Neon Demon I suppose.

--- Queen Collette - I was sad the first time I found out that Toni Collette's not personally into scary movies all that much (although given I found that out that time I hung out with her having a couple of drinks after a screening of Hereditary I could only be so sad, ya know) but she seems to be getting more at ease with the genre, besides the fact that she's given some of its greatest performances now, given her chat with Out Magazine this week. Loved her embrace of the term "Scream Queen" (she says, "I love the term scream queen. It’s pulpy and kitsch and camp. I’ll take it.") Also loved the news that she's got three projects lined up set to film back to back to back -- this queen of all the kingdoms cannot work too much. 

--- Mr Miller Mourns - Ezra Miller has lined up a new project (probably to fill in the gap where his Flash movie should be filming, goddammit), a thriller called The Mourner based on a Japanese novel by Arata Tendo, which was already turned into a Japanese film in 2015. Ezra will play "a mystical young man" (check check and check) who mourns people who have no one else to mourn them who changes the life of an cynical female detective. Sidenote: it doesn't look like the novel's been adapted into English yet.
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--- There Ben Be - I figured that Our Esteemed Lady Meryl Gummer had had Benjamin Walker buried in a shallow grave when he spurned her daughter's marital bed, never to be heard from again -- seriously when my beloved stage musical adaptation of American Psycho closed Ben just vanished. But hey look he's alive and he's going to star on Broadway with Annette Bening and Tracy Letts! He's be playing one of the sons - it's the titular role! - in a revival of Arthur Miller's post-WWII familial drama All My Sons. (thx Mac)

--- Dog Gone It - On Friday I posted the trailer for Donnybrook, the upcoming cage-fighter film starring Jamie Bell - well Jamie is re-teaming with that movie's director Tim Sutton (as well as his co-star in it actress Margaret Qualley) for a movie called The Chain, based on a short story about a man whose daughter is attacked by a dog, which sets off a series of "catastrophic events." Sounds like a good time for all! Also in the cast, though? Sebastian Stan! That is a good time after all.
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--- Deeper Idris - Did y'all catch the gifs I posted of Idris Elba on the Tumblr the other day? They're worth catching, is my point. I was inspired by the news that he's lined up a new role and it sounds possibly neat-o -- it's called Deeper (insert dirty pun here) and it's about a deep-sea diver who encounters a "sinister and dangerous force" while exploring a "newly discovered trench." Really there are many dirty things I could insert here, up to and including that part about "inserting" "dirty" "things." That said the dude who directed Jake in the forgettable Everest is directing this movie, and it was written by douchebag Max Landis, so we'll wait and see if we're inserting anything.

--- And Finally, a call to arms! I retweeted this earlier but perhaps you missed it - Jessica Chastain is making a female-led spy-thriller called 355 with X-Men director Simon Kinberg that will have her starring opposite Penelope Cruz, Marion Cotillard, Lupita Nyong’o, and Fan Bingbing (well if China will let Fan star in movies anymore, anyway). They need a slab of man-meat, a hunky equivalent to the "Bond Girl" type, and Jessica's asking Twitter for suggestions! I have been training you people for just this situation for years - go forth and prove me proud, my minions!
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If you were going to make an ensemble female action movie and you needed a #BondBoy who would you cast? Asking for a friend. #eyecandyneeded pic.twitter.com/MuRL8e2fBq

— Jessica Chastain (@jes_chastain) February 6, 2019

Goose Junior

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That sounds like a hip new nursery rhyme from from Nickelodeon where they'd have an entire segment titled "Goose Jr. Raps!" but actually I speak of the character called "Goose" in Top Gun, played by Anthony Edwards -- the forthcoming new Top Gun movie (yeah we live in that world, just deal with it, there are more important things to be angry about) is looking to cast that character's son...

... (meaning don't forget that his mom is Meg Ryan) and three names have been released as possibilities! Glen Powell seen above being the first, with Miles Teller and Nicholas Hoult the other two. I think you can tell, by image placement, where I stand - Glen should be getting all of the roles right now. All of them. Even shit like this. Line that charismatic motherfucker's pockets with gold, son. But I will let you vote...

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Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... playing Show & Teller.

Last March Miles Teller showed off some beefing-up pictures of himself, which he said were in preparation for a boxing movie he was doing - well now we know that the movie's called Bleed For This and a trailer (see below) and we've all got a whole lotta leopard-print thong and tighty-whities to go along with it. (thx Luc)

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My feelings towards Mr. Teller veer wildly from moment to moment - he's such a douchebag, King of the Douchebags really, but, well, sometimes you need a little douchebag in your life. And this movie, leopard-print thong and all, is surely leaning into the douchebag... so maybe it'll work? We'll find out when it's out in November, I guess.

First Shot Han

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So let the Young Han Solo rumor-mongering begin! THR is saying that around 2500 actors (no I didn't make a mistake and add a bunch of extra zeroes there) have auditioned in some way shape of form (the wear and tear on that casting couch, can you imagine?) to play Young Han Solo in the Star Wars prequel that the Lego Movie directors are set to direct in 2017. 

There are semi-interesting names -- Dave Franco, Aaron Johnson, Logan Lerman, Rami Malek (cue the racists freaking out) for starters -- and there are absolutely horrifying names -- Miles Teller, Max Theirot, The Walking Dead's Chandler Riggs (oh god), Ed Westwick (oh GOD). And then there are like 2450 names nobody's ever heard of. I hope they pick somebody nobody's ever heard of! I think the whole "Star Wars" thing sells itself, ya know? 

Or they can pick Idris Elba. He'd work too.

Who would you cast?

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Which Is Hotter?

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Since Miles Teller is once again putting it all out there (it "all" being "his bottomless douchiness" of course) it seems appropriate to put him in the spotlight here, as well -- and it's not that I'm trying to influence y'all's votes or anything but here's let's use a better set of photos before I ask you the pertinent query...

Miles Teller Before & After Muscles

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Miles Teller is playing a boxer in his next movie and on The Tonight Show he showed off a pair of shirtless pictures from before his weight training for the role (above) and after (below).

I mean... it's Miles Teller, so there's only so much you can do. (Never try that 'stache again, dude.) But I'm pretty sure I like him in the "Before" picture more. He looks too much like one of the weirdos in those terrifying speed-pill weight-loss programs in the second one. But what do you guys think?

Which is hotter? Miles Teller...

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After

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Who Wore It Best?

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Redmayne Blues or Oyelowo Reds?

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poll by twiigs.com

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Personally I don't really like it when dudes go for colored tuxes; I'm a traditionalist when it comes to formal dress for men. Hundreds of years have whittled the tuxedo down to B&W perfection, and I don't really see the need for anybody to get all side-show snazzy with it. Look at Chris Evans + you see the magic a traditional tux can work...

... although granted even Miles Teller is all, 

"Okay it doesn't fit me quite like that."

Chris Evans might not be the fairest measuring stick.

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Who Wore It Best?

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The Cock Sock: 

Skylar Astin or Miles Teller in 21 & Over?

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poll by twiigs.com

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Is this the movie Miles Teller had his homophobic freak-out over, or was it another one of his lame-ass teen movies? He's made several and I feel like they've all got gay panic stuff in them (although to be fair to him one of the cornerstones of the Teen Movie is gay panic).

Anyway you can see more pictures from 21 & Over at this NSFW link. It's Miles' 28th birthday today, and I really did think he was wonderful in Whiplash, so I'm feeling generous towards him these days. Happy birthday, Miles! Don't be a dick!

Miles Teller Rhythm Method

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It's only six days until the Oscars and so I devoted this week's "Beauty vs Beast" over at The Film Experience to one of the only three Best Picture nominees that I actually like, Damien Chazelle's Whiplash starring Miles Teller and probable Supporting Actor winner JK Simmons. You're as surprised as I am that I dug this movie - I had incredibly low expectations (so low I skipped it at the New York Film Festival when it screened).

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A Whiter Shade Of BCoop

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(click to embiggen) The celebrity photos from W Magazine's annual Movie Issue have been revealed and once again, they's weird. See them all right here. it's like a rave happening at a circus in 1998 or something. Bradley Cooper, cover boy, is plucked clean and half-naked - I know he's betrayed his glorious man-pelt for that Elephant Man show but this is some Powder shit right here. Anyway here are their pictures of Jack O'Connell, Oscar Isaac, Ralph Finnes, Dan Stevens, and Miles Teller, all of them giving me some weird and wacky Big Top fantasies...