Sam Claflin Seventeen Times

I could pretend that I have something to say about this photo shoot of Sam Claflin for Flaunt magazine but I'm in such a rush this morning trying to get five thousand things done before running out the door (including giving y'all something to look at before I cruelly abandon you for two-point-five more days) that I can't even pretend. Just imagine it woulda been something like, "Durr, hairy!" and I'm sure you'll have the gist. Got it? Good. Gist achieved. Hit the jump for the photos then...

Good Morning, World

Sam Claflin's got something to say!
(via) And I am sort of listening.
His chest is very distracting though.

Good Morning, World

After seeing this much appreciated seflie from Sam Claflin yesterday -- PS thanks for not shaving your chest anymore, Sam! -- I had to go look up what he's been up to because I haven't seen him in anything in awhile. That's when I was reminded I didn't watch that 70s rock music series he was in with Riley Keough -- my bad. Did any of you watch it? My bf did -- his Riley love knows no bounds -- and he did not like it, but I am open to other opinions. So please share if you have one. Anyway looking forward via his IMDb page I see he's about to star in a Count of Monte Cristo series (yawn) but more interestingly he's in what sounds like a horror movie called All the Devils Are Here with Rory Kinnear, Eddie Masran, and Burn Gorman. Pheonomal cast, that! It might just be a thriller, the description is vague, but we also hope for horror. Keep hope alive! And keep not shaving your chests!

Good Afternoon, World

Hey and howdy and good afternoon, one and all -- busy day here behind the scenes of MNPP (aka My Life), I've got a couple of screenings going on so it's all a bit abbreviated. Online-wise anyway. That said (whatever the hell I just said) I am here for a couple of hours now, so let's see what mischievous nonsense we can get ourselves into, ehh? Sam Claflin says "Huh?" And in return we say, "Happy birthday, Sam Claflin."

Good Morning, World

Chockablock days for those of us who like looking at Sam Claflin -- not long after that very fine photo-shoot for Rolling Stone he's gone and done another one for GQ. You can read the interview here, if you're so inclined. This is all coming hard due to that series he's starring in with our beloved Riley Keough called Daisy Jones and the Six, which according to my boyfriend (who has watched it; I have not) is basically just an unauthorized retelling of the Fleetwood Mac story. Anybody up in here watched it? Say something about it in the comments if so -- I'm probably never going to watch it. Rock biopics, even made-up ones, hold very little interest for me at this point. (Get back to me when we do Blondie or the Talking Heads though!) Hit the jump for the photos...

Sam Claflin Thirteen Times

I should definitely have a better idea of what the hell Daisy Jones and the Six is because it stars my beloved Riley Keough, first off -- I try to keep abreast of my Riley projects! But I swear to you until this week here, which is the week this thing is being released, I had never heard of this thing in my entire life. And now I'm seeing it co-stars Sam Claflin via this photoshoot for Rolling Stone UK -- read the interview here -- and I guess I should look it up.

I mean I am technically a professional or whatever -- I am typing out a whole post here and I have absolutely no idea what I am talking about. That in itself is entertaining me, though -- more than actually knowing if this is a TV series or a movie will, I think? I have to know so many things -- too many really -- I enjoy not knowing some! Sometimes! So I will google it later. Or I won't! Who knows? I follow my own drummer, bitches! (And I dare an A.I. to try and capture this voice.) That said hit the jump for more photos of Sam looking very attractive for this thing, whatever it is...

Jonathan Tucker Five Times

Jonathan Tucker said, "You know what? I am not done being sexy." And so he teamed back up with photographer Tony Duran for another another magazine shoot. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this set (for something called Harbor magazine) were shot at the same time as the last set (for something called Vingt magazine) since they seem to share an aesthetic, but then most of Duran's work looks like this. And thank goodness for that. The best part though...

... is if you click over to Tucker's Instagram post that first shared these photos and then take a look at the comments, which are full of his many also-hot male co-stars of yore leaving hilariously thirsty comments. Jonathan Tucker is an inspiration to us all, truly. Hit the jump for the rest of the shoot...

Today's Fanboy Delusion

 Today I'd rather be...

... capturing the Claflin.

I have not yet watched Netflix's Enola Holmes movie myself, but I am happy to report that I walked on my boyfriend half-watching it while he was cooking last week, whereon he admitted that for the very first time he was finding Sam Claflin "hot." Congratulations, Sam! You've made the grade! (via)

Good Morning, World

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Happy Monday, but more importantly -- have you guys seen Sam Claflin's abs lately? (pics via; thx Dennis) If he'd had these abs when he shot the Hunger Games movies I might not have been as totally annoyed that he got cast as Finnick. Actually that's not true I take that back, he's never going to be right for Finnick. God he was miscast in that role. That said I didn't come here to be mean to Mr. Claflin, I think he's been really very terrific in the last few movies I have seen him in -- Their Finest, My Cousin Rachel, and most especially his evil turn in The Nightingale. So abs away, Mr. Claflin.

Good Morning, World

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Alright these shots of shirtless be-stached Sam Claflin in a recent episode of Peaky Blinders is very clearly violating the one rule of our "Good Morning" posts -- that we show you something "Morning" related. But you gotta cut me some slack this week -- it's hella busy at MNPP HQ with all these NYFF screenings, and I wanted to get these gifs out at some point. And since I don't watch Peaky I have nothing to say about what's happening here except... yes. Yes. Yes. Hit the jump for the NSFW money shot...

Bloody Bloody Alice Mitchell

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At what point do we start talking about the fact that Sam Claflin's hateful yet extraordinary performance in Jennifer Kent's The Nightingale (reviewed here) should be in awards conversations but won't be? Now's a good time right? I mean everyone in the film, including its leads Aisling Franciosi and newcomer Baykali Ganambarr, should be drowning in buzz -- these are three of the best performances I've seen in anything so far this year -- but I think this one's just gonna be me sitting here getting hoarse by my lonesome, innit?

Anyway I bring this up right now because, holy of holies, we have news on Kent's next movie! She wants to adapt the lesbian murder novel Alice + Freda Forever, which tells the true life tale of two girls who went bad for each other in 1890s Tennessee, igniting a firestorm of shocked and lurid press attention at the time. You can read up on Alice Mitchell here on Wiki. Lord knows I keep thinking of Heavenly Creatures reading up about it, but that's because we don't have a lot of these stories to turn to! Have any of you read the book? Got ideas on casting? Maybe that old-timey sketch to the right will help? Even though she looks middle-aged there the actress probably shouldn't be older than her 20s. Oh hell, just cast Aisling Franciosi again!

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Quote of the Day

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“One way to look at the world is, ‘If I turn away from all the suffering, it doesn’t exist. The other way is to look at it boldly in the face, and let it into your head, and see how it feels, and be motivated to be a more loving, compassionate person.”

That is Babadook director Jennifer Kent in an interview with The New York Times about her new film The Nightingale, specifically about the sexual violence her film depicts, and which's gotten a lot of people very riled up. When I saw Kent speak at a Q&A alongside the film last week she basically said getting riled up by what she's depicting is a good thing -- clearly we should be riled up. If you missed my review of The Nightingale you can read it right here -- this is one of the year's most important movies and I really recommend it, if you think you can handle it. Anyway here's a wee bit of video that I took at that Q&A:

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What Music They Make

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How precious is song? That thread that binds any person, even the poorest and smallest, to the infinite? In the dungeons of time, in the deepest of muck, to sing is to bring a beauty anywhere. What is a song but a scream turned beautiful? It's an act of faith -- not necessarily of the spiritual sort; it's faith in our individual presence. I am here, I matter. I have something to give to the world. Kindness, uplift, or even a profound sad wail to turn our profound sadness manifest. It's our inner self expressed, impressed onto the sky itself.

Jennifer Kent's The Nightingale begins and ends with song, bridged by screams and terrible mean whispers. Song knots its many characters together -- a song sung from mother to child, a song song to drunken men in a forced foreign tongue, a drunken song spat into the night, and the music made from birds across an infinite mud-spattered no place. Mournful songs and dances; songs smack like the back of a fist and the tip of a sweet finger. Everyone sings, and the world listens or it more likely doesn't listen, but the singer at the least will never be the same, turned, as it is, inside out.

Clare (an astonishing Aisling Franciosi) is called "Nightingale" by her boss, although "boss" is too kind a word for it -- he is the man (Sam Claflin) who bought her, out of kindness he says and he makes her say, but we see none of that. She's his plaything, his music box and slave, and she's coming to the end of her usefulness just as Kent's film begins -- more trouble than she's worth. Her newly acquired husband and baby are stealing her music; complicating its sweetness. An edge in everyone's voice sets hold.

Horrors like car horns, brained on walls -- screams stopped mid-scream are so much worse than the continued sound. Who can find anything to sing about in a world of nightmares? Of waltzes waltzed with unspeakable things, shirt fronts soaked through with what's left of their ruined faces? Spun off into purgatory and madness, a landscape of hanging moss, trees stuffed with corpses, flat stone that stretches gray to the gray sky -- songs seem out of the question. And yet songs come; they come like clockwork, defiant to men's endless atrocity.

The Nightingale is bleak and hard and it's as hopeful as they come -- true hope, the sort of sinking through the earth itself and feeling something still of yourself tickling sharp at your toes. We hurt, we hurt bad, men make pain and pain makes men. And somebody somewhere, maybe somebody makes a movie or makes a song, one high and pitched right that cuts through the violence, hard fought and barely, but barely, hanging on. Honest and true, this one. A scream turned beautiful.

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You Could Do Worse Than Looking At Idris

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Having never seen a Fast Furious film you won't be seeing me at that Hobbs Shaw thing this weekend -- it took me awhile to even figure out it was a Fast Furious film in the first place -- but I will take this opportunity to highlight a couple of Idris Elba photos from his 2016 Interview Magazine photoshoot that I didn't highlight well enough when it originally came out due to that being a hell of a photoshoot and my eyes being all over the damn place. I mean, really.

Anyway that movie is the big expensive one of the movie weekend but if you're in a city I recommend you seek out two smaller and devastatingly excellent pictures instead -- there's Luce, which I reviewed here, and then there's Jennifer Kent's Babadook follow-up The Nightingale, which I haven't reviewed yet because I'm seeing it a second time tonight and wanted to do that before I wrote up my thoughts. I plan on trying to do that tomorrow though, even though MNPP is still on its Summer Fridays Off schedule. So stay tuned!

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What Damage a Sam Can Do

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I'm checking off two of my most anticipated films for what's left of 2019 from my checklist this week -- tonight I'm seeing Jennifer Kent's Babadook follow-up The Nightingale starring The Fall's Aisling Franciosi as well as this Sam Claflin chap seen here (watch the trailer at this link), and on Thursday it's Quentin Tarantino's Once Upon a Time in Hollywood of course, which I'm currently in the fun process of dodging all spoilers for on Twitter. Fun!

I actually almost had The Nightingale spoiled for me today by of all places the film's press notes sent from its own PR people -- I'm guessing they've gotten some strong reactions due to its well-documented harsh content (recall a critic in Venice getting canned for screaming obscenities at Kent after a screening there) and were just trying to be upfront about triggering folks I guess, but I read a few words more than I wish I would've with regards to that. Oh well. Anyway The Nightingale is out on August 2nd so stay tuned for more, like a for real review and everything, shortly.

Let's Try To Stuff Every Brit Boy In There

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This news doesn't have anything to do with Richard Madden but if you can stick some Dick in why wouldn't you, that's what I always say -- this news does have to do with his Dick-Sticking partner though, the actor called Sam Claflin, who's just joined the cast of that Teen Girl Sherlock Holmes movie we told you about last week when Henry Cavill also joined. Yes indeed tis true Sam Claflin and Henry Cavill in a film together -- the budget for plucking chest hairs out of tweed just tripled on this sucker. No word on who Sam's playing but I am sure Sherlock needs his Watson...

Good Morning, World

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Good morning and happy Monday everybody, we've got 46 days until Jennifer Kent's The Nightingale hits movie theaters here in the US -- 46, a number that means absolutely nothing to anybody (apologies to you 46-year-olds out there but you know it's not a special year) but hey, Sam Claflin posted this bathtub shot on his Instagram over the weekend, so make note of 46 I shall. Watch the trailer for The Nightingale here, and from what I gather appreciate still being able to feel sexually attracted to Sam before the film comes out and makes us all feel wrong for that.

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"I go sloooow."

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There are movies I am looking forward to this year and there are Movies I Am Looking Forward To This Year, and Jennifer Kent's long long long awaited follow-up to The Babadook called The Nightingale sits atop the latter -- ever since it caused men to toss themselves into the ocean clutching their hearts at Venice last year I have been on fire with desire. Well I don't have that much longer to burn now, as IFC has just announced an August 2nd release date for NYC & LA, and also dropped a poster & trailer. And the trailer is goooood. Watch:

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Absolutely chilling -- my want went up, 

which seemed impossible, until it happened. 

The movie stars Aisling Franciosi (you should recognize her as the teenager that Jamie Dornan had an affair with on The Fall) as a young woman somehow wronged by Sam Claflin -- I guess she's got a thing, being wronged by men whose hotness makes the audience feel gross conflicted things about their bad behavior -- who seeks revenge across the Tasmanian wilderness in the early 1800s. Put August 2nd in your calendars, everybody! Here's the poster:

Quote of the Day

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I've been playing a game of "Avert your eyes, you desperate fool!" all week with Nightingale news -- the new film from The Babadook director Jennifer Kent played at Sundance and got some attention, good attention; you can see our previous coverage of the film right here -- and so far, so good. Perhaps they've played it lightly, the spoiler-squads, since the film was already bought before it played there; we told you that IFC had picked it up in early January. While we wait for a proper release date for that though, Kent is looking ahead and holy crikies, she's apparently going to work with Guillermo Del Toro, says she in a chat with BD:

“Look, we’ve got something on the boil. I’m not being secretive but I’m not sure I can talk about it. It’s something scary and I really admire him and his work. I think he’s a true artist so I’m excited to know more. We’re in [the] early stages of that.”

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Claflin Your Hands Say Yeah

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Fantabulous news for those of us who've been nursing Babadook blue-balls for the past five whole years since Jennifer Kent's already-classic film hit us horror-lovers like a ton of beautiful bricks - Kent's next film is finally, finally, coming our way! We first heard about The Nightingale in early 2017 when Hunger Games actor Sam Claflin (seen above) was cast in it -- it's about a young woman (played by The Fall's Aisling Franciosi) who seeks revenge across the Tasmanian wilds. I think Sam is who she's chasing but I'm not 100 on that.
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Anyway the film played at Venice last year and became immediately infamous, not because of the movie itself but because an Italian critic in the audience screamed "prostitute" and "whore" at Kent's name in the credits. (I believe the guy got fired, as well he should.) Cut to almost six months later and we finally have word on a release for the movie - IFC has picked it up, it's going to play at Sundance, and then come out soon after in the summer. I'm gonna go home tonight and play with my Babadook pop-up book to celebrate! (No that isn't a euphemism. ) (But it probably should be.) Until then you may hit the jump for more of this Sam Claflin photo-shoot...