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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

A Different Man (2024)

Oswald: Guy, you're a masterful actor, 

which is why this is so tragic. I really 

don't know what the ethical thing to do is.

Ingrid: The right thing to do is for you to take the role, 

and you still get to play Edward, Guy, just transformed. 

And you don't have to hide your face behind 

that idiotic thing! You- you get more recognition.

Edward: For one scene.

Oswald: But what a scene. The finale.

Edward: No one's gonna believe that Edward looks 

like him and then suddenly he just looks like me.

Oswald: Magic!

Edward: But she loves him for who he is. 

If he changes, then who is he then?

What a perfect movie A Different Man is! Here is my review. Cannot wait to see what writer-director Aaron Schimberg does next. But for now a happy birthday to Sebastian Stan, who would've been my pick for the Best Actor statue this past year if he'd been nominated for this instead of The Appreintice. And yes I admit I say that still having not watched The Apprentice. I mean kudos to any person who can subject themselves to more time spent thinking about our fucking asshole of a President but I simply cannot. A Different Man on the other hand, that shit I might have to re-watch tonight! Monumentally terrific flick.

Jeremy and Tigers and Jude, Oh My

This news is two days old so the world's moved on but here I am, world, here I am, finally reporting that Jude Law and Andrew Garfield are going to play homosexual tiger tamers Seigfried and Roy in a limited series about their lives for Apple. Titled Wild Things (excuse me there is already a campy queer masterpiece called Wild Things) it'll have Jude starring as Siegfried and Andy as Roy, and if you ever knew which one of those weirdos was which I wish you the best. Coming so soon after reporting that Sebastian Stan and Leo Woodall will be playing a gay couple I feel as if it's my duty to holler about "where the hell are the gay actors getting cast in gay roles" here, even if I'm not really honestly all that upset about this shit this week -- there's just other stuff to worry about. I can't prioritize who's slipping into spangled leotards to play the Vegas punchlines right now. But since we're here anyway...

... I will also report on (presumably) less gay news that also involves a pair of straight actors that people seem to find attractive (I only find one attractive and I've made that opinion known before) -- Jeremy Allen White and Austin Butler are going to star in a "crime saga" film for A24 titled Enemies,  about a contract killer and a detective playing "cat and mouse." The film will be directed by Henry Dunham, who made 2018's Standoff at Sparrow Creek -- I feel as if that title is familiar but I don't think I ever saw that. But good on A24 for continuing to support new filmmakers, and to hook them up with great big stars in the process. Anyway that news is brand new, of today, so we're all caught up now. Hooray!

Gay Stoner Utopia Ahoy

I told you about Macbeth and True Story of the Kelly Gang director Justin Kurzel's upcoming movie Burning Rainbow Farm way back in January when it was announced that the movie -- about a gay couple of pot farmers in Michigan who got into a big confrontation with the government in the year 2001 -- was going to star Sebastian Stan as one half of the couple. Well now the other half of said couple's been announced and it's going to be Sebastian Stan and Leo freakin' Woodall, y'all. WTF, Justin Kurzel! Sebastian Stan and Leo Woodall as homosexual stoners duking it out with The Man -- are you trying to make our brains explode? Okay maybe not our brains, but some other big throbbing organs anyway. Maybe I should go read the book this is based on? I've purposefully kept myself free of any more details of what happened since I'm unfamiliar with the true story (I did share a photo of the couple on that first post and this is some generous casting) but I imagine it doesn't have the happiest of endings. Such stories usually don't. But if we can't get a happy ending the least we can do in the meantime is watch Sebastian Stan and Leo Woodall paw at each other a bunch.

A Different Man Hits Home

My favorite movie that I saw at Sundance 2024 was Aaron Schimberg's surreal tragi-comic masterpiece A Different Man (it ultimately landed at #14 on my movies of the year list) -- starring Sebastian Stan as a man who gets what he wished for and finds out notsomuch -- so I'm extremely glad to see that A24 is finally giving the movie the blu-ray treatment, just announced today! You can pre-order it at their site! It's out in June, and includes lots of special features which I'll list down below. A24 always does a terrific job with their discs (cannot wait for the one for Queer, which hits on May 27th). Here is my review of A Different Man if you missed it. Have y'all been able to see this yet? Thoughts if so? And hit the jump for the special features...

Flashin' the Stan

Yeah as threatened yesterday I'm abandoning you once again today -- off to another dentist appointment in an endless stream of dentist appointments. (If all goes well, knock on wooden teeth, I'll have one more appointment next week and that'll be that. Fingers and molars crossed.) I am leaving you with these two fine photos of Sebastian Stan from his recent cover story for Vanity Fair -- there are lots more photos from the shoot but I found the shoot kind of too boring to care to post in its entirety. He looks good obviously -- obviously! -- it's just nothing we haven't seen before. Real low energy handsomeness. Anybody planning on seeing Thunderbolts this weekend? (I am not typing that title's asterisk, I refuse.)  I've taken to watching the Marvel movies once they make it to streaming and this one ain't enough to change that habit -- Fantastic Four might be though! We'll see. Sorry, Seb! Actually I owe bigger apologies to Florence Pugh probably -- all the wrong people will probably blame this movie's lower box office on it having a girl in its lead. So apologies to Flo and apologies to all of womankind -- I have let you down once again.

The 20 Best Movies of 2024

I have thought about dropping my year-end favorites list on Oscar Nom Day several times in the past, but timing-wise it just hasn't worked out before -- this year looks to be an exception, however! My reasons for thinking it's a good idea are 1) as stated in my earlier requisite post acknowledging that those nominations happened I just don't care about them and I don't want to spend all day reading people's brain-numbing statistics and theories all of which rob me of a will to live. So this gives me something else to focus on. Also today is the first day of Sundance and while I might not be there in person this year (sigh) I will be reviewing movies virtually, and I'm going to be very busy starting to do that almost immediately. So if I don't do this today it'll be a couple more weeks. 

Also -- I've had the list of movies on a spreadsheet for weeks now, and every other day I go onto the doc and I move them around a little bit depending on my mood, and... I could just keep doing that forever, or I could just say enough! And organize them into their final form, waffling be damned. That said 2024 turned out to be an especially amorphous year with no single frontrunner slam-dunk -- any of my top five on any given day could've been my number one. Which isn't to say I think 2024 was a bad year for movies -- quite the opposite! There's a lot of love spreading around here. But let's just stop our yammering and get to the goods. Here at last are...

My 20 Favorite Movies of 2024

20. Strange Darling (review)

19. Femme (review)

18. I Saw the T.V. Glow (review)

17. I'm Still Here

16. Love Lies Bleeding (review) 

15. Janet Planet

14. A Different Man (review)

13. Flow

12. The End (review)

11. National Anthem (review)

10. Kinds of Kindness (review)

9. Rumours (review)

8. Red Rooms (review)

7. Bird (review)

6. The Substance (review)

5. Challengers (review)

4. Nosferatu (review)

3. Hard Truths (review)

2. Queer (review)

1. Evil Does Not Exist 

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

And here are ten runners-up: The Vourdalak, Babygirl, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Hundreds of Beavers, Blitz, Trap, The Brutalist, Memoir of a Snail, Do Not Expect Too Much From the End of the World, and Oddity.

Okay -- that's that! Onward and onward!

 Let's get 2025 rolling...

Seb Sees Rainbows

I don't know what's more exciting -- the news I'm about to share or the fact that Sebastian Stan finally cut his hair off! (I am of the mind that he looks much hotter with shorter hair.) Let's tell the news and then you can decide for yourselves -- Sebastian is going to star in the new movie from Snowtown / Macbeth / True History of the Kelly Gang director Justin Kurzel! (And I know Kurzel is married to the great Essie Davis but the man has a very bisexual eye when it comes to making his leading men look sizzling hot.) Based on the true story told in the book called Burning Rainbow Farm (and that will be the film's title) it tells the tale of two gay men...

... named Tom Crosslin and Rollie Rohm who built a hippie stoner utopia in Mighigan, only to go to war with the government over it. I guess it was a big story that got obscured by 9/11 but I have never heard about it -- have you? Anyway Gay Sebastian! Who do we think will play his boyfriend? I'm not sure who's who in that picture above but I have to assume Seb will be the stoner on the right. Oh and further Seb news -- in that same link he says he's also going to star in the next movies from Romanian master Cristian Mungiu (probably best known for the movie 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days but I love love loved his last film R.M.N.) as well as Danish superstar Christian Tafdrup (who made the original Speak No Evil). The man has taste!

Seb the Man

I haven't watched Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice yet even though it is now on streaming because I have been mentally incapable of spending two hours watching anything about you-know-who before we know the results of today's you-know-what -- I'm hoping all will go the correct way and then I think that I will feel fine watching that movie. But a different Sebastian Stan movie is hitting streaming today that you might want to give a chance, to distract yourself -- his film A Different Man which I saw and adored at Sundance. You can rent ADM right here. If you're made of stronger stuff than I you could watch both movies, even! Seb might not be America's Ass but he's got plenty else going on! (That link is NSFW y'all.) All that said if you need me I'm gonna be over here doing this pose for the next several hours:

Good Morning, World

I guess we're taking a break from Andrew Scott in jockstraps and leather harnesses this morning (sighhh) -- but that's (mostly) okay because Sebastian Stan is here to conjure thoughts of being his reverse cowgirl via a new photoshoot for British GQ. See what we have of them over here. Ride me, cowboy! Anyway today is one of them half-days I warned you about due to some NYFF screenings -- this week's been a little lighter than anticipated on that front but next week, hoo boy -- don't expect a lot from me next week. It's very busy next week. So savor the wit of this Seb post while you have it! Such wit y'all! I made two cowboy sex jokes! Two! John Wayne is spinning in his hell hole, I tells ya.

Sebastian Stan Seven Times

A super sexy photoshoot of our boy Sebastian Stan hitting these streets today thanks to Variety, where they are chatting with the actor mainly about his role as you-know-who in The Apprentice movie, which is out on October 11th. I haven't seen it and to be honest I don't know that I have it in me to see it, at least until after November 5th. And I don't know that they are smart, releasing this movie before the election? Who wants more Trump right now? Even if the movie is as scathing as it needs to be (and I am assuming is, given Seb is a good boy) I think most of us have got sufficient right now. So I am just pretending this press is 100% for A Different Man, his amazing movie (my review here) that is out this exact weekend ahead, i.e. tomorrow. Go see that one! We love that one. And also hit the jump to see Sebastian being hot some more... 

Make Way For A Different Man

My favorite movie from Sundance this past January now has a poster and a trailer! A Different Man is from Chained For Life filmmkaer Aaron Schimberg and stars Sebastian Stan (giving his greatest peformance to date by leaps and bounds) and Worst Person in the World wonder Renate Reinsve and Adam Pearson (from Under the Skin and Chained For Life, which I reviewed here) and is a trippy Kaufman-esque tale about self-hood dissolving -- I kind of don't want to say much more about it than that, and I kind of recommend not watching the trailer honestly. I went in with nothing in my head and it blew me away -- here is my review, which PS I spoil things with, so maybe bookmark that until you've seen the film. I've seen it twice now and I think I loved it even more the second time -- this will very clearly be on my year-end list, so see it! It's got the MNPP stamp of super approval. 

A Different Man is out on September 20th.

Let the Sebastian Go West

The headlines on this one are all about Sebastian Stan reuniting with his Pam & Tommy co-star Lily James to make a horror movie, and that's cool and all (I like the both of them and I liked P&T too) but the headline for me personally is that the horror movie is being directed by the Danish director Christian Tafdrup, whose 2022 film Speak No Evil was truly traumatic to me (my review) and it seems to most anyone who watched it. That movie is getting a remake this summer starring James McAvoy that seems kind of pointless (just watch the original) but whatever Tafdrup is doing next on his own is definitely to be paid attention to and this sound promising. Here's how THR describes the movie, which is titled Let the Evil Go West:

"Let the Evil Go West centers on a railroad worker who discovers a fortune under deeply disturbing circumstances. As horrifying visions and manifestations drive him toward madness, his wife becomes convinced that an evil presence has attached itself to their family."

Stan the Man

I have finally reviewed my favorite movie out of Sundance -- click on over to Pajiba to read my thoughts on A Different Man, the new movie from Chained For Life director Aaron Schimberg that stars Sebastian Stan giving what I decree his best performance to date, opposite The Worst Person in the World's Renate Reinsve and Under the Skin's Adam Pearson. Or don't? I kind of think it might be a movie worth knowing as little about as possible going in -- I did and I felt rewarded by that and my review had to, out of necessity to discuss the plot, spoil some of its surprises. The movie is already owned by A24 so it will definitely have a release this year at some point so if you can hold out, hold out. If you need convincing, go forth. I will say that you should very much go see Schimberg's previous phenomonal movie Chained For Life if you haven't -- here is my review of that -- because it will give you some idea of what Schimberg likes to deal with. A Different Man feels like a continuation on the same themes. 

And Then It Was Sunday

And Oscar Sunday, no less.

Sebastian Stan Eight Times

Two fine Sebastian Stan photoshoots in one short week -- I'd ask what we did to to deserve such bounties but you know. We have suffered. We have earned this shit. This one today (unlike the more-shirtless-one from Tuesday that I posted here) is for Flaunt magazine and it is very specifically for his movie Fresh with Daisy Edgar-Jones -- how do I know this even though I have not read the interview? Because half of the photos for the spread are of and with Daisy Edgar-Jones. Sherlock who, am I right? I reviewed the movie Fresh right here if you missed it -- that's on Hulu right now and it's fun, Seb is especially fun, I recommend. With that and with Pam & Tommy dude is having a good start to 2022! Anyway no offense to that lovely lady but thankfully all of the Flaunt photos aren't with Daisy -- I gathered up the Seb-exclusive ones right on after the jump so hit it...

Good Morning, World

Well here is a happy treat for this Tuesday morning -- Sebastian Stan is on the cover of L'Officiel USA and looking mighty fine both there and inside its pages for a photoshoot that's giving me some happy Midcentury Daddy vibes -- click on over and read the interview and you'll be a few steps ahead of me, who's only looked at these photos so far. But before we go I have to ask -- have y'all watched or been watching Pam & Tommy? I was hesitant at first I will admit when I heard that Pam Anderson wasn't involved -- it felt like another case of her agency being taken away, when that's the entire brutal lesson we're supposed to have learned from with what happened with that sex tape...

... but I gotta admit, I've fallen into the show pretty hard; Lily James is really really good as Pam, and they're being incredibly generous towards her experience. I think they're probably being far too nice to Tommy Lee, who just comes off as a dim-bulb jackass (maybe let's not forget dude was abusive too?) but we'll see where it goes in its last couple of episodes (I'm not done yet; actually I'm not even sure how they're airing it -- have they aired all of the episodes already?) Anyway I recommend it, if you're not watching. Even beyond the spectacle of a talking penis puppet I think Lily James makes the whole thing worth watching. And now let's stare at Sebastian some more, after the jump...