All My Pretty Precioussses

I think I'm hardly alone in stating the cold hard dead truth that the three Hobbit movies kinda sorta broke my desire to watch Tolkein's Middle-Earth on the big screen anymore -- I couldn't even tell you anything that happened in them at this point; they went right in one eye and out the other. That said I started watching the Prime series, I think just because it landed in a lull in my schedule, and there's been some fun stuff in it. I will give it this -- it looks very expensive. (And given that Bezos shelled out like a billion dollars for the rights I should fucking hope so.) 

Anyway I wasn't really feeling much enthusiasm about Andy Serkis slipping into Peter Jackson's director's chair to make Lord of the Rings; The Hunt For Gollum, yet another big-screen adventure -- this one about the period in the story where Gollum (who else) had already found the ring but before Bilbo got to him and snatched away his Preciousssss -- even as names like Sir Ian and Elijah Wood and Lee Pace started circling a return to the franchise. To get to my belabored point, made even more belabored by the photo up top giving my game away, they've now announced that dreamboat Jamie Dornan will be replacing Viggo Mortensen as "Strider" aka the name his character went by before he embraced his princely panatloons and became the Aragorn we all came to know and love in the original trilogy. 

God this is so much nerd shit I am barfing right now! I need to go chop some wood or something stat. Anyway gorgeous Jamie is always a yes. I don't even care. I will now be watching this damn movie. And that's before we even get to the other two names that just got cast in it -- the queen herself Kate Winslet will apparently be the film's female lead, playing a character named "Marigol" (this site theorizes that she's Smeagol's grandmother), while our beautiful blond boy Leo Woodall will be playing a cohort of Strider's named Halvard. Does this mean this movie will have a lot of Jamie Dornan and Leo Woodall running around together, all bearded and dirty and huddling beside fires for warmth??? Because that's the movie I'm writing in my head, you best damn believe it. 

He's Giving Us Woodall

I never saw Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy because I have never given a fuck about those movies -- should I, as a noted Leo Woodall lover, bother? The above gif of him soaking wet in a white button-down cradling a puppy makes me think there may be something in it for me. In related ignorance, is anybody watching Leo's new series Vladimir with Rachel Weisz? Should I watch that? I can no longer make decisions for myself apparently, but earlier today I saw...

... this footage of Leo wanking in a bathroom stall and I decided that maybe I should prioritize Vladimir as well. I'll just have myself A Day of Woodall this upcoming weekend. Sounds like a better way to spend my time than thinking about our imminent Armageddon anyway. Sigh. Where was I? Oh right, Leo. Sweet Leo. Did you hear the rumor that Leo might be playing the younger version of Viggo Mortensen's character Aragorn née Stryder in The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt For Gollum? That would be one way to make me watch yet another unnecessary Tolkein movie. 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Bad Taste (1987)

Frank: Just remember, we're only authorized 

to use violence when protecting the planet.

Barry: And the moon.

Frank: Yeah, and the moon.

A very happy 64th birthday to Peter Jackson today -- coincidentally I just saw Bad Taste for the very first time two nights ago. And it is, true to its title, in very bad taste. Fun though, if seriously rough around the edges. Not sure why I hadn't seen this one before -- I've seen Dead Alive approximately five thousand times at this point. Anyway supposedly Jackson has been off re-working his early films for 4K re-release for the past few years (if you've been wondering wtf he's been up to yeah, join the club) but the clock is ticking, Petey! And as desperate as we all are to see the exploding felt pustules of the Feebles in high-res I think what we really need is a proper copy of Heavenly Creatures at this point. Here's to hoping that 2026 is the year this finally happens.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Heavenly Creatures (1994)

Juliet: All the best people have bad chests 

and bone diseases. It's all frightfully romantic.

A happy 30 to Peter Jackson's masterpiece!

Maybe they could announce a 4K release today?

Seeing as how the movie doesn't even have a blu-ray.

13 Bunnies of Halloween #1

It's 13 days until Halloween, Halloween! And you know what that means -- every year I do a list of 13 somethings from the movies, usually horror movies but not always, that will help to get us in the Halloween mood. (Last year I did Toilets, for example. Because obviously.) And since it's The Year of the Rabbit this year, I figured it was as good a time as any to catch ourselves some "Bunny Pox" and countdown all the unholy hoppers of All Hallows! And we're kicking things off here with Harry, the truly repulsive giant bunny rabbit comedian slash sex addict from Peter Jackson's 1989 variety-show monstrosity Meet the Feebles, because why not? There are rumors going around that Jackson is working on 4K restorations of his early movies right now and we for one can't wait to watch Harry here pop his pustules and puke his guts out in glorious 4K -- exactly what the format has been missing. Hoppy Halloween Season, everyone!

5 Off My Head: The Mad Count Chris

The singular legend Christopher Lee was born one hundred years ago today! While I've made no secret about the fact that when it comes to May 27th Horror Legend Birthday Boys I'm more of a Vincent Price (who was born 111 years ago today) than I am a Christopher Lee, that doesn't mean I don't love Lee! I love him loads. Indeed ever since Severina couple of years ago  put out that amazing "Eurocrypt" boxed-set of more obscure Lee titles (which is on sale for a measly 85 bucks right now, by the way) I've found a new appreciation for him -- and also on that note Severin recently announced they're putting out a second set of even obscurer titles (out in July you can pre-order it over here) so I'm sure there'll be even more amazingness to be mined. That said given what a truly epic run Lee had career-wise, working across eight (!!!) decades of the movies, narrowing down one's faves is a fool's errand. But I'm gonna try anyway, because I am nothing if not an epic fool.

My 5 Favorite Christopher Lee Performances

Count Dracula, Horror of Dracula (1958)

Saruman, Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)

Count Drago, The Castle of the Living Dead (1964)

Lord Summerisle, The Wicker Man (1973)

Duc de Richleau, The Devil Rides Out (1968)

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Runners-up: Hugo, Gremlins 2: The New Batch, Horror Express, The Whip and the Body, Hercules in the Haunted World, The Hound of the Baskervilles, Corridors of Blood, Star Wars 

What are your favorite Christopher Lee performances?

Pace You, Pace Me, Pace It For Always

A very very very very happy 42nd birthday to the actor Lee Pace today! Here's to hoping that Apple's adaptation of Isaac Asimov's Foundation series of books gives our Piemaker another great role to work his tall-man-magic upon, it's been too damn long. Not counting his brief role in the Captain Marvel movie -- not counting because he's buried under all that damn make-up and armor for Ronan...

bike tracks

... I feel like I haven't been given the gift of proper Lee since Halt and Catch Fire ended in 2017. Oh I guess I did get to see him (all of him) during that period on stage with Angels in America, and he was very nearly best in show there -- I found his "Joe Pitt" the best take on the role I've seen to date (yes even better than the white-hot-heat of Patrick Wilson); I said at the time that there were obviously reasons why he'd be so good at digging around in the agony of a closeted man but whatever the reasons he really channeled something transcendent and raw out of it the night I saw that show. 

Anyway I hope Foundation takes advantage of what they've got, and I don't have to get my only whole Pace fix off his Instagram (although if he keeps posting thirsty gems like this, or this, or jeez louise this, I don't mind the dang Instagram!) But mostly I hope him and his Pushing Daisies / Wonderfalls creative-paramour Bryan Fuller reunite sometime on something, anything. They make the best shit together! After all these many years I daren't dream of a Pushing Daisies revisit, but... daren't I? I dare, I dare! These pandemic icons need to live again, dammit!

Until then today I found a few Lee Pace photos I've never posted before up to and including some shots of him in his NYC home standing in front of his bookshelves (SWOON) so I've assembled us a little gallery to sate ourselves and our 99.44% pleasure receptors right on after the jump... 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Dead Alive (1992)

Mr. Matheson: What we need is another war!

Peter Jackson's splatterpiece (also known as BrainDead)

was released in New Zealand on this day in 1992!

(Speaking of movies that need a fancy blu-ray upgrade.)

Here, watch one of the grossest scenes ever made:

Good Morning, World

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I had absolutely no business attempting to start a new TV show this weekend as I've a pile of movie screeners and seventeen unfinished shows that I already watch staring at me with wet red eyes while whispering cuss words, but I had ten minutes between things and there was Carnival Row on the top of Amazon and so I gave it a whirl and, well, it's a good thing I only had ten minutes because that gave me an excuse when I clicked it off after five. Ever known with brilliant immediacy that a thing is not for you? I felt it when I tried to watch Outlander a couple of years ago and here again I felt it, like a rusty nail through the sole, nope nope nope no thanks. Sorry Orly! 

That said he's looking as good these days as he ever has I think (I think some maturation suits him, and I'm one of those weirdos who vastly prefer him with his natural black hair to the Elven look he became famous with) and the magazines are taking advantage, as recently spotted in Icon Magazine (you should click on that link if you missed it) and now here for good ol' Flaunt. Although I don't know how "good" ol' Flaunt really is since they give us glimpses in the video attached to this shoot of him getting out of that pool in soaking wet white boxer briefs...

... and yet they don't give us any photos of that. Has no one at Flaunt seen Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education? This is the "Gael Garcia Bernal getting out of the pool" reenactment the world didn't know it needed, but needed! Bastard people. It's not like Orlando is shy, for god's sake. Release the tapes! Release the tapes! Free Orly! Ahem. Hit the jump for what they did give us while I go organize our protest (and/or self-immolation)...

5 Off My Head: Siri Says 1994

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Okay it's been awhile since we've done one of our "Siri Says" series -- I take longer breaks in between each so I can make this last, since we're running out of possible years now, and also I get lazy -- so let me re-explain the idea: I pick up my iPhone and I ask Siri to choose me a number between 1 and 100. The number she gives me I then correspond to a year, and I pick my five favorite movies from that year. Today Siri told me the number "94" and so today we shall take a look at The Movies of 1994.

I'm actually pretty surprised that we haven't covered 1994 in this series yet -- sure Siri's fickle, but 1994 is one of those formative years in my movie-obsessing, and I'm glad to get the chance to look at it now. I was working in the home video department of the local Wegmans grocery store and devouring every video-tape I could get my hands on -- to the kiddies out there, this was what we did in the 90s, especially in the year Quentin Tarantino made Pulp Fiction, you see. 

Scanning through the movies for that year my first thought was wow, a lot of these have not aged well -- yes I'm looking at you, Forrest Gump -- but once I dove down into the cracks of it a whole lotta awesome bubbled up to the surface. And even the bad movies from this time period left a pretty indelible mark on me about what the movies mean, good and ill. So let's do it. I hereby give you...

My 5 Favorite Movies of 1994

Muriel's Wedding 

(dir. PJ Hogan)

-- released on September 29th 1994 --

Heavenly Creatures

(dir. Peter Jackson)

-- released on October 14th 1994 --

Hoop Dreams

(dir. Steve James)

-- released on October 14th 1994 --

Ed Wood

(dir. Tim Burton)

-- released on October 7th 1994 --

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Serial Mom 

(dir. John Waters)

-- released on April 13th 1994 --

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

Runners-up: The Lion King (dir. Minhoff), Speed (dir. Jan de Bont), Dumb and Dumber (dir. Farrellys), Interview With the Vampire (dir. Neil Jordan), Pulp Fiction (dir. Tarantino), Bullets Over Broadway (dir. Woody Allen), Reality Bites (dir. Ben Stiller)...

... Natural Born Killers (dir. Oliver Stone), Quiz Show (dir. Robert Redford), Jason's Lyric (dir. Doug McHenry), Wes Craven's New Nightmare (dir. Craven), Little Women (dir. Gillian Armstrong), 71 Fragments of a Chronology of a Chance (dir. Michael Haneke)...

... The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (dir. Stephan Elliott), Chungking Express (dir. Wong Kar-wai), Crumb (dir. Terry Zwigoff), The Last Seduction (dir. John Dahl), Nightwatch (dir. Ole Bornedal), Leon: The Professional (dir. Besson), Priest (dir. Antonia Bird)...

... Shallow Grave (dir. Danny Boyle), Three Colors: White (dir. Kieslowski), Three Colors: Red (dir. Kieslowski), To Live (dir. Zhang Yimou), The Shawshank Redemption (dir. Frank Darabont), The Hudsucker Proxy (dir. Coens)

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Never seen: Crooklyn (dir. Spike Lee), Tom & Viv (dir. Gilbert), Wolf (dir. Mike Nichols), The Madness of King George (dir. Hytner), Ashes of Time (dir. Wong Kar-wai), Backbeat (dir. Iain Softley)...

...... Amateur (dir. Hal Hartley), Eat Drink Man Woman (dir. Ang Lee), Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (dir. Alan Rudolph), Once Were Warriors (dir. Lee Tamahori), Queen Margot (dir. Patrice Chereau), Vanya on 42nd Street (dir. Louis Malle) 

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What are your favorite movies of 1994?

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Which is Hotter?

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Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings and Derek Jarman regular and a million billion other things actor Sean Bean is turning 60 today, and we've celebrated him several times here on the blog but weirdly never asked the following question so let's...

online survey

10 Off My Head: Siri Says 1989

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Well it's Tuesday so you know what that means - there's about a 20-25% chance that I won't be lazy and I will actually do one of our "Siri Says" series posts, wherein I ask the robot lady inside my telephone to give me a random number between one and one hundred and then, once she has, I take that number and I turn it into a year and then I pick my five (well usually five) favorite movies from that year. For example today my phone gave me the number 89, and so we're going to list out favorite movies from The Movies of 1989.

On first glance through 1989's movies I thought this was going to be a small sad strange bunch, since the year was mostly populated with junk like Weekend at Bernie's or Born on the Fourth of July or (horror of horrors) Driving Miss Daisy. Blecch no thank you - I am with Spike Lee; Morgan Freeman should have driven Miss Daisy right off the cliff. But then I started digging deeper and there are a bunch of buried gems that came out this year, and what follows is probably one of the strangest most erratic batch of movies I've ever listed for one of these.

There are movies in here that I loved as a 11-year-old kid and there are movies that I have come to appreciate with a more adult sensibility, but side by side these all seem a little bit bonkers. Anyway once I did get to digging I found plenty to adore - indeed too many, and this week's list is twice the standard. And I could've made it even longer and brought several of those runners-up up too - Indiana Jones and Batman should've made my top list probably, but I decided to just stay weirder.

And before you write an angry defense of Do the Right Thing (obviously the true masterpiece of the year) please remember these aren't the "best" movies of the year, they are the ones I personally get the most joy from. My "favorites." My "best" list would be pretty different. (There are also some real glaring oversights in the list of movies I haven't seen, for that matter.) I give you...

My 10 Favorite Movies of 1989

The Little Mermaid

(dir. Ron Clements & John Musker)

-- released on November 17th 1989 --

Road House

(dir. Rowdy Herrington)

-- released on May 19th 1989 --

Heathers

(dir. Michael Lehmann)

-- released on March 31st 1989 --

Dead Calm

(dir. Phillip Noyce)

-- released on April 7th 1989 --

Steel Magnolias

(dir. Herbert Ross)

-- released on November 22nd 1989 --

Meet the Feebles

(dir. Peter Jackson)

-- released on December 8th 1989 --

Apartment Zero

(dir. Martin Donovan)

-- released on October 18th 1989 --

The Seventh Continent

(dir. Michael Haneke)

-- released on May 19th 1989 --

The War of the Roses

(dir. Danny Devito)

-- released on 1989 --

Society

(dir. Brian Yuzna)

-- released on May 13th 1989 --

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Runners-up: Batman (dir. Tim Burton), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (dir. Spielberg), Do the Right Thing (dir. Spike Lee), Sante Sangre (dir. Jodorowsky), Back to the Future: Part II (dir. Zemeckis), Parenthood (dir. Ron Howard), Drugstore Cowboy (dir. Gus Van Sant), The Abyss (dir. James Cameron), Troop Beverly Hills (dir. Jeff Kanew)....

.... Ghostbusters II (dir. Ivan Reitman), The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (dir. Gilliam), The Fabulous Baker Boys (dir. Steve Kloves), Akira (dir. Otomo), Crimes + Misdemeanors (dir. Woody Allen), Parents (dir. Bob Balaban), Major League (dir. Irby Smith), When Harry Met Sally (dir. Rob Reiner), Sex Lies and Videotape (dir. Steven Soderbergh), The Burbs (dir. Joe Dante)

Never seen: Casualties of War (dir. Brian De Palma), My Left Foot (dir. Jim Sheridan), Roger & Me (dir. Michael Moore), The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover (dir. Peter Greenaway), Dekalog (dir. Kieslowski)...

... Kiki's Delivery Service (dir. Miyazaki), The Killer (dir. John Woo), Last Exit to Brooklyn (dir. Uli Edel), New York Stories (dir. Various), The Rainbow (dir. Ken Russell), Sweetie (dir. Jane Campion), Valmont (dir. Milos Forman)

What are your favorite movies of 1989?

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