Ho Ho Oh My

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May Alexander Ludwig & Travis Fimmel stuff your stockings, and 

then each other's stockings, and then yours again, tonight!
Happy Holidays from MNPP!

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We All Need Somebody To Lean On

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Upon recent questioning my mother maintains that when I was around seven-years-old the dog I loved and raised as my own was sent to a friendly farm out in the country when she and my father divorced and the dog couldn't for some reason come with us. But I have my doubts. Why was I never allowed to visit the dog again? I'm pretty sure it was the glue factory for Samantha, my white mutt with black spots that had been my everything for a few brief but vital years. My heart was broken, but then those were heartbreaking times all over the place.

I thought about Samantha watching Lean on Pete, Andrew Haigh's entry into the "boy and his dog" canon opening in theaters this Friday - the "dog" is always an idea (I just called 2001 a "boy and his dog" movie earlier this week, after all - and so it's no big whoop for the "dog" here to be a horse; whatever it takes to break a young man's heart and in the process show him what it means to love, and lose, unconditionally. Them's the breaks, kid.

The horse is called "Lean On Pete" in the goofily cumbersome way race-horses are always tagged, but obviously Charlie (Charlie Plummer, proving his ace performance in King Jack a few years back was no fluke) does come to lean on this indifferent creature - his single father (played by Travis Fimmel doing his best Early Trashy Brad Pitt impersonation) means well (his mother abandoned them years ago) but he is just a big kid himself; there's nobody supporting Charlie so Charlie looks to improbable places for support.

While out on a run Charlie stumbles upon the horse and then its owner Del (Steve Buscemi at his Buscemiest) and an unfriendly friendship forms - Del doesn't take to Charlie's post-pubescent boorishness but needs a helping hand and the kid's hard-working enough so he'll do. Chloë Sevigny swings in as a nice-enough lady jockey with life lessons about hard realities on hand and further sets the tone - this ain't nobody's Feel Good event of the summer. The road only rubs things down.

But it's so much better than feeling good, anyway - Lean On Pete is elegiac in the most reliable and comforting of ways at times, lapping full from the tank of its American Midwest Mood Board, all spotty desert-adjacent sunsets and pick-up trucks kicking up little mini dust storms. Pete trots and runs and his mane tosses in the wind, and Charlie stands beside him and then stands a little taller. We guess he sees something of himself reflected in the neutrality of the animal's black eyes; the movie never feels the need to spell it out, thank goodness. It's all there in those eyes.

Those black, black eyes. Have I mentioned how discomfiting I find a horse's stare? Lean On Pete  doesn't entirely disagree, because for all its tone-poem structure its heart remains distant, and the America it suffers through sinks into night awfully quick. We can go searching for something about ourselves here and get lost just as fast.

Pete Gon' Lean

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A24 just dropped that, the pretty first poster for Lean on Pete, the new movie from the great Andrew Haigh, he who made 15 Years and Weekend (not to mention Looking). Lean on Pete got fairly ecstatic reviews when it played at Toronto earlier this year - it stars Charlie Plummer (who was so wonderful in the movie King Jack, which I reviewed at Tribeca in 2015) as a teenager taking care of a horse, I guess? I'm probably simplifying that but I don't want to know too much before going in. The movie also stars Steve Zahn, Chloë Sevigny, Steve Buscemi, Travis Fimmel, Amy Seimetz... really a whole bunch of good people. A24 says the trailer will be released tomorrow, stay tuned for that - the film's out on March 30th.

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Travis Fimmel Four Times

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(via)

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Good Morning, World

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I did that post about Travis Fimmel's cup of spooge last night and it's only a hop skip n' jump, mentally-speaking, from Travis to Vikings and Vikings to Alexander Ludwig, his co-star on that show, and here we are. (via) Thing is I have encountered a bit of a mystery and anybody that actually watches Vikings you can feel free to clear this up for me -- there have been some shots of Alexander's bum going around over the past week...

... reportedly from Vikings, but all I've been able to find are still shots, and so I thought I'd make a gif and I went looking for the clips and I can't figure out where this happened. There's a scene in the 3rd episode where this happens...

... but as you can see we don't get a shot involving buttocks there. Perhaps the butt-shot is off an uncensored cut of the show for the blu-ray release and that's why we're only seeing it now, so long after this episode actually aired? Ideas? Or is just looking at the butt enough for you? Thinking is overrated when butt is available, that's what I always say.

Great Moments In Movie Shelves #80

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There isn't much I have to say about Rebecca Miller's pleasant film Maggie's Plan - which stars Greta Gerwig as a "Greta Gerwig type" who breaks up a marriage and then tries to put it back together once she realizes they were all better off before - it's pleasant? I don't have much enthusiasm for watching Ethan Hawke on-screen anymore so that probably dampened my reaction to the movie, since watching goddesses of the Gerwig & Julianne Moore kind fight over him kinda rankled. 

But the film does have one glorious moment that brings together so many of The Things I Love that I had to give it love in return. Greta Gerwig? Check. Greta Gerwig dancing? Check. Greta Gerwig dancing in front of bookshelves? Check! Greta Gerwig dancing in front of bookshelves while Travis Fimmel and his great big bushy beard jerks off and then waves his jism around proudly?

CHECK!!!!!

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I Am Link

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--- Horse Of Course - I saw the indie coming-of-age flick King Jack at Tribeca in 2015 and reviewed it right here - well its star Charlie Plummer, who was very very good, has just landed a pretty plum gig leading Andrew Haigh's new movie. It's called Lean On Pete and it's based on a book about a teenager searching for his aunt after his father dies. The film will co-star Steve Buscemi as the owner of a race-horse who tags along for the ride - also announced for the cast are Chloe Sevigny and tasty Travis Fimmel.
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--- Gonzo Gizmo - In my house it's always Gremlins O'clock (and hey they're screening that movie in 33mm here in NYC at the astonishing Metrograph soon!) so this nifty little tidbit of information on how Steven Spielberg rewrote the future of cute with a last-minute swerve in the making of the original film is worth checking out.
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--- Humans For Hauntings - The fourth Insidious film is gathering steam and besides the constant Lin Shaye (bless that little lady) in the familiar role of spook-toucher Elise, they've just signed on board the actor Josh Stewart, who is one of Those Guys whose face is becoming one of Those Faces that you sort of know but you're not sure from where. The answer, probably, in this case is The Dark Knight Rises.

--- Where No Man - One of the (many many many many) things that I missed out of Comic-Con was all the stuff about Bryan Fuller's upcoming Star Trek show - it's gotten a title: Star Trek Discovery! I like it. And it's gotten a little teaser trailer, which you can watch right here:

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--- Italian Flavor - Over at Coming Soon they've ranked all 22 of Mario Bava's movies -- I didn't realize that Bava only made 22 movies! I've actually seen more than half of his output already! That terrifies me; I don't want to run out of Bava movies ever. Anyway I find fault with a few of the placements (Hatchet For the Honeymoon is one of my favorites and it's ranked very poorly) but if you wanna introduce yourself to the director this is an excellent resource.
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--- Young At Hart - At the start of this week when I did "Beauty vs Beast" for John Waters' film Desperate Living (have you voted yet?) I mentioned that The Film Experience has been celebrating the year 1977 - well Nathaniel went and found a true discovery from that year, the Ernest Hemingway adaptation Islands in the Stream, which I had never heard of and which co-stars the delicious (and young!) Hart Bochner in his very first role. Click on over to TFE for several fine little snapshots of that business.

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--- Rich & Pretty - Did any of you watch the pilot episode of The Last Tycoon, aka that Fitzgerald adaptation starring Matt Bomer on Amazon? I did and... it was okay? I would probably watch more anyway, so the news that there will be more means I will be doing just that - Amazon has picked the show up for a full season after doing their patented "test it out for one episode" thing. (thx Mac)

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--- And Finally I am pretty conflicted about looking forward to a new Mel Gibson movie but my love for Andrew Garfield is pretty deep... deep enough to overcome a homophobic sexist antisemitic pigfucker sitting in the director's chair? I guess we'll see when Hacksaw Ridge, his new Andrew Garfield movie about a real-life conscientious objector in WWII, comes out. The movie's got a trailer now, watch:
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Good Morning, World

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That's Vikings star Alexander Ludwig showing off his Medieval Bubble Beard -- personally I'm choosing to pretend that it's Alexander's co-star Travis Fimmel that's actually holding the camera taking that picture, while Alexander's extended arm reach underneath there is actually holding, you know, Travis Fimmel.

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Furry Fantasy

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I am simultaneously not at all the audience for the Warcraft movie and totally the audience for it -- to the first point I have never played the game and it all looks silly as fuck to me here in the first trailer, but to the second it does star Dominic Cooper and Travis Fimmel and was directed by Duncan "Moon" Jones. And as if he knew I was going to be torn Duncan seems to be offering me specifically an olive branch in the form of... hairy chests on the orcs???

Ahhhhh crap... I wanna fuck an Orc.

I totally do. Here's the trailer.

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Jones For Hot Dudes

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Moon and Source Code director Duncan Jones is currently at work on his Warcraft movie starring all of the random hot guys in the world -- Dominic Cooper, Toby Kebbell (sidenote: I want to see lots more Toby Kebbell and not in utter shite like Fantastic Four, please), Robert Kazinsky (see more here), Travis Fimmel (see more here), Ben Foster, Daniel Wu (see more here), Callum Keith Rennie (see more here), Daniel Cudmore (look at him!), some dude named Ryan Robbins (also hot!)... seriously, Duncan! Like a kid in a sexy candy store. A lot of these guys are going to be covered up in make-up and CG sadly, given the nature of the Warcraft beast, but that set was still a real sausage-fest and I look forward to the DVD's behind-the-scenes special-features. 

Anyway I point all this out for a point -- Duncan has announced the first news on his next project, the hard sci-fi flick Mute, and the first two fellas cast are Alexander Skarsgard and Paul Rudd. Clearly, Duncan Jones and I have it in common that a life well lived isn't well lived at all unless you've got hot dudes everywhere around you to look at. Think back upon Sam Rockwell's star-lit showers and Jake Gyllenhaal's jumpsuits, and it all clicks into place. Bravo, Duncan. Bravo. Anyway you can read more about the actual movie of Mute at that link, if you want actual details or whatever. What do i look like? I got my own priorities...

I Am Link

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--- After Briefs - Underwear Model goes legit! Calvin Klein crotch-jockey and sex-beard-enthusiast Travis Fimmel's been trying this acting thing long enough that I guess he's proven he's more than just a shapely pair of buttocks (although he sure is that too!) so he's been hired to act opposite Greta Gerwig and Julianne Moore now. Okay? Okay. Rebecca Miller (yes, daughter of Arthur and wife of Daniel Day-Lewis) is making a rom-com called Maggie's Plan, and they're all in it. Also Ethan Hawke and Bill Hader.

--- Doc Daze Two - The second half of Glenn Dunks and Daniel Walber's conversation on the documentaries of 2014 is up over at The Film Experience; they talk about the Roger Ebert doc Life Itself and the Oscar-nominated pair of Last Days in Vietnam and Citizenfour in this one. I'm still really surprised by how uninvolving I found Citizenfour to be.

--- Boys For Tina - Christopher Abbott, who jumped ship off Girls for a movie career, actually seems to be doing pretty well for himself (he's no David Caruso, at least) - he got good notices for a movie at Sundance and now he's just landed a role in Tina Fey's new movie, The Taliban Shuffle; yes this is also the movie that we told you will star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Tina's main piece. Surround yourself with man-meat, Tina. You go. Lena will understand.
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--- Sausage Fest - There's an interesting piece at Vulture today on Sundance's "White Guy Problem" that I found myself nodding along vigorously to; summed up here: "[The Studios] swoop in, pluck up all the white-guy directors, and leave all the talented female and nonwhite helmers to fend for themselves. If you're a white dude who made a micro-budget Sundance movie with some visual panache, you're sure to end up on studio short lists; if you're not, you'll struggle to even get financing for your next project."

--- River Folk - Ryan Gosling's directorial debut Lost River screened at Cannes last Spring and didn't get too much love, but Ryan Gosling directed it so it's coming out (it'll be VOD, I think) - The Playlist has the first clips and some new pictures from it. It stars Matt Smith, Christina Hendricks, Saoirse Ronan, Ben Mendelsohn, Eva Mendes, and Agents of SHIELD's adorkable Iain De Caestecker.

---  Gal Fridays - Carrie-Anne Moss, who really should've carved out a better career for herself than starring in endless death scenes in volcano movies, has just joined the cast of Netflix's next Marvel series AKA Jessica Jones. This is the one that comes after Charlie Cox's wee-zipper show, and stars the always-welcome Krysten Ritter as a lady-reporter slash hero of some sort.

--- After The Disco - Kate Beckinsale is slipping out of her 3D rubber-suit and trying to be an actress again, and what better way than re-teaming with the folks who gave her her most memorable stab at being considered an "actress" - she and her Last Days of Disco co-star Chloe Sevigny are going to star in Whit Stillman's new movie. The name that jumps out at me is Xavier Samuel but then we were just staring at his ass like a week ago, so he's there on the tip of our tongues (we wish).

--- Fantasy Freak Out - A trio of fantastical short stories by George RR Martin are being turned into a single movie called In the Lost Lands and it's already got Milla Jovovich and Justin Chatwin (mmmmm furry Justin Chatwin) on-board to star. Picture sorceresses and werewolves and barbarians and so forth. The sky will be purple, their breastplates will heave.

--- Pack Mentality - Wow anthology horror movies really are the everything right now - there's that movie Tales of Halloween we told you about previously, with a bunch of directors tackling interconnected stories on a single Halloween night (speaking of STYD has a couple new pictures from that); there's the female-director anthology XX (which just got a pretty groovy poster, seen there); and now there's Holidays, which will have a bunch of horror segments about different holidays from different directors, including Kevin Smith (blecch) but also the dudes that made the terrific Starry Eyes.

--- And Finally, Hooray Final Girl is doing a VHS Week! All week long Stacie Ponder will be yes pondering a movie a day - yesterday she hit up the godawful-sounding 1988 flick Shadow Dancing; the movie may sound godawful, but per usual Stacie makes the awful sound fun. You'll want to hear about Christopher Plummer's fiery niblets.
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Alexander Ludwig One Time

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(via) I've known this whole time, months upon months, that Alexander had shown up on that Vikings show opposite the previously-well-gratuitized Travis Fimmel, I think he came on in its second season? He showed up and promptly started stripping down...

... and yet I've done nothing, nothing, nothing about it. This is my first time acknowledging it. Travis, Alexander, bring it on - I deserve to be punished.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... tickling Travis Fimmel's ivories.

(via) Apparently these are from some 2010 movie called Ivory, about a young man's "passion" for the piano. That's some passion. I actually have a new-found passion for his passion, what a coincidence.

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Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... getting a good Medieval soak on

with Travis Fimmel & Linus Roache.

On tonight's very special episode of Vikings (airing at 10pm on The History Channel) some good old-fashioned naked-time negotiations go on between Ragnor and the King - I haven't watched the show yet (save half-naked scenes like this one, of course) but the sexual tension up in this scene here is pretty thick, yo. King Linus is taking all that tat-and-scarred Viking hotness in long and hard, he is. See the clip plus some more caps after the jump!

Travis Fimmel Eight Times

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I Am Link

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--- The Craft of War - Seeing the news that model-turned-actor Travis Fimmel was maybe set to star in it I was simultaneously turned on and rolling my eyes at the idea of a Warcraft movie, but I guess I'd forgotten that Moon director Duncan Jones was going to direct it. There's never no eye-rolling in Duncan Jones' general direction! Colin Farrell is also apparently up for one of the film's four leads.

--- Blue Movie - I'm thinking about going to see Blue is the Warmest Color tonight, have any of you seen it yet? There's been some interesting chatter about the movie online (seems to be a movie that inspires interesting chatter of all sorts), but two pieces from the New York Times especially caught my eye - Manola Dargis is not a fan of the film and sight unseen I was already worried about the things that are troubling her. Meanwhile AO Scott takes a look at the news that the IFC Center here in New York isn't enforcing the film's NC-17 rating and is allowing minors in to see it, and Alyssa Rosenberg has a nice follow-up to that. I suppose I'll have more of an opinion on all this once I see the movie!

--- Boo For Who - It is Halloween week and so I imagine there will be mountains of fine horror writing that I'm going to miss out on, since I'm shit at keeping up; anybody see's anything good, send me a link, I would love it! But hey look here's one - over at The Dissolve three smart folks have a chat about what it is in this sort of jaded day and age that we generally find scary right now.

--- Dead Aaaaight - I'm really at the point where I refuse to report on this stuff until something is real, but man I wanna report on it so here - both Bruce Campbell and the director of the Evil Dead remake Fede Alvarez have come out saying that Sam Raimi is totally gonna make Army of Darkness 2, aka Evil Dead 4. I mean, I just can't get too invested in this yet, we're been hearing this for so long. But believe me, if it happens, kaboom goes my brain.

--- Auteur All Hallows - Because my friend Joe Reid understands that all you need to do on Halloween is watch John Carpenter movies from the moment you wake up until the moment your eyes roll back in your head with unconsciousness, here's the way you need to plot out the day. Take two - You can also do this with Wes Craven.
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--- Beautiful Wickedness - Taking the cue from American Horror Story's delightfully wicked third season, The Film Experience is giving love to the best in cinematic witchery this week, here's the first entry on the Wicked Queen from Disney's Snow White. Many more to come over the next few days, too!

--- And finally here's the last trailer for Catching Fire before it comes out in... just twenty-five days? Holy hell I have not been paying attention, I didn't realize it was so soon. The arena in Part 2 is what this story's all about, it's really spectacular, and you get a glimpse or two of it in this new trailer. Smartly this series always keeps the big things hidden away in the commercials though, I appreciate that.

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Which Is Hotter?

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poll by twiigs.com

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These two model-turned-actors both share my birthday today - Fimmel's turning 34 while Kinney's turning 32. I think someone should write the first gay buddy cop movie for them, that's what I think. Think Tango & Hooch meets Cruising. "If you liked The Heat, then you'll love Packing Heat!"

Hot Like Father, Hot Like Son

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I barely watched any of the first season of Vikings - I tried but it was like A Game of Thrones shot through Instagram. I did watch the scene where Travis Fimmel tried to get that dude into bed with him and his lady friend though. That was fine television. Well now Cato from The Hunger Games, aka the actor Alexander Ludwig, has joined the cast as Fimmel's character's son, so perhaps there will be more reasons to watch in the future. Anybody know - the vikings... they didn't happen to be big on incest, did they?

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All Hail Ragnor

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You know those commercials that they force us to watch while trapped inside the theater waiting for our movie to start? I've gotten pretty good at tuning them out at this point, but I'm glad that the History Channel's new series Vikings (starting this Sunday, March 3rd) caught my eye because Hello Again, Travis Fimmel. 

Best remembered for those scorching Calvin Klein underwear ads awhile back (see lots of him here and here) he's since bounced around trying to be an actor - anybody remember when he was Tarzan? - and I gotta say, I like the years on him. Also the beard and the beefiness and the general brutish demeanor. Oh and the part in the one commercial where they hint at a Viking threeway.

She's saying, "Come join us," just in case you failed Viking lip-reading classes. Okay so clearly this thing's aiming to be A Game of Thrones minus the dragons, and clearly the dragons are why we watch A Game of Thrones, so I don't know about the prospects here. Do I care? I do not! His character's named Ragnor! Fantasies, ahoy.