A Call Me By Your Name Mystery

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This post's title has me imagining a series of CMYBN sequel books where Elio becomes a Jessica Fletcher type, solving mysteries around gorgeous rural Italy while fucking peaches on the side -- needless to say I would read the hell out of that series. But the actual 'Call Me By Your Name' Mystery is why the Sony Classics Instagram account posted the above video this afternoon with the caption "Tomorrow..." It's not any sort of CMBYN anniversary -- personally I'm thinking they might be announcing a standalone copy of the film in 4K. It's already gotten a 4K release inside of Sony's great big box-set alongside a pile of other amazing movies, but it is really overdue its own separate release. Maybe even one with a bunch of new special features! That would rule. It is crazy to realize that the movie is turning 10 in January, counting from its premiere at Sundance in January of 2017. A standalone 4K in time for that 10th anniversary makes a lot of sense. But who knows! Could be something else. I have no idea what that would be (a new vinyl of the soundtrack?) but I guess we'll find out tomorrow! I have long given up on a sequel ever happening. Although I did discover, while looking around just now, that a graphic novel of André Aciman's book IS coming out this August, which was news to me. I don't think that's what Sony is posting about but we'll see. Anyway that's out August 11th and you can pre-order it right here. The slutty anime cover-art is sending me lol: 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Coffy (1973)

Coffy: You want to spit on me and make me crawl? 

I'm gonna piss on your grave tomorrow.

It's really the "tomorrow" that makes that line.

A very happy 77 to the legend the icon Pam Grier.

Rage on, perfect queen. 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

North By Northwest (1959)

Phillip Vandamm: Seems to me you fellows 

could stand  a little less training from the F.B.I. 

and a little more from the Actor's Studio.

Granted I've seen this movie approximately one thousand times but can't you just hear James Mason purring out that rejoinder? God what a voice that man had. I've already used one of these posts a few years back to expound upon the implied homosexual connection between Mason's character and his favorite side-piece henchman played by Martin Landau, but I could go on about how James Mason is like the paltonic ideal of a Hitchcock Baddie for days. Smooth as hell, a gentleman to the end, unspooling a truly ridiculous plot via ludicrous means -- sure why not send Cary Grant to the middle of nowhere to be shot at by a crop duster? Why not, I say! Anyway Mason was born 117 years ago today -- go watch one of his movies! You will not be disappointed. He was always the man.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Close (2022)

Léo: Imagine that you are a very small chicken. You just hatched. You just opened your eyes for the first time. All ducks are yellow. And you too... But you are much more beautiful than the rest. You are special.

A happy 35 to beautiful gay Belgian director Lukas Dhont today! I never saw his controversial first film Girl (which has a cisgender actor playing a trans girl) but I loved his follow-up Close very very very much -- here is my review. If you still haven't seen it fix that! It's a stunning rumination on the fraught bonds between confused young boys that took me right back to the extraordinary pain and beauty of those years and those relationships of my own. Anyway checking to see what Dhont's got cooking...

... since it's been four years, my man, and I see that he has already finished his follow-up ! Indeed because I ignore Cannes stuff as much as possible I am just realizing it's screening at Cannes this very week! Never come to me for Cannes stuff y'all. I purposefully drag my feet. Anyway it's called Coward and it's about two Belgian soldiers who, during World War I find romance (I'm assuming) while staging cross-dressing theatrical performances in the field. There is a great chat with Dhont over at THR from just two days ago -- read it here. Can't wait to see this! 

5 Off My Head: The Steak F*cker Supreme

The sparkling vampire with the iconic up-do is celebrating his 40th today! Robert Pattinson aka RPattz is officially the big four-oh, slamming the door not just on twinkdom but twunkdom altogether. Which is fine by me because our man just keeps getting better and finer with age -- I don't care what people are saying about his wonky accent work in The Odyssey or Dune 3 trailers, as I love it when Rob gifts us a wonky accent. Remember his Pepé Le Pew accent work in The King? 

You probably don't remember that, because who remembers The King. But it made that entire movie spring to life, it did, I swear. Anyway I'm going to finally give you my list of five favorite performances now, and lemme tell you -- one of these is a favorite quite possibly entirely due to the accent he adopts for the film. (I won't say which one and it could go for several but I mean one specifically and if you've seen it you probably know what one I'm talking about.) Anyway it took some time (I still haven't seen a single Twilight movie) but I've fully come to love it whenever Rob shows up anywhere -- I do miss...

... the interviews where he'd gleefully spit out nonsense like how he really jerked off on camera because he couldn't fake an oh-face for that Gay Salvador Dali movie he made, but I guess he's 40 now. He has to be semi-respectable. Hehe "semi." Well clearly turning 40 didn't make me grow up! Take note, Rob!

My 5 Favorite Robert Pattinson Performances

Connie, Good Time

"You know what, tonight, as fucked up as it is, I just think... I think something very important is happening and it's deeply connected to my purpose. And I think that you are somehow connected to it as well. I mean, do you feel me at all? Or do I just sound like a total faggot?"

Thomas, The Lighthouse

"Goddamn yer farts! You smell like piss, you smell like jism, like rotten dick, like curdled foreskin, like hot onions fucked a farmyard shit-house. "

Jackson, Die My Love

"Maybe if I spend a little less time with my hands down my pants and a little more time writing, maybe I'd write something, maybe."

Monte, High Life

"The sensation of moving backwards even though we are moving forwards, getting further from what's getting nearer, sometimes I just can't stand it."

Samuel, Damsel

"Regular horses don't have names,
they're just, uh, you know, regular."

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

Runners-up: Mickey 17, The Lost City of Z,
Cosmopolis, Maps To the Stars 

 So what are your favorites?

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Charade (1963)

Peter: Do we know each other?

Reggie: Why, do you think we're going to?

Peter: I don't know. How would I know?

Reggie: Because I already know an awful lot of people, and 

until one of them dies I couldn't possibly meet anyone else.

I can't tell you how often this bit of dialogue from Charade pops up inside my head -- as an avowed hermit I doubt that surprises anyone. But really I promise you that in my head the intention is closer to the line from Dawn of the Dead -- "When there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth." Being in my life is hell! I am saving people from knowing me -- it's fucking exhausting knowing me. Anyway (speaking of?) today would have been Audrey Hepburn's 97th birthday. You only have three short years to make your "Centennial of Audrey" little black dress that you'll wear to join us all when we go  riot and loot Tiffany's -- better get on it!

Good Morning, World

A happy 44th birthday to our Jamie Dornan today! I'm glad I never watched or heavily giffed (save one important exception) the Fifty Shades movies because it's left me lots of little treats over the years to post, like these two shots that I have never ever seen before in all my many years. Yum, endless blessings. Maybe some day when I am feeling especially, like wildly stupid, I will binge all of these movies? I could binge all of them and all of the Twilight movies, which I've never seen either! Make a whole weekend of it. And then blow my brains out. Happy Friday!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Bring Her Back (2025)

Laura: Respect my fucking privacy.

I still kind of can't believe that there was absolutely no awards buzz for Sally Hawkins' work in Bring Her Back last year -- I guess there could have been conufsion on whether her role was Lead or Supporting? I'd personally call it a Lead -- and I'd say she deserved a nomination more than half the people who did get nominated for that statue, too. Hell I liked Hawkins' work more than I liked Buckley's steamrolling performance in Hamnet, even -- as a person who generally loves Buckley I found her work in that movie overwrought; I found Mescal more moving. But I guess there are similarities between Hawkins and Buckley's characters that I hadn't even considered until now, and perhaps they're the reason Hawkins gained no footing with precursors -- both characters are after all women lashing out in grief after the death of a child. Hawkins' work is the only one that, to me, felt truly surprising though. Not to get lost in old Oscar talk! JFC who cares! So anyway! Sally Hawkins is 50 today! She's a gem and I'm so happy we have her. The movies are 75% more interesting with her running around. 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Special Effects (1984)

Neville: Like I always say, I don't know what I like 

until I see it. And then I know I don't like it.

Have any of you seen this sleazy 1984 Larry Cohen film? (Redundancy after redundancy there.) I only saw it a few weeks ago because the fine folks at Radiance Films put out a gorgeous new restoration of it on blu-ray and it was exactly what I wanted from a sleazy 1984 Larry Cohen film that stars Eric Bogosian as a movie director who decides to use a real life murder he commits as inspiration for his next movie. It's kind of Larry Cohen's spin on Vertigo and it's terrific. I totally felt like I needed to take a shower afterwards. Anyway speaking of Eric Bogosian, a happy 73rd birthday to the character actor whose career has as of late gotten a bump thanks to the double-punch of Uncut Gems and the Interview With the Vampire series. And speaking of the latter -- we have a trailer for the new season, baby! Sweet Rockin' Lestat gimme! I'm surprised they officially changed the name of the show to go with the book though.

Interview With the Vampire... excuse me, 

The Vampire Lestat returns on June 7th.

Good Morning, John Waters...

... and only John Waters!

Happy 80 to our King!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Road House (2024)

Ben Brandt: You, tell me about this bouncer.

Moe: Oh, uh, yeah I dunno, man. 

He's kinda strange, you know?

Ben Brandt: What do you mean, strange?

Moe: Yeah.. You know, he acts all nice and shit 

like he's Mr. Rogers or something. But then, man, 

he hauls off. He hauls off! He beats the living shit 

outta you! So, really interesting guy, overall. 

Ben Brandt: That was a brilliant analysis. 

Sam, throw these dum-dums overboard.

You know I chose this passage of dialogue from the Road House remake just to post these gifs of Billy Magnusson in a speedo -- you know it, I know it, Billy knows it, the aliens a billion light years from Earth know it, so let's just move on. Because it's Billy's birthday! Our beautiful blond Billy boy is turning 41 today and we wish him a great one. I imagine he is having one of those anyway since well he's Billy Magnussen, look at him. But also his new series The Audacity has, from what I can tell, gotten very good notices -- I haven't started it yet but it's very much on the list. Any of you watch it yet? 

Good Morning, World

Forever Hunk William Holden was born 108 years ago today and hey somehow I managed to dig up these two beefcake-y photos of him I've never seen before -- a dive into our archives will show you we've pretty well drained this one dry (phrasing! And we wish!) but when you've been dead for 45 years that's bound to happen. Well I guess until recently -- I could go make some A.I. photos of Bill making out with Gregory Peck right now if I was an asshole. Thankfully I'm just an asshole of other sorts, and not that worst sort. Miss you, Bill! Maybe I'll watch Sunset Boulevard tonight for the billionth time...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Scream 2 (1997)

Cici: Drink with your brains, 

that's our motto.

A happy 49th birthday to the legend Sarah Michelle Gellar today! Yes it's true our beloved Buffy will be turning 50 next year -- I would say don't that make ya feel old but SMG is only a couple of months older than I am so let's just shut up and not think about any of that right now. Jinkies. Let's just celebrate this lady we love so very. Picking her role in the second Scream movie might feel a little random for this post but I maintain that her stellar work at humanizing the character of Cici in such a short window of time is part of why I actually (controversially?) prefer Scream 2 to the first movie. A recent re-watch of the original I Know What You Did Last Summer gave me the same impression -- SMG does Herculean emotional lifting with her screentime in these two 1997 slashers. She's so good! And yeah it blows that the Buffy reboot fell apart but let's hope that now that her kids are raised and she's ready to work again we'll be seeing lots of her shortly. The people demand their Smidge fix!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Triangle of Sadness (2022)

The Captain: My government murdered Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy, and John F. Kennedy.. My government overthrew good, honest, democratic leaders of the people in Chile, Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, and Bolivia. Along with Britain, we carved up the Middle East, creating artificial geographical boundaries and installing puppet dictators. War itself became our most lucrative industry. Every bomb that's dropped, somebody makes a million dollars. You don't have to know where those bombs are exploding. You don't have to see the grieving mothers and the mangled bodies of their children. Eugene Debs gave this speech in Canton, Ohio, in 1918: 'Throughout history wars have been waged for conquest and plunder... The master class has always declared the wars. The subject class has always fought... They've taught you to believe it to be your patriotic duty to go to war and to have yourselves slaughtered at their command... When Wall Street says war, the press says war.'"

Well that speech hits home in 2026, huh? Anyway a happy birthday to the great Swedish director Ruben Östlund today! I was super sad when I read that his next movie The Entertainment System Is Down wasn't ready for Cannes this year so he's holding it off for an entire year for Cannes 2027 -- what, you're too good for another festival, Ruben?? The supposed reason is he's gunning for a third Palme d'Or -- which would break the record -- but, and I say this as a big fan, this feels terribly presumptious, Ruben. I mean you can think this sort of thing inside of your head but maybe don't let that narrative out into the world -- that shit draws the knives all on its own, my man. That said with a fantastic-seeming cast including Kirsten Dunst, Keanu Reeves, Julie Delpy, Tobias Menzies, Daniel Brühl, Lindsay Duncan, Nicholas Braun and Connor Swindells, and a right-up-his-alley micro/macrocosm class-warfare story about a bunch of people trapped on a long flight where the entertainment system goes down and they all presumably lose their minds, I'm expecting good things. Which is why making us wait an extra year is deviant behavior!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

True History of the Kelly Gang (2019)

Sgt O'Neil: Reminds me of a dog that I once had. It was a mangy old thing. And I am a cruel bastard, so I would whip it every which way. I'd beat on him just for looking at me. So, I figure if you hate on something for long enough, well, he just comes to love you anyway, just for those few moments when you don't.

You might think that quote is a weird one for me to choose as a "life lesson" to celebrate Charlie Hunnam's 46th birthday today with, to which I tell you -- we're talking about Charlie Hunnam. And Charlie could treat mt like a dog and whip me every day and I would love him anyway. I watched his King Arthur movie ffs. This stopped being a hypothetical long ago. Happy birthday, Charlie!

Good Morning, World

Our beloved French superstar Jean-Paul Belmondo would've been celebrating his 93rd birthday today if he hadn't passed in 2021 (I can't believe it's been that long honestly -- feels like it was last year) so here are a couple of photos of him back in his mid-century prime that I don't believe I've ever posted before with which we can celebrate. And of course if you dig down through our archives you can find many many many more treats with which to do the same. I'm particularly fond of this one myself. Oh Jean-Paul we miss you. What movie of his would you watch to celebrate with?

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Synonyms (2019)

Yoav: I moved to France to flee Israel. Flee a state that is nasty, obscene, ignorant, idiotic, sordid, fetid, crude, abominable, odious, lamentable, repugnant,
detestable, mean-spirited, mean-hearted... 

Emile: No country is all that at once.

Today is the 51st birthday of the rightfully outraged Israeli ex-pat filmmaker Nadav Lapid, who's weaponized his filmmaking to dissect the horrors of his homeland making one furious masterpiece after another. This includes the brilliant film above as well as 2014's The Kindergarten Teacher, 2021's Ahed's Knee, and the just-recently-released here in the U.S. film Yes. And speaking of Yes I am rather furious at myself for not reviewing that movie because I found it a total stunner, so let's throw down some words about it since the ocassion's presented itself. (I already shared the trailer right here.)

Yes tells the story of Y (Ariel Bronz) and his wife Yasmin (Efrat Dor) as they party the pain away in Tel Aviv, turning their radios up so they can drown out the sounds of the bombs dropping onto Gaza. He's a musician, she's a dance-instructor, and the two of them routinely hand off their baby son (pointedly named Noah) so they can humiliate themselves every night for the grotesque powers-that-be in order to sustain a living. Lapid gives the Israeli elite the full Beckmann & Dix treament, rendering them hideous to the point where they're literally bending over and waving their assholes in our face. It ain't sublte, nor should it be. 

Since the pair are gorgeous and entertaining and simply good at what they do (i.e. debasing themselves with extreme vigor) Y & Yasmin move pretty easily up the social ladder, until Y finds himself charged with writing a new national anthem for Israel in the wake of the October 7th attacks. For there he's shot through the cannon of a dark night of the soul as he tries to come to terms with his role as propogandist for genocide, but Lapid spares no one his visciousness; everyone is to blame for keeping the broken system afloat. Yes is brutal, brilliant, a ballistic missle shot straight at our insidious self-preservation in the face of so much unspeakable. Its farce is tragedy, all too familiar. All the punchlines are a horror; our laughter curdled, indistinguishable from screams. How au current, if you will. 

Happy 36 to Twin Peaks!

Tell me your favorite moment or character 

or Twin Peaks something in the coments.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Boxing Helena (1993)

Dr. Nick Cavanaugh: If you were a 

real woman,  you'd lie to me about our sex.

A very happy birthday to director Jennifer Lynch today -- I have recently been in mourning for the many many years that I went without this perfectly accursed (complimentary) movie in my life, having only seen it for the first time in 2022. I did get to see it on the big screen in 2024 though (I love living in this city!) and it fully cemented itself as one of my favorite pieces of deranged cinema. I can't even pretend it's just for reasons of camp that I love this movie anymore -- I just love it with my full body and soul. And that's me talking with all of my limbs still attached! But seriously -- if you've never seen Bill Paxton's performance in this movie, you have not lived. Same goes for Julian Sands in the tiniest running shorts ever put on-screen. Same goes for limbless Sherilyn Fenn sipping sweet tea through a straw. Oh my god I have to watch it again right now. Thank you, Jennifer Lynch! 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Bugonia (2025)

Teddy: We're just leveling the playing field.

It's not torture. Torture is what it's done to us.

I know that Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia got four Oscar nominations -- including one for Best Picture -- but I still feel as if this movie walked out of 2025 somewhat underappreciated. Nobody really thought it was actually going to win any of those awards, after all. I think it's just that Yorgos has proven so consistently excellent and interesting and provocative that he's become a victim of his own awesomeness. Even if I, a person who put Bugonia at #8 on my favorite films of last year, were to rank his films, Bugonia would end up somewhere mid-tier. But that's all just a matter of infintesimal degrees because I am a hossana-singer for every damn one of them. And Bugonia's goddamned great. In fact, you know what, I might re-watch Bugonia this very evening in order to celebrate the birth of the great Jesse Plemons, which coincidentally is also the reason for this post. See -- I told you Bugonia was under-appreciated, because the great Jesse Plemons didn't deservedly get nominated for Best Actor for it. Four noms shoulda been five dammit! In summation go watch Bugonia yourselves and try to tell me I'm not correct on all of this. And then go buy the vinyl of Jerskin Fendrix's score too. That banger was second only to Jonny Greenwood's One Battle After Another music, if you ask me! We might not be lucky in much these days but we're lucky to have Yorgos making movies!   

And the BUGONIA vinyl from @waxworkrecords.bsky.social too! I say “Jerskin” you say “Fendrix” - JERSKIN!

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) March 31, 2026 at 9:03 PM