I Accept Your Challengers

It only took us approximately three hundred billion days to get here but Luca Guadagnino's techno tennis trio flick Challengers is right now, right this minute, in movie theaters! Meaning whatever the hell you're doing right now isn't what you should be doing, which is sitting in a theater watching Challengers. Does this mean I liked the movie? Hmm I wonder, I guess you'll have to click on over to Pajiba to read my review of it and find out for yourself. I am sure it's an absolute mystery to you, whether I liked it or not. It's not as if I have been posting about it endlessly, breathlessly, for months. I am such a riddle! Anyway go read that, go watch Challengers, and go have a hot sweaty weekend full of balls flying at your faces. Bye til Monday!

Assume the position - my #Challengers review drops soon! pic.twitter.com/KOfPn4s4M7

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 26, 2024

I Guess I Earned That Glare, Bill Skarsgård

When I got knocked on my butt thanks to food poisoning last week I ended up missing the press screening for Bill Skarsgård's new action movie Boy Kills World, which is out today -- I was sad to miss it but maybe I will actually go to the theater this weekend? Odder things have happened. Now that the weather has turned agreeable I am feeling the itch to come out of my cocoon a bit, and with Bill looking like he looks above well, it makes a convincing argument. Here was my post about the trailer for the film. if you go see it tell me what you thought in the comments! And here is the wisest official still ever released for any movie:

Mike Faist Nineteen Times

Happy Challengers day! The new Luca Guadagnino joint is out in theaters fiiiinally after months and months of delays thanks to the strikes in H'wood last year -- Luca smartly knew he'd need Zendaya and her boys looking flashy on some red carpets and in magazines to sell his sweaty tennis flick so delayed it to today and that was probably a good decision. It feels like a spring movie, not a fall movie. The birds and the bees, baby. Everybody's pollinating. 

Anyway I maybe could have saved this post of Mike Faist's new photoshoot (via) for a couple of hours to when my review of the movie goes live (yes, it's coming!) but I'm impatient and I will surely want to post more about the movie today anyway. So let's stare at Mike (who's finally just gotten an MNPP tag all his own, congrats!) until then. Hit the jump for them all...

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

It's just a couple of weeks until Tom Holland's birthday 

-- have you thought about what you'd like to give him?

Who Wants To Take A Bite Outta Aaron?

I didn't have a new photo of Aaron Taylor-Johnson to share so I figured it'd be nice to stare at this legendary snap from his 2015 Flaunt magazine photoshoot -- it's been awhile! It's always a treat! As is casting news when Aaron is involved. And no it's not James Bond. Yet. But it's even more exciting if you ask me -- he's been cast in Danny Boyle's upcoming zombie sequel 28 Years Later! Okay okay yes we all know, nerd -- they're not technically zombies. Also it's more than just a sequel -- it's an entire new trilogy of movies, apparently. But Boyle is (as of right now) only attached to the first one. Candyman director Nia DaCosta is supposed to do the second one; no word on the capper yet. Anyway Aaron is not the only person cast -- we already know that Cillian Murphy is returning to the role he played in Boyle's first film, and I told you two weeks back that Charlie Hunnam is also set to be in it. 

Aaron and Charlie in a movie together again! I very well might start foaming at the mouth. You may recall (as pictured above) they co-starred in Aaron's wife's adaptation of A Million Little Pieces. Or not. The only thing most people remember from that movie was Aaron swinging his great big dick around a bunch and I can't say that I blame them. Wait what was I talking about? oh right the zombie not-zombie thing. Also cast today besides Aaron was Jodie Comer and Ralph Fiennes -- and I know if you're Danny Boyle you can pretty much get whoever the hell you want for a movie nowadays, especially a sequel to one of his greatest. But this cast is really something isn't it? Cheers to Danny. 

Morgan Spector Nine Times

This is me being impatient even though I know damn well that Man About Town will surely drop more than four photos from this new photoshoot of Morgan Spector (ETA and they already did, the post has been updated with three more) -- but it's Morgan Spector! So I am inclined to be jumpy. (I mean have you looked at this old post before?) Anyway I love that I have now done a Morgan Spector AND a Carrie Coon post today -- we're basically Grand Central Gilded Age Station right now. All I need is for Claybourne Elder to flash some of that ginger chest fur of his and everything will be perfect. Hit the jump for the other photos...

Do Monkey Around

I never reviewed it but I thought Dev Patel's Monkey Man was pretty terrific, especially when you take it into consideration that he was a first-time director -- he bit off a lot for his first go-round and I don't just mean the fact that he also wrote and starred in it. I mean it's a wildly ambitious action movie that also threads in politics and emotional resonance to its kick-assery, and while the seams do show at times it's still very much worth seeing. Which you can do now, is my point -- you can rent it on Amazon right now, or you can pre-order on 4K blu-ray and wait to watch it when it streets... which there doesn't seem to be a date for yet. But I'd still recommend watching it on 4K when that chance arises because Dev really shot the hell out of it. Also... abs. He knew we wanted the abs and he gave us the abs. If that's not worth buying the damn disc I don't know what. Reward this man!

A Brand New Wedding Banquet

I sent this news story to myself two nights ago meaning to post about it but so goes my brain, forever distracted by shiny things -- anyway you have maybe heard by now but Fire Island and Driveways director Andrew Ahn (longtime MNPP fave) is remaking (sort of) Ang Lee's classic 1993 queer rom-com The Wedding Banquet! You'll understand why I say "sort of" when I share the plot, but before that -- this news comes along with a stellar name cast: Lily Gladstone, Bowen Yang, Kelly Marie Tran, Joan Chen, and Oscar winner Youn Yuh-jung! There's only one person who hasn't been cast yet and that's the hot Korean guy named Min who's at the center of everything, aka the role that was played by hot Winston Chao in Lee's movie. 

Mmm Winston. Anyway those are a lot of names of actors when the main roles in Ang Lee's original film didn't contain that many characters, which is where the "sort of" with regards to this being a remake comes in -- this version's plot has some extra complications. The plot:

"The plot revolves around Min, whose marriage proposal is rejected by his boyfriend Chris (Yang). Min then convinces his best friend Angela (Marie Tran) to marry him for his green card and offers to pay for the IVF treatment of the latter’s partner, Liz (Gladstone), in return. Although Min and Angela plan a “subtle city hall elopement,” their lives are turned upside down when the former’s grandmother arrives in Seattle to throw them an extravagant Korean wedding banquet."

I think Ahn's making smart choices here, beefing up the life of the female character with her own romance -- the fact that it's bringing legend Lily Gladstone along for the ride is just bonus. Okay it's a really really exciting bonus. Now we just wait to see who Ahn casts as Min... and might I make a suggestion: 

After Past Lives I need all the Teo Yoo I can get. That said I think he's straight (actually I have no idea) and I wouldn't be surprised if Ahn is looking for a openly queer actor. So any suggestions?

Quote of the Day

"Look, we’re all going to die. Nothing somebody writes in an article is going to be the thing that kills me. A lot of other things are going to kill me, but that’s not one of them. I understand if you’re working onstage and you’re reading reviews while you’re onstage, you can get stuck in your head on that stuff. But also…I don’t know. I like to know how the work’s being received in the world. I think it’s important. I think I’m interested in that conversation about what art is doing. I’m part of what’s doing the art, and I feel like I have some responsibility to understand how that work is landing in the world—to help me hone in on the kind of things I’m interested in participating in, and what’s something that I don’t think I want to put my name on."

I know I'm a movie critic so of course I'm partial to opinions that value our work, but I think Carrie Coon (in an interview with Vanity Fair here), in admitting she reads the reviews of her work, really pinpoints something beyond my ego (as if such a far-flung place exists) -- that it's the critic's job to situate art within the moment; to give it context. Sometimes it's one person's context -- the critic's -- but we are not islands, and surely those of us who are actually trying and aren't just pull-quote machines are actually providing a service. Anyway I always like it when performers and artists appreciate what we do and don't act like pissy little ceramic dolls and Carrie Coon continues to rule, the end. 

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

And a happy 36 to Jonathan Bailey today!

Josh O'Connor Thirteen Times

There are actually two more Josh O'Connor photoshoots that I am ignoring at the moment in order to share this one for the Wall Street Journal first -- so it goes when our big eared boy has a new movie coming out! The photographers and stylists (and Russell Tovey) all love Josh right now. (PS that WSJ article is paywalled so I haven't read it and I scrounged up what photos I could from other sources but this might not be everything.) And so do we, although I am very much feeling the "hey we were there years ago" vibe. But after seeing Challengers a second time this past Monday night it's clear there's no fighting it -- this is a star-making role for Josh and to my eye he walks away (struts away, really) with the whole movie. But more on Challengers later this week when I finally drop my review! For now enjoy the photos (this first batch), after the jump...

The Vampire is Capitalism

Random recommendation time! I was looking for something to watch last night from the gigantic pile of physical media sitting in front of my television and I saw Severin's Danza Macabre: Volume 2 box-set sitting there -- these sets contain gothic Italian horror films from the 1960s and 70s mainly, and that sounded like my mood to me. I landed on Corrado Farina's 1971 film They Have Changed Their Face (aka Hanno cambiato faccia) which I'd recalled sounding interesting when I bought the set; here is how Severin describes the movie:

"Though he made only two feature films, writer/director/novelist Corrado Farina (BABA YAGA) rocked the Italian horror genre with his “astounding” (Taliesin Meets The Vampires) and long out-of-print 1971 debut: A mid-level automotive company employee is summoned to the mountain villa of owner Giovanni Nosferatu (Adolfo Celi of THUNDERBALL and DANGER: DIABOLIK fame) only to discover a glossy netherworld where capitalism is the new vampirism, consumers are its unwitting victims and escape may be impossible. Giuliano Disperati (VIOLENT ROME) and Geraldine Hooper (DEEP RED) co-star in this startling reinvention of the Dracula mythos co-written by Giulio Berruti (KILLER NUN) and influenced by Farina’s earlier career as an advertising executive."

That description sort of does the movie justice, but it's way sillier and weider than you might even be picturing -- yes it's basically a re-telling of Dracula but the count is a middle-aged white-haired CEO of a company called Nosferatu that brands everything from laundry detergent to LSD (and see the video at the bottom of this post for a commercial for LSD in the movie that had me cackling). Plus the mansion's grounds are patrolled by a fleet of white European mini-sedans, and every piece of furtniture spits out advertisments through embedded speakers in the walls of the mansion whenever used. 

It is wildly and terrifically weird y'all, and that's before Farina starts inserting parodies of Bergman and Fellini movies in the last act. Anyway I don't know where this movie has been my entire life but now that it's introduced iutself to me I am obsessed, and I need to spread the gospel far and wide. What a treat! You can buy the Danza Macabre box-set at this link (volume two also includes 1964's stellar Castle of Blood with horror icon Barbara Steele; I haven't watched the other stuff on the set yet) or if that price puts you off (the set ain't cheap, even though I have found it worth every penny) you can rent THCTF on Amazon for 99 whole cents right here. Would I steer you wrong??? I haven't felt this enamored with a random old movie since the first time Messiah of Evil fell in my lap.

I mean, this movie is really something pic.twitter.com/RllBHsqMwf

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 24, 2024

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?

Good Morning, World

I can't believe that Luke Evans is managing to get his "clothing brand" mentioned here two mornings in a row but I suppose we are the target audience and all things considered I do appreciate how basic and simple he's kept it -- white tees and tighty-whities, you can't go wrong -- and oh plus that he's got Russell Tovey modeling for him pro-bono in his underpants. That last part is the actually most important part. Anyway I feel as if I have been poking fun at Russ a little too much lately (see this tweet for an example) but it's very much intended to be a loving ribbing -- because when I say that I have seen all of his public displays of Josh O'Connor crushing this week (he posted a photo of Josh on his Insta-stories and he has been liking every photo of Josh on Insta before even I get to them) it's not to call him out; it's just to say I see you, Tovey, and I understand you. Also when I think about the meeting of the Epic Ears that Russell Tovey & Josh O'Connor getting together would create -- an ear-pocalypse!!! -- I get very excited. Let's make it happen, boys!

 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

eXistenZ (1999)

Ted: We're both stumbling around together in this unformed

world, whose rules and objectives are largely unknown,

seemingly indecipherable or even possibly nonexistent,

always on the verge of being killed by
forces that we don't understand.

Allegra: That sounds like my game, all right. 

Ted: That sounds like a game that's
not gonna be easy to market. 

Allegra: But it's a game everybody's already playing.

David Cronenberg's eXistenZ was released 25 years ago today!

If you haven't picked up that 4K yet I recommend doing so.

PS this makes a killer double-feature with Crimes of the Future.

Kingdom Comes Home

Using Alexander Skarsgård's photo here is a bit of a cheat since his role in the third season of Lars Von Trier's series The Kingdom is minute, but I'm never above a cheat! Especially not if it allows me to stare at Alexander Skarsgård. Anyway today is a happy day for us Kingdom-heads as the entire three-season series has been given fresh life thanks to the fine folks at MUBI, who've just dropped a blu-ray box-set of all three seasons and thirteen episodes -- you can buy it at this link. The set includes not just the show (a prize beyond words in itself) but behind-the-scenes interviews, commentaries, a documentary, Danish commercials, and a companion booklet. But the show itself is plenty; I mean where else are you going to see...

... somebody give birth to a full-grown Udo Kier, I ask you? Well besides at any local gay bar on a Saturday night. In all seriousness this series is a bizarre treat from start to finish, one of LVT's greatest accomplishments. And who knows when we'll get something from LVT next? His health ain't great. (And his sanity... well that's never been the greatest.) He is supposedly working on a series of short films called Études (aka Studies) right now but we should all probably tide ourselves over with The Kingdom for now. And it goes excellent with that ginormous box-set of LVT's entire filmography that I told you about earlier today, actually!

A Peter Strickland Smorgasbord

I imagine the Venn diagram of these two circles isn't enormous but since I am smack dab in the center of it I will do the post anyway -- this one goes out to my fellow physical media obsessives who are also huge fans of the director Peter Strickland! (And I imagine if you people do exist then you've been here to this site because these are things I post about regularly.) The British company Curzon is dropping one of their legendary box-sets for Mr. Strickland this year! I have several of their boxes -- the absolutely massive one that they put out for Lars Von Trier last year blew my mind -- and they do quality work. This set will include blu-rays of all five of Strickland's feature films to date...

... meaning Berberian Sound Studio, The Duke of Burgundy, In Fabric, Flux Gourmet (aka my number one movie of 2022), along with his debut film Katalin Varga which will be hitting blu for the very first time and which (shh don't tell anyway) I have never seen. Gaps, I know! I have been saving it for a special moment. I suppose getting this set will count. The set will also be loaded with Strickland's music videos and short films -- one of which he made specifically for this set! And there's also a book included with writings by Strickland and his favorite actress Fatma Mohamed. (We worship her.) Anyway these sets are Region B of course so only buy them if you've got a region-free blu-ray player. The set is currently only for sale on Amazon UK at this link. They have the release date as June 24th! Anything that keeps Strickland's name out there so we can get a new movie some time soon! I'm dying here.

Five Frames From ?

What movie is this?