"You know what I say?"

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"Smoke 'em if ya got 'em."

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How Did It Come To Pass...

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... that a horror movie with sexy investigator Brandon Routh investigating sexy undead Taye Diggs has now come out and I can't seem to stir up a single decibel of excitement? I've covered Dylan Dog's long scattered slog to theatrical release for many many months here, but now that it's out I can barely spare it a second thought. Perhaps that's the problem - the fact that I did cover it for so long. The movie itself feels like an afterthought at this point. Or maybe the real problem was birthed when I saw the tremendously underwhelming (and practically shirtless-less) trailer. I dunno. It just looks so cheesy. All those terrible shirts they're wearing! Ugh.

Anybody out there amped up for it? Somebody go and see it and tell me if Brandon and Taye make out at any point; that'd get me over this hump right quick.

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Paul Walker is a Pussy...

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... cat. Awww, Paul Walker really does seem as harmless as a lil' kitten all tangled up in nonsense, doesn't he? Poor dear. Trapped with Vin Diesel's company for the rest of your days... shudder. I suppose he can comfort himself with all the hookers and blow the millions of dollars he's made from the undying Fast Now Sans Furious franchise will buy him.

Speaking of! I speak of that movie and several others that have today as their release date as the only thing they share in common over in my weekly Friday write-up at Celebrity Beehive. The big movies coming out this weekend make me want to pluck out my eyeballs with salad tongs and serve them on a bed of fresh greens, but there are two, count them two, smaller films out that I can definitely recommend.
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Anyway they be Werner Herzog's Cave of Forgotten Dreams (my review), which I found a little too long but transfixing all the same, and Takashi Miike's 13 Assassins (my review), which I blathered on about just yesterday so go read that if you need convincing. Of course, and correct me if I'm wrong, I do believe both of these are only available on big screens here in NYC, so if you're in one of the billion other places on Earth, well, too bad for you!
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They Found Their Foxface

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Foxface is one of my favorite characters in the first book. She's this enigmatic girl that haunts Katniss at every turn, and I found their dynamic one of the more interesting, curious ones that author Suzanne Collins came up with. I hope they keep some of it in the movie - I think it informs a whole hell of a lot about who Katniss is. Anyway as her they've cast another unknown, a girl named Jackie Emerson seen there to the left, looking like she stepped right off the pages and into real life. Perfect.

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Quote of the Day

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I really really love this astute-as-hell closing passage from this post by Tom Shone (the whole thing's worth reading, so go do that) (via) about why we're seeing several of our Summer blockbusters suddenly set mid-last-century:

"Taking us back to the second world war (Captain America), or the cold war (X Men), constitutes a rejuvenatory return to a period when plots came in smaller, more maneagable sizes and a nuclear bomb going off actually mattered, if only for reasons of historical continuity. Each film must leave the world exactly as the history books found it — a worthwhile discipline and a useful way of stemming megalomaniacal plot swell.

Last but not least, you will not wish to slit your wrists after watching them. Recent years have found cinema-goers clamoring for an end to war-on-terror subtexts (The Dark Knight), debates on the efficacy of torture (Star Trek), and jingoistic celebrations of war in the middle East (Transformers) alike. The retro blockbuster instead signals a return to the innocent boosterism of the forties and fifties — the golden age of comics — when superheroes wore the American flag unironically, busted Nazi /Communist balls without having to worry about blowback, and stood astride the globe like the gentle giants of the American psyche they were. America gets its own origins story — a psychic reboot."

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Gratuitous Justin Gaston

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Ha ha, I finally have an excuse to post pictures of model Justin Gaston! Via Towleroad:

"Several more cast announcements have been made for the HBO film adaptation of Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s book Game Change, about the 2008 presidential elections.

Actor/model Justin Gaston has been cast as Levi Johnston."

This is the movie with Julianne Moore aping the Palin-wench. And this casting is ridiculous. How ridiculous? Let's see:

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poll by twiigs.com

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Anyway as I've stated a million times over I try to limit my gratuitous posts to actors or sometimes singers - if I started covering male models we'd never get anything done. But Gaston's been catching my eye ever since he dated Miley Cyrus back a couple years ago. For obvious, in-spite-of-Miley, reasons.

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Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?

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I Am Link

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--- Three Will Enter - According to Vulture three actors have been offered roles in The Hunger Games - Woody Harrelson has been offered the role of Seneca Crane (click the character's name for more info), who designed the Games; meanwhile Stanley Tucci and Lenny Kravitz have been offered unspecified roles.

Vulture posits that Tucci could be President Snow or perhaps the stylist Cinna, although he's way older than the Cinna I had in my head. Somebody else somewhere (can't remember where I saw the spec) though that Kravitz could be up for Cinna and while that doesn't really make me happy (I hate Lenny Kravitz) it makes more sense. I pictured Cillian Murphy as Cinna when I read the books. What do we think?

--- Speaking of, two more no-name tributes have been added to The Hunger Games list o' death - the boy and girl from District 4 will be played by Ethan Jamieson and Tara Macken (she's another stunt chick). You can see what little bit they have to do over at Wiki. (Those be spoilers, if that weren't clear.)

--- Aunt-Em All Stars - This only gets mentioned in the rarest of instances here at MNPP because I live in deepest shame and denial with regards to my continued viewing of America's Next Top Model, but apparently next season will be an All-Stars Edition. My mind's blown. I am dying to see who makes it. DYING. If they bring back my beloved Shandi or Russian mail-order bride Natasha ("In my country we have war.") I will explode with happiness all over the place.

--- Through To Woods - This news broke last evening but it was past posting-time for me so here it be: Lionsgate snatched up the distribution rights to Cabin in the Woods, the Joss Whedon written and Drew Goddard directed and Hemsworth starring horror movie we've all been sitting on our thumbs waiting for for ages. Hooray! It will probably get released before the end of the year. Double hooray! I knew we'd see it eventually but it's nice there's actual forward momentum.

--- Skin's In Season - Pedro Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In will be out in the US some time in November.

--- Summer's Studs - Wondering what's up with the menfolk for the next several weeks of movie releases? Then head over to Towleroad where TFE's Nathaniel is telling us what to look for.

--- And over at TFE proper Michael has given some well-earned love to the production design of Park Chan-wook's spectacular Oldboy.

--- Kid A + B = C - Mark Ruffalo loves Radiohead. I love Radiohead and I love Mark Ruffalo. It is all coming together!!! And by "all" I mean "me and Mark Ruffalo" and by "coming together" I mean "coming together." (via)

--- Real Beauty - Over at Stale Popcorn Glenn glances at three new posters - the wedding invitation-esque one for Meloncholia I mentioned yesterday, the gender-bending Albert Nobbs with Glenn Close, and the lovely lovely lovely one for Sleeping Beauty.

--- Extra Alien - Apparently Guy Pearce is in Ridley Scott's not-an-Alien Alien movie Prometheus. We love Guy and were very very happy to see that he put on a couple pounds in Mildred Pierce. He'd gotten way too skinny there for awhile. No idea who he's playing, but he's there on set acting according to people on the set. Hmm. Maybe he's playing King Alien! We already memorably had a queen.

--- Horror Movie Musical Chairs - Yesterday I told you that Final Destination 5 got moved ahead two weeks so that it was being released on August 17th, the same day as the Guillermo Del Toro produced Don't Be Afraid of the Dark remake. Well now the latter film's moved to where Destination was - Don't Be Afraid... will now come out on August 26th. They swapped!

--- And finally, here's a clip of Vincent Price starring as an evil vampire Count in a 70s made-for-TV-movie that starred the Bee Gees. Beyond awesome! (via)

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Good Morning, World

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And a happy 54th birthday to Daniel Day-Lewis. I've been thinking all week about rewatching There Will Be Blood, it's been awhile, so perhaps I'll make a go of it tonight in his honor.

In other words, today's fanboy delusion: Today I'd rather be drinking Daniel Day-Lewis' milkshake. I'll drink it right up!

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Three By Half

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I can cross Tom Tykwer off my bucket list of directors I want to be in the presence of before I die! He ended up being at last night's screening of his new film Three after all. He introduced the film and did a Q&A afterward - most of which I recorded... extremely poorly I might add; the lighting and sound in the MoMA theater was not conducive at all... but you can watch it over here if you so desire. As an aside, he might just be the best looking director working. Man is super crazy handsome! Anyway I find myself sort of at a loss for reviewing this movie. I liked a lot of it, and I didn't like a lot of it.

On the positive side there were a lot of fun, as Tykwer called them, diversions, where he'd take off on an homage to Bergman for a minute, or where he'd spin the whole thing off its rails in some confrontational manner that undercut your expectations in exciting ways. Like, you could see the gay coming from a mile away, but you didn't quite expect the gallon of ejaculate so fast! Anyway Tykwer's incapable of being boring. The film's great to look at, and the actors are all giving intricate, absorbing, not particularly begging for you to like them performances.

And that's the thing - I felt a real disconnect between how I was seeing the characters and the way the film seemed to really want me to view them. In general I thought they were pretty much awful people, but I kind of got the feeling that Tykwer didn't see them that way (and he said as much in his Q&A). It was fine when he was playing their faults for laughs, but then a minute later we were supposed to find the same thing endearing or emotionally resonant and it didn't quite stick that landing for me. I found his farce a tragedy, while he seemed to find his comedy an inspiration. He got his angels and his testicles all mixed up.

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So Jeremy Renner...

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... wants to play Steve McQueen, apparently. He's a fine pick physically, so I say sure. Why not? I've been championing Jeremy since way way back, he's got the goods...  his performance in Dahmer is one for the ages. He's just got so many projects lined up now I wonder when he'll find the time. Will this win him an Oscar? Will it even be that sort of movie? Steve McQueen's life seems more fun and gung-ho for adventure than it does uber-serious. Not that I'm a McQueen expert by any means.

Anyway this is fine and all but I'm disappointed that it's not the bio-pic I proposed that he's making. I speak of course of the role he was born for, that of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, German filmmaker and fag-genius. 

Sure he's not as pretty as McQueen and Jeremy would have to squash his vanity for it (for the record I find young RWF incredibly do-able), but god the insane life he lived! There's your Oscar, Jeremy! A Fassbinder bio-pic starring Jeremy Renner is pretty much the tops in movies I would choose to make if I were given the ability to make any movie in the world. (That, or the porn with me and Jake obviously.) That period of time with that cast of characters is so spectacularly fertile though! God, to dream of it makes me ache inside. Ahhh! This is me aching.

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Vincent Cassel Sixteen Times

I didn't expect to stumble upon this many pictures of Vinnie when I began looking for a couple to post for simple glaring purposes, I didn't think so much could've escaped my ever prying eyes. But there they were! One after another after another, all golden and delicious. He is a generous fellow. So it's only fair to spread his generosity to you fine folks. Enjoy!

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