Today's Mood

Still can't believe how subversive the video for Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" remains here at 32 years old (!!!) -- a rock god presenting himself as both a fetishized sexual object and a submissive all at once? How often have we seen this in the years since? Bless you, Trent, you foundational pervert. Anyway! Today's a big day for NIN fans as their highly anticipated new record of remixes with Boys Noize, smartly titled Nine Inch Noize, has dropped -- I didn't get to see them on tour this past year where they've been playing these bangers so this is the closest I will get to them. No physical release of the album just yet but fingers and toes and leather whips all crossed in knots that'll happen eventually. (Says the man still waiting for Trent to drop the Bones and All vinyl, sigh.) But maybe it's for the best that this record didn't drop today as I just spent a grotesque amount of money on...

... a scorpion-filled version of the soundtrack for Lee Cronin's The Mummy movie over at Waxwork. (Seeing as how it's already sold out I have a feeling this will be a good investment though.) Oh and I also bought the below gorgeous poster for Steven Soderbergh's film The Christophers via Neon's store, because look at her! She's gorgeous. Oh and this movie P.S. is terrific -- it's a really low-key performance but I would love it if we could manage to maintain some Oscar buzz for Sir Ian until next spring since he's so fucking overdue and he's genuinely wonderful in this movie. I doubt it will happen since it's not a super showy role but I still really want him to be the first out gay actor to get one of those stupid statues. It just feels right. 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Never Let Me Go (2010)

Kathy: It had never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed. If I'd known, maybe I'd have kept tighter hold of them and not let unseen tides pull us apart.

Mark Romanek's devastating adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguru's devastating novel was released in theaters ten years ago today -- I have told this story before but this means that it was ten years ago tonight that I was sitting in the Sunshine Cinema in Manhattan waiting for this movie to start when Carey Mulligan herself stood up from her seat towards the front of the theater, turned around and waved at all of us and thanked us genuinely for coming to see her movie, of which she said she was very very proud. She wasn't scheduled to do an introduction or anything, she was just there to watch the movie with us. Anyway I fell in love with Carey right that minute and thankfully she turned out to be the greatest actress of her generation and I've been able to maintain that love this whole damn time since.

I haven't gone back and watched this movie in awhile because every time I think about re-watching it I literally start to cry, but I should. Here's my review from ten years ago, in case you've never read that -- it's a longer one and a little personal, but the movie really moved me at the time. I have no doubt it will again, when I can summon the emotional courage to visit it anew. If anything its tale of humanity commodified, turned profit, is only more relevant now.

Wolfman With Highlights

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As perhaps you have heard by now Ryan Gosling has been cast in the lead of a new Wolf Man movie -- or is it Wolfman, one word? Either way this is meant to be part of Universal's momentarily stalled reboot of their Monsters franchise, which got good and goosed with Elizabeth Moss' terrific Invisible Man flick earlier this year. Anyway here's the thing, I'm not really an expert on werewolf movies. There are several I enjoy, sure -- the original 1941 Wolf Man, An American Werewolf in London, Dog Soldiers, Ginger Snaps all pop right to mind -- but for some reason I never retain much memory of them. Like I know I've seen The Howling more than once but who the hell ever remembers a frame of what happens in it? It's one of those movies that I go into it every time asking myself if I've even see it and then I watch it and I remember oh it's fine, whatever. Hey Dee Wallace!

I mention The Howling purposefully there because that's all my self-defense presage to what might be a dumb-ass question -- do blond people make blond werewolves? When I think of Werewolf Movies I think of Brunette Actors -- Michael J. Fox, David Naughton, Katharine Isabelle. It is, to my mind, more of a dark-haired goth genre. Ryan Gosling is a lot of things but Goth ain't one of them. It's not that I'm not open-minded about this -- especially if they hire a director as proficient as Leigh Whannell. Although last time they hired the great Mark Romanek and proceeded to fuck it all up, so. I just have a hard time picturing a Golden Retriever Swedish Werewolf, is all. Anybody else?

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

A Single Man (2009)

Carlos: No one has ever picked me up 

and not wanted something.

George: I think you picked me up. 

This is kind of a serious day for me.

Carlos: Come on. What could be 

so serious for a guy like you?

George: I'm just trying to get over 

an old love I guess.

Carlos: My mother says that lovers are like buses. 

You just have to wait a little while 

and another one comes along.

A happy 35 to model turned sometime actor Jon Kortajarena today! Although his IMDb page has more acting credits than I realized he'd have I still think he models more than he acts, and why wouldn't he, with that face, that torso, that... well that everything. (See more photos of him on our Tumblr.)

But the last thing we saw from him was actually an acting thing -- he had a nice (gay again) role on an episode of Tales from the Loop, Amazon's low-fi sci-fi series I recently championed here on the site. Have you watched that yet? God I love it.

Anyway nothing I have to say about Jon's career, whether it be modeling or acting or being paparazzi'd out and about with Luke Evans for several years way back when wink wink, nothing I have to say will sum up all of my feelings quite like the video that Miguel Angel Silvestre posted today for Jon's birthday of the two of them vigorously brushing their teeth together, so I'll let it do the talking for me.

View this post on Instagram

Happy birthday to my dear friend @kortajarenajon My brother from Bilbao Felicidades teteeeee❗️❗️❗️

A post shared by Miguel Angel Silvestre (@miguelangelsilvestre) on May 19, 2020 at 1:09am PDT

5 Off My Head: Quarantine Watches

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One of the things that fell by the wayside over these past few strange weeks was my updating of the site's right-hand column where I list the things I have recently watched -- ohh I been watching shit, have I ever. I just hadn't sat down and updated that and that is a problem that multiplies with time, as the list grows longer and the work gets heftier... anyway point is I finally updated it today because I wanted to do this.

What is this, you ask? Besides another example of me jerking myself off (verbally, of course) for an entire paragraph? This is, or is about to be, a list of the best things I have watched so far during these here Quarantine Days. Last week I asked y'all what you have been watching and I got  ton of lovely and appreciated replies, with plenty of suggestions that've been added to my own future-viewings list -- now tis my turn. Here are the five best new-to-me things I have watched over the past 33 days and counting.

The 5 Best Quarantine First-Time Watches

Tales From the Loop -- I have been singing this Amazon Prime series' praises every chance I get on Twitter but inexplicably I have not taken a moment for it here on the site proper (not since the show was first announced way back when anyway) so let me make this clear: Tales From the Loop is my new everything. I've watched it twice now, some episodes three times, and the last time I've done that with a TV show... well in this amount of time I don't know that I have ever done that with a TV show. 

If you don't know what the hell I'm talking about Tales From the Loop is a low-fi sci-fi series produced by Matt "all those Apes movies" Reeves and Mark "Never Let Me Go" Romanek that was inspired by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag's paintings (one seen above) of giant sad robots standing in prairies and the like. (And yes I am indeed pissed off I didn't buy a copy of his books when I first heard about this series because now they're worth way more money.) The show stars Rebecca Hall and Paul Schneider and Jonathan Pryce and Jane Alexander and lots more people whose names you might not recognize, and it set in a small town in maybe the 1980s -- they never really say and there are technological things that situate it in maybe an alternate timeline than our own. Like giant sad robots, and such. The feeling is Spielbergian melancholy.

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Ohhh the wonderful sixth episode of #TalesFromTheLoop (pointedly directed by The One I Love director Charlie McDowell) has EVERYTHING -- parallel dimensions, gay stuff, Jon Kortajarena in a towel, more gay stuff, woodpeckers pic.twitter.com/JPHhBaoti2

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 5, 2020

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Emphasis on melancholy. This show is slow (which will bug some people, but is something I love at least when it's done right), and quiet, and very very sad. Kind of Black Mirror every episode centers on a different character in the town coming into contact with a different piece of abandoned technology, and how that interaction spins out -- there is a floating tractor that switches dimensions (in maybe my favorite episode, the gay sixth one with Jon Kortajarena). Unlike Black Mirror most of these characters are interconnected, and their stories all overlap with one another -- the show really rewards re-watches because a person in the background of one episode suddenly gets their own story later on that makes sense of their earlier interactions... 

I didn't mean to write this much about one entry in this list but I could go on and on and on about Tales From the Loop -- this is a five-star recommendation from yours truly. I adore this show, every frame of it, and hope y'all do too. It carried me away from our terrifying real world situation like nothing else has, and like all you hope a piece of entertainment might when trundling in and spending your time somewhere. A wonderful perfect little sad world I love with all my clicking clanking robot heart. Go watch it and report back!

Crip Camp -- This doc has been on Netflix for a few weeks, I hope y'all have had a chance to watch it by now, but if not, do. It tells the story of how a summer camp for disabled kids during the summer of Woodstock led to its own parallel revolution for disabled rights -- how once those kids got a taste of what it meant to be treated with respect and to not be alone in the world there was no going back. It's deeply moving and inspiring stuff, and if that all sounds heady or heavy let me tell you it's also really very funny too.

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Giving today over to Sergei Bondarchuk’s seven hour War and Peace pic.twitter.com/QgxDwpEijr

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 17, 2020

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War & Peace -- Sergey Bondarchuk's epic and I do mean epic 1966 miniseries adaptation of Tolstoy's epic and I do mean epic book got a much deserved hyper-fancy restoration from Janus Films and Criterion last year, and it played some theaters before getting the Criterion blu-ray treatment and I meant so very much to see it, time and time again, but... that sumbitch is over seven hours long! Let me sit you kiddies down and tell you a story -- once upon a time in a kingdom far far away people were busy with these things called "going places" and "doing things." I didn't have time for a seven hour Russian miniseries!
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Finishing the final part this AM because last night the bf demanded the TV back from my sloth-fest yesterday; nothing like a little "The Burning of Moscow" the start a day out right amirite (This movie's so epic it makes Gone With the Wind look like Gone With the Slight Draft) pic.twitter.com/pVsN55jVkJ

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 18, 2020

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In March of 2020 however, let's just say... I did. I do, and I did, and I am glad I did, because this is one epic that lives up to epic, and one War and Peace that lives up to its title. There is War, there is Peace, and there is everything that that "and" in the middle implies. I really intend to do a post of its own on this film though, there's enough to talk about with it, so let's... wait and see if that happens. Or if I watch Starship Troopers again. Who can tell! How exciting!

Heaven's Gate -- Like War and Peace this was another one that kept falling through the cracks due to ye olden time constraints -- Michael Camino's infamous 1980 disaster, which bankrupted a studio and ruined his career, runs just under four hours long. And more than W&P I felt the sit of this one at times -- there are scenes, hell maybe even entire arcs, that feel excessive while you're sitting through them.
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Oh my goodness why didn't any of you ever tell me about Jeff Bridges whole thing in Heaven's Gate -- THIS is the 2020 look pic.twitter.com/fYkyESph1f

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 27, 2020

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But that excess, that cumulative effect, does really stun in the last stretch -- this thing is a hell of a downer, but I was deeply moved by what ultimately becomes a monument to life's pointlessness, to man's indifference. Is that really the Mood one wants to soak one's self in during the Current State of The World? Perhaps not! But it hits its mark with a punch square in the plexus.

From Beyond -- Honestly I'm kind of embarrassed to admit this one... but we're all friends here right? You'd never judge me. So here, among friends, I will now admit that I have for all these years thought that I had seen Stuart Gordon's 1986 Lovecraft adaptation starring his favorite gruesome two-some of Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, and then Stuart Gordon died and I had myself a little mini-fest of his movies (also seen: Dolls for the 50th time, and Castle Freak for the first... which I also recommend for those with stronger stomachs anyway) and I realized ten minutes into From Beyond that holy squids from hell I ain't never seen none of this glorious pink-tinted gibberish before!

No I don't know how that is -- perhaps a slimy sex-monster from a hell dimension slithered into this one and sucked that part of my brain out lasciviously through my ear cavity -- whatever the case I was delighted by what I saw, absolutely delighted. It's perverse and disgusting and offensive and funny as a three foot dick; I loved every single inch.

Runners-up: The Platform on Netflix

Juliet of the Spirits (Fellini, 1965)

A Cold Wind in August (1961)

Jeanne (Bruno Dumont, 2019)

Home For the Holidays (1972)

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If you didn't share in that earlier post I referenced at the start please share with me here in the comments what you've been watching and loving! Or tell me your thoughts on the above things I just talked about! Whatever! Just talk to me, pretty please.

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Hall to the Future

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Rebecca Hall, one of our greatest actresses, is going to star in a sci-fi TV series for Mark Romanek, one of our greatest directors -- this news, if you can't tell already, is great. The Amazon series will be called Tales From the Loop and it will be based on the strange futuristic art-work of Simon Stålenhag -- here's how the show's plot is described:

"[It will tell] the story of a town that lives above The Loop. This machine was built to help unlock the mysteries of the universe, and in doing so, has given the people technology and advancements they never dreamed possible."

I hadn't heard of Stålenhag before so I went googling -- he's got several books for sale on Amazon right here -- and I kinda fell in love. And because my brain is running on fumes and barbecue right now I gathered together a group of my favorite pictures of his, which'll give you an idea of what this world Romanek'll be creating should look like -- you can see them right on after the jump...

The Moment I Fell For... Andrea Riseborough

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Looking back now I see that I make no mention of Andrea Riseborough's small role in Mark Romanek's 2010 film Never Let Me Go (weird that this is the second time this movie has come up this week; I guess it's due for a re-watch) in my review of that movie, but I vividly remember her and Domhnall Gleeson striking me - these are gonna be somebodies, I thought. Riseborough had already been in Mike Leigh's Happy Go Lucky at that point, although I don't remember that film well enough to remember her in it. 

Anyway the next year Riseborough became somebody, to me anyway, in the most unlikely of places - she gave a tremendous performance as Wallis Simpson in Madonna's awful 2011 film W.E., making that morally dubious film impossible to entirely ignore as much as one might want to. And from there on every movie she appeared in was made better by her presence, and I'd go out of my way to see things for her. 

It's easy to pretend that Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion is entirely an Andrea Riseborough Film, even with Tom Cruise there running and screaming and running and screaming - by this time I was already regularly singling her out for boundless praise in my reviews - and she might have been the single thing in Birdman I wanted more of. 

But by this time last year when she was popping out of all of two minutes of Tom Ford's Nocturnal Animals, the single most joyous and boisterous thing in that dour but beautiful movie,  I was past being ready for more - I was angry. Give this woman her damned due already, Hollywood!

This past year might have been the one where that feeling of Not Enough finally got felt by enough people, I think. Her performance as Billie Jean King's hairdresser turned lovah in Battle of the Sexes was another classic from her, full of all the life and vigor that those of us who've been paying attention expect from her on screen. The romance that she and Emma Stone captured made that movie work - their every scene together was sexy and memorable...

... and once again Riseborough seemed, even to a person who's been paying attention all this time, like a totally different person. I don't know how she does it, but she surprises me every damn time. I finally got to see her in person at a Q&A for Battle of the Sexes this past year and she even surprised me in person, as herself.

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AUSTIN STOWELL & ELISABETH SHUE & ANDREA RISEBOROUGH FOR THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES Q&A -- my teenage ADVENTURE IN BABYSITTING loving self was very very excited to see Elisabeth Shue!!! #battleofthesexes #austinstowell #elisabethshue #andreariseborough #billiejeanking #film

A post shared by Jason Adams (@jasonaadams) on Sep 18, 2017 at 8:04pm PDT

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I still have no idea who this woman is after all of these years, and I cherish that. I think Battle of the Sexes might represent a turning point in her career, but then just a couple of weeks ago we got a reminder of what Andrea's capable of, of the U-turns that she still manages effortlessly, with her absolutely brutal performance in the new Black Mirror episode called "Crocodile," which is the sort of thing that makes people cross the street when they recognize the person they'd seen doing those things she does in this.

I won't go into specifics of the John Hillcoat directed episode because I know some of you have maybe not seen it yet but it's an exceedingly dark hour of TV, maybe even excessively dark, although the fact that it's female-led gives me pause on that charge because we don't usually get to see a woman behave THIS badly and Riseborough's typically go-for-broke and that is a gift, a gift to savor.

Anyway I bring all of this up because Variety put an interview with the actress up yesterday wherein they discuss the FOUR films she's premiering at Sundance this month. Here's Variety on them:

"There’s “The Death of Stalin,” a savage political satire from “Veep” creator Armando Iannucci, in which Riseborough plays Josef Stalin’s daughter. Then she stars opposite Nicolas Cage in “Mandy,” a gonzo thriller that combines romance, carnage, and supernatural creatures. Riseborough also appears in “Burden,” a drama about a man’s break with the Ku Klux Klan that also stars Forest Whitaker and Garrett Hedlund. Lastly, she headlines and co-produces “Nancy,” the story of a disturbed woman who becomes convinced she’s an elderly couple’s long-lost child."

(Sidenote: I posted a picture of Hedlund in Burden on the Tumblr earlier this week.) You can read the entire chat here. I hope one or all of these movies are good great movies and I look forward to them but no matter what I'm about 99% sure that Andrea Riseborough will be great and totally captivating in every one. It's what she does.

What's your favorite performance of hers so far?

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I Am Link

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--- X Junior - Noah Hawley, who has delivered unto the world two phenomenal seasons of television with Fargo, is setting his sights on super-men next - he's executive producing Legion, an X-Men spin-off series that will star Dan Stevens as Professor Charles Xavier's previously unmentioned son. (thanks Mac) I've come to like Stevens very much thanks to The Guest, but the real casting coup here if you ask me is Jean Smart, who's co-starring. Designing Woman in the house! Seriously though she deserves awards for what she did on Fargo last year.
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--- Never Let Her Go - If one were to scour back through our archives one would 1) be nuts and 2) discover that for a very long time I did not like Keira Knightley. I found her jaw-centric acting style irritating. That changed with Never Let Me Go in 2010, which I think she's really very lovely in, and ever since I usually like her; indeed it made me go back and revisit stuff like Pride & Prejudice and see her work with new eyes. Anyway it makes sense to me then that it would be Never Let Me Go director Mark Romanek who'd come to her defense first in the wake of Begin Again director John Carney's nasty comments (he said she's no actress, just a model) and make me agree with the nicer side. Keira's good people - you leave her be, ya big meanie; I don't want to sour towards Once.

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--- The Darko Boy - I'm not sure why they're chatting with Jake Gyllenhaal about Donnie Darko - its fifteenth anniversary isn't until October - but here's a clip of EW chatting with him as he reminisces on the film. I haven't watched it yet so somebody tell me if he has anything to say on the great big black hole that Richard Kelly's fallen into.

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--- F Is For Fake - I knew I had posted about this project previously but it took me forever to find the previous post -- once upon a time Nicole Holocener was making a movie starring Julianne Moore as the real-world literary forger Lee Israel, based on her autobiographical book Can You Ever Forgive Me. Neither of those ladies are attached any more, but two other terrific ladies now are -- Melissa McCarthy is going to star and Diary of a Teenage Girl director Marielle Heller is going to direct! This could end up being a very different film? But probs still great.
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--- Dying For Debicki - I don't recall having heard that Elizabeth Debicki had been cast in a role in the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel but apparently she had been, quite awhile back, which is terrific news - I like Debicki very much. (PS I always call her "Debicki" in my head so I think that might become our short-hand from now on.) Anyway The Playlist has some info on who the Big Bad is going to be in the sequel (spoilery, obviously) and they think that this is the role that Debicki's playing, which makes sense, given the character's description. Debicki & Blanchett playing Big Bads in Marvel movies - well now I am impatiently awaiting Isabelle Huppert showing up in Black Panther to complete the Maids triumvirate.
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--- Luck Be A Laddie - Showing a strange hardly-ever-adhered-to dedication to The Stage, the Tony-winning dude who directed a recent stage version of Guys & Dolls has been hired to direct the film version of Guys & Dolls. I know this isn't usually my wheelhouse (honestly I have never even see any version of G&D) but once upon a time Jake Gyllenhaal was rumored to want to make this movie so I still pay attention for some bizarre lingering reason. Last thing we'd heard casting-wise it was supposed to be Channing Tatum & Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the leading man roles but I'd be surprised if that's still the case.
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--- Forever Glow - Slip into your brightest pink leotard and tumble into my heart - the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling are coming back, kind of! The woman behind Orange is the New Black is staging a fictionalized comedy series based on my beloved childhood fave GLOW for Netflix. It will be ten episodes, and it will tell the story of an out-of-work actress in Los Angeles finding "one last attempt to live her dreams." And those dreams apparently include sweaty lycra. As most dreams do.

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---  Slaughter High - I've been saying for years now that the team producing the new Friday the 13th movies have got their collective heads crammed up their collective arses - making a Friday the 13th movie is not rocket science and nobody coming to see the movie is asking for rocket science. Put Jason Voorhees in a camp and commence slaughter of sexy teenagers, the end. Why they can't figure that out I have no idea. Anyway now they're saying it will be an origin film, but like a whole new origin, having nothing to do with the old origin. Because we care about Baby Jason or something? Ugh, fire all of these people.
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--- And Finally there are far, far worse ways to spend a few minutes... which will inevitably turn into a few more minutes because you want it to... staring at pictures of Marlene Dietrich in the dastardly-delicious double-feature of Morocco and Blonde Venus, so head on over to The Film Experience for this week's episode of "Hit Me With Your Best Shot," which does just that. She has a face meant to be studied. Of course if I'd chosen I might not have been able to help myself, what with prime Gary Cooper slinking around in that uniform the whole time...
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I Am Link

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--- Great Golden Gallimimus - When all is said and done the final numbers box-office-wise for Jurassic World were actually the biggest numbers of all time - it topped The Avengers opening, making just under 209 million dollars in the US alone. That number more than doubles world-wide. I don't usually bother with box-office talk, it's incredibly boring, but seeing as how the original Jurassic Park was my Star Wars I figure the franchise's success oughta be noted.

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--- Rex Noir - More interesting to me than box office figures, Jurassic-wise, are articles like this one which was birthed from the franchise's hot hot heat - a look at Chip Kidd's iconic logo for the series (you know the one, the T-Rex outline one) and where it came from. I'd actually never seen the original image he'd traced for it, which they share. 

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--- Bad Kill - Also of interest Jurassic-wise is this piece on the extended cruelty of one specific death scene in the film (if you saw the movie, you know that of which I speak) and how it doesn't work, for this author, tonally. I'm being vague about my own take for the moment because I intend to write up my review today as long as things go as planned and I'll probably talk about it then. But still, you should read this! (pic via)
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--- Final Forever -  This is a few days old but it's never too late to send love to Final Girl, aka the greatest horror blog of ever, which just celebrated its 10th anniversary last week. Head on over there and wish our bud Stacie Ponder the best, since she's given the world more entertainment than you can shake a stick at. A big stick!
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--- Big Load - It almost feels like Xavier Dolan's taking a page out of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's book, work-wise - I mean, almost, but not quite, nobody can do Fassbinder speed. But Dolan just finished Cannes like two weeks ago and he's already shooting his new movie (hell for all I know they're done already), It's Only the End of the World, aka the one with Marion Cotillard and Vincent Cassel and so on (amazing cast), which he's crammed in before heading off to shoot his first English-language movie with Jessica Chastain and Kit Harington. Anyway The Playlist already has the first image from IOtEotW (such a Fassbinder title too), which you can see at that link. The movie will probably be out before I finish this post. In Quebec at least; we won't see it in the US for three years.

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--- Michael's Back - A new Halloween movie, titled Halloween Returns, is going to start filming next month; a pair of writers from latter Saw movies are taking over the franchise. Ugh let's hope they don't bring their Saw nonsense with them. There's no cast yet but hopefully they just cast nobodies, I am fine with nobodies. Anyway they can't possibly do worse than Rob Zombie did right?
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--- Clown Around - Variety chatted with Finn Wittrock about having a Dandy time on American Horror Story last season (requisite link to sexy Dandy times) and they ask him if he's returning - actually they ask him if he's going to do anything with Ryan Murphy - and he plays it cagey:

"I can’t say for certain, because it’s still up in the air. But I will definitely be doing something on one of his shows very soon. That’s really all I know."'

Maybe he'll show up on that Scream Queens show? I want him on AHS though. Let me make that more specific -- I want him on Matthew Bomer, on AHS. Dammit. (thanks Mac)
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--- Shoot Him Up - Whenever I write up a news-story about director Mark Romanek attaching himself to a film I do so with a massive grain of salt and a side-eye that can be seen from space because dude has quit way more jobs than he's ever finished. But oh, the ones he's finished! They've been great. Anyway he's maybe going to make a heist movie called Norco, which is about a real-life cops-and-robbers chase and showdown in the 1980s in Southern California, which is still apparently considered the most violent such scene in American history.

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--- And Finally the first trailer for Michel Gondry's new movie called Microbe and Gasoline is online, you can watch it below. The Playlist has also got a few pictures and the general gist of it.Gondry's got a lifetime pass thanks to Eternal Sunshine but I really do hope I like this one a bit more than his previous efforts. Mood Indigo was okay but this one's reminding me of The We and the I, due to similar teenage concerns, and I couldn't stand that movie.

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I Am Link

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--- Bad Boys - I know nobody coming here and reading this website's going to be shocked when I tell you that this new image from Mad Max Fury Road of Tom Hardy trussed up and face-masked by a sexy freak of a nightmare dude is like saucy catnip to my eyeballs, but there we go, it's out there, whatcha gonna do?
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--- Snow Way Jose - My sanity could only take skimming this article interviewing Harvey Weinstein where he seems to take credit for Snowpiercer's great performance in theaters and VOD, and tries to make it seem as if he's so cutting-edge for having released the movie this way. I just... there really aren't words for how much this dude pisses me off. The spin is so gross it besmirches - yes I said besmirches! - IndieWire itself if you ask me. Gross, gross, gross.

--- Monsters Inc - I'm saving this piece to read during my about-to-happen lunch-break but here's an interview our pal Tom Blunt did with long-limbed impresario of scare Doug Jones, who's been behind every nightmare that Guillermo Del Toro has ever given you. We love everything Doug's touched with those twenty-inch fingers of his.

--- Rusty Gunslinger - Apparently there's forward momentum on a Westworld remake - JJ Abrams will be producing (shouldn't he be a little bit busy with turning Hollywood into a non-stop Star Wars movie making factory for other things?) and they want it to star Anthony Hopkins, Evan Rachel Wood, and James Marsden as a cowboy. Getting Jimmy into some chaps is like blowing that Super Mario 3 warp whistle straight to the future of my heart.
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--- Mouth Tony - My favorite headline giving us the news about Mark Romanek's new gig was definitely "Mark Romanek In Talks To Eventually Drop Out Of Directing The Shining Prequel" - that was exactly my thought when I read the news on another site first. Although let's keep our fingers crossed, I guess - I don't really have much hope hope-wise when it comes to this movie but Romanek always springs eternal.

--- And finally this would've gotten it's own post had it not dropped on the weekend but I'm assuming you've all already seen the viral video Jake Gyllenhaal did for Nightcrawler by now? That's the movie that he dropped all that weight for - anyway this video is amazing and as pissed off as I was about the weight-loss all that vanished watching this; now I am good and psyched.
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I Am Link

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--- Full Attention - I saw the ads for this new show Enlisted (starring Veronica Mars' adorable Chris Lowell) on the subway platform the other day and almost tweeted a picture with some sly entirely predictable comment about guys in uniform yadda blowjobs yadda, but I'm glad I waited because now comes word that Brandon Routh is going to show up on the show as a recurring character, so we can really push the blowjob thing with extra zeal now.

--- Falling Stars - David Cronenberg's new movie Map to the Stars, with the incredible cast of Robert Pattinson and Juliette Binoche and Julianne Moore and Mia Wasikowska and Olivia Williams, amongst others, got handed an R rating (of course it did) for sex and drugs and nudity and all the good stuff we go to the movies for - the important part here is that the film's done and will be probably be playing fests soon.

--- Beach Butler Bingo - Gerard Butler is circling the Patrick Swayze role in the upcoming remake of Point Break. I know PB is a cult movie for people my age but I was never all that into it, give or take Keanu in a wet-suit - I haven't watched it in many many years though, I really should give it a look again. The most important question is: will they hire Lori Petty to play the same role? I sure hope so.

--- Moving Pictures - This letter that Martin Scorsese wrote "to his daughter" on the state of cinema right now is filled with smart things and everything, but I find the conceit, that he was writing this to his daughter, a little off-putting. If that's true, why has it been released as some sort of press release to the world, handily coinciding with his Oscar campaign? God Wolf of Wall Street has really bittered me towards Marty hasn't it? I hope we can make up.

--- Vamp Cell - The Playlist has the first couple of official pictures from Guillermo Del Toro's upcoming horror show The Strain, based on his series of books, and it looks plenty Contagion-y. Only with Corey Stoll wearing what I assume is a gigantic wig.

--- And Speaking of first pictures from new shows, here are the first couple pictures from the Fargo television series that the Coen Brothers are producing, which stars Martin Freeman. They also have a few details - has Martin Freeman even done an American accent before? And a specific regional one like this'll call for, at that? That makes me nervous. 

--- Choke Hold -  I'll believe it when it's released in theaters and not a moment before that (it's too disheartening to get worked up over Mark Romanek making movies regularly) but Mr. Romanek is apparently really close to directing a movie about the Boston Strangler, which will star Casey Affleck. This would be great though! 

--- Streep Speaks - I've seen some people blast this speech Meryl Streep made while introducing Emma Thompson the other night for being kind of "me me me" and inappropriate and ill-informed or whatever, but I thought it was darling, so fuck you people. Speaking Meryl, I love this post of her taking selfies that Glenn gathered up at The Film Experience. You guys know we won't have Meryl forever right? You will miss her when she's gone.

--- Dress Barn - I'm getting excited about the Golden Globes, you guys! All it took was this interview with Tina Fey and an especially smart-assy Amy Poehler to get me juiced. Also helping was Jose running through the last year's best red carpet looks over at The Film Experience - I hadn't seen that dress that Adéle Exarchopoulos (will somebody please school me on how you pronounce her last name? Is it just Ex-Arch-op-oh-liss?) wore at Cannes, and it's to die for.

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I Am Link

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--- Wooden Delivery - Vin Diesel will be voicing the plant man called Groot in Marvel's upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy; Groot's one of the main characters, a Guardian, but breathe a sigh of relief that we won't have to look at the lumpen potato headed Diesel since the character will be CG, and apparently all Groot ever says, the few times he speaks, is "I am Groot" like he's Timmy on South Park.

--- Scary Carrie - Chloe Whastherface says that the Carrie remake got delayed from this Spring to this Fall in order to make the movie "darker and scarier." Well I guess that means they put more of her in it then. Nothing scares me more than that!

--- Vid Genius - EW chatted with director Mark Romanek about some of his old music videos, brilliant stuff like "Closer" and Fiona Apple's "Criminal," and got him to talk about making them. 

 

--- Sad Clown - Considered one of the holy grails of lost films, Jerry Lewis' Holocaust comedy The Day the Clown Cried was only ever saw by a few people - a few totally horrified people - before being erased from existence. Oh I'm sure there's a copy sitting in Jerry Lewis' vault, just waiting for an Oceans 11 like heist... anyway a little leak of footage showed up on YouTube recently, and The Playlist has the details. Ho ho ho Holocaust!

--- Eyes On Autumn - The Playlist dumped a slew of images from upcoming movies right here - there are several from Gravity (I saw the new trailer on IMAX this weekend and oh my god why can't I be watching this movie right now???), and Prisoners with Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, and Snowpiercer, and so on.

--- Hugh Jeans - And speaking of Hugh, this collection of shots from behind the scenes of the new X-Men movie set features several shots of Hugh Jackman in era-appropriate jeans, and since the era we're talking is the 1970s, you'll want to click on over right quick.

--- Ad Man - Over at The Film Experience Nat's been taking a look at some of the high-profile Fall movie trailers that've shown up lately with his "Yes No Maybe So" way of doing such things - click here to read his take on Spike Jonze's Her, click here to read his thoughts on the Judi Dench vehicle Philomena, and click here to see what he thought of the Monuments Men trailer, which is Geroge Clooney's latest star-studded directorial effort.
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--- Government Takeover - I might not watch this since I don't need to convince myself to keep watching Homeland and I'd rather keep a mind fresh from spoilers about where things are headed, but here's the trailer for the upcoming third go-around with Carrie and Co. The show's back at the end of September.

--- Oh Bay - Forgot to mention this last week - Final Girl has picked a new Final Girl Film Club choice for the month of August - it's Mario Bava's highly influential 1971 proto-slasher Bay of Blood, which the Firday the 13th films ripped off pretty shamelessly, amongst others. The date to participate is August 27th, put it in your calendars! I've previously done a Thursday's Ways Not To Die for that movie, in case you're curious.

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