Private Hells For Everybody!

Nicholas Winding Refn's latest movie Her Private Hell starring Sophie Thatcher and Charles Melton among others is about to premiere at Cannes, so today they dropped the teaser -- Thatcher and Melton (and Charles Melton's tits) are the main focus of it so I am assuming they're the main characters, our leading lady and lad. And tits.

As I told you back on the 1st we don't have forever ages to go until we can see this ourselves -- Neon is releasing it on July 24th. Thank goodness. Looks like a perfect Summer Movie -- really all Refn movies are Summer Movies. Everybody is hot and sweaty and mean. Anyway the teaser gives away very little -- just showcases NWR's style, the real star of the show, so feel free to watch: 

Plug Her In, Plug Her In

I'm glad that Yellowjackets actor Sophie Thatcher has broken out from that show -- she was immensely watchable even in movies like Heretic and Companion, both of which I personally found extremely underwhelming. I wasn't in the majority with those opinions, most people seemed to love those movies, but they both felt half-baked to me. But not her work in them! She's great. So I'm glad she's the star of the new Nicolas Winding Refn movie, and I am extremely happy about this morning's new news -- she's going to star in the new movie from The Babadook director Jennifer Kent! Okay the thing I am excited about is that Jennifer Kent is making another movie -- it's been EIGHT YEARS since The Nightingale y'all (make that make sense) -- but Sophie can ride that wave. The movie's called The Girl Who Was Plugged In (which yes could've been an alternate title for Companion) and it's based on a 1974 sci-fi novella by writer  James Tiptree, Jr, and... yeah this is very Companion-adjacent sounding through and through:

"The surreal dystopian tale revolves around a woman who loses her soul to technology in an effort to be loved. Thatcher plays disfigured, suicidal young protagonist P Burke who is hired by a mega tech corporation to virtually operate a beautiful but brainless ‘flesh body’ called Delphi, grown in a lab with the sole purpose of influencing the masses and selling products. "

But I have no doubt Kent will make her own thing, and Companion will entirely slough off our brains watching this. And I'd be fine with that! Doesn't feel like a massive loss to me.

Bisexual Lighting: The Movie

We have a U.S. release date for Nicolas Winding Refn's first movie in a decade y'all! Her Private Hell will be opening on July 24th thanks to the stellar folks at Neon -- this will be after it bows at Cannes this month for those bastards who go to Cannes. (Fuck you, bastard people.)  I've posted about this movie a lot previously because duh -- we fucking worship NWR. But this thing's also got one of his most gorgeous casts (which is saying a lot given his last movie that had both Alessandro Nivola and Karl Glusman in its cast) -- Sophie Thatcher, Charles Melton, Havana Rose Liu, Diego Calva, Drive My Car star Hidetoshi Nishijima, Parker Sawyers aka...

... the beautiful man who had lots of sex with Henry Golding in the movie Monsoon. Also the model Lola Corfixen and the oldest person in the cast, one Dougray Scott, who nevertheless remains very much fuckable at 60 years old. And listen -- not every movie needs to star a cast of nothing but hotties. But I do look at the ones that do -- the ones being shot by a hyper-stylist like Refn especially -- as extra special gifts. Let's hope that NWR used his decade off making the most gloriously obtuse and sexy disturbing television shows since Twin Peaks as perverted fuel for this big-screen return!

Good Morning, World

I cannot believe there exists a photo left from Tom Hardy's Slutty MySpace Selfie Phase that I had not seen before today, but there one is -- that's definitely circa Bronson in 2008 given the stache and general beefiness. Ahh those were the days! Who knew we'd be longing for the Aughts once upon a day? Good grief.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Bronson (2008)

Bronson: How would you feel, waking up in the morning without a window? My window is a steel grid, I 'ave to put my lips against that steel grid and suck in air, that's my morning... 'cause I got no air in my cell. I have to eat, sleep and crap in that room twenty-three hours of a twenty-four hour day. You tell me, what human being deserves that? Apart from the stinking paedophile or a child killer. I don't deserve that, I done nothing on this planet to deserve that. My bed is four inches off the floor, it's a concrete bed, my toilet hasn't even got a seat on it or a lid, and I 'ave to live like this month after month after month, and the way it's looking it's year after year after year. Now is that's right then so be, but let somebody else 'ave a fucking go at it, 'cause I've had twenty-six years of this bollocks and it's time to come out, and I want the jury at my trial to come and see how I'm living. But I'm not living, I'm existing.

A very happy 55 to our beloved neon mad genius Nicholas Winding Refn today! This is a good moment to remind us all that we will be getting a new movie from him next year -- I told you about his film Her Private Hell back in April when Charles Melton joined the cast, but by all accounts they've already filmed the thing so I'm assuming a next year release. It also stars current it girl Sophie Thatcher (of Companion and Heretic and Yellowjackets fame), plus Drive My Car hunk Hidetoshi Nishijima, Diego Calva, Kristine Froseth, Dougray Scott, and Havana Rose Liu from Bottoms and Lurker. This is one drop-dead gorgeous cast y'all. Can't wait for NWR to douse them all with blood and glitter.

Refn Winds His Way To Charles Melton

Even though Riverdale was made for perverts like me I never watched it, and I can't say I ever foresaw a muse of serious minded auteurs ever coming from the show -- shows me to be such a snob! Charles Melton, fresh off working with Todd Haynes and Alex Garland, is teaming up with no less than Danish provocateur Nicolas Winding Refn for Refn's grand return to big-screen moviemaking -- Indiewire, where I read this news, frames this story in a really odd way though, making it sound like Refn's not been doing anything since 2016's Only God Forgives and positing him as extremely "anti-content", all of which ignores the man spent the past decade making two of the best streaming series of, dare I say, all time with Too Old To Die Young for Prime and then Copenhagen Cowboy on Netflix. I know those shows aren't for everybody but thank goodness they're for me -- they're among my favorites of Refn's work which is saying a whole lot since I think he's a flat-out genius. 

ANYWAY. Back to the new news. The movie is going to be called Her Private Hell and it doesn't just star the cute boy from Riverdale -- it also stars Sophie Thatcher of Yellowjackets and Heretic and Companion fame, and we like her very much and 100% understand why she's the one who's taken off from Yellowjackets. She's got it. I might not have loved either of those horror movies I mentioned, but she was not the issue with either. Almost as exciting to me -- the movie will also co-star actress Havana Rose Liu, who I fell completely head over heels for as one of the cheerleaders in the movie Bottoms...

... as well the upcoming queer thriller Lurker (my review here) -- I think she's got one of the most beautiful faces I've seen among the upcoming crop of actors and I bet Refn's gonna make her a star.  Absolutely magical on-screen presence. This is a hot cast y'all!  There's not a lot known about the movie plot-wise but Nicolas has spoken about making a movie in Tokyo next (and he said it "will have a lot of glitter and lot of sex and violence" -- shocker!) so this is probably that. Nicolas Winding Refn shooting the neon nights of Tokyo -- how has this not happened already??? I need this right now. 

Two Trailers of Sheer Terror!

My head's been all over the place today -- blame those Jeremy Allen White underwear pictures that exploded off my screen like fireworks when I first turned on my computer this morning -- and so I haven't gotten to a couple of important things worth sharing yet. So let's do it rat-a-tat style, a fast drop of too much information and then whoosh I'm gone again like I was never here. First up! There is a docuemtnary about horror master Dario Argento hitting Shudder on February 2nd! (It's coinciding with a screening series here in NYC at the IFC Center.) Titled Dario Argento Panico and from filmmaker Simone Scafidi the doc features interviews with people like Gaspar Noé, Guillermo Del Toro, and Nicolas Winding Refn, aka the hottest nerd-fest in town. Also a bunch of his actors and Mr. Argento himself. Here's the trailer!

Next up we got the full trailer for Diablo Cody's next horror film called Lisa Frankenstein -- I shared the teaser all the way back in October; watch that here if you're like me and don't want too much given away. Which means that no, I haven't watched this full trailer myself. But I have heard good stuff about this movie from people who've already seen it, and I love love loved that teaser, so I don't need to. Maybe you're not me, who knows! Anyway Lisa Frankenstein hits theaters on February 9th, and here's that trailer:

Wait Nicolas What?

If you'd told me right after Nicolas Winding Refn had delivered unto us the masterful Netflix series Copenhagen Cowboy (about prostitutes and criminals and psychopaths and all his usual jazz) that he'd next turn to adapting a series of vintage kid's adventure books, I'd have given birth to a shoe. Right then and there. A shoe would have fallen out of me. From where? Don't ask. But it would have happened. So I am glad they waited a little bit to tell me this news, is my point. I don't need shoes falling out of places. Anyway Deadline is reporting today that Refn is indeed turning Enid Blyton's series of The Famous Five books into a miniseries for the BBC -- are any of you familiar with these books? Because I sure as hell am not.

They were published from the 1940s until the 1960s (you can buy a reasonably priced box-set of all 22 books right here) and they sound very Hardy Boys -- they're about four children named Julian, Dick, Anne, George, plus their dog Timmy (love that the dog gets included!) who go on big adventures during their school holidays. They've apparently been adapted several times over the years, but I've still never heard of them -- that said I think I have a pretty good idea of what they consist of in my head. That that said I still cannot for the life of me picture what Nicolas Winding Refn taking on this project will look like in the end. I guess he felt like mixing it up!

Calling All Cowboys

I can't take another disappointment like Amazon burying Nicolas Winding Refn's masterpiece of a 2019 series Too Old To Die Young -- although I suppose I should be grateful that it's still there available for streaming after the year that sort of thing has had -- so please please please go watch Refn's new series Copenhagen Cowboy on Netflix if you haven't yet! I admit I dropped the ball on alerting y'all beforehand (tbh I was a little annoyed that Netflix ghosted me on screeners) so I never shared the trailer, but I am righting that now: 



I binged the show this past week -- although "binged" might be overstating it, as I didn't allow myself more than one episode a night -- and it's fan-fucking-tastic. Weird and gorgeous, funny and haunting -- it's pure undiluted Refn, and I love that he got somebody to say yes again. It's sliiiightly more accessible than TOTDY ended up being, but it's still a series where a possibly vampire serial killer has his penis eaten by pigs; ain't nobody mistaking this for Two and a Half Men. Anyway it ends on a note that very much begs for another season, which honestly might've just been a cruel joke on Refn's part -- crafting an absurdist cliffhanger with no resolution would fit into this Dada puzzle perfect. That said if you have watched the show tell me what you thought in the comments (and also go read our pal Sean's recaps at Decider, he gets it!)

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Pusher (1996)

Tonny: I once ejaculated a girl in the face,

and she wanted me to piss it off.

Frank: Wait a minute, wait a minute.

You ejaculated a girl in the face,

and she wanted you to piss it off?

Tonny: Yeah.

Frank: [laughing] Pervert! That's fucking sick!

Tonny: It is not?

Frank: It's fucking sick, man. Who was she?

Tonny: Your mother.

Oh, do we love a good "your mama" joke. And

Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher trilogy is full of them. 

A happy birthday to Mads Mikkelsen today! I love

that Hannibal Lecter's birthday's so close to Thanksgiving.

Who Wants To Watch Karl Glusman?

These photos of actor and MNPP-fave Karl Glusman at the beach are actual eons old -- they're from 2016 right around the time he was co-starring in Nicolas Winding Refn's (brilliant) The Neon Demon! And yet I've never posted them before? God, I suck. Six years of documented sucking, and that's being generous. Anyway here they are in the year 2022 on the occasion of Karl's latest horror flick, called Watcher, getting reviewed by yours truly over at Pajiba after premiering at Sundance earlier this week. Read my review right here! The movie isn't perfect but it scratches the itches of many, many things I love...

Good lorddd pic.twitter.com/NOLu7wtXQC

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 22, 2022

... including yes Karl Glusman looking hella suave in a black suit. And so I gave it a mostly good review despite some issues you can probably chalk up to the movie being from a first-time feature filmmaker, one named Chloe Okuno. And if this atmospheric sleek thing is Okuno's first film it's reason enough to be excited about what's to come. Anyway that's that, and this is this, if this is a couple dozen photos of Karl Glusman at the beach six years ago with his ex-wife mostly edited out as best I could. Hit the jump for this...   

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Neon Demon (2016)

Gigi: You wanna know what I had done, don't you? Well I thought I'd get more work if I went down a cup size. So I'd look like a hanger, ya know? But then my surgeon, Dr. Andrew, he pointed out a lot of other problems with my body. So I had them: shave my jaw, I had a slight eyebrow lift, new nose, cheeks, inner and outer lipo... oh, and they pinned my ears. 

Jesse: Why?

Gigi: So I could wear a ponytail?

Happy 5 to Nicholas Winding Refn's fantabulous and darkly gorgeous The Neon Demon! This movie has been out five years as of today, and also as of today I have done exactly five posts telling you how "Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life you can learn from The Neon Demon." Who knew? This film is stacked with Life Lessons. Important things, like how to get a ponytail through plastic surgery. I plan on re-watching the film over the weekend (it's been a couple of years) but for now why don't y'all go read this fine piece by our pal Fiona at MovieJawn that's celebrating this anniversary and says anything I might want to say without me having to expend any effort. I love it when that happens!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Personal Shopper (2016)

Maureen: I mean there are invisible... presences... around us. Always. I mean whether or not they're the souls of the dead, I don't know, but... You know when you're a medium you just are attuned to some sort of... vibe.
Ingo: What do you mean by- by vibe?
Maureen: It's an intuition thing; it's a feeling. You... You see this door... That's only like slightly, ajar.

An actor I always want to talk more about but never find the time to is the great German actor Lars Eidinger, who's been in so many things over the past dozen years that I've been a fan of -- besides the above-mentioned one he's also got a vital role in Olivier Assasyas' Clouds of Sils Maria; he was on both Sense8 and Babylon Berlin (!!!) and in Claire Denis' sci-fi wackery High Life; then in just the past few months he had a lovely turn opposite Eva Green in Alice Winocour's lovely lady astronaut flick Proxima. He's really become somebody I perk up at whenever he shows up on-screen...

... oh and I'm absolutely dyyyyying to see My Little Sister, the Swiss film starring him and the queen Nina Hoss that's currently playing virtually, but haven't gotten around to it yet. You can already tell that Eidinger is one of the greats. All we need is one great fearless director (somebody like Lars von Trier or Nicolas Winding Refn maybe?) to give him a great fearless role, because he's also...

... I must add, because of course I must, a wildly underrated hot piece and total exhibitionist super-freak who's proven to be wildly unreserved when it comes to nudity. (There's some stuff even I couldn't post down below.) Gosh bless the Europeans! For example just two days ago a NSFW short art-film in which he's turned into a nude human paint-brush was brought to my attention, and...

... you see what I mean? You see what I mean. Anyway today is Lars' 45th birthday and I have this big folder on my computer of Lars Photos that I haven't found an excuse to post before, so what better time than the present? Hit the jump, it's a little NSFW but also totally worth losing your job over, believe me...

25 Off My Head: Siri Says 2016

I guess this website you're on is nursing some separation anxiety today after two weeks of holiday silence, because my intention to do a new entry in our "Siri Says" series -- where I ask my phone to choose a number between 1 and 100 and then choose my favorite movies from the corresponding year -- came at me with a huge ask this afternoon. One I had been dreading for awhile. See, Siri came back at me with the number "16", forcing me to choose my favorites from The Movies of 2016, and... 

... well I don't know if you remember 2016, but there was a lot happening in 2016. Especially at its stinger of a tail-end. The bottom dropped out, a nightmare swallowed us up, and I couldn't focus on making silly little lists. Or much of anything. It's been four years of this so maybe you can't recall how we all died, a lot, inside right around then... but we did. And so I never awarded my annual "Golden Trousers" awards for the movies of 2016. They just got lost in the mix of sturm und drang and shit. 

And I have regretted this gaping absence ever since, but... well politics aside, 2016 was actually a wonderful, seriously wonderful, year for the movies. Insanely good! (I mean it's even the year where I first heard about Call Me By Your Name, for goodness' sake!) And so the task of actually mounting this list always seemed daunting. Super massive daunting, really. And if there's one thing you know about me it's that I love Jake Gyllenhaal. But if there are two things you know about me there's that I love Jake Gyllenhaal and I am lazy. So this list just kept being put off, and off, and off. 

But now, well, why not? This is one way to put a cap on the past four awful years. And... also I'm just sitting here, trying to get myself back into the blogging frame of mind after two weeks off. Why not set myself a massive task? So usually when I do these "Siri Says" lists I just give you five movies in no particular order from the year in question, but this will not do. It doesn't seem to meet the demand of this moment, this year of movies. So not only am I ranking the films, but I'm giving you a Top 25. 2016 was too good for any less than too much, man!

My 25 Favorite Movies of 2016

25. Pee-wee's Big Holiday

(dir. John Lee)

24. Silence

(dir. Martin Scorsese)

23. The Love Witch

(dir. Anna Biller)

22. The Ornithologist

(dir. João Pedro Rodrigues)

21. Always Shine

(dir. Sofia Takal)

20. Arrival

(dir. Denis Villeneuve)

19. Neon Bull

(dir. Gabriel Mascaro)

18. Green Room

(dir. Jeremy Saulnier)

17. Wiener-dog

(dir. Todd Solondz)

16. Julieta

(dir. Pedro Almodovar)

15. Certain Women

(dir. Kelly Reichardt)

14. Aquarius

(dir. Kleber Mendonça Filho)

13. Christine

(dir. Antonio Campos)

12. A Monster Calls

(dir. J.A. Bayona)

11. Jackie

(dir. Pablo Larrain)

10. The Invitation

(dir. Karyn Kusama)

9. Kubo and the Two Strings

(dir. Travis Knight)

8. Elle

(dir. Paul Verhoeven)

7. A Bigger Splash

(dir. Luca Guadagnino)

6. The Neon Demon

(dir. Nicolas Winding Refn)

5. Moonlight

(dir. Barry Jenkins)

4. The Witch

(dir. Robert Eggers)

3. The Handmaiden

(dir. Park Chan-wook)

2. 20th Century Women

(dir. Mike Mills)

1. American Honey 

(dir. Andrea Arnold) 

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Runners-up: The Autopsy of Jane Doe (dir. André Øvredal), Train to Busan (dir. Sang-ho Yeon), Hail Caesar! (dir. Coens), The Light Between Oceans (dir. Derek Cianfrance), High-Rise (dir. Ben Wheatley), The Eyes of My Mother (dir. Nicolas Pesce), Demolition (Jean-Marc Vallee), Nocturnal Animals (dir. Tom Ford)...

... Nocturama (dir. Bertrand Bonello), Under the Shadow (dir. Babak Anvari), I, Daniel Blake (dir. Ken Loach), Things To Come (dir. Mia Hansen-Løve), Shin Godzilla (dir. Cris George), The Shallows (dir. Jaume Collet-Serra), Captain America: Civil War (dir. Russos), Swiss Army Man (dir. Daniel Scheinert), Spa Night (dir. Andrew Ahn)

Never seen: Sausage Party (dir. Conrad Vernon), Dirty Grandpa (dir. Dan Mazer), Handsome Devil (dir. John Butler), My Life as a Zucchini (dir. Claude Barras), Fire At Sea (dir. Gianfranco Rosi), Snowden (dir. Oliver Stone), Sully (dir. Clint Eastwood), Pete's Dragon (dir. David Lowery), The B.F.G. (dir. Steven Spielberg), Eddie the Eagle (dir. Dexter Fletcher)

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What are your favorite movies of 2016?