Good Morning, World

Since I've been extremely busy and traveling for the past couple of weeks I haven't had a moment to watch any of the second season of The Sandman (and with the horrors revealed about Neil Gaiman it didn't feel too pressing) but when I saw these two gifs of blond beauty Freddie Fox making the rounds I felt the need to move it up the list. Anybody watched the second season yet? If you're unsure where you know Freddie from it might be The House of the Dragon or it might be Queer as Folk creator Russell T. Davis' hella-gay miniseries Cucumber or it might be this great big gratuitous post I did on him backin 2018 when I mistook him for one of the Dunkirk Twinks. Remember that phenomenon? At least Christopher Nolan gave culture something once. As did Sandman:

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Coraline (2009)

Coraline: He's not drunk, Mom. He's just eccentric.

Happy 15 to Coraline today! When the movie came out I liked it very much but didn't love love it -- I think I was extra attached to Neil Gaiman's book and didn't want to. But in the decade and a half since Laika has become, you know, LAIKA, aka my favorite animation studio, and I feel less hesitant about fully embracing the movie now -- I just re-watched it about a month ago and it's even better than I remembered. It probably isn't my favorite Laika movie -- my love for ParaNorman and Kubo are both pretty up there -- but it's top three for sure. What are your thoughts on Coraline? Also the movie is getting a re-release in August for its anniversary and they just dropped this cool ass poster for that:

Tom Sturridge Nine Times

Ahhh sweet, our ruby-lipped dream king has a new photo-shoot to show off with! This one is for The Laterals magazine, and there's a whiff of the interview at this link here -- well they might not be forthcoming with the whole of that but I've got all the photos dammit! Too many of them are in black-and-white -- you shoot Tom's lips in color, you fools! That's like Photography 101. It's right there in the beginner's book. The first thing they teach you in college. Rainbows? Parrots? Tom Sturridge's Lips? COLOR FILM. But you should still click on after the jump and check the photos out anyway...

Good Morning, World

I feel a little guilty directing you to Interview Magazine this morning after they put that horrible thing on the cover this month, but they do also have a chat with Tom Sturridge in the same new issue, and we do love Tom Sturridge. (He talks about performing Sea Wall / A Life on Broadway and working with Jake Gyllenhaal a bit in it, even.) The fact that he is chatting with his "friend Anna Wintour" also merits a demerit but his pretty lips still win out. Speaking of he looks lovely in the photoshoot, and I've got that much for you. First though -- have we talked about Sandman? I can't remember. Well if anybody has anything to say about Sandman do so in the comments, and now we will hit the jump for the photos of Tom and his lips...

My Eyes Are Yours, Boyd Holbrook

What did I do this past weekend, you ask? Why I am glad you care. I will tell you. I finally binged Netflix's Sandman series, is what I did. I had no intention of doing that but that happened and I'm glad it did. I've never read any of the Sandman comics but I've read enough Gaiman otherwise and... this certainly was a Neil Gaiman product. I'm still not entirely convinced his books can be adapted to the screen without me groaning at goth fetishism that works better on the page -- Dream isn't the most compelling of leading men, y'all -- but there was enough goofing off at the edges that I was entertained. Particularly by Boyd Holbrook playing a gay maniac (my favorite kind!) and by Gwendoline Christie simply existing. If there will indeed be lots more of her in the next season as teased they will totally have me back happily. Have you watched it? Thoughts? 

I think the SANDMAN has been surveying my dreams because all of this Boyd Holbrook stuff is ITTT #NowWatching #TheSandman pic.twitter.com/leEn4DGeK7

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 21, 2022

Can Tom Sturridge Try On the Catsuit At Least?

It took me a little while to totally warm up to the Tom Sturridge thing, but he knew the way to my heart -- make out with both Garrett Hedlund (see here) and Douglas Booth (see here) in movies, check! Grow the world's sleaziest mustache and prance about in a redcoat uniform, check! Oh and then give a tremendously excellent performance on stage in a show that also starred Jake Gyllenhaal, guaranteeing I'll see said show more than once -- check and check. Honestly he was SO GOOD in his half of Sea Wall / A Life on and off Broadway, so deeply moving and emotionally affecting, that I'll now follow him anywhere, even if he doesn't press those gorgeous ruby lips onto any pretty menfolk ever again. (Although what a waste that would be, right?) 

Anyway I have warmed to the Tom Sturridge thing and then some now, and so today's news that our boy's joined the cast of Olivier Assayas' new HBO series adaptation of Irma Vep, Assayas' own 1996 film, is a welcome thing to me! Since Assayas himself is making this series I have high hopes for it -- in case you hadn't noticed that man is still churning out excellence. Alicia Vikander in the series' lead role might not be Maggie Cheung, but measuring any human being by Maggie Cheung standards is unfair to literally every person on earth not named Maggie Cheung. There is only one Maggie Cheung, unfortunately! 

And after the excellence of The Green Knight (reviewed here) I will admit me and Alicia are on good terms right this minute. On that note did y'all see the rumor going around that her husband, one Michael Fassbender, was spotted HOLDING A BABY on the set of this exact series, which is now being filmed??? Is Fassy a daddy? (I mean besides my daddy, which he, at three months younger than me, has always nevertheless been.) Congrats to them if the rumor is true!

Boyd Holbrook Nine Times

I have been feeling a little guilty Boyd-wise after I basically called his new werewolf movie real bad awful trash in my review from Sundance (in a few more words, anyway) -- cuz hey, we still like lookin' at you, Boyd! Don't let one bad review get ya down. I mean what do I know anyway? And hey his next project -- he's playing "The Corinthian" in that Netflix adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman that announced its cast last week (also including Tom Sturridge!) -- promises to be a big something. So here are a few old photos (circa 2012-ish) I stumbled upon (via) to remember the happier times, and inspire us for the future ones, after the jump...

Good Morning, World

 

Let us greet this Monday with some Pablo Schreiber (via his Insta) -- have any of you kept up with American Gods? I stopped watching after the first season the second MNPP pal Bryan Fuller left the building, but I do appreciate checking back in on the menfolk he gathered for its cast now and again. Especially, if you check our Tumblr, one Mr. Whittle...

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... circling the block with Jon Hamm.

In the most obscene display of gratuitous gray sweatpants since Justin Theroux rocked the nation to its very core on The Leftovers the new Amazon series of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's book Good Omens went and had Jon Hamm -- Jon Hamm, Noted Bulge Aficionado -- of all people jog towards a camera while wearing gray sweatpants, and to be quite frank (heh) I'm surprised he didn't knock both my eyes out.

I actually keep forgetting that Amazon dropped the show already and I haven't yet started watching -- I have to thank some rando on Tumblr for alerting me to this scene's presence. Randos on Tumblr are doing the lord's work. Anyway if any of you have watched the series yet I'd appreciate a heads up (heh) on the show, quality-wise.

Good Morning, World

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Okay is anybody watching the second season of American Gods? When Bryan Fuller left the show I decided not to keep watching it, out of solidarity with my man -- this might be the only thing that Gillian Anderson and I ever have in common so I'm gonna fucking embrace it -- but I am curious what they're doing. I have absolutely no idea! I have avoided the entire kit and the entire kaboodle. Or I had ignored it until I saw that they got Ricky Whittle naked on this week's episode anyway. Ya got me, American Gods. So if you are watching the show tell me how it is in the comments, and the rest of us after the jump we'll take in the full Whittle...

Barry Keoghan is Your Yorick, Yours & Mine

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Barry Keoghan gave last year's greatest performance not given by a person named Timothée Chalamet in Yorgos Lanthimos' The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and we've been smitten ever since - hell he even makes us look back at Dunkirk askance and we fucking hated Dunkirk. So needless to say when I read this afternoon's news that Barry's been cast as Yorick Brown, the lead in the forthcoming Y: The Last Man series -- a series I have been covering every up and down in production for almost exactly a decade (seriously my first post, titled "Shia's Pecker Is Of Dire Importance" was in July of 2008!) -- well, I met the news with a buoyant jig. A jig, people!

Don't look at me like that, Barry. Anyway after going through several iterations the Y: The Last Man series (which started as a comic book written by Brian K. Vaughn that I deeply recommend) is now being shepherded to FX by Michael Green, aka the dude who gave us the first season of American Gods alongside Bryan Fuller. Of course making a pilot isn't the same as going to series, so they've got to film this thing first. But Barry is a big heck-yes in the right direction.

Other names have been cast too, including Diane Lane as Yorick's mother and Imogen Poots as his sister - you can read through them all here (Thanks Mac). A couple of weeks ago there was a rumor that Jodie Foster was going to play the major character of "Dr. Allison Mann" but that casting hasn't been officially announced yet so we'll have to see if the rumor's true. For now though we're just gonna keep jigging over our boy Barry. Most excellent!

Screw it

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I know I already posted that shot last week (along with a gif of her molesting Jake Gyllenhaal) but let's focus on the woman in the picture this time -- that is the director Floria Sigismondi, who made the kick-ass rock bio-pic The Runaways with Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart back in 2010 and since then has been doing music videos and TV (she recently directed an episode of American Gods). She was with Jake because she directed all of the New York Times' horror-themed "Great Performances" videos this year. 

Aaaanyway today her next project's been announced and it sounds promising! She's making a new movie version of Henry James' classic ghost story The Turning of the Screw, which in itself is nice (it's a classic story for a reason) but also dangerous -- it's already been turned into a great movie, The Innocents with Deborah Kerr. What pushes me from skeptically enthusiastic to full-on Yes Please is that her star will be the great Mackenzie Davis.

Mackenzie Davis who has yet to be anything less than great in anything I have ever seen her in - I did not like the Blade Runner sequel this summer but man oh man would I have watched a movie that took off with her character instead of all the dopey Ryan Gosling shit. Davis will play the Deborah Kerr role of the governess at a haunted country estate taking care of two creepy kids. 

Also starring in The Turning (which is what they're calling this movie, although I wish they'd just add the Screw part back because "The Turning" sounds like they're making a movie about making sure both sides of the toast is evenly browned) is Finn Wolfhard, an actor who is really named that, that you know from Stranger Things and It. One assumes he'll be playing the older son. It's a shame they're casting the role with a 14 year old - if they aged the kids down they could hire Timothée Chalamet as the childrens' father; we already saw him all gothed up for Floria in his "Great Performances" video last week and I'd watch a full-length movie of that!

Pic of the Day

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Hey look it's Jon Hamm in the Good Omens adaptation!

Can you believe this thing is finally being made?
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Good Morning, Gratuitous Paolo Roldan

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While I hesitate to call what the Filipino model Paolo Roldan did on the finale of American Gods "acting" per se - he showed up in the middle of an ancient outer-space orgy (I mean... you are watching this show right?), sauntered half naked towards the camera, dropped whatever little bit of clothing he had been covering up with and mounted the goddess Bilquis...

... I still think he should get credit for it, and 

his barely-there IMDb page gives him no credit. 

So let's give him some credit! 

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JESUS CHRISTS @BryanFuller who did the casting on this episode & can you bring these two with you the next time you're in NYC? #AmericanGods pic.twitter.com/sfMOE3foaW

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 20, 2017

The funny thing was when I went looking for pictures of Paolo yesterday I discovered that I had already at some distant point in the past gathered up a bunch of pictures of him that I had forgotten about, and never posted...

... since I usually have plenty of Proper Actor Beefcake to post when I need or want to post beefcake, and so don't need to often resort to models for it. But seeing as how he's now a veteran of The Bryan Fuller Experience... well, we have an excuse!

Point being that even though you'll see a whole lot of pictures (over one hundred!) of Paolo after the jump this was an easy post to get together because I had already gotten it together. I was just waiting for the world to catch up to me, as usual, since I am such a goddamned trail-blazer...

Ricky Whittle Four Times

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I posted a couple other shots from this, Ricky's Men's Fitness cover shoot, over on the Tumblr last week or so, see those here. (thx Mac) But these are new! Speaking of "new" I am a week behind on American Gods so nobody say anything about what happened this week, please. I will watch it tonight, hold yer yap til then please and thank you. (I have seen pictures of Chenoweth going around though, whee!) That out of the way hit the jump for the rest of this shoot...

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... hearing the ocean with Pablo Schreiber.

I can't quite hear it yet, Pablo! 

Bring it closer! CLOOOOSEERRRRR. 

Anyway shame on us on two counts - number one there've been several pictures worth sharing posted to Mr. Schreiber's Instagram over the past month that we're just now getting to, and number two we haven't watched this week's episode of American Gods yet. We'll make up for the second part tonight, but we can do something about the first part right this second! Hit the jump for ten more pictures...

Star Woman

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Gillian Anderson is back on American Gods on Sunday (her character Media already showed up in Lucy drag once) and she's bringing along some Bowie brilliance! You can watch a preview here...

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5 Off My Head: Off With Her Heart

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The poster for Darren Aronofsky's next film mother! made a big sticky wet splash this weekend and with good cause - that's an image that grabs you by the... well, if I say "heart" am I already getting too redundant for my own good? Anyway we still don't know much about the film except it's some sort of thriller about a couple tormented by unwelcome guests (and I still haven't figured out who of the cast is the "couple" and who plays the "guests" but the film stars Jennifer Lawrence, Domhnall Gleeson, Javier Bardem and Michelle Pfeiffer) - it's not out until October, so we'ves till got some time.

"I was using that."

But in a weird coincidence last night's episode of American Gods, besides featuring some astonishingly hot gay sex, also featured a heart being torn out of a woman's chest! Granted this was part of an afterlife trial, but if Heart-Ripping is in vogue this minute I guess it's as good a time as any to make a fun list...

5 Fun Scenes of Heart Trauma

1. Rorsach (Ron Palillo) getting his heart punched out 

by Jason Voorhees in Friday the 13 Part VI: Jason Lives 

(watch here)

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2. Bart losing love on The Simpsons

3. The brutal beautiful first murder in Dario Argento's film Suspiria

-- you can see more here

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4. The "Doggy Bag" dream sequence
from Dumb and Dumber

5. And of course the greatest Heart Ripping scene in all of movies- probably never to be beaten, when the human sacrifice to Kali is lit up in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. (more here)

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And I know there are tons more --

Tell me your faves in the comments!

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Good Morning, World

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So yeah I think we need to talk about American Gods! I had gotten a bunch of requests last night after the episode aired to gif the heck out of the heretofore referred to as "The Gay Fuck Heard Round The World" scene between Salim the sweet sad salesman (played by Omid Abtahi) and the Djinn (played by Mousa Kraish), but I was all set to come in here this morning and toss a couple of establishing gifs y'all's way and say something about how the scene should be appreciated as a whole, not taken out of context, etc etc...

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WHAT A COINCIDENCE
MY EYEBALLS ARE ON FIRE RIGHT NOW TOO #AmericanGods pic.twitter.com/p7hAajeUOa

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) May 15, 2017

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... but then I rewatched the scene this morning to make those "establishing gifs" and I couldn't stop, I watched the scene three times in a row and I giffed the whole damn thing. Once you get over the shock and awe of what you're seeing - sex between two men presented as simultaneously pure and beautiful & sweaty and hot - you begin to take in all the little details: the Djinn's fiery eyes reflecting in Salim's, were one that I found especially moving. 

Anyway it's one for the ages - bravo to all involved. This matters. We've never seen this on television before - gay male love (much less between two Middle Eastern men!) represented with such tenderness and care and beauty. (And heat. Did I meantion the heat?) And as Bryan Fuller said in an interview about the scene, "I hope there are Middle Eastern young men masturbating to that scene.” And who are we not to aid in that noble cause however we can? So watch the show and then when you have hit the jump for the gifs...