Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Your Friends and Neighbors (1998)

Terri: We can talk. I just don't want
something up my ass while we're doing it.

Happy 25 to this movie, which is a lot of movie indeed.
Anybody seen it lately? It's been a long time for me
but everything Jason Patric related is burned into my brain...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Nurse Betty (2000)

Charlie: So, give me an example of a stupid person
doing a stupid thing. Not being stupid yourself,
you're equipped to know. Right?
Del: Are we gonna get down to business here or not?
Charlie: Just give me one example.
Del: One? OK, OK. Burger King opens up. These assholes
get excited and line up like they've never seen one before.
Like it's some kind of five-star restaurant.
Charlie: Five stars?
Del: Yeah.
Charlie: How about it, Wesley? That sound stupid to you?
Wesley: No, that's ignorant. They just don't know any better.

Neil Labute's Nurse Betty was released 20 years ago today. Anybody watched it recently? I remember digging it a lot at the time (I even have the DVD buried somewhere) but when I think about it now all I really remember (apologies to Renee Zellweger) are Aaron Eckhart's tighty-whities...

Ed Skrein Rescue Us

.

So I tried to watch Midway last night and oh my god you guys that movie is actually unwatchable! Just absolute unwatchable trash -- I couldn't even finish it, and if I can't finish a movie that stars Patrick Wilson, Woody Harrelson, Luke Evans, Nick Jonas, Alexander Ludwig, Dennis Quaid, Darren Criss, Aaron Eckhart and our favorite fucked-up Nicky Hoult doppleganger Ed Skrein here all in period military uniforms then you know something has gone very very very wrong. Part of me kind of enjoys the fact that we've got our own hyper-faggy Michael Bay with Roland Emmerich -- The Gays can make Hollywood Crap too, dammit! But man this movie is one long window-shaking fart. Ugh. 

There weren't even nearly enough shots like that of Patrick Wilson from behind! What were you thinking, Emmerich??? Anyway for the forty minutes of the movie I did make it through the only thing keeping me hanging on was looking at Ed Skrein, and as I distracted myself by also googling him while the interminable movie droned on and on I realized that I have somehow never posted this photo-shoot of Ed here on the blog proper? I think it's on the Tumblr but MNPP home-base deserves these shots, especially after all the suffering I went through staring at that movie last night. Hit the jump for the rest plus a bonus one...

Lots of Privates on Display

.

Grab the biggest pistol within reach and ready yourself, for the second trailer for Midway is here! Roland Emmerich, gay director of Independence Day and Stonewall, has scooped up all the hot pieces -- Luke Evans and Patrick Wilson and Darren Criss and Nick Jonas and Alexander Ludwig and Ed Skrein...

... and Aaron Eckhart and Dennis Quaid and Woody Harrelson and a ton of young actors who I don't know by name yet but who will inevitably look real gosh darn cute in their WWII uniforms -- for his recreation of the famous battle, out in theaters on November 8th. The first trailer is at this link but you probably don't need that now, since here's the bigger one:

.

.

One thing I will add: did you catch the character posters?

.

Good merciful grief pic.twitter.com/15Bg6tgl9p

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 10, 2019

The Poster For Midgay I Mean Midway

.

Given the cast that openly gay blockbuster director Roland Emmerich has (putting the ass in)  assembled for Midway, his big-screen telling of the 1942 WWII battle -- which includes Luke Evans and Woody Harrelson and Patrick Wilson and Ed Skrein and Alexander Ludwig and Nick Jonas and Darren Criss and Aaron Eckhart and those are just the name actors, check out the whole twink-full list here --  you'd think that the first poster for the film (via) might look more like a greasy beefcake scene from infamous annual Herndon Monument naval academy pole-climb. Something like...

Maybe they're saving that for closer to its 

release date? Midway is out on November 8th.

.

Fly By Ludwig

.

I guess I should probably just sit on my hands for a bit - not a bad proposition, with these pictures in front of me - and wait for Roland Emmerich to finish announcing all the man-meat he's tossing in his movie grinder for his World War II picture called Midway - just a couple of hours ago I told y'all how Darren Criss was joining the cast already stuffed with the likes of Luke Evans & Patrick Wilson & Woody Harrelson & Ed Skrein & Aaron Eckhart & Dennis Quaid & Nick Jonas. And now comes word that Alexander Ludwig here...

... who is mostly known for the TV show Vikings - and you can click thru our archives on the actor right here to acquaint yourself better! - well you can lather him up and throw Alex right on top of the Midway cast and call him the cherry! (Thx Mac) At least temporarily, that is, until some fresh twink gets gathered up into Emmerich's broad embrace. Anyway like I did with Darren -- because why post one picture when you can post a dozen? -- I've got some more pictures for you after the jump...

I Am Link

.

--- Hammer It Home - Collider chatted with Luca Guadagnino and his Call Me By Your Name stars Armie Hammer and Timothee Chalamet at TIFF about the film and found out from the director that his original cut was four hours long! You can watch the video of their chat here. Fingers crossed that the four-hour cut sees the light of day on the blu-ray and the additional hour and a half or however much it is is nothing but real-time footage of peach-fucking from everybody. Everybody! Timothee, Armie, Luca, me! Aaanyway how about that new picture there? (click to embiggen; thx Mac) Good stuff. I've got less than two weeks til I see the movie! Let's not blow up the world before then, at least, please.

--- RIP HDS - I wish I had time to write up something good on the passing of Harry Dean Stanton, one of the greatest actors we've ever had the pleasure of spending pretend time with, but if you want a good What To Watch then head on over to Rolling Stone where my pal Sean and a couple of his fellow contributors listed HDS' ten best roles. Truth be told I am not allowed to write anything until is ee Paris, Texas, which I still haven't -- they're doing a week-long series on HDS at The Quad here in NYC starting this weekend and I'm gonna try to make it to the screening there.

--- Russian Dynasty - Matthew Weiner of Mad Men fame is making an anthology series for Amazon called The Romanoffs, which will follow a different (fictional) person around the world who thinks they're a descendant of the infamous Russian family. Was do I, as a non-Mad-Men fan, care? Because the cast he's lined up includes Isabelle Huppert, Aaron Eckhart, Christina Hendricks, Andrew Rannells, John Slattery, Jack Huston, Amanda Peet, and Corey Stoll. (Although if it was just the first and last names I'd be there honestly.) (thx Mac)
.

--- Poison Pals - There's a chat with three of the VIPs of New Queer Cinema in this month's Out Magazine (I guess they're celebrating their 25th year so they're looking back - they chatted with producer Christine Vachon and directors Gregg Araki and Tom Kalin, about what it was like on the ground making gay movies back int he 90s. True story: my first job in NYC was very very close to being Vachon's personal assistant. Now there's a separate timeline.

--- Hooray For Hiroyuki - Two big roles for the hot and perennially under-used Hiroyuki Sanada hit the other day, which we were really hoping for after he low-key stole Life from the bigger names - he's signed on for the next Avengers movie, although given those movies now have a literal cast of millions I don't think we should get our hopes up that he'll have much to do. No word on who he's playing but the folks at the link seem to think the Yakuza will play a part in the Infinity Wars movies. And continuing the theme of "hire the Japanese actor to play stereotypes" Sanada's also signed on to Westworld's second season and everybody's just assuming he'll be a part of the neighboring Samurai-world, which we got a glimpse of last year.
.

--- Small Town Surrealism - If you still don't want to stop thinking about David Lynch's Twin Peaks third season well then come sit next to me, friend-oh. Here's a pair of worthwhile links to feed the beast -- first up this chat at Vulture with the real-world owner of the Laura Palmer house who ended up getting a surprise small role in the finale is a true delight; she comes off as the coolest lady slash nerd around. And secondly even though this long-form piece on the show for Harpers was written before the show ended ( I think they said it had only aired thirteen episodes by the time they published) it's one of the finest, sharpest pieces I've read anywhere about the pleasures of Living Through Lynch.
.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... playing Show & Teller.

Last March Miles Teller showed off some beefing-up pictures of himself, which he said were in preparation for a boxing movie he was doing - well now we know that the movie's called Bleed For This and a trailer (see below) and we've all got a whole lotta leopard-print thong and tighty-whities to go along with it. (thx Luc)

.

.

My feelings towards Mr. Teller veer wildly from moment to moment - he's such a douchebag, King of the Douchebags really, but, well, sometimes you need a little douchebag in your life. And this movie, leopard-print thong and all, is surely leaning into the douchebag... so maybe it'll work? We'll find out when it's out in November, I guess.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Erin Brockovich (2000)

Ms. Sanchez: Let's be honest here. $20 million dollars

 is more money than these people have ever dreamed of.

Erin Brockovich: Oh see, now that pisses me off. First of all, since the demur we have more than 400 plaintiffs and... let's be honest, we all know there are more out there. They may not be the most sophisticated people but they do know how to divide and $20 million isn't *shit* when you split it between them. 

Second of all, these people don't dream about being rich. They dream about being able to watch their kids swim in a pool without worrying that they'll have to have a hysterectomy at the age of *twenty*. Like Rosa Diaz, a client of ours. Or have their spine deteriorate, like Stan Blume, *another* client of ours. So before you come back here with another lame ass offer, I want you to think real hard about what your spine is worth, Mr. Walker. Or what you might expect someone to pay you for your uterus, Ms. Sanchez. Then you take out your calculator and you multiply that number by a hundred. Anything less than that is a waste of our time.

[Ms. Sanchez picks up a glass of water]

Erin Brockovich: By the way, we had that water brought in 

specially for you folks. Came from a well in Hinkley.

Ms. Sanchez: I think this meeting is over.

Ed Masry: Damn right it is. 

At first whenever I think of this movie I always have a hard time jumping over the hurdle of the fact that Julia Roberts stole the Oscar away from Ellen Burstyn in Requiem For A Dream. Which she did. But once I do jump that hurdle I remember that I actually love Erin Brockovich, and think it's a hell of a rousing movie-star movie. Roberts is terrific in the role - just try to tell me you can't hear her voice, her every inflection, delivering every single one of those words written above. She totally owns it. Anyway the movie came out fifteen years ago tomorrow, if you can believe that. Fifteen years and I'm still having dirty dreams about Aaron Eckhart's biker!

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... sizing up Aaron Eckhart.

It's Aaron's 47th birthday today and so I went looking back through our Aaron archives and I realized much to my dismay I've never giffed the hell out of this scene in Nurse Betty where his pants are falling off, and that's a darn shame. This cannot stand! So grab onto your tighty-whities and hit the jump...

Frankenstein is So Hot Right Now

.

About a month ago we reported on the two movies currently in production that are about the author Mary Shelley - the director of Wadjda is making one with Elle Fanning, and then there's another one starring Sophie "Sansa Stark" Turner that's being made by a woman named Coky Giedroyc.

Funnily enough Giedroyc has directed a couple of episodes of Showtime's Penny Dreadful, which features, that's correct, its own Victor Frankenstein (Mmm Harry Treadaway) story mashed up therein with other tales of Gothic woe. (As an aside, I love that both of these Mary Shelley films are being helmed by women, don't you?)

There's also that Frankenstein movie starring James McAvoy as the Mad Doctor and Daniel Radcliffe as his assistant Igor, which is supposed to be out next October, and then of course every other week it seems that  Guillermo del Toro talks about how desperately he wants to make his take on the material. Oh and a couple of years ago Danny Boyle did that stage version in London with Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller, and then of course...

... there was that. That was a thing. Even though we might be trying to forget, that was a thing. Anyway, you get the gist. Frank is having a moment. Which brings us to today's news...

... that Candyman (and Paperhouse!) director Bernard Rose is making his own version, which will be from the point of view of the, um... monster - I hesitate on the word "monster" since he will be played by pretty Aussie Xavier Samuel. Here's what Deadline says:

"Frankenstein is set in present day Los Angeles and told from the perspective of Adam/The Monster (Samuel), who is created by a husband and wife team of eccentric scientists only to be met with nothing but aggression and violence from the world around him. Danny Huston and Carrie-Anne Moss will play Victor and Elizabeth Frankenstein in a cast that also includes Rose’s Candyman star Tony Todd. Rose adapted the script himself, updating Shelley’s classic tome"

I love Paperhouse (and Candyman for that matter, although that's a slightly more qualified love) so much that I will follow Bernard Rose to the ends of the Earth and back, so if he wants to tell us his own Frankenstein tale, so be it. I do love the spin that this couple created something as pretty as Xavier Samuel though - I hope he gives the story a kinky sex twist, which would be a novel way to go.

One more thing: this reminds me that there's a great story left to be told attached to the Frankenstein story - that of Elsa Lanchester, the actress who played the Bride of Frankenstein and led a helluva life besides that, which she documented in her phenomenal autobiography. Instead of another Mary Shelley movie why not Elsa? You couldn't get a richer character up on the screen than her.

Good Morning, World

.

Happy 48, Jason Patric! And it's not Aaron Eckhart's birthday but happy Tuesday, Aaron! This scene from Your Friends & Neighbors makes me happy, I feel like I should spread the happy around. Happy happy happy. It also makes me feel the need for a "Today's Fanboy Delusion" post, cuz today I'd rather be...

... dropping the soap with these two.

Lemme tell ya what.

.

I Am Link

.

--- Star Lord Lover - Well I wan't expecting to ever have a robotic metal-helmet fetish introduced into my life, but then they went and put Chris Pratt in one in his Guardians of the Galaxy shape and now, I just don't know. I guess that's where we are.

--- And Speaking of sexy rough-n-tumble superhero types, Captain America isn't pussyfooting around those DC dudes a bit - Disney says the third Marvel movie in the saga of Chris Evans' bouncing arse will not back down from its release date even though Batman Vs. Superman or whatever they're calling it also plans to be belly-flopping onto the exact same date. Well I have enough room for at least Chris and Henry Cavill in my... heart. Yeah, heart, that's it.

--- Cannibal Feast - Today's lunchtime read - a wonderfully thorough interview (beware spoilers for what we've seen so far) with Bryan Fuller about what we've seen on the second season of Hannibal, and where we're headed. Season Three talk, ho! I finally caught up with Friday's episode last night (I knew there was sexy stuff and I didn't want to watch it with my mother while she was here, sue me) and goddamn it grossed me out. (thanks Mac)
.

--- Tyrannosaurus Rowr - I never watched The Office but Andy Buckley's been around in enough random things that he's at least a familiar (cute) face to me - he's just signed on for a role in the new Jurassic Park movie - hopefully he's playing Chris Pratt's man lover. A lover, who is a man.

--- Peggy Prowled - We've been waiting for something from Bryan Bertino, the director of The Strangers, for ages - now there's word he's making There Are Monsters, a movie about a woman and her daughter trapped in their house by, you guessed it, monsters -- and it will star Elisabeth Moss! I am so down with this. bertino actually has another horror something called Mockingbird already finished, but no word on when we're seeing that.

--- Queen Blood - It's been a very long time since I've read Clive Barker's Books of Blood in full so my memory of the story "Jacqueline Ess" is extremely foggy, but Lena Headey's just signed on to star in a movie version of it so I guess I'll have my memory jogged. (How good was she on this week's Game of Thrones, by the way?)

--- Man Or Muse - Since he's the king of Cannes this year, with two big movies in competition, we're hearing a lot of Robert Pattinson things right now - here's some new pictures and clips from David Michod's The Rover and Cronenberg's Map to the Stars, and here's some quotes from the boy-man-vampire on how rough the Twilight critics were on him and how he might team up with Harmony Korine next.

---  Surf's Nope - Gerard Butler apparently decided that one shitty surfing movie on his resume was plenty, and has dropped out of the remake of Point Break. We should expect a replacement announcement soon I guess, cuz the studio is all over making this thing happen. Some exec wants a paid beach vacation, I guess.

--- Women on the Verge - Last night The Film Experience's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" series took on Robert Altman's great great great film 3 Women, with Sissy Spacek and Shelley Duvall - hit up this link here for links outwards to all the posts across the web.

--- Jock Rock - Every time I read the name Finn Wittrock I am immediately transported to an episode of The Flintstones, so thankfully I don't read the name Finn Wittrock all that often, I have more important things to have on my mind than Barney Rubble. Like movies where Aaron Eckhart's playing a football coach! But now the two shall meet - Finn Wittrock (he was in Noah and he's in Angelina Jolie's upcoming movie) is set to play a University of Texas player, apparently well-known and regarded or something, and Eckhart's his coach, and hopefully the entire thing is set in the lockerroom.

--- Off Agent - Wolf Creek director Greg McLean's next movie, the "micro-budgeted" horror flick 6 Miranda Drive with Kevin Bacon and Radha Mitchell, has gotten a new cast-mate - Ming-Na, who can currently be seen rocking a lot of bodysuit-type outfits while scowling on Agents of SHIELD, will be playing something-or-other. I am gonna make a guess: the movie's about a family that "unwittingly" brings a supernatural force home with them from the Grand Canyon (who would "wittingly" do such a thing?) - I've seen enough horror movies to know the ethnic person in the cast will probably have some tie to the supernatural world. That's how these things work.
.

--- Snow In New York - Here in New York BAM has announced the movies that will be playing their CinemaFest at the end of this month, and their centerpiece film is none other than Bong Joon-ho's long delayed here in the US Snowpiercer, with Chris Evans and Tilda Swinton. I have already seen and reviewed the movie thanks to this here wonderful internet, but it might be worth it to see it on a big screen, it's a gorgeously shot thing. They're also showing David Wain's rom-com snarkfest They Came Together with Amy Poehler and Paul Rudd. (thanks Mac)

--- And finally, speaking of New York film festivals, here's the campaign page and down below is the fundraising video for the NYC Indie Film Fest, which is celebrating its fifth year and is trying to raise some cash to expand.Go give them some money, I want all the film festivals I can get please.

.

.

Good Morning, World

.

A happy 46th birthday to Aaron Eckhart - I feel as if we need to strap him down in the back of a limo and tear his clothes open, a la this scene in Thank You For Smoking, and force him to rethink his career choices of late - it seems as if he looked at what Liam Neeson was doing as said, "Sure, why not, mama needs a vacation home," but then he stapled together a bunch of script pages that fell on the floor of his agent's office and handed those in to be made into a series of awful movies (that's how movies get made right?) presenting him as a tough guy, and so we end up with tripe like I, Frankenstein and Olympus Has Fallen and Battle Los Angeles (oh god Battle Los Angeles was so so terrible) instead of more Rabbit Holes. Rethink yourself, Aaron! And while we have him strapped down in the back of this limo with his clothes off, well... we might as well take advantage... I mean he's here already... it only makes sense.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... pressing the flesh with I, Frankenstein.

What the hell is going on in Aaron Eckhart's shorts in that left-hand shot?!? (click to embiggen) I mean I know what's going on, I am a grown-up, and one with excellent penis recognition skills at that, but that's an awful lot of something going on during a photo-shoot that's for a mainstream publication and not something called Honcho. Why so excitable, Aaron? Well whatever it is, keep it up. And up. After the jump more shots from the beach-bound photo shoot of bulge...

I Kissenstein

.

Hey there everybody! So I am off for the next few days to make with some terribly belated holiday visitings, so you'll have to make do without MNPP til... oh let's say Tuesday. We'll say Tuesday, because it is indeed Tuesday that we mean. Funny how that works. Anyway yeah y'all have a great next few days, there's Aaron Eckhart and Thomas Jane kissing to keep you company, and bye.

.

I Am Link

.

--- Him There - There was a long article slash interview with Spike Jonze in the NYT over the weekend all about his new film Her, which I saw and adored at The New York Film Festival last month. I haven't read this article yet; I'm gonna once I finish this post. Let's read it together! On your mark get set... oh wait, you have to finish reading this post first. I'll give you a minute. I'll just stare at that picture of Spike until you're done. Mmmm Spike.

--- Fly Swatter - David Cronenberg of all people has taken Stanley Kubrick to task for being too cold of a film-maker, saying that he himself is much more intimate and personal. He's not a fan of The Shining either, saying that Kubrick really understood the horror genre.

--- Sex Maniac - We finally have a clip involving sexytimes in Lars Von Trier's Nymphomanic to look at, and it is indeed not sexytimes in the slightest. There is some naked Shia LaBeauf, some humping, and I think I see him lapping at some lady business in there. It's all in split-screen with cheetahs and piano playing. Right on, Lars. Right on.And speaking of Shia, here's the red-band trailer for Charlie Countryman, which we've spoken of previously; I actually totally wanna see it, the more I see of it.

--- Melisandre's Kid - The producers of the Insidious movies are making Incarnate, starring Aaron Exckhart as an "unconventional exorcist" who can get into the possessed's unconscious mind. I care because they just hired Carice Van Houten to play the mother of a possessed little boy that Exckhart's trying to cure, and I will always care what Carice is doing.

--- After Splice - There's a new horror anthology television series airing in Canada called Darknet, and the pilot was directed by Vincenzo Natali (the director of Cube and Splice), and it is online now, you can watch it here. I thought Splice was amazing, even though I know that's a pretty divisive movie.

--- Madding Man - There's the first picture of Matthias Schoaenaerts and Carey Mulligan in Far From the Madding Crowd over at this link - that's the adaptation of Thomas Hardy's book from Thomas Vinterberg, director of The Hunt.

--- Camp Killer - Toss this on the trash heap of shit-ideas - Sleepaway Camp, a movie that belongs to the 1980s and nowhere else, is being remade. I can't even imagine what they could even have to add to what already stands. How are they ever going to top that ending? Why would anyone even want to try? I mean I know the answer is "money," the answer is always "money," but I just feel depressed for these people, that this is what they've chosen to do with their lives.

--- Resurrect Me - In related news, the Pet Semetary remake has found a director, and it's someone I actually really like - Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, the Spanish director of 28 Weeks Later (and I know this is blasphemy to some people but I actually prefer Weeks to Days). Anyway there is a lot of stuff I like about the first PS movie (that kid is amazing, and ? in the back room, argh!) but I could see you totally making a new movie out of the material, and finding something new to say. Course the script's by the guy who wrote Halloween H20, so.....

--- Face Punch - Jake Gyllenhaal is circling the boxing drama Southpaw (which apparently was going to star Eminem once upon a time) from Training Day director Antoine Fuqua. It was written by the guy who makes Sons of Anarchy. Once upon a time I'd have a lot to say about Jake making a boxing movie but I'm so worried about him right now with his current skinniness that I can't even.

--- And Speaking of projects I might normally have more to say about if I weren't trying to run through as much as possible here, Michael Fassbender is going to make a gangster movie called Trespass Amongst Us, which will be scored by The Chemical Brothers.

,