I Am Link

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--- Full Sensation - When they released the loooong list of names of people who were are going to be in the Wachowskis new show for Netflix last week my eyes must have rolled back into my head before I got to the end because I totally missed that my favorite new Almodovar piece of meat was up in there - Miguel Ángel Silvestre (who has maybe dropped the Ángel?) will be part of the enormous cast for Sense8, which sounds like it will be Joss Whedon's consciousness-linked flick In Your Eyes multiplied by eight.

--- Ferry Man -  Last week we heard that Wong Kar-wai is working on a new movie already, which he will film next year, but we didn't know anything about it (other than it will apparently star one of China's sexiest men, who's so far unnamed) - now we've got some information on the source of the movie at least, and its story. It's coming from an apparently super-popular-n-China collection of short stories called I Belonged To You, and will focus on one story called "Ferryman" about an affair between a girl and a married artist. 

--- No Hero For You - A couple of months ago it was announced that NBC was reviving its show Heroes for a mini-event type-thing like just got done with 24 on Fox (side-note: I haven't watched any of the latter yet; should I bother? i watched 24 sporadically but never really missed it that much) - now comes word that Milo Ventimiglia and his gravity-defying butt will not be a part of it. What about Adrian Pasdar and his gravity-defying butt, will they at least give us that?

--- Helter Skelter - David Duchovny is making a thirteen-episode series (brief series being all the rage right now) about the cops who were tracking Charles Manson, and Games of Thrones' gay king slash shaving-enthusiast Gethin Anthony is playing the crazy cult leader himself. 

--- Lost Stoker - If you wanna know how to make me lose my effing mind in five seconds flat tell me that the studio forced Park Chan-wook to cut twenty minutes from Stoker - what what what??? That's what Snowpiercer director Bong Joon-ho says in this interview where he's talking about his own well-documented problems with Harvey Weinstein and sure enough, mind lost. Get me a director's cut right now dammit!

--- Secret Guardian - This is one of those times when I dislike the internet's big mouth (and yet here I am contributing to it) - word's leaked on a small cameo in Guardians of the Galaxy by one of our favorite actors; only click over if you don't give a shit about knowing, I guess. I wish I'd have been able to be surprised in the theater by it, myself.

--- The Boy Bird - I love the idea of Daniel Radcliffe playing Robin opposite Ben Affleck in the new Batman stuff! And then he could kill Ben Affleck and star in Robin movies (they could just make it a Batman Beyond movie, or whatever) and we'd all be so much better off.

--- Death Becomes Him - TV Line did a very Ways Not To Die thing with Bryan Fuller this week, getting him to say a little about some of the best death scenes from his death-soaked works, from Dead Like Me to Pushing Daisies to Hannibal. Once upon a time MNPP got Bryan to talk about several of those Daisies deaths, which you can see right here. Those were fun! (thanks Mac)

--- Stop Drop & Tucker - Speaking of Bryan Fuller stuff, this news is CRAZY old (it's from last August) but it totally bypassed me that sexy beast Jonathan Tucker (who recently got nearly naked on Hannibal) was cast in High Moon, Bryan's science-fiction series for SyFy. I only caught onto it thanks to Tucker's Instagram account where he posted a video of him dancing in some sort of genie garb - I think they might be filming that pilot right now? Anyway the first thing I expected to see from this show was definitely NOT that, so once again I think we can expect something surprising from Bryan coming our way.

--- And Finally I was so over-worked when it came time to write up my thoughts about Ira Sachs' glorious Love is Strange after Tribeca that I didn't do the movie justice at all, but you should know to see it, see it, see it - it's a great movie; it will probably be one of the year's best. It's out at the end of August, and we just got the first trailer, watch it here.

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Good Morning, World

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It's the 48th birthday of Adrian Pasdar, who gets continued happy birthday wishes from me on the strength of his incesty vibe with Milo Ventimiglia on Heroes and for Near Dark, even though he seems to have graduated to doing voice-over work at this point in his career. Oh, and also for having a spectacular bum. That helps. Keeps the memory fresh. And hey look below it's a picture of him standing in front of book-shelves in just a towel! We know how that does it for me. See more of him here and here.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Near Dark (1987)

Mae: The light that's leaving that star right now will take
a billion years to get down here. You want to know why
you've never met a girl like me before?
Caleb: Yeah. Why?
Mae: Because I'll still be here when the light from that star
gets down here to earth in a billion years. 

Near Dark came out on October 2nd, 1987, exactly twenty-five years ago today. Happy anniversary! It doesn't get nearly enough credit for how influential it was. I don't think you can look at many vampire flicks today and not hear and echo ringing through the years from Jesse and Diamondback's effed-up family unit of bloodsucking psychopaths. 

And then there's the homo-eroticism. Can't forget that. You should go read the piece I wrote on that several years back. We still hate it when they ain't been shaved.

Good Morning, World

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A little vintage Adrian Pasdar on Heroes this morning in honor of his 47th birthday today. Odd how I try to play off something as "vintage" that only aired like three or four years ago. I'm being ridiculous. Anyway see more Adrian here. It's worth it for this NSFW shot alone. Or this one! I miss his incestuous vibe with Milo.

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Pics of the Day

Well thanks, PopWrap! I just lost an hour of my life scanning through this giant collection of pictures from the Awkward Family Photo Booth at a couple recent Cons. But it was worth it, oh was it worth it. A bunch of Buffy and Battlestar stars, amongst many others, posing with their fans... oh to be there. I totally would've posed just like this lady:

Anyway here are a couple more I grabbed, and definitely check out Jarett's choices at PopWrap, he's got some fantastic ones. Wonderful!

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Happy 45, Adrian Pasdar

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Wow I haven't thought about Heroes in ages. Did it end? I don't even know if the show ended or not. As soon as Bryan Fuller skedaddled so went I. Still when I saw it was Adrian's birthday today I was filled with warm remembrances of wishing he and his pretend-brother would make out every time I watched the show. Ahh, memories. Here's some Milo and Adrian, and then some Adrian without clothes on, you know the usual...

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Gratuitous Adrian Pasdar

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It is Mr. Pasdar's 44th birthday today, so a happy one going out to him, and a cause for ogling going out to the rest of us.

Whatever you thought of the Heroes finale this week - and I will concede most of Aaron's points yet admit to enjoying it all the same - my favorite take came from my boyfriend, who called the fact that now that (spoilers, ho!) Nathan Patrelli isn't actually Nathan Petrelli anymore they can totally get away with my incest-demands between Nathan and Peter and it won't really be incest so it's totally okay to do now! So do it!

Ahem. Moving along...

(most pics via) And if it's Pasdar in Near Dark that you crave (and you ought to, he was so pretty in that flick), click here, I posted loads of that back in the day.
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Love The Haircut, Milo

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(via) Why am I always coveting Ventimiglia's hair?
Always him with the cool haircuts. Jealous.

Although - and I do feel comfortable calling this out since I've been taking specific note of it the past several episodes - this haircut appears to be pretty close to the awesome haircut his fake brother (and frequent hugging partner) Adrian Pasdar's been sporting lately. Kinda mixed up with some Robert Pattison I guess.

Wow that was way too much hair talk.

In related news, the first half of the finale of Heroes airs tonight, and I have word from a trusty reliable source that this season's chapter's finale is the best the show has ever delivered. So be excited! Be be excited!
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Brothers In Love

Not really quite sure how I've gone so long without seeing these pictures of Milo Ventimiglia and Adrian Pasdar, otherwise known in Heroes-ville as The Brothers Petrelli. They're from May of last year! God I'm lagging.

And here's a bonus one, just cuz.


Gosh they're affectionate fake siblings, ain't they?
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Unnecessary Remake #I Have Lost Count

Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark is 20 years old this year. How does Hollywood celebrate its anniversary? By announcing a remake, of course! From BD:

"Bloody-Disgusting has been scooped that Samuel Bayer will in fact helm Rogue Pictures' Near Dark remake for Platinum Dunes. Bayer directed music videos for The Smashing Pumpkins, Metallica, Green Day, Garbage and many others. Matt Venne wrote the screenplay that follows a young man who reluctantly joins a travelling "family" of evil vampires, when the girl he'd tried to seduce is part of that group. This will be the next film from Platinum Dunes, which is headed by Brad Fuller and Andrew Form."

Samuel Bayer is from Syracuse, but I'm not giving him any home-field benefit-of-the-doubt. Judging him totally superficially, by his picture on IMDb, he's seen and modeled himself after Lance Henriksen in the original Near Dark (click on the image to the left to embiggen & compare), so I'm guessing he's a fan. So why? Why remake one of the greatest Vampire films ever made? Is money worth your soul??? Bah, what a question.

Who could ever hope to match the genius of Bill Paxton's performance as Severen? Or the hotness of young Adrian Pasdar? Nobody, that's who.

The only chance this has for redemption is this: they use the image-capture process soon to be seen in Beowulf to get Jake Gyllenhaal play every single part. The thought of Jake licking the blood off of his own twin's lip is worth ten bucks, easy. Yeah, I'm cheap. But it's the right thing to do!
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I Hate It When They Ain't Been Shaved

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This is part of the Vampire Blog-A-Thon, an October 30th cross-blog-event, of which you can find many more posts of a bloodsucking-centric nature over at the Film Experience.

(WARNING: There are SPOILERS contained below, as well as even scarier Freshman-level Film & Gender Politics prosthelitizing, as well as copious images of PG-rated man-flesh, homoeroticism, and violence.)

Katheryn Bigelow's Near Dark threw all sorts of the vampire mythos into the blender, but the part that I appreciate most is the omnisexual perversity of Bill Paxton's sick motherfucker Severen. While far from the explicit romp that is the love affair between, say, Louis and Lestat in Interview With The Vampire (I am being sarcastic), Paxton adds a delightful air of homo-tension to his sparring with pretty-but-confused new vamp Caleb, played by pretty-but-confused Adrian Pasdar.

Even outside of his interactions with Paxton, the film doesn't shy away from exploiting Caleb as a hot piece of man-flesh eye-candy. For example, the extended transfusion scene towards the end, where Caleb's father straps his shirtless, sweaty vamp-son down to a table and brings a flush to his cheek once more:


But the best bits of homo-tension are played out with Paxton's Severen. Take, for instance, one of my favorite throw-away moments in all the Vamp-canon, which takes place in what's probably the centerpiece of the film - the vamps take over and slaughter a bar full of people. Caleb's only just been turned, and thrown in with this insane family unit of vamps, and this is his opportunity to prove himself worthy.

Severen is the most outlandishly psychotic of the bunch, reveling in his power, and is positively turned on by showing Caleb how strong he can be now, and after Caleb punches a guy clear across the room (after having been punched himself), Severen can hardly contain himself. So he doesn't:


He reaches right on over, dabs some blood off of Caleb's pouty lip, and exuberantly sucks his finger dry. It's a quick moment, and I'm unsure whether it was in the script or if Paxton was improvising, but... golly I like it. Immediately following his taste-test of Caleb, Severen moves on this hirsute fellow:


Whom he wraps his arms around and details lovingly to how he'd had sex with his mother with his father watching and getting off on it. There's a bit of sweet foreplay before Severen squeezes the guy's head to death, and as he goes in for the bite he winces and says:

"I hate it when they ain't been shaved."

Luckily for Severen, as you can see in that first set of pictures, Caleb is smooth as a baby's bottom, just the way he likes 'em.

Paxton really owns this whole movie; Severen is a sick live-wire whose palpable (and sure, slightly repulsive) attraction to Caleb burns a thousand times brighter than Caleb's sweet puppy love romance with vamp-ingenue Mae. I mean, the most touching moment of the film comes when Caleb finally proves himself to Severen, and Severen gifts Caleb with one of his deadly heel spurs.

Which, of course, means Severen's gotta be killed specatularly before the happy hetero couple can waltz into the sunrise. You just gotta love the way Bigelow frames the start of the final confrontation between Severen and the now-human-again Caleb:


Nothing like having our pretty boy hero laid out prostrate in front of our sexually ambiguous villain's spread legs to get the point across, eh?

So yeah, Severen gets it in the end, leaving the rest of the vamp-family with nothing to do but literally explode in the face of Caleb and Mae's not-so-eternal-anymore love-to-be, but it's Paxton's Severen that walked the walk and talked the talk, right away with the whole movie.

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