Smoke Em If Ya Got Em, Brandon Sklenar

I cannot speak personally pro or anti this weekend's thriller film The Housemaid because I had to miss my screening of it when I fucked up my ankle a couple weeks back -- all I've heard are mixed things though, and those mixed things trend toward the "It's not nearly as campy as it needs to be" so I'm not exactly running out to see it myself. But when it hits streaming? Sure. Probably. I love Amanda Seyfried (who gives a tremendous performance in her other Winter 2025 movie The Testament of Ann Lee). And this marks the third photoshoot (via) of noted hunk Brandon Sklenar that we've posted here at MNPP (see here and see here) so clearly he's in the plus column as well. Anyway it probably won't be as much torture as I found the latest Avatar movie (the other movie out this weekend) to be, so there's that. 

Oh and I guess Bradley Cooper's Is This Thing On? is also out today but I have nothing to say about that movie -- less than nothing. I saw it during NYFF and it left zero point zero percent of an impression on me. Completely forgettable hetero nonsense that totally wastes Laura Dern. Blergh! All that said you might wonder why I'm running through all the movies out this weekend here on a Thursday... well it's because I just found out right this very minute that my office will be closed tomorrow. So it's looking like a three-day weekend for moi! Huzzah! And then next week's a two day week, and then I'm off for nearly two weeks! I'm not saying this to rub it in your face... I'll leave it to Brandon to rub things in your face. Happy weekend!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Nightmare Alley (2021)

Pete: When a man believes his own lies, starts believing that he has the power, he's got shuteye. Because now he believes it's all true. And people get hurt. Good, God-fearing people. And then you lie. You lie. And when the lies end, there it is. The face of God, staring at you straight. No matter where you turn. No man can outrun God, Stan.

Guillermo Del Toro's Nightmare Alley landed in the Criterion Collection this week on glorious 4K, where this gorgeous and deeply under-appreciated gem belongs -- I hope that people will go back and realize they were incorrect in their negative critical asessments now, mainly to prove that I was right and this movie rules. But for other reasons too! Bradley Cooper gives his best performance to date in the film for one, but it's also (as the above quote suggests) a savvy  dissection of our poisoned modern-day political situation without ever being too on-the-nose about it. It's like Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria in that way. It diagnoses the rot. Anyway we also see Bradley Cooper's dick so what have you got to lose? Go watch it! (Looking forward to an upgrade on the gif below with the 4K edition, you best believe it.)

David Corenswet Eleven Times

Maybe it will make some more sense to me why it's Bradley Cooper interviewing David Corenswet for V Man magazine once I read the interview attached to these pictures... oh wait! I just remembered as I typed that sentence that Cooper plays his father in Superman. Nevermind. I get it. And Bradley Cooper probably wants to "get it" too so he's taking any and every chance to be around David and, honestly, we get that too. Anyway David looks sexy as fuck in this shoot (what's new) so let's just set aside my rambling about getting it and get to that instead -- hit the jump for them all...

Nightmares & Fire: Criterion's Month of Violence

Every year October always has my favorite releases from the Criterion Collection -- I think it's the meeting of them ramping up for the holidays plus lots of horror because of Halloween? Anyway they've just announced their October 2025 releases and once again -- my god it's the good shit. Kicking it off they've got Ken Russell's hallucinatory 1980 gem Altered States, which is one of my personal faves -- peak William Hurt turning into a neanderthal after dosing himself with too much psychology? What's not to love? It's Russell at his most bonkers... well okay it's hard to quanitfy "most bonkers" when it comes to Russell but this one's up there. Can't wait to take this in in 4K -- it lands on October 21st.

Next up Guillemo Del Toro's tremendous 2021 noir-carny vision Nightmare Alley is finally finally getting a physical media release (it's a Netflix joint so it hasn't before this) -- I know reactions to this were mixed but I loved it, it's one of my favorite of Del Toro's movies, and I am of the mind that Bradley Cooper gives his best performance to date in it. (aAnd given how much I soured on him otherwise over the past couple of years that's saying something.) Then there's the one title this month I'm unfamiliar with -- Mexican director Arturo Ripstein's 1996 melodrama Deep Crimson -- anyone know it?

Then there are the inevitable 4K upgrades of discs they've released before, but man oh man are these a wild duo of masterpieces -- David Lynch's Twin Peaks prequel Fire Walk With Me and  Georges Franju's 1960 horror classic Eyes Without a Face. You can't go wrong with either of those, which besides being perfect are both gorgeous to look at and will no doubt stun in 4K. Oh and then there's a double dose of David Cronenberg joints -- his most recent film The Shrouds (which hasn't gotten nearly enough love if you ask me) and his 2006 neo-noir A History of Violence. The latter has quite the surprising cover -- personally I love it but I feel as if it might be divisive? Thoughts?

Good Morning, Cillian

Even though I had some mixed feelings on Oppenheimer -- specifically its third act and Robert Downey Jr.'s ham-tastic performance -- I liked it far more than I have any Chris Nolan movie in a long time and I'm not feeling as terrible about the possibility (probability) of it winning a bunch of Oscars as I would''ve been had it continued my usual "uggggh" towards Nolan. I don't know what exact percentage of that you can chalk up to Cillian Murphy getting the lead and him being per usual great, but it's not a small one, and so I've very much been feeling the Cillian lately. Especially after a recent 28 Days Later re-watch...

I'm re-watching 28 DAYS LATER for the first time in a very long time and I was saying something to my bf when Cillian Murphy's shaved face was revealed and I one hundred percent lost every single thought I had in my head pic.twitter.com/JMFhU60P17

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 13, 2024

Anyway he's looking absolutely stunning in these photos for GQ UK, which he's covering this month -- you can read the interview right here. With me, since I haven't read it yet. I do hope he wins the Oscar because 1) he's excellent, he's always excellent, and he's earned it, 2) Paul Giamatti is also generally deserving of a career Oscar but I really do not like The Holdovers and I don't particularly like Giamatti's performance in it, and 3) anybody but Bradley Cooper. Please. If Colman Domingo had a chance I'd be happy about that but Rustin is too mediocre a movie. And Jeffrey Wright -- same feelings as Giamatti. Great actor giving a mediocre performance in a movie I don't like. I'm putting it all on Cillian then! And speaking of wanting to put something on Cillian, these photos got me feeling that way. Hit the jump for the whole shoot...

Matt's the Maestro

Now that Bradley Cooper's terrible biopic of Leonard Bernstein Maestro has dropped onto Netflix it's time to revisit my review of the movie that originally dropped back when the movie played briefly in theaters -- if you missed it read it here. I uhhhhhh am not a fan.

"Maestro is a movie about acting, not music—it’s a movie about Bradley Cooper acting, specifically. Or less a movie than an excuse."

That said there are worse ways to spend two hours of one's life -- the movie is gorgeously lensed and Carey Mulligan is solid and Matt Bomer momentarily shows his butt. Bomer doesn't have much else to do but given how uninterested in Bernstein's gay experiences the movie is except to make Mulligan cry we'll take some butt. And also these nice photos of Matty in the NYT -- you can read the chat with him here. It's a nice one. And now over the holidays I pinky-swear I will fiiiiiinally watch Fellow Travelers...

All That Razz

We were doing so well, me and 2023! But it was bound to happen that I'd have a movie this Awards Season that would rub me the wrong way, and... well, it's not a huge surprise that it turned out to be Bradley Cooper's Maestro. I also loathed his last movie (A Star is Born for those of you who blocked that one out) and I went into Maestro annoyed that Jake Gyllenhaal wasn't the one playing Leonard Bernstein. That said I have eaten crow plenty of times, and am more than willing to admit if something works even if I went into it with low expectations -- no crow will be eaten today. Maestro, despite Carey Mulligan doing typically good work and the costumes and production design and such all being beautifully rendered, is not a good movie. Click here to read my review of the film out of NYFF, where it just played this past weekend. I will say that I didn't choose the headline, I maybe wouldn't have gone that hard right out of the gate, but seeing as how it is using my own words from inside the review I suppose I can't argue. And dearest Carey Mulligan, please don't hold it against me -- I left you out of my vitriol and when I write up Saltburn you'll be getting so much love, I promise!

Upper West Side Story

I am admittedly going into Bradley Cooper's Leonard Bernstein bio-pic Maestro with a chip on my shoulder due to my annoyance that Cooper bolted out in front and ruined our chance of getting to see a Leonard Bernstein bio-pic directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Jake Gyllenhaal -- actual Jews making a movie about a famous Jew, imagine that. (That big fake nose that Cooper is rocking remains A LOT to expect us to deal with.) That said the teaser trailer released today certainly makes the film look beautiful, and my feelings about Carey Mulligan -- playing Bernstein's wife, who had to put up with his gay infidelities -- reach to the Moon and back, so... I dunno. We'll see at Thanksgiving when the movie's out. You watch...



... and you tell me what you think in the comments. If it's good there's probably no way Cooper doesn't finally win that Oscar he's been pleading for for years (and no, I don't think he's overdue, as his Star is Born movie was and remains trash.) The fact that he might beat a openly gay man playing a gay man (Colman Domingo for the Bayard Rustin biopic) by playing a gay man while he is presumably straight? Don't get me started. 

Good Morning, World

For a lack of having anything else to post, or the energy to go digging any further, here is a photo of the famous composer Leonard Bernstein brushing his teeth back in the day that I saw somebody share somewhere a couple of days ago. (Too many social media networks now -- who knows where it came from.) (As an aside I have created both Bluesky and Threads accounts in the past week or so -- not that I have used them a ton just yet -- and you can find links to them over in the right-hand column, or here at MNPP's Linktree.) Anyway speaking of Lenny -- I saw somebody say somewhere (this was probably Twitter) that it would make sense for Maestro, Bradley Cooper's biopic of him, to premiere at NYFF this fall, since Bernstein's history is so interwoven with that of Lincoln Center, which is where that festival happens. Makes sense to me! Let's just hope that we get some proper Bradley-on-Bomer action. Or the pitchforks will be out, Cooper! I'm already annoyed he stole the role from Jake.

Getting Nailed By Michael Fassbender, Etc

Netflix dropped a trailer this morning teasing all of their 2023 slate and the only one we True Cineastes (TM) took notice of was David Fincher's The Killer starring Michael Fassbender -- even though we all just lived through Mank, even! (I kid, I kid, I thought Mank was fine.) But The Killer is more in tune with we tend to love about Fincher -- namely killin' and style and anti-hero shit. I was sold with the return of Michael Fassbender obviously, after an excruciatingly long absence off our screens, but the shot of him in the five seconds of Killer footage weilding a nail-gun in front of bookshelves seems as especially tailored to my interests as that worker's uniform is to Fassy's sleek form. 

Something something bookshelves something something getting nailed by Michael Fassbender #TheKiller pic.twitter.com/rfiRvlt21n

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 18, 2023

Anyway there are actually other projects of note that Netflix has coming this year -- I think The Pain Hustlers starring Emily Blunt and Chris Evans and Catherine O'Hara looks good, and while the glimpses we get of A Family Affair in the trailer are really broad and wacky-seeming (that's the one starring Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron), the movie was directed by Richard LaGravenese, who blessed the world with Living Out Loud back in the day. So, you know, let's pay attention.

(See my previous post about this movie here.) Then there is Maestro, Bradley Cooper's biopic of Leonard Bernstein (see all of my previous posts on that one here), which I'm not sold on (given I fucking hated Cooper's Star is Born and all) but which will if nothing else involve Bradley and Matt Bomer kissing and possibly more. A bright side! And speaking of gay...

... there's also Rustin, the long awaited bio-pic of gay black civil rights hero Bayard Rustin starring Colman Domingo. A story extraordinarily overdue in the telling, starring one of our current best and overdue-for-his-moment actors (openly gay to boot) -- this one should be a big deal, hopefully. We love you, Colman! Bring this baby home! (In related news there's also Shirley, a bio-pic of Shirley Chisolm starring Regina King! Score! The final title from Netflix's press release (not glimsped in the trailer) that caught my eye -- "UNTITLED WES ANDERSON / ROALD DAHL FILM" with no date except 2023. Those things fall under my interests though. Anyway here's that trailer, tell me in the comments what you're looking forward to:

Good Morning, World

Awww remember Bradley Cooper on Alias? We were all so full of possibility back then. I try to remember back to those happier times when he comes up now but he makes it difficult, what with the stealing jobs from Jake and the ear-bleeding musicals with Lady Gaga. I did think he was terrific in Nightmare Alley though, and not just because I saw his wee-wee. And maybe him macking on Matt Bomer in [the movie he stole from Jake] will be something I also gravitate towards. The world is still full of possibilites, believe it or not! And so a happy 48th birthday to Bradley today. Let's all watch some Alias today in his honor. 

Pics of the Day

Bradley Cooper's movie Maestro, the biopic about Leonard Bernstein (the one that he stole from Jake Gyllenhaal), is currently filming here in NYC right now and some pap snaps from the set have captured Mr. Cooper and his co-star Matthew Bomer lip-locked! Their lips?

Are locked! I'm a little pissy about this movie because Gyllenhaal had been trying to make his for longer before Cooper swooped in and Jake, as you might be aware, is actually Jewish -- you add on the fact that Bradley is wearing a gigantic fake nose to play a Jew and we have waded into some sticky business!

But now the pretty boys are kissing and I am confused! I don't know how to feel. Y'all tell me in the comments how I should feel, please!

I Quit Smoking Fourteen Years Ago Today

Cue up your best cancer cough and prepare for imminent arousal, as it's our favorite smoke-tastic time of year again -- May 5th, when I annually celebrate the day I stopped smoking cigarettes with a massive collection of photographs of celebrity actor people posing with butts in hand. The smoking kind of butts! Not the other kind -- after all we post the other kind of butts being handled 364 days a year. Today's for the simple smoking sort.

Anyway it's kinda nuts I've been doing these posts for fourteen (!!!!) full years now (click here for the entire archive) and I still haven't come anywhere near to running out of photographs -- I do keep a folder of these all year long to build up to the moment, but still, this is the easiest job I assign myself. And that's probably why I've managed to keep it up! 

But disastrously deadly health side-effects aside nobody's stopped taking these photos in the slightest. And there's something kind of horribly reassuring about that to me? Don't get me incorrect, I am incredibly glad I qui, and I don't recommend anybody start and/or continue smoking... but it remains the second sexiest damn thing I can see beautiful men doing. I'm sorry! It just is and does and I have the proof of it! Now hit the jump for dozens...

Matt Makes A Maestro

Well it looks like Maestro, Bradley Cooper's biopic of the composer Leonard Bernstein, is finally moving forward again -- the last thing we had heard about it was way back in September of 2020 when Carey Mulligan was cast as Bernstein's wife. Cooper is directing and starring in the film for Netflix, this being his first turn in the canvas-backed  folding chair since A Star is Born, and today Deadline says that he's in the process of casting one mister Matthew Bomer to play one of Bernstein's (many, many) male lovers. No word on who, exactly -- Netflix isn't talking. Anyway it's hard not to be excited about this news -- all puns implied -- even if this movie is presumably sacrificing the one that Jake Gyllenhaal was going to make about Bernstein with Cary Fukunaga. I hated ASIB, sure, but I like the thought of Bradley & Matt going at it enough to temporarily forget all of that. Scruples and standards, what scruples, what standards...

Waterbeds, Pinball Wizards, and William Holden

Although Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza has been playing on New York and Los Angeles screens for a few weeks now it's just spreading out to those other places, you know the ones -- maybe they're your places even! -- tomorrow, and so I have written up some thoughts on the movie today over at Pajiba. I dug it, as you'll see when you read the review, but I will admit here that of the three "romances" of PTA's that I name-check in the review -- meaning besides this one Phantom Thread and Punch-Drunk Love -- it's a firm number three. And if I started ranking PTA films overall it'd drop down even further. But then Mr. Anderson (holla Matrix) is a top three filmmaker for me and I don't think he's made a single bad film so let's not take these ranking things too seriously. Terrific flick!

Steven Yeun Says Hi, Says Bye

Howdy hello hi -- apologies I've been quiet for most of this day on here but I had a big review I was pounding out and you'll be thankful for that effort later. Just you wait! That said I should also give you a heads-up that tomorrow will also be an abbreviated day as I've got a pair of screenings to attend -- I'm seeing both Being the Ricardos and Licorice Pizza tomorrow, huzzah! -- and then, well then it's Thanksgiving break until the following Monday. Womp womp. Anyway I will be here tomorrow morning so this isn't all until next week, but you should just have that at the backs of your heads -- the end is nigh, I mean! But you knew that already. If there's one thing the last year's taught us, it's fucking that.

Guillermo's Making Our Nightmares Come True

Kind of flummoxed and flabbergasted when I searched the site this morning and realized I never posted the first trailer for Guillermo Del Toro's forthcoming Nightmare Alley -- the original with Tyrone Power is a fave (it just got a Criterion release not too long ago) and the cast that Del Toro has gathered up, including Bradley Cooper and Cate Blanchett and Toni Collette and Rooney Mara and Richard Jenkins and Willem Dafoe, well, that says it. Oh and it's set in, and was filmed in, Buffalo, not far from where I grew up. Anyway I didn't write up that first trailer back in September because Nathaniel beat me to the punch over at The Film Experience -- see that here. 

Or don't, because we have a new trailer today, and here I am writing it up.  Guillermo Del Toro's Nightmare Alley is actually out pretty soon -- and yes I realize that saying December 17th is "pretty soon" is enough to send anyone with half a brain spiraling into a panic about how the fuck is it already almost Christmas and oh my god I haven't bought a fucking thing and... et cetera, et cetera. The "pretty soon" equals out to "29 days" and yeah, that's pretty soon. And here's the full trailer they're making their final case with. You decide!

If you've got any thoughts on it in the comments let me know -- I need no convincing on seeing this because of that damn cast... also I already have a screening of this scheduled even sooner than 29 days from now; I'm seeing this in two weeks! I think it looks like fun though and there are some stellar shots in there -- the one of the bloody angel in the snow (pretty sure that's Rooney, and if you've seen the original film you know what's happening here) is giving off super duper Crimson Peak energy and I am as always here for that. 

Quote of the Day

"This is the thing. No one likes to admit this, but, we got beat at our own game. That’s basically what happened. There’s really nothing more to say about it than that. There’s always another project. Sticking your neck out, hoping to get to tell the stories you love and that have been in your heart for a very long time is something to be proud of. And that story, that idea of playing one of the most preeminent Jewish artists in America and his struggle with his identity was in my heart for 20 some odd years, but sometimes those things don’t work out. In this business, if you’re lucky enough to stick it out for a while, we can easily forget that getting to tell the story isn’t the most important thing. I mean, this is our life. Gotta enjoy it. Bottom line, and this may be my Achilles heel or it may be my superpower, but I wish them the best."

With The Guilty out in a couple of days (reviewed here) we're getting lots and lots of Jake content this week (including several other shots of him in that pink sweater seen up top, although somebody was wonderful enough to photoshop the text off of one, much to my eyeball's delight), not that we like it any other way -- this quote comes from a new chat with Deadline (thx Mac) and it's him talking about his Leonard Bernstein project, announced in May of 2018, and how the rival production starring Bradley Cooper and directed by Steven Spielberg came around after (literally nine days later!) and stole their thing. I still think Jake is better casting than Cooper personally, but I guess this officially puts the nail in Jake's take -- I don't think I'd seen confirmation of that before this quote. Sigh. I was hoping it'd be like Capote or volcanoes and we'd get dueling versions! Moving on, some new Jake fashion moments:

And just now seeing Jake in his short-sleeved red sweater on TV this morning and gonna need a moment.... pic.twitter.com/5pNmdex2Ic

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 28, 2021

Yes Sir Tyrone Power Sir

Did you know that in 1942 at the ancient age of 28, just as his career was really hitting its stride (he'd just starred in The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, and The Black Swan, three of his best pictures) Tyrone Power enlisted in the Marines, grew a hot mustache, and became a fighter pilot for World War II? He was hardly the only celebrity who fought in the war, and his "advanced age" kept him from flying combat missions, but he volunteered for cargo flights and ended up carrying the wounded out of big battles like Iwo Jima. He walked away in 1945 with a heap of medals for his service.

I bring this up because 1) it's Memorial Day Week, and 2) Criterion just released Power's greatest film according to me, 1947's Nightmare Alley, onto blu-ray today! Sure this came well after his service but you have to imagine the darkness of War was lurking in his imagination when he became fixated on getting this dark dark dark Noir made. (There's a lot on the disc's Special Features about how determined he was to play this role, even to the detriment of his career.) Anyway Criterion's 4K restoration looks absolutely stunning and you need to check out this disc, especially before Guillermo Del Toro's remake with Bradley Cooper comes out later this year. Now hit the jump for a couple bonus snaps of Sexy Stached Marine Tyrone with his military friends...

Merrily Nightmare Flowers Go to Ridgemont High

Criterion Announcement Day is coming a little early here in February! It's usually on the 15th, but here on February 12th they've gone and given us our sweet sweet fix -- maybe they're taking advantage of February being the shortest month, I don't know, but I'll take it. There are five titles coming out in May -- the one that caught my eye right off the bat is the super sleazy 1947 Circus-Noir Nightmare Alley starring Tyrone Power and Joan Blondell, which is one of our faves. It's currently being remade by Guillermo Del Toro (see our previous posts) with an insanely stacked cast -- Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Toni Collette, Willem Dafoe, on and on. But the original is ace, crazy dark, and I recommend checking it out! Love the cover art too:

May's other four titles include a 2007 concert documentary about the Moroccan band Nass El Ghiwane called Trances, and then Hou Hsiao-hsien's dreamy 1998 whorehouse reverie called Flowers of Shanghai, which I just saw for the first time last fall thanks to the NYFF screening this lush new restoration included on Criterion's disc. It's a hypnotic thing but exceedingly molasses-paced so be prepared for that. But Tony Leung looks great, even with that period-appropriate but un-flattering hairline. (When doesn't he.)

The then the last two titles are Cameron Crowe and Amy Heckerling's classic 80s teen-comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High, which I doubt I need to explain to anyone reading this post, and then Dorothy Arzner's 1932 "open marriage" comedy Merrily We Go To Hell starring the great Sylvia Sidney and the great Fredric March. I've never seen MWGTH, and always meant to! Can't wait for the chance. Mr. March is such an underrated stud.