Three More Meltons!

How dumb am I (full stop) to've thought that we'd seen the last of the Charles Melton in Men's Health photos after I'd spent half the past week posting, you know, literally hundreds of them. When I posted that hot one yesterday I really thought that'd be that since Beef was now out on Netflix. (Have you watched any? Can we talk about the coyote scene yet???) Thankfully I am the stupidest peron who has ever lived or will ever live, and three more photos have come via MH's Instagram in the past day or so.  So now I'm gonna be smart and say this won't be it -- I'm gonna guesstimate that they're holding on to five thousand more photos to share, and that'll prove my smarts! I'll show you! Okay go watch Beef so we can talk about the coyote scene, the end. Oh and hit the jump for the rest of these pictures as well I suppose...

Good Morning, World

I literally posted nearly 200 images from Charles Melton's Men's Health photoshoot and video on Monday -- seriously, go see for yourself!!! -- and yet somehow I totally missed this fairly straightforward (yet no less sexy) image right there above? What a world, what a world indeed. Anyway it's a good thing because the second season of Beef is out on Netflix today and why wouldn't I post about that? For one I've been pretty relentlessly plugging it for months now because of its incredible cast. And for another I've actually already watched the whole damn thing! And it's good! I think it might be a little more unfocused than the first season, but all of the leads are excellent, with Mr. Melton and OF COURSE Carey Mulligan being the stand-outs from where I stand. For his part Melton is hysterically funny and surprisingly moving, proving that May December was no fluke; he's the real deal. As much talent as he's got abs! And as for Mulligan... 

Carey Mulligan is one of those notable few performers who, when I think about how much I love watching them perform, I literally well up. I feel immense gratitude every time she acts. I'm basically Team She Can Do No Wrong. What an immense talent she wields. A queen.

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) April 15, 2026 at 4:52 PM

... well as you see above I'm of the mind that Carey Mulligan is incapable of being anything less than absolutely 100% compelling on-screen, and every single time the camera focuses on her here she proves her exquisite skill yet again. I am in awe of her, really and truly -- I'm not quite ready to de-throne the dueling Frenchies of Binoche & Huppert as my picks for the Greatest Living Actresses, but every time I watch Carey Mulligan I question that. I do! She's just so spectacular. Anyway you should watch the new season, it's mostly terrific, and I won't spoil it but there is one moment involving Carey and a wild animal that will probably end up being the funniest thing I see all year. All that plus Charles Melton spends every episode half-naked, as highlighted in the below trailer? What are you even doing here? Get over to Netflix, you fools!

This is literally the only advertisement Netflix needed to make for Beef's second season

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) April 15, 2026 at 2:04 PM

Charles Melton Ten (Plus) Times

The second season of Beef had its premiere last night (click here to see some photos of Oscar Isaac and our half-naked boy here on the red carpet) and Charles Melton is not letting this moment get by without dropping a bomb of LOOK AT ME on us all -- this photoshoot for i-D magazine that just dropped this morning...

... practically knocked me off my chair, it did! I'll have things to say about Beef next week when it premieres (on April 16th) since I've already watched the entire thing but for now I'm just shutting up and letting these fiery fucking photos do the talking. Hit the jump for 'em all...

Melton's Meat-y Part

Season two of Netflix's successful series Beef is creep creeping creeping ahead -- indeed it's only about six weeks off now (it premieres on April 16th) which means we've just gotten the first teaser for it, which I will dutifully share with you down below. Most importantly though we must first post every new images of Charles Melton without hius clothes on, and...

... done. (See previous sexiness here.) This season swaps out Steven Yeun and Ali Wong and their ever-escalating parking-lot dispute to have Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan playing a couple who come into conflict with a couple played by Melton and Cailee Spaeny, all at a fancy country club. Great actors, looking pretty and cruel, I'm all over this shit. Here's the tease:

Pics of the Day

Unbelievably the last time I posted about the second season of the hit Netflix series Beef -- which will focus on totally different characters than the first one, making this an anthology show I suppose! -- it was way back in October of 2024, to deliver the bad news that Brokeback buddies Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway had dropped out. But the news wasn't that bad! Because those two were replaced by Charles Melton and Cailee Spaeny, and we fucking love Charles Melton and Cailee Spaeny. 

Well now we've got movement because our first photos have at last arrived, along with word that the show -- which also stars a little pair of somebodies named Oscar Isaac and Carey Mulligan, since this season focuses on two couples at war with one another -- will drop on April 16th. Thrills! Also I'd be remiss to not underline that photo above of Charles Melton, rocking a stache and not much else. And with that important point em phasized now let's hit the jump for several more of these first look photos of the cast...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Saltburn (2023)

Poor Dear Pamela: We met in rehab so... 

He was just so lovely at first, and then... 

all his business partners started sort of 

falling out of windows. You know. 

Oliver: Right. Lucky escape.

Poor Dear Pamela: I suppose so. But he spoke 

Russian all the time and it just sounded so romantic. 

And I don’t know the Russian word for “whore” so 

I sort of thought it sounded like lovely poetry.

Oliver: Yeah.

Poor Dear Pamela: Daddy always said 

that I'd end up at the bottom of the Thames.

A very happy birthday to our dear Carey Mulligan!

Boys Will Be Beefs

Back in February it was reported that the second season of Netflix's smash hit series Beef would be about dueling couples (meaning original stars Steven Yeun and Ali Wong were not returning) and that said couples were going to be played by in one corner Charles Melton & Cailee Spaeny and in the other corner Jake Gyllenhaal & Anne Hathaway. This obviously excited me! But then the months passed and word was bandied about that our Brokeback besties Jake & Anne were not reuniting for whatever reason, and that Oscar Isaac & Carey Mulligan would be taking their roles instead. And today this has been confirmed as official, via Netflix themselves. And... as much as y'all know I love Jake and Anne... it's impossible to be angry about this swap. It's a good swap as far as swaps are concerned! I love all of these actors and will watch any combination of them go at each other. That said since it's what we're getting... let's hope Oscar & Charles "go at each other" like the lord intended. We deserve that dammit. 

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...

Haulin' Ass to the Holiday

Shortened day today as we head into the holiday -- MNPP will be closed up for new sexy business until Monday the 27th. It's kind of a slow week for new releases, weirdly -- usually Thanksgiving gets a heap for people to run from their relatives with? But all we've got is Ridley Scott's Napoleon (which I wrote a little about here) and Disney's animated Wish (which I haven't seen) and Dream Scenario with Nic Cage which I have seen and have not written about -- it's fine? It should have been far better, I had high hopes for it because its main idea is a great one. It just decides to lose itself in ideas I didn't find very interesting instead of the ones you do, given its concept. It's not terrible or anything though, and I say that as someone deeply skeptical of Cage. Perhaps youi'll dig it more. All of that said there are a couple of movies from last weekend that are still out that I do highly and deeply recommend -- my pervert lover Saltburn is expanding into a bunch more theaters so more of you will finally be able to see what the fuss about, which makes me happy given it's one of my favorites of the year. Here's my review if you missed it. Same with Todd Haynes' May December -- here's my review of that wonderful weird movie. 

Guess I'm not going to have time to fully review THANKSGIVING which is a shame so here's a brief one: GO FRIGGIN SEE IT, it's so much fun, an old-school slasher blast of hilarious and relentless nastiness that should play like gangbusters with an audience #ThanksgivingMovie pic.twitter.com/BX2EgWXtWB

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 17, 2023

And Eli Roth's Thanksgiving is still in theaters! As stated in the tweet seen above I never properly reviewed that but there are my thoughts -- I'm actually dying to see it a second time and so I might go over the holiday myself. And given what a goddamned hermit I've become that's really saying something. Oh and the new Hunger Games is still out and it's better than it has any right being -- here's my review of that. Other than that I have heaps upon heaps of awards screeners that've been piled up in my inbox so I'm hoping to catch up on things I haven't yet seen this year.. either that or I'll just watch Saltburn, All of Us Strangers, and Poor Things on a loop for five straight days, because all three of those arrived in my inbox yesterday and they're really all I want to watch anyway. But if y'all see something interesting, tell me about it in the comments as always!

Oh and now for one more thing of total self-interest (what's new) -- if you do any Black Friday shopping at Amazon why not do it through this link here, which tosses a few pennies our way? Consider it a tip for me keeping you in Paul Mescal Ass all year long! Or you can buy some of the rad shit I have for sale on eBay right now -- and I add things weekly to my store because I lack self-control and buy lots of things and then decide I don't want or need them and list them on eBay. It'll probably expand exponentially over the next few weeks too as awards merch comes in from the studios that I have no desire to own (I just got a box full of stuff from the movie Air and uhh yeah that's very clearly not my jam). So do continue to keep checking there. Or if you care to (i.e. if you love me) just donate to MNPP via PayPal, which you can do at that link or via the one in the right-hand column. It's the holidays! Love me some dammit!

Seriously though have a great holiday, everyone.

We'll see you next week!

Saltburn's So Good

Okay it's here! My review of Saltburn has finally gone up at Pajiba this afternoon -- click here to read my thoughts on a movie that very well might've been made in a factory for me. I want to be Emerald Fennell's friend so bad. This movie is wild and wicked and furious as fuck -- it's a pervert's paradise I tell you, and I love every frame. 

It Burns So Good

The first full trailer for Promising Young Woman director Emerald Fennell's Saltburn is here (we did have a very brief teaser previously) and it has reminded me how fucking much I loved this movie when I saw it several weeks back and how much I cannot wait for y'all to see it. I have not reviewed it yet but I will be reviewing it for its release on November 17th -- needless to say expect some wild lunatic raving. This perverted gay-ish shit so up my alley y'all.

If you have missed the Saltburn noise before now this movie stars Barry Keoghan as a poor boy who becomes obsessed with Jacob Elordi a rich boy, and his family of eccentrics including Richard E. Grant and Rosamund Pike, and it all goes -- rather spectacularly -- off the deep end. I will say no more and as delicious a trailer as this is I would also recommend not watching the trailer -- I went in fairly clean, only knowing what I have said so far, and oh how I LIVED. But still here's the trailer anyway, make up your own mind.

I'm seeing this a second time next week thank goodness -- not just because I have been wanting to sit down and watch it a second time ever since the first time, but also because I wasn't sure I was writing about it when I saw it at that first early preview screening and then I saw it and the second I got out I emailed my editor demanding I get the chance to write about it. So a refresher will be good! Not that this is a movie that doesn't imprint itself onto your consciousness immediately. Okay I really just wanna see its last scene on a big screen again. Aaaaaaanyway you'll know all about that soon enough, so stay tuned! And hit the jump for a few bonus gifs...

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.

The Talented Mister Barry

It's kind of weird that this news has been around for a full year but for some reason just today it's getting traction on Twitter and I somehow missed it myself when it was first announced -- Oscar nminee and longtime MNPP fave Barry Koeghan is starring in Promising Young Woman writer-director's next movie called Saltburn, which is about "a college student (Keoghan) who develops an obsession with his affluent classmate," with the classmate played by Jacob Elordi. (Also in the cast are PYW star Carey Mulligan, Rosamud Pike, and Richard E. Grant.) Maybe people are paying attention to this news now because they love Barry thanks to Banshees of Inisherin? That's not my excuse for missing it, but I miss lots of things with my head so far up my own ass and all. Anyway the relationship between the two boys in the movie is being compared to The Talented Mr. Ripley, so let's hope there are some good bath-tub chess scenes. On that note here's a photo of the lovelies on set:

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!

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...

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

Tahar Take Away

How funny that the last post before the weekend one week ago was a Tahar Rahim post and it's happening again! Hysterical! The funniest thing to happen in ages!!! Okay maybe "funny" wasn't the right word but whatevs, you get my gist. Anyway I know a couple of you watched The Serpent on Netflix when it dropped last week because you said so, but maybe more of you have? I don't really have anything more to say on it but I'd love to hear if you do...

... but I am here because Interview Magazine has dropped this new photo-shoot today (thx Mac) along with a chat with one of my favorite living actresses, Miss Carey Mulligan. I've only skimmed the chat so far, I'll read it on my subway ride home in about ten minutes, but I did spend some time with each and every one of these new photos -- god I love his head. Is that a weird thing to say? He's just got a terrific shaped head. Face. Head. Face and head and all of it. Anyway get more Tahar head after the jump... 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Jane Eyre (2011)

Jane: Am I a machine with out feelings? Do you think that because I am poor, plain, obscure, and little that I am souless and heartless? I have as much soul as you and full as much heart. And if God had possessed me with beauty and wealth, I could make it as hard for you to leave me as I to leave you... I'm not speaking to you through mortal flesh. It is my spirit that addresses your spirit, as it passes through the grave and stood at God's feet equal. As we are.

Cary Fukunaga's (already classic if you ask me) 2011 adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's (definitely classic no matter who you ask) 1847 novel premiered here in new York on this very day 10 years ago. Have you watched it lately? Last July I had myself a little miniature one-day swoon-fest with this movie, Thomas Vinterberg's Far From the Madding Crowd with Matthias Schoenaerts and Carey Mulligan (and you might consider this blasphemy but as much as I love John Schlesinger's film with Julie Christie and -- speaking of swoon -- Alan Bates I definitely prefer the newer version), plus Andrea Arnold's gorgeous and wildly underrated take on Wuthering Heights. And that my friends was a goddamned good day -- I highly recommend all of you replicate it sometime.

Now thinking of doing a triple feature today of Eyre, the Far From the Madding Crowd re-do, and Andrea Arnold’s seriously under-appreciated Wuthering Heights pic.twitter.com/rbnWifN7K7

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 3, 2020