There's No Escaping The Gay

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Movie-wise this is kind of a blah weekend -- here's my review of Dark Phoenix -- but on the small screen it is something else altogether. You can tell it's Gay Pride because our TVs will be positively barfing rainbows the minute we turn them (the barfing is just left over from Chernobyl, probably) -- tomorrow Netflix's new episodes of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City drop, putting Murray Bartlett (seen above in the latest issue of Attitude magazine) and Laura Linney and the rest of the San Francisco crew onto a sparkling sexy platter for us to devour.

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All I care is there best be sufficient Lil' Papi content on the new season of #PoseFX or else! pic.twitter.com/gwB5V6OvFH

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 6, 2019

And then on Sunday night comes the third season of The Greatest Show Ever Made Claws -- please tell me every single one of you watches Claws, or I will not respect you -- as well as the second season premieres of both Ryan Murphy's fabulous Pose -- personally I'm hoping for lots more Lil' Papi and Ricky myself -- (ETA They apprantly moved this premiere to Tuesday night?) as well as (cue the siren screams of Miss Amabella herself) a little something called Big Little Lies...

And this second season is directed by our girl Andrea Arnold and therefore already even more monumental than the first. I haven't watched a single trailer, I'm going in cold, but I did see a tweet this week that promised a flashback involving (spoiler but whatever) Alexander Skarsgard dancing around in his underwear and, well, duh. Do you think that Andrea Arnold didn't have that written into her contract before she signed on to direct this thing? The woman that directed Michael Fassbender in Fish Tank? I think not. Oh and now you've gone and made me, forced me, to make gifs of Michael Fassbender in Fish Tank again cuz why not, after the jump...

Good Morning, Tales

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There are only 16 days until the new season of Tales of the City premieres on Netflix, and today they've released the full trailer (as opposed to the teaser, which we posted right here). This, the fourth run of episodes and the first since 1998, sees Laura Linney's Mary Ann Singleton (god that name, that perfect name) returning once more to Mrs. Madrigal's famed address of 28 Barbary Lane, bumping into old friends with new faces (Michael is played by Looking star Murray Bartlett now) and new faces with, uh, just their faces (Ellen Page and Russian Doll's Charlie Barnett). We can't wait to spend time with all these faces, y'all.

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Hard Candy (2005)

Hayley: Seriously. It turns out that castration is like
the easiest surgical procedure around, and thousands
of farm boys across the country geld their own livestock.
So I figured, if they can do it, then I can pull it off,
if you know what I mean.
Jeff: I'm not fucking livestock.
Hayley: You keep telling yourself that, stud.

A happy 32 to the hero Ellen Page today!

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I Am Link

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--- Fury & Fassy - Finally Michael Fassbender has lined up a new movie! He's been taking some downtime to, uh, get married I guess. But he has just signed on to star in the big-screen feature-length version of Kung Fury, which was originally a very popular short-film that got all sorts of love and attention on Kickstarter.  I kept meaning to watch that short but never got around to it - it's a riff on 80s action movies about a cop who does martial arts and goes back in time to fight Hitler, and there's a theme song from David Hasselhoff. Thing is the director (named David Sandberg) is the star of the thing so I have no idea who Fassbender's playing. He wouldn't make a good Hitler, I don't think.

--- Scream Fresh - It seems weird to me that the company called Miramax is currently being rebuilt as a production company of note - sans the Weinsteins that built it, of course - since it's so linked to their names (it's named after their parents) and... nobody really wants to think about Harvey Weinstein when they sit down for a movie now, ya know? Oh well. Business rules. And to be fair Miramax 2018 has nothing to do with Harvey. And it's not like that's going to keep me from seeing the new Miramax's first movie, which is the new Halloween movie. Nothing will keep me from that!  (Speaking of, new Laurie picture!) And they seem determined to build themselves back up on horror (which is how Original Miramax paid their bills) because they've just signed a big deal with Kevin Williamson, whose Scream franchise had a lot to do with that. They don't name any projects, they just use the hysterically 2018-ish phrase 'high-level motion picture genre content." Oh what a world we have built.

--- Phantom Man - I haven't listened to the podcast that this story was taken from yet but click on over here to get some highlights from a chat with Radiohead member and newly Oscar nominated composer Jonny Greenwood! He talks about working with Paul Thomas Anderson on Phantom Thread and goofs on whether he's actually going to go to the Oscar ceremony or not:

"I realized I was quite pleased with myself at the idea of not going, and I think it’s always good to resist that kind of urge, that sort of smirk. So maybe do the opposite to that impulse.... [But] no one wants to see sweaty version of me, shambling around, looking embarrassed. Amusing Paul, I think, is the main goal. Whatever entertains him.”

--- Into The Fire - Well this sounds kick-ass! Melissa McCarthy and Tiffany Haddish are going to star in a mob drama - yes, a drama - called The Kitchen, which is about a group of mafia-boss wives in 1970s NYC who take over after their husbands are arrested by the FBI. It's based on a comic series from 2014, and the film was written and will be directed by first-time director (and lifetime female) Andrea Berloff, who co-wrote Straight Outta Compton. I point out that the director's a woman because this feels like the sort of project that would've had trouble getting made on its own just a couple of years ago, much less with a woman directing it, and these are delightful little signifiers of progress.
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--- Granny Betty - While I liked the first season of Preacher just fine the second season was spectacularly good, and so I'm very much looking forward to seeing how it rolls next time around. They have just started shooting the third season I guess, and they added some actors to the cast, including a name you might be familiar with -- Betty Buckley (aka that one lady from Carrie) is going to play Dominic Cooper's character's grandmother. (thx Mac) There are some character details from the comics at that link which make it sound like a pretty nutty character, for a pretty nutty show.

--- Have Some Pryde - Tim Miller, the dude who made the Deadpool movies, is keeping himself in the X-Men business - he's teaming up with famous comics writer Brian Michael Bendis to make a Kitty Pryde movie. Kitty Pryde has been played by Ellen Page twice on-screen already, in X-Men 3 and in Days of Future Past, but who knows if they'll keep Ellen around - maybe they'll decide they're rebooting her, in which case I will be pissed off and fully prepared to blame it on homophobia. So keep that in mind, fellas! In related news there is apparently a bisexual comics character in Deadpool 2 - not sure how big his role is but Shatterstar is supposed to be in there. I wouldn't hold my breathe for that to be addressed though. (Much less a 20 minute Ryan Reynolds gay sex scene, which is all we're hoping for.)
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James Norton Seven Times

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Hey look, plaid pants! I wasn't going to bother sharing this photo-shoot from Mr Porter today (thx Mac) because I just shared a different photo-shoot of James on Tuesday of this week, but when I saw the plaid pants the choice was taken out of my hands. Anyway as I asked earlier this week if any of you actually see Flatliners this weekend tell me about it, I want to know if I should bother going, and hit the jump for the remaining six shots...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Hard Candy (2005)

Hayley: [finishing castration] I wonder why they teach Girl Scouts things like camping and selling cookies. You know? 'Cause this is what's really useful. I don't know how they'd design a merit badge though. That'd be interesting. 

The greatest thing about that quote is clearly the stage direction -- FINISHING CASTRATION. Good grief, this movie. I think Hard Candy's due a re-watch, it's been awhile, and I sure do love my some Sexy Tied-Up Pedophile Patrick Wilson after all...

Happy birthday to director David Slade today!

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James Norton Sixteen Times

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I started seeing the advertising for Flatliners every damn where this past weekend, which on the one hand (since the movie seems so unnecessary) is irritating, but on the other, the one that realized this would also mean an uptick in photographs of James Norton in the world, well that hand is pleased. And when one hand is pleased the rest of the body follows. (I'm talking about masturbation, people.) Anyway sure enough no less than photographer Bruce Weber shot James for V Man magazine this month and I've got the rest of the super sexy fruits of their labors right here after the jump...

In My Dreams I Touch James Norton Too

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I was sad for a minute that we don't get to see James Norton's butt in the just-released trailer for the remake of Flatliners, but then I remembered that we actually see a lot less of Billy Baldwin's butt in the 1990 version of Flatliners than I always remember seeing - basically just a hint of top cheek. I have apparently conflated Billy's Flatliners Butt with his Backdraft Butt, while it's the Backdraft Butt where it's really at.

I mean Billy Baldwin's Butt is where it's at no matter where it's at, but some Baldwin Butts must be judged above others, it must be said. Anyway we do see Norton showering and changing...

... so perhaps there's New Butt Hope after all.

Here's the trailer:

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The Flatliners remake is out on September 29th.
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I Am Link

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--- Top Bureau - A thriller called Imperium which stars Daniel Radcliffe as an FBI agent is gathering up a nice little supporting cast - Variety reports it's just added Toni Collette, Tracy Letts and Sam Trammell to its roster. Doesn't "Imperium" sound like a wand curse from Harry Potter? Anyway what I most hope is I hope that Daniel gets to motorboat Trammell on-screene. Those jugs of his should never go to waste.

--- Dead Things - I'm sad to see that Freeheld, the lesbian drama with Ellen Page and Julianne Moore, has done poorly box-office-wise; I too have been too busy to see it. Any of you recommend making time for it? Anyway Ellen's lining up her next thing and it's apparently a remake of Flatliners of all things? I said all I have to say about that on Twitter. I wish Prime Billy had done more stuff.

--- Matt Bomer's Butt Boy - Yesterday after I posted all of them gifs of Matt Bomer's Buttocks in the season premiere of American Horror Story: Hotel, I tweeted out a query asking who the actor was that joined Matt in the fourgy, and I was told his name is Nathan Peterson. Turns out I wasn't the only person wondering -- here's a morning-after interview with the actor, including a few choice beefcake shots for good measure. He's goin' places!

--- House of Horrors - We just wished Guillermo Del Toro a happy birthday but we missed this (thanks Mac) -- his home, which we knew already to be full of amazing horror movie props, was profiled in the New York Times and they've got a great gallery of his cabinets of wonders. I am so fuckin' jealous of him for the lot of it. Bastard!

--- Uniformed Frenzy - Reading that both Henry Cavill and Luke Evans have signed on to star in an Army action-drama opposite Nicholas Hoult kinda makes me wanna pull Nicholas Hoult close (as if I didn't already wanna pull Nicholas Hoult close) and protect him... and part of me wants to grab Nicky by the shoulders and throw him to the sexy noted homosexual wolves -- as long as there are cameras pointed at it all. Devour him, boys! Anyway I am not surprised that Henry & Luke are working together again, they have so much in common.

--- Top Bird - There's a lovely long chat with Tippi Hedren in The Detroit News (thanks Mac) -- no I don't know why, but it's lovely. She talks about her friendship with her Birds co-star Rod Taylo (who just passed away recently) and like any sane person would she seems to light up when mentioning she got to work opposite Marlon Brando. And she tells the Hitch stories o' woe again, which she must be sick to death of by now.

--- Cary's Song - This was apparently first talked about several years ago so forgive me if I have forgotten it completely (if I bothered to do a search I'd probably find a mention here on the blog) but I guess Cary Fukunaga's been working on making a musical with Owen Pallett (aka Final Fantasy and a member of Arcade Fire) and Zack Condon (aka Beirut, who I just saw perform at Radio City several days ago!) for ages, and he says he thinks it will be on stage first, before being a movie. But it all sounds still rather fetal. In related news, just a week to go for Beasts of No Nation!

--- Big Bite - I can't remember if I mentioned that the great Anne-Marie over at The Film Experience is devoting her "Woman's Pictures" series about female directors to horror movies all month long -- here's her take on the great (and only) Civil War Cannibal Movie Ravenous, directed by Priest director Antonia Bird. I love this movie like a third leg.

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I Am Link

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--- Out Of Drogo - I was all excited when I clicked on the news that Peter Sarsgaard is joining The Magnificent Seven remake's cast because hey oh another dude I like on a great big heap of dudes I like, score. But then I read the fine print and saw that at the same time Jason Momoa has apparently had to drop out for an unspecified reason. Now I am sad. I mean Sarsgaard is a better actor, but Momoa's, you know, full in all the right places. I was hoping he'd rassle with Matt Bomer or something.

--- Mama Deadite - Mimi Rogers, who's gone eternally underrated, has just joined the cast of Ash vs The Evil Dead, that Starz series that's bringing back our favorite "aging lothario and chainsaw-handed monster hunter." Ha that's how THR described him. Awesome. Mimi is playing the lead female's mother. I hope the point is made that she and Bruce Campbell are very nearly the exact same age and the show don't try to build a romance between him and the younger woman.

--- Daario Doubled - BuzzFeed interviewed the male model named Ignacio Jimenez Blanco who is a body double for Michiel Huisman on A Game of Thrones but the dude refuses to tell if its his butt that we saw in that first butt scene or not. I still don't see why Michiel Huisman would need a butt double though; we've seen that and more more more before and it's ALL GOOD. (thanks Mac)

--- Ravishing Runner - You should've heard the squeal of pleasure that spilled from between my lips when I read the news that cinematographer slash genius Roger Deakins is shooting the Blade Runner sequel along with director Denis Villenueve. It was downright lecherous. Deakins is of course the man who shot films from Fargo to Skyfall and everywhere in between. Think of a pretty movie picture from the last twenty years and there's a great big fat chance he shot it!

--- Bad Girl - Once Jack Huston signed on for the lead in The Crow reboot my interest waned, I find him to be one of the droopiest examples of nepotism we've got these days, but now that I'm hearing that Andrea Riseborough, my beloved Andrea Riseborough, is probably going to play the main villain in the film well, holy shit am I interested again! Riseborough, like Eva Green, is always the best thing about any project she's in - hell I even liked her scenes in Birdman and that movie made me apoplectic. She's the best. The character she's signed on for was a man in the comics.

--- It's just a little nugget buried halfway down this page but apparently The Babadook director Jennifer Kent is keen on making her next project something called The Nightingale, and it will be "a revenge drama set in Tasmania in the 1820s." Okay! Sure why not. I will follow her anywhere after The Babadook. Anywhere.

--- After Looking - Weekend and Looking director Andrew Haigh, once he's done shooting the latter's series finale movie thing, is planning on turning Willy Vlautin's book Lean On Pete into a movie. Anybody read it? it's about a homeless kid in Portland Oregon who befriends a race-horse named Lean On Pete and they go on a big trek across the Pacific Northwest together. When I say "befriends" I don't mean this is like a talking animal movie or anything... I don't think. Anyway Haigh's also got another film in the can already - it's called 45 Years and it stars Charlotte Rampling and I want it something bad. That's probably out in the fall.

--- Baby Nappers - Ellen Page and Allison Janney, two great tastes tasting great together, again! The Juno pair are going to star in Tallulah, from one of the directors on Orange in the New Black, which is about a woman who tries to rescue a baby from a bad mother only to be accused of kidnapping but somehow it kind of sounds like it's supposed to be a comedy? With these two actresses it certainly should be anyway.

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I Am Link

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--- Pitt Stop - The sourcing isn't the most reliable (British tabloids, yo) but I like the rumor that Brad Pitt could star in the second season of True Detective enough to toss it out here all the same. Brad Pitt is ten times the actor McConaughey is and you can quote me on that - I'm not even exaggerating. Save some bright spots (the thing was beautiful, and Woody Harrelson was very good) I thought the first season of TD was pretty much from start to finish insanely over-rated, but they're planning on changing things up enough from season to season that I'd be willing to give it another look.

--- Gloved One - Yesterday came word that Lupita Nyong'o may take a role in Jake Gyllenhaal's upcoming boxing movie called Southpaw; I wrote up some words about that over at The Film Experience. I love the suggestions in the comments over there that Lupita should be playing basically ALL of the parts in the movie. As long as I get Jake shirtless and ripped in the ring, I'm good.

--- Rah Rah Rah - I was just wondering yesterday when I heard that news about Edgar Ramirez taking the lead in the remake of Point Break what Kathryn Bigelow has been getting herself up to lately, and it didn't take long for an answer to present itself at all - she's set to make The True American, which will star Tom Hardy in the true story of a self-appointed vigilante (read: terrorist) who murdered several immigrants in Texas after 9/11. So this should go over lightly, just like her last picture did. The movie's based on a book which just came out ten days ago. Anyway Hardy plus Bigelow sounds like a dream team.

--- Been Broughten - He's impossible to keep track of all the way to a finished product these days but there's word that the next big maybe for Drive director Nicolas Winding Refn is a horror movie! It'd be called The Bringing and it's about mysterious happenings at a real-world LA hotel. Think The Shining meets Somewhere! And then stare confused into the distance for a bit.

--- Pussy Galore - Tilda Swinton is re-teaming with her Teknolust director Lynn Hershman (this will actually be their fourth film together) for something called The Infinity Engine, in which Tilda will play, and I quote, "a phosphorescent talking cat ... on a search for freedom, enlightenment, and humane humans in the halls of a biotechnology company." Naturally. What else would she be playing?

--- Killer Crowning - Today's the final day of Maniac Madness over at Final Girl! Ahhh!!! Run over there and vote - the terrifying final two-some are a golden pair of lovely beasts and I don't know how the fuck you're supposed to choose, honestly. Toss a butcher knife in the air and see if it lands in your face or your heart, I guess.

--- Moore to Mock - A couple of Julianne Moore related things - The Playlist has the first couple of images of her as President Coin in the final Hunger Games movie(s) Mockingjay, and she looks pretty perfect, methinks. That wig is INTENSE. And then there's word that Michael Shannon is joining the cast of Freeheld, that drama starring Moore and Ellen Page as a lesbian couple dealing with terminal illness and passing along pension. Now that's a movie trio.

--- King TV - Hannibal slash Pushing Daisies slash Dead Like Me slash Wonderfalls creator slash awesome human being Bryan Fuller is getting presented with the Dan Curtis Legacy Award at the 40th Annual Saturn Awards this year! (Dan Curtis was the producer of Dark Shadows.) Congrats times one thousand, Bryan!

--- Storming It - I'm fairly certain I've written about this movie before when all we knew was it was starring Idris Elba (really that's all we need to know) but Bastille Day now has a director (the guy who made the much-better-than-it-should've-been remake of The Woman in Black) and a leading lady in Blue is the Warmest Color's Adele Exarchopoulos. I have no idea what it's about but who cares, I'm in!

--- And Finally this is only nineteen seconds long but it's nineteen seconds of Juliette Binoche acting so it's like nineteen seconds of pure oxygen. Here's the first clip from Olivier Assayas' Sils Maria with Juli and Kristen Stewart, which is playing at Cannes:
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I Am Link

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--- Gamble On Chan - X-Men producer Lauren Shuler Donner says that Channing Tatum is going to be playing the character Gambit, full-stop. He'll presumably be showing up in the next X-Men movie called Apocalypse, which already has a release date in May of 2016 even though it hasn't begun filming yet. Gambit was played by Taylor Kitsch in the first Wolverine movie but then everybody hated that movie and everybody decided they hated Taylor Kitsch and it was a whole thing.

--- Forever Stab - I linked you over earlier in the contest but in case you've forgotten Final Girl is having a Killer Competition, facing off the slashers and psychos of movie-dom bracket-like, and today we're down to eight hateful hopefuls! These were some of the hardest decisions I've ever had to make in my life. (I have apparently led a very easy life.)

--- S&M Sandwich - We all know and are excessively bitter about the fact that Fifty Shades of Grey director Sam Taylor-Wood is married to Aaron Johnson (HALF HER AGE), yadda yadda - well maybe she'll make it up to us since she's cast him in an undisclosed role in the movie... obviously I haven't read those godforsaken books so I am just gonna go ahead and assume that there's a male character that has a 30-page sex-scene with Jamie Dornan, right? That's what's happening here? Good work, lady!

--- X Shade - I agree with the folks at this link that I'm surprised one of her handlers didn't throw a muffin across the room right into her mouth to shut her up, but Ellen Page actually commented on the whole Bryan Singer thing, and threw some probably kind-of-deserving shade, innocent or guilty, in that general direction...

"Whatever comes of it I do think that there’s a systemic issue of people in places of power manipulating and abusing young people.”

Word, Ellen. I haven't said anything about this scandal here at the site because, well, reasons, but I do think she's coming at this from the right angle.

--- Spring Broken - James Franco filmed an Instagram video (what's new) as his Spring Breakers character Alien (okay that's new) denouncing the sequel that's getting made, saying it's being done without director Harmony Korine's consent. I figured they'd get him a producing credit at least, but I don't have a problem with the sequel moving on. His movie was what it was; I think Jonas Akerlund could make something his own that could be interesting.

--- There Are Dumb Questions - Going to Q&As after movie screenings is always a blessing and a curse, and Michael C. captured the latter half of that experience brilliantly over at his site yesterday, listing all the types of horrible people who ask the horrible questions that make your every hair stand on end. I want to pass out this list to everyone at every screening I go to from now on.

--- Wookie Nookie - Rumor was that Adam Driver was playing the bad guy in the new Star Wars movie; the new rumor is that he's playing the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia. He might still be the villain though - perhaps he's been lured to the Dark Side, or something. I'm just trying to figure out in what universe Adam Driver is what Carrie Fisher and Harrison Ford would give birth to. Are we sure she didn't cheat with Chewbacca?

--- AmEx Amazing - There's no information on what it is about, but Charlize Theron is teaming up with The Square director (and Joel brother) Nash Edgerton for a movie called American Express. The Square is fantastic, Nash is fantastic, Charlize is beyond fantastic, so sign me up for whatever. It could be two hours of her filling out a credit card application and I'd watch it!
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They Get Lost In Their Eyes

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For all of the gigantic special effects you see in the latest trailer for the new X-Men movie (and I include Hugh Jackman's muscles under the heading of "gigantic special effects") the most exciting shot is simply the electricity shot between Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, seen above. That's what actors can do, y'all. (If only Evan Peters wasn't so distracting in the background though.) Watch the trailer here:

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Whip It! (2009)

Corbi: So what are you, like, alternative now? 

Bliss: Alternative to what? 

Happy 27, Ellen Page!

I Am Link

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--- Melisandre's Menfolk - Because I was totally correct when I decided right off the bat with Black Book that the actress Carice Van Houten's one of the world's bestest people, here she is in an interview about the upcoming fourth season of A Games of Thrones going on about how the show needs more male nudity. Huzzah give her an Emmy! I'm far too lazy to check through our archives and double-check this but I'm 99.44% sure that she's gone on about this before, too. I love you, Carice! (Relatedly click here to see that scene where she helped us out and stripped Joe Dempsie half-naked.)

--- And Speaking of Thrones, in honor of V-Day over at io9 they posted a special feature from the 3rd season's DVD set where that master of mutilation ceremonies George RR Martin talks about the weddings of Westeros and beyond. 

--- Back It Up Franco - In a chat with Cinema Blend Dave lets it be known that he shows off his ass in the upcoming Zac Efron Seth Rogen frat comedy Neighbors. He says in the movie he has "his first real sex scene," which I guess means he discounts that time he fucked himself up the ass, sadly. That was real for me!

--- The Eyes Of Steven Soderbergh - If you were wondering what Steven Soderbergh did with himself last year, The Playlist has you covered - here's a list of literally every single thing he watched or read and the day he watched or read them. I wish he'd scribbled in notes about what he ate for each meal and the respective bowel movements too; I don't feel like I quite know him without that information.

--- Sex Cult - Furry wonder Thomas Jane has joined the cast of The Veil, a horror movie about cults (cults are really hot right now) that's coming from the same production house that brought us the Insidious movies, the Purge movies, the Paranormal Activity movies. This movie may or may not be found-footage, but it deals with a camera crew so it'll probably be at least partially so. The guy who directed that Punisher short film with Jane that got a bunch of attention last year is directing.

--- Here Comes The Haderach - I've been chomping at the bit to see Jodorowsky's Dune, the documentary about cult filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky's aborted attempt to make a Dune movie way back when. It's out in about five weeks, and here's the trailer. I don't need to watch the trailer, I don't need convincing, I've been on board with this movie since the first time years ago that I heard this Dune was even a thing.

--- Peaky Hardy - Has anybody seen the BBC crime drama Peaky Blinders (what a name) that stars Cillian Murphy? I feel as if a lot more people will be watching it now that Tom Hardy has joined the cast for the second season. So many big stars on TV these days, it's getting ridiculously hard to keep up.

--- Free Page - Over at The Film Experience Nathaniel shares the awesome news that Ellen Page's long delayed movie Freeheld, a true story about a lesbian couple dealing with terminal illness and pension benefit problems, is back on, and it will co-star Julianne Moore and be directed by Peter Sollet, who made the great movies Raising Victor Vargas and Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.

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Days of Future Roid Rage

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Well they've gone and done it. Wolverine's not sexy anymore. Granted being riddled with bullet-holes isn't usually The Look, no matter who's involved, but Hugh just looks like an especially petulant hemorrhoid. Which on the one hand, gross. But on the other hand it does mean that he's finally grown into what Wolverine looks like in the Comics...

... so I suppose that's a plus for somebody. I'm just afraid he's going to pop. Yadda yadda the trailer for X-Men Days of Future Fourgy is here, you can watch it below. I suppose it's just the first one and a lot of people who aren't geeking on the internet all day don't know the story we're getting and so they're using this trailer to build up to that last shot's reveal; me, I'm surprised that that's the only shot we get of the two time-lines overlapping.

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I Am Link

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--- Spy Guy - We were very happy to hear that Rose Byrne was teaming up with her Bridesmaids co-star Melissa McCarthy for that lady-spy movie called Susan Cooper (written and directed by Bridesmaids Paul Fieg too) - but now that we're hearing that Jason Statham is also joining the cast as another spy? Oh my god, my entire body is tingling.

--- Old Lady - Inspired by the news that Laura Dern is going to play Reese Witherspoon's mother in a new movie (despite the fact that she's all of nine years older), at The Film Experience Nat takes a look at all the viable older actresses out there not getting nearly enough work because Hollywood sucks for older women. I'm happy Dern got a job, at least.

--- Night Walkers - Chris Evans is going to star in and direct 1:30 Train, a movie about a dude who meets a lady on a train and they spend some real-time together falling in love a la Before Midnight movies - the lady in question will be played by infamous Star Trek boob-popper Alice Eve.

--- Berlin Stories - Run Lola Run director Tom Tykwer is going to make a twelve-part series for German television called Babylon Berlin, which will be based on the writings of "Volker Kutscher and centre on the figure of Inspector Gereon Rath who hails from Cologne and arrives in the Berlin of 1920s, the epicentre of political and social changes of those years." (Shades of Berlin Alexanderplatz much?) Tykwer's making a movie with his Cloud Atlas star Tom Hanks first though, called A Hologram For the King.

--- The Nicky Show - Channing Tatum just sold a sitcom to CBS - not for himself to star in; he will produce and his good friend Nick Zano will star. Yeah the same Nick Zano who got his guts sucked out through his ass in the Final Destination movies. I want to hear more about his and Channing's close friendship. Click here and here and here and here and here for lots of Nicky.

--- More Most Ghost - Tim Burton might actually really direct the sequel to Beetlejuice, which will star Michael Keaton. That's nutso. Course the Tim Burton of Now is not the Tim Burton of the 1980s, so perhaps we should be horrified by this idea? If they hire Winona, I promise to be good.

--- Queen's Fella - I finally caught up on Homeland last night, and right while I was watching it I saw the news that Damian Lewis is going to co-star with Nicole Kidman in Werner Herzog's long-gestating biopic Queen of the Desert, so that was weird.

--- High Enough - There are two big mountain-climbing movies coming our ways apparently, and The Playlist does a good job sorting out what's what - on one of them Tom Hardy had to drop out and might be replaced by Benedict Cumberbatch, while a host of hotties are named as his possible co-star; on the other Jake Gyllenhaal, full stop.

--- Wood Nymphs - Yesterday over at The Film Experience I wrote up the news that Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood are set to play sisters in Into the Forest, which is adapted from a book that sounds up my alley - they must survive together as the world falls apart.

--- Big Gun - Michael Fassbender's Kiwi Western Slow West with Kodi Smit-McPhee started filming this week, so hopefully we'll start seeing set pictures of Michael Fassbender in slim cowboy pants and/or chaps any time now.
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Mostly Rambling, Some Reviewing

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Pain & Gain -- You know that saying about how even a broken clock is right twice a day? I swear I never got that saying until just this second - I realized I'd been thinking of a "broken clock" as a clock that was still telling time, only the wrong time, and that's what was broken about it. And so I kept trying to picture how the rotating arms, spinning by their own logic, would somehow nevertheless sweep past the correct spot every day two times anyway. And my brain would start to hurt, since that is impossible, and then I'd think "Ehh, fuck it," and move on with my life. But I just had this eureka in the bathtub moment while thinking about how to write about Michael Bay's Pain and Gain, which I've been trying to find an in to a review for a couple of weeks now - I realized that a "broken clock" is a clock that has stopped working altogether, and its arms are fully static, and so it always says the same time - for example 3:38, when I am writing this. The broken clock always says 3:38, and so when 3:38 in the morning and 3:38 in the afternoon roll around, the broken clock is right, twice. That is to say, I still hate you, Michael Bay. I don't care if you made an entertaining movie this time! I don't care! Fuck you and the broken clock you rode in on.

The East -- Brit Marling hasn't quite stolen as much as my life away and pissed upon my soul the way that Michael Bay has, but I've generally found her, uh, not to my liking over the past couple of years as she's become An Indie Thing. And so color me surprised again that she didn't really get on my nerves a bit in The East. Indeed I found the film engrossing as a whole, although it is fairly by-the-numbers as far as thrillers go. It hits all the notes in pretty much the precise order you anticipate. But it wants to be old-fashioned, it wants to be a China Syndrome for the Occupy Wall Street set or whatever, and so it gooses its fill-in-the-blank plot with current events that a bigger budgeted movie wouldn't go near, which gets you over the bumps by knotting up genuine moral outrage, of the topical sort, inside the viewer. I can boo and hiss these bad guys just fine, thank you. And it manages to simultaneously gin up a fantasy world where Alexander Skarsgard and Shiloh Fernandez make out with each other and then cradle you naked in a pond, which is totally an acceptable use of celluloid.

Trance -- Obviously I'm playing some catch up here with titles that I haven't gotten around to reviewing - it's a good idea I do this now before the New York Film Festival starts screening next week and I become completely overwhelmed with new newer newest. That said it's been like three weeks at least since I watched Trance and here's what I remember - the sound of Rosario Dawson shaving her vagina, James McAvoy's ass, and Vincent Cassel talking from half a head. Two out of three of those things were in the trailer; the other one was, well, both unexpected and unwelcome. I am guessing you know which one I mean. Anyway sorry I can't do a better job of reviewing your movie, Danny Boyle, but you did scar my brain, so there's that.

Simon Killer - Alright listen Brady Corbet is very good in this movie I guess, and it's got a really fine askew rhythm to it that keeps you off balance and unnerved, but a lot of that gets fumbled by a camera that refuses to stop literally navel-gazing. The frame is pretty much always at gut-height, often chopping the actors heads right off in a scene - I seriously started to wonder if the entire movie were shot by little people. It was really really distracting to me. My mind started to wander off mid-film, imagining the director at a Q&A defending his decision to shoot the film like this, what he was saying with it, how meaningful it was, and then I wanted to throw a tomato or a head of lettuce at him, and I couldn't, and so I was sad and frustrated and so was SImon Killer so hooray, movie, hoo-fucking-ray.

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