Please Dacre, Don't Hurt 'Em

Consider this a mea culpa to Dacre Montgomery since I wrote that I wasn't enamored with his performance in this weekend's horror movie Faces of Death in my review -- he is clearly having a whole lot of fun with his big performance and there are a couple of shots of him wearing a skin-tight body-suit thing (just from above the waist) where he is twisting and writhing and he looks super hot. That's not nothing! But I thought he was much better in last year's surprisingly terrific Gus Van Sant crime flick Dead Man's Wire, which I'm ashamed I never reviewed -- I haven't expected much from a GVS movie in awhile but that one reminded me how wonderful a director he can be. Straight-forward, low-key, thrilling and perfectly performed by Bill Skarsgård and Dacre -- if y'all never checked that one out I say do that! It's ace. Okay -- have a great weekend! I'm out. (pics via) 

Punch-Drunk Druggies Cross Delancey

Criterion Announcement Day sneaked up on us again -- and it was technically three days ago! They're late even and I didn't notice. Gosh it's almost like there are distracting things happening in the world? Well let's not focus on those, and instead focus on the movies that Criterion is releasing onto 4K blu-ray this upcoming February of the year 2025... yeah we're especially going to need some distractions right then I wager. Argh. Anyway! Criterion! First up is Gus Van Sant's 1989 druggie drama Drugstore Cowboy starring a very pretty Matt Dillon alongside Kelly Lynch, Heather Graham, and James Le Gros. Oh and William S. Burroughs! He's in this too. I haven't seen this movie in a very very long time (like at least twenty years) so it's definitely due a revisit -- I have a feeling I'll have grown to appreciate it more because I was never that much of a fan but it feels like a movie I'll get more now than I did when I was younger. 

Next up we have a pair of movies I've never seen -- Jean-Luc Godard's King Lear from 1987 starring Peter Sellers and Molly Ringwald (wtf) and Joan Macklin Silver's 1988 romance Crossing Delancey with  Amy Irving torn between two fellas in late-80s Manhattan. The Godard sounds bonkers; the JMS sounds sweet and perfect for a Saturday afternoon, and I am excited to watch them both. 

Then we've got three more movies (big month, February) which I have seen before -- there's Nicolas Roeg's brilliant 1970 film Performance with  James Fox and Mick Jagger, there's Guillermo Del Toro's first film Cronos getting a 4K upgrade, and there's Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love also doing the same. Love all three of those -- PDL was my favorite PTA movie for a long time but I can safely say that Phantom Thread has replaced it now. But I also haven't re-watched it in several years since every time I do think about it I think about how it shreds my nerves and I move on to another movie since whose nerves have needed extra shredding lately? Certainly not mine! 

5 Off My Head - The Hottest Criterion Covers

They say sex sells, but the art-house media empire known as Criterion doesn't often subscribe to that notion. Sure their streaming service sometimes sluts it up with timed collections catering to such tastes. But when it comes to the actual physical media releases they put out? Let's just say they're not regularly porning up the shelves at your local neighborhood Barnes & Noble. Don't believe me? Just look at the artful but limp covers they gave us for notoriously horny movies like David Cronenberg's Crash and John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy:

Which is why last week's reveal of the cover art for Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Querelle (hitting those shelves in June) came at us like such a happy punch in the privates. Designed by the artist Astra Zero (follow them on Instagram here) the cover is appropriately horny for RWF's horny, horny final film, which we're ecstatic to see getting a proper release at last. But it got me thinking -- what other Criterion covers have stirred my (admittedly easily stirred) loins? So I made a list! And do keep in mind that I am extremely homosexual, so my list echoes those credentials. Make your own lists, straights! (Also clearly the Querelle one trumps everything else and should be considered #1 above all of these from here on out. It already won!)

The 5 Horniest Criterion Covers (Besides Querelle)

Claire Denis' Beau Travail -- I'm not as big a fan of Denis' 1999 erotic treatise on masculinity as a lot of you are, or as would typically make sense, given the film's notable focus on hard half-naked male bodies swinging around in hypnotic unison. But that doesn't mean I can argue with the shadowy visage of actor Grégoire Colin's bared, slick torso. I bought this disc even though I don't love the movie just because of the cover!

Jacques Deray's La Piscine -- I could have used any Criterion cover that has Alain Delon on it (his jawline on the Purple Noon cover could create a cult all on its own) but, even if a bit hetero to my linking, half-naked Alain & Romy Schneider clenched up in ecstacy is about  as hot and sweaty as these things get. Let's not get in the way of their erotic lifestyle!

Gus Van Sant's My Own Private Idaho -- Two of the most beautiful and sensitive movie stars on my early teen years at the height of their beauty and sensitivity, rocking hustler ennui while strapped to one another on the back of a motorcycle -- you can't see that the motorocycle is there in the cover image but you can probably feel it, humming between your thighs all the same. And if not, well, they sure are on top of each other huh? 

Andrew Haigh's Weekend -- Seeing actor Chris New working his way down actor Tom Cullen's naked body again this rumpled mid-coitus snapshot image slams you right back there into the middle of this 2011 masterpiece of intimacy from Haigh and you realize -- oh right that's where I have wanted to be all this time. Back in bed with those two!

Carl Franklin's Devil in a Blue Dress -- Sometimes all it takes is peak Denzel Washington in a white tank top, what can I say?

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Runners-up: Joyce Chopra's Smooth Talk, Yukio Mishima's Patriotism, Paul Schrader's The Comfort of Strangers, Alfonso Cuaron's Y Tu Mama Tambien, Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood For Love, Stephen Frears' My Beautiful Laundrette

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What would be your picks for Criterion's horniest covers?

All the Bloodshed Money Can Buy To Die For

Happy Criterion Announcement Day! As goes every 15th of the month (or sometimes therebaouts) we have gotten the new slate of Criterion blu-rays and 4Ks for an upcoming month, which in today's case means March of 2024. And what a slate it is! Starting with the happiest shock of the bunch -- on March 26th they're dropping Gus Van Sant's satical masterpiece To Die For onto 4K! Definitely my favoritew movie of Van Sant's (with all due apologies to the very close runner-up My own Private Idaho) and possibly still my favorite Nicole Kidman performance -- all that's a long list and it would depend on the day and my mood. Anyway there weirdly aren't a ton of special features on this -- some commentary tracks, deleted scenes, and an essay -- but when the movie itself is this good and it's been newly restored I don't really care. Next up...

... we have Iranian director Amir Naderi's 1984 film The Runner, which is based on his own childhood in that post-revolutionary country and stars child actor Madjid Niroumand as an orphan determined to rise above his circumstances, and we have Senegalese director Alice Diop's 2022 masterful Saint Omer, a courtroom drama about a novelist following the trial in France of an immigrant accused of murdering her own daughter. 

And then we have William Dieterle's 1941 classic retelling of The Daniel and Devil Webster called All That Money Can Buy, which memorably stars Walter Huston as the devil himself and has a grand score from Bernard Herrmann. And to top it all off we've got my #8 favorite film of last year, Laura Poitras' documentary All the Beauty and the Bloodshed about photographer and activist Nan Goldin, which is a goddamned masterpiece and one of the most important documents of our age. This is not a light bunch of movies, y'all! Great great stuff coming from Criterion in March -- pre-order everything at the links provided. 

13 Toilets of Halloween #8

I very well couldn't do a series called "The 13 Toilets of Halloween" and not talk about The Toilet To End All Toilets (or rather The Toilet To Begin All Toilets) -- the scene of Marion Crane flushing ripped up pieces of paper down the Bates Motel commode in Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho. Long heralded as The First Film To Show A Toilet On-Screen, although the internet has apparently shattered that myth -- Reddit is telling me that we see a toilet in King Vidor's 1928 silent masterpiece The Crowd, and that we see and hear a toilet flushing in the 1930 comedy Going Wild. Take that, Hitchcock! Toss Psycho in the garbage can, I guess! Or rather...

Anyway to make this post slightly more interesting (since what else is there to say about the goddamned toilet in Psycho) I re-watched Gus Van Sant's 1998 color pseudo-shot-for-shot remake of Psycho last night just to see if he did anything interesting with The Toilet in it and -- he does not! Lucky us. I got excited for a second because it looked like there were a couple drops of blood (I was praying it was blood anyway) on the toilet seat, but my boyfriend insists they are simply marks from those little protective nubs that keep the lid from slamming down too hard? You can make up you own minds on that. In summation...

... here is a gif of Vince Vaughn's Norman Bates jerking off at the peephole while watching Marion change in her room. That was always my favorite update from Hitch's film to Van Sant's -- just the blunt crudeness of it makes me laugh, and I think it would make Hitch laugh too. Would he have done that if he could've gotten away with it, you think? I can't decide. So much of what makes Hitch's films last was the restrictions he was forced to work around -- the sleaze is there, but you have to lean in to get it. Now if somebody remakes Psycho again they'll probably have Norman shoot ejaculate right through the peephole the next time. In 3D! Gaspar Noé's Psycho, lol. Dare to dream. Actually Karl Glusman (who did indeed shoot ejaculate for Noé already in his 3D porn film Love) would totally make a good Norman, now that I think about it?

And The Award Goes To... Queens!

News today has been coming hot and heavy and I've been straaaaaining to keep up -- I haven't even gotten around to that news about a new season of Feud being directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Tom Hollander as Truman Capote alongside Naomi Watts, Chloë Sevigny, Calista Flockheart, and Diane Lane as the high society ladies he spurned when he wrote that tell-all back in the 1970s! And I'm not getting to it now either! (Really I just said all that needs to be said though, didn't I? Until we see the damn thing. anyway.) No this post here is to wham-bam out today's announcement from the LGBTQ critic's guild I belong to that we have awarded our TV Awards -- the Dorian TV Awards from GALECA are here, and you can read our entire slate of winners over at The Hollywood Reporter. No I don't have time to get into it too much, but I will say I think we did real good -- especially in the acting prizes, which went to Melanie Lynskey for Yellowjackets and Jennifer Coolidge for The White Lotus, in Lead and Supporting respectively. Queens, deserving queens, all of them queens!

Good Morning, World

Is it really possible that Keanu Reeves did a sultry slutty hustler-tinged daguerrotype cover-shoot by Matthew Rolston for Interview Magazine in 1990 (circa My Own Private Idaho of course, but different from the issue that Keanu did with River Phoenix seen here) and I had never seen it until yesterday? Not only possible, but the devil's honest truth -- Interview posted one of their flashbacks on their site to it last night and I was like, "Wha huh?" Just like that. "Wha huh?" I even said it out loud and everything. If a Keanu wears short jean shorts and MNPP doesn't notice, did it really happen? A question eternal, finally answered. Yes, it not only exists -- it thrives. Hit the jump for all I could scavenge up...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

you can learn from: 

My Own Private Idaho (1991)

Scott: Why, you wouldn't even look at a clock unless 

hours were lines of coke, dials looked like the signs of 

gay bars, or time itself was a fair hustler in black leather.

Happy 30 to My Own Private Idaho! Released today, 1991.

I miss River Phoenix. At least we still got Keanu.

Ooh thanks to @InterviewMag for scanning the Keanu & River photoshoot from their November 1991 issue! https://t.co/5lZjA8cqp9 pic.twitter.com/XaqCqpOn7l

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 25, 2021

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

To Die For (1995)

Jimmy: Any time it rains, or when there's 

thunder and lightning, or when it snows, 

I have to jack off.

A happy 25 to Gus Van Sant's best movie.

All due apologies to My own Private Idaho, 

but this is a factual statement. Come at me!

web polls

Good Morning, World

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Did any of you read the "Oral History" of Gus Van Sant's film To Die For that IndieWire dropped last month for the film's 25th anniversary? It's terrific and I recommend you do -- I did and it inspired me to 1) buy a copy of the film on blu-ray, because for some reason I inexplicably didn't already own it on blu-ray, and 2) to watch it this past weekend. The film holds up terrifically well -- indeed I would make the case that it's GVS's best film, although some of you My Own Private Idaho fiends might side-eye me for that, and maybe I'd deserve it. It's my favorite anyway.

If it’s not generally accepted that TO DIE FOR Matt Dillon is Hottest Matt Dillon I think it oughta be pic.twitter.com/d7zw6ldMG9

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 17, 2020

Also that. What would you choose as Prime Matt Dillon? I'd say any answer between Drugstore Cowboy in 1989 and Wild Things in 1998 is basically correct. Before that he's too much of a baby, and after that, well, any of you picking The House That Jack Built, you can report to the principal's office.

River Phoenix Fifteen Times

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Inspired by our pal Cláudio's wonderful piece on River's performance in My Own Private Idaho over at The Film Experience this week here are some photos of the late blessed actor taken by the photographer Michael Tighe in 1993, not long before River died.  These were the last photos taken of him, which lends one of them (you'll know which one) a bit of a spooky air. Anyway I'd really been feeling the need to revisit MOPI this week before Cláudio's piece -- the Criterion edition being on sale at B&N, is what inspired it -- and after reading Cláudio's piece it's def. happening sooner not later. Hit the jump for the rest of the shoot...
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10 Off My Head: Siri Says 1995

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There's been a tweet going around on Twitter for the past week where the Twitterati were asked to name their favorite movie for the year they turned 18, and in a weird happenstance of serendipity this week's edition of my "Siri Says" series will be doing just that. That is to say that today I asked Siri, the person who lives inside of my telephone, for a random number between 1 and 100 and she gave me 95, so we will be listing our favorite Movies of 1995. Which was the year I turned 18. (Go ahead, do your math, I'm ancient.) And as long as you've got your calculators out you can agree on this as well -- all of these movies are turning 25 this year to boot! 

Amazing! I was seeing an actual literal ton of movies in 1995, as I both worked in a video-store -- this was a year after Pulp Fiction came out and all of us Film Nerds had to work at video-stores, it was a rule -- and I began my tumultuous trek through Film School that fall. When I started this I was ready to say I saw everything that came out that year but then I began making this list and there are weird random ones that fell through the cracks and seem to've remained there -- I think you'll be surprised by some of the titles I've never seen, yonder down below. But first, my faves...

My 10 Favorite Movies of 1995

To Die For

(dir. Gus Van Sant)

-- released on October 6th 1995 --

Leaving Las Vegas

(dir. Mike Figgis)

-- released on October 27th 1995 -- 

Se7en

(dir. David Fincher)

-- released on September 22nd 1995 --

Babe

(dir. Chris Noonan)

-- released on August 4th 1995 --

The Doom Generation

(dir. Gregg Araki)

-- released on October 27th 1995 --

Showgirls

(dir. Paul Verhoeven)

-- released on September 22nd 1995 --

Safe

(dir. Todd Haynes)

-- released on June 30th 1995 --

Clueless

(dir. Amy Heckerling)

-- released on July 19th 1995 --

12 Monkeys

(dir. Terry Gilliam)

-- released on December 8th 1995 --

Sense & Sensibility

(dir. Ang Lee)

-- released on December 4th 1995 --

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Runners-up: Before Sunrise (dir. Linklater); Shallow Grave (dir. Danny Boyle); Living in Oblivion (dir. Tom DeCillo); The City of Lost Children (dir. Jeunet & Caro); Dolores Claiborne (dir. Taylor Hackford); Crumb (dir. Terry Zwigoff); Party Girl (dir. Daisy von Scherler Mayer); To Wong Foo... Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar (dir. Beeban Kidron)...

... Unzipped (dir. Douglas Keeve); Strange Days (dir. Bigelow); Kicking & Screaming (dir. Noah Baumbach); The Usual Suspects (dir. Bryan Singer); Copycat (dir. John Amiel); Mighty Aphrodite (dir. Woody Allen); The Brady Bunch Movie (dir. Betty Thomas); Home For the Holidays (dir. Jodie Foster); Toy Story (dir. John Lasseter)...

... Casino (dir. Scorsese); The Passion of Darkly Noon (dir. Philip Ridley); The Celluloid Closet (dir. Aldo Fabrizi); The Day of the Beast (dir. Alex de la Iglesia); Dead Man Walking (dir. Gregory Dark); La Haine (dir. Kassovitz); Jeffrey (dir. Christopher Ahsley); Waiting To Exhale (dir. Forest Whitaker); Flower of My Secret (dir. Almodovar)
.

Never seen: Billy Madison (dir. Tamra Davis); Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (dir. Bill Condon); The Quick and the Dead (dir. Raimi); Tank Girl (dir. Rachel Talalay); Friday (dir. F. Gary Gray); Vampire in Brooklyn (dir. Wes Craven); Things To Do in Denver When You're Dead (dir. Gary Fleder); The Prophecy (dir. Gregory Widen); Bad Boys (dir. Michael Bay)...

... Pocahontas (dir. Mike Gabriel); The Bridges of Madison County (dir. Clint Eastwood); Hackers (dir. Iain Softley); Empire Records (dir. Allan Moyle); Goldeneye (dir. Martin Campbell); The Crossing Guard (dir. Sean Penn);  Clockers (dir. Spike Lee); Othello (dir. Oliver Parker); Fallen Angels (dir. Wong Kar-wai); Braveheart (dir. Mel Gibson)

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What are your favorite movies of 1995?

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