Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Personal Shopper (2016)

Maureen: So we made this oath... 

Whoever died first would send the other a sign.

Ingo: A sign? From- from the afterlife?

Maureen: You could call it that; 

you could call it a million things.

Ingo: But... how do you know if it's a sign?

Maureen: I'm a medium. He was- 

he was a medium. I'll just know it.

Ingo: Have you... communicated with spirits before?

Maureen: Um. Lewis thought they were... spirits. 

I'm- I'm less sure. But yes. Uh, somewhat.

I mean there are invisible... presences... around us. 

Always. I mean whether or not they're the souls of the dead, 

I don't know, but... You know when you're a medium 

you just are attuned to some sort of... vibe.

Ingo: What do you mean by- by vibe?

Maureen: It's an intuition thing; it's a feeling. 

You... You see this door... That's only like slightly, ajar.

Ingo: Well... How's within that, that the 

soul... continues to exist... after death?

Maureen: I don't even know if I believe in that.

Can you believe that this movie is turning 10 this year? Time really has ceased having meaning. Anyway we're not here for that -- it didn't premiere at Cannes until May of 2016 -- we are here because actor Lars Eidinger, who played Ingo in the film and of whom we're an enormous fan, is turning 50 today. We previously did a great big gratuitous post on Lars for on his 45th birthday right here, but we're circling back on him because in the five years since then he's only made more of a name for himself -- he can seen briefly in Noah Baumbach's film Jay Kelly right now, but the biggest news of all dropped a few weeks ago -- he's playing the villain Brainiac in the next Superman movie! That is WILD casting. Great, interesting, and surprising casting -- you'd think they'd go with a big name, but they went with a great actor instead. And Lars is also, it must be added with great fondness and appreciation, a massive freak. We approve, James Gunn!

Lucas Bravo Twenty-Two Times

I feel as if I willed a new Lucas Bravo photoshoot into existence by posting about the French actor out of the blue last Thursday -- whatever this version of a "Spidey Sense" is, I got it. That said he does have a new project that premiered on HBO on November 14th (the series called The Seduction) so maybe I'm not so special? Fuck it, let me pretend. The series is a loose adaptation of the many-times-adapted novel  Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons) and it co-stars Diane Kruger and my beloved Vincent Lacoste, so why the hell wasn't it on my radar until now? Lord knows. 

Too much content! Anyway I'll probably start watching that over the holiday -- perhaps you can join me! It's probably too much to hope that Lucas and Vincent make out but I'll hope it anyway. For now this photoshoot is for L'Beaute Homme magazine and you can read the chat with him here -- he talks about loving playing a villain, strangling Diane Kruger, and what he learned from George Clooney (uh huh), so that's something. And then there's that stache, which... somebody hose me down. Hit the jump for all the photos...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Batman Forever (1995)

Robin: Holey rusted metal, Batman!

Batman: Huh?

Robin: The ground, it's all metal. 

It's full of holes. You know, holey. 

Batman: Oh.

Yes I do indeed maintain that the two Joel Schumacher Batman movies are brilliant in their embrace of camp entertainment -- I'm slightly partial to the Batman & Robin (although Clooney is lousy) but they're both such dumb fun and they really should be appreciated as such. Set aside your fears! Straight dudes especially can't seem to get them. Anyway that said, onto the sad reason we're here --  RIP to Val Kilmer. I wasn't ever that huge a fan of him but he certainly was a large and oft formative part of my childhood, gifting us with the volleyball and locker-room scenes in Top Gun, his leather pants in The Doors...

... and of course, the pièce de résistance, Willow. (I should actually send a text to one of my oldest best friends in the world and see how she's doing, as she's the world's biggest Willow fan.) Val was never really my bag but his moving scene in Maverick and the 2021 doc on him both endeared him to me more than he'd been at the height of his career, so I'm at least glad he's not in pain anymore. If you were a fan tell me about it in the comments!

Michael Fassbender Swings For George Clooney

I'm really annoyed by the lack of new photoshoots that accompanied the reemergence of Michael Fassbender last fall with David Fincher's The Killer and Taika Watita's Next Goal Wins -- I had to scrounge up an ancient picture to use here, and that's a crime against sexiness. Do some goddamned press, Michael! Anyway maybe next time around -- Variety is reporting he's in talks to lead George Clooney's new limited series called The Department, which is about spies and is a remake of a French series called The Bureau. (Anybody watched that?) 

Showtime gave the show an immediate greenlight, because they have apparently never watched anything George Clooney has directed before. He's famous though so he gets a greenlight, no matter how shitty he is at directing! That said the best thing he's done was his only other series, the 2019 series Catch-22, so maybe he should just direct TV. We'll see how this one goes before making a decision. And I can't possibly talk about George Clooney and Michael Fassbender without refering to that time he talked about Michael's dick on the Oscars, now can I?

Well let's hope George remembers, and puts it 

to good use on his little television series.

Callum Turner Four Times

I was looking something else up just nown when I realized that my review of George Clooney's latest film The Boys in the Boat dropped right before Christmas and so I never properly linked to that review from here at MNPP. So let's do that. Here is my review of that movie which here, two weeks later, seems all but forgotten. Like most of George Clooney's directorial efforts! That said BITB is actually not terrible by my estimation -- cheeseball as hell but it goes down easy enough. Oh and if you, like the rest of the world, have forgotten -- this is the movie about the US rowing team in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. Here's the trailer. Callum here is the lead and he's real easy to stare at as far as I'm concerned -- we've been doing just that for years in many a post, after all! Anyway these photods are via Glass Magazine and if you hit the jump there are three more plus -- plus!! -- a few bonus shots of Callum rocking his skimpy rowing uniform on the set of Clooney's movie just cuz I love you...

Row Row Row Your Boys

George Clooney's latest homoerotic fantasia The Boys in the Boat has gifted us with a trailer today -- this is his movie about the rowing team at the Nazi Olympics yada yada that stars Callum Turner (mmm Callum Turner) and Joel Edgerton and James Wolk and a bunch of other hot pieces crammed into tank tops and shorts and ...

... getting all wet and sweaty with one another. Sports! Am I right? I shared a pile of photos from the set of this movie back when it was filming that were worth a few shakes of the leg but this trailer proves that there's nothing like a golden-boy filter thrown on the camera lens to make the homoeroticism truly sing!

This movie is out on Christmas Day, so I suppose a lot of you people should be preparing yourselves to be shifting around uncomfortably in the seat next to your parents as you discover fresh new and exciting feelings about the wonders of rowing. Here is the trailer:

And I made several more gifs for us, after the jump...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Out of Sight (1998)

Jack: It's like seeing someone for the first time, like you can be passing on the street, and you look at each other for a few seconds, and there's this kind of a recognition like you both know something. Next moment the person's gone, and it's too late to do anything about it. And you always remember it because it was there, and you let it go, and you think to yourself, 'What if I had stopped? What if I had said something?' What if, what if... it may only happen a few times in your life.

Karen: Or once.

Jack: Or once.

Every time I write this about a 1998 movie a little piece of my crumbles to dust, but -- a happy 25th birthday to this great Soderbergh flick! Another casualty of my busy-ness as of late was me re-watching this movie for the first time in too long and writing a piece on it for this anniversary; I've just had too many other projects due last and this week to get to this one. But I have an open little window tonight and I bought this movie on 4K recently, so maybe I'll watch it here for its anniversary proper. And maybe I'll remember what it felt like, actually liking George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez! In all seriousness though, I loved this movie and am extremely curious how it'll hold up after all these years. Stay tuned!

Good Morning, James Wolk

Happy 38 to James Wolk today! I feel like I've barely seen him in ages! Since the skimpy panties in Watchmen, really? I never watched Zoo and that is my bad, because by the sound of it that nutty show was right up my alley and if people like me weren't turning in for it then no wonder it's not still on. Anyway we should be seeing some of James this year, as he's one of the (many many many) hot men starring in George Clooney's next directorial effort, The Boys in the Boat, about the rowing crew team in the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin. This movie is looking like it might be the gayest thing Clooney's ever done...

... and we all know how much that is saying with regards to the man who wore rubber nipples for Joel Schumacher. But in all seriousness it really does look like it might even rival Clooney's Catch-22 miniseries for young men in skimpy clothing -- just look at the set photos I posted last June! To say I'm looking forward to this is an understatement -- I think Clooney is generally a very bad director, but he's at his best when there are half-naked men in front of him. (Catch-22 is by far the best thing he's done, with that "Let's leer at Sam Rockwell's perfect ass" epic Confessions of a Dangerous Mind coming in second.) Let's hope he fully, similarly appreciates James when he's got him there. 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)

Pete: You miserable little snake!

You stole from my kin!

Ulysses: Who was fixin' to betray us.

Pete: You didn't know that at the time.

Ulysses: So I borrowed it until I did know.

Pete: That don't make no sense!

Ulysses: Pete, it's a fool that looks for logic

in the chambers of the human heart.

Happy 66 to John Turturro today! Him & Chris Walken

on Severance might be my favorite couple on TV right now?

Good Morning, World

A happy 37 to Christopher Abbott today! Funny how Catch-22 director George Clooney was even more exploitative of Chris's naked flesh than Girls director Lena Dunham was, right? Right. And then Brandon Cronenberg blew them both out of the water with Possessor, haha. Anyway Chris has proven himself one of the finest actor of his age group if you ask me with those three aforementioned roles alongside his turns in Black Bear and On the Count of Three and and Piercing and alongside the ever-spectacular Melanie Lynskey in Hello I Must Be Going (what a great little movie that is), so let's give the boy some love today. What have you enjoyed him in so far? Any favorites? Tell me in the comments. 

Lucas Bravo Five Times

I watched the Julia Roberts & George Clooney rom-com Ticket To Paradise over the weekend and lord it was dumb, not least of all because they tried to make us believe that anyone would choose anyone except for the perfect french pilot played by perfect French actor Lucas Bravo (see lots more of him here) in it. As soon as it became a plot-point that Julia just couldn't with him I was done with her character. DONE!

YES YES I DO I WILL DO WHATEVER YOU WANT YES pic.twitter.com/7tT2qZAtyB

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) November 7, 2022

Anyway dumb as it was the movie was a perfectly adequate way to distract myself for a couple of hours from the fritz it's been on for the past couple of weeks, which I'm hoping will clear up now that the election's passed and gone better than anticipated. We'll see. Well it didn't happen today, but I was up half the night not-doom-scrolling, so let me get some sleep tonight and we'll see. Until then I leave you with this InStyle photo-shoot of the bellissimo Mr. Bravo, after the jump...

Pics of the Day

Don't know how I managed to miss these photos from the set of George Clooney's upcoming movie The Boys in the Boat, which is about the University of Washington's rowing team in the 1930s working their way to the big 1936 Berlin Olympics (via) -- this one was on my radar immediately because the last time Clooney gathered up a bunch of hot boys for war stuff we got the hyper-gratuitous antics of his Catch-22 miniseries with Christopher Abbott. You add sports to the mix and you cast people like Callum Turner and like Joel Edgerton and like James Wolk and you set it during the height of inadvertently queer (thank you J.C. Leyendecker) "Arrow Man" fashion...

... and you've got a fetish parade right up my alley. Probably yours 

as well! Hell it's clearly George Clooney's best life...

Has anyone ever looked more in their element?

And yes George, I am just jealous. With good reason. 

You can see all the good reasons right on after the jump...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

For a Good Time, Call... (2012)

Charlie: The most exciting part of the sex that we 

just had was when my penis chafed by your NuvaRing.

Oh my lord did anybody else forget this movie existed? I had totally forgotten this movie existed. Remember when we almost got Ari Graynor as a thing? I wish we would have, she is so funny and talented but Hollywood just didn't seem to know what to do with her. She hasn't stopped working -- she was terrific on Mrs. America just last year -- but I want to see her more. But speaking of people that Hollywood hasn't figured out what to do with -- we're here today not for Ari, but because it's James Wolk's birthday! 

As much as I forgot this movie existed I forgot even more that James Wolk was in it -- and shirtless to boot! I think he's only in the opening scene seen having sex with and summarily breaking up with the not-Ari other lead character (played by co-writer Lauren Miller Rogen) but what a scene. The movie is on HBO Max or rentable on Amazon if you wanna see it again or for the first time -- when I did my capsule review at the time I called it "totally charming.. totally a Pink Box Movie and unashamed of that fact." I'm adding it to my list for another go, here on the (good grief) almost 10-year anniversary. 

Anyway happy birthday, James! I hope your role in George Clooney's upcoming Olympic Rowing Team movie (is there any point side-eyeing George Clooney about this shit anymore?) The Boys in the Boat (previously spoken about here) is a good one, and I don't just mean that you show off those famous gams. (I do mean that though, in part.) Hit the jump for some gifs from FAGTC (that abbreviation!) that I made of James after the jump...

Good Morning, Gratuitous Callum Turner II

It's usually a pretty good sign that I should post about somebody if that somebody's name shows up in more than one totally-unconnected place in a twenty-four hour span, and yesterday actor Callum Turner's name showed up in two places within about a half-an-hour span -- no needs to bait me so hard, Callum! (Wait, what am I saying?) First instance: I read this new interview with Cary Fukunaga & Edgar Wright in Interview Magazine and Fukunaga mentioned he's been hard at work on a new project, so I googled -- the new project is a fictionalized WWII miniseries called Masters of the Air whose cast is chockablock with pasty pretty boys like Callum and Austin Butler and Barry Keoghan (okay I might be the only person who calls Keoghan a "pretty boy" but I stand by that) and so on. This movie's been shooting for awhile now -- here is a photo that Fukunaga took of Callum and co-star Fionn O'Shea:

(Sometimes I wonder about Cary, y'all...) And the second instance was the news that Callum has been cast in the leading role in George Clooney's new movie (speaking of "straight" men I wonder about), which is a 1930s Olympian rower flick (mmhmm see what I mean) called The Boys in the Boat... now I personally think Clooney's a pretty lousy director. But if you saw his Catch-22 miniseries (the best thing Clooney's done, by the way) starring Christopher Abbott and Rafi Gavron and Austin Stowell and a parade of hot young fellas parading about in the tiniest shorts you ever done seen, well, then Clooney turning his "straight eye" on the Olympian rowing team of 1936, pictured here...

... well who cares if it's any good? It will be watchable whatever happens quality-wise, the same way that White Squall remains watchable all these many years on. Anyway these seem like big "gets" for Callum, who's been nipping on the edges of stardom for several years now -- I posted this site's first "Gratuitous Callum Turner" post in 2018 (right here) and since then he's hopped into the Fantastic Beasts cast and co-starred in the most recent Emma movie. Maybe 2022 will be his year. His whole look, which I would call Josh O'Connor adjacent, is fairly popular right now. (I mean it's always been popular with me but pop culture seems to be digging it, I mean.) So let's look! Hit the jump for a couple dozen photos I've never posted before (and a few I have)...  

Good Morning, Gratuitous Ethan Peck II

One of the things I didn't make room for stabbing at for in my take-down review of George Clooney's latest directing failure called The Midnight Sky last night was Clooney casting the perfect specimen known as Ethan Peck -- yes, Gregory's grandson, who plays Spock on TV right now -- as the younger version of himself in flashbacks. Uhh we saw you when you were young, George, and you were no Ethan Peck. You may have had a certain attitudinal je ne sais quoi in certain roles (From Dusk Til Dawn pops to mind) but four extra inches, linebacker shoulders, perfect space-alien eyes and a chest like Gaston from Beauty and the Beast, none of these are things you ever possessed, Mister George Clooney!

That said Ethan does do an uncanny Clooney voice -- I actually convinced myself that George was dubbing his lines, but I am now wondering if that wasn't just me trying to entertain myself during this slog of a film. And on top of all that the flashbacks that Ethan was in were easily the worst part of the film, saddled with some of the most generic and ultimately pointless character-building I've seen in awhile. That poor actress who played his young wife!

Also I CANNOT BELIEVE we are still making an actress come into a movie to do one scene as "The Wife" who badgers the husband for his highfalutin space job while hot dogs are burnin' on the grill and lil Timmy wants to toss the ball and WHAT THE FUCK STOP IT JUST STOP ITTTT

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 9, 2020

Anyway Ethan was the best looking thing in the film even if he didn't have much to do, and I hope he gets some more roles off of this -- I don't watch Star Trek Discovery and so I never get to see him even though I've been a fan (of looking at him anyway) for several years -- check the archives! 

He's long had a tag here on the site -- click here for our first "Gratuitous Ethan Peck" post way back when -- but it's just been sitting here waiting for content to fill it. Thankfully I found this photoshoot two nights ago, as I googled "Ethan Peck" as that dreary movie wore on and on. Hit the jump for another dozen photos...

The Midnight Sky in 275 Words

Never have the heavens felt heavier than they do in George Clooney's The Midnight Sky -- perhaps that's because instead of their usual light and air they're suddenly stuffed with space debris, muddled exposition, exhausting musical compositions, bland characters, weird interior design, Felicity Jones' single facial expression, the eternal strain for some sort of emotional or philosophical resonance or significance, a splash of cosmos twinkle, and David Oyelowo's bicep-accentuating future shirts, maybe not in that order. No wonder Clooney's main character can hardly lift his head. It's heavy, man. 

Set about 25 years in the future immediately following a vague apocalypse Clooney's character finds himself stationed at a stark frozen outpost -- my favorite thing in the film is the station's name, a Carpenter-ian flourish worth a smirk -- all on his lonesome. Except, hark Newt, he's not -- there's suddenly a mute little girl standing there. Cue the strings, and the strings, and the goddamned strings -- when Alexandre Desplat's soundtrack started plinking as the adorable little girl rolled some microwaved peas across the table I, for my sanity, had to check the hell out.

There are a couple of well-done set-pieces of the action sort -- what starts out as a rip-off of Gravity ends instead on a nicely underplayed note of tragedy, and there are scattered glimpses of cosmic brilliance in the film's expensively shot sheen. But my god I never cared. I never cared about the astronaut characters because they're never flesh-and-blood characters, and I never cared about the people on the ground because their scenes are so molasses-handed, thick with pushy melodrama, I skittered backwards in my seat as if shoved by a magnetic force. 

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009)

As long as I'm hitting up Animated Rats in my "13 Rats of Halloween" series -- yesterday I did a post about Templeton the Paul Lynde Rat in Charlotte's Web -- I might as well hit up my maybe favorite of all Animated Movie Rats (and yes I include you, Ratatouille), the one called "Rat" and voiced by the always best-in-show Willem Dafoe in Wes Anderson's stop-motion masterpiece Fantastic Mr. Fox.

"Y'all are trespassing now. Illegally."

I love everything about Rat. I love his little finger snaps and athletic swings through the cider jars, I love that he calls Meryl Streep's character "the town tart" and "pretty as a mink stole" -- I love his little red-and-white striped sweater and that he seems genuinely dangerous in the way that Wes Anderson movies always surprise you they can be, to even out all the whimsy. I would give anything for a spin-off movie about Rat's younger days... or even just an action figure. Did they make any FMF figures? Oh to own Rat would rule!

Hit the jump for links to all the Previous Ways Not To Die