There's a Woman, And a Yard...

I know that Blumhouse thinks they're the selling point here so that's why they put their name on the poster but the real selling point behind the upcoming horror movie The Woman in the Yard is the film's director Jaume Collet-Serra, aka the man who gifted the world with Orphan. Also the 2005 House of Wax remake (how many times am I going to mention that movie this January???) and The Shallows and the recent B-movie thriller Carry On with Taron Egerton (which was, in typical JCS fashion, a heap of fun) -- this man does not know how to not make an entertaining picture. (He also gave us the hotness of Alessandro Nivola as a soccer player in the movie Goal so he will forever have my heart.) Anyway the movie also stars the terrific Danielle Deadwyler, so that's also a plus! The plot is pretty much the title -- a scary woman shows up in the yard. We're there! Here's the trailer:

The Woman in the Yard is out on March 28th!

Quote of the Day

"I don’t know. I do know that [producer Alex Mace] has already talked to me about doing a third one. And if the script is good, and people love this one, why not? I would love to do that. I don’t think we’re gonna have to wait 13 years because I don’t think it’s gonna be possible in 13 years. When you’re in your 20s you can still look like younger if you get on a little stool chair, or have children play you from multiple angles. But I would love the opportunity if it came up. I wouldn’t say no.”

As I said in my review of this past weekend's Orphan: First Kill (read it over at The Film Experience if you missed it) I demand ten more Orphan movies, so Isabelle Fuhrman here confirming at least the subject's been broached in a chat with Variety today makes me happy... well happy-ish. I'd be happy, I'd be ecstatic, if this was more emphatic, as in, "Fuck yeah we're making that shit!" 

But also as I said in my review -- Isabelle looking not-quite-right is part of the movie's pleasure! I saw some people complaining about not buying Esther size-wise in the prequel and I'm just like, "Have you no joy in your heart???" The ridiculousness is the sweet stuff! That's why I could see this franchise going on forever, and I want it to keep prequel-ing itself on top of that -- keep making Esther be younger while Isabelle gets older. Benjamin Button this shit! But in the cheapest way possible! I want middle-aged Isabelle Fuhrman sticking her head through a hole in the bottom of a crib while an animatronic baby's body slashes around a knife dammit!

So grateful for my 600k followers on Instagram! And to all of the fans for going to see #Orphanfirstkill. We made this movie for you! Thank you for loving ESTHER since the first #ORPHAN movie. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at what went into making this prequel! pic.twitter.com/SJ68uumKIP

— Isabelle Fuhrman (@isabellefuhrman) August 22, 2022

Esther Squared!

Tomorrow is the day that all totally sane people with totally sane minds have been counting the minutes for for thirteen full years -- the sequel to Orphan is out! Titled Orphan: First Kill is is actually inexplicably a prequel to that 2009 delight, and today I have reviewed it for The Film Experience so click on over to read my thoughts on it. I don't spoil the new movie but I do spoil the '09 film, but if you've somehow managed to not have that movie spoiled for you in thirteen years I refuse to believe you're a person on the internet at all. That seems unlikely! Anyway the second this movie is on paramount+ tomorrow I am making a gif of my favorite moment and tweeting said gif at every person on Twitter one billion times over, so be prepared for that. I'll even update this post with the gif when the time comes, how about that? What a sometimes delightful world we live in y'all!

Looking Forward To NewFest

I missed this a couple of days ago because I am, as previously whinged upon, totally buried in Toronto Film Fest stuff and New York Film Fest stuff-to-be, but the NYC-based annual queer film fest called NewFest announced their line-up on Wednesday! Running from October 15th through 26th it's always a blast -- they're doing a mixed in-person and virtual line-up which is appreciated, given there is still a whole damn pandemic happening, but they're showing some really excellent shit so you should check it out! 

I've seen several of their bigger titles already thanks to earlier fests in the year -- for instance their Closing Night film, the animated Sundance smash Flee -- tackling the fairly timely subject of gay Afghan refugees -- will be gunning for all kinds of Oscars when the time comes and is absolutely worth it. They're also showing Rebecca Hall's masterful directorial debut Passing with Ruth Negga and Tessa Thompson, which I reviewed here, and the rowing team drama The Novice which has a tremendous performance from Isabelle Fuhrmann in its lead -- here's my review of that from Tribeca. Oh and Potato Dreams of America which I liked a lot when it screened at SXSW -- review here. 

Their Opening Night movie is a premiere doc about Pete Buttegieg called Mayor Pete, natch. And they've also got a few big anniversary screenings, including Truth or Dare's 30th and a premiere of Oscilliscope's just-announced 4K restoration of John Cameron Mitchell's Shortbus, which is turning 15 if you can believe it. (God that makes me feel old.) Anyway head on over to check out the line-up -- tickets go on sale today! 

It's That Sweet Fantasia Time Yet Again!

Hard to believe it's already the start of August, right? On the one hand I'm happy about that because I wish nothing more than the total and complete annihilation of the summer season every year, and August, while wretched, is at least the ass-end of it. On the other hand I'm sad that time's flying by because death, sweet death, is hurtling forward. But on the third hand I'm thrilled it's August because August every year means it's time for the grand Fantasia International Film Festival! 

Based out of Montreal (and celebrating its 25th edition here in 2021) we here at MNPP have been covering the fest for four years now from a distance -- maybe one year I'll attend in person, I've always wanted to see Montreal, but 2021 is obviously not the one. But I always see several surprising and wonderful genre films thanks to them every year; they do ace stuff. This year's festival begins this Thursday August 5th, and runs for three whole weeks, until the 25th -- you can check their full line-up at this link, but it's a whole lot and so I'm going to highlight some stuff for you. Because you're here and you trust my opinion, right? (That was your first mistake.) 

Some of these I'll be reviewing in the weeks ahead, some of these I have already seen and reviewed at previous fests, and some of these I probably won't get the chance to see but really really really want to -- they all sound like good news to me, is the point.

20 Films You Should See at Fantasia 2021

The Night House -- I'm supposed to see this later this month as it's out in actual theaters on August 20th, but this chiller starring the ever-great Rebecca Hall has gotten a lot of great notices since it premiered at Sundance way back in 2020. Rebecca Hall! Yes, please.

Alien on Stage -- I already saw this tremendously entertaining documentary earlier this year at SXSW and I reviewed it right here -- a chest-burstingly feel-good crowd-pleaser if ever there was one it tells the story of a group of small-town Brits who decide to adapt Ridley Scott's classic horror flick Alien for the stage and whose sudden viral success far outpaces their modest means. I adore this movie.

Strawberry Mansion -- I saw this at Sundance (reviewed it right here) and it won't be everybody's cuppa - it's hella quirky in that Michel Gondry sort of lo-fi way - but I found its endlessly delightful and weird in ways I still haven't gotten out of my head.  

The Sadness -- I don't recall Fantasia ever slapping trigger warnings on their horror flicks before, but this Taiwanese zombie flick comes with several and that's good enough for me! You can't trigger the already dead inside! (In all seriousness this movie is deeply fucked up -- more to come soon.)

Great Yokai War Guardians -- It's Takashi Miike! Of course I wanna see this one! The Closing Night film, this is the sequel to Miike's 2006 flick about adorable war demons and the kiddies who love them -- I haven't seen the original one since 2006 and should probably revisit it before diving in here, I guess. But assume craziness.

We're All Going to the World's Fair -- Another one I saw at Sundance, but I never got around to reviewing it -- that's not due to it being anything less than fascinating though, and I haven't stopped thinking about this one all year. And it's got a terrific lead performance from newcomer Anna Cobb, who's already been scooped up to co-star in Luca Guadagnino's new flick with Timmy! 

The Feast -- Another super super duper movie I saw at SXSW, I reviewed the deeply dark horror flick The Feast right here. Here's a whiff of what Is aid about it at the time:

"... an unsettling and hypnotic little parable about the haves and the have-nots and what one will do to the other and the other right back to have what they had, want, and rightly or un-rightly demand. It's brim with weirdos and secrets bubbling up from beneath the black surface and the diseases of cordoned-off eccentricities left to rot and fester in their own heady stew, delicious au jus..."

Beyond the Infinite Two Minutes -- A clever and quirky time-travel comedy from Japan where the characters get trapped in a two-minute-ahead time-loop of sorts. This is great brain-teasing fun.

The Last Thing Mary Saw -- A period horror flick that stars Isabelle Fuhrman and Rory Culkin; they had me at Fuhrmann!

The Righteous -- I'll just admit up front that I want to see this one entirely based on the fact that I have a desperate crush on its writer-director-star Mark O'Brien (see why here), who you oughta recognize from the show Halt & Catch Fire or the horror flick Ready or Not. But sometimes crushes are enough! They lead us into places we might not go otherwise! That said this is an "occult horror film" so I'd be going to this place anyway. It also stars Henry Czerny, seen above, who already co-starred with O'Brien in Ready or Not. And we dig him too.

Catch the Fair One -- This flick rightly won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature at Tribeca earlier this summer; I didn't write it up but it's a barn-burner of a thriller with a stand-out turn from its leading lady Kali Reis, who plays an ex-boxer whose sister goes missing -- you have heard that plot description a million times but this movie goes to unexpected places!

King Car -- More to come soon on this wacko Brazilian flick but this one was a very happy surprise! It's about a young man who can talk to cars, and shit gets real fucking weird real fucking fast. It's kind of like Bacurau meets Jumbo, the recent movie that had Portrait of a Lady star Noémie Merlant falling in love with a carnival ride, and that's all I'll say about that.

Cryptozoo -- Speaking of real weird I've been telling y'all y'all need to see Dash Snow's newest nutso animation ever since Sundance (I posted the trailer right here a few weeks back) and here's a chance! Otherwise it's out here in theaters in the US on August 20th, but I'm not sure about streaming. I would try to describe this movie but I don't see any positive in me trying to do that. It's one of a kind.

Broadcast Signal Intrusion -- This was one I really wanted to see at SXSW but missed due to an error on their platform -- cut to me falling to my knees and screaming "Nooo!" a la Darth Vader. But Fantasia came through! More on it soon, but it's a surreal little nightmare starring the lovely Harry Shum Jr -- think Blow Out meets, I don't know, The Poughkeepsie Tapes.

Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched-- This fantabulous three-plus-hour documentary about the films of Folk Horror screened at SXSW as well; here is my review. Be prepared to keep notes, because it's a glorious and knowledgeable film class all its own. I can't wait to own this so I can skim through it at will and remind myself of the thousand titles it told me about for the very first time!

Wild Men -- I felt bad about not getting around to review this one when I saw it at Tribeca; a dark Danish comedy about a middle-aged dude trying to find himself in nature only to get caught up in a Coenesque crime-caper I really loved it.

Brain Freeze -- The opening night film, this zombie flick from France has some clever twists on the genre and some good class commentary -- Uncle George Romero would be proud. Oh and a main character in this gruesome zombie movie is a baby!

Tombs of the Blind Dead -- Fantasia always screens some restorations of classic flicks and I'd somehow never seen any of Armando De Ossorio's undead-Templar-Knights quadrilogy of 70s/80s films out of Portugal until I got this chance, and I'm already hooked. This is the first of the four films, restored gloriously by the folks at Synapse Films -- I hope they do all four movies!

Mad God -- A full-length stop-motion horror flick from the Phil Tippet, the special-effects genius behind the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park and the big bugs in Starship Troopers? You think I'm not all up in this sucker's business? He's been working on this for thirty years! And here's how Fantasia delightfully describes this one:

"... a Dantean descent into seething theological outrage, its multitude of fascinating monstrosities, an uncanny carnival in the tradition of Hieronymus Bosch, a perpetual-motion machine of biomechanical malevolence..."

The Deep House -- This is one I probably won't be able to see here because as far as I can tell they're only screening it in person in Montreal, but man oh man am I sad about that -- it's the new flick from Alexandre Bustillo & Julien Maury, the filmmakers behind the 2007 French Extremity classic Inside (as well as the flick Kandisha that hit Shudder earlier this month which I spoke briefly about here.). But most importantly it's about a Haunted House at the bottom of a lake! I love that idea so much.

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There are literally dozens and dozens more movies showing at Fantasia, so I say go check out this line-up here. I couldn't even make a small dent in all of the awesomeness. I didn't even delve into all of the short films; hell I didn't even mention how they've got the new Suicide Squad movie, for goodness' sake. Fantasia rules. And please stay tuned over the next few weeks as the fest runs for reviews from yours truly.

I'm All Oars

Whenever I think about the sport known as crew I think about this incredibly cute freshman I had a brief fling with in college -- it stands out because I have my entire life dated older men but he was about three or four years younger than me, and also he was just adorable. Floppy blond hair, rosy cheeks, almost as tall as me (I'm 6'3" so that doesn't happen a lot), and like I said he was in crew so he was in great shape. I've actually told the story here on the site before about the time he and I hooked up in the college's library where we both worked, one night when we were supposed to be closing up the place. Anyway those are fond memories and I bring them up because last night at The Film Experience I reviewed the sports film The Novice, which has Orphan actor and MNPP fave Isabelle Fuhrman, playing an obsessive rowing team freshman; the film played (and won some prizes at) Tribeca this past week. And talking about rowing made me get lost in my fond Penthouse memories of hot crew boys and dangerous library encounters...

Evil Esther Returns!!!

This is certainly the weirdest movie news I will be reporting today, but they are making a prequel to the 2009 film Orphan! And the great Isabelle Furhman is going to be back as Esther! This sequel's very existence is kind of a spoiler for the 2009 film, which has one of the greatest twists of all the twists, but eleven years on if you don't know what Orphan's about you don't care, right? Anyway I'm still not going to spoil it but I will warn you that this Variety link does just come right out and do that, so you've be warned. The prequel is called Orphan: First Kill; sadly the great Jaume Collet-Serra isn't returning to direct -- William Brent Bell, the guy who directed The Boy and The Devil Inside, neither very good movies, is taking over. But I've never seen Fuhrmann be bad in anything, so I'll be there, my neck ribbon holding my damn head on after it fell off from this insane news.

The Queens of Scream

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Get your lungs real full and let our your best belly-deep shriek, because I've got a thrilling chilling new weekly series to sell you -- over at The Film Experience today I'm introducing y'all to "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" where I will be, no great surprise given the series' title, talking about some of my favorite performances from the fiercer sex every single Monday from here on out. Click on over for a quick introduction and then some fun with the 10th anniversary of Jaume Collet-Serra's terrifically batshit thriller Orphan and it's ever grand leading lady...

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Grace Becomes the Dancer

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Wanna hear something shocking come out of my mouth? Or fingers, anyway. Here goes: Julianne Moore was actually worse that Chloe Grace Moretz in the remake of Carrie. Y'all know how I feel about these two actresses. It's Day (the bright red goddess daylight of Julianne) and Night (the dark stormy nightmare winds of Chloe), and yet it's true, a fact, indisputable. Even more problematic than either of them though was the film-making of Carrie, which had no idea what it wanted to be. (Sorry, Kimberly Pierce, but you messed up.) 

Anyway that's my long way to getting around to not blaming Carrie on Chloe, who y'all know I have had my problems with in the past. And Carrie sort of marked a turning point, even - it was around the same time that she was being very funny on 30 Rock. I began to see some light at the end of the dark, dark tunnel. Hell she didn't even bug me in Clouds of Sils Maria, even though she seemed to grate on most other people as the weak link. (That said I'm certainly not saying she was better than Binoche or Stewart - let's not go nuts.)

Which leads us to yesterday's news that Chloe is slated to be the lead opposite Dakota Johnson and Tilda Swinton in A Bigger Splash director Luca Guadagnino's remake of Dario Argento's stylistic masterpiece of Italian giallo, the 1977 classic Suspiria. Suspiria, as anyone who's been on this site for longer than five seconds knows, is one of my favorites. I watch it at least once a year and I find something new to luxuriate in or laugh along with every damn time. And I've been following the news of a remake for over a decade - you might recall it came very close to being remade with David Gordon Green directing Isabelles Huppert & Fuhrman and few years back.

Point being... I am not going to freak out about this. I am willing to give Luca, and yes Chloe, a chance. Chloe is better cast for this role than she was for Carrie, at least - this girl should be confident enough to annoy and disrupt the closed off world she pirouettes into, and Chloe lacks no confidence that's for sure. But I'm more confident with Luca and his choices - he hasn't steered me wrong yet. We'll see how Call Me By Your Name, his gay romp with Armie Hammer, turns out, and we'll keep our eyes trained on this one. Emphatically, no doubt. So... thoughts? Anybody?
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I Can't Hear You Now

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There's always that moment in time-travel movies where the space-time continuum is off by just a hair - just a millisecond of fritz and freakout, but you know something's not right. Kind of like a glitch in The Matrix, know what I mean? No The Matrix isn't a time-travel movie, but neither is Cell, and yet here I am talking about time-travel glitches anyway... I'll give you that it's a strained analogy, but my point is you have this sense of What's Right, and then there's What's Wrong But Just Barely Wrong - that uncanny sensation of Déjà vu & Doppelgangers; a translucent mask over a face that's actually not there.

And even though it's a horror film, based on a book by Stephen King no less, it's not even that Cell mines the uncanny so prodigiously that's got me pawing at the frayed edges of what's real and unreal - it's just that the movie itself is so close to being, to Truly Being, but that millisecond and hair's breadth is making all the difference and the house of cards is tum-tum-tumbling down. Splat.

It feels like they had one day too few too shoot it, one dollar too little, one hot cappuccino two degrees too cold delivered to John Cusack's trailer just a minute too late to put him in the right mood on the first day of shooting - something is off, and I can't quite get my pointer finger upon it but dimensionally-speaking maybe it's best I don't try. Who knows where I'll end?

Part of it's probably that the book should've been adapted ten years ago, and just feels dated now. The dangers of techno-thrillers. (All Hail Johnny Mnemonic Syndrome.) But then in 2006 when the novel came out even then a story about cell-phones turning people into zombies felt old-hat, like that Simpsons headline "Old Man Yells At Cloud." I mean I think King did some good stuff in the book (the flocking gets me) but it never really escaped that sensation.

And the movie gathered together a good cast - I ain't Cusack's biggest fan but he can be perfectly agreeable, and you add on Samuel L. Jackson and Isabelle Fuhrman and we should be going somewhere. Somewhere. Somewhere? There are scenes that almost work - the opening, the inciting incident, is almost expansive enough... but then you get the feeling that characters are running through the same set over and over again, too. Like we're trapped in one room while everybody's saying we should see that the whole world's on fire.

This is clearly a function of budget, and maybe that's all it is. The movie strains past its parameters, unraveling its own borders as it ambles along - it's too big or too bonkers for its own britches. It ends up in knee-deep in palookaville missing a laugh-track, but it has good intentions so you don't want to really fill the laughs in for it. You're neither there nor there. Maybe the mask slipped; maybe the cat walked past two times too many. Whatever it is, it ain't this and this ain't it.

I Am Link

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--- War Boy - The best part of Mr. Robot - a show I like but don't think quite lives up to the hype - is Martin Wallström, the sexy psycho Scandinavian schemer, so the news that he's lining up a movie with the also-awesome Bel Powley, young star of The Diary of a Teenage Girl, is welcome indeed! It's a WWII movie about a girl escaping Stalin and a kind Soviet officer who helps her. I wonder if it will be difficult not reading him as a crazy person? I do like reading him as a crazy person. And between him and Alexander Skarsgard Bel certainly has quite the dance card!
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--- Equal Wages - After Ben Wheatley's terribly anticipated around these parts High-Rise comes out he's got that crime thriller Free Fire lined up, but after that he's apparently going to remake Henri-Georges Clouzot's 1953 film The Wages of Fear. I haven't ever seen that movie, nor have I see William Friedkin's 1977 remake called Sorcerer. (So should I see either of them?) Anyway the story is about a bunch of truckers hauling nitroglycerin over some mountains, and Wheatley's spin is the truckers are going to be female. Female! How crazy! I am being slightly sarcastic, but I am also interested in seeing Wheatley do a female-centric movie at this point since his most recent films are more like sausage fests, give or take a Sienna Miller.
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--- So Much For Steven - Looks like the opportunity to train his camera on Channing Tatum's sweet-cheeks once again was just to great a carrot to dangle in front of Steven Soderbergh, and he's coming out of his retirement says Variety to direct Lucky Logan (I wonder if he is he related to Magic Mike?). Soderbergh tweeted that their story was "wrong" but it seems that was just that they had the wrong title and the wrong co-star (they'd originally said it was going to co-star Matt Damon). Anyway I hope it's true, as good as The Knick is Soderbergh is too talented to not direct big-screen anymore.
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--- Goth Goddess - I did a random post about Winona Ryder earlier this week because she just sort of floated onto my brain from nowhere, but it turns out she was floating around everywhere because like half an hour after I did this ginormous post talking about Winona and her place in the pantheon started making the rounds. I meant to link to it earlier this week but I actually haven't had a chance to sit down and read it yet! Oh well that's never stopped me before.
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--- Run Jake Run - I'd totally forgotten that Jake Gyllenhaal was planning on starring in a movie about a survivor of the Boston Marathon Bombing that lost both of his legs, and I am not even sure if I ever knew that David Gordon green was going to direct it, but Variety's reporting that the movie, titled Stronger, has found financing so I guess they'll probably shoot it this year. My first thought is worry about Jake's Boston accent, and my second thought is "Dear lord make a good movie, David Gordon Green -- Our Brand is Crisis was such garbage, I am worried about you." (thanks Mac)

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--- Blonde Ambitions - I've been sitting on several of these links all week (don't worry, I've sat on plenty of big things in my life, I'm fine) so by now they are a wee bit stale but whatever, I wanna mention them dammit! Like how could I not mention the news that Naomi Watts has signed up to be in the new Twin Peaks episodes? Please please please let her somehow be playing Betty or Diane Selwyn from Mulholland Drive - it doesn't have to make sense how, it's Lynch.
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--- Mad Dash - Spoilers have come out about the role that Scoot McNairy is playing in Batman V Superman and it's apparently not who we thought it was -- I am over giving a shit about spoilers with this movie because they have so so much convincing to do to make me think it's not going to be a great big steaming pile of diarrhea, but if you don't want to know some, you know, shit, don't click that link. There are a couple things in the movie I'm not worried about, and Scott is one of them. (As is Holly Hunter.)
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--- Big Organs Ahead - There's lots and lots of news from my favorite directors this week - Oldboy helmer Park Chan-wook announced his maybe next film, an adaptation of the 2007 Japanese sci-fi book Genocidal Organs (now there's a title). Here's how they describe it:

"Set in a time when Sarajevo was obliterated by a homemade nuclear device, the story reflects a world inundated with genocide. An American man by the name of John Paul seems to be responsible for all of this and intelligence agent Clavis Shepherd treks across the wasteland of the world to find him and the eponymous "genocidal organ."

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He's currently working on that Fingersmith adaptation so who knows when we'll see this; anyway it's good if he takes awhile because the book has been translated into English and I have too much else to read right now, I need some time.
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--- Joe, My God - I was and still am so angry at myself for messing up my chance to see Joe Dallesandro in the (wait for it) flesh last week when he did a Q&A alongside Jane Birkin at a screening here in NYC, but I guess ya can't win 'em all. It's not as if he would've morphed into 20 year old Joe and swept me off my feet or anything. (SIGH.) Anyway here's a nice interview with him at Queerty (thanks Mac) telling how he came to work with the Warhol gang and a bunch of other interesting stories. What a life.
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--- Be Silence - Nicolas Winding Refn is working on a great big spy movie called The Avenging Silence, or maybe he is, he is being vague because he always is. Anyway he is definitely teaming up with two James Bond writers to write something of the sort; apparently he worked with them previously on the aborted Barbarella movie he tried to make a few years back. He will say he wants it to be a great big monied studio thing, maybe set in Japan. Yeah, we'll see, dude. He just talks to talk sometimes.
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--- And Finally two bits of news regarding Stephen King movies to come -- director Josh Boone (The Fault in Our Stars) is still trying to get The Stand off the ground (good luck, dude) but in the meantime he's going to go forward with a different King adaptation, a take on his 2014 book Revival, about a faith healer gone nutso. (Anybody read it? I've fallen behind on new King.) And the second bit -- BD has some pictures from Cell, which has been so delayed I'd forgotten all about it; it stars Samuel L. Jackson, John Cusack, Isabelle Fuhrman (hooray) and Stacy Keach. No word on when this thing will be out still, but here's one of the pictures:
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I Am Link

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--- Bowler Me Over - Penny Dreadful is filming its second season in Ireland right now and hey look it's Josh Hartnett being beautiful in period costuming on the set. (thanks Mac) The man can wear a bowler and a pair of woolen britches, I tell ya what. The second season starts up at the end of April on Showtime; the show's also got an Instagram account here; I'm hoping that's the place where all the "Josh Hartnett making out with dudes" behind-the-scenes pictures show up.
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--- Snow Show - The town called Sundance can go back to sleep for another year, the movie people have scattered to the wind - click here for all of the reviews that The Film Experience team (aka Nathaniel and Michael) posted from their time there, or you know, bookmark it for later in the year when these things actually get released.
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--- Rings Hollow - How weird, I'd totally forgotten this was actually being made after all these years, much less already filmed and ready for release this Fall - a studio has apparently finally picked up the adaptation of Stephen King's Cell that the dude behind Paranormal Activity 2 directed; it stars John Cusack (ugh) and Sam Jackson and Isabelle Fuhrman (yay Isabelle - and look at her there, all grown up). Once upon a time Eli Roth was very close to making this movie; I have to admit it seems hella dated (evil cell phones!) now. I mean it was hella dated when the book came out nine years ago.

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--- Bronx Beat - Add the name Baz Luhrmann to the list of auteurs taking their business to Netflix - he's signed up to make a thirteen-episode series called The Get Down, which will be about the music scene of the South Bronx in the late 1970s. Baz will only actually direct three episodes of the show (the first two and the finale); it's supposed to be done in time to be released next year.

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--- Going Deep - Final Girl's not reviewing today's Ways Not To Die entry Dagon until tomorrow, but today's entry in VHS Week is no slouch in the funny department - Stacie takes on Leviathan, most specifically the human blight that is Chris Elliot's character. I haven't seen Leviathan in a long long time but I do remember him just being the worst. Stacie really sums up all you need to know about the movie as a whole here though: "Ultimately... you'd have a better time sticking your feet in a bucket of water and watching Alien."

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--- Lady Parts - If you wanna know what the five Best Actress nominees are up to next (and clearly you do, everybody does, they're almost all good people) then click over to The Film Experience where Manuel is telling us just that. While it's Juli & Marion who're my faves of the five it's the so-called "unsalted breadstick" Felicity Jones who's in the project I'm most looking forward to - that adaptation of the book A Monster Calls that I've spoken of several times previously.
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--- Generic Title Here - Horror Director Adam Wingard, who is definitely one of my faves what with You're Next and The Guest being his two prior movies, is making yet another horror flick - it's called The Woods (change the title, change the title, change the title, there are a thousand movies with that title) and all they're telling us is it's about "a group of college students on a camping trip who discover they are not alone." I mean clearly that's an outline that can be taken in a thousand directions - we've seen 999 of them already.
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--- Tyrion V Tammy - Melissa McCarthy has like thirty movies lined up because everything she touches turns to gold (okay Tammy could've done better but it will no doubt have a very long life on cable) so I'd forgotten about this one - she's re-teaming with her hubby, who directed Tammy, for a movie called Michelle Darnell (I hope they change that title; remember when her upcoming spy movie, now called Spy, was called Susan Cooper? Stop with the character titles) and they've just signed Peter Dinklage for her main antagonist. I think they'll play marvelously off each other.
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--- And Finally I haven't checked to see what anybody else's reaction to the trailer for the remake of Poltergeist has been since it was released earlier today but I'll be gosh-darned if I didn't kinda dig it watching it just now.The kids seem like honest-to-goodness kids, it has ghost lightning, and there's a super quick shot of Sam Rockwell's big butt in jeans. What more could you ask for?

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I Am Link

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--- King Redbeard - Instead of making the awards circuit and helping us side-step the nightmare that will be Jared Leto winning an Oscar, Michael Fassbender has been in Scotland filming the new MacBeth movie from Snowtown director Justin Kurzel with Marion Cotillard as his Lady. Come on, Fassy! This is your damned statue!!! Sigh. Anyway now we know who else is in it and it's a total batch of great actors surrounding them, but most excitingly it's got Elizabeth Debecki who was the best thing going on in Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby.

--- Viva Veronica - Hey look it's a Buzzfeed interview with Kristen Bell about Frozen and Veronica Mars and stuff, conducted by our pal Jarett Weiselman. Our pal Jarett has chatted with Kristen Bell like one thousand times now, and that's just what we've seen publicly, so clearly they are best friends and that makes Kristen Bell one degree of separation from me, so I have decided she and I are going to start having lunch together once a week. Jarett, make it happen!

--- Jungle Boy - I guess that Netflix Amazon Instant has released the pilots of their prospective new shows online to get a handle on what they should be green-lighting, I guess this is a thing they do? Anyway go read up on this one starring pocket hottie Gael Garcia Bernal and produced by Jason Schwartzman, it sounds good. We need more Gael in the world.

--- Mother Carrie - Netflix for the win! They're making a show starring Kyle Chandler and Linda Cardellini as brother and sister, and SISSY SPACEK is playing their mother. I mean, HELLO. I adore Cardellini too, but I didn't watch Friday Night Lights (I know, I know) so I never really got the Chandler thing til recently - he was the only thing I liked about The Wolf of Wall Street (well him and Johanna Lumley, and also Jean Dujardin's possible hint of cock) and he was fantastic in The Spectacular Now, so I get him now.

--- Forever Nina - I don't know if you've noticed what with me posting song after song after song from it but I'm a super spazzy Cardigans fan and I'm pretty psyched about front-woman Nina Persson's solo record Animal Heart, which comes out next week. Here's an interview with her where she talks about the record as well as the question of whether there could be a new Cardigans album in the future... oh I won't make you wait to click over - the answer is probably maybe!

--- Phone It In - While I still haven't stopped stinging from the fact that David Gordon Green's remake of Suspiria starring my favorite psycho-girl Isabelle Fuhrmann appears as dead as the deadest dead thing, this is pretty cool news too - Fuhrmann's landed the female lead role in the adaptation of Stephen King's book Cell. Unfortunately everyone else attached - the director of Paranormal Activity 2 and John Cusack in the lead - aren't nearly as thrilling. I wish Eli Roth were still making it.

--- Sand Man - Mostly this sounds like a movie that won't interest me) and Rodrigo Garcia's not a director I follow), but Last Days in the Desert will be starring Ewan McGregor in two roles as a "holy man and a demon" on a journey across the desert together, so that's probably worth a look. If for no other reason than it's likely he'll take his clothes off. Desert's be hot, yo!

--- Constant Buggery - It was nice to see Evangeline Lilly in the latest Hobbit movie - I didn't really realize that I missed Kate, but I did. I liked her on Lost, and I like her in general. So that's good, because she is probably going to be playing the leading lady part in Edgar Wright's Ant Man movie opposite Paul Rudd. Normally I'd shrug about a girl role in a Marvel superhero movie, they don't often get very much to do, but I trust Edgar Wright not to be like that.

--- Good Day For Deities - Neil Gaiman says that a production company has picked up the TV adaptation of his terrific book American Gods after HBO passed on making it, so it will probably be turned into a show, just for some channel we don't know which yet. That is fabulous news.

--- Extra Kate - Even though Lawless was a pretty big snooze (besides the chance to admire Tom Hardy and Jason Clarke in Depression-are trousers and haircuts) the director John Hillcoat is still managing to attract the best and brightest to his new picture, the crime thriller Triple Nine. It's already got (deep breathe) Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael B. Jordan, Aaron Paul, Teresa Palmer (yay we love her!) and Michael Pena on board, and now comes word that Kate fuckin' Winslet's getting up in there as well.

--- You Stay Put - I will be very very sad if Kristin Scott Thomas sticks to her word that she's tired of acting and is giving it all up, if only because she's the type of actress who could make a still-birth like Only God Forgives totally memorable by just spitting out the words "cum dumpster" with such relish. Nathaniel agrees with me and lists nine more roles of hers which are his faves over at The Film Experience.

--- And finally I forgot to link to this earlier this week but the folks over at The Wire listed what they considered the most memorable roles that Philip Seymour Hoffman played in his way way way too brief career (everybody said it already but it's monstrous how many years worth of interesting performances we've been robbed of by his senseless death), and it's my friend Joe Reid's look back at Hoffman's work in Synecdoche New York that wrung the tears outta me. Go read it, and then go watch Synecdoche. I rewatched it two nights ago and it's a movie that busts my brain with its everythingness.

I Am Link

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--- Uncle Tom - Because he wants to make a fifth Mission Impossible movie, Tom Cruise has dropped out of that other 60s TV Spy Show remake The Man From UNCLE. This is great news, maybe - Armie Hammer was going to be his co-star, and now Armie can find a much more appealing co-star, and I can feel good about wanting to see this movie. Hmm who should replace Cruise? I've never seen the show so I have no idea about who's playing what, really.

--- Wham BAM - The full line-up and schedule for the Brooklyn Academy of Music's annual movie-fest called BAMcinemaFest is up, you can see what's what over here. Hotly anticipated indies like Ain't Them Bodies Saints and The Spectacular Now and Drinking Buddies are all out in force. Yeehaw.

--- Dizzy Izzy - Isabelle Fuhrmann, who ought to be a huge star post-Orphan (and really ought to be making that Suspiria remake with David Gordon Green right now, sigh), is starring in a coming of age story about two girls on a road trip in search of Eleanor Roosevelt. I don't think this movie will be up my alley. But I love Isabelle, so I'm glad she's got work.

--- Silver Tongued - Because if Bryan Singer has anything to do with it he'll leave no twink standing, he's hired Evan Peters (he who looks excellent in tighty whities on American Horror Story) to play the character of Quicksilver in the next X-Men movie. It's really starting to seem super crowded over there. The interesting part of this story is that Joss Whedon is on the record saying he's using Quicksilver for the second Avengers movie; complicated legal junk has kept the X-Men totally seperate from the rest of the Marvel movie universe so far. Will Joss hire a different actor to play the character? Stay tuned!

--- Galaxy Guy - I once liked John C. Reilly quite a bit, thanks to Paul Thomas Anderson, but he kind of makes me cringe now, so I'm not really so enthusiastic about this news that he's been offered a role in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, this next big superhero team-up movie. He'll basically be playing the dude who gets the team all gathered up a la Clark Gregg in The Avengers.

--- Attack The Borg - Apparently there are rumors out there that Attack the Block director Joe Cornish is the guy that might pick up directing duties on the Star Trek franchise now that JJ Abrams is moving along to the Star Wars franchise. If we get to see one of the hairy bad beasties from AtB pop a Tribble into its mouth like a snack-cake, we all win.

--- Knick of Time - Steven Soderbergh may have retired from feature-film making but he's just announced his first foray into television (if you don't count the supposed-to-be-a-feature Behind the Candelabra of course) - he's going to make a ten-hour series called The Knick for Cinemax, starring Clive Owen in the story of a hospital at the start of the 20th Century.

--- Blonde Swap - Amanda Seyfried of all people is indeed taking on "the Greta Gerwig part" in Noah Baumbach's next movie (well next next; he's apparently already got a Gerwig-starring Frances Ha follow-up in the can), which is called While We're Young and is about two couples, one older (Ben Still and Naomi Watts) and one younger (Seyfried and Adam Driver), and how they interact.

--- Salt Lick - I figured once director Todd Haynes announced he was making Carol, that adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's book The Price of Salt that I've been clamoring for for several years now, that'd get the ball rolling, and sure enough the Weinsteins have snapped up the rights so this thing is totally getting made. 

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Good Morning, World

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A happy 40th birthday to the actor Anson Mount today. I appreciate a man with a last name that verbalizes the relationship I'd like to have with him. Makes my job easier - I just have to say his name as if it is a command. He's best known to me for the brief lived Hell on Wheels show with Common that ran last year ("Give me Sons of Anarchy meets Deadwood," an executive screamed, and Hell on Wheels was born) wherein he was inappropriately buffed for the Civil War time period. I am not complaining. This post is not complaining. Anson will next be seen in Non-Stop, which is Liam Neeson's next ass-kicker set aboard a plane; it's from Jaume Collet-Serra, who also directed Orphan, which starred Isabelle Fuhrman, who is also having a birthday today (hence the banner). I'm sure it all means something terribly sinister just out of my grasp.Speaking of just out of my grasp...

How To Kill A Remake In One Easy Step

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All you've got to do is change me from being angry about the very prospect of there being a remake to being terribly terribly excited, and wham, the funding will fall right through, or some random apocalypse will happen, and the project will be dead as the metaphorical doornail. Somebody smart out there seems to have learned that my interest is usually a death knell for something's popular prospects - I tend to be drawn to flops. (I pour one out for you, Drag Me to Hell.)

And so we have the news from David Gordon Green that his remake of Suspiria - which I was once very angry about, until he announced a cast to roll around in - is all tangled up in legal nonsense from which it may never recover. Damn damn damn, Isabelle Fuhrmann can't catch a break. Me neither, it seems!

So watch out, Carrie remakers! 

My ever so ginger steps away

 from revulsion are not a good sign for you!

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