Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Double Lover (2017)

Paul: Whoever desires without acting produces decay.

Jeez what a line of dialogue. Perfectly purple prose for a perfectly purple movie. I gotta re-watch Double Lover again soon -- just superbly classy trash. Excellent work from our birthday boy Mr. François Ozon who's turning 56 today! Happy day, Ozon! And this presents us with the perfect excuse to share the trailer for his next movie -- The Crime Is Mine stars Nadia Tereszkiewicz, Rebecca Marder, and Isabelle f'ing Huppert, and it's being released here in the U.S. on Christmas Day. It's a 1930s-set screwball comedy about an actress pretending she murdered a creepy producer just for the tabloid infamy it grants her.

And Now We Go France-ward

Every year here in New York the finest sign that Spring is imminent for me has been the finding of myself awash in delicious French Movies, thanks to FLC's annual "Rendez-vous with French Cinema" series. But this year, thanks to our ongoing situation, cough cough, that delight goes national -- the series, running March 4th through 14th, is virtual and anybody from the lobster-pots of Maine to the scorpion-stingers of SoCal and everywhere in between, purple mountains majesty, can participate. 

I ran through some highlights from the 2021 edition last week, zooming in on two big handfuls of crush-worthy actors that're showing up in this year's batch of movies, in case you missed that, but today comes two new important news items -- one, tickets are now on sale! Buy them right here! And two, FLC has dropped us a trailer to get us in the mood. Ooh la la, oui oui et cetera. (I really should learn French.)

French Boys & The Movies That Love Them

The line-up for one of my favorite yearly fests has arrived today -- the "Rendez-Vous With French Cinema" festival at Film at Lincoln Center arrives for ten straight days of Gallic bliss in March, the 4th through the 14th, and it's an astonishingly sexy line-up of 18 movies this year (not that we'd expect any less from the French), starting from the top down with the legendary sexpot Emmanuelle Béart as the fest's Guest of Honor. For one they'll be screening Francois Ozon's sweaty and super-gay Summer of 85 (which I reviewed for NewFest last fall right here), which just got nominated for a heap of César awards (aka France's Oscars). But more than ever I felt like looking through this year's line-up there's an absolutely stunning French actor in every single one, so let's pick our picks, that way!

Vincent Lacoste in Faithful -- Lacoste first popped onto our radar with Christophe Honore's heartbreaking 2018 romance Sorry Angel, which has already become one of our all-time favorite gay films at this point. And Faithful has him (and his mustache!) starring opposite another fave, Phantom Thread star Vicky Krieps! He plays an imprisoned Communist revolutionary in the 1950s; she's his wife who refuses to abandon him. 

Rabah Naït Oufella in Ibrahim -- Oufella caught our eye thanks to two totally terrific movies, Bertrand Bonello's "teens take over a shopping mall" movie Nocturama and the cannibal flick Raw -- see a nice little gallery of him right here. In Ibrahim he plays the bad-influence best-friend to the titular character (played by Abdel Bendaher, above right), a teenager trying to do good; Rabah drags him into an ill-planned robbery attempt. It played Cannes last year.

Arnaud Valois in Lifelines and Spring Blossom -- The BPM beauty has a pair of features at the fest this year; his role in Lifelines;(which is about a woman obsessed with a found diary) is described as "an intriguing supporting role" but Blossom sounds Valois-centric, with him romancing actress / director Suzanne Lindon.

Niels Schneider in Love Affair -- Niels is best known for being the doe-eyed love-interest in a couple of Xavier Dolan movies back in the day, but he's worked plenty since then -- he was just in the ace Sibyl last year. And he's nominated for Best Actor at the Césars for this movie here -- it's also nominated for Best Film, Best Director, and all the other acting categories, so I think it's one to pay attention to! It's about cousin lovers!

Pierre Niney in Lovers -- The endearingly gawky Niney was delivered unto these shores via Ozon's 2016 film Frantz and immediately became a fave -- this one's a noir-tinged love triangle also starring the terrific Stacy Martin (from Nymphomaniac and Vox Lux) and...

... our boy Benoît  Magimel from The Piano Teacher! Yes this one's a two-fer -- two hot French actors for the price of one. Plus it's a thriller -- obviously this one is high on my Must Watch Immediately list. Although I will surely be let down and the two guys will fight over the girl with nary a whiff of sexual tension between the two of them, sigh. Tis my cruel fate.

Grégoire Ludig in Mandibles -- Previously seen by me rocking one hell of a stache in Quentin Dupieux's super fun 2018 flick Keep an Eye Out! (which I reviewed out of this exact same fest in 2019 right here) this movie has Ludig re-teaming with confirmed nutter Dupieux for a movie about two doofus low-lifes who find a scooter-sized housefly in the trunk of their stolen car, and train it to do crime. I don't think I've disliked a Dupieux flick yet? I am so on his wacky wavelength and this one is apparently one of his best.

Vincent Dedienne in Margaux Hartmann -- I actually don't think I know Dedienne from anything previous (nothing jumps off his IMDb page) but a quick google set me to attention; this is the flick that the fest's Guest of Honor Emmanuelle Béart stars in, and has her playing an older woman who's grieving her dead husband who goes back to school and makes new friends, with sexy results. I feel like you could add "with sexy results" to the description of any French film -- "Two low-lifes discover a gigantic housefly... with sexy results." Okay maybe not every French film. Anyway Dedienne is hella cute right?

Jérémie Renier in Slalom -- I have already posted about this movie! The shots of our beloved Renier doing his thing in this film (and by "his thing" I mean "getting naked" of course) made their way onto the internet back in October of last year, and obviously, just as we would with Jérémie, we jumped right on it. This movie has the legendary Belgian slash blond sexpot playing the creepy ski coach to a teen girl... and yes, "with sexy results" applies, although obviously that comes with several dozen asterisks given the subject matter.

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Phew! What a bunch, huh? "Rendez-Vous with French Cinema" runs on FLC's virtual platform from March 4th through 14th; tickets go on sale on February 19th (or earlier on Feb. 12th for FLC Members). You should have little fear that you won't hear more from me on this series, as I love covering it every year, so stay tuned. I'll throw their whole press release, with word on every single one of the films screening, right here after the jump...

Good Morning, World

I don't know when we'll get to see this here in the U.S. but the great Belgian star and MNPP Icon Jérémie Renier has a new movie coming out overseas that looks interesting, and not just -- just -- because he flashes his baguette once again, as seen down below. It's called Slalom and it's about a teenage skiing star who gets groomed, inappropriately, by her coach, played by Renier. It played Cannes and the reviews I read were good, so I hope the film makes its way over here. For now though we'll, uhh, make due with the NSFW gif I have for you after the jump...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

...you can learn from:

L'enfant (2005)

Bruno: Only fuckers work.

A happy 39th birthday to our beloved Jérémie Renier, just seen this year in Ira Sachs' lovely and beautiful Frankie (reviewed here)... while most seen recently in Francois Ozon's delightfully deranged Double Lover. I could just go on listing titles -- Saint Laurent! Summer Hours! -- since Renier's got a career dripping with modern classics. Any fans of this Dardennes film? It's been awhile since I've seen it but I remember thinking it grand at the time. I should give it another look. I should always give Jérémie another look.

The Bearable Lightness of Unbeing

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You can't talk about Ira Sachs' Frankie without talking about its beauty. Not just the seaside Portuguese town of Sintra where the film takes place, although that offers a lot of picturesque beauty... that cinematographer Rui Poças routinely ignores. Oh you'll get a shot here of characters on the beach, or a shot there of the town's rooftops twinkling against green leaves -- you can tell these people that Sachs has gathered up are in a very pretty place. But they usually stand in front of it, block and become it -- their faces and body languages are the landscapes these two are curious in capturing, and as such Frankie is a symphony of light and color, expressiveness in gesture and speech. Watch the way an afternoon ray of light cascades down Brendan Gleeson's beard, tears turned to sunshine.

It's important the filmmaking itself is saying so much, because the characters keep saying a lot without it ever being quite about what it's about. Frankie (Isabelle Huppert) has gathered all of her family in Sintra because she's about to die of a terminal cancer that's reappeared, "everywhere" as she puts it -- this will presumably be their last time all together, and everyone has their own things that keep getting in the way as the single day the film takes place over fans out, their futures branched and clotted in captivating miniature. 

Frankie's son Paul (Jérémie Renier) can't find love, so his mother's invited along a friend Ilene (Marisa Tomei) who might be able to help out on that front, only she seems to have brought her boyfriend... it's all doomed before they even meet, and that's before Paul starts vomiting out stories that will dig up the roots of possible romance on the spot. Frankie's ex (Pascal Greggory, never more appropriately of Eric Rohmer's Pauline at the Beach) and current husband (Gleeson) have conspired to drag an unwitting Frankie to a healing spa, a suggestion she slices down to its own quick the second she catches on. So instead we listen to a tour guide tell his life's story.

A gifted golden bracelet gets tossed into the path-side jungle, and an engagement disassembles in the two-way midst of a band of oblivious tourists -- everywhere meaningful moments dissolve at the touch, at their mere recognition as such. Nobody can quite be about what they're about, even Frankie herself -- they come to this beautiful place glowing with good intentions, however half-baked and resolutely unspoken, and they remain painfully human, small and exquisitely disastrous, flitting about like fireflies -- here then gone, here then gone -- in a a just set sun. You can't see the sun. Just the dirt and light changing color. 

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Which is Hotter?

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I think it's kind of weird I couldn't turn up a photo of Saint Laurent actors Jérémie Renier, Louis Garrel and Gaspard Ulliel together except for that shot above -- you'd think even just being famous French actors whose projects besides have no doubt repeatedly overlapped there'd be more, but alas we'll make due. Anyway Bertand Bonello's sumptuous film of fashionable disco disarray is turning five years old tomorrow and if you've not been paying attention, well, we love it.

Here's our five year old sort of review -- weirdly that link is actually supposed to be a review of Abel Ferrera's film Pasolini, which fiiiinally got a release here in the US last week after a, you guessed it five year delay -- it was supposed to be a Pasolini review but I got distracted talking about Saint Laurent because s'so good. And even though I've written a lot about Saint Laurent ever since then that sort of makes me sad -- it deserves a proper review. I'll add it to the list! Until then let's be continue being basic...

image polls

Family is Stranger

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If you're looking forward to Ira Sachs new movie Frankie you're sure not alone -- the film, which premieres at Cannes, has his most talent-heavy cast to date with Isabelle Huppert, Greg Kinnear, Brendan Gleeson, Marisa Tomei, Jérémie Renier, Jérémie Renier's mustache, and Pascal Greggory playing Huppert's homosexual ex-husband. But Sachs talent is enough to put us in the theater on its own after Keep the Lights On, Love is Strange, and Little Men. Frankie is about a family vacation in Portugal, you can read the whole new synopsis and see a few more pictures over here. Looks lush and lovely already. Not sure when it's coming out here in the States but it hits France in late August. (Thx Mac)

Great Gratuity of 2018 #8

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For years now I've been screaming at every movie that's trotted out the Parent Trap treatment to double up its leading men into leading twins, and what has been my scream? Make them make out! It's the harm-free Narcissus Fantasy of our dreams! But nobody ever heard me. Tom Hardy, nope. Jake Gyllenhaal, no go. Why even invent the technology if you're not going to show us all the possibilities???

Well thankfully French filmmaker and artsy pervert François Ozon heard our cries, watched a bunch of Brian de Palma movies and rang up his muse Jérémie Renier on the phone, and L'amant Double aka The Double Lover was born. The film just placed 16th on my Top 20 films of 2018, and that spirit of "Can Do, Will Do!" is a big part of why.

Here's my original review from last February. Of course since the film's been out for an entire year now I've pretty dutifully covered it here on the site by now -- click here for some, and click here for some more. May Ozon live to flesh out our twisted fantasies for many years to come!

My Favorite Movies of 2018 -- #20-11

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Well now we're getting somewhere. We're well more than halfway through our 2018 Pantys at this point -- you can see everything here. Way back last Friday I shared with you 10 movies that juuuust missed out on my Top 20 films...

Annihilation

Burning

Cam

Happy as Lazzaro

If Beale Street Could Talk

Lean on Pete

Nancy

The Sisters Brothers

Summer 1993

You Were Never Really Here

Goddamn those are good! Well now to the deeper meat of it. The really really hard choices. In another year, a lesser year, any of these movies seriously would've been Top 10 material. But 2018 was just too too kind to us -- with the world so shitty outside the art-house our artists really stepped up to soothe and challenge and sate our cinematic needs, bless them forever amen. So here's the middle part of my favorite 30 then. As a bonus I've added to each an "Indelible Moment" from the movie, whether it be an image of line or scene, whatever sticks out in my brain when I think of the film.

20. Border

(dir. Ali Abbasi)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Bumping uglies

19. Minding the Gap

(dir. Bing Liu)

Indelible Moment:
Liu interviewing his mother

18. Bisbee '17

(dir. Robert Greene)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Train car loading

17. Upgrade

(dir. Leigh Whannell)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: The first kill

16. Double Lover

(dir. Francois Ozon)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Threeway

15. Widows

(dir. Steve McQueen)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment:
Spotting across the diner

14. Mary Poppins Returns

(dir. Rob Marshall)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment:
"The Place Where Lost Things Go"

13. Cold War

(dir. Pawel Pawlikowski)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Club dance

12. Oh Lucy!

(dir.Atsuko Hirayanagi)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Hugs

11. Good Manners

(dir.Marco Dutra & Juliana Rojas)

Indelible Moment: Birth

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Coming up tomorrow: 

Our Top 10 films of the year!

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Good Morning, World

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Today let us wish our beloved French director François Ozon a happy 51st birthday with this scene of his forever muse Jérémie Renier showering in Double Lover, Ozon's fabulous film that was released here in the US back in February -- here's my review if you missed it. The movie is out on blu-ray and on streaming now so you've no excuse not to watch it - it's sexy and ridiculous, queered up modern day Brian De Palma, and I adore it. Don't be surprised to see it show up on my "Best of 2018" lists.

Anyway Ozon is currently at work on his next inevitable wonderment, called By the Grace of God it's about three adult men deciding whether they will confront the priest who molested them as children, and stars the beautiful Melvil Poupaud, Denis Ménochet (who gave one of my favorite performances this year in Xavier Legrand's film Custody) and Swann Arlaud. Looking forward to that! Now let's hit the jump for more naked Jérémie Renier, in the good right and true spirit of celebrating Ozon and all...

Ruffalo Squared For Cianfrance

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This here website is littered with examples of me getting all worked up about Hifalutin Computer Technology being used to make twins out of an actor I crush on in hopes that we'll get some Hot Narcissus Action, but the only people who've seen it through so far are Jeremie Renier in Double Lover and Dave fucking Franco. (Literally.)

It's not incest if it's computer generated! But despite the tech being there it's been viciously under-exploited - not Tom Hardy in Legend, not Ewan McGregor on Fargo, not the Armie Hammers in The Social Network or my two Jake in Enemy...

Well anyway we're about to see which side Mark Ruffalo will fall on (and I'm guessing the latter) because he's going to play twins for an HBO limited series event called I Know This Much is True, based on the bestselling book by Wally Lamb. Anybody read it? I have not and it sounds way too high-minded for my shenanigans. Here's DH:

"[Ruffalo will] star as identical twin brothers Dominick and Thomas Birdsey in the series. The story follows their parallel lives “in an epic story of betrayal, sacrifice and forgiveness set against the backdrop of 20th century America.”

And this is coming from director Derek Cianfrance, the man behind Blue Valentine and The Place Behind the Pines and The Light Between Oceans (I think I'm like one of ten people who really loves the latter?) so yeah, this will be straights-ville. But probably good anyway, despite that red mark against it! Until then we'll just have to make due with this gif of Mark kissing Matt Bomer from The Normal Heart...

10 Off My Head: First Half of '18

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I noticed yesterday that a lot of people are posting their favorite movies of 2018 so far what with the first six months now having officially been flushed down the toilet (sorry for that metaphor but times are hard, you guys) and so hey, why not. Here I am too. I'm not being precious about release dates - several of my choices I saw at Tribeca and haven't gotten their theatrical releases yet but I saw them, and I matter damn it, so just take this as your notice to seek them out when they do come out. And without further ado...

My 10 Favorite Movies of the First Half of 2018

Hereditary

(dir. Ari Aster) - review here

Double Lover

(dir. Francois Ozon) - review here

Annihilation 

(dir. Alex Garland) - review here

Disobedience 

(dir. Sebastian Lelio) - review here

Oh Lucy

(dir. Atsuko Hirayanagi)  - review here

Good Manners

(dir. Marco Dutra & Juliana Rojas) 

To Dust

(dir. Shawn Snyder)  - review here

We the Animals

(dir. Jeremiah Zagar) 

You Were Never Really Here

(dir. Lynne Ramsay) 

Custody

(dir. Xavier Legrand)  - review here

Runners-up: Tully (dir. Jason Reitman), Paddington 2 (dir. Paul King), Unsane (dir. Soderbergh), Diane (dir. Kent Jones), Summer 1993 (dir. Carla Simón), Sorry to Bother You (dir. Boots Riley), The Strange Ones (dir. Christopher Radcliff& Lauren Wolkstein), All About Nina (dir. Eva Vives), Leave No Trace (dir. Granik)

What are your favorite movies of 2018 so far?

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