She Is Ann Lee, Hear Her Roar

One of last year's most slept on upon great movies was Mona Fastvold's The Testament of Ann Lee, a rapturous musical  starring Amanda Seyfried as the Shaker founder -- the film was weird and unexpected and in the words of Anya Jenkins "never going to become a breakaway pop hit." Still it made my top ten of the year and what are we doing here if we're not believing what I say??? But since the movie didn't do well at the box office or the awards bodies it seemed as if getting a physical media release of the thing was D.O.A. -- I still don't know if we'll ever get a blu-ray (there were headlines when it hit VOD that it indeed wouldn't be getting this) but thankfully one barrier's now been smashed down as Milan Records has announced the soundtrack from the great Daniel Blumberg IS getting a vinyl release, and you can pre-order it right here. Hooray! This score is absolutely gorgeous -- being a non-musical person this is exactly what I want from my "musicals" honestly. Real music! That lands in September -- and hey maybe if the thing sells well they'll give us a goddamned blu-ray of the movie itself. Sorry, Ann Lee -- a "gosh-darned" blu-ray, I meant to say. Anyway I guess THE MAN Daniel Blumberg has enough sway to get his shit released, as HE did with THE MAN Brady Corbet's The Brutalist -- THE WOMAN writer-director and WIFE of Brady Corbet Mona Fastvold should try being more of a MAN I guess. (Sexism comes in all forms, y'all.)

Good Morning, World

Did y'all see the news that right now, as of this minute, there are zero plans to give Mona Fastvold's tremendous 2025 film The Testament of Ann Lee any kind of physical media release? That right there is some high bullshit if I ever saw some high bullshit. I say we riot in the streets until not only a 4K disc is released but also that goddamned glorious soundtrack of Shaker bangers is put onto vinyl as well. "Shaker bangers" haha, what a phrase. It sounds like the name of a rowdy detective on a CBS procedural. "Nobody runs from Shaker Banger, baby!" Ahem anyway Ann Lee's gay brother himself Mr. Lewis Pullman (who could totally play Shaker Banger now that I think about it) is on the cover of the new issue of Esquire and we've got the shoot, hit the jump for it (or else we'll send Mr. Shaker Banger here on your tail)...

Which Is Hotter?

Actor Lewis Pullman, who can currently be seen in the fantastic film The Testament of Ann Lee (playing gay no less), has a new interview in Interview Magazine -- read it here (thx Mac) -- where the nepo-stud's father and former major movie-star Bill comes up a lot. (I didn't know that Lewis was joining his dad in Spaceballs 2 actually, which is fun!) Anyway that seemed a good impetus to finally pit Dad versus Son in one of our patented polls...

online polls

Lewis Pullman Four Times

Momentarily I thought maybe it could be considered a spoiler for Mona Fastvold's magnificent film The Testament of Ann Lee to share that the character Lewis Pullman is playing in it is a big ol' 'mo. But I decided instead that one, while it's not an inconsequential note re: the film's themes it's also barely there, and sharing it won't ruin the movie for you in any way, I don't think. It's not some explosive revelation with regards to his character, but it does add to and underline the film's ideas about the Shakers as a community of misfits in their day. That said number two, and more importantly, I thought sharing this tidbit of information might get one or two of you who mightn't otherwise to go and see the two-plus hour musical about a bizarre religious sect. And that's what we want! Because I really love this movie and I'm not entirely sure I'll be properly reviewing it at this point, what with the holiday looming ahead. It's a great movie! Go see it! On a big screen if you can, as it very much demands a big screen. I watched it at home first and I liked it, but then I saw it a second time in 70mm and it blew my brain through the back of my head. With that said hit the jump for a couple more of lil' cute Lewis here...

Good Morning, Monday

Same feeling, Lewis. Same.

Lewis Pullman...

... putting the "Pull man" in Pullman.

Lewis Pullman Eight More Times

I actually thought at first that these photos were an extension of the photoshoot of Lewis Pullman in GQ I posted on Wednesday morning -- they're a pretty similar vibe! -- but it turns out these are for Bustle magazine (via) so I guess Lewis just has an image he's crafting. Cute lil' guy in tight pants standing around or laying down in nature -- we dig it. Hit the jump for the entire shoot...

Good Morning, World

After a couple of days of dreary rain it's a beautiful spring day here in NYC so I'm feeling this sunny photoshoot of Lewis Pullman for GQ that dropped this morning -- and that's before we even get to whether I'm feeling Lewis Pullman or not. (So to speak. Obviously. Unfortunately.) I will say this post graduates him onto the sidebar, as we've now done enough posts for him to have his own tag -- but truth be told I feel like I still haven't seen him in a ton. He was memorable in the Top Gun sequel in a cast of many. He's got a great ass. (What -- these are important matters!) And he certainly left an impression dancing around in itty bitty black briefs in that movie Skincare last year too. I still haven't seen Thunderbolts but I hear he's good in it? Otherwise... 

Lewis Pullman loves a photobooth!

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) May 6, 2025 at 2:27 PM

... I am a fan of his photobooth fetish. He's certainly already in his short career left more of an impression on me than his father ever did -- I know some people love him but I can't think of a Bill Pullman performance I ever connected to. Him and Patricia Arquette are far and away my least favorite David Lynch pair of protagonists in Lost Highway, and that's about as big a strike one can have against themselves. What else is there -- the President in Independence Day? The sleeping guy in While You Were Sleeping?  The fact that people ever confused Pullman with the electric wattage of Bill Paxton -- WTF. Aaaaanyway we're not here to talk about Lewis' daddy, nepo-whatever aside -- I haven't seen Lewis in enough, so I'm still making up my mind. He's cute and I don't hold the terrible Salem's Lot re-do against him. He's in the plus column right now. Any thoughts on Lewis from you, my peanut gallery? Either way hit the jump for the rest of this sunny morning photoshoot...

Don't Start Anything, Lewis Pullman...

... that you're not willing to see through to its sloppy end.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... pushing it real good with 

Glen Powell and Lewis Pullman. 

Good Morning, World

I have seen people mentioning a new (?) series called Lessons in Chemistry lately, but I haven't paid it much mind because oh my god I have sufficient everything. But the second I found out that Lewis Pullman here was naked on the same show? You can say my prick eared up excuse me my ears pricked up. If anybody came out of the wildly mediocre Top Gun Maverick (sorry Timmy) without nevertheless nursing a fresh crush on Lewis here...

The lasting effect of Top Gun Maverick will be this Lewis Pullman crush pic.twitter.com/VdcazZUUmG

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 20, 2022

... then we just don't speak the same language. (My crush on Glen Powell had already been firmly established thanks to Scream Queens thank you very much.) So anyway anybody watching this show? Is it any good? I now know (as of the past ten seconds) that it stars Brie Larson and I am not anti-Brie. Both the cheese and the actress. All Brie is quality! Hit the jump for another gif...

I Am Link

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--- Romantic Plots - Photog Autumn de Wilde is making a new movie version of Emma, the Jane Austen tome, which well even besides the perfectly fun Gwyneth Paltrow version will never get a better movie than Clueless made from it; I don't know why they try. Anyway I only bring this up because they have cast Anya Taylor-Joy in the lead which is very fine work, but even better they have cast Callum Turner, perennially underrated hot piece, as well as the great Josh O'Connor from God's Own Country and Rupert "Scudder" Graves to boot! It's a good damn cast they have.

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--- Wicked Means - Colin Trevorrow gets a lot of shit for being a straight white dude who made a for-nothing indie and immediately graduated to blockbuster movies without proving himself, but we really should save some of that same shit for Jordan Vogt-Roberts, who went from The Kings of Summer straight to Kong: Skull Island, which is just as bad a movie as the Jurassic Worlds are, plus he also has the douchiest hipster beard. Anyway that aside I'm fairly interested in his maybe next movie, which might be an original monster movie set in Detroit and starring Michael B. Jordan. I'm always down for monster movies, my curse and a blessing.
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--- Bad Vibes Ahoy - Mark your calendars with a great big red slash and make sure you've got a bottle of Pepto Bismal waiting for you at home that week, The Babadook director Jennifer Kent's next film, the already wildly controversial The Nightingale, has been set for release on August 2nd. We recently posted a clip from the film right here, which stars The Fall's Aisling Franciosi and Sam Claflin in a dark turn that will supposedly wipe all our bad Finnick memories right away.
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--- The New Avenger - I constantly get the actor Macon Blair mixed up with his most frequent collaborator, director Jeremy Saulnier -- they made Blue Ruin and Green Room together -- and so when I read the news that Macon Blair is directing the Toxic Avenger reboot I thought the director of Green Room was directing the Toxic Avenger reboot and I was stopped in my tracks for a second. But all that is unfair to Blair, who did actually prove himself a director worth paying attention when he made a movie starring the goddess Melanie Lynskey. He knows what's up! Bring on the Toxie, then.
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--- Cruel Bummer - I forgot to commemorate the 20th anniversary of Cruel Intentions earlier this month but you know what, I've commemorated the only moment in that movie that really matters so many times over the years that my work here is done. Still if you missed it EW did an oral history of the film speaking to all the folks involved and they got this choice bit of quote from Ryan Phillippe, owner of said "only moment in that movie that really matters," himself:

"I felt okay with [showing] my butt. Everybody has a butt, it’s really not that graphic. [Laughs] So many guys on Twitter are like, 'That’s the moment I knew I was gay.'"

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--- Music Woman - When I reviewed Gloria Bell the other week I talked a lot about its soundtrack, which is a vital piece of what makes it work so well (as it is with all of Lelio's films) -- when I wrote all that I was hoping that one of our pal Chris Feil's "Soundtracking" pieces at The Film Experience would be forthcoming and I didn't have to wait long, click here to read Chris's typically gorgeous take.
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--- Wolff's Pack - While I tend to focus on his Hereditary co-star Toni Collette more we should all be paying attention to what Alex Wolff is up to as well, seeing as how he was also top-tier in that movie -- well here's what's what: he's just lined up a thriller called The Line which has him starring opposite John Malkovich, Scott "Scoot!" McNairy, Jessica Barden (we lovvve Jessica Barden) and the adorkable Lewis Pullman. It is about "the wild excitement of being young and the dangers of living without fear of consequences," so they say.
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--- And Finally it looks like Blumhouse is rebooting The Craft! Well "reboot" is a premature word to use - they might be giving us a sequel of sorts, set in the same world as the 1996 film, we don't know yet. (That link does have some plot details and uses the word "reboot" but... well we'll see.) Anyway even more important is that Blumhouse has actually hired a female director to direct the thing -- who knew there were female directors, right Jason Blum? Zoe Lister-Jones, mainly known as a TV actress (she was on Whitney and New Girl) is writing the thing and directing it. All I know is Fairuza better show or else...
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El Royale Remembrances

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Don't ask me the original source of these (they were on some rando Tumblr) but here are two unedited promotional shots of Chris Hemsworth in character for Bad Times at the El Royale this past year worth taking note of, I'd say. This reminds me that I never reviewed that movie, which is a shame -- they really mucked up its release, at least as far as I personally was concerned, since they dropped it right in the middle of the New York Film Festival. I managed to see it late but even then I was too busy with Important Movies to devote too much thought or energy to this strange little genre riff that nobody else was talking about. 

But funny enough I find myself thinking back on BTATER (how did I just realize its anagram is BTATER?) a lot more than I do say Collette or Mary Queen of Scots, and not just because I think about Chris Hemsworth's pecs every single day I am alive on this earth. There are other things! Cynthia Erivo's show-stopping numbers! Dakota Johnson's swagger! Adokable little Lewis Pullman! I think El Royale might morph into a lifer with a couple more views. Have y'all seen it now that it's out on blu-ray and such? Thoughts?

It'll Grand Slam Your Heart

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You know what the world needs right now? If you said "love sweet love" you're a goddamn hippie, but you're not too far out of bounds. The word "crowd-pleaser" has been lobbed at Battle of the Sexes already and lots more than once, and it's a solid call - like the best Sports Movies this one, which tells the story of tennis legend Billie Jean King's infamous 1972 match with the washed-up Bobby Riggs, is going to make the audience you're sitting with clap and cheer once that final reel rolls along.

But the movie's both better, and a little worse, than just that. On the one hand it's a really lovely love story, and my favorite scenes by far are the ones where Billie Jean (Emma Stone, truly firing on all cylinders) gets to know the hairdresser, flung out of space, who's awakened all kinds of feelings she hadn't been expecting (played a dreamy soft Andrea Riseborough, who once again proves that she will always be the best thing in any given movie while simultaneously elevating everything around her). Their chemistry is so palpable that the film introduced a mustachioed Mike Vogel to come between them and I actually really wanted him outta there! (And since it's a literally blink and you'll miss him cameo the movie clearly agreed - Vogel 's not even credited! The only clue I have that it was him is this link.)

That said with pleasing the crowds you've sometimes got to sand the edges for mass consumption (just maybe don't ask Darren Aronofsky about that specific topic this week) and so Steve Carell hamming it up tends to drag on a few seconds too long every time (although given who the real-life Bobby Riggs really was perhaps exhaustion with his antics was the only way to really play those scenes). And there are probably maybe too many characters rattling around in this thing, but who would I give up? Certainly not Sarah Silverman's cigarette-snapping Phyllis-Diller-ian hairdo on legs. And certainly not Elisabeth Shue radiating rich Californian sunshine in every frame.

And certainly not Lewis Pullman, who plays Carell's sweetly disappointed son Larry in a series of lovingly photographed yet always surprising, time after time, demonstrations of how to correctly fill out this strange era's strange snug fashions, as demonstrated perfectly above in them tennis shorts (via).

But oh wait, I do know who I could've done without. Because with sanded edges comes a spoon-fed "Magical Homo" character like the one Alan Cumming plays. And yes I know that tennis dress designer Ted Tinling was a real dude and was very much involved in the events, probably exactly as depicted  - he was a close friend of BJK's and she's happy with the movie so if it rings true to her who am I to complain? It's just his final scene in the film, delivering a message of long-distance hope for the future, read on-screen to my eyes and ears, verisimilitude be damned, as forced and false - the sort of thing students of cinema future will look back upon with a cringe; an It Gets Better era Stepin Fetchit. 

So the movie gets the love, the sweet love, right, but it could probably have used a little more of the hard fight ahead burned into its DNA - it ends bittersweet but I really needed just a tad bit more taste of that bitter on my tongue as I walked out the door. It was a long road ahead for Billie Jean, and as she tread first so tread we all still today.

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AUSTIN STOWELL & ELISABETH SHUE & ANDREA RISEBOROUGH FOR THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES Q&A -- my teenage ADVENTURE IN BABYSITTING loving self was very very excited to see Elisabeth Shue!!! #battleofthesexes #austinstowell #elisabethshue #andreariseborough #billiejeanking #film

A post shared by Jason Adams (@jasonaadams) on Sep 18, 2017 at 8:04pm PDT