Louis Garrel Seven Times

How does Louis Garrel just keep getting hotter? Every year some new part of me turns to dog-shit while he's out here making the word "distinguished" his bitch -- I'd say it's not fair but it's perfectly fair considering he got a whole Louis-Garrel-sized head-start. Anyway I first saw the above photo an entire week ago but I knew there'd be more so I practised extreme patience and we've been rewarded with this whole shoot for Financial Times, huzzah. (In the interview he talks about his upcoming movie with Angelina Jolie and Disorder director Alice Winocour called Couture which sounds extremely promising!) Hit the jump for all of the pretty man's photos...

Good Morning, World

When I shared a handful of Louis Garrel photos last Friday I said I'd found them on a photographer's Instagram but I never mentioned the name of the photographer because I hadn't written it down and couldn't remember it. Well last night this batch of outtakes from that earlier shoot popped up in my timeline, thereby letting me on to their maker's name -- his name is Nicolas Valois and you can and should follow him right here. Especially if you like to stare at beautiful French men being photographed beautifully. And who doesn't like such things? Show them to me so I may smack them twice about the face. And now, the Louis outtakes, hit the jump...

Louis Garrel Five Times

Major props to the photographer who decided that I needed the image of Louis Garrel flashing me old-school trenchcoat-style in front of some bookshelves today -- just what the doctor ordered, that! Anyway I lost the link for who shot these but yesterday I happened upon a French photographer's Instagram who's gifted the world with shoots of several of our favorite Frenchies recently so you should expect me to be dropping batches of these wondrous gifts regularly for the next week or so. But we kick things off with Louis, since he's Louis. Hit the jump for them...

Good Morning, Louis Garrel

Happy Hump Day! I stumbled on this photo of our Louis yesterday during my day off and I've spent every second since... recovering. Yeah, that's the word. Recovering. (click to embiggen)

Just Say Oui

Every year the rising of post-Winter temperatures has become synonymous to me with France -- and why wouldn't it when France has brought us so much cinematic hotness a la Louis Garrel? But in this particular instance it's actually because FLC's annual fest "Rendez-Vous with French Cinema" arrives in March, and so the association's become a subconscious one after all these years. (This year marks the fest's 30th, so it's been running the entire time I've lived in NYC.) I'm feeling hot, the air is hot, and the screens are hot with, yes, Louis Garrel & Co. The fest runs for the next 10 days and you can check the entire line-up at the link above -- Garrel is in Quentin Dupieux's new movie (he's the surrealist mastermind behind movies like Deerskin and Rubber) The Second Act...

... which also stars Léa Seydoux and Vincent Lindon and is about a group of actors trying to make a movie they have no interest in making -- things apprently, as is Dupieux's wont, get meta and more meta from there. I haven't seen that one but I have seen a couple that I recommend -- I was taken aback by how lovely I thought Koya Kamura's film Winter in Sokchu was, which is about a French artist (Roschdy Zem) staying at a small hotel in a seaside Korean village where a woman (Bella Kim) who's never met her French father works. A terrific film, sweet and sad and well worth seeking out. Kim is incredible in it.

I also saw François Ozon's latest called When Fall is Coming, which is a typically twisty little thing about personal guilt and familial relationships that get blown up in ways you won't expect. It reunites the director with his Swimming Pool actress Ludivine Sagnier for the first time since that big hit of theirs, but it's really more of a showcase for actress Hélène Vincent. Oh and of course there's a hunk on hand (played by Pierre Lottin) because Ozon never lets us down on that front. 

5 Off My Head: Threesome Movies

I know I've told this story here before but in 1994 when the movie Threesome was released I was still very much a closeted high schooler, but I had to see it. HAD to.  This was before the internet so anything with any hint of gay content coming anywhere near my small upstate New York cow town was extremely rare. And yet here was this movie opening at our recently built five theater multiplex! I had to be there! So I sneaked into a screening one night... and bumped into one of my best friends from church. There with her current boyfriend. Her current boyfriend who I had done a little light fooling around with a few years previous. And she insisted on us all sitting together. It was an utterly mortifying experience for me, and probably drove me deeper into the closet for another six months lol. Oh well! 

Anyway threesome movies! They're a good topic for today because of Luca Guadagnino's Challengers being the number one movie in the country, and also totally ruling. So here are five of my favorites!

5 of my Fave Threesome Movies

3 (Tom Tykwer, 2010) 

Design For Living (Ernst Lubitsch, 19833)

The Dreamers (Bernardo Bertolucci, 2003) 

Y Tu Mama Tambien (Alfonso Cuarón, 2001)

Splendor (Gregg Araki, 1999)

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What are your favorite threesome movies?

Louis Garrel Four Times

Normally I would say something here about how Louis Garrel is wearing too many clothes in these photos (via, thx Mac) -- but I'm so over summer and heat and humidity that photoshoots about sweaters and coats are my current fetish. Okay okay I can always get off on a nice sweater, it's true. But there's something especially erotic about one in September. And it's Louis Garrel -- don't get me wrong, I love seeing Louis Garrel naked. But it's his face and his hair that are Louis' great calling card. It's not like we're being forced to stare at Chris Hemsworth in a bulky coat here -- that's a crime punishable by death. Hit the jump for the rest...

Louis Garrel Three Times

Turns out it's true -- every day is made infinitely better by adding a dose of Louis Garrel's perfect tousle of hair to it. I can already feel a calmness washing over me -- thank you to Flaunt magazine and to Louis' parents in particular for these gifts, here bestowed upon us. Jeez I'm practically praying right now! Well I guess if I was going to become religious Louis Garrel's hair would be as worthy an object of worship as any dead dude from two thousand years ago. Anyway if you have the streaming service Criterion Channel Louis' latest directorial effort The Innocent, which was nominated for a pile of César awards, is now streaming there. It co-stars Portrait of a Lady on Fire's great Noémie Merlant and it's apparently a farce about Garrel getting roped into a scheme of some sort by his mother's new ex-con boyfriend. I've seen a couple of Louis' other directorial efforts and he's actually a pretty good director! It's not just about a gorgeous movie star from a famous family getting the gigs and attention. He has some actual talent! Here's the trailer:

Let There Be Louis

We're having a very French day today, I guess! Not that there's anything so unique about that here -- especially when the subject of Louis Garrel comes up. Garrel co-stars in a new movie that just got a trailer -- it's called Scarlet and it's from director Pietro Marcello, who made the grand and wonderful Martin Eden (which introduced me to the grand and wonderful Luca Marinelli).

And a lovely poster too, right? I hope they keep that poster for the U.S. release. And as a sidenote: Marcello is himself quite a feast -- check out this video I took of him at the NYFF when I saw Scarlet. Phew! Anyway I didn't get a chance to review Scarlet but it's lovely and novelistic in much the way Martin Eden was -- this is a man who knows how to make an old-fashioned movie-movie. Also...

... Louis has a mustache. Sold yet? What more could you possibly need? Kino Lorber are releasing the film here in NYC on June 9th and it will expand outward from there. Here is the trailer:

10 Off My Head: NYFF's 60th Main Slate!

As I sit here swampy and miserable from the relentless August sun there's one bright light that's not making me shield my eyes out of exhausted horror -- the New York Film Festival has today announced their full Main Slate of movies and man oh man am I excited! And it's not just because when I think of NYFF I think of myself comfortably wearing sweaters in the autumnal cool of late September, but that don't hurt. It's also because once again this fest is offering up the auteurs I come for -- this fall is promising to be a great one for us movie-lovers and NYFF makes it a one-stop-shop every damn time. 

I'll share the full press release down below, but first I'm going to highlight the ten titles from the Main Slate that leapt right off the page at me. Please note I am not including here the four gala films, which were announced earlier this month -- those are Noah Baumbach's White Noise is the Opening Night film; Laura Poitras’s doc All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (telling the dueling tales of photographer Nan Goldin and the billionaire family Sacklers prescription drug empire) is the Centerpiece film; Closing Night goes to Elegance Bratton's film about queer soldiers called The Inspection (see my previous posts about that right here); and finally there will be a special screening of James Gray's coming-of-age drama Armageddon Time. I am going to focus on just the Main Slate titles for this list.

My Most Anticipated 10 From NYFF60's Main Slate

Decision To Leave (dir. Park Chan-wook) -- I have been posting about this movie for two full years now, ever since the first whisper of it weaved its way through rando corners the internet; I shared the first trailer right here. Sounding like a Noir only shot in vivid color it's about an inspector falling for the wife of a murdered man (played by Lust Caution's great Tang Wei). Anyway Park is a Top 5 Living Filmmaker for me so this one's The Event of the fest from where I stand. This is PCW's first movie since The Handmaiden six years back, for god's sake! I am thirsty!

The Eternal Daughter (dir. Joanna Hogg) -- I liked Hogg's Souvenir sequel better than I liked the first one, but I'm glad she's making something else this time, and a lead role for Tilda Swinton will do the trick just fine, thank you. 

Pacifiction (dir. Albert Serra) -- I'm not an expert on Serra's filmography, having still only seen Liberté, his last film, at NYFF three years back. But when i think about memorable viewing experiences at NYFF the first one that comes to mind is Liberté, which they screened for press at nine in the morning and which consists mainly of an excruciatingly drawn-out and grotesque orgy in the woods astride 17th century royal France. It stunned me in a way that was often repugnant and a week hasn't passed since where it hasn't popped into my head. (Here is my review, by the way.) Anyway this new movie stars Benoît Magimel (best known here in the US as the hockey player that Isabelle Huppert's obsessed with in The Piano Teacher) in a "gripping, atmospheric thriller" about a French bureaucrat visiting a Polynesian island that includes "a resort that caters to the prurient exoticism of foreign tourists" and yeah, this sounds like the stuff.  

Stars At Noon (dir. Claire Denis) -- I posted about this one before when it was supposed to reunite Denis with her beloved vampire boyfriend Robert Pattinson; Rob dropped out because of Bat-related responsibilities and Joe Alwyn took over the role instead. Margaret Qualley stars opposite him -- it's an erotic political thriller or something of the sort, that's set in Nicaragua? I'm picturing Denis' version of The Year of Living Dangerously, basically.

Master Gardener (dir. Paul Schrader) -- Speaking of Sigourney Weaver movies, we have ourselves a Sigourney Weaver movie! I personally consider Paul Schrader more hit-and-miss than most critics and film fans seem to but there's no denying he's a writer and a director with a vision and a voice and it feels like it's been ages since Sigourney had a real proper leading role with one of those. That said I don't know if she is a leading role actually -- she plays the owner of a fancy estate garden which is kept up by Joel Edgerton's character, and he's one of Schrader's patented "dude with a troubled past come back to haunt him" types. But let's hope Schrader feels like reminding us what Siggy's capable of!

R.M.N. (dir. Cristian Mungiu) -- Anyone who's seen 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days knows that Mungiu is obviously a great director, but I'm in this one for the plot, which is about a rural Transylvanian butcher whose wife goes mute after witnessing something horrible in the woods. I don't think it's going to be quite as horror-themed as that sounds, but it's the closest one in NYFF's line-up to horror! 

Showing Up (dir. Kelly Reichardt) -- Kelly Reichardt has never made a not great movie, full stop. And this is his first movie since her greatest movie First Cow came out in 2019. Not only that it reunites her with her favorite star actress Michelle Williams! There is no "no" here. Michelle's playing a sculptor in Portland; Hong Chao her landlord. Plot-wise it all sounds lighter than usual, but it will inevitably crack open out hearts and smash them into a million billion pieces because that's what these women do.

Scarlet (dir. Pietro Marcello) -- Per usual most of my reasons for seeing these movies are based on "I like the director's past work" and Marcello's last movie was the great great great Martin Eden -- consider me sold. And this is a French fable co-starring Louis Garrel! Consider me double!

TÁR (dir. Todd Field) -- Field hasn't made a movie since Little Children in 2006, which is totally and entirely inexplicable. But I suppose he only made one movie before that, the indelible In the Bedroom in 2001, so we don't know him well enough to know what's explicable really. All those two movies show is he's a director who should be directing more movies. This one is a big return though, starring Cate Blanchett as an orchestra conductor who loses her shit.

Triangle of Sadness (dir. Ruben Östlund) -- I shared the trailer for this movie just a few hours ago! Watch it here! Harris Dickinson is a male model on Woody Harrelson's super-yacht, cue depraved social commentary. I'm a big Östlund fan and this one seems as tailored to my specifications as The Square was a few years back.

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The New York Film Fest runs this year from September 30th to October 16th, and you can expect lots of coverage from your truly here and on other websites, as I have been doing for something like a full decade now? I should go check and see which NYFF was my first press-accredited one. I've been going since I moved to NYC twenty-plus years ago of course, but I think I've only been official press for about a decade? Anyway it's my hometown beloved, and I can't wait. Now you may hit the jump for the full press release with the full Main Slate...

Eva 4 Eva

Today is the international holiday known the world over as Eva Green's birthday, click on over to The Film Experience where I gave her some love today in the form of a look-forward at a couple of projects we should be graced with shortly. I hope so anyway -- I f'ing miss staring at her!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Dreamers (2003)

Theo: Papa's full of shit.

Matthew: I think you're lucky. Um,

I wish my parents were that nice.

Isabelle: Other people's parents are always

nicer than our own, and yet for some reason our

own grandparents are always nicer than other people's.

A happy 39 to Louis Garrel today!

Good Morning, World

Actually not so good, as I'm bearing woeful news -- actor Gaspard Ulliel has died at the far-too-young age of 37 after a skiing accident in the Alps. He collided with another skier and suffered a traumatic brain injury. What a horror. And he was just about to have his biggest U.S. platform to date in Marvel's The Moon Knight series (I just shared the trailer yesterday) -- not that he doesn't leave a ton of worthy work in France, but it was something to look forward to, seeing more of him. The last thing I saw him in was 2019's Sibyl opposite Virginie Efira, which I was weirdly just talking about yesterday (for those keeping count that is two Gaspard Ulliel projects I alluded to yesterday without even realizing it) -- but it was 2014 with Saint Laurent when I really came to appreciate him. That was my fourth favorite film of its year and he was obviously a huge part of that. What a tremendous loss. Check our archives for more of him, and sound off on your favorite roles of his in the comments!

Louis Garrel Six Times

I don't know if we'll ever get to see this here in the US but Louis Garrel has directed another movie, his third -- I never saw his first one, but his second, 2018's A Faithful Man, was pretty good! His new one is called The Crusade and it apparently played Cannes -- I didn't hear shit about it but I mostly ignore Cannes out of bitterness and spite, so maybe it got good notices, who knows. All that matters is that the latest issue of GQ France has gifted us with a new photoshoot of him (via) alongside his co-star actress Laetitia Casta (she also co-starred in AFM) but I mostly edited her out for our purposes here, because of course I did. Hit the jump for the pics...

I Quit Smoking Thirteen Years Ago Today

Lucky thirteen, y'all! That's how that thing works, right? Well maybe I'm no numerologist but what I do know is I tossed cigarettes in the trash on May 5th 2008 and I ain't never been back, and that's a thing I celebrate here on MNPP every single year every May 5th by posting enormous galleries of extremely attractive actors doing the exact thing that I no longer do. It keeps me honest.

Well if not honest... it keeps me something, anyway. Last year, as with many aspects of last year, we hit a snag though -- because I was quarantined at home over this anniversary I'd been separated from the big folder of photos that I'd keep gathering up to post for 2020. And so last year's post was admittedly a bit slack. Well...

... this year's post makes up for it, and it makes up for it then some. I've got all the photos I'd gathered for 2020 plus all the photos I've gathered in 2021, and it's gonna give y'all a hell of a nicotine buzz. If you don't die of cancer before you're finished with this post then I haven't done my job! I make light (get it) but seriously... don't smoke. You don't look at good as these guys do doing it, I promise you. Well unless you're actually KJ Apa reading this, in which case... call me, KJ Apa. You can blow smoke (or anything) on me any time. And with that, let's hit the jump for dozens more...

The Zombie Artist

This is... weird news! Unexpected news today. You remember the Oscar-winning film The Artist? Directed by Michel Hazanavicius it won Best Picture and Best Director in 2012, along with a statue for its leading man Jean Dujardin -- it was black-and-white and silent all over, and a lot of people decided after the fact that they hated it even though...

... it was a perfectly charming little thing. Anyway today comes word that Hazanavicius is re-teaming with his wife, The Artist's leading-lady Bérénice Bejo, as well as the actor Romain Duris (seen above, we love him), for...

... a remake of the Japanese zombie-comedy hit One Cut of the Dead? You see what I mean? Weird news! Not at all the news where you thought all of this was going. (Here is my review of One Cut of the Dead, which is wonderful, which you should see, and which you should stay totally unspoiled for because it has several twists and turns you won't see coming.) Hazanavicius' film just started filming and is called Final Cut (or possible Comme Z in France) and I am ready for this. I haven't seen any of Hazanavicius' films since The Artist -- he's made a couple including Godard Mon Amour with Louis Garrel playing Jean-luc Godard which I wanted to see but never got around to. 

After the Eden

Have y'all seen Martin Eden yet? It's one of the films I lost track of release-wise because I saw it at NYFF in the fall of 2019 but then it's release date began bouncing around thanks to the pandemic, finally hitting virtual theaters last fall -- anyway now you have no excuse, it's available to rent online and you really should. Luca Marinelli gives a performance for the ages in it.

pic.twitter.com/Zykx79oz1G

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 12, 2021

Indeed you are, Luca. But as much as I 'd love to have news on Luca's next project, we're here to talk about the next project from Pietro Marcello, the director of Martin Eden, which is also a treat. Especially since it is going to star Louis Garrel, which I suppose is a factoid I spoiled with that photo up top (pics via). Here's the info, via The Film Stage:

"... his new film titled L’Envol (roughly translated to The Flight), which is set to star Juliette Jouan, Raphaël Thierry, Louis Garrel, and Noémie Lvovsky. Loosely inspired by Aleksandr Grin’s 1923 novel Scarlet Sails, the romantic tale will follow “the emancipation of a woman over twenty years, between 1919 and 1939, a time of great inventions and great dreams.” With a score by Gabriel Yared (The Talented Mr. Ripley, A Prophet), shooting is set to begin in Normandy and Hauts-de-France starting this August..."

Okay so Louis is co-starring in the film, not starring, since this seems to be a female-led story this time around. That said if  Juliette Jouan is the lead she's a newcomer, because nothing comes up when I do a search. Like, nothing. Weird? I didn't know people could still exist off the internet -- I thought babies all got instant Instagrams the second they popped out. Anyway! This project is all a couple of years away, but right now, right now is the time for more Louis Garrel photos. Hit the jump for six more...