All Ghosts and Gay Boys

George Mackay giving hot tradie is the theme of the weekend as Femme, the queer thriller starring him and Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as haters-turned-lovers is finally finally finally hitting U.S. theaters. It's been a long road, baby, but we made it. I saw the movie at Fantasia last August and I reviewed it for Mashable right here -- then my review got quoted in the trailer right here -- and now it's out for all of you people to see whether you agree with me that it's hot, dangerous stuff. 

But wait! This is actually a crazy thick weekend for good movies. For one Pixar / Disney are re-releasing Luca into theaters -- when it came out at the height of the pandemic it went straight to streaming and I called it "Pixar's best film in years" and that remains true from where I stand; just now you can finally see it on a big screen! So make sure you do. Call Me By Your Name Jr. deserves the love. 

And then there is Problemista -- a movie I adore and yet a movie I have not had the chance to write a proper review of yet. I saw it at NewFest last summer but I haven't had the chance to see it again, which I need to do before I write about it. This has been out in some cities for a couple of weeks but it's going wide this weekend -- anyway once I do see it again don't be surprised if this makes it into my favorite films of 2024 list. Yes it's early, but come on. This thing's a hilarious beauty with some of Tilda's funniest work to date. Here is the trailer.  

And then there is the horror movie Late Night With the Devil also out today! Set in 1977 this found-footage gem is sort of a spin on the great Ghostwatch -- here is the gorgeous poster and the trailer if you missed that. I'm counting my words here because I still might write a review of this. Maybe today even. Stay tuned. it's worth writing about. And going to see!

But yes wait, wait, and keep on waiting -- there is even more. EVEN MORE. Like I said today is truly ridiculous. But don't worry I saved the worst for last. The new Ghostbusters movie called Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is in theaters now and... well I did write about this one. Click on over to Pajiba and you'll hear my thoughts. They are not kind, but they are not as unkind as my words for the previous one, Afterlife. So that's something! The franchise is making incremental mini-steps towards not totally sucking. Maybe if they make fifty more they'll get around to making a good one. 

WALL*E For Eva

Amazing news this morning as the fine folks at Criterion have announced that they're putting Pixar's 2008 masterpiece WALL*E onto 4K disc in November. This along with the news of that gigantic Sony Classics boxed-set that I told you about yesterday is sure making the holidays bright for my blu-ray player! This is Criterion's very first collab with Pixar -- or even Disney for that matter! -- and one's mind reels at the possibilites. I hope they start adding more Disney titles to the collection -- where's my fully loaded Herbie the Love Bug boxed-set dammit? Kidding aside I doubt Disney will let anybody drag too many of their legacy titles out of their ridiculous "Vault" so cherish this one! And I can't imagine it happening with a better Pixar film, to be honest -- as ever Criterion is the standard bearer of quality. The disc hits on November 18th, and if you want all the specs I'll share the press release after the jump...

Which Is Hotter?

I'm sure many of you have already seen the photos of Chris Evans looking pumpkin spice delicious on the red carpet for his Lightyear animated movie last night -- if not the fine fellas at Tom and Lorenzo have a'plenty, (including info on where to buy the shirt if you're fool enough to try and wear the same shirt that Chris Evans wore). Anyway Chris looked, as is his wont, fuckin' fine, full stop. I will admit I had no idea Lightyear was even coming out already but then that's not exactly my beat. But props to Chris' stylist, who is very much bringing it right now -- let us not forget...

... that sleazy trucker-pimp look that he rocked at the MTV Movie Awards just last weekend. As if we could ever! That said Chris wore a very similar look (to his red carpet one) to a Jimmy Kimmel taping the other day, only in blue, and I think I might like the blue look even more? I can't decide. So I am polling y'all to decide for me.

online polls

Of Dogs & Fish Men

I don't know how many of you loved Pixar's Luca as much as I did but I really really really really loved it -- read this piece I wrote about it for Pajiba if you don't believe me! -- and so I made some very happy sounds upon seeing earlier today that they've gone and made a short film sequel called "Ciao Alberto" which they'll be debuting on Disney+ on November 12th. That's the trailer above, although to be honest maybe don't watch it? It's a short film -- a trailer seems excessive. A trailer becomes more and more large a percentage of a finished product the short the finished product gets! Anyway I just wanted you to put the release date on your calendar, so we can all bo back to Italy together. Cannot wait.

Next up that there's the full trailer for Jane Campion's upcoming movie The Power of the Dog, which hits select theaters on November 17th and then Netflix on December 1st, and which I've seen twice so far (thanks to TIFF and NYFF) and miiiiiiiight just be my favorite movie of 2021? I haven't reviewed it yet so that's a spoiler but I just feel as if I should put that out there at this point -- I've been sitting on it for weeks. Lord knows I love Jane Campion but I didn't expect this specific movie to swallow me up the way it has -- I just posted today in my very positive review of The Harder They Fall how Westerns ain't usually my jam, and yet here we are. It's been a stellar year for that genre, I guess. Dog is so much stranger and so much gayer than you're expecting, y'all.

Nature's Cunning Ways

Well this was certainly inevitable. Fulfilling my destiny as That Guy at last today I pounded out a great big thing for Pajiba that talks about Pixar's queer-coded new animation Luca, its oft-discussed similarities to Luca Guadagnino's 2017 film Call Me By Your Name (maybe you've heard me talk about that movie once or twice), and the whole miasmatic convo about "male friendships" that's been making the rounds online for the past week or so ever since Anthony Mackie barfed out whatever the hell he was talking about regarding the gay fan-shipping of his Marvel character. It's a lot -- for one it's around three-thousand words, and I haven't written something literally that lot in awhile. But for another it's just a lot of ideas all crammed on top of one another and I probably could've written even more. I can't be stopped! But for now it is what it is, it's in the world, and I must run and hide from it since I poured some heart into it. Please do go read it though! I appreciate it!

Little Gay Boys & the Werewolves Who Love 'Em

Just realized I hadn't linked a pair of reviews o' mine that went up on Friday when I was off -- firstly I wrote up my thoughts on Pixar's Luca at Pajiba, right here. Spoiler alert I thought it was the best Pixar film in ages, just like the headline there says, and I re-watched it over the weekend and only feel even more strongly about that. A lot of the complaints I've seen aimed at it is that it's too "simple" a story, as if simplicity is a detriment -- give me the clear clean lines of a story beautifully told and I'm there, baby. (And let's not even wade into the way this same complaint continually gets lobbed at queer films aka  "Nothing happens in Carol!"-itis.) 

The other movie I wrote up I dug as well, although maybe not quite to Luca's level -- over at The film Experience are my thoughts on the horror-comedy Werewolves Within from Tribeca, which is a lot of fun... but really only that. Again -- making a movie that is simply and successfully a lot of fun is by no means an easy task! But Luca's simplicity and Werewolves' simplicity are operating on different levels, and Luca's emotional resonance is certainly going to stay with me a lot longer than the gut-chuckles of the latter. But if I need a good gut-chuckle I know where to look!

His Name is Luca

I should stop tweeting out my best thoughts before I write up my posts -- John Waters says that's why he doesn't have a Twitter account, cuz he's not giving away his jokes for free -- but earlier when the trailer for Pixar's new cartoon Luca appeared I tweeted...

Ya know my CMYBN-loving ass made plenty of jokes about a Pixar movie being called LUCA being set in a beautiful Italian village but they seem to be coming right at me bro with that gay gay gay gay gay trailer (yes I cried a little) pic.twitter.com/PrNTEb5hM4

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) February 25, 2021

... and that's where I'll be coming at as I share Luca's trailer with you today. It's inescapable, watching this thing, how gay it is. (Up to and including the fact that Jack Dylan Grazer, star of Luca Guadagnino's series We Are Who We Are, voices the big-haired kid.) I say that knowing there's a housewife in Idaho clutching her Liberace records (second Liberace reference of the day, it's about to start raining rhinestones up in here) who watches this trailer and sees not a whit of queerness, but me? I watch this? I hear Sufjan playing in my head. 

Granted Sufjan is literally always playing in my head, but you know what I mean. Two young boys discover they share the same secret and together must hide it away from the world, while becoming incredibly close in the process... I'm not projecting anything sexual onto child entertainment here either, but gay kids exist! I know from firsthand experience! We develop crushes on other boys, just like what happens with straight kids, and those ones get OOOOOHs and AWWWWWWWWs in the church parking lots across this country. All we're asking for is it to be admitted, by culture, that we exist.

I mean then we'll have other requests, but ya gotta start somewhere. Anyway this movie's never going to come out (heh) and say anything explicitly, it is a Disney product after all. (Bless Laika for Mitch in ParaNorman.) But the metaphors are clear as Sufjan's voice on a summer day, and hopefully they'll be brave enough to not you know stick that female friend seen in the trailer awkwardly into the middle of what is plainly going on. Fingers crossed. Watch the trailer and y'all tell me your thoughts in the comments please!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Coco (2017)

Miguel: [after watching Chicharrón disappear]
Wait... what happened?
 Héctor: [sadly] He's been forgotten.
When there's no one left in the living world
who remembers you, you disappear from this world.
We call it the Final Death.
 Miguel: Where did he go?
 Héctor: No one knows.
 Miguel: But I've met him! I could
remember him when I go back.
 Héctor: No. It doesn't work like that, chamaco.
Our memories, they have to be passed down
by those who knew us in life - in the stories
they tell about us. But there's no one left alive
to pass down Cheech's stories. [shrugs]
Hey, it happens to everyone eventually.

A happy birthday to Pixar director Lee Unkrich today!

survey hosting

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Enemy (2013)

Mother: The last thing you need is meeting strange men
in hotel rooms. You already have enough trouble
sticking with one woman, don't you?

Actually we need more movies about Jake Gyllenhaal meeting

strange men in hotel rooms if you ask me, Isabella Rossellini!

A happy 66 to Isabella today!

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love to imagine Isabella Rossellini saying “Elastigirl” pic.twitter.com/gFiE9gJBVL

— Matt Erspamer (@erspamer_matt) June 10, 2018

Oh, Will Wonders Ever Cease?

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I work in a quiet office so believe me when I say that me involuntarily yelping out the word "HOORAY!" out of nowhere does not go unnoticed. But that's what just happened when I read this morning's wonderful news that Sufjan Stevens will indeed be performing his Oscar-nominated song "Mystery of Love" from Call Me By Your Name at the Oscars on March 4th. But I meant it, embarrassment be damned. HOORAY!!!

Sufjan is not the sort of performer that gets invited to even play the Grammys - he's done talk shows but not tons of them - so the hundreds of millions of people watching the Oscars are kind of going to be a big audience for him. Dude is still on his own label - hey is just a tenth of the audience goes and listens to a song by him that's gonna keep him in diamond-tip angel wings for the rest of his days. Hooray for a musical hero. (Buy the soundtrack here!)

Also -- did you hear about the special Record Store Day edition of these songs getting released? Anyway I'm under no pretenses about him winning the award - it will probably go to those awful La La Land people. But I'm rooting for (if not Sufjan, obviously) "Remember Me" from Coco to snatch the statue away because that's a lovely song and I was in a puddle of tears the last time it gets sung in that movie.
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Let's Go To Nashville Now

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For the second year in a row yours truly has participated alongside some movie aficionados of note in the annual Film Poll for the Nashville Scene out of Tennessee - this year the poll's been re-dubbed the Jim Ridley Memorial Film Poll after the paper's recently deceased writer and editor - and today the 2017 Poll went live. You can see the entire shebang right here, including our communal Top 20 for the year and our responses to a few select queries about the things that mattered within it. Me and my fellow critics share a couple thoughts on what made us cry and bug our eyes out, what we thought of Twin Peaks, and what we are looking forward to this upcoming year, among many other subjects. 

Go read!

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10 Off My Head: Siri Says 2007

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I wasn't planning on having time to do one of our "Siri Says" series today what with my NYFF screening eating up half of the afternoon, but then I asked my phone for a number and it gave me "7" and I thought I could probably rattle off a list from The Movies of 2007 pretty easily because I already did that before -- 2007 was the first year I tried to do such a thing, right here in this post. 

But it turns out that 2007 was a really really good year for the movies, you guys, and I kind of couldn't narrow this down to just five. It has to be ten. Hell it could've been 20 I think - there are titles in the runners-up that in a shittier year could've pushed their way to the front. And my list has actually changed a little bit in the 10 years since these movies came out, too. (And yes, all of these movies turn 10 this year.) So here is my revised list.

My 10 Favorite Movies of 2007

Zodiac

(dir. David Fincher)

-- released on March 2nd 2007 -- 

Ratatouille

(dir. Brad Bird)

-- released on June 29th 2007 -- 

Bug

(dir. William Friedkin)

-- released on May 25th 2007 -- 

The Assassination of Jesse James 

by the Coward Robert Ford

(dir. Andrew Dominik)

-- released on October 19th 2007 -- 

No Country For Old Men

(dir. Coens)

-- released on November 21st 2007 -- 

The Mist

(dir. Frank Darabont)

-- released on November 21st 2007 -- 

There Will Be Blood

(dir. Paul Thomas Anderson)

-- released on December 10th 2007 -- 

Year of the Dog

(dir. Mike White)

-- released on May 11th 2007 -- 

Once

(dir. John Carney)

-- released on June 15th 2007 -- 

Black Book

(dir. Paul Verhoeven)

-- released on May 18th 2007 -- 

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Runners-up: 300 (dir. Zack Snyder), Black Snake Moan (dir. Craig Brewer), I'm a Cyborg But That's OK (dir. Park Chan-wook), 28 Weeks Later (dir. Fresnadillo), Sunshine (dir. ), Superbad (dir. Greg Mottola), Eastern Promises (dir. David Cronenberg), Stardust (dir. Matthew Vaughn)...

... Hot Fuzz (dir. Edgar Wright), Grindhouse (dir. Tarantino & Rodriguez), Michael Clayton (dir. Tony Gilroy), The Golden Compass (dir. Chris Weitz), The Orphanage (dir. JA Bayona), Away From Her (dir. Sarah Polley), Hostel: Part II (dir. Eli Roth), Juno (dir. Jason Reitman), The Darjeeling Limited (dir. Wes Anderson)

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What are you favorite movies of 2007?

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Colton Haynes Is Not All There Is

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I checked IMDb earlier to see what movies are out this weekend (besides Rough Night, which I reviewed yesterday, and which yes does indeed co-star Colton Haynes in a thong) and it's kind of a desert? I mean okay I might want to see Mandy "Cock-chuggin!" Moore get mauled by a shark as much as the next guy, but I literally had no idea that Cars 3 had even been made already, much less was out this weekend. 

Sorry Armie, all I see is you! Anyway IMDb is telling me that Ken Loach's last-year Cannes winner I, Daniel Blake is coming out finally and... well, that seems insane (how the hell is that only coming out now?) but I recommend that film. Here's my review from last fall's NYFF. It's some Super Depressing Counter Summer Programming, but worth seeing.  Dave Johns and Hayley Squires are amazingly good in the two lead roles.

If you do happen to be in NYC though there is a ton playing this weekend at the smaller movie-houses; here's just a taste -- BAM's annual CinemaFest just started last night in Brooklyn and they're showing some things that look excellent (You Must See A Ghost Story!) and The Quad has a series timed to Gay Pride called "Quadrophilia" and they're screening films by Ira Sachs, Gregg Araki, and Luchino Visconti among others. I'm keeping myself busy!

10 Off My Head - Siri Says 2004

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After the long, long, long run of the New York Film Festival (though there are still a couple more reviews to come!) I'm trying to get myself back in step with the regularly scheduled blogging, and since we haven't had the time to do one of these in a few weeks I figured this would be a good step in the correct direction for that. In case you don't recall this is the series where I ask my phone to pick a number between 1 and 100 and then I choose my five favorite movies from the year that corresponds with that number. 

And well we've had a first -- this morning Siri picked the number 4. This is the first time we've had a number lower than 10 chosen, given me two choices from Cinema's History to choose from. But as badly as I'd love to choose from such hits as Nervy Nat Kisses the Bride and A Nigger in the Woodpile (yes these are real films, and no I haven't seen either of them) I'm going to go ahead and pick my favorite Movies of 2004 instead of 1904, cuz duh. And since it's such a recent year we're going to pick 10 movies instead of 5, cuz duh.

My 10 Favorite Movies of 2004

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

(dir. Michel Gondry)

-- released on March 19 2004 --

Birth

(dir. Jonathan Glazer)

-- released on October 29 2004)

Three... Extremes

 (dir. Fruit Chan, Takashi Miike, 

and Park Chan-wook)

-- released on August 20 2004 --

The Incredibles

(dir. Brad Bird)

-- released on November 5 2004 --

Shaun of the Dead

(dir. Edgar Wright)

-- released on September 24 2004 --

Enduring Love

(dir. Roger Michell)

-- released on November 26 2004 --

Bad Education

(dir. Pedro Almodovar)

 -- released on February 11 2004 --

Mean Girls

(dir. Mark Waters)

-- released on April 30 2004)

I Heart Huckabees

(dir. David O. Russell)

-- released on October 22 2004 --

Mysterious Skin

(dir. Gregg Araki)

-- released on June 24 -- 

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Runners-up: Palindromes (dir. Todd Solondz), Primer (dir. Shane Carruth), Tarnation (dir.  Jonathan Caouette ), Dead Birds (dir. Alex Turner), Sideways (dir. Alexander Payne), Kill Bill 2 (dir. Quentin Tarantino), 13 Going on 30 (dir. Gary Winick)...
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... The House of Flying Daggers (dir. Zhang Yimou), Team America: World Police (dir. Trey Parker), Dawn of the Dead (dir. Zack Snyder), Kinsey (dir. Bill Condon), Spider-man 2 (dir. Sam Raimi), Undertow (dir. David Gordon Green)

What are your favorite movies of 2004?

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