He's Giving Us Woodall

I never saw Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy because I have never given a fuck about those movies -- should I, as a noted Leo Woodall lover, bother? The above gif of him soaking wet in a white button-down cradling a puppy makes me think there may be something in it for me. In related ignorance, is anybody watching Leo's new series Vladimir with Rachel Weisz? Should I watch that? I can no longer make decisions for myself apparently, but earlier today I saw...

... this footage of Leo wanking in a bathroom stall and I decided that maybe I should prioritize Vladimir as well. I'll just have myself A Day of Woodall this upcoming weekend. Sounds like a better way to spend my time than thinking about our imminent Armageddon anyway. Sigh. Where was I? Oh right, Leo. Sweet Leo. Did you hear the rumor that Leo might be playing the younger version of Viggo Mortensen's character Aragorn née Stryder in The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt For Gollum? That would be one way to make me watch yet another unnecessary Tolkein movie. 

Charles Melton Be My Love Child

I have learned the hard way not to get myself excited for Todd Solondz's next movie called Love Child, because Love Child has been his next movie for going on a decade now and the football keeps getting yanked away from me. In 2017 I posted that it was going to star Penelope Cruz and Edgar Ramirez, then in 2021 I posted that it was going to star Rachel Weisz and Colin Farrell. The last update was this past December when Elizabeth Olsen became attached to the lead female role -- well today comes word that Charles Melton, hot off working with my other favorite Todd (Haynes), has found himself attached to the male lead opposite her. I've heard variations on the plot over the years but this is its latest update:

"The story follows Misty who is stuck in a loveless marriage to a brutish husband. Junior, her precocious 11-year-old is her only consolation. When Easy, a handsome vagabond stranger, appears, Junior hatches a plan to get rid of his father so that his mother can marry him instead. But things end up backfiring, so Junior comes up with yet another plan, this one even more devious, and with more disastrous—and unexpected—consequences."

So obviously the casting of the eleven-year-old is pretty crucial, but if Todd Solondz has proven anything over his career it's that he's fucking excellent at casting child actors. Then there's also the role of Junior's father, which seems to be a less important role given that every iteration of casting we've had to date has only been for the Misty and Easy characters (and yes, those names are giving me life). Anyway! I am enforcing a strict wait-and-see approach, a barbed-wire-barrier around my heart, before I allow myself to get excited on this movie once again. That said whatever your religion or lackthereof please whisper something hopeful in its name today. Here is how I pray:

Twice the Weisz, Twice as Nice

When I posted in August 2020 that Rachel Weisz was going to star in a series adaptation remake of David Cronenberg's twin gynecologist masterpiece Dead Ringers I didn't yet have any information on who was making the darn thing, and so I expressed some antipathy. As one should! Not because of Weisz -- we think she's killer! -- but because remaking David Cronenberg seems a fool's errand, as his movies are so very Him that Him has become an adjective. But today we have an image via IndieWire along with the news that the series is coming from some notable names, ones which make my apprehension a little (a little, mind you) lessened. Alice Birch, the woman behind the Paul Mescal introductory series Normal People and the Florence Pugh introductory movie Lady Macbeth wrote the scripts for the show, while Martha Marcy May Marlene director Sean Durkin and The Invitation director Karyn Kusama will be directing some of the episodes. Oh and the ace Jennifer Ehle is also in the cast. I like all of these people very much, but even more than that I respect their intelligence. And as I said in my 2020 post, telling the story about mutated female anatomy with a female lead(s) this time is probably a change we should welcome? We'lls ee -- the series is set to bow in April on Amazon Prime.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Fountain (2006)

Isabel: For every shadow, no matter how

deep, is threatened by morning light.

I listen to Clint Mansell's magnificent score for The Fountain all the time (indeed I saw him perform it live once inside a church here in NYC and it nearly blew my head off) but I'm only just now realizing here on the film's 15th anniversary that I probably haven't sat down and watched the film itself in nearly fifteen years? I should fix that! It's a good movie for the holidays, maybe I'll watch it over Thanksgiving break and report back. What are your thoughts on The Fountain for its 15th anniversary, if any? Fans?

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Happiness (1998)

Helen: Last night Joy called – I was in bed with

Vilmos – no, Huraki – and she was in tears.

She told me she'd quit her job... 

Trish: Oh, but...but that's her lifeline!

Helen: She said she wanted to "change"

her life. Do "good" work with the poor, the needy... 

Trish: I don't get it. 

Helen: Don't even try. She should understand she 

already is good. She doesn't need to do good.

Every scene in Todd Solondz's masterpiece Happiness I simultaneously want to run both an hour long and to be over immediately -- he puts most "cringe comedy" to shame -- but this scene with sisters Helen (Lara Flynn Boyle) and Trish (Cynthia Stevenson, who's celebrating her birthday today) just sitting around being awful about their third sister Joy (Jane Adams), who's not there, this one I unreservedly could watch twelve hours of. So excited we got that news about Todd Solondz making a new movie -- staring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, no less! -- a few weeks back; the movies need him spraying acid on our faces. And maybe with that the studios will release this film here onto blu-ray since the DVD is way out of print! Blasphemy!

The Long Strange Saga of Love Child

The happiest news in the history of happy news hit the internet last night, as word spread via Variety that not only is Todd Solondz working on a new movie called Love Child, but it's going to star no less than the obscenely talented movie stars (and former Lobster lovers!) Rachel Weisz and Colin Farrell! Here is how they describe it:

"In a darkly comic twist on the classical Oedipal story, “Love Child” will follow a precocious child who schemes to rid himself of his brutish father so he can have his mother all to himself. Things go awry when a handsome stranger appears. “This is my first movie with a plot and my first movie taking place in Texas,” said Solondz. “It’s fun and it’s sexy and it’s shaped by the Hollywood movies that made me want to become a filmmaker. I’ve loved Rachel and Colin’s work forever, and am so honored to be able to excite their passion for serious and unexpected work as well.”"

Sounds awesome, right? Well let's hold up the happy train, there is one piece of business to attend to first -- in 2017 I reported that Todd Solondz was going to make a movie called Love Child that would star... Edgar Ramirez and Penelope Cruz? I did, I did report that. In 2017 Solondz was looking for financing in Berlin; this time, here in 2021 with his new actors, he's going to Cannes; let's hope it works out better this time. I do think it's curious to read how the plot was described in 2017, just for reference's sake -- it will be curious to see if anything's changed from this 2017 version which gives away a lot more plot specifics:

"Story follows 11-year-old Junior, a delusional aspiring Broadway star with an inappropriate obsession with his mother Immaculada. After orchestrating an accident that nearly kills his abusive father, he encourages Nacho, the handsome man living in the family’s guesthouse, to court his mother and become his new dad. But when the two fall in love, Junior becomes so jealous that he is no longer the subject of his mother’s attention that he hatches a plan to frame Nacho for his father’s murder."

Well I doubt that Rachel Weisz will be playing a character named "Immaculada" for one. But hey you never know, this is Todd Solondz. He goes places!

I DESERVE THIS https://t.co/ojdmtWvfBE

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 16, 2021

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Constant Gardner (2005)

Justin: Well, diplomats have to
go where they're sent.
Tessa: So do labradors.

The movie that gave the goddess we call Rachel Weisz an Oscar -- and therefore a very important movie indeed! -- turns 15 today! Have any of you watched it recently? I haven't seen it since it came out, and it's funny looking back and the ten sentences I offered up as my "review" back in 2005 (I hate linking to things I wrote when this site was first starting so please, my apologies) because I say in there that  I've grown "especially fond of Weisz" and little did I know how fast and hard that fondness would grow. (I adore her now, is my point.) Anyway TCG has been talked about in a few pieces over at TFE in the past month or so -- here's one on Ralph Fiennes performance, and here's the Supporting Actress Smackdown for that year -- which have really got me wanting to revisit the movie sooner rather than another fifteen years from now.

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"The Woman's Body Is All Wrong!"

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It's been announced that Rachel Weisz is going to star in an Amazon series based on David Cronenberg's film Dead Ringers. Now... I love Rachel Weisz. I do. There are far fewer actresses that have their own tags here on MNPP than there are actors, and she's one of the golden. And I have made my indifference towards the concepts of remakes known several times at this point --Remakes can be good, and if they're not good they can be forgotten, and in neither instance do they effect in any way whatsoever the quality of the original thing your loved so. 

Okay... that might not be entirely true, as for example I might actually now appreciate Dario Argento's Suspiria a wee little bit less after seeing what Luca Guadagnino was able to masterfully do with the same basic idea in his remake -- Luca did manage to make the 1977 film ring a little more hollow, in retrospect. Anyway basically what I said stands. I can still one hundred percent enjoy Argento's film as a piece of exquisite style. 

Which brings me to my point -- in theory I shouldn't have anything against the idea of Rachel Weisz resituating David Cronenberg's 1988 horror flick as a vehicle for herself, where she will play the twin gynecologists that Jeremy Irons played so chillingly effectively back in the day. I love Rachel Weisz, and I love the idea of Rachel Weisz as Creepy Twin Gynecologists. The film is about sex and gender already -- flipping that on its head (or rather its deformed uterus, if you will) will be interesting. Idea sold!

And yet... I am hesitant? I guess I just need to see who comes on board to actually make this thing. According to the trades it was all Weisz' idea, as a series for Amazon -- they don't name any other names besides her, and that she will produce it. David Cronenberg is one of those directors whose name has actually become a definition outside of him -- Cronenberg means something. And Dead Ringers is one of the most Cronenbergian of the Cronenbergs, with its Body Horror baked right in. Basically, I guess I am just withholding my enthusiasm until I have more information. All I will say is hey, Rachel, David Cronenberg is still alive! He still gives interviews about trying to get movies made! Maybe get Dave on the phone...

... or not! Hiring a female director to investigate Cronenberg's ideas would also be interesting! I guess I just need more information before I am comfortable, and even then, I will remain suspicious until the thing is right in front of me. Just ease me in slowly, Rachel. This is maybe just a lot all at once. If you wanted to make it real comfy for me you could have your husband Daniel Craig come hold my hand and explain it all to me, slowly, thoroughly...
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Dogtooth (2009)

Father: If you don't drink your orange juice 

while it's fresh, it's no use.

A happy New York 10 to Yorgos Lanthimos' film Dogtooth, which opened here in my city on this day in 2010 after several months of bouncing around the world with film fests and the like. I'm guessing I didn't see it until it hit home video though, because I didn't review it until December of that year? I don't know. Who can remember when and where they saw things? I'm so bad at that sort of thing unless, like, Angela Bassett is sitting beside me or something. 

Anyway it sort of feels like Yorgos has, in the ten years since, become his own genre -- look at Hulu's The Great, which was only written by the guy who also wrote The Favourite, for proof. And I can't think of a more unlikely success story in all my days than this one. Who watched Dogtooth in 2010 and said to themselves, "We've got a hit! This guy's gonna be gobbling up Oscar winners and getting copycatted left and right in less than a decade!" And yet, here we are, and Nicholas Hoult is loosing his buns for this, and I am all in. Yorgos-flavored everything for all of my days, please. In related news aww look at this cute picture of the Favourite cast on set:

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Layer Cake (2004)

XXXX : Life is so fucking good
I can taste it in my spit.

I don't think I've seen Matthew Vaughn's movie Layer Cake since it came out in 2004 -- I certainly haven't seen it in long enough to recall the fact that Daniel Craig's character's name is four X's in a row. Do they bleeps his name out, or just avoid speaking it, or so they make a "Shhhhhh" sound when they speak to him, or what? I don't remember.
.

Anyway in a weird coincidence before planning this post today in honor of Daniel Craig's 52nd birthday I'd gotten myself tickets to see this exact movie next week as part of MoMA's great big Daniel Craig retrospective that they're doing the entire month of March. I'm sure you'll hear more from me about it as it progresses -- I'm seeing Casino Royale tomorrow night with the birthday boy himself there for a Q&A, perhaps he'll let me in on one of the spankings.

I mean yes technically I could post a picture of Daniel Craig with his shirt on, but why would I? Funnily enough I've actually seen Daniel Craig in person at MoMA before and in the most random of fashions -- back in June of 2017 I posted about how him and Rachel Weisz were in the audience for a night with the legendary surrealist auteur Alejandro Jodorowsky, who proceeded to drag Craig onto the stage to do a palm reading of 007 himself. You can read the whole thing at that link with several photos  included, but here's the video I took again, just because I still can't believe this happened:

Every Time I Think I'm Out...

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... Marvel sucks me back in with some shirtless dude I like on display in their latest trailer! Not that I am "out" of Marvel Superhero Movies by any stretch of the imagination -- while I very clearly fall on the Scorsese side of that argument I still enjoy Marvel's films as disposable entertainment that I rarely give a second thought to once I've devoured the latest flavor. They're perfectly fine! And I'm sure that their Black Widow solo film will be more of the "perfectly fine" same, just with David Harbour and Rachel Weisz and Florence Pugh goofing off under latex shoulder pads. Also...

... shelves. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the shelves.

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Black Widow is out on May 1st.

If You're Not In Marvel Now You Will Be Soon

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Do a happy dance cuz the Black Widow movie from Marvel is lining up a killer damn cast. I mean it's well past time that ScarJo got her own one of these anyway, but when you add Florence Pugh (which we already knew) and today Stranger Things' commensurate scene-stealer slash brand new Hellboy David Harbour and, drum-fucking-roll please...

... Rachel Weisz! Rachel Weisz! Holy shit, Rachel Weisz! With Angelina Jolie rumored to enter the MCU next phase as well it's official -- for better or worse every goddamned actor on Earth will be a part of this franchise in short order. Now cast Olivia Colman as Dazzler, you cowards!

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Disobedience (2017)

Rav Krushka: In the beginning, Hashem made three types of creatures, the angels, the beasts, and the human beings. The angels, He made from His pure word. The angels have no will to do evil. They cannot deviate for one moment from His purpose. The beasts have only their instincts to guide them. They, too, follow the commands of their maker. The Torah states that Hashem spent almost six whole days of creation fashioning these creatures. Then, just before sunset, He took a small quantity of earth and from it He fashioned man and woman. An afterthought? Or His crowning achievement? So, what is this thing? Man? Woman? It is a being with the power to disobey. Alone among all the creatures we have free will. We hang suspended between the clarity of the angels and the desires of the beasts. Hashem gave us choice, which is both a privilege and a burden. We must then choose the tangled life we live.

These are the opening lines of Sebastián Lelio's great film Disobedience, which we called our 5th favorite movie of 2018 -- if you're keeping track (and who wouldn't be) that marks three films in a row from Lelio that've placed in my Top 10s of their respective years, what with A Fantastic Woman making #9 in 2017 and Gloria making #8 in 2014. Needless to say Lelio has immediately become one of my most beloved auteurs, so the realization that it's his 45th birthday today -- and on the day he has a brand new movie hitting movie theaters, no less! -- means we must mark the occasion. 

So like I said those are the opening lines of the film, spoken by a man who will die a moment later and set the film's plot in motion -- he is Ronit (Rachel Weisz)'s father and Dovid (Alessandro Nivola)'s teacher, and both characters will come to reckon with the Rav's words over the course of the film. Dovid especially, since he was there to hear them, and feels that this lesson about "free will" holds the key to the tangled life he will live. The entirety of the film's laid out right there in its opening moments, and we'll close the circle by film's end when Dovid will stand in that same place, with his choice laid in front of him. 

Lelio often deals with these moments where clouds break and sunlight casts itself down on a single path, a perfect blazing moment of realization that burns off the fog. His characters wander, confused and lost, until they aren't -- my favorite means he uses is pop music, which always gets a moment to shine in his movies; the whole of Gloria and its remake with Julianne Moore are built as a lead-up to theirs (I'll say more about that when I review the latter later today) but I think Disobedience's is my favorite -- how does one even begin to think one can get away with using The Cure's "Love Song" as their movie-couple's primary love song? That is an act of insane hubris. It is obvious as a heart-shaped sledgehammer. 

And yet isn't love, or can't it be, that bolt of perfect light out of the blue? The most obvious thing -- the clearest vision. The right song at the right moment, when suddenly our lives don't feel in our hands anymore but out of our control, being guided by a force that's blunt and bigger than us -- Love and Truth and all the words that the poets capitalize. Lelio's films time and time again are about watching his characters join their Free Will hand in hand with Fate -- when the course of our lives slip into place, those two things side by side, running, dancing, bounding ahead together.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Favourite (2018)
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Lady Sarah: Abigail has done this. She does not love you.
Queen Anne: Because how could anyone?
She wants nothing from me. Unlike you.
Lady Sarah: She wants nothing from you.
And yet somehow she is a lady. With 2000 a year,
and Harley sits on your knee most nights.
Queen Anne: I wish you could love me as she does!
Lady Sarah: You wish me to lie to you?
"Oh you look like an angel fallen from heaven, your majesty."
No. Sometimes, you look like a badger.
And you can rely on me to tell you.
Queen Anne: Why?
Lady Sarah: Because I will not lie! That is love!

Man, this bit of dialogue kills me. Never let anybody tell you that there isn't a great big beating heart of hurt and affection strapped beneath the bejeweled vajuju of this perfect movie. And Rachel Weisz, who's celebrating her 49th birthday today, is a big part of why. I hope that Yorgos casts her in everything he does because nobody hits his notes like she can -- nobody else has got the voice to turn his strange phrases into this liquid honey dreamily dripping down our ears. Blessings to her this happy day! 

And y'all know the movie finally hit blu-ray this week right? The movie itself is worth the price of admission and it looks glorious on the disc, but the special-features are good too, if slight -- there's a terrific "Making Of" doc and several deleted scenes, all of which are as utterly hysterical as anything in the film itself. Check 'em out! (If you never read my original review of The Favourite do that here.)

In other Rachel  Weisz news she just announced a new movie today -- she's going to produce and star in an adaptation of the forthcoming book Lanny by Max Porter, which is out in May. The book is I guess a fantastical tale about a little boy who goes missing in a small town an hour outside of London, involving a mythical creature in the woods called "Dead Papa Toothwort." One assumes that Rachel will be playing the boy's mother and not a character called "Dead Papa Toothwort" but who knows, these are crazy days...
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My Favorite Movies of 2018: The Top 10

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See 10 runners-up here, and

see our #20-11 films here.

I wish I could lay out some sort of thematic through-line for what moved me in 2018, but per usual it's as schizophrenic as my insides -- our loves veer from Singing Nannys in the sky to Dancing Witches slinging meat hooks, and everything in between. As it should be, I suppose -- the cinema's the place for every mood, every inclination. It's like Mary Poppins' bottomless carpet bag -- reach in and put out a French drama about divorce, an American drama... about divorce... a British Jewish Drama... about divorce... okay, okay, whatever. You get the point. My life was scarred by divorce and I am a product of a broken home and these are my ten favorite cinematic achievements of 2018 -- god! Leave me alone, already.

10. Custody

(dir. Xavier Legrand)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: In the bathtub

9. Wildlife

(dir. Paul Dano)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Showing the boy the fire

8. Support the Girls

(dir. Andrew Bujalski)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: On the roof

7. We the Animals

(dir. Jeremiah Zagar)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Kissing a boy

6. Can You Ever Forgive Me?

(dir. Marielle Heller)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Lee goes on a date

5. Disobedience

(dir. Sebastián Lelio)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Spit take

4. The Favourite

(dir. Yorgos Lanthimos)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Through the door

3. Hereditary

(dir. Ari Aster)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Dinner conversation

2. Suspiria

(dir. Luca Guadagnino)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment:
When the dancer becomes the dance

1. ROMA

(dir. Alfonso Cuarón)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Breaking the waves
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Great Moments In Movie Shelves #179

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Queen Anne's library in The Favourite isn't just a glory to behold, but it's also of terrible importance to the plot -- one of Abagail's better qualities is her focus on her education in bettering herself; she immediately starts swiping books from it the second she gets a job in the palace, so much so that everybody up to and including Lord Harley makes cracks about it.

Of course it's while she's sneaking a peek at some dusty second-floor volume one night when she learns the steamy truth about the relationship between Anne and Lady Sarah -- book learning is one thing, but experience, real life experience, is a whole nother.

My favorite -- or exscuse me, my favourite, can't forget the British spelling -- thing about this moment in the film is that is quite plainly really Emma Stone standing there getting great big books thrown right at her face; I spasm every time I watch this part, don't you? She earned that goddamn nomination, you guys. 

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... finding out if Harley's carpet
 matches the drapes. (pic via)

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Love & Death

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After crowing about my big like for the film called To Dust for an entire year -- I saw and reviewed it at Tribeca last spring -- it's finally hitting theaters in New York and Los Angeles this Friday. (It expands out to Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, DC, Houston, San Francisco and Seattle next weekend.) Watch the trailer here if you don't remember what I'm talking about -- it's the one that stars Son of Saul actor Géza Röhrig as a grieving cantor who looks for answers about the afterlife from a very Election-ish Matthew Broderick as a community college science-teacher.

Anyway I'm using the enthusiastic release of that film, which was produced by Alessandro Nivola, to bridge us to this week's "Beauty vs Beast" over at The Film Experience, which is tackling the other movie about Orthodox Jews & Alessandro Nivola from last year's Tribeca, Sebasitan Lelio's great Disobedience. Click on over to have your vote matter in this crazy world!
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Name Your Favourite

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The above photo is nice and all (see more here) but it's so darn respectable - I really want more photoshoots of the three ladies o' The Favourite glamming it up;  I want something really sexy and provocative, like the movie. Okay there's an awful lot of gout in the movie that somewhat dulls the sexiness, but you know what I mean. You've got three gorgeous and talented-from-space ladies here - give us some images to remember, photographers! Have some fun! On that note this week's "Beauty vs Beast" at The Film Experience is tackling at least two of these performances - click on over to make like Queen Anne and choose your number one lady in waiting.

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