The Fourgy of Our Forever Dreams

My schedule today ended up being a bit more bonkers than I anticipated so I'm hopping online later than I'd wagered (I mentioned my tardiness in this morning's post) -- point being I'm just now seeing that the devils at Vanity Fair threw Jonathan Bailey, Riz Ahmed, Harris Dickinson, and Andrew Garfield on a couch in coordinating little outfits and delivered us a video for our everlasting spank bank eternal. I haven't had the chance to actually watch the video properly yet so I have no idea what they're discussing but...

... there it is, it should be documented. Studied. Frame by frame. Thanks to the commenter who alerted me to its existence this morning -- you will be showered in the afterlife with chocolate truffles and oral sex whenever you like. Dear lord!

I Stand With Phoenicia

Although we've had our ups and downs over the years (I still don't love Darjeeling) I've turned into a fairly staunch Wes Anderson defender, and so it's not a massive surprise I liked his latest The Phoenician Scheme even while opinions seem to be fairly mixed -- read my review that dropped over the weekend right here. I do think it's a mid-tier Anderson but as I say in the review that still means more movie magic than 90% of what we see elsewhere. Also this somehow marks his first time working with Michael Cera and even people who are mixed on the movie are like, "Well they're gonna work together again." Our little Canadian weirdo steals the movie, he does. (Except when Riz Ahmed is on-screen because Riz Ahmed is on screen.)

Good Morning, World

I don't know why Document Journal decided to crop half of their new Joe Alwyn photoshoot into circular form -- all of that white space is giving my OCD agita -- but Joe looks good enough that I will try to set that aside. Right after bitching about it. Okay that's done. I wasn't sure what projects Joe had coming up here in the wake of the awards-behemoth The Brutalist and hilariously just saw that...

... he's in both Chloé Zhao's movie Hamnet (aka the Shakespeare movie starring Paul Mescal) as well as a new movie adaptation of Hamlet, the one with Riz Ahmed I'd mentioned here. (That Hamlet news is from 2017 but IMDb lists the film as being in "post-production" so I guess it's for real.) I wonder if he's the only actor in both? I love that for him.  What a talking point it will be going ahead. (And looking now it does come up in the Document Journal interview these photos are attached to, so he's getting it done already.) Speaking of getting it done, let's hit the jump and get this post done, I got things to do...

Riz Ahmed Eight Times

Riz Ahmed is the cover boy for Vogue Singapore this month because he's finally going to be in a few things soon, including that modern spin on Hamlet I told you about (with Joe Alwyn!) and a new Prime series... which as far as I can tell still doesn't have a title? So it might be a minute on that one. Anyway it's always good (that word is a true understatement) to see Riz, and these photos represent the second time today, since...

If you need me I will be in a cooling center recovering from this photo of Riz Ahmed and his trainer pic.twitter.com/1rbWZNYlzO

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 10, 2024

... he also posted that photo on his Instagram this morning, which I have been recovering from all afternoon. I mean how dare he. I need a warning on that sort of thing, my Riz. Yadda yadda these photos are fine, because they are of Riz, and Riz is fine. Logic 101. So let's pray this turns out to be a good and proper and rightful Year of Riz, and then hit the jump for all the fresh snaps...

Here Are The Movies of Today

Heads up on the movies hitting theaters today, starting with the biopic Rustin starring Colman Domingo seen above. Telling the long overdue story of Bayard Rustin, the black homosexual who organized the march on Washington back in 1963 but got shoved to the side attention-wise because of the "homosexual" part of that Domingo gives a wonderful performance -- I do wish the movie was a little more lively and surprising though. It very much feels like a movie that will be watched respectfully in high school history classrooms for a long time and seeing as how this is a story that needs to be told that's good and all. It's just told very flat, and visually it's got that whole boring Netflix style. And I wish people would stop hiring Chris Rock to act -- he is a terrible actor. Anyway I would've written a proper review of this one when I saw it at NewFest a few weeks back but I had a nightmare audience experience with people using their phones and being total assholes so I didn't feel comfortable writing about it; all of that might've colored my opinion of the movie. It's worth watching for Colman -- just don't expect to be bowled over by the movie itself, I guess. Watch the trailer here.

Then there are two other movies out today that I have also seen -- first there is Sofia Coppola's Priscilla which I reviewed right here. Terrific movie. And second there is the documentary Subject, which I saw at Sundance but never got the chance to write about -- it interviews the subjects of multiple famous documentaries, specifically real life people from The Staircase, Hoop Dreams, Capturing the Friedmans, The Wolfpack, and The Square. And it digs into what that experience was like -- if they felt like their stories were properly served by the documentrarians' takes, and what the aftermath was like. It's all incredibly fascinating, especially if you're familiar with those films -- I'm not sure it would be if you haven't, but maybe? It does raise several questions of ethics that stand on their own. 

And the fourth movie out today is called Fingernails and it stars three of my favorite currently working actors -- Riz Ahmed and Jessie Buckley and Jeremy Allen White! You cannot go wrong with Riz and Jessie and Jeremy. That said I have not seen it yet and I have kept what it's about to a minimum because I want to be surprised by the movie when I do see it. I know it's being sold as a "sci-fi romance" and it's from Greek director Christos Nikou, who has worked with Yorgos Lanthimos and made the 2020 film Apples which... I heard great things about but also haven't seen. Anyway Fingernails is both in theaters and on streaming today so we'll see it soon enough. Here's the trailer:

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Sisters Brothers (2018)

John Morris: I left my family out of hatred and that my father was the person I despised most in this world. I despised everything about him. I sincerely thought I had been freed of all that until tonight. Listening to you, what do I realize? That most of the things that I thought I'd been doing these past years, freely the opinions that I thought I had of my own volition were in fact dictated by my hatred towards that man. I'm 35 years old and my life is like an empty cylinder.

Happy 5 to this, one of my favorite movies of recent years! Jacques Audiard has made several very very very fine films (A Prophet and Dheepan and Rust and Bone, oh my!) but this one's probably always going to be my favorite -- but then it's not playing fair, having a cast I love as much as I love as this one, and seeing Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed (as Kermit Hermann Warm!) fall in love (yes this movie is a romance). 

So do yourselves a favor and watch this movie as double-feature with Kelly Richard's First Cow this weekend -- that will make for a perfect, exquisite night. I promise. (Not to mention that it will definitely prepare you for Pedro Almodovar's Strange Way of Life, which I saw last night and which belongs riding right astride this two.)

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Sisters Brothers (2018)

Hermann Kermit Warm: This is the great challenge that all prospectors face. How do I get at what's just beneath my feet? There's only two solutions, of course: hard labor and good luck.

Hooray another opportunity to post the name "Hermann Kermit Warm" aka quite possibly my favorite character name of all time, which belongs to Riz Ahmed in Jacques Audiard's 2018 masterpiece The Sisters Brothers. And it's not just one reason I have this opportunity today, but two! Two reasons, wah ah ah. Number one it's Riz's 40th birthday today! Everybody close your eyes and send warm (Hermann Kermit Warm) vibes in Riz's general direction right now. You can send them above or below the belt -- I don't judge.

That's as good a way to spend our time while we wait and wait and wait for one of the four projects he's got lined up to come to us anyway -- he hasn't been in anything at all this year! A year without Riz is not a year well spent, y'all. But the dry spell should end in 2023 -- one of the projects is a new version of Hamlet and yes, sigh, another version of Hamlet. I know. But it's a modern version and it's from the director of that Ben Whishaw movie Surge (which was a good and interesting movie) and best of all Riz's co-stars are Morfydd Clark (from Saint Maud and Fellowship of the Ring) as Ophelia and Joe Alwyn as Laertes. Good cast!

And another interesting sounding project he's working on is called Fingernails from Apples director Christos Nikou -- I still haven't managed to see Apples but lots of people have told me I should, and Nikou is known for his previous work with Yorgos Lanthimos so I really totally should get on that. Best of all alongside Riz this movie co-stars Jessie Buckley and Jeremy Allen White; another groovy good cast. Not much of a shock that people wanna work with Riz at this point, I suppose. But good to see. 

But none of that was my second reason for posting this post today -- the important other news besides Riz's 40th is that the fine folks at Arrow UK are putting out a limited edition 4K blu-ray of The Sisters Brothers in February! This movie's weirdly gone out of print here in the US -- you can get over-priced blus on Amazon still but for a movie that's only four years old I was worried the studio was letting this one slip through the cracks. Granted this is a UK disc so you'll need a region-free player here in the US but well I have one, so I'm set. And that's what matters most. You can pre-order the disc right here; it looks loaded with extras, too. Happy Rizzy stuff everywhere, huzzah.

Riz Ahmed Four Times

These photos I think can serve as a fine reminder that Riz's superb 2020 film Sound of Metal will be hitting the Criterion collection tomorrow -- if you haven't snapped up a copy yet you can do so at this link. Good movie! Great work by Riz. And I'm happy to see he's got several projects listed in production on IMDb right now because the world's felt a little Riz-less since this one, hasn't it? The people demand more Riz dammit!

Good Morning, Riz

There are two new photos of Riz Ahmed on the internet this morning (via) -- oh, I'd say it's a good morning! Any time we see Riz a fat check goes in the "good" column. And in related news -- Riz's Oscar-nominated turn in Sound of Metal is hitting 4K Criterion this upcoming Tuesday! I told you about this when it was first announced but this is a mighty fine moment for reminding, especially now that I can link you right to where you can buy the thing. I was surprised how much I liked this movie -- sure it had Riz drumming whilst shirtless, we knew that going in. But Riz really gives the performance of his career-to-date in it, and I found the film-making on hand (especially that soundscape) all around excellent stuffs. And the Criterion disc, with the 4K and the Dolby sound, seems to be taking full advantage of that. And that's before we even get into the extracurricular of the whole vibe between Riz and his hot director Darius Marder, which I was super into.

Happy InDePlaidPants Day 2022

For the third year in a row I am giving you people something to actually celebrate on July 4th, since the thought of celebrating "America" these days makes anyone with a sane brain break out in hives -- Happy InDePlaidPants Day! Wherein we instead tip our hats toward a bunch of photos of of attractively styled actors wearing this site's namesake pants o' plaid! Okay okay let's not be "controversial" -- you can also celebrate "America" if you want to. I won't smack the sparkler out of anybody's hands. These two things can coexist. I don't want a bunch of mouth-breathing red-hatters deciding to boycott plaid pants or anything. (As if they'd have the fashion capabilities in the first place.)  We're just here for pictures (and to hate Republicans), hit the jump for the pictures (and just hate the Republicans inside of your hearts)...

Riz Drums Up Criterion's September Line-up

Criterion has today announced their September 2022 line-up of blu-ray and 4K releases, and as we do every month at this blessed moment let us dive in and look see! First and fore-hottest they are dropping Darius Marder's terrific 2019 film Sound of Metal (or as it was known round these parts "the shirtless-drummer-Riz-Ahmed movie" -- which got Riz rightly nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. Even better this is one of their 4K titles -- this movie looked great but it sounded even better, so I'm most interested in the "5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack" and a program devoted entirely to sound design in its special features.

And speaking of incredible sound design they're also dropping Brian De Palma's masterpiece Blow Out in 4K -- John Travolta be damned this is one of my favorite movies ever. On the similar title front they've got the 2004 film Take Out on tap, which was co-directed by Red Rocket director Sean Baker alongside Shih-Ching Tsou and tells the story of a Chinese immigrant in post-9/11 NYC who's trying to steer clear of a loan shark he owes money to. I have never seen this, but given that I've loved all of baker's movies at this point I should clearly change that fact.

 

The other three (or I should say "three" given the breadth of one of these) titles for September are Henri-Georges Clouzout's 1943 flick Le Corbeau (which I've never seen but you can read about it here) and then Atom Egoyan's 1994 flick Exotica, which I remember really wanting to like in the 90s and feeling extremely cold towards once I saw it. I imagine that I saw it right after I had fallen head over heels in love with The Sweet Hereafter (now there is a movie needing a Criterion release) and those two movies seemed worlds apart at the time -- I ought to give it another go? 

Anyway that makes Criterion's final September title a fourth edition of Martin Scorsese's "World Cinema Project," which and I quote "gathers six important works, from Angola (Sambizanga), Argentina (Prisioneros de la tierra), Iran (Chess of the Wind), Cameroon (Muna moto), Hungary (Two Girls on the Street), and India (Kalpana)."  Here I admit I have refrained from diving into any of these collections because I just don't know where to start, and also I can be super basic when it comes down to it. So if y'all are fans of these sets tell me about them please! Where do I ever start?

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Sisters Brothers (2018)

Hermann Kermit Warm: What we need to do is to put an end to all this barbarity. Put an end to all this violence - find a solution for it. By inventing a new society. A society where the relationships among men is governed by respect and the absence of profit. Thus a society without greed.

A happy 39th birthday to Riz Ahmed today! If you missed The Sisters Brothers when it came out a couple of years ago you missed out on a real treat from director Jacques Audiard and his very fine cast -- here's my review. And I very much recommend you figure out someway to watch this movie then! Or again! It's on Hulu. Weirdly the blu-ray is totally out print? You can find foreign copies for 30+ bucks but I find it real strange this movie's already half dropped off the radar. Homophobia!

The heat between Jake and Riz in this movie -- my god. It goes unspoken, but it's clearly there -- now that I think about it this would make for a killer double-feature with Kelly Reichardt's First Cow in that way. "That way" meaning "loving queer-coded relationships between a bearded white man and an asian man with a mustache on the old-timey frontier." You know. That way. That very, very specific way. 

Pic of the Day Part II The Rizzening

This still of Riz Ahmed in his forthcoming sic-fi-drama Encounter got dropped a couple of weeks ago apparently but I'll be damned if I saw it -- until today, of course, and here we are. I have actually already seen Encounter -- it played TIFF, and... it's fine? It's a riff on Invasion of the Body Snatchers, mixed up with a post-war PTSD custody drama, and Riz is good, the two kids who play his sons are good -- there's something I couldn't quite put my finger on missing and I was seeing so many damned movies at TIFF I didn't have the time to worry about it too much since I wasn't tasked with writing about this one. (I said all of this before right after the fest while sharing some lovely photos of Riz.) Anyway the full trailer for Encounter got dropped today -- the film's hitting some theaters on December 3rd and then then Amazon Prime a week later on the 10th -- so I will share that with you now!

Riz Ahmed Five Times

Riz here is British GQ's cover-boy this month, with the photo-shoot you see here brought along for good measure -- you can read the chat at this link. I haven't read it yet, saving it for lunch, so if they talk about me don't spoil it. Anyway he looks pretty, per usual, see the prettiness after the jump...

Riz Ahmed Six Times

I know it's only Wednesday but I am This Close (that is very very close) to calling this entire week a wash -- I just can't wrap my brain around anything longer than a millisecond and there's just a voluminous womp womp sound when I try. And I mean I am incredibly sure you care about the state of my brain right now and aren't here just for the Riz Ahmed pictures. Let me keep talking! Ha, not. Hit the jump for the rest...

Riz Ahmed Four Times

I might have missed it but I don't really recall many heads of juries for film festivals getting fashion photoshoots to mark the occasion previously -- that said when we're talking about Riz Ahmed ain't nobody complaining. He headed up the Platform jury at TIFF these past few weeks, and these lovely photos here were taken to mark that (via) I guess. As a sidenote: he also starred in a movie called Encounter at TIFF (it's kind of a Body Snatchers riff) and he was good in it! It was a pretty good movie! I didn't have to review it so it sort of got lost in the shuffle of the dozens upon dozens of movies I saw, but it's worth seeking out whenever that will happen. For now though you can just hit the jump for the rest of these snaps...

Pics of the Day

There's been a swell of Sound of Metal content this week -- I suppose I should be used to things swelling when Riz Ahmed is involved [insert "wokka wokka" here] -- but I guess it also makes sense since I think Oscar voting is starting, or has started, or something? God I don't care. Anyway that's happening over in Awards Season land -- all I care is I get to stare at new photos of Riz Ahmed with his hot director friend Darius Marder. Did you know I have an entire Twitter thread devoted to the two of them? I love their love. 

I haven't read the interview attached to these photos at Deadline because I really don't know what more can be said about Sound of Metal at this point, during this endless stretch of coverage reaching towards the interminable Oscars, but maybe they profess their love for one another; if they do somebody will quote it on Twitter and spare me my time. At least they gifted us with another photo highlighting Riz's throat, which I am weirdly (not so weirdly, really) obsessed with:

Today's Mood

Pic of the Day

I have tweeted here and there about the appealingly friendly relationship between actor Riz Ahmed and his Sound of Metal director Darius Marder, but that shit's making it to main today with the above photo of the two of them from a new chat in the Los Angeles Times. Who wouldn't give the skin off our right nipple for Riz to open our shirts and blow down there? UPDATE: 

Darius Marder has commented on the photo and I'm violently angry we won't be seeing these two on red carpets right now pic.twitter.com/OdNRXInPo6

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 10, 2021

Remind me if I'm ever in Riz's presence to complain about how hot my larynx is. Seems like he knows the solution. (Who am I kidding -- I would be doing the exact opposite of cooling down in this situation.) Here's a bonus shot of Riz from the same place:

Pics of the Day

The magazine known as British Vogue has dropped their 2021 "Hollywood Portfolio" today and there's so much hotness therein after I was done scanning down the gallery I had to go to the bathroom and make sure my eyebrows were still there. (They are.) If you click over wear protective glasses, please! We have lost enough in this past year, nobody needs to go blind for beauty! There are women included in their portfolio of course but because I am me I gathered up all the photos of the Menfolk that I plan on having an Oscar night orgy with -- hey, in the famous words of that monster that haunted the baseball field back in the 1980s, "If you build the sex swing, they will come." That's how I remember that movie anyway. Maybe I rented something else? I don't know. Hit the jump for the hot guys photos...