Good Morning, World

A happy 62nd birthday to honorary homosexual Stanley Tucci today! We did have that meeting and vote him in, didn't we? He was so good with Colin Firth in Supernova back in 2020 y'all. (Here is my review of that.) Anyway if I had more time this morning I would've made gifs from this scene in the 1994 rom-com It Could Happen To You (where he was in the middle of his "bad boyfriend phase") but I do not, so just a couple of stills for us. There are more over here where I swiped 'em from.

If At Firth You Don't Succeed

Suppose it would've behooved me to add this news as an aside to this morning's post about Colin Firth and Hart Bochner playing gay chicken with each other in 1988's Apartment Zero but I didn't notice it until just now -- this year's also seen Colin Firth once again playing gay, this time textually so, in Supernova, and Supernova is out on digital streaming today. You can rent it at Amazon -- it's on sale right now for a measly $5.49 for god's sake! I reviewed the film a few weeks back when it played in "theaters" -- read that at Pajiba. I said it at the time but that writing that review is one of the few times I have actually made myself weep from the words I was typing. I'm so lame! You should definitely laugh at me! Anyway Tucci is very good here but Firth is best in show for me, in this -- an incredibly moving performance from him. He does Gay Grief real good!

Pic of the Day

Just randomly stumbled upon this photo of Apartment Zero actors slash dreamboats Hart Bochner and Colin Firth -- who just gave a tremendously moving performance in the movie Supernova, reviewed here -- flanking slash humping their make-up man Alberto Moccia, and knew I had to post it, since we're massive Apartment Zero fans. (Talk about a movie ripe for rediscovery -- it's a disgrace even the DVD is out-of-print; get it on blu-ray already, Criterion or somebody!) See my previous beefcake-centric post on Apartment Zero here. Firth really has been playing gay since forever -- I mean his very first movie was Another Country, for god's sake! Colin Firth has been playing gay for longer than I have, basically!

Of Sundance and Supernovas

Hello one, hello all! A happy Friday in your general directions. In case you missed my heads-up yesterday, buried as it was in between gratuitous photographs of Miguel Angel Silvestre, well I understand you not noticing any words in such moments. So I'll repeat it here -- I am covering Sundance for the next several days (my first Sundance!) and so proper blogging now through oh I'd say Wednesday will be replaced by sporadic updates on what reviews have gone up where. A better more immediate place for such heads-up -- since you're surely hanging on my every opinion -- is to follow me on Twitter, but I will also make sure to eventually share links to everything here as well, I promise. 

But other things first, a non-Sundance review -- my thoughts on Supernova, the sad gay love story starring Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci, also went online this afternoon over at Pajiba, read 'em and weep here. No seriously I made my own damn self cry writing this review, so maybe you'll squeeze one or two out as well. By which I mean tears. Whatever else you're squeezing out don't tell me. (I really ruined that mood didn't I?)

Special thanks to everybody who told me I needed to google more of Human Factors actor Mark Waschke -- YOU WERE VERY VERY RIGHT #Sundance pic.twitter.com/kHAJFBrtP1

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 29, 2021

But back to Sundance. Utah, you know. As of now I've got two reviews up and out, both at The Film Experience. My first dispatch from Utah-you-know is for a film called Human Factors, right here, which I described as "Force Majeure by way of Haneke." And yes it stars German actor Mark Waschke seen above, although the film doesn't really let on that he is as hot as he looks above. It's not really that kind of role. So watching the movie I had no idea about... all that. Glad I do now, though. Glad I do now.

And my second Sundance review is of the documentary The Most Beautiful Boy in the World, which tackles the difficult life of Björn Andrésen, who played young Tadzio in Luchino Visconti's 1971 film Death in Venice (and who recently played a vital role in Ari Aster's Midsommar). You can read that review right here at this link, and below's the trailer for the movie. He has quite the story to tell.

What's a Little Cry Among Friends

This morning I talked briefly about movies called Tearjerkers and how life's been exhausting enough on its own for the past four years and I haven't had much use for them lately -- well I guess jerking my tears is today's theme because as soon as I posted that I watched the new trailer for Supernova, aka the gay drama starring Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth as longtime loves facing a health crisis, and yup, full on crying. I expected as much -- I cried watching the first trailer a few weeks back as well -- but still; embarrassing. Information we didn't have before -- this movie has a date now! It's playing "theaters" on January 29th, and then it hits digital a couple weeks after, on February 16th. Just in time to make us all sob some more for Valentine's Weekend, natch. Love is alive!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Big Night (1996)

Secondo: You know everything has 

just become... too much. 

Pascal: Hey, hey, fucking guy! What this is: 

"too much"? HEY! It is never "too much" --

it is only "not enough"! Bite your teeth 

into the ass of life and drag it to you! HEY! 

Secondo: That is why I come here to you, you know...

A happy 60 to Stanley Tucci today! I guess this is when I admit I've never seen Big Night? I have never seen Big Night. Big Night would be a good movie to watch in NYC 2020 though wouldn't it, what with its celebration of restaurant culture. Will it make me sad, for that reason? I am sad enough. Ehh, we will see. In the meantime I anxiously await Stanley Tucci's next role, as one-half of a gay couple in Supernova -- watch that trailer here. It's out sometime February-ish. Viva Tucci!

Good Morning, World

I missed these photos back in September when Deadline talked to Stanley Tucci, Colin Firth, and their director Harry Macqueen for Supernova, the forthcoming homosexual elders film that I shared the tearjerking trailer with y'all a couple weeks back -- I was thinking of Tucci last night thanks to his under-utilized turn in Robert Zemeckis' The Witches, which just hit HBO Max, and thought to myself phew, at least he's got that role coming up. We want our Tucci utilized dang it! Wow that sounded filthy. Yeahhhhh... you utilize that Tucci! Ahem. Anyway. I am hoping to write some thoughts on The Witches before this week is through -- it was my favorite book when I was a child, I should find things to say probably! -- so let's see how today goes. For now just enjoy a couple more Tucci & Co photos after the jump (including further proof that this Harry Macqueen actor-turned-director fella sure is a handsome one)...

Forget Them Not

I first told you about Supernova last October -- it's a romantic drama about an older gay couple, played by Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth, who go on a road trip to see relatives because Tucci is beginning to lose his memory. When I told you about the movie then, without having seen a single second of it, I said and I quote, "Are you crying already? I'm basically crying already." Well today the trailer for Supernova arrived and I'd totally forgotten what the plot was and I got about one minute into it and started grotesquely weeping, snot running down my face and everything. So that's where I am! Basically exactly where I thought I'd be! Here's the trailer:

There's already some conversation attaching itself to this movie about it being two straight actors again taking gay roles away from gay actors, but, I mean... Tucci and Firth are Honorary Homosexuals at this point, aren't they? They've played gay so many times now, even way back in the wayback machine when that wasn't supposed to be good for one's career. Now it is pretty good for one's career though, I'd say. And they look heartbreaking in this so I can't wait. Supernova is about to play some festivals, hence the trailer -- we don't have a release date yet but I hope we will soon. I will obviously keep you informed!

Stanley Tucci's Gay Supernova

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Here's a sentence that might brighten your Monday -- Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth are going to star in a gay love story! Even more than that -- it's a Notebook-esque melodrama about a long-term couple who're on a road trip visiting old friends and places from their past because Tucci's character has early on-set dementia and he wants to say goodbye. Are you crying already? I'm basically crying already. I love a good tear-jerker. Oh and did I mention that Colin Firth has a salt-and-pepper beard in it?

The film, which is called Supernova, was written and directed by actor turned director Harry Macqueen, who made a film called Hinterland in 2014 -- did anybody see that? I did not. Macqueen didn't act a ton before becoming a director, he was in Me and Orson Welles I guess, and he starred in Hinterland, but dude's only 35 so I think it's fascinating this gay romance about dementia is the story he's written and directed his second time up to bat. Let's see what ya got, Harry!

A Man For All Kingsmen

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I always feel as if I'm letting on a horrible secret about myself when I admit I love the Kingsman movies -- as if loving watching Taron Egerton flounce about in tight suits is a sin or something! -- but I do, I love every absurd ounce of them and I don't care who knows it! And so even if the prequel The King's Man won't have Taron I'm still excited... I mean let's be honest, it's not like Beach Rats star Harris Dickinson isn't going to look just fine standing in for him. And hello Djimon Hounsou while we're at it...

Casual reminder that Djimon is 55 fucking years old, y'all. Anyway the movie, which co-stars Ralph Fiennes and Gemma Aterton and Matthew Goode and Stanley Tucci and Daniel Brühl and Tom Hollander and supposedly Aaron Taylor-Johnson although we don't see him anywhere in the trailer...

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... isn't out until Valentine's Day 2020, so we've got a bit of a wait on this one. Just think by then we'll have seen all of the Oscar movies  and be so sick of talking about them -- the Oscars will have aired 5 days previous, on February 9th -- that this will feel like sweet goofy relief. In that vein, of sweet relief, hit the jump for a couple more gifs of Harris & Djimon duking it out in just their high-pants...

Jai Gives Me a Jolt

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One of the best movies I saw at Tribeca this spring was Tanya Wexler's very funny caper comedy Buffaloed starring Zoey Deutch and Judy Greer and Jai Courtney -- here's my review -- so I'm pretty psyched to read today's news that Wexler is jumping onto her next movie already and she's gathering up a killer cast. It's called Jolt and it's an action-comedy that will star Kate Beckinsale as as woman with rage issues that she tempers with electric shocks, but when her boyfriend is murdered she loses is and goes off on a revenge spree. Sounds like Crank meets John Wick, but with a lady? Anyway Jolt will reunite Wexler with Jai Courtney again, and also co-star Bobby Cannavale, Laverne Cox, and Stanley Tucci. I am here for all of that! And according to IMDb Buffaloed is getting dropped at the end of August, I'll make sure to keep y'all informed.

In summation there are two pictures of Tucci & Cannavale which I'm choosing to pretend is paps once catching them post-tryst -- in reality though they're filming something there, something that I'm too lazy to google. Anybody know what projects they've worked on together before? I'm not at all surprised how easy it was to find these two New York actors whov'e worked so much in photos together, since clearly they'd have worked together by this point, I just don't recall on what. Heck they've probably each been corpses or killers passing in the night on Law & Order dozens of times.
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Feeling the Fashionistas

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Last week's Devil Wears Prada edition of our "Beauty vs Beast" poll at The Film Experience was such a good time we've rolled it over and opened it up (y'all are familiar with that concept) for two more characters from the flick -- click on over to vote! And then if you need more Stanley Tucci in your life while you're thinking about him click here for a gratuitous post we did back in the day. It's a perfectly natural reaction.

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I Am Link

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--- Killers Coming - We've finally got some information on the new season of David Fincher's serial killer series called Mindhunter thanks to Charlize Theron's big yap - Charlize, who executive produces the show, announced this week during Long Shot press that the show will return to Netflix this August. That link does a good job rounding up the serial killers we might see this time around, and it's a load of big names -- all the heavy hitters in true life psychopaths! It's like a sweeps episode of Will & Grace, just with Chuck Manson instead of Reese Witherspoon and/or Cher.

--- Time To Watch - The first teaser trailer for the forthcoming Watchmen series showed up yesterday, watch it right here. Well the first one with actual footage from the show; I believe that there've been a few brief videos setting forth the mood of the piece, which has been updated and altered from Alan Moore's original masterpiece of a comic by Lost and The Leftovers show-runner Damon Lindelof. Watchmen stars Jeremy Irons and Regina King and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (aka Black Manta from Aquaman) and Don Johnson and on and on, it's a big cast. The action moves us into the future of the original story. No matter what though, I'm gonna miss Patrick Wilson's ass. (When isn't that true?) Watchmen premieres on HBO in the fall. 

--- His Song - I've gotten a wee bit overloaded on all of the Taron Egerton Rocketman interviews, so instead of making his new chat with THR its own post I'll just link to it here. (You can also see all of the photos from it on the Tumblr.) He does talk a bit about the gay stuff though, here's a choice bit:

"For me, kissing a man onscreen is no less appealing than kissing a woman onscreen. I'm not in any way repulsed by the male form. It's an uncomfortable thing regardless of who you're with — it makes no difference as to your sexual preference."

--- Man Witches - I keep forgetting that Robert Zemeckis is remaking The Witches with Anne Hathaway, but that is indeed a thing that is happening (and happening right now, it is right now filming) -- if you'd told me that a few years ago I'd have been excited about Zemeckis but annoyed about the remaking aspect (given that Nicolas Roeg's film is pretty much perfect) but that all is flipped around now; now I'm pretty fine with remakes (I've come to terms with them) but not so sure about Robert Zemeckis anymore, given the crap he's been churning out. That said the dark tone that adapting Roald Dahl demands leans towards the better version of Zemeckis -- this should in theory turn out more Death Becomes Her than The Polar Express. Anyway today's news is good news on the casting front -- the great Stanley Tucci and the great Chris Rock both just joined the thing, although no word on who they're playing.

--- Spidey Bros - Collider got to chat with Tom Holland on the forthcoming Spider-Man movie 9thx Mac), and of course they chat about Jake Gyllenhaal because who can look away from the two of them??? Certainly nobody around these parts anyway. Tom says again, for the hundredth time, just how bad he wanted to work with Jake -- oh me too, Tom, me too -- and how their vibe, or the vibe of their characters anyway, is like "big brother little brother." I've seen that movie. Four stars!

--- Laughing Gas - I am not going to watch this trailer myself -- horror movie trailers ruin the good scares way too often -- but if you'd like to see the trailer for the It sequel click your ass right on here and see it then. Chapter Two takes us into the future to the grown-up versions of the Losers Club, now played by Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy and Bill Hader and so forth, as Pennywise the world's friendliest and funniest clown returns to torment them. It's out in September.
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It's Meryl's World

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I went to a Q&A with the great Ann Dowd last night (an experience that I highly recommend) for a room full of actors (I am not an actor... but I play one on TV?) and the moderator was asking her about certain roles in her career and he brought up the 2004 remake of The Manchurian Candidate (Dowd played one of Meryl's fellow Congresswomen) and you might have thought that angels had descended into the room and began caressing Ann Dowd's face, as she beamed with light and love thinking about what it was like to work with Meryl Streep. 

So go we all. It is Meryl's birthday 68th today and it's somehow not yet a National Holiday so we'll have to make our own. I was trying to think up a different fun way to celebrate than the usual (nothing so boring as a list of my five favorite performances of hers) and thanks to Ann Dowd's extraordinary reaction my mind wandered to the people Meryl's worked with, and one of her finest screen partners (finest meaning a couple of things) in the past decade and a half has been Mr. Stanley Tucci, who she has starred opposite in both The Devil Wears Prada and Julie & Julia. So let's focus on that! As generous an actor as Meryl apparently is I don't think she'll mind...

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I Am Link

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--- Let The Stalking Commence - It took them two weeks to listen to my ranting and raving but they've finally announced that casting is underway for the new Friday the 13th movie, and it will shoot this spring in a town not far from Atlanta, Georgia. We told you back on the 13th that the director of The Crazies is shooting this, the 13th film in the franchise. Anyway I hope they cast a whole bunch of nobodies - I hate seeing a bunch of boring pretty familiar faces in these films. Find me the new Tom McBride already! Although as a suggestion if they want to hire Matthew Daddario (pictured) I would totally be there for that.

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--- Underwater Aliens - Vulture has got a surprisingly nice and low-key interview with director James Cameron today - it says a lot about the world that James Cameron's egomania feels comforting and restrained these days - where he talks about the need to respect scientists and the scientific process... and also throws some skepticism Ridley Scott's way regarding the new Alien movie. 

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--- Double Down Darko - In an interview about the new blu-ray release of Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly, who is apparently still alive, says that he would love to make a sequel to the movie - something bigger and more ambitious that's set in the same world of wormholes and Jake Gyllenhaal stuffing his hand down the front of his pants. He also says, "I need to get my next film out of the gate and then we can go back and look at it." YA THINK, RICHARD? It's only been EIGHT YEARS since The Box came out. My anger is expressed with tons of affection, by the way - we need Kelly's brand of nuttiness in the world! Make a movie, man! (PS -- S. Darko is a thing that exists! Remember that shit?)
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--- A Girl's Curse - Well this is a goddamned treat thrust into the dark and gloomy world we live in - Final Girl has posted a new movie review! Our great gal-pal Stacie Ponder has returned from the grave, brushed the maggots out of her big shiny hairdo, and gone to town on the new J-horror battle royale that is Sadako vs Kayako, which pits the ghostly ladies of Ju-on (aka The Grudge) and Ringu (aka The Ring) against each other, and which is now streaming on Shudder.
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--- Jungle Jane - I'm pretty forlorn that the new Predator movie is shooting in Vancouver because with the cast director Shane Black is lining up we need a sweaty jungle pronto - who doesn't want to see Boyd Holbrook or Trevante Rhodes or the latest addition to the cast fur-god Thomas Jane sweating through sleeveless military shirts while chomping on cigars? That's what it's all about, man!
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--- Blah Blah Bland - Even I am a little tired of the smacking around that La La Land's been getting and I'm certainly not that movie's biggest fan (here's my review) but I have to say that I don't not agree (I am just quadrupling the negatives at this point) with this piece at CNN that argues a vote for the movie is a vote for Trump. Oh sure it verges on the hysterical, but these are hysterical times. For the record if I was voting for Best Picture out of that line-up I would probably pick Moonlight, although I need to revisit Manchester, which I loved at NYFF).
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--- Devil May Care - Did y'all see they are making a stage version of The Devil Wears Prada for Broadway? Elton John's writing the music and our beloved Paul Rudnick (I learned so much about writing about movies from his Libby Gelman Waxner character in Premiere Magazine back in the day) is writing the rest. Anyway over at The Film Experience our pal Chris offers up some ideas for songs and what not. I of course just got lost thinking about how hot Stanley Tucci is for awhile and then went and posted some pictures on our Tumblr of just that, since that's where my brain always goes...
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--- Rubber Lizard - Just reading Michael Dougherty's name makes me want to run home, microwave a bowl of popcorn, and put Krampus into the blu-ray player - and I don't even like popcorn! But reading that Dougherty just signed up to direct the 2nd Godzilla movie (taking the reins from the dearly departed Gareth Edwards) makes me a little bit nervous - granted Dougherty's been around big-budget film-making for a long time, having been a sidekick (aka writer) of Bryan Singer's since the second X-Men movie, but this is the big leagues and I worry his charms, which have so far been low-budget bursts of insanity, might get swallowed up by the studio machinery. But I always worry about such things. I wish him well! I hope they reintroduce tons more kaiju - I want my Destroy All Monsters remake and I want Ghidorah dammit!
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The Divine Feud

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Today's big gay news is that Ryan Murphy is lining up yet ANOTHER anthology series on top of his American Horror Stories and his American Crime Stories -- this one is titled Feud and it will be about legendary battles between big-time personalities, and he's starting off with two of the very biggest: Bette David and Joan Crawford, icons and movie stars and c-words the both of them. On top of that they will be played by Susan Sarandon (sigh) and Jessica Lange. I mean... you can probably just imagine the pink earthquake that just sucked Gay Twitter into the depths of chaos and craziness.

This is probably the best time to tell you to take off your snap earrings one by one, set them on the bureau, and then telephone the nearest Book Shoppe and ask them to hold you a copy of Shaun Consadine's homosexual bible, the 1989 dual biography Bette and Joan: The Divine Feud, immediately. I blathered about the book a couple times last year as I read it for the first time, but you probably didn't listen to me then because I am just me -- now that Ryan Murphy's saying so you'll do it.

Anyway the book either captured the legend or made half of the legend up, who cares, it is everything you want it to be and more. It's one of the most entertaining pieces of trash about two of the most entertaining pieces of trash that you'll ever read. 

The series will focus in on the making of Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, which was the only time the women worked together but just a teensy tiny part of their life-long aggressiveness, so if you read the book it'll give you the much needed backstory. Anyway the series will also star JUDY DAVIS OH MY GOD (she's playing Hedda Hopper), plus Stanley Tucci and Alfred Molina. I mean...!

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Good Morning, World

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Anybody remember the 1993 married spy comedy Undercover Blues with Kathleen Turner and Dennis Quaid? Yeah I don't blame you if you don't -- I'd completely forgotten that it existed until I just saw that it was recently dropped onto blu-ray, for some reason. I guess the world was clamoring for the entire Herbert Ross oeuvre in crystal clear high definition? (Give me Steel Magnolias or give me death.)

Anyway I couldn't remember what the movie was so I googled it and was reminded of blah blah story whatever as well as oh yeah this was some prime Dennis Quaid time. For the record, prime Dennis Quaid time has been going on for forty years and still hasn't passed, but still. There are levels, and 1993 was a good 'un.

And a bonus -- as I went through the movie to cap these scenes of Prime Dennis, I discovered that the movie co-starred Youngish Stanley Tucci, who was always playing a greasy sleazeball type in the 90s, but with a certain furry greasy sex appeal to it, and there's an extensive scene where Tucci gets trapped in an alligator pen at the zoo (of course) and Dennis Quaid forces him to strip off his clothes (of course).

So I capped that as well (of course).

Hit the jump for the rest of it...
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Stanley Tucci One Time

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Good Morning, Mark Feuerstein

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Mark Feuerstein is hot, we've dedicated a big gratuitous post to him before right here, but he's not hot enough to get me to watch a movie called Larry Gaye: Renegade Flight Attendant - nosireebob is he hot enough for that.

Thankfully it looks as if some kind people (via) have gone and put all of everything Mark-wise worth seeing online already (the movie's out on demand, in case you're... I don't know what the word for that would be) so we'll just share that, admire him, and call it a day.

Yeah that him overdoing a gay kiss (ha ha gay kiss!) with Danny Pudi. Actually before we go can we just take a look at the cast of this movie? Besides those two it co-stars Rebecca Romijn, Stanley Tucci, Marcia Gay Harden, Taye Diggs, Jayma Mays, Patrick Warburton, Jason Alexander, Henry Winkler, and Molly Shannon. Molly Shannon! I hope they all got paid well. Okay try not to be embarrassed for everybody and hit the jump for the rest...

Good Morning, Gratuitous Stanley Tucci

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Quick, somebody call 911, I have an emergency! I just went through our archives and I never posted these pictures before! I was so distraught I slapped myself unconscious. Who's typing this right now then, you ask? Wouldn't you like to know.

Wouldn't you?!?!? It's not as if Stanley Tucci himself is here, cradling me in his shockingly beefy arms, pressing my fingers one after the other after the other to the keyboard. And it's not as if he's not done with not doing all of this he's not going to carry me to the opposite of a bedroom and have his in no way shape or form torrid and shockingly filthy way with my unconscious yet entirely willing body.

Nope. Never. Hit the jump for more pics!