Wagner Moura Nineteen Times

It's weird I didn't see Wagner Moura get dragged into the brown-word brouhaha that erupted when Steven Soderbergh broke our hearts, declaring he wants to make a movie about the Spanish-American War starring Moura that would use"a lot of A.I." -- if I missed somebody asking Moura about that shit please share it in the comments! Until then I am choosing to believe that Wagner didn't know anything about the A.I. part of this and has since bolted, just so's my crush on him can remain throbbing for a little longer. Thankfully for now we't throbbing just fine thanks to this new-ish photoshoot (via) ...

... and the news that Wagner will be starring opposite two of my favorite actors -- Ralph Fiennes and Colin Farrell, A mini-In-Bruges reunion! -- in Art, a film adaptation of the 1994 play by Yasmina Reza to be directed by the great Fernando Meirelles (thx Mac). The play's about three long-term friends who debate the meaning of art when one of them buys an extremely expensive all-white painting. Okay! I suppose somehow that will be made cinematic. And I bet it will be accomplished without any A.I. too. Keep that line of thinking going, Wagner! Hit the jump for all of the photos...

Today's Mood

Still can't believe how subversive the video for Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" remains here at 32 years old (!!!) -- a rock god presenting himself as both a fetishized sexual object and a submissive all at once? How often have we seen this in the years since? Bless you, Trent, you foundational pervert. Anyway! Today's a big day for NIN fans as their highly anticipated new record of remixes with Boys Noize, smartly titled Nine Inch Noize, has dropped -- I didn't get to see them on tour this past year where they've been playing these bangers so this is the closest I will get to them. No physical release of the album just yet but fingers and toes and leather whips all crossed in knots that'll happen eventually. (Says the man still waiting for Trent to drop the Bones and All vinyl, sigh.) But maybe it's for the best that this record didn't drop today as I just spent a grotesque amount of money on...

... a scorpion-filled version of the soundtrack for Lee Cronin's The Mummy movie over at Waxwork. (Seeing as how it's already sold out I have a feeling this will be a good investment though.) Oh and I also bought the below gorgeous poster for Steven Soderbergh's film The Christophers via Neon's store, because look at her! She's gorgeous. Oh and this movie P.S. is terrific -- it's a really low-key performance but I would love it if we could manage to maintain some Oscar buzz for Sir Ian until next spring since he's so fucking overdue and he's genuinely wonderful in this movie. I doubt it will happen since it's not a super showy role but I still really want him to be the first out gay actor to get one of those stupid statues. It just feels right. 

Regé-Jean Page Ten Times

I have never watched a single second of Bridgerton (well okay that's a lie, I did watch the clips of Jonathan Bailey mostly naked) so when I see Regé-Jean Page I think first and foremost of Steven Soderbergh's tight little thriller Black Bag from last year, in which he was pretty good! Not really the most interesting performance in the movie (Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett are right there, after all) but hot golly he's handsome, so I paid attention when he was on-screen anyway. That said he's got a rom-com with the Little Mermaid herself Halle Bailey coming out in two weeks -- it's called You, Me & Tuscany and no, I have zero desire to watch it, but good for him. A gold star for working. I know a lot of people were being annoying and rooting for the T.V. star to pull a David Caruso and fail after getting too big for his small-screen britches, but those people seriously have too much time on their hands. Anyway he's on the cover of this month's Esquire and that's why we're here rambling; hit the jumpfor the photos...

My Top 20 Movies of 2025

A decade or so ago I was doing gigantic elaborate awards every year here that showcased my favorite movies, my favorite performances, and on and on and on... then the last decade happened and I'm lucky I can even get out of bed anymore y'all. Who has that kind of stamina anymore? Not I. Not I! So yes these things -- The Golden Trousers, as I've been calling them since 2007 -- have considerably narrowed. Tis what its. But I do feel proud that both last year and this year I'm at least getting these locked in before I dive head-long into fresh Sundance stuff, which basically marks the start of the next year of movies. (Apologies to the first three weeks of January releases every single year but you know what you did.) I'm doing Sundance virtually again this year but that still means that I'll be mostly off-line while I do that, so it's likely there'll be no MNPP for you starting this Wednesday, lasting about a week. And so it's best I get this done immediately, before that happens! Otherwise who knows, it could be months knowing me. So let us brush off these 2025 concerns as I head into the future, with one last glance back toward the past with 20 of '25s gifts and wonders....

My 20 Favorite Movies of 2025

20 -- SIRAT

19 -- AFTER THE HUNT

-- Read my review here! -- 

18 -- LURKER

-- Read my review here! -- 

17 -- PETER HUJAR'S DAY

-- Read my review here! -- 

16 -- WAKE UP DEAD MAN

15 -- THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME

-- Read my review here! -- 

14 -- BLACK BAG

-- Read my review here! -- 

13 -- DUST BUNNY

-- Read my review here! -- 

12 -- THE SECRET AGENT

11 -- MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS: PART 1

10 -- SENTIMENTAL VALUE

9 -- GRIFFIN IN SUMMER

-- Read my review here! -- 

8 -- BUGONIA

-- Read my review here! -- 

7-- THE TESTAMENT OF ANN LEE

6 -- THE HISTORY OF SOUND

-- Read my review here! -- 

5 -- NO OTHER CHOICE

-- Read my review here! -- 

4 -- PILLION

-- Read my review here! -- 

3 -- PEE-WEE AS HIMSELF

-- Read my review here! -- 

2 -- MARTY SUPREME

-- Read my review here! -- 

1 -- ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER

-- Read my review here! -- 

----------------------------------

I have like 20 runners-up but fuck it, 

I'm done. Goodbye forever, 2025! 

Good Morning, World

A happy-ish birthday to Michael Fassbender on this the morning of him turning 48 -- oh I'm sure it's perfectly happy for him now that he's made a nice little comeback at last thanks to Steven Soderbergh's movie Black Bag totally rocking (here is my review and PS that movie hit VOD this week so go watch it if you missed it, it is super) and his series The Agency also doing well as far as I can tell. (I was a little bored by that one but he was good and more importantly looked great). I say "happy-ish" for my own reasons -- namely there are like ten workers in my office replacing and cleaning windows right this minute and alongside all of their hammering half the windows are open and it's in the 30s this morning so I am both cold and irritable. Good morning!

Paging Mister Page

This seems like the right and correct place to note that Regé-Jean Page has a shirtles sscene in Steven Soderbergh's ace spy thriller Black Bag that's in theaters today -- I didn't mention it in my review because I's respectable elsewhere, but here well here we let it all hang out. As you well know. Anyway it's a very brief moment and it's not particularly memorable as far as skin scenes go, but it is notable for being the only bit of skin we get in the movie and yet the movie manages to remain sexy as heckfire all the same! If you missed my review yesterday click over to Pajiba to read it -- I really kept it profoundly spoiler-free so no need to worry about that. I barely mention the plot at all, but then it's all Macguffins in service of hot talented actors being smooth and sexy and expensive looking. AKA Cinema! Point being y'all should go see it and let the studios know there is room for an adult entertainment like this in actual movie theaters. I promise you'll have a terrific time in exchange for your effort. Otherwise -- a very fine weekend to you all and goodbye!

Sexy Spy Time

Extremely happy to have loved Steven Soderbergh's new movie, the spy thriller Black Bag starring Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett as a pair of married spies who find themselves doubting -- or do they? -- each other's motives when there turns out to be a mole among their agency. It's a smashing good time, sexy and stylish as hell -- head on over to Pajiba to read my thoughts. And here's a bonus photo of Fassy with his ridiculously handsome co-star Regé-Jean Page because duh:

I Feel His Presence Inside Me

There's not much info on actor Eddy Maday to be found online but he's handsome, right? That shot comes via his Insta here, where every other post is about his literal only credit on IMDb, Steven Soderbergh's haunted house movie Presence which is out in theaters today. Anyway playing one of four leads in a Soderbergh movie is a pretty solid foot in the door so good for him -- it's just a shame I didn't like Presence when I saw it at Sundance last year! Here is my re-upped from 12 months ago review, which is why we're really here. I'm usually very on board whatever Soderbergh does but I don't think -- outside of momentary Slasher POV shots -- I can ever get behind first-person camera-work (see also: Nickel Boys), I just find it eternally distracting and distancing. Even if it's a ghost! But that's not Presence's only fault, to my mind -- the last act is needlessly over complicated, scrambling to make sense where it's a ghost story's job to make us feel haunted instead. Whatever, most people seem to like it. I'm an outlier on this one!

Good Morning, World

A happy 42nd birthday to obscenely pretty actor Robert Ri'chard from Coach Carter and the tee-riffic House of Wax remake (yes the one with Paris Hilton -- shut up, it's good!) plus a few episodes of Veronica Mars and then basically a lot of single episodes of many, many shows that you know. We have mentioned Robert here on the site before since you might recall he was the lead in that Magic Mike rip-off Chocolate City that came out in 2015 -- actually I wouldn't blame you if you didn't remember that, it was a pretty forgettable movie. But it gave me a good post full of good gifs at least! I recommend you also check out RR's Instagram account -- he isn't afraid to still bring the gratuity. 

Welcome to Michael Fassbender's Spy Era

I don't know what I was doing on Wednesday when this dropped that I didn't post about it -- that was even the day I shared with you Michael Fassbender in next to nothing on a spy show! But the first official image and the trailer for Black Bag -- Steven Soderbergh's spy thriller starring Fassy, Cate Blanchett, Naomie Harris (god I love Naomie Harris), Regé-Jean Page (hopefully he and Michael will make out), and oh right Mr. Bond, aka Pierce Brosnan himself -- all dropped that day so here is me catching up with that. Fassbender has done "spy thriller with Steven Soderbergh" before, having starred in the best scene in the director's 2011 actioner Haywire, but this looks like a very different beast (the "beast" being that asshole Gina Carano, natch -- good riddance to her). It's basically Mr. & Mrs. Smith just slightly more serious? I was going to say that it starred actors not movie stars but that shortchanges Fassbender & Blanchett on the movie star front as well as short changing Pitt & Jolie on the acting front so nevermind... but it's sort of that.

Anyway Black Bag is out on March 14th. 

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Limey (1999)

Stacy: Why don't they make shows about people's daily lives you'd be interested in watching? You know, like "Sick Old Man" or "Skinny Little Weakling." "Big Fat Guy." Wouldn't you watch a show called "Big Fat Guy"? I'd watch that fucking show.

You can tell this movie is 25 years old now because there basically are entire networks of shows called Big Fat Guy at this point. Anyway a very happy 25 to Steven Soderbergh's The Limey! This is a movie that needs to be mentioned among the list of that phenomonal year 1999's phenomonal offerings more vigorously -- it ranks right up there among that outrageously good year's very best. Y'all are fans, right? If not go watch it or go watch it again -- I got to see it on the big screen again a couple of years back and man alive this movie fucks. One of Soderbergh's greatest.

Soderbergh Steals All the Stars

A quick search through our archives shows a grand total of zilch posts on this forthcoming movie project, but that seems bonkers to me -- I feel as if anybody was gonna write a post about Steven Soderbergh making a movie starring Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett that somebody woulda been yours truly. And yet here we are and only with word that Bridgerton actor Regé-Jean Page has also joined the cast am I getting around to it. Huh. Aaaanyway the thing is called Black Bag and all we know plot-wise is that that it's a spy thriller based in London. The script was written by Jurassic Park screenwriter David Koepp which, well if I hadn't just been mildly disappointed by Soderbergh & Koepp's haunted house movie Presence (my review here) at Sundance last month that news would excite me more. But I can't not be excited about this. Soderbergh of course worked with Fassbender previously in Haywire, and with Blanchett in The Good German. And now one more picture of Regé-Jean looking gorgeous in a sweater for good measure:

My First Sundance 2024 Three

Okay, so Sundance! Maybe you noticed I was gone all last week? I was in sunny Utah, land of Mormon underwear and wretched anti-trans bills, for Robert Redford's little annual movie festival. Over the course of the fest -- including screeners I saw before I left, movies I saw while there, and movies I watched online once I got home -- I watched fifty-one movies total. That's a lot of movies! And so far I have reviewed... three? Yes, three. These things take time. I'm not a machine. More will be coming this week but first I need to link to the three reviews that've come already. So here those are.

First up I wrote down my thoughts on Steven Soderbergh's latest, the expirimental haunted house flick Presence -- read it right here. It stars Lucy Liu and Julia Fox (in the vaunted role of "haunted house real estate agent" ) among others, and Soderbergh's trick (he's always gotta have a trick) is the ghost is the camera. I had mixed feelings on it. So go read about them!

Next up another horror movie (no surprise there) but one I was much more excitable over (indeed I shared the poster for this one before I even left) -- a first-time feature from director Chris Nash called In a Violent Nature, which flips the script on the Slasher Movie by shooting the entire thing from the murderer's perspective. Read my review right here. This will be hitting Shudder sooner rather than later so stay tuned for more on it when that happens. But it's funny -- it wasn't until I was writing the second review that I realized both this and Presence both pull such a similar trick, showing us the story from the "villain"'s perspective. And yet I think the first-time filmmaker beat Soderbergh at the game? Anyway...

... moving on to the movie I was most looking forward to at the fest -- click here to read my thoughts on Love Lies Bleeding, the ass-kicking bodybuilder noir from Saint Maud director Rose Glass, starring Kristen Stewart and Katy O'Brien as lovers who get all entangled up in a hyper-violent crime-spree -- I shared the trailer a few weeks back and I am super happy to say that this one totally lived up to my expectations. I fuckin' loved it. As I start my review with you should be thinking "Bound meets Mandy."

Timothy Olyphant Five Times

Are fans of Timothy Olyphant called "Oly-fans"? They certainly should be. And I say that as an Oly-fan myself, so I have a say in the matter. Anyway we Oly-fans should be happy right now because Tim's got two projects on the immediate horizon -- there are new episodes of Justified coming (although here's where I admit I'm a bad Oly-fan because I never watched Justified) and, even more interesting to me, there is Steven Soderbergh's series Full Circle. It's about a botched kidnapping in current-day NYC and the investigation into it yadda yadda, here is the trailer:



The first two episodes of that premiere on max tomorrow! And then two-episodes every Wednesday for the two weeks after, making it a six-hour thing. "Miniseries" used to be the word but I guess "limited series" is where we are these days. Whatever. It's got Claire Danes and Tim and CCH Pounder and Zazie Beetz and William Sadler -- always love William Sadler! A couple episodes premiered at Tribeca but they never sent me screeners so I'll be watching it like the rest of you -- I did hear good things though. Anyway due to all of this content Timothy Olyphant was interviewed by the NYT, which you can read here. Or if you just want the pictures hit the jump...

Nobody Puts Madsy in the Corner

Well it's that time! What time? Time for me to head off to places unknown (read: my couch) for five straight days. It's a holiday weekend here in the U.S. and I'm off until next Wednesday. I put in the work this past week though -- I reviewed the new Indiana Jones (here), I reviewed the new Jennifer Lawrence (here), I reviewed the new Rock Hudson bio-pic (here), I reviewed the new Wes Anderson (here), and I reviewed a forthcoming Jude Law (here). Oh and I answered the question of which role of Harrison Ford's was the hottest right here. PLUS I have a big piece that has not been not published yet which I will update the site with a link to over the break. That's a lotta goddamned writing y'all and I ready for that goddamned couch.

But like I did just say -- I will be updating the site a little bit over the break; not just that coming piece (heh I said "coming piece") but there's our annual July 4th ridiculousness as well, which will land on (you guessed it) July 4th. So come back and visit over the break for these and perhaps other surprises! Or per usual keep your eyes on my social media accounts -- it's not like I'll be off of those for longer than five seconds. Have a happy 4th, y'all! And even more importantly -- Happy 11 to Magic Mike!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Out of Sight (1998)

Jack: It's like seeing someone for the first time, like you can be passing on the street, and you look at each other for a few seconds, and there's this kind of a recognition like you both know something. Next moment the person's gone, and it's too late to do anything about it. And you always remember it because it was there, and you let it go, and you think to yourself, 'What if I had stopped? What if I had said something?' What if, what if... it may only happen a few times in your life.

Karen: Or once.

Jack: Or once.

Every time I write this about a 1998 movie a little piece of my crumbles to dust, but -- a happy 25th birthday to this great Soderbergh flick! Another casualty of my busy-ness as of late was me re-watching this movie for the first time in too long and writing a piece on it for this anniversary; I've just had too many other projects due last and this week to get to this one. But I have an open little window tonight and I bought this movie on 4K recently, so maybe I'll watch it here for its anniversary proper. And maybe I'll remember what it felt like, actually liking George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez! In all seriousness though, I loved this movie and am extremely curious how it'll hold up after all these years. Stay tuned!