Let's Hear It For the Schoenaerts

Since the last Matthias Schoenaerts news I'd heard before this morning was decidedly not great -- he got in legal trouble last year for allegedly driving drunk -- we're going to seize onto this more positive news because we're really rooting for the big lug to turn his shit around. This is all Terrence Malick's fault -- if Malick would just finish his damn Jesus movie The Way of the Wind Matty (who's playing Peter) would have some career momentum again. As is it's only been the terrible terrible terrible sequel to The Old Guard (and how fucking bizarre that I have just had to mention that movie two posts in a row) that Schoenaerts has had come out since The Regime, his super-fun and under-appreciated fascism-comedy with Kate Winslet. There are several other projects in his "upcoming" slate -- I talked about a couple last May right here -- but today there's headline-at-Deadline news on another one and we love to see it. Even if... well movies headlined by Halle Berry aren't exactly burning up the box office in 2026. There is a big plus in the plus column on this project though -- it's being written and directed by Ellie Foumbi, who made the fan-fucking-tastic French horror movie Our Father, the Devil in 2021. This would be her follow-up to that. Anyway I should probably get to what "this" is, huh? Here's how Deadline describes it:

"Matthias Schoenaerts (Rust and Bone), Makita Samba (Paris, 13th District) and Marton Csokas (The Equalizer) have joined Halle Berry in Fleur as filming begins in Paris this week. Berry stars as a New York housewife who flees the U.S. and her husband of thirty years (Csokas) to reinvent herself in Paris as Fleur, an upscale escort and dominatrix carving out her own power and identity. As her past collides with her new life, the question isn’t just whether she’ll return, but whether she can."

Cold War II: The Cold War-ening

We love it when talented people gravitate toward other talented people, and this news is a big example of this -- the great and talented Sandra Hüller of Anatomy of a Fall and The Zone of Interest (hey I was just making a joke about that role earlier this week that I don't think a lot of people got) and Toni Erdmann (I can't even begin to tell you how often Toni Erdmann bobs about in my brain) is teaming up with the great and talented director Paweł Pawlikowski of Cold War and Ida fame. It's titled 1949 and here's how they're describing it: 

"Set at the height of the Cold War, 1949 centres on the relationship between the writer Thomas Mann (Hanns Zischler) and his daughter Erika (Sandra Hüller); actress, journalist and rally driver, as they embark on a road trip in a black Buick cruiser across a Germany in ruins – from U.S. dominated Frankfurt to Soviet controlled Weimar."

Hanns Zischler is a legendary German actor who starred in Wim Wenders' Kings of the Road and Chantal Akerman's Meetings With Anna and has been working steadily ever since -- I just saw him in 2023's terrific brain-bender The Universal Theory most recently. The movie also co-stars the great August Diehl from Inglourious Basterds and A Hideen Life. Talented people y'all! Anyway now that I'm thinking about it I should re-watch Cold War. What a good fuckin' movie. 

Catching Up With Matty

Those of us who worship at the altar of Matthias Schoenaerts are not fed well -- he hasn't been in anything since The Regime with Kate Winslet aired ten and a half lifetimes ago (otherwise known as uhh one year ago) and that's the way it's been for awhile -- one project a year, here and there, sporadically. We cannot surive this way, Matthias! Thanksfully there was some news on the Matty front this morning though -- he's signed in to star in a movie called Le Cowboy which has the super original storyline of a criminal roped into doing "one last job" that involves kidnapping a girl but then the two bond... yeah, we've seen this movie a thousand times before. Whatever. I'll watch him put his spin on it! The writer-director is Shane Atkinson whose film LaRoy Texas starring Steve Zahn and John Magaro played Tribeca last year and left not a huge impression on me, but I remember some people digging it. 

Anyway that spot of new news made me realize that if we're lucky we might be coming to an end on the Schoenaerts drought -- I had completely forgotten for one that he is playing the bad guy in the Supergirl movie that DC hired I Tonya director Craig Gillespie to direct and which has apparently already been filmed. And he's also somehow in The Old Guard 2 even though (spoiler) he died in the first one, and we just got the first image from that movie last week. (See below.) So that must be coming out soon, I guess.

First look at THE OLD GUARD sequel! (And here's to hoping everybody's favorite ancient crime-fighting homosexuals Marwan Kenzari & Luca Marinelli have added Henry Golding into their mix)

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— Jason Adams (@jamnpp.bsky.social) April 23, 2025 at 12:50 PM

And then of course there's The Way of the Wind, Terrence Malick's now many years in the making movie about Jesus (yes, Christ) that has Matthias playing the disciple Peter.  We first posted about that movie getting started SIX YEARS AGO. With Malick though who knows -- he could take another six years. The names in that stacked cast are endless -- Mark Rylance, John Rhys-Davies, Joseph Fiennes, Ben Kingsley, FRANZ ROGOWSKI, Eileen Atkins, Aidan Turner, Mathieu Kassovitz. Also since it's Malick half of those people could end up on the cutting room floor -- it could be three hours of Mark Rylance spinning in a field for all we know. 

ETA an hour after posting this Netflix unloaded some more images from The Old Guard 2 including one very much confirming Matthias' presence therein, and another one of eternal boyfriends Luca Marinelli & Marwan Kenzari, and far be it from me not to add them to this post!

The Old Guard 2 is out on July 2nd.

Oh and here's the trailer too since we're here:

Another Buy My Shit On eBay Post

If dropping a shot of Richard Gere is Days of Heaven won't grab your immediate attention I don't know what could -- a quick heads-up that one of the ways I have been coping this week, and will continue coping over the weekend, is listing shit for sale on eBay. Including lots and lots of movies (especially Criterion titles!) and vinyl and books and all sorts of good movie-related stuff. Here is a link to my eBay page. Like I said -- expect lots more dumped on there over the weekend as I'll be going through my movies once again to weed out redundancies (i.e. lots of 4K upgrading has happened.) With who knows maybe the last holidays ahead that we'll ever celebrate why not buy yourself and your loved ones all the presents?? And help me clear space for my panic room at the same time! Everybody wins when everybody loses! Sigh.

All Hail King Matty

I actually kept my word for once this past weekend -- in case you weren't sure my word is shit and you should believe maybe about 0.001% of what I say -- and watched the first two (now three) episodes of The Regime, the Max series starring Kate Winslet and Matthias Schoenaerts and Andrea Riseborough that I said on Friday that I wanted to get around to watching. Imagine that! Wonders do not not ever stop ceasing or whatever. Anyway I'm enjoying it so far -- on Saturday when I got to the end of the second episode and realized that was all they had dropped so far I was upset to discover there wasn't more; I'd thought it was one of those whole series binge drops. I could've and would've watched the whole thing.

Alas. Anyway I'm not buying the complaints I've seen about the satire of it not being funny enough -- first off that voice Winslet's rocking is enough for ten comdies. But we already have a Veep and a Death of Stalin and that's clearly what those complaining people want from the show. People get very upset when they're not sure how to react to something! But I think it's doing something stranger and more particular tonally than that. I like when I can't nail down a show so easily and The Regime seems to me to be currently hovering in a sweet spot so far between satire and seriousness that keeps surprising me and feels all its own. We'll see anyway -- we are only three episodes in.

That said as you can see here the most important thing of all is that Matthias is doing press for the show! So we're getting new photos of him! Like these ones for Numero Netherlands magazine! There's also a chat -- read it here. Here is a choice bit from the chat, not about The Regime but about what Matty has lined up next:

"There is a movie we shot four years ago with the great Terrence Malick — it’s a project he’s been working on for more than thirty years now, and he’s been editing four years. I’m very curious to see what film comes out of that very intimate process he’s been going through for so long. Hopefully it will come out this year. Then, of course, we have ‘The Old Guard 2’, which is a sequel to the first one since it was very well received. It came out two years ago on Netflix. And then there’s other few future projects on the table that I still have to read, and a few that I had already committed myself to, but they haven’t been announced yet, so I always keep that in silence."

Do we know wtf he's talking about re: the Malick movie? Something he's been working on for 30 years? I'm also surprised to see him mention the sequel to The Old Guard given [spoiler] that his character was killed in the first movie. But please yes bring him back -- I daren't dream they might. Everything's coming up Matty! Including funny enough the photoshoot for this magazine, which I've got the entire lot of after the jump...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from: 

Days of Heaven (1978) 

Linda: Why are you doing this?

Abby: When I was your age, I was all by myself in the world. 

I used to sit and wrap cigars - until after dark. 

My skin was as white as paper. 

I never saw the daylight. This is not so bad.

Happy 75 to the great Brooke Adams today!

Have you bought the 4K of this movie from Criterion yet?

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

A Hidden Life (2019)

Waldland: Even if it rains, the sun is shining. 

The sun shines on good and evil the same.

A happy 38 to Franz Rogowski today! Y'all know how I think he's one of the greatest actors working today -- possibly the greatest? -- and in a just world he'd be drowning in acting prizes right now for his tremendous work in Ira Sachs' Passages. But Hollywood thinks Robert Downey Jr's hammy eye-bugging bullshit is what constitutes "good acting" so here we are. Oh well! I'm used to it by now. You have our love, Franz!

ETA I forgot a Franz thing! It's not just his birthday -- his new movie opens here in NYC today! Disco Boy is what it's called and it's playing at the Quad here in NYC and you can read about it and buy tickets right here. I saw this about a full year ago when it screened at the annual "New Directors New Films" series here in NYC so my memory is admittedly a little bit vague, but I do remember thinking it very good. Here's the trailer:

The Mean Streets of Heaven

Once again sneaking up on me since time has lost all meaning or whatever -- Happy Criterion Day! Every months' middle is devoted to Criterion announcing their release slate three months ahead, and so here today on August 15th we're given the titles they will be releasing come November. First up is a movie I have never seen before but always wanted to -- Claude Chabrol's 1995 thriller La cérémonie starring Isabelle Huppert and Sandrine Bonnaire. Huppert won a Cesar for her performance, which sees her and Bonnaire's sudden unexpected friendship going, and I quote them, "haywire." And who does haywire better than Huppert, I ask you? This one, a new 4K restoration, hits on November 21st -- pre-order it here. 

Next up is a 4K restoration of Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets, which... wanna hear something insane? I have never seen Mean Streets. I have seen pieces of Mean Streets, but I have never sat and watched it from start to finish. I have been saving it for.... I don't know, the right time. I know I'll watch it some time. I suppose this new blu-ray is a good time, at last? It's also out on November 21st -- pick it up right here. Lots of people watching some crazy shit this Thanksgiving, I guess!

Next up a pair of masterpieces that I have actually seen, huzzah! Both The Last Picture Show and Days of Heaven are getting 4K upgrades -- and seeing as how these are two of the most gorgeous movies ever directed that's something to properly celebrate. Also Picture Show has only ever been released in that America: Lost And Found boxed-set of theirs which also included Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider and several other great films of that time period -- I know because I bought that set just to have Picture Show last year. Sigh! Days hits on November 14th, pre-order it here, and  Picture Show is also on the 14th -- get it right here. 

And finally -- Criterion is dropping a great big Jackie Chan boxed-set! Dropping on November 7th (buy it here) "Emergence of a Superstar" gathers up six of Chan's early films, from 1978 to 1985, including Half a Loaf of Kung Fu, Spiritual Kung Fu, Fearless Hyena I and II, The Young Master, and My Lucky Stars. I admit I'm not the audience for this set -- wacky kung-fu hijinks aren't really my bag. I've had Chan's Police Story set of movies from Criterion for months and not gotten around to them yet. But I'm sure plenty of people will be very excited for this and I am excited for them!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Badlands (1973)

Holly: Did you hear about the guy at the nuthouse that walked around naked except for hat and gloves? This nurse came up to him and said, "You can't walk around that way." And the guy says, "It's okay, nobody comes around here anyway." And the nurse says, "Well, what do you have on the hat and gloves for?" And the guy says, "Well, you never know..."

A happy 79 to the director Terrence Malick today! I bought the Criterion blu of Badlands earlier this year, I should give it a look since I haven't seen this movie in ages. Depending on the day it, The New World, or Days of Heaven are my favorite films of his, but you can't go wrong with any of those. After that... well, notsomuch. I'm not a fan of The Tree of Life at all. I did really dig A Hidden Life, his most recent movie, though. Anyway here, a poll:

online polls

Weekly Matthias Beard Check

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Here is yet another photo of Matthias Schoenaerts and his Last Planet co-star Numan Acar on the set of that forthcoming Terrence Malick movie about Jesus and such -- see the earlier ones here. I have a feeling the shoot might be over, since the actors comments towards one another seem to have a tinge of past-tense. Anyway Numan shared the below video today of Matty getting pranked by an ice cream cone vendor and it's literally the only thing that's made me smile on this frustrating and annoying day, so hopefully it can work its magic for you too:

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Let's Look at Matthias Schoenaerts' Peter

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I wonder 1) how long Terrence Malick is going to be shooting his Jesus Movie called The Last Planet for, and 2) how long he expects Matthias Schoenaerts and co-star Numan Acar to grow these scraggly ass old-timey disciple-people beards? Matty is playing Peter the eventual Saint -- IMDb doesn't say who Numan is playing. I would also ask if this movie might finally be the one that makes a point of how super duper homosexual the whole "Jesus and his disciples" thing was, but Malick's shown very little interest in anything gay in his entire career so I won't bother. Can anybody think of anything gay in Malick's filmography? I'm drawing a blank. The way he filmed Richard Gere in Days of Heaven doesn't count, not really.

Peter of the Day

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Thanks to Matthias Schoenaerts his own damn self for this look at Matthias Schoenaerts in character as the Saint called Peter for Terrence Malick's now-filming movie The Last Planet, a religious parable we told you about previously. With the way Malick's known to repeatedly shoot entire storylines that he edits right the hell out of the final product who knows, maybe this will be all we ever see of this particular Hot Saint Peter. (Hot Priest is so 2019 -- 2020 is all about Hot Saint Peter.)

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Renaissance Man

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Poldark beauty Aidan Turner has just signed on to play probable-homosexual painter and inventor Leonardo Da Vinci in an eight-part miniseries, each part focusing on a different aspect of Da Vinci's genius.  (One of those "aspects of genius" should be "sucking dick" probably.) Running the show will be Frank Spotnitz from The X-Files and more recently Medici; Turner will presumably get around to doing this once he finishes filming his role as the Apostle Andrew in Terrence Malick's Jesus movie. 

Anyway excuse me for my confusion but when I set out to write this post I thought that Aidan Turner had already played Da Vinci on that Da Vinci's Demons show I didn't watch, but I was just confusing his Poldark Abs with Tom Riley's Da Vinci Abs. 

find bike trails

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather...

... Matthias & Friends hit the top button.

Those "friends" just happen to be the very fine actors Numan Acar and Mathieu Kassovitz, so shame on me for not properly crediting them right off the bat -- these three beards have joined together for Terrence Malick's next flick The Last Planet, which I've told you about previously. Schoenaerts is playing Saint Peter in the flick, which is some sort of religious fable and which also stars Mark Rylance as Satan and the great Géza Röhrig as Mr. Christ (some call him by his first name). 

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I would topple entire governments for Matthias Schoenaerts' attention and approval pic.twitter.com/nT81olKicm

— His Name Was Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 28, 2019

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Anyway Acar shared that top shot on his Instagram today -- he and Matthias have clearly hit it off since that picture immediately above on the left was also one he took -- giving me the first confirmation of some other actors cast in Malick's film besides the three we'd heard about; and now I check IMDb and there's actually a ton of actors listed...

... Aidan Turner is playing Saint Andrew! Uncle Benjen from Game of Thrones (aka Joseph Mawle) is playing Saul! Ben Kingsley and Joseph Fiennes and Douglas Booth are all playing... well, somebody, we don't know who yet! Oh, and...

... second most excitingly for me (after Matty obviously) is the word that Malick has hired Martin McCann for an unspecified role; if you don't know who McCann is he starred in a movie called The Survivalist in 2015 and gave one of my absolute favorite performances that year there -- he's worked steadily since then but not in anything big and not in anything I've seen and I keep checking on him, hoping he'll get a role worthy of his talent. There's no indication whether this will be that -- lord knows Malick loves to cast a billion people and then edit seventy percent of them out by the time the finished product rolls around -- but I can hope!
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The Book of Saint Matthias

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After a few years spent wandering the wilderness I feel like the director Terrence Malick is making his way back to me, and our boy Mathias Schoenaerts is just the great big force of beautiful nature to do the nudging -- Matthias has a role (I think on the smaller side) in A Hidden Life, Malick's "conscientious objector" film that's gotten very fine notices from Cannes and Telluride and from Toronto where it plays tonight. They released a strikingly lovely trailer a couple of weeks back; AHL hits theaters on December 13th. 

Anyway it appears that Malick has made like every single one of us would make and is refusing to let go of Matthias now that he's got his hands on him -- Schoenaerts will also star in Terry's next film, opposite no less than Mark Rylance and the great Géza Röhrig, in The Last Planet -- although IMDb has it titled Samarkanda -- which will be a retelling of Christ's life through parables. Matthias thankfully isn't playing Jesus, which would be a lot for even me his number one fan -- Röhrig will be donning the robes and saintly little sandals for that, while Rylance will be playing Satan and Matty's going to be playing Saint Peter...

... seen there on the left in a painting by Francois Boucher in 1766 and yes this is what it takes for me to start sharing religious iconography here on the site -- the ability to impress upon you, the reader, the possibility that Matthias Schoenaerts might soon be seen acting with a big bushy beard. I'll sing hallelujah for that!

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Big Screen Beauties

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Every year the New York Film Festival has two sidebars to the main festival, one called "Retrospective" where they screen some older films connected by some theme of their choosing, and another called "Revivals" where they screen new restorations of classics. Basically it's all just the world's best excuse to watch some great films from the past on one of the greatest screens in the world. Well this year's batch of movies is beyond, just beyond, if you ask me. The "Retrospective" series is highlighting the great cinematographers, and as such they'll be screening masterpieces like Terrence Malick's Days of Heaven, John M. Stahl's Leave Her To Heaven, Robert Altman's McCabe & Mrs. Miller, and my beloved Street Angel from director Frank Borzage, starring my beloved Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor.

Those are just a few of the titles -- see the whole list here. The Street Angel print they're showing is a brand new 4K restoration, and speaking of, you can also see all of the restored films that NYFF is screening for their "Revivals" series at the above link, a list which includes Bunuel's breathtaking L'age d'or, William Wyler's glorious Dodsworth, and Valerio Zurlini's Le Professeur with Alain Delon...

I've Got A Parasite!

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This week is kicking ass trailer-wise -- yesterday we got the first spots for both Terrence Malick's A Hidden Life (watch it here) and Greta Gerwig's Timmy Tales excuse me Little Women (watch that here), and now hey look at this it's the first English-language trailer for Bong Joon-ho's hotly anticipated Parasite, which won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in the spring. Watch:

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I called that "the first English-language trailer" because I had actually posted the South Korean trailer for the film awhile back -- I haven't compared and contrasted them (I have shit to do, yo) but if you'd like to click here and go to town, mad-person. And I guess here is where I admit I have now SEEN this movie, with MY OWN EYES now, and I'll be reviewing it... at some point... but I kind of want to make it to a second screening before I do offer up my thoughts. And yes I'm totally gonna leave you hanging on that.

Parasite is playing at the New York Film Festival and then it opens 

in theaters on October 11th, so be patient. It's coming!

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Become Unhidden, Mr. Malick

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Even if Terence Malick's new film A Hidden Life hadn't gotten raves when it premiered at Cannes earlier this year I still would've been excited about it -- I was excited about it before those raves, although somewhat hesitantly -- because of the cast he'd gathered up. When Matthias Schoenaerts was cast we were immediately on board -- although that gif above is literally Matthias' only moment in the just dropped trailer (we'd recognize that nose anywhere), which makes us wonder how substantial his role might be -- but besides that there's August Diehl and Alexander Fehling and Franz Rogowski and Bruno Ganz and Jürgen Prochnow and Michael Nyqvist, all names that perk us right up.

But great casts are things Malick's gotten good at wasting -- hell I haven't even bothered watching any of his films in full since The Tree of Life, a film I wouldn't call myself a fan of by any stretch of the imagination. He can get any actor he wants still -- what makes A Hidden Life different? Well watching the trailer now I count two things. One, he's shooting the Austrian mountainsides, aka my favorite landscapes there are in all of the world, and if there's one thing Malick's maintained even through his thinner moments it's astonishing travelogue prettiness.

The other thing is it feels like he's got a plot for a change. There is real actual tension in the just-released trailer -- it's not (just) spinning in wheat fields and stern mothers banging soup spoons from inside a fish-eye lens; this movie looks like it has something to say besides yadda yadda spiritual nonsense I don't traffic in. Oh I'm sure that element's involved since it's about a conscientious objector to violence coming up against the Nazi regime, but that's a thing I can wrangle with on practical terms. It doesn't insist I the viewer be or become a spiritual person, like his other movies have felt so insistent on without giving me anything else to get ahold of. Anyway here's the trailer, decide for your own damn selves:
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A Hidden Life is out on December 13th. Do we 

think Malick might catch the Oscars' fickle eye?
ETA oh and here's the very pretty poster:

Good Morning, World

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Just shows to go ya how bad I am at keeping up with most everything until you slap a half-naked somebody in front of me -- apparently our boy Alexander Fehling (who's celebrating his 38th birthday today) has a German-language series that's on Amazon Prime called Beat about a techno club promoter party man who lives an excessive  life of excess; have any of you watched it? I will be watching it. Besides that this year Alexander is also in Terrence Malick's new film Radegund opposite Matthias Schoenaerts and August Diehl so you better bet that I am looking forward to those red-carpets. Stand close and hug a lot, fellas!

May We All Nuzzle Matthias Schoenaerts Once

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Last year was too quiet on the Matthias Schoenaerts front - his reunion with his Bullhead director Michaël R. Roskam called Racer and the Jailbird didn't make much of an impression (I still haven't seen it yet, to my chagrin) and Red Sparrow wasn't well received (although I kind of adored it myself). But 2019 looks to be as massive as his shoulders are - he's got a Steven Soderbergh movie, a Justin Kurzel movie, a Thomas Vinterberg submarine movie (watch that trailer here), a Terence Malick movie (!), a movie with Scoot McNairy and Garrett Hedlund (!!!), and he's got a horse movie called The Mustang, which is why we're here right now...

It's about a convict turned horse lover - I already told you about it in October - it's from an actress turned director named Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre, it's premiering at Sundance next month, and we now have a trailer. The film co-stars Connie Britton and Bruce Dern. Watch:

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The film is out in theaters on March 15th.