Pics of the Day

Looks like there's some sexy Y Tu Mama shit going down on the second season of The Night Manager, if these just dropped photos via Vanity Fair are anything to go by. That's the series' lead Tom Hiddleston on the left with actress Camila Morrone in the center and our boy Diego Calva on the right, and do note how he's getting a little manhandled by Tommy. You can see Diego clearer in the photo below. Any fans of the first series of this show? I liked it a lot but I will probably have to go back and re-watch it, I remember very little except for Tom Hollander trying to eat Tom Hiddleston's dick inside a restaurant. You don't forget that sorta thing.

The Life of Chuck in 200 Words or Less

Flat visuals, costumes, and some of the most truly inane messaging this side of a dollar store greeting card -- this movie is like somebody wrote a full length screenplay for one of those prescription drug commercials where everybody's wearing solid knits and drinking margaritas on sunny terraces as their depression turns to ash in their mouths. Truth be told The Life of Chuck may induce a cold sweat, nausea, vomiting, seizures, more vomiting, testicular regression, fire and brimstone, dry eyes, an online gambling addiction, Akathisia, simultaneous constipation and diarrhea, chest pain, heart attack, your full torso spontaneously turning into those big snapping jaws of teeth like that dude in John Carpenter's The Thing, drowsiness, coma, tinnitus, voluntary Tourettes, necrophilia, proptosis, an outburst of immediate and unrelenting misanthopy, rashes, hives, leprosy, all ten Biblical Plagues plus a few more plagues that god couldn't have even thought of at the time, sugar spikes, dry mouth, vanishing fingerprints, vanishing fingers, your image disappearing from all known photographs because this movie went back in time and stopped your parents from ever having sex, night sweats, night terrors, day sweats, day terrors, headaches, and so, so, so much suicidal ideation. Also death.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Crimson Peak (2015)

Ogilvie: A ghost story. Your father 

didn't tell me it was a ghost story. 

Edith: Oh it's... it's not. It's more a story with 

a ghost in it. The ghost is just a metaphor. 

Ogilvie: A metaphor? 

Edith: For the past.

I love how Guillermo Del Toro just lays that out there in Crimson Peak -- a smack upside the head to reorient our expectations going into the movie, and yet so many people were like, "It's not scary enough!!! The ghosts are funny looking!!!" after watching it. This movie remains so underrated! Blergh, people. Anyway no blergh to Guillermo, who's celebrating his 59th birthday today! A very happy blergh-less day to him!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019)

Montgomery: Let us give each other the courage 

to see beyond the stories we were born into!

Even though I'm sure he's rightly in mourning for his Lovecraft Country co-star slash genius-in-his-own-right Michael K. Williams (and a big "Rest in Peace" that that great one) I do wanna wish the happiest of possible happy birthdays to our favorite new actor of the past couple of years, Mr. Jonathan Majors. He's turning an exquisite 32 today and if you ask me his 30s-to-be are looking rather bright. Just even by the measure of the very next year, with his villainous turns in both the third film of Creed franchise as well as the MCU, where his Kang the Conquerer, already symphonically previewed to much acclaim on Loki...

... will supposedly show up next in the Ant-Man sequel. Oh and also that WWII fighter pilot movie with Glen Powell called Devotion. Oh and also that Netflix Western with Idris Elba called The Harder They Fall. And I wouldn't be surprised if his name gets attached to a dozen more things next week, that's how hot he is. And he deserves the heat. I might have to re-watch TLBMISF for the ten-hundredth time tonight in his honor. Check our Archives on Mr. Majors here, they are thorough. Have a fine day, Mr. Majors.

Good Morning, World

Not only is this a five-year-old photo-shoot of Tom Hiddleston but it's a five-year-old photoshoot that I have posted before -- lucky for all of us I'd posted it in two separate posts, here and here, which gives me an excuse here on Loki Release Day to re-post the photos in full but all in one place, for convenience's sake. Easy! Peasy! Beautiful! Bulging Boxers! If you watch Loki today give me a holla, I'd love to hear your thoughts. As briefly shared last evening I really dug what the show is doing -- I love the midcentury sci-fi aesthetic, love its chatty weirdness and world-building; give me this sort of comic book nonsense over the suffocating pseudo-seriousness of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which undermined its own message every five seconds after making one. My ass digresses! Hit the jump for more of Tom Hiddleston positively straining that white fabric...

When in Doubt Say it With Hiddles

Literally only posting this old photo of Tom Hiddleston because I don't want my pan of In the Heights to be the top post on MNPP for the next 12 hours as I head out for a screening -- oh and also because Tom's on my brain because I've seen the first couple of episodes of Loki and liked them, but I'll get to that later. For now I make my way into the rain! Have a good night...

Oh I can tweet about #Loki now? It's a ton of fun so far! Twisty and real weird and the sort of nerdy comic book shit I appreciate much more than straighter stuff like the Winter Soldier show. Two eps in and there's a million possibilities, cannot wait to see where it goes https://t.co/6UKYXFzbuO

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 6, 2021

Songs in the Ki of Lo

It's a shame that I already did a "Fanboy Delusion" post for today, because having a machine that zapped off the costumes of Marvel Superheroes would really come in handy. That shot is from the brand new teaser for Loki dropped today, which you can watch down below. Loki premieres on Disney+ on June 9th -- even though I thought Falcom and the Winter Soldier was the very definition of mediocrity I've got enough left over oomph from my like of WandaVision to hope this one will be more like that one than it will the other. Tom Hiddleston's always fun anyway... at least when he's not himself.

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

I have been re-watching all of the so-called "MonsterVerse" movies this past week in anticipation of next week's big drop Godzilla vs. Kong on HBO Max (and theaters or whatever) -- I lazily half-live-tweeted the experience over here at this link, if you'd like to read my random thoughts divorced from your own experience. But then you're here, so clearly you love that! Anyway the only one I'd say that truly holds up is the above movie, which doesn't take itself nearly as seriously or get as muddled down in back-story as the others do -- Gareth Edwards' 2014 Godzilla, even though very pretty, was much worse than I remembered, and not just because it steadfastly refuses to ogle Aaron Taylor-Johnson like Aaron Taylor-Johnson demands to be ogled. 

That said the true disappointment remains Michael Dougherty's Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which is jam-packed with kaiju striking killer poses but inert and monotonous, hitting the same note over and over and over and over while giving us very little reason to care. This makes me sad, it makes me want to post the Tyra Banks "We were all rooting for you!" gif, because I love Dougherty's two little seasonal horror flicks Trick r' Treat and Krampus -- I imagine this was just a case of too many cooks in the kitchen; it's got to be impossible to maneuver things like quirk and personality through these many corporate gears.

I don't know what this means for The Guest and You're Next director Adam Wingard's turn in the director's seat with the new one -- I would assume more of the same. I'm seeing it tomorrow, so I'll find out tomorrow I guess! Tonight in further preparation I am going to watch original-Gojira-director Ishirô Honda's King Kong vs. Godzilla from 1963, which is part of Criterion's glorious Godzilla boxed-set (sidenote: that set is going crazy cheap on Amazon right now) and which, gasp, I have never seen! I have heard it is bad! But how bad can it be...

... when that happens? And if they don't re-enact that moment 

in the new movie then what is cinema even good for? 

Hit the jump for links to the Previous Ways Not To Die...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

High-Rise (2015)

Laing: You know, Toby, when I was your age, 

I was always covered in something. Mud, jam, failure... 

My father never associated himself with anything dirty. Or real.

Toby: My father's up there.

Laing: You mean, in heaven?

Toby: Heaven isn't real, stupid.

"Mud Jam Failure" is totally the new title of my auto-biography, I have just decided. Anyway a happy 40th birthday to Tom Hiddleston today -- I'd been trying to not pay a lot of attention to the forthcoming Marvel TV shows but I'm totally digging WandaVision so I will inevitably get sucked into Loki when it comes around. 

It's hitting in May right? Likewise I really thought I'd ignore the Falcon and the Winter Soldier show because as much as I like staring at Sebastian Stan those two characters have always bored me to tears in the films, but then... (god I am easy)...

I just — pic.twitter.com/hS5JGmSUMt

— Preeti Chhibber (@runwithskizzers) February 8, 2021

A Stranger's Kindness

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Tremendous news today -- on May 21st at 2pm the National Theater will be live-streaming the 2014 production of Tennessee Williams' play A Streetcar Named Desire that starred Gillian Anderson as the faded belle Blanche Dubois and Ben Foster as the monkey man Stanley Kowalski. (thx Mac) I saw the show when it transferred to Brooklyn in 2016 and posted about it, calling Gillian's work the greatest stage acting I'd ever seen, and I maintain that here four years later -- I'd always liked Anderson as an actress but this night was quasi-religious. She blew me away, so much so that I went back and saw the show two more times, and so much so that I'm actually a bit shaken right now reading this news. It's the best news I've heard inside this miserable year anyway, by far.

And I recommend you pay attention to the National Theater's website these days (specifically their YouTube channel) as they're gifting us with tons of free content; literally right this second they're streaming Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo as Antony and Cleopatra, and coming up in June they're going to show Tom Hiddleston's Coriolanus. They need to show Angels in America and then they need to show Jack O'Connell's mostly naked Cat on a Hot Tin Roof performances next!

We’re so excited to announce new streaming titles for #NationalTheatreAtHome on YouTube:

🌟 Barber Shop Chronicles @FuelTheatre @LeedsPlayhouse on 14 May
🌟 A Streetcar Named Desire @YoungVicTheatre on 21 May
🌟 This House on 28 May
🌟 Coriolanus @DonmarWarehouse on 4 June pic.twitter.com/H6kHuaVv7C

— National Theatre (@NationalTheatre) May 7, 2020

Great Moments In Movie Shelves #191

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So for Halloween last night I ended up watching two scary movies -- well two and a half if you count the half of 1966's Chamber of Horrors I caught off TCM -- and one of them was Babak Anvari's Wounds with Armie Hammer & Dakota Johnson, which I'll hopefully discuss in a bit, while the second ended up being...

... a re-watch of Guillermo Del Toro's gorgeously technicolor Crimson Peak, which I probably hadn't seen since 2015. (Here's an entertaining piece I wrote on it at the time.) The movie had snuck into my brain on the back of that post I did wishing Mia Wasikowska a happy birthday last week.

The engraving above the fireplace in the library slash music room of Allerdale Hall reads "Ad Montes Oculos Levavi" or "To the hills we raise our eyes," which -- besides being on the Coat of Arms for Cumbria where the mansion is supposed to be, as well as being taken from the Book of Psalms -- seems to me could be a subtle reference to both HP Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness (which Del Toro almost filmed at one point) and Clive Barker's story "In the Hills the Cities," but maybe I'm just mashing up my molehills. Whatever the case we're high up, is the point. Thin air and all. People lose their heads up there.

This is the second proper conversation we've seen at this point in the film between the new bride Edith (Wasikowska) and her fresh sister-in-law Lucille (Jessica Chastain), after a bonding chat involving dying butterflies, and this one seems friendly enough on the surface -- Lucille is a weirdo but she's not quite a terrifying weirdo quite yet, and her barbs aimed at her mother's stern portrait seem harmless enough.

It's only later, once you think back or once you re-watch the film and you know these siblings terribly dirty secrets, that you realize what Lucille's digging at in this scene, flipping through a dirty book and pushing Edith to talk about her sex-life (or hopefully lack thereof) with Lucille's brother Thomas (Tom Hiddleston)...

... oh Lucille, you dusty ol' perv. 

Good Morning, World

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I don't know about you all but if every week could begin with Tom Hiddleston sharing with us a video of him and his Broadway co-star (slash my husband) Charlie Cox playing racquetball together I sure wouldn't mind, that being a thing. (I still can't believe I haven't made it to see Betrayal. The shame.)

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Charlie Cox Speaks For Me

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Now that's a mood. (You can watch the music video this gif's taken from right here, by the way.) It's also a reminder that I need to look into getting a ticket to Charlie's new Broadway show, the Pinter with Tom Hiddleston and Zawe Ashton. Anyway all that aside it's Thursday and that means I'm mostly off for another three-day summer weekend... although once again there's a chance I might peek in to barf up a movie review tomorrow, if I feel up to it anyway. I know I made that sound appetizing, so you'll definitely be back! Otherwise if you missed my review of Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark well it's literally right below this post but here, here's a link, lazy. I recommend it. Both the movie and reading my review! Bye!

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Joe Alwyn Six Times

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I feel as if I've posted a new Joe Alwyn photo-shoot every week for the past two months, because... well, because I basically have. It feels a little Mulholland Drive at this point - somebody really wants Joe to happen! And I keep posting them so clearly I am not against said happening. I just think it's funny - in the Esquire interview alongside these photos Joe says he'd like to keep his relationship with [redacted] private and all I can picture is Tom Hiddleston running around in a wet "I Heart TS" tank-top and yeah, no kidding dude, you saw what happened to the other guy. Keep it private! But not too private, of course. Anyway the very best of luck to Joe as a future teenybopper pop hit, and let's hit the jump for the rest...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

you can learn from:

Midnight in Paris (2011)

Zelda: You have a glazed look in your eye.
Stunned, stupefied, anesthetized, lobotomized...
Gil: I - I - I keep thinking that man at the piano...
believe it or not I recognize his face from some
old sheet music - what am I talking about here?
Zelda: I know if I put my mind to it I could be one
of the great writers of musical lyrics, not that I can
write melodies - and I try - and then I hear the songs
he writes and I realize I'll never write a great lyric
and that my talent really lies in drinking.

A happy 33 to this week's MNPP banner girl Alison Pill today! AP is such an underrated talent. I saw Three Tall Women on Broadway twice by a strange coincidence (I hardly ever see Broadway shows just once, but fortune favored me that month) and Pill more than held her own both times opposite Laurie Metcalf and Glenda Jackson, a feat of insane heights considering they are Laurie Metcalf and Glenda Jackson. Go Pill! Viva Pill! Happy Pill!

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So I Finally Saw Infinity War Last Night...

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... and it's impossible to review it without talking about spoilers... and I kind of don't even want to write a big proper review anyway... so if anybody wants to share their thoughts on it let's go to the comments. I'm going to share a quick thought of my own there too. Point being if you're spoiler-averse don't click on the comments, folks.  Don't look down there at all! But since I was probably the last person on Earth to see the movie I don't think any of you will much care either...

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Which is Hotter?

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I suppose it's smart of Tom Hiddleston to've slammed the brakes on his PR machine after things got... heated, circa the Taylor Swift debacle. It's smart of him to re-focus on the work! The only problem is... where's the work? The only roles he's got lined up are as a voice in Early Man, the latest Aardman Animations movie, and another turn in his Loki wig in the new Avengers out in May. He has nothing else scheduled. That seems weird! We might've wanted  you to calm your roll, Tom, but we didn't want you to take your roll all the way away. So here on the occasion of his 37th birthday let's give him a hot minute with a hot poll...

survey software

Today's Mood

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Do Dump or Marry: Ready To Ragnarok

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(Hi, Chris. Good grief.) Anyway I've been struggling all week with finding anything meaningful to say about Thor: Ragnarok -- I thought it was a lot of fun, mind you, but my thoughts on it seem to slam against a wall if I attempt to go any further than that. It was fun. It's kind of impossible to write about Marvel Superhero Movies for me at this point - I look forward to them and they entertain me but they're just relentlessly efficient eyeball candy really, and that's that.

I mean I'm profoundly thankful that Taika Waititi managed to inject a giddy and goofy sense of humor this time around, but it's not really like I care about any of the characters or expect to think much about what happened until the next time I'm sitting in the theater for another chapter. 

Props to anybody who can come up meaningful things to say about these movies, in all seriousness. But anyway I figured in lieu of a "review" since I don't have one of those I thought we could instead "Do Dump or Marry" Thor & Hulk & Loki, because hey it's something. So tell me in the comments! And I mean the characters - Thor, The Hulk (as The Hulk, not Bruce Banner) and Loki - not the actors. Take it away!

Good Morning, Taika

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A long time ago in a Berlin far, far away.

A post shared by Taika Waititi (@taikawaititi) on Apr 4, 2013 at 3:33am PDT

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I had to scroll way way way back through Taika Waititi's Instagram to find that picture and even in 2013 when he posted it he said it was from "a long time ago" so we can assume that's probably what do we think in the 90s? I am guessing the 90s. I had a jacket like that in the 90s. Anyway Taika's turning 42 today and now when he lays down he lays down between Tom Hiddleston and Chris Hemsworth so I'd say things have improved, in certain ways. (He probably misses that 90s hair though, if he's smart.)

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Living the dream, dreaming of living. #thorragnarok #sdcc2017

A post shared by Mark Ruffalo (@markruffalo) on Jul 22, 2017 at 1:57pm PDT

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