Good Morning, World

(click to embiggen) It was Moonlight actor Trevante Rhodes' birthday earlier this week and as a gift to the rest of us he shared this selfie yesterday on his Instagram -- good lord almighty can I get an Amen? More like "A Man" when Trevante's involved. "Can I get an A MAN???" Indeed. Anyway I was thinking about Trev before I saw it was his birthday and before I saw this photo because there was a movie at Sundance that was felt Moonlight-adjacent and I now really would like to re-watch Moonlight. It's been ages! Also -- where the fuck is Trevante? Where is my daily pile of fresh Trevante content? More roles for Trevante, you fuckers!

Pics of the Day

Some glorious official stills of Trevnte Rhodes playing Mike Tyson have arrived this morning (via) -- a few weeks back I shared with y'all the teaser trailer for Mike, the limited series for Hulu that's kicking off in late August from the folks behind I Tonya and Pam & Tommy, and if ya missed that... don't. I promise you. It's worth the click. This show is gonna be a lot to take in! As is the bit of casting I just noticed on this thing's IMDb page -- Mike's trainer (named the too good to be true trainer name of "Cus D'Amato") is being played by Harvey Keitel, that we already knew. But that trainer's wife Connie? Is being played by our beloved Grace Zabriskie! Harvey Keitel and Grace Zabriskie as an old married couple named Cus & Connie D'Amato! Have I died and gone to heaven? If I have I am glad these images of Trevante are with me. Hit the jump for more...

Bite Me Off A Piece Of Trevante

As an avowed Trevante Rhodes scholar I am massively disappointed in myself that I somehow had not a single clue that the Moonlight actor was about to star in Mike, an eight-episode limited series for Hulu about Mike Tyson -- not until this afternoon when the teaser trailer popped up in my inbox! Popped up...

... with a vengeance, baby! The series is from the team behind I Tonya and the Pam & Tommy miniseries, who've made a whole damn career out of reenacting tabloid scandals from the 90s and giving them the modern twist of actually looking with some depth at the nefarious cultural factors involved, like racism and sexism. Also...

... it would seem that director Craig Gillespie just really likes to shoot hot dudes in their underwear. I get that! In all seriousness I'm a big fan of I Tonya and the Pam & Tommy series similarly ended up being much better than I anticipated (Lily James was truly transformative) -- add on the fact that I have been waiting for somebody to give blessed Trevante a big juicy role for far too long and I am all in on this baby! Here's the trailer:

Mike premieres on Hulu on August 25th.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

The Predator (2018)

Nebraska Williams: [describing The Predator] 

Know who Whoopi Goldberg is? 

It's like an alien Whoopi Goldberg.

This is a pretty bad Predator movie and a pretty forgettable role for today's beautiful birthday boy Trevante Rhodes, but given recent Whoopi developments this line seemed especially funny to me so I went with it. And it's not an incorrect description! And it was either this line or Trevante's amusingly catty comment about Billie Holiday's "Prada" in The United States vs Billie Holiday but that exchange involved usage of the N-word and ya know what... not going there! (You can read the quote here though.) 

Anyway the only reason my choices are so limited is Hollywood has really f'd up their usage of Trevante -- why wasn't this dude cast in literally everything in reach the minute Moonlight came out??? I will never understand it. He's only made like six or seven things since then, and none of his roles have been appropriately substantial. (There's Bird Box I guess but god I hated Bird Box.) Well feel free to dig through our Trevante archives, at least we here at MNPP recognize his great big talent!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Moonlight (2016)

Kevin: What you cry about? 

Chiron: I cry so much sometimes

I feel like I'mma just turn into drops.

Kevin: Just roll out into the water, right?

Roll out into the water just like all these other

motherfuckers around here trying to drown their sorrow.

Happy 5 to the best Best Picture winner since 1992.

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... snuggled up with Trevante Rhodes.

Lee Daniels' new film The United States vs Billie Holiday (about the Fed's endless siege on the famous singer for drugs and for stirring up racial tensions with her song "Strange Fruit") is out on Hulu today -- if you missed the trailer I posted the trailer right here. Andra Day plays Holiday and does so beautifully (what a voice), while you'll spend a whole lot of time yelling at the screen for the two cops in her life, played by Trevante here and Garrett Hedlund in a stylish stache, to make out. 

But isn't that how any Lee Daniels film is to be appreciated? You can always find things, even when Daniels is at his sloppiest and ooh baby is this movie sloppy. And somehow boring? That's one complaint I've never had to lodge at a Daniels film before but this one's somehow kind of boring. That ol' Daniels razzmatazz just seems to vanish for long stretches, as if he felt a little intimidated by his own material. But then Trevante saunters in in a fuzzy sweater and you forget about all that...

The United Staches vs Billie Holiday

The first trailer for Lee Daniels' The United States vs. Billie Holiday biopic has arrived this here very Monday, which stars Broadway phenom Andra Day as the legendary singer during the period of her life where the government was harassing her -- the government in the form of "Garrett Hedlund wearing suspenders and having a mustache" because Lee Daniels knows how to treat us right. It's not just Garrett though!

The United States vs. Billie Holiday could just be this shot of Trevante Rhodes & Garrett Hedlund in each other's direct vicinities for ninety minutes and I'd be there pic.twitter.com/UeWdhq2jjd

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 11, 2021

Moonlight's Trevante Rhodes is there too, because Lee Daniels really really knows how to treat us. He plays a Narcotics agent that Holiday has a torrid affair with -- no word on whether he also has an affair with Hedlund's character, but I'm keeping that foundation-less hope alive just because it's 2021 and we're allowed to believe whatever we want to now. I'm using the death of truth for good, y'all!

This movie was of course supposed to get a theatrical release but it's just been acquired by Hulu and it will now be hitting Hulu on February 26th. Don't ask me what that means for awards prospects, as I am not the person who cares. I just wanna see...

... lots of Lee Daniels shooting these gorgeous actors like the most 

gorgeous people on Earth, and I'll be satisfied. Here's the trailer:

Like I said, Hulu on February 26th. 

Hit the jump for a few more caps...

Pics of the Day

Precious and more importantly The Paperboy director Lee Daniels has a new movie coming out which we told you about last September, called The United States vs. Billie Holiday, which is about the singer having been a target of the Federal Narcotics Goons (that's their official title) -- it stars Andra Day as Holiday alongside, as you see above, Garrett Hedlund playing the mustachioed head of the Goons Squad, and as you see below, Trevante Rhodes playing an undercover agent who had a long affair with Holiday. Per usual, Lee Daniels making his leading men all-time swooners. These images come via Vanity Fair which has a big new feature on the film with several more shots -- the film is set to be released in February. I should add, since it is notable, that this movie also has Natasha fucking Lyonne playing Tallulah fucking Bankhead. MY GOD.

HAPPY INDEPLAIDPANTS DAY!

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Thanks to MNPP friend The Futurist on Twitter for gifting me with the idea for a brand new MNPP Holiday -- InDePlaidPants Day! July 4th's never been a holiday I've had a ton of interest in, seeing as how I hate the summertime and most summertime activities on the one hand (although I do love hot dogs) and on the other too much blind patriotism tends to make my skin crawl -- having your very being politicized and debated for one's entire life will do that, funny enough. And so here, a thing we can all agree on! Hot guys wearing plaid pants, just like this website's name!

HAPPY INDEPLAIDPANTS DAY!!!!
(h/t @T_FUTURIST) pic.twitter.com/ipRj8uyI9l

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) July 4, 2020

I don't have a tag for photos of actors in plaid pants here on the site proper even though it's something I've always contemplated -- there are a lot scattered at this search link though, and there is a proper "Plaid Pants" tag on our Tumblr, you can  check out those modest archives over here. Next year, now that this idea exists, I'll plan a better bigger plaider day, but y'all do your part and go put on your own fave pair and together we'll celebrate InDePlaidPants right.

Trevante Rhodes Two Times

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Nice plaid pants, Trev.

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Trevante Rhodes Four Times

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Great gay hallelujah, Precious director Lee Daniels is about to make a new movie, one that will co-star both Trevante Rhodes and Garrett Hedlund -- blessed, blessed day, this. Neither of them will be the lead -- it's a movie about Billie Holiday called The United States vs. Billie Holiday, about her battles with the FBI's Narcotics squad in the late 40s, with the singer Andra Day playing her. It's all based on the 2015 book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs. Anybody read it?

Rhodes will play a federal Agent that Holiday had "a tumultuous affair" with. No word on who Hedlund's playing but it's easy to picture him as both an FBI agent and a junkie, isn't it? Such is his magic. Also cast is Natasha Lyonne, which is always a treat. The film starts filming next month in Montreal. Anyway yes these are all old photos of Trevante but I think they went up in smoke when the old Tumblr disappeared, so we're reposting them. As if anybody minds!

5 Off My Head: The Looks of Love

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I always walk into Valentine's Day with cynicism -- Corporately Monetized Pseudo Romance, Blurgh! -- but then slowly, as I see people talking their favorite Romantic Movies all day long, my black hearts melts off its stinky exterior and the sappy softy beneath gets exposed. This happens every year and every year I am unprepared for it. Anyway after posting about Sorry Angel this morning and Call Me By Your Name a wee little later my heart-melt happened real fast today -- so fast I've gone and prepared a list for us by lunch-time! Here are five of my favorite "Looks of Love" in movies from the past 15 years -- romantic glances that just make my heart sing looking upon them.

Jack & Ennis, Brokeback Mountain

"You know it could be like this...
just like this always."

Therese & Carol, Carol

"My angel. Flung out of space."

Elio & Oliver, Call Me By Your Name

"Because I wanted you to know.
 Because I wanted you to know.
Because I wanted you to know."

Frances & Sophie, Frances Ha

"It's that thing when you're with someone, and you love them and they know it, and they love you and you know it... but it's a party... and you're both talking to other people, and you're laughing and shining... and you look across the room and catch each other's eyes... but - but not because you're possessive, or it's precisely sexual... but because... that is your person in this life. And it's funny and sad, but only because this life will end, and it's this secret world that exists right there in public, unnoticed, that no one else knows about. It's sort of like how they say that other dimensions exist all around us, but we don't have the ability to perceive them. That's - That's what I want out of a relationship. Or just life, I guess."

Kevin & Chiron, Moonlight

"You the only man that's ever touched me.
You're the only one."

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Give me some of your faves 

from any movies, any time, in the comments!

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Six Six Six Scary Movies in 150 Words or Less

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I've gotten woefully behind on reviews again (the eternal drum-beat!), nowhere moreso than with a pile-up of horror flicks I've tried to catch up on as the year of 2018 ended. So here are six (natch) quick takes on six (natch) horror or at least horror-adjacent flicks...

The House With a Clock in its Walls -- It's really strange to realize that Eli Roth has now directed a film starring Cate Blanchett, isn't it? And I say that generally as a fan of Eli's work, a stalwart defender of both Hostel films. Do you think Cate sat down and watched Hostel II at some point to familiarize herself with her director? Maybe she's a secret Torture Porn enthusiast! I could totally see that being true. As with all of our great actors she's got a hint of madness in her eyes - it's not too far a stretch to picture Cate getting stoned and cackling as the infamous leg shaving scene happens in Cabin Fever. Does it seem as if I'm avoiding talking about The House With a Clock in it Walls? Yeah you ain't mistaken. Snooze, next. 

Unfriended: Dark Web -- Don't ask me how this franchise turned out actually pretty good, but here we are two movies in and the Unfriended movies have legit burrowed under my skin two times now. (Here's my review of the first one.) This one, as ever the case with horror sequels, feels the need to expand outward from the first one - speaking of Hostel II it kind of has the feeling of that, with a vast conspiracy of crazies (or... you might say... a Dark Web) turning tech on its dumb-dumb users. But conspiracies of crazy people are almost always fundamentally scarier to me than demon possession or ghost infants and this army of hooded google ghouls (Goo-Ghouls?) shiver me timbers. It's clever and mean enough to make you need the lights on later.

The Housemaid -- Jump-scares don't normally get me but there are a couple of fun jump-scares in this atmospheric South-Korean-directed Vietnam-set ghost flick that got me; mostly though it reads as kind of a wan mash-up of The Handmaiden and Ju-on. It's also comically unsexy when it thinks it's being sexy - there are a whole lot of humping scenes in here that're about as hot as swamp butt on a first date. It also suffers from hot fits of non-sensical plotting a la Karyn Kusama's Destroyer that only make sense at the end of the film, but which un-do the viewer's goodwill before the time you get there. You're so irritable at people doing what seem like dumb things at the time that it's hard to work up a care once their actual motivations get unfurled.

New Year, New You -- Not as glimmeringly unnerving as director Sophia Takal's 2016 film Always Shine with Mackenzie Davis and Caitlin FitzGerald was (here's my review of that) but, well, that starred Mackenzie Davis and Caitlin FitzGerald, after all. But Suki Waterhouse fares better here than she did in The Bad Batch I thought, and Mr. Robot's Carly Chaikan as her former teen tormentor turned lifestyle blogger is insidiously awful (thats a compliment - she's meant to be). Best in show is probably Melissa Bergland as the malleable hanger-on willing to go full psycho for web sensation status. Still I was a little turned off by the pile of dead lesbians by film's end, and the constraints of its format - this is a 90 minute episode of a Hulu anthology series Into the Dark - stay felt.

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New Fetish: Michael Sheen Crazy Old-Timey Preacher pic.twitter.com/5bEicL3TAC

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 28, 2018

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Apostle -- Starts out weird, gets way weirder - it's always a treat to see Michael Sheen (full stop) getting his nuts on (fuller stop) and his gig here as an old-timey preacher-man gone full woodland cult psychotic is a bonanza of bearded bug-eyed fun. The presence of Dan Stevens confusedly skulking about brings with it a whole meat-sack of reminders of his superhero TV series Legion though - these're both projects that often get lost up their own gobbledygook, and the more out-there their shenanigans the less invested turned my attention. Still it's kind of Baskin lite starring movie stars and, uh, that in itself is so crazy you can't help but be a bit impressed. 

Bird Box -- Our culture's become so infinitesimally fractured that we leap at any opportunity for something approaching a shared experience - anyway that's the only reason I can come up with for why this silly un-scary mash-up of ten things better things before it became such a meme generator and topic of conversation. Once we knew Netflix's numbers we grasped for what we could! Sandra Bullock does what she can - she is Sandra Bullock for a reason, after all - and there are lots of names here I have no doubt that Netflix's algorithms know we love watching (John Malkovich being John Malkovich! Tom Hollander being Tom Hollander! Trevante Rhodes... call me!) but like that SUV in Sarah Paulson's fickle hands it all just sort of crashes into the sky.
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Stings Like an Ali

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If you head on over to The Film Experience we're facing down the parental figures of Barry Jenkins' film Moonlight for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" poll -- Jenkins' latest, the James Baldwin adaptation If Beale Street Could Talk is out in limited release on Friday. I never reviewed that at NYFF did I? Well perhaps I'll try to write that up this week, stay tuned.

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Boyd Holbrook Seven Times

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Looking at these new shots of the actor Boyd Holbrook (via; thx Mac) have reminded me that I saw the new Predator movie this past weekend, or in terms of how I measure my life right now in the middle of the press screenings for the New York Film Festival... approximately ten whole movies ago. Haha as if I have bothered to remember what the hell happened in the Predator movie! Let's see if I rack my brain I remember some grody piles of guts, I remember Trevante Rhodes smiling (swoon), and I remember wondering why Olivia Munn had to get naked, twice. (Seriously thin gruel of an excuse, movie.)

I also remember not really hating the movie like some people have though - it was perfectly fine. It felt very 80s and Shane Black made it funnier than it had any business being. Oh and those dog things! They were terrible. Anyway as fascinating as this stream-of-half-consciousness has been for everybody, I am sure, let's just put this sucker out of its misery (meaning this drearily rambling post) and hit the jump for the rest of these pictures of good ol' Boyd...

The Great Golding

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While I should be preparing myself this weekend for the coming onslaught of ultra busyness coming my way (more on that in a bit) with anything except Seeing More Movies I fully intend to see both Paul Feig's A Simple Favor (co-starring our man Henry Golding here, pics via, thx Mac) as well as The Predator reboot this weekend -- y'all stay tuned for thoughts on those, maybe! Maybe? I don't know. Other movies out this weekend though - Slice, the pizza slasher movie that I reviewed earlier, and Lizzie, the latest Lizzie Borden with Chloë Sevigny & Kristen Stewart, which I reviewed right here. And if you guys out there reading this see anything worth mentioning why don't you tell me about it in the comments? Here I will lead you to them with a few more pics of Henry after the jump...

I Am Link

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--- Monster Smash - The buzz on the Predator reboot seems awfully buzz-less right now, doesn't it? I know we're all a little buzzed-out by reboots but Shane Black is a smart writer director (with a history with the franchise to boot) and it's got a killer cast and I don't care, I am buzzing dammit. (See the trailer here if you missed it.) So I will link you to this batch of new pictures from the movie whether you want them or not - come for clear shots of the monster, stay for sleeveless Trevante Rhodes and Boyd Holbrook in military pants.

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--- Video Killed the Video Store - This piece right over here on what we lost when we lost video-stores is a real deep dive and I will admit I got a little impatient with the passages about Netflix algorithms, as is my wont, but man alive it made me nostalgic for my high school and college days (this would be in the mid 1990s) working at a video-store. I learned so much getting lost in those aisles, picking up piles of tapes every night of things I'd never heard of, of things my co-workers recommended, of things that just looked insane. 

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--- Bye Bye Barbara - I don't want to say that I am personally responsible for the death of Barbara Harris but I forgot to wish her a happy birthday last month like I usually did every year is all I am saying. Kidding aside she was a gem, a true gem, who perked up every movie she popped up in (I really want to re-watch Dirty Rotten Scoundrels now - I can't believe both her and Glenne Headly are gone now) and you should read our pal Nathaniel's piece on her at The Film Experience right now.
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. --- Ghost With Most - This was a nice little surprise yesterday - IndieWire chatted with The Changeling director Peter Medak about that 1980 classic yet deeply underrated horror movie starring George C. Scott. I don't know why they chatted with him but they did and I wish more placed would just randomly call up folks on stuff like this. (ETA Oh wait the interview happened because a new blu-ray of the film came out earlier this month. Nevermind. It's still a nice perk to hear from a veteran once in awhile anyway.) 
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--- Investigation Open - There was an awful lot happening in the news yesterday so perhaps you missed the word that Veronica Mars is being rebooted? I very nearly almost did myself and I am what some might consider, in the parlance of nerd-dom, a Marshmallow. Anyway "rebooted" is probably not the word - revived is the right word - since it will star original star Kristen Bell, as well it should since KB remains one of our most charming and under-utilized actors around. The series will air on Hulu. 
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--- Jazz Hands of July - I had to live vicariously through the Bob Fosse film festival diaries of Difficult People star and fire-headed funny lady Julie Klausner posted at The New Yorker this week, since I crapped out myself and missed all of the films when they screened at The Quad last month. I would've loved to have seen All That Jazz on a big screen, I never have, and there are a couple of Fosse's movies that I still have never seen. Specifically Sweet Charity and Damn Yankees...

I Am Link

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--- Thrice Unbelievable - Director Lisa Cholodenko, who's gifted the world with The Kids Are All Right and Laurel Canyon and Olive Kitteredge, is currently working on the American remake of Toni Erdmann with Jack Nicholson and Kristen Wiig - normally a remake of Toni Erdmann would be cause to shudder (here's my review of the original) but those people involved make it more of a squeal. Anyway when she's done with that her next project will be Unbelievable, a series based on a true story about a young woman accused of lying about being raped, and get this cast - it will star Toni Collette, Merritt Wever (from The Walking Dead and Nurse Jackie) and Kaitlyn Dever, who wowed in Short Term 12. 

--- A Single Drop - It was the 15th anniversary of Danny Boyle's revolutionary not-zombie movie 28 Days Later yesterday and leave it to our pal Joe Reid to write up a terrific tribute to the film over at Decider. I've spent the last decade weirdly preferring the film's sequel 28 Weeks Later - which, did you know its director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo is working on Disney's live-action Sword in the Stone movie next? How odd - but Boyle's film is seriously over-due a re-watch on my part. I've probably been needlessly antagonistic just for argument's sake.

--- Fairy Fellas - We've been keeping track of the cast for Kevin Williamson's fairy-tale reimagining Tell Me A Story ever since Billy Magnussen (here) and James Wolk (here) were the first ones cast, because... were you even reading what I just wrote? Yeah. Anyway turns out neither of them were the leads of the show - the lead was just announced and it's Sam Jaeger from Parenthood, who is also (see to the right) really rather appealing himself. I never watched Parenthood but I like what I am seeing. Thank you, Kevin Williamson.

--- How Queer - Man I wish some enterprising film house here in New York City would take a look at Vulture's list of 55 Essential Queer Horror Films posted earlier this week and just do a great big series of them all, screening Bride of Frankenstein back to back with Heavenly Creatures with Killer Condom with Otto or Up With Dead People and on and on. That would be my heaven. (Click here to scan through our own ever-running series of posts on "Queer Creeps," one of our favorite subjects, near and dear to our creep queer heart.)

--- Who Watches The - Jeremy Irons has just joined the cast of HBO's forthcoming Watchmen adaptation from Lost and The Leftovers show-runner Damon Lindelof - no word on who he'll be playing but we actually don't know who any of the actors who've been named so far, including Regina King and Don Johnson and Tim Blake Nelson and Louis Gossett Jr., are playing. Anyway this reminds me I saw Jeremy Irons on the street a couple of weeks ago and that was a thrill. My guess is that Irons is playing old Ozymandias, anyway. (In related recent news you can click here to see Jeremy's son Max's butt. News you can use!)

--- Boogie Woogie Man - It's pretty nuts that a full-length movie version of Stephen King's short-story "The Boogeyman" has never been made... well until now anyway - the writers behind A Quiet Place are working on the script now. The story was first published in 1973 and was later folded into his 1978 collection called Night Shift, which also included "Children of the Corn" and "The Lawnmower Man" and "Graveyard Shift" and "Sometimes They Come Back." The Boogeyman tells the story of Lester Billings, whose three children have all been murdered by a presence in their closet. (thanks Mac)

--- And Finally I posted the shit out of the teaser trailer for the forthcoming Predator reboot from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang director Shane Black and starring Boyd Holbrook so I don't feel the urge to go through all of that again with the full trailer, released this week, which doesn't offer up a whole more for me to go nuts over. (That is to say Boyd never takes his clothes off in it and/or he never makes out with Trevante Rhodes.) But here, watch away:
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