I Quit Smoking 18 Years Ago Today

I thought it was funny when the conversation about smoking cigarettes being "cool" again reared its head last week, as I was prepping for this annual post I've been doing for eighteen years now -- if you look it up this conversation pops up about every two years and everyone acts all outraged again. And as I say every year -- smoking is bad for you! I am glad I quit eighteen years ago today! And yet I also think that it's undeniable that it just looks cool -- it's erotic, it's cinematic, it's literally "bad for you" as I just said and I'm of the mind that we'll stop being human beings when we stop romanticizing nihilism. We're always gonna be attracted to the "bad boy" archetype, even when it's Gina Gershon in Bound. (Hell especially when it's Gina Gershon in Bound.) 

Anyway I make some form of that argument every single year so's I can justify this post. Eighteen years of them now! That's wild. And no I don't miss smoking in the slightest, even if I one thousand percent understand the sould-crush that the kids are feeling so they're picking up the cancer-sticks again. I'm not judging anybody -- I get it y'all. The world's on fire -- you might as well lean in and light some drugs up off of it. With that said over the past twelve months I've gathered a ridiculous amount of pictures and gifs for y'all (over 150) so let's get to those. Hit the jump and inhale...

Pics of the Day

I know it's unsporting of me to be such a little bitch about it but looking at the Cannes line-up every year depresses me, knowing I will never go to there, and so often I just ignore it totally. I mostly like to know about the movies that are right in front of me, ready for consumption, because I am desperately impatient and also -- once I know what the movies are I try to immediately forget everything I know so when I do sit down to watch them I can see them with the freshest eyes possible. It's not the wisest way to play things for a person who's posting about movies all day every day but I don't think any of you picture me first, second, or five-hundredth when the word "wise" comes up. 

Anyway! The Cannes 2026 line-up did indeed drop today and I couldn't help myself for some reason this year, I looked. And now I'm annoyed. But a couple of images from this year's line-up grabbed my eye and felt like they deserved a post, and here we are -- up top that's the first image of Rami Malek in Ira Sachs' new movie, an 80s-set musical called The Man I Love that is about the AIDS epidemic. Ira Sachs has never made a movie I haven't liked and he's given me no reason to date to not trust him but my god that Team-America-adjacent description, and the fact that the movie stars the man who spat on Freddie Mercury's memory and was handed an Oscar for it in turn, gives me some pause! But I want it to be good so I'll shut up. And then down below is a shot of Exxxtreme Frenchies Vincent Cassel & Pierre Niney in Asghar Farhadi's new film Parallel Tales, which also stars the extraordinary gallic triumverate of Isabelle Huppert, Virginie Efira, and one Catherine fuckin' Deneuve. High hopes, then! We'll pretend we're not filled with hate and just be hopeful. What from the line-up grabbed your eye? 

Adam DiMarco Seven Times

Rather attractive actor Adam DiMarco has moved on from his star-making turn on the second season of The White Lotus to having a main role on the series Overcompensating (which is coming back for a second season) as well as in the buzzy upcoming A24 horror flick Undertone -- he has done all of those things and yet it's this V Man cover that sees me here, finally posting about him again. I like what I like dammit! No but seriously seeing him on that cover yesterday reminded me of two things. One, I haven't mentioned that the great Vincent Cassel joined the next season set in France, and that shall not stand. I'm guessing he's playing the concierge role but just because they're always gay on The White Lotus and I'm always on the look-out for some gay Vincent Cassel.

And two -- no one named for the new season yet has been someone who's played a character from an earlier season and that's making me sad. Are y'all fans of the recurring character thing? If no, would you be if it didn't have anything to do with Jennifer Coolidge's character this time? I imagine some people feel the Tanya / Greg thing's been played out -- personally I'd love for DiMarco's character Albie to show up with Haley Lu Richardson's Portia again, which would probably entail some more Tanya stuff but if we got to see Adam clenching his butt-cheeks whilst orgasming again wouldn't it be worth it? I thought so. Anyway pictures, we got pictures, hit the jump for pictures...

Great Moments In Movie Staches

Let us take a brief moment today to honor Vincent Cassel's sleazy little stache in Jacques Audiard's terrific little 2001 noir-thriller Read My Lips, which entered the Criterion Collection this week. Sometimes a stache does a lot of heavy lifting and this is very much one of those!  You can pick up the movie at this link -- an excellent early Audiard movie, way before he sullied his rep with that Emilia Pérez debacle last year. I hope whatever he works on next is a steering of the ship back into better waters. Give us another Sisters Brothers please.

Nightmares & Fire: Criterion's Month of Violence

Every year October always has my favorite releases from the Criterion Collection -- I think it's the meeting of them ramping up for the holidays plus lots of horror because of Halloween? Anyway they've just announced their October 2025 releases and once again -- my god it's the good shit. Kicking it off they've got Ken Russell's hallucinatory 1980 gem Altered States, which is one of my personal faves -- peak William Hurt turning into a neanderthal after dosing himself with too much psychology? What's not to love? It's Russell at his most bonkers... well okay it's hard to quanitfy "most bonkers" when it comes to Russell but this one's up there. Can't wait to take this in in 4K -- it lands on October 21st.

Next up Guillemo Del Toro's tremendous 2021 noir-carny vision Nightmare Alley is finally finally getting a physical media release (it's a Netflix joint so it hasn't before this) -- I know reactions to this were mixed but I loved it, it's one of my favorite of Del Toro's movies, and I am of the mind that Bradley Cooper gives his best performance to date in it. (aAnd given how much I soured on him otherwise over the past couple of years that's saying something.) Then there's the one title this month I'm unfamiliar with -- Mexican director Arturo Ripstein's 1996 melodrama Deep Crimson -- anyone know it?

Then there are the inevitable 4K upgrades of discs they've released before, but man oh man are these a wild duo of masterpieces -- David Lynch's Twin Peaks prequel Fire Walk With Me and  Georges Franju's 1960 horror classic Eyes Without a Face. You can't go wrong with either of those, which besides being perfect are both gorgeous to look at and will no doubt stun in 4K. Oh and then there's a double dose of David Cronenberg joints -- his most recent film The Shrouds (which hasn't gotten nearly enough love if you ask me) and his 2006 neo-noir A History of Violence. The latter has quite the surprising cover -- personally I love it but I feel as if it might be divisive? Thoughts?

From Flow to Flames, Criterion Turns It Up to 11

Wowza this month flew by -- it feels like just yesterday we were speaking upon the movies that Criterion is dropping this upcoming August and now here's their September batch now upon us! I suppose we did have the announcement of their glorious and gorgeous Wes Anderson box-set in between -- that's a September release too, landing at the end of the month on the 30th. September is loaded to the gills though -- on top of all that Anderson (which also includes individual releases for Isle of Dogs and The French Dispatch) there are six more titles being unloaded. I guess they know people are starting their holiday shopping right about then? Aaaanyway let's get into it -- first up there's a Jacques Audiard movie I've yet to see, his 2001 movie Read My Lips starring Vincent Cassel and Emmanuelle Devos. He's an ex-con who gets hired as her assistant and who drags her into some sort of Noir-ish scheme -- I am down. I was down as sort as I saw Vincent with a mustache honestly. But speaking of sexy men in Audiard movies...

... we're also getting his 2005 movie The Beat That My Heart Skipped sdtarring prime Romain Duris as a pianist (I said pianist!) whose own shady pops is trying to drag him downward. I have seen this one and it's grand -- def recommended. You know the Emilia Perez shit aside (granted a big aside) Audiard is extremely talented and I hope he can move on to less contentious things next. It'll be nice to look upon some of these older works and remind ourselves of that.

Next up I am amusing myself by putting these two polar opposite movies beside one another -- on September 16th they're dropping Lizzie Borden's feminist punk masterpiece Born in Flames and also on September 16th they're dropping Rob Reiner's faux rockumentary classic This is Spinal Tap -- what a fucking bizarre pairing! But I love it. Watch them back to back and blow yer minds! I have to admit if forced to choose I'd choose Borden's film, which rules -- I think Spinal Tap is fine but I prefer the later Chris Guest movies if I'm being honest. Don't haze me, please! 

And finally (besides the 4K upgrade of Akira Kurosawa's High and Low which sidenote might just be my favorite Kurosawa) we have the animated masterpiece that was last year's apocalyptic kitty cat spectacle called Flow -- this movie is wonderful, transfixing, magical, and I'm shocked how often it comes up day to day in my life? I was just talking about it two nights ago. Weird how often cat-apocalypses can be worked into basic conversation. But then these are weird times!

It's Raining Criterion Awesomeness This April

Besides Criterion putting out Lone Star today (which I just posted about) they're doubling down on awesomeness because it's the middle of the month and they're announcing their new releases! These releases are for April, and they kick off with (like Lone Star) a vastly underrated 90s drama -- Nancy Savoca's 1991 sweet-as-heck love story Dogfight starring River Phoenix and Lili Taylor. And also like Lone Star this is a movie I haven't seen since it came out so this will be a wonderful chance to refamiliarize myself with its wonders. Specifically River Phoenix with a buzzcut. I was young when this was out but this was the movie where I finally got River's dreamboat appeal. Boys in them 60s clothes and haircuts -- swoon. This hits disc on April 30th, check out all of the extra features (which includes a chat between Savioca, Taylor, and the great Marry Harron!) at the above link. 

And April is a big month for 4K upgrades from our fave physical media label -- they're upgrading three masterpieces with new restorations of Matthieu Kassovitz' La haine (mmmm Vincent Cassel). Mikhail Kalatozov’s legendary 1965 portrait of revolution I Am Cuba, and Peter Weir's perfect sumptuous and haunting Picnic at Hanging Rock (which is one of my favorite movies of all time). You can literally never go wrong with Peter Weir. And then to top off the awesomeness on April 16th they're dropping a 4K restoration of  Béla Tarr's hypnotic wonder Werckmeister Harmonies from the year 2000 -- this was the first Tarr film I ever saw and it is burned deeply in my brain. An incredible black-and-white astonishment, this one.

Pics of the Day

The first two images from David Cronenberg's next movie The Shrouds have arrived thanks to some rag called  Cahiers du Cinéma (via) -- that's Vincent Cassel on the left of course but apparently that's Diane Kruger on the right? I don't even recognize her. Amazing what some short wavy hair will do. Click here for my previous post on this movie, which is about a man whose wife dies and "the incapacity to cope with the loss of a loved one." Sounds cheery! No word on a definitive release for thi syet but I'm pretty sure I remember hearing it's expected to premiere at Cannes? Cahiers having this first look makes perfect sense then.

Good Morning, World

I was feeling all anxious this morning and it turns out what I needed was this exact photoshoot of Vincent Cassel (via) to calm me down a bit -- or at least you know makes that tension flow to other parts of my body. Anyway I am guessing these are to advertise the Three Musketeers movies that are out in France -- or maybe it's one of the other ten thousand projects he's got lined up on IMDb and I just care too much about the Three Musketeers movies given their crazy cast stacked with French hotties. Have any of our international readers seen them yet? God I want to watch thema already! Anyway hit the jump, there are more photos...

Good Morning, World

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by VEENTZ (@vincentcassel)

It's not just the photo of Vincent Cassel on the action figure box here that makes this morning's post an upper -- it's the fact that his fellow french hottie Pierre Niney was the one who gifted the shirtless action figure to him. That takes this one over the top. Weirdly though I can't find any photos of V&P together, and the meaning of the hashtags he shared for a show called Fiasco on Netflix also elude me as neither of them are listed on the show's IMDb cast-list. It's an inside joke that eludes me and I don't like it! Can some french person explain it to me? Preferably Vincent and/or Pierre, in my bathtub tonight? Cool, thanks.

Fresh Shrouds For Cronenberg

I know I saw something within the past few weeks that had Vincent Cassel saying something really shitty about something, but my brain has blocked the entire thing out and I am choosing not to remember it right now so I can not be miserable for the rest of the day. I'm sure one of you will remind me in the comments and I will rightly feel crappy about giving the man a pass for a post, oh well. I have felt crappy for many crappy things and today will not be the last day that happens. Anyway! Vincent Cassel is starring in David Cronenberg's next movie -- that we already knew. But we didn't have more details, and we didn't have the news that broke today (via) that it would also star Vincent's old Cronenberg-Movie-Buddy Viggo Mortensen. No big surprise there -- if David Cronenberg is turning on a movie camera Viggo is not far off. Here are those fresh details though:

"In less than a week, David Cronenberg will be shooting his latest film The Shrouds in Toronto. Diane Kruger will star alongside Vincent Cassel in Cronenberg’s upcoming sci-fi film. We can now also add another stalwart actor to the cast, none other than Viggo Mortensen... Cronenberg has mentioned that Shrouds is part of the aborted Netflix project we had previously reported on. Supposedly, the streaming giant got cold feet after reading the second episode...

“It’s the story of a man who loses his wife. It’s about the incapacity to cope with the loss of a loved one,” Cassel told The Guardian. “I never thought he had such confidence in me and I’m really flattered. I told him, ‘David, honestly, I have no idea how I’m going to play this.’ And he said that’s exactly why he chose me.” Cronenberg told IndieWire while at 2022 Cannes that The Shrouds will take place in a world where people can watch their deceased relatives decaying in real-time."

That bit about Netflix freaking out about the second episode and backing out is so annoying -- come on, Netflix! You signed up for a David Cronenberg project! WTF did you think you'd get, tea parties and scones? More like tea-bagging and scabs, baby! And we wouldn't have it any other way.

Eva 4 Eva

Today is the international holiday known the world over as Eva Green's birthday, click on over to The Film Experience where I gave her some love today in the form of a look-forward at a couple of projects we should be graced with shortly. I hope so anyway -- I f'ing miss staring at her!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

A Dangerous Method (2011)

Otto Gross: It seems to me the measure of the true perversity of the human race, that one of its very few reliably pleasurable activities should be the subject of so much hysteria and repression.

David Cronenberg's film A Dangerous Method came out ten years ago today! It premiered first at the Venice Film Festival and then hit Telluride, and Toronto, and Zurich, and then on October 5th it played at the New York Film Festival which is where I saw it and also where I did one of the very few (very very few) interviews I have ever done, with Michael Fassbender himself. You can read it here, if you so desire. I was a nervous wreck, which is why I don't do interviews; I can hardly hold conversations with people I've known for twenty years for god's sake. 

Anyway I definitely haven't seen A Dangerous Method in ten years, since that NYFF, I should absolutely give it another spin -- I liked it fine at the time, but maybe it'll have grown in my estimation looking back a decade on. Cronenberg always has something to offer. Anybody seen it recently?

Going thru old pics; I don't think I ever shared this shot of Michael Fassbender doing the red carpet at NYFF in 2011 pic.twitter.com/YWBrtiUCge

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 9, 2015

Cassel on the Green

Now here is a power couple I can get behind. (Or they could get behind me, I am not picky.) Apple has just green-lit a French-language thriller series called Liaison that will star Vincent Cassel and Eva Green; this comes just a few months after it was announced that Cassel & Green will also be co-starring in a pair of Three Musketeers films, about which I was very very very enthusiastic at the time. And remain so. And that enthusiasm carries over to today's announcement -- I wouldn't be sad if literally everything starred Vincent Cassel and Eva Green. Who could be sad about Vincent Cassel and Eva Green? They are life! Here is how Liaison is described:

"Liaison is a high-stakes, contemporary thriller exploring how the mistakes of our past have the potential to destroy our future. The series combines action with an unpredictable, multi-layered plot in which espionage and political intrigue play out against a story of passionate and enduring love.”

The series is coming from some dude who worked on the show 24; it will co-star, also enticingly, the ever great Peter Mullan. (We fucking love Peter Mullan here at MNPP.) So we'll keep our eyes peeled for this, and duly welcome the arrival of our new Cassel / Green entertainment empire. And here as a treat a new-to-my-eyes photo-shoot of Vincent, after the jump...

Good Morning, World

Today we wish a happy 69th -- ooh la la! -- birthday to the great and masterful director Jacques Audiard, one of our all-time faves! These snaps are of Matthias Schoenaerts and Marion Cotillard in the 2012 masterpiece Rust and Bone, of course. I've seen everything back to 2005's The Beat That My Heart Skipped (oh Romain Duris!) and I recommend that along with every single thing since then, but I've seen nothing earlier -- I know I should see Vincent Cassel in 2001's Read My Lips but what about the even earlier ones? Anybody seen either of his first two, See How They Fall or A Self-Made Hero? Killer casts in both -- Kassovitz! Trintignant! Audiard really jumped right in with both feet right from the start! 

Putting the Musk in the Musketeers

Speak of the French Devils! Just yesterday I did a nicely sized post about the "Rendez-Vous With French Cinema" series here in NYC next month, and all of the good-looking French actors that will be featured in it -- now today comes word that four of my favorite Hot French Actors whose names were not in yesterday's post (plus one Hot British Actor who wouldn't have been mentioned there, but I am happy to mention him now) have just been cast in a new project, all together, and now I can fill up my Hot French Actor Bingo Card for the week. Phew! Prepare yourselves, folks, because this is A CAST.

It's a big budget (for French Cinema anyway) re-do of The Three Musketeers, which yeah sure okay I guess they have to make one of these every ten to fifteen years -- that's not the exciting part. The exciting part is the truly insane cast -- this Musketeers will star François Civil (see more of him here) as D’Artagnan, Vincent Cassel as Athos, and Romain Duris as Aramis! It will star Louis Garrel as King Louis XIII! And it will star the British fur-monster Oliver Jackson-Cohen as the Duke of Buckingham!

I don't think I'm familiar with the actor Pio Marmai, who's playing

 the other Musketeer called Porthos, but this is him below... 

And he's plenty hot, he'll fit right in. My god, y'all. But wait. You thought I was done? All this XXX-treme male hotness aside there's the female role of Milady de Winter, and they ain't skimping there either -- Eva Green! Eva Green! My beloved Eva Green!!!

Is this The Hottest Movie Cast Ever Assembled??? I think this might be The Hottest Movie Cast Ever Assembled. And they haven't even named who's playing the villainous Cardinal yet, but at this rate they'll de-age Alain Delon to his Purple Noon visage and toss hot-bomb that into the mix. PLUS there're adding in a character called "Hannibal" for a black actor that will be based on real-life person Louis Anniaba (aka the first black Musketeer) so there's even more opportunity for sexy casting ahead. And then this is all going to be spread across two films -- the first titled The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan and then the second titled The Three Musketeers: Milady. Does that mean the second one will be Eva Green-centric? I am exploding here, people. It's too much, too much.

I Do, Mathieu, I Do

 

That wonderful photo there (via) is a swell reminder to me and now to every single one of you that 1) we should all look so good at 53, and 2) actor, director and beautiful 53-year-old person Mathieu Kassovitz's 1995 masterpiece La Haine is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year and there will be a brand new 4K restoration of the film opening here in NYC next week, on October 8th at BAM's virtual cinema. Pretty sure anybody anywhere can rent that sort of thing (well anybody anywhere in the United States of America, anyway) so I recommend you do just that! Don't make me sic Vincent Cassel on your asses...

Good Morning, World

.

If you'd have told me these shots of Vincent Cassel were from a movie that came out today I'd have believed you -- that's what I actually thought they were until I looked up the movie they're from, which is 2010's Our Day Will Come. (thx Mac) Ten years ago! He looks exactly the same. I mean it helps that he started leaning into the craggy unwashed silver-fox look way back -- it buys you some time. Anyway clearly I never saw this movie, so I ask you people -- have you seen it? Should I? Or is Vincent Cassel's familiar little friend, giffed below, the movie's only highlight?Answer me that and hit the jump for the NSFW junk...
.

Good Morning, World

.

Hello and Happy Monday to you all. I am writing this post to you from my couch, where I have more or less spent the last 100 days -- as of today actually 101 -- in isolation due to, you know, the plague. The ongoing plague I should add. I add "ongoing" because once I have finished writing this post I am to get off this couch, take a shower, get dressed, and then go climb onto the subway and go to my office for the first time in three months, all while there's still a plague happening. I am very nervous!

Anyway once I do get to my office -- if a panic attack doesn't strike me down beforehand, anyway -- I'm not sure what sort of a "work day" it will be, so posting might be kind of erratic. After three months there are probably i's that need their dots and t's that need their little lines slashed violently through their necks. So y'all just enjoy these shots of the actor Vincent Cassell in the 2018 movie The Great Mystical Circus until I can reappear -- poof, voila! -- is my point. This is gonna be a weird ass day.

Vincent Cassel Two Times

."

These pictures double as our "Fanboy Delusion" today too, in that today I'd rather be sitting outside in a park with Vincent Cassel closer to me than six feet away. Wouldn't you? Well looking at these photos will have to do for the time being. (There are a couple more at this link; thx Mac.) Is everybody doing okay? All's safe and healthy, fingers crossed, in my house of residence for the time being but we're not taking any gambles; save a trip or two to the local park (you can follow me on Instagram for those chilling adventures if you like) I've been holed up, mole like. And given my life-long mole proclivities this hasn't been too tough. I hope the story's the same for you all. Stay strong, everybody.