Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Scream 2 (1997)

Cici: Drink with your brains, 

that's our motto.

A happy 49th birthday to the legend Sarah Michelle Gellar today! Yes it's true our beloved Buffy will be turning 50 next year -- I would say don't that make ya feel old but SMG is only a couple of months older than I am so let's just shut up and not think about any of that right now. Jinkies. Let's just celebrate this lady we love so very. Picking her role in the second Scream movie might feel a little random for this post but I maintain that her stellar work at humanizing the character of Cici in such a short window of time is part of why I actually (controversially?) prefer Scream 2 to the first movie. A recent re-watch of the original I Know What You Did Last Summer gave me the same impression -- SMG does Herculean emotional lifting with her screentime in these two 1997 slashers. She's so good! And yeah it blows that the Buffy reboot fell apart but let's hope that now that her kids are raised and she's ready to work again we'll be seeing lots of her shortly. The people demand their Smidge fix!

More Shit For Sale

If these posts are too often and annoying now... well don't let me know. I don't care. I just really have too much shit and not enough money so I'm going to keep pushing the fact that y'all should be checking my eBay account for deals on physical media and the like often, as I'm constantly -- some might say obsessively -- updating it with new things to unload. Over the break I listed a lot, including most of the box-sets of T.V. series I'd been hanging onto -- I'd love to keep the entire Buffyverse in my cold dead hands but I just no longer have the space, alas. And yes if the sleaze of Paul Verhoeven's The 4th Man as seen in the above gif is more your cuppa that's available right now as well! There's something for everybody.

Another Summer Slice And Dice

As foretold this morning my review for the latest installment of the I Know What You Did Last Summer franchise has arrived -- click on over to read it at Mashable. And what can I say except -- spoiler alert -- I liked it just fine! It's weird and it seems to actually like its main characters and (most importantly) it goes out of its way over and over and over again to properly honor the icon that is Helen Shivers -- how could I possibly complain? That said I can already tell my opinion's going to be the unpopular one -- I went to add my review to the film's Rotten Tomatoes page and was met by a great big green splat. Oh well. I've been off-brand with all the general opinions on horror movies this year, so this is just another chapter in an ongoing trend. What can I say -- the movie is dumb as hell but I had a good time, and it's got a couple of fan-service cameos that made my toes curl. I'm easy. In summation please also say hello to Joshua Orpin, who I also mentioned in this morning's earlier post -- let's get that pretty boy into my field of vision a lot more often stat.

RIP MIchelle Trachtenberg

Incredibly shocking and sad news today as we learn that Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Gossip Girl, Mysterious Skin and Harriet the Spy actress Michelle Trachtenberg has passed away at the far far far too young age of 39. I only started watching Buffy regularly in its fifth season (and had to go back and watch all the earlier seasons on DVD) so Michelle's character of Dawn never felt imposed on the show to me like it did to most people who watched the show from the start (of course that was part of the knowing wink of the character) -- anyway I was vehemently pro-Dawn and was always knocking back at the character's haters. I also got to interview Michelle in 2004 for the Abercrombie & Fitch Quarterly -- I tried to find the interview online but it doesn't seem to be anywhere. I've only done two interviews in my entire life (the other one being Michael Fassbender because how could I say no to that) because I am not a natural conversationalist (which should read: cripplingly shy) but I remember Michelle being lovely and sweet and funny in our phone convo. Our deepest condolences go out to all the people who knew and loved her. With the possibility of a Buffy reboot ahead we now have to wonder how they'll address this. How very very sad.

And I Reviewed the TV Glow

There was some crazy stupid discourse on social media yesterday (I suppose I could full stop there) about how much personal shit should go into movie reviews -- well buckle up because I dolloped a bunch of said personal shit into my review of I Saw the TV Glow, a movie which is going wide this weekend and which you can read my review of over at Pajiba right now. But then that's nothing new for me -- I am clearly pro-personalizing reviews, and find that entire conversation dumb as hell. Obviously I am one person bringing my own shit to the movie I'm talking about -- either what I have to say resonates with you or it doesn't but I couldn't care less. There are plenty of other people to read so have at it! Anyway I saw this movie way back during Sundance and knew it was hitting me in a personal way and that I was going to need a second view to write about it, and so here we are. Hope you enjoy, but I enjoyed writing it and getting it out so that's enough for me. It's quite the movie!

Good Morning, Rodrigo

Our old friend Rodrigo Santoro is Bello magazine's cover-hunk this month, looking typically hunky -- I say that but it feels like ages since we've had the pleasure! You can read the chat over at Bello, where he talks about his role on Wolf Pack, the new Teen Wolf spin-off series that co-stars one Miss Buffy Summers. Have any of you watched the show? I have actually heard it is terrible, and I also (inexplicably) never watched the original Teen Wolf in the first place, so I have not. But I am glad it's put Rodrigo in front of me again! Hit the jump for a big ol' pile of pictures...

The Slayer Turns 25

I wish I hadn't had my mind elsewhere (a dozen elsewheres) so I'd have realized that today is the 25th anniversary of Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer series, which premiered with the episode "Wecome to the Hellmouth" on the WB on March 10th, 1997. I have it written in my calendar annually, that today is the show's anniversary, but it only hit me this morning that the years add up to 25 making this one a pretty big one, anniversary-wise. 

Of course there's a reason I haven't spent a ton of time thinking about Buffy, my all-time favorite television series, lately, and I suppose you can guess -- hell I already said the name. After that interview Joss Whedon gave a few months back where he showed not just little remorse but very little understanding of the ways in which his behavior harmed people, well I've been putting the show out of my mind lately because it's complicated, and there are plenty enough other complicated things going on in the world that wrestling with Buffy just hasn't been the highest priority among them.

Still here it is, twenty-five. That's a number! As I've admitted before (MNPP has extensive Buffy archives, if you would like to have some inkling of my obsession) I didn't start watching Buffy at the start anyway -- I was in college and didn't watch much of any TV while in college. I didn't start watching the show until the 5th season. My best friend, who loved the show, tried to get me to watch earlier, but unfortunately the episode she showed me is the show's maybe worst episode, the one in the 4th season called "Beer Bad," and I was having none of it.

Anyway happy birthday, Buffy. I am going to leave it to other people to wrestle with the show's legacy today -- I don't have it in me. I haven't even watched an episode in a few years. My boyfriend's re-watching Angel while he cooks right now so I've seen glimpses of that one as of late; I just started binging The X-Files for something to kill in-between time with and that's gonna take a good while to work through. So maybe next year for 26 me and Buffy can talk. I'm sure our whole thing isn't going anywhere. If anybody wants to talk Buffy have at it in the comments!

HAPPY 25 TO BUFFY! pic.twitter.com/QBEm1oM3m0

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) March 10, 2022

Paul Bettany One Time

It's been a good few months for anyone -- i.e. anyone with eyes -- who appreciates the sight of Paul Bettany wearing tight 70s clothing, thanks to his gay uncle movie Uncle Frank (see more here)...

... and thanks to this past week's third episode of WandaVision, which was set in the 1970s. Or set in the sitcom version of the 1970s, or whatever you want to call it. All I know is it turns out Paul wears that era's ridiculous fashions maybe better than anyone I've ever seen, and should go looking for more 70s projects immediately. 

As for WandaVision this I suppose is my first admission here on the site proper that I am indeed actually watching that show -- are you? I was simultaneously bored and intrigued by its first episode but the second my beloved Emma Caulfield (aka Anya on Buffy) showed up as the queen bee neighbor I was all in, unreservedly. The show can do anything, literally anything, now -- it hired Emma Caulfield. It's gold. (Sidenote: really ashamed I didn't put together this bit of Buffy-adjacent geekiness.) 

As with most things Marvel I am only mildly involved with what I'm watching otherwise -- it's fun and a solid goofy distraction, and I do like falling down some of the nerdier rabbit-roles about what's going on (there's a massive piece in THR today that seems to think they've sorted out the next Big Bad for the MCU thanks to the show), but it's in one ear out the other for me, and I pretty much forget what happened ten minutes after it happened. That said if they want to fulfill my single Marvel Wish, I sure won't argue...

The concept of this show, as far as I understand it, opens itself up to the return of a CERTAIN SOMEBODY though doesn’t it? I’m gonna be mad if it doesn’t happen #WandaVision pic.twitter.com/aV9ioNYAeT

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 17, 2021

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)

Did any of you remember Ryan Phillippe's death scene in this movie before I just showed it to you? I had absolutely no recollection of this scene, and I've seen this movie several times. I actually went and looked at the cast of this movie's 1998 sequel -- which you might know as I Still Know What You Did Last Summer -- in order to make sure his character actually got killed, because who even remembers this lame scene? I remember his shower scene...

... far better than I remember his death scene. I know I'm not alone on that count, but I suppose that says as much about me slash us as it says about Ryan Phillippe's skills as an actor. (On that, uhh, note -- a real happy birthday to Ryan today!) But still, this is the Fate no one truly wants -- a totally forgettable death scene. At least Sarah Michelle Gellar acts the hell out of it. On that note, and to Phillippe's defense, I think most of the violence in this film is totally forgettable except all the stuff SMG's involved in -- she's way better in this movie then this movie deserved. Sigh. Now I miss SMG. 

Hit the jump for links to all of the Ways Not To Die...

Great Moments in Movie Shelves #194

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If last week's edition of our "Ways Not To Die" series wasn't enough of a hint we've been on a Howling kick for some godforsaken reason lately... actually let me step that back, I know why it happened -- I posted about Ryan Gosling playing the "Wolfman" in an upcoming reboot and the Howling series of movies came up in the comments and that got me to watch the first three in the span of a couple of days. Fascinating, I'm sure. 

Anyway I'm pretty sure I'm going to stop where I am (I might watch the fourth one for the supposed Michael T. Weiss of it if I'm feeling especially vulnerable) because, as insane as the films progressively get -- and the third film, my god, is really as crazy as they come -- they're also excruciatingly bad. That said the first movie here, Joe Dante's 1981 original, is the best of the bunch and even if I think it's often a bit of a snooze there's a lot to recommend, the least of which most certainly is not the rando scene where none less that the legend Dick Miller shows up as the owner of an occult bookstore.

IMDb says The Other Side bookstore was a real place (at 6607 Hollywood Blvd) in Los Angeles in 1981 when the film was made, but I can't find anything else about it -- there's a souvenir shop there today, called World's Best Souvenirs (check it out on Google Maps). Anyway it looks like it was a fun place if it was indeed real -- reminiscent of Giles' occult boutique called The Magic Box on Buffy. Any old-school Angelenos who know if it was a real place or not?

The Howling is structured so strangely, with probably way too many characters drifting around in its story -- I know they needed victims for the wolves to eat but it feels like Dee Wallace's main character Karen (ha she's such a Karen) gets sidelined for too much of the story while Belinda Balaski's Terry here does all of the werewolf-sleuthing that Karen probably ought to be doing herself. You add in their respective menfolk and The Howling is as damned cluttered as...

... an occult bookshop run by Dick effing Miller. (The Taxidermied Armadillo of it all!) That's not to say I don't love Belinda Balaski in this movie -- honestly I think I probably like Terry more than I do Karen? And that could've been director Joe Dante's intention -- Terry's death-scene is really truly awful to witness, even despite Joe Dante's pitch-dark humor ladled liberally on plus that slightly goofy dog-eared werewolf these films insist upon giving us. Poor Terry.

By Bloody Glory

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Buffy and How To Get Away With Murder actor Charlie Weber -- see our previous posts on him here -- just 'grammed this photo from the set of HTGAWM, saying "a lot happens" on tonight's episode, and I don't watch that show but it looks like what he is saying might be true. Anyway that photo reminded me of a poll I did a couple of years back around Halloween time involving a whole bunch of hot guys slathered in karo syrup, and when I went looking for the post I found the poll service I'd used back then wasn't working any more. So I fixed it, and now you should go back and vote on that poll again. I promise you lots of sexy bloody hotness at the link will be your prize for clicking through.

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We Need To Talk About Buffy

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I'm sure all you fine people read the news over the weekend that Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of our most seminal shows, is getting the reboot treatment - Joss Whedon is involved as an Executive Producer but as far as we know all that means is his name will be slapped on the credits for legal purposes and also to keep the original show's fans from freaking the fuck out. Sure sure they say he's working with the reboot's showrunner-to-be - Monica Owusu-Breen, who's worked on almost all the big geek properties of the past two decades from Charmed to Alias to Lost to Fringe, but most recently she was responsible for Midnight, Texas, which I never watched but I did admire from afar its determination to get Francois Arnaud in his underpants...

... and I could see that instinct serving her well in the future on any projects. Anyway I'm sure you can sense my TONE here - I definitely have a tone and it's clearly one of skepticism. We're still unsure how rebooty - we are talking about Buffy so excuse me if I start adding "y"'s to the end of random words - it is what we're talking about here. Are they totally throwing out all of Buffy, or will this take place in the same world, just years later? The world of Buffy brings a lot of baggage, especially after the series finale's happenings, I get it. But casting a new girl as Buffy? Just drive a stake in the poor girl's heart and get it done with.

What do you guys think?

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I Am Link

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--- Truth Hurts - I haven't bothered watching this myself because the trailer is in French without subtitles but the first trailer for Roman Polanski's new movie has been released, and seeing as how his new movie is an erotic update on Single White Female (or given the fact that Single White Female was already a bit erotic you can call this one "erotic-er") starring Emmanuelle Seigner and EVA GREEN then maybe you don't care it's in French, maybe you just wanna look anyway. The movie's called Based on a True Story and it's out in France in November but we don't have a date here yet. Gimme!

--- Pickles Fever - Liking Jim Carrey has become a dangerous proposition lately due to real-world crazy-person circumstances but I fear I won't be able to help myself now that he's making a TV series with his Eternal Sunshine director Michel Gondry. It'll be called Kidding, it'll air on Showtime, and it's about Mr. Pickles, a kiddie show icon (think Mr. Rogers) whose entire personal and eventually professional life implodes around him. Which, you know, sounds very much like a role the current iteration of Jim Carrey can play.

--- Goodbye Dougie Jones - This week's banner friend David Lynch was asked about the possibility of more Twin Peaks at an event in Belgrade this week and he said it is possible but we shouldn't hold our breath because such a thing would take several years and if we hold our breath for several years that isn't called Transcendental Meditation it is called Dead. Oh and he also tweeted out the news that the blu-rays of the latest mind-fuck of a season will be out in December, just in time for stocking stuffers! (I love that David Lynch uses Twitter, btw.)

--- White Knight - I pointed you to one fantastic Mike White interview yesterday, but can we really have too many Mike White interviews? No, no we cannot. So here is one for Slate, and then over here is one for Backstage magazine (thx Mac). And I'm glad to hear from some commenters that his new movie Brad's Status, the one he's giving all these interviews for, is good and the bad trailer is not at all indicative of the movie's quality. I didn't really ever doubt that, but personal confirmation is peachy keen. Now let's all go see it this weekend together and make sure a Mike White movie does well, okay?

--- Horror Orchestras - David Gordon Green is a nerd just like you and me (well okay he's a nerd with an extraordinary amount of talent and success, so maybe there are some differences) and so he's determined when he makes his horror movie remake it will have music from the person whose iconic music made the original work in the first place. We heard it when he was re-doing Suspiria and he was going to get Goblin to do the music, and now that he's moved from that project (leaving it to Luca Guadagnino) onto the reboot of Halloween he is saying that he's trying his damndest to get John Carpenter to do the music for that.

--- After Dentata - Hey remember Teeth? Of course you do, Teeth was wonderful. (And also it had Hale Appleman in it, who I think of often.) But Teeth was also ten fucking years ago. Where oh where has its director Mitchell Lichtenstein been all that time? Well he made a movie in 2009 called Happy Tears with Parker Posey that I missed (anybody see it?) and he made another movie in 2015, it just hasn't been released... until now. It is called Angelica and it 's a gothic horror movie starring Jena Malone and Janet McTeer and it's getting dropped onto VOD on November 17th and you can watch the trailer right over here. Good things fall through the cracks sometimes so maybe this is one of them, fingers crossed.

--- Mutants United - This news is several days old but still worth a heads-up - Drew Goddard, the talented Buffy alum who hasn't directed another movie since he directed the still wonderful movie The Cabin in the Woods five whole years ago, has signed on to make X-Force, the X-Men and Deadpool spin-off that will apparently put Deadpool 2's upcoming Josh Brolin character of Cable more front and center as the lead dude of a gang of militant mutants. I don't read the comics so I don't care about the geek side to this - I'm just happy that Goddard's finally taking another spin in the director's seat. (He was supposed to make a Spider-man spin-off a couple of years ago but that all fell apart.) (Sidenote: Josh Brolin has gotten enormous for the role of Cable and his Instagram account has become a love letter to his own muscles, so you should probably be following him.)

--- And Finally Radiohead has teamed up with BRAMMMM artist Hans Zimmer to re-do their song "Bloom" off of The King of Limbs album for the soundtrack to the upcoming BBC nature doc series Blue Planet II - the remix is oh so cleverly called "(ocean) bloom" and it'll be attached to a short prequel for the series proper, I guess. Apparently the original version of the song was inspired by the first Blue Planet, so this was meant to be. Oh and speaking of Radiohead if you haven't seen their latest music video for their old song "Lift" (which finally got a proper release, twenty years later, on the anniversary reissue of OK Computer you should, it's lovely and it's below. Pitchfork talked to its director who gave a bunch of behind-the-scenes dirt and Easter Eggs, if you're a Thom Yorke Nerd like me. (thx Mac)

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Nicholas Hoult Five Times

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These pictures are a couple years old (also they are very large so you should click on them) but they fit right in with how Nicky looks in the trailer for Rebel in the Rye, his quick approaching bio-pic of JD Salinger (see the trailer right here), so we might as well share them now. Not that we needed that reason. Or any. But it gives me something to write anyway!

Oh wait I do have something to write - Rebel is out here in NYC the weekend of September 8th and the IFC Center is doing some screenings (including a preview one on the 7th) with writer-director (and one third of the Nerd Trio) Danny Strong there for Q&As, in case you're around and into that. I don't know if I should go since I wouldn't really want to ask him about anything besides Buffy. Anyway hit the jump for more Nicky...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

House of Games (1987)

Patient: Y'know, I know there are 

people who are normal. 

Dr. Ford: Are there? 

Patient: Yes, there are. But... 

Dr. Ford: But what? 

Patient: But I don't know what those people do. 

I feel like people don't talk about what a great movie House of Games is often enough. For that matter people don't talk about what a great actress Lindsay Crouse is nearly often enough either. She's turning 69 years old today and she is woefully under-used and underappreciated, don't you think? I see via her IMDb that she's been doing the Law & Order thing for the past few years? Well it's good she's working but somebody needs to give her a prime fucking part. How could you not want to write for Lindsay Crouse? What a privilege that would be. She comes off so terrifically steely and hard-edged and smart.

At least Joss Whedon was smart enough to use her -- I was going to say he was also dumb enough to kill her character off and replace her with Adam (ugh Adam) but apparently I have just learned that Crouse wanted out of her Buffy contract at the last minute and Adam was a fill-in for whatever they had planned. Huh. I take back bad thoughts, Joss!

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The Grr & The Argh

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If you thought we were finished celebrating Buffy's 20th anniversary you don't know nothing -- this week's "Beauty vs Beast" over at The Film Experience is tackling my two favorite villains from the show... or the ones that Buffy didn't bonk, anyway. Well... as far as we know. Now there's some slash-fic... that I am 100% sure without looking already exists.

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