What's In The Box, Dakota

Dakota Fanning just turned 30 last week and it looks like it might be an important year for her professionally -- she is of course co-starring opposite Andrew Scott in the series Ripley (yes in the Gywneth role) that's out on Netflix on April 3rd. But yesterday some more cool news broke -- she's leading the new horror movie from Bryan Bertino, director of The Strangers and The Dark and the Wicked! (The Dark and the Wicked is so underrated.) The movie is called Vicious (excellent title, shocked it hasn't been a horror movie before) and here is how it is described (it sounds a lot like Richard Kelly's The Box to me):

"The plot follows a young woman who must spend the night fighting for her existence as she slips down a disturbing rabbit hole contained inside a mysterious gift from a late-night visitor."

13 Bunnies of Halloween #12

At the end of Eli Roth's Cabin Fever (2002) our sort-of hero Paul (Rider Strong) has made it to the hospital after a string of, you know, negative set-backs. Up to and including the fact that he's infected with the deadly plague that's killed all of his friends in horrifically gruesome ways right in front of him over the course of the past couple of days. And as he's wheeled down the hallway he looks into one of the rooms and he sees a giant bunny man holding a stack of pancakes and a syringe.

As one does. As batshit at the moment is, it is a silly reference to something that had come earlier in the film -- that little blond boy on the gurney is the same little boy who bit Paul on the hand at the start of the film, and who later had a freak-out where he started screaming" Pancakes!!!" while showing off some wild tae kwan do moves...

No, none of this ever made "sense" but there is a throughline to the nonsense, at least! (Also -- the bunny's syringe is one hundred percent loaded with maple syrup right? I think that's a given.) As far as I know Eli Roth has never said what the hell was going on here -- this piece here says that Roth saw the kid actor practising his moves on the day of filming and decided to give him a showcase, but that doesn't explain bunnies or pancakes. The best explanation seems to be it's a reference to the equally surreal bear-suit moment in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining...

... where logic's meant to have fully leapt out the window and we've entered the land of madness. And that works fine for me. Also Roth is friends with Richard Kelly (recall his cameo in Southland Tales) so manybe there's some Frank from Donnie Darko in there  as well. Whatever the case nobody's talking, as the film's end credits make perfectly clear:

13 Bunnies of Halloween #5

Frank says Sundays are for rest.

5 Off My Head: Sister Maggie May I

Today we wish the sister Gyllenhaal a happy 45th birthday! Maggie, that is. We tend to lavish all the attention on her brother but we're quite fond of her too -- beyond all of her terrific turns in front of the camera she proved herself a fantastic screenwriter and director last year as well with her fabulous debut film The Lost Daughter. Crazy that The Lost Daughter is a first film, quite honestly -- very much hope she's keen to direct again. As long as she keeps acting -- directing has stolen our Sarah Polleys and for the most part our Greta Gerwigs already; we can't lose every brash and intelligent presence on-screen.

That said going through her filmography just now I've realized there are a surprising number of her most praised turns that I've never seen -- I've never seen Crazy Heart, I've never seen The Kindergarten Teacher. I've only seen the first season of The Deuce. What the fuck have I been doing with my life? Anyway I do want to give some love to the ones I have seen, so we made a list!

My 5 Favorite Maggie Gyllenhaal Performances

Elizabeth, Donnie Darko (2001)

"You can go suck a fuck."

Sherry, Sherrybaby (2006)

"I'll suck your dick if you give me the job I want."

Lee, Secretary (2002)

"Just a scoop of creamed potatoes,
one slice of butter, and four peas."

Clara, Frank(2014)

"Stay away from my fucking theremin.."

LN, Away We Go (2009)

"If I could I would lay my eggs in your brood pouch."

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What are your favorite Maggie performances?

Pimps Don't Commit Suicide

In the run-up to today's drop of Arrow's fancy schmancy blu-ray of Richard Kelly's mucho maligned 2006 flick Southland Tales -- which includes the also mucho maligned longer "Cannes Cut" of the film -- there have been approximately eleventy billion interviews with Kelly talking about the movie (this has been compounded by the 20th anniversary of Donnie Darko). Far more than I could ever begin to link to. Just google his name, they'll all come up, I promise. And I even watched the "Cannes Cut" a few weeks ago hoping I'd have something to say about the movie here. But... this movie, man. This movie still defeats my ability to say anything coherent about it. I both hate it and love it in equal measure -- it confounds me. I thought it might be better, 15 years on, but...

I AM GOING IN
WISH ME LUCK pic.twitter.com/qaCHHTdBnz

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 27, 2020

... no. Nope. Nada. I still just kind of sit there dazed by the thing. (By the way that tweet above, if you click over to Twitter, will give you a Twitter thread from December when I re-watched all three of Richard Kelly's movies -- Tales, Darko, and The Box -- within a 24-hour span.) I feel like I could make two columns, a Love and a Hate column, and diagram Southland that way, and maybe that flatness might approach the actual way Southland makes me feel, but then I'd be no better than the Jim Cunninghams & Kitty Farmers of the world, would I?

I love that Kelly got to make Southland Tales more than I actually love the experience of sitting through it -- it's always inspirational when batshit of its magnitude gets funded. I just don't think Southland, and what it is about, speaks to me like Darko did and does and forever will -- even The Box on this re-watch felt like it had more to tell me than Tales does. But if Kelly ever does get to make the sequel like he keeps saying he wants to in all of these interviews (he will not) I will be there opening night, that I promise.

The Dream King

You'd think I'd be better prepared for the 75th birthday of the man I consider the greatest living filmmaker, but as I keep saying today -- my mind has been awfully elsewhere! I mean I also forgot to mark the 20th anniversary of Donnie Darko yesterday, but you can see the tweet-thread linked below for a little about that though, at least...

Jake Gyllenhaal on Donnie Darko's 20th "Pulled out my script & some artifacts from Donnie Darko. It was released 20 years ago today. It’s a film that changed my life and my career and it’s been unreal to watch this story find afterlives with new audiences and new generations..." pic.twitter.com/PenximK87D

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 20, 2021

Anyway we love you, Mr. David Lynch! Happy 75! And we can't wait to find out what that super-secret project is that you're supposedly at work on. (More Twin Peaks? Laura Dern just screaming in a loop? Ten more hours of that talking monkey? I'll take any of it.) Y'all can wander though MNPP's David Lynch Archives if you want more, there's plenty, but here on this very happy 75th of his I ask you...

What's David Lynch's Best Movie?

And With That, Happy 40 to Jake Gyllenhaal

After a full week of celebrating Jake Gyllenhaal, this is it and it is here, folks -- it's his 40th birthday today! We've come so far! You shoulder never ever underestimate my ability to stretch my Jake Gyllenhaal obsession unto total annihilation for all parties involved. On that note, even though I recapped the entire week as it went along, it just feels right to give us a round-up of everything in one final post. So here be links to all of Jake Week!

Day 1: Jake's Finest Nutters

Day 2: Jake's Best Costumes

Day 3: Jake's Best Nudity

Day 4: Jake's Best Partners

Day 5: Jake's Best Movies, Ranked!

I also included some bonus content in the Twitter thread I kept up all week for this series, so make sure you click over and check that out. There are very important pieces of the puzzle to be seen therein. Very important! 

I truly should have made this holy rectangle of space the site's banner for this week pic.twitter.com/OmHOGO68oa

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 18, 2020

Anyway I live in abject terror every day of my life that my fanboying over Jake will ever be seen by his own big beautiful eyeballs so god forbid he read this message himself, but we here at MNPP truly do wish him the best 40th birthday. He's been my favorite actor for 19 years and counting, and I don't foresee that changing any time soon. He continues to challenge himself and do strong, interesting work, and the projects he's got lined up on IMDb (all of which we've covered in minute detail already, of course) all sound like shit I wanna watch. Good work, and Happy Birthday, You.

And now a bonus! Because I am incapable of ever stopping. And also y'all deserve a treat after all this rambling. I noticed when I worked on the nudity list on Wednesday that Jake has a nude scene I've somehow never posted here on the site, which... well, that is a truly, wildly inexplicable thing. It's from Velvet Buzzsaw, he does the cutest little "hey here's my butt" waddle, and I've got the whole thing giffed right on after the jump...

10 Off My Head: Jake the Top

If you haven't been here all week... what, you have something better to do? You know we are in the middle of a pandemic, right? We're in the middle of a pandemic, it's literally life or death out there, and you still can't come to MNPP before Friday? I mean, I am trying to not be offended here. Trying, but failing. It's fine. It's fine. Whatever. I'll carry on. So like I was saying, if you haven't been here all week to see it, because you've been, I don't know, preferring to stare at the wall then read all my hard work or whatever, then you've missed that I've spent all week celebrating the 40th birthday of the actor Jake Gyllenhaal, which is tomorrow. 

I've been celebrating with lists! Ridiculous lists! Monday I did his best nutbag roles, Tuesday I did his greatest costumes, Wednesday I went lascivious and stared at his bum a bunch, and yesterday I picked his best screen partners. For today, our final day, I figured I'd better go big or go home. I mean I'd love to go home. Did I mention the pandemic? We should all be home. But I digress. Here on our last day of list-making I challenged myself to a most painful proposition. I have decided to not just pick my ten favorite Jake movies... BUT TO RANK THEM. Oh my god this one hurt, you guys. I am bloody, my brains are battered, and all for your entertainment. Enjoy!

My 10 Favorite Jake Gyllenhaal Movies... Ranked!!!

10. Jarhead (dir. Sam Mendes)

9. Okja (dir. Bong Joon-ho)

8. Source Code (dir. Duncan Jones)

7. The Sisters Brothers (dir. Jacques Audiard)

6. Zodiac (dir. David Fincher)

5. Wildlife (dir. Paul Dano)

4. Donnie Darko (dir. Richard Kelly)

3. Nightcrawler (dir. Dan Gilroy)

2. Enemy (dir. Denis Villenueve)

1. Brokeback Mountain (dir. Ang Lee)

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That number one was obvious from outer space, I'm sure.

Now tell me yours in the comments...

Make Way For Miss Malone

Just now linking up to yesterday's "Great Moments in Horror Actressing" post here a day late since it went up last night after I'd already skedaddled my ass home for the evening -- but that is right, that thought that you had seeing that picture of Jena Malone above, this week's subject is indeed Miss Jena Malone! We love her -- from the glory of Donnie Darko on through her recent collabs with Nicolas Winding Refn...

... she's proven herself a former child actor with genuine adult-sized talent. And the first time I really took notice of that was in Carter Smith's 2008 horror flick The Ruins, which is this week's subject over at The Film Experience, click on over for that. In related news Malone is the villainous Plantation Belle in next week's horror flick Antebellum, which... I will review next week. But I shared the poster and trailer over here, way back in March when the film was meant to come out, pre-COVID.

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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Oh man she's not gonna listen is she? 

She's gonna open the box...

You had one thing to do, and that was NOT open the box, lady!

Jeez! Hit the jump for the rest of this scene...