Play With Me

I have been lousy about linking from here to all of the lists I've been rounding up at Mashable over the past few weeks, so a reminder: you can see all of my Mashable pieces if you click on this link. The above gif of Daniel Craig in Tomb Raider is a reference to my most recent one, where I told all the people of the world "The 10 Greatest Movies Based On Games," see that one right here. It's been a stellar couple of years for people finally figuring out what to do with video-game adaptations in particular -- we'll see if that carries over to the Super Mario movie, which I am seeing tonight! (I have my doubts, and they are shaped like Chris Pratt!) Here's that movie's trailer if you haven't seen it yet:

Quote of the Day

“He and I have this lovely long history of meeting at Hollywood events and being the two shy ones – both shy and tickled pink and pinching ourselves and looking forward to telling people at home, but not confident enough to step in and talk to, say, Angelina Jolie.”

-- That is Tilda Swinton talking about how she and Pedro Almodovar bonded at an Oscar party in 2008, and oh to be a wallflower planted beside those two eh? That quote is out of a truly wonderful long piece on the actor in The Guardian that I very much recommend taking the time with -- I thought I'd just skim it and then get back to it over lunch but I was one hundred percent sucked in. The part about Derek Jarman's death and all the AIDS deaths in that time period, and how she identified with the TV series It's a Sin from this past year, was especially moving. Anyway go read it! She is such a fascination and gift. Here is one more quote for the road:

"My experience of grief is a kind of emptying. All the stories stop, there is no road in front of you. It all just goes black, and it takes a long time to get over it.”

Quote of the Day

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"I just shot a Marvel film with the first openly gay superhero, The Eternals. I’m married to the gay superhero Phastos, played by Atlanta’s Brian Tyree Henry, and we represent a gay family and have a child... [there's] a beautiful, very moving kiss. Everyone cried on set. For me it’s very important to show how loving and beautiful a queer family can be. Brian Tyree Henry is such a tremendous actor and brought so much beauty into this part, and at one point I saw a child in his eyes, and I think it’s important for the world to be reminded that we in the queer community were all children at one point. We forget that because we’re always depicted as sexual or rebellious. We forget to connect on that human part."

Part of me worries about sharing this news via an interview with the out actor Haaz Sleiman in NewNowNext last week, because for one he hasn't been officially announced as a part of the cast of Eternals yet as far as I can tell (he's not listed on its IMDB page, for one), and this seems like a weird way for us to find something this big out. Of course the IMDb page for Eternals, which isn't out until the end of this year, only has eleven cast-members on it right now and if I had to guess there are more then eleven people in their new super-team movie. That said Sleiman isn't part of the team, it's Brian Tyree Henry's character called Phastos...

... who is part of the team, and who's to say that this character's home life will end up in the final cut? If you want a really good rundown on the character of Phastos by the way click right here, they've got scans of comic-book appearances through the decades and everything. Basically it's convoluted, like it is with all comic book characters, but it sounds like Phastos is a pacifist who at one point gets trapped in human form and forgets he's an Eternal altogether. In the comics he has to give up his human life to re-join the Eternals; I'm guessing, if this plot stays in, that'll be a gay family he has to say goodbye to?

Anyway, to just ask the obvious question we're all thinking  -- is Bryan Tyree Henry gay? When the "first openly gay Marvel Superhero" was being cast there was talk that the actor playing the gay superhero would be gay -- we were all real excited it might be Richard Madden, since he was "hanging out with" his "buddy" Brandon Flynn at the time -- but I am clueless about Henry's sexuality. That'll be amazing if so, if we can claim him, he was so great in Widows and If Beale Street Could Talk.

As for Sleiman he is indeed openly gay -- not to mention Muslim and on top of that (heh) a "total bottom" as he once put it so eloquently -- and he has been out for awhile; he was playing gay on Nurse Jackie a full decade ago. I didn't watch that show so I mainly recognize him from 2007's The Visitor with Richard Jenkins, a great movie indeed. But Sleiman's Instagram is awful giving, and if you'd like to get a taste of the giving hit the jump, I gathered up a few...

Tye Another One Off

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I don't know that I would have bothered to do this post if I hadn't luckily uncovered the above photo (click to embiggen) from Tye Sheridan's 2018 photoshoot for W Magazine -- when we previously posted that shoot the above shot, which was the magazine's cover image (for obvious reasons), was covered with typographical nonsense, which always gets on my nerves. But there it is without all that crap! Clean unfettered eyeball access to Tye, just how's we like it. Anyway...

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... that there is the trailer for Tye's upcoming thriller The Night Clerk (via),which is what got me googling Tye in the first place. The movie, which is out on February 20th, is about a hotel clerk with a dash of autism who spies on his guests in order to teach himself What Normies Act Like, which obviously leads to danger and disaster and Knives Out It Girl Ana De Armas sexytimes as well? The movie, besides Armas, also co-stars John Leguizamo, Helen Hunt, and Johnathan Schaech, and was directed by Michael Cristofer whose last film was the Jolie / Banderas / Thomas Jane camp-fest Original Sin way back in 2001! We remember that movie fondly because if gifted us a ton of Sleazy Hot Thomas Jane Content...

... so basically we're now hoping that there's a secret sleaze-fest buried in The Night Clerk too. It's got enough of a Sliver rip-ff story to keep that hope alive too, I think. The world needs more campy erotic thrillers, certainly not less. Anyway in summation besides that top photo I scrounged up a few random Tye Sheridan photos that I've never posted before in all of my many former Tye Sheridan posts, and I've got those for your eyeballs after the jump...

Get Some Good Dickinson This Weekend

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I was just now looking through the movies out in theaters this weekend  -- that aren't The Lighthouse or Jojo Rabbit anyway, both of which you can see below I've already covered a'plenty today -- and was reminded that oh right there is a Maleficent sequel. And it's got Michelle Pfeiffer in it! That's all lovely and great but when it comes to posting something here I had to find the dudes, and it's got some good ones. That's Beach Rats star Harris Dickinson seen above -- he's playing a prince or some shit. But there's also David Gyasi (he's the guy who got to fuck around with Julian Morris in Man in an Orange Shirt, for one) and also Deadpool baddie Ed Skrein, and...

... Ed has a whole lot of look going on. Like... a whole lot. He's the sexiest half-man half-horned-thing since James McAvoy, maybe? Point being I'd watch the gay porn parody of Maleficent featuring those three in a skinny minute, I would. The actual Maleficent sequel? I'll probably wait for home video. Sorry, Harrison! Sorry, Ed. But I gots to go see The Lighthouse a third time.

All those pretty things aside I do want to make y'all aware that MNPP will not be silent per usual this weekend -- I repeat: I'm not being lazy for once! As mentioned yesterday the 2019 edition of the Brooklyn Horror Film Festival has now begun, and my reviews of films playing BHFF will start popping off tomorrow, right as they premiere there. Reviews of horror movies, what a treat for all!
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I don't know what movie Harris Dickinson is seen here getting tattooed up for but I think we can all agree who gives a fuck about movies at this moment pic.twitter.com/WsKacVFdcC

— His Name Was Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) October 18, 2019

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But holy hell bags that's not all -- our annual 13 day long Halloween celebration also kicks off tomorrow, seeing as how tomorrow is, you know, 13 days away from Halloween. In the past we've done the "13 Mustaches of Halloween" and we've done the "13 Snakes of Halloween" just to name two examples -- well this year's is even more random than ever, and I can't wait for y'all to dig in...

Eternally Kit's

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The ever expanding cast of Marvel's new superhero group hug called Eternals has just upped its Stark quota up a whole 'nother notch -- on top of Richard Madden comes Kit Harington! Sorry I just really wanted to write that sentence. Pow pow!

That is to say that Kit Harington has joined the cast alongside Richard Madden, his former Game of Thrones brother (or is that cousin?) -- Kit will be playing "Dane Whitman" who is not an "Eternal" whatever the hell an "Eternal" is (sorry I'm taking my time figuring out the new Marvel stuff -- can't I just let the movies tell me?) but is the hero also known as "Black Knight" I guess.

Richard Madden we already know's playing the character of "Ikaris" who is indeed one of them Eternals, whatever they may be... I think they might last a long time, but judging by the name "Ikaris" have some trouble spelling? Madden & Harington will co-star alongside Angelina Jolie, Gemma Chan, Salma Hayek, Kumail Nanjiani and his new big biceps, Barry Keoghan (yay), Brian Tyree Henry, and on and on. Okay whatever we're done with words, it's time for a few new Kit pics I haven't posted before, right here after the jump...

Barry Keoghan's Eternal Love

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If you'd like to click on over to The Film Experience this morning I've written up the new news on Marvel's The Eternals, which is in the process of dragging some really astonishingly cool folks into the MCU -- I say "dragging" but I doubt they're putting up much of a fight! Anyway yes Barry here's one of 'em named, and I do hope they give the good boy something to do. And I don't want them messing up that Y: The Last Man series any more than it's already messed up either. Dammit. (pics via) 

If You're Not In Marvel Now You Will Be Soon

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Do a happy dance cuz the Black Widow movie from Marvel is lining up a killer damn cast. I mean it's well past time that ScarJo got her own one of these anyway, but when you add Florence Pugh (which we already knew) and today Stranger Things' commensurate scene-stealer slash brand new Hellboy David Harbour and, drum-fucking-roll please...

... Rachel Weisz! Rachel Weisz! Holy shit, Rachel Weisz! With Angelina Jolie rumored to enter the MCU next phase as well it's official -- for better or worse every goddamned actor on Earth will be a part of this franchise in short order. Now cast Olivia Colman as Dazzler, you cowards!

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Lord McAvoy

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James McAvoy (seen there hooting it up with a more waxen than usual Angelina Jolie via his Instagram) has just landed a pretty spectacular role - he's going to play Lord Asriel in the BBC's forthcoming massive adaptation of Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials series. In the 2007 flop film adaptation this is the role that Daniel Craig played - it's basically the main adult male role, getting more important as the series wears on. I sadly couldn't find any pictures of Jim & Dan in each other's presence in real life so here let's just look at the following and pretend they just had a really hardcore workout, one on one...

Anyway back in March I told you all about this series - it's being shepherded by The King's Speech director Tom Hooper, which means we'll see a lot of the wallpaper probably. Do a good job with the wallpaper, set decorators! I think James is really great casting for Lord Asriel - he will surely wear tweed and grow out his lightly salted ginger beard to look scholarly for it and with that we all win.

Wu Raider

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There is a whole lotta CG sturm und drang in in the new trailer for the Tomb Raider reboot starring Mrs. Michael Fassbender but none of it comes close to making my ass find a seat opening weekend as much as the two shots of her co-star Daniel Wu in a tank top do. (See plenty more of Mr. Wu right here.)

Giving Lara Croft a scorching hot man to bump ugly bon mots with was a blessed part of the Angelina Jolie Experience as well - Daniel Craig & Gerard Butler sauntered around being objectified in the original duology, and the movies (generally terrible movies) were just the slightest bit better for it. Glad to see they're sticking true to that much, at least! Watch:

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Tomb Raider is out on March 16th.

What do you think? Yay? Nay? Wu Too?

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Original Sin (2001)

Julia: It's the theater. I love it.
Even the cheap melodrama.

In a week that brought us the news that Paul Verhoeven's Showgirls is getting a 4K restoration and re-release (for now just in Europe but I have no doubts we can scream loud enough here in the US for them to hear us)  we must also turn our camp-detectors over to this torrid trash-heap starring Angelina Jolie and Antonio Banderas, which was released exactly 15 years ago today. I've always had too soft a spot for this godawful thing, but then I do love me some cheap melodrama, and I do love me some sleazy bisexual Thomas Jane...

... on which count man does this movie deliver. Well the sleazy part at least -- the bisexual thing is one of those forced kisses that everybody looks like they wanna barf from. But TJ brings the sleaze and then some in his sex-scene with Jolie (who's never shied away from sleaze herself, bless her). Come let us stare at the delicious NSFW sleaze after the jump....

Quote of the Day

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"Time magazine ran a poll and there were, like, 100 actors on the list, including Angelina Jolie. But, yes, it’s nice to be included in the 100. ... I’m a huge fan of the series. We all went to see Spectre when we were shooting Skull Island in Hawaii. I simply love the theme tune, the tropes and the mythology. I love the whole thing. If it ever came knocking, it would be an extraordinary opportunity... And I’m very aware of the physicality of the job. I would not take it lightly.”

--- That would be Tom Hiddleston (and I'm sure you never would've guessed, what with these gigantic pictures of Tom Hiddleston) talking to The Sunday Times about how shaked and/or stirred he's currently feeling. The best thing about this quote, and the least reported, is the final bit, wherein he promises us he will get his ass speedo-prepared a la Daniel Craig. You're making the right case for the job, Tommy boy! (thanks Mac)

Movie Monsters Original Flavor

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Try as they might to charm us James McAvoy and Danny Radcliffe couldn't keep Victor Frankenstein from flopping pretty hard this weekend, and over at The Film Experience this, along with Crimson Peak's bad box office, inspired Nathaniel to wonder:

"Do you think Universal is getting worried about their classic movie monster multiverse plans? Today's audiences maybe don't have a yearning for the gothic flavors of more old school horror?"

Victor looked terrible from every angle but he's got a point when it comes to Crimson Peak, which is a failure I still can't comprehend. It was so good! Don't cry, Tom Hiddleston...

... I still love you. But Universal is pushing it still - as mentioned last week they are desperate for Angelina Jolie to play the Bride and they just hired Tom Cruise for their Mummy reboot. I personally think the blockbuster approach to these creaky old franchises is poison - just look at Van Helsing (god forbid anybody look at Van Helsing) or the botched Wolf Man movie for proof of that. Francis Ford Coppola did make Dracula work back in 1992 but back then a studio actually let an auteur indulge his strangest whims -- do you really think Universal would let a lady hump a were-man today?

If only. I wanna live in that place again! Well at least we'll always have the original films, and hey look -- Amazon has the boxed-set of original films, everything from Dracula to the Frankensteins to The Invisible Man and Creature From the Black Lagoon, on super sale today! Go buy it, and then answer this question...

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It's Alive Or Is It

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I was tempted to title this post "Brad of Frankenstein" but even I couldn't get around the faulty logic - yes Angelina Jolie is the "Bride" of "Brad" but "Brad of Frankenstein" just sounds like Brad Pitt will be playing Frankenstein, and yes I actually spent time parsing this out, and yes I feel the weight of the loss of those seconds. 

Aaaanyway THR is reporting that Universal dumped a ton of money down their trash compactor on Angie's By the Sea (I hadn't read that the thing has only grossed 300K so far - even for a person such as myself that thinks box office is bullshit I can see that's gotta sting) just to try to get her to star in their Bride of Frankenstein movie. 

They are, perhaps you've heard, trying to create a great big shared universe a la the Marvel movies with their Monster properties - Dracula and Frankenstein and the Wolfman and the Mummy and the Creature from yonder Black Lagoon. It all seems kind of silly to me, even as a lover of those movies, but I'd love for them to prove me wrong. Still if there's one thing big studios have proven over and over and over again these past few decades it is that they don't know how to make big budget horror movies. These will no doubt resemble the Victor Frankenstein movie coming out this weekend, replacing scariness with great big fucking explosions. 

That said I can certainly picture Angelina as the Bride, can't you?

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Brangelina Domination

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From what I hear Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt's new movie By the Sea sadly isn't shaping up to be a Boom!-esque debacle - I was really hoping that Angie would wear a headdress and slosh gin in Brad's face like holy water at some point but I guess my heart is just too open. Anyway we're talking the duo Brangelina and their previous collaboration Mr. & Mrs. Smith for this week's "Beauty vs Beast" over at The Film Experience, head on over yonder to vote.

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Little Fish Brad Fish Swimmin In The Water

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I got to watch the trailer for Angelina's newest joint By the Sea projected on an IMAX screen this past weekend (before Crimson Peak) and it felt even more "Boom! by way of a signature fragrance commercial" that large -- I reeeeeeally want this thing to be camp but I worry, judging by Jolie's previous directorial snoozers, it'll simply sit there pretty and blank like the rest. Still that's a really nice poster for the film, via The Playlist where they also share some new images, including some surprise Melvil Poupaud skin...

... and Brad being Typically Sexy Brad. Hey maybe the film will feature a surprise romance between these two! I'll keep on wishing that one right on down the drain. Anyway there's also a new featurette on the film and it shares some images of pretty people being pretty, which I capped, hit the jump for them + the video...

I Am Link

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--- Boy Girl - I don't really have a ton of interest in seeing The Danish Girl at this point in time; maybe that will change once we get closer to its release and the buzz grows... or maybe all it will take is one picture of Matthias Schoenaerts in the movie... you decide. Real tough, that one. Anyway over at TFE they're looking at Eddie Redmayne's first interview about the movie with Out Magazine, and Eddie sure does have a pretty mouth.

--- Waters Across The Pond - I finally figured out why John Waters has been giving lots of interviews lately -- the British Film Institute is doing a retrospective of his work... just like the Film Society here in NYC did last year. Copycats! And just like he did here Waters has programmed a bunch of his favorite movies to play alongside it. Vice talked to him about two of his picks, Joan Crawford's freak-feautre Trog and Boom with Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton, which we just mentioned earlier this week in relation to the new Pitt-Jolie Joint By The Sea -- as an aside did you hear that By The Sea got "a strong R-rating for 'strong sexuality, nudity, and language'" -- please let it all be Brad's!

--- Bizzaro World - I'm not sure when I started to find Henry Cavill creepy but the stone's turned in the past few months and now I've begun to see something dead in his eyes a la Tom Cruise and I don't know if there's any going back. I haven't mentioned it before because I'll probably get shit for it and I haven't really been able to pin it down but I think it's just that the more that time passes and the less genuine personality he displays in that time that he's just begun to feel like this gorgeous void, know what I mean? All his answers feel written by committee. Take his new interview on The Tonight Show where he implies that his Superman diet is fucking - once upon a time I'd have been all va-va-va-voom about that, but I have a hard time picturing Henry Cavill fucking anything anymore. And I'm sad about that! I want to picture that!

--- Girl Woman - My pal Sean got to interview comics writer Phoebe Gloeckner for The AV Club; I weirdly kinda felt the need to skim big chunks of this because I am reading her book The Diary of a Teenage Girl right now, even though I already saw the movie version and know what happens pretty much. But what I did read was great, which is fitting since Sean is very good at his job. Oh and Sean got to interview George RR Martin this week too. Damn, man.

--- And Finally we just wished Alfred Hitchcock a happy birthday a little bit ago with some "Paul Newman vs Sean Connery" hotness but this other thing is fun in a totally different gay way -- here's a list of Top Ten Fashion Moments in Hitchcock! (Thanks Mac) They rightfully begin the entire piece with a picture of Eva Marie Saint in North By Northwest in that "blood clot" gown, which is maybe give or take "anything that ever touched Grace Kelly" my favorite of all the Hitch fashion. Of course don't cry for Grace Kelly, she places well, taking up three of the ten spots. (Sidenote: did you see the picture of Grace that I instagrammed last night? I really love that picture; there's something so different and unexpected about it.) Anyway the piece is great but it really needed a picture of Kim Novak in that gown she wears the first time we see her in Vertigo, so here...

Be My Boom Tonight

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It's the movie we've been waiting for Angelina Jolie to make -- 

her ode to Brad Pitt's sexiness in (and out of) swank costumes. 

The first trailer for By the Sea, which was written and directed by Angie, is over at The Playlist and this thing could either be a nice opportunity to watch two good actors actually get to act, or it could be like Boom!, that infamous "Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton screaming at each other on an Italian island while wearing bejeweled caftans" movie... god I hope it's like Boom.

Jai Courtney's Underwear Vacation

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Earlier I told y'all I had a ton to do today; well today seems to be me trying to play catch-up with some of the gratuities I missed over the holiday break, and nobody but Bradley Cooper (see this morning) is working me harder than Jai Courtney. Besides that above new picture of his underwear campaign for Bonds (click here and here for all the previous shots), we also got...

... a video of him in half-naked Army drag jabbering about Unbroken - seriously, it's two minutes and fifteen seconds of his furry torso, dog-tags, aviator shades, an army jeep, an insanely silly hat, and Heaven. HEAVEN. Watch it here:

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On top of that, bless all the miracles of Tumblr, a bunch of pictures of him hanging out with some also-hot friends in real life made their way before my eyeballs...

... and they too are being all they can be. 

He also did a quite fine photo-shoot for Esquire...

... basically, I had a Very Courtney Christmas. And now let's all have a Very Courtney New Year by hitting the jump to see more pictures of him shirtless with friends, more photo-shoots, a shot of him and Finn Wittrock, and more much more...