Good Morning, World

 Got a case of the Mondays? No worries --

Logan Marshall-Green is here to wake you up.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Upgrade (2018)

Stem: It does not make sense that
humans deliberately malfunction.

Grey: Yeah, that's because your memories
are filled with ones and zeros, pal, and our memories
are filled with every fuck-up we've ever made.

Happy 5 to one of the best action movies of recent years!

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

The Invitation (2015)

Will: You look different, Edie. 

Eden: I am different. I'm free. All that useless pain, 

it's gone. It's something anyone can have, Will, 

and I want you to have it too.

Happy 5 to one of the greatest horror films of our age, Karyn Kusama's masterpiece of resolute tension The Invitation -- I don't think we really appreciated at the time how great it was, or how great it would be; talk about prescience. It saw QAnon coming, that's for damn sure. The feeling that the people we love have been co-opted by illogic, their traumas weaponized by outside forces, their happy smiling faces turned to terrifying masks. I can't remember if I've mentioned it here on the site proper or just tweeted about it but I have an old, good friend who I lost to the Q-cult and this movie in retrospect nails everything about the experience -- the sense of confusion and betrayal, of slamming your head up against an impenetrable place. It's weird now going back and re-reading my original very positive review of the film, how innocent that review seems now. How could we have known what was coming? Well The Invitation did. It put out the red lanterns lighting the way.

Good Morning, World

I'd been thinking seriously about re-watching Ridley Scott's Prometheus lately, when suddenly this gif of Logan Marshall-Green popped up on my timeline and further made the case -- and is that Michael Fassbender (or maybe Sean Harris) in the background to boot? Oh I gotta re-watch Prometheus. There was a movie at Sundance that I mostly did not like, save...

There is life before Logan Marshall-Green flipping his hair in slow-motion while carrying two puppies and there is life after Logan Marshall-Green flipping his hair in slow-motion while carrying two puppies #Sundance

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 30, 2021

... all the scenes that had Logan in them, and it reminded me how under-utilized he somehow remains even after all the proof he rules -- Upgrade! The Invitation! Those live Instagram meditation videos that he leads every so often with the camera aimed directly at his crotch! What's not to love? 

Pics of the Day

Well this is news to me -- last year I posted several times about a forthcoming WWII-set television program called Shadowplay that would star Taylor Kitsch, Logan Marshall-Green, Michael C Hall, Sebastian Koch, and best of all the great Nina Hoss, created by the folks behind the show The Bridge. Well apparently the entire damn thing already played on German TV? And not recently either -- it played way back in October! Not sure if I have any German readers but if any of you did catch the show please, share! 

I only found this information out today as I stumbled upon these photos of Taylor & Logan, all period-costumed up, looking sharp as expected. Otherwise I haven't heard a peep about the program, quality-wise. Looking at these photos though, I'm not sure I entirely care about the quality... besides the quality of the menfolk I am staring at, which is already very very high. Anyway I will try to be better -- be best, even! -- on further news regarding a US release of the show, if such news should make itself known.

Good Morning, World

 

This'll just be a quick "Good Morning" since the long lazy weekend got me behind -- I hope you and yours and Logan Marshall-Green and his all had a very fine Labor Day! Now I have some labor to do. Talk soon, promise!

Good Morning, World

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Do you guys follow Logan Marshall-Green on Instagram? Over the course of the pandemic quarantine he's been leading daily (I think) meditation sessions on there -- I say "I think" because I didn't really keep up with them, I'm not the meditating type (who could've guessed, what with me being a nervous wreck ninety-seven percent of the time?), but it was always nice when I'd stumble across them. Nice as in "Oh look that is still happening, a sense of normalcy, ahhh." Anyway I could really use some meditation this Monday because I've got a billion chores to get done after having taken off half the week last week, so we'll see how today goes. No promises. Pay attention to Logan Marshall-Green if you want promises.

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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

A Most Wanted Man (2014)

Dieter: After 24 hours of questioning, Karpov
confessed to taking part in attacks on gas pipelines,
transport,  infrastructure, police stations.
Irna: After 24 hours of Russian questioning,
any one of us would admit to anything.

I've never seen this movie but I wanted to wish Nina Hoss a happy birthday and I couldn't find any quotes from the two movies where I became a "Nina Hoss Fan" which are her two with the great Christian Petzold, Barbara and Phoenix. She's so great!

So this Anton Corbijn film it is. Anybody seen it? Does she have anything to do? I'm seriously looking forward to her forthcoming WWII series Shadowplay co-starring Sebastian Koch, Logan Marshall-Green, Michael C. Hall, Tuppence Middleton, and Taylor Kitsch, from the creator of The Bridge. No word on when we'll get that show but hey look IMDb has a poster:

Logan Marshall-Green One Time

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This is the path that the dominoes took -- I saw Leigh Whannell's film The Invisible Man earlier this week, which I loved and reviewed right at this link. I liked it enough it made me re-watch Whannell's last movie Upgrade the following night, which I also loved and which I reviewed at this link. Watching Upgrade made me look up its beautiful and talented leading man Logan Marshall-Green on Instagram, which I hadn't done in a bit, which led to voila, the photo above, which he'd posted two weeks ago yet I'd missed. Y'all caught up? It's a fuckin' tapestry, man. In summation build me a fort inside of that beard, I am home.

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Big Things Have Small Beginnings

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The actor Logan Marshall-Green just gifted us with this photograph of Michael Fassbender taking a smoke break on the set of Ridley Scott's Prometheus in 2012 -- this movie's come up a lot over the past couple of weeks in daily conversation which makes me think I should re-watch? I liked it just fine when it came out, admitting its messiness but being generally alright with that -- I wrote up some thoughts here. And it looks even better in a post Covenant world. Do we think Ridley will actually ever get another one off the ground?

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Good Morning, World

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I guess I need to go back and watch Prometheus because I don't remember this shot from it at all? That seems improbable. My brain blacking out this shot, I mean. Anyway a happy 43rd birthday to Logan Marshall-Green today -- the last thing I saw him in (or that is the last thing I remember seeing him in, apparently) is Leigh Whannell's bone-breakingly awesome actioner Upgrade (my review) but I know he's co-starring in an incredibly cast post-WWII thriller television show set in Germany called Shadowplay that I cannot wait to see -- it will co-star Nina "The Boss" Hoss and Sebastian Koch and Michael C. Hall and Taylor Kitsch, and I also know  thanks to his Instagram that he's been directing his own movie, one that stars Ethan Hawke, and which is coincidentally out today. So he's busy. We don't need to worry about Logan Marshall-Green.

View this post on Instagram

Adopt a Highway Nov 1st Everywhere

A post shared by Logan Marshall-Green (@elemgy) on Oct 31, 2019 at 7:14am PDT

I Quit Smoking Eleven Years Ago Today

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Like two perfectly straight cigarette sticks we've struck the number 11 this year -- 11 years without a cigarette as of today, May 5th 2019. And as we've done with every anniversary since we've spent the past 12 months gathering up photographs of attractive actor fellas with a fag between their lips so, uhh... 

... to speak. And now's the time to share! If you hit the jump there are dozens and dozens (these things seem to grow bigger every year somehow -- I always think I'll run out but I never do!) of photos and gifs, enough to give you second-hand something...

Let's Play in the Shadows with Logan

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Did any of you watch The Bridge, that Texas-set crime-drama starring Demián Bichir and Diane Kruger? I never did but I'm curious if it was any good now that its creator Måns Mårlind is working on a new show and he's lined up yet another killer cast. It's called Shadowplay and it's set in Berlin in 1946 and will be about an American cop, played by Taylor Kitsch, coming to town to set up some post-WWII law and order -- it already sounds like a Western and a Noir all at once right? (Thx Mac) Logan Marshall-Green, seen up top, will be playing a Nazi-hunter; joining those two will be Michael C. Hall...

... as well as German actors Sebastian Koch (who will forever and always be the Sexy Nazi in Black Book to me) and no less than Nina fucking Hoss, world-class actress of Christian Petzold flicks Barbara and Phoenix fame. Funny enough both of them have been seen on Homeland recently -- if you need good representatives of Germany look no further! (Hey maybe Alexander Fehling can show up too? Pretty please???) Anyway we'll keep our eyes on this one but for now let's just keep our eyes on Logan Marshall-Green, with five more pictures after the jump...

My Favorite Movies of 2018 -- #20-11

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Well now we're getting somewhere. We're well more than halfway through our 2018 Pantys at this point -- you can see everything here. Way back last Friday I shared with you 10 movies that juuuust missed out on my Top 20 films...

Annihilation

Burning

Cam

Happy as Lazzaro

If Beale Street Could Talk

Lean on Pete

Nancy

The Sisters Brothers

Summer 1993

You Were Never Really Here

Goddamn those are good! Well now to the deeper meat of it. The really really hard choices. In another year, a lesser year, any of these movies seriously would've been Top 10 material. But 2018 was just too too kind to us -- with the world so shitty outside the art-house our artists really stepped up to soothe and challenge and sate our cinematic needs, bless them forever amen. So here's the middle part of my favorite 30 then. As a bonus I've added to each an "Indelible Moment" from the movie, whether it be an image of line or scene, whatever sticks out in my brain when I think of the film.

20. Border

(dir. Ali Abbasi)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Bumping uglies

19. Minding the Gap

(dir. Bing Liu)

Indelible Moment:
Liu interviewing his mother

18. Bisbee '17

(dir. Robert Greene)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Train car loading

17. Upgrade

(dir. Leigh Whannell)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: The first kill

16. Double Lover

(dir. Francois Ozon)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Threeway

15. Widows

(dir. Steve McQueen)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment:
Spotting across the diner

14. Mary Poppins Returns

(dir. Rob Marshall)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment:
"The Place Where Lost Things Go"

13. Cold War

(dir. Pawel Pawlikowski)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Club dance

12. Oh Lucy!

(dir.Atsuko Hirayanagi)

-- read my review here --

Indelible Moment: Hugs

11. Good Manners

(dir.Marco Dutra & Juliana Rojas)

Indelible Moment: Birth

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Coming up tomorrow: 

Our Top 10 films of the year!

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Fight Cub

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One of the best feelings you can have upon finishing a movie is the feeling of, "I wanna start that motherfucker right again right now!" And it's one of the hardest feelings to find, which makes it all the, what do the kids call it, sweeter. If you're lucky you'll feel it a few times a year - if you're really lucky, well, more than a few. We've been lucky this year. I had that feeling with a few titles off our list of 2018's best so far, and I had that feeling this weekend when I sat down and watched Upgrade... and then sat down and watched Upgrade a second time the very next day.
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It wasn't supposed to be this way! I thought the film had a terribly goofy trailer, but upon watching the movie itself (a lesson I've learned too many times to keep forgetting - don't trust trailers) I get what the problem was - it's a goofy movie with a goofy ass idea and only by skipping on the exact right pattern of stones across the goofy ass precipice did writer-director Leigh Whannell manage to land this gangly beast on the right side of awesome. And that's a process you can't really transmit trailer-wise - you've gotta watch the whole step step step jump to get there.

And now I mourn not having seen this movie in the theater. This is a new action classic - truth, it's gonna stand the test of time and take its place deservedly alongside the 80s genre beasts it clearly holds in high esteem, great boot-scuffing shit like Robocop and The Running Man that've got a method to their mayhem. Upgrade has, in the wise words of Jerri Blank, something to say, and it carves its techno-babble doom-speak deep into your flesh. Run your finger along the wounds and really feel it.
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Ho
Ly
Shit
That
First
Fight
Scene
In#Upgrade

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 17, 2018

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... the one reflected in
Logan Marshall-Green's glasses. (via)

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Great Moments In Movie Staches

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File this one under "Staches I Am New To" but the Anthology Film Archives here in New York just announced they're screening Jean-Paul Godard's 1986 made-for-TV film noir called The Rise and Fall of a Small Film Company this weekend  and a google later color me impressed by star Jean-Pierre Léaud rocking a shadowy hang-dog stache. I am super into it.
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Not sure if I can make any of the screenings this weekend (this being my birthday weekend I'm already a little packed schedule-wise and that's before I even get to the Radiohead concert) but since they mention it being a new restoration I think we can count on some sort of release, be it blu-ray or digital, in the near future. Now if you'd like some more Léaud-stache (he kind of looks like Logan Marshall-Green with a mustache, doesn't he?) hit the jump and I've got it...

Who Bearded Best?

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Back in March we did a big gratuitous post for Sam Claflin when the trailer for his boating-thriller Adrift with Shaileene Woodley first dropped alongside the news that he was going to star in a crime-thriller called The Corrupted - well today there's stuff on both those fronts. There's the first picture of Sam in the latter above, which is clearly worth sharing. That's a new look for Sam, and we like it. And as for Adrift, well, that's out in theaters tomorrow. That's all I got. I missed the press screening so I can't tell you if it's worth seeing or not. But hey here's something - it's a big weekend in beards at the multiplex! Let's judge those!

bike tracks

Perky Logan on the Slab

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To be honest I hadn't posted anything about Upgrade, the sci-fi thriller from writer-director Leigh Whannell (of the Saw and Insidious franchises) and starring The Invitation's Logan Marshall-Green that is out on Friday, because I thought the first trailer was hellaciously goofy, what with the robot-skeleton inside Logan turning him into a floppy cyborg action puppet. But now that I know Logan takes his clothes off at least once thanks to the above image (via; thanks Mac) I... am rethinking my stance. Zoom in...

... and click to embiggen a lot. Anyway a red-band trailer for the film got dropped earlier this week and it's still goofy, hellaciously so, but now with a ridiculous amount of splatter and gore ladled over the goofiness which... is something. Listen, I get that this movie was made to turn your brain off and have fun with, and I want to. I am trying. I will try. Pinky swear. Here's that red-band:

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Pic of the Day

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The amazing @ojacksoncohen 🙌👏👌in between takes on set of The Haunting of Hill House

A post shared by Michiel Huisman (@michielhuisman) on May 7, 2018 at 10:55am PDT

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Having been nearly a year since it was announced I keep forgetting that Netflix is currently in the process of shooting a series based on Shirley Jackson's horror classic The Haunting of Hill House that stars two MNPP-faves in Michiel Huisman and Oliver Jackson-Cohen. The former posted this picture of the latter on set just a wee bit ago on his Instagram - PS Michiel's posted several very pleasant shots of himself (as if there's any other kind) over the past couple of weeks so you should probably be keeping an eye on that...

In related news I re-watched Karyn Kusama's 2015 horror film The Invitation last night and holy hell does it hold up. I'd worried that knowing where things were going would tamper my appreciation of the movie, since so much of watching it the first time (here's my review from way back when) is about not being sure where it's going, if it's heading where you think it might be heading, but that is not the case I am happy to report.

Foreknowledge of the outcome actually somehow makes re-watching the film even more upsetting; seeing all the signs present themselves and the characters willfully ignoring or avoiding them out of a misplaced sense of social responsibility makes everything even more sickening... and I mean 'sickening" as high praise, obviously. If you've somehow managed to miss this movie until now I really recommend firing it up. It's streaming on Netflix! Easy peasy.

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THE INVITATION is barely three years old and it should already be considered a stone cold classic, one of the greatest horror films of our time - both a blood red shriek of grief and a black comedy about meeting your new boyfriend's ex pic.twitter.com/cjgUVIMmkj

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) May 7, 2018

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Kusama's next film Destroyer with Nicole Kidman and 

Sebastian Stan really can't get here soon enough for me.

Look at these pics of Seb & Nic on the set! (via)