Good Morning, World

A happy 36th birthday to the director Riley Stearns today! If you follow me on Twitter then you've no doubt come across my neverending Riley Stearns thread there -- if not I've included the start below and if you click on there you'll be granted an entire year plus one month's worth of obsessing. And I have no intentions of quitting either! Not as long as he keeps being the Insta-gift that keeps giving anyway. I suppose you could also follow him on Instagram but who can keep up with all of these things? Me, that's who! That's my job. 

Anyway as for Riley yes he does direct movies -- I talk about that less than I talk about those biceps, but... well have you seen his biceps? Just saying. No no his movies are good! I really loved The Art of Self-Defense with Jesse Eisenberg and yesterday's birthday boy Alessandro Nivola, and his movie from this year called Dual was great too -- you can read my review of that one right here. You can watch Dual online now! I still haven't seen Riley's first movie Faults but every time I think I will I feel a solidarity with him about the whole Mary Elizabeth Winstead situation (he and MEW made that movie together and were a couple and then MEW ran off with Ewan McGregor -- that whole "situation") and my enthusiasm wanes for long enough that I forget, until the next time. One of these days! I have heard good things.

Good grief is Riley Stearns the hottest director pic.twitter.com/UYCAk0o7Z2

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) May 27, 2021

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

 ... you can learn from:

Final Destination 3 (2006)

Ian McKinley: Equal... in death's eyes? All of us? How can you say that? Dude, think it through: Charlie Manson, made it to 70, Osama, still kicking. Pimps, vice presidents, walking around, all the atrocities they've committed, they're alive and well. These two girls, never done shit to anybody, they don't get to make it to 18. Where's the fucking equality in that?

A happy 15 to this movie! Lest you think the Final Destination franchise is nothing but eyeballs being gouged and spines popping like champagne corks that there's just one of the many ruminations on life and death and the cruel joke of existence contained therein -- this franchise is Bergman by way of Clive (and Carnival) Barker and it holds my heart in its thorny devil claws. Just the other day I was out of nowhere worrying the pandemic has hurt progress on the sixth film, which was announced before 2020 took a fire-axe to the world's plans -- I hope they're still planning on it. If any franchise should remain unkillable it's this one. Where does Part 3 fall in your FD franchise favor? I enjoy the hell out of all five films but my ranking is probably 2-5-1-3-4.

Pics of the Day

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I planned on marking Scott Pilgrim vs the World's 10th anniversary tomorrow, which is when it is, but Edgar Wright's jumped the gun on Twitter and started posting tons of behind-the-scenes pictures from the film so I feel the need to Hook Ya Up -- check his thread right here. Scott Pilgrim was my #3 movie of 2010  (here is my review) and it's kept its ass parked right on up there across the decade since; I did my 5 favorite films of 2010 for my "Siri Says" series in 2016 and it still placed in my Top 5. I'll admit I haven't seen it in a couple of years now but I have a Sex Bob Omb poster on my bedroom wall so I still think of the movie on a semi-daily basis. It fucking rocks. Maybe I will watch it tonight! Anyway keep checking that Twitter thread of Edgar's as he's promising goodies all the way on through tomorrow; I grabbed a few of the pre-production photos that caught my eye so far and put them here after the jump...

Invasion of the Riz Ahmed Snatchers

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Now there's a face I have missed seeing! Good news today coming at us via Deadline, which is reporting that Riz Ahmed is set to star in a sci-fi horror flick called Invasion, alongside Octavia Spencer. Two great people, one scary movie -- sign me up! Riz will play a former Marine who's on the run with his two sons from "an inhuman threat" -- Octavia is playing the probations officer who's trying to bring them home. The film was co-written and will be directed by UK filmmaker Michael Pearce, who made the 2017 movie Beast with Jessie Buckley and Johnny Flynn...

... aka our main takeaway from the recent Emma movie. Anybody seen Beast? I have not. Anyway does the title Invasion and the fact that this is described as a "sci-fi thriller" make anybody think this might be a new version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers? We get one every few years and we're overdue, if you don't count stuff like Ben Whishaw's movie Little Joe last year or the wonderful and seriously ahead of its time TV program BrainDead...

... sigh, RIP BrainDead. And I feel like there's a thing I am forgetting? Hasn't there been another "body snatcher" adjacent entertainment recently? There is something nipping at my tongue... hopefully it's not coronavirus. Anyway I might be projecting -- the title Invasion is hella generic, it could just be any old alien invasion movie now that the "Body Snatchers" of the title has been erased. Which was part of the problem with the 2007 movie The Invasion with Nicole Kidman, now that I mention it.

That and Daniel Craig kept his clothes on. Still I like to think that we'd just keep whittling the title down -- first the two Invasion of the Body Snatchers films in 1956 and 1978, then Body Snatchers in 1993, then The Invasion in 2007, and next possibly just simply Invasion. Come 2036 I guess we'll have a movie called Vas. Or ooh -- Snatch'd! Makes sense, can't wait. To be alive in 2036, I mean. Anyway in summation -- this has been a whole lot of rambling, I recognize -- here's a music video for a Riz Ahmed song that has a whole bunch of real attractive Pakastani wrestlers in itty bitty barely-there wrestling outfits. Seems a fine place to end.

Happy Riley Day

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Did you know that the writer-director of last year's terrific toxic masculinity take-down The Art of Self-Defense, starring Jesse Eisenberg and Alessandro Nivola, looks like that? Well he does, and it seems like important information to share here on Riley Stearns (that's his name) 34th birthday. Very important! You can follow him on Instagram here -- he seems like a good enough chap from here; he hates on Trump at least. Oh and he was also married to Mary Elisabeth Winstead for a few years...

... which evinces excellent taste. You should all watch The Art of Self-Defense if you haven't yet -- unfortunately I never properly reviewed it but I found it really striking; it felt like he has a distinct voice anyway. (I still haven't seen Faults, his first film from 2014 starring Winstead, but it's streaming on Prime.) We'll see how much of that voice carries over to his next movie, which sounds promising -- it's called Dual and it's about a woman (the great Karen Gillan) who has a clone of herself manufactured when she finds out she's dying, only to miraculously recover and then have to face down, as in a battle to the death, that same clone. It will also star Aaron Paul and mark a re-team with Self-Defense star Jesse Eisenberg again. That's set to come out next year.

Happy 34 to the exceedingly adorable Riley Stearns, writer-director of the exceedingly underrated The Art of Self-Defense -- can't wait to see his next movie! pic.twitter.com/xS3YOpdL6X

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) June 29, 2020

The Thing Goes There, Again

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In 2018 the sci-fi scholar Alec Nevala-Lee discovered a never-before-seen longer version of John W. Campbell's short story "Who Goes There" while researching his book on the so-called "Golden Age" of science-fiction publishing, aka the previous early mid-century-ish. The new version was forty-five pages longer than what ultimately got published in 1938 in Astounding magazine, which was edited by none other than Campbell himself. The story "Who Goes There?" is of course notable for being the inspiration for Howard Hawks' 1951 classic film The Thing From Another World and then eventually John Carpenter's terrifying remake in 1982.

I hadn't heard about any of this, not even when the longer version of the story got Kickstartered and published under the title Frozen Hell last October. I missed it all! That is I missed it until today when I read that Blumhouse is planning on making yet another movie version of the story -- no word if they'll stick with the title The Thing or if they'll got with Frozen Hell but if I had to place any bets I'd wager they'll go with the known property title. Hey remember the 2011 prequel with Joel Edgerton and Mary Elizabeth Winstead?

I think I'm one of the few horror nerds who thought that version was not good -- I recall it getting a lot of love at that moment, and then vanishing entirely into the ether five minutes later. Anyway I wasn't very happy with it, here's my review. I think it's best it vanished from memory. We don't have any names attached to this new version yet, and until I read Frozen Hell I don't know what new things have been added to the story, so this is all a question mark. But in the wake of the generally successful Color Out of Space I'm not surprised we're getting this -- maybe the Lovecraftian kick can continue until we finally get Guillermo del Toro's At the Mountains of Madness... 

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Michiel Huisman Takes Flight

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I think we have found the limits to my Michiel Huisman devotion, you guys. It runs deep and it runs strong but I don't think it runs quite as deep or quite as strong as my total mind and body aversion to the actress Kaley Cuoco, who is the opposite magnet to my own -- she repels me away instantaneously and with sudden, great force. Anyway when I read (thx Mac) that his next role is opposite that person on a series for HBO called The Flight Attendant -- read the details at this link, I can't expend the energy; writing this close to that person is making me weak -- I got very sad. So I went and looked at some gifs of Michiel in Red Sea Diving Resort and I felt a little less sad. Hey, at least we've got that action movie with Mary Elizabeth Winstead to look forward to!

Prey On This, Punk

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While I think Margot Robbie's performance as Harley Quinn in the first Suicide Squad got a little over-sold -- if something is merely good opposite so much that is deeply deeply bad it suddenly seems like more good, ya know -- I'm still against the odds into the spin-off movie Birds of Prey, but let's place the blame for this fool's interest squarely where it belongs: on the big strong backs of Ewan McGregor as the big gay bad and his bleach blond sex god slash henchman Chris Messina. Those two...

... could very clearly murder it and get away with it. But the trailer is colorful -- the Marilyn / Madonna "Diamonds" recreation looks fab -- and fun and perhaps not bogged down by all the Jared Leto bullshit Harley Quinn can fly properly. Oh and Rosie Perez and Mary Elisabeth effing Winstead, can't forget Rosie Perez and Mary Elizabeth effing Winstead. Watch:

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Birds of Prey is out in February 2020, and now you can

hit the jump for a few more Ewan & Chris gifs just cuz...

When Michiel Met Mary

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The most beautiful man in the world has gotten a new job! Michiel Huisman of Game of Thrones and The Haunting of Hill House fame, who was most recently seen running around with Chris Evans in a speedo and less, is going to co-star opposite the amazing and seriously under-valued Mary Elizabeth Winstead in Kate, an action flick that has Winstead playing a bad-ass assassin who has 24 hours to find and get her revenge on the man who poisoned her. 24 hours cuz she dies in 24 hours, see? Très Crank.

Anyway Variety doesn't say who Huisman is playing, if he's playing the poisoner, or maybe just the most beautiful man in the world, or perhaps both -- who knows? All I do know is that I went looking for a new picture of Michiel to go along with this news and I found not just the remainder of that Man About Town shoot we shared a couple shots from nearly an entire year ago -- I also found a video that went with the shoot, which I went and giffed the hell out of. See it all after the jump...

Girls! Girls! Girls!

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Dunno if you know this but Brie Larson has a Marvel Superhero movie called Captain Marvel out this weekend and I know, I know. We already had Wonder Woman. When will this Lady Movie Madness end? Next thing you know women will be wanting to vote, or pee standing up! The nerve! Make me a sammich, mommy! My diaper is full! Et cetera et cetera. In big boy news this week's "Beauty vs Beast" is live over at The Film Experience -- we're looking back Edgar Wright's nearly-a-decade-old stills-brillz comic adaptation Scott Pilgrim vs the World and facing down two of Scott's loves. Click over to vote!

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Pantys 2018 - Actor to Actor #5

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Among many things we're doing this week as part of our "Golden Trousers" awards we're taking a look at our 20 favorite performances of 2018 -- how we're doing this is we randomly selected ten pairs of names from our list and then we're imagining a moment between the two characters chosen. Ten times. You can see our previous ones here but for now here's our fifth random pairing from our 2018 faves...

Nina Geld (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) in All About Nina

meets Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton) in Suspiria

Nina: Vaginas!! Am I right, ladies?

Madame Blanc: Ja! Ja! She is right, she is. 

I love this "comedy."

Dr. Klemperer: Eeet ees funny because uf 

the Frrrreudian connotations zurrounding ze womb 

ant ze primordial muzzah figgah.

Helena Markos: CUNTS!!!

Crazy Killer Chris Coming Our Way

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We already know that Ewan McGregor is playing the main bad guy in Birds of Prey, Margot Robbie's spin-off movie from Suicide Squad that's got her reprising her fun turn as Harley Quinn, who in this series recruits a bunch of super-ladies (including Mary Elizabeth Winstead!) to do [insert bland Macguffin plot here]. But since one bad guy (much less an entire team of super-females) ain't enough anymore we've just got word that there will be another bad guy (a crazy serial killer who carves himself up named Victor Zsasz) and he'll be played by Chris Messina. First thing I googled? To see if the villain wears leather pants. I really want Evil Chris Messina in leather pants. Well the pants depending on the adaptation...

... but Victor Zsasz is almost always shirtless, the better to show off his self-inflicted wounds (one for every victim), and I guess that will do. Looks like Chris will also have to shave his head? I think he can pull off bald, right? It will highlight those killer lips of his. Emphasis on killer, I guess. Oh man, another messed up pervert for me to fawn over? The list has gotten so endless...
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I Bet You Think This One's All About You, Nina

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If you're not rooting for Mary Elizabeth Winstead you haven't been paying attention - she's been doing some of the best work every time up she's gotten up to bat for awhile now, and at the Tribeca Film Fest this past spring she gave what is maybe probably her best of the best in All About Nina, which has her playing a dark-edged stand-up comedian; read my review right here. A couple weeks back we told you Nina is hitting in September - the exact date is September 28th, and now we've got a poster (see that here) and a trailer. A trailer...

... that shows off some of the film's greatest assets. Heyyyy, Common. You also get a sense of the humor and the pathos writ deep in the movie's bones, which is thanks to first-time filmmaker Eva Vives, who we should clearly be keeping an eye, or all our eyes, on. Anyway go scribble this one down furiously in your calendars, folks. It's cannot miss. Here's the trailer:

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Nina Gonna Knock You Out

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We got some happy news in our inbox earlier this week, folks - we don't have a specific day yet but All About Nina, the rom-dramedy (did I just make that phrase up?) starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a stand-up comic who falls apart as she falls for Common (as one does) is getting released some time in September. I reviewed the film when it screened in Tribeca - read that here - and to sum it up I fucking loved it. MEW keeps getting better and better each time out, and we see sides of her that are all new here - really raw and brutal stuff amid the punchlines. I'll keep this one on your radars but make sure you make a mental note - you wanna see this!

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Mary Elizabeth For President of Everything

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It feels strange to feel that Mary Elizabeth Winstead is woefully underrated given how much she works and with prestige people at that - she just recently turned in a generally lauded performance on the last season of Fargo, for instance - but to those of us who love her we really feel like she should be getting more. More roles, more praise, more attention as a very talented very serious actress. It's a lot of shouldas - she shoulda gotten an Oscar nomination for her performance in Smashed back in 2013, she shoulda gotten Emmy nomination for Fargo, and goddammit BrainDead shoulda stayed on the air! Well fingers crossed because Tribeca just gave her maybe her best showcase to date, at least as far as movies are concerned - go read my review of All About Nina over at The Film Experience. And then join me in forming a chanting circle to make whatever needs to happen happen to get this woman an Oscar nomination.

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Start the fucking Oscar campaign for Mary Elizabeth Winstead right now #Tribeca2018 #AllAboutNina pic.twitter.com/kbRwPvIkWz

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) April 24, 2018

I Love These Things So Much

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That right there is the first teaser for the third season of Fargo -- every year these things get better and better and this one is another brief but total delight, somehow showing absolutely nothing and yet nailing everything all at once. Apparently they only began filming a few weeks ago, while the show's set to premiere on April 19th, so it's a bit of a blast forward this time around, but I trust Noah Hawley well enough at this point after two brilliant seasons, and with a cast of actors this year like Ewan McGregor (playing twins!) and Carrie Coon and Scoot McNairy and Michael Stuhlbarg and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, just to name a few, well, you know, insert manic screaming sounds here.
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Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Elizabeth: I keep seeing these people, 

all recognizing each other. Something 

is passing between them all, some secret. 

It's a conspiracy, I know it. 

Matthew: There can't be a conspiracy! 

Elizabeth: Matthew, I'm telling you something 

is going on here. 

The paranoia of a Body Snatchers movie feels pretty on point these days, right? I was going to say they should try to make a new version but then I remembered that the brilliant and totally unappreciated TV series BrainDead with Mary Elizabeth Winstead already knocked our current political climate out of the park last year, and nobody watched it! Damn you all. Anyway a happy 68th birthday to the actress Brooke Adams today -- BrainDead was even smart enough to cast her in a role...

A Serious Man in Fargo

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Somehow this feels like the warning from the end of Ghostbusters about not crossing the streams, but in a totally excellent way - Michael Stuhlbarg, who announced his awesomeness to the world (or at least to me) via the Coen Brothers masterpiece A Serious Man in 2009, has just joined the cast of the Coen-adjacent television program Fargo (aka the best darn show on TV) for its 3rd season. 

I cannot possibly do all the homework this question requires but maybe one of you know the answer (and I am sure the answer's in the affirmative because the math is in its favor) - have any other prominent Coens actors shown up on the Fargo show before? I put prominent in there because Stuhlbarg was a lead and that narrows it down a mite, but I honestly can't off the top of my head think of any overlaps, big or small or in-between. I'm sure y'all will name someone of great import that I'm forgetting and I will feel stupid as dirt itself, so just get that done please.

Sadly Stuhlbarg won't be reprising the role of tormented physics teacher Larry Gopnik - Vulture says his role is that of "Sy Feltz, the right hand man and consigliere of the season's main character, Emmit Stussy (The Parking Lot King of Minnesota)." I'm guessing Stussy's one of the twin roles Ewan McGregor's playing. Besides them the cast also has Carrie Coon & Mary Elizabeth Winstead & Scoot McNairy and gosh golly gee damn can this show cast some actors.

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Good Morning, World

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Since when I brought up Mary Elizabeth Winstead yesterday I didn't make mention of the sad news that my favorite new show of 2016 BrainDead just got canceled because all you people are terrible and didn't watch it I will use the excuse of Aaron Tveit's birthday today to share that sadness, in case you missed it. Sorry for shitting on your birthday morning, Aaron, but it's not my fault -- I did all my feeble little typing fingers could! This stripping sequence isn't even from BrainDead (see here for that) but rather from that show Graceland - a show I refuse to believe was better than BrainDead and yet, like a zombie, it ambled on for a couple seasons...

The Lady Deadpool

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Deadpool 2 is currently casting the role of Domino, a gun-toting mutant whose skill is that she can manipulate the odds of things going her way, and when I went looking for pictures of the way the character's drawn they were all crazy giant-breasted (example) so I decided to illustrate this post with that picture of Deadpool slutted up instead. Feminism, ho! 

Anyway while I liked the movie Deadpool pretty well (it was fun, but hella sloppy - that last act was a total mess) the real reason I'm even posting about this news is that the list of actresses who're up for the character of Domino includes two of my most favorite actresses working today - Lizzy Caplan and Mary Elizabeth Winstead! And I don't know how to choose between them! So I am making you guys choose. With tarted up pictures of them. (Feminism, Nay.)

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The list of actresses up for the role is long - besides these two also mentioned is Sienna Miller (uh, no), Mackenzie Davis (adore her but not sure she's right for this?), Sofia Boutella (she's my third choice - she was the best thing about the last Star Trek movie), Ruby Rose, Eve Hewson (The Knick), Spectre’s Stephanie Sigman, Sylvia Hoeks (Dutch of the Dutch series Overspel), and Kelly Rohrbach (the new Baywatch) - so who knows. Stay tuned. Also stay tuned to see how much of a game of chicken Ryan Reynolds & Co play with Deadpool's bisexuality this time around.