The Future of The History of Sound

Some super fine Friday news landing as Mubi has announced they've snapped up the U.S. rights (while Universal and Focus are releasing it internationally) to Moffie and Living director Oliver Hermanus' gay WWI-era drama The History of Sound, which stars Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal -- see my many posts to date on this film at this link -- and they plan to release it this year. We need things to look forward to given the state of the world so this is helping! 

JAW Me By Your Name

Now here we see a few of my interests rubbing up on each other in a pleasurable way -- underpants model and professional chef pretender Jeremy Allen White is going to follow up his role as everybody's favorite New Jersey songstress with man-fucking! He's going to star in an limited series adaptation of Call Me By Your Name author André Aciman's bisexual tome Enigma Variations for Netflix. Here is the book's description:

"Enigma Variations charts the life of a man named Paul, whose loves remain as consuming and as covetous throughout his adulthood as they were in his adolescence. Whether the setting is southern Italy, where as a boy he has a crush on his parents’ cabinetmaker, or a snowbound campus in New England, where his enduring passion for a girl he’ll meet again and again over the years is punctuated by anonymous encounters with men―whether he’s on a tennis court in Central Park or on a New York sidewalk in early spring. Paul’s attachments are ungraspable, transient, and forever underwritten by raw desire. Ahead of every step Paul takes, his hopes, denials, fears, and regrets are always ready to lay their traps. Yet the dream of love lingers. We may not always know what we want. We may remain enigmas to ourselves and to others. But sooner or later, we discover who we’ve always known we were."

I actually weirdly can't remember if I read this book or not? My brain ain't what it used to be y'all. I don't think I did but if I did it would've been in 2019 and there was so much else going on right then who can remember shit. Anyway on top of this series starring JAW and coming from an Aciman novel it's being directed in full by Oliver Hermanus, the South African director who caught my attention with the gay military drama Moffie in yes ye olde 2019 (I remember Moffie!) and then further when he made the gorgeous Living with Bill Nighy, and then again when he made the queer princeling story Mary & George with Julianne Moore, and who's immediate next project -- a gay love story starring Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal called The History of Sound  that'll supposedly be out sometime this year -- has been capturing my interest every second since I first heard about it ages back for obvious reasons. 

Anyway Hermanus seems to smartly be following the Luca Guadagnino playbook in establishing his cinematic bonafides while remaining very very gay, and we love to see it. This project will obviously remain very much on our radar!

Please Try To Have a Good Weekend

Find something you love, and fuck it.

Cuz we all deserve the best dammit.

Good Morning, World

Well it looks like Paul Mescal was still filming The History of Sound, his gay movie with Josh O'Connor from Moffie and Living director Oliver Hermanus, in Italy over the weekend -- either that or Paul was feeling very frisky all on his own! I shared some more-dressed photos on Friday from the set -- it seems they timed the filming of these Just-Paul scenes to coincide with the ongoing Challengers press tour, which Josh has been traveling around with while wearing the goofiest fashions his stylist can throw at him. Anyway in related Oliver Hermanus news I finally started his limited-series Mary & George with Julianne Moore & Nicholas Galitzine over the weekend and I practically finished it too -- just two episodes to go. So I'm loving it obviously but I'll write more once I have finished. Okay that's all, hit the jump for a few more photos and happy Monday...

Pics of the Day

If your privates are ringing that's because the long awaited gay movie The History of Sound starring Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal is currently filimg, right now, right this minute, in Italy, as these two photos of Mr. Mescal looking sharp as fuck on set today attest. I've been posting about this for ages, since the first whisper of it, but I only know a little bit -- it's set circa World War I and directed by Moffie and Living (and Mary & George) director Oliver Hermanus and, uhh, Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal are gay for each other in it. What the hell else do we need to know?

Nicholas Galitzine Four Times

The series Mary & George starring Nicholas Galitzine and Julianne Moore as sexy ruffled schemers in the court of gay ol' King James I premieres on Starz on Friday (watch the trailer right here if you missed it) and so naturally we're seeing some new photos of Mr. Galitzine popping up -- these ones here are via an interview with The New York Times. He's just too pretty to live, dammit. Anyway that's obviously a promising two-some but the thing that hooked me the most was this series is from Living and Moffie director Oliver Hermanus (who is currently directing that gay love story starring Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor.) He's talented and we we like him a lot! Anyway hit the jump for the rest of the pictures of our pretty little princeling...

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

High and Low (1963)

Kingo Gondo: Why should you and I hate each other?

Ginjirô: I don't know. I'm not interested in self-analysis. 

I do know my room was so cold in winter and so hot in 

summer I couldn't sleep. Your house looked like heaven, 

high up there. That's how I began to hate you.

The legend Toshirô Mifune was born on this day in 1920.

What do we think about Spike Lee remaking this movie

with Denzel Washington & Jeffrey Wright? I might have

been more skeptical about remaking Kurosawa if I hadn't

completely and totally adored Oliver Hermanus' Living

just a couple years ago. And High and Low's story is timely.

(Also -- Denzel Washington & Jeffrey Wright!!)

Good Morning, World

Only 10 days until Mary & George drops on Starz here in the U.S.! Here is the trailer in case you missed it -- this is the series from Living director Oliver Hermnus starring pretty boy Nicholas Galitzine alongside on Miss Julianne Moore as the royal-fuckers who got one over on the hornt up King James by serving little Georgie-boy here up on a sexy platter. Kingdoms have fallen for much much less! Anyway the show already aired in the U.K. a month ago so perhaps some of you have seen it? I've had screeners for weeks but inexplicably haven't started them yet. I should be lashed... and Nicholas here should be just the boy to do it. 

Josh Goes Gay Again & Again

As seen there Josh O'Connor and Paul Mescal are currently shooting The History of Sound, the upcoming WWI-era gay romance from Moffie and Living (and the imminent Mary & George series) director Oliver Hermanus -- see my first post about that here. Both allegedly heterosexual actors have shown quite the fondness for feigning homosexuality for receptive gay directors and appreciative audiences and it looks like Josh is up to it again -- word on the street (i.e. Variety) is that he's probably going to star in another movie with his Challengers director Luca Guadagnino, this time an adaptation of writer Pier Vittorio Tondelli's gay romance Separate Rooms. (I should add "out of print" -- I went to buy a copy and they're selling for $250, good grief.) Here is how it's descibred: 

"The success of Tondelli's (1955-1991) melancholy Italian novel relies almost solely on the narrator's voice, which is steady, honest and believable. It is the voice of Leo, an Italian writer whose German lover, Thomas, has recently died. On a plane from Paris to Munich Leo reminisces about their relationship, which influenced his life in myriad ways. Their attraction to each other was so intense and troubling that at one point Leo suggested that the only way they might survive each other would be to live apart and travel together each summer--hence the "separate rooms" of the title. Leo's story is a road novel of memory. He recounts experiences in various cities, and all add up to his failure to accept Thomas's death and the possibility of new love. The translation is slightly clunky at times but generally unobtrusive, and Leo's emotions and thoughts on topics ranging from his childlessness to the decay of old Europe are unique and expressed in tangible terms--when he returns to his childhood home in the Po Valley and feels displaced there, he can barely swallow the food his mother prepares for him, "the food from his own land." This was Tondelli's last novel, and his first to appear in English."

Anybody read it? Anyway I am sure Josh will get barraged with more questions about taking roles from gay actors and let them be asked, whatever. I can't get too worked up about it since Luca wants to keep working with Josh. I also would want to keep making Josh do gay stuff. And I want to keep watching Josh do gay stuff. It's really working out for all of us. Except for gay actors. In related news the only actor with ears to rival Josh O'Connor's, totally gay Russell Tovey -- who is currently shooting his own gay movie in upstate New York -- used his weekend off to hang out with Josh's current co-star Paul Mescal and director Oliver Hermanus (plus Femme actor Nathan Stewart-Jarrett):

Red White and Royal Twink

I'm surprised that the full trailer for Mary & George -- Moffie and Living director Oliver Hermanus' seven-part mini-series on the gay old tale of Mary Villiers, her son George, and the King of England, starring Julianne Moore and Nicholas Galitzine and Tony Curran -- is less explicit than the teaser I shared back in November was; this longer look has far less anal sex and far more catty chit chat. Which is one assumes truer to the series itself -- there's probaby way more catty chit chat in seven episodes than there is anal sex. That's just the world we live in, unfortunately. Still this looks like a blast and I cannot wait -- it hits Starz on April 5th so only about ten weeks from now! That's not too long, we can probably make it. Just have a lot of anal sex between now and then and it'll fly by.

A King Fit For Topping

It had been so long since I'd posted about this project (since January, see here) that it had quite incredibly entirely slipped my mind -- Nicholas Galitzine and Julianne Moore starring in Mary & George, the very queer tale of Mary Villiers and her beautiful son George who she used to seduce King James I with back circa 17th Century England, from Oliver Hermanus, the director of Moffie and Living and the forthcoming gay WWI romance with Paul Mescal & Josh O'Connor. This is a thing and I forgot about it! In my defense there's, you know, a lot happening in the world. 

Anyway a trailer dropped for Mary & George yesterday and it does not appear to be disappointing on all that we'd dreamed and hoped it might be -- it's the great Tony Curran who's playing the horned-up King and we've loved him ever since Andrea Arnold's film Red Road. This is a seven-part series that will air on Starz some time next year -- hopefully not too far into next year! Making us wait for this gorgeoues gay spectacle would be cruel in an election year. We will need the happy distraction. Here's the trailer:

So what do we think? Isn't it everything? It is everything.

Get Busy Living Or Get Busy...

Although there are some exceptions -- and yes I am talking about you, Robert Downey Jr remaking Vertigo -- I'm glad that I pried the stick out of my ass about movie remakes right around the time that Luca Guadagnino put his version of Suspiria into the world. Because I told myself and I believed myself that we'll always have the original thing in the world, so if the new version sucks we can just pretend it didn't happen! Voila, magic! And then sometimes these things don't suck and we're all the better for it.

Which brings me to Oliver Hermanus' 2022 film Living, a remake of Akira Kurosawa's film Ikiru -- a lot of people got really hung up on that! But I'm glad I wasn't one of them because I found Living profoundly moving. Mostly thanks to Bill Nighy's Oscar-nominated turn (he should have won), but not just -- the gorgeous score and Hermanus' camera-work and the supporting turn from Aimee Lou Wood (she should've gotten a Supporting Actress nomination dammit). Point being I adore this film. Here's my 2022 Sundance review. And it's now (getting to the reason for this post) on blu-ray today! Pick up your copy here. I wish they'd release the scene of Nighy singing "The Rowan Tree" in the film so I could embed that; maybe I'll have to go add it to my own YouTube page some time. That'll convince you to see the blasted movie if you haven't yet!

Living For Living

I re-watched Oliver Hermanus' Living and Todd Field's Tár (both films on my favorite movies of 2022 list) this past weekend -- not strictly because the Oscars are happening this upcoming Sunday and the two lead performances from those films are both nominated. But that wasn't not the reason, either. I wanted to re-visit both Bill Nighy and Cate Blanchett's work just to make sure and yup-- it turns out they're still my favorite performances of the past year. Here is my review of Living and here is my review of Tár. Honestly I think they're both about as good as movies get -- my allergy to using the word "masterpiece" until a few years have passed keeps me from throwing that around but let's be real, we'll be using that word soon enough.

That said as I lamented on Twitter yesterday as I re-watched Living, that movie really got dicked over awards-wise this season, Nighy and screenwriter Kazuo Ishiguro aside. The tremendous score from Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch, the costumes from Sandy Powell, the cinematography and production design -- I would have nominated it all. Living is lush, gorgeous, sweeping, heartbreaking -- it's everything I go to the movies for. Which is all my way of seeing that you should go watch Living if you still haven't seen Living. It's still not streaming anywhere as far as I can tell, although you can rent it for twenty bucks from all of the streamers -- here it is on Amazon. And they just announced that it is hitting blu-ray on April 11th -- you can pre-order it right here. Now I just pray somebody drops that score on vinyl cuz I need it in my bones. All that said...

... What were your favorite performances of 2022?

My 20 Favorite Movies of 2022

Well I didn't plan on doing this today but what the hell -- seize the moment and such. Unlike last year, where I still haven't shared my favorite movies of the year, that is. That's right -- I'm just going to go ahead and give you my favorite movies of the year 2022 right now, right this moment. Wham bam let's just get it done. I've made it pretty clear here and elsewhere that my hatred for lists and awards has truly gotten the best of me -- ranking something as individual and personal as art as "the best" within a broad context has become nonsensical to me. I don't really even see the use of it anymore.

That said, individually I do find it fascinating -- seeing a single person's favorites, that is. Groupthink obliterates the outliers and quirks of individuality (which is how shit like Green Book or CODA ends up winning a Best Picture prize) but if there's a writer or friend whose opinion I trust I wanna see what they liked, as a singular person, in hopes that they'll direct me to something I might not have paid attention to. See John Waters' list at ArtForum every year -- I've gotten more out of those than any Oscars ceremony ever.

Anyway since I'm a member and/or a writer for a few places where I have had to submit my favorite movies of 2022 a few times already I did make this list awhile back, and I've had it sitting here staring at me. So why not share it? I don't know that I'll ever have the time to do a great big slew of "Golden Trousers" awards like I was doing a decade ago -- with a full-time real-life job AND writing regularly for two other websites AND keeping MNPP itself going my time is thin gruel right now y'all. But please, enjoy this much, if you care to!

My 20 Favorite Movies of 2022

20. Soft & Quiet (dir. Beth de Araújo)
-- my review here -- 

19. Everything Everywhere All At Once (dir. The Daniels)
-- my review here -- 

18. Close (dir. Lukas Dhont)
-- my review here -- 

17. Pearl (dir. Ti West)
-- my review here -- 

16. White Noise (dir. Noah Baumbach)
-- my review here -- 

15. Brian and Charles (dir. Jim Archer)
-- my review here -- 

14. Peter Von Kant (dir. François Ozon)
-- my review here -- 

13. The Northman (dir. Robert Eggers)
-- my review here -- 

12. The Eternal Daughter (dir. Joanna Hogg)
-- my review here -- 

11. Aftersun (dir. Charlotte Wells)
-- my review here -- 

10. Mad God (dir. Phil Tippett)
-- my review here -- 

9. Please Baby Please (dir. Amanda Kramer)
-- my review here -- 

8. All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (dir. Laura Poitras)

7. Tár (dir. Todd Field)
-- my review here --

6. Living (dir. Oliver Hermanus)
-- my review here -- 

5. Great Freedom (dir. Sebastian Meise)
-- my review here -- 

4. Benediction (dir. Terence Davies)
-- my review here -- 

3. Decision to Leave (dir. Park Chan-wook)
-- my review here --

2. Bones and All (dir. Luca Guadagnino)
-- my review here -- 

1. Flux Gourmet (dir. Peter Strickland)
-- my review here -- 

------------------------------------

Runners-up: Fire Island (dir. Andrew Ahn), The Inspection (dir. Elegance Bratton), Holy Spider (dir. Ali Abbas), Bodies Bodies Bodies (dir. Halina Reijn), Triangle of Sadness (dir. Ruben Östlund), Three Thousand Years of Longing (dir. George Miller) A Wounded Fawn (dir. Travis Stevens), Dinner in America (dir. Adam Rehmeier), Women Talking (dir. Sarah Polley), Mrs. Harris Goes To Paris (dir. Anthony Fabian),  Alcarràs (dir. Carla Simón), Pleasure (dir. Ninja Thyberg), The Banshees of Inisherin (dir. Martin McDonagh), Watcher (dir. Chloe Okuno), The Cathedral (dir. Ricky D’Ambrose), Resurrection (dir. Andrew Seaman), The Quiet Girl (dir. Colm Bairéad), Nope (dir. Jordan Peele), Satan's Slaves 2 (dir. Joko Anwar), After Yang (dir. Kogonada)

So there that is! Go watch all of those movies, please.

And on to 2023 we officially move...

Nicholas Galitzine Goes Mary

This project came up a few days ago and I thought I'd posted about it before but realized after a quick search that I had not, because I suck. But today's update to its cast demands I fix my mistake -- we have been trying to keep up with every announcement regarding director Oliver Hermanus' career after he made the knock-out one-two punch of Moffie (his gay South African soldier movie reviewed here) and Living (his Bill Nighy showcase reviewed here) -- we know for one that he is supposed to make a WWI gay romance called The History of Sound starring Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor, because obviously that news caught our attention!

But there seems to be more forward momentum in this other project (it supposedly starts shooting within the next week), the one that we missed -- it's called Mary & George and it's an eight-part limited series for AMC and it will star Julianne Moore as Mary Villiers, the "Countess of Buckingham, who in 17th century England molded her beautiful son, George, to seduce King James I and become his all-powerful lover. Through outrageous scheming, the pair rose from humble beginnings to become one of the richest, most titled and influential mother and sons England had ever seen." That's via Deadline.

And today comes word (via) that actor Nicholas Galitzine, who we've documented visually here on this site far more than we've ever seen him act, is joining the cast -- presumably as the son George since he's got the "beautiful" thing down pat. And I assume the "gay" too at this point, although I don't think he's ever said as much -- but with this being like his twentieth gay role I refuse to believe that in 2023 otherwise would be allowed. Anyway this has big Savage Grace energy right? We love the cinematic canon of Julianne Moore weaponizing her sexy queer sons!

Pic of the Day

I had begun to worry that The History of Sound, the World War I love story that Moffie and Living director Oliver Hermanus was working on that is set to star Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor -- I talked all about it because obviously right back here last October -- might not be happening, given it's been a year since that news broke and Paul and Josh and Oliver have all been so busy. But Hermanus shared the above photo yesterday, of himself hanging with Paul, so I would say our fortunes are on the rise on that front! Paul has of course already made another gay movie in the meantime -- Strangers by Weekend director Andrew Haigh that has him starring with Andrew Scott (see a photo from the last day of shooting here and my original post on the movie right here). And so has Josh O'Connor, sort of -- Luca Guadagnino has implied that there will be queerness involved with his tennis movie Challengers starring Josh and West Side Story breakout Mike Faist, who play tennis pros competing for Zendaya's affections. Basically my point is that Paul and Josh are good boys and we love them. 

Good Morning, World

I know that I tend to, like all of the world, ascribe credit to cute straight white boys when the actual credit might be, you know, a little less than. But this morning's news -- that Josh O'Connor came up with the "original story" (alongside a writing partner named Michael Gilbert) for a teen boy romance musical called Bonus Track -- seems like our boy Josh deserves some extra credit right? Career-wise he seems, thanks to The Crown and all the awards he won for The Crown, to be pretty banging, and this is what he's using his capital for? Good egg! That's all I am saying. Josh O'Connor is a good pair of eggs. Here's the plot of the movie:

"Set in 2006, the film follows a 16-year-old who believes he is a future star musician, even when no-one else in his small town does. The arrival of the son of a famous musical duo who helps him rehearse for a talent show leads both boys to learn from each other and grow closer."

It will be directed by a first-time feature film-maker named Julia Jackman and Bankside Films already picked up the rights -- cast-wise we have "Jack Davenport, Alison Sudol, Susan Wokoma, Ray Panthaki and Josh O’Connor... alongside newcomers Joe Anders and Samuel Small in the lead roles." Add this to his tennis movie with Luca Guadagnino and his gay romance with Paul Mescal for Moffie director Oliver Hermanus and whatever next he does with God's Own Country director Francis Lee, and Josh is one of us, one of us, gooble gobble, whether he's sucking dick in real life or not. Anyway these gifs are from the 2013 soccer flick The Magnificent Eleven and I'm astonishingly never posted them before, so sit right back and I'll show some tail after the jump...