Leo Woodall Fifteen Times

Yo ho yet another lovely photoshoot of the lovely Leo Woodall -- formerly of The White Lotus and currently of One Day on Netflix -- graced us with its lovely presence over the weekend! We'll gobble them all up thank you bvery much. This one is for Numero Netherlands and there's a bit of a chat with him there too, if you so desire. There's not a lot of meat to it (certainly less than he's displaying in those biceps, humina humina) but he does mention a pair of upcoming projects ...

... he's doing an Apple+ series called Prime Target with a stacked-af cast including Martha Plimpton, Harry Lloyd, David Morrissey, Quintessa Swindell, Stephen Rea, and my beloved Sidse Babett Knudsen from The Duke of Burgundy. That's a cast and a half. And he's starring in a movie called Nuremberg (I think you can guess what that is about) opposite Michael Shannon and Russell Crowe and Rami Malek and Richard E. Grant and hottie Mark O'Brien. Things look good for Leo Woodall, beyond Leo Woodall looking good! All that said we're here for the latter so hit the jump for more photos...

Josh Hartnett Two Times

Even though Christopher Nolan had already cast my beloved Florence Pugh, one of my favorite actors, in his next movie Oppenheimer (about the scientist who came up with the grand ol' atom bomb), I had successfully avoided talking about it because, well, because I'm basically done with Nolan at this point. I haven't liked anything since The Dark Knight, and that only somewhat -- I love Memento but that's about where the relationship between me and Chris ends. But he got me today because he went and cast Josh Hartnett in Oppenheimer (news via, thx Mac), and I got no fight on that front -- you put Josh in your movie, I see your movie. Dammit all to fuck -- this is a low-blow, Nolan! Also in the cast so far -- Robert Downey Jr, Benny Safdie, Rami Malek, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon, and Cillian Murphy in the titular role. BOOM! (That's the sound of an atom bomb going off, PS, in case you didn't get it)

Because I Could Not Stop For Nanobots

The first James Bond movie I ever saw was Casino Royale in 2006. The character as he stood in pop culture never held any sway for me -- a sexist murderer who loves cars and martinis, great! Right up my alley! But in 2006 Daniel Craig held a lot of sway for me. Fresh off of the killer triumvirate of Enduring Love (by the way RIP Roger Michell) and Munich and Layer Cake, with notable-to-me roles stretching back to Road to Perdition and Love is the Devil, he was becoming one of my favorite character actors at that point, and his 007 casting seemed so left-field you had to take notice. If it was angering the Bond lovers then maybe they were doing something right! And then this happened in the trailer:

And it was history from there. I became a Bond Person then and there, insofar as the Daniel Craig movies were concerned -- I have since gone back and seen several of the earlier installments, including almost all of the Connery ones, and... they're fun? Casino Royale remains my favorite of every Bond film I've seen though, and I can't write that statement as fact without name-dropping Eva Green either, my favorite Bond Girl. The chemistry those two had in that film was off-the-charts. Oh and Mads Mikkelsen! The chemistry Daniel Craig and Mads had was also off the charts. A repertory screening of Casino Royale at MoMA was one of the last films I saw on a big screen with an audience (and with Daniel Craig in attendance!) before the pandemic shut everything down and that movie continues to play like gangbusters. 

The Daniel Craig films since that high point have generally been a mixed-bag, but Craig -- even when it's been clear that he was fairly miserable being there -- has always been rock solid (and yes of course I mean that in multiple fashions). The plots got convoluted and who-cares but I always cared about his Bond, a surprisingly vulnerable and tender mass-murderer under all those abs. Which brings us to his fifth and they-say final film in the role, No Time To Die, finally hitting theaters this weekend after ten thousand months of delays. How is it? It's fine!

Don't ask me to narrate the plot or how that entirely relates to the previous films, because I'd be terrible at that -- most of them, Royale aside, I haven't seen a second time. I enjoyed them but these aren't exactly films I revisit. They're disposable pop entertainment to me, and No Time To Die has plenty of that to offer. In a good way. What struck me the hardest with No Time To Die was just that -- this was the first very expensive action film I've seen on a big screen since I saw Casino Royale in February of 2020, and there's something to be said for that spectacle in and of itself. The money drips off the screen -- the costumes and locations and cars and special-effects. I missed the feeling of all of that, and this film absolutely delivers on each one of those fronts. 

Does it deliver that stuff for far too long? For sure. You can feel the film dragging its heels toward its destination, nobody wanting to say their goodbyes to the franchise, and I'm generous enough and willing to grant them some leeway on that front because Daniel Craig's James Bond has earned it. He's just an absolute pleasure to watch play this role. But No Time To Die is maybe the first time it felt like he was playing it in a vacuum? There are terrific actors all around him -- Ben Whishaw and Ralph Fiennes and Lashana Lynch and Naomie Harris and Jeffrey Wright all get their little moments to shine, and Ana de Armas truly steals the show in her too-brief sequence -- but every role (except Armas) feels deferential to Bond in this film in ways that kind of suck the air out of it.

This is especially noticeable with the two main actors I didn't list above, Léa Seydoux as Bond's main squeeze Madeleine, and Rami Malek as the big villain. The film begins with Madeleine nodding her head towards how she has long felt the shadow of Eva Green's character over her relationship with Bond, and speaking for myself I felt it too -- Seydoux is in it a lot yet she leaves very little impression in the film, and she and Craig don't have anything approaching the crackling chemistry he had with Green. No Time To Die very much wants to be the great romance that Casino Royale effortlessly was, and comes up a hard short there.

Meanwhile Malek, perhaps (if I am being generous) inclined to tone down his usual parlor tricks after he inexplicably won an Oscar for turning Freddie Mercury into a chattering platter of eyeballs and tics, plays the villain  Lyutsifer Safin as if he's been doped down by his own supply -- heir to a poison throne (yes really), in the last reel Safin shows off his garden of deathly plants, one of which will turn anybody who touches it into a brainless zombie, and I couldn't help but think one of Safin's peons has been slipping that sucker into your tea, dude. It's a lifeless performance with absolutely no logic to his dastardly machinations. 

No Time To Die's plot, involving DNA-nanobots, is an utter gibberish disaster -- this isn't necessarily a problem, or it hasn't been a problem in the past, as gibberish can be Bond's stock-in-trade. There's fun to be had in such nonsense!  I get that. But without any through-line as to why Safin is doing the things he's doing -- and the movie literally offers none that I could find save a couple of tossed-off comments about "ehh, power, that's how they do" -- there's a great big cavernous rock-garden where its brain should be. If the movie can't even care why any of this is happening why should we?

But it looks great, it sounds great, and Daniel Craig is everything looking and sounding great one could ask for, and that all might be enough... for about half the movie No Time To Die is anyway. Nearly three hours is too much of an ask, but contradictorily I felt the urge to hang on with Mr. Bond for all of those extra minutes too. Depending on who gets the role next and what direction they take I can probably move on with my life now though, putting such double-oh things behind me, and maybe that's No Time To Die's biggest gift of all.

The Time To Die is Now

It's funny, it's been so long since I have watched a trailer for No Time To Die or given a lot of thought about who is actually in this one -- I haven't thought about any of that much since before the pandemic began, when the movie got first delayed -- that my head was spinning as I looked at the IMDb cast list just now. Besides Daniel Craig, who is of course the main event, there's Naomie Harris and Ralph Fiennes and Ben Whishaw (oh and sidenote: this video:

#NoTimeToDie star Ben Whishaw tells Attitude he'd 'love' to see an out gay British actor cast as James Bond - and he reckons @TheRealLukevans or Bridgerton's Jonathan Bailey would do a 'thrilling' job... pic.twitter.com/sWCLcSZ6gP

— Attitude Magazine (@AttitudeMag) September 27, 2021

...) and Jeffrey Wright and Ana de Armas and Léa Seydoux and Billy Magnussen and okay yes Rami Malek (he's still on notice because of that godawful Oscar win)... oh and Rory Kinnear, we love Rory. I'd watch fifty movies with just this cast. Anyway I'm bringing all of this up because I somehow scammed an invite to the big screening this afternoon here in NYC -- never say that annoying people doesn't work! -- so that's where I am headed now. I am dressed up and everything! Watch out, Regé-Jean Page -- once Barbara Broccoli sees me in my slacks the gig's mine!

Wore my fancy shoes today for the Bond screening (all so I can have a bomb dropped on my head I guess) pic.twitter.com/GIcsurIyle

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) September 28, 2021

Make It Huckabees Two

Y'all think I love famous people -- well wait til you get a load of the director David O. Russell. He's always been known for gathering up big casts of name actors -- he might not have had the clout with his first film Spanking the Monkey but what clout he had off of Spanking the Monkey's small success (and I remember that movie being pretty buzzy when it came out in 1994) he immediately threw into casting with his next flick, the road-trip comedy Flirting With Disaster...

... which starred Ben Stiller, Tea Leoni, Patricia Arquette, Alan Alda, Lily Tomlin, Mary Tyler Moore, George Segal, Richard Jenkins, and Josh Brolin. (Plus bonus points for Celia Weston, of course.) And his casts have only grown starrier from there, reaching probably their apex with American Hustle back in... 2013? Is that movie really seven years old? WTF.

This shot of Christian Bale on the set of the new David O. Russell movie is speaking to me in a language I don't understand pic.twitter.com/qVeHQUxtcM

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 13, 2021

Anyway we might have thought that was the apex, but his new project is putting all of those movies to shame. We don't have a title, we don't know what it's about -- except it's based on "an original idea" from Russell himself -- but we just got nine new names added to the already insane cast in the past 24 hours so let's list off the people who're signing up to get berated on set by him. First we heard about Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington. That's already a big movie right there. Then a couple of days ago they added Rami Malek and Zoe Saldana. But then! Last night! Last night the cast added (deep breath) Robert De Niro, Mike Myers, Timothy Olyphant, Michael Shannon, Chris Rock, Anya Taylor-Joy, Andrea Riseborough, Matthias Schoenaerts, and Alessandro Nivola.

Russell has of course worked with a few of these people before -- Nivola and Bale and De Niro, of course -- but, I mean... did his casting people just come here to MNPP and start grabbing names after that? It's like that meme that says "We're gonna give the gays all that they want" but it's not "We're gonna give JA all that he wants." Olyphant, Riseborough, Shannon, Taylor-Joy and Schoenaerts in one place is literally breaking my brain. Literally. I would take a picture with my phone and show you my brain oozing out of my ears but my brain just oozed out of my ears and so I don't remember how to take pictures with my phone any longer. I am broken. Right, Andrea? 

Double Oh This Again

This new preview for the new Bond movie No Time To Die has two strikes against it right out the gate -- one, it's focused on Rami Malek's villain character Safin, and Rami Malek is fresh off winning an Oscar for one of the worst, most offensive performances I have ever seen with his abominational turn as some minstrel version of Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody. It's gonna take time for me to get over that, if ever, and that time is Not Today. And two, the other thing this trailer has against it is we are in the middle of a pandemic and I don't think any new movies should be planning on coming out in movie theaters this year, period. I know some of you have gone but I don't feel responsible encouraging it. So I say that first! But this clip has one big plus and that's why I'm even posting it: more footage of Daniel Craig in suspenders. We can at least enjoy that in this hellscape!

Guess There Is Time To Die After All

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Well! Speaking of Daniel Craig, as we just was, the new Bond movie No Time To Die has just now had its release date delayed from April 10th, aka 37 days from today, all the way to November. This is because of everybody's new BFF the Coronavirus, which has half the globe shut up in their homes -- I suppose turning off the tap of Chinese marketplace dollars was all the incentive the producers needed to hit the pause button. Well at least this gives me plenty of time to go re-watch all of the Daniel Craig films before it's out, like I'd decided to do last night after seeing Casino Royale and realizing I have no real memory at all of what happened in any of them.

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MGM, Universal and Bond producers, Michael G. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli, announced today that after careful consideration and thorough evaluation of the global theatrical marketplace, the release of NO TIME TO DIE will be postponed until November 2020. pic.twitter.com/a9h1RP5OKd

— James Bond (@007) March 4, 2020

5 Off My Head: The Dorians of '19

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I'm running late on sharing these with you since they were dropped on Friday when I was off, but the critic's guild I belong to called GALECA, aka The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, announced our Dorian Award nominees the other day, and they're generally pretty darn terrific if I do say so myself! (Spoiler alert: I do.)

Our pal Murtada wrote them all up at The Film Experience in total so I'll just toss you over there if you'd like to see them that way, but I figured before the winners are announced -- voting just ended today -- I'd highlight five of my favorite nominees, aka the sort of recognitions that only a group of us smart queers could come up with. We smart, we queer, get used to it!

5 of My Favorites Dorian Noms for 2019

The Lighthouse for "Visually Striking Film of the Year" -- This was the only nomination my favorite movie of the year received -- I didn't say we did a perfect job! -- so of course I'm going to highlight it immediately. This whole category is stacked though, with nominees also including Midsommar and Portrait of a Lady on Fire. (Read my The Lighthouse review here.)

Portrait of a Lady on Fire for Best Film & Director -- Speaking of, the best LGBT film of 2019 (if you don't count The Lighthouse, which fine don't count The Lighthouse, whatever) got a lot of love from our group, as well it should. I personally would've even given its two leading ladies acting noms over even some of our nominees. (Read my Portrait of a Lady on Fire review here.)

End of the Century for Best LGBT Film -- The best "G" film  out of the "LGBT" (again, if you don't count The Lighthouse...) got a nod, which rules. I wasn't sure how many of my fellow voters had seen this Argentinian gem. (Read my End of the Century review here.)

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Congrats to Taron on his Golden Globe! I think it was our three minute long crazy eyed conversation that really cinched the deal https://t.co/wlmQ81ecdN

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 8, 2020

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Taron Egerton in Rocketman for Best Actor -- Thank goodness we nominated Taron since we made the profound mistake of nominating Rami Malek last year! Taron's so much better. (Read my Rocketman review here.)

Florence Pugh for the "Rising Star of the Year" -- I have a dreaded sinking feeling that Pugh's name won't be called out on Oscar nomination morning on Tuesday, but we were smart enough to latch on here at the appropriate moment with this and with her nomination for Best Supporting Actress with Little Women. We can say we got it right at the right time, unlike the Oscars which will undoubtedly wait too long. (Please, prove me wrong, AMPAS!)

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And stay tuned for our winners, 

which will be announced soon...

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Smile, Rocketman, Smile

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I don't have much to say about the Golden Globe nominations because y'all should know by now how generally indifferent I am to movie awards by now, but I was happy to see Taron Egerton get some recognition for his stellar work in Rocketman -- if he was gonna show up anywhere it was gonna be the Globes so this isn't surprising, but still, good on 'em. It's a real damn shame his far superior performance seems to've had its momentum murdered by last year's garbage winning crap out of Rami Malek. Anyway as always click over to The Film Experience for coverage of awards stuff! i'm gonna go home tonight and give my new Rocketman book a big wet one.

This ROCKETMAN book is the gift that keeps on giving (thank you @KristyPuchko you know me well) pic.twitter.com/LBq69Duv90

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 8, 2019

Sweet Dreams of James Bond

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The first trailer for Cary Fukunaga's James Bond film No Time To Die with the returning Daniel Craig slipping in and out of every well-tailored suit in the Northern Hemisphere has arrived this very morning, and if you haven't watched it already I have it for you here:

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My first thought upon watching it was... well, this:

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James Bond really does have it all, up to and including every gay boy's dream of a lovingly exasperated Ben Whishaw to come home to after a long day pic.twitter.com/dOXAbLaa4J

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) December 4, 2019

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But my second thought was gee damn it looks pretty:

That's the super talented Ana de Armas in the last shot, who most of you probably saw kicking ass in Rian Johnson's Knives Out this past weekend -- the Bond movies are sometimes so goddamned good at capturing just the right person at just the right moment, aren't they?

And then there's Rami Malek, proving the opposite. I know I know, he just won an Oscar for a movie that made a billion dollars or some shit... emphasis on shit. I'll try not to carry my continuing loathing over to this but it's been rough, for me, even here a full year later. I have fully stopped watching Mr. Robot, a show I once loved. Sigh. Well I've got until April 8th, when the movie comes out! What do y'all think of this trailer?

Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

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... tubbin' with Taron!

The Rocketman himself turned 30 yesterday and apparently celebrated with a big bash with friends (according to his Instagram posts anyway) -- oh to be a fly drowning in that tub. Happy belated, Taron! Actually... I don't want to jinx myself... but I might be able to wish him a happy belated in person this week as there's a Rocketman press event I'm hoping to go to. Fingers crossed! 

Even if I don't get to tell him in person though I still think Taron gave one of the year's best performances by an actor -- here's my review of Rocketman from way back. Have you seen the film by now? Do you think he'll get an Oscar nomination or, as so much else, did Rami Malek ruin his chances?

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Three Heads Are Better Than One

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Did everybody see the documentary Three Identical Strangers, about the triplets who were separated at birth only to be reunited as adults and become a media sensation in the 1980s? Checking the archive I guess I never reviewed it but I remember thinking it solid -- it's such an incredible story (and it only gets weirder from that weird jumping off point somehow) that the doc didn't even have to do a lot of extra work for it to work; you were riveted from the start. Anyway word comes today that the dude who wrote the screenplay for Bohemian Rhapsody (blerg) is writing a script for a fictionalized retelling, which seems like a natural idea until you get to thinking about casting -- I'm guessing this is something they'll do with one actor and then Parent Trap it up, just thrice? 

Actors love that shit! And so do I, since I always get all excited about ye olde harmless CG twincest aka what all technology was invented for. Giving an actor three different roles in one movie and letting them loose, I could see this idea exciting a lot of our best actors. But who should play Robert Shafran, David Kellman and Eddy Galland? They had a distinct look. Gimme casting ideas in the comments!

Billy Bond Bound

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Looks like Cary Fukunaga really loved worked with Billy Magnussen (and his adorkable lil' mustache) on his Netflix series Maniac (and why wouldn't he have?) because rumors abound that he wants Billy to play a CIA side-piece to Bond, James Bond himself, in the forthcoming 007 picture that he's directing! What delightful news. (Thx Mac.) Maybe this will be the time that they'll let Daniel Craig go full-gay and not just flirt with it like he did with Javier Bardem in Skyfall. Alright alright I won't get my hopes up on that count, but that's fine because the studio also wants to hire Rami Malek as the movie's villain and that, under this post-Bohemian dark cloud world we're living in, has brought my high hopes down to Earth already. (You got some work ahead of you, Mr. Malek, before this awards-season's slate is wiped clean.)
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Good Morning, Great Gratuity #7

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The remake of Papillon that came out in August was thoroughly just-adequate business (here's my review) but I will never ever begrudge it its existence because of this scene right here, where Charlie Hunnam and Rami Malek are attacked by a gang of soapy thugs Eastern Promises style. Does Charlie show the literal balls Viggo Mortensen did there? No, he does not. But he's Charlie Hunnam; I'll allow it. It still merits a place on our "Great Gratuities of 2018 Movies" list, obviously. This is a meritocracy, yo. Hit the jump for twenty-plus more merit-able gifs...

Good Morning, World

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What's happening? Is this really me here, doing a post on Bradley Cooper in A Star is Born, a film I cannot stand? Turns out I am! I have my reasons...

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Y'all know that I hated A Star is Born but I am now officially campaigning for Bradley Cooper for Best Actor just so a certain buck-toothed atrocity doesn't happen pic.twitter.com/L7FjOQTNiE

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) January 22, 2019

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Ahem. Hey Oscar Voters! Ya listening? Cooper probably wouldn't get my vote (out of the people nominated I'd vote for Dafoe, or maybe Bale although I hated Vice too) -- listen I get that Bradley is "doing Sam Eillott" but I really think he overdoes the voice; you don't just "do Sam Elliott." Sam Elliott is a state of being Sam Elliott. Sam Elliott can get away with that shit. 

But otherwise Bradley's pretty good in the movie. He certainly does his best considering... what he has to work against. Ahem. And besides he's overdue at this point, and he did work awful hard-like on making his big movie. A gold star for Bradley! As long as it's not... anything but... ugh, I shudder.

The Queens of Nashville

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Yesterday the annual Film Poll at the Nashville Scene went up, which I've participated in for the past couple of years alongside a tremendous group of critics thanks to a kind invitation from friend-of-MNPP Jason Shawhan. Click on over to see our 25 favorite films of 2018 (hint hint the movie pictured placed pretty well!), along with our takes on the best and worst and so-forth, which gave me the chance to shit on Bohemian Rhapsody again, hurray -- I'll always take that opportunity. There was one movie about mincing queens with big hair and fancy costumes that I cared about this year and these were its stars...

Good Morning, Timothée & Co

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I think this might be our first "Good morning" via evening wear but these pictures of Timothée Chalamet on the cover and inside of Vanity Fair's latest annual "Hollywood Issue" were the first thing I saw after sitting down at my desk this morning and they perked me up so I shall return the favor. 

Smart of them, pairing Timmy with his Lady Bird (and forthcoming Little Women) co-star Saoirse Ronan for a couple of snaps, since I don't know about you but I just keep hoping those crazy kids can make it work. (I realize I am projecting, they seem more like brother and sister than anything else, but that's what movie stars are for...

... projecting.) See more pictures here, including Rami Malek & Henry Golding & Nicky Hoult & John David Washington on the manly side, with the queen Regina King & Elisabeth Debicki & Tessa Thompson & Yalitza Aparicio taking care of the lady business.

Whacking Rhapsodic

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If you scan through our Rami Malek archives here at MNPP you'll see I've been a fan of his for awhile (since Short Term 12, I guess) so I feel okay with being vocally, uh, opposed to one of his performances. They can't all be gold, ya know? Just because I said of his work in Bohemian Rhapsody that "you could've replaced him with a pair of chattering wind-up teeth and a tossed handful of glitter and gotten the same effect" doesn't mean I don't look forward to what he does next.

Ohh... except I didn't actually say that... see, The Film Experience rounded up our reactions to the Golden Globes with Five Questions, read the post here, but one of the questions that didn't make the cut (because our answers apparently got too mean) was "Which win made you the angriest?" So now you know what I said to that. Or didn't. Nobody knows!