Pic of the Day

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Ryan Hansen tweeted this picture of himself and his Veronica Mars buddy Jason Dohring last night - soon very soon Dick and Logan will be making funnies on a movie screen! That shit is crazy!

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Oh It's Hugh Again

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There's a new Wolverine trailer out this morning - of course there is! There's been a new Wolverine trailer every single morning for the past six months, it seems. I complain, yet I still go through it frame by frame looking for new shots of Hugh Jackman half-dressed. Speaking of, hit the jump for a few! None are funnier than this next shot though. Wake up, Hugh! Surprise!

Good Morning, Kretschmann

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It's not Thomas Kretschmann's birthday today or anything - I was just missing him. You don't see nearly enough of him in the trailer for that Jonathan Rhys Meyers Dracula show (have you watched that yet? I actually totally want to watch that show) that's airing this Fall, where TK's playing Van Helsing; you just get a couple quick glimpses. (I like the beard he's sporting though. )

Anyway these shots here, most erotic bookshelves and all, are from a turn he did on German TV way way back - there was this very Columbo sounding show called Derreck that ran for 24 years, from 1974 to 1998, and Thomas was on it twice in the early 90s (he played a different character each time). (via)

I wish I could find video footage of all this old stuff he did in the late 80s and 90s when he was so young and gorgeous, there's tons of it. I mean he's old(er) and still totally gorgeous now, but in case I haven't driven the point home by now, it's all about quantity. I want it all.

Pics of the Day

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How could I resist - here's Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston done up vampire-like for Jim Jarmusch's upcoming Only Lovers Left Alive, which tells the tale of their centuries long love affair. See more pics and clips and quotes over at Slash! It's just about to show at Cannes.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Dogville (2003)

The Big Man: Rapists and murders may be the victims 

according to you, but I, I call them dogs. 

And if they're lapping up their own vomit, 

the only way to stop them is with a lash. 

Grace: But dogs only obey their own nature, 

so why shouldn't we forgive them? 

The Big Man: Dogs can be taught many useful things, 

but not if we forgive them every time
they obey their own nature. 

Lars Von Trier's Dogville premiered at Cannes 

ten years ago yesterday. 

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Since We Can't Stop Talking About...

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... A Game of Thrones today we should wish Jack Gleeson, the dude who brings such insatiable malevolence to Joffrey Baratheon, a happy 21st birthday today! Let us hope and pray that he celebrates such things with cake and funny little pointed hats with the rubber band that goes under your chin and not, you know, by shooting hookers with arrows.

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Aaron's All Cleaned Up

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While I actually ended up enjoying Aaron Johnson's bleached frizzed and mustachioed look in the context of Anna Karenina far more than I anticipated when I first saw it in photographs, it's damn nice to see him shaved and trimmed and all that jazz for the new Godzilla movie. There's a big batch of pics from the set here. This look's a keeper, I must say. He's totally buffed up too, isn't he?

In Case You Were Wondering...

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... what Ed Skrein (the just-introduced-last-night actor playing the sell-sword Dario Naharis on A Game of Thrones) would look like if he were to ditch his costume, here's a glimpse. Not too shabby, eh?

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Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?

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Today's Fanboy Delusion

Today I'd rather be...

... making Gendry squirm.

When they showed Joe Dempsie shirtless in the first season I didn't really get why they made Gendry such a hunk - he hasn't had a whole ton to do in the books so far. I mean I didn't mind, it was just unexpected. But now I see they had a whole thing sorted out...

And what a thing! Hit the jump, I've capped the whole scene (well exept for the shots with the leeches, because yuck times three).

Michael Fassbender Two Times

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(via)

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I Am Link

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--- Super Fur - Because thinking about Henry Cavill's body hair is one of life's greatest pleasures, here's an article in the Times about how a razor company is teaming up with Man of Steel to ask the question on all of our lips (I wish henry Cavill's body hair was on my lips) - how does Superman shave? (thx Mac)

--- Forever Ling - The Film Experience is taking a look at some of the fashions out of Cannes and color me thrilled it includes Bai Ling. The world needs more Bai Ling - I know she works constantly but it's always stuff nobody ever sees; I wish real auteurs would snatch (heh) her up again, she's so entertaining on-screen (and off, for sure).

--- Nicotine Nightmares - He hasn't signed yet but I'll be very happy if he does - Chris Evans might star in the Stephen King adaptation The Ten O'Clock people, from the director of Fright Night. (The original FN, not the remake.) Justin Long had to drop out. It's about a guy who stops smoking with some new drug, which in turn causes him to "discover a frightening aspect of reality." I have no idea, I never read this story.
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--- Death March - The director Peter Greenaway is going to adapt Thomas Mann's Death In Venice in the UK next year! It'll be his first time filming in England since he made The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover back in 1989, if you can believe that. (thx Gus)

--- Creed Like Me - Michael Fassbender's big video-game adaptation action movie Assassin's Creed doesn't have a director or any other actors attached yet but it's plunked down a flag on the date of May 22nd, 2015. If you ask me it doesn't need a director or other actors - Michael can turn the camera on himself, walk in front of it, and stand there for two hours, and then walk and turn the camera off, and that will be the greatest cinematic achievement of all time.

---  Brand New Dance - I haven't watched this yet but here's a trailer for The Dance of Reality, aka Alejandro Jodorowsky's first film since 1990's The Rainbow Thief. I guess it screened over the weekend at Cannes, but I haven't read any reactions to it either.

--- Triple Transport - Jason Statham isn't signed on to star in them (yet) but a second trilogy of Transporter movies has just been announced - I hope Statham does sign on, these movies are always good for getting him half-naked.

--- Tim Bone - We just mentioned Bone Tomahawk this morning while wishing Timothy Olyphant a happy birthday, but there's new news on it - a studio, Magnolia specifically, has picked it up, so if we were worried about it actually getting made we don't need to be now.

--- The Badger - I forgot to mention super sexy James Badge Dale in my Iron Man 3 review - specifically, how hot (heh) his first scene was with all that crotch-level gazing. Anyway here's an interview with him about that movie (and a couple others he's got coming out this Summer) to make up for my most egregious oversight.

--- Penn For Paul - Sean Penn might be joining the ever expanding cast of Paul Thomas Anderson's next movie, his adaptation of Phynchon's Inherent Vice. PTA is not exactly filling this movie with folks I adore, so he's fortunate he's PTA and can get away with it on his own merit.

Good Morning, Olyphant

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I have of course posted still pictures from this scene in the movie Advice From a Caterpillar before, for a good long while it was the only naked Timothy Olyphant there was to be had, but now that I've hopped on the gif train I can go back and revisit these wonders anew, with motion and life! It's Timothy Olyphant's 45th birthday today - we do all agree that he's only gotten better with age right? I was going to use the "fine wine" line but he's really more a bourbon. Stiff, and he'll knock you right on the floor. I was checking what he's got coming up, other than more Justified which I am totally never going to catch up on, and I was reminded of Bone Tomahawk, the movie where he and Richard Jenkins and Kurt Russell and Peter Sarsgaard are going to play Wild West ruffians who set out to "to rescue a group of captives from cannibalistic cave dwellers." Tell me you don't want to see that movie right this instant. It hasn't even filmed yet though, I don't think; it's set for next year. Gimme!

Has Chris Pine Seen Zachary Quinto Naked?

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Or vice versa? That's what I want you to be thinking about when 

you watch Star Trek Into Darkness this weekend. Enjoy!

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The Hoodoo That You Do

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If you've seen the trailer for The Conjuring - James Wan's spook-stuffed follow-up to his shockingly great shocker Insidious - then I have bad news for you. You need to try to unsee the trailer. Stick your head in a microwave oven and aim its death rays at that portion of your brain, or you know, do not do that, not that specifically, but maybe just conk yourself on the head a couple of times with something medium-to-medium-heavy dense. Whatever it takes - forget the trailer. And if you have not seen the trailer, do not see the trailer. Because the trailer gives away far too much, and unfortunately for The Conjuring, The Conjuring doesn't have enough to be giving away anything.

And now I am about to get into giving away things, so be prepared for mild spoilers ahead. See, I bring up the trailer at the start because of a specific point, which I think elucidates the problems I had with the movie as a whole as I saw it. In the trailer we see this game that Lily Taylor plays with her kids that they call "The Clapping Game." It's basically hide and go seek, only the seeker is blindfolded and goes about finding the hiders by making them clap on command. It's a great set up for a scare - you've got a person in a weakened state (blindfolded) totally unaware that they should be scared, being led into a space where all is not what it seems - the tension comes from the fact that we the audience can see what they cannot, and it activates our "Oh hell no don't go in there!" sense that horror movies so thrive on.

So in the trailer this whole thing plays out somewhat predictably, but it's got a great jump scare at the end that utilizes space nicely - those clapping hands do not come from where we think those clapping hands are going to come from. One of the greatest things about Insidious was tricks like this, and I wish horror movies were on the whole better about it - leading our eye in one direction, setting up our expectations for one thing, and then zinging us with the unexpected. In my favorite scare in Insidious, when you see that demon half hidden behind Patrick Wilson's head, that shot smashes a whole bunch of set-up in a way you don't see coming at all. They cut to that shot of Wilson a few times before the demon shows up in the frame, so that last time, when that demon is there but barely there, just around and behind him, you're looking at the shot for a second before you even realize what you're seeing - your eyes are working over the image and it just doesn't gel at first... but when it does, wham. And that's just one example - that film does it enough times that it totally won me over. I don't tend to be a jumper at horror movies, but Insidious had me hopping like Frogger.

So the trailer for The Conjuring with that unexpected clap coming from the darkness over Taylor's shoulder like that, it gave me hopes that Wan & Co were on-board with keeping it smart about playing with the frame and all that jazz in smart unexpected ways. But something happened at some point in the making of The Conjuring - I don't know if they got nervous in post-production or just bored maybe or if the studio wanted it or what, but this unexpected scare has been changed, and for the worse. Now, right before the clap comes out of the darkness there is a ghost voice that whispers I don't even remember what, some stupid shit, and my god does it just murder any momentum dead dead a million times over dead.

It reminds me of Sinister, that recent Ethan Hawke horror flick that was supposed to be about snuff movies but by the end became a terrible hodge-podge of Ghost Kid nonsense (here's my review of Sinister) - I don't know who it is on this entire Earth who finds little kids done up in drug-store quality ghost make-up actually scary, but they need to step off and stop ruining my horror movies. Insidious had some of that in the last act that I try to forget about - all those ridiculous Doll People in the mist or whatever. And because James Wan is obsessed with dolls he crams one into this movie too, never really going much of anywhere with it. 

But as I did with Insidious those are flaws that I could look past if the editing and camera-work is lively and on its toes, but I can't think of one scare in The Conjuring that lifted me out of my seat. Okay there is one really terrific (yet brief) sequence, where one of Lily Taylor's daughters is convinced there is something in the room with her - the camera stares and stares and stares at the darkness where she says she sees something, and it's monstrously unsettling. But when the bangs and booms start piling up and the moments come like the one with the clapping game, Wan just can't seem to get out of his own way. Why is that damned whisper there? It doesn't add anything except a complete deflation of all of the tension he'd been building. When the bad things start revealing themselves I can see him straining for the sort of affect he got time and again in Insidious, without result. The camera swerves towards unexpected angles a few times to reveal something, but it keeps feeling half- or over-baked. It keeps feeling as if you're waiting for the scare to come so long that tension turns into annoyance, and then the scare comes right when you're past caring. The rhythm is all off, somehow.

Thing is, I saw this movie two months before it's being released, so I kind of hope they're still in the editing process - there's good stuff in here that can probably be tweaked to make something out of. The actors are all giving it their all. I'm not entirely nuts about the turn it takes in the last act, but Taylor and Farmiga do some great work in there anyway. I do wish the movie were having as much fun as Farmiga's costumes were promising - that collar promised me entertainment of the loopiest variety, but Wan keeps the proceedings pretty much entirely straight-faced. And they need to shave down the Giant Arrows they have pointing towards where things are headed, too - we're willing to follow you; there's no need to shoot off flares illuminating the whole landscape time and again. Can the ghost whispers and trust the silence, and the darkness, and aim your camera deep deep deep into those ever dark spaces. We want to stare into it - it's what we're here to do!

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On Set Dom

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(via) Here are a couple of pictures of Dominic Cooper in Georgia filming Need For Speed... and yes that's a movie based on that racing video-game,...and yes it is directed by the dude who made Act of Valor... and yet here we are talking about it. So is the power of Dominic Cooper. That's his co-star Dakota Johnson, the daughter of Melanie Giffith and Don Johnson, pictured along with him. The film also stars Aaron Paul and Michael Keaton. Anyway I have to go now, I must catch a midnight train to... somewhere...

Which Is Hotter?

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Kirk or Spock?

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poll by twiigs.com

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Five Frames From ?

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What movie is this?

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Matthew Wilkas Three Times

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Gayby actor Matthew Wilkas proved pretty popular in the 2012 Gratuitites - he topped his division, and made a good showing in the finals, too. So I know y'all like him. He got good news this week - he's on that show with Jonathan Groff that got picked up by HBO, the one from Weekend director Andrew Haigh that everybody's referring to as the "gay Girls." So we're looking forward to watching his pecs bounce around in the future.

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Inland Empire (2006)

Neighbor: Is there a murder in your film? 

Nikki: Uh, no. It's not part of the story. 

Neighbor: No, I think you are wrong about that. 

Nikki: No. 

Neighbor: Brutal fucking murder! 

Nikki: I don't like this kind of talk; 

the things you've been saying. 

I think you should go now. 

Neighbor: Yes. Me, I... I can't seem to remember 

if it's today, two days from now, or yesterday. 

I suppose if it was 9:45, I'd think it was after midnight! 

For instance, if today was tomorrow, you wouldn't 

even remember that you owed on an unpaid bill. 

Actions do have consequences. And yet, 

there is the magic. If it was tomorrow, 

you would be sitting over there. Do you see?

Happy 72, Grace Zabriskie!

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