my new plaid pants

I'm sure without doing a search that I posted this ancient photoshoot of Ryan Kwanten when it dropped back in the day at Bello magazine, but seeing as how the sexy ass True Blood star isn't photographed the way he still oughta be photographed these days I'm going with that golden oldie above for our purposes today. And our purposes today are this -- to point you in the direction of Amazon where the horror streaming service Shudder is having a big blow-out sale called "Halfway to Halloween" on a bunch of their movies on blu-ray and DVD! You love to see a streamer embracing physical media like this, don't you? Those fine folks know that just because you have one of their movies sitting on your shelf doesn't mean you're necessarily going to get up off the couch to put it in when you can also access it via the button on your remote control. It's the "Why not both?" meme come to life! Buy physical media and pay for streamers -- at least the good ones like Shudder anyway. 

But back to the sale -- Ryan Kwanten is the star of the Lovecraftian horror movie Glorious which is a part of Shudder's sale -- you can get that blu for $9.49 right now! That movie, directed by Rebekah McKendry, is a hell of a lot of fun -- see a fun post I did about it right here. Other highlights from this sale... actually you know what? Let's do a list.

Scare Me -- buy it here! 

Hunted -- buy it here -- my review here!

Deadstream -- buy it here -- my review here!

Satan's Slaves -- buy it here!

Prevenge -- buy it here - my review here!

Caveat -- buy it here!

Violation -- buy it here -- my review here!

Anything For Jackson -- buy it here!

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These selections trot us all over the globe and hit every single tone and sub-genre of horror that you can imagine -- Shudder is the bee's knees, and it probably has a horror movie about bee's knees while it's at it. It's one of the best bangs for your buck streaming-wise that I've come across, so go support them and why not scare your pants off while you're at it?

Perhaps I chose this year's Halloween list theme counting down the "13 Toilets of Halloween" because I am a disgusting person worthy of your scorn. Or perhaps I did it because I have the stunted maturity of a ten-year-old. Or perhaps I chose it because the year that has been 2022 has been rich with Toilet Cinema? (True fact: it is probably all of these things.) But there are at least two Toilet Epics that hit screens in the past year that I can think of off the top of my head, and it only seems right to take this opportunity to highlight them. 

First, the one you can actually watch right now! Right now streaming on Shudder there is Rebekah McKendry's goopy Lovecraftian goof Glorious, which stars True Blood hunk Ryan Kwanten as a down-on-his-luck daddy who finds himself trapped inside a rest-stop bathroom with some kind of a monster speaking to him through a glory hole. A monster voiced by J.K. Simmons, cuz sure why not?

Ryan spends at least half of the movie sitting on the toilet -- although none of it's spent doing his business, don't worry. Not that the movie doesn't take full advantage of nauseating its audience -- toilet humor is just the first little step towards its infinite cosmic jest. The trailer's right here. Looking back I guess I never got around to reviewing this one but it's a lot of fun, and it's great to spend time with Kwanten again -- dude should really be getting more work. 

The other 2022(ish) movie that slid into our theme is Carter Smith's gay horror flick Swallowed, which also has a vital portion set inside a road-side rest-stop bathroom (and later an outhouse) -- it is about two best friends (Cooper Koch and Jose Colon) who get forced into drug-muling by Jena Malone (!!!) and eventually Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2 star Mark Patton shows up as a sinister sissy (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and I loved it, oh I loved it so. 

Here is my review at Pajiba -- this hasn't been released properly yet, although it's been making the fest rounds; it just screened this week at the Brooklyn Horror Fest. I will obviously let y'all know where and when it gets its eventual release so everyone can experience all of its water-closet wonder. Bonus: funny enough as I was writing this piece I stumbled upon this piece at Paste Magazine about these same two movies and "Public Restroom Horror" so let's go read that together! And click here for all our "13 Toilets of Halloween" so far.

Same, Tahar Rahim, same. At about four this afternoon my brain just trailed off and it ain't never done come back. Oh well! In the legendary, iconic words of Miss Nomi Malone, "Shit happens." I got what I needed to get done today done before that, so I'm 100% free, I give myself permission, to go stare at butts and other gay ass stuff now. So that's what I am gonna do dammit! Bye until tomorrow....

Hey remember when this happened pic.twitter.com/yOnWl7J1o9

— Jason Adams (@JAMNPP) August 3, 2022

When last month I did my preview of movies I wanted to see at this year's Fantasia Film Festival one of the titles was the Lovecraftian horror flick Glorious, which stars True Blood's Ryan Kwanten as a dude who gets trapped in a road stop bathroom when some straight up Cthulhu tomfoolery (voiced by the Oscar winner J.K. Simmons no less) starts speaking to him via the glory hole from the next stall. And in said preview I made the mistake of saying I hadn't seen Kwanten in ages, somehow forgetting he'd only recently turned in a terrific performance on the horror series Them for Amazon. I won't make that mistake again here, but I will say that I'd like to see more of Ryan, and I don't just mean in the way that we got to see much of Ryan when he was on True Blood. (Although I did appreciate that way as well, obviously.) Anyway here, lo, our opportunity! Shudder is releasing Glorious for everybody, you and me and Bobby McGee, in just two short weeks! And today they've gifted us with the first trailer, watch:

Glorious drops on August 18th.

Don't miss it, it's glory-hole-licious!

It's summertime and the heat's on here in New York, so why not steam one's self up north for some slightly cooler weather but some hot hot hot movies, as the annual Fantasia International Film Festival kicks into gear this upcoming Thursday? Running for just under three full weeks (from July 14 to August 3rd) the Montreal-set fest is all in-person again this year, after a couple of hybrid-home-things due to the pandemic -- no I'm not traveling up there myself, but I will once again as I have for several years be doing some reviews from the fest anyway! Here on MNPP and also over at Pajiba too. But for now before we get to the reviewing stuff let's take a look at the typically bonkers line-up they've got set, all so perhaps y'all could scoot on up and see something for yourselves? There's still time, baby. THere's always time for awesomeness. Scan the entire line-up over here, but if you want some narrowing down I give you...

Swallowed (dir. Carter Smith) -- I've been a big fan of director Carter Smith ever since I saw his queer-horror short film Bugcrush way back in 2006, which he then followed up with the vastly under-rated The Ruins two years later. Swallowed seems to slam those two interests together, in that it's a queer horror flick and it stars the legend Jena Malone -- I'm sold! It's got something to do with drug-mules and body horror and closeted best friends yadda yadda bring on the transgressive queer shit, Carter!

Bodies Bodies Bodies (dir. Halina Reijn) -- I kind of feel like an asshole including a movie that's already been scooped up by A24 and has a trailer and a release date (on August 5th, right after the fest finishes). And yet! This slasher satire about influencer culture is super buzzy and it stars Lee Pace and Rachel Sennott (from Shiva Baby) and I just wanna see the damned thing already, okay?

Coupez! (dir. Michel Hazanavicius) -- The title translates to Final Cut! and this is the remake of the Japanese Zombie Flick One Cut of the Dead that I really wanted to see at Sundance in January, which they then pulled from the line-up at the last minute. I even included it in my round-up of movies I wanted to see at Sundance. And yet here I am, being a good game giving person, not holding that yank against them. I still wanna see this even though it got mixed reviews when it did actually screen at Cannes. Such is the power of Romain Duris, yo.

Glorious (dir. Rebekah McKendry) -- A shitter-centric Lovecraftian horror comedy starring Ryan Kwanten? I think all of those words are my new middle name. Or they were my middle-name all this time, and I only am just now realizing it. Anyway we must encourage a Ryan Kwanten comeback, so we must all go to see this movie, whether it's good or bad or whatever. Ryan Kwanten good. 

Hypochondriac (dir. Addison Heimann) -- We got another gay one! So glad we're getting plenty of queer horror these days -- I mean the sort on the movie screens, not the real-life stuff. Had enough of life's real queer horrors, thanks. But I guess these things go hand in hand! Anyway this one's about a man whose bipolar mother tried to kill him when he was little, and what happens when packages containing messages from her start showing up at the happy home he shares with his boyfriend. Something tells me it ain't good!

Please Baby Please (dir. Amanda Kramer) -- I have already posted about this movie several times, this is the one that stars Andrea Riseborough and Harry Melling as a bored suburban couple in the 1960s who get dragged into an erotic nightmare by a weirdo biker gang led by my boy Karl Glusman in fetish gear. Oh and Cole Escola and Demi Morre are there. The director described it as a campy take on West Side Story if shot by John Waters, and all of the photos look like some colorful Fassbinder by way of Kenneth Anger shit, and I am all over this baby.

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I really miss Ryan Kwanten, you guys. I mean his IMDB page makes it look like he's worked pretty steadily since True Blood ended three years ago but looks to me like it's all remained mostly Down Under. I always want to make a dirty joke when I use that phrase and that urge is quadrupled when it's Ryan I'm talking about, but I'll refrain just this once, as a birthday present. Ryan is 41 today so happy birthday to him - y'all can click back through our archives for more.
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Alexander Skarsgard has been making the good-natured rounds with Tarzan this week, keeping a lovely smile on his face for what's probably gonna be a bit of a flop - he's a pro and as a pro he does what pros do, which is keep selling selling selling that ass. I've read a few of these interviews and he keeps batting around questions about the lack of a loincloth in the film but this interview over at PrideSource (leave it to the gays) is the first time I've seen him admit that "the lack of a loincloth" translates to, in flashbacks, total nakedness. Which makes sense, given the case he's been making! And this being a PG-13 family tent-pole (ha ha I said tent-pole) I doubt we're gonna get full-on cock shots. Still, it's a selling point. (thx Mac) But that bit's not the quote to take away from that interview - the keeper is at the very end, right after he and the interviewer talk about prepping for gay sex with Ryan Kwanten:

PrideSource: When can we expect you to do
something as gay as True Blood again?
Skarsgard: (Laughs) Well, I mean,
next time I get drunk probably.

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-- That's Alexander Skarsgard answering the question of whose kiss was best between his True Blood co-star Ryan Kwanten, his Tarzan co-star Margot Robbie, or Nicole Kidman, who he's starring opposite in Big Little Lies which I believe is filming right now. (thanks Boyd) Anyway sorry ladies! Alex is all about the Kwanten and so say we all. For our big time recappery of their kissing seen click right here. S'good, s'very very very good, y'all. And it's now our civic duty to ask Ryan Kwanten to kiss us to test out the tenderness if we ever cross paths, so thanks for handing us this lofty responsibility, Alex.

Today I'd rather be...

... hanging eleven with Ryan Kwanten.

Thing I just learned: "Hanging Eleven" is what you call it when a man goes surfing naked. Cuz there's one more thing "hanging" than there is when you "Hang Ten" ya see? Yeah you see. Anyway I am shocked these pictures of Ryan slipping out of his wet-suit in Malibu haven't already made the rounds - they're almost two weeks old! You're slipping, internet. (I have to pretend it's not us forgetting about Ryan Kwanten since True Blood ended, because no don't do that, world!)

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A happy 46th birthday to the actor Max Martini, who stormed biceps-first to our attention just a couple of years ago with Guillermo Del Toro's film Pacific Rim, even though he's been around for much longer than that. When we gratuitized him properly back in 2013 we somehow missed that he's from upstate New York - my neck of the woods!

Somehow I thought he was from Australia or New Zealand - he's got the gruff presence of those strapping people, anyway. These pictures are from something called Edge, a pilot he did for Amazon with (speaking of Aussies) Ryan Kwanten; you can watch it here. I do not know if the show was picked up or not, do any of you? Anyway there's more much more to see so hit the jump for it...

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Sometimes my mind wanders off and I remember that scene on True Blood where they finally had Alexander Skarsgard and Ryan Kwanten go at it and all the shit that show heaped our way falls away and I think it all was worth it, all of it.

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--- Mad To Love - According to Rosie Huntington-Whitely (the fashion model that gets to molest Jason Statham in public places) Mad Max Fury Road director George Miller invited Vagina Monologues creator Eve Ensler to the set of that film to talk to all the pretty girls playing pretty girls in danger about making their characters come off as more than one-note victims. That sounds positive! Oh and here are a bunch of new clips from Max, which i won't be watching because I'm seriously just ready to be sitting in the theater already.

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--- See A Penny - Did you guys watch the first episode of Pretty Dreadful? Over at The Film Experience Nathaniel took a look at it along with a further assorted list of recent NSFW-ness in pop culture, some of which we'd already discussed here at this blog but all of which delighted me all the same. Back to Penny Dreadful though - Out magazine talked to Reeve Carney about being sexually adventurous and naked on the show, which is all of interest.

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--- Real Gold - The great Jacki Weaver will be romancing the great David Wenham in Goldstone, and as if that wasn't enough the movie will also co-star Ryan Kwanten. (thanks Glenn) That's a lotta Aussie hotness in one spot. I even like Jacki enough that it took me a whole minute or two to consider taking her out of the movie so it's a romance between Wenham and Kwanten, while usually that's the first thing I'd think.

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--- 44 Flop - I was really sad seeing this article at Deadline on what a massive flop Child 44 turned out to be - Child 44 is that movie starring Tom Hardy, Joel Kinnaman, Jason Clarke, and a bunch of uniforms and haircuts, amongst others. Sad because I wanted to see it and I like all those actors and don't want them to get blamed for it, and also - I literally had no idea it had come out? Am I part of the problem? (Don't answer that.)

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--- Love Interest - Once Upon a Time's lusty pirate Colin O'Donoghue and Outlander's buff (and oft butt naked) warrior Sam Heughan have taken to publicly romancing each other on Twitter - there was some sort of competition going on involving the two of them being up for TV's top leading man and the two of them seem pretty intent on, ahem, topping the other. Apparently whoever loses will dress up like the other one's character. The contest ended yesterday but I can't find who won. Colin in a kilt or Sam in leather pants? What say you?

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--- Putting The D In - Like the Mad Max clips posted above I'm not going to bother watching these clips from the upcoming comedy The D Train because I'm already sold on the movie - even if it is Jack Black that I'm going to have to deal with in such circumstances, "James Marsden having gay sex" is always a "yes" around these parts. Have you guys seen the TV commercials for this film though? I swear that they're ending them with the sound effect of James Marsden getting penetrated. I am not hallucinating. I would know that sound anywhere. Anyway moving on, in this interview Jack says that Jimmy smells like "ocean breeze" which seems about right.

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Well this is much more up MNPP's alley than yesterday's offering, I shoulda been patient - today's big sale at Amazon is 60% off the total and complete series of True Blood, all seven seasons, which lands it at 118 bucks on blu-ray (or 90 bucks on DVD) - just about as cheap as one can imagine it ever being, methinks. Clearly it's worth it for that scene of Ryan Kwanten and Alexander Skarsgard going at it alone. But there's also this:

And this!

I could keep going and going...

Yeah. Fangs for the memories, True Blood.

Today I'd rather be...

... heavy lifting with Ryan Kwanten.

Put your back into it, Ryan!

And your front, et cetera, et cetera.

Hit the jump for more...