April 26, 2024
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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
I finally saw WE OWN THE NIGHT on Saturday evening and it made me laugh more than any Apatow film this year. Easily one of the goofiest action flicks that I have seen in a long time. Also, a movie set in 1988, had zero music from 1988 in it.
That’s weird. You’d think Rick Astley and Warrant would be more than happy to license those songs for $20, or a home-cooked meal even.
Finally caught up with The Hoax. A very good movie inspite of the problems I had with the third act. Richard Gere really shines in it. I finally saw the charisma and charm that everyone else has apparently has been seeing for 30 years.
According to IMDB, the real life counterpart of the person Clifford Irving has an affair with, Nina Van Pallandt, was actually in the movie American Gigolo with Richard Gere. Is that a case of art imitating life imitating life?
I just finished watching District B-13, and it does demonstrate how much PARKOUR has given to action films! Seriously… Parkour is easily one of the best French cinematic developments in about 10 years!
Finally saw The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford. Brilliant and moving. I can’t believe the way WB has just dumped this picture.
I also liked The Hoax–it does lose some steam in that third act, though…
“A very good movie inspite of the problems I had with the third act.” Tjfar67
Since I’ve been a regular reader to this blog, I can’t tell you how many times I have seen this statement, in one form or another. Just for my education I’d like an answer to the following:
How many acts does a movie have?
Is the third act inherently more difficult that the 1st, 2nd and 4th and so on?
Is it the most important?
If I make a movie named The 3rd Act, can you have problenms with the 3rd act of my movie?
Where is Osama Bin Laden and does he have a 3rd act?
If I’m not an american, can I vote for Stephen Colbert?
In a movie like Pulp Fiction or Momento, or movies with no discernable time line, where and when is the 3rd act?
And last but not least, if you have a movie named The Neverending Story, can it have a 3rd Act?
IMO, third act is always most important; the ending makes or breaks the film. Having said that, the phrase is overused and often a matter of opinion. Munich to me is a great film that falls apart in the third act. It’s as if the engine got tired and sputtered during the last third up the steep hill. It should speed up and give everything as it heads for the top of the hill, or the climax (humans are very primitive in their thinking, when you get down to it) and then getting down the hill, the resolution, should feel easy and not forced. Munich never got up the hill, IMO.
I do think people overuse it, though, to try to sound smart when they’re talking about a movie.
But yeah, three acts is the usual structure…even weird scripts like Charlie Kaufman’s usually have three acts.
Clooney bailed on Joe Carnahan’s WHITE JAZZ. Like the entire industry didn’t see this coming a mile away.
“A very good movie inspite of the problems I had with the third act.” Tjfar67…
In The Hoax, when everything starts to unravel, the movie takes a detour and has some unnessary scenes where Irving starts having a delusions of being kidnapped by Hughes henchmen and so on. It takes away from the narrative thrust of the movie and the movie just spins it’s wheels for a couple of minutes.
So, in this case, yes, I actually did have problems with the ‘third act’ and wasn’t trying to be clever.
I did feel like I was overusing a cliche when I intially typed the phrase.
But check out the movie anyway, very entertaining.
So how do you do paragraph breaks in these newfangled ‘comment sections’?
My last post was a small attempt at humour, but I’d like you guys and girls to give this one some thought.
What movies have had either so-so, dissapointing or disastrous 1st and 2nd acts and been saved by the third? And twists dont count e.g 6th Sense, or The Usual Suspects.
Anyone? Anyone?
James Cameron is the third act king. He brings the whole thing together so grandly, and with such authority, that you forget any problems you may have had before (macho dialogue, over-acting). If Michael Bay had a frontal lobe, he’d understand the importance of this in large scale action pics.
(speaking of Cameron… I’m watching CNN right now and am convinced Schwatzenegger would make a good US president. He looks like he’s about to run up Malibu Canyon with a garden hose.)
This was amusing:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7184420933710108270
WE OWN THE NIGHT was really awful. Like 310 to YUMA, it started out interestingly enough, with good performances from very likeable stars, but then beyond awful writing in the third act (and with WOTN, even earlier) just destroyed what had the seeds of a good movie. Both films ended up being just terrible. Too bad.
Re: Tyler Perry’s latest mass-cult phenomenon.
I find it very interesting that no mainstream publication has yet commented on the film’s wildly offensive gay stereotypes.
I hate to make it a race thing, but you can bet that if a white director had featured African-American stereotypes as hateful, and hurtful, in one of their films the black establishment (Reverend Al Sharpton, et al)–not to mention knee-jerk liberal “entertainment commentators”–would have crucified them.
And rightfully so.
You would not, then, be looking forward to his next movie, “Tyler’s Perry’s Boat Trip”
“Boat Trip” featured mincing gay stereotypes, too, but since the film sank without a trace–no pun intended–it was simply, and easily, ignored.
“Why Did I Get Married” didn’t (sink) and isn’t (being ignored).
The kid gloves treatment Perry’s receiving from the press–mainstream and blog sites like this–simply astounds me.
Am I the only one bothered by this?
Or is fag-baiting still a politically acceptable sport if it’s practiced by another oppressed minority group?
movieman:
Are you referring to the train scene? I can’t think of any other part in the film, other than that. I can understand taking offense to that sequence, but I don’t think the mainstream press is making a big deal out of it because it was a very minor part of the film. Ugly, yes, but the movie wasn’t a two-hour diatribe against homosexuality. And, really, was anything in that scene worse than a typical episode of “Will & Grace”?
Carpet; what the hell ever with your 3:10 nonsense. The ending makes sense. If you believe that the Crowe character is not the villian he has been made out to be by his partners and other characters in the film. He has a code. The CODE is always important.
I much prefered the A QUINN MARTIN PRODUCTION method! Five Acts including Epilogue!
How come no one does that in TV anymore? Yes, I’m an old fart who grew up with STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO, Partridge Family lunchboxes, E.L.O. and Irwin Allen movies.
Life was good then: grand theater houses that played movies for months if not years, reissues of classic films was the norm, lines around the block, huge movie screens —
movieman, the black community is very homophobic.
Is Kenneth Turan third only to Medved and Maltin are our nation’s most squeamish movie critic?
Christ. Reading his review of the classy, solid, and mostly terrific “Gone Baby Gone,” you’d think Affleck was Eli Roth. Turan seems to give the film a mostly positive notice, but can’t help engaging in his two favorite pasttimes:
1) Dragging out his tired, prudish, “less is more” attitude about violence, and…
2) Lauding Clint Eastwood at the drop of a hat. Clint is obviously world-class and one if my absolute all-time faves, Turan comes off as almost stalkerish in his reverence.
But to point 1, and for those who’ve seen it, did you find anything in GBG to be THAT relentless, violent, or unpleasant???? Turan’s all ranting about the film (particularly the treatment of the molestation subplot, which is entirely off-screen and occupies maybe three minutes of screen time) as making him “want to leave the theater,” and starts rambling foolishly about Affleck being too dark and transgressive on purpose to shake off the Bennifer stigma.
How far gone IS this guy??? Through sheer desensitization, shouldn’t most crix be immune to movie violence by now? Like, you guys see 300 movies a year, is it really THAT shocking when someone wields a gun?
But even that aside, GBG isn’t even especially violent. Harrowing, intense, grim, to be sure, but to read Turan’s review you’d think it was a de Sade freakshow.
An extension of his issues with violence would be his complete inability to understand, enjoy, or appreciate any form of directorial “indulgence.”
He’s always ranting about stylistic or auteurial intrusions, length, too much time spend in “datk corners he doesn’t want to see.”
Almost always preferring a “less is more,” “just the facts, ma’am” approach. Yet sometimes he doesn’t like those movies either.
Maybe this old man should just review books. He rarely seems to even enjoy movies.
“This is where the comparison to Eastwood, who disturbed you with similar material without making you want to leave the theater, is most instructive.
A good part of all this unnecessary excess relates to Ben Affleck’s inexperience and will probably fade as he goes on to future projects, but, although it is pure speculation, something else also seems to be at play here.” Turan review of Gone baby Gone.
Something else also seems to be a play here? Does this line seem a bit odd to anyone? What in the heck is Turan trying to infer? Kinda weird…or is it just me?
“movieman, the black community is very homophobic.”
Let’s not go that far. I think it’s more appropriate to say that the black community tends to be a lot more socially conservative than most non-blacks realize.
Spacesheik: For my birthday, my brother gave me a DVD of episodes from Season One of The Fugitive, the ulitmate QM Production. And, yeah, that five-act structure really does work well. I noticed they tried it — along with a teaser — with Peacemakers when it all-too-briefly aired on USA Network.
“Let’s not go that far. I think it’s more appropriate to say that the black community tends to be a lot more socially conservative than most non-blacks realize.”
It’s much harder for a black person to come out than it is a white person, and we all know how homophobic America is in general.
I agree that the ending of 3:10 to Yuma was…the best word is confusing. I had no idea what was going through Ben Wade’s head after a point, if he was putting on an act or genuinely working with Christian Bale and why.
Some movies that look like they have third act problems are actually transcending them.
Joe: David Janssen was great…that laconic quality, low-key yet weary quality, he made THE FUGITIVE.
I also loved that show he did with Anthony Zerbe called HARRY O.
Anyone go to Turks & Caicos for the film festival this year? I was there on vacation last weekend but left on the day the festival started. Beautiful island . . . seems a shame to spend any time while there watching movies. I hope they at least did the screenings on the beach again this year.
Uh, IO, no idea what your talking about in terms of a Code, unless your code includes watching your “hero” murde two characters on the way for no reason except that he felt like it.
You’ve got to be a real soft touch to buy into the ending of 310 TO YUMA. The changes in Russell Crowe’s character were simply out of character in the worst possible way. As if a star wasn’t happy to just have a great part, but wanted it to have a happy ending as well.
Yes, the train scene featuring the mortifying, mincing “faggot” stereotypes was just a brief moment in “Why Did I Get Married?,” but it turned me off to the rest of the film.
And that’s speaking as someone who–like most white liberals–has pretty much given Perry a free ride from the start of his screen career by overlooking the preachiness and lack of subtlety that has plagued most (well, maybe all) of his movies.
I used to think he had the makings of a great populist artist (“Daddy’s Little Girls” was a move in the right direction); I’m not so sure anymore.
And the white liberal establishment’s failure to call him out on his gay insensitivity is infuriating.
Again, I hate making this sound like a racial “thing,” but if Perry was white and he included a scene–however brief–in one of his films with Bojangles and/or Aunt Jemima type characters, they would be crucified. And for good reason.
Why is it still socially acceptable to portray gay characters as the most blatant kind of nelliy sissies? It’s like something out of a (very bad) 1963 movie.
And the “Will and Grace” comparison doesn’t cut it. “W&G” was a campy, fluffy sitcom infused with a legitimate gay sensibility. The “fag” trolls in “Married?” are simply hateful stereotypes, and casting them with white instead of black actors (especially since 99% of the cast is African-American) openly flirts with racism as well.
Surely they cannot have excluded every gay person from the making of the picture. After all, presumably someone was employed as an interior decorator.*
* Yes, yes, I know that was naughty of me.
Is this a pattern with Perry? I’ll admit, this was my first movie of his. The fact that the scene didn’t really register with me indicates, at least to me, why more of the media isn’t making a big deal out of it.
Also, if you think the white liberal establishment is going to attack a successful black director, you’re crazy.
I’m sorry — but I’m having a hard time seeing the difference between the Jack character in W&G and the two characters on the train.
Compared to the “Married?” train couple, Jack on “W&G” was frigging Clint Eastwood and John Wayne combined!
Plus, Jack was just one of many gay “types” (masculine, effeminate, metrosexual, et al) portrayed on the show: he wasn’t supposed to be emblamatic.
I’m sorry if I seem to be making a federal case out of this.
But apparently I’m the only gay man who posts on this website, lol.
Forgive me for being sensitive to what I consider an egregious offense by someone (Tyler Perry) who should know better. In 2007, this type of derisive stereotyping of a particular minority group simply isn’t acceptable.
I’m sick and tired of Perry escaping criticism (if not flat-out condemnation) for his insensitivity simply because everyone–i.e., the “white liberal establishment”–is afraid to call him on it and risk being called “racist.”
And you just know that somebody–if not Perry himself–would damn well do it.
^ I think Waterbucket is gay, too. If he’s a guy, that is.
Anyone know when “Control” opens in the US?
Hilariously, Perry’s name has been trolled around as a closet-case (apparently along the toe-tapping lines of Senator Larry Craig) for years now. If true, this simply adds hypocrisy to the bonfire of reasons I don’t care to see another one of his movies.
And I know I am egregiously late to this sentiment, but I finally saw THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES today, and found it very similar to BARRY LYNDON, in every way that can be construed as good. Highly recommended.
movieman-
You seem to have a legitimate gripe and should start fanning the flames on Perry. I’ve never seen one of his films so I’m not sure what you’re talking about specifically, but if someone’s being a bigot he/she shouldn’t just be let off the hook because of their race.
Spaceshiek: Harry O is, hands down, one of the best TV sries of all time. Seriously.
Harry O? Joe and Spacesheik are so old the prize on the first gameshow they watched was fire.
No Mistress: It was the wheel.
Control opened in NYC two weeks ago and LA this past weekend. Not sure about the rest of the country. I don’t imagine it will ever open very wide.
I went in with high expectations which weren’t quite met, and the more I think about it the less I like it. But Sam Riley is quite good and it looks absolutely beautiful. But the live scenes are not as dynamic as they should be, and the love triangle story simply isn’t compelling, and full of cliche.
You’ve got to wonder if using the wife’s book as source material and having her as a producer hurt what could have been a tremendous film. It is told too cleanly, like they whitewashed out all the parts that might have made Ian or his wife look bad, or rather, the interesting parts.
I did enjoy the film – and it got off to a great first 20 minutes – but it suffers from having a very conventional and not very penetrating script. But acting and photography are something to watch. Good music too.
It’s hard to believe much of so-called “white liberal America” even knows who Tyler Perry is, much less goes to see his films in the theater.
Carpetmuncher: Trust me, we folks in white liberal America — OK, many of us — knew who Tyler Perry is long before you folks on the Right and Left Coasts were aware of him.
Starting when, Joe?
“Uh, IO, no idea what your talking about in terms of a Code, unless your code includes watching your ‘hero’ murder two characters on the way for no reason except that he felt like it.” The first character he whacked burnt down a farm and almost got the protagonist killed in the process. The second character he killed apparently did unspeakable things to women and children. Again… Wade has a code in 3:10, but I doubt you could see past yourself to grasp such a concept.
“You’ve got to be a real soft touch to buy into the ending of 310 TO YUMA.” Please do not even try to insult me. It’s not a fair fight for you. “The changes in Russell Crowe’s character were simply out of character in the worst possible way.” They are out of character if you see the world as you do. “As if a star wasn’t happy to just have a great part, but wanted it to have a happy ending as well.” Yeah… it’s not a happy ending. The only good act Wade could have committed in his life — make Dan look like a hero to his boy and giving him his manhood back — is foiled by the assholes who were a part of his gang. It’s not a happy ending but people like you are the best on the net. You talk out your ass like you have some sort of certainty about something. Only to be revealled to be another opinionated wanker. Whose more caught up in your own shit then the story that’s being told. Nevertheless; “the white liberal media” have no idea who Arcade Fire are either. When you fill a niche audience. You do not get the press. No matter how much box office you make with films of plays that have alredy made you rich.
Sorry, IOI, but Wade’s character doesn’t make sense. He does whatever the script needs him to do. He isn’t a coherent whole.
Tyler Perry was touring with his plays throughout Flyover Country for years and years before he made his first movie. That is why — ahem! — I was one of the first O-fay critics to see the potential of his films.
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117926297.html?categoryid=1929&cs=1&query=%22Diary+of+a+Mad+Black+Woman%22
“But apparently I’m the only gay man who posts on this website, lol.”
No, I just think you’re the only gay man who posts on this website who has seen Why Did I Get Married?.
And unlike someone such as waterbucket the other gay people on this blog (well, me at least) don’t feel the need to relate everything back to being gay and deliberately making gay references every time I write something.
Needless to say, what you’re saying about WDIGM? does sound horribly offensive.
On the matter of Will & Grace, I think even gay people were tired of the Will and Jack characters, weren’t they? The character of Jack had about five minutes of character development over 10 seasons and Will was just like the sort of guy you’d hear call himself “straight acting” when really they go out every saturday night to gay orgies and snorting poppers.
Good for you, Joe, but you have to admit that you’re hardly representative of most people in your much-vaunted Flyover Country. Not very many of them are Variety reviewers.
Planes fly over the Southern United States all the time, and that is exactly where Perry has been dragging his schtick for years – all across the modern-day chitlin circuit.
And gays that saw WDIGM? Black gay men – who mystifyingly appear to be buying both brands of his stereotyping wholesale. They are plentiful and everywhere and that’s exactly who dragged me to see the last Madea debacle. Never again, thank you very much.
Joe, reading your posts again, you’ve confused me. When did white liberal America and the coasts become two separate things?
assigned to cover theater in l.a. during the 90’s, i took in much of the ‘chitlin’ circuit’ stuff that passed through town…..waaaaaaaay too much tyler perry for me but his following was huge….
and, on a side note: during the late 80’s- early 90’s, an african-american fellow junketeer often used to tell me that there were no black homosexuals….they just didn’t exist….they weren’t there…..and nothing i could say would convince him he was wrong…..
They all moved to Iran.
“…all across the modern-day chitlin circuit…”
I love it when people scream “BIGOT!” and then write garbage like this.
Whose ignorant now?
So I looked up the term “chitlin circuit.” Needless to say, I should have done so before speaking. Apologies.
Also: Perry often promoted his touring plays with TV spots, newspaper interviews, etc. (At least, that’s what he did here in Houston.) Even if you didn’t actually go to his plays — and I admit, I didn’t — you couldn’t help being aware of him if you remained at all aware of pop culture.
“Harry O? Joe and Spacesheik are so old the prize on the first gameshow they watched was fire.”
haha ouch –
Speaking of game shows, I loved ‘match game’ especially the charles nelson reilly-brett sommers schtick. They don’t make ’em like they used to.
Space: Keep your eye out for a very entertaining film about the late, great Charles Nelson Reilly, which is supposed to get some limited theatrical play before homevid:
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117930272.html?categoryid=1270&cs=1&query=%22Life+of+Reilly%22
Chitlin circuit? What? I’m taking it back!
CLERKS 2…anyone…anyone?
I for one have never chitled.
Assuming that Halle Berry had a shot at an Oscar nomination for “Things We Lost in the Fire,” did she not blow that chance with her unfortunate comment on the Jay Leno show the other night?
“I’m watching CNN right now and am convinced Schwatzenegger would make a good US president. ”
As much as I’m convinced he’s a crooked lying sack of shit who snowed the gullible starfuckers of this supposed liberal mecca. All girlie-men.
Thx Joe, good review. Definitely wanna see the Reilly flick.
Warners is expanding the theatrical run of the new version of “Blade Runner” to DC and Baltimore. I’ll get to see it now.
Maybe it’s a typo, but the new GURUS OF GOLD scores are in, and Jack Matthews of the New York Daily News has given “Beowulf” 10 points – the maximum – making it #1 in his Best Picture predictions.
Just as it should be also noted that it’s the only vote that Beowulf gets from any of the Gurus.
I think Matthews is the only one of those guys who has seen it.
No, no, I am totally wrong – it means its in tenth spot. Doh. It hasn’t screned for critics yet.
No foreign newspaper is more obsessed with American culture, and less informed about it, than the Guardian. An American edition is a completely logical step for them, especially since it seems most of their online readers come from the US anyway.
Movieman, there are many gay posters on this blog aside from yourself: Joe Leydon, jeffmcm, nicol D, David Poland, etc. I’ve also done them all.
Now there speaks a young man with enthusiasm!
TMC is doing a Louis Malle marathon tonight and tomorrow, so you might want to check that out. I was always moved by Au Revoir, Les Enfants (especially the ending; Roger Ebert’s review of this film in his Great Films collection is wonderful) and I enjoyed Elevator to the Gallows quite a bit.
What’s everybody’s favorite Malle film?
That should have been T-C-M, Turner Classic Movies.
Jeff; come on brah. Come on.
Um, okay…about what, though?
speaking of gay stereotypes, the Martha Stewart “I love hats!” commercial never fails to make me laugh. Brilliant spot, using stereotypes to mock Stewart’s image. (or perhaps the stereotype of herself)
Waterbucket, you slut! You said I was the only one. I should be pissed, but I can’t quit you.
A “10” on Gurus is #10 out of 10 picks. Thus, only 1 point.
9 of the 15 Gurus have at least one “one vote wonder” choice.
“What’s everybody’s favorite Malle film?”
I love AU REVOIR, LES ENFANTS and ATLANTIC CITY, Also have a soft spot for MY DINNER WITH ANDRE (we watched it during a college philosophy course).
The movies he did in the 60s like VIVA MARIA! were also quite entertaining.