April 23, 2024
BYOB
Triple Option on: BYO Oscar
Sideshow Bill on: BYO Oscar
Stella's Boy on: BYO Oscar
Pete B on: BYO Oscar
movieman on: BYO Oscar
movieman on: BYO Oscar
Stella's Boy on: BYO Oscar
Hcat on: BYO Oscar
brack on: BYO Oscar
iothereturned on: BYO Oscar
BYOB: 235 Years Of Relative independence
BYOB Weekend: Hop, An April Fool’s Gag?
see all »
[twitter-widget username="DavidPoland" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"][twitter-widget username="MCNTweets" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"]
Quote Unquotesee all »
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
The 17 AGAIN ads do not play up at all the presence of Michelle Trachtenberg as the leading lady. (And isn’t she about a decade older than Zac Efron, or at least half a decade removed from the teen parts she keeps playing?)
I realize she’s not a huge name, but I figured between Buffy and Gossip Girl, she’s recognizable enough a leading lady for the intended audience, and thanks to EuroTrip, name-checking her might convince at least a couple of young dudes to check it out on date night.
And they barely feature Matthew Perry either; Sure, Perry and Trachtenberg are in the trailer somewhere, but no name-checking for either above the title or on the poster, which is Efron solo.
They’re REALLY banking that this kid can deliver the goods 100% on his own without the HSM brand. Just a little surprised they don’t seem to be making one iota of effort to promote anyone or anything about the movie beyond his limited fanbase.
I mean, the movie looks like it’s basically BIG or VICE/VERSA or LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON, and those surely made an effort to rope in some older kids and adults.
You must not have seen the first trailer for the flick. For the first 45 seconds, it looks like a Matthew Perry film. Trachtenberg also gets ample screen time.
MCN: best homepage in the business; what would I do without it?
Lots and lots of Wolverine ads on NCAA tourney. They’re showing a lot more Cyclops, though had no idea he was in the film.
Anybody see Sin Nombre? Thinking of checking it out this week.
with the Coens to re-interpret TRUE GRIT, I am excited for the casting to improve 200% from the John Wayne version.
A western I can really look forward to.
I would be more enthusiastic about the Cohens remaking TRUE GRIT if I had not seen what they did with THE LADYKILLERS.
Improve on John Wayne in a Western? Hell no. At least, not that movie. There are lines in True Grit I can’t see many other actors selling.
Well, maybe they’ll find a better actor than Robert Duvall. He’s not so good. Or Dennis Hopper.
Okay, I’ll give you Kim Darby.
A friend of mine saw 17 Again with the thought he wouldn’t like it because he’s just not the target audience. He was surprised to discover it was beyond anything he could’ve ever imagined and that it is terrible in so many ways that you probably haven’t even considered.
‘fraid yer gonner hafta give me Glen Campbell too Perm.
I reckon John Wayne says stuff a certain way that everyone grows up on his “Method” but I still hadn;t ‘seen’ that character as him when I read the book & I read the book prior to seeing the movie in school for a college assignment.
I saw virtually no Wayne movies at all growing up. Not sure why. Maybe he wasn’t cable friendly.
That’s the funniest thing I’ve read all week Kam…well other than something Perm said and I forgot what that was (something about killing another poster on this board).
I honestly don;t know why anyone would put Perry in another movie…or put the “star of Euro trip” in any movie ever again.
It’s called throwing good money after bad.
There is no such man as Glen Campbell. If I’ve ever seen him, somehow my brain has erased him.
Your problem is reading the book first. That ALWAYS ruins the movie.
See El Dorado! What a cast in that one…Robert Mitchum as a drunk and James Caan as the kid with John Wayne. You can’t go wrong.
Apparently the Coens are going back to whatever source novel True Grit is based on for their version. Did The Ladykillers have any source material?
So who do we want to play the John Wayne part? Is Tommy Lee Jones too obvious?
Lota, Michelle Trachtenberg really does have talent, Eurotrip notwithstanding.
ahem. Robert Mitchum was a man of the law in that movie. So he liked the drinkies after a woman musta dun him wrong. After seeing Night of the Hunter, Mitchum didn;t need Wayne to help him do anything, but I guess Wayne was a bigger star than Mitchum (too bad) so Wayne had to save the day in El Dorado.
Since I read about 50 thousand novels by the time I was 10 I am afraid any movie ever adapted from a book I would have seen post.
I loved Blade Runner and I had read the P K Dick story first.
There are particular nuances of a book that are very individual so it is easy to criticize films, but many filmmakers improve the accessibility of a book while not loosing its essence and I am all for that, so I think I am 50:50 on whether the book beats the movie.
Lord of the Rings is a good example…the books could get quite tedious after a while (I know its great literature but still…)but as far as the second movie goes at least, it couldn’t have been done better.
I think my favorite westerns are Johnny guitar, My Darling Clementine,Bad Day at Black Rock and The hanging tree
and if Deadwood counts as a western…great…and the goofy old show Wild Wild west that I discovered on DVD randomly.
and any western with a drunk Dean Martin in it rocks.
Jeff–source for True Grit is a Charles Portis novel. He is a really good writer but his material has not been translated to film as well as it could have. “Norwood”, another novel (first) was no small disaster, awful. Both movies made the mistake of putting Glen Campbell in acting roles–basically a successful singer of my Pop’s generation who wanted to act.
Ladykillers I thought was written directly for the screen.
Coens did a great job with No Country, I’m sure they will do a great job with GRIT.
The Ladykillers written directly for the screen? Good God no. It is an atrocious remake of one of the classic Ealing comedies, one of the two best British comedies of all time, the other being, in my opinion, Kind Hearts and Coronets.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048281/
SJR-
SIN NOMBRE is pretty great. SUPER harsh but also has some true beauty in it. I would recommend for sure.
Yeah Jeff, the original Ladykillers is a rather solid movie. While remaking True Grit makes me want the Coens live long enough to see most of their films remade by lesser talents. Zac Efron in a remake of Blood Simple seems like a great idea to me.
Why? You do not mess with the film that got Duke his one Oscar. It’s wrong. It’s damn wrong.
my recollection of portis’ novel was that the gimmicky style (lack of contractions) made me a little crazy…..if the film must be remade, i think zac ephron would be perfect in the kim darby role….
Michelle Trachtenberg is CHARMING.
Anyone else annoyed that Oboring is calling ANOTHER prime-time pre-empting press conference tomorrow? Is this dude gonna command the airwaves like every two weeks and interrupt regular programming?
News Flash: More Americans care about AMERICAN IDOL than they do about some stimulus shit they don’t understand at all.
It sounds like I’m being snide/playing dumb, but it’s a legit question: Network TV is on a pretty precise schedule, especially in sweeps months and as we come down to the wire on season finales. I realize everyone in Hollywood LOVES and WORSHIPS the guy, but will there come a point where network honchos get tired of having to rework and preempt their shows every time The Showbiz President feels the need to get camera time?
And face it, if GWB foiled the LOST finale on two days’ notice and threw off everyone’s precious DVR schedule, you guys’d all be annoyed. But because it’s THE LORD, it’s all good?
I think I was maybe 11 when I first saw True Grit, and even then I could tell that Glen Campbell couldn’t act. Liked the movie though, and I’ve always wanted to read the book. Very interested to see what the Coens do with it.
The older I get, the more I appreciate John Wayne. I always got his appeal as a star and an icon, but he really could be a great actor as well. Sure, he could coast through routine comic Westerns and maybe his comfort zone was a bit narrow, but he delivered when it counted. The Searchers and Red River, of course, but also things like Sands of Iwo Jima, Island in the Sky, Hondo, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, even left field stuff like his Swedish sailor in The Long Voyage Home. Lots of great work on his resume.
True Grit OWNS. So does The Duke. Though Lota brings up an interesting point, that if you didn’t grow up on the guy it probably seemed cheesy. Kinda like how I gotta wonder what the 19-year-old scene kids made of Clint’s decidedly old-school acting in Gran Torino.
Unrelated to ANYTHING in this thread and no one will care:
1) Anyone who’s following the switchups in late-night (Leno, Conan, Fallon, etc.) I have a pressing question: WHY does Carson Daly’s show now seem to be shot on JITTERY, SKIPPED-FRAME FILM and 90% feature Carson wandering L.A. doing random sketches and man-on-the-street shit? Up until just a few weeks ago, it was a traditional talk show. Now it’s just some weird throwback to FRIDAY NIGHT VIDEOS, the early ’00s era.
2) How come John Badham is never accorded much respect? He’s a contemporary of other guys, like Carpenter, Landis and Hill, who we’d all charitably say had a certain… heyday. Badham’s first 10 or so years has some pretty awesome movies (including Dracula, Whose Life Is It Anyway, WarGames, Blue Thunder, etc.) and one bona fide all-time classic (Saturday Night Fever.)
Watched some of the Langella Drac on AMC the other night and that was REALLY well-made. Obviously the guy’s way more a journeyman than an auteur, but dude had a pretty great stretch… bummer he’s fallen into semi-obscurity as his craftsman status renders him “unsexy” to film history geeks.
lex, i fucking LOVE badham’s ‘dracula’ with olivier, langella, pleasence and kate nelligan as lucy, my third fave vampire movie of all time.
weirdly, badham is now a tv director, and i know this because a while back i was watching an episode of ‘psych’ (a favourite in our house) and i saw john badham was credited as the director, so i was like ‘no way, it couldn’t be’, looked it up and yes way, sure enough it was THE badham, he’s done all sorts of tv, apparently hopping from one show to the next like a foster child. it actually bummed me out, but you never know, maybe he’s happy as a clam.
There used to be a cool if superficial pay TV series called THE DIRECTORS or something that aired in the US on Encore, where it was like an hour show where they focused on a single director and interviewed a lot of stars and collaborators. This was around 5, 10 years ago?
Awesomely, they did one on BADHAM, and no less an AWESOME motherfucker with good taste in directors than JOHNNY DEPP was on there front and center talking about Badham on Nick of Time of all things, all singing the guy’s praises about how he was a surprisingly awesome and thorough director who absolutely knew his shit. I gotta figure if the guy passed muster with Johnny Depp and directed one major American classic and at least a half dozen excellent entertainments, he oughta enjoy a little more esteem than he currently does, even as a hindsight “Man did Badham own” kinda thing.
No shame in directing TV — he also popped up as a hired gun on THE SHIELD a couple years back, and did that JACK BULL TVM for John Cusack. At least he’s working… Just saying, SNF is almost as indelible as, say, Taxi Driver or Rocky… yet his name seems fairly obscure. (Though, likewise, I guess John G. Avildsen isn’t exactly a “sexy” director to study in film classes either.)
I loved Badham’s “Stakeout.” Saw it twice in theatres, kind of a rarity for me.
i agree, lex, no shame at all in tv and the man has obvious skills, but i do wonder what took him away from film back to tv. i clearly remember seeing an interview somewhere of him with dreyfuss and rosy o’donnell in which they discussed ‘another stakeout’, they all seemed so happy in each other’s company and with the film, and during the interview badham was asked how he felt about the movie being poorly received, and he said something to the effect that they were all gobsmacked that people didn’t seem to like ‘another stakeout’ because they all had such a blast making it and he thought he’d made a decent film, dreyfuss and rosey chimed in in agreement and it all seemed very genuine, i remember feeling sad for badham. anyway, i grew up on his ‘dracula’ and i consider myself a badham fan, so i, too, would like to see him better remembered for some classy work over the years, he should be more of a legend.
‘stakeout’ is great fun, yancy, and ‘short circuit’ and ‘wargames’ (both of which i have on VHS, eek) are two of my son’s faves, tho i think he’s outgrown them a bit now, while i cherish my preciousssss ‘dracula’ on dvd
I watched Short Circuit for the firs time in aaaages the other night, actually. Well, half of it. I was incredibly tired and had to go to bed, unfortunately. I remember being amused by Another Stakeout when I was young.
I personally have no problem with the Coens remaking “True Grit,” even though the original was one of my all-time childhood faves (can’t tell you how many times I saw “Grit” on a double-bill with Pakula’s “The Sterile Cuckoo”!)
My only hope is that they don’t cast Abigail Breslin as the girl:
“Little Miss Sunshine” is dangerously overexposed these days.
Nice to see Leah and Lex giving John Badham some props, but why hasn’t anyone mentioned Badham’s “Bingo Long Travelling All-Stars and Motor Kings”? Richard Pryor, James Earl Jones, Billy Dee Williams (wow), and it’s one of the all-time great baseball flicks to boot.
‘Let the Right One In’ is on DVD now. I encourage everyone to check it out. On Jeff Wells page, there is an article about the subtitles being off. However, the DVD I got from Netflix defaulted to the horribly dubbed version of the film.
But all in all, a extremely good movie.
Another Badham fan here, love Saturday Night Fever, Blue Thunder, both Stakeouts, and I even sat through Drop Zone because he directed it. He was a strong Seventies and eighties director but they just stopped making his level of movies. Silly inexpensive buddy comedies like the Hard Way and Stakeout were pushed to the wayside to make room for the Total Recalls and Cliffhangers. I miss the smartass driven lite-action films like Beverly Hills Cop, Fletch, and Stakeout (I even have a soft spot for Dragnet). Its not that Badham got small, its that the movies got too big.
LexG: less drunk, still an ass (re: your obnoxious Obama complaints. Getting on TV and explaining things to the public is what a President should be doing, not cloistering himself like a god-emperor in the White House).
In other news, Short Circuit was my favorite movie of all time, when I was 9 years old.
All this short circuit talk has lead to this submerging from my darkest pop memories.
“Who’s Johnny? she said
she smiled and looked the other way
Who’s Johnny? she said
you know I love her”
I have this new Glen Campbell album (“Meet Glen Campbell”) where he does “modern day” cover songs and it’s pretty good. Well, it’s hit and miss. He does a cover of The Replacements “Sadly Beautiful” which is amazing as well as covers of Foo Fighters “Times Like These” and Travis’s “Sing.”
Total attempt to do what Johnny Cash was doing before he died, but Campbell has some pretty creative choices on there.
Yeah, let me add that even though I don’t think Glen Campbell should’ve ever been allowed to act (or attempt it), as a musician he’s unassailable.
I watched True Grit for the first time not that long ago, last year maybe.
It’s bad. Or, I should say it’s a movie very much of it’s time. The music, the cinematography, the acting, it’s a very 60’s Western. The action scenes are just awful. John Wayne is playing John Wayne. I’m assuming the book is darker and I’m curious how the Coens do a period western.
Jeff Bridges would be perfect for Rooster Cogburn. I would love to see him in another Western and would be about the same age that Wayne was when he played the role.
and I prefer Rooster Cogburn (and the lady) over True Grit.
If I’m in the right frame of mind — i.e., drunk and melancholy — Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman” is the saddest freakin’ song ever recorded. Really. It’s sometimes potent enough to get my eyes watering. Almost as harsh as Johnny Cash’s cover of “Hurt” — and yet, inexplicably, I know many people who think of “Lineman” as “just a love song.” Huh?
http://movingpictureblog.blogspot.com/search?q=Wichita+Lineman
Jeff Bridges, one of my favorite people would be great hcat. Maybe get an oscar finally.
It would be nice if Coens do Norwood as well, also a really great book.
BTW: Has anyone here ever seen the 1978 TV-movie spin-off from “True Grit” starring Warren Oates as Rooster Cogburn? It was a series pilot that, not surprisingly, didn’t sell. But Oates wasn’t half-bad in the Wayne role. (Oates also did a 1977 pilot for “The African Queen” — playing the Humphrey Bogart role — but it didn’t sell, either.)
by the way…only dissing Campbell’s acting (but can’t blame him for trying), not his singing. One of my Pop’s favorite singers after Nat King Cole.
I think Norwood was Campbell’s “Glitter” or maybe Mimi’s Glitter was her Norwood.
Lota: But you have to admit: Campbell was better than Joe Namath in “Norwood” — yet Namath actually got more starring roles in movies.
from what I read, Namath was like today’s Michael Jordan–endorsing everything etc and being a heartthrob. I think my Mother had a crush on Namath in college.
Most athletes/singers/models transitioning into films are pretty bad…though I always thought Bette Midler was quite funny and Cher was okay and Ice Cube can be endearing.
“More Americans care about AMERICAN IDOL than they do about some stimulus shit they don’t understand at all.”
And that’s why we’re the ones to blame for a lot of our problems. Because bimbos like Lex want to cocoon before awful tv shows. Well, no wonder you’re not getting laid or famous, Lex.
Lota: Do you think she saw him canoodling with Ann-Margret in “C.C. and Compnay”?
Elvis should have starred in C.C. AND COMPANY instead of CHANGE OF HABIT. Wouldn’t helped his career a bit but at least his last starring role would have been with Ann Margaret again and a chopper…instead of a nun.
John Badham is the perfect tv director. His movies didn’t seem directed a whole lot better than an average episode of Hunter.
The Glen Campbell album sounds interesting. You can dust off Rhinestone Cowboy every 3 years and I’ll sing right along with it. So long as it’s every 3 years and not like some Softcell song from the 80’s radio will keep in rotation like it’s 1981 all over again.
About a decade ago, Pat Boone did some heavy metal covers but they had more of a big band swing to them. A friend of mine got it as a White Elephant gift and it turned out to be really good.
Half the time I get upset w/contemporary re-makes but I could go for more imaginative stuff like that.
“Getting on TV and explaining things to the public is what a President should be doing, not cloistering himself like a god-emperor in the White House.”
Okay, but can he do it before 8pm EST/5pm PST so he doesn’t interrupt my TV shows?
And yeah, again, that seems like smarmy baiting, but it’s a legit issue: How soon does the honeymoon glow with Hollywood wear off when his constant network preemptions start losing the networks money?
Yeah, it does seem like smarmy baiting. Who cares about the networks losing money? Just maybe possibly the questions about our country going into the shitter is slightly more important than American Idol.
Besides, they don’t have to carry him, do they? I know they said no to Bush a number of times. Obama could go on CNN and Fox News.
You should be sending off resumes anyway.
He’d have to be on TV more than Reagan, who was on TV a lot.
Joe- I feel the same way about “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” that you do about “Wichita Lineman.” If I’m feeling down–and have had a little too much to drink–it tears me up big time.
And the more I think about the Coens remaking “True Grit,” the more I kind of like the idea. Makes as much sense as their “Ladykillers” re-do.
The Joe Willie Namath chat reminded me of my favorite ( Namath story: the former New York Jet was, according to a reliable source, a regular at the “Gage Men” parties hosted by legendary gay porn auteur Joe Gage back in the late ’70s. But hey, bi was chic back in the pre-AIDS era, right?
BTW: Glen Campbell’s “Basic” album is awesome. And “I’m Gonna Love You” is, arguably, the best song he ever recorded. Well, the best after “Wichita Lineman.”
Wichita Lineman is one of the great pop songs of the 60s. Props to Jimmy Webb, who wrote it.
REAGAN OWNED.
best rendition of by the time I get to Phoenix–Al Pacino in HEAT.
Jeff – you’re right that Regan was on TV a lot, but he didn’t have the news outlets that exist today. CNN had a fraction of household until late in his second term, and at this point, cable was seen as a threat by the networks not a company partner. So the network attitude was different; if Regan appeared more on cable, they would have flipped out much like the newspaper vs internet argument we’re hearing today.
The networks bitch about it, but he still retains eyeballs and run commercials before and after. When his numbers drop, then he’ll be asked to go to cable the next time unless it’s utmost importance.
IMO, they have no room to bitch since it’s public airwaves. Move your ass to cable and say “no thanks” if it’s that big of a headache.
Yancy: Jimmy Webb is a god. And Glen Campbell isn’t the only terrific interpreter of his song. Johnny Rivers — especially on his “Rewind” LP — is a master.
Glenn Campbell is nothing in the face of Richard Harris and Webb:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQkBOBIXalo
aww, RIP richard harris, you were the real deal
Christian: Pretty damn good, I admit.