April 25, 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” â 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 â 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 â he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” â and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging â I was with her at that moment â 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 namedâ” “Yeah, sure â 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 Iâm on the phone with you now, after all thatâs 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 didnât seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. Thereâs not a case of that. He wasnât using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had â if that were what the accusation involved â 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. Iâm not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, âYou know, itâs not this, itâs thatâ? Because â let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, thatâs what it lacked. Thatâs 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 just rewatched The Insider, and I can’t believe Jason Reitman used that as the kind of movie he didn’t want to make. Is there anyone making movies like The Insider – mature movies about serious adult issues that aren’t dumbed down? And it’s even more rare, in that it’s not a crime or war story, or a family drama, or a love story. It’s about corporate issues and how the American public can’t trust corporate media interests.
Would any studio executive finance a film like this nowadays?
With the same people involved? Sure. Mann is coming off his biggest grosser and Crowe would have Robin Hood. As weird it seems, it would probably be easier to get made today by them.
If you mean picking up a spec or a pitch with no principles…more than likely, no. But the same movie could be told on a tighter budget so it could be setup at a dependent.
Yeah, I think you’re right, that no way would it be a major studio film – it’d have to be a dependent or an indie. But I’m thinking that even one of them would look at it and ask where the sex is? Where’s the violence or humor? Where’s the Morgan Freeman voiceover of hope? I’m not sure it would get made in today’s climate.
And also, isn’t it sad that one of the hottest young directors working today, after making a major smash in Juno, would rather make a rom-com with a bit of a twist and a little mention to the current economic problem than something like that?
Love “The Insider.” In addition to everything said above, just from an auteurist standpoint, it’s kind of crucial film in the Mann canon, as it represents the switch from “early Mann” to the somewhat controversial “new Mann” that leaves a lot of people cold. It’s the transitional movie between the sleek, cool ’80s-synth New Wave style-meets-existential procedural vibe that reached its zenith with “Heat,” and the more impressionistic, you-are-there, half-overheard stylistics of “Ali,” “Public Enemies” and “Miami Vice.”
It has that A-B-C punch and the great human moments of a “Manhunter” or “Thief,” but also some weirder visual flights of fancy, askew angles, and the stop-start pacing of his newer stuff. Whereas in “Heat” every detail and character gets its moment in the sun, everything is very sleek and smooth, I think a lot of people are rubbed the wrong way by the intentionally misshapen qualities of a PE or Vice. Instead of the lock-step precision of his early flicks, now he’ll spend twelve minutes on a tangential setpiece, only to mute the dialogue and muck up the cinematography on crucial character and plot stuff, then gloss over stuff that would be the “meat” in most movies, even his old ones.
It doesn’t work for everybody, but it’s an interesting approach; How long studios are gonna let him get away with it, that’s another issue.
Why are you suprised that Reitman made something that kind of glosses over the major issues. Juno took teenage pregnancy as seriously as a trip to the dentist.
Something that hasn’t been talked about much in all the discussion of the coming 3D wave is the decline of animated releases in the coming year.
Last year there were 18 theatrically released animated films (9 digital, 4 stop motion, 2 primarily hand animated, 2 in which animated characters are the only real focus [Im talking Alvin and G-Force not Avatar], 1 mo-cap).
This year there are only 9 with a definite release date as of now, with only 3 of those coming out before Independence Day (granted two of those are Shrek and Toy Story). Even if a few filns are bound to be added, at least 16 animated films have been released each year since 2005.
I wonder if the industry wants to save money by focusing on fewer releases, is just in a slower year or what?
Pacino is phenomenal in The Insider, better than he is in Heat, I’d argue. Crowe always got the plaudits, but I think it’s the best late-career work Pacino’s done.
MarkVH, close, but Pacino is HEAT is CLASSIC. Yeah, it’s over the top, he’s kind of ridiculous, and it’s launched a million “She got a GREAT ASS! GIMME ALL YA GOT!” imitations, but I could watch Pacino swaggering and blustering as Vincent Hanna all day, keeping everyone off guard with this weird, manic, hyped-up energy out of nowhere. It’s one of my favorite Pacino performances ever, and probably the most entertaining.
I’d give it to Crowe by an inch in Insider, mostly for that heartbreakingly earnest scene (which would’ve been cut from a lesser movie) where he’s nervously teaching chemistry in his class.
I think the Insider would never get made today unless it had DiCaprio or Will Smith. And it was 3D. And it was animated. Maybe then. Seriously, I don’t see how anyone would think a drama with no laughs or explosions or cute love story, with leading men on the low end of their 60s, working for a geriatric show like 60 minutes, would get greelit in today’s market. Indie – maybe. Otherwise no chance in hell.
pacino is obviously legend, having created some of the all-time classic and memorable characters of cinema, but one of my absolute faves has to be his turn as ‘lefty’ in ‘donnie brasco’ (which i just saw again the other night), precisely because lefty is so against type, in many respects the ‘anti-pacino’: low man on the totem pole, quietly desperate, longing to be more than he is but resigned to the fact that he never will be, worn down, deflated, passed over, with those dorky over-sized glasses framing his sad eyes on that hangdog face…just a brilliantly conceived, subtle, heartbreaking and seemingly overlooked perf from the larger-than-life pacino (and kudos to mike newell for eliciting such a strong supporting performance from him against type)
poor lefty đ
This years Hangover = Hot Tub Time Machine. If there is god in heaven, he/she will make it happen.
What’s with all the Reitman bashing? He wasn’t dissing The Insider. All he meant by that comment is that that’s not the kind of movie he would make. He seemes pretty self-aware to know what kind of story he is capable of telling.Would people be up in arms if Spielberg said he wouldn’t make a movie like GoodFellas?
And whoever suggested that Up in the Air doesn’t address the issues of the moment obviously checked out of the movie early on. Up in the Air is about how people live right now. From the downsizing of America to the technological “convenience” of life to the way people use status to replace romance, Up in the Air is the kind of adult movie that some audience members have lost the ability to appreciate.
And why does Juno have to take the issue of teen pregnancy seriously? Actually, it does, but not in any obvious way. (The scene between Juno and her father is one of the greatest parent-child scenes in movie history, ranking with Sounder.) Does that mean Heathers is a bad movie because it doesn’t take the issue of teen suicide seriously?
And The Insider would be able to get made today. If anything, in the era of Michael Clayton, Syriana, and Good Night, and Good Luck, it would probably mame more money.
For what it’s worth, The Insider gets my vote for Crowe’s best work, period. As for Pacino, his late-career peak has to be Donnie Brasco.
glad to hear there is another fan of pacino’s sublime work in ‘donnie brasco’
(scott, re: crowe, make sure you check out ‘romper stomper’ if you haven’t already)
While the “big ass” line did give me a laugh, that scene where they pulled off the highway to have their little I’ma cat-Youra mouse tete a tete I rank in my top ten of most contrived movie scenes of all time! Alright, maybe if I stopped to think about it, it might get pushed to the…no, top 10, they all shoulda known better.
I could see The Insider being made by a studio much the same way as Good Night & Good Luck. That was straight WB, right? Not some other branch or not?? Maybe it’d be a bad choice like Lambs for Lions or Lions for Lambs whatever that filmed stageplay Tom Cruise and Redford were in. I wonder if they wouldn’t try to sex it up a bit and make more thrillerish. Like a couple of low grade action sequnces and some spilled blood you’ve got State of Play, no?
I was at the video store today and on the TV they were playing trailers and up came Nothing But the Truth. This conversation just reminded of that since that movie was sort of along the same lines and look what happened.
I agree that The Insider would be made with the same talent involved (although it’d probably be George Clooney and not Crowe these days, sadly, since Crowe was so good in State of Play).
The Insider and Donnie Brasco are brilliant. As far as the latter is concerned, why in the hell was it released in February? I have to believe that a November or December release means more Oscar noms. A supporting actor for Pacino at the very least. He sure deserved it. Some of those scenes rank up there with his very best. When he explains to Donnie how insignificant he is. His very last scene in the movie. I get chills just thinking about them.
Stella, re: Brasco in February:
On one hand, wasn’t the ’90s THE era of the one, lone prestige release dropping in February? Silence of the Lambs kinda set the standard… Fargo repeated (and both won PICTURE), so it wasn’t THAT shameful.
On the flip side, I definitely remember 1997 like it was yesterday, the mid-90s being a formative stretch for me, all new to LA and full of dreams… and I don’t remember Donnie Brasco being a particularly ballyhooed release; It just sort of dropped as some MIDDLE AGED MATINEE PROCEDURAL, a la Absolute Power; It certainly wasn’t promoted or thought of, in its original run, as much more than a solid, above-average vet movie star vehicle; Depp wasn’t super huge yet, and the overall vibe was like that it was a AAA-league version of a Coppola or Scorsese flick, directed not by a REAL ITALIAN, but by Mike Newell of all people.
Now it’s rightly regarded as a modern classic and a great gangster movie, but at the time it was brought out with little fanfare as kind of a B-tier, solid version of the Scorsese-Pesci-De Niro real thing… being a Sony movie filmed through THE JURORVISION probably didn’t help add any classic cachet.
You may be right Lex. It sounds like your memory is much better than mine. I didn’t realize that Fargo was a February release. Maybe a Feb release wasn’t a bad idea. I guess it just seems like it with the benefit of hindsight.
Wait, Fargo didn’t win Picture, what am I talking about?
Heh, anyone else remember the DONNIE BRASCO SPINOFF TV SHOW, “Falcone,” starring perennial pilot-season journeyman Jason Gedrick in the Depp role, and Titus Welliver as Pacino????
Actually wasn’t that bad.
On a side note, Anne Heche was fairly bone-inducing in D.B.
Brasco wasn’t released like it was a classic, but I distinctly remember reading reviews that said, “hey wait, this is actually a singular event”. But it was that weird kind of critical praise that’s almost unanymous, but somehow doesn’t cohere into a single massive fist of buzz slamming on every door and demanding respect.
The same thing happened when “Heat” was released. People looking back who weren’t aware of these things at the time would marvel at how little notice it got upon release. It did okay box office, nothing spectacular, and it didn’t win a single award from anybody, much less garner an Oscar nomination. I remember calling radio stations when they’d have a film critic on for a guest around December or January of that time, and even the critic wouldn’t say much about it until I called in to bring it up, and then he’d finally go, “that’s a good point. And there is a pitched battle bank heist scene in the middle of the movie that is like nothing you’ve ever seen before…”.
Dave – any confirmation that Titans is getting pushed back to finish 3D retrofit?
As said in an Avatar thread, it’s a 3D world now. Two Potters, Spidey and Bond so far. The question is does Disney back up the truck for Iron Man 2, Thor and possibly the best of all – Burton’s Alice.
I saw Heat twice in the theater. ’95 was the last great year of straight-up filmmaking – Heat, Se7en and Braveheart. You look at the impact those three have had – Heat begat TDK, Se7en begat Saw, Braveheart begat Gladiator – and that doesn’t include all the derivatives wannabes, TV shows and commercials. The first season of CSI:NYC could have been sold as a Se7en spin-off.
Martin:
Disney has nothing to do with Iron Man 2 or Thor. Both of those are distributed by Paramount as part of their pre-existing deal with Marvel, before Marvel was bought by Disney.
And Alice in Wonderland is already in 3D.
The fall of 1995 was one of my favorite for watching movies ever. You also had Toy Story, Casino and Goldeneye.
95 — Batman Forever. Judge Dredd. Power Rangers. A summer for the ages.
But as for fall of ’95 — let’s not forget 12 Monkeys.
1999. Nuff said.
Actually, I’d vote ’94 but I gotta tip my hat for the ’95 US release Shallow Grave. Which, I’ll admit, I’ll bend to fit my argument of 1994 superior release slate as it played through out the world in that year.
Also in ’95: The Usual Suspects.
I’m one of the few people who didn’t think much of the Usual Suspects.
However, I loved the FUCK out of Congo in 1995. I think I saw the movie with 6-7 other people, and I was the only one who liked it. Which pretty much shows that my friends have terrible taste.
“When in Rome”? More like When in BONE. That’s for LexG who is killin it on this thread.
Pacino is heartbreaking in Brasco, Depp is damn good, but the movie itself is sub-sub wiseguy-goodfellas pastiche.
And in ’95: Apollo 13, Babe, Richard III, Dead Man Walking, Leaving Las Vegas, Nixon and Sense and Sensibility. Not bad at all.
Grady – Thanks on Alice. Haven’t followed it that closely.
Re: Paramount has no money in production, Disney does as they absorbed Marvel’s credit line. So if Thor is going to be 3D, Disney has to put the money up, the same goes for IM2. It may say Marvel but it’s Disney dollars.
For the record, I know Disney has run this “Marvel is separate” line, but Marvel doesn’t have nor could get funds for 3D retooling on its own. If it happens, Disney will be on the hook.
I shudder at the thought of a 3D Bond film.
“However, I loved the FUCK out of Congo in 1995. I think I saw the movie with 6-7 other people, and I was the only one who liked it. Which pretty much shows that my friends have terrible taste.”
Well played Sir. There’ll be no dissing of Congo round here – that movie is a riot, although perhaps not in the ways the filmmakers intended. ‘Ugly woman? Yes, very very ugly woman…’, ‘That’s an unusual name for someone from Mombasa.’ ‘Mr Homolka – stop eating my sesame seed cake.’ Could go on. If ever you could live inside a movie, i would’nt want to be James Bond or Luke Skywalker, no, i’d want to journey to the lost city of Zinj with Ernie Hudson and Amy the talking gorilla.
The only movie since that’s so cherishably Ed Wood-ish is The Happening (“then we checked the attached color chart and it turns out that purple meant that i was horny”). In an age when studio executives check everything, movies this demented are going to get more and more scarce – cherish them.
Donnie Brasco got pretty much across-the-board raves. It even made quite a few year-end lists. And people were shocked when Pacino didn’t get a nomination for his work.
What happned with Donnie Brasco is the Star Wars re-release happened. No Star Wars re-release, Donnie Brasco becomes a sleeper hit. As it is, those of us who saw it knew it was something special. Remember, people were shocked that a re-release would do as well as it did. ’97 was the last year for Star Wars nostaalgia. Movies like Donnie Brasco, The Devil’s Own, and Private Parts were relegated to #2 status.
Personally, I’ll take ’97 over ’95 any day of the week. You had Star Wars, Rosewood, Romy & Michelle, Hard Eight, Chasing Amy, Breakdown, Face/Off, Austin Powers, Mrs. Brown, The Fifth Element, Men in Black, Contact, Cop Land, Mimic, Ulee’s Gold, In the Company of Men, The Full Monty, Monty, L.A. Confidential, In & Out, Boogie Nights, Devil’s Advocate, Good Will Hunting, 4 Little Girls, The Game, The Sweet Hereafter, Eve’s Bayou, The Apostle, The Ice Storm, Jackie Brown, and a little movie called Titanic.
q: so how’s online pay content doing for the newspaper industry.
http://www.observer.com/2010/media/after-three-months-only-35-subscriptions-newsdays-web-site
a: not that great.
i love transition.
NYT will get at least 100 times that.
Hee hee.
I’m perfectly fine with pretending that FARGO won Best Picture.
So Miramax is officially dead. No links here yet?
THE MOVIE OF THE YEAR:
http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi875627545/
I rarely do links, but just too excited.
Admit it, LexG, you’re excited.
HOLY SHIT, that looks AWESOME.
STONE POWER. MULLIGAN POWER. GEKKO POWER.
Most of all: BROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLIN.
The hip-hop dude getting in the limo is INSPIRED. I’ll even forgive the Blues Brothers flashbacks and the overall MGM vibe of the whole project.
“money never sleeps”??
probably the same genius that came up with the tagline “the end begins”
(how is it that gekko is old and grey getting out of prison after 20 odd years — your average insider-trading white collar crims don’t usually serve such long, hard-time sentences, do they?)
and mulligan on her laptap – now that’s some riveting stuff right there
Leah, either you’re part of the target audience for this thing or you’re not…..and I’m part of that audience.
Actually not crazy about Mulligan being in this, though I did like her in An Education.
I have heard some gripes about the prison sentence length, but really a small quibble…..
geoff, who do you consider the target audience for ‘money never sleeps’? i’m a fan of stone’s original flick – mainly for douglas’ delicious perf – so i’ll give this sequel the benefit of the doubt, but the trailer just looks a bit silly (greed, bless its stony heart, has always been legal). of course judging a movie by its trailer is folly.
re: the prison sentence length, i didn’t realise there were already gripes, it was just an observation; but really, it could be a bit of a worry and a bad sign if the film’s premise relies on something absurdly unrealistic from the get-go
MULLIGAN POWER.
You will BOW TO HER. She’s DREAMY.
If the film plays like the comedy of the trailer, I am actually very interested. It does not look serious. That phone gag is brilliant.
it hadn’t occurred to me it might be a send up
It would be awesome if Mulligan was playing jailbait in this too.
MULLIGAN.
Leah, I loved Douglas’ performance too and that would be my reason for seeing this – this could easily be another Color of Money or Hannibal, we’ll see….
The prison sentence thing really doesn’t bother me, that much – if you remember the ending of the first movie, it seems almost too on-the-nose how Bud is suddenly heading to jail, when he seems to have given up the goods on Gekko who is obviously a much bigger fish. Stone was telling a fable, first and foremost.
And the first film had a great sense of humor about itself and the environment, too, right in line with the phone gag in this trailer…..Sean Young’s character, for one, is hardly meant to be taken seriously. And the same with Darryl Hannah’s decorations, especially that coffee table. Still a fantastic movie with very memorable dialogue and a great soundtrack, to boot – love the Byrne/Eno music and “This Must Be the Place” remains my favorite Talking Heads song.
Yeah, the first one was pretty funny too…in a way the whole “greed is good” is a satirical speech. I didn’t get the sense that this movie is a send up any more than the first was.
Wtf???? I think the trailer looks SHITEOUS. And considering Fox has only released a single decent live-action film in the past 2.5 years…count me out.