BYOB into the air
Heading far, far away. Be gentle. Please raise the debt ceiling before I land.
The new season of Entourage is good… though a LOT happened in the off-season.
April 18, 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
Andrew Dice Clay on Entourage = AWESOME.
NBC Wonder Woman was leaked a pilot starring Adrianne Palicki .. it’s set in the real world where dr.phil and
Nancy Grace show up on tv .. 40 minutes and the colors
/video quality isn’t the best .
funny interview with cast of Children’s Hospital –
10 minutes … Akerman and Mullally makeout with each other and Rob Corddry tries to flirt with the interviewer and they make fun of true blood..
http://insidetv.ew.com/2011/07/23/childrens-hospital-comic-con-interview/
I’ve been lobbying for my local drive-in theater to show a double feature of Project Nim and Rise of the Apes but the bastard manager just isn’t returning any of my calls.
Seriously, nobody watched ENTOURAGE?
Most important show in the history of television. If you don’t watch the ‘RAGE, you have no vision. Kinda surprised that Scott Caan re-upped, since he’s on a hit show now.
Also WALSH = GOD. Someone seriously needs to make Ryhs Coiro and Todd Phillips in THE SAME GUY.
Caan returning is my favorite thing about this season’s Entourage.
I take issue with the BULLSHIT that Vince is an addict. Fuck all that. Dude made it to 30 without being a big drug and alcohol guy, then had a wild stretch with Sasha Grey (who I’m still surprised was willing to portray herself as a vapid cokehead, since she’s neither IRL) for a few months and he’s suddenly Tom Sizemore? Kind of ridiculous.
Also MRS. ARI is the only sour note on this show. Ari should be THRILLED to be rid of her, and get to banging all the hot young trim like every other dude on the show.
entourage – they had a story – simple to understand but there was no comedy …also no huge guest stars .
Vinne Chase makes Medellín – Aquaman – Queens Boulevard
and there is no DP/30.
check out the trailer for Medellin .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kotmPFDHRRQ
SERIOUSLY, Poland, Grenier really should get a DP/30.
Or Dillon or LORD PIVEN.
Entourage is literally one of the worst shows in the history of TV and every main character should end this season being killed by the cast of Rome, Carnivale, and The Comeback. How that atrocious piece of shit has stayed on the air as long as it has, when it’s literally been the same fucking show for years. It’s the HBO version of a CBS sitcom and the same people who watch those shitty CBS sitcoms, love fucking Entourage, and go all Daniel Plainview about it.
i don’t know if i’d say i hated Entourage, but it is the Axe body spray of TV shows.
Anghus: You mean it helps you get laid?
The true legacy of the scourge that is ENTOURAGE will be all the guido douchebags who, inspired by the show, come to Hollywood to enter the agent trainee programs and will wind up inflicting their horrible taste on the world in the decade to come. Just watch.
Those guido douchebags won’t last 4 minutes at any maniac agent’s desk.
Curb, last night, was one of the top 5 in its history. Fact.
Anghus, that post, fucking tremendous.
isn’t the point of entourage … become an actor – get rich – get women – get drugs.
nobody in hollywood ever does that ….
Entourage was moving along nicely for about the first season and a half, maybe the first two. But after that, it was a whole lot of wash, rinse, repeat. Girl friend of the season. House of the season. Movie of the season. Hell, sometimes car(s) of the season. Wash, rinse repeat.
Last season was finally a little bit different for Entourage. The drug story line, while still a Hollywood cliche worked for last season as an “original” idea compared to what Entourage has been doing for 4-4 1/2 seasons.
That being said, last night’s premiere was decent. The Ari’s wife crushing Ari was well done. Having Ari’s son at the office with him was another nice touch and a good way to humanize a character who has been little more than a caricature since the show began.
I get the feeling that by season’s end E will part ways with Vince. They sure did their best to turn him into a dick from the end of last season through last night’s episode. When Scott Caan, in any role, is more sympathetic than you, you’re a dick.
And yeah Lex, Rhys Coiro POWER indeed. I liked him in the last season or second to last season of 24 too.
It’s funny, because E. is ostensibly the “star” of the show, or at least has more of an “arc” than Vinnie Chase… but Kevin Connolly is so inherently unlikable (not necessarily a complaint, as there’s something off-putting about him in general that works for the role) and the character is such a moody prick, it’s odd that the show is created by the real Eric Weinstein and supposedly serves as Wahlberg’s paean to his loyal bud.
Sorry guys but Sunday nights are for Breaking Bad.
watched some like it hot with Marilyn Monroe ..
super old film thats in black and white..
comedy was different back then ..
30 minutes too long .
it was alright …
DP – you were around in the 1950’s where is the DP/30 with
Marilyn Monroe ?
i still haven’t seen any movies from Elvis
i hear he’s the Justin Bieber of old music ..
For a second there, I thought “super old film” was a compliment, as in an old film that’s super. Then I realized he meant a film that’s super-old. Well, at least the young man deigned to watch a film both old and in B&W. More than most of his peers would probably do.
The Elvis/Bieber line is lame though.
Speaking of Breaking Bad, why doesn’t Walt just dump that HIDEOUS wife?
RIP G.D. Spradlin. “Now that’s concentration.”
Absolutely loved “Crazy, Stupid, Love:” easily one of the few (“Tree of Life,” “MiP”) truly special films of the year.
It reminded me of the sort of movie H’wood used to make a lot more frequently than they do now (“Jerry Maguire,” “Terms of Endearment,” “Kramer Vs. Kramer”), back when the major studios actually cared about courting grown-up audiences.
Except for the occasional “Up in the Air,” most films of this type are produced by sister shingles like Focus (“Kids Are All Right”) or Searchlight (“Sideways”) today.
I’m curious to see how it fares in the ‘plexes where romcoms–for better, and occasionally worse–are increasingly judged against the Apatow-ian template.
If there’s any justice, “CSL” will be one of the season’s biggest sleepers. And, hopefully, even remembered at Oscar time.
G.D. Spradlin: “Mr. Rose…”
Michael Douglas: “No, you listen to me, you tiny little wormlike infinitecimal prick!”
Alex and Liam Do Walmart .. comedy – 3 minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gzj1OF7d9m4
Lex: As opposed to why doesn’t the wife dump that meth-cooking, lying murderer? 🙂
so i won tickets to crazy stupid love and it’s sold out .
so i end up with horrible bosses which was better
than i expected .
if Emma Stone is reading this … can i get free tickets to Spiderman 4 ?
I’m just going to pretend the remake of Total Recall doesn’t exist. I mean it’s been a rough year for Arnold, but we’re talking about an absolute masterpiece of social/philosophical science fiction, barely 20 years old.
Does anyone expect the new Recall to be anywhere near as gonzo and violent as Verhoeven’s original? Outside of horror films and stuff by the Crank fellas, who are still pretty under the radar, you just don’t see carnage like that with a major star anymore. Arnold wasn’t the top name in the business when Recall hit, I think it was only his second $100 million film, but hard to imagine any serious up and comer today starring in something so giddily violent.
And as far as it being a rough year for Arnold, I don’t think many have a lot of sympathy for him. Its not like this wasn’t self-inflicted.
3 minutes of video from total recall comic con
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgstkUpkhJA
from joblo.com –
One thing that made everybody happy was the revelation that Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel have a fight scene. Beckinsale says Biel is the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen, and she’s never been so scared as when she had to fight with her.(She also says she has a $3 million nose.)
Total Recall: The best movie ever made about how Mars is really a 1989 Northridge shopping mall.
Seriously, I think it’s aged so much worse than Verhoeven’s other big-dick American movies. It couldn’t be more 1990-dated if there were Surface songs on the OST.
Actually Lex, that’s pretty much the same thing my wife says while watching Breaking Bad.
“When are they going to kill Skylar?”
Either that or “I hate her.”
If they really wanted to make people happy it’d be a Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel sex scene.
Lex, you’re slipping.
I don’t remember much of Total Recall. Robocop was the film I remember being excessively violent. NOT that that was a bad thing. I just remember being surprised by it. Was it Robocop or Robo2? Maybe they both were. I was walking out thinking “That was like a Clint Eastwood movie.” I wonder if I were to go back and watch some of Clint’s films would they seem tame??
Theres a great moment in Total Recall when they surround Arnold and start shooting him, then you realize its a hologram. I always wondered, wouldnt they have ended up shooting each other? And yet, none of them die.
Heh, same exact thing happens in Escape From LA– a group of cops circle Snake Plissken and all fire off automatic weapons directly at him, only for the hologram to static and glitch, revealing that he really wasn’t there. So 15-20 cops were all firing machine guns right at each other from 10 yards away.
watched soul surfer 2011 … they really know how to
screw up a simple family movie …there was one
part near the middle of the movie that made it so bad ..
the movie is supposed to be about emotional impact of losing
an arm but there is hardly any emotion from anybody….and somehow they can get away with this ..
there was 12 writers and 22 producers on this movie ..
soul surfer 2011 – one of the worst movies of the year ..
Both of the Robocop’s were suprisingly violent. I think the first one was more suprising though, expecting a fun futuristic cop movie only to see people burned by acid, stuck through the throat, and nearly vaporized by bullets, no one gets winged in the movie if you are shot you are shot ninety three times and dance like a marionette until your bones are too perferated to hold the weight.
The trashy but slick elements (Verhoeven’s specialty apparently) of Total Recall were, along with great direction, what made it such a successful genre piece. The production design is dated but it was always going to be dated. 20 years later it is a worthy representative of the cultural and ideological ferment of 70s novelistic sci-fi.
Trashy is being generous to Verhoeven (and I don’t mean that as critical). He seems to want to create cinematic Cock Fights where we cheer at the spectacle unplaying in front of us. For the science fiction films, I never thought he was all that interested in the adaptions other than being able to use them to provide a healthy dollop of his winking violence.
Torpid, how do you feel about the more restrained and even slicker Minority Report?
And I have to say when I first saw the lobby standup for Robocop I was certain it was going to bomb. What a terrible idea for a movie. But this was also when I was wrong about absolutly everything, thinking that Top Gun, Lethal Weapon, and Die Hard were stupid bland titles and why would someone stick them on something other than generic entertainment.
just as any movie named after an oldies song and staring some guy who hasn’t had a hit in eight years (and aren’t hooker’s with a heart of gold totally 1982?) is destined to be a complete flop.
Entourage is like an old roomate that you used to like that now you cannot wait to leave the house. It used to be a reason to subscribe to HBO in the summer and now it is just a free-bee mixed in with the far superior Curb and True Blood(having a rebound year from a confusing and dismal season 3). I’m going to watch the end of it since I have seen them all, but it is a slow death that I cannot wait for it too end. If it wasn’t the last season, I think I would have bailed. I cannot imagine much support for a movie.
In other HBO news, it is a little sad to see David Simon go from making my favorite television show of all time, The Wire, to making Treme. I gave the first season a pass because I thought that it might just need some time to find it’s groove. But man the second season was meandering. Just because the cast appears to be having a fantastic time filming it in New Orleans does not make it a high quality show.
Cannot wait for Boardwalk Empire and Bored to Death(which also needed a second season to find it’s footing) to return.
The Total Recall aesthetic is exactly what Schwarzenegger should be pursuing now. He’d be foolish to try another Twins style comedy. He should just do pulpy hard R stuff, if not with Verhoeven then with Tony Scott or Neveldine/Taylor.
Verhoeven might be available but other than another Terminator movie would Arnold have big name directors lining up to work with him. At the time Politics seemed like a decent way to retire without admitting that he was pretty much done as a box office entitity (Collateral Damage, End of Days, that Clone thing). He might get some interest in the initial comeback and possibly with some Stallone teamup, but I doubt that he is ever going to be big enough again to attract A-list directors.
My Breaking Bad guess: Skylar kills Mike in self-defense in the season finale.
I like Minority Report ok but the action scenes seemed poorly integrated, there was the rather tiresome family melodrama, too much plot, etc.
I was just wondering what else might be a ‘ worthy representative of the cultural and ideological ferment of 70s novelistic sci-fi.’
We get so few heady science fiction films, even ones that are loaded with action like TR. Curious what else you might think makes the cut.
The car factory scene in Minority Report is one of my favorite action scenes of recent times. It had Spielberg’s Indiana Jones charm intact.
I honestly don’t feel like I’ve seen enough movies or remember the ones I have seen well enough to make any list. Lots of movies have sci-fi elements but are ultimately a different genre: comic books, horror, action-thriller, fantasy, disaster movies, end of the world movies, etc. Movies like Total Recall or say Blade Runner have elements of other genres but are really sci-fi beginning to end, and quite stylish at that. That seems rare.
To me an Indiana Jones style fight was out of place in a paranoid sci-fi thriller.
The project Arnold is starting out with, the one from THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE WEIRD director, sounds exactly like the type of thing he should be doing. I’m sure there’s plenty of directors, both younger and older, who would love to play with his iconography and particular talents, as long as he allows them the freedom to do so. This first project makes me think he’s game.
can’t James Cameron just fix Arnold up ?
stick him in avatar 3 ….small role but good one.
or true lies 2.
ari gold will find him a good movie like he does for
vincent chase.
i saw a news report on tv that total recall is going to
cost 200 million. i expect DP to go crazy about these numbers .
the new total recall could be 100 million dollar movie to make – so they need all the press they can get but there will be 100 movie sites asking the same questions – so i predict no dp/30 for this ..it’s hard for DP to ask any
interesting questions unless DP gets the director who hasn’t done a dp/30 ever ?
the movie isn’t even out yet and i can predict the future.
I wonder if the UNDEFEATED team has approached Steven Kaye yet about spinning the numbers? Dude shouldn’t put all his eggs in Woody’s basket. Branch out; make a few bucks!
UNDEFEATED has done so well in its theatrical release that it will soon be rushed off to video where it will, no doubt, be above ON DEADLY GROUND, FOUL PLAY, TURNER AND HOOCH, CHOLE IN THE AFTERNOON, CHUD II: BUD THE CHUD,and M. on that week’s rental charts.
Amazing.
I had a EXTREMELY STRANGE afternoon thanks to FAMOUS POWER LexG himself… Drove out to the west hills for the first time to the MIDDLE OF NOWHERE to see MELANCHOLIA…
It’s showing once a day at 1pm for a week at a theater hidden behind a Chili’s, a good 45 minute drive from Hollywood Blvd. No mention of the movie on the main drag marquee, movie misspelled at the ticket booth (MELONCHOLIA, heh), and the movie showing in a theater with A BETTER WORLD’s poster out front and no name on the theater door. No promotion anywhere, or even a poster in the lobby from what I could see.
I overheard Michael Tully’s name in a conversation while standing in the lobby. SO WEIRD that this is the American premiere for this movie. SO WEIRD.
Pretty good movie too, though to me it felt like Manderlay to Antichrist’s Dogville. Surprised to see Lex give it the full DP/5.
Very interesting to me to see so many similar elements pop up in completely far-flung films this year, Tree of Life and Another Earth have certain similarities to this, somehow.
Gus–
Not sure if you’ll check back in, but, ha! Glad I inspired someone to make the trek; I’m not that familiar with that deep into the Valley, so I got huge-time lost on the way there, thanks to fucking Google Maps sending me all thru suburban Woodland Hills for no reason. So I ended up running late, pulling into that GIGANTIC fucking lot at the first sign of a Lammle’s Theater sign on one corner, then parked my car right as I pulled in, no theater in sight… then had to RUN like THREE MILES through the Mall of America-sized parking lot in 110-degree weather, sweating like an asshole and scaring some hot-ass chick carrying a baby when I sweaty screamed, ‘Excuse me, WHICH WAY TO THE THEATER!’ like a crazed homeless person; By the time I got to the ticket window, it was like 1:22 and the movie started at 1:10, but I figured the usual buffer of 10m of trailers and the ticket kid assured me it was JUST NOW STARTING.
Go in, find that BETTER LIFE theater, and what do you know, the movie’s clearly 5-10m in, as I later read that I missed some allegedly awesome crazy opening visual setpiece… Time I rolled in, the wedding party was just starting and John Hurt was stealing spoons. I feel like I missed a good 8-9m, but I’ll be damned if I’m making the trek a 2nd time.
Gus, did they not show any trailers? I asked another dude on Twitter, and he said he went in a few minutes after showtime, and the movie was already under way, too, with Dunst and birds dropping from the sky, which I missed.
I hate missing even the studio logos, so missing this opening setpiece has been killing me all week.
They showed no trailers and started at 1:10 sharp. The guys behind me went to get soda at like 1:09, came back in half way through the intro and muttered what the fucks to each other for a few minutes. Kind of felt their pain. It was weird that it went straight from lights down to showing the thing. Magnolia logo and then that was it.
***SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT
From what I could tell, the opening of the movie is a series of extreme slo-mo images that show lots of things that are either discussed, felt, or shown later in the movie, usually from a different POV than what is seen later. There’s a good chunk of outer space stuff that felt to me like the intro to Antichrist filtered through Tree of Life’s space sequence. Semi-comically operatic depression and images of destruction. There’s a lot of shots of Dunst in chaos and a different vision of Charlotte carrying her son during the hail storm. This goes on real long, then they throw up a title and go into the wedding.
Fuck, then I missed like 12 or more minutes. DAMN IT.
How ’bout that parking lot, eh? Jesus Christ. Parked by some Walmart, then the theater’s like four football fields away, hidden as you said.
***MORE MELANCHOLIA SPOILERS
If it makes you feel any better I would say it feels the same to me as ‘missing’ the creation sequence in ToL if that were possible. It is basically non-narrative, about 10 minutes of 120fps (admittedly AMAZING) images that show but don’t really set up things that will happen later. They are pretty sweet shots but the intro doesn’t function like Antichrist’s (which motivates the rest of the movie).
I sailed past the theater too. I got there no problem but zipped right past it because it was set so far off the road and the marquee was so small. I had to do a U-turn and then I just assumed I would have trouble finding it, so I drove around until I saw the theater, so I didn’t have to worry about the (free) enormous lot.
new years eve trailer …huge stars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9fQLmSnymIg
Krillian – agreed.
I feel like I need to watch the show for the last season – and it’s vaguely nice to see familiar faces – kinda like a high school reunion.
But ultimately, I am finding the gang, like old high school acquaintances, rather boring. And the only thing that spices things up is your buddy’s crazy +1 you are meeting for the first time at the reunion. Or in Entourage’s case, Caan. During the final scene with all the sadsacks staring at the same sight (won’t spoil it), the only one that made it interesting was Caan piping up.
MCN front page has a “humorous” headline concerning the death and cryonic suspension of Robert Ettinger, as if the notion is wacky. And yet Ettinger has a better chance of walking the earth again than anyone else who died this week, cremated chanteuses included.
Not so fast, you say, because most of those other people will awaken in a magic land created by a magic man where they’ll be surrounded by their loving friends and family for all eternity, because they’re exempt from ever again having to see that witch who tricked them into getting married or that scumbag who screwed them out of their inheritance or that ungrateful child who threw it all away to start a band.
Or maybe they will walk the earth again, if the magic man’s son returns and rebuilds their bodies from all their original atoms which, in the meantime, have scattered across the planet. Heck, they might be a part of something that’s alive right now–sucks to be them!
And those are the “sensible” post-death options?
Did anyone here actually see ANOTHER EARTH?
God, I hope for his sake that Renny Harlin director guy is dating Brit Marling, for having to endure all her “hot chick searching for enlightenment” bullshit. Amused by how there’s JUST enough (roughly five or six) striking aqua-tinted ethereal shots to make an exciting trailer… when the rest of the movie has the EXACT visual style of 3am Showtime softcore (not even the good Cinemax kind, I mean the rank Mainline kind.)
Mapother is SO GOOD, and I was fascinated by Marling, who’s really watchable and I loved just LOOKING AT HER… But God she’s TOTALLY the hot chick who thinks India is inherently profound. She probably gets her fortune and palm read. Also they clearly shot their load landing Mapother, and Brit is good, but everyone else is DTV-level amateurish.
Hey Lex – I think you got the EFLA scene jumbled.
I remember Snake being surrounded by gang members and saying “let’s play Tijuana…” something. He throws an object in the air and as they watch, he shoots them.
So when is Dave’s dismissive review of Cowboys & Aliens hitting the blog? He’ll talk about “too many elements, wasting this character, Favreu doesn’t know how to film action, etc……” Come on, this thing writes itself, right?
Dave, we kid becauce we love. 🙂
I saw another earth and was definitely taken with it. Very impressed with what they were able to pull off, and I found the scene of first contact surprisingly moving. Reminded me again of just how little you actually need to make a compelling movie.
Martin, those were two different scenes, the hologram comes at the end in the woods right before Snake ends civilization as we know it.
And it also begs the question, wouldn’t shooting machine guns from the hip in a circle be idiocy even if they guy wasn’t a hologram?
If you’re just standing there, you need to bring your gun to a shoulder position and sight over the barrel.
And speaking of terrible movie machine gun cliches, it always bugs me when bullets hit nothing but the railing as the hero sprints across (Martin Campbell seems to be in particular love with this visual). The thugs can’t seem to hit the 6 foot guy on the other side but every single round bounces off a two inch piece of metal.
Now I know its a movie rule that bad guys are always such bad shots but when it gets to laughable heights, such as Eraser where the villians have a monster sniper rifle that can see through walls and shoot through trucks and STILL cannot hit anybody, it sort of diminishes the tension of the action.
I just watched the Battleship trailer.
I don’t think the question is ‘will it lose money?’ but ‘how much money will it lose?’. Time to play FUTURE HEADLINES…
we all know the word ‘sunk’ will appear. Every major outlet will have some variation of the ‘Sunk’ headline when the numbers come in. The most obvious would be:
Battleship Sinks At Box Office…..
If by some miracle it’s a hit, we’ll get:
Battleship… IT’S A HIT
Surely we can do better. We need to come up with more original headlines for the inevitable box office headlines for Battleship
Let’s not mince words: it’s tough to handle heavy weaponry in tense and unexpected environments. Arnold, for instance, has at least two key moments of hip-mounted action: the breathtaking liquid nitrogen chase where Arnie climbs in front of the cab, unloads a clip in the T-1000, who doesn’t take it very well, then reaches in and flips the steering wheel; and the damn near perfectly integrated island gun fight in True Lies, after which all the AV-8 Harrier action of the finale is rather flat if technically impressive.
comedy/ parody …just bad
POOLBOY: DROWNING OUT THE FURY trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDejl0XNhtU
torpid, you’re right. true lies has a technically impressve ending and no emotional weight whatsoever. mainly because you have his daughter in danger but we don’t know her so who cares?
It’s funny when you watch a movie made by a very talented filmmaker and they use a very cheap device to try and generate an emotional response from the audience.
In True Lies, Cameron (a guy who knows how to push an audience’s buttons) decides that the stakes of detonating a nuclear bomb in a major American city isn’t enough and throws in the kidnapped daughter. This might have worked if we spent more than thirty seconds with the character. As is, she’s a personality free character who’s life and death is of no consequence to an audience. we’re supposed to care because she’s a kid? She’s Arnold’s daughter? Because she was smart enough to steal the ignition key to the nuke? Hell, they might as well have named the character ‘clever device’. She’s an excuse to create the Harrier/Crane sequence. Other than that, she serves almost no purpose in the film.
It the nuance free world of James Cameron films, this felt like a cheap ploy that doesn’t work because we know nothing about his kid other than she steals money from him and is apparently turning into a deliquent without her father around. And we get that from about 5 minutes of total screen time.
An action film where this kind of scenario works well is Face/Off, another ludicrous action movie that focuses on the family. They spend time on the daughter. We get to know her a little bit. At the end when she’s in danger and stabs Travolta in the leg (which recalls an earlier scene), you get a good reaction from the audience.
And Face/Off, for all it’s wonderful ridiculousness does a good job with spending enough time with the characters to ultimately have some investment in the outcome, no matter how inevitable. Hell, even the villain’s girlfriend played by Gina Gershon gets enough time to make her death at the end seem tragic. And no, i’m not asserting that Face/Off is a performance tour de force with great emotional moments, but you could see in the writing and directing that the secondary characters were of consequence to the emotional center of the story.
True Lies has some great moments with Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis. I think the mistake in True Lies was taking Jamie Lee Curtis out of the finale and instead using a generic daughter character. The stakes dropped dramatically.
The only problem with the daughter in True Lies is that Dushku wasn’t SMOKING hot yet. And what was with her bad flannel?
Otherwise, you guys are wrong… The ending setpiece works perfectly with the daughter; Jamie Lee had been front and center, delightfully, all through the last 30-40 minutes of action. Putting her on the top of the plane would’ve been redundant after the bridge chase in the limo.
How is it Fox could not keep Eliza Dushku and one of the most attractive casts ever assembled in LITTLE OUTFITS for more than two seasons? Do you realize Fox actually asked Whedon to make the show “less prostitutey” (I believe he did not actually comply)?
I had a Humbert Humbert moment watching Face/Off when I realized that the goth punk chick was ACTUALLY LOLITA.
I agree with Anghus on the ending of True Lies – though I always thought it was the crotch shot that made the whole thing ridiculous and anticlimactic. Or that once the terrorist is alone, he really doesn’t come across all that menacing, versus the hulking figure of Arnold and the jet. But it’s true – it’s hard to care about the daughter, too.
That said, I adore the horse/motorcycle chase. It’s silly and doesn’t look anything like DC, but it’s so much fun.
Swain in Face/Off is the GREATEST thing EVER (except for K-Stew or the Fannings.) Put Castor Troy right alongside the kid from Into the Wild on the Eternal Idiot List for not seizing that opportunity.
I don’t even BLINK during that scene.
SARSGAARD POWER RIHANNA POWER BERG POWER NEESON POWER
FACE THE SHIP BATTLESHIP BEST TRAILER EVER.
YES. That is what movies should look like.
STOKED.
Skipped Skyline and Battle: Los Angeles, Battleship really makes no case for me to show up either. The first couple beats of the trailer look like the opening credits to some fall tv show, and the images stay that generic through the whole thing.
Remember the gag script exerts from the Bay directed Dark Knight?
Batman: We must hack the internets.
President: Which ones?
Batman: All of them.
That’s what Neeson’s delivery at the end of the trailer reminded me of.
“She’s a personality free character who’s life and death is of no consequence to an audience. we’re supposed to care because she’s a kid? She’s Arnold’s daughter?”
You’re a cold-hearted individual… 😉
Actually, that became the template for Elisha Cuthbert’s character in 24, getting into random-ass damsel-in-distress trouble just for the sake of distracting dear old dad.
CUTHBERT POWER DUSHKU POWER YEP YEP
BATTLESHIP POWER BOW
SARSGAARD = GOD.
too many Sarsgaard’s out there. i want a dp/30 with all of them.
also Donald Sutherland has played the father of so many people in movies – i wonder if he forgets he has a real son.
I’m looking forward to COWBOYS AND ALIENS but am just gonna throw this out: John Favreau is no better a filmmaker than Brett Ratner but gives better geek access so he gets a pass.
I don’t disagree with that. Plus Favreau’s a more relatable “likable” guy to geeks and critics that smarmy flash-and-trash poon-hound Ratner. Favs is like their aw-shucks drinking buddy.
Also interesting that both repeatedly each use a PHENOMENAL DP (Favreau Matthew Libatique, Ratner Dante Spinotti) who usually has a distinct, original look… yet somehow their movies for those directors look handsomely inoffensive and un-stylish.
Cuthbert’s character did such inexplicably stupid things in the first two seasons that when she walked down the stairs as an employee of CTU at the start of season 3, it made me want to shut off the TV and surrender to the enemy just to save some trouble.
Dollhouse just got to be unwatchable. Even the prospects of seeing Eliza in a thigh high leather boots and a micro mini skirt couldn’t make me tune in. And who doesn’t like Summer Glau?? Man, no thanks. I like the attempt but something’s not working here.
True Lies was one of the first movies I saw at Mann’s Chinese Theater. I LOVED it! The screen size, the enthusiasm of the audience, the laughs from the film and the whole movie itself. At the time I remember thinking there were a lot of small things that worked so well that I think it’s part of the reason I was disappointed in Titanic and Avatar because those unique moments weren’t in them. I’ll have to go back and watch True Lies. I’ve always like Jamie Leigh Curtis, too. Both her work and everything I’ve read or heard about her off camera.
I’ve not seen the Battleship clips. Is the film supposed to have a sort of War Games set up? On paper, it sounds just as lame as a movie based on Facebook. If it’s like the game, don’t they have to include a moment where one side cheats and moves a boat after the game has started. “D-6” “Uhhh, no.”
“You just moved something!”
“I did not.”
“I saw your hand move.”
“I marked the miss”
“You’re a liar. I’m tellin’”
“Go ahead.”
“Let me see then.”
“No”
Then you try to turn the game around and the other player punches you and that’s when the real battle begins. I can’t wait for the reviews. “Battleship starts off strong enough. Plenty of intrigue and suspense but abruptly ends with two opposing admirals having to have a time out and sit in separate rooms.” Of course if they let Terrance Malick make a 3 hour movie of each kid sitting in silence, picking their noses & peeing their pants half the board here would think it was brilliance worthy of an Oscar.
Where was the Kitsch power, Lex?????!!
Kitsch only gets the POWER meme for his work in The Covenant.
“Donald Sutherland has played the father of so many people in movies – i wonder if he forgets he has a real son.”
This throwaway might be sanj’s masterpiece.
Also Riggins with short hair looks like jacked up Vincent Kartheiser.
Agreed, ‘nap. Definitely thought that was Sanj’s greatest moment thus far.
THE COVENANT is a Renny Harlin I skipped at the time. Maybe I should correct this.
He deserves the power.
And yes, DiscoNap it is odd seeing him with hair. I’m very used to those great, messy locks.
EDITED: Also want to add that that trailer screams awesome.
“Which weapons should we fire?”
“All of them.”
Since we’re on the discussion of recent alien invasion flicks, did anyone happen to check out SKYLINE? I watched it last weekend and it’s…well I’m reluctant to suggest it because it’s by no means or standards a good or competent film (it’s a terrible one), but there’s a bunch of fascinating stuff about it that made it compulsively watchable and interesting, at least for me. It’s filled with unlikable characters with grating personalities, and the guys behind it, fx specialists themselves, have created this bizarre alternative universe where special effects guys are Gods who roll around in expensive cars and drink champagne and hang out with hot chicks. It’s basically a creaky CLOVERFIELD if they never left the apartment riff littered with wish fulfillment and blatant autobiography, but then it descends into such goofy madness in the last portion that it is literally stunning. It takes an insane left turn that is so outlandish that I had to hand it to them. It’s sort of like how Quentin Tarantino talks about suffering though disreputable movies to get to the good or transcendent moments, and how they’re all the more surprising and fulfilling for that. The vast majority of the movie is filled with annoying characters reacting in bizarre ways and spouting awful dialogue to the pretty great sfx (apparently it was shot on a sub 1 million dollar budget), but the finale was so unhinged that I was glad I watched it, despite it being awful on the whole.
I thought Skyline was just plain awful. Belfor is a tool of epic proportions. I actually saw this thing in the theater, it’s no Pandorum as far as low budget sci-fi goes.
The chicks in Skyline were SO HOT (well, not Brittany Daniel, who’s kinda old) and that one TOTALLY showed her feet in the best foot fetish scene of last year.
Did kind of bum me out that not one but TWO women were fighting over Donald Faison. How does that guy do it?
SKYLINE is a really weird use of Faison too because I would think the filmmakers would cast him for his comedic skills or likability but instead he’s kind of an asshole thoughout the whole thing. Maybe they were going against type but it’s odd. Although the absolute oddest performance is from that guy from Dexter who also played the bad guy in THE EXPENDABLES, David Zayas, who is absoltuely chewing the scenery in a way no one else is in the movie. He’s the Chris Klein in STREET FIGHTER: LEGEND OF CHUN LI, if you will (although not as glorious, obviously)…
I like Brittany Daniel a good deal.
Peter Sarsgaard is married to Maggie Gyllenhaal ..he gets to hang out with the Prince of Persia himself Jake Gyllenhaal.
I want whatever sanj is always on.
One night in the Arclight concession stand line, Donald Faison accidentally brushed his hand against my girlfriend’s butt. He was very apologetic.
Re Brittany Daniel — I wonder how many pervy old dads got up on Saturday mornings to share a little quality TV time with their daughters and SWEET VALLEY HIGH?
“I wonder if I were to go back and watch some of Clint’s films would they seem tame??”
As it happens, I caught a double bill of SUDDEN IMPACT and THE DEAD POOL last weekend. They seem like avatars of restraint compared to today’s action films, with cutting that lets the scenes breathe, plenty of time for the plot and characters to develop, and dialogue that doesn’t sound like Tourette’s. Plus it was fun reseeing the latter since Clarkson, Neeson and Carrey are much bigger now than they were then.
And Lex, seriously, next time you’re heading to some out-of-the-way cinema, ask one of us Valley dudes the best route to take, where to park, etc. I feel for ya, man.
funny Brittany Daniel and Donald Faison interview for skyline
4 minutes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5j6JPqSzx4
i watched my first Marilyn Monroe film ..Some like it Hot ..
you old film critics must have seen them all .
is she’s a legend …why don’t they show her movies more on basic cable ?
25 years from now the same thing could be said of Kristen Stewart.. basic cable if it exists will only show the twilight movies but miss her other work.
also i read somewhere that Monroe was married to John F. Kennedy ..cool career move.
Just for you, sanj…
Now that you’ve cut your teeth on “super old” B&W films, treat yourself:
The Asphalt Jungle
All About Eve
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (in color!!!)
God I love Sudden Impact and The Dead Pool. And Magnum Force, which sometimes I’m even more apt to throw in than the original.
I know the common wisdom (and it is wise) is that Siegel’s original is on a much higher level and that Andy Robinson is an all-time great villain and it’s leaner and meaner… But I’ve always loved them all pretty close to equally, though admittedly Enforcer and TDP are “lighter” and more disposable than the others.
That villain in Sudden Impact — Paul Drake — was so indelibly sleazy in a Buddy Repperton “Who the hell is THIS guy?” kinda way. He never caught on and never did much else– I guess not uncommon for supporting players in Clint-directed movies, as he picks some offbeat regional actors; He did turn up as the stickup man in Beverly Hills Cop and as a cop in that Richard Widmark bondage-mask killer movie that was made for HBO and was ALWAYS on in the mid-80s.
Heh, my Clint Mega-Fan mom ONLY refers to PATRICIA CLARKSON as “that actress from Clint’s movie,” even now, despite all her acclaim and dozens of subsequent performances.
I just caught up with CHARLEY VARRICK this week. Fucking awesome Don Siegel flick. Another great Andy Robinson role.
Not David Bordwell ..
saw the trailers on youtube
The Asphalt Jungle – boring
All About Eve – even more boring
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes – maybe something to watch over the weekend
i wonder how many Monroe movies DP has seen – all of them or is he faking it and only saw like 5 or something .
the only way to save super old movies is have them on dvd for 2 bucks each at walmart . i just saved hollywood. thank me later.
I never got the Marilyn thing either. I saw her in Some Like it Hot (I think the only MM I ever saw), and it’s like, whoa, who’s this 300 pound fat chick with the I Love Lucy hairdo.
And don’t ANYONE give me that shit about how women today are stick figures and Monroe had CURVES. Such bullshit, famous hot women have weighed 95-115 for fifty years or more. Monroe had this enormous fat ass that hasn’t been in fashion since the era of the Black Plague and Inquisition.
I don’t get it.
LexG – doesn’t Monroe get a look at her!!!!
i don’t think she was that super fat …
Jennifer Lopez made lots of money off her ass ..
if Monroe was making movies today how famous would she
be .. she could be the Paris Hilton … but she can
actually act so upgrade her too Kat Heigl status or higher..more like Jennifer Aniston ..
seems like Megan Fox had a Monroe tattoo on her arm ..
she got rid of it
http://clutch.mtv.com/2011/04/26/megan-fox-tattoo/
That Battleship trailer is so stupid. Transformers, Battle: Los Angeles, and District 9 in a sphere.
It’s completely laughable.
Monroe is very funny and sexy in THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH. She’s also pretty great in THE ASPHALT JUNGLE in a supporting role.
SOME LIKE IT HOT is fairly late Monroe (she died about 3 years later) and she’s heavier in it. But surely, Lex, you’ve seen earlier photos (if not films) of her in which she is curvy but not fat by any conceivable definition. She’s incredibly hot in THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH in particular.
I also think she was quite a good actress when called upon to be. As early as DON’T BOTHER TO KNOCK (1952) she was great in a dark, tricky role.
Not DB: CHARLEY VARRICK is one of my favorite movies. It should be much better known (and definitely rates a Blu-Ray, or at least a DVD in proper aspect ratio).
Saw SALVATION BOULEVARD this evening: solid, thoughtful black comedy that doesn’t pull its punches (though it ends a bit hastily). But this is what gets me: here’s a film whose cast includes two Oscar winners, two Oscar nominees, a former James Bond, several other pretty well-known actors, and it’s produced by a division of Peter Guber’s company. Yet the best it could manage was 1 1/2 weeks at the Sunset 5 via IFC. Granted, the premise is a bit sticky (sleazy televangelist accidentally shoots atheist and then pins the rap on one of his congregants), but no worse than many I’ve seen. I can’t help but think it could’ve done better via SPC or Focus or Weinstein or Lionsgate, but all that marquee talent went for naught. Are the dependents and larger indies completely turned off adult films now unless there’s a Streep or Clooney or Mirren or Bridges in the cast?
It is amazing what kind of stuff gets shuffled off to LA/NYC one-theater novelty releases. Not two weeks ago I wanted to see The Ledge with Liv Tyler and Charlie Hunnam, which lasted a similar ONE WEEK, but instead I opted to see Ironclad with Paul Giamatti, another beneficiary of a taken one-week release hot on its way to DVD and VOD within weeks. And of course the new Carpenter movie, which hit VOD, played one theater, and will hit DVD all in the course of a month and a half.
It really is the fault of VOD, which creating this odd new era of what are basically *TV MOVIES* with actual movie stars and from A-level filmmakers.
I know the cinema-lazy are happy to pay 7 or 9 bucks to see what they consider a B-tier movie on their sofa without driving across town to the dreaded arthouse!, but it’s kind of depressing that if this were 1997, Lynch’s Lost Highway, Smith’s Chasing Amy, Love and Death in Long Island, Araki’s Nowhere, etc etc etc, would all have been on cable a month before a blink-and-miss-it week at the Laemmle’s.
you know the box office numbers DP posts every week for movies ..is there a future value to this ?
some big corporation going to buy these numbers /charts 10 years from now ? are actors going to buy these ?
is the oscar people going to buy these ?
there’s gotta be some huge plan for these numbers ..
I’ve never really gotten the Monroe thing. I guess she was hot for her time, but she seemed so dumb — I mean just so to the core stupid — that it was such a turn off. I’m not saying she was a bad actress (I thought she was good in The Misfits), but it was like being dumb was her calling card. Same with Jessica Simpson from a few years back. How is that sexy?
Frankly, I don’t get all the love for Some Like it Hot either. I love me some Jack Lemmon, but with the combined problem of Monroe and always-seemed-flamingly-gay Tony Curtis, I found the movie lacking.
Frankly, give me The Apartment over Some Like it Hot any day of the week.
I love the idea of VOD to get small movies throughout the country at places that would have never gotten them theatrically in the first place, but some of the titles like CENTURION, that are offered siumultaneously, are particularly depressing since there’s nothing that make them inaccessible to ticket buying audiences and they were clearly made for the big screen. As someone who greatly prefers seeing films in the theater, this is not a welcoming trend.
I get the idea sometimes that people think theatrical is only neccessary when the movie is bombastic or effects heavy or some kind of an event film but quiet works like SOMEWHERE and BLUE VALENTINE were greatly enhanced by seeing them the way they were supposed to be seen.
local paper has full page color ad for another earth with giant picture of Brit Marling
do actors ever pay for these full page ads ? does some guy from the movie studio pay for all of it .
actors should just give DP a million bucks and he can place the ads in every newspaper around the country. you know when he’s not busy.
Every movie should be seen in a theater. And every filmmaker should make their movie, no matter what the scale is, like it WILL BE seen in a theater. Considering the sad state of independent films right now, I wouldn’t be surprised if some poor bastard, in the name of thinking realistically, were making one with the home theater experience in mind first and foremost.
Now showing in VOD-vision…
Or would it be “a network VODcast premiere”?
I’ve never felt it for Marilyn Monroe, but I have had the hots for Ida Lupino, Veronika Lake and Sophia Loren (before she permanently attached a small glass-bottomed boat to her face in public). There was even a moment of lust for Margaret Dumont of all people during a Marx Brothers phase, but never Monroe.
And Doris Day is the Anti-Libido.
“Or would it be “a network VODcast premiere”?”
Hallick FTW
so why no unlimited vod for 20 bucks a month. go crazy and watch all these movies ….most people will watch from 8 PM to 12 PM .. that’ll cut into favorite tv shows .
but it won’t work cause hollywood is too greedy and want
the money ..
also isn’t DP mad that he didn’t create netflix ?
“Frankly, I don’t get all the love for Some Like it Hot either. I love me some Jack Lemmon, but with the combined problem of Monroe and always-seemed-flamingly-gay Tony Curtis, I found the movie lacking.”
Comedy is subjective, of course, as is who or what turns you on, or doesn’t. But I have to say, other than his pretty eyelashes, I’ve never thought Tony Curtis (who was a major heartthrob with the ladies in his heyday) “always-seemed-flamingly-gay.” Perhaps he did in SOME LIKE IT HOT, considering he was, you know, in drag for half the picture and pretending to be an impotent Brit (complete with Cary Grant imitation) for the other half.
Hallick, what did your therapist say when you told him/her you thought Margaret Dumont was hotter than Marilyn Monroe? You DID see a therapist about this, right? Please tell me you did… 🙂
I always thought Tony Curtis seemed major gay.
I’m telling you, it’s just the eyelashes. And maybe SPARTACUS. 🙂
Curtis has always seemed gay on and off-screen. Might be something about his pretty guy looks, as opposed to the more ruggedly handsome Kirk Douglas, or that perhaps something about his speech and mannerisms that just sends blips on the gaydar. But I would have not been shocked at all to find that he (or say Robert Preston) was gay.
“Hallick, what did your therapist say when you told him/her you thought Margaret Dumont was hotter than Marilyn Monroe? You DID see a therapist about this, right? Please tell me you did…”
There’ve been so many therapists over the years, I must’ve told one of them….
Y’know, there’s what’s hot and there’s what’s attractive and sometimes they aren’t the same thing. I can see what people see in Monroe that’s “hot”, but I have absolutely zero chemical reaction to it myself.
Tony Curtis seemed a lot more gay offscreen in the last 20 years or so. The man’s a gaydar scrambler.
useless celebrity freakout of the day
Vanessa Hudgens caught smoking
http://www.x17online.com/celebrities/vanessa_hudgens/vanessa_hudgens_cigarette_smoking_actress_photos_072611.php
Speaking of today’s alarming theatrical climate The Playlist is surmising that the Schumacher thriller TRESPASS starring Nicole Kidman and Nicolas Cage is going to get a limited relase and then go straight to DVD and VOD two weeks later.
I was actually looking forward to this and I hope they’re wrong, but if this is the case, it’s crazy that two huge stars like that with a name director are having such a mainstream project shuffled off like this. Sigh…
hmmm.. Nic Cage is too famous for a dp/30 ..
nobody is going to promote this . blame the studio / blame actors / blame director … big fail for big name actors.
trespass dvd hits nov 1 ..
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/archives/2011/07/28/poster_for_nicole_kidman_nicolas_thriller_trespass_arrives_headed_to_dvd_in/#
Netflix Relief Fund with Jason Alexander
3 minutes of video
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/15be7bfd8f/netflix-relief-fund-with-jason-alexander
I watched the wonder woman pilot. Not great, but better than seasons 2,3, & 4 of Heroes. They find an interesting spin on the character and then play it wayyyyyyyy too serious. Easy to see why they passed. It might work on the CW.
Curtis was so gay that he was married to Janet Leigh, among others, and bagged just about every hot actress in Hollywood. Apparently if you don’t drag your knuckles on the ground, beat your chest and use “fuck” as every third word, you’re a fruit. Welcome to 21st Century America.
Monroe was much smarter than she let on, but often found it useful to play dumb. David Jacobs once told me a story about the shooting of BUS STOP; Joshua Logan had been fighting with the DP about how to set up a shot, and she was sitting nearby, apparently not listening. But she was: after several minutes, she piped up with a remark that quickly settled the argument. Logan realized never again to underestimate her.
just found out that Jamie Lee Curtis is Tony Curtis dad .
so i guess Jamie Lee and Monroe hung out together back in the 50’s
there are millions of people who have no idea who Monroe is …she looks like Lindsay Lohan / Paris Hilton
and Anna Nicole Smith.
netflix commentary
http://imgur.com/iSVRl
“just found out that Jamie Lee (sic) Curtis is Tony Curtis (sic) dad.” Don’t know if that’s a sanj-ism, an honest mistake, or a reference to an old rumor about Jamie Leigh.
Yeah, cadavra, this Curtis thing is getting weird. He had a relatively deep voice, a heavy Bronx accent, and often played a babe magnet or a swinging bachelor. But he was a ‘pretty boy,’ so he reads as gay to the young’uns. Whatever (I guess all those ascots he wore in later years didn’t help, huh?).
“just found out that Jamie Lee (sic) Curtis is Tony Curtis (sic) dad.” Don’t know if that’s a sanj-ism, an honest mistake, or a reference to an old rumor about Jamie Leigh.
yeah i just found that info on wikipedia
can’t keep of every old actor famous parents.
AURGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Was Sanj separated at birth from Peter Sellers’ Chance the Gardener?
If this is an act/stunt, it’s gotten really, really tired.
Well, he was right about it being Jamie LEE Curtis.
“Curtis was so gay that he was married to Janet Leigh, among others, and bagged just about every hot actress in Hollywood. Apparently if you don’t drag your knuckles on the ground, beat your chest and use “fuck” as every third word, you’re a fruit.”
That’s not it at all, ‘dav. When I was growing up and watching him as a guest on Carson, or talking to Dick Cavett at length, I just assumed he was gay by dint of his demeanor and personality (and maybe the way he dressed too, I can’t remember). It wasn’t in some kind of bigoted way like “hey! loak at that fag on TV!” or to have a big laugh at the old queen talking about Marilyn Monroe. I just assumed he was gay and that was it.
Later on, heard he wasn’t, thought “Really?!?”, and said okay, got it.
And who says a gay person can’t drag his knuckles on the ground and say fuck every third word?
I think it was that demeanor that made it hard for me to believe him as a romantic lead. I sort of have the same problem with Cary Grant – I just don’t get the attraction. That said, I thought Curtis was a great actor and wonderful in a lot of movies where the romance wasn’t pushed to the forefront, like Sweet Smell of Success.
Houdini was on the UHF stations a lot when I was a kid, and I remember thinking he was awesome in that movie (it’s been a while since I’ve seen it and I don’t want to find out that it didn’t hold up to my memories of it as a kid).
everything i know about Tony Curtis is from the Flintstones
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FrAjx4jNwXo
Yeah, Tim, my Jamie “Leigh” brain fart hit me all of sudden after it was too late to edit.
sanj: Giving you the benefit of the doubt — I’m sure Wikipedia is not positing that Jamie Lee is Tony’s dad. Read that carefully. Got it? Tony was Jamie Lee’s dad.
Mike: I recently saw Glenn Kenny’s review of the new HOUDINI Blu-Ray (a double feature with THOSE DARING YOUNG MEN IN THEIR JAUNTY JALOPIES) and he was quite positive. I think it was a favorite of his youth as well — his site seems to be down at the moment, so I can’t double check.
Never, ever thought Tony Curtis “seemed” gay… More of just an old school, Old Hollywood Brooklyn Italian hambone type guy with a bawdy personality. Guy totally ruled… Any discussion of Curtis reminds me of the SURREAL sight of the esteemed star of Some Like it Hot, Spartacus, and Sweet Smell of Success turning up on late ’80s Skinemax in some Casanova movie with playmates. Nowadays late-night softcore is all those comedic Christine Nguyen “Bikini” movies that Fred Olen Ray (!!!!) directs under his pseudonym, but back in the day it was these GLORIOUS ’70s Euro-cheese Emmanuelle movies and knockoffs like “Fiona” and “Love Lust and Ecstacy” or whatever… But then one night out of the blue, here’s Tony fucking Curtis in “Casanova and Company” or whatever it was called, ogling Playmates and random lesbian scenes… It was bizarre. (There was also one with Ursula Andress called “Sensuous Nurse.)
yeah i messed up on Jamie / Tony ..i should just copy
wikipedia more
also ..
FWB movie – they all went to Russia like the rest
of the USA isn’t important to them ? they’ll get better reviews in Russia ? both are busy people so they
probably stuck around for 2 days and left ..
would like to know about fan reaction
http://www.okmagazine.com/2011/07/mila-kunis-justin-timberlake-bring-friends-with-benefits-to-russia/
[withdrawn]
i’m not sure if teens watching south park 25 years from
now people will understand the references to pop culture ..stuff like Kayne West / ipad / Tiger woods ..
it’s funny now but 25 years nobody will get it .
and dvd sales will die off by then and south park guys
will be less rich
I’ve been trying to figure out what about Sanj’s post are so off to me, and I finally realized he writes in haiku.
Sanjku’s…
A Nic Cage movie…
Quiet theater as leaves fall
DP/30 camera rolls
goddamn, right on cue….
fuck Lex, if this is your gimmick, just tell us already!
It is absolutely NOT my gimmick. It’s not me. Poland could back that up, I’m sure. No idea who sanj is, at all.
true story – i failed grade 10 english twice in school
it was that damn shakespeare … wasted some much time on that crap..i wish i could write better
i finally passed that course i got 50 /100 from the teacher who failed me the first time.
but look how bad twilight / transfomers movies are written and they make billions …
people like Sorkin can write the best scripts like social network but the baddest stuff always seems to make more money …more dp/30’s with bad writers.
Sanj: You know, that explains a lot…
sanj… reality… my head is about to explode… to reiterate Joes point— that did explain A LOT.
Alright, Lex. That’s too bad. I was going to declare this the first successful Kaufmann attempted online.
Well Sanj, I guess you’re for real.
It’s not your english. It’s the structure. You’re incredibly concise whereas westerners have all sorts of run-ons and tangents.
It really is a haiku structure. Each sentence can be read as a distinct thought, yet they can also work together.
i suppose it does Joe – but did i pass anything over grade 10 english ..or didn’t i ..i mean i did waste 300 hours + of time just to pass …anything after wasn’t so easy.
the 3rd time i took the same english course…it was
so weird … zero friends in class…+ i still didn’t care
about any of it… don’t remember any of the course
now. so i did pass but failed to remember.
ain’t no teachers like Robin Williams in dead poets society.
Hey, don’t feel too bad. I nearly wound up in Vietnam because I didn’t pass a freakin’ Geology course in college.
And I’ll be damned if I can tell the difference between igneous and non-igneous rocks.
so i guess part 2 is … i worked my ass off and passed grade 11/12/13 english . a lot of it still seems like a waste to me .
remember awhile back with that finance crisis … pretty
sure all them bankers had a super fancy education but ended up screwing up the economy anyways
sanj— you are so redeemed right now it’s ridiculous.
One of my old profs with whom I still keep in touch used to run a hedge fund in Connecticut – he said he knew there was going to be trouble, because when he talked to people he used to work with they couldn’t explain the network of derivative products they held.
Probably the most important lesson he ever taught me was, “If you can’t understand the people who are supposed to be giving you financial advice, get new financial advisers because they probably don’t understand it either”.
Years ago, I had almost all of my IRA invested in Microsoft stock. My financial advisor at the time told me I should diversify — and put at least half my money in a stock he highly recommended. I hesitated. I entertained doubts. Eventually, however, I figured that, hey, this guy was a professional, he made a living at this sort of thing, and he must know a lot more than I did. So I took his advice, and invested heavily… in MCI WorldCom.
I think it was Robert Evans who once said that the worst problems he ever had were the result of his saying “yes” when he felt “no.”