April 18, 2024
The Hot Blog
amit on: Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
Christian on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
YancySkancy on: Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Hcat on: Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: I Should Be Doing Box Office
Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
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
Anyone else see the full trailer for Doctor Strange and think: “Hmmm, maybe Chiwetel Ejiofor should have been the lead?”
I’ll put myself out there and say the BLAIR WITCH reveal thrilled me. I was interested in THE WOODS as it stood. I like Wingard and Barrett. Thought THE GUEST was pretty fun. But I love BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. It scared me, and I really got into the myth and background stuff. I thought the new trailer looked great and I’m excited I’m finally getting a proper sequel. I know it’s not for everyone and I respect that but to a lot of us it’s pretty special.
If it is good I can see it doing really really well in September. I’m sure it didn’t cost a lot.
“Anyone else see the full trailer for Doctor Strange and think: “Hmmm, maybe Chiwetel Ejiofor should have been the lead?””
Nope. Not once. 🙂
Is the new Doctor Strange movie better than the last one? The last one was pretty dull and for a teaser it didn’t make me at all curious to see more. I’m too lazy and disinterested to just watch it. I feel the same way about Justice League. Could not care less.
I feel the exact opposite Bill. I love Wingard. I love everything he’s directed. I was excited for another original movie from him and Barrett. Now that I know it’s a Blair Witch sequel, my enthusiasm is seriously diminished. I love The Blair Witch Project, but I’d much rather see an original Wingard/Barrett movie.
Respect to that, Stella’s Boy. I’ve seen a lot of other people express the same thing.
re the new ‘blair witch’ trailer and wingard, i vaguely recall writing some rambling treatise on TBWP a while back here (in comparison to ‘the witch’ i think) so i probably shouldn’t do that again, but the thing about the OG BWP that made it special and unique is:
for as simple a premise it is in terms of theme and setting, there’s a subtle artistry and contrast in the execution and film-making that sets it apart, a clear aesthetic contrast between the colour hand-held shaky-cam video footage (that famously made some people in the theatres nauseous to the point of chundering) and the rather delicate and smooth, more formalist contrasting black-n-white film camera documentary footage accompanied in the first two acts by heather’s measured narration. this contrast intensifies as our trio gradually loses their shit in the woods and provides the viewer with two contrasting ‘eyes’ on events as they unfold and devolve into desperation and hysteria – one eye the shaky colour ‘realism’ of video and the other the smooth monochrome formalism of film. the second defining aesthetic characteristic is the outstanding sound design of course, which is largely responsible for building all the tension and terror as we see very little that’s ‘scary’ until josh’s teeth and the final shot in the cottage.
trailers these days can’t be trusted as far as you can throw them of course but from the trailer this wingard one doesn’t appear to have any aesthetic delicacy or artistry, it looks overwrought and cliché to me (but i’ll still watch it because i’m so starved for good horror i watch every damn shitty horror flick with so much hope and then curl into a ball of disappointment and sadness 98% of the time)
has the proliferation of shaky-cam into the mainstream since TBWP in 1999 somehow inoculated movie auds against the queaze-&-chunder factor? i never hear/read about people feeling physically ill from shaky-cam anymore, though it is particularly severe at times in TBWP as the main POV, maybe it’s a matter of degree
Speaking only for myself leahnz, no. I watched Hardcore Henry a week ago and even though I loved it I had a headache during the first half hour from the shaky cam/perspective. Going back further, I got sick at Cloverfield even though, again, I loved the movie. I also get headaches from certain first person video games, even though I don’t play them a lot any more.
Also, I agree with you on the B & W in BWP. It is very artful and I find myself sometimes wishing the whole thing was in black and white. Heather telling the story of Coffin Rock is an especially wonderful B&W moment.
Here’s hoping, that Brie Lawson brings it with Captain Marvel. She sure the fuck, has never demonstrated on film, any of the characteristics written for Carol Danvers. If Gal can make Wondie happen, then here’s hoping Brie can make Carol happen.
Oh yeah, Stella, wah wah wah. Those trailers are fun. I wish the Valerian trailer was online, but all of the shit that showed up online from Comic-Con, doesn’t appear to be shit. We should all applaud, when this stuff isn’t shit.
Different strokes IO. Takes all kinds.
@jspartisan
Really thought Katheryn Winnick should have got the Captain Marvel role. Not only does she look the part; she’s been kicking ass on Vikings for 4 seasons, so you know she can do action scenes.
GTK Sideshow Bill, ‘hardcore henry’ is good recent example — personally i find intense shaky-cam can be disorientating but fortunately i don’t have a physical reaction like some people do, i can easily imagine it though, i’d think it’s somewhat comparable to seasickness, aka shaky-boat, some people get it and some don’t (i do with the seasickness). when i saw TBWP in the cinema – knowing very little about it going in, which is always great – one of the guys in our group had to run out to the toilets about half way in and he wasn’t alone in having to leave, a few people left the theatre, it was surreal.
“Also, I agree with you on the B & W in BWP. It is very artful and I find myself sometimes wishing the whole thing was in black and white. Heather telling the story of Coffin Rock is an especially wonderful B&W moment.”
oh yeah the coffin rock bit of the documentary footage is one of the best parts of the movie in my book, again just a simple bit of ominous storytelling that engages the imagination, and also foreshadows what’s to come as our documentarian trio descend into a circular hell.
(would they have all left the forest unscathed if josh hadn’t accidentally knocked over one of the seven piles of rocks representing the graves of the children murdered in the cottage? i remember having a big debate with one of the people i saw it with the first time about this, i don’t even remember why. but one interesting sound-effects note: when they’re haunted at night with all the dreadful noises around the camp site, there’s a repetitive clacking sound that is the exact same sound effect as when heather re-stacks the graves stones that josh ‘defiles’, which seems significant, not to mention you can hear the voices of children suggesting the connection. weirdly, probably my fave part of the movie is the final act, the relationship between heather and mike, there’s such a sweetness and camaraderie between them as they’re exhausted and resigned to their dire fate and dream of getting home again, all the bickering and recriminations and conflict that reared its ugly head amongst the group as their situation deteriorated gone, very effective at making what happens to them next particularly awful.)
Non Comic/Video game film: Caught up with Arnaud Desplechin’s MY GOLDEN DAYS finally. One of those films that comes so-so-close to being a masterpiece.
I agree with the notion that Desplechin almost feels like he’s doing a coming-of-age drama on a dare…but when he gets going, he cooks up an effervescent, woozy piece of art that’s jaw-dropping in the demonstration of his ability to slide effortlessly between styles, colors and techniques (Split-screens! Single-Camera Monologues! Breathtaking pan-outs! That soundtrack! Espionage thriller, teen romance, domestic drama!) that puts everything else I’ve seen this year to utter shame on a technical level.
Unfortunately, I just think the thing collapses in the 3rd act. Lou Roy-Lecollinet might be the best young French actress discovery in years, but her descent into paranoid, near-madness is drawn out to the point where it dampens the narrative that came before it. Young Mathieu Amalric is kind of a dick, but I wanted him to go sprinting as fast as possible away from her by the end, and I don’t think that was Desplechin’s intent.
Still, if you are on the fence not having seen MY SEX LIFE…OR HOW I GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT, it isn’t needed, and I still really recommend it. The arc just zooms off into semi-maudlin territory that doesn’t jive with the pulse-pounding first two acts.
Loved Ethan’s non-CC post.
Desplechin is a director who simply can do no wrong for me, and I didn’t have any third act problems.
A glorious companion piece to “My Sex Life…,” and one of my top three 2016 movies so far. (Even if it premiered at festivals in 2015.)
Finally going to watch The Lobster tonight. I gather this will be a good thing?
i feel sorry for lobsters
hardly any political ruminations on the hotblog this year, i guess DP is ensconced in the twittersphere
There’s so much to say, but it’s being said so much that there may not be much to add. A candidate for president is dog-whistling to Putin to invade Eastern Europe, and to use his intelligence agency to interfere in an American election. Traditional political ruminations go out the window when the ideology that DP normally opposes has been replaced by borderline fascist populism.
the deepening layers of disturbia watching this election cycle is so surreal, i keep waking up feeling slightly uneasy for the future of our children but trying to focus on hope, i’ll try to articulate my thoughts here without too much rambling…(psyche!) nah but really it’s a bit scary and i’m a tough old booze hag
a friend sent me this, posting it here because it makes me queasy (so where better than a byob thread discussing nausea):
Psychological profile by the US Offices of Strategic Services of [guess who]:
His primary rules: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.
Ummm… half of those can apply to the other candidate as well.
really, who was ‘the other candidate’ against hitler? (adolf’s psyche profile)
please. but you prove the last points brilliantly. some of us remember how it all started…with cookies. get back in the kitchen woman!
???
You mention the election cycle in one post, then provide a psych profile of “guess who” in the next. Sorry I assumed it was Trump. Just pointing out Hillary has baggage too.
Not sure where I endorsed either one of them.
Cookies? Kitchen?
Yes, Leah… on Twitter too much.
If I stepped on Trump, I would send him out to be wiped off my shoe, lest the toxicity overtake me simply trying to remove him.
I am scared for America that there is any chance at all of this hateful ignoramus winning the presidency.
I have never been a big Clinton fan… but there is no viable alternative. Many things will not improve in America, but we are progressing in a real way on social issues. And a Republican elected into office now could set up back decades. Trump being elected could get us all killed… not a hyperbolic claim.
On the woman thing… great. I do think that Obama being elected got America over a big hump. We had 2 major contenders that were Cuban-American this year and a Jew. Not a huge topic of conversation.
I would guess that 10% of the populace will refuse to vote for a woman. But that is a big step forward from our history of being backward.
“I have never been around someone more devoted to the armed forces of this country,” -Mike Pence, this evening.
…a gem that make you wonder: does Mike Pence govern from his bedroom when not giving speeches?
I know you look out for your running mate, but a little over the top for a guy who held a televised veterans fundraiser and then tried to pocket the money, who wants to disavow our NATO commitments, and who is currently engaged in smearing the parents of a fallen soldier, no?
It’s very important Trump loses for any hope for the US. The main problem is that the other elections don’t get enough attention but are even more important: Congress. As long as Congress remains a do-nothing Congress, nothing will change much. Congress gimped Obama’s effectiveness these almost 8 years now, aside from getting in the health care law before Congress was taken back by the Republicans. Is Hilary perfect? No. No president has or ever will be. They’re people, they have flaws like all of us. But my god, I’ve never seen a political party in my lifetime, in this country, as horribly flawed and filled with hate and divisiveness as the current state of the Republican Party. Government can’t solve all our problems, but it’s not healthy to elect officials who never, ever have the public’s interests in mind, and thus keep rewarding the winners with even more tax breaks and corporate welfare that don’t creat jobs one bit.
Very true brack, which is why the next 4 years will almost certainly be a holding pattern. The House is just too stacked against Democrats, which is why we just have to wait for the 2020 census/district redraws/white people to keep dying. That two-year window, January 2009-January 2011, when Obama got the stimulus, auto industry rescue and the ACA through, is basically a once in a generation opportunity. Once the tea party wave hit, everything else major was taken off the table (immigration, cap and trade) and I give Obama a lot of credit for being able to do so much (in particular major environmental and FDA/food safety reform that’s been criminally overlooked) with so little.
i’ll leave this here, i’m reading a few of these pieces now – thank christ – and this is the one i’ve most recently read and i have the link. watching this election from afar is fucking terrifying, and not just because the psych profile of hitler can be so very easily mistaken for that of the pathological anthropomorphised skid mark running for president and symbolic leader of the free world, but also because the fact that so many on the ‘left’ have shamefully bought into hysterical right-wing propaganda, it’s disturbing and rather disgusting
https://hulshofschmidt.wordpress.com/2016/08/01/dear-hillary-how-very-dare-you/
Yeah, there’s a lot of that with Hillary, where people don’t like her and think she’s crooked, but don’t really know why. The “why” is 24 years of Republicans painting her that way, which have only gotten more extreme as they realized she was going to be the nominee.
the US cable news is a national disgrace. (what happened to informing the public with diligence, intelligence, integrity and professionalism?)