MCN Columnists
Noah Forrest

Columns By Noah ForrestForrest@moviecitynews.com

Precious is Great Melodrama

I have to start this piece by saying that I’m a young, white male.  I’ve lived in New York City since the early part of this decade.  I have no idea what it is like to be a sixteen-year-old black girl in 1987 Harlem.  I cannot comment with any authority about whether or not the story told in Precious is…

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O Christmas Tree

Published under 1,000 Monkeys. I love everything about the Christmas season, from the decorations to the Christmas music piped in to all the stores to the lights brightening up all the houses. I love planning what to get each of the kids, baking Christmas cookies, and listening non-stop to Christmas music on the radio until…

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Gobbling to (Ex)Success

It was the biggest Thanksgiving box office ever with last weekend’s leaders continuing to lead the way. Twilight: New Moon added an estimated $43.1 million to its burgeoning larder and The Blind Side was close behind with a $40.2 million tally for the three-day portion of the holiday carving. The five-day frame generated revenues of…

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Of Indie Film and Insularity

This Thanksgiving weekend, as I ponder my abundant blessings, one of the things I’m most thankful for is having a job that allows me not only to watch a lot of movies, but to see many of them at film festivals far and wide. As I write this, over the past couple years we’ve seen…

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Me and Orson Welles Red Cliff, The Road, and Ninja Assassi

Me and Orson Welles, Red Cliff, The Road, and Ninja Assassin Me and Orson Welles (Three and a Half Stars) U.S.; Richard Linklater, 2009 In Me and Orson Welles, Richard Linklater, a director whose films I usually like, takes on a highly ambitious subject that really appeals to me — a portrayal of the astonishing…

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Wilmington on DVDs Three Monkeys , Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Angels & Demons, Funny People, and more…

PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW Three Monkeys (Three and a Half Stars) Turkey/France/Italy; Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2008 (Zeitgeist Films) Nuri Bilge Ceylan, the brilliant Turkish cineaste (Distant, Climates), whose exquisite visual tableaus, minimalist plots and flair for long dramatic silences, irresistibly recall the heyday of Michelangelo Antonioni, here offers more plot than usual, in the…

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Scott Z. Burns Screenwriter of The Informant

In this podcast, Noah talks to Scott Z. Burns, the screenwriter of The Informant! about working with Sodebergh and Damon, unreliable narrators, and Dog Day Afternoon. Listen to Noah Forrest Podcast with Scott Z. Burns

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Rebecca Miller and the Trials of Woman

Every time the latest romantic comedy opens, I am befuddled when it’s successful.  Films like The Proposal or He’s Just Not That Into You make tons of money and when I ask why, I’m inevitably told it’s because women flock to these films. When I inquire as to why women would flock to such inane films, I’m told that…

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Home is Where My Heart Is

Published under 1,000 Monkeys. Why 1,000 Monkeys? David and I spent a lot of time talking back and forth about a new name for this more philosophical, life-stuff column. One day in frustration, I said to David, “If you put 1,000 monkeys at 1,000 typewriters, they could never write the craziness that is my life…

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Green Moon, Emerald Moon

Wow! Twilight: New Moon set a clutch of records as it rocked weekend movie going with an estimated $141.6 million debut. It was the biggest fourth quarter debut of ALL-TIME. In what ranks as the second biggest grossing weekend box office EVER, there was also a potent second place bow for the inspirational race drama…

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Gone With the Wind

Despite its antebellum subject (it opens with a text scroll that suggests slave ownership was somehow ‘gallant’), Gone with the Wind was the first ‘modern’ film, the first color epic to make extensive use of special effects (albeit matte paintings) and to replicate the sweep and depth of a novel, while instilling it with the excitement…

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Downhill Racer

Four decades and umpteen Warren Miller films later, the skiing sequences in Michael Ritchie’s 1969Downhill Racer are still hold-your-breath-and-don’t-blink thrilling. In fact, the whole movie is thrilling. Deftly staged and then masterfully edited, every sequence in the 101-minute feature is exquisitely succinct and yet abundantly rich in conveying the psychologies and emotions of the characters. Robert Redford stars…

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Lukas Moodysson Director of Mammoth

This week Noah talks to one of his favorite filmmakers, Lukas Moodysson, about his new film Mammoth, working with Gael Garcia Bernal and Michelle Williams, globalization, and Margot at the Wedding. Listent to Noah Forest Podcast with Lukas Moodysson

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Wilmington on DVDs: Star Trek, Gone with the Wind, The Exiles, Fight Club, Humpday and more…

PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW Star Trek (Three and a Half Stars) U.S.; J. J. Abrams, 2009 The latest Star Trek movie, called simply Star Trek, is a genuine audience-pleaser, a film that

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Let’s Blow Up the Planet!

How is it possible that some critics have given 2012 a pass? I’m not an elitist. I understand that sometimes you just want to put down your twelve bucks and see a spectacle. I don’t always need my films to be contemplative or poignant, sometimes I enjoy seeing a purely visual feast that shows me some really…

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Memory Lane

Published under 1,000 Monkeys. Why 1,000 Monkeys? David and I spent a lot of time talking back and forth about a new name for this more philosophical, life-stuff column. One day in frustration, I said to David, “If you put 1,000 monkeys at 1,000 typewriters, they could never write the craziness that is my life…

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Not with a Whimper … but a Bang!

Critics were derisive of 2012 but the new age apocalyptic disaster saga was warmly embraced by the public to an estimated debut of $63.7 million. The competition largely steered clear of the cinematic tsunami though the oft-delayed rock valentine Pirate Radio went limited wide to OK returns of $2.9 million. The frame also saw a…

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Precious Things

Back at Sundance last year, when Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire was first unveiled for critics with little fanfare but high hopes, quite a few folks thought it would never see the light of day off the fest circuit. Too dark, too depressing, too tragic … with little redemption or justice to buoy…

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Wilmington on DVDs: Up, Wings of Desire, The General, Heat, The Ugly Truth, Mamma Mia!, Monsters, Inc. and more…

PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW Up (Four Stars) U. S.; Pete Docter, 2009 Up, this year’s new Pixar picture, flies

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The Best Film of the Decade

As the aughts near a close, we’ll be seeing more and more lists dedicated to the best films of the decade. It’s only natural; as film fans and writers, we love to put things in lists. I like making lists, looking at other lists, having discussions about how stupid or smart a certain film writer…

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Columns

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Ophelia, Ambition, Werewolf in Girls' Dorm, Byleth, Humble Pie, Good Omens, Yellowstone …More

rohit aggarwal on: The DVD Wrapup: Ophelia, Ambition, Werewolf in Girls' Dorm, Byleth, Humble Pie, Good Omens, Yellowstone …More

https://bestwatches.club/ on: The DVD Wrapup: Diamonds of the Night, School of Life, Red Room, Witch/Hagazussa, Tito & the Birds, Keoma, Andre’s Gospel, Noir

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Sleep With Anger, Ralph Wrecks Internet, Liz & Blue Bird, Hannah Grace, Unseen, Jupiter's Moon, Legally Blonde, Willard, Bang … More

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Bumblebee, Ginsburg, Buster, Silent Voice, Nazi Junkies, Prisoner, Golden Vampires, Highway Rat, Terra Formars, No Alternative … More

GDA on: The DVD Wrapup: Bumblebee, Ginsburg, Buster, Silent Voice, Nazi Junkies, Prisoner, Golden Vampires, Highway Rat, Terra Formars, No Alternative … More

Larry K on: The DVD Wrapup: Sleep With Anger, Ralph Wrecks Internet, Liz & Blue Bird, Hannah Grace, Unseen, Jupiter's Moon, Legally Blonde, Willard, Bang … More

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Shoplifters, Front Runner, Nobody’s Fool, Peppermint Soda, Haunted Hospital, Valentine, Possum, Mermaid, Guilty, Antonio Lopez, 4 Weddings … More

gwehan on: The DVD Wrapup: Shoplifters, Front Runner, Nobody’s Fool, Peppermint Soda, Haunted Hospital, Valentine, Possum, Mermaid, Guilty, Antonio Lopez, 4 Weddings … More

Gary J Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Peppermint, Wild Boys, Un Traductor, Await Instructions, Lizzie, Coby, Afghan Love Story, Elizabeth Harvest, Brutal, Holiday Horror, Sound & Fury … More

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