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27 March 2001
[movies] The truth about Kubrick. ‘…although one of the few critical remarks is Woody Allen’s statement that he was utterly baffled by 2001: A Space Odyssey the first time he saw it. Introducing a new 70mm copy of the film in London earlier this week, Harlan tried to help out. “On a bad day Kubrick wouldn’t answer the question. But on a good day I think he might have said the film was made by an ignoramus about the unknowable. He might have said – if he didn’t think it was too pompous – that he wanted to take the audience into a place that he actually couldn’t imagine himself all that well. He was really a self-taught and very learned man and he guessed that, even then, he knew very little. He wasn’t at all religious but he had a very strong sense that there were mysteries, within and outside our world, that he could never begin to solve.”‘
24 March 2001
[movies] The Independent profiles Steven Soderbergh just before the Oscars on Sunday Night. ‘Chances are it is Monday morning, not Sunday night, that Soderbergh is most looking forward to. With him, it is always the work that counts, nothing else. (As he once wrote: “The fun part is making them. The rest is crap.”) He’s built quite a reputation for himself as the ascetic about Hollywood ? working constantly, focussing everyone’s attention on the film and the film alone, dodging the studio politics, shooting fast with relatively few takes, coming in on time and under budget, doing the publicity rounds quickly and politely, and then moving on to the next project.’ [ Related Links: Soderbergh at IMDB, Ocean’s Eleven at Upcoming Movies]
22 March 2001
[movies] The Independent interviews James Coburn. ‘James Coburn is 72, Gwyneth Paltrow is 28: what else is there to say? James Coburn isn’t likely to be fending off asteroids or refighting the Second World War at a multiplex any time soon. Nor will he be modelling underwear in Harpers & Queen. Older audiences may have fond memories of his outings opposite Steve McQueen, or his collaborations with Sam Peckinpah on Major Dundee, Cross of Iron and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. He may still be a terrific actor, with his rich bass-baritone voice, his magnetic blue eyes and thick white hair, and his dogged application of technique learned over more than 40 years. But the hard truth is that most of Hollywood’s key marketing demographic, the 15- to 24-year-old age bracket, has never heard of him.’
21 March 2001
[fanfic] Internet fan fiction never ceases to amaze me… The Frog Brothers (the comic shop owning vampire hunters from the Lost Boys) have their own fan fiction…. ‘”I’m telling you, the Superman number one-eighteens do not belong with the two hundreds,” Sam Emerson complained. On this warm, summer evening, the Frog brothers were entertaining their friend inside the family-owned Frog’s Comics, the best comic book store on the Santa Carla Boardwalk. “When are you guys going to get that straight?” Sam continued his gripe. “Sorry, Sam,” said Edgar in the gruff voice that was his trademark. “We’ve been too busy ridding the world of evil to arrange our shelves to your liking.”‘ [ Related Link: Lost Boys Fan Fiction]
28 February 2001
[comics] Queueing up to make superhero movies. It went under ‘WTF?’ a couple of months ago but Ang Lee *is* going to do a Hulk Movie… ‘…the allure of the Hulk’s irradiated tantrums for Ang Lee appears less clear-cut – until you recall just how unlikely the idea of such a subtle director making a martial-arts movie once sounded, and how sublime the results turned out. Indeed, many of the motifs of Lee’s films find an echo in the story of wide-eyed scientist Bruce Banner struggling to control his over-sized inner child. For a start, there are the strong female characters (in this case, Betty Ross, daughter of the US general intent on eliminating the Hulk); and the indifferent hand of fate as the hapless physicist finds himself increasingly consumed by his strange powers. Most persistently, there is the creeping sense of isolation; or, as the Hulk himself once put it, the knowledge that where he walks, “he walks alone!”.’
26 February 2001
[film] Frank Sinatra is Dirty Harry… maybe in an alternate universe… ‘The script, Dead Right, was first offered to Frank Sinatra and Paul Newman. Sinatra nearly had the role, but had to turn it down due to a wrist injury prior to filming. Newman was concerned about the political message of the film, and is said to have suggested Eastwood for the part. It’s also rumoured that the role was intended for John Wayne, but that he declined due to the violent nature of the film. The original character of Dirty Harry was that of an older, New York cop nearing retirement. After the role went to Eastwood, the part was rewritten to accommodate more action sequences.’
21 February 2001
[film] Simple, disturbing… I’d never seen this before… the trailer to The Shining. [via WEF]
20 February 2001
[film] Interesting profile of Sir Anthony Hopkins in the Independent… ‘Curiously, for an actor not much given to self-revelation or confessional performance, one of his most candid recent roles is that of the actor Anthony Hopkins – delivered in Barclay’s ill-fated “Bigger is better” adverts. In the ad Hopkins was seen in a variety of Los Angeles locations, always alone and hymning the virtues of size. No one is interested in the little picture, he says at one point, and no one wants to make it little. It was, in its way, a personal declaration of independence – from British restraint and constrainment, from personal reticence.’ [ Related Links: Hannibal at IMDB, Hannibal Lecter at E2]
18 February 2001
[comics] Now this is bonkers… Bill Sienkiewicz did storyboards for a Thomas the Tank Engine film… [ Related Links: More of his work — Comics, Books and Magazines, Film and TV. At amazon.com – Elektra: Assassin.]
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16 February 2001
[film] Film Unlimited reviews Hannibal. ‘So much has happened since Dr Hannibal Lecter murmured his farewells to agent Clarice Starling over the phone in 1991. Jeffrey Dahmer, the most prominent of America’s un-charming, un-cultured serial killers, has been beaten to death in Portage state prison, Wisconsin, by another inmate, without benefit of chianti or fava beans. British enthusiasm for psychological profiling as the new rock’n’roll came to an embarrassed halt with the collapse of the Colin Stagg prosecution over the Wimbledon Common murder.’
15 February 2001
[listening] Burning Bridges – The Mike Curb Congregation. Have I mentioned I’m going to miss Napster? [Can anybody explain to me how this song ever got picked to be the theme to Kelly’s Heroes? How does it relate to WWII caper / heist movie staring Clint Eastwood and Telly Savalas?]
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26 January 2001
[movies] Ghost World movie site launches… ‘Fuck you bitch… THIS IS MY HAPPENING AND IT FREAKS ME OUT!!’ [via the Warren Ellis Forum]
19 January 2001
[film] Dammit, Dave — David Mamet writes 2001… ‘Hal: Dave. Look. Bowman: You’re not going to… Hal: What? Open the doors? No. No I am not. Bowman: Well, fuck me, Hal. Hal: Yes. Fuck you. Because I’ll tell you something. Trust. There is a bond of trust between an astronaut and his computer. Is there not? And when that trust is broken… Bowman: Excuse me?’ [via the Warren Ellis Forum]
18 January 2001
[film] Hollywood dismissed this man as a luckless loser. Now he just might win an Oscar — Guardian Unlimited interviews and profiles Steven Soderbergh. ‘”The prevailing wisdom,” he says, “is that in America you can’t make films with overt political content – that, commercially speaking, it’s an unwise choice. I personally don’t believe that at all. I think people are interested in politics, particularly when they see how they affect their daily lives. I think they’re really tired of politicians, but I don’t think they’re tired of politics, as long as they’re connected to something.”‘ [ Related Links: Traffic at IMDB, Quicktime Traffic Trailer]
[film] Popcorn reports that Oliver Stone is planning to quit directing films. ‘The 54-year-old director is currently working on the international aid romance ‘Beyond Borders’, and he’s been telling US film magazine Premiere that he’ll then turn his attention to a major film that will be his “final movie… a funeral oration”.’ [via Ghost in the Machine]
16 January 2001
[film] How Ben turns sinner from saint — a profile of Ben Kingsley. ‘With his performance in Sexy Beast, as Don Logan, the psychotic house guest from hell who terrorises Ray Winstone (think about that for a moment), he adds another notch to his thespian bedpost. Logan is truly terrifying; a walking, swearing ball of sick dynamism, a barrel of nitroglycerine waiting to be jolted; a shark in wolf’s clothing.’ [ Related Links: Sexy Beast]
15 January 2001
[animation] My flatmate is watching Dougal and the Blue Cat — which is the most deeply fucked up thing I’ve seen recently. He recommends it… ‘Something very unusual is happening in the garden. What are those strange noises coming from the old treacle factory? Why is everything turning blue? Dougal decides to investigate in this classic feature length story from the original Magic Roundabout.’
13 January 2001
[comics] Just what you least expect… Ang Lee to direct The Hulk? ‘The story concerns research scientist Bruce Banner, who, after being caught in a nuclear explosion, finds that, when under stress, he transforms into the Hulk, a green-skinned personification of his repressed rage possessing superhuman strength. Banner is pursued by the military for a crime he did not commit. Lee’s version of the film, to be set in Berkeley, will be a big-budgeted, f/x-driven tentpole feature for Universal in 2003. No cast has been attached, nor a start date set.’
5 January 2001
[film] Guardian Unlimited reviews Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. ‘In one scene, the brutal clash of fists and weaponry disturbs the birds in the trees and Lee interrupts our view of the fight briefly, in favour of an epiphanic vision of the birds ascending into the sky: a pleasing moment of inspiration which anticipates the climactic fight between Jen and Li Mu Bai as they float through the treetops themselves: in its exuberance and charm, it has to be one of the most beautiful moments in modern cinema. Crouching Tiger adopts the convention of the wu xia martial arts stories: in formal combat, the rules of gravity are suspended, and with them the rules of narrative and ordinary human possibility – bringing into the action genre a delirious new sort of magic realism.’
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31 December 2000
[film] Hoffman Proves His Character — BBC News profiles Philip Seymour Hoffman. ‘And perhaps the most conclusive assessment of Hoffman is that offered by Schumacher: “The bad news is that Phil will never make $25m (£17m) a picture,” he told reporters. “The good news is he’ll be working all his life. He’s quite possibly the best character actor of his generation.”‘
21 December 2000
[online animation] Warren Ellis does a trailer for an online film called Bad Places… ‘Murder scenes are messy. Just ask Mike Charon, a detective who has seen the worst that killing has to offer. Inevitably, Charon gets called on every D.O.A. He’s the one who sees the stabbings and shootings before the coroner.’
19 December 2000
[film] Excellent collection of articles from Time covering Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. ‘As the sage said: dying is easy, filmmaking is hard. But everyone was so serious on Crouching Tiger because Lee, who made his reputation with adult dramas-of-manners like The Wedding Banquet and Sense and Sensibility, had a child inside screaming to get out. He was finally ready to pay homage to his lifelong ardor for martial-arts novels and pictures. He had made beautiful films; now he would bend his considerable artistry to make, dammit, a movie.’
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12 December 2000
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10 December 2000
[watching] Magnolia. ‘I’ll tell you the greatest regret of my life: I let my love go.’ — Earl Patridge. [ Related Links: Magnolia Trailer]
7 December 2000
[film] Media Nugget of the Day covers Touch of Evil… ‘Charlton Heston as a Mexican (yes, Mexican) narcotics investigator is just a bonus. Welles himself plays an obese and corrupt Texas cop, and Janet Leigh is wonderfully innocent as Heston’s American bride. Welles set out to make the ultimate B-movie and with the combination of pulp-novel plot, camp dialogue, and sleazy locales, he inevitably succeeded.’
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3 December 2000
[comics] Jon Katz reviews Unbreakable. A film which improbably casts Samuel L. Jackson as a comic book collector…. ‘The Superhero stories are among the great and most enduring American myths, an often unacknowledged part of this country’s original and unique folklore. One of the distinctive traits of the Superhero genre in comics is the ambivalence of many of the characters. Heroes (Batman, Spiderman, the literal Superheroes themselves) are often innocents. They are ambivalent, reluctant. They are far from indestructible, in fact they are all oddly vulnerable. They never asked for their gifts or reveled in their powers.’ [ Related Links: Unbreakable Trailer, Unbreakable at IMDB]
24 November 2000
[movies] Apple have got a quicktime trailer for Requiem for a Dream up…
18 November 2000
[comics] The full script of Sam Hamm’s Watchmen movie adaptation is online. ‘EXT. LIBERTY ISLAND – THAT MOMENT – DAY — as a LUMINOUS BLUE-SKINNED GIANT, SIXTY FEET TALL, wades through the harbor and steps up onto the island. He stares in dismay at the demolished statue . . . like a modern-day Colossus of Rhodes wondering what the hell happened to his date. Meet the last — and most powerful — member of our happy band: DR. MANHATTAN. Down below, THE COMEDIAN and SILK SPECTRE — battered but intact — are crawling out of the wreckage. The COMEDIAN looks up at the huge blue figure looming over them, and shakes a gnat-sized fist. COMEDIAN: ASSHOLE! WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG?!?’ [via Haddock]
14 November 2000
[movies] Guardian Unlimited interviews Joel Schumacher about his new film Flawless. ‘”Well, my friend David Geffen always says, ‘The devil is the one who comes with the biggest pay cheque.’ And I say to him, ‘You ought to know.'” And what about him? Has he ever felt that he sold out, sold his soul even? “Only on Batman and Robin. There was simply too much pressure, and that breeds fear and conservatism. I was in merchandise meetings with Walmart and K-Mart and McDonald’s, and you’re being told to make the film more ‘toyetic’, which means you can sell toys off the back of it. That was the only time when I felt that the box office was more important than the story.”‘
1 November 2000
[disney porn] Is Walt Disney frozen in the Magic Castle? Probably not. But there is a shot of a topless woman in a couple of frames of The Rescuers — which I went to see at the cinema many many years ago! Did Disney corrupt my childhood? [ Related Links: Disney at Urban Legends Ref , via Cabin Pressure]
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31 October 2000
[film] Another interview with Darren Aronofsky… ‘Heroin, to Aronofsky, is the least of it. “When you’re chasing after a future you’re never going to get, you create a hole in the present. You use anything to fill that hole, whether that’s drugs, or the dream of a better life. And what happens is, the hole keeps growing until it engulfs you.” Presumably that also goes for a film-maker as obsessive as Aronofsky? “Oh, definitely. Completely. Work fills the hole. Sure.”‘ [ Related Links: Aronofsky at IMDB]
29 October 2000
[film] Salon covers two books looking at Hollywood moviemakers durning the 70s and 80s… ‘Both books deliver memorable quotations, the best of them apparently generated at extreme moments of showbiz humiliation and exasperation. One source, describing the Simpson/Bruckheimer negotiating style, says, “It’s not ‘good cop, bad cop.’ It’s ‘bad cop, worse cop.'” Remembering the night his two-timing wife, Ali MacGraw, accompanied him to a party for his greatest triumph, “The Godfather,” the ineffably embarrassing Robert Evans recalls sadly: “She was looking at me and thinking of Steve McQueen’s cock.”‘
27 October 2000
[movies] Film Unlimited profiles Jerry Bruckheimer, Perl Harbor and Bruckheimer’s dead partner-in-crime Don Simpson. ‘They appeared on the cover of Newsweek in matching black suits. They bought matching black Ferraris and matching black Mustang convertibles. They dressed in black Levis that they wore only once – Simpson said they quickly lost “their essential blackness”. In a final act of power-drunk solipsism, they even hired identical (white) twins as their respective secretaries. “It was so sick!” remembered one of their employees.’ [Related Links: Pearl Harbor Trailer, Upcomingmovies.com on Pearl Harbor]
23 October 2000
[movies] Brief interesting interview with Darren Aronofsky [director of Pi and Requiem For A Dream] on ign.com… talks about his work on the latest Batman movie with Frank Miller and his interest in comics… ‘I was not a comic book fan at all until…I really never was a comic book fan. I got into the artwork in high school, like late high school and then in college. But before that I never really read ’em.’ [via CiPHER]
17 October 2000
[movies] Guardian Unlimited profiles Peter Bogdanovich. ‘[…]only time seemed to separate him from legendary status in Hollywood. But then he fell. “I felt that by the mid-70s I’d blown it,” says Bogdanovich, now 61, sitting in a deserted Thai restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. “William Friedkin had blown it, Robert Altman went into eclipse, one flop after another, Coppola went crazy, even Raging Bull didn’t do any business. Everybody kind of blew it in varying shapes and sizes.” ‘ [Related Links: Bogdanovitch at IMDB, Sopranos Web Site]
[film] An HTMLized 2001: A Space Odyssey Program. Amazing photo’s… ‘I was inspired to create this site partly because of the program’s curiosity value for fans of 2001, and partly because it is a stunning piece of late-1960s graphic design. The cover is metallic silver (an actual metallic ink was used) and sections of the text are printed on translucent paper – these novel techniques combine to create a non-verbal experience analogous to the film itself. Certainly, the program’s authors utilised the print medium to communicate as much information about the film’s intentions as the text does.’
15 October 2000
[columns] New Kevin Smith column regarding the development on his new movie… ‘Last week, my life became a thrill-a-minute joy ride through the glamorous and exciting world of making motion pictures, and I figure that’d probably be more interesting to share with you guys and gals than a weekly dissertation on what comics I like and why, or who I think is fucking up the comics industry, or whether Hal or Kyle is the one, true Green Lantern. We pretty much all know the answers to those questions (Green Arrow because I’m writing it, anyone who’s thinks the kids will ever come back to this medium, and Hal Jordan), so there’s little point in talking about it.’ [via Sourground]
6 October 2000
[mallrats] Long, interesting interview with Jason Lee [ Mallrats and Chasing Amy]. Lee On Mallrats: ‘I had no idea. Again, being as far out of the loop as I was – the wide-eyed new kid on the block – I was thinking this was going to be the greatest, most successful film of all time. I had these hopes and dreams, so I was a bit disappointed once I found over the weekend that it didn’t do well – which meant to me, not dollars, but that people didn’t see it. That was a letdown for me. But now it’s gone on to be a classic, in a lot of ways for a lot of Kevin’s fans – and he has many – that’s their favorite movie.’ [ Related Links: The View Askewniverse]
4 October 2000
[degrees of seperation] Margaret Thatcher has a Bacon Number of three… ‘Margaret Thatcher was in Some Mother’s Son (1996) with David (I) O’Hara David (I) O’Hara was in Link (1986) with Elisabeth Shue Elisabeth Shue was in Hollow Man (2000) with Kevin Bacon ‘ [Related Links: Thatcher at IMDB, Bacon at IMDB]
2 October 2000
[london] Thora Birch describes “My London” in This is London. ‘What was the last conversation you had with a London cabbie? This guy offered me and my mom some pot (which we politely declined) and then told us what every member of his extended family did for a living.’ [ Related Link: Ghost World Movie]
1 October 2000
[movies] The Observer on “special editions / director’s cuts” of films — includes mentions of The Exorcist and Apocalypse Now… ‘The Apocalypse Now Book, published by Faber this month, contains a detailed description of the five-hour film. The French plantation sequence is the most fully formed and vital omission. For those who have even a casual acquaintance with Apocalypse Now, it comes after the death of Larry Fishburne’s teenage conscript Clean, when the boat commandeered by Willard (Martin Sheen) pulls up to a fog-bound quay which leads to the genteel quarters of a group of colonial French. The US soldiers eat dinner with the French, and Willard shares an opium pipe and bed with a young woman.’
[degrees of seperation] What is Adolf Hitler’s Kevin Bacon Number? 2! ‘Adolf Hitler was in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) with Maximilian Schell. Maximilian Schell was in Telling Lies in America (1997) with Kevin Bacon’ [idea via NTK’s Hitler Filmography… ]
26 September 2000
[walken] Guardian Unlimited accuses Christopher Walken of being mild. Apparently his real name is Ronnie and he wants to do a cookery programme on TV… ‘Measured by his screen persona, the 57-year-old actor is anything but normal. Take the wheelchair-ridden Man With The Plan in Things To Do In Denver When You’re Dead, or the psychotic mob boss Vincenzo Coccotti in True Romance. Indeed, many thought his performance as the demented Frank White in the super-violent gangster flick King Of New York was his most extreme – until last year’s Wildside showed him whipping his chauffeur with his underpants while attempting to sodomise him at gunpoint.’
20 September 2000
[film] Guardian Unlimited talks to Quentin Tarantino about his current obssesion with Roy Rogers and Trigger. ‘Nowadays, Roy Rogers seems almost too good. I find myself being moved by his common decency. Life’s events and other people’s actions have no effect on him and his heart. He didn’t save Trigger to become a bitter man; he did it because it was what he had to do. His code is his code. The whole world can change, and it doesn’t change his code.’
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17 September 2000
[gummo] The Loafer’s Guide to Harmony Korine… ‘What next? Korine has been making Fight Harm, a film in which he provokes fights with strangers, a camera recording the violence. ‘I wanted it to be the funniest movie ever made, a cross between Buster Keaton and a snuff movie,’ he says. Work was stopped after he ended up in hospital or jail too often. After breaking his ankles in one fight, he’s had to abandon his plan ‘to invent a new form of tap-dancing’.’
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6 September 2000
[i have a cunning plan…] BBC News reports on a film about a sneaky Argentine filmaker who visits the Falklands Islands whilst trying to impregnate as many locals as possible in a inspired mission to retake the islands by love not war… the film is course called Fuckland. ‘So how hard would it be for another Argentine to find a date on the island? Las chicas en la isla no abundan, he says on the Web site, meaning that there’s not exactly a cornucopia of willing girls to begin with, and that the British military base there holds about 1,000 troops. ‘It’s terrible when you consider your competition,” Stratas says. Now you’re warned.’ [ Related Link: Covert Operations in the Falklands: No Guns, Just Three Digital Cameras ]
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4 September 2000
[films] Apocalypse Now Film Transcript — it’s on TV right now. ‘Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a mission, and for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service. It was a real choice mission, and when it was over, I never wanted another.’ [ Related Links: Apocalypse Now at IMDB, Apocalypse Now Tribute Page]
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