This Dick Cavett Show clip was obviously taped sometime after Peter Bogdanovich‘s The Last Picture Show opened on 10.22.71. Things were never better for Bogdanovich that at this very moment. Anyway, Bogdanovich mentions something I’d never heard before, which is that John Schlesinger wanted to make Sunday Bloody Sunday (a 1.66 Criterion Bluray is coming on 10.23) in black-and-white, but his producers and financiers said no.
Mel Brooks, whose last film at the time was The Twelve Chairs (’70), says that “black and white could be an arty trick…unless it’s truly indigenous to the local and theme and the story…if it’s proper, it’s proper.” Three years later Brooks’ Young Frankenstein, shot in 1930s-style monochrome, would open nationwide. This would only be ten months after Brooks’ Blazing Saddles preemed on 2.7.74.
Robert Altman was also a guest, but his last film at the time — McCabe and Mrs. Miller — had opened on June 24, 1971 and there was no home video release at the time so what was he doing there? Not to talk about Images, which wouldn’t come out for another year or so. Different world back then.
It’s odd to watch Bogdanovich pull out a cigarette and pop it into his mouth — how radically times have changed.
There are two films opening five days hence — Friday, 8.17 — that are definitely worth seeing. And no, I don’t care and it doesn’t matter that ads for these two are currently adorning this site. One is Craig Zobel‘s Compliance (Magnolia, opening in NY with LA and other burghs to follow) and the other is Chris Kenneally and Keanu Reeves‘ Side by Side (Tribeca Films, LA only with more cities to follow).
David Cronenberg‘s Cosmopolis (Entertainment One) is toxic (or so I felt after seeing it in Cannes). I won’t see The Expendables 2 until later this week but what can you expect? Nor have I seen Paranorman, Focus Features’ stop-motion animation. And I haven’t seen Robot & Frank. And I wouldn’t see Sparkle with a knife at my back. I only know that Compliance and Side by Side are grabbers as you watch them and that they stay with you weeks and months later.
What’s up with Movie Geeks United’s Aaron Aradillas today posting a 15-month-old discussion with MSN’s Glenn Kenny about Stanley Kubrick, and particularly about Barry Lyndon? Aradillas apparently posted the mp3 today — Saturday, 8.26 (which is what the timestamp says) — and yet he and Kenny originally spoke before the conclusion of the great Barry Lyndon aspect-ratio debate between myself, Kenny and former Kubrick collaborator Leon Viatli.
I was saying all along that Barry Lyndon should have been presented at 1.66 to 1, and that Cocks letter proved that I was dead right. And yet at one point in the Movie Geeks United discussion Kenny is saying that the issue isn’t quite settled (which proves he was speaking before 6.21), and Aradillas says “well, maybe the lesson learned is not to listen to Jeff Wells” (or words very similar) and Kenny goes “no, no.”
So Aradillas has been in a Rip Van Winkle coma and didn’t realize that he’d lost 15 months and that ‘s why he only posted the May 2011 discussion today…is that it? In any event I want that line about “maybe the lesson learned is not to listen to Jeff Wells” taken out because it’s completely inaccurate and in fact slanderous in the context of this debate.
The Barry Lyndon aspect-ratio saga began with a posting I made on 4.24.10, or about a year before the Barry Lyndon Bluray came out. I wrote the following:
“Warner Home Video’s Ned Price and George Feltenstein would be well-advised to present the Barry Lyndon Blu-ray in a 1.66 to 1 aspect ratio…or else. No 1.85 to 1 crap for this masterpiece. My understanding is that Kubrick actually protected the framings for a 1.37 to 1 presentation on television, but the important thing to keep in mind is that 1.66 to 1 approximates the aspect ratio of many if not most 18th Century portraits and landscapes, which is precisely the effect that Kubrick was going for — a feeling that you were watching the Lyndon story through a prism of old paintings of the period.”
And then the Barry Lyndon Bluray came out with a 1.78 to 1 aspect ratio (a nose hair away from 1.85) and then the shitstorm began. Four HE articles resulted between 5.23 AND 5.26 — article #1, article #2, article #3 and article #4 — and then two more on 6.21.11 — “case closed” and “Vitali responds.”
We’re looking at a Hitchcock-intensive Bluray period from Tuesday, 9.25 through Tuesday, 10.9 — the debut of Universal’s 14-film Hitchcock Masterpiece Collection on 9.25 (Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt, Rope, Rear Window, The Trouble With Harry, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Vertigo, Psycho, The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz, Frenzy. Family Plot) and then Blurays of Strangers on a Train and Dial M for Murder from Warner Home Video on 10.9. Two weeks, 16 films, a lot of quality assessment and no aspect-ratio laments except in the case of Dial M for Murder.
Which titles are high on the list, which are lesser priorities and which don’t really matter?
Vertigo and The Man Who Knew Too Much are the picks of the litter because they was shot in large-format VistaVision and will presumably deliver the most in the way of detail and color intensity. Vertigo will presumably look the best as it was nicely restored by Robert Harris and James Katz in the ’90s. I’ll be catching a Vertigo DCP in about two and a half weeks in a small theatre.
I’ve made no secret of my profound distaste for the fascist cleavering of Dial M for Murder on the part of Warner Home Video. What’s done is done and I may as well suck it in, but I hate it.
I can’t imagine WHV’s Strangers on a Train Bluray not looking sublime. I’ve loved Robert Burks‘ cinematography on this film all my life.
Nobody cares about having Blurays of Hitchcock’s five post-Birds disappointments or disposables — Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz, Frenzy and Family Plot. I don’t know if I can even stand to watch Marnie again, which I think is easily Hitchcock’s worst. Portions of Torn Curtain and Topaz are semi-intriguing — the kitchen-murder and the bus-escape scenes in Curtain, and the dialogue-free Topaz scene in which Roscoe Lee Browne persuades a red-bearded Cuban guy to allow him to snap pictures of secret documents. I tried re-watching Frenzy a couple of years ago and some of it is fine (“Mr. Rusk, you’re not wearing your tie”) but those scenes in which Alec McCowen is tortured by his wife’s bizarre “gourmet” dinners are just time-wasters.
Universal’s Bluray of The Birds will probably look luscious, although I suspect that some of the rear-projection and special-effects process shots will appear a bit more synthetic than they did in theatres 49 years ago. There’s an outdoor conversation scene in which Rod Taylor and Tippi Hedren stand before a painted sound-stage backdrop — that’s going to look faker than ever.
The Psycho Bluray has already been released and is one of my all-time favorites, in part because it’s been beautifully DNR’ed and it allows you to see stuff that even first-run 1960 audiences missed, like Martin Balsam‘s facial makeup.
I’m especially excited about the other two monochromes — Saboteur, Shadow of a Doubt — because black-and-white Blurays are the greatest.
Rear Window (presented at 1.66, Mr. Furmanek!) will also be special because the elements were restored by Harris-Katz. I’m not a huge fan of Rope or The Trouble With Harry, and I’m frankly wondering if I’ll have the discipline to watch them all the way through.
Universal’s Hitchcock package won’t be sent out until just after Labor Day, I’m told. I’ll be in Telluride and Toronto from 8.30 to 9.15 so viewings will have to wait.
HBO’s The Girl, a drama about the twisted relationship between Hitchcock and Hedren during the making of The Birds and Marnie, is coming out in October, although for some reason it’s not mentioned on HBO’s site.
The Criterion Bluray of Quadrophenia (out 8.28) “looks highly impressive,” says DVD Beaver’s Gary W. Tooze. “Dual-layered with a high bitrate, the textured grain is prominent and establishes a strong image quality through the 1080p. While there are some imperfections present on the source with speckles and very light damage, the contrast balances the visuals well. I can easily state that this is the best I have seen Quadrophenia look. There is no noise at all. Detail is solid. Sweet.”
“I first saw Quadropehnia at Manhattan’s 8th Street Playhouse, and then I showed it to the kids about ten years ago. The older I’ve gotten the more I’ve come to realize that this film — loosely based on the Who rock opera and basically the story of Jimmy Cooper (Phil Daniels) and his identity, friendship and girlfriend issues — belongs in the near-great category. Hands down one of the best recreations/capturings of mad generational fervor and ’60s mayhem.” — from a 6.17.12 HE posting.
Hope Springs will earn close to a somewhat respectable $20 million by Sunday night if you count Wednesday and Thursday. At least it’s not bombing. That’s not too bad for a film that’s “not half bad,” as I put it. Older audiences are always slow on the pickup. Note: You just need to brush past Charlie Rose‘s interview with the odious Henry Kissinger, which occupies the first half.
“Democrats are celebrating,” The Daily Beast‘s Michael Tomaskynoted this morning. “{but] are they overdoing it?
“Paul Ryan is smart. He’ll hold his own on the trail. He’ll talk about the fiscal cliff coming at the end of the year, and he’ll probably make as credible a case as any conservative can make that Obama won’t make the ‘tough choices’ and Republicans will. And don’t forget that he has a grudge against Obama personally, ever since that George Washington University speech of Obama’s in April 2011 when he invited Ryan — and made the guy sit there and listen to the president of the United States trash him. That’s probably a motivator.
“And the Democrats might overplay their hand. That’s always a temptation when the target is as big and juicy as Ryan is.
“So Democrats will have to be smart. They should show respect for Ryan for being a serious guy, but then just explain to people, urgently but not over-heatedly, what he’s proposed. It’s just very hard to imagine that middle-of-the-road voters want harsh future cuts to Medicare, massive tax cuts for the rich, and huge reductions to domestic programs that most swing voters really don’t hate. Does this choice work in Florida, with all those old people? If Romney just sacrificed Florida, he’s lost the election already.
“And why? To placate a party that doesn’t even want him as its nominee anyway. It’s psycho-weird. But at least it will carry the benefit, if this ticket loses, of keeping conservatives from griping that they lost because their ticket was too moderate. Conservatism will share — will own — this loss.
“Is all that ‘daring’? Well, Thelma and Louise were ‘daring’ too, but they ended up at the bottom of a canyon. If the Democrats handle this situation properly, that’s where this ticket will end up too, and then the rest of us — the people who don’t want federal policy to be based on Atlas Shrugged — can finally and fully press the case to the right that America is not behind you, and please grow up.”
Mitt Romney‘s choice of arch-conservative Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan as his Vice-Presidential running mate is all about energizing the wacko right. It is also manna from heaven as Ryan is a smart, focused, anti-government militant who believes in cleavering entitlements — the “tough choices” he’s referred to many times — in order to reduce the national debt. This pretty much cinches Obama’s re-election as Ryan will gradually scare the living crap out most independents, the elderly in particular, as he is no friend of Medicare.
And — I love this — Ryan is an Ayn Rand devotee. Rand is the dominant influence and the formative shaper of his thinking. Objectivism! For movie-centric types, Rand is the author of The Fountainhead, which was turned into a notoriously sexy 1949 King Vidor film about Gary Cooper, as architect Howard Roark, ramming Patricia Neal‘s Dominique Francon over and over and over. So this will be a somewhat sexier Presidential campaign than anticipated, the Eddie Munster factor not withstanding.
“Like many conservatives, Paul Ryan claims to have been profoundly affected by Ayn Rand,” The New Yorker‘s Ryan Lizzawrites in an August 2012 profile. “After reading ‘Atlas Shrugged,’ he told me, ‘I said, ‘Wow, I’ve got to check out this economics thing.’
“What I liked about [Rand’s] novels was their devastating indictment of the fatal conceit of socialism, of too much government.” He dived into Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and Milton Friedman.
“In a 2005 speech to a group of Rand devotees called the Atlas Society, Ryan said that Rand was required reading for his office staff and interns. ‘The reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker, one person, it would be Ayn Rand,’ he told the group. ‘The fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.'”
“One trope that has marked Ryan’s media coverage from the outset is that he is consistently described as lacking ambition,” wrote New York‘s Jonathan Chait in an April 2012 profile. “It’s a sharp contrast with fellow Republican Eric Cantor, to whom the adjective ‘ambitious’ is affixed like a tattoo. Ryan says, and many political reporters believe, that he is immune to the political concerns that distract his colleagues. He ‘has a level of disdain for the sort of rank political calculations required of people who want to climb the electoral ladder,’ explains the Washington Post.
“Here is a telling description from Politico: “Of the partisan political game, Ryan confessed, ‘It’s not my natural tendency. I’m a policy guy.’ The operative word here is ‘confessed.'”
“There’s nothing serious about a plan” — i.e., the Ryan plan — “that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires,” President Obama said last year in a speech. “There’s nothing courageous about asking for sacrifice from those who can least afford it and don’t have any clout on Capitol Hill.”
“In the selection of a running mate as in the practice of medicine, there has long been the edict that you ‘first do no harm,'” N.Y. Times columnist Frank Bruniwrote this morning. “Ryan could do enormous harm. With glee and persistence, he has laid out an entitlement reform plan that is indisputably an entitlement reduction plan, and while that speaks to a concern for federal budgets and for a ballooning debt that many Americans share, it comes at those fiscal challenges with a scythe when many Americans would prefer a scalpel.
Plus the Ryan plan “isn’t matched with a similarly emphatic commitment to revenue enhancement: with changes to the tax code that would get at what many voters feel is too much coddling of the richest Americans. That creates an opportunity for Democrats to ratchet up their assault on Romney as a candidate of and for the wealthy.”
“On top of that, Ryan has the potential to upstage Romney. He’s more dynamic. More articulate. More specific. He’s a poster boy for ideological conservatives. Romney’s a poster boy for ideological chameleons.”
The Master isn’t going to Telluride, The Master isn’t going to Telluride, The Master isn’t going to Telluride. That’s all I’m hearing lately. But why not, I ask? It’ll play the Venice and Toronto film festivals so where’s the harm in showing it at Telluride? We all know it’s not an easy-access popcorn movie and that the Weinstein Co. needs all the buzz it can get so tell me, please…where’s the downside?
Paul Thomas Anderson doesn’t like doing lah-lah festivals, I’m told. To hell with PTA’s attendance — just bring the film to Telluride and show it. Anderson doesn’t like Telluride because of some kind of comment or a vibe or some spitball that was thrown regarding There Will Be Blood that PTA didn’t care for during a 2007 Daniel Day Lewis tribute. What? That made absolutely no sense at all. I asked once again and gave up trying to understand. But as nonsensical as it sounds and despite having been told that there may be preparation underway at Telluride for a 70m presentation, there’s a very strong belief that The Master will not be there. Period.
But guess what is showing at Telluride? Roger Michell‘s Hyde Park on Hudson. One of the reasons being, I’m gathering or inferring, that costar Laura Linney is a Telluride resident and everybody knows her and it’s a chummy situation, etc.
Some guy with a glass of wine said the other night that 2012 has been a weak year for movies. I stopped him right there and said “wait a minute” and got out the iPhone and read off the following titles: Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Dark Knight Rises, Magic Mike, Miss Bala, Haywire, Arbitrage, Bernie, Moonrise Kingdom, God Bless America, Side by Side, Trishna, The Three Stooges, The Sessions, Liberal Arts, Michael (Austrian child-molesting movie), Rampart, 21 Jump Street and The Grey. Okay, some of these aren’t out yet but that’s 18 movies. Add the films I liked or admired in Cannes — Holy Motors, On The Road, No, Killing Them Softly, Amour, Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir and Rust and Bone — and that’s a total of 25.
Terrence Malick: It’ll come out after I’ve tossed the lettuce leaves into the air for a period of 12 to 18 months, and after I’ve taken my shoes and socks off and sat in the lotus position and meditated it through and through, and then once it starts to take shape and we’ve shown it to distributors and freaked them out…then and only then will we start talking to film festival programmers. Figure two years from now.
Terrence Malick, Christian Bale during the filming of Knight of Cups.
Christian Bale: What about the other one?
Malick: Lawless. What about it?
Bale: You’re supposed to deliver that one first, right? Your process takes 18 months to two years on that so where does that leave Knight of Cups? Will we be out by 2015? 2016?
Malick: I have a process, Christian. You knew that when we agreed to make this film together.
Bale: Yeah, you have a process, all right. I just don’t want to look significantly older in real life when it comes out. I don’t want people saying, “Wow, when was this made? Bale looks two or three years younger.”
“The biggest story of the summer, though, has to be Magic Mike, which affirms that some like it hot and without any underwear, and also offers continuing proof of Steven Soderbergh‘s talent for making pleasurable, accessible entertainments no matter their scale.
“Magic Mike was independently produced and bought by Warner Brothers for something like $7 million. If I were running a studio (ha!), I would take the money that I’d set aside for the next bad idea (like a remake of Total Recall) and give a handful of directors, tested and less so — Todd Haynes, Barry Jenkins, Kelly Reichardt, Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Aaron Katz, Benh Zeitlin, Damien Chazelle — $10 million apiece to make whatever they want, as long as the results come in with an R rating or below and don’t run over two hours.” — Manohla Dargis in an August 8th N.Y. Times piece about summer movies, co-authored by A.O. Scott.
