list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around The Player on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/The_Player/26892/default.aspx Title: The Player
Year: 1992
Director: Robert Altman
Plot: Robert Altman takes a scalpel to Hollywood ethics in the 1990s (or the lack thereof) in his acidic satire The Player, adapted from Michael Tolkin's novel. (Tolkin also wrote the screenplay.) The film concerns a sleek and smooth Hollywood studio executive who starts receiving death threats from a disgruntled writer because he has committed the ultimate Hollywood sin -- he promised the writer he would call him back and he never did. This is particularly ironic because the studio executive, Griffin Mill (Tim Robbins), is considered "writer-friendly," spending his days listening to pitches from such noted screenwriters as Buck Henry, who is pushing "The Graduate, Part II" and Alan Rudolph, who is hawking a Bruce Willis action film described as "Ghost meets The Manchurian Candidate." But The Player finds Griffin's comfortable life style in danger of collapse. He is trying to find a way to unload his girlfriend (Cynthia Stevenson) whose independence and intelligence make her a poor candidate for a trophy wife. More importantly, it seems that Larry Levy (Peter Gallagher), a slippery executive from Twentieth Century Fox, is angling for his job. And then there are those nasty postcards and faxes from a screenwriter threatening to kill him. Altman cast over 65 stars in cameo roles as texture for his scabrous tale. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 2
Number of Lists: 26
Number of blog posts: 10
Number of discussion threads: 6
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Sun, 19 Jul 2009 18:45:09 GMTThe Player1992Robert Altman<a href="/players/P____79456/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Robert Altman</a> takes a scalpel to Hollywood ethics in the 1990s (or the lack thereof) in his acidic satire The Player, adapted from <a href="/players/P___114301/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Michael Tolkin</a>'s novel. (Tolkin also wrote the screenplay.) The film concerns a sleek and smooth Hollywood studio executive who starts receiving death threats from a disgruntled writer because he has committed the ultimate Hollywood sin -- he promised the writer he would call him back and he never did. This is particularly ironic because the studio executive, Griffin Mill (<a href="/players/P___108437/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Tim Robbins</a>), is considered "writer-friendly," spending his days listening to pitches from such noted screenwriters as <a href="/players/P____94069/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Buck Henry</a>, who is pushing "The Graduate, Part II" and <a href="/players/P___109237/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Alan Rudolph</a>, who is hawking a <a href="/players/P____76618/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Bruce Willis</a> action film described as "<a href=/films/13246/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>Ghost</a> meets <a href=/films/228731/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>The Manchurian Candidate</a>." But The Player finds Griffin's comfortable life style in danger of collapse. He is trying to find a way to unload his girlfriend (<a href="/players/P____68180/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Cynthia Stevenson</a>) whose independence and intelligence make her a poor candidate for a trophy wife. More importantly, it seems that Larry Levy (<a href="/players/P____25621/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Peter Gallagher</a>), a slippery executive from Twentieth Century Fox, is angling for his job. And then there are those nasty postcards and faxes from a screenwriter threatening to kill him. Altman cast over 65 stars in cameo roles as texture for his scabrous tale. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide2Slightly Tagged (1-5)261063http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t00122bahgi.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/The_Player/26892/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/1/12/39422.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 1/12/2009 4:01:03 PM
Body: What better way to get in the mood for the double-barrelled shotgun blast of Sundance and Slamdance than by entering to win one of five copies of The Deal on DVD. Here’s what the movie is all about: A struggling film producer (William H. Macy) teams up with a beleaguered studio executive (Meg Ryan) who is forced to make a doomed action movie with him in which their mercurial star (LL Cool J) seems determined to finish their careers. When their action hero is kidnapped and the studio abruptly shuts down the movie, the mismatched pair conspire to keep the cameras rolling at the studio’s expense – and reluctantly fall in love in the process. Visit the movie’s official website to find out more and watch the trailer as well as clips from the film. Getting your copy is pretty easy. Since The Deal is all about the inner-machinations of Hollywood, we want to know what your favorite movie set in Hollywood is 1. Bowfinger (Trailer) 2. The Player (Trailer) 3. Sunset Boulevard 4. The Big Picture (Trailer) 5. Ed Wood 6. Something I’m forgetting Send your choice to filmcouch@spout.com with the subject line “The Deal.” The winners will be announced during Episode 104 of FilmCouch, coming to a computer near you this Friday, January 16th. –Chris Thilk, Director of Marketing Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 12 Jan 2009 21:01:03 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com1/12/2009 4:01:03 PMWhat better way to get in the mood for the double-barrelled shotgun blast of Sundance and Slamdance than by entering to win one of five copies of The Deal on DVD. Here’s what the movie is all about: A struggling film producer (William H. Macy) teams up with a beleaguered studio executive (Meg Ryan) who is forced to make a doomed action movie with him in which their mercurial star (LL Cool J) seems determined to finish their careers. When their action hero is kidnapped and the studio abruptly shuts down the movie, the mismatched pair conspire to keep the cameras rolling at the studio’s expense – and reluctantly fall in love in the process. Visit the movie’s official website to find out more and watch the trailer as well as clips from the film. Getting your copy is pretty easy. Since The Deal is all about the inner-machinations of Hollywood, we want to know what your favorite movie set in Hollywood is 1. Bowfinger (Trailer) 2. The Player (Trailer) 3. Sunset Boulevard 4. The Big Picture (Trailer) 5. Ed Wood 6. Something I’m forgetting Send your choice to filmcouch@spout.com with the subject line “The Deal.” The winners will be announced during Episode 104 of FilmCouch, coming to a computer near you this Friday, January 16th. –Chris Thilk, Director of Marketing Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/12/17/38505.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 12/17/2008 6:00:27 PM
Body: One of the many things Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich did this week — instead of resigning from his position, as many people desired — was sign into law an increase on tax credits for films produced in his state. So, it should be only appropriate, and somewhat bittersweet, for the inevitable movie about his life and corruption hearings to be shot there. Now that we’ve got a location for the film, it’s time to cast the players in Blogojevich’s scandalous tale. The Washington Post has already published a list of possible actors to portray the lead (John Travolta, Sean Astin, Gary Cole, Stephen Baldwin, Tom Cruise, Ray Liotta, Charlie Sheen, Mike Myers and Steve Carrell), but more difficult than casting Blogojevich (see our pick below) is determining what other significant figures should be prominently featured. A straight biopic calls for way too many characters, so we’ve narrowed the film down to focus on just Blagojevich’s arrest and subsequent (forthcoming) trial. As always, if there’s another character to be included or another thespian suited to a role we’ve cast, chime in with a comment. Also, due to the fact that we’ve previously done posts about Barack Obama casting, let’s just assume that he’ll only be portrayed by a voice on the phone, a la Al Gore in Recount. Sam Rockwell as Governor Rod Blogojevich The perfect look-a-like casting choice would be former Attorney General Janet Reno, but Sam Rockwell (Frost/Nixon) is also a pretty close match. The actor has already played a lot of sleazy characters, including the lead role in Choke, for which he was recently named one of the “most offensive male characters” of 2008 by the Women Film Critics Circle. Rockwell also has experience portraying a conceited and delusional celebrity in George Clooney’s Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. If that actor-director pair could link up again for this movie, Rockwell could certainly be looking at his first well-deserved Oscar nomination. Mary Lynn Rajskub as Patti Blogojevich Rockwell is a tad young for the role of Blogojevich, so it’s fair that we also aim younger in casting the actress to play Illinois’ First Lady. Few women are more perfect for the part than Mary Lynn Rajskub (TV’s 24), who is about 8 years Blogojevich’s junior, anyway. Talented for playing cranky and/or two-faced women (mainly we’re thinking of her character in Punch-Drunk Love), she would be excellent as the allegedly foul-mouthed wife of the Governor. Mario Van Peebles as U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. Fittingly the son of an important African American leader (though being an icon of black cinema is admittedly not quite the same as being an icon of the civil rights movement), Mario Van Peebles (Ali) is conversely too old to play this part, especially since Jackson looks a lot younger than he is. But he’s a great, underrated actor (too good for All My Children, that’s for sure) and he could easily pull off a portrayal of the congressman, who was one of the contenders for Barack Obama’s now-vacant Senate seat, and who has apparently been a longtime informant to feds regarding Blagojevich’s shady dealings. Martin Donovan as U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald One idea for the part of the federal prosecutor in this case is Richard “John Boy” Thomas. He does look a little more like Fitzgerald, but Martin Donovan (Saved!)  got the Irish-American thing going for him, and it would be more interesting to see if he can do the Brooklyn accent. Plus, Donovan often works with Mary-Louise Parker, who would be perfect for the part of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan if she were an included character in the film. Brian Cox (or Albert Finney) as Defense Attorney Ed Genson An immediate idea following a Google image search was to jokingly cast actor Kevin Scannell, who played wheelchair-bound lawyer “Gar Girard” in The Player. But as it turns out, contrary to most photos available on the web, Genson no longer has such a handicap. So, a more appropriate suggestion for the famously tough lawyer (often called “the bulldog of the court room”), who formerly won R. Kelly’s child-pornography trial and who will now defend Blagojevich, is The Bourne Identy’s Brian Cox (not ever called “the bulldog of cinema,” though he should be). Or, in the event that you too think he’s easily interchangeable with Cox, Albert Finney (The Bourne Ultimatum) would also be suitable. Whichever of the two is cast, he’ll have to either get Genson’s accent down or have his dialogue overdubbed by William Hurt. James Woods as Lt. Governor Pat Quinn He may not really look like Quinn, but James Woods (Ghosts of Mississippi) is terrific at changing his appearance for Oscar-worthy supporting roles. This might not be a big enough part for an actor of his stature, but he’d be great at aping the wide-eyed expressions Quinn does when speaking publicly. Stanley Tucci as Antoin “Tony” Rezko It’s not certain yet if convicted fundraiser Tony Rezko will be involved in Blagojevich’s trial, though his testimonial would serve the prosecution well. If he is a major player, then Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada), with a puffy makeup job and fake mustache, should fill the role. Although Tucci is not Syrian like Rezko, he did once play a Middle Eastern assassin in The Pelican Brief. William Petersen as John Harris As Blagojevich’s former Chief of Staff, who resigned from his position after his joint arrest with the governor last week, William Petersen (TV’s CSI) would callback to his similar role as a political scandal figure in The Contender. “The Football” as Itself One of the harshest punishments for Blagojevich would be for the feds to deny the Governor his beloved hairbrush, which is nicknamed “The Football” (after a term used for the president’s possession of bomb codes). Then, producers of the Blagojevich film should purchase the item for a cameo appearance. Because, as the Governor would declare, there’s no substitute for it. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 17 Dec 2008 23:00:27 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com12/17/2008 6:00:27 PMOne of the many things Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich did this week — instead of resigning from his position, as many people desired — was sign into law an increase on tax credits for films produced in his state. So, it should be only appropriate, and somewhat bittersweet, for the inevitable movie about his life and corruption hearings to be shot there. Now that we’ve got a location for the film, it’s time to cast the players in Blogojevich’s scandalous tale. The Washington Post has already published a list of possible actors to portray the lead (John Travolta, Sean Astin, Gary Cole, Stephen Baldwin, Tom Cruise, Ray Liotta, Charlie Sheen, Mike Myers and Steve Carrell), but more difficult than casting Blogojevich (see our pick below) is determining what other significant figures should be prominently featured. A straight biopic calls for way too many characters, so we’ve narrowed the film down to focus on just Blagojevich’s arrest and subsequent (forthcoming) trial. As always, if there’s another character to be included or another thespian suited to a role we’ve cast, chime in with a comment. Also, due to the fact that we’ve previously done posts about Barack Obama casting, let’s just assume that he’ll only be portrayed by a voice on the phone, a la Al Gore in Recount. Sam Rockwell as Governor Rod Blogojevich The perfect look-a-like casting choice would be former Attorney General Janet Reno, but Sam Rockwell (Frost/Nixon) is also a pretty close match. The actor has already played a lot of sleazy characters, including the lead role in Choke, for which he was recently named one of the “most offensive male characters” of 2008 by the Women Film Critics Circle. Rockwell also has experience portraying a conceited and delusional celebrity in George Clooney’s Confessions of a Dangerous Mind. If that actor-director pair could link up again for this movie, Rockwell could certainly be looking at his first well-deserved Oscar nomination. Mary Lynn Rajskub as Patti Blogojevich Rockwell is a tad young for the role of Blogojevich, so it’s fair that we also aim younger in casting the actress to play Illinois’ First Lady. Few women are more perfect for the part than Mary Lynn Rajskub (TV’s 24), who is about 8 years Blogojevich’s junior, anyway. Talented for playing cranky and/or two-faced women (mainly we’re thinking of her character in Punch-Drunk Love), she would be excellent as the allegedly foul-mouthed wife of the Governor. Mario Van Peebles as U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr. Fittingly the son of an important African American leader (though being an icon of black cinema is admittedly not quite the same as being an icon of the civil rights movement), Mario Van Peebles (Ali) is conversely too old to play this part, especially since Jackson looks a lot younger than he is. But he’s a great, underrated actor (too good for All My Children, that’s for sure) and he could easily pull off a portrayal of the congressman, who was one of the contenders for Barack Obama’s now-vacant Senate seat, and who has apparently been a longtime informant to feds regarding Blagojevich’s shady dealings. Martin Donovan as U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald One idea for the part of the federal prosecutor in this case is Richard “John Boy” Thomas. He does look a little more like Fitzgerald, but Martin Donovan (Saved!)  got the Irish-American thing going for him, and it would be more interesting to see if he can do the Brooklyn accent. Plus, Donovan often works with Mary-Louise Parker, who would be perfect for the part of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan if she were an included character in the film. Brian Cox (or Albert Finney) as Defense Attorney Ed Genson An immediate idea following a Google image search was to jokingly cast actor Kevin Scannell, who played wheelchair-bound lawyer “Gar Girard” in The Player. But as it turns out, contrary to most photos available on the web, Genson no longer has such a handicap. So, a more appropriate suggestion for the famously tough lawyer (often called “the bulldog of the court room”), who formerly won R. Kelly’s child-pornography trial and who will now defend Blagojevich, is The Bourne Identy’s Brian Cox (not ever called “the bulldog of cinema,” though he should be). Or, in the event that you too think he’s easily interchangeable with Cox, Albert Finney (The Bourne Ultimatum) would also be suitable. Whichever of the two is cast, he’ll have to either get Genson’s accent down or have his dialogue overdubbed by William Hurt. James Woods as Lt. Governor Pat Quinn He may not really look like Quinn, but James Woods (Ghosts of Mississippi) is terrific at changing his appearance for Oscar-worthy supporting roles. This might not be a big enough part for an actor of his stature, but he’d be great at aping the wide-eyed expressions Quinn does when speaking publicly. Stanley Tucci as Antoin “Tony” Rezko It’s not certain yet if convicted fundraiser Tony Rezko will be involved in Blagojevich’s trial, though his testimonial would serve the prosecution well. If he is a major player, then Stanley Tucci (The Devil Wears Prada), with a puffy makeup job and fake mustache, should fill the role. Although Tucci is not Syrian like Rezko, he did once play a Middle Eastern assassin in The Pelican Brief. William Petersen as John Harris As Blagojevich’s former Chief of Staff, who resigned from his position after his joint arrest with the governor last week, William Petersen (TV’s CSI) would callback to his similar role as a political scandal figure in The Contender. “The Football” as Itself One of the harshest punishments for Blagojevich would be for the feds to deny the Governor his beloved hairbrush, which is nicknamed “The Football” (after a term used for the president’s possession of bomb codes). Then, producers of the Blagojevich film should purchase the item for a cameo appearance. Because, as the Governor would declare, there’s no substitute for it. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/groups/Weekly_Theme/Re_Weekly_Theme_for_November_3_The_Movies_in_the/625/36950/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: Risselada
Post To: Weekly Theme
Post Date: 11/4/2008 1:35:28 PM
Body: When I first saw the subject of this weeks discussion I thought we would be talking about fictional films within fictional films, not actualy films in fictional films. So the first thing I thought of was The Player with the the compromised film they eventually make at the end staring Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts where he saves her from the electric chair I think it is. But then it only took me a moment to think about it longer and this is actually the ULTIMATE example of movies in this category. There are people talking about all kinds of specific movies left and right. There are posters for other real movies everywhere. And people actually going to see some real movies. I think The Bicycle Thief is one that they watch in the theatre and is constantly referenced as sort of an idea of classic unadulterated good film. There are also several actors in this film who are playing themselves talking with the fictional characters. This always makes me wonder what kind of world they live in. For instance this is a world where Burt Reynolds, Andie MacDowell, Nick Nolte, and countless others are all real people who exist. Yet there are characters in the movie who are played by well known actors as well. So I wonder in the world of this movie are Tim Robbins and Peter Gallagher real people, and if so, so the characters they play just happen to look exactly like them? And if so, how come no one ever comments on this? Ok, these are the strange things I think about sometimes.
]]>Tue, 04 Nov 2008 18:35:28 GMTRisseladaWeekly Theme11/4/2008 1:35:28 PMWhen I first saw the subject of this weeks discussion I thought we would be talking about fictional films within fictional films, not actualy films in fictional films. So the first thing I thought of was The Player with the the compromised film they eventually make at the end staring Bruce Willis and Julia Roberts where he saves her from the electric chair I think it is. But then it only took me a moment to think about it longer and this is actually the ULTIMATE example of movies in this category. There are people talking about all kinds of specific movies left and right. There are posters for other real movies everywhere. And people actually going to see some real movies. I think The Bicycle Thief is one that they watch in the theatre and is constantly referenced as sort of an idea of classic unadulterated good film. There are also several actors in this film who are playing themselves talking with the fictional characters. This always makes me wonder what kind of world they live in. For instance this is a world where Burt Reynolds, Andie MacDowell, Nick Nolte, and countless others are all real people who exist. Yet there are characters in the movie who are played by well known actors as well. So I wonder in the world of this movie are Tim Robbins and Peter Gallagher real people, and if so, so the characters they play just happen to look exactly like them? And if so, how come no one ever comments on this? Ok, these are the strange things I think about sometimes. http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/10/17/36455.aspx Post By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 10/17/2008 2:00:54 PM
Body: Hollywood has been making movies about movies almost as long as they’ve been making movies. But what’s the appeal of a movie about a movie? Assuming there is one; according to Box Office Mojo, a movie about a movie hasn’t grossed significantly over $100 million in twenty years, and that one had the obvious advantage of offering a glimpse into the marriage of a cartoon bombshell and a rabbit. But what is it that makes the legitimately great Hollywood movies––the Sunset Boulevards, the Bad and the Beautifuls, the Players –– legitimately great? Maybe at some point, they were able to convincingly offer the illusion that one had been temporarily invited into an inner sanctum, seen the secret lives of stars, given a lesson in how the sausage is made, but today it’s hard to imagine anyone really believing that a given film has the power to blow the lid off the dream factory. The great Hollywood movies do traffic in the illusion of taking the viewer “inside,” but by layering irony, melodrama, and critique, they never fully strip Hollywood of its inherent mystery, which verges on mysticism. Hollywood plays itself best when reinforcing the tenants of its own myth, particularly those involving stars. At the end of a serious film about the movies, even a bone-dry satire like The Player, we’re supposed to walk away remaining a bit mystified as to the way that world works, as if it’s beyond and above both the constraints and the moral codes of “real life.” Old Hollywood reinforced its structuring lies by making movies which pushed the tacit understanding that us mere mortals would be out of our league if ever asked to operate under Hollywood’s dark laws. What Just Happened? doesn’t feel like a serious film, but that’s not necessarily a reason to not recommend it. The reason to not recommend it is that it has no concept of that sense of mystery, and without it, it feels like there’s nothing at stake. And also, its best joke is the suggestion that Bruce Willis might be concerned with his own artistic integrity. Lacking any sense of connection to classical Hollywood meta-mythology yet filled with late 20th century cliche (Hollywood: it employs a lot of Jews!), Barry Levinson’s dramatization of real-life producer Art Linson’s memoir plays a lot like a feature-length episode of Entourage with a severe shortage of bimbos and hanger-on douchebags. If that sounds like an improvement on the Entourage formula, well, sort of. But the three sources of tensions entangled in Linson’s script never amount to much, which this isn’t a disappointment, exactly, because it was always clear they didn’t have any real weight to begin with. Sprinkled with sore-thumb julienne-cut transitions and the odd deadpan dream sequence, What Just Happened? is an impatient zoom through a couple of days in the life of a harried super-producer (Robert DeNiro) modeled on Linson (who also produced this film). DeNiro battles a number of roughly-sketched personal problems and completely mundane professional problems. Like the Hollywood blockbusters his Linson clone produces (but which the film never sufficiently skewers), each of Happened?’s conflicts can be boiled down to a single, high-concept, 20 words or less logline that leaves no loose end untied. He’s got two weeks to get an addled artiste to tone down his ultraviolent Sean Penn vehicle before Cannes! He’s got three days to get Bruce Willis to stop throwing tantrums and shave his beard before the cameras roll! He’s got an open invite for nooners with his ex-wife, even though she’s clearly sleeping with a screenwriter with an argyle fetish! Of course, the best moments have nothing to do with any of these ticking time bombs; DeNiro is able to momentarily resucitate interest when animating Linson in his down time–when he quietly breaks out the Just For Men, when he slips into an angry fantasy at a funeral and then slips right out again. Otherwise, he’s just playing connect the dots. That the bulk of the narrative streams out from a disasterous out-of-town test screening is unfortunate. As you may have heard by now, What Just Happened premiered at Sundance in January as a title with “buzz”, but once unveiled it was greeted with general indifference. Its Cannes premiere went a bit better, but an American distribution deal still proved elusive, and producers 2929 Entertainment eventually gave up the hunt for a suitor and decided to release the film through sister company Magnolia. You almost wonder if a cataclysmic premiere in another town would have been preferable — at least distaste or disgust might have aroused curiosity. You’d imagine there’d be more gravy to milk from anger than from a shrug. As it is, you can understand why buyer interest would be restrained. What Just Happened? is rarely unpleasant, but it even more rarely feels like it’s doing much of anything at all. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:00:54 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog10/17/2008 2:00:54 PMHollywood has been making movies about movies almost as long as they’ve been making movies. But what’s the appeal of a movie about a movie? Assuming there is one; according to Box Office Mojo, a movie about a movie hasn’t grossed significantly over $100 million in twenty years, and that one had the obvious advantage of offering a glimpse into the marriage of a cartoon bombshell and a rabbit. But what is it that makes the legitimately great Hollywood movies––the Sunset Boulevards, the Bad and the Beautifuls, the Players –– legitimately great? Maybe at some point, they were able to convincingly offer the illusion that one had been temporarily invited into an inner sanctum, seen the secret lives of stars, given a lesson in how the sausage is made, but today it’s hard to imagine anyone really believing that a given film has the power to blow the lid off the dream factory. The great Hollywood movies do traffic in the illusion of taking the viewer “inside,” but by layering irony, melodrama, and critique, they never fully strip Hollywood of its inherent mystery, which verges on mysticism. Hollywood plays itself best when reinforcing the tenants of its own myth, particularly those involving stars. At the end of a serious film about the movies, even a bone-dry satire like The Player, we’re supposed to walk away remaining a bit mystified as to the way that world works, as if it’s beyond and above both the constraints and the moral codes of “real life.” Old Hollywood reinforced its structuring lies by making movies which pushed the tacit understanding that us mere mortals would be out of our league if ever asked to operate under Hollywood’s dark laws. What Just Happened? doesn’t feel like a serious film, but that’s not necessarily a reason to not recommend it. The reason to not recommend it is that it has no concept of that sense of mystery, and without it, it feels like there’s nothing at stake. And also, its best joke is the suggestion that Bruce Willis might be concerned with his own artistic integrity. Lacking any sense of connection to classical Hollywood meta-mythology yet filled with late 20th century cliche (Hollywood: it employs a lot of Jews!), Barry Levinson’s dramatization of real-life producer Art Linson’s memoir plays a lot like a feature-length episode of Entourage with a severe shortage of bimbos and hanger-on douchebags. If that sounds like an improvement on the Entourage formula, well, sort of. But the three sources of tensions entangled in Linson’s script never amount to much, which this isn’t a disappointment, exactly, because it was always clear they didn’t have any real weight to begin with. Sprinkled with sore-thumb julienne-cut transitions and the odd deadpan dream sequence, What Just Happened? is an impatient zoom through a couple of days in the life of a harried super-producer (Robert DeNiro) modeled on Linson (who also produced this film). DeNiro battles a number of roughly-sketched personal problems and completely mundane professional problems. Like the Hollywood blockbusters his Linson clone produces (but which the film never sufficiently skewers), each of Happened?’s conflicts can be boiled down to a single, high-concept, 20 words or less logline that leaves no loose end untied. He’s got two weeks to get an addled artiste to tone down his ultraviolent Sean Penn vehicle before Cannes! He’s got three days to get Bruce Willis to stop throwing tantrums and shave his beard before the cameras roll! He’s got an open invite for nooners with his ex-wife, even though she’s clearly sleeping with a screenwriter with an argyle fetish! Of course, the best moments have nothing to do with any of these ticking time bombs; DeNiro is able to momentarily resucitate interest when animating Linson in his down time–when he quietly breaks out the Just For Men, when he slips into an angry fantasy at a funeral and then slips right out again. Otherwise, he’s just playing connect the dots. That the bulk of the narrative streams out from a disasterous out-of-town test screening is unfortunate. As you may have heard by now, What Just Happened premiered at Sundance in January as a title with “buzz”, but once unveiled it was greeted with general indifference. Its Cannes premiere went a bit better, but an American distribution deal still proved elusive, and producers 2929 Entertainment eventually gave up the hunt for a suitor and decided to release the film through sister company Magnolia. You almost wonder if a cataclysmic premiere in another town would have been preferable — at least distaste or disgust might have aroused curiosity. You’d imagine there’d be more gravy to milk from anger than from a shrug. As it is, you can understand why buyer interest would be restrained. What Just Happened? is rarely unpleasant, but it even more rarely feels like it’s doing much of anything at all. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/10/17/36454.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 10/17/2008 2:00:44 PM
Body: Hollywood has been making movies about movies almost as long as they’ve been making movies. But what’s the appeal of a movie about a movie? Assuming there is one; according to Box Office Mojo, a movie about a movie hasn’t grossed significantly over $100 million in twenty years, and that one had the obvious advantage of offering a glimpse into the marriage of a cartoon bombshell and a rabbit. But what is it that makes the legitimately great Hollywood movies––the Sunset Boulevards, the Bad and the Beautifuls, the Players –– legitimately great? Maybe at some point, they were able to convincingly offer the illusion that one had been temporarily invited into an inner sanctum, seen the secret lives of stars, given a lesson in how the sausage is made, but today it’s hard to imagine anyone really believing that a given film has the power to blow the lid off the dream factory. The great Hollywood movies do traffic in the illusion of taking the viewer “inside,” but by layering irony, melodrama, and critique, they never fully strip Hollywood of its inherent mystery, which verges on mysticism. Hollywood plays itself best when reinforcing the tenants of its own myth, particularly those involving stars. At the end of a serious film about the movies, even a bone-dry satire like The Player, we’re supposed to walk away remaining a bit mystified as to the way that world works, as if it’s beyond and above both the constraints and the moral codes of “real life.” Old Hollywood reinforced its structuring lies by making movies which pushed the tacit understanding that us mere mortals would be out of our league if ever asked to operate under Hollywood’s dark laws. What Just Happened? doesn’t feel like a serious film, but that’s not necessarily a reason to not recommend it. The reason to not recommend it is that it has no concept of that sense of mystery, and without it, it feels like there’s nothing at stake. And also, its best joke is the suggestion that Bruce Willis might be concerned with his own artistic integrity. Lacking any sense of connection to classical Hollywood meta-mythology yet filled with late 20th century cliche (Hollywood: it employs a lot of Jews!), Barry Levinson’s dramatization of real-life producer Art Linson’s memoir plays a lot like a feature-length episode of Entourage with a severe shortage of bimbos and hanger-on douchebags. If that sounds like an improvement on the Entourage formula, well, sort of. But the three sources of tensions entangled in Linson’s script never amount to much, which this isn’t a disappointment, exactly, because it was always clear they didn’t have any real weight to begin with. Sprinkled with sore-thumb julienne-cut transitions and the odd deadpan dream sequence, What Just Happened? is an impatient zoom through a couple of days in the life of a harried super-producer (Robert DeNiro) modeled on Linson (who also produced this film). DeNiro battles a number of roughly-sketched personal problems and completely mundane professional problems. Like the Hollywood blockbusters his Linson clone produces (but which the film never sufficiently skewers), each of Happened?’s conflicts can be boiled down to a single, high-concept, 20 words or less logline that leaves no loose end untied. He’s got two weeks to get an addled artiste to tone down his ultraviolent Sean Penn vehicle before Cannes! He’s got three days to get Bruce Willis to stop throwing tantrums and shave his beard before the cameras roll! He’s got an open invite for nooners with his ex-wife, even though she’s clearly sleeping with a screenwriter with an argyle fetish! Of course, the best moments have nothing to do with any of these ticking time bombs; DeNiro is able to momentarily resucitate interest when animating Linson in his down time–when he quietly breaks out the Just For Men, when he slips into an angry fantasy at a funeral and then slips right out again. Otherwise, he’s just playing connect the dots. That the bulk of the narrative streams out from a disasterous out-of-town test screening is unfortunate. As you may have heard by now, What Just Happened premiered at Sundance in January as a title with “buzz”, but once unveiled it was greeted with general indifference. Its Cannes premiere went a bit better, but an American distribution deal still proved elusive, and producers 2929 Entertainment eventually gave up the hunt for a suitor and decided to release the film through sister company Magnolia. You almost wonder if a cataclysmic premiere in another town would have been preferable — at least distaste or disgust might have aroused curiosity. You’d imagine there’d be more gravy to milk from anger than from a shrug. As it is, you can understand why buyer interest would be restrained. What Just Happened? is rarely unpleasant, but it even more rarely feels like it’s doing much of anything at all. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Fri, 17 Oct 2008 18:00:44 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com10/17/2008 2:00:44 PMHollywood has been making movies about movies almost as long as they’ve been making movies. But what’s the appeal of a movie about a movie? Assuming there is one; according to Box Office Mojo, a movie about a movie hasn’t grossed significantly over $100 million in twenty years, and that one had the obvious advantage of offering a glimpse into the marriage of a cartoon bombshell and a rabbit. But what is it that makes the legitimately great Hollywood movies––the Sunset Boulevards, the Bad and the Beautifuls, the Players –– legitimately great? Maybe at some point, they were able to convincingly offer the illusion that one had been temporarily invited into an inner sanctum, seen the secret lives of stars, given a lesson in how the sausage is made, but today it’s hard to imagine anyone really believing that a given film has the power to blow the lid off the dream factory. The great Hollywood movies do traffic in the illusion of taking the viewer “inside,” but by layering irony, melodrama, and critique, they never fully strip Hollywood of its inherent mystery, which verges on mysticism. Hollywood plays itself best when reinforcing the tenants of its own myth, particularly those involving stars. At the end of a serious film about the movies, even a bone-dry satire like The Player, we’re supposed to walk away remaining a bit mystified as to the way that world works, as if it’s beyond and above both the constraints and the moral codes of “real life.” Old Hollywood reinforced its structuring lies by making movies which pushed the tacit understanding that us mere mortals would be out of our league if ever asked to operate under Hollywood’s dark laws. What Just Happened? doesn’t feel like a serious film, but that’s not necessarily a reason to not recommend it. The reason to not recommend it is that it has no concept of that sense of mystery, and without it, it feels like there’s nothing at stake. And also, its best joke is the suggestion that Bruce Willis might be concerned with his own artistic integrity. Lacking any sense of connection to classical Hollywood meta-mythology yet filled with late 20th century cliche (Hollywood: it employs a lot of Jews!), Barry Levinson’s dramatization of real-life producer Art Linson’s memoir plays a lot like a feature-length episode of Entourage with a severe shortage of bimbos and hanger-on douchebags. If that sounds like an improvement on the Entourage formula, well, sort of. But the three sources of tensions entangled in Linson’s script never amount to much, which this isn’t a disappointment, exactly, because it was always clear they didn’t have any real weight to begin with. Sprinkled with sore-thumb julienne-cut transitions and the odd deadpan dream sequence, What Just Happened? is an impatient zoom through a couple of days in the life of a harried super-producer (Robert DeNiro) modeled on Linson (who also produced this film). DeNiro battles a number of roughly-sketched personal problems and completely mundane professional problems. Like the Hollywood blockbusters his Linson clone produces (but which the film never sufficiently skewers), each of Happened?’s conflicts can be boiled down to a single, high-concept, 20 words or less logline that leaves no loose end untied. He’s got two weeks to get an addled artiste to tone down his ultraviolent Sean Penn vehicle before Cannes! He’s got three days to get Bruce Willis to stop throwing tantrums and shave his beard before the cameras roll! He’s got an open invite for nooners with his ex-wife, even though she’s clearly sleeping with a screenwriter with an argyle fetish! Of course, the best moments have nothing to do with any of these ticking time bombs; DeNiro is able to momentarily resucitate interest when animating Linson in his down time–when he quietly breaks out the Just For Men, when he slips into an angry fantasy at a funeral and then slips right out again. Otherwise, he’s just playing connect the dots. That the bulk of the narrative streams out from a disasterous out-of-town test screening is unfortunate. As you may have heard by now, What Just Happened premiered at Sundance in January as a title with “buzz”, but once unveiled it was greeted with general indifference. Its Cannes premiere went a bit better, but an American distribution deal still proved elusive, and producers 2929 Entertainment eventually gave up the hunt for a suitor and decided to release the film through sister company Magnolia. You almost wonder if a cataclysmic premiere in another town would have been preferable — at least distaste or disgust might have aroused curiosity. You’d imagine there’d be more gravy to milk from anger than from a shrug. As it is, you can understand why buyer interest would be restrained. What Just Happened? is rarely unpleasant, but it even more rarely feels like it’s doing much of anything at all. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/groups/Forever_Young/Re_Top_5_Films_of_the_90s/85/35735/1/ShowPost.aspx Post By: Jymkata
Post To: Forever Young
Post Date: 9/30/2008 7:22:27 PM
Body: 1. Goodfellas - barely gets in as a 90's movie (1990), but it is my favorite Scorsese. Although I like Dances With Wolves, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth that it won over Goodfellas at the Oscars. Iconic movie. 2. L.A. Confidential - doesn't feel like a 90's movie because of the time period detail, but I love this film so much that I had a hard time deciding on making it 1 or 2. I will love Russell Crowe forever for his portrayal of Bud White. This Oscar loss hurt more than Goodfellas and I will always be cynical about the Academy for rewarding Titanic over this. 3. The Player - OK, this one definitely feels like and looks like a 90's movie, but it will never feel dated to me. Like most of Altman's films it is a capsule of a specific time and place. This is the ultimate film lover's treasure hunt - references galore! 4. Hard-Boiled - I will throw in an international film with this John Woo action pic. and it's a brilliant one. I prefer this over Woo's The Killer, but they are both perfect genre representatives. Woo's bullet ballet has become a parody of itself, but this film is a masterpiece of staging and Chow Yun-Fat turns in his best performance. 5. Bottle Rocket - This is Wes Anderson's "smallest" film, but it is indie perfection. The Wilson brothers have never been so good and I laugh just thinking of certain scenes in this favorite. I can forgive Anderson for The Darjeeling Limited (which is hard for me to do) because of Bottle Rocket.
]]>Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:22:27 GMTJymkataForever Young9/30/2008 7:22:27 PM1. Goodfellas - barely gets in as a 90's movie (1990), but it is my favorite Scorsese. Although I like Dances With Wolves, it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth that it won over Goodfellas at the Oscars. Iconic movie. 2. L.A. Confidential - doesn't feel like a 90's movie because of the time period detail, but I love this film so much that I had a hard time deciding on making it 1 or 2. I will love Russell Crowe forever for his portrayal of Bud White. This Oscar loss hurt more than Goodfellas and I will always be cynical about the Academy for rewarding Titanic over this. 3. The Player - OK, this one definitely feels like and looks like a 90's movie, but it will never feel dated to me. Like most of Altman's films it is a capsule of a specific time and place. This is the ultimate film lover's treasure hunt - references galore! 4. Hard-Boiled - I will throw in an international film with this John Woo action pic. and it's a brilliant one. I prefer this over Woo's The Killer, but they are both perfect genre representatives. Woo's bullet ballet has become a parody of itself, but this film is a masterpiece of staging and Chow Yun-Fat turns in his best performance. 5. Bottle Rocket - This is Wes Anderson's "smallest" film, but it is indie perfection. The Wilson brothers have never been so good and I laugh just thinking of certain scenes in this favorite. I can forgive Anderson for The Darjeeling Limited (which is hard for me to do) because of Bottle Rocket. http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/8/11/33867.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 8/11/2008 4:00:43 PM
Body: Lists of movies within movies are fairly common on the internet, enough that I now realize I need to finally see Bowfinger simply because I’ve counted about a million list makers in love with something titled “Chubby Rain.” And the lists are likely to keep on coming thanks to this week’s hot release, Tropic Thunder, which actually features two movies within (the Vietnam War film “Tropic Thunder” and the festival-winning making-of documentary “Rain of Madness”), as well as the upcoming How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which has spawned a popular fake movie trailer for an NC-17 film titled “Mother Theresa: The Making of a Saint” (previewed above). Yet until someone makes a Wikipedia page for “List of Fictional Films,” these blogged and forumed lists are necessary to keep us movie fans remembering those non-existent movies we wish existed. Narrowing down to ten seemed to be difficult — fictional films have been at least nominally been created for tons of films about filmmaking, otherwise reflexive films, sketch comedies, spoofs, etc. — until I realized that a lot of these films within films are appropriately nominal or trailer- or clip-sized gags and would in reality be terrible (imagine actually watching the entirety of “Asses of Fire” from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut). Even “Je Vous Présente Paméla” (”Meet Pamela”) from Day for Night and the sci-fi film being made in 8½ would probably be major disappointments in actuality if you expected from them the work of Truffaut and Fellini, respectively. So, I went mostly with fictional films that would probably be bad, but would at least be amusingly bad — though I purposefully avoided fictional porns, including those from Boogie Nights and The Big Lebowski, of which there are literally thousands: “Gandhi II” from UHF - There’s just something about watching good people gone bad. But while the idea of the Good Will Hunting sequel, subtitled “Hunting Season”, thought up for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is pretty ingenious, it just doesn’t have the same level of ludicrous exaggeration that a bloodletting follow-up to the Oscar-winning Gandhi has. Dude drives a Ferrari, can punch completely through a guy’s abdomen, and of course he knows how to party. He even eats meat, now. It’s not only funny because it’s the antithesis of what the Indian leader was all about, it’s also funny because it reminds me of all those straight-edge and vegetarian kids you knew in high school who now drink way too much (oh, yeah, I’m one of them). “Odyssey” from Contempt - When Fritz Lang showed up as himself in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, he’d already given the world his final film as a director (The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse). If only he’d really given us this one additional adaptation of Homer’s epic poem. Either as an art film, as Lang originally intends, or as a more commercial picture, as desired by the American producer played by Jack Palance. “Ants in Your Pants 1938″ from Sullivan’s Travels - The other famously named film within this film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” was, at least in title, already made by the Coen brothers (see the side-by-side comparison in the video above — interestingly enough, their O Brother, Where Art Thou? is also an adaptation of Homer’s “Odyssey”, uniting #2 and #3 of this list). But I always try to imagine what a film titled “Ants in Your Pants 1938″ would have looked like. I always picture a cross between the Marx Brothers and Busby Berkeley, yet it’s got to be more shallow than that, according to how it’s referenced in Preston Sturges’ movie. “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure - What fan of the real Big Adventure wouldn’t like to watch it all over again as an action picture starring James Brolin and Morgan Fairchild? Maybe it wouldn’t be as good, but it does have ninjas. Anyway, because I love to relate seemingly unrelated movies via lists, let it be known that an episode of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse was titled “Ants in Your Pants”. And now that I think about it, that show was kinda like a cross between the Marx Brothers and Busby Berkeley. Kinda. “Habeas Corpus” from The Player - It’s a common staple for lists like this, and pretty much all Bruce Willis movies from the first half of the ’90s were awful (obviously Pulp Fiction is an exception), but I’d definitely watch the whole of this fake film, even though I’ve already seen how it ends. As with Fritz Lang’s “Odyssey”, I’d be curious to see both the originally planned version and the commercialized final version. “Crossed Sabres of Truth” from The Big Picture - Forget “Home for Purim”, that lame movie within a movie from Christopher Guest’s For Your Consideration. This earlier satire of Hollywood from Guest had far greater fake films, most of them fake student films, such as this one, made by the full-of-himself character played by Dan Schneider. It may not have starred Elliott Gould (as does “The Trial of Janet Kingsley”), or been an overly avant-garde work titled “Afterbirth of a Notion” (which reminds me of the opening to Pee-Wee’s Playhouse), or the actual winner of the National Film Institute’s student film award (that would be Kevin Bacon’s character’s “First Date”), but it has the fat kid from Head of the Class and Better Off Dead riding a horse in a 19th century war movie. How could you not want to see more? “See You Next Wednesday” from The Kentucky Fried Movie - I’m probably a bigger fan of weird movie theater gimmicks than the average moviegoer, but that’s probably because I didn’t get a chance to live through things like Smell-O-Vision, which sound neat in theory but which were reportedly very obnoxious in reality (I recently wrote elsewhere about how the return of Smell-O-Vision in pre-show advertising sounds terrible). The joke about “See You Next Wednesday” (a fake movie title referenced in most of John Landis’ films) is that it’s in “feel-around”, a gimmick that’s clearly annoying to experience. I’d definitely be willing to try it out once, though. Especially if it’s the closest thing I could get to one of the Feelies (tactual motion pictures) from Huxley’s “Brave New World”. “MANT” from Matinee - Movie theater gimmicks also have me curious about experiencing the schlock horror film shown in Atomo-Vision and Rumble-Rama. This is one of those film within a films that you get to see more than enough footage of, but I want to actually suffer it as it’s intended to be seen. “Jews in Space” from History of the World, Part I - Mel Brooks eventually did make a Star Wars spoof, one that featured a lot of Jews in space (Spaceballs), but that doesn’t mean this earlier parody idea wouldn’t also be worth seeing. I’d even settle for seeing the apparently hilarious 2005 Argentine film Jews in Space Or Why Is This Night Different, which unfortunately doesn’t seem to actually take place in space nor, tragically, involve spaceships shaped like the Star of David. “Those Darn Amigos” from ¡Three Amigos! - Because the synopsis of Tropic Thunder reminds me of the plot to Three Amigos, I feel it appropriate to include one of the fake films from the underrated comedy. At the beginning of the movie, we see one of the silent movies starring the Three Amigos (see the clip above), but I’m more interested in the trio’s flop, which diverted from the usual premise to be about three wealthy Spanish landowners who take a little vacation in Manhattan. If it didn’t appeal to the masses, I’ll probably love it. I’d also settle for seeing one of the early shorts featuring Ned Nederlander (Martin Short) known as “Little Neddy’s Knickers.” Considering ¡Three Amigos! is set in 1916, and Short was in his mid-30s, I believe it impossible that Ned could have been a child star of any younger than 30, so I’m pretty curious. BONUS: “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” from Lost in La Mancha - It isn’t a fake film, but it is technically a film within a film. And it’s so far non-existent, really. Terry Gilliam’s attempted loose adaptation of Cervantes was actually being made, with Johnny Depp in the lead. However, due to multiple complications, the production was canceled after shooting had begun, and all that remained was Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s depressing documentary Lost in La Mancha. Because sometimes the gods are good to us Gilliam fans, though, it was recently announced that the film is on being attempted again, reportedly still with Depp and possibly also starring Michael Palin. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:00:43 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com8/11/2008 4:00:43 PM Lists of movies within movies are fairly common on the internet, enough that I now realize I need to finally see Bowfinger simply because I’ve counted about a million list makers in love with something titled “Chubby Rain.” And the lists are likely to keep on coming thanks to this week’s hot release, Tropic Thunder, which actually features two movies within (the Vietnam War film “Tropic Thunder” and the festival-winning making-of documentary “Rain of Madness”), as well as the upcoming How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which has spawned a popular fake movie trailer for an NC-17 film titled “Mother Theresa: The Making of a Saint” (previewed above). Yet until someone makes a Wikipedia page for “List of Fictional Films,” these blogged and forumed lists are necessary to keep us movie fans remembering those non-existent movies we wish existed. Narrowing down to ten seemed to be difficult — fictional films have been at least nominally been created for tons of films about filmmaking, otherwise reflexive films, sketch comedies, spoofs, etc. — until I realized that a lot of these films within films are appropriately nominal or trailer- or clip-sized gags and would in reality be terrible (imagine actually watching the entirety of “Asses of Fire” from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut). Even “Je Vous Présente Paméla” (”Meet Pamela”) from Day for Night and the sci-fi film being made in 8½ would probably be major disappointments in actuality if you expected from them the work of Truffaut and Fellini, respectively. So, I went mostly with fictional films that would probably be bad, but would at least be amusingly bad — though I purposefully avoided fictional porns, including those from Boogie Nights and The Big Lebowski, of which there are literally thousands: “Gandhi II” from UHF - There’s just something about watching good people gone bad. But while the idea of the Good Will Hunting sequel, subtitled “Hunting Season”, thought up for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is pretty ingenious, it just doesn’t have the same level of ludicrous exaggeration that a bloodletting follow-up to the Oscar-winning Gandhi has. Dude drives a Ferrari, can punch completely through a guy’s abdomen, and of course he knows how to party. He even eats meat, now. It’s not only funny because it’s the antithesis of what the Indian leader was all about, it’s also funny because it reminds me of all those straight-edge and vegetarian kids you knew in high school who now drink way too much (oh, yeah, I’m one of them). “Odyssey” from Contempt - When Fritz Lang showed up as himself in Jean-Luc Godard’s Contempt, he’d already given the world his final film as a director (The 1,000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse). If only he’d really given us this one additional adaptation of Homer’s epic poem. Either as an art film, as Lang originally intends, or as a more commercial picture, as desired by the American producer played by Jack Palance. “Ants in Your Pants 1938″ from Sullivan’s Travels - The other famously named film within this film, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” was, at least in title, already made by the Coen brothers (see the side-by-side comparison in the video above — interestingly enough, their O Brother, Where Art Thou? is also an adaptation of Homer’s “Odyssey”, uniting #2 and #3 of this list). But I always try to imagine what a film titled “Ants in Your Pants 1938″ would have looked like. I always picture a cross between the Marx Brothers and Busby Berkeley, yet it’s got to be more shallow than that, according to how it’s referenced in Preston Sturges’ movie. “Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure” from Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure - What fan of the real Big Adventure wouldn’t like to watch it all over again as an action picture starring James Brolin and Morgan Fairchild? Maybe it wouldn’t be as good, but it does have ninjas. Anyway, because I love to relate seemingly unrelated movies via lists, let it be known that an episode of Pee-Wee’s Playhouse was titled “Ants in Your Pants”. And now that I think about it, that show was kinda like a cross between the Marx Brothers and Busby Berkeley. Kinda. “Habeas Corpus” from The Player - It’s a common staple for lists like this, and pretty much all Bruce Willis movies from the first half of the ’90s were awful (obviously Pulp Fiction is an exception), but I’d definitely watch the whole of this fake film, even though I’ve already seen how it ends. As with Fritz Lang’s “Odyssey”, I’d be curious to see both the originally planned version and the commercialized final version. “Crossed Sabres of Truth” from The Big Picture - Forget “Home for Purim”, that lame movie within a movie from Christopher Guest’s For Your Consideration. This earlier satire of Hollywood from Guest had far greater fake films, most of them fake student films, such as this one, made by the full-of-himself character played by Dan Schneider. It may not have starred Elliott Gould (as does “The Trial of Janet Kingsley”), or been an overly avant-garde work titled “Afterbirth of a Notion” (which reminds me of the opening to Pee-Wee’s Playhouse), or the actual winner of the National Film Institute’s student film award (that would be Kevin Bacon’s character’s “First Date”), but it has the fat kid from Head of the Class and Better Off Dead riding a horse in a 19th century war movie. How could you not want to see more? “See You Next Wednesday” from The Kentucky Fried Movie - I’m probably a bigger fan of weird movie theater gimmicks than the average moviegoer, but that’s probably because I didn’t get a chance to live through things like Smell-O-Vision, which sound neat in theory but which were reportedly very obnoxious in reality (I recently wrote elsewhere about how the return of Smell-O-Vision in pre-show advertising sounds terrible). The joke about “See You Next Wednesday” (a fake movie title referenced in most of John Landis’ films) is that it’s in “feel-around”, a gimmick that’s clearly annoying to experience. I’d definitely be willing to try it out once, though. Especially if it’s the closest thing I could get to one of the Feelies (tactual motion pictures) from Huxley’s “Brave New World”. “MANT” from Matinee - Movie theater gimmicks also have me curious about experiencing the schlock horror film shown in Atomo-Vision and Rumble-Rama. This is one of those film within a films that you get to see more than enough footage of, but I want to actually suffer it as it’s intended to be seen. “Jews in Space” from History of the World, Part I - Mel Brooks eventually did make a Star Wars spoof, one that featured a lot of Jews in space (Spaceballs), but that doesn’t mean this earlier parody idea wouldn’t also be worth seeing. I’d even settle for seeing the apparently hilarious 2005 Argentine film Jews in Space Or Why Is This Night Different, which unfortunately doesn’t seem to actually take place in space nor, tragically, involve spaceships shaped like the Star of David. “Those Darn Amigos” from ¡Three Amigos! - Because the synopsis of Tropic Thunder reminds me of the plot to Three Amigos, I feel it appropriate to include one of the fake films from the underrated comedy. At the beginning of the movie, we see one of the silent movies starring the Three Amigos (see the clip above), but I’m more interested in the trio’s flop, which diverted from the usual premise to be about three wealthy Spanish landowners who take a little vacation in Manhattan. If it didn’t appeal to the masses, I’ll probably love it. I’d also settle for seeing one of the early shorts featuring Ned Nederlander (Martin Short) known as “Little Neddy’s Knickers.” Considering ¡Three Amigos! is set in 1916, and Short was in his mid-30s, I believe it impossible that Ned could have been a child star of any younger than 30, so I’m pretty curious. BONUS: “The Man Who Killed Don Quixote” from Lost in La Mancha - It isn’t a fake film, but it is technically a film within a film. And it’s so far non-existent, really. Terry Gilliam’s attempted loose adaptation of Cervantes was actually being made, with Johnny Depp in the lead. However, due to multiple complications, the production was canceled after shooting had begun, and all that remained was Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe’s depressing documentary Lost in La Mancha. Because sometimes the gods are good to us Gilliam fans, though, it was recently announced that the film is on being attempted again, reportedly still with Depp and possibly also starring Michael Palin. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/6/9/31014.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 6/9/2008 5:01:53 PM
Body: It took me awhile, but last week I finally saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And to agree with many others, I think it features a few too many ludicrous moments. Yet the most outlandish, in my opinion, is the scene in which Indy and Marion seem to reenact His Girl Friday in about four seconds while riding in the back of a truck. I know it’d been awhile, both for them and for us, but I prefer a little more bickering, a little more holding back in comedy of remarriage plots. Anyway, we knew a long time ago, thanks to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, that Indy and Marion didn’t last long together after the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. So, I didn’t really care if they ended up together at the end of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, either. It’s probable they still wouldn’t last. And I think the same often with other unlikely movie couples at the end of their respective films. Fortunately, a number of sequels tell us outright that the romance of the first film failed (see The Karate Kid, Part II and Jurassic Park III). Unfortunately, most of the following films didn’t have follow-ups. But if they had, I bet we’d have discovered the romances didn’t last much longer than the closing credits. Bringing Up Baby: Dr. David Huxley (Cary Grant) and Susan Vance (Katherine Hepburn) - As is the case with most screwball comedies, the leads here just don’t seem that compatible. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Susan was quickly shipped off to a mental hospital for being such a daffy loon. Then there’s the matter of her destroying Huxley’s work at the end. No man would really put up with that, even if there were some attraction. And I never actually bought that there is any attraction from his end. Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II: - Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) and Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) - This franchise utilizes the device of having the couple split up between the first and second films only to get back together at the finish of the sequel. I understand that audiences prefer a happy ending, but when you know they didn’t work out the first time, why would you believe they could work a second time? Because Dana’s baby seems to like Venkman? Apparently so. But those of us who watched the cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters know that had they remained a couple, Dana would have been animated along with the rest of the characters. Amelie - Amelie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) and Nino Quincampoix (Matthieu Kassovitz) - Despite what Hong Kong audiences who saw Happenstance might think, Amelie has not been given a sequel. So we are just to assume that Amelie and Nino live happily ever after, despite the fact that they’ve only just met right before the end of the film. And we never really get to see them have a conversation, either. We just know that Amelie is kind of a creepy, albeit adorable, stalker and that Nino works in a porn shop. Hopefully he kicked her off his motorcycle as soon as the Yann Tiersen score was over (because then she can come stalk me — see, I’m just bitter with this one). Chungking Express: Cop 663 (Tony Leung) and Faye (Faye Wong) - Faye is kind of like the precursor to Amelie, as she’s something of a stalker — but it’s OK, because she’s so darn cute. While the ending of Wong Kar-wai’s film is ambiguous, we’re kind of expected to believe these two end up together. But what happens when Cop 663 realizes how often Faye broke into his apartment? And how often she plays “California Dreaming” over and over and over again? And how capricious girls are tolerable for only so long? The Muppets Take Manhattan: Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy - When I was a kid, I thought it made sense for the frog and the pig to be married at the end of this film. Their relationship had been like a Sam & Diane sort of thing for so many years, it seemed inevitable. But when I got older, I realized that Kermit really has no feelings for Piggy, and it’s even evident by his expression during the wedding scene. And I became angry that Jim Henson and Co. would allow kids to applaud the beginnings of what would be a loveless marriage. While writing this, though, I found out from the Muppet Wiki that in “real life” Kermit denies they were really married and that it was just part of the movie. Apparently Piggy claims otherwise. Meanwhile, for people who are actually fans of the relationship, you can see what their offspring would look like in The Muppet Christmas Carol. Some Like It Hot: Joe (Tony Curis) and Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe) - I’ve never been accepting of characters who woo women with deception such as costume and false identities, and there have been countless examples in both movies and TV throughout the years. Some Like It Hot probably isn’t the first film to feature such fraudulence, but because Joe fools Sugar Kane by being both a good girl friend and a rich suitor he’s double guilty. I trust that even the relationship between Jerry/Daphne (Jack Lemmon) and Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown) lasted longer. Tootsie: Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) and Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange) - This one is pretty much the same as the relationship in Some Like It Hot, only it’s a bit more respectable because Michael is less aggressive in his falling for Julie. Sure, there’s one scene where he’s not in drag and he attempts a kinda sleazy maneuver, but at least he never takes on a yachting outfit and Cary Grant voice. Thankfully, there is no kiss at the end of Tootsie, just forgiveness, and we’re left to think Michael and Julie will only become acquaintances at best. I have doubts that even that relationship lasted very long. Juno: Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) and Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) - High school movie romances should never be believed to last (especially the couples formed at the end of The Breakfast Club). I know, there are a number of high school sweethearts that do get married and live happily ever after. But most of us are not with the boy or girl we dated in high school. Even if there is a baby involved. Personally, I think Paulie Bleeker is too good for Juno, and I think he probably goes on to college and moves on with his life, while doing his part to contribute to the baby, of course. Two Weeks Notice: Lucy Kelson (Sandra Bullock) and George Wade (Hugh Grant) - I’ve witnessed first-hand that opposites can attract. And if I hadn’t, I could always use James Carville and Mary Matalin as a prime example of a couple who shouldn’t work but do. Nonetheless, I don’t buy the union of her environmental lawyer and his billionaire real estate tycoon. Nor do I buy the union of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in the similar pair-up of You’ve Got Mail. If relationships like that were believable, we wouldn’t have so much enjoyed the affair between Jack and C.C. on 30 Rock. The Graduate: Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman, again) and Elaine Robinson (Katherine Ross) - I always assumed it would ultimately bother Elaine too much that Ben had an affair with her mother. I guess if we’re to believe Buck Henry’s cameo in The Player, though, they live quite happily ever after … with Mrs. Robinson. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:01:53 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com6/9/2008 5:01:53 PMIt took me awhile, but last week I finally saw Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And to agree with many others, I think it features a few too many ludicrous moments. Yet the most outlandish, in my opinion, is the scene in which Indy and Marion seem to reenact His Girl Friday in about four seconds while riding in the back of a truck. I know it’d been awhile, both for them and for us, but I prefer a little more bickering, a little more holding back in comedy of remarriage plots. Anyway, we knew a long time ago, thanks to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, that Indy and Marion didn’t last long together after the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. So, I didn’t really care if they ended up together at the end of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, either. It’s probable they still wouldn’t last. And I think the same often with other unlikely movie couples at the end of their respective films. Fortunately, a number of sequels tell us outright that the romance of the first film failed (see The Karate Kid, Part II and Jurassic Park III). Unfortunately, most of the following films didn’t have follow-ups. But if they had, I bet we’d have discovered the romances didn’t last much longer than the closing credits. Bringing Up Baby: Dr. David Huxley (Cary Grant) and Susan Vance (Katherine Hepburn) - As is the case with most screwball comedies, the leads here just don’t seem that compatible. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Susan was quickly shipped off to a mental hospital for being such a daffy loon. Then there’s the matter of her destroying Huxley’s work at the end. No man would really put up with that, even if there were some attraction. And I never actually bought that there is any attraction from his end. Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II: - Dr. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray) and Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver) - This franchise utilizes the device of having the couple split up between the first and second films only to get back together at the finish of the sequel. I understand that audiences prefer a happy ending, but when you know they didn’t work out the first time, why would you believe they could work a second time? Because Dana’s baby seems to like Venkman? Apparently so. But those of us who watched the cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters know that had they remained a couple, Dana would have been animated along with the rest of the characters. Amelie - Amelie Poulain (Audrey Tautou) and Nino Quincampoix (Matthieu Kassovitz) - Despite what Hong Kong audiences who saw Happenstance might think, Amelie has not been given a sequel. So we are just to assume that Amelie and Nino live happily ever after, despite the fact that they’ve only just met right before the end of the film. And we never really get to see them have a conversation, either. We just know that Amelie is kind of a creepy, albeit adorable, stalker and that Nino works in a porn shop. Hopefully he kicked her off his motorcycle as soon as the Yann Tiersen score was over (because then she can come stalk me — see, I’m just bitter with this one). Chungking Express: Cop 663 (Tony Leung) and Faye (Faye Wong) - Faye is kind of like the precursor to Amelie, as she’s something of a stalker — but it’s OK, because she’s so darn cute. While the ending of Wong Kar-wai’s film is ambiguous, we’re kind of expected to believe these two end up together. But what happens when Cop 663 realizes how often Faye broke into his apartment? And how often she plays “California Dreaming” over and over and over again? And how capricious girls are tolerable for only so long? The Muppets Take Manhattan: Kermit the Frog and Miss Piggy - When I was a kid, I thought it made sense for the frog and the pig to be married at the end of this film. Their relationship had been like a Sam & Diane sort of thing for so many years, it seemed inevitable. But when I got older, I realized that Kermit really has no feelings for Piggy, and it’s even evident by his expression during the wedding scene. And I became angry that Jim Henson and Co. would allow kids to applaud the beginnings of what would be a loveless marriage. While writing this, though, I found out from the Muppet Wiki that in “real life” Kermit denies they were really married and that it was just part of the movie. Apparently Piggy claims otherwise. Meanwhile, for people who are actually fans of the relationship, you can see what their offspring would look like in The Muppet Christmas Carol. Some Like It Hot: Joe (Tony Curis) and Sugar Kane Kowalczyk (Marilyn Monroe) - I’ve never been accepting of characters who woo women with deception such as costume and false identities, and there have been countless examples in both movies and TV throughout the years. Some Like It Hot probably isn’t the first film to feature such fraudulence, but because Joe fools Sugar Kane by being both a good girl friend and a rich suitor he’s double guilty. I trust that even the relationship between Jerry/Daphne (Jack Lemmon) and Osgood Fielding III (Joe E. Brown) lasted longer. Tootsie: Michael Dorsey (Dustin Hoffman) and Julie Nichols (Jessica Lange) - This one is pretty much the same as the relationship in Some Like It Hot, only it’s a bit more respectable because Michael is less aggressive in his falling for Julie. Sure, there’s one scene where he’s not in drag and he attempts a kinda sleazy maneuver, but at least he never takes on a yachting outfit and Cary Grant voice. Thankfully, there is no kiss at the end of Tootsie, just forgiveness, and we’re left to think Michael and Julie will only become acquaintances at best. I have doubts that even that relationship lasted very long. Juno: Juno MacGuff (Ellen Page) and Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera) - High school movie romances should never be believed to last (especially the couples formed at the end of The Breakfast Club). I know, there are a number of high school sweethearts that do get married and live happily ever after. But most of us are not with the boy or girl we dated in high school. Even if there is a baby involved. Personally, I think Paulie Bleeker is too good for Juno, and I think he probably goes on to college and moves on with his life, while doing his part to contribute to the baby, of course. Two Weeks Notice: Lucy Kelson (Sandra Bullock) and George Wade (Hugh Grant) - I’ve witnessed first-hand that opposites can attract. And if I hadn’t, I could always use James Carville and Mary Matalin as a prime example of a couple who shouldn’t work but do. Nonetheless, I don’t buy the union of her environmental lawyer and his billionaire real estate tycoon. Nor do I buy the union of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks in the similar pair-up of You’ve Got Mail. If relationships like that were believable, we wouldn’t have so much enjoyed the affair between Jack and C.C. on 30 Rock. The Graduate: Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman, again) and Elaine Robinson (Katherine Ross) - I always assumed it would ultimately bother Elaine too much that Ben had an affair with her mother. I guess if we’re to believe Buck Henry’s cameo in The Player, though, they live quite happily ever after … with Mrs. Robinson. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/mrbuckyk/archive/2008/4/21/27611.aspx Post By: mrbuckyk
Post To: mrbuckyk Blog
Post Date: 4/21/2008 10:02:13 PM
Body: A Robert Altman film from the early 90's, although I had look at the release date to see if it was from the 80's as it had that feel to it. It's a look at Hollywood and not a favorable one at that, but mixed with a murder. It was entertaining, but I wasn't gaga for it. It's known for having so many (around 60) celebrity cameos and while cool it was almost a little distracting. At times it was like watching a Where's Waldo movie. It did have a cool opening shot that was uninterrupted for over 7 minutes while talking about MTV style jump cuts. That was cool...
]]>Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:02:13 GMTmrbuckykmrbuckyk Blog4/21/2008 10:02:13 PMA Robert Altman film from the early 90&#39;s, although I had look at the release date to see if it was from the 80&#39;s as it had that feel to it. It&#39;s a look at Hollywood and not a favorable one at that, but mixed with a murder. It was entertaining, but I wasn&#39;t gaga for it. It&#39;s known for having so many (around 60) celebrity cameos and while cool it was almost a little distracting. At times it was like watching a Where&#39;s Waldo movie. It did have a cool opening shot that was uninterrupted for over 7 minutes while talking about MTV style jump cuts. That was cool... http://www.spout.com/blogs/risselada/archive/2007/9/17/19868.aspx Post By: Risselada
Post To: Risselada Blog
Post Date: 9/17/2007 2:45:50 PM
Body: This blog entry is part of my “movie year countdown”. To read more about that check out my first Spout filmblog entryShort CutsI'd seen two other Altman movies before this. I loved The Player but M*A*S*H was not quite as great as I was hoping. I knew I was taking a risk on a movie nearly 3 hours long, but luckily it was fantastic.While they are definitely two different approaches, the movie uses it's huge cast with unusual connections successfully in the same way as Magnolia. I think that Magnolia is the improvement, but in a way you should not compare them. I'd never read any of Raymond Carver's writings, but would be interested after this.As a movie fan though I think the most initially overwhelming and impressive thing about this movie is the cast list. As you are watching the opening titles and the names just keep coming at you like an unstoppable barrage you aren't quite sure what to think. A lot of movies with a huge cast of celebrities like this often bomb. But usually those types of movies are average length comedies where each actor basically gets a cameo and some goofy joke line. In this situation each actor gets plenty of time over the 3 hours to really bring every fully formed character to life.Each story is wonderful and it's hard to pick a favorite. It would have been great to watch even if the different Carver stories had all been completely separate. But the most overwhelming and impressive thing about the movie subsequent to watching it is thinking about all the different connections. I'm such a geek that I wrote down every character and drew lines to the other characters to see how many different characters had interactions with or were related to other characters. It's pretty impressive. But the movie is so long and there are so many characters it rarely feels forced.Altman is an interesting guy. I'm curious to see some more facets of his work, even though sometimes some of his politics of things annoy me. Mostly I'm interested.Rating: 9/10
]]>Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:45:50 GMTRisseladaRisselada Blog9/17/2007 2:45:50 PMThis blog entry is part of my &ldquo;movie year countdown&rdquo;. To read more about that check out my first Spout filmblog entryShort CutsI&#39;d seen two other Altman movies before this. I loved The Player but M*A*S*H was not quite as great as I was hoping. I knew I was taking a risk on a movie nearly 3 hours long, but luckily it was fantastic.While they are definitely two different approaches, the movie uses it&#39;s huge cast with unusual connections successfully in the same way as Magnolia. I think that Magnolia is the improvement, but in a way you should not compare them. I&#39;d never read any of Raymond Carver&#39;s writings, but would be interested after this.As a movie fan though I think the most initially overwhelming and impressive thing about this movie is the cast list. As you are watching the opening titles and the names just keep coming at you like an unstoppable barrage you aren&#39;t quite sure what to think. A lot of movies with a huge cast of celebrities like this often bomb. But usually those types of movies are average length comedies where each actor basically gets a cameo and some goofy joke line. In this situation each actor gets plenty of time over the 3 hours to really bring every fully formed character to life.Each story is wonderful and it&#39;s hard to pick a favorite. It would have been great to watch even if the different Carver stories had all been completely separate. But the most overwhelming and impressive thing about the movie subsequent to watching it is thinking about all the different connections. I&#39;m such a geek that I wrote down every character and drew lines to the other characters to see how many different characters had interactions with or were related to other characters. It&#39;s pretty impressive. But the movie is so long and there are so many characters it rarely feels forced.Altman is an interesting guy. I&#39;m curious to see some more facets of his work, even though sometimes some of his politics of things annoy me. Mostly I&#39;m interested.Rating: 9/10 http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/murder/MemberTagFilms.aspxmurder
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