September 3rd, 2010 03:55pm
Will Pfeifer
John Huston (from left), Orson Welles and Peter Bogdanovich.
Acclaimed director and famed ascot wearer Peter Bogdanovich, the man behind “The Last Picture Show,” “Paper Moon” and the cult classic “Targets,” has launched a blog devoted to classic films. Bogdanovich, who spent his early years interviewing such legends as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Orson Welles, Fritz Lang, Frank Capra, Otto Preminger, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne, is uniquely suited for writing such a blog.
Here’s what he says we can expect:
“We’ll be posting at least one piece about a classic film every week—Peter’s Picture Pick of the Week—with five films to start with, five the second week, and generally one a week from then on. In a month or so we’ll be starting a series called The Golden Age of American Talkies: 1929-1962; this will consist of a yearly best films list in order of my preference, together with a section of notes on the choices. We’ll be starting with two years and then do a new year every other week. One other section will feature a selection of comments on relevant films as they appeared in my personal card file, which I kept current on every movie I saw—including shorts—from 1952 through 1970; we will be scanning the original cards themselves, and upload them for you as they actually look.”
Sounds good to me. You can check out his blog here.Â
September 3rd, 2010 11:42am
Will Pfeifer
Featuring George Clooney as an assassin (weapon of choice: guns), Danny Trejo as an assassin (weapon of choice: machetes) and, um, Drew Barrymore and Justin Long as a couple of young lovers (weapon of choice: heartwarming humor).
September 3rd, 2010 08:27am
Will Pfeifer
Normally here at the Movie Man site, we try to keep our hands clean and stay above the usual gossip mongering, which is why Lindsay Lohan is rarely mentioned. But I couldn’t resist this item, in which Hollywood legend Jerry Lewis speaks out about the troubled young actress. The key quote shows up at about one minute and 10 seconds…
September 2nd, 2010 01:16pm
Will Pfeifer
Over at Total Film, writer Josh Winning lists “18 Weird Comic Books That Should be Movies.”
In the wake of the unfortunate box office flameout of “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World,” I’m guessing Hollywood execs are going to be a lot more careful about which weird comic book movies the give the green light to, but Winning’s list is pretty solid, with such perennial favorites as “Powers,” “Fables” and “Y: The Last Man” making the cut. (I’m pretty sure all three have development deals of some sort.)
The oddest one is “The Bouncer,” a Golden Age comic so obscure I’ve never even heard of it.
Personally, the one “weird comic book” I’d like to see made into a movie would be this one. Hollywood, get on it!
September 2nd, 2010 11:14am
Will Pfeifer
With George Clooney’s “The American” opening in theaters this week, Brian Palmer of Slate’s Explainer asks the timely question “Do Freelance Assassins Really Exist?”
Short answer? Not full-time ones, according to Palmer:
In the United States and in England, contract killers are usually small-time criminals looking to make extra cash. (Gigs pay between a few hundred dollars and $25,000.) The FBI and London metropolitan police each investigate fewer than 100 contract killings per year, on average. Most are gang-related, but occasionally someone tries to bump off his or her spouse for insurance money. Trigger-men are often first-time killers, not well-trained international assassins.
Read the whole article here.
September 2nd, 2010 08:32am
Will Pfeifer
Today in the Onion AV Club’s continuing series, The New Cult Canon, writer Scott Tobias looks at one of the most interesting movies of the 21st century, director Mary Harron’s controversial adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ vastly more controversial novel, “American Psycho.”
I read Ellis’ book back when it was published in the mid 1990s (after being rejected by at least one publisher), and like most people, I couldn’t see how it could possibly be turned into a movie. The book is an epic-length monologue of Patrick Bateman, an ’80s Wall St. yuppie who’s also secretly a serial killer. The book goes on for pages and pages (and I mean hundreds of pages) of Patrick describing his life, acquaintances and home beauty routine in excrutiating detail (most of it’s pretty funny stuff) then takes startling turns into some of the most violent sequences ever committed to paper. And, as if that weren’t jarring enough, every few chapters Patrick takes a break from the label-listing and homicide to offer his thoughts on such ’80s music legends as Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis and Phil Collins.
Not exactly an adaption-friendly novel, but Harron and writer Genevieve Turner managed to keep the jet-black humor of the book while eliminating the medical-school detail of those murders. Having both the writer and director be women helped mute some (but not all) of the protest directed at filming “American Psycho,” but more importantly, having some wit and restraint made it possible for the adaptation to be as funny, creepy and unnerving as the book itself. And casting Christian Bale was a stroke of genius. In a perfect world, he would’ve won an Oscar for his energetic, complex, off-kilter performance as Patrick. In this imperfect world, he didn’t get an Academy Award, but he did get rich and famous playing another crazy rich guy only one letter removed from “Bateman.”
As Tobias points out, the most memorable scene in the film has nothing to do with murder. Instead, it’s a tense, funny scene where Patrick and his fellow yuppies at Pierce & Pierce show off their business cards. The Onion article includes it, but I can’t see any reason not to include it here, too. Enjoy.
September 1st, 2010 02:39pm
Will Pfeifer
Michael Douglas, who stars in the upcoming sequel to “Wall St.” opening in a few weeks, appeared last night on “The Late Show With David Letterman” to talk about his throat cancer, which he says is “stage IV.” He remains hopeful, though, saying his chances for recovery are about 80 percent.
More than any other actors, Douglas has shown a knack for playing the guy of the moment, whether it was a ruthless businessman (”Wall St.”) or someone caught up in an affair (”Fatal Attraction”) or a guy pushed to the edge (”Falling Down”) or a rich guy seeking spiritual redemption (”The Game” — very underrated film, incidentally). Let’s hope he pulls through and keeps playing memorable characters.
And I, for one, am really looking forward to him reviving Gordon Gecko in that “Wall St.” sequel.
September 1st, 2010 08:37am
Will Pfeifer
I think we can all agree that “Robocop” is a great film.* But you know what makes a great film greater? Music! Hence the existence of “Robocop: The Musical.” One warning: It’s made up of scenes of “Robocop” itself, which as you may recall, is a very violent movie. If you’re squeamish about late ’80s fake bloodshed, you might want to skip it. Otherwise, enjoy!
Â
Thanks to Cinematical for the tip.
* I’m not kidding, either. It’s a great, great movie.
August 30th, 2010 09:02am
Will Pfeifer
For a mere $1.8 million in production costs, “The Last Exorcism” managed to rake in a whopping $21.3 million at the box office this weekend.
And “Takers,” which no one seemed to care about (and which starred a slew of B-level actors) almost beat “The Last Exorcism,” earning $21 million over the weekend.
But the big story — and the big money — goes to Pixar’s “Toy Story 3,” which crested the $1 billion mark. It’s the only animated movie — and only the seventh movie in history to do so.
August 23rd, 2010 05:53pm
Will Pfeifer
Sorry movie fans, but this week, the Movie Man is on vacation. He won’t be visiting any exotic cinema-related locations like Hollywood, Cannes or Times Square circa 1977, but he will be watching some movies. Hope you do the same!
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