STUFF: SEXY FILM GEEKS, 1968, LAZY ACTORS, BLAH BLAH BLAH

HOLLYWOOD- Sitting here on Saturday Night, drinking a beer, watching The Shootist, when I should be out trying to bang chicks, I recalled back to a couple weeks ago when I was at The Egyptian Theater checking out a James Mason double feature. 

I spotted the fantastic writer Kim Morgan whose website Sunset Gun is one of my favs for interesting articles.

Dorkaly, I said hello to her, said I dug her site and I made googly eyes at her. 

The dudes she was hanging with, shuffled her away from me.

Oh did I mention she’s like, good looking. And she knows a lot about movies!

Oh baby, what coulda been.

So defeated, I went to my seat and watched Joe inhale a box of milkduds.

(Maybe I should have done the Chachi “wa wa wa” to her).

Any-whooo...

Recently she posted a fun piece on her Favorite Car Movies (Two Lane Blacktop, etc. Glad to see Mad Max included)

Personally I hate cars (grew up in Detroit). Maybe I’ll make a list of my favorite bicycle movies...

Let’s see, off the top o’ my head... The Bicycle Thief, Breaking Away, The Muppet Movie, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, The Wizard of Oz, Condorman, etc. 

(Wow, these lists just roll out of me like magic or a gift (and sometimes a curse) from.... God!”).

Also I should point out a few weeks ago Mrs Masters posted a great piece celebrating what woulda been Bette Davis’ one-hundredth birthday. Give those reads.

Speaking of that old biddy (Davis, not Morgan)

This cool site Cine Beats have a excellent examination of the flick The Nanny (1965)

After being so disappointed watching  Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte, I tend to blow off all those post  What Ever Happened to Baby Jane thrillers Davis made, but this piece makes me wanna recheck out this Hammer flick (I watched it some years ago, but didn’t give it my full attention, I think I was clipping my toe nails that evening).

Speaking of sexy movie-nerd babes... 

You may of read Manohla Dargis’ review of a documentary, I’m completely itching to see, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired

Good news: it’s been announced that it’ll premiere on HBO this summer, as well as a number of other festival-fav documentaries.

The controversial doc about the shrimpy Polish director of Rosemary’s Baby will premiere on June 9th. 

Hey, can someone with HBO tape it (or burn it or whatever) for me?

For that matter, did anyone tape that final season of The Wire? Salivating to see that as well.

Speaking of Rosemary’s Baby...

It 'twas 1968, a landmark year for flicks, a watershed moment, the end of an era, the summer of love, blah blah blah....

In his Dread Reckoning column at Pop Matters 

Marco Lanzagorta  calls 1968 ‘A Terrifying Ruby Jubilee’

and illustrates “...1968 saw the radicalization of American society, and an accompanying revolution in the realm of horror genre film making".

Anticipating programs at Film Forum and The Lincoln Center in the NY Times, A.O. Scott explains under the title The Spirit of ’68 “Paris in 1968, as turbulent a year cinematically as it was politically”

I’m waiting to find a used copy or when it comes out in soft cover, but I’m excited to read Mark Harris’s book Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood. 

He breaks down who the five flicks nominated for the Best Picture Oscar came to be and what they represented in the film world.

On KCRW’s The Treatment, Harris was interviewed by Elvis Mitchell 

Sarah Kerr at Slat reviews the book.

What Five Academy Award Contenders Can Tell Us About The '60s

There’s an excerpt from the book on Entertainment  Weekly’s website 

Inside the Making of 'The Graduate

Sam Kashner had his own The Graduate article in the March issue of Vanity Fair.

Now it’s posted on the ‘net.

Here’s to You, Mr. Nichols: The Making of The Graduate 

Speaking of ‘68... 

Gene Hackman got famous that year with Bonnie And Clyde (the new double disc DVD has some great ‘making of’' shit on it).

Geoffrey MacNab of The Independent reports that Gene Hackman Bows Out (he's retiring from acting)

To bad some of his peers continue to make terrible flicks

On the Rocket Blog I pointed out the limits in the roles Pacino and De Niro do in Cop Or Criminal

And back in January, under the title Coppola Now! in writing about the two method hams I wondered....

“The movies no longer feel like events and De Niro no longer seems to give a shit who he works with. 

Why did he do Hide and Seek? Was he dying to work with the director of Swimfan?”

Stealing my idea, Patrick Goldstein in The LA Times says “The once-great actors are embarrassing”

Pacino and De Niro: How the mighty have fallen

(and he doesn’t credit me and his writing doesn’t have my charming drunken grammatical errors. Mister Bigshot, with an editor).

Speaking of fading acting careers (no not my own)...

Michael Cieply at The New Times went all Aint It Cool News, reporting about a sneak preview....

Tom Cruise, in Bit Role, Nips Studio’s Top Gun

They raved about his unbilled role in the latest forthcoming Ben Stiller flick Tropic Thunder

And now with all the disastrous speculation being written about his new flick Valkyrie 

The Times writes another lovey-dovey piece in defense of him.

The Nazi Plot that's haunting Tom Cruise And United Artists

Hmmm. I wonder if the the toothy star has “an in” there. 

Speaking of... nothing

Okay, quickly...

From Twitch

I hope this flick gets released.

Can PARANORMAL ACTIVITY Be Seen?

I kinda liked this low budget flick Mulberry Street (my ‘lil review here)

At The House Next Door there’s a good interview with the Writers/ Director

This is a crazy cool web site.

TOMB IT MAY CONCERN - David Zuzelo Scribbles on Mangled Media! One man's journal through the swamps of mangled media! From Jess Franco to Christina Lindberg to the art of Eurocine. Mangled Media knows no bounds. Nor does it recognize good taste!

"sweeneyrules out"

WHAT'S READIN'? - Yikes! That's scary!

* I was reading a pretty good article by James Christopher in The Times Of London (or is it the London Times?).

Rec and The Orphanage: a frightful new future for horror

The glory days of Blair Witch and The Exorcist are behind us. Who can save the horror film, asks our chief film critic

He talks about how horror flicks have peaked and running out of ideas and in Britain (and the US) horror fans may be reaching out to other countries for fresh thrills (dah). He talks about two Spanish flicks, the high quality The Orphanage which opened here earlier this year to strong reviews. 

He then mentions... 

“and a reality TV thriller, Rec - emphasises just how parched the English-speaking market has become for good horror.... The footage shot by her camera crew sustains the illusion of spontaneity. The jump moments will make you scream. The premise is a crude copy of Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later - but the echoes of the Franco days cut to the bone.”

I was like huh, what's this? So I started looking into it it actually seems to go by the title [Rec] (with the brackets)

Here’s a little teaser trailer.

But on the film's web site they have a full on trailer that looks very intense, very effective. 

Even though some critics including Variety gave it a panning, I’m still gonna keep an eye out for it. 

And I now see that of course... there is an American remake in the works already called Quarantine. Which is directed by some dude John Erick Dowdle, who directed the fake horror documentary The Poughkeepsie Tapes, Which I saw previews for in the theater last year, but I don’t see any listed release dates for it. It looked like it coulda been interesting or it coulda easily been lame lame (though I noticed the great singer/actor Chip Goodwin is acting in it).

* I like a couple of the fake docs horror flicks. Many hated it, but Blair Witch Project shook me up when I saw it (twice).

And Rocket Video has a copy of the lost BBC Tv Special Ghostwatch which aired on Halloween 1992 in England and has never officially been released on DVD here, It creeped me out, loved it. After you watch it, you’ll find it fascinating to go read about afterwards.

* Speaking of remakes, I may be late but this seemed so odd to me.

Vast Wasteland’s Department of Fine Cinema has an interesting article about Leonardo DiCaprio plans to star in a remake of Katsuhiro Ôtomo post-apocalyptic anime epic Akira. 

Very strange, indeed. I’ll be curious to see how this flick’s development plays out.

* In other remake news, Rocket Video’s Newsroom reported last week about Platinum Dickheads plans to remake the brilliant Rosemary’s Baby.

At Sense Of Cinema, Pedro Blas Gonzalez has an interesting new academic article on Polanski’s horror masterpiece.

* Over at the Independent film Channel’s blog Matt Singers has a hilarious two part article-

Those Damn Dirty Apes: Our Guide to 40 Years of "Planet of the Apes" 

Part 1 and part 2 here.

You may recall Rocket’s Christmas tribute to Ape toys.

* Back to the Brit newspapers, writing for the Guardian the fantastic writer David Thomson give an overview of the studio created by Hollywood’s biggest stars in 1919 in his piece....

Dream factory

Nearly 90 years ago, Hollywood's top talent set up United Artists in a bid to escape interference and exert artistic control.

* In another piece Thompson adds another name to his Biographical Dictionary of Film at number 32 is the vastly underrated  Jennifer Jason Leigh. I think had her performance in Margot At The Wedding gotten a Best Supporting actress Oscar nomination this pass year, hence the film would of been seen by more people and she might of won (she would of deserved it).

* And in another entertaining piece of writing, this time for Sight And Sound, Thomson writes a pure candy read:

The Killer Inside

Bertolucci's The Conformist prefigured The Godfather in giving us a central character without compassion.

It's a cinema that refuses to please....

* Also at Sight And Sound, Tim Lucas the big cheese at my beloved Videowatchdog, reviews Criterion’s latest important wonder-disc

The Naked Prey may not be politically correct, but it's a key piece of independent US film-making

* Henry K Miller writes...

Some call it Indiewood, some the Frat Pack: a prolific American generation of comedians and wry auteurs. 

The great wave of Indiewood cinema broke over the UK in just a few months, with Wes Anderson's Rushmore and Alexander Payne's Election arriving in late summer 1999, David Fincher's Fight Club that autumn, and David O. Russell's Three Kings, Spike Jonze's Being John Malkovich and Paul Thomas Anderson's Magnolia following in early 2000. Since then a slew of articles and books such as Sharon Waxman's Rebels on the Backlot, James Mottram's The Sundance Kids and Peter Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures have recounted the moment when these mavericks "took back Hollywood".

* David L. Pike over at the Bright Lights Film Journal, examines the post-Apocalypse flicks A Boy And His Dog and I Am Legend

* Speaking of the Apocalypse, a nutty religious flick that argues against Darwinism has bit it’s panties in a wad because a film critic dared to question it.

John Metcalfe reports for the New York Times.

* And finally also in the Times, it’s time to start getting all giddy about this summer’s Dark Knight flick David Halfinger leads the way with a overview.

* A shout out: most of the articles I read, I usually learn about at the best film blog out there, Greencine Blog

-sweeneyrules