Paul Thomas Anderson Gossip

There's some speculation that "Oil" has been retitled "There will be Blood" & that a draft of PTA's script is floating around

thanks to Cigarettes and Coffee - the best PTA site on the web.

And sorry for the lack of new posts - too many sick people I love this week. Hopefully regular additions will start again tomorrow with a review of Pedro Almodovar's Bad Education.

Apparently it is Real

Read this after watching the link on the previous post.

This Makes Me Want to By a Honda

Don't know if it's for real, but I sure hope so.

Thanks, Al!

Not That I Usually Condone Not Thinking

Jonathan Glazer's sophomore directorial effort, the chilly yet engrossing Birth makes for a memorable viewing experience thanks in large part to him finding a superb collaborator. Harris Savides photographed both Gerry and Elephant for Gus Van Sant, and with this film it is official that he is arguably one of the three best working cinematographers (along with Roger Deakins and Caleb Deschanel). While watching Birth you might feel yourself marvel at how perfectly composed the film is - in that sense it comes close to being Kubrickesque. The performers are all fine, but they take a backseat to the visual tone of the film. Now the hard part for a viewer is being able to retain these feeling after the film is over because admiration for this film will probably decline sharply the second you start thinking about it. The filmmakers don't seem to have much of a point. I'm not sure why Nicole Kidman's character has to go through what she goes through, and I'm not sure she learns anything, and worse yet it isn't so much that I'm unsure of these things but I feel like the director isn't sure. That nagging problem and some gaping plot points threaten to crumble my affection for the film, but then I remember a shot - any shot really - and I have a hard time discounting a film so visually enthralling. So see Birth now that it is out on DVD, but don't think about it afterward. Remember it, but don't think about it.

A Little Something for the Dan Brown Fans

Despite these predictions I don't think we have to worry about the endtimes soon. Mostly because the Cubs haven't won the penant. It says in Revelations, "When the little Bears from the Windy Place take the Flag then Ye Shall know the End is Nigh."

Thanks to Jen for the link and A. Whitney Brown for the bible quote

More on The Catholic Who Saw Tomorrow

Cannes Line-up Announced

The list of films competing in the 2005 Cannes Film Festival

Considering the genius of Elephant I am most eager for the new Gus Van Sant film. All things being equal, this is a pretty impressive list of films.

They're Like Civil War Re-enactors, but in the Future

Yet another example of those who are unable to see the fine line between truth and fiction.


Thanks Mr. C!

The Most Eagerly Anticipated Film of 2006

Normally I don't feel the need to share what appears in the The New York Post's "Page Six" column, but this hit too close to home:

JACK Nicholson is hitting town next week to begin rehearsals for Martin Scorsese's Irish gang flick "The Departed." The movie, scripted by the brilliant William Monahan, is set in Boston and also stars Leo DiCaprio, Matt Damon and Mark Wahlberg. Nicholson joked to Variety's Army Archerd that he's going to ask DiCaprio to change his first name to Luke — "Then we could be known as Matthew, Mark, John and Luke." Nicholson also says he's mulling a return to directing, which he hasn't done since "The Two Jakes."

This could make for the greatest commentaries in DVD history.

They are the Biggest Selling Duo in Recording History?

Last night on American Idol a pair of guys that they claimed were Hall & Oates were in the audience but to these trained eyes I'm fairly sure it was actually Fred Norris and Baba Booey from the Howard Stern show.





Big big big thank you to Jennifer for finding the pic.

Quite Simply One of the Best Books About Hollywood Ever

I'm almost finished with Disney War, James B. Stewart's extensively researched look into Michael Eisner's reign at the top of the Mouse House. The book offers a wealth of knowledge - the best are the detailed stories of how Disney passed on such hits as The Sopranos, Survivor, and CSI, and offers up the definitive account of Eisner's public splits with both Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Ovitz. On top of the research, the book is written like a novel, meaning you will be drawn into the psychology of these people and you will feel sympathy for people who have behaved atrociously. This is a superb piece of writing and reporting.

James L. Brooks Can't See It

James L. Brooks' Spanglish suffered from a remarkably off-putting imbalance of sympathetic characters. Tea Leoni's type A housewife comes off as so remarkable unsympathetic compared to everyone else in the film that the film does not earn the feelings it think it does. This is crystallized in Brooks' commentary for the DVD of the film. The clearest example comes during the scene when Leoni's character takes her Mexican maid's daughter to get her hair highlighted (something the mother would never want done). Brooks explains that he found it surprising that not a single person who saw the film has considered what Leoni's character does anything other than a horrifying betrayal. He says audiences never see the other side of the issue. Never once does he consider that it is his fault as a writer and an editor that the audience has no desire to sympathize with her - and it is most assuredly his fault. I adore Brooks. He is a gifted writer and director (for both movies and television), but this film needed more time to gestate. Still, it makes for a fascinating commentary track - a perfect moment of a director unable to admit to himself that he fell short of his high ambitions.

Possibly the End of the Line

I have not been one to bury Woody Allen. Anyone who comes up with three unassailable masterpieces in one career (Annie Hall, Manhattan, The Purple Rose of Cairo) deserves the benefit of the doubt. Until now. Of all the less than spectacular to downright terrible Allen films since the very good Sweet and Lowdown, Melinda and Melinda may be the most depressing. Allen has actually come up with a great idea - telling the same story as a comedy and a tragedy. The problem is that nothing funny happens in the comedy - kind of like Hollywood Ending and The Curse of the Jade Scorpion. The tragedy story does contain one great and two very good performances. Chiwetel Ejiofor, who was outstanding in Dirty Pretty Things, actually carves out a fresh character and has a scene of such simplicity when he meets Melinda that I felt as if I was watching a real moment between two people. Chloe Sevigny and Brooke Smith are also very good, although the material is so banal that I started to feel bad for them constantly giving their all only to be let down by the material. What is so depressing about this film is not that Woody Allen seems to have run out of good ideas, the problem is that he seems to have no idea what to do with the few good ideas he has.

Tarantino's Inspiration

New 35mm prints of Martin Scorsese's 1970's documentaries Italianamerican and American Boy have been touring the country this year (hopefully this means a DVD release is not too far away). I had the distinct pleasure of seeing them last night at the Detroit Institute of Art. Regular readers of the memo are aware of my devotion to the work of Martin Scorsese. I had never seen American Boy until last night. The most revealing moment in it, however, had little to do with Scorsese and more to do with Quentin Tarantino.

American Boy is little more than an hour long film full of Steven Prince, the gun dealer in Taxi Driver, telling stories about his life. He has led a fascinating life and he is a natural storyteller. One of the tales he tells is when he had to administer an adrenaline shot to the heart of a woman who had overdosed. He talks about a little black medical book, and how he drew a circle on her chest with a felt tip pen in order to give him a place to aim, and he says that you have to bring the needle down in a "stabbing motion". So finally, the seminal moment for the most breathtaking sequence in Pulp Fiction has been revealed.

In addition, the film opens with Prince and George Memmoli (who played the guy in Mean Streets that they get into the "what's a mook?" fight with) greeting each other by wrestling around on the ground for about five minutes - obviously the reference for Mr. Blonde and Nice Guy Eddie's reunion in Reservoir Dogs.

What's the moral of this story? Good artists borrow, great artists steal.

How Many Failed Films Do You Get to Direct Before You Stop Being Promising?

The Upside of Anger is another in an ongoing series of muddled failures from director Mike Binder who, after directing over a half-dozen films, still doesn't understand how to find a consistent tone for his work. He has cast his new film expertly. Joan Allen rages, rants, and dominates the screen in a performance that is compelling until the final twist. The denouement accomplishes nothing more than showing how lazy Binder is a screenwriter. Binder seems to believe that the surprise revealed at the end of the film absolves him from having to write complicated scenes that would have made the movie a penetrating examination of marriage. As it is now, The Upside of Anger offers a handful of fine actors' moments, the first good performance by Kevin Costner since JFK, and (even with some fine sections) yet more evidence that Binder may never make a truly good movie.