Category Archives: Cinematics

Cinematics

Big Fan: Let’s Start Buzzin’

Oh no, I’m not gonna let the last thing I post today be that screeching harpy hose-beast. Let’s end this Wednesday on a positive note, eh what?

Big Fan hits (some) theatres next month. A trailer for it was just released yesterday, and it makes the film look every bit as amazing I thought it would be the first time I heard about it.

Why will this film be awesome? Because it’s written and directed by Robert Siegel, the scribe behind The Wrestler and a former writer for The Onion. Because it looks like the first film to fully plunge the pathetic depths of sports talk show callers and obsessive sports fans in general. Because it portrays a blue-collar slob with a dead end job and a sad life but doesn’t plumb his predicament for yuks.

And because that slob protagonist is played by Patton Oswalt. If Ratatouille was Patton’s break-out role, he must’ve gone back to jail, because he’s ready to bust out all over again.

In other words, I have no reason to think this movie will be anything other than brilliant. But you don’t have to take my word for it. That’s why God invented high-definition trailers.

Cinematics, NYC

Please, Share Your Thoughts with Mr. Jarmusch

jarmusch.jpgI met up with a friend for some post-work drinks last night (it was two-for-one choco-tini night at our favorite spot!). He told me that, on his way to the bar, he saw Jim Jarmusch “on the sidewalk” in the Tribeca.

First, I asked if he was okay. The phrase “on the sidewalk” implied that maybe he was passed out drunk, or injured, or down on his luck and begging for change.

But once it was established that the man was okay, I asked if he was being approached by strangers and critiqued. Much like the mighty buffalo once roamed the plains of this great land, so is Manhattan overrun by uber-hip cineastes. The type of people who, despite a professed love of movies, have a dismissive opinion of every single film and director that’s ever been.

So I had the mental image of the famous indie director being mobbed by effete artsy types who couldn’t wait to tell him how little they thought of his work. People literally lining up to prove how sophisticated they are by giving him faint praise and back-handed compliments.

“Mr. Jarmusch, wow, really great to meet you! I just want to say, I love Down By Law even though it’s completely overrated!”

“Hi, Mr. Jarmusch. I’ve always wanted to ask you this: What was the deal with Coffee and Cigarettes? I mean, the RZA/Bill Murray sequence was funny and all, but is this type of fluff the best use of your talents?”

“Wow, Jim Jarmusch! You know, when I was in college, Mystery Train and Stranger than Paradise were, like, my two favorite movies. Of course, my tastes have progressed far beyond that point by now…”

Yes, these are the little playlets my brain devises to amuse itself. If you don’t like it, you’ll have to take it up with the brain.

Cinematics, Tuneage

Hollywood, Pay This Man!

nick_cave.jpgEsteemed rocker/filmmaker Nick Cave wrote a sequel to Gladiator, apparently at the behest of fellow Aussie Russell Crowe. A synopsis/assessment of the script was posted to the intertubes not too long ago. It is, as you might imagine, fucking insane. In the best possible way.

I know what you’re thinking–hey, Maximus died at the end! Mr. Cave is way ahead of you. In his script, Maximus has been damned to gladiate (if that’s a word) for all eternity for his sins. The screenplay is rife with supernatural hoodoo-ery, like people rising from the dead. Several times. Oh, and there’s a closing montage in which the deathless Maximus is shown fighting in the Crusades, World War II, Vietnam, and, curiously, working in the Pentagon.

Still not hooked? How ’bout a climactic speech in which an anti-Christian leader screams CHARGE THIS FISH! How ’bout the movie’s climactic battle scene, which takes place in a flooded Coliseum with battleships and alligators.* Tell me that itself isn’t worth the price of admission.

* The ancient Romans actually used to flood the Coliseum and stage naval battles there, so this last detail is plausible. But still nuts.

Though the assessor of this script noted that “Cave’s writing, the storyline, the dialogue…it’s Grade-A material through and through,” he/she still rejected it. Why?

-…I’m not really interested in seeing a sequel to Gladiator
featuring elements of mythology and the supernatural. They weren’t
present in the first film and they simply feel out of place here.

-The script renders most of the original film moot…

-I love it as a standalone screenplay but hate it as a sequel to Gladiator.

To all of these criticisms, I say, So fucking what?!

First of all, despite all the Oscar nods, Gladiator was nothing more than a better-than-average popcorn movie. You’re not going to “ruin” or “dilute” it with Nick Cave’s interpretation. And the first movie was a big enough hit that, as long as Russell Crowe stars in the sequel, you’re pretty much guaranteed a certain box office number. Take a chance, Hollywood assholes!

Second of all, look at any movie franchise: the second movie is always the crazy one. And it’s always the one that cineaste snobs say is the true masterpiece. Think The Godfather Part II. Think Dark Knight. Think 2 Fast 2 Furious!

If this is how a wonderfully mad potential masterpiece is assessed by Hollywood, I’d love to see the synopsis for some market-researched piece of total junk like Ghosts of Girlfriends Past. “Reading this made a small piece of my soul shrivel up and die. Greenlight immediately!”

This rejection of Nick Cave’s vision really puts a damper on my own screenplay hopes. I was just starting to get some meetings about my full-length adaptation of “O’Malley’s Bar”.