OT: I Think I Know What My Favorite Movie of 2018 Is Going To Be - Psycho (1960) Discussion

[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

But getta load of the rest of the cast, with DeNiro leading:
Robert DeNiro
Joe Pesci
Harvey Keitel
Ray Liotta
.....and Al Pacino!
Now that just might bring a tear to one's eyes. Big Al -- like Mad Jack years ago -- making his first Scorsese picture.

Cool. Sometimes this sort of spectacular casting can overwhelm my ability to respond to a film just as a film at least until the initial wave of hype has passed. Heat (1995) was so hyped at the time as the first De Niro/Pacino film that I couldn't quite process it as a crime thriller/action film at the time and it kind of left me cold. A few years later, however, I could really appreciate it.

In another thread you talk about Scorsese shrewdly, swiftly returning to his bankable gangster-film pole-star after losing money on a relatively arty, religiously-themed, period picture, Silence. You have to hand it to Scorsese that he sticks to his guns/passions and makes a religiously themed picture about once a decade: Last Temptation of Christ, Kun-Dun (which led to a great gag in the Sopranos!), Silence. And yet he does 'pay the piper' by doing gangster-pictures at least once or twice a decade.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Cool. Sometimes this sort of spectacular casting can overwhelm my ability to respond to a film just as a film at least until the initial wave of hype has passed.

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Agreed. In some ways, this thing has the dangerous feel of a "forced family reunion" in which somebody persuaded Scorsese to persuade all these guys to "come back for one more." The wild card is Joe Pesci, a guy who hit the scene in "Raging Bull" and then disappeared for almost a decade before remerging with the one-two-three of Lethal Weapon 2, Home Alone and his Oscar for GoodFellas, did the great "My Cousin Vinny"(says me), eventually did Casino with Marty and Bob again... and then just sort of disappeared. One problem: what everybody loved about him in GoodFellas they sort of hated when he did it again in Casino...he overstayed his welcome. Which happens in Hollywood. But here he, is back reporting for "duty."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Heat (1995) was so hyped at the time as the first De Niro/Pacino film that I couldn't quite process it as a crime thriller/action film at the time and it kind of left me cold. A few years later, however, I could really appreciate it.

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Bothersome in that movie is how they only really meet for one scene; then they are in two separate movies, pretty much. They made a later movie where they are together all the time -- Righteous Kill -- but that one had a bad script. Here's hoping the formula works with "The Irishman." I'm also very glad that Pacino finally gets a Scorsese, and finally gets a big movie to be in again after some indie work.

The contemporary "Heat" proved, I found , to be well outdone by the period "LA Confidential" a couple of years later, which hit levels of complexity and nuance that "Heat" never thought to engage. And then, years later, Scorsese's all-star The Departed felt as if LA Confidential had outdone IT, the same way. This is a personal view, but I think the reviews bore it out. LA Confidential was a major classic with a cast featuring "minor stars"(Spacey, Crowe, Pearce) outdoing the all-star cop epics in front and behind it that relied perhaps too MUCH on their stars instead of their scripts.

IMHO.

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[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

Pacino and Deniro were of course both in Godfather 2, but didn't share scenes. Although technically they did share screen time. At the start of the flashback to 1917, they do appear in the same frames very briefly, although it's a composite of separate shots.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

In another thread you talk about Scorsese shrewdly, swiftly returning to his bankable gangster-film pole-star after losing money on a relatively arty, religiously-themed, period picture, Silence. You have to hand it to Scorsese that he sticks to his guns/passions and makes a religiously themed picture about once a decade: Last Temptation of Christ, Kun-Dun (which led to a great gag in the Sopranos!), Silence. And yet he does 'pay the piper' by doing gangster-pictures at least once or twice a decade.

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Its a smart play.

Hitchcock did it too. Strangers on a Train bought him I Confess. Rear Window and To Catch A Thief bought him The Trouble With Harry. The Man Who Knew Too Much bought him The Wrong Man and Vertigo.

I always felt that Lew Wasserman "betrayed that deal" when he took Hitchcock's powers away (pretty much) after "Marnie."'

NXNW AND Psycho AND The Birds bought Hitchcock(he thought) the right to make a less commercial, more arty film in Marnie. And Uncle Lew seemed to see it as only a failure. Torn Curtain and Topaz were pretty much forced on Hitchcock in certain ways; Mary Rose and The First Frenzy were taken away from him.

Modernly, Marty Scorsese is treated MUCH better. As long as he keeps making gangster movies -- and The Wolf of Wall Street, which is a gangster movie without murders.

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[–] [email protected] (690) 7 years ago

I loved Hugo. Saw it in the theatre (not that I care about 3D, but that's the only way I could see it).
It's not perfect but it was charming and a thorough look at the thesis of the film.
So much better than other films that made more money. Very well-made, a calm, charming and thoughtful movie.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Interesting new series just dropped on Netflix (all 10 eps at once): Mindhunter. Fincher directs the first ep and is co-show-runner. It sounds like the early episodes at least owe a lot to Zodiac (2007).

Mindhunter is based on John Douglas's great, frightening book of the same name. Douglas was the founder of the profiling and serial-killer tracking group at the FBI. Famously Thomas Harris audited a few of his classes in the '80s to get the ideas for his Hannibal Lecter books. Douglas used repeated interviews with famed serial-killer Ted Bundy to help profile and otherwise catch the Green River Killer who was active for 20 years in the Northwest US. In other words, Douglas was the model for Jack Crawford catching Lecter then using him to catch The Tooth Fairy, Buffalo Bill, etc. in those books.

Note that the Green River Killer was ultimately caught by completely conventional (non-profiling) detective-work: he was an early suspect, and some his victims surviving narrowed the searches for bodies and other DNA evidence sufficiently to close the case quickly (albeit only after at least 50 victims).

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[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

The Harvey Weinstein meltdown isn't pretty. HW has been a larger than life figure on this board (conceived of as continuous wth IMDb's Psycho board) since at least the publication of Peter Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures. I checked and D&DP doesn't report on any sexual harassment or any other specifically sexual misbehavior by HW but it details over at least 100 pages how HW was an abusive, bullying, harassing, exploitative employer and business partner for very wide range of people. The picture of HW that emerges from D&DP is that at least in the '90s, unless you are on the very short list of people who HW regarded as true stars - pretty much only QT among directors, Meryl Streep, Judy Dench, and a few others among actors - then look out: HW will cheat you, double-cross you, physically throw things at you, threaten you, constantly yell to get what he wants, fire you on a whim, campaign against you thereby doing the classic 'stop you from working in this town again', and so on. At least in the '90s, HW was a nightmare or even completely impossibility for lots of people to work for or with.

Against this backdrop, the sexual misbehavior allegations aren't exactly surprising: someone who's a monster in public in an office at 10 a.m. is unlikely to be a choir-boy in private at night, liquored up and given a stream of pretty young things he has power over. What are HW's stars saying? Streep and Dench claim not to have heard the sexual harassment rumors and are now acting shocked to find that their friend has feet of clay, etc.. But they always *knew* that HW was a horror employer and a raging a-hole to lots of people who weren't at their level. So it's only being a *sexual* swine that's a deal-breaker for Streep and Dench?

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[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

And what of QT? So far he's just said via twitter that he's shocked and stunned, and that he'll provide a fuller statement this week. Can't wait!

Unfortunately for QT, it's hard to believe he was *too* shocked or surprised by these developments since many of the key accusers are women that QT knows very well. Mira Sorvino was QT's girlfriend in the late '90s which is around the time she says in The New Yorker that she was seriously harassed and then retaliated against/blackballed by HW; Roseanne Arquette starred for QT in Pulp Fiction and it's around that time that *she* says (i.e., in the same New Yorker piece) that she had to deal with HW's grossness. And one of the accusers who's angriest and who claims she was flat-out raped by HW, Rose McGowan, was the lead in Planet Terror, the other half of the Grindhouse project QT shared with Robert Rodriguez (McGowan was dating Rodriguez at the time IIRC).

And even if there *weren't* these three specific connectors (Sorvino, Arquette, McGowan), since QT flat out *loves* movie gossip and insider tales, and loves socializing with actors generally and starlets in particular, and since it's clear that cautionary word-of-mouth about HW among on-the-scene young women in Hollywood (and their agents) was *very* strong, I'd say that there's essentially *no* chance that QT hadn't gotten an earful about HW's worst behavior long ago. In fact, I'd be amazed if he hadn't been approached repeatedly by random actresses (i.e., over and above the three connectors) for advice about how to get HW off their backs.

Watch for QT's big statement this week: if he continues to suggest that he knew nothing, I suspect that a bunch of actresses are going to call him out as a big fat liar, and as 'part of the problem'. We'll see.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And what of QT? So far he's just said via twitter that he's shocked and stunned, and that he'll provide a fuller statement this week. Can't wait!

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For a long time there, I thought QT was just going to stay out of it. Weinstein MADE him -- QT had the talent, but Weinstein had the money and the power and gave QT final cut and "full reign" to do anything. Moreover, QT has had a reputation for getting more women than anybody in Hollywood -- his looks don't matter, his legend gets it done. Though I think he's engaged right now, and, for awhile back in the day, he was dating the pretty Mira Sorvino. My point is, I don't think that QT is a sexual predator, but I think he's highly sexual(with consenting women, lots and lots and lots of them, including reported Swedish models), and probably doesn't want to get mixed up in this. Which reminds me -- no word from Leo yet. HE gets all the models, too.

A little sidebar on QT and Weinstein. I bought the Jackie Brown DVD only a few years ago, and I didn't realize that QT kept Jackie Brown off of DVD for quite a few years -- QT rather arrogantly appears in a DVD clip saying "Why didn't I let you have Jackie Brown earlier? Well, because I wanted you to WAIT." Meanwhile, 2015's The Hateful Eight(from The Weinstein Company and a near-flop for QT) came out on DVD really quickly in 2016 , only months after the Xmas release. Why? I have two guesses: (1) The floundering Weinstein company needed the revenue and (2) QT knows his "legendary status' is slipping and he needed more folks to see The Hateful Eight.

It looks like QT will have to shop his next movie(on the Manson murders?) to someone other than Weinstein for the first time in his career.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

But yeah, when QT finally has his say, he's gonna probably want things to blow over. He and Weinstein were, tempermentally, of the same cloth. And they were/are acheivers.

I recall on YouTube some hapless entertainment reporter asking QT a pointed personal question and QT angrily cuts him off:

QT: I'm not going to answer that. I don't think you understand your only role here. Your only role is to help me SELL my movie. That's it. That's the only reason I am talking to you.

There was such arrogance to that remark, but it also made sense. QT was saying "I jumped a lot of hurdles to be the great movie legend that I am. You don't deserve to ask me anything that doesn't sell my film."

And yet Hitchcock took on hostile interviewers all the time -- I recall reading some French guys telling Hitchcock that his NEW movie -- North by Northwest -- "isn't photographed as well as Vertigo. The Rushmore colors look wrong," and Hitchcock just sort of had to apologize for MGM's lesser facilities. But he ANSWERED.

I'll be intrigued to see what QT says, too.

Anyway -- my POINT is, hah -- QT and Weinstein operated at the same level of "earned arrogance," and it probably galls QT to have to respond seriously to an attack on "his kind of power guy."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Unfortunately for QT, it's hard to believe he was *too* shocked or surprised by these developments since many of the key accusers are women that QT knows very well. Mira Sorvino was QT's girlfriend in the late '90s which is around the time she says in The New Yorker that she was seriously harassed and then retaliated against/blackballed by HW; Roseanne Arquette starred for QT in Pulp Fiction and it's around that time that *she* says (i.e., in the same New Yorker piece) that she had to deal with HW's grossness. And one of the accusers who's angriest and who claims she was flat-out raped by HW, Rose McGowan, was the lead in Planet Terror, the other half of the Grindhouse project QT shared with Robert Rodriguez (McGowan was dating Rodriguez at the time IIRC).

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McGowan is also very good and very pretty in her long dialogue scene with Kurt Russell in QT's part of Grindhouse -- Death Proof. I mean, she's magnetic in that role -- and then she gets bloodily killed by Russell. (In Planet Terror, she famously strapped a machine gun on in place of a severed leg and fired away.)

But this: slowly but surely and over time, MacGowan seems to have gone a little crazy and became an out-of-work full-time rager against Hollywood's male machine. She could be counted on to Twitter and Facebook her rage about ALL Hollywood males, and I for one thought if she had been the ONLY witness against Weinstein, the effort would fail.

And to some extent, MacGowan has started taking the good work done by all the other women who have come forward and using it to her raging benefit. She has also flat-out accused Weinstein of raping her. It will be interesting to see if she survives what is going on here. I doubt she will work much anymore.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The problem for Hollywood is that how it has always worked "behind the scenes" is now under full-scale feminist scrutiny. And there's another side-bar: many of the power players in Hollywood are gay, so "boys and girls" aren't the only combatants here. At least one accusation of gay harrassment has surfaced in that regard in this fracas. Plus: gay women REALLY don't like being harassed by straight men.

I think one of the reasons I linger on the movies of the past is that I have very mixed feelings about the movies of the present, and the people who star in them and make them.

I look at the old, simple "Oscar Thank You" speeches from the stars of yesteryear and compare them to the Oscar win speeches of today's stars, who (a) read off a list of studio executives, agents, managers, and lawyers before thanking loved ones, and (b) go off on over-emotional self-referential tangents as if their Oscar win cured cancer somehow and ...the whole thing's off putting. We've grown a new crop of movie stars, and honestly, they seem to be a cross of corporate Board members and...crazy people.

To that extent, how they are all reacting to the Weinstein Affair is yet another reminder of how good it is to be...regular.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

And what of QT? So far he's just said via twitter that he's shocked and stunned, and that he'll provide a fuller statement this week. Can't wait!

QT's given an interview to the NY Times rather than making a statement
http://tinyurl.com/y8g26fam
He confirms the obvious, that he knew a lot about Sorvino's and McGowan's cases (and about another key friend - Uma? - who asked the Times not to be identified and who presumably hasn't outed herself as a victim so far), and ultimately heard plenty of other rumors of HW-misbehavior. QT says he should have taken more of a stand, and more or less explicitly says that he should have cut ties with Weinstein given what he knew. He paints a to-my-mind convincing picture of himself as being weak and unprincipled in not doing that. I dare say that many of us will recognize ourselves here: anyone who's had any success in the workplace has probably chosen to swallow his or her tongue so as to not rock the boat on his or her own relatively sweet deal at some point. That is, many of us have ended up being an uneasy accomplice to *something* at some point. You always hope in such cases that nothing *truly* horrific was going on, but you might be wrong. QT was and, at least to me, he sounds appropriately sorry for and contrite about that.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

That is, many of us have ended up being an uneasy accomplice to *something* at some point. You always hope in such cases that nothing *truly* horrific was going on, but you might be wrong. QT was and, at least to me, he sounds appropriately sorry for and contrite about that

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This is turning into a "human nature story" in which we can all see ourselves...except it is among the very rich and famous people of Hollywood who generally, really, never have to be held accountable for their silences and really don't want to be bothered with "uncomfortable truths." Its too great being QT to have to care THAT much.

But now he does. What's interesting about where this story seems to be going is that men are going to be expected not to do this anymore for one key reason: they will be "outed" and sent viral and that risk is now forever there whenever they even think about harassing a woman.

Meanwhile, out here in the real world: those of us who lack the power and money to even START being such bullies generally have to play by the rules. I'm a guy, and I've had a lifetime of having had to "make the approach" to a woman and decide when and how I even might have a chance. I figure most guys are like that. It is "the attempt to connect" and it is human, and out here, its pretty "regular" between regular men and regular women. Rejection is taken; interest is acted upon. Hopefully chemistry...and companionship...and maybe love...follow. And trying to make sure it doesn't even SEEM like harassment? Well, "out here" we are pretty careful.

Which is one reason I just find this story to be "skewed Hollywood." Articles are turning up about how Weinstein was a general purpose bully to waiters, hotel staff, chauffeurs...he was one of those "wannabee gangsters" who haven't the guts to kill anybody but love to exert power.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I suppose folks like QT could figure that eventually the debt would come due , and that Weinstein couldn't get away with it forever. Again...the decline in Weinstein's financial and business power may have laid the groundwork for revenge.

Meanwhile...over at QT.

Much like QT knew what Weinstein was doing and elected not to do anything about it, I know what QT is doing...and I have elected not to do anything about it.

In other words, I have gone to and supported his movies even as...since Kill Bill at least...they've had some pretty sick scenes in them.

It DOES bother me. To me, the price for enjoying Robert Richardson's gorgeous cinematography in The Hateful Eight, and Morricone's haunting partial score(especially the opening credit music over Snow Jesus), the dynamic charismatics of the cast AND QT's generally still-delightful verbal curlicues.....IS:

I have to countenance the film-long beating and bloodying of Jennifer Jason Leigh, and the sexually graphic speech of Sam Jackson to Bruce Dern; and the bloody end of most of the characters in the film, and its overall message that "every race hates every other race"(which I disagree with, and which ALSO posits some sickness in QT's mind at this point.)

Yes....I am to QT as QT is to Harvey Weinstein in that one particular way: I countenance QT's very bad behavior. (Add in the slaughters of women in Death Proof, and BY women in Kill Bill; the German actress rather gratuitiously strangled at length in Inglorious Basterds; the Mandango torture and dog deaths of the slaves in Django -- I have a lot to answer for.

But...as Hitchcock said of his own few twisted tales(Frenzy comes to mind) "My love of cinema is stronger than my love of morality."

Which always sounded like a bit of a crock to me.

Oh my...where did I go with this post? Well, its certainly how I feel about QT...I have a love/hate relationship with his work and I think he has a sexual screw loose. But as long as nobody REALLY gets hurt...

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The Harvey Weinstein meltdown isn't pretty.

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Nope. It isn't. Coupled with the far more tragic events in Las Vegas a few weeks ago, this is among the reasons I posted on The Music Man here. I'm serious. I'm looking to defuse the movie business's connection to all things dark and dire. That's "Psycho" at the movies. That's Vegas and Weinstein on the sex and violence fronts.

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HW has been a larger than life figure on this board (conceived of as continuous wth IMDb's Psycho board) since at least the publication of Peter Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures. I checked and D&DP doesn't report on any sexual harassment or any other specifically sexual misbehavior by HW but it details over at least 100 pages how HW was an abusive, bullying, harassing, exploitative employer and business partner for very wide range of people.

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And there are a lot of those in Hollywood. Billy Bob Thornton opined(paraphrased), "maybe the business doesn't turn them that way; maybe screwed-up people from all over the world come here just to exercise their crummy personalities."

I can name a couple of other names without sex scandals: Scott Rudin and Joel Silver. Everything one reads about them is bully boy stuff. There was also a bullying woman named Dawn Steel...but she died young.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

As for another sexual predator, producer Don Simpson was horrific. But he also had a drug problem that killed him off early. Said director Robert Altman(now dead himself) at the time, "I only wish he had suffered more." Ah, Hollywood. Such a nice town. Simpson was partnered with Jerry Bruckheimer, who lives on and prospers.

I haven't fully processed the Weinstein story yet, but I think it is heading in this direction: he represents an "exercise of male prerogative" that has been in Hollywood since Shirley Temple's time(Maureen Dowd has a column referencing Shirley's encounter with a movie moguls private parts at a young age), but a certain amount of feminism has finally, really, broken through in Hollywood and these guys are likely not going to get to be this way so much anymore. Thanks to social media of all stripes, it seems that "it all gets out," and now we are seeing clips from YEARS ago where people like Seth McFarlane and Courtney Love were talking out loud about Weinstein's sexual boorishness then.

There are nasty ironies, too. Evidently, this is all finally coming down on Weinstein because he had lost his power anyway. He doesn't make big hit movies anymore. He can't make or break careers. Somebody, somewhere, somehow realized that...and down he came.

I recall that Weinstein seriously derailed Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan from getting Best Picture(Shakespeare in Love won instead) and I can only figure that Big Steve is quietly savoring all this. Revenge is a dish best tasted cold.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

In one of the columns on Weinstein, cititations of sexual harassment "going back decades" in the town included Hitchcock as one of the bad guys. I found it odd for Hitch to get listed with Weinstein and Polanski and Zanuck. We really only have the one recorded "He said, she said" Tippi Hedren incident; Hitch hardly seems like the kind of man who would have had Weinstein's boorish, continual instincts. And yet, there it is -- Hitchcock placed on a predator list when the guy was self-professed as impotent for much of his adult life.

There are "criss-crosses," however. We know how sexualized Hollywood is, and we know that there's a lot of consensual sex going on; a lot of spouses routinely cheating on wives and husbands who look the other way "as part of the contract," a lot of women or men "willing to do anything to get that role"(though we are told "you can only sleep your way to the middle"). And a lot of paid escorts.

Harvey Weinstein seems to have skipped past all those accepted areas of Hollywood sexual misconduct and opened a window on the darkest part of that city. His ties to the Democratic power structure will provide some ammo in the culture wars; I think this is one reason why his downfall has been so brutal and sudden --- he's banished by the powerful people who used to suck up to him. He's a pariah. That's Hollywood, too.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

And there are a lot of those in Hollywood. Billy Bob Thornton opined(paraphrased), "maybe the business doesn't turn them that way; maybe screwed-up people from all over the world come here just to exercise their crummy personalities."

I think Billy-Bob's right that centers of power of all sorts, including Hollywood and the movie business, do attract those with personalities that are really hooked on the exercise of power in bad ways. And maybe you (ecarle) are right that that the subtext of the HW case is that he wouldn't be facing the jury of his peers right now*if* he was still minting big hits and still had all the power upside that made people put up with all his non-sexual misbehavior (and turn a blind eye to his sexual misbehavior) in the first place.

I'd forgotten about McGowan's appearance in Death Proof as well as Planet Terror. So...QT's really *in* this story up to his neck. I do appreciate that probably QT's first instinct was to just 'stay out of it' as far as possible (and note that certain important figures such as Uma Thurman and Sam Jackson have not entered the fray so far), but the mystery of how monstrous bullies to almost everyone can nonetheless treat a *few* chosen people very well and those people then aren't tainted by their patrons' wider profile is so sensational when it finally breaks into the open that this is not going away without drawing in anyone who was nearby, and causing a lot of wider damage.

The slight-push-back comment from Clooney you mention is new to me. I guess he's right that if people *really* want to get into the tawdry details of how the industry works on an intimate social level then there'll be *lots* of shame to go around.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I think Billy-Bob's right that centers of power of all sorts, including Hollywood and the movie business, do attract those with personalities that are really hooked on the exercise of power in bad ways.

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Well, top levels of government and "regular" corporations certainly apply , but I suppose that Hollywood has always had a bad mix of hardscrabble hustlers who literally "come up from nothing" in search of great wealth and women (or men.)

Jerry Lewis opined on these hustlers, "Hollywood wouldn't be Hollywood if everybody was Abe Lincoln."

And speaking of Jerry Lewis, during his heyday without Dino, it is rumored that the married Lewis required a different woman to "service him" every morning before he went on set. The studios had lists of these women.

And even Steven Spielberg -- in his unmarried early years -- was "sent a woman" by Universal to the location of Jaws to alleviate his pressures.

Dirty, dirty gossip...but I've been reading books on filmmaking for years and the sexual component simply is unavoidable. Consent is one way out. "Paid for services"(however illegal) is another. But that's about it. And yeah, maybe these show biz folks are exaggerating(its what they do) but...the stories SOUND right.

Recall Danny DeVito's gossip monger in LA Confidential: "Everyone wants prime SINuendo..." and this great exchange with Kevin Spacey's crooked cop:

Spacey: I need an extra fifty. Two patrolmen at twenty apiece and a dime for the watch commander at Hollywood Station(to cover the bust of pot smoking ingenues for DeVito's scandal magazine.)

DeVito: Jack! Its Christmas.

Spacey: No. Its felony possession of marijuana.

DeVito: Actually, its circulation thirty-sex thousand and climbing. ...no telling where this is gonna go, Jackie Boy. Radio, television. You whet the public's appetite for the truth, and the sky's the limit.

Yet another reason that LA Confidential is such a great, great movie.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And maybe you (ecarle) are right that that the subtext of the HW case is that he wouldn't be facing the jury of his peers right now*if* he was still minting big hits and still had all the power upside that made people put up with all his non-sexual misbehavior (and turn a blind eye to his sexual misbehavior) in the first place.

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There are a number of "Why Now?" stories out there, and only a few theories abound. One is that he and his company are in trouble...if he can't get hits(even art film hits) greenlit, how can he destroy careers? Another is that he simply reached "a tipping point" -- one gross incident too many. Another is an internal power play at his company -- possibly engineered by his less famous brother Bob(how Shakespearian). And lurking "way out there" are his politics...the need to get him off the stage NOW so he doesn't get in the way of election hopes for the future of his party.

I'm sure a great Hollywood book will come out of it. There have been a few in the last few decades -- the one about Heaven's Gate, the one about the studio chief who forged Cliff Robertson's name on checks and brought down everybody; the one about the deaths on John Landis' Twilight Zone set. And all of the Biskind works.

Why, I'll bet Biskind is typing away right now...

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I'd forgotten about McGowan's appearance in Death Proof as well as Planet Terror.

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She's really good in Death Proof. Better than in Planet Terror, she holds the screen with her beauty and her crackling delivery of QT's lines. She trades lines with Kurt Russell, and QT's in the scene(as a bartender.)

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So...QT's really *in* this story up to his neck.

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Yup. Though perhaps he knows more about Ms. McGowan's personality than we do.

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I do appreciate that probably QT's first instinct was to just 'stay out of it' as far as possible (and note that certain important figures such as Uma Thurman and Sam Jackson have not entered the fray so far), but the mystery of how monstrous bullies to almost everyone can nonetheless treat a *few* chosen people very well and those people then aren't tainted by their patrons' wider profile is so sensational when it finally breaks into the open that this is not going away without drawing in anyone who was nearby, and causing a lot of wider damage.

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I honestly thought QT would just go silent, but I guess that's not in his character. He KNOWS that he and Weinstein were joined at the hip, and he KNOWS what he can -- and can't -- say. At least nobody's accusing QT of sexual harassment -- not to be too callous, but he doesn't need to.

The Biskind book and others painted Harvey Weinstein as a guy who started out in rock and roll band managing, I think. A world of fistfights, female groupies and "questionable business practices." He's a gangster wannbee(remember, that's why Hollywood insiders love The Godfather.) Steve Spielberg didn't come up this way.

QT (and Kevin "Clerks" Smith) enjoyed Weinstein's pirate ways in the beginning. We are about to learn how loyal they can be.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The slight-push-back comment from Clooney you mention is new to me.

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It is a mild pushback, and came along with his statement of outrage and disgust.

But I suppose Clooney is making sure that we all know that its a "two way street" on matters sexual in Hollywood, and that all sorts of women come out of the woodwork with false claims, to mix with the "real victims."

Clooney was too much of a "player" not to make sure this isn't known.

I've always found it funny that Clooney's major girlfriend right before marrying "the major international lawyer" was -- a gorgeous lady of wrestling. Clooney got around.

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I guess he's right that if people *really* want to get into the tawdry details of how the industry works on an intimate social level then there'll be *lots* of shame to go around.

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Yep. In some ways, Hollywood doesn't want that. shame advertised..but I think in some ways, they don't give a damn. They're getting all that fun...we're not.

And I'm reminded that Tony Curtis wrote an autobio that centered on the countless women he womanized all the time in "old Hollywood" -- many of them even as he was married to the beauteous Janet Leigh.

Not nice. Just the way it was then. And is now.

But Curtis operated before feminism.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Against this backdrop, the sexual misbehavior allegations aren't exactly surprising: someone who's a monster in public in an office at 10 a.m. is unlikely to be a choir-boy in private at night, liquored up and given a stream of pretty young things he has power over. What are HW's stars saying? Streep and Dench claim not to have heard the sexual harassment rumors and are now acting shocked to find that their friend has feet of clay, etc.. But they always *knew* that HW was a horror employer and a raging a-hole to lots of people who weren't at their level. So it's only being a *sexual* swine that's a deal-breaker for Streep and Dench?

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I think a change is sweeping over the public's view of "the movie star." We love what they do on the screen -- or the classic movies they have been in. But with the usual "barrier of studio PR people" out of business, we pretty much have a good knowledge of how pampered and blindered and self-absorbed these movie people are. Streep and Dench simply couldn't be bothered to do anything about Harvey Weinstein; his money (to pay them high salaries and get their movies made) kept him on their "friend list."

I liked good ol' George Clooney's public comment , something like : "Well, I heard that a lot of women slept with Harvey to get roles." I felt some pushback there, from George(who is usually a belligerent interview), his hidden message being: "Hey, don't tell me that we harass these women...they all want it from us." At least that's how I read it.

BTW, Clooney et al came forward with their statements only after one of the women(Rose MacGowan? Lena Dunham?) twittered. "So all the women are telling their tales...where are the MEN to express their outrage." So Clooney and Affleck and male directors and(eventually) QT all dutifully came out to express outrage. But Clooney's comments were, I thought, telling.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

Kate Winslet makes some useful remarks here:
http://tinyurl.com/y77oc25m
She says that although she wasn't *sexually* harrassed by HW, she and co-workers at various levels *were* subjected to near-constant abuse and harrassment and general unprofessional behavior. That, of course, is the HW of Down and Dirty Pictures.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Kate Winslet makes some useful remarks here:
http://tinyurl.com/y77oc25m
She says that although she wasn't *sexually* harrassed by HW, she and co-workers at various levels *were* subjected to near-constant abuse and harrassment and general unprofessional behavior. That, of course, is the HW of Down and Dirty Pictures.

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There is a fictional movie of 1994 called "Swimming with Sharks" that postulated Kevin Spacey as the most cruel, mean, tyrannical of movie executives imaginable. He torments and belittles and bullies his every underling. But...the movie coldly points out...these underlings are undergoing a "hazing" which will give them wealth and success when THEY become mean, cruel, bullies themselves.

The film was based on some real movie execs and I felt it was a warning: "You want to make it in Hollywood? Be ready to deal with the worst people on the planet...and be prepared to become one."

And yet I know that's somewhat of a fabrication. In the CREATIVE ranks -- singers, writers, and (eventually) actors -- their advancement is a bit more easy. They are respected for their talent(it can make money for others) and they advance up the ladder. Its on the non-creative business side that the(non-talented) sharks feed.

What's ironic about the Harvey Weinstein spectacle is that by finding his horrific Achilles heel(sexual predation), they have taken down a guy who would have been perfectly acceptable as "the usual Hollywood bully." Take out the sex part, and Harvey could have thrown phones at people forever -- as long as he kept making hits.

The other irony about Harvey Weinstein is that this coarse ape of a man produced a lot of "dainty and erudite Oscar bait," often with female stars.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

James Toback gets his from the LA Times:
http://tinyurl.com/yb7zadso
The funny thing is that I (like a lot of people I assume) have heard a number of these stories before but always anonymized. That is, actresses who've wanted to discuss problems for women in Hollywood have often told stories about an 'oscar-nom'd writer and director' doing exactly what Toback is described as doing here. So... it was flipping Toback we've been hearing about all these years, really, much like Weinstein, giving the whole industry a bad name, in small ways ruining the careers of hundreds and maybe thousands of young women.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

So... it was flipping Toback we've been hearing about all these years, really, much like Weinstein, giving the whole industry a bad name, in small ways ruining the careers of hundreds and maybe thousands of young women.

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Interesting. Toback's one of those "semi-names" in Hollywood. He was around when Scorsese, Spielberg, DePalma and Coppola were...just never as famous and productive.

He was also --uh oh - pals with Warren Beatty.

And therein lies a tale. About famous film critic Pauline Kael. Who was NOT harassed.

Its the famous story about Beatty luring Kael to quit her New Yorker job and come to Hollywood as a "production executive." It proved to be a worthless job with absolutely no power. Her job was to keep submitting properties to Paramount to make into movies. Macho drug addict womanizer studio boss Don Simpson said "no" to everything("Sorry, Pauline, we have to pass again.") Simpson reported told someone that being given power over rejecting Kael was like "being given a big sweet cake and a knife to cut it with."

But Beatty also helped get Kael assigned to actually producing a movie with...with...with...JAMES TOBACK. Who eventually told Beatty, "I can't work with this woman, she's ruining our movie" and got Beatty's OK to fire her.

Kael slumped back to the New Yorker, begged for her old job back(at first, they weren't going to give it to her) and licked her wounds.

If there is a heaven, Kael has to be smiling down on James Toback right now. And Don Simpson overdosed years ago...

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[–] [email protected] (690) 7 years ago

Yikes. The Wolf Of Wall Street ? To me, that seemed like an excess of debauchery, a film w/o a heart.
Of course, being a Scorsese film, it's interesting and well-made. I like Leo DiC a lot, but there wasn't much of a moral to the story. It seemed like an obvious re-make of Goodfellas with the voice-over commenting, but it lacked the color and drama.
WoWS seems like a lot of crazy partying, lotta drugs, people treating each other badly, and we know it's coming to a crashing end. A lot of sizzle and pop, but not much to care about.

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[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

Nice to see that Scorcese is joining the Big 50 club, folks with directing careers spanning over 50 years. Of course, Hitchcock was there, and Bunuel, not sure who else. Some would include Woody Allen, if you concede him a directing credit for What's Up, Tiger Lily? although all he did there was contribute an alternate soundtrack to a completed film.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Yikes. The Wolf Of Wall Street ?

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Yes. Favorite film of 2013. Leading to be my favorite film of the 2010's, versus this list:

2010 True Grit
2011 Moneyball
2012 Django Unchained
2014 John Wick
2015 The Hateful Eight
2016: The Magnificent Seven
2017: Baby Driver or Logan Lucky or ...?

You can see, perhaps, the process of elimination. Each of the two Tarantino films is flawed in some way even as I picked them. John Wick and The Magnificent Seven -- even to me -- are lightweight genre films(though with a lotta violence and death in both of them.) True Grit and Moneyball have great scripts and characters, but lack the "epic" quality of The Wolf of Wall Street.

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To me, that seemed like an excess of debauchery, a film w/o a heart.

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There was that to it. It was key to the very black comedy of the piece, you ask me. And one HAS to start with WOWS as a big mean comedy, in the tradition of MASH the movie and Dr. Strangelove. In fact, all three of these movies break into "comedy episodes" which are stand-alone comedy routines that the Average Joe can master in dialogue.

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[–] [email protected] (690) 7 years ago

Thanks. I'm willing to be persuaded. I really like both MS and LD with their success and career choices.
But speaking of Scorsese, (and to make a bit of a left turn but I don't know how else to do it), I really enjoyed his movie Hugo, but no one ever speaks of it. I like that it was very different from what one expects from cinema.
Returning to mainstream Martin, another LD collaboration was Gangs of New York. Again, I liked it a lot, but also again, I felt it was missing heart and wonder. There were a lot of great visuals and exaggerated characters, but it also just grinded (sic) along to it's solemn conclusion.
I guess I think if you're going to tell a sad story, you better have a lot of great cinematography and script to keep it interesting -- and I felt WOWS only delivered a tale of a guy who over-reached and got his come-uppence, a lot of fireworks but little humanity.
I do like your comparison to MASH and Strangelove though. I might try to watch WOWS with new eyes again someday.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 7 years ago

I really enjoyed his movie Hugo, but no one ever speaks of it.

I didn't think highly enough of Hugo to be bothered remembering what its problems were.... but I seem to remember that aside from its basic ugly CGI-look, Hugo's main problem was that the it comprised two completely distinct stories. The main story about Melies takes forever to unfold and when it does so it's then not developed enough to be especially interesting. Everything about the main kid being chased by the railway station inspector should just have been dropped.

In sum, to me Hugo just felt fundamentally misconceived. Maybe it never should have been made. I felt the same way about Spielberg's War Horse. While a lot of care and attention had gone into making the film, almost none had gone into thinking through whether the story in question was appropriate for a more realistic medium like film as compared to in a novel or on stage. I'm sure that Spielberg though he had Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar as a proof that a movie of War Horse could work, but alas in a very realistic medium it matters exactly what human activity you put use as the backdrop for your animal-fable and using the trench-warfare of WW1 as a backdrop for your fable is basically immoral. One of the great lessons out of WW1 - one that's put into practice in films such as All Quiet on the Western Front and Paths of Glory - was that esp. in films no grand narrative should be allowed to take attention away from the horrific realities of trench warfare on the one hand and the insane politics that had led to and perpetuated the conflict on the other hand. Deep down I don't think Spielberg understood WW1 (most Americans have no real feel for it, the US was barely in it, etc.) and so just waded in with his animal-fable. Very Bad Idea.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I guess I think if you're going to tell a sad story, you better have a lot of great cinematography and script to keep it interesting -- and I felt WOWS only delivered a tale of a guy who over-reached and got his come-uppence, a lot of fireworks but little humanity.
I do like your comparison to MASH and Strangelove though. I might try to watch WOWS with new eyes again someday.

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Funny thing: I was trying to do several consecutive posts on WOWS, and lost my connections (happens to me around here.) So you are responding to what was only the introductory paragraph though, maybe, that was good enough.

For I have watched WOWS many times since its release year -- either all the way through, or in segments. And I have shown it to guy friends and we all turn 25 again -- roaring with laughter at the "way out there" scenes like when Leo and Joshua and the guys are discussing using little people as human lawn darts ("Don't look in their eyes...we should have a taser on hand to stun them..."); when the FBI guy(Kyle Chandler) happily jokes around with Leo on his yacht and then lowers the boom("You know,most guys are prosecute are to the manner born...their fathers were douchebags and so were they, but YOU...you're a self made man! I can't tell you how excited the guys in the office are going to be when I confiscate this boat.") Leo and Joshua discussing the risk of defects to Joshua's children because he has married his cousin(if the child had issues,"I would drive out to the country, and let it out in the woods...")

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

There is a sequence in the first act(I think) that summarizes the sexuality, comedy -- AND sick viciousness of WOWS:

We see the company HQ bathroom with a "no sex sign" (a drawing of a couple doing it, crossed out), with a couple ignoring it, and doing it. Then we briefly see a flashback of a woman who orally serviced a salesman in the company's glass elevator, in front of applauding men and women -- THEN serviced Leo and Joshua later, THEN -- inexplicably -- actually married that young salesman. (We see the wedding photo of the smiling couple, for a miilisecond.)

And then we get a brief [police photo of the cuckolded husband as a suicide (bloody in a bathtub) ...with Leo's narration:

"...but about six months later, he killed himself. (Pause) ANYWAY...."

And you are meant to laugh at that horror...but THEN...the story immediately segues into the introduction(via Leo's narration) of his father "Mad Max"(Rob Reiner) who is introduced cursing a wild streak because someone had the temerity to call during his favorite show "The Equalizer." Under Leo's descriptive narration, he stops cursing, and answers the phone in a phony British accent, says "cheerio" to the caller, hangs up, goes back to the TV to curse more and demand from his wife a plot summary on what he missed ...for two minutes.

Follow the chain of events(all narrated by Leo): "No sex bathroom sign"(ignored); secretary who serviced a salesman in front of everybody; secretary servicing Leo AND Joshua; foolish salesman married her; salesman killed himself ("ANYWAY...") and suddenly we segue into the hilarious introduction of Rob Reiner with something both explicable(he's angry his TV show is interrupted) and INexcplicable(he speaks on the phone in a fake British accent.)

The Wolf of Wall Street keeps this madness up for three hours! Its sexuality -- which is consensual or paid for all the way through -- is heavy for an American film and I don't think it really mimics the Hollywood sexual horror stories in the news right now. Its its own consensual world...or is it? Is this how Hollywood sees itself? (For the record, Leo in real life dubbed this movie "a remake of Caligula.")

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

But again...the comedy. Always the comedy. The yacht captain being demanded by Leo to sail the yacht to England from Italy -- " Well, there will be a little chop. A little chop I suppose. A few dishes will get broken. We'll batten down the hatches."

He just mumbles this. CUT TO: The Pefect Storm tidal waves at sea, swamping the boat. And Leo demanding that Joshua go below decks to retrieve the ludes: "I am NOT dying sober!!"

And the sequence where Leo takes the old Qualudes and crawls to his car and drives home.

And the sequence where Leo and Joshua demand that the gay butler return the money he stole(the quick cuts to deadpan reactions of the Asian-American member of Leo's team getting progressively confused and irritated are the key to this scene -- eventually he just gets up and punches the butler, then helps hold him off the balcony til he talks.)

I know all these scenes because I"ve seen all these scenes about ten times each. And always -- as with GoodFellas and Casino -- we get the musical soundtrack of old rock tunes and soul tunes, and Scorsese's feverish cutting rhythms and camera moves. (When Hitchcock was this age, HE wasn't this rowdy with the cinematics....)

The interweave of comedy(overall) , heavy sexuality(for once in an American film), drugs, greed -- the whole nine yards -- works quite well in WOWS, but ultimately, this is the same moral tale that Scorsese(raised Catholic) gave us IN GoodFellas and Casino. In the beginning, the cash flows freely and the power is awesome, and you're on top of the world...but it all comes crashing down. Its just that in WOWS, nobody gets killed.

Except that poor suicidal salesman who truly Married the Wrong Girl.

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