Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water and Psycho - Psycho (1960) Discussion

[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

The exercise was to make the movie look like $60 million to $70 million for $19 million

Mission accomplished....Shape's a great-looking film with fantastic sets and props and practical fx seamlessly meshed with digital touches. Nice job bringing that in with that cast for $20 Million.

Mudbound was a similarly amazing achievement for only $10 mill. (the same as an hour of Games of Thrones).

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Compare that to the $100 million dollar budget movies that waste money endlessly.

Back in the day, Clint Eastwood saw so much budgetary waste on the big budget musical "Paint Your Wagon" that he swore then and there to produce and direct(often) his own films as cheaply as possible. That backfired eventually -- in the 80's -- when Eastwood's movies looked so cheap that it seemed he was insulting his own fans.

As for Psycho, I think the key was that Hitchcock invested in one costly set -- the Psycho house, inside and out -- that made the movie feel like a MOVIE. And he invested time and budget on his two big murder scenes beyond the quick-take simplicity of the rest of the film.

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[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

Del Toro gave a lovely and erudite acceptance speech for Best Director at the BAFTAs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGHim_jC_jU

He's also looking *huge* (perhaps Hitchcock as his early model has been unhelpful). He must be courting a medical disaster with all that weight at 53. We're very unlikely to get many more GdT films if he doesn't start taking care of himself (his doctors must be screaming): getting exercise, controlling diet, etc..

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[–] jay440 (107) 7 years ago

"Del Toro gave a lovely and erudite acceptance speech for Best Director at the BAFTAs"
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He certainly sounds more erudite than the typical director. How many who are foreign-born can go up and cite English literature in front of that BAFTA crowd, touching on Terrence Rattigan, Noel Coward, Mary Shelley, and Shakespeare's The Tempest? I love his line about Frankenstein author Mary Shelley: "She picked up the plight of Caliban, gave weight to the burden of Prometheus, voice to the voiceless, and presence to the invisible." It's time for me to brush up on my classics.
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"He's also looking *huge* (perhaps Hitchcock as his early model has been unhelpful). He must be courting a medical disaster with all that weight at 53."
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His weight is worrying; mounting those steps to the podium looked like an effort. I hope he takes a page from fellow director Peter Jackson, who dropped 50 lbs because he was rightfully worried about his health. It's very difficult to keep the pounds off without your weight yo-yo-ing up and down. Ricky Gervais dropped a lot of weight a while back and, unfortunately, from a recent TV interview I saw, he has put it all back on and then some. Not an unfamiliar struggle for many of us, though Hitchcock at least had a sense of humor about it:
https://the.hitchcock.zone/wiki/1000_Frames_of_Lifeboat_(1944)_-_frame_290

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

He certainly sounds more erudite than the typical director. How many who are foreign-born can go up and cite English literature in front of that BAFTA crowd, touching on Terrence Rattigan, Noel Coward, Mary Shelley, and Shakespeare's The Tempest? I love his line about Frankenstein author Mary Shelley: "She picked up the plight of Caliban, gave weight to the burden of Prometheus, voice to the voiceless, and presence to the invisible." It's time for me to brush up on my classics.

"He's also looking *huge* (perhaps Hitchcock as his early model has been unhelpful). He must be courting a medical disaster with all that weight at 53."
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His weight is worrying; mounting those steps to the podium looked like an effort. I hope he takes a page from fellow director Peter Jackson, who dropped 50 lbs because he was rightfully worried about his health. It's very difficult to keep the pounds off without your weight yo-yo-ing up and down. Ricky Gervais dropped a lot of weight a while back and, unfortunately, from a recent TV interview I saw, he has put it all back on and then some. Not an unfamiliar struggle for many of us, though Hitchcock at least had a sense of humor about it:

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

He certainly sounds more erudite than the typical director. How many who are foreign-born can go up and cite English literature in front of that BAFTA crowd, touching on Terrence Rattigan, Noel Coward, Mary Shelley, and Shakespeare's The Tempest? I love his line about Frankenstein author Mary Shelley: "She picked up the plight of Caliban, gave weight to the burden of Prometheus, voice to the voiceless, and presence to the invisible." It's time for me to brush up on my classics.

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A Renaissance man, this DelToro is. I know who those folks are, but damn if I could remember to cover them in a speech.

This Oscar season seems more bleak than last year's, in which La La Land seemed to be a real hit with a real following -- albeit the little seen Moonlight won (and BTW, I saw -- but could not hear -- an Oscar telecast commercial with Jimmy Kimmel and -- TA DA -- Warren Beatty! Warren's willing to come back and have some fun with his historic gaffe -- not his fault.) By "bleak," I mean: its hard to find a movie folks much care about. Billboards is a front runner with a pushback trailing it, and no real warmth towards it(plus, personally, I find Frances McDormand a bit too "on and purposefully eccentric" as a speech giver..

I guess I shall root for DelToro and The Shape of Water. He's a Grade-A Hitchcock fan who has done his time on DVD documentaries praising the great man (and he really like Frenzy.)

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[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

Billboards is a front runner with a pushback trailing it, and no real warmth towards it

Billboards' fortunes appear to be being boosted by news stories in the last few days about people in Florida using highway billboards to put pressure on Senator Marco Rubio to get behind gun-control efforts. (Apparently there's another instance in the UK too.)

It's a strange horse-race year that's for sure (esp. for Best Picture). Shape and Billboards have the form (with a director/picture split between them looking likely - Del Toro following in the footsteps of Cuaron and Gonzalez Innaritu - DT's classy Bafta speech will have helped him with older Acad. members: they know now he'll give a speech to make the Acad. proud) but neither's going to get close to a majority of first preferences. So second and third preferences etc. are going to be important. Will they skew overwhelmingly enough towards either Ladybird or Get Out to cause an upset? I suspect not; that both have political winds at their backs that will leave the other a little short.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

"He's also looking *huge* (perhaps Hitchcock as his early model has been unhelpful).

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Ha. Yes. Hopefully he wasn't trying to "copy his master to the nth degree."

I'm reminded that with QT continually talking about how the last 10 to 20 years of old directors' work was subpar, he is thinking about movies made by old men like Hitchcock(overweight, poor health), Ford(a black-out drinker, poor health) and Wilder(fit enough, but not rumored to be an exercise freak.) Modern-day directors like Spielberg and Scorsese(not to mention Eastwood!) follow better health and exercise regimens and are hence turning out "young" movies in their seventies. (Eastwood: 80s!)

But here' DelToro on track for health danger. I'm reminded that while John Candy died young of his weight, John Goodman seems to have conquered his; he is not a thin man, but he is thinner than he once was.

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He must be courting a medical disaster with all that weight at 53."
--------------------------
His weight is worrying; mounting those steps to the podium looked like an effort. I hope he takes a page from fellow director Peter Jackson, who dropped 50 lbs because he was rightfully worried about his health. It's very difficult to keep the pounds off without your weight yo-yo-ing up and down. Ricky Gervais dropped a lot of weight a while back and, unfortunately, from a recent TV interview I saw, he has put it all back on and then some. Not an unfamiliar struggle for many of us, though Hitchcock at least had a sense of humor about it:

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Interesting about Hitchcock: in the 30's and early 40s, he was HUGE, a giant balloon of a man. He seems to have kept the weight off from the late forties(in HIS late forties) through the fifties and early sixties; it started coming back on for good around '66 and Torn Curtain. Then, in the 70s, Hitchcock was at once huge and rather haggard...age was taking its toll, too

I've always felt that how some of our wealthiest people handle their weight issues is a clue to just how difficult it is. Folks like Oprah and Michael Moore make a LOT of money, but weight loss is yo-yo(Oprah) or non-existent(Moore)...even with the money to hire special cooks, buy special food, hire trainers, etc. Hitchcock, of course, skipped the exercise entirely in his later years -- though word is he was a good tennis player and "could take four steps on a staircase at a time" in his youth -- heavy but agile and in very good health until his late fifties(being a rich genius-type helps.)

Jonah Hill started out young very heavy; lost a lot of weight; put the weight back on...and is now very thin again. I don't know how he does it, but it is worrysome, all that yo-yoing.

I've remarked before that I get a little guilty-feeling when I write things like "Norman Bates was fat and forty in the novel." I've tried substituting words like "obese" and "heavy set" but of course they aren't as alliterative as "fat and forty." (And alas, a fat Norman Bates on screen would be automatically ruled out to even TALK to Janet Leigh.) For I realize that x number of us out there in "internet land" may be sensitive to our own weight issues.

Suffice it to say that I think we can discuss the weight issues of both fictional characters(Norman Bates in the book) and well-paid movie stars(Jack Nicholson, John Travolta) and we are within our range of comment. And DelToro is in that "movie star" category: well-paid, a public figure, unavoidable to notice the weight.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Ricky Gervais dropped a lot of weight a while back and, unfortunately, from a recent TV interview I saw, he has put it all back on and then some.

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The yo-yo effect is real, and demoralizing, and I've seen it with all too many friends who get the comments "you look GREAT" when they lose the weight, and a certain embarrassed nod when it comes back.

But everything is worth a try.

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[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

Modern-day directors like Spielberg and Scorsese(not to mention Eastwood!) follow better health and exercise regimens and are hence turning out "young" movies in their seventies. (Eastwood: 80s!)

Ridley Scott is in his 80s too and still able to make huge movies fast and with incredible energy.

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[–] jay440 (107) 7 years ago

"Back in the day, Clint Eastwood saw so much budgetary waste on the big budget musical "Paint Your Wagon" that he swore then and there to produce and direct(often) his own films as cheaply as possible."
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Eastwood has credited Don Siegel for showing him how to "shoot lean". Siegel's start as an ace editor gave him the knowledge to know exactly what he wanted to shoot without getting miles of coverage. The great DP Gordon Willis dismissed that kind of coverage as the work of "dumptruck directors", who overshoot footage and dump it all on the editors.

It's a surprise more editors don't become directors, it seems like a natural move artistically, but I'm guessing the completely opposite work environments wouldn't suit all temperaments. It's not a long list, but besides Siegel it includes David Lean, Hal Ashby, Edward Dymytryk (Murder, My Sweet), and Robert Wise (The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Sound of Music, West Side Story).

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

"Back in the day, Clint Eastwood saw so much budgetary waste on the big budget musical "Paint Your Wagon" that he swore then and there to produce and direct(often) his own films as cheaply as possible."
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Eastwood has credited Don Siegel for showing him how to "shoot lean".

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I'm a real Don Siegel fan. He's not as "profound" as Hitchcock, but his multitudinous tough guy tales and Westerns are a great group of "small scale" action pictures.

Eastwood had done one with Siegel(Coogan's Bluff) before doing the garguantuan "Paint Your Wagon," and Eastwood immediately did three more with Siegel(Sister Sara, The Beguiled, and the MEGA Dirty Harry) before setting off on his own as a "lean director."

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Siegel's start as an ace editor gave him the knowledge to know exactly what he wanted to shoot without getting miles of coverage. The great DP Gordon Willis dismissed that kind of coverage as the work of "dumptruck directors", who overshoot footage and dump it all on the editors.

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Hitchcock shot tight, too -- was it Selznick who complained of Hitchcock's 'goddamn jigsaw cutting"? I've always pitted this against word that both Stanley Kubrick and Warren Beatty would shoot scores, sometimes hundreds of takes, which reflects to me some sort of psychological OCD defect more than anything else. I've seen scenes from Hitchcock, Siegel, Kubrick and Beatty -- and its hard to tell which ones are BETTER(Kubrick's genius resided somewhere beyond his takes, I think.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

It's a surprise more editors don't become directors, it seems like a natural move artistically, but I'm guessing the completely opposite work environments wouldn't suit all temperaments.

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Film editors often spend hours alone in dark rooms working with "just the raw film." They don't have to interact too much with other people -- with actors, with set designers, etc. Plus they don't always know how to "play the game" to get directing jobs and advance. Still -- they are the men and women who MAKE the movies, often.

Remember Verna Fields? She was called "mother cutter" and it is said that she, more than Spielberg, helped shape Jaws into the super-tense thriller it was(out of miles of mismatched film of sea and sky.)

In the same years Hitchcock had Robert Burks on camera and Bernard Herrmann on music, he had George Tomasini on film editing. Tomasini did Psycho -- historic work that the Academy ignored(probably because the editing is the opposite of "invisible." ) Tomasini was nominated for NXNW. Tomasini died comparatively young in his fifties, of a heart attack while camping. Marnie was his final Hitchcock film(as it was for Herrmann and Burks, oddly enough.)

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It's not a long list, but besides Siegel it includes David Lean, Hal Ashby, Edward Dymytryk (Murder, My Sweet), and Robert Wise (The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Sound of Music, West Side Story).

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Of that group, Hal Ashby had the luck to become a director in those much-revered seventies , and he looked like a hippie, and he seemed to be the "star editor-director" of his era. He "fit" with Nicholson and Beatty as a peer.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

One film editing anecdote I like:

George Tomasini actually had a small TEAM of editors working under him on Psycho. One member of that team was interviewed for a book about the shower scene that came out about ten years ago.

There was this quote:

Q: So when you were cutting the shower scene, how did it impact you? What did you think?
Editor: I thought "this movie is going to make more money than North by Northwest."

Actually, I bet it was pretty exciting to KNOW that as he cut it.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

The exercise was to make the movie look like $60 million to $70 million for $19 million
Mission accomplished....Shape's a great-looking film with fantastic sets and props and practical fx seamlessly meshed with digital touches. Nice job bringing that in with that cast for $20 Million.

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Its an amazing accomplishment, but I think this: Psycho SHOWED its cheapness of budget overall -- The Shape of Water does not.

I recall a line in the Bosley Crowther New York Times review -- Psycho, he said was "obviously a low budget job," particularly in comparison to the recent Hitchcock technicolor travelogues(I'll bet Bosley was thinking of To Catch a Thief, Vertigo, and NXNW.)

You can see the 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents" feeling of Psycho in its first half hour -- even as there is an intensity to it, an "otherworldliness" that Hitchcock didn't usually get on his TV show.

The cheapness of Psycho feels like "Mission:Accomplished" to me -- Hitchcock wanted to make a movie that at least LOOKED like a William Castle or Roger Corman picture. At times, Psycho does. (Then again, at times it does not -- Arbogast climbing the hill to the house; Arbogast's POV of the stairs and rooms of the house.)

But this little "blast from my past." Knowing readers may remember that while I was not allowed to watch the Psycho debut late night Los Angeles broadcast of November 18, 1967, I DID sneak a look at the first half hour on February 17, 1968 when KABC showed it again. As if God were overseeing me, I got all the way through the Marion part until she was driving in the rain hearing voices...and that's when the folks got home and I turned it off.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And I remember this clearly: I was EXPECTING a movie that was going to look cheap and sound tinny. And Psycho was NOT either of those. What I remember most clearly was how rich the SOUND was, how clearly I could hear the cop's voice, and California Charlie's. I also remember thinking the movie looked very "modern" with very smooth, very clear images. I was surprised at how good Psycho looked and sounded -- I sensed that was Hitchcock's quality control.

As long as I'm on this "memory lane" topic, I'll share a coupla more remembrances of those seminal November 1967 and February 1968 showings of Psycho:

For the November one, the folks were home and so the time came for all the kids to go to bed...even as we knew(well, I knew) that Psycho would be coming on shortly and that the parents were going to watch it. It was a mysterious night, falling asleep knowing that down the hall and out in the den, my parents were watching THAT MOVIE. It seemed like a dark ritual to which I was not invited.

Came Sunday morning, my mother's famous line to me:

"The first half hour was the most boring movie I've ever seen. The rest of it was the most sick movie I've ever seen. And you don't get to see it til you are 18." Thus is an obsession born. (Oh, and my father's line: "But you can see that its a classic.")

Came Monday morning, and the ENTIRE WEEK thereafter, Psycho was all any kid I knew was talking about. You saw it. You didn't get to see it. You were with one crowd or another. (Famous line that week from one kid: "Yeah, I saw it. And I wish I DIDN'T! I was up all night.")

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And about that later February showing. It was tough. I only got to see about the first 25 minutes of the movie(Marion's part, solo.) But they had some opening clips before the movie started and, returning from each commercial break, they would have the SAME clip: Norman running down from the house to the motel after the shower murder.

Among the clips they showed "up front": Norman running; the door opening at the top of the stairs(I guessed this was the Arbogast scene, but they showed no more, I recall not even knowing who PLAYED Arbogast back then, I wanted to know, but no dice.) Mother starting to spin around in her chair. And, oddly most memorably: Norman before the shower murder, in the old house, walking down the hall to the kitchen and sitting down. Thus did I get my first real sense of Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates and of "life in the house." It was a very haunting image to me of Psycho -- and it kept me DESPERATE to see the movie some day.

It took three more years.....

PS. One other weird thing about that KABC TV Showing(and they did this with all their movies back then): they cut the opening titles for Psycho...It began with the sweep over Phoenix with the names "Psycho," "Anthony Perkins" "Janet Leigh" superimposed. KABC brass felt that opening credits "got in the way." They showed them at the END. Philistines! Barbarians!

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Psycho TV reveries over, I return to The Shape of Water.MAJOR SPOILERS

I have seen it now. I'm moving at a glacial pace on Oscar bait this year. I'd say I've only really seen three: Ladybird, I Tonya, and now The Shape of Water. I expect I'll get to Billboards because "its probably the one," but honestly, I just don't feel that Ladybird or (now) The Shape of Water are Best Picture material. In a different time and place, they would not have even been under consideration. But in 2017/2018...they are all we got.

I understand also that Shape of Water got 13 Oscar nominations. That's Ben-Hur/West Side Story territory.

Really?

And Psycho only got four.

There's a lot to like in "The Shape of Water": its indeed great(and expensive) look. I recall the line from James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James" -- "Deep greens and blues are the colors I choose" -- well, so did Del Toro. The movie is wonderfully easy on the eyes, mainly in deep greens and blues(the blue of shimmering water.)

I was also moved -- literally -- by the musical score. Its sweet and sad and romantic a lot of the time(with French undertow..what IS that instrument that gets that French sound..an accordion?) and...exciting and Bernard Herrmannesque at other times.

Great cast of tested fine actors: Sally Hawkins -- such a sad, expressive face, capable of wit and anger as well. Richard Jenkins -- such a dependable veteran by now (and as Julia Roberts's character said of the actor in "Eat, Pray, Love" -- he looks a lot like Old Bald James Taylor.) Octavia Spencer, ditto. And the estimable Michael Shannon.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

MAJOR SPOILERS for The Shape of Water

About Michael Shannon: way back in 2001, I saw him in a small part in the so-so epic "Pearl Harbor." My significant other at the time was very taken with him. She said he looked like Joseph Cotton in Shadow of a Doubt and would become a star.

Well, 16 years alter, Michael Shannon is...a fine actor. Kind of an indie star and a character guy for the studios. But not really a star. Rather LIKE Joseph Cotton, Shannon's looks have gotten more haggard and less handsome over the years; he's a good bad guy(as here) because he looks so damn MEAN. (The scenes of Shannon's heartless government guy going home to a typical 1962 suburban home with loving wife and kids and trying to watch Mr Ed on the sofa are priceless -- this man does not FIT in suburbia, he's there grudgingly, he's a killer at heart.)

I'm afraid its a given, nowadays, that Hollywood (and other countries) have plenty of fine actors and a movie can round up a great cast. But its the STORY that's gotta make it.

And that's where I think The Shape of Water is lacking.

Because its...Splash. Yep, the 1984 Ron Howard comedy fantasy romance that helped launch Tom Hanks as a star.

You may recall that Splash was about a beautiful mermaid(Daryl Hannah) coming to NYC in pursuit of a "boy" she once loved who is now a man(Hanks.) An improbable romance follows but -- soon the government and the military have captured the mermaid and put her in a tank of water; her gills are falling off and she is dying; the scientists want to vivisect her...and a small group of heroes break the fish girl out of her govt/military prison and rush her to the sea where -- she "magically" makes it so that Tom Hanks can breathe underwater and return to the mermaids sea home with her.

Well, I tell ya -- each and every one of those scenes is in The Shape of Water. I understand the movie is facing a plagiarism suit over some French play about a dolphin. But why aren't the Splash filmmakers suing, too?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

MAJOR SPOILERS for The Shape of Water

And there's the "Creature from the Black Lagoon" angle, too. The fish man in Shape looks rather like that guy(but more sweet and expressive when not in a good-guy-killer mood) and we are told that Shannon brought him back from South America.

Here, I believe, Del Toro is out for "homage" -- The Shape of Water being his rumination on the unconsummated love of the creature for a pretty girl (in the 1954 film) here transformed into One Outsider's Love for Another Outlsider

Hawkins as that outsider has a great mix of the sexy and the somewhat misshapen, a face in which cute beauty and plainness reside at the same time...and a nude body that is at once supple and somewhat stunted. The sexual aching of the character is palpable. A great PHYSICAL performance.

Hawkins hasn't won any awards yet for this mo vie, has she? Because this is a great "affliction" performance and the Oscars go for that. But I guess its Frances McDormand's year, with the LadyBird star a dark horse and my own regard for Margot Robbie as Tanya Harding. Still...I wouldn't count Hawkins out.

In fact, as The Shape of Water unwound, I saw the perhaps too-on-the-nose contours of Oscar bait a' forming: The heroes are an afflicted(mute) woman; a gay man; and a black woman. The bad guys are straight white males. (Though one straight white Russian undercover agent proves good enough, I guess.)

As a straight white male, I get this. And the 1962 white males are guys who -- ala Mad Men -- had all the power in the world. (The film's military general villain reminds me that ending the draft was a fight to the death because those generals didn't want to lose their power over other human beings.) The scene where Michael Shannon's very pretty and very perky suburban wife serves him up sex as if it is a smiling duty -- which Shannon performs as grimly as anything else -- is a further indictment of the soullessness of these powerful white males.

Well, that's all over now. Right? Wrong? I dunno. I just live here.

PS. Shannon gets one slight moment of sympathy when he begs of the General who "runs" him-- didn't 12 years of "getting it right" for his country allow him this one mistake of losing the creature(which he swears he'll get back?). No, says the General harshly, it doesn't. One mistake and its all over for Shannon..perky wife and sons be damned. A tough truth.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

MAJOR SPOILERS for The Shape of Water

The Shape of Water is a nastier bit of business than Splash. Nobody prodded Daryl Hannah with a cattle prod drawing blood and she didn't bite a bad guy's fingers off(nor did he sew them back on and watch them blacken in smelly putrification.)

I'm not familiar enough with Del Toro's work to know if he's more of a gore guy than a nice guy. The Shape of Water seems to play on both fields.

This I liked, very much: Del Toro is a Hitchcock buff, and while The Shape of Water has no overt Hitchcock homages ala DePalma, it is at most times VERY suspenseful, in the sequences about rescuing and hiding the fish man from the bad guys, and in Shannon's slowly dawning understanding about where the gill man IS, and who took him.

This I didn't like so much: the scene in which Richard Jenkins reveals he is gay to the young diner owner he THINKS is gay...only to learn that the guy is a homophobe. Fair enough, but Jenkins learns this SIMULTANEOUSLY with the diner owner ALSO revealing himself to be a racist(he'll serve the "Negro" couple who come in, but take-out only, they can't sit.) Something about BOTH traits turning up conveniently at the same time seemed to be lazy screenwriting to me.

And that's rather a concern I have with the whole enterprise. It seemed too easily written, too much based on other ideas(Splash, the Creature, I guess this French play.) I liked the look, the mood, the music, the suspense , the performances of The Shape of Water but...its a little bitty movie that, again, I can't see holding up against the Oscar greats.

Still, I'm rooting for Del Toro. I can see him winning the Best Director award because -- unlike the Director of Billboards -- he's a real lovable likeable guy. There's enough good in The Shape of Water that I'd be happy to see Del Toro win.

Its just a nagging feeling that he won't be winning for anything that really matters much....

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[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

In fact, as The Shape of Water unwound, I saw the perhaps too-on-the-nose contours of Oscar bait a' forming: The heroes are an afflicted(mute) woman; a gay man; and a black woman. The bad guys are straight white males. (Though one straight white Russian undercover agent proves good enough, I guess.)

I found it a little too 'on the nose' too, although I don't think it was Oscar-baiting as much as Campus-politics-beholden. Shape *is* an odd duck because it's got the look of an $80-100 million picture, but since it was brought in so cheaply, Del Toro has had the freedom to make exactly the film he wanted to make, with sharp edges of gore and sex left in that inevitably shrink its audience away from kids and families. And yet it mostly feels like the kind of fable that *should* be family-viewing! Splash made more than 3x Shape's box office when you adjust for inflation (and of course ET etc. made the moon). That's the sort of money left on the table that'll make a Studio exec. cry in frustration!

A popular hit that got no critical love and that could have won Best Picture back in the '50s: Hugh Jackman's passion project The Greatest Showman. It's over $150 mill in the US and is at $350 mill worldwide. It's been out for 6 weeks in the UK and has only *just* hit #1 there. Mark Kermode posted a vid about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7TtX8ZT0ps
Update: A song from Greatest Showman was just used for the triumphant skate-around climax of the Olympic Figure Skating Gala. That film's here to stay.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

A popular hit that got no critical love and that could have won Best Picture back in the '50s: Hugh Jackman's passion project The Greatest Showman. It's over $150 mill in the US and is at $350 mill worldwide. It's been out for 6 weeks in the UK and has only *just* hit #1 there. Mark Kermode posted a vid about this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7TtX8ZT0ps
Update: A song from Greatest Showman was just used for the triumphant skate-around climax of the Olympic Figure Skating Gala. That film's here to stay.

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You know, I saw The Greatest Showman a few weeks ago, I guess for once I elected not to report on it here.

I liked it. Generally, I like musicals, and I miss musicals as a staple of the movie year. The Greatest Showman has one big showstopper -- it plays over the trailer -- called "This is Me." I'm wondering if that's the one they played over the Olympic gala. If not, there were a few other strong songs in th film, though they didn't "stick" for me.

The film showed off Hugh Jackman as quite the ebullient movie star -- handsome, personable, you want to get behind him(he's such a smiling family man charmer here that you feel his good vibes were buried by the brutal Wolverine finale). Jackman is also confident enough to share the story with a younger very handsome man -- Zac Efron -- and together they are like a musical Butch and Sundance, a fine buddy team. Michelle Williams(as Jackman's eventually suffering wife) was fine and the woman they cast as a famous Swedish singer was....well, quite easy on the eyes.

I could see where The Greatest Showman could get a slot on the Best Picture list some decades ago...and it is certainly a hit where much of this year's Oscar bait is not.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

BTW, right now, the Oscar films suffer the further ignomy of coming under consideration just as Black Panther is a relevant supermegahit -- in February yet -- that is what the movies ARE supposed to be about. Thus the Oscar bait group look even MORE irrelevant. But maybe there is a better point here -- in February of 2018, we have the megahit Black Panther AND a perfectly decent roster of good 2017 Oscar films that make the movie business still one of the great treasures of any time.

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[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

The Greatest Showman has one big showstopper -- it plays over the trailer -- called "This is Me." I'm wondering if that's the one they played over the Olympic gala.

That's the song they used. I hadn't given Showman a thought before this weekend. Then I watched Kermode's vid. about its phenomenon in the UK on Sat, then I saw its big song turn up over the Ice Skating finale on Sunday (we're a day ahead of you down under and in Korea). By the end of the weekend, I knew that Showman was going to win best song Oscar and that its performance at the event is probably going to win the night, and subtlely rebuke the Academy for not finding room for Showman on their Best Picture long-list.

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[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

and the woman they cast as a famous Swedish singer was....well, quite easy on the eyes.

I'm pretty sure I know who you're referring to - she's in pink and on the trapeeze in the clips available on-line. At first I thought that that was Game of Thrones chick, Emilia Clarke, but no this gal is taller etc.. Her name is Zendaya, she's a Disney channel kid star who's now being graduated to adult roles. She was one of Spidey's classmates in the recent Spider-man, and agree that she looks all grown up in the Showman clips I've seen.

I suspect that Zendaya's at least going to eat Emilia Clarke's lunch - they really have very similar faces and Z is younger, taller, hotter, and as well as looking like a star in a surprise, popular hit with Showman, she's also got a growing, long-term role in the latest, well-received Spider-man incarnation (Clarke has yet to get any traction outside Game of Thrones). I understand she's also dating the Spidey actor (Tom Holland - whom I first encountered as excellent in the rather good, brilliantly-staged Tsunami-film with Naomi Watts, The Impossible).

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I found it a little too 'on the nose' too, although I don't think it was Oscar-baiting as much as Campus-politics-beholden.

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Perhaps. I suppose the issue is..."everything is formula, just in different ways." Richard Jenkins character was a very nice man, and I was charmed by his love of old musicals and the bit where he did the dance step with Hawkins(while both sat on a couch.) As a person I could relate to, Jenkins was just fine. It was only once he seemed "part of a symbolic team of outsiders" that I saw the formula.

I would add that with the story being set in 1962, there was much greater risk in being a gay man, and much more oppressive circumstances for the women in the story, of color or not.

----

Shape *is* an odd duck because it's got the look of an $80-100 million picture,

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It definitely does. I would have had no idea it was so cheaply made -- Psycho in that regard, it ain't.

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but since it was brought in so cheaply, Del Toro has had the freedom to make exactly the film he wanted to make, with sharp edges of gore and sex left in that inevitably shrink its audience away from kids and families. And yet it mostly feels like the kind of fable that *should* be family-viewing!

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Well, I'm guessing (now) that maybe this was the point. Perhaps Del Toro ruminated on the sexcual aspects of Splash(which WERE there, Hanks somehow did make love to the mermaid as I recall) and Creature from the Black Lagoon, and elected to play them all the way out.

As for the violence, Del Toro is a Hitchcock fan who really likes Frenzy(he's said) so...taking the film into areas of brutality and the macabre(Shannon's dead, black, smelly fingers) was what Del Toro wanted to do.

On the cheap, as you say, Del Toro could go that way. (And STILL get the Splash happy ending -- with a resurrection element -- both the fish man and the human woman are shot to death but "come back.") Plus a fittingly gory death for the main villain.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Splash made more than 3x Shape's box office when you adjust for inflation (and of course ET etc. made the moon). That's the sort of money left on the table that'll make a Studio exec. cry in frustration!

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I recall when Splash came out, somebody accused it of being an ET ripoff(which, yeah, it sort of was.) Its definitely a genre. "The alien outsider come to earth." To that extent, Del Toro is just doing what film makers have always done -- working off an established story to offer his own theme.

Perhaps the highlight of The Shape of Water is the scene where Hawkins fills up her bathroom with water to create a "tank" in which to make love to her fish man. The magical element of the scene, is how the reality of the water dripping down into the old movie theater below somehow fuses the real(water dripping through a floor) with the fantastical(the movie on the screen, the fish man in the bathroom). And it is a very erotic scene. Its things like this scene, no doubt, that drew The Shape of Water its Oscar-bait attention.

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[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

Perhaps the highlight of The Shape of Water is the scene where Hawkins fills up her bathroom with water to create a "tank" in which to make love to her fish man.

The scene reminded me a lot of a 'filling up a bathroom with water' quasi-romantic scene near the end of Delicatessen (1993). D's director Jeunet (most famous for Amelie) was the big new influence on Del Toro's look and feel this time around. Jeunet himself isn't that thrilled about being an influence and has publicly chastized De Toro for not using his own imagination enough, ad for stealing scenes (Jeunet's most exercised not by lifting of overall look and feel or by the bathroom scene but by some of the scenes between Hawkins and Jenkins that I hadn't remembered the Delicatessen antecedents for):
https://youtu.be/IqGL0eb1aHA
vs
https://youtu.be/xwPf7cuIn-E
Jeunet reports that Del Toro told him he thinks that you can't steal from a thief and that they're both stealing like crazy from Terry Gilliam! Jeunet not amused by this and is looking like quite the sourpuss.

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[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

I just don't feel that Ladybird or (now) The Shape of Water are Best Picture material. In a different time and place, they would not have even been under consideration. But in 2017/2018...they are all we got.

Well...obviously Three Billboards is still out there for you - it has its problems (most along the lines of 'What, if anything was it really saying') but it has some snappy dialogue, 3 or 4 very memorable characters/performances, and a Coen-ish approach to violence. It *feels* like the sort of thing that has won or got close to winning Acad Awards since the mid-'90s.

And in their ways Mudbound (precedent: Grapes of Wrath, In The Heat of The Night), Phantom Thread (precedent: Star is Born, All About Eve), and Dunkirk (precedent: Saving Private Ryan, Patton) all feel like classic prestige pictures. None has ended up getting all that much traction for some reason.

Imagine the following 5-way Best Picture Field:
Three Billboards, Phantom Thread, Mudbound, Dunkirk, Greatest Showman (for crowd-pleasingness). That actually does look like a Best Picture list of old in my view.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I just don't feel that Ladybird or (now) The Shape of Water are Best Picture material. In a different time and place, they would not have even been under consideration. But in 2017/2018...they are all we got.

---

Well...obviously Three Billboards is still out there for you - it has its problems (most along the lines of 'What, if anything was it really saying') but it has some snappy dialogue, 3 or 4 very memorable characters/performances, and a Coen-ish approach to violence. It *feels* like the sort of thing that has won or got close to winning Acad Awards since the mid-'90s.

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Well, Fargo is my favorite film of 1996 so...my hearts in it for McDormand and a "Coen feel." Rockwell's getting good notices and some controversy for his character, but here let me offer a shoutout to...Woody Harrelson...who kinda snuck up over the decades and is now one of the more dependable character stars we've got. He's close to over-exposed -- Sam Jackson/John Goodman territory -- but he is good, he is versatile, he is likeable. I only saw the first Hunger Games film, but I remember warming to his wary mature presence(and handsome looks with a long-hair wig) in that youth film -- as a adult Hunger Game survivor grown drunk and rebellious while trying to mentor kids who will mostly die. He was cool and funny as a zombie hunter in "Zombieland"(getting a great scene with his pal Bill Murray in a cameo.) And we both know of his Arbogastian turn as a private eye (more like the Stetson-hatted Arbogast of Bloch's novel) in No Country for Old Men. Which was ten years ago plus. Harrelson has endured.

Anyway, my hopes are high for liking Billboards. I certainly liked La La Land last year. I CAN relate to Oscar bait.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And in their ways Mudbound (precedent: Grapes of Wrath, In The Heat of The Night), Phantom Thread (precedent: Star is Born, All About Eve), and Dunkirk (precedent: Saving Private Ryan, Patton) all feel like classic prestige pictures. None has ended up getting all that much traction for some reason.

Imagine the following 5-way Best Picture Field:
Three Billboards, Phantom Thread, Mudbound, Dunkirk, Greatest Showman (for crowd-pleasingness). That actually does look like a Best Picture list of old in my view.

---

You have convinced me. In my heart of hearts, I know that The Phantom Thread is the kind of prestige filmmaking(with a very prestigious star promising us "this is the last time") that makes Oscar proud. I've heard good things about Mudbound. Having seen Dunkirk, I think it is a bit too arty and opaque to compete with the larger emotional canvass of "Ryan" and "Patton" but -- it is clearly an epic in its own distinct narrow-view way.

A couple of random thoughts:

(1)The Greatest Showman NOT making the nominee list reminds me: once upon a time, the Academy wasn't as snobbish as it is today about at least putting a crowd-pleaser on the Best Picture nominee list: Airport, Love Story, The Towering Inferno -- none of those was considered Oscar bait , but they had the box office and audience love to merit at least a mention on the Best Picture nominee list(I'd count Jaws in there, too -- though it certainly could have been a Best Picture winner.) But nowadays, the Best Picture nominee list often tracks just about perfectly with the critics tastes. No big hits without critical praise get on.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

(2) I remain resolutely "not an Oscar guy" I guess. Yes, some years my favorite of the year(The Godfather, Silence of the Lambs, Terms of Endearment) was the Best Picture winner(or close -- I loved The Sting even as I give American Graffiti my favorite of '73 nod.) But more often than not, my personal favorite of the year is NOT on the Oscar radar. North Dallas Forty(in the year of Kramer vs. Kramer.) Used Cars(in the year of Ordinary People.) Raiders of the Lost Ark(in the year of Chariots of Fire and hey-- Raiders WAS nominated for Best Picture, and really had the Airport/Towering Inferno slot that year.)

I flashed on this:

The five Best Picture nominees of 1967 are a pretty popular bunch of films: Bonnie and Clyde, The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, Dr. Doolittle, and In the Heat of the Night(which won.) Bonnie and Clyde and The Graduate are seminal "New Hollywood" classics: it all begins here.

And yet, my PERSONAL favorites of 1967 would include: Wait Until Dark(my favorite of '67, one of the great scream nights at the movies), Hotel, Hombre, The Dirty Dozen, and El Dorado(ie Rio Bravo redux.)

So, either I'm hopeless OR 1967 was a helluva great year at the movies. (I prefer the latter.) Hell, I forgot Point Blank.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Meanwhile, this rumination about the movies of 2017:

Its been quite a long time since the Best Picture winner was also my favorite of the year -- 2006, The Departed(which was considered a bit of a formula comedown for Scorsese, but what a cast, what a story.)

More often in recent years, my "personal pick" has been far, far away from what Oscar was liking. John Wick. The Magnificent Seven. (I came closer to Oscar's tastes with True Grit and The Wolf of Wall Street, both got nominations.)

I've been struggling(but not too much) with what my favorite of 2017 is, and I think I've got it.

My "nominees":

Baby Driver(which had a lot of critical heat gone nowhere; the Spacey factor?)
Logan Lucky(A Soderbergh caper film, with all the quirky intelligence that implies; and fun in being the funhouse mirror image of the sauve "Ocean's Eleven"; this time we're in the Deep South NASCAR country)
Wonder Woman(Yeah, she's hot, but also soulful and courageous...and 2/3 of the movie was quite good)
and Molly's Game.

I'm picking Molly's Game.

The "spine" is: an Aaron Sorkin script(and he directs this time, too.) Though he has a few transparent tricks(here a bit too on-the-nose father/daughter conflict), his dialogue is the best this side of QT and rat-a-tat-tat fun to listen to(I'm reminded of Chayefsky's work in Network more than the Hawks overlap of HIs Girl Friday.) Sorkins words and characterizations won Charlie Wilson's War my fave of 2007 and Moneyball my fave of 2011 honors. So I am really following a trend here.

The high-stakes poker mileau is interesting and entertainingly presented. That the film posits one of those Boy Man stars as a poker-playing rich-kid arch-villain was a nice bit of insider stuff. (He's based on Tobey Maguire, says everybody and hey, Tobey Maguire doesn't work much anymore so I guess he got his.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Jessica Chastain is beautiful and projects intelligence and here -- "for the good of the character" -- she plays many scenes in hot "breast dresses" which makes her at once easy on the eyes and magnetic to the mind. Though the film makes the point that Molly may DRESS like a hooker, but she is resolutely not available to any male poker player(we don't even see a boyfriend.)

Idris Alba as the high-powered, high-priced lawyer who defends her: I've heard of this guy, not much seen him. He projects sensitive alpha-male charisma and reading Sorkin's lines he gets a great star role to play.

And...the hidden Most Valuable Player: Kevin Costner.

Mr. Costner downright fascinated me in the 80's going into the 90's. He had a solid run of intelligently written hits: Fandango, Silverado, The Untouchables, No Way Out, Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Dances With Wolves, JFK, The Bodyguard. Its one of the greatest Leading Man runs in movie history, and Costner avoided things like sequels(he refused to do them), remakes , cop action movies, and superheroes(he was a rather ridiculous Robin Hood, but even THAT was a hit.)

Costner evidently got big-headed after winning Best Director and Picture for Dances With Wolves, and it took three overlong flops or semi-flops to kill off his career: Wyatt Earp(bested by Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer in Tombstone) , Waterworld(way too expensive to make a profit) and The Postman(seen by no one).

Ever since, Costner has been a "name" but not a star. Here's the interesting part: in his heyday as a young man in his 30s, Costner was a bit callow, with a silly "surfer guy" voice. But as he has aged into his 50s and early 60s, he actually looks and sounds GREAT -- the movie star he coulda/shoulda been to match the great movies he was in.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And Costner is in Molly's Game, as Molly's tough and demanding perfectionist father and -- he's great in the role. When he takes the screen, that 80s-90s run of hits comes roaring back, with Costner's newfound gravitas as a Handsome Senior Level Star making his father-daughter exchanges with Chastain far more momentous and moving than they otherwise would be.

One more thing about Molly's Game: the movie shows the pretty poker game runner as managing to skirt her alliances with the underworld, until one time, she runs afoul of them. Sent to rough her up and terrorize her in her apartment is -- a pallid, cadaverous-looking fat middle-aged man who says nothing but just keeps beating on her. Its a scary scene because of the reality of it: Molly isn't THAT tough; the mob rather insults her by sending an old man to beat her up(she is also willing to open the door to him), and in his saying absolutely nothing as he beats(and robs) her, he's that more terrifying. A memorable scene, unexpected.

So here's my tens, so far:

2010: True Grit
2011: Moneyball
2012: Django Unchained
2013: The Wolf of Wall Street
2014: John Wick
2015: The Hateful Eight
2016: The Magnificent Seven
2017: Molly's Game

...eh, not much of an Oscar-bait list. Nor hit-ridden(as my lists with The Godfather, Jaws, Terms of Endearment, and Ghostbusters were.) But...it is what it is. I loved all the movies above the first time I saw them. I'll rewatch the above movies anytime.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Notes in passing:

The Wolf of Wall Street is my favorite of the decade so far. Only two years, two movies, left to beat it.

I'll stick by my two QT choices. Under siege he may be, and grotesque some scenes in those two movies may be, but his dialogue still thrills me and his vision still intrigues me.

John Wick? Yes. John Wick 2? NO. Both movies feature the counterintuitively pleasant-faced and polite Keanu Reeves killing men by the score and brutally so, but the first one has a POINT: he's out to kill the spoiled Russian mob chief's son who killed the puppy his dying wife gave him, and the mob chief hates having to defend his son. In the second one, the indiscriminate killing is because of...I can't remember. Which renders all the killing obscene. I also loved the world and rules of the first one: the special hotel, the special money, the special rules.

Westerns, I love Westerns: True Grit and The Magnificent Seven(remakes, both!) and Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight(modified Westerns, with a horror movie ambiance, though Django has a very happy ending.)

The words of QT, Sorkin...and Terrence Winter? The latter wrote The Sopranos(a lot) and The Wolf of Wall Street. Great dialogue matters . (And some of the great dialogue of the 1960 Magnificent Seven made it into the remake -- "If God didn't want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep." Ditto with True Grit: "Fill your hands, you son of a bitch!")

For me, with those films above in the 2010s...the movies have still mattered. As entertainment, if nothing else.

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[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

So, either I'm hopeless OR 1967 was a helluva great year at the movies. (I prefer the latter.) Hell, I forgot Point Blank.

It was a strong year, especially in the sense of having 'something for everyone'.

My 5-way best pic. picks for 1967:
Belle de jour (should win), The Graduate (would win), Le Samourai, Point Blank, Two for The Road. [It occurs to me that this lineup would be the most aggressively, flashily edited in Oscar history by a wide margin. In a sense the whole 1960s-in-film from Psycho and Breathless and 8&1/2 has been leading up to this - film and narrative is now completely subjective and like taffy in the hands of leading film makers.]

Sentimental Near Miss: Cool Hand Luke.

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[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

To get a sense of the depth of film pleasure on offer in 1967, neither of us ave mentioned so far:
Bonnie and Clyde, Playtime, The Producers, In Cold Blood, President's Analyst, Weekend, 2 or 3 Things I know About Her, Mouchette, Bedazzled, You Only Live Twice, Fireman's Ball, Young Girls of Rochefort, Taming of the Shrew, To Sir With Love, Fearless Vampire Killers, Privilege, Branded To Kill, Barefoot in The Park, Poor Cow, The Trip

Admittedly, quite a few of these are arty French things that most people would never see, but following hot on the heels of one of artsiest movie years ever (1966 - Virginia Woolf, Persona, Blow Up, etc.), and in the year of Sgt Pepper it seems right to think of artsy and popular as mingling at this time. Experimentation was in the air and film was both building on and feeding that atmosphere.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

My 5-way best pic. picks for 1967:
Belle de jour (should win), The Graduate (would win), Le Samourai, Point Blank, Two for The Road. [It occurs to me that this lineup would be the most aggressively, flashily edited in Oscar history by a wide margin. In a sense the whole 1960s-in-film from Psycho and Breathless and 8&1/2 has been leading up to this - film and narrative is now completely subjective and like taffy in the hands of leading film makers.]

Sentimental Near Miss: Cool Hand Luke.

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I belatedly return to take note of that informed list with additional 1967 good stuff. It remains somewhat of an irony to me that I far prefer Newman's OTHER 1967 movie, "Hombre" to "Cool Hand Luke," mainly because of the all-star conflict in the former versus the rather monotonous Sisyphus/Jesus analogy going on in Luke. And yet -- Luke seems to be the classic; Hombre, the cult film.

Note that with my 1967 favorites including things like Wait Until Dark(big hit) and Hotel(not much of a hit), I was following my "mainstream man" memories and pretty well neglect the Important Cinema.

Briefly on Hotel: its a mark of how precocious I was at a young age that I really liked Hotel as a pre-teen when I saw it IN 1967. I didn't understand everything that was going on, but I understood enough, and I LOVED how plush it looked, how emotional and/or jazzy the score was; how Karl Malden stole the movie as hotel thief Keycase Milne while Rod Taylor held the whole thing together with a Macho Lesson in Management(I rather studied how he was a boss to prepare for the years ahead when I might BE a boss...) I loved how all the stories in the hotel criss-crossed and came together.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

And I loved how the climax was in an elevator that plunged a few floors, held by a "thin string" and ready to drop and kill people(key characters were in the elevator, and wouldn't you know it: the one character to die is the character who HAD to die; very neat.)

In short, Hotel was one of the early "disaster movies" which barely had a disaster but DID have a disaster(the elevator cliffhanger.) It was as good as we got for awhile.

But more moving were the events AFTER the elevator plunge. For reasons unrelated to the plunge, the hotel must close and be torn down. The bittersweet final scenes between old owner Melvyn Douglas and surrogate-son Taylor (Douglas: "15 Presidents have stayed in this hotel...") ; the romantic reconciliation between Taylor and a love -- the whole thing was emotional and swooning and something that got me perhaps way before I was supposed to be gotten, age-wise. I was old before my time.

1967.

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[–] movieghoul (213) 7 years ago

I also loved Hotel in 1967, and re that elevator disaster, the filmmakers showed admirable restraint in that the scene is much more violent and graphic in the book with several more people falling to their deaths (not major characters).

And as I recall from IMDB posts on Hotel, there was that sneaky casting in joke where the desk clerk who turns away the black couple was the same actor who 20 years earlier turned away Gregory Peck (impersonating a Jew) in Gentleman's Agreement.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

I also loved Hotel in 1967, and re that elevator disaster, the filmmakers showed admirable restraint in that the scene is much more violent and graphic in the book with several more people falling to their deaths (not major characters).

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Yes, I read the book Hotel after I saw the movie and as I recall the elevator disaster was a really big event. More people in the elevator(in the movie, there are only five, and only one dies), some are killed, some are injured for life.

Recall that Arthur Hailey wrote both the novels "Hotel" and "Airport." "Airport" was the bigger best seller and the much bigger movie blockbuster -- but I prefer the movie of Hotel. "Airport" has a kind of clunky corporate Universal Studios feeling(with split screens and weak attempts at hipness) -- "Hotel" is more of a polished and sophisticated gem from Warner Brothers .

--

And as I recall from IMDB posts on Hotel, there was that sneaky casting in joke where the desk clerk who turns away the black couple was the same actor who 20 years earlier turned away Gregory Peck (impersonating a Jew) in Gentleman's Agreement.

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Yes, quite the in-joke, and a demonstration of where "the problem was now" almost 20 years later. And this "Hotel" incident has off-shoots: with Hotel Manager Rod Taylor having been waylaid by a young lovely, Old Hotel Owner Melvyn Douglas gives the order to reject the black couple -- and it turns out that there is more to the black couple that it first seems. Again, I'd use the word "sophistication" -- here about both racial issues AND human nature. And business negotiation tactics....

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[–] MovieManCin2 (26342) 7 years ago

Odd. Shape is still a piece of cinematic garbage: sick, twisted, and stupid.

😎

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[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

I was going to log on here because I think the film is vastly overrated, then I saw your post at the bottom. I know
you hated it, while I found it watchable - once. I cannot believe this film has gotten 13 Oscar nominations. It
simply doesn't deserve them. Even Richard Jenkins, an actor I've always liked, does NOT deserve to be up for
his cliche-ridden work as a gay middle-aged man. It wasn't a performance that outstanding.

I will ignore "Billboards", as I have zero interest in the material. I loathed "Fargo", so I doubt I'd like it.

I enjoyed "Lady Bird", but also feel the film is a bit overrated. It is indeed a curious year.

By the way, "Moonlight" is a gentle, beautiful film, just not as "big" as, say, "La La Land." It's nice for the
underdog to win.

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[–] MovieManCin2 (26342) 7 years ago

So who do you think should win, and who will win?

😎

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[–] [email protected] (1732) 7 years ago

I can't honestly answer that because there's so many films I haven't seen. I just think both "Lady Bird"
and (especially) "Shape" are soooooo overrated.

I also think it's ridiculous to have TEN films up for Best Picture! It's to appease more egos and to make more
money of the public ("oh, we need to rent that, Marvin - its was NOMINATED for BEST PICTURE").

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[–] MovieManCin2 (26342) 7 years ago

Yes, "Shape" is WAAAAAAAAY overrated. It's also stupid and disgusting! But oooooooooooh, the director is Hispanic, so that's DIVERSITY! That causes Hollyweird scumbags to pee their pants.

Actually there are only 9 nominees, but I'll let you in on a little secret (whisper): they're in it for the money.

😎

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[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

One respect in which GdT's deal with Shape parallels Hitchcock's on Psycho is that GdT deferred his entire fee/salary for directing it (apart from a few per diem-type costs). GdT also apparently paid the several hundreds of thousands dollars cost for developing the fish-man suit out of his own pocket. No word yet on what GdT's profit participation is, but we can assume that it must be very substantial. Probably not Hitch's 50%, but maybe 25%? If anyone knows or hears what the backend deal is with Shape then post it here!

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Interesting news about GdT in the wake of his Oscar win.

It turns out that he 'secretly" divorced his wife in September, but evidently didn't want this out as Oscar season revved up.

And his date AT the Oscars? Kim Morgan, who writes the film blog "Sunset Gun" and for various film periodicals -- and QT's New Beverly revival theater programs.

I guess film buffs attract film buffs....

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[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

I guess film buffs attract film buffs....

Del Toro wrote a book on Hitchcock - essentially his undergraduate thesis project I believe - before starting directing, and Morgan is exactly the sort of relatively charismatic, director-befriending (she's long-distance? married to crazy/brilliant Canadian, neo-silent director Guy Maddin), Bogdanovich-y critic who might make a similar jump. Famously, of course, nearly the whole French New Wave (Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rivette, Rohmer, etc.) started off just hanging out at Langlois's Cinematheque, graduated to writing bitchy/moany/pretentious columns for Cahiers du Cinema, etc. before taking the writer-director plunge themselves.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Del Toro wrote a book on Hitchcock - essentially his undergraduate thesis project I believe - before starting directing, and Morgan is exactly the sort of relatively charismatic, director-befriending (she's long-distance? married to crazy/brilliant Canadian, neo-silent director Guy Maddin),

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Aha...so this was perhaps more of a "movie pal escort" so that Del Toro would not be troubled with the wrong questions, maybe?

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Bogdanovich-y critic who might make a similar jump.

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I read Sunset Gun...she's got a good piece on Scarecrow up right now. As I've mentioned in the past, in my search for movie writings to read, the net is starting to thin out on good sites. They seem to go out of business a lot(one reason I haven't really ever tried building even a modest one, myself.)

If you can recommend any other sites, that would be great. (I like Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, too. "Arbogast on Film" is dead, as is Scanners.)

And this is also, swanstep, why I read YOU. (Having no breadth or depth on the movie beyond my mainstream decades, hah.) And others here, of course.

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Famously, of course, nearly the whole French New Wave (Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rivette, Rohmer, etc.) started off just hanging out at Langlois's Cinematheque, graduated to writing bitchy/moany/pretentious columns for Cahiers du Cinema, etc. before taking the writer-director plunge themselves.

--

And Our Man Hitchy was one of their first beneficiaries....I think it almost made American critics AND film studio execs ANGRY how much Hitchcock was beloved and extolled by the French. Hitchcock/Truffaut was as much an outrage to them as a landmark achievement to us. (And this, of course, explains Topaz, too.)

Me, I didn't need no French critics to love Hitch. I wouldn't know where to find them. NBC Saturday Night at the Movies and the CBS Friday Night Movie got it done.

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[–] swanstep (2766) 7 years ago

If you can recommend any other sites, that would be great. (I like Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule, too. "Arbogast on Film" is dead, as is Scanners.)

I really like David Bordwell and Kristen Thompson's stuff in general. Every bit of:
http://www.davidbordwell.net/
is worth exploring. Of course, I've been there a lot lately as part of my post-Phantom Thread, '40s deep dive. But, e.g., the most recent blog entry is on Casablanca, a film Bordwell has less time for than most people do. Nonetheless, pressed by readers he rewatches C and makes lots of interesting, well-illustrated observations:
https://tinyurl.com/ybngr7nc

I also listen to, on average, 4 or 5 movie podcasts a week (often while I'm drifting off to sleep!) Here are their titles (you should be able to search for them and how to subscribe to them online):
Trash, Art, and the Movies
The Projection Booth
Scriptnotes (w. John August and Craig Mazin)
You Must Remember This (w. Karina Longworth)
The Canon (w. Amy Nicholson)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 7 years ago

Thank you for the information, swanstep!

Pretty much my entire "reading life" I have enjoyed reading about movies ...and I have read about far more movies than I have seen them.

Reading the critics in the 70s like Pauline Kael and John Simon and Stanley Kauffman (to name a few), I became very familiar with foreign films and what passed for indiefilm back then. I just didn't go to many films outside o the mainstream.

And there was this: growing to teenhood in LA, I found that pretty much EVERY movie opened in LA, and so reading the LA Times reviews(mainly by a critic named Charles Champlin) got me up to speed on movies I would never see, like "Closely Watched Trains" and "Medium Cool" and "The Fixer."

This continues on to today, perhaps even moreso. I would RATHER read about a movie than give up the two hours to see it, often.

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Getting into podcasts will be an "old dog, new tricks" thing for me. I think I prefer to read (as fast as I CAN read) but then there is always the fast forward button. I have viewed some podcasts you have recommended in the past, could get into it again, I am sure.

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