Semi-OT: Video Archives Podcast w. Tarantino & Avary - Psycho (1960) Discussion

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

QT and his old buddy Roger Avary (who broke up over Pulp Fiction credit and aftermath) are back together

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Glad to hear that, reconciliations are nice. From what I gather, Hollywood is a pretty ruthless place, and QT did what he had to do to carve out his "famous name" (as did Hitchcock and Spielberg before him) and Avary simply needed to get with it. Now he returns. There's also this: I assume Avary had chances to make his OWN name after Pulp Fiction...and he didn't. Just one thriller with Eric Stoltz as I recall. Now, Avary can re-up with QT 'at the end of QT's career." (Only one film left to go, right?)

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In passing, when QT is asked what his fave Spielberg film is, he avers that, while Jaws is the Mt Rushmore-worthy best movie of all time,

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Hmm...I've read some of QT's hailing of Jaws as the best "something" of all time...movie? blockbuster? ...and it is certainly a candidate in my mind. It is a literal blood cousin of Psycho in cultural impact and "how it works" as a scream machine, but the two films also share this: as compared to The Omen and Halloween and Friday the 13th, where the killings are pretty much the point of the story and there's "nothing more to see," Psycho and Jaws have CHARACTERS in them, and humor to them and we really feel like we have BEEN somewhere when the movies end.

The humor/violence thing in Psycho and Jaws certainly carried forward to QT. I am thinking of the moment in Pulp Fiction when Travolta accidentally blows off the head of the black guy in the back seat and it plays as a LAUGH...folllowed immediately by Samuel L yelling at Travolta's stupidity and carried forward into the clean-up scene at QT's home garage (Samuel Jackson to Travolta: "And by the way, what am I doing on brain matter clean-up detail ANYWAY? Its your fault!")

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

his personal favorite Spiel-flick is Temple of Doom (crazy). He also prefers Crystal Skull to The Last Crusade (double crazy).

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Sigh. I guess that's like QT favoring Psycho II over the original. You can't tell if he's just "trying to get a rise" out of us, or that's just how his mind works. Because preferring Psycho II and Temple of Doom is preferring the "schlocky" version of something.

There is a story that Spielberg tells of being a kid in Phoenix Arizona at a local movie theater and joining with his fellow nerds in dumping vegetable soup from the balcony on patrons below while making vomit sounds...then running out of the theater. I kind of feel like THAT Spielberg -- the vomit-gag geek -- came out to play in Temple of Doom, which was childish and gross where the first film had been "Disney through Hitchcock's eyes" -- stylish and adult and muscular, even if for "families."

There were a husband/wife team of writers named Willard Huyuk and Gloria Katz. They co-wrote American Graffiti with George Lucas and that bought them some more movies to write -- all pretty bad, including the worst Indy(Temple of Doom), the worst(at the time) Eddie Murphy movie(Best Defense) ...and Howard the Duck. They ruined some other things , too, but Temple of Doom kept them going, because it was a BIG HIT.

I particularly remember a 'stupid stretch" in Temple of Doom where a "hypnotized" Indy and a "hypnotized" good boy turned bad did silly things and then it turned into two stupid fights(Indy vs a big guy; Short Round vers the hypnotized kid) choreographed with exactly the same blows and I'm sitting there thinking: "Is this movie for 6 year olds?" Plus the monkey brain dinner , which was vegetable soup vomit time.

And QT liked that BEST?

Recall that Spielberg himself said, when he chose to do the third Indy -- "Last Crusade" -- "I am directing this one to apologize for Temple of Doom."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Last Crusade vs Crystal Skull is a bit easier to understand QT liking the latter better. Last Crusade brings back the Nazis(after Thugees in Temple of Doom) but sometimes feels like a re-tread of set pieces. Still, The Best James Bond as Indy's dad was too perfect(this only 2 years after Connery hit so big as a father figure in The Untouchables) and the early boat chase and fight was pretty good - I could FEEL the water on me. Still...a bit of a "second time around."

Crystal Skull had that Shia LaBoeuf guy (its like Hollywood doesn't TEST out these juveniles before giving them such roles -- the guy playing The Flash is giving them worse headaches.) And aliens and CGI at the end. But at least it had good action, and Ray Winstone(an actor I really like-- whatever happened to him?) and the ubiquitous Cate Blanchett giving her all as a Russian villain with the best fighting powers in the movie. The ants were cool. And I rather liked a movie finally electing to consider the Russian Communists (of their time) as a legitimate threat(they were in North by Northwest, too, but Hitchcock couldn't name them). The Nazis seem like the only "safe" villains anymore.

Actually, despite all the money that all of them made, the Indy Jones series demonstrates yet again that sometimes "the first one is the good one" and cannot be improved upon.

I daresay that if QT only has one more movie in him, among other duties he can spend the rest of his days as "this generation's Roger Ebert" -- allowed to opine on movies old and new in public places. And in QT's case, he's more "real" on movies than Roger Ebert ever was. He's MADE them. (Ebert ever only had a writing credit on "Beneath the Planet of the Ultra-Vixens.")

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

And oh, on Jaws, QT said what I've been saying: that movies of its ilk were made in the 50's like Them and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. QT adds the point that those films were directed by "journeymen" who couldn't make the movies very well, but Spielberg's talent allowed him to perfect the genre. (Paraphrased.)

Maybe. I think Them and Beast from 20,000 Fathoms are pretty well directed and certainly well paced.

And Psycho rather folllowed their template(even with its "slow beginning" --it zooms once Marion hits the Bates Motel.)

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Note in passing: Word is getting out about Spielberg's film coming out this fall called The Fablemans. In a bit of a risk, the story is very personal to Steve. The movie is pretty much about Young Steven Spielberg growing up in Phoenix in the late 50s/early 60s...but also evidently covers the period when he snuck onto the Universal lot constantly(rumored to have even taken an empty office.)

Spielberg often told the tale of sneaking on the "ballet theater set" of Torn Curtain and watching for awhile until Hitchcock ("With a third eye in the back of his head") had him thrown off. I wonder if we will get that scene(again, Torn Curtain surfaces from the past.) It HAS been reported that director David Lynch will play John Ford. I don't recall any stories from Spielberg about John Ford.

And this: Spielberg lived in Phoenix, Arizona in 1960. He was around 14. I assume that he saw Psycho maybe in that movie theater where he threw the vegetable soup(he did that during a screening of 1960s The Lost World!) I wonder how he felt about the great Alfred Hitchcock's new shocker starting the story in Phoenix, Arizona.

I wonder if that will get into "The Fablemans."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

It HAS been reported that director David Lynch will play John Ford. I don't recall any stories from Spielberg about John Ford.

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UPDATE: I was doing some "Spielberg reading" recently and I found that young Spielberg DID get a brief interview of sorts with old, crotchety John Ford. Ford said something cryptic but meaningful about "finding the horizon" in a movie shot...and then said "get the F out of my office!"

So I guess that will be the scene?

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

I assume Avary had chances to make his OWN name after Pulp Fiction...and he didn't. Just one thriller with Eric Stoltz as I recall.

Avary also wrote (from a Brett Easton Ellis novel) and directed one pretty interesting movie in the 2000s, The Rules of Attraction (2002) w/ Dawson from Dawson's Creek playing Sean Bateman, the college-aged younger brother of American Psycho's Patrick Bateman. It's a (snobby) college campus dark comedy where every character is deluded and most are either vile or pathetic or both. It didn't catch on when it was released and I'm sure it lost a ton of money, but it became a big cult movie (esp. among college kids) later. A lot of its scenes were very show-offy/gimmicky but a couple esepcially stood out and became somewhat famous:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pw46kpxHbls
The female character here is still stupidly pining over a guy she doesn't know well and whom we haven't met called 'Victor'. We later get introduced to Victor as follows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30yNlAHXVzQ
If those two scenes intrigue you at all then Rules of Attraction might be worth your while tracking down.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Most possibly ...and American Psycho had a SEQUEL(er, ANOTHER sequel, not the one with Mila Kunis.)

Well, so that's a few movies for him. It goes to show: whatever QT did to not only survive but thrive, Avary simply didn't have. Its pretty rare what QT achieved. Haters aside, he remains the maker of big hits of less than Marvel grosses that still made him plenty rich, and he is most definitely an auteur.

And its funny. There a stretch in there where QT and some friends try to guess which four movies an artist or star gets on IMDB as their "noteable works." (They don't talk Hitchcock's but he has Rear Window, Vertigo, NXNW, and Psycho.) They get close on Sam Jackson's four -- but miss Snakes on a Plane.

In any event a reminder: you/we/they can ALL remain "movie kids" to whatever age we want. QT is in his fifties and can still guess the IMDB "Big Four."

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

The latest Video Archive podcast ep. focuses on a couple of Rod Steiger joints, The Illustrated Man (1969) and Dirty Hands (1975) dir. by Chabrol.

Tarantino does some hilarious Steiger (as The Illustrated Man) impressions and sounds off pretty uproariously on both Chabrol and Truffaut. He dislikes most of Chabrol's thrillers calling them 'thrill-less' (Answer: they're just a lot more psychological and subtle and both genre- and subconscious-plumbing than others' thrillers, you bozo.) He then completely flies off the handle about Truffaut, comparing him to Ed Wood, calling him the very same sort of passionate incompetent (QT says he only likes the stately, historical - pretty dull really I'd say - The Story of Adele H. from Truffaut).

Good times.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

He then completely flies off the handle about Truffaut, comparing him to Ed Wood, calling him the very same sort of passionate incompetent (QT says he only likes the stately, historical - pretty dull really I'd say - The Story of Adele H. from Truffaut).

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Ha. You know, one major aspect of the Hitchocck/Truffaut book (it has been noted) is that it made TRUFFAUT more famous than he'd otherwise be. He had his rep from The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim, to be sure, and worked for years regularly after "Hitchcock/Truffaut" -- but it has been suggested that the "Hitchbook" made Truffaut very famous and kept him working.

Ironically, thoughTruffaut came to Hitchcock's memorial service in Beverly Hills in 1980 --( I personally saw him there; I was there), Truffaut himself would die young a mere four years later in 1984. It was a shorter career than Hitchcock's but very prolific(plus that starring role for Spielberg in Close Encounters.)

But who is to say that Truffaut would have lasted quite as long without the Hitchcock association?

Funny given QT's hard diss of Truffaut: Truffaut was a movie critic before he was a director, and his reviews could be quite vehement. As much as he LOVED Hitchcock, he HATED other directors and their movies. David Lean and The Bridge on the River Kwai for instance. Or upon seeing The Bad Seed, he wrote "I shall never see another Mervyn Leroy movie again." He thought that North by Northwest was "clearly" the best movie of 1959, NOT Beh-Hur(hey, I agree.) And so forth and so on.

Simply put, Truffaut, as a critic, was as hard on some directors as QT is hard on Truffaut and in both cases -- the men are now evidently to be seen as directors AND critics (WRITER-directors and critics.)

I think it is great.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Tarantino does some hilarious Steiger (as The Illustrated Man) impressions

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I'm reminded that QT put an actual 1969 radio commercial for "The Illustrated Man" of that year on the car radio early in "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." Its from a Ray Bradbury short story collection -- does QT have regard for it? (The only story I remember from the BOOK -- I never saw the movie -- was "The Veldt" -- about how a bunch of African lions on a TV screen somehow came out and ate the viewers at home.)

Rod Steiger impressions are the best. YouTube has Frank Gorshin circa 1966 doing Marlon Brando as Batman and Rod Steiger as Robin...and its hilarious(recall, Gorshin was The Riddler at the time.)

Steiger's star career was short ("I didn't attract the ladies," he confessed), but he was quality character all the way through. He STEALS Tim Burton's Mars Attacks even though he is in a room with Jack Nicholson most of the time(Nicholson is the US President, Steiger is his mad dog general.)

And he was great and deserved his Oscar for In the Heat of the Night. The famous scene has Poiiter slapping the white man who slapped HIM -- but the scene goes to Sheriff Rod Steiger, shocked and KNOWING that HIS career is on the line when the white boss says to him "Did you SEE that? What are you going to DO about it?" Powerful stuff.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

With these podcasts, I reaffirm here that QT very likely has a nice career laid out for him now as the "Roger Ebert of the 21st Century," writing and speaking reviews on PAST and present films. I found some of the reviews he has written for his "New Beverly" revival house theater in LA. (I want to go there some day; Edgar Wright introduced "Frenzy" there to keep it alive.)

And I found this: QT and Paul Thomas Anderson are evidently friends of sorts. "We're friendly competitors," QT has said of PTA, and PTA's one-time girlfriend Fiona Apple told of being trapped (verbally) in QTs screening room as QT and PTA went on a drug-fuelled "moviechat" of their own.) In truth, though, QT's movies far outgross PTA's, they aren't equivalent THERE.

And the friendship ain't that friendly either:

A key part of Boogie Nights is how porn film director Burt Reynolds looks at the sub-par, grade-school level bad acting and filming of the "non porn" part of one of his porn films and decides this may be "my greatest work yet." I always felt that was a rather "broad" joke -- is Reynolds DELUSIONAL? It rather renders the movie "un-serious."

Well, QT thought it was stupid too, but for a more authoritative reason: QT in his teens worked in porn theater(THEREs an interesting childhood) and knew the work of porn director Gerald D'Amanio, and felt that Reynolds was "styled"(hair, beard) to LOOK like D'Amanio, and QT said "D'Amanino would never make something so stupid, let alone think it was his best work." Well, OK, OT -- I guess friendship only goes so far.

But you see, PTA is writing better movies these days than Boogie Nights. Licorice Pizza.....(hah, I'm just having fun with that movie.)

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

The latest ep. of the Video Archives Podcast focuses on Dressed to Kill (1980) but it's the first half of a themed double bill about whether there is such a thing as 'An American Giallo' (ultimately Eyes of Laura Mars, Alice Sweet Alice and Happy Birthday to Me receive close consideration as well as DTK). Eli Roth is the special guest, so you have Roth, Tarantino and Avary, as you can imagine, ranging widely over horror, the definition and character of Giallos, and much else besides including Psycho and Hitchcock. Worth a Listen I think. For example, Avary goes though DTK's script in detail & QT has a lot of details about the production and business side of DTK. QT also announces early that he now prefers Dressed To Kill over Blow Out: DTK & Carrie are now for him De Palma's best.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

After hearing DTK praised to the ceiling for an hour and a half... I gave DTK a rewatch... and found it sloppier and clunkier than ever. Too much bad dialogue (honestly, I feel sorry for Angie Dickinson, Keith Gordon, Dennis Franz, at least 50% of Nancy Allen having to say that s***), too much self-plagiarism (ending and a lot of other scene- and scoring-dynamics from Carrie, multi-media bit with Phil Donahue from Sisters), too much archness about remaking large chunks of Psycho, horrible scene with Nancy Allen threatened by group of black guys in the subway (amazingly given a pass by QT & co. as part of 'operatic unreality' and general giallo-ness), plot conveniences (e.g., killer's and others' abilities to track people though taxi rides and other chaotic city environments and ultimately intervene on the spot) still irritate, Angie Dickinson not only goes home with rando from art gallery she also blows off her repeatedly previewed lunch with husband and mother-in-law yet this is never mentioned again - we *needed* a scene/there's a scene missing where she has regrets about that). And so on. [QT & co. are very exercised by a cut opening scene from the screenplay where we see the killer/Bobbi shaving body hair and revealing he's got no male genitals anymore. They *don't* consider that De Palma *had* to drop that scene because it would have contradicted Caine's doctor *needing* to be visibly aroused by Nancy Allen in their office scene later. Weird.]

Anyhow, I was so unimpressed by DTK this time (probably my 3rd full viewing over the years) that I'm probably done with it. I now rate it both well below DeP's best and as less interesting than his partial successes like Body Double, Femme Fatale, Obsession, The Fury and Raising Cain. DTK still has the daring of its opening eroticism, Nancy Allen's hotness, and the flatout gore and frighteningness of its ultra-violent scenes to its credit. Not enough for me now.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The latest ep. of the Video Archives Podcast focuses on Dressed to Kill (1980) but it's the first half of a themed double bill about whether there is such a thing as 'An American Giallo' (ultimately Eyes of Laura Mars, Alice Sweet Alice and Happy Birthday to Me receive close consideration as well as DTK).
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What a lot of good stuff out there from these guys on those movies. Almost too much to try to look at in one gulp.

I'll say it again: it looks like QT can put off that "tenth and final movie" for a DECADE if he wants to -- and shift to being "The 21st Century Roger Ebert," bringing his friends along for video/podcast moviechat. Hey, why not? I LIKE it.

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Eli Roth is the special guest, so you have Roth, Tarantino and Avary, as you can imagine, ranging widely over horror, the definition and character of Giallos, and much else besides including Psycho and Hitchcock. Worth a Listen I think.

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Eli Roth. Interesting fellow. I've noted that QT took a gigantic SIX YEAR break between Jackie Brown(1997) and Kill Bill 1(2003) and somewhere in there (I think?) QT allowed his name to go on Roth's Hostel.

Well I rented Hostel and watched it. It was a long way from Psycho and much more in the torture-porn tradition and one particular scene actually almost caused me to vomit. Really. I recall declaring that scene my "break with horror," any attempts to keep up with the genre pretty much ended there: I was interested in scares and atmosphere and thrills, yes -- but not nausea. (Which is interesting , because the Time magazine review of Psycho in 1960 called the shower murder "nauseating." Times changed.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Roth rather influenced QT's work when QT "came back different" with Kill Bill. QT's movies got more gory from KIll Bill on and then Roth got on-screen roles in Death Proof(a short role) and Inglorious Basterds( a long role ) and...his presence around QT always seemed on the bad side to me.

But...they're still pals doin' podcasts and I don't see anybody breaking QT and Eli up anytime soon. And this..Eli is much YOUNGER than QT, yes? Allowed QT to "get in touch with what the young generation likes." In vomitous gore.

(Note in passing: even with the gore element, I remain a stalwart QT fan. He used Roth's gore AND great dialogue AND great visuals AND great atmosphere AND great stars and continues to show us how to keep a crowd interested and not nauseated. )

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Avary goes though DTK's script in detail & QT has a lot of details about the production and business side of DTK. QT also announces early that he now prefers Dressed To Kill over Blow Out: DTK & Carrie are now for him De Palma's best.

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Ah. DePalma, DePalma, DePalma. What to DO with him?

I believe he's 80 now. The age Hitchcock was when HE died. (I trust DePalma will live much longer.) And DePalma suggests he's not done making movies. On the other hand, his last real hit was the first Mission Impossible back in 1996.

Just the other night, I watched the movie DePalma made right after M:I 1. It was called Snake Eyes(1998), with then-hot Nicolas Cage as the star and Gary Sinise almost a co-star. The first hour was pretty damn dazzling as DePalma's wide screen camera zipped and zoomed all around a boxing match and the crowd assembled to watch it -- and an assassination. VERY exciting first hour.

And then...it all fell apart. Horrible long passages of expository writing to "explain the mystery" and a truncated climax re-shot after a "Hurricane disaster climax" proved too much. I mean, you spend the whole movie waiting for this hurricane to hit an Atlantic City hotel and then -- it doesn't? Or BARELY does?

And I remember thinking back to when I saw it: "Poor Brian DePalma...back to his old tricks. Hitchcock homaging, flashy camera work, bad dialogue and a script that peters out."

After an initial stretch of "counter culture comedies"(some starring a very young Robert DeNiro), DePalma started his "New Hitchcock Thing" with Sisters in 1973 and played it out to Blow Out in 1981 ...with occasional demoralizing returns to this in Body Double(1984, with its despicable murder of a beautiful woman by a man wielding a power drill as his penis) and "Raising Cain."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

But for all of that, DePalma really hit a stride in the 80's and 90s with three "non-Hitchcock movies" that are among my favorites of all time:

Scarface 1983
The Untouchables 1987
Carlito's Way 1992

Those movies are very easy to separate from DePalma's Hitchcock stuff. Somebody ELSE wrote the script(Oliver Stone on Scarface, David Mamet on The Untouchables, somebody on Carlito's Way). Some very big stars took control of the movies -- Al Pacino(twice), Sean Connery, Robert DeNiro...Sean Penn(kinda/sorta.)

The musical scores were epic and moving in The Untouchables and Carlito's Way -- the movies don't work without them -- and Scarface had a now-funny but accurate "Miami Vice Disco" pulse soundtrack.

All of this has led me, after all these years, to the harrowing realization: "I hate Brian DePalma -- I love Brian DePalma."

I mean, The Untouchables is my favorite movie of 1987 AND my favorite movie of the EIGHTIES. I have to give Mr. DePalma some credit for that (along with Ennio Morricone, David Mamet, Sean Connery(especially), Robert DeNiro, and "the Untouchables other than Connery": Charles Martin Smith(who got to be in one great movie per decade; see "American Graffiti"); Andy Garcia and Superstar aborning Kevin Costner.

I linger on The Untouchables because even with DePalma's trademark touches (too slow slo-mo, overlong camera tracks)...its so far above the misfires of his Hitchcock period: Sisters, Carrie, Obsession, Dressed to Kill.

And of course I will pull out the old SNL gag: "Once a year, Brian DePalma picks the bones of a dead great director and gives his wife a job.")

Because it was TRUE. Sisters, Obsession and Dressed to Kill would not EXIST without Rear Window, Vertigo and Psycho to base them on. Carrie was set at "Bates High School" and used the Psycho screeching violins for Carrie's telekinetic attacks.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Interesting to me: I may have disliked DePalma in the beginning, but starting with Phantom or the Paradise(pretty good, actually) I went to every DePalma movie at the theater through Snake Eyes (less Wise Guys with Danny DeVito and Joe Piscopo.) So obviously I was paying good money to see his work.

Why? Because he made THRILLERS, and I always liked thrillers and Hitchcock was pretty much retired and then dead when DePalma was extant.

A quick throwaway on one reason (not his fault) that DePalma couldn't match Hitchcock:

Bernard Herrmann died.

Herrmann scored only one DePalma movie(the Vertigo-ripoff Obsession) and was contracted to do the next(Carrie) when he died. And just as Herrrmann's music "completed" the Hitchcock touch in Vertigo, NXNW and Psycho...his DePalma replacement (Pino Donaggio) rather "completed" his DePalma movies in the WRONG WAY. Donaggios music was this rather sweet, overorchestrated stuff that played against the thrills in Carrie, Dressed to Kill, and Blow Out.

But wait: for his 1978 psychic spy chase thriller -- The Fury -- DePalma landed the Great One, John Williams, who gave The Fury one of the greatest opening credits scores of all time: it starts slow and quiet and a bit playful and grows and grows and GROWS into something thunderous and scary.

It was clear -- playing with the biggest budget of his life and with John Williams on music, DePalma was out to make HIS North by Northwest(with a leftover telekinesis theme from Carrie) and for about an hour(again!) he had it, and then it all collapsed again. Great score, though.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

After hearing DTK praised to the ceiling for an hour and a half... I gave DTK a rewatch... and found it sloppier and clunkier than ever. Too much bad dialogue (honestly, I feel sorry for Angie Dickinson, Keith Gordon, Dennis Franz, at least 50% of Nancy Allen having to say that s***),

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Ha. I'll stop here for a moment to note that this was a big problem for DePalma..he often wrote his own scripts(with a little help, I guess, from other credited writers) and when he DID...the words were bad. Recall that while Hitchcock took a hand in shaping his scripts and editing out bad lines, he generally chose some very good screenwriters to write very good dialogue and -- DePalma did not.

Which only made the scripts of Scarface, The Untouchables, and Carlito's Way sound that much BETTER. As I recall, DePalma went back to writing for "Raising Cain" and it was like nostalgia: "Oh, there's that lousy DePalma writing again."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

too much archness about remaking large chunks of Psycho,

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We must confront this, yes? The solution was "Psycho" all the way (up to an including TWO new versions of the psychiatrist scene, one of them very detailed on sex change surgery) as was the early emphasis on on a sad, sexy, "aging" blonde who dies horribly before the film is over.

But so much of it was NOT Psycho. Psycho had that great sense of a long journey from the city of Phoenix into the rural backwater of California -- it was very much a "country movie" (in a creepy way that presaged The Texas Chainsaw masscre) with loads of atmosphere from motel and house.

And my usual gripe: no men get slashed. (Arbogast is such a great trump card against sexism.)

And frankly, Dressed to Kill only has ONE murder, which makes it a bit less suspenseful than Psycho, too.

About that murder. It was 20 years after Psycho and the gore could be up front and personal. Angie is killed in an elevator(this film's shower), by a cross-dresser wielding a straight razor. This is a HORRIFIC murder weapon -- one must literally slash the victim to death, aiming for the jugular and wrist veins -- and nausea becomes an issue.

In Robert Bloch's novel of Psycho, Mary(Marion) is killed via butcher knife as in the movie, but Arbogast in the book gets a straight razor to the throat, ala Dressed to Kill. Clearly Hitchcock saw that murder as just too "visceral" for 1960; DePalma's use of it in 1980 showed us why (en route, Catherine Denuve wielded a razor to kill in Repulsion, but with much less blood and gore.)

Dressed to Kill gets a "cute" twist at the end that has ONE clever element(those nurse's shoes) but really just tries to repeat the Carrie twist and falls flat.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

And this: Both Norman Bates and Mrs. Bates are iconic screen psychopaths (in different ways and yet joined as one). But who remembers the psycho in Dressed to Kill? And more ironically still, who remembers the ACTOR who played the killer? He's pretty well known, but not very much for THAT role.
He's not really even in the movie very much....

PS. Bringing this in again: I saw Dressed to Kill at one of the theaters in the "movie theater district" of Los Angeles, near UCLA, in 1980. (Margot Robbie' Sharon Tate goes to ANOTHER one of those theaters in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.) As I waited in a long line to go in, the earlier show let out and out came...OJ Simpson. He was wearing a tight tennis shirt and shorts -- both white -- on his great athlete's physique. Many on line applauded him and yelled out "Juice!" "OJ" and the like. He replied "Horny movie in there...horny movie."

He was accompanied by a pretty blonde. I researched later -- he was dating Nicole in 1980.

So OJ at a movie about a slasher killer...

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

QT and his old buddy Roger Avary (who broke up over Pulp Fiction credit and aftermath) are back together and hosting a podcast

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Speaking of podcasts..

Its coming up on a year since Licorice Pizza came out and the movie and its cast are starting their inevitable fade.

I expect it will be a few years before PTA makes his next movie...

..so I keep checking on Haim.

And I listened (a little bit) to something that CONVINCES me that PTA is truly a great writer and director of untried actors.

Its a podcast meant to last for some time, featuring the "youngest and cutest Haim" -- Alana (star of Licorice Pizza) and her "bestie" Sasha Spielberg.

Here's the thing. Alana Haim in Licorice Pizza -- as "Alana Kane" has some pretty well written lines to say, and modulates her line readings with a certain wit and power of expression. She is a character -- perched between young adulthood and a leaning back towards her teens -- who actually has a lot of gravitas.

Meanwhile, Alana Haim as heard on this podcast -- and, frankly, in some Haim interviews I've watched -- is really just a teenager with a very banal way of talking and not all that much going on.

The issue is: she is now 30. Listening to this podcast, I was thinking "I guess modernly, the teenage persona can persist indefinitely."

There is also the "unavoidable but there it is" aspect of the OTHER overgrown teenager on the podcast -- Sasha Spielberg -- trying to speak of her teenage years as an "average American teenage girl" when she -- unavoidably -- was not. Daddy's a billionaire with worldwide recognition.

I was thinking -- those Haim girls worked long and hard on their musical talent -- "up from nothing" -- and are now celebrity enough to be pals with Steven Spielberg's daughter(and, I would guess with Steven Spielberg himself) so...its a podcast with rich women acting like regular teenagers. But one of them was born into the wealth, and the other earned it. Such is America.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Oh, well, QT is in his 50's and can still get excited over the action movies of his youth, and podcast with his "bros" about that. And he's a multi-millionaire.

So I take it all back. Let's let Alana Haim and Sasha Spielberg relive their Lion King/Goofy Movie youth, and for QT to dig on DePalma and...I'll stay young out here doing the same.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

A rattling good podcast episode that I recommend (interview starts about 12 mins in):
http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episode-1371-tony-gilroy
is also up on youtube here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CJyDKwFrYI

Tony Gilroy of Bourne, Michael Clayton, Rogue One fixing, and many other great credits is a *great* interview. He talks illuminatingly about his background as well as the whole enterprise of being a working screen-writer in Hollywood (you name it, he's done it). Gilroy is currently show-running a new (apparently acclaimed - I'm gonna have to watch it now) Star Wars series for Disney, Andor, which is a prequel to Rogue One. Gilroy is 66 but sounds like he's in his 20s only, you know, with lots of life experience and wisdom.

Particularly classic moment: Gilroy discusses nursing the Michael Clayton project to completion over many years and at a crucial point having to win over marketing at Warners. They want to know what the movie's audience is, who's it for? Gilroy tells them it's for men who know they're going to die.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Gilroy is 66 but sounds like he's in his 20s only, you know, with lots of life experience and wisdom.

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I like that. I've found that as life moved on quickly to "these decades," I feel very 20s myself..."grown older but not up." I'd like to hope that most people keep a certain youthfulness as far to the end as possible. This isn't a matter of dressing too young or trying to fit in WITH the young, but staying youthful in enthusiasms and interests.

Which reminds me: for years, I've joined with (unlike me PUBLISHED) writers in noting that Hitchcock in his later years must have been too "old and tired" to make really good movies after The Birds. Well, now I'm in those old and tired years myself and -- its true. I don't have the physical energy I once did and I can see how directing a movie might be tough.

Unless, of course, you are Martin Scorsese or Speilberg or the late Sidney Lumet(worked into his 80's)....and 90 something Clint Eastwood. As Clint says "You've got to keep the old man in you away from you."

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CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Particularly classic moment: Gilroy discusses nursing the Michael Clayton project to completion over many years and at a crucial point having to win over marketing at Warners. They want to know what the movie's audience is, who's it for? Gilroy tells them it's for men who know they're going to die.

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Well, that's a great line, and a reminder: men ARE part of the movie audience, some movies DO speak to them. I recall Michael Clayton as "over selling its prestige." Star George Clooney always seemed to tout his movies as if they were classics, when they just didn't have what it took. Michael Clayton devolved down to being a Columbo episode in which the bad guy(girl?) is exposed a bit too easily. I do remember one line I loved, from Clooney's amoral lawyer, to a villain: "Hey, I'm not the guy you KILL off...I'm the guy you BUY off..."

But there's just something about George Clooney that never really "sold" as a movie star. He had the looks, the VOICE, the manner, but something about him must have been off-putting. His resume has far more flops than hits, and he's been on "hiatus" for a few years -- his stardom didn't really last. However, this very week he's emerged with fellow old-timer Julia Roberts in a rom-com. People likely forget that George and Julia bombed a few years ago in a thriller; maybe this time is the charm.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 2 years ago

Which reminds me: for years, I've joined with (unlike me PUBLISHED) writers in noting that Hitchcock in his later years must have been too "old and tired" to make really good movies after The Birds. Well, now I'm in those old and tired years myself and -- its true. I don't have the physical energy I once did and I can see how directing a movie might be tough.
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You know what's odd? Francois Truffaut claimed Frenzy was "a young man's film" and I can definitely see that. I rewatched the film recently and it goes up in my estimation every time I rewatch it. Hitchcock's output was very uneven late in his career, but I think he still had his moments. I think Frenzy particularly energized him because of what he was now allowed to get away with after the death of the censorship boards.

I'm sure directing was tiring though. His ill health prevented him from making much in the 70s, though the drive to create never left him.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

You know what's odd? Francois Truffaut claimed Frenzy was "a young man's film"

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And so said his old friend Norman Lloyd at a private pre-release screening with Alma Hitchcock. It became rather a "mantra" for that movie, and it was not incorrect.

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and I can definitely see that. I rewatched the film recently and it goes up in my estimation every time I rewatch it.

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I"ve always liked it. I know now that it has a weight in my personal life that, say Spellbound does not have, because I LIVED through its release and the exciting press it got and Hitchcock's rather grateful "victory lap" tours. I'm sure he knew that no matter how many films he had left, no matter how many years of life...he had proved he was NOT senile.

---

Hitchcock's output was very uneven late in his career, but I think he still had his moments. I think Frenzy particularly energized him because of what he was now allowed to get away with after the death of the censorship boards.

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That seemed to energize him. He never really wanted to make Torn Curtain(even though the plot was HIS idea, rare for him) with Paul Newman and Julie Andrews. He never really wanted to make Topaz(even though it dealt with FRENCH spies -- and he was cool in France with Truffaut.)

But he wanted to make Frenzy. He valued Lew Wasserman finally giving in on a "distasteful" story line, and he valued getting to work with an R rating. (Next time out with Family Plot, he went with a PG.)

Funny thing: whereas Hitchcock pounced on Psycho pretty much the month it was published, he "sifted 1500 coverage memos" to find the obscure 1966 novel on which Frenzy was based. That suggests why Frenzy wasn't quite as major as Psycho, but he knew he had the material for the R-rated(sexual) movie he wanted to make.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

This was important: at least one of Hitchocck's biographers wrote that after the failure of Topaz(the most recent of several), Hitchcock not only began a search for something better, but took an entire year off for "rest and relaxation"(in places like Hawaii) to get his physical being up and running as best it could. Though he had some sick days and a fall while making Frenzy (and Alma had a stroke), he was reportedly as energized to make that movie(in London far away from Universal studios) as any he'd ever made.

The book on the making of Frenzy uses records to prove that Hitchcock worked ALL NIGHT LONG in cold weather directing ocation scenes for the ending of the "potato truck scene" -- the road, the diner, the parking lot. Hitchcock supervised it all, then went home at 7:00 am. That's a tough guy for 72!

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I'm sure directing was tiring though. His ill health prevented him from making much in the 70s, though the drive to create never left him.

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Well , 75 was more tiring on his body than 72 had been. In the years between Frenzy and Family Plot, Hitchcock had minor heart attacks, had a pacemaker installed, fought various "accelerating illnesses of old age." Some say he should have stopped with Frenzy , but I personally believe he wanted to go out with a nicer movie. (Sure he kept working after Family Plot, but he achieved that goal of a nicer movie "just in case.")

He reportedly directed Family Plot from a renovated limosine with a "high chair" to look out from, so he didn't have to stand up much at all -- and he was in a director's chair the rest of the time.

As he tried to get his fully scripted final film, The Short Night, made around 1979, the failing Hitchcock was approached by Peter Bodganovich and others saying that, to get the movie made, THEY would fly to Finland and film second unit scenes and let him film the drama at Universal City. No, Hitchcock said, I can't work that way. And he finally retired. And died a year later or so.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 2 years ago

It just shows how dedicated he was to his work! Say what you will of the guy's late period, but at least (with the exception of Torn Curtain), none of it feels phoned in. Even the less successful films (once again, excepting TC-- such a snoozefest) are fascinating. I don't much like Marnie, but I am always compelled to watch it every few years.

I find I like watching a lot of "late period" films with directors. They can sometimes come off as tired or behind the times, or they can seem more assured, in a way (Kurosawa is a good example of that).

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

It just shows how dedicated he was to his work!

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Yep. Hitchcock was as a bit of a workhorse -- one to two movies per year through 1960 and Psycho. I suppose you could say he "pulled a Tarantino" in taking longer and longer periods off between films after that (2 years from Psycho to the Birds, 3 years from Torn Curtain to Topaz; 4 years from Frenzy to Family Plot) but he never gave up preparing projects. In the late 70's, he said "I shall never retire" and he almost pulled it off. Even when he quit, it was a year before dying and he had a new film written "to go."

--

Say what you will of the guy's late period, but at least (with the exception of Torn Curtain), none of it feels phoned in. Even the less successful films (once again, excepting TC-- such a snoozefest) are fascinating. I don't much like Marnie, but I am always compelled to watch it every few years.

--
Well, his heart WAS in Marnie. Its too bad he couldn't make it with Princess Grace, as planned. Though it went against his Psycho/Birds youth popularity, in was well in accord with his twisted love stories(Rebecca, Suspicion, Notorious...Vertigo.) Universal production values, his health(some said he was very tired coming right off of The Birds) and "the Tippi problem" made it less than it could be.

Me, I like Torn Curtain because I like the idea of Hitch working with big stars one last time. Especially Paul Newman...he rather "behaved" for Hitchcock, stopped mugging...got better for better movies later. But..you're not alone in finding that movie a snoozefest. Its the hardest for me to defend with others, I've found. (Hey, Topaz at least moves across FIVE cities internationally, its a mini-epic of travel.)

--

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I find I like watching a lot of "late period" films with directors. They can sometimes come off as tired or behind the times, or they can seem more assured, in a way (Kurosawa is a good example of that).

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It seems like the great foreign directors, unburdened by Hollywood budgets, studios and stars, kept their genius going to the end or near end. Bergman's another example, yes?

Our modern "old guys" -- Scorsese and Spielberg, seem to have the technical crews and star casts to protect them pretty well when their final movies are made. (I can't quite count Eastwood -- he's directed a lot of mediocre quickies.)

Funny idea: Hitchcock worked for 35 years before Psycho -- 16 years after it. Does that make Psycho "a late film"? Kind of, yes. I read some real pans of Vertigo NXNW and Psycho from Hitchcock haters who felt The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes were his best films and he'd gotten old. I sure don't think that, but in 1958-1960, maybe that's the way it felt to them.

Funny fact: My favorite John Ford is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance(1962). That's about four films from the end for a man who made what --100 movies? And two years after Psycho.

Funny reality: by sheer coincidence, I'm trying some Kurosawa films on HBO Max. I have finished "High and Low"(because its a modern day thriller of sorts) and I am working my way through Seven Samarai(as I'm a big fan of ALL the Magnificent Seven Westerns, but especially the 1960 one.)

I'll say something about them later...

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 2 years ago

It seems like the great foreign directors, unburdened by Hollywood budgets, studios and stars, kept their genius going to the end or near end. Bergman's another example, yes?
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That does seem to be the case. Hollywood is a place that worships youth, so it makes sense.
--
Funny idea: Hitchcock worked for 35 years before Psycho -- 16 years after it. Does that make Psycho "a late film"? Kind of, yes. I read some real pans of Vertigo NXNW and Psycho from Hitchcock haters who felt The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes were his best films and he'd gotten old. I sure don't think that, but in 1958-1960, maybe that's the way it felt to them.
--
I consider Psycho the culmination of Hitchcock's mature period and everything after "late." It's arguably his most revolutionary movie, it changed cinema forever after-- anything after that would seem to be a step down, I imagine, even with the fine films he made in his last years.

I've also come across people who prefer Hitchcock's British talkies of the 1930s. I admit, there is a youthful energy to them-- and they're shorter. If someone dislikes the 2-hour slowness of Vertigo, I imagine the likes of Young and Innocent and the original Man Who Knew Too Much seem like refreshing little larks, each well under two hours.

However, I still think Hitchcock's best period was the 1950s. So many great films, one after the other. Even the minor works of that golden age like I Confess, Dial M for Murder, and The Man Who Knew Too Much 1956 are gems in their own right.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 2 years ago

Funny reality: by sheer coincidence, I'm trying some Kurosawa films on HBO Max. I have finished "High and Low"(because its a modern day thriller of sorts) and I am working my way through Seven Samarai(as I'm a big fan of ALL the Magnificent Seven Westerns, but especially the 1960 one.)

I'll say something about them later...
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I'll be excited to read your opinions! Kurosawa is a top five favorite director for me. High and Low is actually my favorite of his films-- a little Hitchcockian, but with Kurosawa's humanism and social commentary. I've rewatched it many times and always find something new to appreciate.

Seven Samurai is wonderful as well. Other favorites of mine from him are Rashomon, Yojimbo, Throne of Blood, and Ran.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

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I'll be excited to read your opinions! Kurosawa is a top five favorite director for me.

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Well, I certainly read about him in my life, but I haven't seen his movies ti now.. I'm trying to watch one or two films from major foreign directors. HBO Max has a LOT of them -- its a really easy way to "order one up."

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High and Low is actually my favorite of his films-- a little Hitchcockian, but with Kurosawa's humanism and social commentary. I've rewatched it many times and always find something new to appreciate.

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Between High and Low and what I've seen of Seven Samarai, I get the feeling that "once is not enough." They are very detailed, very "dense" in plot and character. Though I continue to distrust subtitles. I feel like nuanced dialogue is being re-written "too simple."

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Seven Samurai is wonderful as well. Other favorites of mine from him are Rashomon, Yojimbo, Throne of Blood, and Ran.

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I believe that all of those except Ran are on HBO Max. With some months of watching, I maybe be able to catch up on my Kurosawa.

I'll report back...

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Seven Samurai is wonderful as well. Other favorites of mine from him are Rashomon, Yojimbo, Throne of Blood, and Ran.

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I believe that all of those except Ran are on HBO Max. With some months of watching, I maybe be able to catch up on my Kurosawa.

I'll report back...

--

And so I shall. On "Seven Samarai" first. (Don't worry, I won't do all of Kurosawa's work here; maybe a bit on High and Low, too.)

The version HBO Max has runs well over 3 hours(3 and one half?) So I watched it in three parts. "The Sopranos" and other "series length movies" rather trained me to do it that way, now. "Seven Samarai" is roughly the equivalent of four Sopranos episodes in a row, a little less. More manageable that way - and that's my first comment: our modern cable/streaming series have taught us "not to fear long movies." Three hours is NOTHING if you break it down.

I know that Seven Samarai "inspired"(heavily) an American Western version called The Magnificent Seven of 1960. That movies is a little over 2 hours...so the SS has almost an entire MOVIE more screen time.

Still, I rather gratefully seized on scenes in SS that I knew from The Mag 7. In The Mag 7, gunfighter Charles Bronson is introduced chopping timber into firewood with an axe(times are hard for him, its day labor for food.) In SS, one of the samarai is introduced ...chopping timber into firewood. AHA - -there's the Charles Bronson character(except he isn't really, in The Mag 7 , Bronson is paired with three little boys and that subplot ain't here that I could see.)

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

In The Mag 7, gunfighter James Coburn is introduced showing off his KNIFE throwing skills in a "friendly duel" with a lout that turns deadly when the guy demands a "knife versus gun" throw and Coburn kills the guy. In SS, a samarai is showing off his skills against another lout with non-lethal sticks, but THAT lout demands a "real samarai sword vs real samarai sword" duel and the "Coburn samarai" has to kill the lout. AHA...that's the "James Coburn samarai."

So..Bronson and Coburn "accounted for in the original." The Yul Brynner leader is an older man in the original -- Spencer Tracy was considered for The Mag 7 at one time for the role, but the property got to Brynner and he refashioned the lead for himself.

Horst Bucholz's "lovably annoying" Mexican farmer boy turned wannabee gunslinger is rather spread across TWO characters in SS: star Toshiro Mifune has part of it(the explosive anger and a few of Bucholz's scenes "trailing the other 6") and a young actor has the other(romancing a farmer girl and ending up with her.)

So basically, the Seven Samarai has origin players for Brynner, Bronson, Coburn, and Bucholz in the '60 film. As for the other three -- Robert Vaughn's elegant fastest gun alive with a nervous breakdown in tow; Brad Dexter's barrel chested con man cum fortune seeker, and sidekick/star aborning Steve McQueen...I couldn't find them EXCEPT I suppose a fair amount of McQueen's character is in Mifune's...he acts in tandem with the old leader a lot(yet another Samarai gets some of the McQueen character's direct loyalty to the leader.)

I linger on these "direct connections" from SS to The Mag 7 because for the most part...there aren't really all that many connections BETWEEN the two films. The premise is the same -- beleaguered farmers pay for 7 professionals to defend them from a gang of predatory thieves -- but the plot details and characterizations are very DIFFERENT.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Its time to mention that that there was a remake of the 1960 Magnificent Seven made in 2016, with the famous title (The Magnificent Seven) one established star to lead it(Denzel) and one newly minted star(Chris Pratt) for the McQueen role.

This "remake of a remake" jettisoned the Mexican farmers of the 1960 film and the Mexican bandit leader(Eli Wallach, magnificent and NOT an actor of Mexican descent) in favor of a white rich guy(youngish Peter Sarsgaard) and his mainly white gang suppressing a mainly white settlement.

I was intrigued to find that one particular element of the original Seven Samarai that did NOT make it into the 1960 Western DID make it into the 2016 Western: the placement of women and children into underground bunkers to be kept out of harm's way during the battles among the men. Though the 2016 version made sure to have a brave woman above ground shooting it out in the battles, too, both the original and the 2016 version made clear that what was happening here was WAR ...and women and children might very well be raped and murdered if the baddies were to win. (The 1960 version rather had the women and children away, but not UNDERGROUND.)

In my private list of personal favorite films for given years, The 1960 Magificent 7 comes in at Number 3 for the year(after Psycho and The Apartment, and right before Spartacus) and the 2016 remake of the remake comes in at Number One for 2016. Yep. That's why I am not a professional film critic or cineaste. Mag 7 2016 never got better than a two-star review, but I was excited to read of the remake, and the casting(Denzel and Pratt made it look "A") and the 2016 version got to honor the 1960 version AND...I now realize: the original.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I'm about to get to the original in a bit more depth, but I must say that in my readings of reviews for Seven Samarai, almost all said "it is the beginning of the men on a mission movie." And hey, I must admit I LOVE men on a mission movies, including:

The Magnificent Seven(both versions -- plus some cheapjack sequels in the 60's that at least kept the formula alive)
The Guns of Navarone(for many years my Number One of 1961...recently replaced by Judgment at Nuremberg because I find Navarone just too slow at the beginning and the climax.)
The Professionals(my Number One of 1966 -- I saw it on Christmas Day, and I STILL remember the exciting opening sequence in which the four team members are introduced.)
The Dirty Dozen (Lee Marvin from The Professionals, Charles Bronson from The Mag 7 -- and a disturbing mission: slaughter Nazi generals and their women at a private party. The movie was anti-war and pro-war at the same time in 1967.)
The Wild Bunch(which took the men on a mission story and perverted it - they are BAD, they all die, but they are noble and the bloody final gunbattle is historic -- the Psycho of Westerns.) My Number One of 1969.
The Untouchables(My Number One of 1987 AND my Number One of the 80's -- again, I have no requirement to prefer Raging Bull. The various Ennio Morricone musical motifs are key to my love of this movie, but also the script and the cast.)
LA Confidential(rather a "side pocket' version of the men on a mission movie -- these guys don't like each other and don't always work together, but they ARE a team by the end.) LAC was my favorite movie of 1997 AND of the 90's.

So I guess you can say that "men on a mission movies" are a real love. Too bad Hitchcock didn't make any. On the other hand, both Rear Window and To Catch a Thief and The Trouble with Harry feature "teams of multilple men and multiple women" working together to solve a crime.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

This is not a "bullet proof" love. Where Eagles Dare(from the author of Guns of Navarone) is too grim and turgid to play as a really fun adventure.

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OK...so "Seven Samarai" is historic because it "started all the men on a mission movies." That's a big historic deal, yes? Just like Psycho started the slasher movie and more screen violence in general.

I'm not quite sure if SS IS the first "men on a mission movie," though. What about Robin Hood (the gathering of Little John and Friar Tuck, etc). What about the Knights of the Round Table? (What was the first movie about King Arthur?)

But...I'll go with the flow here. It all starts with Seven Samarai.

And a particular SCENE starts with the Seven Samarai. Our "samarai leader" is first introduced cutting off his hair so as to "pose as peasant" and rescue a little boy from the criminal holding him hostage. Our guy goes in "in disguise," rescues the boy, kills the baddie. Dirty Harry , yes? Or Mel Gibson in the Lethal Weapon movies. Its always an "early scene divorced from the main plot."

But that's just plot...scenes. Seven Samarai made its mark for me in how Kurosawa used a story telling technique that was an once "epic"(the length of the film, the size of the battles) and intimate -- scenes of the leader and his men walking around the bushy terrain with their little battle maps in hand preparing their defenses felt REAL to me...I could FEEL the outdoors, smell the vegetation, breathe the fresh air.

The Mag 7 60 had lots of lines for the bandit leader Calvera(Wallach) and had him make the "too lenient decision" to capture the 7, take away their guns (only temporarily) and send them away without killing them (they come back.)

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

None of that Hollywoodish stuff here. We barely see, let alone hear, the bandit leader, and one key time we see him is when he kills one of his own bandit gang(warriors squad) for trying to desert. I'm no expert, but this Japanese version of the story seems to me to be "elemental," with no room for the (very good) Hollywood bantering one-liners of The Mag 7 because...well, Kurosawa had no experience in such matters.

In the Mag 7 60, Brynner and McQueen are riding a coach and a bullet goes through Brynner's cigar.

McQueen: You elected?
Brynner: No...but I got nominated real good.

aka...shot AT, but not shot.

Brynner to gunman Vaughn:

Brynner: I hear the Smith brothers were looking for you.
Vaughn: (Coldly.) They found me.

aka...he killed them.

And so forth and so on. The Kurosawa version has some humor and wit to it(subtitles can be misleadingly simple) but he is out to tell his story with a great deal of serious emotion and nobility.

I liked how SS set up the battles between the raiding thieves and the defending samarai(along with the farmer-villagers they have trained)...so that the thieves KEEP COMING BACK in an escalating series of raids, and the samarai and farmers keep killing SOME of the thieves, but not many.

Both sides have a plan: the thieves will keep up their raids until they have killed enough "good guys" to prevail and take over. The defenders will keep picking off thieves "one at a time" until they can defeat the raiders. It is a war of nerves...a war of attrition... and(unlike The Mag 7 60, where four of the 7 die only in the final gunbattle), a couple of the 7 here die EARLY , in the early raids, before the big battle at the end.

I like the references that Kurosawa keeps making to the sheet of paper upon which the leader has put a mark for each thief: as each thief is killed in battle, he crosses off the casualty. But eventually he has to cross off a few of his men, too.

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I realized, watching Seven Samarai, that the culture of Japan -- and its filmmaking and its ACTING -- differs (as it should) from the Hollywood model. This was the fifties, so things were rather in a growth period in Japan.

But the acting is "bigger," more emotional, a bit less "cool" than The Mag 7(the over-emoting Horst Bucholz in that movie actually "fit" the Japanese version a little better, I now believe.)

SS has at least one man among the farmers who face seems to be locked permanently in a rictus of fear and agony --he's not hurt, he's just SCARED, and his face takes on the features of a mask..very stylized.

The final battle takes place in driving rain, and gives the SS an excitement all its own that neither the 60 Mag 7 nor the 16 Mag 7 sought to duplicate -- THOSE movies staged their final battles in sunshine. Of course, the sight-and-sound excitement of gunfire(so important to the American action film) isn't much on display among the swords-and-spear fights of SS...but the bad guys have a grand total of THREE "muskets" and those prove to be the usual "superweapons" of any battle movie. Alas, it is a bullet, not a sword, that takes down a key good guy.

As always with me and "foreign films," I feel like I'm simply not really the audience for the original. The 1960 Mag 7 had that GREAT theme song and that EXCITING score, all the way through(they brought the theme song back at the end of 2016 Mag 7 and it was a great feeling.) The music isn't like that here -- indeed, is the score by the same composer who did Godzilla?

CONT

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I'll always have to stick with The Magnificent 7 60 for the dialogue(great one-liners and some profoundity), the actors(a true study of movie stars -- established Oscar winner Brynner, superstasr aborning McQueen, and fairly big stars Bronson and Coburn on deck, along with TV star Robert Vaughn of The Man From UNCLE.

Brad Dexter is always forgotten, but he's one of my favorite characters in the movie and he was a Sinatra/Rat Pack crony and he brings that 1960 "Rat Pack feel" to the movie. Which leaves Horst Bucholtz. Poor guy. He played his young jerk too well -- somewhat in homage to Mifune -- and went nowhere. (On the DVD documentary, stars like James Coburn mock how the studio thought that Bucholtz would be the big star out of the movie...and wasn't.)

Against all of that, Seven Samarai is "objectively" the more important film, the classic, the "great one" BUT "subjectively" ...just not as entertaining to me as The Mag 7 '60 (again: the stars, the script, the music...the gunfire action.) Actually, I think that it is the more serious and bloody "Wild Bunch" which is matched up in film journals with the battle action of SS.

And...that's about it. I'm glad that I have finally seen Seven Samarai and I could feel the greatness of the film, and it DID move and excite me ENOUGH...but...not quite my cup of tea. Which is my loss..

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

Thanks for your interesting cross-review of 7 Samurai (IMDb score 8.6) and Mag 7 (IMDb score 7.7) ecarle. I think you make a good argument in effect that Mag 7 really should be an IMDb 8 of some kind. It's a flippin' gorgeous color widescreen image with a truly monumental score and, with its sharp dialogue on top of its action was star-making for both McQueen and Brynner as well as, at a slightly lower level, Bronson and Coburn and Robert Vaughan - a whole generation of sleek tough guy heroes. The film's also got the sort of high spirits and pace (2 hours and you're done) and rewatchability (esp. for guys) that things like Jaws and Back To The Future and Die Hard have. In other words, Mag 7 is a, maybe 'the', prototype rousing modern blockbuster that nonetheless makes everything look easy. Seven Samurai is, as you note a much more serious and long-winded and immersive (in Japanese caste systems and in Japanese post-WW2 skepticism about violence generally and in stoic Japanese personalities and acting styles) affair and has quite a different effect on the viewer, esp. when Sturges's two most magnetic stars Brynner and McQueen get to ride off at the end, whereas Kurosawa's most magnetic star, Mifune, gets Bronson's the 'last to die' position in the story.

Seven Samurai feels more philosophical and much more interested in and in touch with nature (which intervenes with the epic rain climax)... It's more thoughtful and arty but less entertaining and rewatchable than Mag 7.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 2 years ago

It was cool to read your reaction to the film, ecarle! I've seen the movie about 3-4 times, so it's always delightful "seeing" a familiar film through a newcomer's eyes.

I think it's interesting how the version one watches first tends to have the heart. I saw Seven Samurai at least twice before I ever watched TMS, and I have more of an interest in Japanese cinema than westerns (currently been trying to watch more westerns to remedy that blind spot), so I was always going to lean more into the Kurosawa film. I would give my opinion of TMS, but it's been years since I watched it. I recall it's certainly a more inspired reimagining of the Seven Samurai story than another western remake of a Japanese film, The Outrage (which is a remake of Kurosawa's Rashomon that just doesn't work).

The acting style can be a hurdle if you aren't used to it. I once took a film class where we had to watch a Kurosawa film and the class laughed at the acting. Same when we watched an 80s Korean action movie and the acting was also quite broad, particularly in the melodramatic scenes. It astonished me because I guess I have more of a stomach for stylized acting? Also Kurosawa was often inspired by Japanese theatrical traditions like noh and kabuki, where realism matters not at all.

Anyway, that was a digression and I apologize for it! Your comparing the two films makes me want to rewatch TMS-- though I think I'll skip the 2016 version.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

For what it's worth, there's another pairing of Kurosawa with a foreign remake that's worth a look: A Fistful of Dollars was an unauthorized remake of Yojimbo (1961) - Kurosawa sued and won a settlement! But I'm interested in how Kurosawa's film-making evolves from 1954 to 1961. Yojimbo is in wide-screen, is only 110 minutes, and is more fun (Mifune rides off at the end) and doesn't have that meditativeness about nature and social class and fate, etc. that floats around in (and lengthens) 7 Samurai. From this perspective 7 Sam feels transitional - half in the camp of Kurosawa's explicitly literary and philosophical stuff like Rashomon (1950) and Ikiru (1952) that preceded it and half in the camp of his sleeker, more commercial and more easily adaptable samurai features like Yojimbo (1961) and its sequel Sanjuro (1962).

The following youtube comparison vid. bravely finds for Yojimbo over Fistful of Dollars:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iAC1x7Subls
But the thing that jumps out for me is really how far Kurosawa travels from 7 Sam to Yojimbo, thereby narrowing the gap between his films and their inevitable remakes.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

BTW, one of the Youtube reactors I watch occasionally, "James vs Cinema", has just reacted to Seven Samurai:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUJUwato4TQ
Interestingly, one of Kurosawa's big advantages for lots of modern viewers is that he's strongly influenced lots Japanese video games and comics/manga. James digs Kurosawa in part because his (sort of 3rd gen Kurosawa!) videogame/manga background shows him the way. The styization of acting that still might be an obstacle for some US movie-goers is no obstacle at all for a generation absorbed in ultra-stylized martial artsy media from East Asia generally.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Thanks for your interesting cross-review of 7 Samurai (IMDb score 8.6) and Mag 7 (IMDb score 7.7) ecarle. I think you make a good argument in effect that Mag 7 really should be an IMDb 8 of some kind.

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I'm intrigued to see that 7 Samarai scores so much higher than Mag 7 60. This demonstrates to me that the voting public at imdb must have a lot of scholarly types(film professors?) and perhaps a strong international audience.

Because I expect that in their years of release, 7 Samarai didn't get all that much distribution in the US whereas The Mag 7 60 was a wide release there.

Those of us with a sense of film history know that, as a matter of critics, ALL foreign films have generally fared better than ALL American studio films over the decades running up to 1970, I'd say.

Which is OK by me. But again, Mag 7 60 with Elmer Bernstein's exciting , thunderous score, all those identifiable American stars, the photography, the action...its just what I was raised on, starring men(in this case, men) with whom I strongly identified.

Funny sidebar: back in my early youth, my friends and I made short Super 8 versions of favorite movies. It was a way to stage stunts and "act a little," just fun. And we made a Magnificent 7(complete with Bernstein's credit theme on a recording soundtrack) and I elected to take ...the Robert Vaughn role. For his look and his death scene. I might add that this one was called "The Magnificent Three" so I wasn't support! (Harrumph.)

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

swanstep wrote:

It's a flippin' gorgeous color widescreen image with a truly monumental score and, with its sharp dialogue on top of its action

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Yep

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was star-making for both McQueen and Brynner as well as, at a slightly lower level, Bronson and Coburn and Robert Vaughan - a whole generation of sleek tough guy heroes.

--

I suppose part of the issue was what I've always said about Paul Newman. He became a big star so young so quickly because so MANY old male stars were aging, retiring, DYING.

So here is The Mag 7 giving rebirth to Yul's career(he already had an Oscar and ANOTHER signature role in The King and I) while preparing McQueen, Coburn, and Bronson for stardom. Took longest -- and a sidetrip to spaghetti Westerns -- for Bronson to make it in the 70's. Coburn hit in the 60s but always "second tier." McQueen got as big as it gets.

Funny: the ever-cheapening Mag 7 sequels in the 60's found parts for some noteable character guys -- Warren Oates, Claude Akins, Joe Don Baker, Monte Markham, Luke Askew, Bernie Casey -- to play "new 7s" but none of them hit full stardom, save cult faves Oates and Baker. Hey, one of the Magnificent 7 in The Mag 7 Rides was...Ed Lauter, Hitchcock's Joe Maloney. Yul Brynner reprised his role in one of the sequels, then was replaced as "Chris" by George Kennedy and later, Lee Van Cleef for a spaghetti connection.

Tarantino took note of this in his novel of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,contending that George Peppard had a movie called Cannon for Cordoba that was meant to be a Mag 7 sequel, but Peppard "refused to be the third Chris in the fourth Magnificent 7." Ha.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The film's also got the sort of high spirits and pace (2 hours and you're done) and rewatchability (esp. for guys) that things like Jaws and Back To The Future and Die Hard have.

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Rewatchability sounded, in Los Angeles around 1967, when The Magnificent Seven played on The Million Dollar movie one entire week --5 weeknights, 2 showings on Saturday, 2 showings on Sunday. "Me and the boys" saw quite a few of those screenings.

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In other words, Mag 7 is a, maybe 'the', prototype rousing modern blockbuster that nonetheless makes everything look easy

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Well, its from 1960, when Psycho was upping the ante on shocks and violence (and front loading same -- the movie is pumping terror from about 40 minutes in.) So here is The Magnificent Seven putting a lot more ACTION into the Western. Its as much an adventure movie as a Western and has an "international flavor" (South of the Border) which presages the spaghetti Western.

Its probable that The Magnificent Seven was more influential on the AMERICAN man on a mission movie than the more somber and Zen-like Seven Samarai.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Seven Samurai is, as you note a much more serious and long-winded and immersive (in Japanese caste systems and in Japanese post-WW2 skepticism about violence generally and in stoic Japanese personalities and acting styles) affair

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Yes -- the "long winded and immersive" nature of the film really separates the 7 Samarai from the American action films and Westerns of the time -- studios were NOT going to allow three-hour Westerns...unless they were an anthology and called "How the West Was Won."

--- and has quite a different effect on the viewer, esp. when Sturges's two most magnetic stars Brynner and McQueen get to ride off at the end, whereas Kurosawa's most magnetic star, Mifune, gets Bronson's the 'last to die' position in the story.

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Mifune's fate definitely surprised me. As a sidebar to that, I will note that the lesser Mag 7 of 2016 seems to have taken THAT from the Seven Samarai along with the concept of women and children being placed below ground in shelter ditches.

In the Mag 7 2016, amiable new star Chris Pratt(in the McQueen role with some of McQueen's lines from the original) indeed gets killed(a surprise) and killed last.

The Seven Samarai, The Mag 7 60 and The Mag 7 16 have the same numerical outcome, though: 3 survive, 4 die. The viewer can identify with both fates.

Seven Samurai feels more philosophical and much more interested in and in touch with nature (which intervenes with the epic rain climax)... It's more thoughtful and arty but less entertaining and rewatchable than Mag 7.

They are the same but totally different. Of different cultures and movie-making systems.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

For what it's worth, there's another pairing of Kurosawa with a foreign remake that's worth a look: A Fistful of Dollars was an unauthorized remake of Yojimbo (1961) - Kurosawa sued and won a settlement!

--

I'm familiar with the influence of Yojimbo on A Fistful of Dollars...and if memory serves, isn't there some influence on For a Few Dollars More, too? The epic GBU seemed to use an original story while retaing some of Kurosawa's epic style.

True confessions: I have never seen A Fistful of Dollars OR For a Few Dollars more or (outrage) seen all of GBU. All three are on my "get around to it" list for later years(if not the Great Books, then more Good Movies.)

Yojimbo is on HBO Max as part of their foreign films collection(which I continue to access, like "homework with more emotion.) I suppose I should watch it first and then try the Leones. HBO Max has The Hidden Fortress, too -- which I understand influenced Lucas on Star Wars.

Interestingly enough, I DID see the first "non Eastwood" Leone -- Once Upon a Time in the West with Mag 7'er Charles Bronson, ON release in 1969. I couldn't quite respond to the "non-American studio quality" of the film, and the dubbing, but it has grown on me over the years, and we used its soundtrack for a Super 8 Western so I have key parts of that score in my head forever.

BTW, I saw the very long OATITW on a Paramount double bill with the Robert Redford ski drama, Downhill Racer. Those were the days? That was a LONG double feature.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

But I'm interested in how Kurosawa's film-making evolves from 1954 to 1961. Yojimbo is in wide-screen, is only 110 minutes, and is more fun (Mifune rides off at the end) and doesn't have that meditativeness about nature and social class and fate, etc. that floats around in (and lengthens) 7 Samurai..... the thing that jumps out for me is really how far Kurosawa travels from 7 Sam to Yojimbo, thereby narrowing the gap between his films and their inevitable remakes.

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Well, perhaps as Kurosawa influenced American studio fillmmakers, they influenced him right back..shorter running times, "faster" stories?

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Interestingly, one of Kurosawa's big advantages for lots of modern viewers is that he's strongly influenced lots Japanese video games and comics/manga. James digs Kurosawa in part because his (sort of 3rd gen Kurosawa!) videogame/manga background shows him the way. The styization of acting that still might be an obstacle for some US movie-goers is no obstacle at all for a generation absorbed in ultra-stylized martial artsy media from East Asia generally.

--

That IS interesting. I've been reading a number of "are the movies over?" articles recently. Answer: No, but COVID sure ruined the habit. But the thing is that these articles point out that movies simply aren't "in demand" as much with the competing venues of video games, the internet, YouTube works by "regular people"(just like my Super 8 decades ago) Tik Tok.

Add in international interpretations and...well maybe the Seven Samarai is that much more accessible now.

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[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 2 years ago

"The styization of acting that still might be an obstacle for some US movie-goers is no obstacle at all for a generation absorbed in ultra-stylized martial artsy media from East Asia generally."

You're right on the money, swanstep! I can relate to that, since I happen to be an anime/manga/Japanese RPG fan from my elementary school days, which was actually my gateway into Japanese cinema in general.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

BTW, I enjoyed this irreverent Magnificent 7 (1960) review:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqQ4HrbJMr0
It was an instant-classic crowd-pleaser that still delivers after 60 years. That's so hard to achieve - a miracle really - that it probably only happens a couple of times a decade at most. It's easy to take such pleasure-giving films for granted (your NbNWs, your Butch Cassidy's, and so on) but I try not to. It pains me a little when any of them is scored as second tier, as Mag 7 is on both IMDb and Letterboxd.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

t was cool to read your reaction to the film, ecarle! I've seen the movie about 3-4 times, so it's always delightful "seeing" a familiar film through a newcomer's eyes.

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Yes, though I'm afraid this newcomer's eyes don't bring full comprehension to the party. One must complete the journey to another country, another culture, another style of acting, etc. I enjoyed Seven Samarai but I did not feel that I was fully its audience.

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I think it's interesting how the version one watches first tends to have the heart.

--

Yes. Likely so. The Magnificent 7 of 1960 was such a childhood staple, and the music was so famous(I think it ended up on a Marlboro cigarettes TV commercial back when cigarettes could be advertised.)

And yet whenever I'd read critical pieces on The Mag 7, the Seven Samarai would be referenced, usually as "the better film"(OK, I guess) and here I am DECADES later finally seeing the original.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I saw Seven Samurai at least twice before I ever watched TMS, and I have more of an interest in Japanese cinema than westerns (currently been trying to watch more westerns to remedy that blind spot),

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I like Westerns, I perhaps should watch more Japanese cinema to remedy THAT blind spot.

Note in passing: I always felt that that "machine guns ruined the Western." Tommy guns went back to gangster movies of the 30s a war movies in the 40s, but the "purity" of the Western gunfight with six shooters, or even of gunbattles with rifles, slowly gave way to the overkill of machine gun fire. Hence, Westerns leading up to the few shots of, say , High Noon, were no longer exciting enough for action.

The Wild Bunch beat this: as a turn of the 19th Century movie, a machine gun was part of the final gunbattle and ended up dominating both sight AND sound.

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so I was always going to lean more into the Kurosawa film. I would give my opinion of TMS, but it's been years since I watched it. I recall it's certainly a more inspired reimagining of the Seven Samurai story than another western remake of a Japanese film, The Outrage (which is a remake of Kurosawa's Rashomon that just doesn't work).

--

I've read bad things about The Outrage , which ended up on the list of "bad Paul Newman movies" (and was directed, I believe, by Martin Ritt, who also directed GOOD Paul Newman movies Hud and Hombre.)

But then, that was a more complex and symbolic tale and gave us the best simile since "Catch 22" for modern life ("They had Rashomon-like different opinions of the incident.")

The Magnificent Seven was built for character and excitement. Brynner is recruited by the farmers; then Brynner recruits McQueen, then Brynner AND McQueen recruit, one by one, each of the other 7. Each of the 7 gets his "launch" scene" and then they become a group -- professional friends on a mission. And then some of the friends die even as all defeat the foe. Can't beat it.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

The acting style can be a hurdle if you aren't used to it. I once took a film class where we had to watch a Kurosawa film and the class laughed at the acting. Same when we watched an 80s Korean action movie and the acting was also quite broad, particularly in the melodramatic scenes. It astonished me because I guess I have more of a stomach for stylized acting? Also Kurosawa was often inspired by Japanese theatrical traditions like noh and kabuki, where realism matters not at all.

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Yes. I accepted that as being the style of another culture and it didn't bother me.

However, I have always liked the "deadpan" school of American film acting. I like(and have) a deadpan style of talking in real life.

That's one reason I've always liked Hitchcock. How COOL some of his scenes are, how low key even as tension mounts.

Marion talking to Norman. Arbogast talking to Norman (VERY cool on Arbo's side.)

The elegant back and forth in the Glen Cove library scene in NXNW. How calmly Ray Milland entraps Anthony Dawson into committing hired murder in Dial M.

And the distaff side too: Grace Kelly silently laying a big kiss on Cary Grant at her hotel room door in To Catch a Thief(and HIS deadpan reaction afterwards.) Grant and Saint on the train in NXNW.

Non-romantic: Robert Walker chatting up Farley Granger on the train in Strangers on a Train.

All that Hitchcockian deadpan (perhaps reflecting his British roots?) is put into sharp relief by the mask-like grim faces and over-emotion of the Japanese actors in Seven Samarai.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Note in passing: in the Big Breakout first years of Saturday Night Live, John Belushi made his name as a comic icon primarily with a recurring skit called "Samarai(something.)" Samarai Delicatessen. Samarai Tailor. Belushi never spoke a word of English in the sketches, and his "Japanese" words were grunted, yelling gibberish.

But it was sure funny. Richard Pryor came on one time as Belushi's Samarai assistant and they drew swords and threatened each other. Pryor doing the Japanese voices too.

SNL kingpin Lorne Michaels recently opined that Belushi's Samarai act probably wouldn't be allowed today on TV. Really. Because the irony is, Belushi was SORT OF making fun of Japanese acting styles but SORT of noting the stylization OF such acting styles.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Anyway, that was a digression and I apologize for it!

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No way. Digression is a way of expression around here. Its more like elaboration...

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Your comparing the two films makes me want to rewatch TMS-- though I think I'll skip the 2016 version.

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Well, me and the 2016 version have an interesting relationship, surprising even to me.

Bottom line: even BEFORE COVID knocked movies out of theaters and cut down on output, I found in any given modern movie year that it was really HARD for me to adopt a "personal favorite movie for the year." Dramatic Oscar bait wouldn't do it. And genre was SO rooted in comic book universes that I didn't have much to work with there.

So in 2016, The Mag 7 ended up being the ONLY entertainment that really locked in for me as being fun and memorable and, in its own way, rewatchable.

Why, I actually saw it with some old friends from high school(I travel to see them) and we remembered the OLD version as we watched it.

More importantly: as with a number of remakes over recent decades, I was actually EXCITED to learn of them going into production. Sequels, I'm not big on, remakes -- if I really liked the original, I find myself drawn to want to see the new version and frankly, I spent the year of their production eagerly awaiting their release.

These remakes created that anticipation in me(at a minimum): Cape Fear, Ocean's Eleven, True Grit, The Magnificent Seven and -- yes -- Van Sant's Psycho (announced in April of 1998, shooting by June of 1998 released in December of 1998, I spent much of 1998 waiting for Psycho.)

Across the Board, I like the originals better, but the remakes landed pretty high on my lists for the later years: True Grit got Number One for 2010. The Mag 7 got Number One for 2016. Ocean's Eleven Number Two for 2001, and yes -- Van Sant's Psycho got Number Two for 1998, behind Saving Private Ryan but hey -- I was in the GRIP of wanting to see how a Psycho sequel would play.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Casting or miscasting is a big deal for these remakes.

Jeff Bridges was a great choice for the Wayne role in True Grit, and Matt Damon far outdistanced Glen Campbell.

Denzel Washington was a great choice for the Brynner role in Mag 7, and Chris Pratt was just "newly big" enough to feel McQueenish.

But miscasting? Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche and William H. Macy in Psycho...

and maybe next year:

Bradley Cooper has been announced to be playing Steve McQueen's old role in the classic "Bullitt." Something about the project sounds all wrong: Spielberg evidently will DIRECT as well as produce, which doesn't seem right. We are also told the movie is " a new story about Bullitt with a new plot." So its NOT an official remake?

But mainly: Steve McQueen was one of the two biggest stars in movies when he made Bullitt; Paul Newman was the other one and Bullitt actually moved McQueen past his rival for awhile.

So a new Bullitt should be at that level: Brad Pitt. Leo. Tom Cruise.

Oh, well. I'll turn up.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Back to the 2016 Mag 7. The worst thing about it is the last narrated line, by a woman who has been inserted into the story:

"They truly were....MAGNIFICENT."

Oh, no.

How about a Psycho remake that ends with: "He truly was...PSYCHO."

But before we reach that nadir, there are some interesting things along the way.

I do love the scene where Denzel and his men first confront the bad guys who run the town. Denzel says something like "We hear you are very good at terrorizing shopkeepers, women and children but we were wondering how you might do when you come up against real men."

Muy mas macho. "...how you would far against REAL MEN." Denzel lays down the gauntlet and the other guys actually ...look nervous and gulp. Its very satisfiying.

The 7 kill all those men save one and send him back to tell villain Bartholomew Bogue(gone is Eli Wallach's Mexican bandit leader) to get ready. Bogue literally shoots the messenger and the movie makes its next big point: this isn't a Western, its a war movie. Bogue is sending a full ARMY of invaders to take on the 7, and the prospects for survival are bleak(but not hopeless.)

With those two action sequences (The 7s first kills, the Army-like battle climax) The Mag 7 16 reflects the "action improvements"(including a Gatling Gun)that The Wild Bunch had wrought. I liked THAT aspect, too.

Mag 7 16 also made sure to address Diversity. It had to. Thus we have:

Denzel (African American)
Chris Pratt(White)
Vincent D'Nofrio (White)
Ethan Hawke(White)
Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (Mexican)
Martin Sensemier(Native American)
Lee Buyung-hun (Korean)

SPOILER: The movie rather inserts a puckish "needle" in ending with all three white men on the team killed(plus the Asian, who is best friends or something more with Hawke) and only people of color to survive. Oh well.

I did like how the bad guy team had a "traitorous Native American" on their team. The GOOD Native American kills him with admonition: "You're a disgrace."

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I suppose it was "necessarily politically correct" to remove the villain Mexican bandit leader and his gang as the villains. Mag 7 16 rather dutifully gives us a white villain and his mostly white army.

But it rather rendered "generic" the point of the 1960 film(if not the Samarai), that Mexican farmers would and could rise up against their oppressors, with help from SOME whites, but not all.

And we lost Eli Wallach's Calvera one of the great and strangely honorable villains in movie history.

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[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Since Mag 7 16 gave us a new set of men with new backstories(I don't even think they gave the new guys the same names as in the original) I don't see it as a remake so much as I see it as a really EXPENSIVE version of those rather cheapjack 60's sequels.

You should look at those sequels some time. They are an insight into B-level United Artists cheapo programmer material as the movie studios died in the 60's. Its not just that they look like made for TV movies. It is that that the photography is so basic and the scripting so minor that the 1960 Magnificent 7 seems to have "birthed" an entire subpar ripoff genre of its own plot. Also I think the famous Bernstein theme song gets performed by smaller orchestras in the remakes. Cheap.

And Mag 7 16 feels like one of THOSE, except with a bigger budget and bigger stars.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

Gilroy is currently show-running a new (apparently acclaimed - I'm gonna have to watch it now) Star Wars series for Disney, Andor, which is a prequel to Rogue One.

I've now watched Andor... and it's pretty darned good....

The good:
1. this is a gritty, 'ground level', (at least apparently) force-free Star Wars with lots of grey-characters. This vid. (no spoilers) shows how this was achieved through a lot of fundamental production and visual and editing choices:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhgXXhcPQEM
2. In a way, Gilroy has clawed his way through Star Wars's mythological level to arrive at a mixture of THX-1138 and 1984 and Battle of Algiers - all of which probably is much of Lucas's original inspiration (the 'downer cinema' Star Wars he might have made in the early '70s before Lucas started to see himself as providing an antidote to the 'downer cinema' of that era). It really works, and some of the minutia of Imperial power in Andor gave me actual cold-sweat nightmares.
3. Gilroy's got a good nose for personal dilemmas and the power of a good speech that he can write the hell out of. I predict that we'll be hearing some of the key phrases from some of the big speeches here in political speeches over the next decade or so.
4. Self-plagiarism is style. A key awful character in Andor may remind you a lot of Tilda Swinton in Michael Clayton.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

The Bad.
1. It drags occasionally (even the opening credits in each ep. waste time in my view). Could the 12 eps of 50 mins be boiled down to 10 eps or even 8? I dunno. There's a big story-line (with lots of flashbacks screaming *Very Important storyline*) in the first half of the series that is just dropped and never referred to again. Maybe it should have been omitted.
2. The vast cast of characters and worlds is taxing to keep track of.
3. It irritates that transportation between planets and star systems seems quite difficult most of the time, intensely bureaucratic, and tightly controlled (important - this Empire is always on your ass), whereas on other occasions characters seem to be able to flit about between worlds no problem. E.g., At the end of the season the story's main character (for whom the Empire and everyone else is looking) finally makes it home (the Empire *knows* he's trying to get home to see his mom). How he did that without being picked up at the border is just left unexplained.

In sum, Andor is a solid 8/10 from me. It's not perfect but there's more than enough good stuff in it to really look forward to subsequent seasons. Will Disney continue to shell out the big bucks for Gilroy's gritty, grey, very adult, occasionally literally nightmarish vision? There's *one* excellent robot character, Bee, that will bring in some toy revenue, but he's no Baby Yoda!

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

Taking things too far? QT & Avary have officially announced the passing of Rick Dalton:
https://www.indiewire.com/news/obituary/rick-dalton-dead-once-upon-a-time-in-hollywood-character-1234865632/

Update: QT&A today (May 23) released the first of three podcast eps (Day of the Dalton Pt 1) all about Dalton's life and legacy. The first ep. allegedly includes excerpts from a Q&A QT conducted with Dalton back in 1999, but on a quick skim through DiCaprio doesn't appear to have played along with this lark so it's really just QT blabbing on some more, not an actual (mock) Q&A recording.

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[–] roger1 (3626) 2 years ago

(Formerly ecarle.)

Heh.

I think this is a clue to how QT may elect to spend his time AFTER he releases his "final film" (The Movie Critic) in the next couple of years (not even cast yet.)

He can spin all sorts of fan fiction about his movie characters.

I still have a problem with his novelization of "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" in that he gave us a far LESS heroic and admirable version of Brad Pitt's Cliff Booth than the guy in the movie(who won an Oscar for Pitt.) Cliff had a past not only as a WIII "hero killer," but as a murderer of several people(all of them bad) and -- get this -- a "pimp in Paris." Its as if with QT unbound by the need to write roles that stars would want to play...he could mess with the characters however he wanted.

And now this. So Rick Dalton ended up still married to Francesa(a surprise to me) and living/dying in Hawaii? Well, OK.

I wonder what happened to Robert Forster's massively sympathetic bail bondsman Max Cherry from Jackie Brown. He ends that movie in a sad state of mind...having turned down an escape to Europe WITH Jackie Brown. Maybe he changed his mind ....but...maybe I want to leave him where he was, grateful for his life-and-death adventure, sad not to be able to dare more...

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

I think this is a clue to how QT may elect to spend his time AFTER he releases his "final film"....He can spin all sorts of fan fiction about his movie characters.

I've been listening to QT&Avary's podcast only semi-faithfully. In general I find the show is most compelling when it's anchored to a genuinely *good* movie, e.g., recent eps focussed on The Hospital and on The Great Waldo Pepper have been a blast. Eps that embody the impulse towards various sorts of contrarian fan-fiction based on sub-B-movies and -tv shows are, however, of no interest whatsoever to me. E.g., half an ep. recently was about 5 or so alternative Planet of the Apes movies that some LA TV station and production house fabricated out of pairs of episodes of the (1970s, indifferent quality, short-lived) POTA tv series together with a bit of talkover narration. What? Life's too just short to spend *any time at all* thinking about or watching stuff like that, but for QT&Avary that sort of ultra-niche stuff is some of the stuff they love the most. Hell, I could imagine the tv series POTA featuring as a plot point in a new QT film if he doesn't stop with The Movie Critic.

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[–] swanstep (2715) 2 years ago

Of course, I can imagine QT&Avary equally dismissing a lot of the stuff *I* spend time on. E.g., I was overjoyed recently to track down the TV miniseries that Chabrol worked on in 1980, Fantomas (some of whose eps are directed by Luis Bunuel's son). I haven't watched these yet but do look forward to it. It's a retelling of one of the oldest stories in French film dating back to a 5.5 hour silent serial from 1913 but which was explored again in a series of colorful, James Bond-like films in the 1960s. In sum, Fantomas (1980) is the sort of obscurity that's catnip *to me* - it's historically significant by a significant director and I'm thrilled to get a chance to check it out even though I'm pretty sure that it's not some great hidden masterpiece. To each their own!

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[–] roger1 (3626) a year ago

I think this is a clue to how QT may elect to spend his time AFTER he releases his "final film"....He can spin all sorts of fan fiction about his movie characters.
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I've been listening to QT&Avary's podcast only semi-faithfully. In general I find the show is most compelling when it's anchored to a genuinely *good* movie, e.g., recent eps focussed on The Hospital and on The Great Waldo Pepper have been a blast.

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Two very good "under the radar" 70's movies that don't get shown much. One reason, perhaps, is that both movies are very depressing, and these are pretty depressing times we live in...no interest in going there.

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CONT

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[–] roger1 (3626) a year ago

Eps that embody the impulse towards various sorts of contrarian fan-fiction based on sub-B-movies and -tv shows are, however, of no interest whatsoever to me. E.g., half an ep. recently was about 5 or so alternative Planet of the Apes movies that some LA TV station and production house fabricated out of pairs of episodes of the (1970s, indifferent quality, short-lived) POTA tv series together with a bit of talkover narration. What? Life's too just short to spend *any time at all* thinking about or watching stuff like that,

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I left all of that in because it becomes "self-accusatory" to myself. I, personally, have spent a fair amount of time recently using the streaming services to look at ALL SORTS of indifferent stuff...but(to my credit), at least they are movies: Pendulum, Doctor's Wives, Wrong is Right and...last week....three of the four Airport movies(all on Netflix right now; the absolutely awful fourth one is not being shown.) I'm afraid I have more of a taste at this point in my life, in "re-visiting schlock I saw or catching up with it," because its just plain HARDER for me to devote my attention to a "deeper film," or a foreign film or something serious but not entertaining to me.

The "Airport" movies quickly became fodder for the hilarious "Airplane" of 1980(which killed the Airport movies off) so they ARE an interesting part of "pop movie culture" AND to me, they put the lie to too much swooning about "the great era of 70's movies." Oh, YEAH? What about the Airports and Skyjacked and Two Minute Warning -- Charlton Heston got rich starring in these stinkers because no other name stars would take the parts...(on topic, a little bit: Martin Arbogast Balsam is in Two Minute Warning, too -- not everything could be Hitchcock.)

Anyway, I guess I can dig where QT and Avary are coming from in reviewing the gold AND the dross of the eras they(and I) grew up with.

CONT

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[–] roger1 (3626) a year ago

but for QT&Avary that sort of ultra-niche stuff is some of the stuff they love the most. Hell, I could imagine the tv series POTA featuring as a plot point in a new QT film if he doesn't stop with The Movie Critic.

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Maybe. "If he doesn't stop..." is going to be the question he posits eventually, isn't it? What a showman.

Meanwhile: QT has now elaborated in -- I think -- very interestingly on the core premise of "The Movie Critic."

It is based on QT's young career life in the porno theater/porno video industry(funny how he stuck more to the Redondo Beach "movie video store" as his career launch originally; turns out the guy worked in his teens at the Pussycat porn theaters in LA, too.)

Evidently, there was a "porn movie magazine" which allowed for reviews of REGULAR movies in release, too, and this one particular movie critic was MERELY THE SECOND STRINGER (they had room for TWO regular reviewers) and according to QT, this guys reviews were just hilarious and profane and knowing and QT wants to turn THAT GUY into the lead of his movie.

So statements that this would be about Pauline Kael are revealed to be the usual internet guessing game bullshit...

In this interview, QT also says that Leo and Brad are "too old" for the lead -- he will be looking for a "35 year old guy." Any votes out there? I know we've got a lot of young semi-stars -- that Timothee Chavet or whatever strikes me as very wispy but maybe he'd fit, I don't know.

I like how QT is starting to "set the stage" in dribs and drabs for The Movie Critic. It is almost June, 2023. I think he wants to be filming by the fall. Over the summer we will probably start to get one by one casting announcements -- always exciting for me.

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[–] swanstep (2715) a year ago

QT & Avary both love Demonoid (1981) w. The Collector and The Brood’s Samantha Eggar, and w/ Stuart Whitman… It’s available on YouTube so I gave it a try… Gah! What a waste of time! It’s a barely watchable, cheapie, rudimentary, disembodied hand/Possession horror full of stupid plot points and no real scares. Eggar does her best to class up the picture but her character makes no sense. Whitman’s good but his character is asked to do ridiculous things so what can he do?

QT and Avary have an extreme tolerance and relish for trash that leaves me baffled. Demonoid’s IMDb score is 4.6, which strikes me as about right. I’d never normally watch something with that kind of score, and I’ll revert to that policy henceforth. No more exceptions for QT and Avary recommendations! Every single episode of Guillermo del Toro's recent anthology series for Netflix, Cabinet of Curiosities (Imdb score = 7.0), is a *much* better use of ones time than watching Demonoid or any number of the trash obscurities that QT&A regularly recommend and inflict on their fans. [Demonoid recently played w/ (the much better) The Brood on a Samantha Eggar double bill at QT's New Beverley cinema. Much better to have gone with The Collector.]

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