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Tarantino Picks Fights With Living Directors: Living Directors Fight Back

posted 15 days ago by roger1 (3626)
32 replies | jump to latest

This is on-topic given Hitchcock's role in the proceedings.

Famous writer-director Quentin Tarantino -- who, just like Alfred Hitchcock -- never made a movie I didn't like and has often made my favorite or second-favorite movie of the year(Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, Inglorious Basterds, Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) remains on a self-imposed sabbatical from making movies that has lasted for five years now. His last picture was OATIH -- in 2019. QT famously swears he will only make one more movie and then retire. A false start on a final film called "The Movie Critic" collapsed.

So what to do with his time? A podcast, I guess(though paywall.) AND:

A willingness to be the one current Hollywood big name who is "the anti-Martin Scorsese."

To wit:

You can always get a good, warm, supportive quote from Scorsese on ANY movie, ANY director. His tone is always "up" -- supportive. On the Hitchcock beat, not only has Scorsese praised Vertigo, Rear Window and Psycho...he even had some good things to say about Topaz.

(Yes, Scorsese went up against Marvel recently, but even there, he seemed respectful in his opposition -- and he NEVER disses Golden Age cinema.)

Scorsese has a fellow "cheerleader for movies" in Guillermo Det Toro, who LOVES Hitchocck and offered some sky high praise for North by Northwest, and a rather awed respect for the "darkness" of Frenzy -- in which the world becomes a horrible place.

But ol' QT?

Well, he's certainly decided that Hitchcock isn't his cup of tea. He called North by Northwest "a mediocre film" and said that he likes Psycho II better than Psycho and Psycho II director Richard Franklin better than Hitchcock. (So I guess he likes "Cloak and Dagger" with Dabney Coleman better than Vertigo?)

And QT has hammered John Ford pretty much as a white supremeicist and bigot whose films should be ignored. (Different times, QT? And what of "How Green Was My Valley" and "The Grapes of Wrath" and "The Informer")

But heretofore, QT's insults have been directed at DEAD directors.

It turns out that recent insults towards Ridley Scott and Denis Villeneuve(Dune) have been met with return fire.

And even a little from Scorsese.

With Ridley Scott, I don't think QT has insulted him directly -- and he has surely praised Alien. But Scott flies in direct contrast to QT's statement that one reason HE is quitting movies(in his 60s) is that many directors "lose their juice" in their older age. He offers Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock and Wilder as "old school examples" -- but -- and this is crucial -- seems to be losing the effort as Scorsese and Spielberg and Scott make films into their 80s (and Clint Eastwood just directed one at 93 that got good reviews.)

So here is Ridley Scott on QT's mouthing off:

"I dont' fucking believe that bullshit. Shut up and go make another movie. Quentin wrote a few things for my brother. They got along great. I'm not sure I've met him."

Ha. First the kick in the teeth. Then a reference to the fact that Scott and Quentin ARE connected (It was True Romance that Tony Scott directed from a QT script.) then "I'm not sure I've met him." I'm pretty sure I saw them together on some interview show -- I remember thinking QT must be a bit embarrassed to have this successful really old director sitting next to him.

Scott's remarks - in The Hollywood Reporter to promote his new "Gladiator 2" film(directed at age 86) -- go off in a different more conciliatory direction, point being(paraphrased): "QT may SAY he will never write and direct a movie again, but the urge will never go away and he WILL."

Meanwhile, we've got Martin Scorsese going on record that while he doesn't know how many more movies he will be able to make physically, he "will not retire" and will play out his career (Hitchcock said the same thing -- "I shall never retire" - and pretty much did just that. He called it quits in 1979 and died in 1980.)

I think Scorsese also threw in a quote about Kurosawa blooming in HIS 80s.

So is QT losing on his argument about "old directors in decline?" (shared, I might add by Brian DePalma.)

Yes ...and no. (As the shrink said in Psycho.)

Exhibit A; Robert Zemeckis, who this month November of 2024 has come a cropper with a movie called "Here" even as the film reunites director, screenwriter, male star(Tom Hanks) and female star(Robin Wright) of the 1994 blockbuster Forrest Gump.

Folks are noting that while Zemeckis still works all the time...he's not really matched his 80s-90s heyday.

I think what we are seeing here - yet again -- is that the answer to the question -- "Do older directors make lesser films in their later years?" is: "Some of them yes(Zemeckins) some of them no(Scott, Eastwood.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 15 days ago

And from THEIR standpoint, whether their movies are good or not - Hollywood sure is still paying these older directors a lot to KEEP MAKING movies. Tim Burton just got a new lease on his career with Beetlejuice 2.

Meanwhile:

QT said he will never watch Denis Vellenueve's "Dune" because its a remake of the Lynch 80's version.

Denis shot back: "I don't care if sees it or not...but I see mine as an original -- an adaptation of the book."

Well -- THAT ones been used a LOT on remakes. I recall it with the Coen's True Grit. "This is more faithful to the novel," said Jeff Bridges as if primed. Yes it was -- including the dull end to the book that was improved by the end of the 1969 version.

AND: QT went contrarian the other way, saying he loved the recent "Joker 2" failure and Joaquin Phoenix's performance. Fair enough. But I was more intrigued to read that QT saw "Joker 2" at a movie theater in ...Tel Aviv. Reveallilng yet again, that these movie people are "international creatures" and that QT's humble roots in coastal Los Angeles at a video store have taken him smack dab into the middle of the Middle East.

I dunno. I suppose having QT out there picking fights with dead directors and live directors is "refreshing" in ways. I myself am a bit TIRED of Scorsese and Del Toro praising EVERYTHING -- and every promotional interview on every film is basically mutual admiration societies of fulsome praise ("I got to work with this great actor...he really LISTENS when you say your lines to him." That cliche should be retired.)

What's wrong with a little argumentation? Worked for Siskel and Ebert. Perhaps QT has found his new calling.

[–] swanstep (2715) 14 days ago

QT said he will never watch Denis Vellenueve's "Dune" because its a remake of the Lynch 80's version.
Denis shot back: "I don't care if sees it or not...but I see mine as an original -- an adaptation of the book."

QT's remark is quite strange (the differences between Lynch's and Villeneuve's 2-film version of the same underlying material are so enormous that no one completely sane would think that the mere existence of Lynch's version made the latter redundant). I'm guessing that QT feels a rivalry with Villeneuve, who's only made good or excellent films so far. I didn't much care for his Blade Runner sequel but most people seem to love it, and everything else I've seen from the Dunes to Arrival (although in that case I knew and loved the award-winning sci-fi short story it was based on and felt the film was clumsy and padded out compared to it - but if you hadn't read the stpry then maybe the good-enough movie worked better) to Sicario to Prisoners to his early films like Incendies and Polytechique has been pretty immaculate. His stuff has a corporate slickness about it, like Zemeckis and Spielberg or Abrams back in the day, so that it lacks the kind of personal edge that you get with QT, Scorsese, Lynch, Hitchcock etc.. If I'm honest, Villeneuve never seems quite a top-tier talent to me, and I suspect that he'll never be *my guy*. I suspect that QT holds this lack of personality against V. but to jump from that to not even seeing stuff as painstaking and kind of magnificent as the Dunes is kerrazy.

[–] swanstep (2715) 14 days ago

Also, Lynch's Dune has the odd good idea but it looks and sounds - score by Toto! - so terrible (seriously, if you watch it right after Star Wars 1977 - which drew a lot on the Dune book for its desert/Tatooine sequences - it's like there's been this terrible recession in sfx and music so that Lynch's Dune just feels like amateur hour) that for most people it's never been so much as basically watchable. Lynch has always disowned it for a reason. Literally *nobody* thinks that it's even close to being the definitive adaptation of a long, very-hard-to-adapt, important book. *Of course* other people were eventually going to have a go at adapting it. QT's position makes no sense.

[–] swanstep (2715) 15 days ago

A podcast, I guess(though paywall.)

No, QT's 'Video Archives' podcast with Roger Avary and Avary's daughter is freely available - no paywalls - from most of the major podcast outlets as far as I know. For example, I get it through Apple's iTunes store but since I use spotify I also have the option of listening to it there. As it happens, the Video Archives podcast, which has been off for about 6 months, just began its second season with an ep. on the sub-par Peter Hyams-directed Gene Hackman thriller Narrow Margin (1990), a minor, late Edward Dmytryk thriller The Human Factor (1975), and a truly obscure junker Killpoint (1984). Life's too short for stuff like this!

[–] roger1 (3626) 14 days ago

No, QT's 'Video Archives' podcast with Roger Avary and Avary's daughter is freely available - no paywalls -

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Oops...you got me..and "I Confess" -- I didn't even try, I simply read somebody's article that COMPLAINED that QT's podcast has "moved to paywall." I can't say that I'm that crazy (yet) about going to QT's podcast because -- he's a great screenwriter and a talented director -- but THAT VOICE when he's going off on things, right?

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rom most of the major podcast outlets as far as I know.

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Well, isn't that sort of a paywall -- you have to pay for these outlets like Apples iTunes or Spotify?

I'm a total naif on these things.

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As it happens, the Video Archives podcast, which has been off for about 6 months,

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This is SOLELY QT's podcast? Or are others on there? Just curious.

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CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 14 days ago

just began its second season with an ep. on the sub-par Peter Hyams-directed Gene Hackman thriller Narrow Margin

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Yes, I saw that -- it was one of those movies Gene Hackman did when he was NOT doing great, Oscar-level, art film work.
He called these movies "money jobs" -- but he delivered star quality.

It seems that every movie (thrillers at least) I have seen have at least ONE good scene in them, and in Narrow Margin, there comes a time when a professional hit man stalking Hackman's trial witness to kill her actually meets up face to face for a meeting with Hackman on the train that holds the story. The hit man, as I recall, won't fess up to BEING a hit man and the dialogue goes something like this:

Hit man: So, you're a deputy DA, huh? For a lawyer, that's a relatively low paying job. You couldn't do better with a big private law firm? Make the big bucks?
Hackman: Well, I tell you. I COULD join a big private law firm and make the big bucks, but I get much more satisfaction in this low paying job -- because it affords me the opportunity to take on really low-level gutter trash gangsters and put them away for life.

Big grin. Hit man scowls.

I'm a BIG fan of a LOT of Peter Hyams movies. They are pulpy with plot holes but the good ones have good premises and these are my favorites:

Goodnight My Love(1972) A "mere" ABC TV movie but with the Great Richard Boone as a big private eye and Michael Dunn as his dwarf partner. They just LOOK funny together, but Boone goes whole hog on the deadpan line delivery. Plus Victor Buono as Sydney Greenstreet by another name. THIS TV movie GOT Peter Hyams feature films -- just like Duel got Steven Spielberg his.

Capricorn One (1978) Knockout Jerry Goldsmith score. A "North by Northwestian" emphasis on low-level violence and big level chases. An all-star cast led by Barbra Streisand's husbands, past and present: Elliott Gould and James Brolin.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 14 days ago

Outland (1981.) Sean Connery -- never more macho and sympathetic -- oh, I guess he was TOO in The Untouchables, Robin and Marian and The Man Who Would Be King: 'High Noon in Outer Space -- except I seem to recall that you dind't think so , Swanstep.

The Star Chamber (1983) Michael Douglas -- just BEFORE he became a big star with Romancing the Stone -- in an excellent "legal thriller" that is really an action movie. (Fox bosses said the title made people think this was "Star Wars" type stuff -- LA Law.)

Sudden Death (1993) Of all the "Die Hard on a BLANK" movies, this is my favorite OTHER than Die Hard. Its Die Hard at a hockey arena -- and Jean Claude Vandamme is the star in one of his few REAL star parts (Hyams then did a Scorsese and took JCVD on as his muse in other movies -- just like Scorsese with DeNiro and Leo.) The late Powers Boothe -- GREAT voice -- is a truly, truly EVIL villain here -- he makes Hans Gruber look like a reasonable guy. Holding hostages -- he kills a woman and does his darndest to kill JCVD's little boy in FRONT of JCVD. He meets a CHOICE end.

And I'll bet I forgot one or two. But those are my faves --- kind of in a Don Siegel/Walter Hill action director way.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 14 days ago

minor, late Edward Dmytryk thriller The Human Factor (1975),

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Hey, Otto Preminger made a movie called "The Human Factor" in the 70s too -- 1979 -- and I SAW that one. Never heard of this one.

I guess its one of those titles. I was watching "The Chase" the other night with Marlon Brando, Robert Redford, Jane Fonda and Robert Duvall. That's the one from 1966. But there have been a TON of other movies with that title.

My favorite Edward Dymtrk film is Mirage (1965) a damn good NYC thriller in black and white that mixes equal parts 40's noir, 50s Hitchocck, and 60s Strangelove. Greg Peck is the beleagured hero, but Walter Matthau -- in his very last role as a "supporting actor" is a helpful private eye who gets the Arbogast treatment, but its less violent and more sad. Dymtrk (sp!) said he told Matthau "I think you're going to be the biggest character actor in Hollywood" and Matthau replied "What do you mean? I'm going to be a leading man." And it happened.
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and a truly obscure junker Killpoint (1984).

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You got me there.

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Life's too short for stuff like this!

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Ha. Not for QT...and sometimes, alas not for me.

Which reminds me: since I clicked on one QT diatribe, more have been floating in on my feed. GD algorithims.

The latest: he hates The Towering Inferno of 1974. "An awful movie," he says.

He goes on to claim that disaster movies were the Marvel movies of the 70s(not really, most of them were CHEAP.)

But hey, I remember spending the spring and summer of 1974 in anticipation of The Towering Inferno for one reason and one reason only: that CAST.

Led by: Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. Finally together as co-equal superstars (McQueen was a bit player in a 1956 Newman movie) McQueen as the Fire Chief famously got to order Newman around as the "honorable architect betrayed by hgis developer" (Wiliam Holden and Richard Chamberlain) when the world's tallest skyscraper goes up in flames and endangers a few hundred people.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 14 days ago

Not all disaster movies were created equal.

Airport (1970) is promoted as the first one, but it isn't really. The plane doesn't crash. Only the mad bomber is killed.

The Poseidon Adventure (1972) is the first one: I've always read that The Godfather was the biggest hit of 1972f but in recxent years I've seen this one. And the early tidal wave swamping the ocean liner is a GREAT scene with practical effects, and the rest of the movie is interesting as survivors climg "up the down staircase" to the bottom of the ship at the surface to escape. The script was so-so though and Gene Hackman and Ernest Borgnine leading the cast were...OK. (THIS after The French Connection, made Hackman a star.)

Irwin Allen made The Poseidon Adventure, and he was rewarded with The Towering Inferno . Backed by two studios(Warners and Fox) he finagled TWO superstars(McQueen and Newman) two directors(John Guillerman for drama, Allen himself for action) from two books(The Tower and The Glass Inferno.)

McQueen and Newman were the draws(though they were about to be joined by new 70's superstars)
But William Holden was in it -- a HUGE star of the FIFTIES (and a recent icon to youth with The Wild Bunch.)
And Faye Dunaway was in it (coming off of Chinatown and she ALWAYS worked with the big males stars in the 70s.)
And...lots of others.

I vividly recall the fall into Christmas of 1974: attack of the disaster movies, in ascending order:

October: Airport 1975 (the cheapest of the bunch, from Universal, starring Charlton Heston and George Kennedy)
November: Earthquake(Sensurround speakers shaking theaters but the earthquakes looked cheap, from Universal, starring Charlton Heston and George Kennedy.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 14 days ago

With those two sub-par warm-ups when Warners and Fox came through at Christmas with Paul and Steve and Bill and Faye and all that fire - I , for one, felt that the disaster movie had reached its peak. I was right -- it was the biggest grosser of '74(though today Blazing Saddles has been given that note), and I saw it -- twice -- in giant theaters packed full house in the hundreds.

Weird : after the trumph of Towering Inferno, Irwin Allen pretty much collapsed -- TRULY awful disaster movies like Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (starring Michael "I'll do anything" Caine) and The Swarm(starring "Michael "sure, I'll do it" Caine) and a final monstrosity that trapped Newman and Holden (but not McQueen) with Ernest Borgnine and Red Buttons from "Poseidon" called "When Time Ran Out." Indeed awful. That was in 1980. Famously, time DID run out on the disaster movie. The disaster spoof "Airplane" was a huge hit in 1980 and the corpse was put to ground.

But The Towering Inferno somehow rose above all the others. McQueen got no-nonsense technical fire chief dialogue , Newman stuggled to keep up -- but they both looked great and were TRUE superstars.

I love the scene where Fire Chief McQueen firmly confronts developer William Holden that he must clear a floor and move the party downstairs: its Frank Bullitt VS Pike Bishop!

The movie is too long, but it looks expensive and posh(no Universal production values), the deaths are sad as well as horrifying(except when the bad guy gets it) and the cast is good (hey, look! its Fred Astaire and Jennifer Jones) and it was just behind Chinatown as my favorite of 1974. Personally, I think McQueen held the producers to getting a good script out of Oscar-winner Sterling Silliphant , at least for MCQUEEN-- the movie follows McQueen's perfectionism. Newman didn't much care.

OK, QT...next?

[–] swanstep (2715) 14 days ago

Well, isn't that sort of a paywall -- you have to pay for these outlets like Apples iTunes or Spotify?

No, they're both completely free I can assure you, unless they mange to upsell you to some fancy package (which I've always been able to resist). For what it's worth, you can also listen to all episodes directly from Quentin and Roger's own website (they'll try to upsell you to their patreon page too mind you):
http://videoarchivespodcast.com/

[–] swanstep (2715) 11 days ago

An update on the terms of Avary and QT's podcast. In its first season the episodes were roughly two hours long (and normally covered three films) - all for free. In its (just-started) second season the fully free episodes are only an hour long and comprise the discussion of just the main film each week. To get the full (normally three-film) discussion each time you have to subscribe to Roger and Qt's Patreon at either $US5 or $US10 per month levels. Sigh...I guess they didn't want to have to deal with the advertizing that most podcasts use to keep things freely available (perhaps saving advertzing-free versions for the patreon subscribers).

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

An update on the terms of Avary and QT's podcast. In its first season the episodes were roughly two hours long (and normally covered three films) - all for free.

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Wow. Two hours of commitment -- 3 films in depth. I GUESS I could commit that kind of time -- I'm very "new" on podcasts -- I subscribe to none because I'm not familiar with the medium -- but how many podcasts does QT release out in a month? One a week? One a month? Just wondering...if you know.

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In its (just-started) second season the fully free episodes are only an hour long and comprise the discussion of just the main film each week.

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Aha. "The more manageable time commitment." One hour, one film...each week. I guess my question above is answered?

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To get the full (normally three-film) discussion each time you have to subscribe to Roger and Qt's Patreon at either $US5 or $US10 per month levels.

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Not a lot, but not necessarily worth the effort. There are free discussions or parts of on YouTube that fill in certain blanks. But I sense QT removing access to his remarks on YouTube, more and more.

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CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

Sigh...I guess they didn't want to have to deal with the advertizing that most podcasts use to keep things freely available (perhaps saving advertzing-free versions for the patreon subscribers).

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I'm of two minds on advertising. I'm going NUTS when I click on a selected Prime Video movie and have to wait three long, long minutes of commercials before my movie begins. But I guess that's just because I was "spoiled" for years by putting in the tape or the DVD and "the movie starts" (OK sometimes there are previews there.)

And OTHER movies on Prime and other channels put commercials INTO the movie -- unless you pay more. Unlike as with home-made tapes you can't fast forward through the commercials.

We are going backward from a more customer-friendly time. Economics, I know. Bulletin: I've been reading more books lately. I sense movies and TV "being taken away gradually or with more costs imposed." And commercials.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

A coupla follow up thoughts on Tarantino, his podcasts, and his opinions:

ONE: His podcasts. It occurs to me that even as QT has left open when that "final film" is coming -- and who knows, maybe he'll resurrect The Movie Critic like he resurrected The Hateful Eight -- he clearly IS putting himself forth as a "force in the movie world" simply by adding his "highly professional voice" to the hordes of p professional AND amateur podcasts(and YouTube channels) out there.

I guess you could say he is showing us EXACTLY how he is NOT going away just because he may eventually stop making films. He also written two books (to my knowledge) since his last film -- A novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood(that left THAT story behind about halfway through and turned into a "book of movie criticism" seen through the eyes of Cliff Booth); and (2) a flat-out book of film criticism called "Cinema Speculation" (deeply steeped in an autobiography of HOW young QT saw films all over Los Angeles, usually with almost all-black audiences).

So..ongoing podcasts, two books and more to come, and QT makes noise about TV and stageplay projects that allow him to sidestep making movies. I don't think he's going to disappear.

TWO: QT's opinions. As I've said, he seems to be going against the grain of "we love everything" Scorsese and Del Toro (and QT's "friendly competitor," Paul Thomas Anderson is on record as saying filmmakers should NEVER attack the work of other filmmakers...hoo boy.)

So we've got him dumping on Hitchcock and Ford and loving Psycho II(proof of something wrong in the mental zone -- all these scenes of Perkins picking up the phone to say "your'e not my mother" or "yes, mother" -- its like a comedy version of the original. (That element WAS in the original but much better disgusied and much more horrifying in 19860.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

In addition to his podcasts, there are a few "reviews he wrote" for his New Beverly Cinema. His review of John Wayne's final film, directed by Don "Dirty Harry/Charley Varrick" Siegel, was not good. "You don't see anything here you haven't seen before and better."

I beg to disagree. A movie famously about a gunfighter dying of cancer as the final film of a MOVIE STAR dying of cancer(and he was, it just took 3 years.) But also Wayne and James Stewart doing some touching final scenes together, and Wayne and Lauren Bacall doing some touching final scenes together, and The Great Richard Boone showing up(evidently drunk) to steal two short scenes, and quite a different gunfight at the end. Good dialogue, too. "You all wrong, Tarantino."

Anyway, I guess I'll have to look at the QT podcasts to see where he's coming from. I know that he CHAMPIONS films as much as he attacks them.

Its just interesting that he seems to have decided to "go from being a movie maker to a movie critic." Usually its in the other direction.

THREE: I've been pondering QT's "North by Northwest is a mediocre movie" statement -- stewing on it a bit, and two things come up :

a. QT makes a disparaging remark EXACTLY in the infuriating tradition of Pauline Kael "Most people fall in love with it at age 22 and then years later realize that it is a mediocre movie." Kael was ALWAYS projecting on audiences -- pretty much calling them dummies -- and assuring us WHY they loved that. Like with the "fascist" Dirty Harry: "Audiences loved it because Harry killed a bad Dragon." As if they IGNORED the social ramifications of it.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

I recall two insulting comments made about Psycho from two Hitchcock haters:

Stanley Kauffman: "The function of Psycho , at its most fierce, is to give Ma and Pa a couple of little shocks before they go home to beer and bed." (SO insulting, snobbish even.)

Dwight MacDonald (after an incoherent sentence about tittlating. the movie.) "Audiences didn't care, they got their two little shock thrills, one of them particularly titillating(the shower scene." I don't recall those particular historic murders being little shock thrills. Not in discussions I heard. Pretty well directed and scored, too.

Anyway, here is QT assuming that "audiences were too stupid to know what they were watching" routine, with RE: North by Northwest. Not a good look on QT.

Meanwhile: QT has won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay twice: Pulp Fiction and Django Unchained. Nominated for others (QAITH...what else? Inglorious Basterds?) I don't know if he got nominated for Jackie Brown -- adapting Elmore Leonard -- but otherwise, all the scripts are in the "Original Screenplay Category" which is EASIER to get into because so few original scripts get made each year (Books, plays, short stories supply the inspiration more often.)

Well, anyway, Ernest Lehman's "North by Northwest" screenplay got nominated for Best Original Screenplay in 1959. It lost -- to the screenplay for Pillow Talk (about this outcome, screenwriter William Goldman wrote "Barf!" -- but i think there is some wit and invention to Pillow Talk, just nowhere near the level of NXNW.)

Anyway, there's that great early scene where ad man Roger Thornhill ( Grant ) is kidnapped to the elegant Glen Cove mansion and in its library comes to the realization that these men pretty much ...just want to KILL him. Right now. Because they think he is superspy "George Kaplan."

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

The head villain, Phillip Vandamm(James Mason) thinks that Roger Thornhill is George Kaplan. But WAIT -- Roger Thornhill thinks that Philip Vandamm IS LESTER TOWNSEND! (Because Roger read a mailing label addressed to Lester Townsend on a cardboard tube in the library.)

Now that's great. Again: Phillip Vandamm thinks that Roger Thornhill is George Kaplan. Roger Thornhill thinks that Philllip Vandamm is Lester Townsend.

But later in the film, Thornhill meets the REAL Lester Townsend(at the UN, where he is a diplomat) and we get this exchange:

Townsend: Hello.
Thornhill: (To receptionist.) This isn't Lester Townsend.
Townsend: Yes it is.

Earlier you had Roger Thornhill trying to prove he was Roger Thornhill. Now we have Lester Townsend trying to prove he is Lester Townsend. And then Townsend gets an immediate knife in the back before he can explain much more than that the bad guys were using his mansion(while employed as caretakers and a maid.)

But wait..soon we learn that George Kaplan...DOESN'T EXIST! (The CIA tells us -- but not Thornhill -- in DC.)

And some scenes later, Roger Thornhill finally learns(at the Chicago auction) that James Mason IS MR. Vandamm.

Auctioneer: Sold to Mr. Vandamm.
Grant: Oh..Vandamm?

And some scenes later, Roger learns Phillip's first name:

Eve: I met Philllip at a party...and decided to fall in love.
Thornhill: That's nice.

But before that, (act the Chicago airport) THORNHILL finally learns that George Kaplan doesn't exist. (From the Professor...who doesn't make much of the fact that he's allowed Thornhill to be a "live decoy" marked for death.)

Now, THAT is a screenplay (with a theme: identity) and that screenplay SHOULD have won the Oscar, and THAT is a movie, and its not a mediocre one.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

Meanwhile:

In QT's original screenplay for The Hateful Eight, "Sherlock Holmes"-ish Samuel L. Jackson solves some murders by confronting "Mexican Bob" to say that the black woman "Minnie" who owns "Minnie's Haberdashery" where they are all now snowbound -- and who is disappeared "over the mountain" (says Mexican Bob and friends) -- never allowed Mexicans on her premises. So Mexican Bob is lying that she gave him some work.

BUT: we see a flashback showing the black Minnie GREETING Mexican Bob and his friends and welcoming them into the Haberdashery ...shortly before they kill her.

Now this could be "brilliant" on Sam Jackson's part -- he figured out Mexican Bob was lying (a better clue is the poorly made stew -- Minnie could not have made it). But its truly a LOUSY clue -- and Jackson kills Mexican Bob over the lie.

Now we can figure that maybe QT IS being smart here -- Jackson must made up the story about a "sign: No Mexicans or Dogs Allowed" -- and Minnie dropped the dogs prohibition -- but it looks like fairly sloppy screenwriting to me, as if QT just sort of forgot his own premise. Maybe, maybe not -- but not as good a screenplay as North by Northwest.

And yet: The Hateful Eight is my favorite movie of 2015. MOST of the script is great, its the best LOOKING movie of QT's, its got one of his best CASTS, and Ennio Morrocone won the Oscar(finally) for the original music in the film(which also featured OLD Morricone music from The Thing etc.)

But for all of that: The Hateful Eight screenplay isn't as good as the North by Northwest screenplay. That's what I'm sayin'.

So now ol' QT -- in insulting movies and scripts and stars(like George Clooney) left and right...is sort of selling his own greatness out.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

Which reminds me:

Unlike as with QT (and his critic-filmmaker predecessors James Agee, _Peter Bogdanovich, Curtis Hanson and, to some extent, Scorsese), it was like pulling teeth to get Hitchcock to say much in any detail about ANY other movies, in current release or old.

Interview about Frenzy(1972.)

Q: What did you think about A Clockwork Orange(1971)?
A: I thought it was a very interesting movie. (Non-committal, though he did note that Michael Bates was in both A Clockwork Orange and Frenzy and was completely different in each film.)

Interview promoting Family Plot (1976):

Q: What did you think about Jaws(1975)
A: Oh, yes...the big fish movie. It was quite good.

And that was about it for Hitchocck. He SAW every film(in his private screening room, all the better to find trends that yield movies like Psycho and The Birds and the internationale Topaz) But he rarely SAID anything about them. The most I ever recall he talking about some other director's movie was a discussion of a Chaplin film from the 20s -- more back in Hitchcock's salad days, I guess, not a competitor.

So a guy like Hitchcock said little to nothing about the other movies around him(except, I suppose to criticize them IN GENERAL as "photographs of people talking" or "cliche." But QT will be having none of that.)

I look forward to hearing more from Tarantino. Makes for stimulating reading -- and podcasting I guess.

CONT

[–] swanstep (2715) 11 days ago

So is QT losing on his argument about "old directors in decline?"

I've looked around online but haven't been able to find any QT remarks about Megalopolis. Having seen it now, it definitely feels like the sort of embarrassing, hopelessly out-of-touch, low-action, "Old Man's" movie that QT has a horror of and wants to forestall himself from making. That said, the script which has apparently been in process since the '80s *does* feel incredibly young, like something a couple of tripping undergrads high on Metropolis and The Matrix and bits of their Western Civ and Western Lit core classes might pull together in a weekend. All the characters are very broadly drawn, symbolic class representatives (we learn in the first scene that the Randian super-genius protagonist can literally stop time with his mind but we later learn that his girlfriend and child can also exit from time like him - symbols!), never change at all, and exist just to give speeches at and about each other (and the movie itself keeps giving speeches to us - sententious, silly voiceovers and onscreen titles abound to kind of paper over the multitudinous cracks, solve myriad transition problems. etc.). It's a script that somebody might write before he/she encounters Mamet, Pinter, Chayefsky, and so on. You feel for the actors; they must have felt like they were just doing repeated acting exercises rather than either playing real characters or telling any real story. I'm guessing that QT and Avary will discuss Meg. sometime in this season of their podcast, and assuming they feel free to crack wise about it, it could be a hoot!

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

So is QT losing on his argument about "old directors in decline?"

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I've looked around online but haven't been able to find any QT remarks about Megalopolis.

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It will be interesting to see if QT DOES comment. I'm sure he feels some heat as Ridley Scott and Scorsese keep going as well as Spielberg and Eastwood(the latter two in a much more limited commercial way than in their heyday -- see also: Woody Allen.) And yet proof that he is RIGHT (sometimes) is there too: Zemeckis and "Here" PLUS his last ten years of movies(true confession: I LOVE his "Polar Express" of 2004 -- the greatest 3-D movie I have ever seen and weirdly haunting in its "all night long" structure. NOT dusk til dawn.)

But what WILL QT have to say about Megalopolis?

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Having seen it now, it definitely feels like the sort of embarrassing, hopelessly out-of-touch, low-action, "Old Man's" movie that QT has a horror of and wants to forestall himself from making.

---

Well, there you go.

But lemme tell you about my personal feeling about the Coppola career:

It really STARTS with The Godfather. Great big giant hit AND a Best Picture winner. Spielberg had Jaws and Burton had Batman but they didn't win Best Picture.

Then: The Conversation(grim, insightful, thematic art film.)

Then: Godfather II. It TOO wins Best Picture -- and Coppola wins Best Director(he lost that award -- wrongly -- to Bob Fosse for Cabaret for the original.)

Then: a FIVE YEAR leap (hello, QT!) to Apocalypse Now, which certainly has its supporters (BIG TIME) but has its share of detractors and has people like me: some of it was great and classic, and some of it wasn't(especially the stuff with a disappointing Brando at the end.)

But AN "set the pace" for the rest of the Coppola career. All sorts of big speeches and big attempts to "revolutionize the industry" (irony: The Godfather was a R-rated movie with an Old Hollywood emphasis on story, dialogue and acting._

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

So in the 80s, we had the experimental "One From the Heart"(flopped -- I didn't see it.) And the two "50s teenage movies" -- The Outsiders and Rumble Fish(I saw neither but hell-- they launched about 10 young male star careers starting with Tom Cruise.) And the attempt to do "The Godfather with music" in The Cotton Club(I saw it; not so good except for Bob Hoskins, Fred Gwynne, and James Remar as gangsters -- Richard Gere was a non-star who, along with Gregory Hines, fizzled.)

It looks like after "The Cotton Club" failed (and ensnared producer Robert Evans in a murder case involving some of the money people on the film) Coppola was all over the place, per IMDb:

Peggy Sue Got Married (Kathleen Turner replaced Debra Winger and it hurts; Coppolas nephew Nicolas Coppola Cage used an AWFUL adenoidal voice (Turner said -- are you going to use that voice through the WHOLE movie? You'll ruin it! He did.) The movie took Turner back to 1960(Psycho year -- not mentioned) but one got a sense of the rock n rolling year and audience that Psycho connected to), but it all failed against Back to the Future and 1955 the year before. I've said I always remember one scene or line from a movie. In this one, it is Turner getting to see her long-dead grandfather(Leon Ames from Meet Me in St. Louis) ALIVE and when she asks him what he regrets the most , he says: "I should have taken better care of my teeth." I've kept better care of my teeth ever since. Word.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

Captain EO. A 3-D musical film made for Disneyland and Disneyworld. I saw it at Disneyland, first year. It was fine then -- its forgotten now.

Gardens of Stone. James Godfather Caan in a Vietnam era movie. I never saw it. Tragic for Coppola. His teenage son died in a speedboat accident. The boat was driven by one of Ryan O'Neal's crazy kids. Sad all around, but I recall Coppola sadly saying: "At least my boy got the chance at a youth, and to fall in love." I get sad just thinking about it.

Tucker" The Man And His Dream. I saw it. LOVED it. Jeff Bridges -- young and good but he got older and better(The Big Lebowski and True Grit.) You could see why Coppola was drawn to it: it was about a "rebel" in an industry , like HIM. Loved how the villainous US Senator who opposes Jeff Bridges is played by: Jeff's dad LLOYD Bridges. This was the first in a series of comeback performances by Martin "NXNW" Landau. I think he got Oscar noms each time, not certain: the old man here; the doctor who gets away with murder in Woody's Crimes and Misdemeanors and then his WIN for Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood.

New York Stories: one segment. Scorsese and Woody got the other two. I only remember the other two.

Bram Stoker's Dracula. Surprise. I LOVED this one, too. More than Tucker. It certainly had all sorts of wild cinematic experimentation(Coppola being Coppola) but it was also scary enough and sexy enough and I LOVED the action climax involving a "Mag 7 versus the vampires" climax at a matte shot castle in the Hitchocck tradition. I'm holding onto My Cousin Vinny as my favorite of 1992 (for rewatchability, Tomei's knockout performance and the Last Bow of Fred Gwynne) but Unforgiven, Reservoir Dogs(NOW, not then) and Bram Stokers Dracula can duke it out for Number Two.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

Jack. Never saw it. Didn't like the premise, not a big fan of Robin Williams(though his was a tragic exit.) Note in passing: I had a sig other whose favorite comic was Robin Williams , so we saw him in concert, "live." Sorry. Unimpressed. I ALSO once saw Williams idol and mentor, Jonathan Winters in concert and HE made me laugh. Others may reverse this. PS. In the 70s I'm pretty sure I saw Robin Williams as a "semi-mime" peformer hanging around Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco.

The Rainmaker. I've praised this often. A good solid John Grishman legal thriller with a GREAT too-short Mickey Rourke performance. But strictly "a money job" for Coppola.

And after The Rainmaker? A bunch of experimental films I've never seen -- leading up to: Megalopolis.

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

Oops..I forgot one: Godfather III (1990.) Hey, I found it more ENTERTAINING than Godfather II. The scene where gangsters are locked in a top story skyscraper dining room so helicopters can machine most of them to death was out of -- Die Hard! No Coppola's daughter couldn't act and was miscast but-- it only made her fate more touching. And I dug Talia Shire FINALLY scoring a "hit" -- killing the Great Eli Wallach with a poisoned eclair. Lucretia Borgia lives!

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

swanstep wrote: That said, the script which has apparently been in process since the '80s

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Always dangerous to let a good idea "percolate" for too long. One time it WORKED was with Unforgiven , a script written in the 70's that saved Eastwood's career right when he needed it(he SAT on the script for years til he needed it -- and aged into it.)

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*does* feel incredibly young,

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Recall Norman Lloyd calling Frenzy "the film of a young man."

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like something a couple of tripping undergrads high on Metropolis and The Matrix and bits of their Western Civ and Western Lit core classes might pull together in a weekend.

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LOL. Or as I like to say: Ha!

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All the characters are very broadly drawn, symbolic class representatives (we learn in the first scene that the Randian super-genius protagonist can literally stop time with his mind but we later learn that his girlfriend and child can also exit from time like him - symbols!),

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Hey..why not? Go for it Francis! You're only young once!

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never change at all, and exist just to give speeches at and about each other

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Sounds like Network - except not interesting. Also, hey I read Atlas Shugged. Somebody opens their mouth to speak and the "scene" ends ten pages later with the speech over.

--

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

(and the movie itself keeps giving speeches to us - sententious, silly voiceovers and onscreen titles abound to kind of paper over the multitudinous cracks,

---

Its interesting about how narration and/or voiceovers can HELP a movie (Goodfellas, Casino, and The Wolf of Wall Street for Scorsese -- the narration makes everything funnier , if nothing else) or how it can look like "screenwriting narration.

. It's a script that somebody might write before he/she encounters Mamet, Pinter, Chayefsky, and so on.

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Well I would assume that Coppola knew from all those folks -- and may have snuck in some copycatting (ie Network from Chayefsky).

--

You feel for the actors; they must have felt like they were just doing repeated acting exercises rather than either playing real characters or telling any real story.

---

I think it was a labor of love for all of them like _- "I want to help Francis achieve his dream, I won't be embarrassed by anything I have to do."

Aubrey Plaza (with whom -- the starmaking machinery is working -- I'm kind of it love with -- her FACE, her deadpan schtick) evidently knew and worked with Coppolas now-great writer-director daughter Sofia, and did this for that reason.

Myself and others have noted that Coppola cast three "cancel culture pariahs" -- Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman(both from Midnight Cowboy) and Shia LaBouef, as if to bring in more outsiders to join him. Though I daresay Jon Voight's Trump-love is starting to make him bullet proof. Kinda untouchable.

And as for this Adam Driver guy: I give in. He's a star. Not very bankable, but unavoidable. I did like his line reading as a fellow cop to Bill Murray in the zombie spoof "The Dead Don't Die": "I think these murders were committed by... zombies...the undead. You know -- GHOULS."

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

I'm guessing that QT and Avary will discuss Meg. sometime in this season of their podcast, and assuming they feel free to crack wise about it, it could be a hoot!

---

Its up to them. Just remember: Coppola WAS QT at one time.

In follow-up:

Coppola is on the short list of directors I saw in person. He was sitting on the floor (VIP) at an NBA basketball game. The whole ARENA cheered(no standing ovation though.) He deserved that for The Godfather if nothing else.

AND:

I return to claim Coppola's two-away-from-The Godfather musical "Finian's Rainbow" as my second favorite of his films.

I want to try to explain further as a matter of "sense memory."

1969 (yes, it was a 1968 movie, but those things played for MONTHS back then.) One of those giant domed "Century Theaters." Only ONE dome, playing only ONE movie: Finian's Rainbow. Reserved seats. Lining up, going in, taking our reserved seats.

And the movie opens with a huge Panavision close up of colorful flowers in a field of green, very "Eurofilm arty" in look.

And I realize NOW..as I didn't THEN..how massively DIFFERENT American movies were in 1969 in the ten years since 1959 and ...North by Northwest, with its thunderous Herrmann score and its high-energy caconphonous NYC "dance" at the beginning.

No...1968/1969 was a whole Eurofilm inspired generation away from 1959 and with Finian's Rainbow, I FELT that.

The opening score is beautiful and I learned later (on the DVD commentary) that Coppola convinced Warners to let a second unit film all over the US to "cvoer up" the cheapnes sof this "backlot job" (versus the more expensive Funny Girl that year -- which I liked a LOT less than Finian's Rainbow.)

Anyway, the second unit tour takes in these Hitchcock landmarks:

The Statue of Liberty
Mount Rushmore
The Golden Gate Bridge
The Schoolhouse from The Birds (!!! CLEARLY a Hitchcock homage.)

CONT

[–] roger1 (3626) 10 days ago

Anyway, though, Finian's Rainbow is Number Two on my Coppola list becase of HOW I saw it, WHEN I saw it, with whom I saw it, and...above all..how I FELT when I saw it.

It was a long time ago, but I remember it.

[–] swanstep (2715) 9 days ago

Its interesting about how narration and/or voiceovers can HELP a movie (Goodfellas, Casino, and The Wolf of Wall Street for Scorsese -- the narration makes everything funnier , if nothing else) or how it can look like "screenwriting narration.

Yes, amazing isn't it? voice over can be glorious *or* terrible. As Spinal Tap famously said:
David St Hubbins: It's such a fine line between stupid, and uh...
Nigel Tufnel: Clever.

Aubrey Plaza

She wears some sexy outfits etc. in Meg. that are going to frame-grabbed for all eternity by her fans... but her character is so silly and says such silly stuff all the time (often with a 'snipping scissors' sound fx added to the soundtrack to punctuate her every sentence - madness!) that I was not amused. Note that Aubrey's character is called 'Wow Platinum' and at one point they do the obvious joke with the name: Aubrey's character rants on to Adam Driver's genius character, Cesar Catalina, and the scene ends/tails off with him walking away shaking his head, 'Wow...'

I dunno, maybe I'm the wrong person to appreciate Meg.. I'm the sort of viewer who's never been able to get on board with the resuscitation of Verhoeven's Showgirls - to me it always was and is a flatout bad movie.And recently I tried to watch the latest, supposedly purified, elevated cut of Caligula (1979). Nope, couldn't finish it. It's still terrible, incompetently shot, staged, edited, the sort of thing you can't believe for a second. It may be the best version of Caligula but that's still an amateurish embarrassment in my view. I don't doubt that Meg. has enough in it that some cult following will probably develop around it but I know enough to know I won't be joining them.

[–] swanstep (2715) 9 days ago

It's disturbing to me how much I *feel* like I can know where Coppola's getting his ideas from. I'd put money, for example, on his having got the idea for Wow Platinum from Sarah Michelle Gellar's apothegm-spouting ('Scientists are saying the future is going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted.') character in Southland Tales (2006), porn superstar and terrorist wannabe, Krysta Now. And Meg's goes-nowhere subplot about a Russian satellite falling out of orbit and crashing onto the city.... that's pasted over from Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World (1993) (where the subplot was *also* a waste of time). Coppola's semi-mystical take on the Chrysler Building and general freewheelingness is right out of Matthew Barney's triumphantly weird art-film Cremaster 3. And so on. Technically then, Meg. is a synchretic text - Francis has had the basic Metropolis-y script for 40 years, but then he's cut and pasted in ideas from every big-idea, broadly futuristic or apocalyptic movie he's seen in that period, all without addressing any of his underlying script or character problems. The deepest pools of paste-ins here are those from The Matrix and Dark City... and that's OK, a *lot* of people were inspired by the ideas and techniques of those films at the time - e.g., video games like Mirror's Edge - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzmUde_EK5Y and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjNPHmXtwx0 - but I don't see that Francis has *done* anything significant with these influences (he was just too old perhaps to 'get it'). Larry Fishburne as Cesar Catalina's driver and one of the film's narrators presides Morpheus-like over Meg. but he *does* very little and as a kind of paste-in can't solve any of the film's underlying problems. No one can take away from what Coppola achieved in the 1970s and occasionally since but Meg. is a hell of an expensive folly.