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roger1's Replies
Yeah, I suppose.
I think she thought she could get the door open and pull the briefcase away in time. Plus Guerrero looked like he was ready to give up. "Heroic."
Within the critical world of 1970, Airport was seen as VERY old-fashioned, and put down accordingly.
It got a Best Picture nomination and its competition included Five Easy Pieces(with new countercultural superstar Jack Nicholson) and Robert Altman's MASH(with Donald Sutherland and new counterculture movie star Elliott Gould.)
The other two Best Picture nominees of 1970 were telling: Love Story was an "old fashioned tearjerker" and, like Airport, a giant hit. The difference: Airport with Lancaster and Dino and Helen Hayes drew an older audience, Love Story with the young Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal, drew a younger audience.
The Best Picture winner "split the difference" between the hip(Five Easy Pieces, MASH) and the square(Airport, Love Story.) Patton was an "old fashioned" WWII epic with new fashioned Vietnam era cynicism about war (and an Oscar winning script largely written by Francis Coppola.)
So that was the year in which Airport appeared. Critic Judith Crist called it "the Best Picture of 1944." But it made a TON of money. Older audiences came out, "squares" came out, families came out, and it HAD been a best seller with a "disaster movie" ambiance. (But it really was NOT a disaster movie -- The Poseidon Adventure started that.)
All that said, the bottom line is that a lot of the dialogue was really, really BAD. Only the "technical airport/airline jargon" was worth listening to.
And that's why Airport survives as a blockbuster(undeniable) but not a very good movie(bad script.) Yes, Maureen Stapleton gave it a sad reality in her scenes, though.
A cursory glance at the cast for this recent 'namesake' may hint at levels of (unintentional) humour , regardless of the subject matter?
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Yes, there are some goofy looking people in this...even as it goes to very dark and bloody places.
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But either way, Woody wins.
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I expect that years from now, only "Love and Death" will still be remembered. It was a bit of a mistake to choose this title -- even if a younger generation hasn't heard of "Love and Death," it will carry on as "one of the better Woody Allen movies, and from his period as a true movie star."
A footnote on Elizabeth Olsen's performance here:
Yes she is much prettier than the real Candy Montgomery, and has a great figure(ie chest), and seems way mismatched romantically with Jesse Plemons...but...
...she certainly plays Candy with a certain crazed intensity and makes the most of "bugging out her eyes" in key scenes in a way that turns her pretty face...kinda creepy. In profile, her flat nose combines with those eyes to "fight" her natural beauty.
I guess you could say that the pretty Olsen PLAYS Candy as a creepy person, and thus SEEMS "ugly beneath the beauty."
And Jesse Plemons certainly has acting chops to fight his unappealing looks. I've seen him in promotional interview photographs for Love & Death and it looks like he has lost weight(FAST...using shots?) and has had something done to improve his looks...I expect he saw himself in this movie and felt changes had to be made.
Movie history(and now TV history) has shown us two versions of the same TYPE of story(two volcano movies, two farm family movies, etc) but rarely two movies on exactly the same story.
I did not watch Candy when it came out last year, but I watched it "alternating" with new episodes of "Love & Death" and thus finished Candy first(five episodes total) and Love & Death second(7 episodes total.)
Thoughts:
I guess the two streaming networks figure that not everybody will pay to see both versions. Hulu subscribers get Candy; HBO Max(now just Max) subscribers get Love & Death. So not everybody will ever see both series.
Love & Death, with its extra two hours of story, gets into more nuanced detail about things: the affair, the trial, the side stories. Its just the better made, written and directed movie(with better cinematography; Candy is way too dark a lot of the time.) With one exception, and its a big one: the gorgeous Elizabeth Olsen is two pretty for her role and Jesse Plemons is too ugly for his role and they literally make no sense as sexual lovers. (That said, Plemons is now established as a major character guy and the better looking actor who plays his role in Candy has no identification qualities.)
SPOILERS:
Candy chose to add two story elements not found in Love & Death, and I wonder if they are true:
ONE: Candy spends time on how Betty and Allan tried to raise a foster child boy and lost him because of his angry, unruly ways. True?
TWO: Candy has a scene in the final trial in which it is revealed that Candy had ANOTHER affair AFTER Allen and thus COULD be seen as a "serial adulteress," who cheated YET again on her dull but succesful husband. True?
I guess I'll have to read a book!
My verdict: Candy is cast more accurately; Love & Death is better.
PS. Stunt casting in Candy: Biel's husband Justin Timberlake plays the investigating sheriff wearing his own period wig. He's fun in the part.
Plemons "romantic" miscasting here reminds me of when they cast Maggie Gyllenhaal as Rachel in "The Dark Knight." Again, the critics assured us that she had "an unconventionial beauty" but she wasn't beautiful enough to make sense as a woman pursued by TWO handsome civic leaders(Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent), one of them superrich. You'll notice she hasn't been cast like that since.
Before Jesse and Maggie...way back...I recall Siskel and Ebert singing the praises of the not-terribly-handsome James Woods. It was the same deal: "these people should be stars." Good actors all...but miscast as romantic heroes(well, Woods could be sexy and assertive.)
Olsen looks NOTHING like the real Candy. Looks like there wasn't even an attempt to make her look anything like Candy at all, its just Elizabeth Olsen with really nothing done to her.
And Jesse Plemons playing the man she wants to have an affair with is fucking laughable, seeing Elizabeth Olsen whos hot as hell lusting after this fat ugly guy like Jesse Plemons is hilariously unbelievable.
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I know there are folks around here who like to dump on opinions about actors' looks in series, but honestly, I found this casting to be extremely difficult to "buy" on either side. Olsen is not only pretty she has quite the great figure on her.
As for Jesse Plemons, he is one of those people(both men and women) whom the critics like to champion, partially because of their acting chops, but partially to champion less than perfect looks.
That's OK when Plemons fits the role. He did on Breaking Bad(creating a baby-faced but ugly stone killer with a deceptively placid manner). He did in Power of the Dog(playing the doofus brother of a macho tough guy). He did in "Game Night," playing a scary neighbor to good looking Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams.
But here? It just plays wrong. And his haircut is atrocious. And the sex scenes(fully clothed every time) between Plemons and Olsen are as unsexy as can be.
I"ve seen both versions now, and I suppose what both versions want us to know is that these men were basically "Texas Silicon Valley scientists" -- engineers who were boring men but earned top dollar and thus every man in that suburb was a "catch" for any woman who could get him...even if he looks like Jesse Plemons.
But "Candy" -- otherwise more broad and less sophisticated than "Love & Death" -- at least removed the obstacle of a garishly unattractive man playing the part of Candy's lover, and yes, Jessica Biel was more willing to don a perm fright wig and dowdy herself up for the character(matching photographs of the real Candy.)
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I can't remember: were the Osage Native American murders part of the "J. Edgar" movie plot?
I know that those murders WERE a segment in the episode film "The FBI Story" starring James Stewart in 1959...
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Yup, you would have Leonardo DiCaprio investigating HIMSELF! Now THAT would actually be entertaining! (FAR more so than either movie is on its own!)
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It is now part of the "movie lore" on Killers of the Flower Moon that Leo was originally offered the role of the FBI agent investigating the murders, but decided to ask for the role of one of the villains(a conflicted one.) So indeed he would be investigating himself.
Jesse Plemons, the rather unattractive but talented character guy, got the FBI guy role. Evidently, with Plemons in the part, the villains considerably underestimate the character. Figures.
I will take that casting!
This could be interesting. QT isn't looking to cast this lead from his past players. The men are pretty much all too old.
I like Eisenberg as a possibility.
But other nominations are welcome....
Yet it was a place that likely never felt cramped, even in relatively small spaces. Older houses of that vintage were like that.
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That ties into "the movie in our mind" that goes on beyond what we seen on screen, I think. We come to realize that at a certain point, Norman Bates was physically ALL ALONE in that barn house with all its empty space. And no neighbors for miles. A total isolation which provided the breeding ground to "create" a companion in his Mother(imaginary) and to sleep every night with the REAL Mrs. Bates(her corpse) in a room only a few feet from his own.
Macabre. Creepy. Sad.
I'll admit that the Psycho sequels showed us more rooms in the house, but I think the "canon is the classic" ONLY in the original Psycho do the rooms that we see MATTER.
(Otters) backstory for the house is intriguing. It would have been a good fit the the "biggest house in a small, poor town". Fancy in its way, with some good things in its design, yet likely already ersatz, or borderline, even when it was new.
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Recall Hitchcock in Hitchcock/Truffaut saying those houses could be found all over Northern California: They are called 'California Gothic,' or , if really overdone, "Gingerbread Gothic." Hitch assured Truffaut that the film was historically accurate on the house, so he must have seen a LOT of books and other material about the houses of the time.
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It was also, almost surely, a house for an introvert, or a couple that was introverted.
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Interesting. Recall Norman bristling at Sam: "This place? I grew up in that house up there. My mother and I were more than happy." But just them. Introverts. The father died when Norman was five, the boyfriend was an annoyance(and evidently married already, said Chambers, maybe he didn't live with the Bateses."
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Uninviting, because the new owners wouldn't be inclined to host many parties or events, even if they had children; and unlikely a large family if they did. One can see from what's shown of the second floor that there simply wasn't the space for that, nor enough rooms. Yet it was a place that likely never felt cramped, even in relatively small spaces. Older houses of that vintage were like that.
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But also: Mr. "I"m paying for this movie out of my own pocket" Hitchcock refused to SHOW us some rooms. When Arbogast enters the foyer, we don't see what is to his LEFT(our right)...the sequels posited an entire living room there. When Arbogast looks to his right, the POV on the menacing Cupid statue shows a door BEHIND the statue. What's in there? A den? A dining room(probably the latter, off the kitchen we only PARTIALLY see in the back when Norman sits there.)
The quality of the Bates house, its design and detail, is indeed remarkable for a backlot, any backlot, of Psycho's vintage.
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As I recall, the house was barely described in Robert Bloch's novel ...at least from the outside. Bloch caputred the Gothic rooms and furnishings of the house with a certain creepy flair, but the house, was just "an old two story house."
Hitchcock must have pondered and pondered and PONDERED how that house should look and what its history might be. I've never seen such, but I'll bet he commissioned his art directors to DRAW all sorts of houses or to provide him with paintings like Hopper's "House by the Railroad."
Hitchcock gave one clue in an interview: he based the Bates House on the (real?) McKittrick Hotel in Vertigo. When detective(!) James Stewart enters the McKittrick lobby(foyer) he gets a POV shot of the staircase and it is much like that of Arbogast's in Psycho -- but the McKittrick staircase is bigger, more polished, and in Technicolor.
Then came the day in 1959 when Hitchcock and his art directors and some other drove from his offices at Paramount to the Universal backlot to "go looking for the Bates house" from among various such houses. Whatever was picked evidently ended up with the cupola from the house in Harvey(1950) added to it, and I'll bet Hitchcock asked for other changes to the facade before putting the house on the hill.
That is, only TWO halves of a house. Just the front and the left side. There are photos from 1960 showing that there was NO right side to the house, nor a rear side (these were added for the sequels.)
So ALL the personality of the Bates House came from the FRONT(including Mother's window) and the left side.
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I wish you the best in getting what issues you've had with the admins in using your screen name on these boards. They should welcome you back, not make your return to the boards difficult.
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Thank you for your kind words, telegonus.
Oh, I don't think there was anything intentional about this. I'm familar with internet systems "shutting me out" when passwords are rejected, etc. There is nothing personal about it, the machinery simply is rejecting me. Once it happens, its hard to get back in. (Except I was ecarle for a LONG time.)
A week later, it seems to be letting me post more, at least.
To pull back further from these scenes, to the earlier ones in Phoenix, with Marion and the various men in her life; then later, more ominously, her long drive west, her meeting with the highway cop. This really frames the movie as a whole, as it ends in a perfectly ordinary police station.
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Again, you nail it, telegonus: a "Gothic" movie with a very modern and almost banal sense of American society circa 1960...cops and car dealers and deputy sheriffs and local DAs...the horror is set against a certain reality at all times.
And this: I believe I've confessed that in my childhood, I got to watch Psycho only as far as Marion's night drive. I had to turn it off even before she saw the Bates motel(I wasn't ordered to; I just didn't want to be discovered by my parents retunring from a night out -- my OWN guilt.) And I couldn't believe it: was this REALLY Psycho? What was all this excess material at her office, with the cop, with the car salesman?
That was THEN. NOW, I see that opening half hour as "part of the horror movie itself." All these very banal but VERY tense ordeals through which Marion Crane is being dragged are pointing her inevitably towards the Bates Motel and her death. Crucially the cop's line: "There are plenty of motels in the area, you should have, I mean, just to be safe..." And "Marion's sequence" (especially her long drive into night and rain) have a nightmarish quality all their own BEFORE she reaches the Bates Motel and house.
(Shots) not a second too long or short,
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Yes, Hitchcock and his trusted film editor of many films, George Tomasini, go the timing just right, every time.
I've read that the movie plays out in scenes of "three minutes, six minutes, and nine minutes"(the last being Norman's clean up and burial of Marion) and shots were timed with a metronome on set.
I remember Van Sant "blowing" the simple high angle shot of the door opening at the top of the stairs as Arbogast climbs to his death. Hitchcock -- a "frame cutter" said his assistants -- cut RIGHT when a growing shadow hit is final point; Van Sant cut before then.
And Van Sant chickened out on shot length for Arbogast's climb up the hill to the house. He starts too late on the shot and ends too soon. The composition was fine(William H. Macy's rather Droopy Dog Arbogast approaching a WRONG Bates house) but got none of the eerie day for night effect of the Balsam version...the house is simply set against a dark black/blue night sky.
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and in this they nearly define the gloom of the film as a whole; a movie with Gothic frills, yet also one rooted in day to day life, with living in the real world, of paying bills and meeting deadlines, even as we actually see rather little of all this in the film itself.
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Well that's why I like the shot of Arbogast climbing the hill . The house and hill suggest "Dracula's Castle" or a haunted house. But the tough, professional man in a suit, tie and hat climbing the hill suggests the "modern day 1960 ambiance" of the film and its no nonsense characters. Its a statement as to WHY Psycho was so memorable.
By the way, in Joe Stefano's screenplay for Psycho, Arbogast "dashes up the hill" in a furtive manner, he's very much sneaking up there, and in a bit of a panic to investigate without being detected. Hitchcock "slowed this down" to a nice, assured WALK up to the house. Different tone.
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Arbogast's sequence, one week later with a clear sky behind the house(day for night) gets the most "crystalline" views of the house on the hill; first his POV when he first sees Mother in the window (probably the best shot of the house in the whole movie, by itself) and then the shot of Arbogast climbing the steps to the hill. Here's "Hitchcock's eye" really reveals itself. To get the elements he needs, he moves the camera much CLOSER to the hill and puts the motel to screen right. "Lost": the top of the house, but we've seen that.
And finally, Sam and Lila come the next morning after Arbogast -- Sunday on a day so bleached and sunny and bright that EVERYTHING is now revealed: the house, Norman(in his bright white shirt; no sweater, no jacket), the secret...
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EC: I remember those shots and angles for the shots of the Bates house in the movie. It's a joy to watch for the skill, the detail, that Hitchcock and his crew put into it.
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The reputation of Psycho as a truly historic event in movie history(and at the time, what one critic called "the most terrifying movie ever made" and another called "the sickest movie ever made") sometimes overshadows something that ANOTHER critic said about it: "Possibly the most perfectly made movie of all time." THAT assessment seems right every time. The movie is just the right length -- hardly overstays its welcome, and the individual SCENES are perfectly time(even the shrink at the end, he gets just ENOUGH time to hit plot points AND psychoanalyis.) And individual SHOTS are perfectly time -- Van Sant in his remake botches that, some shots are held too short, some too long, per the original.
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What we see of Norman, rushing down the steps in the rain, is sheer perfection; and in some ways the daylight shots of Arbogast climbing the hill to the house are even more impressive,
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Hitchcock, I think, had an artist's instinct: he KNEW this movie had a spectacular centerpiece: that HOUSE, on that HILL, with the MOTEL down below. Three elements -- the house over all, but also the hill and the motel -- and he create all sorts of variations on that view, making the movie a "feast of images" locked on those elements.
And so: Norman first running down the steps in the rain(very realistic, great SOUND effects of the rain); the rest of Marion's night with "matte rain clouds"(speeded up by Saul Bass) to create a haunting effect to backdrop the house. Sometimes those matte shots are "sloppy" and sometimes that helps the effect, but sometimes, they are simply flaws in a great film.
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Formerly ecarle.
Tarantino 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.
"I mean, and I'm not picking on anybody, but apparently for Netflix, Ryan Reynolds has made $50 million on this movie and $50 million on that movie and $50 million on the next movie for them," he told Deadline. "Well, good for him that he's making so much money. But those movies don't exist in the zeitgeist. It's almost like they don't even exist.
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I think this is spot on, and why not pick on Ryan Reynolds? The Netflix movies ARE paying him $50 million a pop evidently, and on top of that he's made a billion off some technology sale.
Stars like Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne got plenty rich in their time...but NOTHING like that. Wayne lost all his money to a bad manager and had to start over to get it back.
This "Netflix" era means that our very lucky movie stars(often minted via Marvel movies) get these insanely rich paydays and ..end up with not much of a "canon of work" at all.
Ryan Reynolds has a great handsome face(built more for comedy than drama) and the abs-fit body and charisma to burn. And the beautiful movie star wife. But what will he leave behind as a resume?
Consider Paul Newman:
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof(Oscar nom)
Exodus
The Hustler (Oscar nom)
Hud(Oscar nom)
Harper
Torn Curtain(for Hitchcock)
Hombre
Cool Hand Luke(Oscar nom)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The Sting
The Towering Inferno
Slapshot
Absence of Malice
The Verdict (Oscar nom)
The Color of Money(Oscar win)
Nobody's Fool(Oscar nom)
...but this is an unfair comparison to Ryan Reynolds because most of Newman's famous films were DRAMAS, not built for mass audiences; it was a different time and place. Ryan Reynolds will never get a chance to make all the interesting movies that Paul Newman did.
Still, I think QT's right on this one. We rarely get good films or classics from Netflix(perhaps only when the makers are major: Roma, Buster Scruggs, The Irishman)...we get vanity projects for movie stars that make them the richest in history..without much of a legacy.
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.