jonathan demme!

i was just watching clips of "rachel getting married" a couple of days ago

i think it's possible i saw this Sarandon/Walken Vonnegut adap on PBS in '82

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083325/

http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/7775266/jonathan-demme-new-order-the-perfect-kiss-video

hip priest is during the cellar scenes of sotl yes -- not even that hard to hear now i'm listening out for it, suspect that i was so on edge at the action i'd stopped listening out for it previous times i watched

fwiw I think Philadelphia (which I otherwise don't get much from) and Manchurian 2.0 (best appreciated as a cover version) are two of the top Denzel Washington performances.

Demme introducing the Timberlake film in February

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuS48xA3T98&feature=youtu.be

what the hey

try Keith Uhlich's Twitter

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xS7s6YkVKEI

anyone watch his "Shots Fired" episode last night?

not in my region, but i did rewatch lambs and something wild last night -- among other things noticing a whole raft of the same excellent minor character actors used in both

“In lieu of flowers, [Jonathan Demme's] family has asked that donations be made to Americans For Immigrant Justice"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJjxVf7X0kM

Uhlich:

http://www.keithuhlich.com/2017/04/jd-a-wannabe-tennessee-kid.html

he was a really excellent filmmaker. i always admired the atmosphere he gets from SOtL without going OTT into banal gloomy cinematography or anything. there's a pretty singular creepy vibe to the whole movie from the beginning that is hard to pin down but i think has a lot to do with how he frames actors within the surrounding spaces and a shot as simple as Jodie Foster training or exercising at the beginning or whatever it was is full of dread. it's impressive bc there are a lot of guys who identify as horror filmmakers who are unable to conjure up anything nearly as effective and usually strain hard for effect.

I ... actually agree with this.

Howard Shore goes a long way toward making a lot of the movie work too.

I I wrote something.

this 1986 comedy stars Jeff Bridges as Charlie,

Umm

yeah, Bridges not that awkward or big-jawed...

as Kael wrote, young Jeff Daniels "*just* missed out on being handsome."

two-syllable white guy name typo

a thing that occurred me as i was re-watching SW last night -- first time in many years -- was that the opening scene, in the little cafe(where sister carol is a waitress, also contains the seeds of another, very different film, namely "do the right thing"… and of course SW's closing sequence (sister carol toasting wild ting as the credits roll) is recapped and transformed by rosie perez boxing-dancing to "fight the power" in DtRT's opening sequence

demme's film is FULL of black people -- in new york and in virginia -- and if today we can hardly help avoiding noticing that they're backdrop characters and, well, funky colour, to a tale of three* white foax, they're not just that, bcz demme is so generous to his minor characters

i can imagine lee watching SW -- it came out the same year as his first feature, she's gotta have it (filmed in black and white, no white characters at all iirc) (once again a long time since i watched it) and thinking, this is a wrong that needs righting, let's tell another story, of white people in a black space

i was livetweeting watching last night, and couldn't quite get across that i wasn't criticising demme for this -- for from it, tho i can imagine lee criticising him -- but trying to acknowledge that SW was actually also a breakthrough moment, for what i'm describing: its portrait of a multi-ethnic city where people really do move past one another all the time, and really do take some (much, even) of their energy and identity from passersby, and also its portrait of small-town virginia, where there's a social proximity** between white and black (alongside tougher racial aspects he doesn't portray at all, of course) … and yes, sometimes this is tourism and cultural appropriation (thinking a bit of melanie griffith's afro-carib-style bangles and accessories) but nevetheless, this was a film that got a genuine social fact on-screen, even if it's a fact that's been overtaken by subsequent breakthroughs

*four if you include susan martin as irene, a striking if brief funny siren-ish performance which takes her well away from her usual big-hair foofy kooks

**i mean physical oroximity more perhaps than a through-and-through sentimentalied social closeness which would be a bit stephen foster, which i don't think this material is -- there's also aspects of southern life and welcoming kindness and formal friendliness that he sketches in just for the joy of getting it on onscreen, like the little black girl by the church who comes over to charlie rough-looking and sleepy in his car, and asks if he's ok or needs help -- plus the church ceremony that happens as a backdrop as a gentle indication that a certain separation still exists, even if legally enforced segregation doesn't

for from it = far from it

from the NYT obit:

The family moved to Miami, where Jonathan went to high school and worked in a kennel and an animal hospital. Wanting to be a veterinarian, he attended the University of Florida with that in mind until he failed chemistry, at which point he went to the university newspaper, discovered it had no movie critic, and assumed the job himself, he said, so that he could get into movies free.

He also became a critic for a shopping guide in Coral Gables, for which he wrote a glowing notice for “Zulu” (1964), about a bloody 19th-century battle between British soldiers and African warriors, a film whose executive producer was Joseph E. Levine, the founder of Embassy Pictures, the film’s American distributor.

It happened that Mr. Levine was on vacation in Miami Beach, staying at the Fontainebleau Hotel, where he had become acquainted with the hotel’s publicist, Robert Demme. The elder Demme introduced Mr. Levine to his son, whose review of “Zulu” impressed him. Mr. Levine offered him a job.

demme's film is FULL of black people -- in new york and in virginia -- and if today we can hardly help avoiding noticing that they're backdrop characters and, well, funky colour, to a tale of three* white foax, they're not just that, bcz demme is so generous to his minor characters

I remember a Toronto reviewer going after Demme for being patronizing. I didn't agree when that charge was leveled at Boyhood, I didn't agree when Demme was the recipient. Generosity, yes.

S&S republishes some Demme pieces. Is his cut of Swing Shift viewable anywhere?

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/features/swing-shift-making-of-jonathan-demme-directors-cut-comparison

NYC retro in August

http://www.bam.org/film/2017/jonathan-demme-heart-of-gold

I watched Married to the Mob the other day, it holds up pretty well. Michelle Pfeiffer and Dean Stockwell are both wonderful. I totally forgot that Alec Baldwin plays her doomed husband, and there's a funny cameo from Chris Isaak.

It hadn't really struck me before how strongly influenced this was by Desperately Seeking Susan; Pfeiffer is basically Rosanna Arquette as mob wife. I guess there was a whole genre of films in the 80s where straight-laced people go to NYC and have wacky things happen to them. After Hours is another like this.

just caught this interview portion last night, hes so likeable here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cw8FKmqzfZI

watched married to the mob for the first time, what a delightful and odd movie. matthew modine kind of sucks in it but i'm not sure it's his fault, that character doesn't make any sense at all. but yeah pfeiffer and stockwell are fantastic, mercedes ruehl is really funny/over the top, and there are so many "oh that guy" actors in it.

the character doesn't make any sense but Modine is great in the role

yeah, it’s a very odd and very likeable movie - pfeiffer in particular is wonderful in a role that could easily have been a cliche but she invests so much in her character’s intelligence and self-reliance

the blank check podcast is just wrapping up a run on all demme’s non-documentary, it’s def worth a listen and has sent me down a demme rewatch rabbithole over the last few weeks (and revealed something wild as a perhaps intentional companion piece / mirror image to this one)

that's what got me to watch it! i listened to the stop making sense and something wild episodes and i realized i had never watched MTTM

hello fellow blankie

michelle pfeiffer is such an underrated actor tbh, it must suck to be incredibly talented but also supernaturally beautiful

i wish she and demme worked together again, it feels from this like they really got each other

Watched Philadelphia for the first time since December '93. It's not a good movie but....it's a complicated movie. Hanks doesn't play a character, but he plays a Gay Man and he doesn't flinch at all. I don't understand Washington's "arc" unless I read him as a closeted gay man -- which Demme absolutely suggests, i.e. the way Demme stages the homophobia, the way the famous aria sequence plays extra diegetically follows him home into bed with his wife.

Something Wild is terrific. It starts out kinda quirky and turns into a thriller 2/3 of the way in.

Plus, The Feelies!

I actually rewatched Melvin and Howard yesterday afternoon. Robert Ridgley as the game-show host is priceless.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BOGU5NTI0M2YtZDllNC00NzYwLTk0MWUtYzVkYjAxYmM5OGI1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_.jpg

Something Wild is streaming on Amazon. Watched it for the first time since seeing it a bunch of times in my late teens. Lots of different thoughts, but (as Alfred does way above) I started comparing/contrasting it to Blue Velvet, which left me cold during those same late teens.

I love how busy this is with detail, all the background action and music (break-dancers at the gas station), how truly magnetic Griffith and Liotta both are, how Lulu seems a whole lot like Hannibal Lecter in the opening NY/NJ scenes of outwitting and controlling situations intuitively, how The Feelies songs evolve from "I'm A Believer" to their own ominous, songs in the course of the reunion, how much it brings back the joys of thrift-store shopping.

how The Feelies songs evolve from "I'm A Believer" to their own ominous, songs in the course of the reunion

Excellent point. I missed this.

Is it just me, or is their version of "Fame" in this supposed to be cringingly bad?

They cue to The Feelies own music right about the time Liotta enters the picture. Seems like the lighting gets a little dimmer then too.

I love those little bicentennial top hats they wear at the reunion.

In addition to Blue Velvet, another movie of the same era that I have always compared it to is Betty Blue, which had a similar "first half-madcap, second half-dark" vibe.

Hey, fancy new edition of Married to the Mob incoming

https://vinegarsyndrome.com/collections/frontpage-partner-labels/products/married-to-the-mob-fun-city-editions