Peter Bogdanovich, threshing machine

What's Up Doc was the best screwball comedy of the seventies. (CLose run thing with Foul Play but...)

Nah, he'd been holding up that "will pose as a Welles expert for larges houses and scads of money" long before that, and to great effect. I hate this guy almost as much as I hate John Landis.

he actually is kind of an expert, and he speaks well, so it makes sense that he should appear on so many documentaries and commentary tracks. unfortunately there's usually an even more interesting expert that's been passed over for old pete.

+ eddie izzard is in it and how can one not like eddie izzard, eddie izzard is a fucking genius.

Or fucking David Thomson!

argh! otm. my dislike for him continues to grow.

actually everyone does, come to think of it.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/peterbogdanovich/

Blogdanovich!

Man will never give up his Ascots, will he.

They shall pry them from his cold, dead dewlaps.

The guru has started another blog.

I'm seeing him introduce Citizen Kane in a couple of weeks--just for the thrill of hearing him namedrop "Orson" every other sentence.

i wonder what orson welles' blog would've been called. Roseblog?

Enjoyed him on the Dick Cavett show circa 1971 surrounded by Robert Altman, Mel Brooks, and Frank Capra. And yes, he was wearing his snappy Cary Grant garden party leisure wear.

I have a certain nostalgic fondness for the original 1972 Elaine May-Neil Simon comedy, THE HEARTBREAK KID (available on DVD), which goes beyond the darkly hilarious film itself, because at the time of its making and release I was living with one of the stars, Cybill Shepherd. This warm feeling only increased with the publication of Cybill’s memoirs (Cybill Disobedience), in which there are numerous revelations—-to me, too—-about her various doings during our nine-year relationship (and, of course, before and after).

This fuckin' guy.

This kills me--Bogdanovich in a nutshell:

"As the Duke was walking me back to my car, he took a shortcut, leading me through the sizeable garage..."

I should say that I think The Last Picture Show is a fine film, although I have difficulty connecting it to Bogdanovich (other than as an assemblage of stuff borrowed from his favorite directors...think Stanley Kauffmann said the same thing way back when).

Casting him as a thinly veiled Hugh Hefner on Law and Order was kind of amazing.

That episode made me laugh so much.

it's weird seeing tokyo rosemary on ILX

these days

hi, adamrl

I was down to see him introduce Citizen Kane this afternoon, with a Q & A afterwards. He's very funny at times, and every bit the blowhard I expected from all the interview footage I've seen over the years. He's got a real hate-on for Kael (not surprising), and also for Johnny Guitar (surprising--always thought that was sacrosanct among auteurists). He claims that Kael never gave him a good review after an Esquire piece he wrote in response to "Raising Kane," implying cause-and-effect, which conveniently ignores that a) Kael's review of The Last Picture Show was perfunctorily positive in a manner that almost dismissed it, and b) the later films she dumped on, most every other good critic did likewise. (Putting aside Sarris, a friend of Bogdanovich's.) He says that he expects he will finish editing Welles' The Other Side of the Wind before he checks out for "the big screening room in the sky."

I watched the first half-hour of They All Laughed the other night, and I didn't.

people hate this guy? how come?

come on this is great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEQc-wtHAlw

I just watched Paper Moon and it's really great. The O'Neil's work the scenes so beautifully, she's really charming, he hits that sweet spot between pushy and drippy, and there's so much beauty in the shot selection and cinematography. Beautifully efficient 1st Act too - principle characters introduced, character's established, the impetus keeping them together defined, all in 10 minutes. Sure the ending's a bit corny, but come on, it's a screwball road movie, a bit of tack never hurt anyone.

And I lolled mega-hard at Tatum smoking. Was everyone just cool with that in 1973?

should I go see Saint Jack w/ Gazzara tonight? 2001 DVD seems to be OOP.

^This might v well be one of PB's best 2 or 3 films, he even manages a decent supporting turn. Gazzara's character is def a slightly bouncier cousin to his Chinese Bookie guy (just as desperate and fuct underneath tho). Great DP work on Singapore locations by Robby Muller.

At Long Last Love to be released as a non-limited edition blu by Twilight Time/Screen Archives in April.

Bogdanovich and the secret afterlife of At Long Last Love

On a somewhat related note, I screened Targets the other night for the first time and liked it. Didn't know beforehand that he himself was a main supporting player, and was amused at how they got an extended Nicholson cameo into the film. Lots of cool circa-'67 LA location photography too.

The Dissolve has a bunch of Targets stuff this week, incl Bogdo interview:

http://thedissolve.com/features/movie-of-the-week/99-peter-bogdanovich-on-targets-history-and-unfortuna/

Been meaning to mention this (taken from the intro from the linked interview):

As it turned out, it was harder to connect with Bogdanovich than we’d expected, but for the best possible reason: He’s in the middle of shooting a new movie in New York, Squirrels To The Nuts, a comedy produced by Noah Baumbach and Wes Anderson, and starring Owen Wilson, Imogen Poots, Kathryn Hahn, Jennifer Aniston, Will Forte, and many, many more bright comic actors.

wtf

Imagine that, getting a veteran dierector to work with Owen W, Aniston and some ppl I can't quite place.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/interview-peter-bogdanovich-talks-starring-in-cold-turkey-putting-together-his-new-film-as-a-director-and-the-endless-frustration-of-orson-welles-the-other-side-of-the-wind-20131119?page=1#blogPostHeaderPanel

http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/watch-first-2-clips-from-peter-bogdanovichs-screwball-shes-funny-that-way-20140828

either "a hysterical screwball fantasia that openly steals from Lubitsch, Hawks, Capra and Sturges and wants to be caught with its fingers in the till" or "so much like a B-grade Woody Allen picture that you might well assume it is a conscious homage specifically to him".

http://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-venice-2014-peter-bogdanovichs-shes-funny-that-way

The last sentence could have been written in 1973, with Lubitsch, Hawks, Capra, and Sturges replacing Woody.

uh What's Up Doc was all Hawks, Paper Moon rather more integrated

substitute "or" for "and"

have any of you guys seen They All Laughed? Tarantino and Wes Anderson go crazy for it so make of that what you will.

It was running on infinite loop HBO when I was home on break from college and I ended up watching it endlessly and grew to like it, but it did take a few viewings to click. (Had a similar experience with the VHS of another ensemble piece, Fassbinder's Chinese Roulette) the title is not supposed to signify comedy but Romantic Comedy, altough even at that the comedy element is less than desired, don't watch expecting an Astaire/Rogers picture.

As perhaps mentioned before and on other threads, for all his failings the guy tells great stories of his famous Old Hollywood acquaintances and does uncanny imitations of them, not only Hitch and Orson, but Cary Grant and Howard Hawks as well, to name two.

I watched the first half-hour of They All Laughed the other night, and I didn't.

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 6 March 2012 16:40 (3 years ago) Permalink

I watched the first hour of Nickelodeon last night and had the same reaction.

haha! i watched the first 25 minutes or so last night and gave up and watched Jon Favreau's Chef instead. the bit where the stoned guy takes his hat off to reveal long curly hair was the only mild chortle. a more rembling first act i've never seen.

(of They All Laughed i mean)

was surprised at how much I liked "What's Up, Doc?" (altho my wife found the Babs-as-Bugs + the WB ending bit too on the nose)

feel like Ilana's whole character in Broad City comes from Babs in that movie

Almost finished Season 2 of The Sopranos. Haven't posted on the show yet, but I've gotta say I'm fairly amazed at how good Bogdanovich is in his brief appearances. How did they ever get such a legendary blowhard to rein it in?

Editing?

You mean there's all sorts of cutting-room footage of him interrupting his methodical probing of Bracco with Orson Welles and John Ford anecdotes?

assume so. Unless they have him do that stuff when the cameras aren't rolling.

That was the price the directors paid. I can see them telling cast and crew. "Listen, y'all. When Bogdanovich gets here you SMILE and NOD when he does his goddamn Orson Welles imitation."

Yes, exactly.

That and the neckerchief wrangler.

Bogdanovich: "I don't understand, Jennifer--you know you need to free yourself of this client."
Bracco: "How can I, Elliot? As a doctor, as a human being--how can I walk away?"
Bogdanovich: (stares blankly, seems lost in thought)
Bracco: "Peter! Line!"
Bogdanovich: "No, no, no--I'm sorry, that's just completely wrong that 'as a doctor, as a human being' bit. Orson would never settle for such clichés."
Director: "Okay...let's start over and try it again."

he's a blowhard but he has also directed actors and probably knows that being on a podium talking about orson welles and being in a studio acting opposite lorraine bracco are two different things.

Just been reading My Lunches With Orson - surprised at how mean and nasty OW is abt PG

who is PG?

Pelham Grenville?

Sorry, meant P Bog

"wait! i'll tell you what he talked about: he talked about bogdanovich!"

Yes! Also,

You know when vaudeville died, and all the great vaudeville performers - the comics, the singers - were thrown out of work. They couldn't make the move to radio or film. They used to huddle around these barrels in Times Square, where they made fires, and ate roasted potatoes off sticks. Then television arrived, and the TV producers came looking for these guys to use them in their variety shows. One of them was the biggest star of vaudeville. While he was on top, he treated everybody like shit. So when the bad times came, they wouldn't share their fires with him, or their food. But gradually they started to feel sorry for him. Years passed. They all forgave him. Now, the Ed Sullivan Show is going to do the best of vaudeville, at the Palace Theater. This guy gets a plum part. He tells all his friends, who didn't get chosen, "Guys, I just got lucky. I'll never forget you. You can't imagine what you mean to me; you've saved my life; here are some tickets, front row; come backstage afterwards; we'll go out for drinks, celebrate. I've learned my lesson." The show goes on, this guy is sensational, he's going to be a big TV star now. All his friends come backstage, knock on the door. He comes out in a velvet robe, says, "Fellas, I've got that old shitty feeling coming over me again." And he slams the door in their faces. That's Peter."

Just been reading My Lunches With Orson - surprised at how mean and nasty OW is abt PG

― Foster Twelvetrees (Ward Fowler), Sunday, August 14, 2016 8:49 PM (Yesterday)

yeah i read it a few months ago and that struck me as well -- welles generally seems ill-tempered and spiteful in these interviews in a way he doesn't in "this is orson welles." some of that may be the influence of henry jaglom who often seems to be egging him on. i did find myself wondering if welles really was aware he was being recorded.

welles also vetted the PB book -- must've quoted this twice before on ilx now cuz hilar but cf the part where bogdanovich asks him to name some directors he doesn't like and the response is redacted at the request of a letter PB received from welles after reading the proofs that ends "always remember your heart is god's little garden, yours truly, louisa may alcott"

(plus the PB book is all about doggedly scraping for technical details about like the camera angles in the trial while welles tries to change the subject; HJ wants gossip.)

none of this is changing my illl-researched intuition that PB was always something of a fool and that OW went from being amused and flattered at early contact to irritably bored and a bit dismayed that this was the actual true lasting shape of his fandom

(also i continue to heart raising kane, which is i think really p good on the collective nature of film-making: one day someone shd make a case for PB's failure as a director being fully down to the fact that he actually entirely believed in an undiluted version of the solo genius form of the auteur theory lol) (welles came up in theatre and very obviously knew different: hence brining the mercury troupe with him…)

In the Lunches book, Welles grouches about Raising Kane - specifically that it was used as a foreword to a print edition of the screenplay - but admits that Kael is one of the few film critics (that he's read) who pays any attention to acting and performance. He also swats away Graham Greene's film crit pretty convincingly.

Def feels like Welles is partly trolling Jaglom - or the absent P Bog - when he slags off The Searchers, Hawks, Powell/Pressburger, Bogart and other sacred cows.

and he hates Rear Window!

All I can pejoratively about Raising Kane is that Kael is a shitty reporter and the narrative is rather misshapen. Her critique of the movie's strengths and weaknesses is spot on.

xxp Most definitely, I don't think I'd take any of Welles's supposed criticisms in that book to heart. If anything, it's an exercise in how well he could dish out gossip and practice his shade-throwing for someone who's enamored with it.

It's part of why I don't buy the argument that Welles didn't know Jaglom was recording. He either knew, or he was getting older and felt that his performances over the dinner table were good fun.

I know of Bogdanovich's personality mostly through his Orson Welles obsession but I'd imagine conversing with him at length would be excruciating

I love how Welles was as bemused/frightened by Reagan as everyone else.

Welles seems like he was very relatable, if difficult

one day someone shd make a case for PB's failure as a director being fully down to the fact that he actually entirely believed in an undiluted version of the solo genius form of the auteur theory lol

Getting to the end of the book, there's another conversation about P Bog where Jaglom says to Welles:

"You're being too hard on him. I think it's part and parcel of the Kane thing, the great man thing, which has been fed to him by you. It's all your fault."

OW: "A little bit, yeah."

boom

x-post

that "if difficult" has to be the most understated caveat ever

i think my favorite welles story of all is from the bogdanovich book, where PB relates seeing OW slagging him off on television, writing him a hurt note, and getting an envelope with two letters in it: one a heartfelt apology, the other one rudely saying "oh, get over it!" with a little note from OW attached saying that he felt that both of these reactions were equally valid.

choose your own orson

My favorite story featuring these two guys is still this one: Orson Welles

Hour-plus interview this week with Bret Easton Ellis:
http://podcastone.com/pg/jsp/program/episode.jsp?programID=592&pid=1668379

the undercurrent of many interviews is the common ground between interviewer and interviewee

really not sure I want to listen to that, given the possible commonalities

it's a bright, guilty last picture show

anyone see Nickelodeon *in black and white*?? the 125 minute director's cut no less? it's on the DVD supposedly.

http://www.childstarlets.com/captures/videocaps/toneal/nickelodeon/tonickel04.jpg

I watched the first half-hour of They All Laughed the other night, and I didn't.

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, March 6, 2012 11:40 AM (six years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I rented this movie tonight and I was telling my friends that I remembered reading somewhere, could've been apocryphal, that this was an actual review of They All Laughed from 1981. but it was morbius 7 years ago lmao

Loved every minute of it.

yah i found that one quite affecting. some of the plots work better than others but the gazzara/hepburn material is just beautifully bittersweet. john ritter is also a treasure. saw it with bogdanovich q&a a few months ago which was very rough since he started out in tears (not only for stratten but for the other now-deceased cast members) and then was asked, by some ill-socialized person, "do you have any good stories about working with dorothy stratten??" yikes.

reviving cause i just saw WHAT'S UP, DOC? for the first time in a packed theater and was just absolutely tickled pink, even by the parts that go on just a bit too long. and i normally loathe this sort of setup! see Defend the Indefensible: films in which gorgeous, independent, "edgy" women have nothing better to do than break uptight whiny squares out of their bubbles but streisand sells it by giving the impression she'd be doing at least 3/4 of this stuff even if o'neal weren't there. supporting cast also kills it obv.

Very well. It's on my Netflix queue.

apparently my dear Dr C hasn't seen Bringing Up Baby yet

(y'know, the original)

There was a phone call to Bogdo on the set where he admitted to Hawks, "Howard, I know they're not Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant." HH: "You're damn right they're not!"

And then he sent Hawks some rehearsal footage, and Hawks advised him to tell Streisand and O'Neal to relax and not push for the laughs.

I'll check out What's Up Doc next weekend, Dr C.

Colleen Camp is the best. Hepburn & Gazzara are wonderful but I love Camp & Ritter together - her persistence and his precise, almost balletic clumsiness.

watched What's Up Doc for the first time (on a TV) a few weeks ago and found O'Neal stultifyingly blank, not even reaching uptight, and Streisand utterly insufferable as the MPDG desperately conscious of her camera angles... until they leave the hotel. That chase really plays, and would have been great in a full theatre.

yeah the film is better in the back half. p enjoyable imo.

Dr C, did you get the "love is never having to say you're sorry" joke at the end?

not at the time, sadly - i had remembered it as being from some 40s-era thing. at some point i knew it was delivered to o'neal in LOVE STORY (which i haven't seen) but that fact was not available to my brain as it would have been to, i imagine, nearly everyone who saw this at the time. a cute gag.

yes, in '72 it brought the house down

Love Laszlo Kovacs cinematography

Never in the history of art

haha i was just watching the weird-ass trailer for this today

apparently the first script had the guy being the weirdo? that makes no sense given the screwball precedents.

oh yeah, it actually started as... an Elliott Gould film.

Barbra's involvement with Doc happened because of her ex-husband, Elliott Gould. Bogdanovich recalled,“Elliott Gould was shooting a picture called A Glimpse of Tiger at Warners. He was having some problems, they had problems with Warner — they fired him and shut down the picture and decided to change the leading character from a man to a woman and cast Barbra in the part, his ex-wife, which is pretty weird." Bogdanovich and Streisand wanted to work together but could not decide on whether to make a drama or a comedy. Bogdanovich wanted to do a comedy and told a Warner Brothers executive he wanted the film to be "sort of like Bringing Up Baby, where the square professor, she's a crazy girl, maybe she could be a girl who knows a lot, been kicked out of a lot of colleges, so she knows a lot. You could steal that from Glimpse of Tiger. But other than that, there's nothing usable — I don't want to make that kind of movie. I want to do a flat-out screwball comedy like Bringing Up Baby."

http://barbra-archives.com/films/whats_up_doc_streisand.html

I have no idea what to to make of They All Laughed. For about forty minutes Ritter, Gazzara, Hepburn are chasing each other or being chased on the excellently photographed Manhattan streets, there's some kids, country music, Hepburn and Gazzara in a bookstore, John Ritter doing Peter Bogdanovich doing Ryan O'Neal doing Cary Grant, Dorothy Stratten awkwardly smiling in scenes. Some of Bogdanovich's dialogue is so far from glittering that I'm sad he thinks his script is Samuel Raphaelson material. It defines a mess, and I can understand why someone would hug it close based on what I've written.

so shapeless and unmoored

wiki entry for this is bizarre. I've never seen it, not sure I want to.

Stratten aside, the cast is game: Gazzara, Hepburn, especially John Ritter.

The identity of Hepburn's son was killing me until I looked it up and realized it was Glenn Scarpelli of One Day at a Time, one of the more obnoxious child actors of my childhood.

do you mean to say you never got a love on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nuGBff9HJ1U

that's why everyone thought he was straight

jesus Glenn Scarpelli

TAL is a glorious & melancholy stoner movie. It’s on the same frequency as 70s Altman. I was really moved by it.

I read that as 70s Allmans

http://www.artnet.com/WebServices/images/ll1297142llgJJjR3CfDrCWBHBAD/julian-wasser-linda-and-paul-mccartney,-sara-and-bob-dylan,-cher-and-gregg-allman.jpg

They All Laughed, 1974

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GY0E9zvHw0

https://www.vulture.com/2019/03/peter-bogdanovich-in-conversation.html

You ended up living with Quentin Tarantino in the 2000s.
I was living in his guesthouse for about a year, maybe more. He was very nice. Very sweet. He invited me over and I said okay. I was having some problems. I didn’t have a house or something.

Did you watch a lot of movies with him? His taste is a bit out there.
Yes, he was a little odd. He wanted to look at a lot of movies, so I sat with him. He fell in love with a director named William Witney who made some Lone Ranger movies or something. Not my cup of tea, but I liked being with Quentin. He was fun. Loves They All Laughed. I sat next to him when he screened it in his projection room for a whole audience. He was quoting the lines before they would happen. Finally, I said, “Quentin, would you cut it out?” He knew every line in the picture. Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach love it too. They call me “Pop,” and I allow it.

https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/daily/vulture/2019/03/01/magazine/01-bogdanovich-4.w700.h467.2x.jpg

SO NOT GONNA HAPPEN

So who was the most difficult actor you’ve ever worked with?
Cher.

Tell me about your experience with her on Mask.
Well, she didn’t trust anybody, particularly men. She doesn’t like men. That’s why she’s named Cher: She dropped her father’s name. Sarkisian, it is. She can’t act. She won Best Actress at Cannes because I shot her very well.

And she can’t sustain a scene. She couldn’t do what Tatum [O’Neal] did in Paper Moon. She’d start off in the right direction, but she’d go off wrong somehow, very quickly. So I shot a lot of close-ups of her because she’s very good in close-ups. Her eyes have the sadness of the world. You get to know her, you find out it’s self-pity, but still, it translates well in movies. I shot more close-ups of her than I think in any picture I ever made.

She won Best Actress at Cannes because I shot her very well.

bogdanovich is so good that cher won best actress at the oscars because he shot her very well on an entirely different movie

I was having some problems. I didn’t have a house or something.

relatable

Well, she didn’t trust anybody, particularly men. She doesn’t like men. That’s why she’s named Cher

He may not do drugs, but Bogdo talks like he has a hole in his cerebellum.

I can't stop thinking about "He wanted to look at a lot of movies, so I sat with him." Such an odd way to describe watching movies with your friend.

or yr landlord

Bogdo talks like he has a hole in his cerebellum.

Too-tight ascot, methinks.

was it on this thread or elsewhere that someone amusingly speculated that bogdanovich consistently wears ascots because he lost a bet long ago?

https://imagesvc.meredithcorp.io/v3/mm/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpeopledotcom.files.wordpress.com%2F2016%2F09%2F1_23_89_750x1000.jpg&w=400&c=sc&poi=face&q=85

That PB Photo...

almost looks like Burt Lancaster

posthumously?

The strange world of a real Rain Man.

xp yeah maybe a decade before Atlantic City

ABC's doing a two-hour true crime doc on Stratten tonight. Always blows my mind that she was only 20 when she was killed.

Special kind of weirdo this guy was/is. Imagine most of his contemporaries had their eyes rolling out of their skulls around him.

Did you ever hear what Billy Wilder said about him?

Wow, I didn't know he was a semi-regular guest host for Carson !

Wilder:

''It isn't true that Hollywood is a bitter place, divided by hatred, greed and jealousy. All it takes to bring the community together is a flop by Peter Bogdanovich.''

https://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/07/movies/film-older-sadder-maybe-wiser.html

That's not even the full quote.

Longer version here: Billy Wilder, the genre-jumper who would be 100 years old on June 22

Wilder had more to say later:

I’d assumed you’d been showered with flowers.

Didn’t want to touch it. Murder. After she was killed, I didn’t go out much. Then one day, about six months after it happened, I went to a dentist appointment. As I’m leaving the dentist, who’s coming up the street but Billy Wilder. I said, “Hi, Billy.” He says, “Hi.” Without even a blink, he says, “You know that whole story about the girl that got murdered? The plot is not right. It should be how … ” and he starts telling me how to fix the plot of the story of Dorothy’s murder.

That might be the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever heard.

Yeah, I know. This is beyond German bad taste. It’s just unbelievable bad taste. I just nodded.

Apparently, after the premiere of At Long Last Love, which went very badly, Wilder said you could hear the Champagne corks popping all over town.On March 7, 1975, Vincent Canby reviewed At Long Last Love for the New York Times: “casting Cybil [sic] Shepherd in a musical comedy is like entering a horse in a cat show. She’s beautiful and lithe and has great lines, but she’s the wrong species … The bluntness and naiveté that made her so appealing and so right in Daisy Miller are simply abrasive here.” What was his deal?

He was jealous. I was young and successful. He was old and hadn’t made a picture and I hadn’t written about him or done any pieces praising him. He managed to fuck up two pictures I was going to do. One was Private Lives. The executives asked him what he thought of the idea. He said, “Bad idea.” That was the end of that. You know what he did when Tony Curtis’s son died of an overdose? He sent him a telegram saying, “Like father, like son.”

Do you like burying assholes? When you see your enemies’ obituaries, what do you think?

Well, I wasn’t unhappy when Billy died.

From the Vulture interview posted upthread.

Billy...

Don’t know if I mentioned it upthread but one time I saw him give a bookstore talk and for the first half hour or so he kept referring to “Mr. Welles” but towards the end it was just “Orson.”

Bogdo's cameo in IT:Chapter Two was one of the highlights of 2019 cinema. He may actually have been playing himself.

watched BR of What's Up Doc tonight...

"He tried to molest me."
"That's... unbelievable."

🤣🤣🤣

the last picture show tonight. it helped

The next series of You Must Remember This is about Polly Platt!

That's funny, my wife is listening to the new TCM podcast about Bogdanovich, and we were literally talking the other day about how much Karina Longworth would make of the whole Polly-Cybil story. Will definitely listen.

Polly Platt -- producer, writer and Oscar-nominated production designer -- lived an epic Hollywood life. And yet, if you know Platt’s name today, it’s probably because in 1970 her husband and creative collaborator Peter Bogdanovich had an affair with Cybill Shepherd while shooting the film that launched their careers, The Last Picture Show. But Platt was much more than a jilted wife: she was the secret, often invisible-to-the-public weapon behind some of the best films of the 1970s, '80s and '90s. Drawing on Platt’s unpublished memoir, as well as ample interviews and archival research, The Invisible Woman will tell Polly Platt’s incredible story from her perspective, for the first time. New episodes will begin releasing May 26.

There’s “The Plot Thickens” podcast about Peter Bogdanovich on TCM with Ben Mankiewicz and Karina Longworth’s upcoming “You Must Remember This” podcast featuring Polly Platt so I am assuming the summer of 2020 is about Peter Bogdanovich and associates so am knotting the requisite bandana/ascot in anticipation/appreciation.

also, I hear there's going to be a podcast about juggalos

podcasts how do they fuckin work

How is that TCM one so far? Hagiography much?

^^ I love it. I would call it more of a career retrospective and personal biography. Ben Mankiewicz is a good host.

And I'm really dumb, because I've been watching the Sopranos over this past year, and I only noticed in the second to last episode of the final season that PB plays Dr. Elliot.

Platt roundup

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6961-credit-where-credit-s-due-polly-platt

Finally taking in the YMRT Platt series. Listened to the third ep (all about The Last Picture Show & Cybill) last night. What really makes it is all the extensive excerpts from her unfinished memoir, read by Maggie Siff. This installment two particularly amazing bits: the first about accidentally running into Pete & Cyb in restaurant during the TLPS shoot, and another about John Ford awkwardly reaching out to her after the split.

Whole series was great imo.

Yeah so much so that it kinda bugs me to talk about her in the Bog thread LOL

Yes, the best season since the Manson one.

Veg sorta otm, but it's a good place to point people toward the podcast: ten episodes, images and annotations for each of them here

Hmm yeah, I guess that is a good point.

Here’s a v good photo of her
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/566943d25a5668b614270ff9/1592347686586-5ZIM3PWZO56F8CJHHI1S/ke17ZwdGBToddI8pDm48kJx_HW5Cyl_w5KuXYPdt5NN7gQa3H78H3Y0txjaiv_0fDoOvxcdMmMKkDsyUqMSsMWxHk725yiiHCCLfrh8O1z5QPOohDIaIeljMHgDF5CVlOqpeNLcJ80NK65_fV7S1UZXeA0ox5bIY2qfOI4T9vIThY_iQi_9OWIGcNPCPunptvdSfbxHJuolZmbE9-K_NDg/PollyPlatt.PhotoCourtesyofAntoniaBogdanovich.jpg

Karina Longworth’s stilted vocal mannerisms... oy

Direct reaction to listeners whining that she wasn't sufficiently clear-sounding in the early seasons. Can't win.

Yeah she knows her stuff but I just can't get past the weird enunciation. I think she could "win" if she just talked normally.

I heard a clip of her speaking in her regular voice, and it was totally fine!

Right, I saw her somewhere in Manhattan introducing a movie not long ago and no weird vocalisms then. Possibly she has some type of mike fright.

I saw her Criterion Closet video and she sounded totally normal. I made a note to check out the podcast but forgot, I checked it out... Jesus Christ...

Direct reaction to listeners whining that she wasn't sufficiently clear-sounding in the early seasons. Can't win.

― Daniel_Rf, Thursday, August 13, 2020 10:18 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I checked out a recent and an early episode and she sounds like a subway terminal announcer in both.

Daniel_Rf is correct though, at least wrt to her heavily enunciated Ts.

I've fully acclimated to her style and don't find it bothersome at all (plus she's moved away from my own personal dislike: attempting imitations), but another point in the Platt series favor is that in addition to Siff's readings, there are lots more interviews than normal, so you hear her voice less than usual.

Yes, the best season since the Manson one.

― Steppin' RZA (sic), Wednesday, August 12, 2020 11:22 PM (yesterday)

Interesting. I found that season too depressing and kind of tangential (admittedly I didn't even finish it). It's perhaps too long, but the Blacklist season remains a high point for me. I also thought the Song of the South one was very strong.

Karina's voice haters should check out the Make Me Over season where she turns the mic entirely over to guests--for me it confirmed that Longworth is good not bad actually, but the Vanessa Williams and Marie Dressler eps are good

Maggie Siff’s readings really are so well done & thoughtful

Honestly I was truly amazed by the amount of research & hours of recorded interviews that went into this - Longworth really showed this as a passion project and didn’t spare any effort to go deep. Plus having her daughters on the record really lends some special legitimacy to telling Polly’s story

I also loved the reveal over the course of the series that Larry McMurty always held a candle for her. ❤️

her daughters = polly’s daughters, i meant

otm -- she set the bar really high for whatever she does next season (at which point we should start a dedicated thread)

I enjoy Longworth's voice and presentation on You Must Remember This.

i'm working on slowing down and enunciating more in my own lectures.. i think at this point her style should be understood as a choice, not a mistake. some people can't stand it, some find it very soothing and absorbing and lets them focus on content. it's a tough balance to strike but it's hard to argue with her success and the quality of the research, and of the writing itself, is fantastic.

Yeah it doesnt bother me anymore - her content is always so engaging & interesting that I got past it pretty quick

Like seriously, there is so many fluff podcasts out there, or half-assed/wing-it/chat em ups that the ones that have depth like this are always a joy overall, regardless of quirks

I'm not the biggest fan of her delivery but I've also never had to do a solo podcast which must be **nerve wracking**

otm

I just like yesterday learned of the existence of YMRT when searching for info on the Warner Bros. doc of the same name. Was curious and now am curiouser after reading y'all's posi reviews. Will seek out.

Interesting. I found that season too depressing and kind of tangential (admittedly I didn't even finish it). It's perhaps too long, but the Blacklist season remains a high point for me. I also thought the Song of the South one was very strong.

Second both the blacklist and song of the south seasons, great stuff. The Dead Blondes season has a lot of interesting (and depressing) stuff too. Really don't get why ppl fixate on the Manson season.

I have a You Must Remember This t-shirt. Fella in Clissold Park shouted "great show!" at me, only popcult clothing related interaction I've ever had.

The Manson season was the first one that integrated such a variety of sources into a single narrative, while still retaining a discrete episodic focus that made each episode a focused piece of writing. Earlier seasons had been built on themes, but usually a loose one that linked various disparate stores (eg Dead Blondes, Star Wars); the Manson one wove lots of elements of disparate stories, as researched by earlier writers, into a coherent tale of a period with a distinct throughline.

The Polly Platt season is similarly a triumph of melding elements, but more so. Longworth takes Platt's unpublished text, her own new interviews with other first-person sources, and historical research by what is now a three-person team, and writes something that appears to be a richer expansion and improvement of Platt's unfinished memoir into a better tribute to her work, with a deeper appreciation of her as a person and artist/creative.

Very much so. It's a real triumph. (And I'm just fine with her voice.)

Manson also contexualises Los Angeles during that time, and takes time to explore everything feeding into what Manson was part of, showing how he didnt exist in a vacuum and that the envy of the Hollywood/LA way of life was something that fed Manson much more than a lot of books about him ever really acknowledge.

It’s not a story about Manson, it about Manson within the world as it existed at that time. It made for a much more interesting story imo

The only thing I’ve read that matches this series on Manson for depth & context it is the Jeff Guinn book.

Are there text transcripts of the show?

No, it's very much written for audio. Longworth's recent book on Howard Hughes is good though (& written in a different voice), if that's of interest.

also contexualises Los Angeles during that time

Yes, I meant to say "period and place"

I need to read that Hughes book

oh you'll love it

and you can watch this entire Max Ophuls movie as prep, on youtube

I popped into this thread a couple of days ago, I think because I heard an ad for or mention of the/a Peter Bogdanovich podcast/doc on an (old?) episode of a podcast I was listening to. Anyway, I don't listen to many podcasts mostly because there are too many podcasts, but also because the affectations (vocal delivery and audio cues, like incessant old time jazz tooting in the background; thanks, Woody Allen and This American Life) sometimes drive me nuts. So I see this thread pop up and pop in and read back a few posts, where I encounter commentary on Karina Longworth's vocal affectation. I file her and that conversation under "interesting things about someone I'm not really familiar with who sounds interesting talking about interesting things." Fast forward two days and a friend coincidentally recommends her You Must Remember This podcast, specifically the Song of the South season, and I think, huh, I was just reading about her o ILX and she sounded like something I would like. But, hmm, wasn't there some discussion about her vocal affectations? And indeed almost as soon as I start the thing up I think, wow, why is she talking like that? Why does she sometimes overemphasize certain letters or syllables, or elongate words that don't need that sort of emphasis, like "Hollywuuuuude." Strange though it may be - is she I guess essentially playing a character? - I don't think it will be a deal breaker, and in fact while it was distracting I immediately found a way to mentally correct: by pretending the podcast was actually narrated by Danny DeVito. Same script, just his voice. It was a very funny thing to imagine and made the episode that much more enjoyable.

I don't watch television shows because there are too many of them, and all of them are about Japanese people hurting themselves climbing on large wet obstacles.

Danny DeVito

an interesting choice given his role in the Polly Platt story

is longworth's delivery really an "affectation" though? fine line i guess, but it feels more like her "radio voice." like when i'm lecturing in class, it's definitely not in my natural voice because i'm consciously slowing down, enunciating more, and also i'm reading my stuff off a page. and there are probably a few things here and there that are affected, like i just sorta like certain words sounding a certain way. but overall the difference between that and my regular voice is more that i'm asking it to do this different job and not like i'm trying to sound a certain way to produce a certain effect or attain a certain status or w/e, which is what 'affectation' reads as to me.

It’s the pronunciation that gets me.

One episode she’s talking about Dorothy Stradden and the next episode it’s Dorothy Stratten.

As Daniel alluded to upthread, aiui posters on the podcast's own messageboard criticized her D-like Ts so much that she massively overcorrected. So it's actually the constant complaining about her voice that caused that particular problem

I did like the story about Orson Welles yelling WHO ATE ALL THE TAPIOCA PUDDING, especially since Cybill Shepard wrote about him doing the same but about fudgsicles.

that was amazing

also all the Ford stuff was uh...interesting. talk about opening the kimono *barf*

I listened to the Pretty Baby ep last night.

Christ, Brooke Shields' Mom...

yeah I had no idea about any of that

I too used to find her delivery offputting, but the podcast is consistently great, and this latest round her best yet. I really enjoyed it, too, as a corrective to the Bogdanovich podcast, which was a good listen, but while the presenter let Bogdanovich have enough rope a couple of times to reveal his innate pomposity and how he'd profited from an era that celebrated and indulged its white male creative heroes, it was clear throughout that it would err on the side of hagiography. Longworth's series went much deeper, never risked seeming like a puff-piece, and also did a great job of rescuing Platt from Bogdanovich's shadow and celebrating her as an artist in her own right, while also acknowledging her own feet of clay and exploring her as a well-rounded person, with her own flaws and motivating damage.

It's an accomplished work of biography, which the Bogdanovich podcast isn't.

innate pomposity

I believe you are talking about his ascotsity.

(I know it's a bandana, but he wears it like an ascot.)

I assume there are transcripts of the Longworth podcasts, because yeah, unfortunately her voice/presentation is not my favorite. My friend (who recommended the series to me) told me he listened to the Val Lewton one and had to grit his teeth every time she said his name. "Looden," apparently.

I assume there are transcripts

your reasoning does not follow

?

A lot of podcasters post transcripts for, at least, the hearing impaired, etc.

There are scripts or transcripts of every episode on Patreon. We will post the scripts for the new season once all the episodes have debuted.

— Karina Longworth (@KarinaLongworth) October 15, 2019

for, at least, the hearing impaired, etc.

That's a completely different reason tbf

I didn't give a reason, tbf, nor does it matter. Don't know where she posts them, though.

You literally just posted a tweet where she says where they're posted.

Oh, wait, I misread her tweet as meaning they were available on Patreon as they're released, but would be made available to everyone when the season was done.

For posterity:

I watched the first half-hour of They All Laughed the other night, and I didn't.

― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, March 6, 2012 11:40 AM (eight years ago) bookmarkflaglink

<3

Nickelodeon leaves Prime today. Really amped-up slapstick. Only 30 minutes in and it feels like I've already seen 100 pratfalls.

Amazing extended comedy fistfight sequence with Ryan O'Neal & Burt Reynolds.

is it the color version? I've been trying to find a copy of the "special DVD" that supposedly came out in 2009 with both color and B&W versions

It's the color version. I remember seeing that DVD in stores at the time; I don't think many were pressed.

I've only seen it in color, there's a B&W version? This film was not to my tastes in any event.

Bogdanovich wanted to shoot it in b&w, but the suits said no. He ended up with the rights to the film and many years later digitally removed the color with both versions (same cut) bundled with The Last Picture Show in a 2-DVD set.

Yeah, I was just reading about this.

IMDB says the B&W version is 7 minutes longer.

I really enjoyed it. It's flawed but fun, kind of a claustrophobic caricature film. Oddly enough, it reminded me a lot of Heaven's Gate, in that the period detail is so loving and that so many scenes are filled to the brim with actors doing stuff (shades of Altman).

Prime also has The Fortune by Mike Nichols leaving today, so I think I'm gonna do a mid-'70s buddy film diasterpieces double feature.

Bogdanovich and Kovacs actually lit the movie thinking they would strike some B&W prints, or get to it eventually, so it's more than an afterthought effect (according to him). Had no idea that DVD was bundled with Picture Show, no wonder I've had such a hard time finding a copy. I figure if I'm gonna see it, I should just wait until I find a reasonably priced copy of that DVD. As a massive fan of They All Laughed, I'm much more eager to see this because of John Ritter.

wish i'd realized Nickelodeon was on there sooner! i'm sure i'll roll the dice on it somewhere down the line...

The Fortune is *dire* imo, with an enormous, painful gap between the talent involved and what's onscreen.

This is gonna sound all Mr. Burns "I once saw Gentlemen Jim Corbett box an eskimo; back then if a fight didn't go 15 rounds we'd demand our nickel back" but I recall seeing Nickelodeon when it came out - the gimmick was that theaters charged 5 cents for admission.

RIP. L.A. Times obituary

Polly Platt very thoroughly sidelined by both that text, and even moreso by the NYT's much longer and superficially more comprehensive obit. Kind of stunning. Gee, wonder why the first few films were such huge successes and completely-realized statements, and things seemed to go somehow awry after Paper Moon....

Among the many amazing things you could notice in this picture, Orson Welles is smoking a cigar in a grocery store. https://t.co/7hPew8kL3h

— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) January 6, 2022

Wild story of Bogdanovich fandom and the recovery of Squirrels To The Nuts, the original cut of PB's last narrative film, She's Funny That Way.

https://tremblesighwonder.com/2022/01/20/you-saved-one-of-my-best-pictures-my-adventures-with-peter-bogdanovichs-lost-last-picture-show/

Wow. I was on the edge of my seat!

Can They All Laughed currently be screened/streamed? Want to see if it still, um , holds up.

Such a great article, thank you!

A bit OT, but has anyone read Karina's book?

Oof, just tried to JustWatch search They All Laughed, and it's not even in their database!

YouTube sez HI DERE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNYsas5qdl0

^^Looks alright, audio a little tinny.

Thanks!

Feel like the guy gets a somewhat deserved bum rap for being a pompous ass, but he definitely made a valuable contribution more than once.

He is the voice of the DJ on the country music station in this movie!

Probably worth watching now if only for the Old Weird New York.

Probably took me a few viewings back when it came out to not get creped out by Ben Gazzara flirting with Patti Hansen, to name one thing.

XPS Iirc, he did same thing in TLPS. Dude liked his C&W.

He really comes off well in that Squirrels To The Nuts piece.

I'd honestly rather watch movies about They All Laughed than the picture itself

XPS, well remember that Patti Hansen eventually became Mrs. Keith Richards...

Yes, I remember it well, and in that article, I think, no some interview on rogerebert.com, PB claims that what killed her incipient acting career.

Trying to figure out what school Gazzara’s kids are going to.

Come to think of it now I wish he had been the DJ on the one country station we had back then, which he mentions in that same interview.

xpost P.S. 40, on 20th Street!

He meets them outside of Stuyvesant Town on 1st Ave... nice that the film respects the geography even though there's a cut in there and they could have used any school.

And yeah, wow, that article is some kinda wild story. What an absolute dream. (I'm being vague to avoid spoilers for those who haven't read.) Agreed that Bogdanovich comes off well as an older dude writing really sincere and enthusiastic emails. A good mode for him.

I was at the Quad screening of They All Laughed that comes up partway through the story! And I remember the kid asking that question, it was cute and well-handled by Bogdanovich. It was kind of welcome because the atmosphere was a little bit charged --- Bogdanovich got really choked up talking about the film, trying to express how special the cast was to him, and how so many of them were now gone. And then somebody tried to ask him for Dorothy Stratten anecdotes or something, which was very awkward. Anyway, I remember really liking the film, more than I expected - the Hepburn/Gazzara material got to me, and I remember Ritter just floating around on roller skates like Chaplin.

Thanks for that, Doctor Casino.

Here’s one of my favorite stories about him and Orson Welles

Somehow Targets had been completely off my radar until this year, and I was pretty amazed by it. Reading about the circumstances around it, it really makes a great case for setting arbitrary limits in the creative process - having to incorporate another movie's footage, with only a few days to film the star, works out wonderfully. It's probably the hackiest possible thing to call it prescient, but more than anything else, the shooter's last words as he's led away really stuck with me. And Karloff is so great, the movie's worth seeing just for his delivery of the "Appointment in Samarra" story.

re: that wild narrative we were just discussing, MOMA has big news:

The series concludes with the world premiere of Squirrels to the Nuts, Bogdanovich’s long unseen original edit (he called it “the Lubitsch cut”) of the 2014 romantic comedy that was taken out of his hands, recut, substantially reshot, and retitled She’s Funny That Way for a brief release.

(also stoked to maybe catch At Long Last Love and Saint Jack, which I couldn't get myself to when they played at MOMI soon after his passing)

_The series concludes with the world premiere of Squirrels to the Nuts, Bogdanovich’s long unseen original edit (he called it “the Lubitsch cut”) of the 2014 romantic comedy that was taken out of his hands, recut, substantially reshot, and retitled She’s Funny That Way for a brief release._

Now on the calendar with a seven-screening run from March 28 to April 5!

Brody: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/squirrels-to-the-nuts-reviewed-the-directors-cut-of-peter-bogdanovichs-last-feature

Link to discussion of his passing on the appropriate thread: Rolling Obituary Thread 2022

And oh yeah, friend who has had to watch the director's cut a few times told me it really wasn't that great as well.

Now friend is telling me I should watch Dorothy Stratten’s other film, Galaxina.

But Josefa hated it, so I’m torn.

Reading Ron Brownstein's Rock Me on the Water (long subtitle...), about L.A. in 1974. Brownstein probably epitomizes everything people hate about CNN, and he's not a film guy, so I'm surprised to say the film part of the book is good.

"Bogdanovich calculated that from 1952 to 1971, he saw 'something like 6,000' movies."

20 years, 300 films a year, 6 a week...pretty impressive without even home video. There are people who post in the "last X movies" thread who see even more, I think. Not me.

Watched The Last Picture Show and Klute, both from 1971, in the last couple of days. They are so different

I find Klute harder going these days. Pakula often reaches a point where he's half in love with the easeful shadows of his cinematographer.

They were the second feature films by both directors. The Last Picture Show had a better story and better cinematography and Klute was more atmospheric, less straightforward

(The best film from 1971 though is still McCabe & Mrs. Miller)

Watched Daisy Miller in conjunction with the Tarantino book and--expecting nothing--thought it was pretty good, especially the last 20 minutes or so. (As Tarantino points out, it starts out like Bogdanovich wants to show he can transform official literature into screwball comedy, and the rapid-fire dialogue feels pushy.) I don't remember Barry Brown at all from that era, and it indeed looks like he was more of a TV guy.

Jeff Bridges, Timothy Bottoms, Charles Grodin, Brown, Robert De Niro, Bogdanovich--Cybill Shepherd sure drove men around the bend in the first half of the '70s. (Add me to the list.)

Hadn't finished the Tarantino chapter when I posted that last night...Got my answer: he committed suicide in 1978. Tarantino draws a nice analogy between Brown and the character of Daisy.

I recently watched They All Laughed - another Tarantino recommendation - and could not fucking believe how bad it was. And I'm generally a fan of Bogdanovich. But that film does not work in any way. Colleen Camp's character in it has to be one of the most irritating creations in cinema history.

Sometimes I really just don't understand Tarantino's taste.

(New Years Resolution: try to be more positive about things)

The Tarantino book has a lot of interesting insights in it (as well as lots to disagree with).

I saw it ages ago and didn't get much out of it.

I still have three or four chapters to go--and have to watch Escape from Alcatraz, Hardcore, and The Funhouse (I've seen the first two)--but I'm glad I took the time to read it. Introduced me to at least two good films, the two John Flynns, and got me to watch Daisy Miller, which I never would have otherwise. The writing's okay when he's not going out of his way to be crude.

Think I mentioned upthread that I watched IThey All Laughed over and over on HBO whilst at home during a college break so I grew to like it for some reason even though yeah, it seems like a trifle. Maybe I should watch again and get back to you. Maybe I already tried that too/zingproblems

It doesn't improve on its opening sequence

Can't find it. Where did I start watching it last time, I wonder? Maybe I will try to watch Saint Jack instead.

It used to be on YouTube, I linked it up thread (link now dead).

RIght. That's what I figured, thanks.

Still thinking about Saint Jack. Ben Gazarra is such a weirdo, I think. Maybe I am biased now based on seeing him once at a Cassavettes screening.

This is on YouTube, Colleen Camp promoting the film on the radio in Cincinnati, and everything goes horribly wrong:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgNjnSzM3Eg

^ Haha, well done

I found Saint Jack quite good. Just the backdrop of it alone is interesting, and then Gazzara and Denholm Elliott made an entertainingly odd couple.

One of these days I'm gonna get around to At Long Last Love

I watched a Netflix-red-envelope DVD copy about a decade ago.

The past is a foreign country iirc

haven't seen Daisy Miller, At Long Last Love, Saint Jack, or They All Laughed

but his 3 films in consecutive years from 1971 to 1973 - The Last Picture Show, What's Up Doc?, and Paper Moon - are all-time great

Eileen Brennan and Cloris Leachman from Picture Show are both good in Daisy Miller.

I was going to add that the kid's kind of annoying, but first I looked him up, and you know who it is?--James McMurtry, who I've never heard but recognized the name right away.

^^Larry's son, and future Alt-Country kingpin. Wrote one of the best W-era protest songs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szclr2caFG8

Always felt part of why guy directors (Tarantino, Wes Anderson etc.) love They All Laughed is that conceptually it's kind of a platonic ideal of a film a dude would love to make: a passion project with all your buddies on board, the most of the leading ladies have been involved with you romantically, and everybody's on great terms treating NYC as a playground for grown-ups.

Makes sense.

https://www.criterion.com/films/29965-targets

I've seen it twice and found it a little overrated, although in meeting Corman's (?) conditions--get Karloff in there--pretty resourceful. Thought that weird animated thing from a few years ago Tower, was a better treatment of Charles Whitman.

Unfortunately obscure YT of the day: not streaming, not available in the U.S. since the excellent DVD (still not hard to get), here is Peter Bogdanovich's personal favorite of all his films, THEY ALL LAUGHED, w/ John Ritter, Audrey Hepburn & Ben Gazzara. https://t.co/r29M4upwY9 pic.twitter.com/HHMLWwVib1

— James Kenney (@jfkenney) June 12, 2023

love that movie, think of it a lot

https://www.criterion.com/films/27533-the-last-picture-show

Bundled with two cuts of Texasville

Kino Lorber is putting out a Blu of Daisy Miller in May.

i guess tcm aired they all laughed last night for the first time

by way of twitter discussion about that i read about 'one day since yesterday', free on tubi -- good doc focusing on they all laughed & 100% confirms

I'd honestly rather watch movies about They All Laughed than the picture itself

― Andy the Grasshopper, Thursday, January 20, 2022 8:14 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Is there a good threadreader workaround for nonusers for this Twitter thread by the guy who got it on TCM?

i promised Peter in a phone call around Christmas time in 2021, before he passed away heartrendingly and unexpectedly a few weeks later, that i'd help him clear the rights on They All Laughed, (his once Lost Masterpiece) so it could show on cable and streaming, something that pic.twitter.com/00rBBiurN9

— bill teck (@billteck) September 15, 2024

I saw it as a Netflix Red Envelope release in early '19 as I mentioned above, so it was available, however briefly.

Would you class it as a Lost Masterpiece?

FWIW, it gets screened in 35mm around NYC once in a while - I caught one at BAM a long time ago and Bogdanovich did the Q&A. If you love Bogdanovich, you should absolutely see it, it's almost a nakedly personal film to the point where the Q&A kind of felt like TMI. (IIRC, he kept saying soberly how he was "in love" with like every woman in the cast - not in a frivolous or joking way, it was a little cringey for me.)

It's interesting, and I think it has its merits, but I can't agree with its boosters that it's a great film, much less his masterpiece. Targets and The Last Picture Show paired with Texasville are still my favorite works from Bogdanovich.

It's a goofy film, often not in a good way.

I saw it as a Netflix Red Envelope release in early '19 as I mentioned above, so it was available, however briefly.

Warner Bros. put it out on DVD with a commentary and a conversation featurette featuring PB & Wes Anderson back in the mid-'00s. Copies are still findable. I too rented it from Netflix maybe 10 years ago and had an ordeal just trying to watch the DVD: The first copy was scratched to shit and started skipping a couple minutes into the picture; the second arrived cracked; and finally the third one played ok.

I'm not liking this era where "Lost Film"=Not Available On Blu/Streaming.

Yeah

It's on MAX.

Reminds me that it was pretty the only thing on HBO during some visit home so I watched it over and over until I got into.

Probably posted the same upthread already

https://www.indiewire.com/features/interviews/peter-bogdanovich-they-all-laughed-streaming-1235049834/

The color version of Nickelodeon is back up on Prime.

how have people endured Paper Moon for half a century

mostly by ignoring it I think

Elaborate plz, Mr. Soto.

I tried once 20 years ago, turned it off. I tried this afternoon, turned it off.

Oh come on, Tatum O'Neal's performance alone!

Saw it on the big screen recently with a buncha zoomers dressed to the nines in 70's garb, unexpected but delightful.

Shouldn't they have worn 30s garb?

Wouldn't go as far as switching it off but I didn't really get it

Shouldn't they have worn 30s garb?

Who am I to tell the youth what to do?

The main thing to get is this uncomfortable truth: while children smoking is a bad thing in real life, on the silver screen it looks even cooler than adults doing it.

I've been meaning to rewatch it. I saw it maybe seven or eight years ago in a packed Sunday morning screening with a lot of kids, and I remember it playing like gangbusters.

psichiatra di psichiatri

Tatum is a large part of the problem. I'm recoiling from the film's effort to make me adore her cunning.

saw the one-day rerelease of Paper Moon today. I’d tried once on TV and made it five minutes: the big screen and a (small, polite, multiplex matinee) audience made it click. It’s best when being a comedy, and could easily trim to a sub-90-minute sharper, sillier version. But the languorous scenes often feel like the point of writer Bogdanovich’s interest (let’s feel like an older style of storytelling, even if that was a minority at the actual time), and provides a showcase for probably-other-writer Platt’s production design.

I’ve never been convinced by O’Neal père in my brief, glancing encounters. But the mix of contrasts and comparisons between him and Tatum in this make his character rich and believable despite his limitations as an actor, and give her an authenticity roughed up by her precociousness. And her scenes with PJ Johnson as Imogene show that Tatum’s distinctiveness isn’t just nepo enthusiasm or an existing rapport with her father — they very convincingly have a relationship of equals (plus/despite the age difference) on a range of levels distinct from the adults’ all-lies-to-each-other mode

Heh, Paul Nelson liked They All Laughed so much that he owned three VHS copies of it.

Also I recently finally saw Paper Moon and What's Up, Doc? properly on a big screen at MoMI and enjoyed them both.

Nickelodeon BluRay: https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=38069