― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 02:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 02:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 02:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 02:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― dan bunnybrain (dan bunnybrain), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 03:01 (eighteen years ago) link
I'm not sure I've ever seen a worse film,
― Dadaismus (Dada), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 19:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 19:55 (eighteen years ago) link
classic for ms.45, king of new york, the addiction. the funeral is pretty good too. but,yeah, spotty. driller killer is mostly good as artifact. i liked the crime story pilot. i even have a soft spot for china girl and fear city. king of new york is the jewel in the dirty crown.
― scott seward (scott seward), Wednesday, 15 February 2006 20:34 (eighteen years ago) link
http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/1627/badlieutenantsplsh.jpg
love this film
― nakhchivan, Sunday, 28 March 2010 21:01 (fourteen years ago) link
While some of them saw small or tiny or non-existent U.S. releases, try finding an Abel Ferrara film made from 2002-2009 on DVD. It’s not easy. “The only thing you need to see them is the internet,” he said. “Go find the torrents. That’s my big distributor. You got to leave it to that. They’re all on there. I just don’t want to find the one I’m working on. That’s the only thing that scares me. But just go on the internet for the rest.”
― nakhchivan, Sunday, 21 August 2011 01:41 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.vogue.fr/culture/portrait/diaporama/abel-ferrara-presente-go-go-tales/7082
― ‘Neuroscience’ and ‘near death’ pepper (Eazy), Friday, 10 February 2012 15:45 (twelve years ago) link
Just watched King of New York and was disappointed. What is it that people think is so great about it? Dialogue is cliche. Acting is spotty except for a couple of scenes with Caruso. Some scenes are too long and others too short. Only saving grace is Walken but he alone does not carry the film.
― calstars, Sunday, 25 March 2012 03:12 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/102
Really liked this as a read for its novelty - a lot of flighty chops which don't make it onto film writing, but I haven't seen it.
― xyzzzz__, Sunday, 25 March 2012 09:39 (twelve years ago) link
what ppl think is so great about King of New York is that it's bad, obv
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 25 March 2012 14:47 (twelve years ago) link
Biggie Smalls liked it well enough.
― kurwa mać (Polish for "long life") (Eisbaer), Sunday, 25 March 2012 16:14 (twelve years ago) link
yes, Generations Y & Z look to dead gangsta rappers as the vanguard of film culture.
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 25 March 2012 16:23 (twelve years ago) link
isn't there a Larry Semon Film Festival for you to attend, or something?!?
― kurwa mać (Polish for "long life") (Eisbaer), Sunday, 25 March 2012 16:25 (twelve years ago) link
I have my quota of semen for the week
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 25 March 2012 16:41 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12250
hes got some miles on his for being 60
interesting they touch on a project w/ dafoe playing pasolini
cant imagine this 4:44 movie is good tho
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 25 March 2012 17:31 (twelve years ago) link
the thing about KONY (whoa, makes you think) is not that it's not good but it's got this brutal momentum w/everyone in the film casting everything aside and trying to kill each other w/o regard for anything else and the actors kinda throw themselves into it really well imo and i love the OTTness and how everyone seems to be doing their own version of how to approach the material w/o much guidance. walken owns here, caruso is pretty exceptional, snipes and fishburne are great, victor argo is really good (as probably the only "decent" person in the entire film.) all of ferrara's films have this kind of energy, but i think this distills everything down to the basics nicely.
the graveyard scene is pretty tremendous, you think the film is going to take it from there in one direction but then walken shows up as if anticipating it and just finishes it there. not quite as awesome as the shotgun to the face at the end of 'to live and die in l.a.' but pretty dope regardless.
― omar little, Sunday, 25 March 2012 17:43 (twelve years ago) link
I really appreciate that you caught the levels of "owning," "great," "pretty exceptional," "pretty dope," "really good" ... the kind of discernment I expect from the minds of Cahiers du ILX.
done with film threads now I think, cept for the Snob ones
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 25 March 2012 18:57 (twelve years ago) link
jesus spoilers for TL&DILA tho
― less of the same (darraghmac), Sunday, 25 March 2012 18:58 (twelve years ago) link
SPOILER ALERT xxpost
― omar little, Sunday, 25 March 2012 19:02 (twelve years ago) link
morbs i really hope you don't keep that promise, you would be sorely missed.
― omar little, Sunday, 25 March 2012 19:11 (twelve years ago) link
by me especially
if i had a dollar for every time morbz stormed out of a thread (or type of thread) in a self-righteous huff, only to reappear to later to kvetch some more, i'd be in the 1% with enough to donate to another random ILXor to put him in the 1% as well.
― kurwa mać (Polish for "long life") (Eisbaer), Sunday, 25 March 2012 20:01 (twelve years ago) link
EXCEPT I'VE NEVER BEEN OLDER and felt more like this board is a hueg waste of time.
― Literal Facepalms (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 25 March 2012 20:24 (twelve years ago) link
quod erat demonstratum
― kurwa mać (Polish for "long life") (Eisbaer), Sunday, 25 March 2012 20:33 (twelve years ago) link
how do you storm out of a thread?
― Bo Jackson Overdrive, Sunday, 25 March 2012 21:58 (twelve years ago) link
After reading that essay above I am still unconvinced that KONY has anything to say.
Incidentally I just leared who Joseph Kony is today.
― calstars, Monday, 26 March 2012 00:16 (twelve years ago) link
Her bad things about 4:44, except from those that think its amazing.
I'd like to see it, even if I've never been fully convinced of Abel Ferrara's talents.
― stay in school if you want to kiw (Gukbe), Monday, 26 March 2012 00:18 (twelve years ago) link
35mm print in NYC Monday
http://www.ifccenter.com/films/ms-45/
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 5 May 2013 00:37 (eleven years ago) link
oh sweet. obvs i can't see it but still.
i enjoyed his mulberry st doc.
― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Sunday, 5 May 2013 00:42 (eleven years ago) link
his Depardieu film, taking off from the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case.
http://www.fandor.com/keyframe/daily-abel-ferraras-welcome-to-new-york
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, 12 May 2014 19:09 (ten years ago) link
it's amazing how ppl have talked themselves into thinking jokey sleaze like Ms. 45 is "great"
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 21 June 2014 17:00 (nine years ago) link
which part disqualifies it, the jokiness or the sleaze?
― Kevin from Blechgium (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 21 June 2014 17:06 (nine years ago) link
Is Deparnude coming to the U.S.?
― heavy on their trademark ballads (Eazy), Saturday, 21 June 2014 17:26 (nine years ago) link
it's definitely something, no? it's a mess, and he definitely hasn't developed his talents much yet (not unlike some of cronenberg's earliest stuff in that regard), but i do think it makes an impact that other films don't. the "knowingness" of it isn't very endearing.
i think he's talented and i like a lot of his films (and TV episodes!) but the way that e.g. the french appreciate him gives me pause. that is, as some kind of atavistic modern primitive who represents the soul of urban america or what have you.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Saturday, 21 June 2014 23:00 (nine years ago) link
As someone who's interviewed Ferrara in person (and likes a lot of his movies—seeing Bad Lieutenant at the Angelika when it was brand new, especially coming in the wake of the comparatively ultra-slick King of New York, was like being punched in the face), I gotta say his public image is exactly that. This Nick Pinkerton column from 2013 kinda sums up how I feel, particularly this bit:
Ferrara’s concern with the relationship between surface and subterranean truths is nothing new. In fact, the director’s greatest creation is a character called “Abel Ferrara,” a shambling, grizzled, reckless, perpetually drugged-up walking staph infection who just happens to have lined up financing for and successfully completed the shooting of twenty-some films since 1976—hardly a likely accomplishment if this persona was the whole truth and nothing but, though Ferrara is careful not to let the mask slip before his public.
― Humorist (horse) (誤訳侮辱), Sunday, 22 June 2014 00:26 (nine years ago) link
he isn't the first director to have a persona that's kind of belied by his films.... i just watched the john milius documentary and the guy comes across as a fabulist and self-mythologizer and asshole. it's hard to take his persona at all seriously. for example, the first thing he says in the film is that he isn't a "pure cinema" guy, that he doesn't care about images, that he just wants to tell a story. which may be true but it doesn't explain the best qualities of his films by a long shot.
― I dunno. (amateurist), Sunday, 22 June 2014 02:25 (nine years ago) link
I still was not prepared for Ms 45 being a campfest, that's all.
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 22 June 2014 06:13 (nine years ago) link
Look at what we have here:
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/04/pasolini-review-abel-ferrara-willem-dafoe-venice-film
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 4 September 2014 14:57 (nine years ago) link
got a NYFF ticket for it just now
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 4 September 2014 16:56 (nine years ago) link
looking forward to this one, although i worry a little about the "last days" vampirish approach to the biopic (last 24 hrs etc.)
pretty much none of his films have played my little town for over a decade, so this is another i'll probably have to see on DVD
ferrara is one of those dudes who took a while to earn the accolades (or just the scandal) he achieved pretty early (esp from the french)
― I dunno. (amateurist), Thursday, 4 September 2014 18:36 (nine years ago) link
Morbz look forward to anything you say on this.
Be of some interest to see how much space he gives to the various conspiracies surrounding his death and all.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 4 September 2014 19:52 (nine years ago) link
i kinda don't see him being especially concerned w/ that, and i think interviews suggest same
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 4 September 2014 19:56 (nine years ago) link
ah got it, frankly I wondered if the Xan Brooks piece might've said anything but I despise him so didn't make it beyond the headlines.
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 4 September 2014 20:00 (nine years ago) link
did you guys like the last days on earth one?
― I dunno. (amateurist), Thursday, 4 September 2014 21:04 (nine years ago) link
not seen anything since Go Go Tales (and before that -- Mary? i think i saw and disliked?)
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 4 September 2014 21:10 (nine years ago) link
mary was pretty terrible
i roundly enjoyed the mulberry street doc, he's a born actor really
― I dunno. (amateurist), Thursday, 4 September 2014 21:12 (nine years ago) link
― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Saturday, June 21, 2014 10:00 AM (four years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
lmao of course
ms. 45 one of my favorite movies of all time
― american bradass (BradNelson), Wednesday, 1 May 2019 12:21 (five years ago) link
fair that you were surprised by the overt camp though
― american bradass (BradNelson), Wednesday, 1 May 2019 12:26 (five years ago) link
Saw The Addiction for the first time in ~24 years last night, better than I remembered. Lili Taylor is really committed... and Edie Falco! Julian Schnabel also showed up to extemporize about seeing them shoot the Walken scene in his loft.
If you attend a Q&A during this, be ready for some rambling.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 2 May 2019 20:02 (five years ago) link
Ferrara says his longtime writer, Nicholas St John, would send him the scripts in the mail totally unaannounced. He quit the biz after Dangerous Game and now teaches special-needs kids.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 2 May 2019 20:11 (five years ago) link
Having interviewed the man in 2003/4, yeah, no thanks.
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Thursday, 2 May 2019 20:14 (five years ago) link
His DP was remembering having a rough time being newly sober during Bad Lieutenant, and AF grinned "What, you don't like shooting up with the director?"
btw last night's aud was full of friends/sycophants who applauded every credit
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 2 May 2019 20:19 (five years ago) link
Fear City is a pretty entertaining bad movie. Billy Dee Williams' detective has a lot of invective vs Italians I will not quote here.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 9 May 2019 03:33 (five years ago) link
Nick Pinkerton on Pasolini:
The title role is played by Willem Dafoe, who at the time of filming was five years older than PPP would ever be, and who shares something of the director’s furrowed facial structure. He also embodies Pasolini’s pained intelligence, fingers pressed to his temple as though keeping something at bay. The one big hurdle here is that, while playing one of the major figures of postwar Italian culture, Dafoe is a Wisconsonian with a limited command of Italian. He and Ferrara overcome this problem by not addressing it at all, seemingly making up the linguistic rules as they go along. In the two scenes where he sits for interviews, Pasolini gives his answers in English. He only speaks at length in Italian in the film’s last half hour, during his assignation with Giuseppi “Pino the Frog” Pelosi (Damiano Tamilia), the seventeen-year-old prostitute who is to date the only person to have done time for Pasolini’s death, and who has since testified that there were other parties involved. It’s a strange but ultimately effective choice, for Pasolini aspired to be a transnational figure, and it’s only in his dealing with the boy that the cosmopolitan gives way to the provincial. Pasolini belongs to the world, but it’s Rome that killed him. (Rather more bafflingly, in the version of the film screened at the New York Film Festival, the English subtitling of Italian scenes was somewhat erratic.)
Abel Ferrara has always been more comfortable playing the role of the hood rat than the intellectual—more Pino the Frog than Pasolini—though how much of this act is a hustler’s foxiness is anyone’s guess. His line of BS is obviously effective, as he's traveled Europe with hat in hand to scrape together enough money for Pasolini, which he cowrote with Maurizio Braucci, and the result is recognizably an Abel Ferrara film. The script employs the countdown-to-judgment, death-trip structure that Ferrara has used a number of times before: Bad Lieutenant, ‘R Xmas, 4:44 Last Day on Earth. It’s tempting to attribute this to Ferrara’s Catholicism—the sense that a man is defined by the end of his life, the ritualistic counting down of the Stations of the Cross. Whatever the case, in following his own creative intuition, Ferrara has arrived at something near Pasolini’s own thinking, as per the statement from the latter’s ‘Observations on the Sequence Shot’: “It is only thanks to our death that our life serves to express ourselves.”
http://www.reverseshot.org/reviews/entry/1899/pasolini
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Friday, 10 May 2019 16:11 (five years ago) link
King of NY def has the orange-and-blue thing going on
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 29 May 2019 16:43 (five years ago) link
worth a look on Friday it seems
https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/review-tommaso-both-rues-and-relishes-the-power-of-the-artist/
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 2 June 2020 14:55 (four years ago) link
Pinkerton:
https://www.artforum.com/film/nick-pinkerton-on-abel-ferrara-s-tommaso-2019-83200
― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 11 June 2020 23:04 (three years ago) link
pic.twitter.com/B04XUHibfe— Jesse Hawken (@jessehawken) August 6, 2021
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, 6 August 2021 19:58 (two years ago) link
Best of Abel Ferrara's King of New York commentarypic.twitter.com/bgXeTBrR2F— John Frankensteiner (@JFrankensteiner) September 11, 2021
― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, 13 September 2021 18:29 (two years ago) link
This is not getting the love here, why not?
― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, 14 September 2021 10:13 (two years ago) link
"Lookit his hair. That's the star of this film."
― ... (Eazy), Tuesday, 14 September 2021 16:58 (two years ago) link
Not to stray from that ^^, but didn't realize he'd made another movie with Dafoe, following last year's Tommaso:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KKuxA4sPDk
― ... (Eazy), Tuesday, 14 September 2021 17:14 (two years ago) link
Shit, according to Wikipedia, he's made six movies with Dafoe.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Tuesday, 14 September 2021 17:24 (two years ago) link
I posted the Driller Killer commentary video on the old horror thread and it's funny too
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Tuesday, 14 September 2021 18:12 (two years ago) link
He did a documentary called Napoli Napoli Napoli which I saw in Porto at, like, the only edition of some weird film festival. I remember little of it, except a scene where Ferrara puts on a show in a female prison and there's all these middle aged ladies from Naples looking bemused as he goes through a punk rock cover of "King Of New York".
― Daniel_Rf, Sunday, July 16, 2017 6:34 AM (four years ago) bookmarkflaglink
heres that scene btw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2GeLEhfUqo
― johnny crunch, Monday, 27 December 2021 03:09 (two years ago) link
Was rewatching some Entourage as a pandemic balm, and there’s a great moment when a Herzog-type director has been fired from a major film and Johnny Drama says he could call up Abel Ferrara.
― ... (Eazy), Monday, 27 December 2021 03:22 (two years ago) link
This is one of those threads that makes me worry it's a death revive when it pops up.
― but also fuck you (unperson), Monday, 27 December 2021 16:28 (two years ago) link
A critic I love on a movie I love, even if he misnames her “Thanta.”https://www.artforum.com/film/howard-hampton-on-abel-ferrara-s-ms-45-45920
― Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Sunday, 2 January 2022 17:46 (two years ago) link
They should screen KONY twice - once as is, and once with the DVD commentary track running. Listen to Ferrara call his own work fascist!
― grawlix (unperson), Tuesday, 2 April 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQRzH9BAzks
Handy supercut but it leaves out the last few minutes of this commentary which is um... a vibe?
― feed me with your clicks (Noel Emits), Thursday, 13 January 2022 11:34 (two years ago) link
Not understanding how Keitel found those guys in Bad Lieutenant, I assumed he just picked up two guys and blamed it on them (because he's out of his mind) but wiki plot synopsis says they were the actual rapists
― Robert Adam Gilmour, Friday, 15 April 2022 18:31 (two years ago) link
New Rose Hotel was great! Unusual structure; total rethinking of the cyberpunk aesthetic (which turned out to be more prophetic); Walken letting 'er rip. Was uncomfortable w/ A. Argento's presence but the trail of destruction her character eventually leaves has unforeseen connotations now. Glad I finally got around to this one.
― Chris L, Monday, 5 June 2023 12:55 (eleven months ago) link