damn he is attached to a vers of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_City_of_Z_%28film%29#Planned_film the nyer article by ☂ (max) stan target david grann
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 2 July 2011 19:23 (twelve years ago) link
thought we own the night was super competent & entertaining, looked & sounded great. for all that & getting joaquin & duvall i can deal w/ the story being a lil cliched
didnt know joaquin was attached to the pta scientology thing (actually didnt know that it was back on, guess filming started last month), ~anticipating~
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_%282012_film%29
― johnny crunch, Thursday, 14 July 2011 01:43 (twelve years ago) link
listening to the we own the night commentary -- gray seems awesome & intelligent, references visconti, bertolucci, does great little pleasant impersonations of a lot of the actors
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 16 July 2011 19:43 (twelve years ago) link
Yeah, I said elsewhere (the 2009 detrius thread?) that he's impressively literate for an American director.
― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 16 July 2011 19:45 (twelve years ago) link
word, hes talking abt post-structuralism & louis althusser now
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 16 July 2011 19:48 (twelve years ago) link
Does he say anything about White Nights?
― boxall, Saturday, 16 July 2011 19:50 (twelve years ago) link
nah, talked abt the leopard & just his general use of light, etc
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 16 July 2011 19:54 (twelve years ago) link
http://boxofficemojo.com/images/whitenights_column.jpg
― The Edge of Gloryhole (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 16 July 2011 19:55 (twelve years ago) link
Shame, I figured with the Visconti link he'd have to say something about why he chose to adapt the Dostoevsky story the way he did.
― boxall, Saturday, 16 July 2011 19:58 (twelve years ago) link
i was just googling around for interviews, check this he mentions white nights here, not too in depth tho - http://www.indiewire.com/article/director_james_gray_on_two_lovers/
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 16 July 2011 20:05 (twelve years ago) link
i can see why the yards was a flop, it's pretty bureaucratic & ive read quotes from james gray calling it an "anti-movie", which is interesting. he lets on in the commentary that it kinda taught him 2 make more (or some) concessions 2 the audience
the dvd extras are great -- roundtable discussion w/ gray, wahlberg, theron & caan, 2 commentaries, 1 a conversation btwn gray & soderbergh, & deleted scenes w/ commentary -- all of which were recorded like 5-6 yrs later i think
he also mentions that he did nearly 70 takes on some scenes
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 23 July 2011 21:53 (twelve years ago) link
i bought this thing http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/jg-233.jpg
it's lovely. maybe ill post some interesting tidbits he sez cuz i doubt many other ppl have or will buy this
he calls the scene in vertigo where kim novak is left alone in her apt and looks @ the camera the greatest moment in the history cinema
― johnny crunch, Thursday, 26 January 2012 23:06 (twelve years ago) link
im finally reading this - it's dope
sez he had coppolas "step outline" from the godfather when he made 'little odessa' (i didnt realize he was 23 when he made it)
sez harvey weinstein "made it his business" for him not to get work after 'the yards' tanked
sez 'i had to mace someone who was charging at me on angel dust' when he went on police ridealongs w/ nypd
― johnny crunch, Friday, 2 March 2012 22:45 (twelve years ago) link
what is it??
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Friday, 2 March 2012 23:03 (twelve years ago) link
the book in the above post my man
― johnny crunch, Friday, 2 March 2012 23:04 (twelve years ago) link
interviewing him was awesome
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Friday, 2 March 2012 23:04 (twelve years ago) link
but what is the book? memoirs, essays...?
oh i didnt look hard enough ahha
― A Little Princess btw (s1ocki), Friday, 2 March 2012 23:05 (twelve years ago) link
is it bilingue?
it is indeed en français et anglais
― johnny crunch, Friday, 2 March 2012 23:06 (twelve years ago) link
interviews mostly - w/ him & other ppl involved in each movie
― johnny crunch, Friday, 2 March 2012 23:08 (twelve years ago) link
So I guess this is the James Gray thread indeed. So:
http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/intimate-impressions-a-look-at-the-first-book-on-james-gray
Only finally clicked about this guy in my brain this year so I need to investigate.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 14:20 (eleven years ago) link
james gray made a cognac ad
http://blog.cognac-expert.com/james-gray-rise-above-commercial-cognac-martell-xo/
― johnny crunch, Friday, 12 April 2013 21:08 (eleven years ago) link
Not the first in memoriam profile of Ric Menello, Gray's co-writer on Two Lovers and the upcoming film, but maybe the most amazing. Gray:
Well, what happened was… It’s sort of a sad story, actually. What happened was, he was very reliant on his mother. And she died. And I would talk to him and he would say things like, [in Menello’s voice] “I have macular degeneration. I’m going blind.” I said, “Menello, you’re going blind?” “Yes, I look at the Amsler Grid on the Internet.” I was like, “What are you talking about? The Amsler Grid? What is that?” “I looked at it and I’m going blind!” So I would say, “Menello, you know, you’re not going blind.” I had a car come get him and take him to the ophthalmologist. The ophthalmologist called me and said, “Mr. Gray, his eyes are completely fine.” He obviously was having a kind of mental breakdown, and then it became sort of official that he had this mental breakdown after his mother’s death, and he was institutionalized for a while.
And then, Rick Rubin and, I believe, Owen Wilson, and I sort of split three ways his rent for a year—and this guy, Adam Dubin, who was also very helpful, from N.Y.U. We split his rent and moved him into an apartment in Brooklyn after he was released from the hospital. And I felt that I needed to do something to help him. So when I started doing “Two Lovers,” I found myself calling him and just reading him scenes. And he would make suggestions, and sometimes I didn’t like them but sometimes I did, and then I would say, “Well, what movie is this like?” and he would say, “I saw this once in a movie.” Or, better yet, if he’d say “I’ve never seen it in a movie,” you knew you were doing really well.
And I thought, at the end of the process, Well, if I put this guy on as the co-writer, he gets half the money and he gets into the W.G.A. and he gets health benefits, which would really help him, because he was in bad shape. So I did that, and he got half the money, and the benefits, and the residuals, and all that stuff. So when the new movie that I did, “Lowlife,” came around, for me it was a no-brainer to split the credit and to keep the health benefits rolling, and he was very helpful. I’d read him stuff over the phone and he would comment, and, again, direct me to other movies I should look at and works of art that I should know about.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/movies/2013/03/in-memory-of-ric-menello.html
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 24 April 2013 01:42 (eleven years ago) link
!
And he said, “Do you remember when I first saw Two Lovers and I said I thought it came out way better than I thought, I really was proud of it?” I said, “Yeah.” And he said, “This grinds it into the dust. If I ever get remembered for one thing, I'd be happy if it was this. It was great. It looks like an epic, it moves, everything works. I'm so happy about it.”
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 24 April 2013 02:26 (eleven years ago) link
re: lowlife
now apparently retitled The Immigrant
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 24 April 2013 02:29 (eleven years ago) link
o right
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 24 April 2013 02:30 (eleven years ago) link
yeah that's a lovely piece. two lovers blows though.
― daft on the causes of punk (schlump), Wednesday, 24 April 2013 03:16 (eleven years ago) link
The Immigrant, formerly Lowlife, has much to admire in it but is ultimately too artificial to move me. Cotillard as Falconetti, Phoenix as Brando, Jeremy Renner as Richard Basehart in La Strada.
Gray is a very funny guy in Q&A tho.
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Monday, 7 October 2013 00:41 (ten years ago) link
long interview:
http://mubi.com/notebook/posts/love-sincerity-a-conversation-with-james-gray
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Monday, 7 October 2013 01:56 (ten years ago) link
such a smart guy
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 7 October 2013 02:12 (ten years ago) link
btw unless my eyes deceived me, Lincoln Center digitally projected this even tho it was shot on 35mm.
"I have three young children, and I kind of stopped going to movies in 2006. I go to see some, but I'm a little bit out of touch, and I didn't know who Marion Cotillard was," said Gray. "I had become friendly with her boyfriend, and we went out to dinner in Paris and I met her, and she and I started arguing about an actor that she thought was overrated, and she threw a piece of bread at my head and she mentioned that she thought I was a jerk. I thought she had a great face, and not just physically beautiful because she is, but a haunted quality, almost like a silent film actress…"
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Monday, 7 October 2013 14:37 (ten years ago) link
]The Yards holds up. He should work with Phoenix and Wahlberg in perpetuity.
― the objections to Drake from non-REAL HIPHOP people (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 21:52 (ten years ago) link
Really want The Lost City of Z to happen. http://dlvr.it/46P6fx
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Wednesday, 9 October 2013 22:19 (ten years ago) link
ooh Cumberbatch
― Number None, Wednesday, 9 October 2013 22:28 (ten years ago) link
new movie playing at Miami International Film Festival this afternoon.
― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 8 March 2014 13:24 (ten years ago) link
Interesting. My favorite thing about Two Lovers are the 2 separate-- but connected- moments in which a character (different character each time) fleetingly, piercingly, enigmatically looks into the camera. Those fourth-wall breaks were a surprise in an otherwise 'realist' film; I found them resonant and moving.
I think of Summer with Monika and, especially, Nights of Cabiria (that look into the camera is for me one of the greatest cinematic moments ever). But what I liked & found original about the 2 Lovers instances (IIRC) is how fleeting they are (one is so fleeting one might well not catch it), and that it's two moments (one midway, one at the end), two characters-- the film leaves one pondering the links and parallels between those two separate instances-- between those two particular moments as experienced by those two characters.
Spoiler: one look is given by Paltrow's character, during or after the clinch on the roof, IIRC as Phoenix is declaring his love to her; the other is given by Phoenix's character at the end, settled on the couch beside his loving new girlfriend.
I usually dislike Paltrow, but I've got to give her credit here, she was very good (especially in that moment/ look).
― drash, Saturday, 8 March 2014 14:25 (ten years ago) link
James Gay
― AIDS (Hungry4Ass), Saturday, 8 March 2014 14:50 (ten years ago) link
watched the 1st ep of the sundance thing 'the red road' that he directed - it really painfully pales in comparison 2 true detective
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 8 March 2014 16:57 (ten years ago) link
obv that really had nothing to do w him
― johnny crunch, Saturday, 8 March 2014 16:58 (ten years ago) link
http://blogs.indiewire.com/theplaylist/interview-james-gray-discusses-harvey-weinstein-his-cinematic-influences-his-career-much-more-20140515
― johnny crunch, Thursday, 15 May 2014 19:26 (nine years ago) link
whither Gray's The Immigrant at the box office?
http://filmcomment.com/entry/bombast-the-punishment-continues
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Friday, 6 June 2014 20:02 (nine years ago) link
I thought I started a thread on The Immigrant or if I stuck thoughts on the current movies thread.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 6 June 2014 20:08 (nine years ago) link
essay kind of leaves promotion (or the lack thereof) out of the "whither" question. it's not like weinstein's putting much muscle behind the movie.
― da croupier, Friday, 6 June 2014 21:18 (nine years ago) link
gratuitous swipe at Pitchfork's Soundgarden review too.
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 6 June 2014 21:23 (nine years ago) link
Traditionally, the hidden “cost” of releasing a film, beyond initial outlay of budget or acquisition, was Prints & Advertising (P & A), so one would think that the much-ballyhooed switch to DCP projection would reduce this overhead considerably, now that the cost of striking prints and shipping them in huge metal canisters that you could club a bull elephant to death with has been cut out of the equation, and movies are shipped on detachable hard drives or ZIP discs or Google Glass or whatever it is.
the key word is ADVERTISING in p&a, and the weinsteins are notoriously thrifty for films they're not planning to storm the oscars with
― da croupier, Friday, 6 June 2014 21:24 (nine years ago) link
if someone's to be bitched out for this movie underwhelming at the box office it's not critics or audiences but the company that's supposed to tell audiences that THE CRITICS HAVE SPOKEN in big full-page ads, especially if they're going to put the movie out in may.
― da croupier, Friday, 6 June 2014 21:31 (nine years ago) link
they def couldve prob gotten more buzz releasing it in dec or w/e and releasing it more broadly but idk its p flawed, its not gonna do great word of mouth imo; at least this time of year the elderly (~95% of the audience when i saw it) can get out of their assisted living complex w/o slipping on ice and breaking a hip
― johnny crunch, Friday, 6 June 2014 21:38 (nine years ago) link
The Weinsteins have done it before with far worse movies (and I think it's close to a great movie, big flaw notwithstanding).
― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 6 June 2014 21:39 (nine years ago) link
James Gray on The Cinephiliacs: http://www.thecinephiliacs.net/2015/07/episode-61-james-gray-nights-of-cabiria.html
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Monday, 6 July 2015 17:16 (eight years ago) link
he is always so good in interviews
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 8 July 2015 01:05 (eight years ago) link
Lengthy profile/feature in new Film Comment on his imminent The Lost City of Z (April 14, US). Shot on 35mm, hoping I get to see it that way...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWba-ZuXlkY
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 15 March 2017 19:22 (seven years ago) link
David Ehrlich last fall:
If not for the ineffably modern hollowness of Charlie Hunnam’s speaking voice, or the distinct rind of 21st century celebrity that still clings to co-star Robert Pattinson like the dying traces of yesterday’s cologne, someone could easily be fooled into thinking that “The Lost City of Z” was shot 40 years ago. In fact, that might be the greatest compliment a viewer could pay writer-director James Gray (“The Immigrant”), a man who seems increasingly determined to revive the glory days of our national cinema, when movies were pictures and auteurs were mavericks. Gray pulls from the past as liberally as Quentin Tarantino, but without the ego — he doesn’t try to process his influences through the slaughterhouse of his own fetishes, he simply wants to Make American Movies Great Again.
http://www.indiewire.com/2016/10/the-lost-city-of-z-review-robert-pattinson-james-gray-nyff-2016-1201737045/
― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 15 March 2017 20:10 (seven years ago) link
oh hey, 35mm sneak in NYC, JG attending (Apr 12)
http://metrograph.com/series/series/81/james-gray
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 16 March 2017 16:20 (seven years ago) link
The film is opening the MSPIFF, and I'm torqued.
― insidious assymetrical weapons (Eric H.), Thursday, 16 March 2017 16:21 (seven years ago) link
shd prob start a general Gray thread
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 16 March 2017 16:22 (seven years ago) link
NYC "event" tix for Lost City 35mm now on sale
http://metrograph.com/events/
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Friday, 24 March 2017 17:55 (seven years ago) link
I liked this one pretty well, maybe second to Two Lovers or even better -- very different films. He suggested he was trying to make a 'woke' David Lean film, and he succeeded at least partly. My chief gripe might be i couldn't understand 20-30% of what Hunnam and Pattinson were saying. Has one of the best WWI trench warfare sequences i can recall, at least since Kubrick.
Gray was characteristically hilarious in the Q&A, doing impressions of everyone from Darius Khondji to stars-that got-away Cumberbatch and Pitt (the latter: "Jimmy Jam! I can't wait anymore") to a woman on the MPAA appeal panel ("This REEEalistic violence worries us as PEERents").
― Supercreditor (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 13 April 2017 20:44 (seven years ago) link
https://thefilmstage.com/features/james-gray-on-ad-astra-cannes-woes-harvey-weinstein-and-the-only-way-cinema-can-be-reinvented/
― johnny crunch, Sunday, 9 December 2018 21:47 (five years ago) link
He seems like a nice fellow. I like his refusal to state the merits of his own movies.
― resident hack (Simon H.), Sunday, 9 December 2018 22:16 (five years ago) link