yeah, taht FO'C recording is a corker.
Dourif looks really scary in shots like that.
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 13 May 2009 21:31 (fourteen years ago) link
from francine prose's essay on wise blood
In the preface to a second edition of Wise Blood, O’Connor made her novel’s stance toward the life-and-death nature of Christianity unmistakably clear, even for those readers who saw the story’s grotesqueness without quite catching its gravity. Huston himself seems to have been one such reader, persuaded throughout the filming of the unmediated comedy of Hazel’s obsession, until Dourif questioned him about the meaning of the last scenes. Without giving anything away, it seems safe to say that the dark plot turns considerably darker as Hazel, the prophet of the Church Without Christ—“where the blind don’t see and the lame don’t walk and what’s dead stays that way”—takes an exceedingly sharp turn toward Jesus. The Fitzgeralds had believed all along that they were making a film about redemption and salvation, but Huston had been under the impression that he was shooting a picture about the semi-ridiculous religious manias prevalent throughout the South. According to Huston biographer Lawrence Grobel, a hasty script conference about Hazel’s fate persuaded Huston that at “the end of the film, Jesus wins.”
it's true, in o'connor jesus always wins
wonder what huston's film would've been like if he realized this at the get-go
― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Wednesday, 13 May 2009 21:32 (fourteen years ago) link
maybe less heavyhanded use of the Tennessee Waltz
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 13 May 2009 21:33 (fourteen years ago) link
nice William Hickey death scene in this
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 13 May 2009 21:34 (fourteen years ago) link
^ should be a sticker on the DVD cover ^
I remember having an argument with a college lit professor about whether the misfit in "a good man is hard to find" is a christ figure
"more like antichrist!" she said, but I thought she had missed the point
― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Wednesday, 13 May 2009 21:36 (fourteen years ago) link
so morbs has the total immersion in wise blood improved yr opinion of it?
― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Wednesday, 13 May 2009 21:38 (fourteen years ago) link
I AM THE CHURCH OF CHRIST WITHOUT CHRIST
damm, wld love to luxuriate in that criterion edition of WISE BLOOD - the UK (and I'm guessing, US too) DVD of TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE has a really excellent commentary by Eric Lax, wld recommend that
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 13 May 2009 21:40 (fourteen years ago) link
will say the decision to move the setting from post-WWII to post-Nam (which isn't even obvious at first) did seem odd to me.
― da croupier, Wednesday, 13 May 2009 21:42 (fourteen years ago) link
no Edw, I think it's good and carried by career BD performance, but ppl like J Rosenbaum who say it might be Huston's best befuddle me.
The film was shot for about a million dollars w/ nonunion crew. They DO use '40s/'50s stuff (cars, train, clothes) AND shot in obviously contemporary Macon GA. Using $ limitations as time-tripping surrealism.
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 13 May 2009 21:56 (fourteen years ago) link
yeah, post WWII = $$$
kinda wish somebody would do another version fully true to period but it would be so easy to fuck up
calling it huston's best is big crazytalk but it is the oddball jewel in his filmog
― 鬼の手 (Edward III), Wednesday, 13 May 2009 22:05 (fourteen years ago) link
no Edw, I think it's good and carried by career BD performance, but ppl like J Rosenbaum who say it might be Huston's best befuddle me.The film was shot for about a million dollars w/ nonunion crew. They DO use '40s/'50s stuff (cars, train, clothes) AND shot in obviously contemporary Macon GA. Using $ limitations as time-tripping surrealism.
cf. Blue Velvet
― M.V., Wednesday, 13 May 2009 23:47 (fourteen years ago) link
I really don't think Enoch (Dan Shor) works that well off the page.
― Dr Morbius, Thursday, 14 May 2009 01:37 (fourteen years ago) link
Waiting for Alexander Payne to direct The Violent Bear It Away.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 14 May 2009 01:50 (fourteen years ago) link
his moby dick is surely as good a version as anyone will ever do, and is still prob my favorite huston without bogart in it.
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 14 May 2009 02:36 (fourteen years ago) link
Gregory Peck gives it the ol' college try, but the miscasting sinks (heh) the picture for me.
Orson Welle's monologue, though, is one the best things Welles (and Huston) ever did.
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 14 May 2009 02:38 (fourteen years ago) link
*Welles
i knew alfred was gonna post within two minutes and say just that!!
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Thursday, 14 May 2009 02:43 (fourteen years ago) link
You gotta keep me from posting shit like that!
― Bud Huxtable (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 14 May 2009 02:56 (fourteen years ago) link
Fat City suffers a little from Susan Tyrrell's hamming and the gritty-loserville oppressiveness, but it gets great in the last 3 sequences. Also, Jeff Bridges is adorable.
― A Patch on Blazing Saddles (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 1 October 2009 03:58 (fourteen years ago) link
<3 The Man Who Would Be King <3
― ice cr?m paint job (milo z), Thursday, 1 October 2009 04:54 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, she was a little too much. Kind of a hammy Ruth Gordon/Anne Meara performance. I liked Jeff Bridges expression when Stacey Keach insulted him at the end. What show did you see? I was at the 9:30.
― Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Hamletmachine (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 1 October 2009 16:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Somebody walking out was asking what was going on when SK had his Tony Soprano moment at the end and the camera froze and the sound died. I assumed it was the brain damage briefly kicking in, although maybe it was just a moment of philosophical contemplation.
― Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Hamletmachine (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 1 October 2009 16:51 (fourteen years ago) link
susan tyrrell is awesome, i don't think the role of trainwreck barfly calls for understatement
― velko, Thursday, 1 October 2009 17:00 (fourteen years ago) link
I think it's a moment of clarity, SK realizing that he is the burnouts he's surrounded by, or will be before long. And agree 100% with velko on Susan Tyrell. She's fucking awesome, and not at all unrealistic.
― That's not just me saying that, that's the Pentagon. (contenderizer), Thursday, 1 October 2009 17:06 (fourteen years ago) link
She's TOO realistic!
― Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Hamletmachine (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 1 October 2009 17:12 (fourteen years ago) link
I couldn't understand why either of even THOSE two guys would listen to her! She got the first Screech-Owl Oscar Nomination subsequently bestowed on Diane Ladd and Jennifer Tilly.
JR, I had totally forgotten about that non-freeze-frame moment, and apparently it was "a moment of philosophical contemplation" -- it was 2am on the set and Huston had a vision:
"Have you ever been at a party when for no reason everybody just stops? When all of a sudden it's all a tableau; you're alone in eternity for a moment? When Stacy turns around, I want everybody to just stop what they're doing." "Why, John?" Keach asked. "I have no idea," Huston answered. "Sometimes the devil just gets into me" "We can just freeze frame," Russ Saunders, the assistant director, suggested. "No, no, no," John said. "I want the cigarette smoke to continue going. I don't want it to look like a stock frame. I just want everybody to stop" (In Grobel, 1989: 638).
http://www.kinema.uwaterloo.ca/article.php?id=167&feature
I think Keach saw his certain fate flash before him. Huston wanted Brando (at 47) for that role!Nicholas "Coach" Colasanto is splendid in it.
Longish 1972 Roy Blount piece in SI:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/features/2001/movies/reviews/fat_city/
― A Patch on Blazing Saddles (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 1 October 2009 17:30 (fourteen years ago) link
Stacy Keach is a very charmless actor too. Kael said that Susan Tyrell's perf was a perfect example of one so awful that it deserves an Oscar nod (Tyrell got one).
― Roman Polanski now sleeps in prison. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, 1 October 2009 18:18 (fourteen years ago) link
the performance is very Cassavetes-ish, so her not liking it is very much in character
― velko, Thursday, 1 October 2009 18:43 (fourteen years ago) link
oh yeah, add Gena Rowlands to that Oscar Excess list for aWUtI.
― A Patch on Blazing Saddles (Dr Morbius), Thursday, 1 October 2009 19:45 (fourteen years ago) link
Sit your rass down, Mabel!
"I want the cigarette smoke to continue going. I don't want it to look like a stock frame. I just want everybody to stop"
― Get Up (I Feel Like Being A) Hamletmachine (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 1 October 2009 20:05 (fourteen years ago) link
For Morbs, the Queen Killer.
― filling the medicare donut hole with the semen of liberal (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 24 March 2010 14:55 (fourteen years ago) link
Thought this was going to be about The Prowler, which he co-produced with Sam Spiegel and starred his ex-wife Evelyn Keyes.
― Ole Rastaquouère (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 24 March 2010 14:59 (fourteen years ago) link
Morbs was married?
― filling the medicare donut hole with the semen of liberal (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 24 March 2010 14:59 (fourteen years ago) link
You'll have to ask him yourself.
― Ole Rastaquouère (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 24 March 2010 15:02 (fourteen years ago) link
(I also can't sit still through the African Queen, nor Mogambo)
― Ole Rastaquouère (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 24 March 2010 15:03 (fourteen years ago) link
TAQ sposedly looks great now, so I'll probably look at it again eventually despite my indifference.
I anticipate seeing The Prowler tom'w.
― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 24 March 2010 15:06 (fourteen years ago) link
TAQ is terrible
Wise Blood is tops tho
― famous for hating everything (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 24 March 2010 16:03 (fourteen years ago) link
Totally cornball, and the opening scenes with Robert Morley are practically camp, but this is still massively entertaining -- maybe the only time I'll accept two great actors giving broad, self-parodic performances.
― filling the medicare donut hole with the semen of liberal (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, 28 March 2010 21:40 (fourteen years ago) link
Has anyone present seen Let there Be Light? Quite something.
― Interior shop day an eager customer enters (admrl), Thursday, 30 September 2010 06:12 (thirteen years ago) link
this treasure of the sierra madre bluray is BUTTER.
― candid gamera (s1ocki), Tuesday, 2 November 2010 01:35 (thirteen years ago) link
god the ending is so wonderfully bleak, almost existentialist... just them laughing at the meaningless and chaos as the wind howls...
― candid gamera (s1ocki), Tuesday, 2 November 2010 01:36 (thirteen years ago) link
I think Treasure is one of those movies you "have" to see that isn't really all that good when it comes down to it (it's all denoument, and weighed down by its racism).
Don't get this at all.
― sandra lee, gimme your alcohol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 2 November 2010 01:38 (thirteen years ago) link
ya wtf
― candid gamera (s1ocki), Tuesday, 2 November 2010 01:38 (thirteen years ago) link
That it's glib in parts and weighed down by Tim Holt's blank performance and Max Steiner's music I can take; but Bogart's decline is beautifully done (he's genuinely scary; his eyes light up more intensely every time he says "Fred C. Dobbs"), and watching him hunt Holt down as Holt slips into exhaustion gets under my skin every time.
― sandra lee, gimme your alcohol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 2 November 2010 01:41 (thirteen years ago) link
well what's great is that it barely even IS a decline... you realize that's kind of how he's been since the beginning, his mask of civility has just slipped. i also really like how he rationalizes it to the end, acting like he's the real victim. reminded me of some conservative mofos i could think of
― candid gamera (s1ocki), Tuesday, 2 November 2010 01:43 (thirteen years ago) link
also that bar fight is great eh... no music, just an awkward, uncomfortable, horrible fight
― candid gamera (s1ocki), Tuesday, 2 November 2010 01:44 (thirteen years ago) link
i also like how the town at the beginning feels like this purgatory, full of these shambling lost souls who can't escape
Pauline Kael said the town scenes represent the best twenty-minute sequence Huston ever directed.
― sandra lee, gimme your alcohol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 2 November 2010 01:45 (thirteen years ago) link
they are really quite amazing. great great opening.
― candid gamera (s1ocki), Tuesday, 2 November 2010 01:46 (thirteen years ago) link
well what's great is that it barely even IS a decline... you realize that's kind of how he's been since the beginning, his mask of civility has just slipped. i also really like how he rationalizes it to the end, acting like he's the real victim.
Yeah, and the beauty of Bogart's performance is you can believe he was once a pretty honorable guy, and still remembers to be one when the occasion demands it.
― sandra lee, gimme your alcohol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 2 November 2010 01:47 (thirteen years ago) link
TIL that MGM put out a Blaxploitation remake of The Asphalt Jungle entitled Cool Breeze in 1972.
Trailer:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhh-QTFyWuk
Film:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWlOo3GKcTQ
― an icon of a worried-looking, long-haired, bespectacled man (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 14 March 2023 22:34 (one year ago) link