Peter Bogdanovich, threshing machine

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.