Tag Archive
Lisztomania
There’s a famous story about how Paddy Chayefsky, screenwriter of Network, who had it in his contract that none of the dialogue that he wrote for Altered States could be changed. That presented a problem for any director brave enough to tackle the speech and science heavy material and still assert themselves on the set, […]
Youth in Revolt
Exploring the sexuality of teenagers is, for some fuzzy moralistic reason, a faux pas. We can acknowledge as a society that young boys and girls have sexual thoughts, and once they pass puberty, those thoughts dominate their lives, even if they don’t know how to deal with them. Teenage sexual desire is a universal feeling, […]
Brüno
The major reason that Freddy Got Fingered was such a failure had nothing to do with it being offensive or gross. If anything, the juxtaposition of Tom Green looking like a very plain, gee-whiz Canadian as he fellates a cow’s nipples is what makes him funny in the first place (especially on his original MTV […]
Zabriskie Point
Here’s the idea behind “A Canadian, an American, a Lawyer, and an Elitist”: Rhett’s favorite movie is Meatballs 4, Shawn has an unhealthy fixation on Resident Evil, Richard scoffs at anything that isn’t pretentious and hoity toity, and Adam is a prick who hates everything. We all watch far too many movies, and spend our […]
Me and Him
True film connoisseurs are eminently familiar with the later works of director Bob Clark, when he took a right turn from his popular early horror and exploitation titles like Black Christmas and Porky’s and chose to follow in the footsteps of his classic A Christmas Story by exclusively exploring the younger market. His most notable […]
Observe and Report
Usually, when a director misreads his film and the audience reaction is the opposite of what is intended, it means he’s made a drama that’s ineffective enough that it has become comedy. In the case of the new Seth Rogen vehicle Observe and Report, writer/director Jody Hill has made what he thinks is a comedy […]