MovieSnob

You Can't See Every Debut, Dept.: I recently saw Paul Thomas Anderson's 2021 comedy-drama, Licorice Pizza. Like most of PTA's work, it's meandering, pointless, filled with characters of varying eccentricity and appeal…y'know…much like your life. And I can't help but love it.

The film, set in 1970s ~~Los Angeles~~ San Bernadino, CA, is apparently based on real-life events of child actor (and later movie/TV producer) Gary Goetzman. Alana Kane, a young Jewish woman in her mid-twenties (played by newcomer Alana Haim) while working as a photographer's assistant meets Gary Valentine, an ambitious high-school student and professional actor (played by newcomer Cooper Hoffman) at his school on Photo Day. While waiting in line for his turn he asks her out for a drink, which amuses the older Alana. The film then follows them in their lives together and separately, how their relationship progresses, ebbs and flows…y'know…much like your life. When Gary sabotages his acting career on live television—he's one of the child actors in a show suspiciously like Yours, Mine and Ours with Christine Ebersole as someone suspiciously like Lucille Ball—he doesn't miss a beat in inventing new entrepreneurial ventures and with each, insists on involving Alana.

There are surprise appearances by Bradley Cooper who plays a disturbingly hilarious Jon Peters (Barbra Streisand's boyfriend, as he's wont to point out), Sean Penn as Jack Holden, a fictional famous actor and Tom Waits as fictional famous Hollywood director Rex Blau.

In fact, the driving force behind this movie is the performances by all involved, especially the lead roles. The performances are commanding enough to draw you into their stream-of-consciousness world and keep you there regardless of the complete lack of a plot…y'know…

~Edit~ ~2023-07-05_7:35~ ~GMT+01~

Continuing my rant started here…

'The Flash' and Other Mediocre Movies Won't Stop Superhero Fatigue - Variety

I'm stunned that the moviegoing public has stomached 15 years[^1] of what amounts to eternal-copyright-renewing stuntman showreels, masks and ~~leotards~~ gimp suits, epilepsy-inducing editing and yet more unconvincing 3-D animation…y'know?…instead of, say, interesting concepts translated to scripts and good acting. Then again, there are no less than five (so far) Transformers movies and the Star Wars juggernaut continues on so what do I know?

While we're at it, as if the first version of Justice League wasn't a big enough stinker, they had to release a four-hour "Director's Cut" to address…well, I'm not quite sure…redoing the bad 3D with different bad 3D? According to my friend and yours, Wikipedia…

critics praised Snyder's direction, visual style, action sequences, performances, improved characterizations, musical score, and balance of emotional weight and humor

Huh! Excepting action sequences, I hadn't noticed any of those in either version. It's a ▋▋▋▋▋▋▋ superhero movie, not Citizen Kane! In any case, Mr. Snyder, I want my four hours back.

[^1]: According to Wikipedia, the Marvel Cinematic Universe started with the first Iron Man movie (2008). So I guess we're not counting the three Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies…nor the three X-Men movies…nor the three Blade movies…nor the moneymaking turds Hulk and Daredevil. That, kids, is what's known as cherry-picking. Ugh, why am I feeling all shaky and nauseated?

I was having a conversation with my attorney the other day regarding cinema (specifically violent cinema) which left me slightly perplexed. Would you put A Clockwork Orange (1971) in the same bin as The Devil's Rejects (2005)? From my POV, that's like putting Rosenquist's F-111 in the same category with ~~an ambulance chaser~~ a personal injury lawyer billboard.

Side-note: the linked Roger Ebert review of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange amuses me as I would have guessed that of all people, the co-author of the screenplay of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, he would have at minimum understood if not outright championed Kubrick's 1971 release. The other amusing thing about his review is that I would have written a very similar critique instead for movies like, say, The Devil's Rejects!

^Photo:^ ^Stanley^ ^Kubrick,^ ^Public^ ^domain,^ ^via^ ^Wikimedia^ ^Commons^^.^

It was love at first sight.

A distinct and singular presence in cinema. Good night, Mr. Arkin, you will be sorely missed.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/782360

Original link to Gizmodo: Spielberg and Scorsese May Have Just Saved TCM From Zaslav's Destructive Warpath

Directors Martin Scorsese (L) and Steven Spielberg attend the 12th Annual AFI Awards held at the Four Seasons Hotel Los Angeles at Beverly Hills on January 13, 2012

Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, along with Paul Thomas Anderson, will now be part-time stewards of Turner Classic Movies alongside Warner Bros. film execs Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy. Photo: Frazer Harrison (Getty Images)

Cinephile’s cherished Turner Classic Movies was slated to be Warner Bros. Discovery’s latest amputation of beloved content. Out of the blue, famed directors Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Thomas Anderson stepped up to bat for the classic cinema channel. Now it seems the three have managed to hold Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav back, so long as they stay on to curate and promote TCM content.

According to Variety, the three famed directors will now be the public curators of TCM. In addition, Charles Tabesh—the longtime executive in charge of TCM’s programming lineup—will stay on after initial reports claimed he would get the boot. He will now be reporting to Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy, dual CEOs of Warner Bros. Film Group.

In a joint statement, Spielberg, Scorsese, and Andersen said they are already working with De Luca and Abdy. They also dropped a tithe at grand lord Zaslav’s feet, saying that this arrangement reflects the CEO’s “commitment to honoring the TCM legacy while also involving us on curation and programming.” The three said that the whole team is going to work on “preserving TCM’s mission of celebrating our rich movie history while at the same time ensuring that future generations of filmmakers and film lovers have TCM as a valuable resource.”

The two Film Group execs alongside the directors will all share in the curation duties. In that shared statement, De Luca and Abdy said they intend to “enhance TCM’s on-air programming.” There are very few content streams that try to curate and collect classic cinema. There’s Gizmodo’s own pick The Criterion Channel, but TCM streaming on Max is also a strong source for looking at the films of yesteryear. Without defunct services like Filmstruck, there truly are limited options for cinephiles who lack a large video collection.

Apparently, it takes three Hollywood heavy hitters to stymie Zaslav’s post-merger cost-cutting crusade. IndieWire first reported last week that the directors scheduled an emergency call with Zaslav to contest the layoffs and lead the charge for TCM’s future. The three originally claimed they had been “encouraged” by those discussions, but as is always the case in Hollywood, good feelings don’t necessarily result in positive outcomes. In this case, it seems that clout has won out.

Zaslav’s tenure has seen massive disruptions for Warner Bros. Discovery’s massive content slate. There was the Batgirl movie debacle, major cuts to the company’s animated content, not to mention the controversial move to combine HBO and Discovery content into one streaming service called “Max.” Despite becoming the de-facto antagonist to writers and fans alike, Variety reported Wednesday that Zaslav has been invited to join the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Welcome to the big time, Zaz.

Link: Angela Bassett, Mel Brooks Get Honorary Oscars at Governors Awards - Variety

The funniest man in the world. And so underrated, so unrecognized. That's a joke, son.

Courtesy of the Internet Archive, 1964's The Critic.

~Photo courtesy of Towpilot, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons~

The bomb's kitchen timer for is set for three minutes, an unidentified man plants it on a parked car and runs off. We then float above the buildings and witness two-and-a-half minutes of a leisurely stroll toward the Mexico/USA border, the car idly cruises down the Mexican side streets, coinciding with a (newlywed) couple's stroll toward the same checkpoint. The blonde in the car: "Hey...Hey! I got this ticking noise—"

Although I strongly suggest you see Welles' Touch of Evil first, see also Wolfcrow's excellent analysis of the film's other long shot, as nofilmschool's Justin Morrow put it, "hidden in plain sight."

Welcome to [email protected]. My hope here is to create a community to discuss, debate, and celebrate the history of cinema, with emphasis on—but not exclusively—the groundbreaking, avant garde and experimental (i.e., Cheesehead cheesemaker Zack Snyder fans need not apply), with a healthy dose of irreverence instead of the usual navel-gazing that usually surrounds cineastic appreciation.

An extemporaneous, incomplete list in no particular order to set the tone: Kubrick Hitchcock Welles Lynch Lee Wilder Scorsese Waters Eisenstein Jodorowsky Deren Anderson Warhol Buñuel Refn Pasolini…you know…some of the usual suspects. Feel free to add yours!

Just to start us off here's one of the masters at work, Luis Buñuel's L'Age D'or.

Unless Memmy is bugging, it looks like there’s 0 posts here! Here’s some questions to get the ball rolling:

What’re some favorites? Favorite movie? Actor, director, cinematographer?

What have you seen recently?

Do you collect physical media? What’re your best cops?