GoNola.com has published Edward Branley's "NOLA History: Movies Set and Shot in New Orleans" which offers interesting tidbits on EASY RIDER, THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, and THE CINCINNATI KID.
All the Grisham films mentioned in the piece will be discussed in this space soon, but next up is INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE, mysteriously unavailable from Netflix for a long time but today a brand new blu-ray appeared in my mailbox. Was this the film that made Brad Pitt fall in love with New Orleans? Does it make you feel old to realize the film is nearly 25 years old? (Yes!)
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Some thoughts on this blog…
Hello, Randy here.
I started this because I wanted other filmmakers to have a resource that'd let them peruse the history of NOLA-made films pre-Hollywood South, and quickly be able to identify the films with the most relevance to whatever they're working on. In other words, the resource that I wish I had!
You could say I'm watching all these films so you don't have to.
However, I never wanted to do film reviews, and I'm afraid maybe that's what this is turning into. I won my first journalism awards for film criticism, it's a form I really love, but others do it better. This blog is supposed to break down with I think certain films did right or wrong in how they used New Orleans on screen.
It's supposed to have actionable insight for filmmakers to consider regarding their own projects.
It's supposed to discuss precedents for various storytelling techniques.
It's supposed to examine how to mount a local film production that uses NOLA's energy and chaos to its advantage, instead of trying to lock it down and control it like Hollywood prefers.
I think maybe it's gotten too far away from that. Fortunately, I'm almost done with all the major features shot and/or set here. I think. I discover more all the time. Keep 'em coming!
Anyway, regarding the content of this blog, what say you? Please leave a Comment about what you liked and/or didn't about the blog so far, and what you'd like to see in terms of laying out a blueprint for independent film production using Essential NOLA Films (those lists on the right) as role models.
Thanx!
_R
I started this because I wanted other filmmakers to have a resource that'd let them peruse the history of NOLA-made films pre-Hollywood South, and quickly be able to identify the films with the most relevance to whatever they're working on. In other words, the resource that I wish I had!
You could say I'm watching all these films so you don't have to.
However, I never wanted to do film reviews, and I'm afraid maybe that's what this is turning into. I won my first journalism awards for film criticism, it's a form I really love, but others do it better. This blog is supposed to break down with I think certain films did right or wrong in how they used New Orleans on screen.
It's supposed to have actionable insight for filmmakers to consider regarding their own projects.
It's supposed to discuss precedents for various storytelling techniques.
It's supposed to examine how to mount a local film production that uses NOLA's energy and chaos to its advantage, instead of trying to lock it down and control it like Hollywood prefers.
I think maybe it's gotten too far away from that. Fortunately, I'm almost done with all the major features shot and/or set here. I think. I discover more all the time. Keep 'em coming!
Anyway, regarding the content of this blog, what say you? Please leave a Comment about what you liked and/or didn't about the blog so far, and what you'd like to see in terms of laying out a blueprint for independent film production using Essential NOLA Films (those lists on the right) as role models.
Thanx!
_R
PRETTY BABY is one for the creepers, uh I mean, ages
Louis Malle's PRETTY BABY (1978) is set largely in an uptown brothel around the turn of the century; Brooke Shields plays the 12-year-old lead character. If this set-up suggests troubling possibilities to you, well, you've read the film's mind, because it dives right into all of them and then some. Child prostitution, auctioning off virgins, you name it, it happens. Most shockingly, this stuff is often celebrated by the characters, as people of that world did in that time and place. The film's depiction is so deadpan that when it was released people accused it of promoting child pornography (spoiler alert: it doesn't).
The great Polly Platt wrote the script and produced it. Platt should be considered a towering figure in 70s cinema, having been a major player on dozens of timeless classics, and rarely making a misstep. However, institutionalized sexism, ahoy.
The film's New Orleans content is pretty thin in terms of geography and exteriors, seeing as how it's largely set inside. But PRETTY BABY truly nails the New Orleans personality types, especially among the women in the brothel, a colorful set of ne'er-do-wells spanning four generations. The madame in particular stands out as the apotheosis of every bar owner I've ever met in NOLA, male or female.
PRETTY BABY: excellent film, but not Essential NOLA Cinema.
NEXT: IINTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE which I've been avoiding successfully for 24 years. Sigh.
The great Polly Platt wrote the script and produced it. Platt should be considered a towering figure in 70s cinema, having been a major player on dozens of timeless classics, and rarely making a misstep. However, institutionalized sexism, ahoy.
The film's New Orleans content is pretty thin in terms of geography and exteriors, seeing as how it's largely set inside. But PRETTY BABY truly nails the New Orleans personality types, especially among the women in the brothel, a colorful set of ne'er-do-wells spanning four generations. The madame in particular stands out as the apotheosis of every bar owner I've ever met in NOLA, male or female.
PRETTY BABY: excellent film, but not Essential NOLA Cinema.
NEXT: IINTERVIEW WITH A VAMPIRE which I've been avoiding successfully for 24 years. Sigh.
Thursday, June 26, 2014
HARD TARGET will leave you Woo-zy
Where to begin with HARD TARGET? Storytelling is not John Woo's strong suit. This might be why he murders the screenwriter in the opening scene. Really— the writer plays the film's first victim (the audience plays the 2nd).
Hot off HARD BOILED, one of the best action films ever, Woo came to Hollywood eager to blow minds. To say he out-Wooed himself in HT is an understatement. When a guy's foot goes through a rotting floor board, it takes Woo 9 cuts (I counted) to show this fraction-of-a-second-long event. 3 of those cuts are in slo-mo, of course. Most of the movie is shot and cut this way. It's exhausting as fuck.
The good news is that HT is hilarious (often unintentionally) and watchable (despite itself) and more than qualifies for inclusion as Essential NOLA Cinema. The opening set piece that introduces JCVD takes place in Cafe Brazil; in fact, it's the same cafe set that was used in FLAKES, making me wonder when Ude actually bought the place (both films were shot pre-Katrina although FLAKES was released after). Look for the amazing wide-angle shot of JCVD's mullet with the Apple Barrel's now-covered-by-Dat-Dog mural dwarfing him.
As if that wasn't enough early-90's Frenchmen St, there is an insane (as in completely incoherent) shoot-out that takes place down the block at the corner of Decatur. It features guys with Uzis on motorcycles, Arnold Vosloo from THE MUMMY wielding a shotgun, and enough machine gun fire to destroy the living shit out of Mona's and Vaso.
There is also some business dealing with the city's homeless population and police department that is actually handled intelligently and with respect. One must assume the 2nd Unit did all that, because 75% of the movie is hyper-spastic adolescent action cut with a disorienting slo-mo/fast-mo rhythm that obliterates all temporal and spatial continuity.
Then, just when you think it can't get any crazier, the film jumps to the bayou, and this happens—
Wilford Fucking Brimley as "Uncle Duvet" (technically Douvee but c'mon we're not stupid) goes John-Rambo-in-FIRST-BLOOD on an army of baddies using only an old shotgun, dynamite, and the power of his mustache. (We Hate Movies did a riotous segment on this)
The finale happens in Blain Kern's Mardi Gras World warehouse on the West Bank, and if anyone's made a John Woo parody sequence, I doubt it can be any funnier than this, the real thing. One of Woo's goddamn doves actually fights on JCVD's side; we know they're buddies because earlier in the film it provided him with a helpful clue. I'm not making any of that up.
NEXT: Louis Malle's PRETTY BABY (1978), by request.
Hot off HARD BOILED, one of the best action films ever, Woo came to Hollywood eager to blow minds. To say he out-Wooed himself in HT is an understatement. When a guy's foot goes through a rotting floor board, it takes Woo 9 cuts (I counted) to show this fraction-of-a-second-long event. 3 of those cuts are in slo-mo, of course. Most of the movie is shot and cut this way. It's exhausting as fuck.
The good news is that HT is hilarious (often unintentionally) and watchable (despite itself) and more than qualifies for inclusion as Essential NOLA Cinema. The opening set piece that introduces JCVD takes place in Cafe Brazil; in fact, it's the same cafe set that was used in FLAKES, making me wonder when Ude actually bought the place (both films were shot pre-Katrina although FLAKES was released after). Look for the amazing wide-angle shot of JCVD's mullet with the Apple Barrel's now-covered-by-Dat-Dog mural dwarfing him.
As if that wasn't enough early-90's Frenchmen St, there is an insane (as in completely incoherent) shoot-out that takes place down the block at the corner of Decatur. It features guys with Uzis on motorcycles, Arnold Vosloo from THE MUMMY wielding a shotgun, and enough machine gun fire to destroy the living shit out of Mona's and Vaso.
There is also some business dealing with the city's homeless population and police department that is actually handled intelligently and with respect. One must assume the 2nd Unit did all that, because 75% of the movie is hyper-spastic adolescent action cut with a disorienting slo-mo/fast-mo rhythm that obliterates all temporal and spatial continuity.
Then, just when you think it can't get any crazier, the film jumps to the bayou, and this happens—
Wilford Fucking Brimley as "Uncle Duvet" (technically Douvee but c'mon we're not stupid) goes John-Rambo-in-FIRST-BLOOD on an army of baddies using only an old shotgun, dynamite, and the power of his mustache. (We Hate Movies did a riotous segment on this)
The finale happens in Blain Kern's Mardi Gras World warehouse on the West Bank, and if anyone's made a John Woo parody sequence, I doubt it can be any funnier than this, the real thing. One of Woo's goddamn doves actually fights on JCVD's side; we know they're buddies because earlier in the film it provided him with a helpful clue. I'm not making any of that up.
NEXT: Louis Malle's PRETTY BABY (1978), by request.
Monday, June 23, 2014
Paul Stekler's History of NOLA Documentaries
Documentarian Paul Stekler has published a pretty comprehensive history of documentary filmmaking in New Orleans. He was part of the NOVAC-generation of transplants ('71 onward) and recently returned to make GETTING BACK TO ABNORMAL (2011).
The only omission in the article I'm aware of is Rick Delaup's awesome RUTHIE THE DUCK GIRL (1998) which was edited by the ubiquitous Tim Watson (mentioned throughout Stekler's article). RUTHIE is my favorite documentary about New Orleans precisely for the reason Stekler touches on in his introduction:
"New Orleans is no stranger to being depicted on film. Images of Mardi Gras, jazz musicians, and parades are familiar to most Americans." [emphasis mine]
He's right, and that's actually a huge problem for the city. The clichés he lists are tired, threadbare, inexcusably hokey, and extremely narrow. It would be like if every film in St. Louis is set on the Gateway Arch, or every film in South Dakota set on Mount Rushmore. Fighting against the tradition of depicting New Orleans as a stereotype is why I make movies here and why I started this blog.
"From Panic in the Streets to the Mardi Gras acid-trip scene in Easy Rider to Cat People, Down by Law, and David Simon’s HBO series 'Treme,' New Orleans frequently appears on screen."
I also disagree with this. It's a very minor point, but his examples belie his assertion. The films he lists are separated by over a decade each, except for CP and DBL which are both '80s. A comprehensive timeline of NOLA cinema (ie. stories set here) would show that even with extremely generous criteria that includes little-seen independent films, until 2007 only one film was made every ~3-4 years here.
I promise to attempt to create that comprehensive timeline in a future post.
I love Stekler's photo in front of Schiro's. I eat there all the time and set several scenes from my upcoming film LAUNDRY DAY in it. It appears to have only changed for the better in the last 30 years.
NEXT: 1993's HARD TARGET. It'll make you Woo-zy.
The only omission in the article I'm aware of is Rick Delaup's awesome RUTHIE THE DUCK GIRL (1998) which was edited by the ubiquitous Tim Watson (mentioned throughout Stekler's article). RUTHIE is my favorite documentary about New Orleans precisely for the reason Stekler touches on in his introduction:
"New Orleans is no stranger to being depicted on film. Images of Mardi Gras, jazz musicians, and parades are familiar to most Americans." [emphasis mine]
He's right, and that's actually a huge problem for the city. The clichés he lists are tired, threadbare, inexcusably hokey, and extremely narrow. It would be like if every film in St. Louis is set on the Gateway Arch, or every film in South Dakota set on Mount Rushmore. Fighting against the tradition of depicting New Orleans as a stereotype is why I make movies here and why I started this blog.
"From Panic in the Streets to the Mardi Gras acid-trip scene in Easy Rider to Cat People, Down by Law, and David Simon’s HBO series 'Treme,' New Orleans frequently appears on screen."
I also disagree with this. It's a very minor point, but his examples belie his assertion. The films he lists are separated by over a decade each, except for CP and DBL which are both '80s. A comprehensive timeline of NOLA cinema (ie. stories set here) would show that even with extremely generous criteria that includes little-seen independent films, until 2007 only one film was made every ~3-4 years here.
I promise to attempt to create that comprehensive timeline in a future post.
I love Stekler's photo in front of Schiro's. I eat there all the time and set several scenes from my upcoming film LAUNDRY DAY in it. It appears to have only changed for the better in the last 30 years.
NEXT: 1993's HARD TARGET. It'll make you Woo-zy.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
Did THE BIG EASY invent Hollywood South?
I put it off, I made excuses, I kept moving it to the bottom of my queue, then forgot I had it when it arrived. Most movies about New Orleans are so obscure as to be discoveries, but I've been hearing shit-talk about THE BIG EASY (1987) since the day I got here, and I wanted no part of it.
Well, it ain't THAT bad.
As a film it's got a solid script from Dan Petrie Jr (best known to contemporary screenwriters as a President of the WGA and writer of BEVERLY HILLS COP) and Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin at the apex of their popularity and charm. There's a really interesting love triangle in the story's center: cop-boss-mom. Quaid's accent— often cited one of the worst ever—is not inaccurate so much as terribly inconsistent scene to scene (it's miles ahead of Kevin Costner's in ROBIN HOOD, to give it the World's Tallest Midget Award). All in all it's a C+ with a few B+ moments and goes down painlessly.
New Orleans residents are tough on films. As they should be; perhaps they sense the real motivations of Hollywood productions— insincerity at worst, tourist depth of affection at best. But as fatalism is our native religion, being used comes with the territory. Gallows humor and eye-rolling are the main weapons of resistance… if we're not trying to get in on the lucre-flow our politicians laud. And we never see ourselves up there on the silver screen.
Where did this begin? To what moment can we draw a line from "Hollywood South" productions like THIS IS THE END, STOLEN, and so on? It begins with THE BIG EASY.
THE BIG EASY invented the template that Hollywood South is based on.
Consider— it was written for Chicago… and moved at the last minute for budget reasons. Its story has zero details, characters, settings, or devices that can only be found here. It is, basically, an "anywhere USA" story plunked into New Orleans to take advantage of cheap production value and lazy exotica.
What makes this different from other New Orleans films up to that point is the suitability of New Orleans to the setting. CAT PEOPLE (1982) is a mess but as a conceit New Orleans is the only American city it could plausibly take place in, and its sexual/horror vibe fits well. KING CREOLE (1958) is not an Elvis movie so much as a Hal Wallis film that Elvis got cast in, and as such was written around the city, not the King. Even ANGEL HEART (1987)— same year as THE BIG EASY and is based on a novel that takes place entirely in New York City— is about a subject matter (voodoo) that actually makes more sense here.
And maybe that's why locals hate the film so much— it opened the flood gates for thrillers in the 90s like HEAVEN'S PRISONERS that could have been set anywhere, which then led to the tax incentive program (third time's the charm!) that's given us bloated nonsense like 22 JUMP STREET and THE GREEN HORNET and GERIATRIC WORLD (er, JURASSIC WORLD) which cleverly funnels money into the pockets of out-of-towners and depletes film resources for indigenous films.
Then everyone wonders why the city hasn't produced a single successful filmmaker… or film. Thanks, THE BIG EASY!
…On the other hand, it was the first film ever sold at Sundance (true story). So we have THAT to thank it for, too. Maybe Pandora's Box was actually Ellen Barkin's.
Well, it ain't THAT bad.
As a film it's got a solid script from Dan Petrie Jr (best known to contemporary screenwriters as a President of the WGA and writer of BEVERLY HILLS COP) and Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin at the apex of their popularity and charm. There's a really interesting love triangle in the story's center: cop-boss-mom. Quaid's accent— often cited one of the worst ever—is not inaccurate so much as terribly inconsistent scene to scene (it's miles ahead of Kevin Costner's in ROBIN HOOD, to give it the World's Tallest Midget Award). All in all it's a C+ with a few B+ moments and goes down painlessly.
New Orleans residents are tough on films. As they should be; perhaps they sense the real motivations of Hollywood productions— insincerity at worst, tourist depth of affection at best. But as fatalism is our native religion, being used comes with the territory. Gallows humor and eye-rolling are the main weapons of resistance… if we're not trying to get in on the lucre-flow our politicians laud. And we never see ourselves up there on the silver screen.
Where did this begin? To what moment can we draw a line from "Hollywood South" productions like THIS IS THE END, STOLEN, and so on? It begins with THE BIG EASY.
THE BIG EASY invented the template that Hollywood South is based on.
Consider— it was written for Chicago… and moved at the last minute for budget reasons. Its story has zero details, characters, settings, or devices that can only be found here. It is, basically, an "anywhere USA" story plunked into New Orleans to take advantage of cheap production value and lazy exotica.
What makes this different from other New Orleans films up to that point is the suitability of New Orleans to the setting. CAT PEOPLE (1982) is a mess but as a conceit New Orleans is the only American city it could plausibly take place in, and its sexual/horror vibe fits well. KING CREOLE (1958) is not an Elvis movie so much as a Hal Wallis film that Elvis got cast in, and as such was written around the city, not the King. Even ANGEL HEART (1987)— same year as THE BIG EASY and is based on a novel that takes place entirely in New York City— is about a subject matter (voodoo) that actually makes more sense here.
And maybe that's why locals hate the film so much— it opened the flood gates for thrillers in the 90s like HEAVEN'S PRISONERS that could have been set anywhere, which then led to the tax incentive program (third time's the charm!) that's given us bloated nonsense like 22 JUMP STREET and THE GREEN HORNET and GERIATRIC WORLD (er, JURASSIC WORLD) which cleverly funnels money into the pockets of out-of-towners and depletes film resources for indigenous films.
Then everyone wonders why the city hasn't produced a single successful filmmaker… or film. Thanks, THE BIG EASY!
…On the other hand, it was the first film ever sold at Sundance (true story). So we have THAT to thank it for, too. Maybe Pandora's Box was actually Ellen Barkin's.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Four Generations of Half-Assed NOLA Filmmaking
I've been catching up on reader suggestions for Essential NOLA films. Here's a quick overview, in chronological order.
KING CREOLE (1958)
Full disclosure: I've never seen an Elvis film before. But of course I'd seen countless clips from pastel kitsch like ROUSTABOUT and CLAMBAKE on tv. So I was not prepared for the somber, elegant B&W of KING CREOLE's opening credits, and my jaw hit the floor when I saw the names behind the film— Hal Wallis and Michael Curtiz, the producer and director of CASABLANCA, both Oscar-winners.
The film's not CASABLANCA good, but it is in most ways an excellently written, superbly acted, perfectly directed French Quarter gangster film. Elvis himself completely inhabits a high school ne'er-do-well caught between family disputes, financial imperatives, and bigwig machinations. Most impressively, he plays him without a trace of vanity or irony; he's completely believable. Unfortunately, the screenplay runs out of ideas about 85% into the natural arc of the story, and abruptly just ends, like they ran out of film or something. But for capturing the French Quarter in the 1950s so realistically and its right-from-the-streets cast of characters, it is Essential NOLA Cinema.
CAT PEOPLE (1982)
Paul Schrader's erotic-horror film is better than history remembers it, but worse than its cult following would have you believe. A spiritual predecessor to Michael Almereyda's HAPPY HERE AND NOW (2002; I'll be writing about it soon) in that it evokes a creepy yet sexual atmosphere, leans heavily on genuine NOLA geography and architecture, then adds half-baked fantasy elements, dubious interior sets, and cheesy music (Tangerine Dream and Vangelis have ruined more movies than Chris Tucker).
It adds up to a mess, but a pleasing mess than never stops entertaining, even as it flops between genuine quality and so-bad-its-good train wreck. See it because Nastassja Kinski's house is across from my old apartment on the corner of Bourbon and Esplanade. (Note: the We Hate Movies podcast has a fantastic take-down of this film that is both exhaustive and fair.)
HEAVEN'S PRISONERS (1996)
This Phil Joanou bomb won 2 Razzies and is most known as how Teri Hatcher lost her credibility after rocketing to fame in "Lois & Clark." All of that is unfair and unjustified: this is actually a solid, ambitious thriller that never quite pulls off a delicate balancing act. It wants to be "LA CONFIDENTIAL in the French Quarter" but its slick, commercial-yet-kind-of-cheesy style undermines its gravitas and sets the film on the wrong footing.
It opens with a long sequence out of a made-for-tv movie: Alec Baldwin saves a child from a sinking airplane that crashes in a lake while he's sailing. It's standard Hollywood heroics but it turns out that the film is going for the exact opposite of that— Baldwin is in fact playing a thick-headed recovering alcoholic of dim intelligence and real human vulnerability. This fact takes over a half hour to be established, but when it finally does, the screenplay then takes our dumb, obsessed lug and really puts the screws to him in a way that's organic and suspenseful. By the time we enter the finale, it is as dark and distressing as Paul Schrader's AFFLICTION (high praise). Essential? Borderline. Recommended? Yes.
STOLEN (2012)
Ah, Hollywood South. Maybe the only thing worse than a NOLA-shot Hollywood film is a NOLA-shot Hollywood film that wants to cast New Orleans as itself. STOLEN reteams the muscle behind CON AIR, director Simon West and French Quarter resident Nick Cage in a criminal-must-rescue-daughter/heist film. Basically a straight-to-video rip-off of TAKEN, except it's better than TAKEN, because in its corner-cutting it made some interesting choices: the whole film takes place in ~10 hours (including the prologue and epilogue), and Cage actually turns in a grounded, vanity-free performance that's so far from BAD LIEUTENANT it's hard to believe it's the same actor.
Which is not to say STOLEN is good: West is a third-tier Tony Scott and the script is second-rate. The decision to set the story 1) on Mardi Gras Day (!!) and 2) hide the daughter in an active taxi cab (?!?) results in some astounding moments of unintentional comedy, like when Cage meets a colleague in a totally empty Checkpoint Charlie's, or when the villain's cab drives up to a Mardi Gras parade's barricades on Canal Street and stops in surprise, as if the parade dropped out of the sky, or that a car could get within a half mile of Canal on Fat Tuesday. You can play a drinking game by spotting the same set of 12 extras in costume they used in the background of shots on Frenchmen Street. Despite the good cast and Cage's performance, STOLEN is recommended only as a dumb diversion or for lulz.
KING CREOLE (1958)
Full disclosure: I've never seen an Elvis film before. But of course I'd seen countless clips from pastel kitsch like ROUSTABOUT and CLAMBAKE on tv. So I was not prepared for the somber, elegant B&W of KING CREOLE's opening credits, and my jaw hit the floor when I saw the names behind the film— Hal Wallis and Michael Curtiz, the producer and director of CASABLANCA, both Oscar-winners.
The film's not CASABLANCA good, but it is in most ways an excellently written, superbly acted, perfectly directed French Quarter gangster film. Elvis himself completely inhabits a high school ne'er-do-well caught between family disputes, financial imperatives, and bigwig machinations. Most impressively, he plays him without a trace of vanity or irony; he's completely believable. Unfortunately, the screenplay runs out of ideas about 85% into the natural arc of the story, and abruptly just ends, like they ran out of film or something. But for capturing the French Quarter in the 1950s so realistically and its right-from-the-streets cast of characters, it is Essential NOLA Cinema.
CAT PEOPLE (1982)
Paul Schrader's erotic-horror film is better than history remembers it, but worse than its cult following would have you believe. A spiritual predecessor to Michael Almereyda's HAPPY HERE AND NOW (2002; I'll be writing about it soon) in that it evokes a creepy yet sexual atmosphere, leans heavily on genuine NOLA geography and architecture, then adds half-baked fantasy elements, dubious interior sets, and cheesy music (Tangerine Dream and Vangelis have ruined more movies than Chris Tucker).
It adds up to a mess, but a pleasing mess than never stops entertaining, even as it flops between genuine quality and so-bad-its-good train wreck. See it because Nastassja Kinski's house is across from my old apartment on the corner of Bourbon and Esplanade. (Note: the We Hate Movies podcast has a fantastic take-down of this film that is both exhaustive and fair.)
HEAVEN'S PRISONERS (1996)
This Phil Joanou bomb won 2 Razzies and is most known as how Teri Hatcher lost her credibility after rocketing to fame in "Lois & Clark." All of that is unfair and unjustified: this is actually a solid, ambitious thriller that never quite pulls off a delicate balancing act. It wants to be "LA CONFIDENTIAL in the French Quarter" but its slick, commercial-yet-kind-of-cheesy style undermines its gravitas and sets the film on the wrong footing.
It opens with a long sequence out of a made-for-tv movie: Alec Baldwin saves a child from a sinking airplane that crashes in a lake while he's sailing. It's standard Hollywood heroics but it turns out that the film is going for the exact opposite of that— Baldwin is in fact playing a thick-headed recovering alcoholic of dim intelligence and real human vulnerability. This fact takes over a half hour to be established, but when it finally does, the screenplay then takes our dumb, obsessed lug and really puts the screws to him in a way that's organic and suspenseful. By the time we enter the finale, it is as dark and distressing as Paul Schrader's AFFLICTION (high praise). Essential? Borderline. Recommended? Yes.
STOLEN (2012)
Ah, Hollywood South. Maybe the only thing worse than a NOLA-shot Hollywood film is a NOLA-shot Hollywood film that wants to cast New Orleans as itself. STOLEN reteams the muscle behind CON AIR, director Simon West and French Quarter resident Nick Cage in a criminal-must-rescue-daughter/heist film. Basically a straight-to-video rip-off of TAKEN, except it's better than TAKEN, because in its corner-cutting it made some interesting choices: the whole film takes place in ~10 hours (including the prologue and epilogue), and Cage actually turns in a grounded, vanity-free performance that's so far from BAD LIEUTENANT it's hard to believe it's the same actor.
Which is not to say STOLEN is good: West is a third-tier Tony Scott and the script is second-rate. The decision to set the story 1) on Mardi Gras Day (!!) and 2) hide the daughter in an active taxi cab (?!?) results in some astounding moments of unintentional comedy, like when Cage meets a colleague in a totally empty Checkpoint Charlie's, or when the villain's cab drives up to a Mardi Gras parade's barricades on Canal Street and stops in surprise, as if the parade dropped out of the sky, or that a car could get within a half mile of Canal on Fat Tuesday. You can play a drinking game by spotting the same set of 12 extras in costume they used in the background of shots on Frenchmen Street. Despite the good cast and Cage's performance, STOLEN is recommended only as a dumb diversion or for lulz.
Saturday, May 10, 2014
Rule #1— Soberbergh on Scorcese's AFTER HOURS
Rule #1 of talking about movies— If you've said it well, Steven Soderbergh has said it better.
Soderbergh on Scorcese's comic gem AFTER HOURS
AFTER HOURS is a low budget film from Scorcese's out-of-fashion mid-80s period, when he was in film jail for NEW YORK NEW YORK and in his humility made my 2 favorite films of his, both jet-black comedies: THE KING OF COMEDY and AFTER HOURS.
As Soderbergh points out, everything that makes AFTER HOURS work is cheap if not free for the indie filmmaker— perfectly cast talent in the lead, a great screenplay, and clever limits on scope: 1 day, all at night, with the focus on great, off-balancing supporting roles.
"Great screenplay" is a term thrown around a lot (indiewood vampire John Sloss dropped it on twitter earlier today, in fact) so pay special attention to Sodernbergh's breakdown of what that means:
"The way information is doled out in this film is fucking masterful, an absolute clinic in implication and inference—none of the key events that drive the story forward and fuck with the main character occur onscreen—and the math of plotting is absolutely airtight. "
Let's all be so aspired and inspired.
Soderbergh on Scorcese's comic gem AFTER HOURS
AFTER HOURS is a low budget film from Scorcese's out-of-fashion mid-80s period, when he was in film jail for NEW YORK NEW YORK and in his humility made my 2 favorite films of his, both jet-black comedies: THE KING OF COMEDY and AFTER HOURS.
As Soderbergh points out, everything that makes AFTER HOURS work is cheap if not free for the indie filmmaker— perfectly cast talent in the lead, a great screenplay, and clever limits on scope: 1 day, all at night, with the focus on great, off-balancing supporting roles.
"Great screenplay" is a term thrown around a lot (indiewood vampire John Sloss dropped it on twitter earlier today, in fact) so pay special attention to Sodernbergh's breakdown of what that means:
"The way information is doled out in this film is fucking masterful, an absolute clinic in implication and inference—none of the key events that drive the story forward and fuck with the main character occur onscreen—and the math of plotting is absolutely airtight. "
Let's all be so aspired and inspired.
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Humans behaving badly: FAVOR + CHEAP THRILLS offer blueprints for recession-era storytelling
FAVOR is Paul Osborne's self-released thriller-cum-dark comedy, about a typical suburban yuppie who calls on a childhood pal for the ultimate favor. Complications ensue, and the thriller premise reveals a social satire core that skewers materialism, conspicuous consumption, and the growing divide between Haves and Have-Nots. It's not a perfect film, the ending in particular stands out as weak, but FAVOR is a good example of how a low-budget film be fascinating: by putting enough work into the screenplay that the themes and plot twists become the "sizzle." Rent or Buy FAVOR on iTunes
FAVOR suggests if you scratch a successful yuppie, you'll find a terrified, panicky animal— E.L. Katz's CHEAP THRILLS goes even further, suggesting fear is how we stay low in the food chain while the 1% amuse themselves with our pain. Pat Healy plays an everyman (it's easy to imagine him as FAVOR's hero ten years ago) who stops in a bar for a much-needed beer, runs into an old pal making ends meet as a small-time criminal, and ends up in an escalating series of dares and stunts for a coke-addled rich couple. Healy is great, David Koechner will likely never get a better role, and Ethan Embry (remember him?!) is unrecognizable as Healy's ne'er-do-well pal. If I see a movie I like more in 2014, this is gonna be a great year for film. Rent or Buy CHEAP THRILLS on iTunes
THE TAKE-AWAY— Both FAVOR and CHEAP THRILLS have a cast of 5-6, take place in 3-4 locations, and have Ø special effects, car crashes, or aliens. Yet you can't turn your eyes away. Why? Because there's almost nothing more watchable than humans behaving badly. Likewise, both are clever using the universality of money (stress) to keep us relating and engaged even as the stakes escalate past all standards of sanity. New Orleans indie cinema doesn't need to fall back on "genre" elements (eg. vampires, T&A, etc) if it has a smart screenplay that understands the entertainment value of people at their worst and the universality of the pressures that make them so.
Housekeeping— on the Top Ten list, I replaced JFK with Eddie Jemison & Sean Richardson's THE KING OF HERRINGS, which is playing next week at Indywood. JFK will definitely make the "Next 20" list, which I will post soon.
FAVOR suggests if you scratch a successful yuppie, you'll find a terrified, panicky animal— E.L. Katz's CHEAP THRILLS goes even further, suggesting fear is how we stay low in the food chain while the 1% amuse themselves with our pain. Pat Healy plays an everyman (it's easy to imagine him as FAVOR's hero ten years ago) who stops in a bar for a much-needed beer, runs into an old pal making ends meet as a small-time criminal, and ends up in an escalating series of dares and stunts for a coke-addled rich couple. Healy is great, David Koechner will likely never get a better role, and Ethan Embry (remember him?!) is unrecognizable as Healy's ne'er-do-well pal. If I see a movie I like more in 2014, this is gonna be a great year for film. Rent or Buy CHEAP THRILLS on iTunes
THE TAKE-AWAY— Both FAVOR and CHEAP THRILLS have a cast of 5-6, take place in 3-4 locations, and have Ø special effects, car crashes, or aliens. Yet you can't turn your eyes away. Why? Because there's almost nothing more watchable than humans behaving badly. Likewise, both are clever using the universality of money (stress) to keep us relating and engaged even as the stakes escalate past all standards of sanity. New Orleans indie cinema doesn't need to fall back on "genre" elements (eg. vampires, T&A, etc) if it has a smart screenplay that understands the entertainment value of people at their worst and the universality of the pressures that make them so.
Housekeeping— on the Top Ten list, I replaced JFK with Eddie Jemison & Sean Richardson's THE KING OF HERRINGS, which is playing next week at Indywood. JFK will definitely make the "Next 20" list, which I will post soon.
Saturday, April 26, 2014
A love song for "A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG" (for Bobby Long)
This is the first post examining a film on the Top Ten list on the right and why it's essential to NOLA filmmaking. (Expect at least 9 more. ;-) You may have noticed an change to the list— I replaced DEJA VU with THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON, because while the former is the first post-Katrina feature completed in NOLA, the latter is a better template for filmmakers as its story has more actionable lessons.
A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG was ignored and abandoned upon release. Made in the "Bob Yari era" of indie cinema (2004), it has all the hallmarks of the time: over-budgeted, movie stars cast against type and working for scale, first-time director (Shainee Gabel, also adapting an unpublished novel), edgy content with an incongruously happy ending.
Ironically, the reason the film probably failed— weird, shamelessly self-destructive alcoholics living hand-to-mouth in a southern slum— is why it is Essential NOLA Cinema. To the Straight Square World (ie the non-NOLA part of America; eg America) these people are disgusting. To us, they are our friends and neighbors (and often, our heroes and their opposite, our politicians). What's the shock of disgust to them is the shock of recognition to us.
At least, that's what happened with me: I first saw the film as advanced sneak peek in LA at the William Morris screening room. I loved lots about its direction, music, and style, but I didn't "get it" in most respects, not until I moved to NOLA in '06 and saw it again. (In the Q&A at WM, I learned the film was a WMA "package" meaning that the agency repped all the stars and director, and financed it (with Yari, of course, under the "El Camino Pictures" banner which was a short-lived partnership with WM), and took a packaging fee (really a producers fee) instead of the usual percentages. Acquisition press release)
WHAT IT GETS RIGHT—
The characters are dead authentic. The settings (Algiers, with Bywater pillar Bud Rip's standing in as their local watering hole) are great. The story has a disarmingly languid rhythm but its episodic feel is just slight of hand. The decisions of the characters, their motivations, foibles, and reactions, are equal parts fascinating, funny, and tragic. The cinematography is outstanding. Above all, it gets NOLA time right. Time does not follow calendars in NOLA, it is fundamentally different here, all periods of American life exist simulateously. David Simon's "Treme" worked so hard to get details right but failed hard because its premise fundamentally misunderstood the flow of NOLA time. This film gets it right.
WHAT IT DOESN'T—
There's 2 main problems, the casting and the ending, and how fatal these are varies widely among people I've talked to. Scarlett Johansson performs her role well but never takes the chances necessary to make the character authentic to her circumstances— Gabel shares the blame here, because her character would realistically be much more like, for instance, Lindsay Roberts' character in Craig Brewer's THE POOR & HUNGRY. A genuinely run-down, feral performance would've complimented Travolta's complete, vanity-free immersion in the title character. The ending is complete miscalculation, probably designed as a commercial hedge against the ugliness of the prior 90 minutes, which obviously didn't work. (It also might be the result of too much fealty to the novel.)
THE TAKE-AWAY—
Making good films about NOLA requires not just authentic characters and places, but organic plot, meaning actions consistent with character, and progress, developments, reversals, etc that happen in NOLA time, not calendar time, according to the unique logic of the town and the people in it. But as this film proves, you don't need much more than that, either. At the end of the day, it's a "people in rooms talking" film but it never feels small or cheap or dull because the characters and what they're saying is so original and compelling.
Personally, I think it's one of the best films ever made about here. An easy addition to the Top 10 list.
A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG is playing at Indywood tonight at 7p, Sun 4/27 at 3:30p, Mon 4/28 at 2p, Tues 4/29 at 930p, and Wed 4/30 at 6p.
A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG was ignored and abandoned upon release. Made in the "Bob Yari era" of indie cinema (2004), it has all the hallmarks of the time: over-budgeted, movie stars cast against type and working for scale, first-time director (Shainee Gabel, also adapting an unpublished novel), edgy content with an incongruously happy ending.
Ironically, the reason the film probably failed— weird, shamelessly self-destructive alcoholics living hand-to-mouth in a southern slum— is why it is Essential NOLA Cinema. To the Straight Square World (ie the non-NOLA part of America; eg America) these people are disgusting. To us, they are our friends and neighbors (and often, our heroes and their opposite, our politicians). What's the shock of disgust to them is the shock of recognition to us.
At least, that's what happened with me: I first saw the film as advanced sneak peek in LA at the William Morris screening room. I loved lots about its direction, music, and style, but I didn't "get it" in most respects, not until I moved to NOLA in '06 and saw it again. (In the Q&A at WM, I learned the film was a WMA "package" meaning that the agency repped all the stars and director, and financed it (with Yari, of course, under the "El Camino Pictures" banner which was a short-lived partnership with WM), and took a packaging fee (really a producers fee) instead of the usual percentages. Acquisition press release)
WHAT IT GETS RIGHT—
The characters are dead authentic. The settings (Algiers, with Bywater pillar Bud Rip's standing in as their local watering hole) are great. The story has a disarmingly languid rhythm but its episodic feel is just slight of hand. The decisions of the characters, their motivations, foibles, and reactions, are equal parts fascinating, funny, and tragic. The cinematography is outstanding. Above all, it gets NOLA time right. Time does not follow calendars in NOLA, it is fundamentally different here, all periods of American life exist simulateously. David Simon's "Treme" worked so hard to get details right but failed hard because its premise fundamentally misunderstood the flow of NOLA time. This film gets it right.
WHAT IT DOESN'T—
There's 2 main problems, the casting and the ending, and how fatal these are varies widely among people I've talked to. Scarlett Johansson performs her role well but never takes the chances necessary to make the character authentic to her circumstances— Gabel shares the blame here, because her character would realistically be much more like, for instance, Lindsay Roberts' character in Craig Brewer's THE POOR & HUNGRY. A genuinely run-down, feral performance would've complimented Travolta's complete, vanity-free immersion in the title character. The ending is complete miscalculation, probably designed as a commercial hedge against the ugliness of the prior 90 minutes, which obviously didn't work. (It also might be the result of too much fealty to the novel.)
THE TAKE-AWAY—
Making good films about NOLA requires not just authentic characters and places, but organic plot, meaning actions consistent with character, and progress, developments, reversals, etc that happen in NOLA time, not calendar time, according to the unique logic of the town and the people in it. But as this film proves, you don't need much more than that, either. At the end of the day, it's a "people in rooms talking" film but it never feels small or cheap or dull because the characters and what they're saying is so original and compelling.
Personally, I think it's one of the best films ever made about here. An easy addition to the Top 10 list.
A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG is playing at Indywood tonight at 7p, Sun 4/27 at 3:30p, Mon 4/28 at 2p, Tues 4/29 at 930p, and Wed 4/30 at 6p.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Welcome!
Let's talk about New Orleans cinema, and by that I mean, stories set in or about New Orleans told in narrative cinema (no tv or web, although we'll most likely touch on a few documentaries along the way).
By far the most unusual, idiosyncratic city in America, somehow NOLA's cinematic legacy is weak. Weak in quantity, weak in quantity. This is baffling. I want to look at the history of NOLA cinema and get a discussion started on questions like:
Why are so few films set in NOLA any good? Is the track record as bad as it looks from a glance?
What is it about NOLA that resists easy adaptation?
What can NOLA filmmakers learn from the successes and failures in NOLA's cinematic past?
With all the hype around "Hollywood South" where is the indigenous filmmaking community?
Is it possible to tell original NOLA stories without compromising method or content to mainstream America?
Is it possible to elevate the role of cinema in a city so fundamentally musical and culinary?
To the right are 2 TOP TEN lists, one for features and one for documentaries. They are intended as provocation and stimulus, and I will be revising the lists regularly as I watch more films set in NOLA.
To date, I have not seen KID CREOLE, THE BIG EASY, or NEW ORLEANS, and I need to re-watch THE PELICAN BRIEF and CAT PEOPLE. These will be ingested at home and digested here.
Some definitions:
"NOLA cinema" means films ABOUT and/or OF the city of New Orleans, as defined by the Orleans parrish line. If it takes place in a bayou, it doesn't count. Sorry IN THE ELECTRIC MIST, PAPERBOY, SOUTHERN COMFORT, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, ANGEL HEART, etc. Probably at some point I'll do a post about this type of film, maybe even add a Top Ten list for debate.
It also disqualfies 99.9% of the "Hollywood South"'s product. Sorry LOOPER, GREEN HORNET, OLDBOY, JURASSIC PARK 11, DIE HARD 7, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE 4, 29 JUMP STREET, etc.
"Hollywood South" is an term umbrella term to describe LA and NY based productions that shoot in Louisiana for tax credit reasons, but do development, casting, pre-pro, post, etc elsewhere. (By this fairly uncontroversial definition, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD counts, which is a story for a future post.) Typical features of "Hollywood South" include movie stars, millions of dollars of budget, screenplays telling a story than can happen anywhere, and a finished film that doesn't resemble New Orleans because they shot the most beautiful city in America to look like Anywhere USA.
"Hollywood South" is a major economic engine but a severe mixed blessing to local filmmakers. Expect a post or seven about that in the future.
This isn't an academic exercise: my end goal is to provoke discussion, dialogue, and inspiration that will create and foster an indigenous film community in New Orleans.
TOMORROW: a look at one of the high water marks for NOLA film: A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG, written and directed by Shainee Gabel from a novel by Ronald Capps, father of songwriter Grayson Capps.
By far the most unusual, idiosyncratic city in America, somehow NOLA's cinematic legacy is weak. Weak in quantity, weak in quantity. This is baffling. I want to look at the history of NOLA cinema and get a discussion started on questions like:
Why are so few films set in NOLA any good? Is the track record as bad as it looks from a glance?
What is it about NOLA that resists easy adaptation?
What can NOLA filmmakers learn from the successes and failures in NOLA's cinematic past?
With all the hype around "Hollywood South" where is the indigenous filmmaking community?
Is it possible to tell original NOLA stories without compromising method or content to mainstream America?
Is it possible to elevate the role of cinema in a city so fundamentally musical and culinary?
To the right are 2 TOP TEN lists, one for features and one for documentaries. They are intended as provocation and stimulus, and I will be revising the lists regularly as I watch more films set in NOLA.
To date, I have not seen KID CREOLE, THE BIG EASY, or NEW ORLEANS, and I need to re-watch THE PELICAN BRIEF and CAT PEOPLE. These will be ingested at home and digested here.
Some definitions:
"NOLA cinema" means films ABOUT and/or OF the city of New Orleans, as defined by the Orleans parrish line. If it takes place in a bayou, it doesn't count. Sorry IN THE ELECTRIC MIST, PAPERBOY, SOUTHERN COMFORT, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, ANGEL HEART, etc. Probably at some point I'll do a post about this type of film, maybe even add a Top Ten list for debate.
It also disqualfies 99.9% of the "Hollywood South"'s product. Sorry LOOPER, GREEN HORNET, OLDBOY, JURASSIC PARK 11, DIE HARD 7, HOT TUB TIME MACHINE 4, 29 JUMP STREET, etc.
"Hollywood South" is an term umbrella term to describe LA and NY based productions that shoot in Louisiana for tax credit reasons, but do development, casting, pre-pro, post, etc elsewhere. (By this fairly uncontroversial definition, BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD counts, which is a story for a future post.) Typical features of "Hollywood South" include movie stars, millions of dollars of budget, screenplays telling a story than can happen anywhere, and a finished film that doesn't resemble New Orleans because they shot the most beautiful city in America to look like Anywhere USA.
"Hollywood South" is a major economic engine but a severe mixed blessing to local filmmakers. Expect a post or seven about that in the future.
This isn't an academic exercise: my end goal is to provoke discussion, dialogue, and inspiration that will create and foster an indigenous film community in New Orleans.
TOMORROW: a look at one of the high water marks for NOLA film: A LOVE SONG FOR BOBBY LONG, written and directed by Shainee Gabel from a novel by Ronald Capps, father of songwriter Grayson Capps.
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