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DannoMack posted:Thanks! This stuff is really interesting to me. Get this audiobook: http://www.amazon.com/Kid-Stays-Picture-Robert-Evans/dp/1597770094
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Aug 30, 2010 21:04
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NeuroticErotica posted:Get this audiobook: http://www.amazon.com/Kid-Stays-Picture-Robert-Evans/dp/1597770094 How does the book compare to the film version? I picked it up for $3 when the video store closed and it was well worth it.
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Aug 30, 2010 21:11
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NeuroticErotica posted:Get this audiobook: http://www.amazon.com/Kid-Stays-Picture-Robert-Evans/dp/1597770094 I'm not sure I could handle listening to the smarmiest, slimiest guy in the world that long.
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Aug 30, 2010 22:57
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Glass Joe posted:How does the book compare to the film version? I picked it up for $3 when the video store closed and it was well worth it. The movie uses the audio book as his VO. So it's basically that times 7. OneThousandMonkeys posted:I'm not sure I could handle listening to the smarmiest, slimiest guy in the world that long. Your loss. It's amazing.
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Aug 30, 2010 23:00
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DannoMack posted:Thanks! This stuff is really interesting to me. Here's a few more. You've probably heard about many of them, but if you haven't: - Edward Norton and Tony Kaye butting heads over the editing of American History X; since New Line backed Norton, Kaye essentially got locked out of the editing room. So rather than appeal through the normal channels to get the situation resolved, Kaye took out ads in Daily Variety slamming Norton and New Line, filed a $200 million lawsuit against New Line, ordered the DGA to list him as "Humpty Dumpty" as opposed to the standard "Alan Smithee" pseudonym, and brought a priest, a rabbi and a monk into a meeting with New Line over the final cut. Yes, he actually brought a live-action setup to a joke into a production meeting. I think the movie is pretty dumb, but I am curious to see what Kaye's version looks like. - Stephen Norrington and Sean Connery were at each other's throats reportedly every single day while making The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which not only resulted in a completely poo poo film, it caused both director and actor to quit their respective fields. (Connery also got into several arguments with Michael Bay during the shooting of The Rock.) - The Terminator Salvation and Superman Returns debacles (I'm sure somebody can go into more detail about those than I can). - Kevin Costner is notorious for imposing his will on directors in the editing room, even if said director is a respected filmmaker (Sam Raimi) or a very old friend (Kevin Reynolds, whom Costner locked out the editing room not once, but twice with Robin Hood and Waterworld). In 2005, Costner signed onto Rumor Has It and there is a persistent rumor (pardon the pun) that Costner was constantly complaining about first-time director Ted Griffin and kept making moves at Warner Bros. to get him fired off the film; but there are other reports stating that Costner wasn't even on the set at the time as his part wasn't scheduled to be filmed yet. Ultimately, Steven Soderbergh, who was an exec producer, was the one who fired Griffin, which completely ruined their friendship (Griffin wrote Ocean's Eleven and chose Rumor over writing Ocean's Twelve). Rob Reiner was brought in to finish the movie, but it pretty much was a disaster for everyone involved, and died a quick death at the box office. - Not sure if this counts, seeing all the acclaim it earned (it's also my favorite film of 1999), but on Three Kings, David O. Russell got into a physical fight with George Clooney after the latter observed the former pushing an extra to the ground (reportedly the extra wasn't throwing one of the other actors to the ground hard enough). Clooney told Russell he was way out of line doing that, Russell told Clooney to gently caress off and for good measure, head butted him; Clooney responded by grabbing Russell by the throat and choking him until some crew members broke up the fight. To add to the fun, Warner Brothers were constantly on Russell's rear end over everything in the film, including the budget, the violence, the cinematography, the political message and even a bit of dialogue about Michael Jackson that Russell was legally ordered not to shoot. The end result was fantastic, though. (Man, you could devote an entire thread to Russell and his dickish ways. Some favorites: - The notorious leaked footage of him screaming and yelling at Lily Tomlin on the set of I Heart Huckabees - Russell courting Jude Law for a role in Huckabees, only to find out that Law was very close to committing to Christopher Nolan's The Prestige, which Nolan was developing at the time; Russell decided the best way to resolve the situation was to corner Nolan at an industry event, where he literally put Nolan into a headlock and told him to drop Law. I guess it worked, since Law went onto star in Huckabees and dropped out of The Prestige. - Russell also co-wrote and directed a film a couple of years ago called Nailed that may never see the light of day, despite having quite a few stars, one of whom, James Caan, quit after fighting with Russell. With only a bit more to shoot, the film's financing completely collapsed, resulting in the entire cast and crew walking off the project.) - The Salkinds wanting an incredibly campy version of Superman and fighting with Richard Donner over his more reverent, serious take on Superman. The Salkinds ultimately won out, and told Donner to piss off while shooting the sequel, resulting in Gene Hackman walking away, refusing to be directed by Donner's replacement, Richard Lester, and both Margot Kidder and Christopher Reeve badmouthing the producers. But hey, lots of people love Superman II. If you're interested in reading about conflicts between directors, actors and/or studios, you should get down to your local library or bookstore and seek out the following: - The aforementioned The Kid Stays in the Picture by Robert Evans (NeuroticErotica is completely right: it is an amazing book and an even amazinger audiobook) - Easy Riders, Raging Bulls by Peter Biskind (about how several 70's mavericks--Scorsese, Spielberg, Coppola, Altman, et al--ran roughshod over the studios, and paid for it dearly once the 70's were over) - Down and Dirty Pictures by Biskind (focuses on the indie film scene from the early 90's to 2003 or so. It's basically a 400-page  against Harvey Weinstein and the endless parade of directors and actors he's hosed over, but oh, what a glorious read it is)- Disney War by James Stewart (not so much conflict here between actors/directors as it is conflict between various executives and studio heads at Disney from the 80s to the early 00s) - The Men Who Would Be King by Nicole LaPorte (about the formation and ultimate failure of Dreamworks) - Rebels on the Backlot by Sharon Waxman (looks at six directors--Soderbergh, Tarantino, Russell, David Fincher, Spike Jonze and Paul Thomas Anderson. Just a warning that nobody really comes off well: Jonze is a borderline-retarded manchild, Tarantino is a dick who has no problem using people to further his goals and then dropping them, Anderson is an arrogant cokehead, Russell a major rear end in a top hat, Soderbergh is aloof and slightly cold, etc.) - Killer Instinct by Jane Hamsher (Hamsher was a producer on Natural Born Killers and writes about the making of it. Suffice to say, Oliver Stone and several of his crew members are not portrayed in a positive light. However, most of Hamsher's venom is reserved for Tarantino; what she wrote about him pissed Tarantino off so much he ran into one of the film's other producers, Don Murphy, and punched him over it) - Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes by John Pierson (not really a whole lot of conflicts here, but if you're remotely interested in Sundance, how indie films are produced/sold, and directors like Spike Lee, Errol Morris, Michael Moore and Kevin Smith, you owe it to yourself to read this) - The Greastest Sci-Fi Movies Never Made by David Hughes (haven't read this one yet, but just by browsing the table of contents, there's bound to be some good stories in there) - A Pound of Flesh and What Just Happened? by Art Linson (Linson is a veteran producer who has worked on a bunch of films and has some great stories to tell about said films) - High Concept by Charles Fleming (how Don Simpson and his partner Jerry Bruckheimer created some of the biggest blockbusters of the 80's and early 90's. Warning: this is not for the squeamish, as rampant drug abuse, penis enlargement surgery and some of the most utterly depraved poo poo ever done to prostitutes are described in detail. You're basically gonna need to take a shower after reading this.) EDIT: Forgot about another story. Gene Hackman did not enjoy working with Wes Anderson on The Royal Tenenbaums, felt the role was beneath him, and at one point called Anderson a oval office. Know that scene in the movie where Hackman and Ben Stiller yell at each other in the closet? That was reportedly based on an argument between Hackman and Anderson (that happened in the same closet, no less). Green Vulture fucked around with this message at 01:35 on Aug 31, 2010 |
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Aug 31, 2010 01:16
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DannoMack posted:Thanks! This stuff is really interesting to me.
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Aug 31, 2010 01:28
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Green Vulture posted:EDIT: Forgot about another story. Gene Hackman did not enjoy working with Wes Anderson on The Royal Tenenbaums, felt the role was beneath him, and at one point called Anderson a oval office. Know that scene in the movie where Hackman and Ben Stiller yell at each other in the closet? That was reportedly based on an argument between Hackman and Anderson (that happened in the same closet, no less). Gene Hackman was in The Replacements before The Royal Tenenbaums but he felt like Tenenbaums was beneath him? 
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Aug 31, 2010 02:48
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Green Vulture posted:EDIT: Forgot about another story. Gene Hackman did not enjoy working with Wes Anderson on The Royal Tenenbaums, felt the role was beneath him, and at one point called Anderson a oval office. Know that scene in the movie where Hackman and Ben Stiller yell at each other in the closet? That was reportedly based on an argument between Hackman and Anderson (that happened in the same closet, no less). Do you know where you got this from? I'm not trying to attack your credibility, I had just never heard this before, despite the fact that it seems like you repeatedly hear about how Gene Hackman's "Don't write it for me, I won't do it if you do" response when Wes Anderson originally told Hackman he was writing a part for him.
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Aug 31, 2010 03:03
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Voodoofly posted:Do you know where you got this from? I'm not trying to attack your credibility, I had just never heard this before, despite the fact that it seems like you repeatedly hear about how Gene Hackman's "Don't write it for me, I won't do it if you do" response when Wes Anderson originally told Hackman he was writing a part for him. About that "don't write it for me..." bit: the book mentions that Anderson spent an entire year basically wearing down Hackman until he agreed to take on the role. Is any of this brought up on the DVD commentary?
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Aug 31, 2010 03:30
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Green Vulture posted:- Edward Norton and Tony Kaye butting heads over the editing of American History X; since New Line backed Norton, Kaye essentially got locked out of the editing room. So rather than appeal through the normal channels to get the situation resolved, Kaye took out ads in Daily Variety slamming Norton and New Line, filed a $200 million lawsuit against New Line, ordered the DGA to list him as "Humpty Dumpty" as opposed to the standard "Alan Smithee" pseudonym, and brought a priest, a rabbi and a monk into a meeting with New Line over the final cut. Yes, he actually brought a live-action setup to a joke into a production meeting. I think the movie is pretty dumb, but I am curious to see what Kaye's version looks like. A couple of years ago, I saw Tony Kaye present Lake of Fire, and afterward I got to talk to him about stuff he was working on. He said that one thing he was trying to edit together was the behind the scenes footage of AMX that he shot himself during the whole process. He mentioned that he was putting it together for a feature length documentary, but I don't know what ever happened to it. I would love to see that some time.
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Aug 31, 2010 03:42
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Green Vulture posted:Sure: that anecdote comes from Rebels on the Backlot. I checked the list of sources at the end, and all it says is "confidential source." I do remember that when the film came out, I read a number of articles on it, and many of them mentioned or hinted at tensions between Anderson and Hackman, with one specifically mentioning the argument in the closet. Thanks. I think this is just more proof of my theory that Anderson needs to work with established, hardass actors who will fight him on stuff rather than just sort of accept his vision, because I think Gene Hackman's, Danny Glover's and Angelica Huston's performances in that film are still far and away the most dynamic performances Anderson has ever captured, and I'm sure it is because those actors were willing to voice their disagreements. Hopefully it was a healthy tension of co-workers rather than Russel-esque dickery that went on between them. ClydeUmney posted:A couple of years ago, I saw Tony Kaye present Lake of Fire, and afterward I got to talk to him about stuff he was working on. He said that one thing he was trying to edit together was the behind the scenes footage of AMX that he shot himself during the whole process. He mentioned that he was putting it together for a feature length documentary, but I don't know what ever happened to it. I would love to see that some time. While it would probably be fascinating to watch, I wish Kaye would just sort of move past all of the AMX poo poo and keep focusing on new projects. It seems time has been kind to him, and people have been willing to forgive his career-suicide attempts at retaliation, but I think continuing to drag it back up over a decade later would probably erase any of that good-will. This is of course my own selfish desire, as I want to see more new movies from him.
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Aug 31, 2010 17:12
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Terminator Salvation was a clusterfuck. John Connor was a supporting role in the film, the intention being that it be an ensemble piece. In a bid to get the film legitimacy they court Christian Bale for the role, who agrees though with some reservations...mainly that the supporting role of John Connor now become the main role of John Connor. He brought on Jonathan Nolan to do rewrites, and the poor guy was literally writing new script pages on set everyday. Then of course there's the ending. Whether you think it's good or bad at least it was thematically relevant. Or at least it was, until AICN and other sites found out about the ending and ran the story (Which is a lovely thing to do in the first place, an act I'm totally convinced was only due to the fact that McG was directing it). Nerds being Nerds went crazy over the ending (Not having context) and McG went into damage control mode and said they were making changes to the ending. We get a bog standard ending that goes against what the film is clearly building up to. Christian Bale really is a self serious fuckwit. I didn't realise that Douglas was initially offered the role in 'Traffic' but I'm glad he ended up doing it. As for Ford, he pulled the same trick with Joe Carnahan on 'A Walk Among the Tombstones'. Loved the script, worked closely with Carnahan on it and then suddenly dropped out to make loving Hollywood Homicide. Ford clearly gave up trying to be an actor once 'The Mosquito Coast' was a failure and was more interested in being a star. Which is a shame. It seems that any time he gets too close to an interesting project he bails on it. I believe there's an interview with Wes Anderson where he talks about Gene Hackman calling him a oval office. Oh and Bruce Campbell has a great story in his book about how Sam Raimi dealt with Hackman when they made 'The Quick and the Dead'.
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Aug 31, 2010 22:15
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Green Vulture posted:- Disney War by James Stewart (not so much conflict here between actors/directors as it is conflict between various executives and studio heads at Disney from the 80s to the early 00s) Incidentally, there is a documentary called Waking Sleeping Beauty that simultaneously covers the revival of Disney in the early 90's as well as the increasing tensions between Michael Eisner, Roy Disney, and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
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Aug 31, 2010 22:20
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DrVenkman posted:
What was the original ending?
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Sep 1, 2010 05:14
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Tender Bender posted:What was the original ending? His post made me curious too, so I looked it up. John dies in the end, so the Resistance grafts his skin onto the Sam Worthington Terminator to keep John's image alive.
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Sep 1, 2010 05:22
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Tender Bender posted:What was the original ending? I think it was that John Connor dies, but they graft his skin onto Marcus and keep the death a secret so that the resistance would keep hope. Or something like that. I didn't like it when I heard it, but the real ending of Salvation was so boring that I now wish they had done something as ballsy and outlandish as that. edit: Son of a gently caress
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Sep 1, 2010 05:22
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Aphrodite posted:His post made me curious too, so I looked it up. The kicker is John never left his submarine in the original draft. He only communicated with the resistance via radio, and there are only a handful of people who really knew what he looked like. They didn't even have to graft on his face, Marcus just called himself John Connor and everyone followed him (if I recall correctly). There were a lot of ballsy, awesome bits in the original draft. Too bad they'll never make it to the big screen.
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Sep 1, 2010 05:46
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VorpalBunny posted:The kicker is John never left his submarine in the original draft. He only communicated with the resistance via radio, and there are only a handful of people who really knew what he looked like. They didn't even have to graft on his face, Marcus just called himself John Connor and everyone followed him (if I recall correctly). Wasn't this all changed due to Christian Bale signing on and demanding a bigger role?
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Sep 1, 2010 05:50
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bobkatt013 posted:Wasn't this all changed due to Christian Bale signing on and demanding a bigger role? It never really made sense to me how someone could read that script, where there are maybe 5 scenes featuring an older John Connor wearing sweaters who never really leaves his submarine base, and sign on and demand the character be changed 180 degrees. Literally, he goes from a 40-something dude who practically never leaves his chair to a young soldier fighting in hand-to-hand combat with various machines in the middle of nowhere. The original story made sense. Marcus was the action hero of the piece, running all over the place and encountering all the scary poo poo, and John was the centered realistic strategist in perpetual hiding from the machines who were hunting him. He was the human, Marcus was the machine, but together they made an interesting pair and a study in human/machine cohabitation and the potential of the future they were living in. Think Christian Bale as Marcus and a younger David Strathairn as John Connor - that was the original intention. I blame the young producers of the project not really knowing what the hell they were doing and letting McG and Bale do whatever they wanted, with no restraint.
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Sep 1, 2010 05:58
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VorpalBunny posted:The kicker is John never left his submarine in the original draft. He only communicated with the resistance via radio, and there are only a handful of people who really knew what he looked like. They didn't even have to graft on his face, Marcus just called himself John Connor and everyone followed him (if I recall correctly). Wow that would be a movie worth seeing. What came out was the suck to watch.
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Sep 1, 2010 09:03
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EVERYTHING I SAY ABOUT JAPAN OR LIVING IN JAPAN IS COMPLETELY WRONG, BUT YOU BETTER BELIEVE I'LL 
ABOUT IT.
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In "Sin City", Hartigan is locked up and receiving letters from Nancy posing as Cordelia. He is released from prison and goes looking for Nancy because he thinks she's in trouble. He realizes that it was a rouse and he led Junior to Nancy. Are we really to believe that Junior and/or Roark's people would be unable to find Nancy? Hartigan's partner, a fellow cop, was working for Roark. Much is made of the power that Roark has. Nancy's name was widely known when she was kidnapped. Connecting the dots, it seems impossibly obvious that they'd be able to track Nancy down with ease. She doesn't change her name except in the letters she writes (and it's also obvious who's writing to Hartigan the whole time, despite what Junior says about how they wondered who was writing to him).
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Sep 1, 2010 14:31
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Butthole Prince posted:In "Sin City", Hartigan is locked up and receiving letters from Nancy posing as Cordelia. He is released from prison and goes looking for Nancy because he thinks she's in trouble. He realizes that it was a rouse and he led Junior to Nancy. Probably something to do with wanting to really humiliate/torture Hartigan by rubbing his face in it.
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Sep 1, 2010 15:31
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VorpalBunny posted:The kicker is John never left his submarine in the original draft. He only communicated with the resistance via radio, and there are only a handful of people who really knew what he looked like. They didn't even have to graft on his face, Marcus just called himself John Connor and everyone followed him (if I recall correctly). Well, from what I read it seems that the skin graft thing was post Bale re-write. So John was doing all the action-ey stuff he does in the movie now, but with a different ending.
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Sep 1, 2010 21:30
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Aphrodite posted:Well, from what I read it seems that the skin graft thing was post Bale re-write. So John was doing all the action-ey stuff he does in the movie now, but with a different ending. Wow, the more I learn about subsequent drafts the more bewildering the whole development process seems. The original draft was really good, and they just stomped it to poo poo.
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Sep 1, 2010 21:44
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Skin graft ending isn't really believable, even by Terminator standards. T4 isn't very good but there's much, much worse.
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Sep 2, 2010 06:32
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:T4 isn't very good but there's much, much worse. I will disagree with that completely. That was (other than the Avengers) the worst movie I have ever seen. It failed on every possible level despite having really cool robots. Before that movie I did not think it was possible to have robots in a movie that bad.
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Sep 2, 2010 10:26
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kapalama posted:I will disagree with that completely. That was (other than the Avengers) the worst movie I have ever seen. It failed on every possible level despite having really cool robots. Dude, you really need to watch some more movies.
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Sep 2, 2010 11:07
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OneThousandMonkeys posted:Skin graft ending isn't really believable, even by Terminator standards. They should have just had not many people know what Conner looked like, then they could have done the whole "I am not the real John Conner, the real Conner has been retired 15 years and living like a king in Patagonia" bit without retarded face transplant surgery. kapalama posted:Before that movie I did not think it was possible to have robots in a movie that bad. Somebody hasn't seen Saturn 3.
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Sep 2, 2010 11:09
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Flatscan posted:Somebody hasn't seen Saturn 3.
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Sep 2, 2010 12:15
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Trump posted:Dude, you really need to watch some more movies. Life's too short to watch bad movies, ironically or otherwise.
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Sep 2, 2010 12:54
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qntm posted:Life's too short to watch bad movies, ironically or otherwise. If you don't watch bad films you can't really appreciate good films.
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Sep 2, 2010 13:00
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qntm posted:Life's too short to watch bad movies, ironically or otherwise. `I have no regrets about Runaway (1984), but when I think of Chopping Mall (1986), I fear I might have wasted my precious time on this earth.'
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Sep 2, 2010 14:29
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kapalama posted:I will disagree with that completely. That was (other than the Avengers) the worst movie I have ever seen. It failed on every possible level despite having really cool robots. Terminator 4 is maybe the 10,000th worst movie ever made.
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Sep 2, 2010 16:53
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SubG posted:Or RoboCop 3 (1993). To say nothing of poo poo like Robot Monster (1956). Robocop 3 was entertaining though, it had him commandeer a pimp vehicle and setting fire to that british bad guy's legs. T4 had nothing as memorable or intentionally funny, besides Stan Winston's great work 
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Sep 2, 2010 17:09
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Forum Actuary posted:Robocop 3 was entertaining No.
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Sep 2, 2010 17:14
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SubG posted:`I have no regrets about Runaway (1984), but when I think of Chopping Mall (1986), I fear I might have wasted my precious time on this earth.' I watch Chopping Mall drat near every year around Halloween 
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Sep 2, 2010 18:26
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qntm posted:Life's too short to watch bad movies, ironically or otherwise. H-how do you know a movie's actually bad until you watch it? Also, my bid for worst movie: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever
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Sep 2, 2010 20:10
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Cool as Ice. There will be no further argument.
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Sep 2, 2010 20:58
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SubG posted:So you're worried you're going to find yourself on your deathbed regretting you hadn't somehow managed to only watch the good movies about killer robots from the future? Correct. I insist on watching movies in descending order of IMDb user rating.
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Sep 2, 2010 21:00
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qntm posted:Correct. I insist on watching movies in descending order of IMDb user rating.
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Sep 2, 2010 21:02
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