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So I had this idea a few days ago that we at CineD, with our variegated and often outright weird opinions on films, should write a book. To that end, I want to collect essays from CineD regulars regarding films you love and, more to the point, why you love them. Yes, I know, Goon Projects always fizzle. But I feel good about this. I have a core team assembled (myself and two others), and we have a pretty well fleshed-out plan. The theme of this project: Hollywood's financial failures. We'll accept the 20 best Goon-written, Goon-submitted essays on films that failed in Hollywood, which will comprise the book. At the moment, we plan to vanity-publish the book and sell it at $1 above cost, which we'll donate to a charity that I'll name later when I think of an appropriate one.* (Also accepting ideas for a charity to donate to!) September 16 Edit: We are now past the pitch stage and on to the writing stage! Participants, you now have until November 8 to get your piece written! Remember, we want 800-3000 words. Here's the list of entrants and the movies they committed to write about… AccountSupervisor: Sucker Punch axleblaze: Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Strange Days CloseFriend: Southland Tales, The Quest Criminal Minded: Killer Joe Dark Weasel: Margaret Davros1: Escape from LA Dissapointed Owl: The Majestic Egbert Souse: Hugo Fat Lou: Soldier Filthy Hans: The Color of Night General Ironicus: Chaplin Hewlett: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within HypnoCabbage: Howard the Duck Jay Dub: The Hudsucker Proxy Jefferoo: Punisher: War Zone LtKenFrankenstein: Ravenous Maarak: Johnny Mnemonic Maxwell Lord: The Avengers (1998) mugrim: Sunshine pancaek: Death to Smoochy PateraOctopus: Dragonslayer penismightier: Dangerous Game/The Body Snatchers Pick: Treasure Planet Professor Clumsy: Hulk RandallODim: Josie & the Pussycats Random Stranger: Constantine Sheldrake: The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle spaceships: Big Trouble in Little China StoneOfShame: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen Tars Tarkas: Tank Girl Tharizdun: Deep Rising TrixRabbi: Battleship Twin Cinema: Scott Pilgrim vs. the World TwistedLadder: Pacific Rim Vargo: Prince of Persia, John Carter Xenophon: The Big Year Yoshifan823: Super Mario Bros. For posterity, here's the information I had here before… quote:To have your essay considered, it should adhere to the following guidelines… You have until Friday, November 8, 2013 to write your piece. You can submit it via PM to me or to "turbandecay" at "live.com." (I prefer PMs. If you e-mail me, make sure to put the word "Essay" somewhere in the title or I'll probably mistake your e-mail for spam and act accordingly.) At that point, the panel will convene and compile the best essays into a first draft, edit it for clarity and grammar, then give the resulting second draft to the writers to review and revise for themselves. After those revisions, the book will go to final draft. We'll sell the resulting book in paperback and electronically at one dollar above cost and donate that dollar to charity. This thread is now dedicated to talking about your ideas and the relevant films. Take this thread to run ideas for your review by fellow posters. See if other people see this film in a way that gives you some ideas. * Don't expect to see any money from this. I thought about just putting the profits in our pockets, but way too much can go wrong with that. EDIT: Deadline change. CloseFriend fucked around with this message at 08:07 on Oct 29, 2013 |
# ? Sep 2, 2013 00:45 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 12:22 |
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Will you e-pub it? Self e-pub, that is. There is literally no reason not to.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 01:01 |
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:Will you e-pub it? Self e-pub, that is. There is literally no reason not to.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 01:10 |
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You MIGHT want to offer more time for writing the essays. I say this only because of my experience from running the Subtext Game. Also, You can count me tentatively in. I should be all moved into Chicago by the 15th with a fair bit of free time.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 01:11 |
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My Pitch: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) Production Budget: $137 million Total Domestic Gross: $32 million (Worldwide $85 million) If The Spirits Within didn't have Final Fantasy in front of its title, I fully believe it would have been more positively received than it was in its 2001 premiere (which bankrupted the studio that made it, being their debut film). A slightly-derivative but completely gorgeous space opera, the film features a wonderfully realized future setting, ahead-of-its-time production design, a dynamically Gothic score by Elliot Goldenthal, and so much more. The film's environmentalist message (with hints of Eastern philosophy) is unconventional for a film of this genre, and its solid cast does a surprising amount with their stock characters. (Not many adolescent sci-fi actioners feature an antagonist moments away from killing himself in disgrace.) All of this results in an interestingly flawed film that does just enough right and different to justify a second look.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 01:12 |
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Fat Lou posted:You MIGHT want to offer more time for writing the essays. I say this only because of my experience from running the Subtext Game. Yeah, school's just starting up again too which severely cuts into my time even if it is just 800-3000 words. I'm also in tentatively.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 01:12 |
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gently caress it, I'll change the due date. How about October 19? EDIT: Many thanks for the sticky, penismightier! CloseFriend fucked around with this message at 02:05 on Sep 2, 2013 |
# ? Sep 2, 2013 01:14 |
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I hope someone will write an essay on Color of Night, a movie that can accelerate puberty faster than Adderall and fast food hormone treatments combined. This movie grossed less than half of its estimated budget, which was presumably spent on an ensemble cast including Bruce Willis, Ruben Blades, Lesley Ann Warren, Scott Bacula, Brad Dourif, Lance Henriksen, Kevin J. O'connor, and Eriq LaSalle. It is part psychological thriller and part fever dream, with gratuitous sex scenes and bizarre plot twists. The world of 1994 was simply not ready for this movie.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 02:05 |
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Gonna claim The Avengers '98. Sixty million dollar budget, made about thirty in the states and precious little more worldwide. A sentimental favorite. I will say I'm not entirely sure of the criteria- we may run up against My Year of Flops- but sounds like it could be a fun project. I just hope I make the cut.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 03:31 |
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Filthy Hans posted:I hope someone will write an essay on Color of Night, a movie that can accelerate puberty faster than Adderall and fast food hormone treatments combined. This movie grossed less than half of its estimated budget, which was presumably spent on an ensemble cast including Bruce Willis, Ruben Blades, Lesley Ann Warren, Scott Bacula, Brad Dourif, Lance Henriksen, Kevin J. O'connor, and Eriq LaSalle. It is part psychological thriller and part fever dream, with gratuitous sex scenes and bizarre plot twists. The world of 1994 was simply not ready for this movie. Sounds like you just wrote paragraph one, why not take it further?
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 03:52 |
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penismightier posted:Sounds like you just wrote paragraph one, why not take it further? Agreed, I've never heard of this movie, but your description is making me want to look around for a copy.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 03:54 |
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penismightier posted:Sounds like you just wrote paragraph one, why not take it further? Maybe I will at that, I should at least give it a shot. When I read the OP I got hyped about writing up something about Lord of Illusions, but tragically it (barely) recouped its budget. Maybe I just love movies which feature both Scott Bakula and Kevin J. O'Connor.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 04:03 |
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Hewlett posted:My Pitch: Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001) This blurb alone makes me want to check it out. I remember seeing it in theaters as a kid and really enjoying it, despite never playing a Final Fantasy game in my life. I've been looking to dust off my writing skills as of late; I'll try to submit something to this project if I can find the time. Not making any commitments right now though.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 04:05 |
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My Pitch: Punisher: War Zone Production Budget: $35 million Worldwide Gross: $10,100,036 The problem with live action comic book films is the inherent power fantasy of costumed superheroes in the first place - they are hilariously violent characters in an absurdly violent real world, amped up to 11, yet we hardly ever really see that violence - or at least the consequence of it. They are children's toys brought to life, and the reason nerds adore them and dress up as them is their inherit worthlessness to the outside world, with all their consumerism and possession of absolutely worthless knowledge like how Superman shaves his beard brought to you by Gillette - and how they compensate by pretending to be fictional characters that have an infinite number of reasons of why they're simply better than everyone around them. They want inherit superiority to the world around them, the "dumb" "idiot" "jock" masses that beat them up in school and ripped up their Yu-Gi-Oh! cards. Of course, this is impossible and rather unhealthy, so they wrap it up in hyperconsumerism of fictional characters in spandex, who commit horrendous acts of violence, yet in films like the blockbuster The Avengers, you never see the reality of this, wrapped up in CGI and clever camera work. Punisher: War Zone is the first comic book hero film to really, utterly admit the sheer horrific destruction of a costumed superhero existing in real life. From the opening scene of Frank Castle simply appearing at a family dinner, cutting the power, leaving a single flare burning the room red with blood as he decapitates, stabs, and shoots his way through a dozen or so goons. It's a raw, unfiltered, vulgar display of power, the same one the comic book nerds who get all wrapped up in their fandom and cosplay desire so much. To execute so many, effortlessly - this is treated like it's a horror film more than an action blockbuster. What Punisher: War Zone contains is more than simply murder porn - it touches on the realities of a single individual given a license to murder, endlessly, without consequence, as well as the reality of Army recruiting commercials, and confronting the problem of what if the character of The Punisher ever killed an innocent. Also, I am a graphic designer by trade and have a shitton of work within print and the like - so I'd like to contribute what I can do the cover and what not if it's needed. My portfolio is here, including examples of my work with Nokia, Skype, and the Blue Man Group: http://cargocollective.com/jkunzler Jefferoo fucked around with this message at 05:01 on Sep 2, 2013 |
# ? Sep 2, 2013 04:52 |
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Hm, it looks like Ravenous qualifies under those box office terms and I've been meaning to rewatch that one lately. Lest I have to fight Vargo on writing up John Carter (unless, Vargo, you wanna do an Ebert and Ebert thing).
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 05:01 |
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Pitch: Super Mario Bros. Budget: $48 million Gross: A hair under $21 million What does it mean to be an adaptation of something? The obvious answer is that the movie in question draws inspiration from a work, whether it be book, play, musical, or another movie. But what happens when a movie takes liberties with the work that it's adapted from? And more importantly, just how recognizable does a movie have to be in order to be called a "good" adaptation? Super Mario Bros. is an interesting case in the grand world of Hollywood, because it is, to date, the only movie based on what is perhaps the most recognizable video game character of all time, and somehow it managed to take all of that good will and turn it into something that hardly resembles the work upon which it is based. But on the other hand, maybe it's one of the best adaptations of all time...
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 06:41 |
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The Majestic made 37 million on a 72 million dollar budget. I might just talk about The Majestic, guys. Now, to find a hook... I really want to take on The Majestic's idealization of small town community life from a non-American point of view. Because it's borderline ridiculous but also an incredibly pleasant fantasy. Also, I want to talk about the fact that Jim Carrey's bold stand against McCarthy era witch hunts is basically identical to this clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmZHSpxrR2E LtKenFrankenstein posted:Hm, it looks like Ravenous qualifies under those box office terms and I've been meaning to rewatch that one lately. Lest I have to fight Vargo on writing up John Carter (unless, Vargo, you wanna do an Ebert and Ebert thing). I will come after you if you mess it up (or just pout), because that movie is absolutely ripe for this.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 07:12 |
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Incidentally, feel free to volunteer for more than one movie, guys. I'm considering several others myself.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 07:17 |
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Formally pitching: The Avengers (1998) Budget: $60,000,000 U.S. Gross: $23,000,000 Warner Bros. bought the rights to make a film version of a cult classic 1960s TV series expecting an action movie and got something closer to a surrealistic fever dream. In this the makers of The Avengers cannot be faulted for straying from the source material- of the many swinging 60s takes on the spy genre, the original TV series probably went the farthest into pure psychedelic weirdness. Certain elements could not be replicated- the flawless chemistry of Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, mainly- but despite UK critics' particularly loud howls of Americanization and betrayal, it's hard to say the show's picture-postcard Britishness and whimsical absurdity isn't on full display here. It never had a chance. A disastrous test screening prompted the studio to delay its opening from June to August and in the meantime trim approximately half an hour of footage from the picture, footage which has yet to resurface in full. Major plot points go by so quickly you can miss them easily as a result, and a lot of people declared the finished product incomprehensible. Not helping matters, the studio opted not to screen the film for critics beforehand, giving it a toxic reputation before people laid eyes on a frame of it. And yet there's something magical here. The film offers a number of gorgeous visuals and imaginative concepts, and there's a strange kind of poetry that makes it seem like a living, breathing world that happens to operate on the rule "anything can happen at any time." Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman are not their predecessors but their more reserved take on the protagonists generates a certain tender chemistry, and a load of leaden Bondian puns can't disguise either performer's charm. The story is your standard "stop the diabolical mastermind" adventure, but seems to get to one of the key "lessons" behind the trope, the folly of seeking to dominate something rather than be prepared for and adjust to it. It's cute, it's fun, it looks and sounds great, and the blistering reception it was accorded has always made me feel rather protective of it. I've written up reviews of the picture three times so far and it's sort of an evolving text. It's unlike any other action or spy movie I've ever seen. There is something special here.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 07:21 |
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Pitch: Killer Joe (2012) Budget: $10 million US gross: $1,987,762 After refusing to make cuts that could've secured his film an R-rating as opposed to an NC-17 - often a kiss of death for any film's revenue potential, due to its pornographic stigma and the refusal of many theaters to screen NC-17 material - William Friedkin released Killer Joe in July 2012. It opened in only 75 theaters and was gone from theaters entirely by the middle of October, despite favorable reviews and a revelatory performance from Matthew McConaughey. However, despite its rather nasty attitude and shocking ending, the film is short on bloodshed or gore compared to many of its R-rated brethren; instead, one suspects the NC-17 rating stems largely from its multiple scenes of full-frontal female nudity and frank, often perverse, sexuality. I'd like to use the film as a conduit to explore the contrasting attitudes of Americans towards sex and violence, and the unfortunate stigma that befalls films that are released with an NC-17.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 07:33 |
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As an opening caveat, I'm not a CineD regular, as far as posting is concerned, and I hardly post much of substance on SA in general. That said, I still check this forum just about every day. This might make me sound kind of crudely opportunist, but then again, no one's making any money from this, right? Here's my hat in the ring. I propose an essay on Margaret, directed by Kenneth Lonergan, starring Anna Paquin, Allison Janney, Matt Damon, Mark Ruffalo, and Matthew Broderick, among others. A Fox Searchlight release, its production budget was $14 million dollars—fairly modest, especially considering the cast. Anyway, its domestic total gross was $46,495. Forty-six thousand, four hundred ninety-five dollars. Released to only fourteen theaters, Margaret was in and out of its American release in less than a single month. And it gets worse! Shot in New York City from September to November 2005, Margaret didn't see release, in any form, until September of 2011. If this delay were wholly a case of studio or executive interference, that would make a grim amount of sense—sometimes movies get shelved. But that wasn't the case with this one. Lonergan and his producers started out on reasonably good terms, with him being promised full creative control of his project, save for one caveat: the film, unequivocally, had to clock in at under 150 minutes. Lonergan's first edit ran three hours. Excising that unacceptable 30-minute surplus took five years, three lawsuits, as well as personal favors of time, effort, and hundreds of thousands of dollars from Lonergan's cast and professional allies. A whole murderers' row of Hollywood professionals stepped up to the plate to help finish the picture, including the likes of Thelma Schoonmaker and Martin Scorsese, who took a crack at the editing bay, working for free on attempted edits. Eventually—miraculously—the film got done. The divisive result? Upon the release of its 150-minute theatrical version, some critics reported back saying they'd witnessed a sloppy, aimless mess. Others saw brilliance. The home video release the following year of a 186-minute "extended cut" complicated discussions of the film's artistic merit; neither version is necessarily definitive, and Lonergan seems to stand by both. It makes the movie something of a hard nut to crack, critically. Speaking for myself, I saw this movie on TV for the first time this year by chance, knowing none of this, and walked away feeling certain I'd just seen an underappreciated, overlooked masterpiece. I haven't watched it again since then, but for months, I haven't been able to stop thinking about it, either. Its originality, its depth, its richness—I can't honestly think of another film I could accurately compare it to. So what I'm pitching is a short essay, highlighting both versions of the film, with a truncated version of its prolonged production as preface. I don't intend to spend too much time on the movie's making, except for context—I'd rather focus on its many, many merits. There have been bigger bombs than Margaret, critically, commercially. But there might not be a flop on Earth that's as close to being fundamentally perfect as this one. Anyway. I don't have PMs, but I'm guessing you'll post accepted pitches ITT?
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 14:14 |
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Damnit, I find the budget thing annoyingly limiting because most found footage movies are so low budget they can bomb and still make money and if they don't they're so obscure they're not even worth writing about. I'll find something though. At the very least it looks like Gremlins 2 (barely) didn't make back it's budget.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 14:56 |
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axleblaze posted:Damnit, I find the budget thing annoyingly limiting because most found footage movies are so low budget they can bomb and still make money and if they don't they're so obscure they're not even worth writing about. I'll find something though. At the very least it looks like Gremlins 2 (barely) didn't make back it's budget. Yeah, I was pondering Exorcist II as a backup since I can write up a lot on that too, but that actually made a profit thanks to a low budget and good opening weekend.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 15:04 |
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I found some good ones. I'll do proper pitches later but I'm either gonna do Strange Days, Looney Tunes: Back in Action, or The Relic. Edit: gently caress it, unless I hate it upon rewatching it, I'm gonna do Strange Days. Maxwell Lord posted:Yeah, I was pondering Exorcist II as a backup since I can write up a lot on that too, but that actually made a profit thanks to a low budget and good opening weekend. Yeah, I wanted to do The Devil inside, a movie that everyone seems to hate alot, but it had a strong opening weekend before word about the ending got out, and that one weekend made it so it was in fact really profitable. axelblaze fucked around with this message at 15:23 on Sep 2, 2013 |
# ? Sep 2, 2013 15:11 |
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I would like to put my name in for The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, with a total budget of $46.63 million and box office takings of $8,083,123. I'm a big Gilliam fan and this a Brazil are my favourite films of his (I dont want to do Brazil because there has already been a whole book written about that). This is the final part of Gilliam's 'Imagination Trilogy' and looks at how in old age how our life stories can become our tall tales and whether these versions are in not some way true. Its also a really interesting film visually with Gilliam's trademark wide lenses and imaginative designs.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 16:03 |
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I'm struggling with The Happening or The Wicker Man (2006).
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 16:44 |
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HUNDU THE BEAST GOD posted:I'm struggling with The Happening or The Wicker Man (2006). The Happening made a ton of money some how, so you have no choice but to go with The Wicker Man.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 16:47 |
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Here are some films that didn't make their money back: The People vs. Larry Flynt Man on the Moon The Frighteners The Mosquito Coast Centurion Gods and Generals The Four Feathers Wyatt Earp 3000 Miles to Graceland Enemy Mine Explorers Looney Tunes: Back in Action Holy Man Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil Ghosts of Mars The Ward Escape from L.A. Gattaca Hearts in Atlantis Freejack As for me, I'm proposing a double feature. Dangerous Game and The Body Snatchers In 1993, Abel Ferrara was supposed to blow up. After the critically beloved, high-buzz King of New York and Bad Lieutenant, he was a hot item. He directed two movies that year: Dangerous Game, an erotic thriller starring Madonna and Harvey Keitel, and The Body Snatchers, the high budget second remake of the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. They're worth looking at together. Dangerous Game is about a film director making an intense two-hander about a dissolving marriage, only to find that the anger and frustration of the story is seeping into his life and the lives of his cast. Body Snatchers is about a teenage girl who slowly learns that her family and the world at large are being replaced by alien duplicates. Each features unique and experimental camerawork - deep pools of shadow, limited color palettes, and a fluidity of film stock. They pushed the bounds of acceptable nudity and sex in American cinema, and feature moments of rattling violence, religious impotence, and sexual anger. They are among the most courageous films of their era, two deeply paranoid and heartbroken essays on the horror you experience when someone you've known for years suddenly ceases to be recognizable. The yield? Less than a million dollars combined. Dangerous Game Budget: $2,000,000 (estimated) Gross: $23,671 Body Snatchers Budget: $13,000,000 (estimated) Gross: $428,868 An under-confident Warner Bros sabotaged Body Snatchers, limiting its release and shuffling it to the January garbage dump. An underconfident Madonna, embarrassed by the cold reception to her similarly themed Body of Evidence, publicly trashed Dangerous Game, blowing its buzz before it ever developed. They were both wrong, and together they sank one of the most artistically productive years any film director ever had. If it helps, LOOK AT THIS loving LIGHTING: penismightier fucked around with this message at 19:14 on Sep 2, 2013 |
# ? Sep 2, 2013 17:22 |
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The world really does need more written about Abel Ferrara's Body Snatchers.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 17:23 |
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Who's got balls to take on Holy Man?
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 17:35 |
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Pitch: The Hudsucker Proxy (1994) Production Budget: $40 million Total Domestic: $2,816,518 Critical darlings since the mid-80s, Joel & Ethan Coen had every right to expect The Hudsucker Proxy to finally break them into the Hollywood mainstream. Everything was in place: A script they had been workshopping with their buddy Sam Raimi for nearly a decade; a producer, Joel Silver, willing to put serious money behind the project; and a cast featuring Paul Newman and rising stars Tim Robbins and Jennifer Jason Leigh. When the film finally arrived, it landed with a resounding flop. It's not difficult to see why, either. When offered the chance to finally direct a big studio picture, the Coens opted instead to make one of the most esoteric, oddball homages to Hollywood's golden age that moviegoers at the time had ever seen. The film is predominantly a love letter to the films of Frank Capra and Preston Sturges, turning Capra's idealism on its ear to present a world that is darkly cynical toward big business. The film features characters who do nothing but talk circles around one another, waxing philosophic about business and how to measure a man's worth, all the while the film's lead bumbles through every scene, barely able to get a word in edgewise. This is a manic, aggressive film, one that takes immense glee in its sheer spectacle, and seems only too eager to please an audience that simply wasn't interested. It also serves as a warning from the Coens to themselves. As much as this film depicts the business world as a big, goofy machine, it also serves as a fairly apt metaphor for the film industry. Young, fresh-faced filmmakers leave home for the Big City hoping to change the world with their ideas, and wind up going stark raving mad after losing it all. When given the chance to work with a studio-sized budget, the Coens seemed to intentionally shoot themselves in the foot by making a film as out-of-step with the times as humanly possible. This is the angle I'd like to explore, actually. As big and bloated as this film is, it's too precise in its execution to simply be a misfire. I'd like to examine The Hudsucker Proxy and its place in the Coens' oeuvre. Was this simply a case of the Coens branching out too far too quickly, or was this a flop by design?
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 18:44 |
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Jay Dub posted:turning Capra's idealism on its ear to present a world that is darkly cynical toward big business. ... have you ever watched a Frank Capra movie? I love Hudsucker Proxy, but it fits right in the Capra Mr. Deeds mold without any necessary ear turning.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 19:12 |
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Yeah, the mix of darkness and light is pretty close to Capra.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 19:22 |
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It's also worth mentioning that it was their follow-up to the Palme d'or winning Barton Fink, another film about a character who feels he can change the world with his art but finds that the industry will only strangle him.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 19:44 |
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Alright, here's my hastily written formal pitch for Ravenous The Unpalatable Nature of Ravenous; or, why some films are just impossible to market. Budget: $12 Million (estimated) Box Office: $2,062,405 Ravenous is a Civil War Era black-comedy-slash-horror film featuring a bunch of grime-covered character actors in a plot centering around that most taboo of activities, cannibalism. That it would not be a blockbuster commercial success was pretty much preordained, but that it should make back less than one-fifth of its budget is a rather stunning failure. Even in the internet era, and with the built-in cult home video market of the horror genre, it has remained willfully obscure to all but a certain subset of the most ardently nerdy cinephiles. For one of the most bizarrely idiosyncratic horror movies of the past twenty-odd years (certainly one of the best horror movies of the '90s, a decade not kind to horror), this is an unfair fate. Not, as I said, that it was an unpredictable one. Having cycled through three directors after filming had already started, being dumped in the wastelands of March releases, and suffering from a limp marketing campaign completely at a loss as to how to pitch this movie to a post-Scream audience did nothing to help this movie find its feet. And on top of all that, the tone of this movie is very audience-unfriendly, featuring a mumbling weakling of a protagonist, some hearty criticism of the American pioneer image, and violence that is grisly and outre without being at all 'cool.' But in spite of its tortured production and poor reception by critics and audiences alike, Ravenous is the most wonderful kind of cult film, dangerous and bleakly humorous, and above all totally one-of-a-kind. Herein, I'll seek to examine how the film that could've made Antonia Bird the next Danny Boyle instead left her a footnote in the annals of cinema.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 20:09 |
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There are so many good movies that made no money. It's really hard to come up with an angle for why people should see Chaplin that isn't "well duh" over and over again. Since some of its biggest fans have already picked non-Scott Pilgrim movies I've been thinking of doing something about it as a tribute to/extension of a long legacy of hyper-stylized and kinetic films. That's really obvious too, but at least there's some direction there. E: Both Dredd and Judge Dredd were at a loss, a comparison essay and/or a piece on legacies in adaptation would be really interesting. General Ironicus fucked around with this message at 20:25 on Sep 2, 2013 |
# ? Sep 2, 2013 20:18 |
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Here's another a good list if you're still looking for ideas. I'm going to call dibs on The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. I'll write a proposal for it later.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 21:58 |
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Sheldrake posted:Here's another a good list if you're still looking for ideas. Whoa, that's quite the loss on Lolita '97. 1 million gross on a 62 million budget.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 22:07 |
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Sheldrake posted:Here's another a good list if you're still looking for ideas. While this list isn't as up to date, it contains quite a few more entries: http://www.imdb.com/list/ycf_KGcR3IU/
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 22:12 |
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# ? May 30, 2024 12:22 |
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I hope someone does Soldier. I love Soldier.
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# ? Sep 2, 2013 22:15 |