Some random musings on a Saturday...
Do yourself a favor. Don't bother with Peter Biskind's "Down and Dirty Pictures". It purports to be a large scale expose of the indie film scene in the last 15 years, but I'll boil it down for you in a couple of sentences.
Harvey and Bob Weinstein are evil, and love films but hate everyone except Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith. Harvey loves to cut movies without telling the director. He loves fast food, smoking, and profanity-laced tirades at anyone who gets in his way.
Bob Redford never wanted Sundance to be big, but then when it was, he tried to shove it in everyone's faces. Quentin Tarantino is the coolest guy in the universe.
That's pretty much 600 pages in a nutshell. Seriously, after you read the first 100 or so pages, it's just the same shit over and over again for the rest of the book. Unlike "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls", which had a much larger cast to draw from, ultimately everyone in the book ends up getting sucked into Miramax's arc. Plus there are a number of errors that only a film geek would spot, such as the suggestion that the 1981 slasher flick "The Burning", co-written by Bob and "created and produced" by Harvey, was somehow influenced by "A Nightmare On Elm Street", which wasn't made until 1984.(The correct answer would, of course, be "Friday The 13th".) In addition, Biskind dismisses the Weinstein's purchase of Zhang Yimou's "Hero" as a flop in 2002. For those of you who pay attention, last week's number one film? Zhang Yimou's "Hero". Am I nitpicking? Perhaps. But believe me when I say that this book is no more then the above summary.
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Got a great torrent the other day. 42nd Street Forever is a great collection of trailers for some of the worst movies ever made, and virtually all of them are of the grindhouse quality. One surprise on the program is the trailer for Thriller: A Cruel Picture, here called "Hooker's Revenge" and heavily edited. Thriller has been cited by Tarantino as an inspiration for Kill Bill, and will (hopefully) be issued by Synapse on DVD at the end of this month, provided Don May doesn't get killed by the director.
(What is it with Don May and whacko directors anyway? A couple of years ago, it was Jim Van Bebber giving him a lot of crap over the DVD release of Deadbeat at Dawn, and now it's this nutcase. Poor Don.)
Also on the program is a trailer for the classic(and I use that term loosely) The Devil's Rain, which features such luminaries as William Shatner, Ernest Borgnine, and a very young John Travolta. Of course, it would be a good trailer if it weren't for the fact that it pretty much gives away the entire ending of the movie. (Suffice it to say, the title is very appropriate.)
I'm not sure whether this is a compilation of someone's own making, or an actual release. The trailers are edited somewhat haphazardly, and there are a couple of odd trailers included(a multi-language-subtitled trailer for The Crippled Masters and the German-language trailer for this blog's favorite movie, Salo.(No, it doesn't improve the movie any.))
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Man, the Yankees suck right now. Sterling and Steiner pointed out that in a stretch where the Yanks are 8-9, the Red Sox are 16-1~! Looking worse every day, and now Kevin Brown's broken his non-pitching hand being a fucking idiot. The postseason seems to be slowly becoming more of a question.
Oh well.
Harvey and Bob Weinstein are evil, and love films but hate everyone except Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith. Harvey loves to cut movies without telling the director. He loves fast food, smoking, and profanity-laced tirades at anyone who gets in his way.
Bob Redford never wanted Sundance to be big, but then when it was, he tried to shove it in everyone's faces. Quentin Tarantino is the coolest guy in the universe.
That's pretty much 600 pages in a nutshell. Seriously, after you read the first 100 or so pages, it's just the same shit over and over again for the rest of the book. Unlike "Easy Riders and Raging Bulls", which had a much larger cast to draw from, ultimately everyone in the book ends up getting sucked into Miramax's arc. Plus there are a number of errors that only a film geek would spot, such as the suggestion that the 1981 slasher flick "The Burning", co-written by Bob and "created and produced" by Harvey, was somehow influenced by "A Nightmare On Elm Street", which wasn't made until 1984.(The correct answer would, of course, be "Friday The 13th".) In addition, Biskind dismisses the Weinstein's purchase of Zhang Yimou's "Hero" as a flop in 2002. For those of you who pay attention, last week's number one film? Zhang Yimou's "Hero". Am I nitpicking? Perhaps. But believe me when I say that this book is no more then the above summary.
------------------------------------
Got a great torrent the other day. 42nd Street Forever is a great collection of trailers for some of the worst movies ever made, and virtually all of them are of the grindhouse quality. One surprise on the program is the trailer for Thriller: A Cruel Picture, here called "Hooker's Revenge" and heavily edited. Thriller has been cited by Tarantino as an inspiration for Kill Bill, and will (hopefully) be issued by Synapse on DVD at the end of this month, provided Don May doesn't get killed by the director.
(What is it with Don May and whacko directors anyway? A couple of years ago, it was Jim Van Bebber giving him a lot of crap over the DVD release of Deadbeat at Dawn, and now it's this nutcase. Poor Don.)
Also on the program is a trailer for the classic(and I use that term loosely) The Devil's Rain, which features such luminaries as William Shatner, Ernest Borgnine, and a very young John Travolta. Of course, it would be a good trailer if it weren't for the fact that it pretty much gives away the entire ending of the movie. (Suffice it to say, the title is very appropriate.)
I'm not sure whether this is a compilation of someone's own making, or an actual release. The trailers are edited somewhat haphazardly, and there are a couple of odd trailers included(a multi-language-subtitled trailer for The Crippled Masters and the German-language trailer for this blog's favorite movie, Salo.(No, it doesn't improve the movie any.))
------------------------------------
Man, the Yankees suck right now. Sterling and Steiner pointed out that in a stretch where the Yanks are 8-9, the Red Sox are 16-1~! Looking worse every day, and now Kevin Brown's broken his non-pitching hand being a fucking idiot. The postseason seems to be slowly becoming more of a question.
Oh well.
posted by Jon M. at
2:50 PM
3 Comments:
Hahaha, oh man The Devil's Rain.
http://www.x-entertainment.com/articles/0720/ GO NOW
Wtf, that was me and I swear that left my name there last night. Odd.
hi. dont suppose you could remember the site where you downloaded the 42nd street forever torrent way back in september 2004? i'm desperate to get it and the only good link i googled was yours. please email me at jamiesummers@dsl.pipex.com if you can help. thanks!
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