In October, nearly 25 years after the critically acclaimed but short-lived release of Charles Lane's bittersweet silent comedy "Sidewalk Stories," the Film Forum featured a two-week screening of the film, which has been newly restored and will soon receive a long overdue DVD release (after a nationwide theatrical run). Silent film was not a hot …
Continue reading Director Charles Lane Reflects on “Sidewalk Stories” and “True Identity”
Before I launch into a long overdue defense of the critically savaged "Lemon Sisters" (in which Elliott Gould plays a small but key role), I want to devote a little space to its director, Joyce Chopra, whom I interviewed over the phone in July and who has been sadly out of the public eye for …
Continue reading Elliott Gould’s More Obscure Films, Part 3: 1990 to Present
Precious few of Elliott Gould's 1980s films are available on Netflix. The exceptions are "The Muppets Take Manhattan," in which he cameos as a harried police officer; the criminally underrated Christopher Guest Hollywood satire, "The Big Picture," another delicious cameo opportunity for Gould; the lame 1989 horror flick "The Night Visitor"; and two children's films …
Continue reading Elliott Gould Discusses His Lesser-Known Films, Part 2: The 1980s
Most Elliott Gould interviews conducted between 1974 and today chronicle the same career high and lows. Born in 1938 and raised in Brooklyn, he was pushed into show business uneasily at an early age by his mother, presumably to get over a persistent shyness. Nonetheless, he blossomed into a tap dancer, singer and impersonator; he landed a starring …
Continue reading The Lesser Known (or Less Celebrated) Films of Elliott Gould (Part 1)
It's hard to see a definitive stylistic pattern in the varied oeuvre of director/writer Rick King, the man who--you may not realize--came up with the story idea for "Point Break," the greatest movie ever made about surfing bank robbers and the FBI agents who love them. King's origins as a filmmaker are as far removed …
Continue reading Without Him, There’d Be No “Point Break”: The Diverse Work of Filmmaker Rick King
At the onset, "FightFuckPray" announces that all the dialogue in the film was entirely improvised. That could be, but the three stories (titled "Fight," "Fuck" and "Pray") that eventually intersect must have at least been outlined and analyzed by the actors, a set of young amateurs from the Atlanta area who give impressively intense performances. …
As noted in my interview a few months ago with Paul Morrissey, the 74 year-old director hates any cinematic style that purports to be "underground," even though his self-financed, bare-bones films (especially the ones he made during his term at the Warhol Factory) often play out that way. He misses the "classic" Hollywood studio dramas …
While I will soon be posting (after agonizing delay) on the harder-to-find films directed by Paul Morrissey, it would be negligent not to first address a conundrum that a museum's worth of researchers, hundreds of well-detailed books and even direct witnesses have failed to answer effectively. Was it Paul Morrissey or Andy Warhol that "directed" …
Continue reading A Word on the Paul Morrissey vs. Andy Warhol Debate
Those who like their group sex comedies on the neurotic side (with more stewing than screwing) might want to check out "Charlie's Party," the small 2005 comedy directed by Catherine Cahn and produced by "The Station Agent" producer Barry Sisson. Think of it as a "Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice" for uptight East …
"Pass the Ammo," the 1988 comedy spoofing greedy televangelists, was certainly a victim of bad timing, on many counts. Shot in early 1987 in the overwhelmingly Christian community of Eureka Springs, Arkansas, the film, directed by David Beaird, initially sparked the controversy Beaird was hoping for. According to Beaird's account of the shoot in a …
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