What are we watching now?

Ask Bruce Campbell, who said in his book a producer told him to remove "uhs" and pauses in his delivery (if memory serves; it may have been some other minor change). The writer didn't like to have their precious dialog fucked with.
Was Campbell the writer as well as the actor? Was the Producer a writer or director or ...?

Makes no sense at all, and why is Bruce Campbell the leading authority? He does write, act, produce and direct, so I have no clue what this in reference to.

And really doesn't address what I said whatsoever.
 
Last edited:
Bruce Campbell is a God amongst mere mortals.



81wSbaE6vGL._SL1500_.jpg


71GuxYzoCUL._SL1500_.jpg
 
Was Campbell the writer as well as the actor? Was the Producer a writer or director or ...?

Makes no sense at all, and why is Bruce Campbell the leading authority? He does write, act, produce and direct, so I have no clue what this in reference to.

And really doesn't address what I said whatsoever.
Okay, then. I don't care if you're going to take that attitude. Have a great evening.
 
Bruce Campbell is a God amongst mere mortals.
His two autobiography books are great. He almost left Burn Notice after season one due to contract/pay reasons, and I'm really glad he didn't, as I am a big fan of Burn Notice. While Michael Westen was a great character, Sam Axe/Charles "Chuck" Finley were even better. That is where I got the comment from Bruce where he stated that a producer or someone told him he needed to say the lines more "as written."
 
I just need to add that they killed it with the casting. The guy who plays John Lithgow’s younger self absolutely nails his speech and mannerisms.
The level of thought put into the cinematography, the framing....even the shadows are all planned ....this show is almost too good to be a TV show.

Very clever.....all the way through....and yes, nailed every aspect of the casting, especially with the younger actors......such an amazing show!

Seriously one of, if not my absolute, favorite Jeff Bridge's roles.
 
Last edited:
I’ve finally been able to watch something and get all the way through it! Started (for the 2nd or 3rd time) The Gentlemen tonight, I’m on the 3rd episode and am really digging it. I was curious how the Ritchie thing would work in a show format, it works for me. I love the dialogue in his movies and this is no different.

It’s due time I go back through his movies, it’s been years since I’ve seen Lock Stock.
 
How much control do writers have over the acting performance?

A writer/director, sure, but there seem to be "writer's rooms" and such these days on many projects.
Afaik a big part of the problem is that the writers are no longer as involved during filming where they could punch up the dialog, or change things that don't work on the fly. This is because the studios don't want to pay to have writers around.

It's just amazing how movies with multiple writers manage to have dialog and plot twists that are so cookie cutter that even good actors cannot save them. Or maybe studios just meddle these into rewrites that ruin any originality that might've been there.

The first Joker movie seemed like something where its makers were given freedom to make what they wanted, and they knew how to achieve it. I haven't seen Folie A Deux but it seems like something that happened only because the first movie got popular, instead of having any real need to be made. Basically typical "Oh shit, this made money? Let's make more like this!" studio response where they don't understand the reason for its success was that it did something different, and did it well.
 
We just watched The Entity from 1982. It's extremely well acted by Barbara Hershey. She's truly a great actor in this film, the kind whom I think of at the top echelon with this performance. I've always thought she's really cool because of her performance in The Last Temptation of Christ, and here she was different but just as incredible. In this she has a quiet intelligence, a sort of centered quality while she's also losing her sense of any safety but trying to maintain her sense of self. It's extraordinary to watch.

The film is somehow directed by the dude who made Superman IV and Iron Eagle, but this is actually really good overall. In many ways they tried to rip off elements of The Exorcist, like the opening and closing themes, which were very cool but too damn ripped off from Tubular Bells. The framing of the shorts was sophisticated and powerful, which shocked the hell out of me, based on the director.

Big caveat: this film deals with rape, a lot of it, and it is really graphic to the point of exploitation. The director could've shown her reactions, the aftermath of the incidents, the sounds, suggestive framing, etc, but he just seems like some dick who thinks this makes his movie edgy, when really this aspect of it makes it sick.

All in all, I just loved watching Hershey's talent on full display. She does so much here, and I feel like she was maybe inspired by the genius of Ellen Burstyn in The Exorcist in a good way, to want to have a performance of that level of quality of her own in a horror film, something that makes the whole genre better, something so far above the B movie status of so much in the genre. This just reminded me of how intense, cool, and powerful of an actor she is.
 
Last night we watched Poltergeist for the second time ever. I remember thinking it was crap, but my wife wanted to retry it, and I was surprised that we both really like it this time around! It's just totally an 80s Steven Spielberg movie, despite the credit to Tobe Hooper. We read that Spielberg basically took over, and you can totally see it. It's 1,000 times better than any Tobe Hooper movie. It was just kind of fun to watch, and it had a lot of that warmth Spielberg would have in his 80s work. I'm curious now about the sequels.
 
Last night we watched Poltergeist for the second time ever. I remember thinking it was crap, but my wife wanted to retry it, and I was surprised that we both really like it this time around! It's just totally an 80s Steven Spielberg movie, despite the credit to Tobe Hooper. We read that Spielberg basically took over, and you can totally see it. It's 1,000 times better than any Tobe Hooper movie. It was just kind of fun to watch, and it had a lot of that warmth Spielberg would have in his 80s work. I'm curious now about the sequels.
Yikes. Lol
 
We followed Politest with Poltergeist II, and it was total crap, with the exception of Will Sampson. We started Poltergeist III, but within five minutes it already felt like a terrible sitcom.
 
Last night we watched Il demonio from 1963, an early exorcism movie out of Italy by Brunello Rondi. I kept thinking it was going to go somewhere interesting, but Rondi seemed inept to make visceral much of the events of the film by letting the actors either appear with utter emotionlessness or completely over the top and fakely histrionic performances. I really liked the cinematography though! The mountainous landscape is incredible, and if I just wanted to luxuriate in a sea of epic black and white shots of bad actors in awesome vistas by a keen eye, I'd have loved this.

The main character Purif goes through hell, but the actor playing her was not realistic in many ways, so it dulled the effect of the script. Daliah Lavi plays her almost like one would a dramatic child looking for attention, rather than deeply internalizing the many traumas her character endures and luring the audience in to hold her hand through the journey. I felt like she was earnest, but she had no idea what good acting is and no way to regulate her passionate but ineffective performance; that's where a good director could've helped!

The most interesting thing was to see how unbelievably superstitious and vengefully reactionary the townspeople were portrayed to be; that felt real, and extremely disturbing.

The details of superstition in the culture were blowing my mind, like parents of a married couple spreading grapes in the shape of a cross on the wedding bed to poison the devil putting under a pillow, putting a scythe under the bed to cut the legs of the devil, putting a bag of salt under a pillow, and engaging in ritual chants, all done with the newlyweds waiting outside the door, right before the couple may enter on their wedding night. Let me tell you, having my parents and new in-laws leave the bedroom right before letting us in would kill the mood a little! It reminds me of the line from John Mulaney about having his girlfriend meet his parents:

"Come on! Let's get them in the mix. We've been going pretty hot and heavy lately, I think it's time we bring in two older Catholic people."
 
Back
Top