books about film

Yes, that was interesting. www.filmradar.com/readthis
Found I'd read 5 of them....


The Parade's Gone By, by Kevin Brownlow
Kevin is great at writing about old movies. This book helped me appreciate silent pictures. Apart from a very small group of famous classics, the silents are now forgotten. This book made it seem a great pity.

Me, by Katherine Hepburn
I always get a kick out of reading Katherine.

Easy Riders Raging Bulls, by Peter Biskind
Sociology taken to 70's Hollywood.

The Kid Stays In The Picture, by Robert Evans
Robert Evans loves himself all over. Good book though. Lots of famous names in it, which is as it should be for a producer's book.

Adventures in the Screen Trade, by William Goldman
Don't know if I really dig William. He's meant to be a great great screenwriter, but his films are definitely not on my list of faves. His books are very readable though, and do make a bit of sense. I just wouldn't follow any of his rules if I was writing a movie.

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matt
Sydney 2003

Italy has probably the highest concentration of
hirsute people in the world (men and women). And one
sees no chest hair on any advertisment, not unusual
you say??!! Women here have come to detest male hair
of any type and hence, here, many a young man
regularly waxes/shaves etc....but the majority of
women refuse to shave their armpits on the grounds
that regrowth is uncomfortable!?

C

I notice some advertisements around town are jumping in for mardi gras time.

One for Nokia:
"A mobile that sends video messages - How Queer!"
With a picture of a phone with a shot of a drag queen on the screen.

And for Yves St Laurent - a barechested man, with chest hair!
Hooray for fur!

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matthew

The Underpants will soon be opening in Sydney.

It's a new play by Steve Martin.
Really enjoyed his Picasso at the Lapin Agile that was here a few years ago.

If anyone feels like seeing The Underpants when it's on, let me know.
I wanna go.

_______________
matthew (in underpants)

... shooting a short film!

Oh, I forgot to mention something about Cade,
He's currently shooting a short film!
Some uni students are making it & they needed a girl and a boy and one of them suggested Cade.
He's done one day of it already and has some more to do over the next few weekends.

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matt
Sydney 2003

We call the 'thing' Bambi.

Well, I caved in. Cade's charms outweighed my fear.
We call the 'thing' Bambi. That is a nice non-threatening name. When something is called Bambi, you imagine it having a nice reasonable number of legs, say four or so. And not having fangs.
Cade has shown me the fellow's room. As soon as my eyes edged towards 'the box' I said I'd seen enough. The door is now to remain closed.

The new cat is cool. A very friendly feline. The dogs are funny. There was some kerfuffle the first few days, but they are now all okay with each other. I don't like to say this in front of Cade, but dogs aren't always that smart, don't you think? The cat mainly sits around. Occasionally walks hither and thither. But mainly sits. Then the dogs have to keep going up to it and sniffing it's butt or checking out it's tail. Every so often it gets pissed off and hisses and takes a swipe at their noses. One day a swipe may actually connect (and then there'll be trouble!). Each time this happens Cade gets offended. Naturally he doesn't like to see his dogs get swiped at. But how long does it take for these animals to realise that some butts should be left unsniffed!?

I've heard that bored 50's housewives used to use the vibrations of household washing machines to stimulate themselves when hubby was being neglectful.
Just another reason for us to be grateful for washing machines.
____________
matt
Sydney 2003

----- Original Message -----

Sent: Saturday, February 22, 2003 9:25 AM
Subject: the impossibility of ever coming to Newtown again ...

hey Matthew,

how's it going?
did you manage to get to Cade's place on Wednesday night? or, have you decided that there is no way you are ever coming to Newtown again?

I understand your qualms completely.

we've got a new washing machine - I'm very excited - so I'm washing everything despite it being a rainy day.

bye for now,
L

"Just because he's a faggot doesn't mean he's an asshole."

Just had to share that quote from Welcome To The Dollhouse with you.

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matt
Sydney 2003

The Birds

Watched more of the juicy extras on The Birds DVD.

I knew I recognised the young girl from the film.
She's Veronica Cartwright, and she's grown up to appear in heaps of things - Alien, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, The Witches Of Eastwick, even Scary Movie 2 just recently.
Obviously having birdseed put in her hair so that birds would peck at her didn't turn her off acting.

There was a 5 minute ad for the film that Alfred Hitchcock made.
It has all cheerful music and he says how he wants to talk about the age old relationship between man and birds.
He talks as if it's a happy, cheerful thing.
He mentions our close relationship to the Dodo and Carrier Pigeon (made extinct by man), and how we give chickens such nice little battery cages to lay their eggs in, and how feathers can be used in fancy hats, and roast chicken is nice to eat.
He then shows a lovely little canary in a gilded cage. He talks of how happy it must be to live in something so pretty, kept away from the nasty glare of the sun etc. He gives it a little wag of his finger and the bird proceeds to give him a nasty little nip.
He looks very surprised at it's ingratitude.
It then cuts to a clip from the movie of Tippi Hedren running in the door yelling "THEY'RE COMING! THEY'RE COMING!".
About time too, I say!

____________
matt
Sydney 2003

I spent the weekend at Cade's.

He was getting rid of his rather troublesome old flatmate, finally.

All good.

Today his new flatmate turned up.
Cade says he seems to be a perfectly nice fellow who he shouldn't have any troubles with.
And the guy's cat (name: Kit) is a friendly one.

All good.

Then Cade tells me about how the fellow forgot to mention before he moved in that he has a tarantula.

....................

I force myself to keep calm and confirm that yes it's a real tarantula. I am not mishearing what Cade is telling me. The guy feeds dead mice to the thing and keeps it in a glass box.
This thing is going to be in the room next to Cade's.

I am not going to be able to go in that room.

And without going into that room I will not be able to confirm that it is safely in that box and not hunting mice under the chair I may be sitting on, or under the bed I may be sleeping in.

I tell Cade I am going to try and be sensible, and I am sure it is all perfectly safe, and I will try and be grown up about it.

.................

Cade asked me to go stay over on Wednesday.

I've told him I've suddenly come down with a broken leg.

And anyway, I was going to see a movie that night.

Or something.

____________
matt
Sydney 2003

Well, I enjoyed lots of Mulholland Drive. But I'm so glad you warned me about the last third.
The plot of the first two thirds was quite intriguing, and it would have made a hell of a good movie if it had've continued with it and had a decent ending.
Is a pity it didn't get made into a tv series like it was intended.

What I liked -

* The stylish photography.

* The scene where the Roy Orbison song is sung in Spanish.

* Naomi Watts scenes where she practices her acting role at home with her girlfriend, and then does a totally different interpretation when she does the test with the sleazy over-suntanned old actor.

* Seeing Ann Miller have a decent role.

* Where the hit man kills the guy in the office, then accidentally shoots the woman next door in the butt, then has to kill her, then gets seen by the vacuum guy and has to kill him, then has to shut up the vacuum & a fire starts & the alarm goes off. Funny.

* The breasts on the other actress. Not Naomi Watts. The other one. The second nudie scene she's lying on her back and her rather fulsome breasts are totally upright and perky. Is it possible for real breasts to be like that? I presume they were implant enhanced? Or maybe it was all done with trick wires?

* The screen tests where the girls sing old 50's songs.

I think I understand the ending. The dead girl was actually the amnesiac girl's previous girffriend, who got upset when the other girl dumped her for the director, so she hired someone to kill her and then went crazy and imagined an old couple were coming to attack her so she shot herself in the head.
But then again maybe not.
That makes the most sense to me, but still leaves other parts of the plot totally unexplained.

David should be told to go back and do the ending properly.

But otherwise, strangely, I think I actually liked it.
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matt
Sydney 2003

I've done it.
I've joined.

I managed to find one thing up there.
Can you add the stuff I wrote about Mulholland Drive?

I will try and learn how to add things myself sometime soon.

It looks kind of groovy.

If I can get into it I'll have to get Tino in on it.
And after him maybe some others (Cade & Stephen may be interested perhaps).
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matt
Sydney 2003

Sounds like a choice idea.
Please go ahead. Very nice of you to volunteer your time to save my best opinions (and we all know there are oh so many of them) for posterity.
I will have to keep control of the copyright of course.
When I finally pull my finger out and make my own website I'll probably steal some of my thoughts back.
You know how I am.