Peter Bogdanovich Tagged Articles at Cinematical

There are plenty of examples to choose from when you think about the lost potential of Orson Welles. From being the young genius behind Citizen Kane, to a hammered "has-been" in a wine commercial, clearly his career ran the gamut. Welles.net recently posted that filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich announced that he would be completing Welles' "lost masterpiece," The Other Side of the Wind, which is something we've been hearing about for a while now. Bogdanovich apparently made the announcement during a press event in Florida, saying that a deal had finally been struck with Showtime for the project and said, "We now have a lot of work ahead of us." The film was the story of an aging director (John Huston) in the midst of an artistic and personal crisis.

Bogdanovich is planning on taking inventory of the completed footage that has been sitting in a vault in Paris for the past 30 years. From there, he hopes to collaborate with Welles' former partners and said that "The idea would be to try and get as close as we can to what Orson had in mind." Bogdanovich also said the film could hit theaters as early as 2008. Between piecing together a film with 30-year-old footage and new material based on second hand recollections, it appears that Bogdanovich has his work cut out for him -- he might want to start brushing up on those old interview notes just in case.

Today is Peter Bogdanovich's 67th birthday. I'm fond of several of the movies he's directed: The Last Picture Show, The Cat's Meow, even What's Up Doc? in a shallow sort of way. But there's only one of his movies I've loved enough to watch twice in a month, and that's Paper Moon. I rented the DVD after hearing producer Polly Platt speak to a class I was taking ... and a few days later, I found out that Bogdanovich would attend a screening of the 1973 film at Alamo Drafthouse. (In fact, there was even a limited opportunity to have dinner with him afterwards, but that event sold out so quickly that I never got the chance to consider it.) As delightful as the movie was on DVD, the theater print was in excellent shape and made Paper Moon even better. It was also interesting to hear both Platt and Bogdanovich discussing the movie, and one another, so closely together. Their memories didn't quite match on some details.

When people talk about Bogdanovich, they tend to gush over The Last Picture Show, gripe about the commentary tracks he's done for classic films (I only made it through about 30 minutes of his Bringing Up Baby commentary), or gossip about his personal life. I hardly ever hear anyone mention Paper Moon, and it's a wonderful film, understated and sweet. The dialogue is perfect (Alvin Sargent adapted the first half of the book Addie Pray), the Depression era is rendered authentically by the photography and production design, and I've never seen Ryan or Tatum O'Neal come close to their performances in this movie. Paper Moon also includes some great supporting performances from Madeline Kahn, John Hillerman, and Burton Gilliam (all of whom were later in Blazing Saddles).

[Image via Cinema Pulpspotting, which includes a number of other interesting movie stills that feature pulp magazines.]

Did you say "set in the world of competitive science?" Oh, I am SO there.

Peter Bogdanovich has agreed to direct The Broken Code, a movie about Rosalind Franklin, the only woman involved in cracking the DNA code. What's that you say? Haven't heard of her? Exactly! Arguments can and have been made that she was instrumental in discovering and understanding DNA, and was screwed out of a piece of the Nobel Prize, at least partially because James Watson and Francis Crick downplayed her contributions to their discovery. Bastards.

The screenplay, which was written by David Baxter, is the first product of Tribeca/Sloan Development, a very cool-sounding (at least if you're a nerd like me) program set up four years ago to develop "realistic stories about science and technology that challenge existing stereotypes." Casting for the film will begin in May, and it's hoped that production will start this fall.

February is such a blah month for movies. New releases are often films that people see only because nothing else good is around (Pink Panther, I am looking at you). In Austin, the SXSW film lineup just went public and it seems like forever until the fun starts in March. Still, local theaters have managed to put together some enjoyable screenings this week, including Valentine's Day (or anti-valentine) special events. In addition, both Ross McElwee and Peter Bogdanovich will be in town to show their movies and participate in Q&As, and that's not blah at all.

• This week's AFS@Dobie films, in which Austin Film Society collaborates on Dobie Theatre programming, are the feature Before the Fall, held over from last week, and the documentary Protocols of Zion. The films will play all week long at the Dobie.
• Free coffeehouse movies: Austin Java on Barton Springs is showing Fahrenheit 9/11 tonight (Friday) at 8 pm. Cafe Mundi is showing Existenz, the 1999 David Cronenberg film, on Monday 2/13 at 8 pm.
• Alamo Downtown has started a new series, Soul Cinema, on Monday nights at 7 pm. The Monday 2/13 film is tick ... tick... tick ..., a 1970 drama about a black sheriff in a rural Southern town. The cast list alone is fascinating: ex-football player Jim Brown, George Kennedy, Dub Taylor, Bernie Casey, and of all people, Fredric March. It's not available on DVD, and admission is just $1.
  

Boris Karloff was born William Henry Pratt in the Camberwell district of London, thousands of miles from the place that would make him a star of such magnitude that, for a time, he was known merely by his (fake) last name. Though he appeared in dozens of silent films, Karloff shot to fame with his moving portrayal of The Monster in James Whale’s Frankenstein, and went on to star in a slew of other mostly horror films, from The Mask of Fu Manchu to Edgar G. Ulmer’s Poe adaptation, The Black Cat.

Next week, in recognition of the 75th anniversary of the release of Frankenstein, New York’s Film Forum is presenting a week of Karloff features. The series includes the trio of films mentioned above, as well as Bride of Frankenstein, Targets and a pair of virtually unseen pre-Frankenstein rarities: Graft and The Guilty Generation, in addition to seven others.

Thought of primarily as a looming, sinister screen presence, Karloff was in fact an actor of remarkable skill and subtlety, traits that were never more fully realized than in Frankenstein. Despite having not a single line to speak, Karloff infused the Monster with such a profound melancholy that even today the movie, despite its otherwise often dated acting, remains deeply affecting. Though he had never worked with the actor before, Whale clearly understood the power at his disposal: instead of portraying the monster as the pitiless beast he had been in previous screen incarnations, he instead gave us a massive, awkward creature who, from the very beginning, is abused and misunderstood. And in Karloff’s hands, the creature’s suffering is abundantly clear; a sense of solemnity comes over the movie when he first appears on screen after nearly 30 minutes of buildup, and it refuses to relinquish its grasp until the credits roll. Given the restrictions placed on his character by the creature’s awkward body and wordlessness, Karloff was able to use only his face to convey emotions. Despite this, he created a being that, by turns, is befuddled, desperate to please, terrified, and filled with explosive rage.