Minisode 33: The King’s Speech
13 Feb
Archive by Author
We Will Not Walk In Fear, by Tyler Smith
13 Feb
GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK (2005)
Directed by: George Clooney
Written by: George Clooney and Grant Heslov
Starring: David Strathairn, Frank Langella, George Clooney
Today, I bought a copy of Good Night, and Good Luck. It’s a wonderful movie, currently occupying the number 5 spot on my list of favorite films of 2005. Some of you may have seen it. If so, I hope you liked it.
It’s not an easy movie to like, I’ll grant. There are no swells of emotion, telling you the viewer what the feel and when. Instead, the film challenges us to process the vast amounts of information handed to us, and react based on said information. There is no threatening music when Joe McCarthy is on-screen, indicating that he is the villain of the film. Instead, it just shows us what he is saying, shows us the other characters’ subdued reactions to him. If we haven’t been paying attention, we wouldn’t really know what’s going on.
A Story About A Hick, by Tyler Smith
12 Feb
ALL THE KING’S MEN (1949)
Written and Directed by: Robert Rossen
Starring: Broderick Crawford, John Ireland, Mercedes McCambridge
“Power corrupts.”
A pretty simple statement, and one that I think pretty much everybody agrees on. In fact, this little bit of cynical wisdom is so widely accepted, that I think we have failed to recognize the inherent tragedy of it.
Think about it. A well-meaning person all of a sudden gains power and starts to become more consumed with their own welfare. Soon, they are almost unrecognizable. They are certainly a far cry from where they started.
There are many films that employ this theme. None more effectively, I think, than Robert Rossen’s 1949 film All the King’s Men.
I’d Trade It All For A Little More, by Tyler Smith
11 Feb
HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (1986)
Written and Directed by: Woody Allen
Starring: Woody Allen, Michael Caine, Mia Farrow, Diane Weist
Settling. Compromise. Contentment. This is, in theory, the goal of every American. They just want to establish a comfortable life, sit back, and enjoy it.
The problem is that a person may never actually know at what point they have enough. They may not be able to allow themselves to be content. Perhaps they’re worried that their contentment will become complacency. So, they go searching for something else. Sure, they’re happy. But maybe- just maybe- they could be a little happier.
It’s like that Mr. Burns quote. “I’d trade it all for a little more.”
I Have A Love In My Life, by Tyler Smith
10 Feb
PUNCH-DRUNK LOVE (2002)
Written and Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson
Starring: Adam Sandler, Emily Watson, Luis Guzman, Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Movies about romance are a dime a dozen. The ratio of good romances to bad is about one to fifty. You can usually tell the good ones, because you yourself can relate to what’s being shown, whether it be positive or negative. These are films that truly understand the wonderful, yet unusual, nature of love. The bad romances will have swells of music in awkward places and characters who make huge pronouncements in the midst of large crowds. These films, rather than try to comprehend what love is, they’d rather dictate what love should be. I’m of the opinion that this can be very destructive. If you enter into a relationship with stupid expectations of “movie romance,” you’ll be sorely disappointed when you see what it actually is.
A Hard Target Search, by Tyler Smith
9 Feb
THE FUGITIVE (1993)
Directed by: Andrew Davis
Written by: Jeb Stuart and David Twohy
Starring: Harrison Ford, Tommy Lee Jones, Sela Ward, Joe Pantoliano
It’s no secret to anybody that knows me that I have a serious aversion to action films. Perhaps more so than any other genre, “Action-Adventure” has the highest potential to make me roll my eyes and grit my teeth. There’s just something about it.
I think it may be that many action films seem to come up with the action first, then the story. I don’t know if it’s true, but I heard that, when Robert Towne was halfway through the script for Mission: Impossible II, John Woo approached him and informed him that he had already thought up two complete action setpieces, and was working on a third, and that Towne would have to work them into the script. Towne observed that these action sequences made no sense by themselves, let alone as part of a larger story. Woo just shrugged. As I said, this story may not be completely true, but the end product sure does bear it out.
Episode 97: Art and Artists
7 Feb
In this episode, Tyler and Josh discuss separating art from the artist.
EPISODE BREAKDOWN
00:00:48- Intro, MTOL Newsletter
00:05:00- Separating the art from the artist
00:16:00- Fatty Arbuckle
00:21:45- Roman Polanski
00:27:50- Woody Allen
00:46:43- Christian artists?
00:57:05- Christian film
01:09:10- Episode wrap-up
Behind the Masks, by Tyler Smith
7 Feb
FACES (1968)
Written and Directed by: John Cassavetes
Starring: John Marley, Gena Rowlands, Lynn Carlin, Seymour Cassel
In film school, one will frequently be asked who one’s favorite directors are. Chances are, if you’ve taken the time to actually go to film school, you have a definite answer to that. After being there a while, though, you’ll start to notice that there’s a follow-up question to that, which is, “Who are your influences?”
It may seem as though these are the same question, but they most certainly are not. To give an example, I love the work of Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock and Billy Wilder. However, in the films that I’ve made and desire to make in the future, I’ve found that I have no desire to emulate the work of these great directors.
Instead, when asked the question of which directors I am influenced by, the top four on the list are Jim Jarmusch, Robert Altman, Sidney Lumet, and John Cassavetes. Over the course of talking about my favorite films, I’ll be discussing what I like about each one, but, today, we’ll focus in on Cassavetes, and his second film, Faces.
It’s The Pictures That Got Small, by Tyler Smith
6 Feb
SUNSET BLVD. (1950)
Directed by: Billy Wilder
Written by: Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, and D.M. Marshman Jr.
Starring: William Holden, Gloria Swanson, Erich von Stroheim
As many of you know, Jen and I took a trip to Los Angeles for a week. A couple of days after getting back, a good friend of mine in Missouri passed away, so I went home for the funeral for a couple of days. Needless to say, it’s been a very busy two weeks, with many emotional ups and downs.
Just Like The Rest Of Us, by Tyler Smith
5 Feb
IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT (1967)
Directed by: Norman Jewison
Written by: Stirling Silliphant
Starring: Rod Steiger, Sidney Poitier, Warren Oates
There have been a lot of movies about prejudice, some good (Crash), others not so much (Remember The Titans), but one of the best is Norman Jewison’s In the Heat of the Night. What’s interesting is that, whenever great movies are discussed, this film is seldom mentioned, which is especially odd, considering that it won both Best Picture and Actor that year.
