Ever since I saw the myspace page for Snakes on a Train I think about how that movie got off the ground. I bet it was something like, "let's do that shit" Which is how I feel everything should go. And if the idea is good the person you're talking to should say, "Seriously? Somebody is gonna pay for that?"
That brings me to Iron Pan. Well, almost.
Mark Wynns had posted something about mockbusters that he read in the NY Times and I got to thinking about 'ol Snakes on a Train again and laughing. I think I read that and the next day Tony Holley and I were driving from Houston to Austin and I was on only a couple of hours sleep so I was idiot o'clock and I bounced around and ranted and we come up with Iron Pan.
In May Iron Man will be released. Will it be good? I doubt it but you never know, maybe someone won't fuck up a huge budget superhero movie. (yeah and maybe Pimento Cheese will taste good) so first watch the Iron Man trailer.
Now let me give you the pitch on Iron Pan. (I really should just be making this instead of blogging it but its 4:30am and I can't sleep so you get the chance to steal it from me) it is about a cocky, alcoholic Iron Chef type guy. Well, he's a big shot and then some terrorists snatch him up and try to force him to make a dessert to kill the President. But he doesn't. He makes a frying pan. that's it, it is just a regular iron skillet. It looks like a regular skillet. He bonks people on the head with it, fights Mongols and ninjas and vikings, blocks bullets and all kinds of other dumber, dumb ass shit. But it's just a drunk with a pan. I'm just gonna shoot a trailer because really, I'm gonna need someone to shell out some cash to jam out a retarded feature about a drunk chef with a pan that has an adventure.
But if you saw that Iron Man trailer, Iron Pan could rock ass for about 124 seconds as a trailer. If you wanna help me get this monkey on a stick, gather up some funny shit and some ninja outfits and let's go. A horse would be good too- for the Mongols. Just imagine someone saying the line, "I AM IRON PAN!" over and over and over and over
That's Blood Car on the same Marquee as a Godard movie. That's pretty sweet company, eh?
My girlfriend and I walk everywhere we can, we live in a great area for it and driving a couple hundred yards is for assholes. So we're walking and I meet eyes with some random guy- I look at everyone- and he says "You want to buy a computer?" I think that its probably gonna be something stupid (I'm mac only) and I'll just walk away. So this guy pulls out a brand new 17-inch macbook pro. He asks for $100. $100!! I KNEW he had to have stolen it so I go ehhhhh and start to hand it back. He says, "Will you give me less?" and I say $50 and he says $60, so I buy it. Then as Katie and I are walking down the street she decides that if we find the owner and give them their computer we can probably restore someone's faith in humanity. So I found the owner's contact info in his address book, called him and told him I bought his macbook for $63 (the $3 was my ATM charge) Here is a picture of him with his computer. He was happy.
After he gave me the money I spent, his girlfriend bought us some nachos. I call them the $2,000 nachos. We didn't take a picture, we just ate them and watched the Indians play some more cruddy baseball against the Red Sox. I don't know who at MLB decided that fucking Dane Cook should be doing baseball promos, but he shouldn't be anywhere near them. Get that guy on a bus with that Albatross Kenny Lofton (he's more cursed than Wrigley Field) and drive it right up Barry Bonds ass and that will be a start to fixing baseball. You fix baseball and just watch everything else start to get in line. Give our national pastime back its dignity (from strike to juicing- things have been better) and then you'll see all these other problems fix themselves. I promise.
Saw Gone Baby Gone. Some great stuff, some shitty stuff but Ben Affleck should get to do another movie. Casey Affleck was, of course, great. I liked the movie because C Affleck plays a character that reminds me of Hammett. Always finishing the job he was hired to do, even though no one wants him too. I like the part of a detective story when everything seems wrapped up and then one small thing starts everything unravelling. 'something doesn't sit right with the gumshoe so he stirs up a bunch of shit that ruins everything for everyone, even him.
I also got this hammock up - safely now. I did have it tied to some crap and it fell on me several times but I got t fixed now.It is one bad ass hammock. It makes not having a job ok. not really ok, but not as bad.
Holy shit this movie is great. I watched Chopper that night. Really interesting to see what this filmmaker like to focus on. After Adam Pinney saw the movie he said we shoulfdshoot a Beardman titled The Assassination of Adam Pinney by the Coward Beardman. I said ok- let's see if we do it. Our last effort at a short- Smelly Couch, was abandoned by me because it had funny parts, from Amber Nash, Katie Rowlett and Adam- basically everyone but me) but wasn't totally funny as a whole. Maybe it is, i don't know anymore. I also just saw Vanaja. Not really worth catching. Although I get the social side of the film, the person pulling the strings- Rajnesh Domalpalli- didn't really do it for me.
I went to the Austin Film Festival with my film Blood Car and saw some movies and i'll tell you what I think of them and my trip and the town without ruining the movies or going on and on:
First the movies
Chicago 10: I hate this movie. If I was 17 I would say "Hell Yeah" and hold my fist in the air and protest and be politically charged. But I wasn't feeling like a kid at this screening and the filmmaking in this "docu-drama" is really appalling. (I think docu-drama is what you call someone lying to you in documentary form) basically the sound is punched up for dramatic effect and serious liberties are taken with the performance of the court transcripts. But the film parades as a Doc because of the subject matter and archival footage (tons stolen from a movie with real balls- Medium Cool)the music choices are very MTV with even Eminem and they are really loud-so loud I was unable to hear dialogue. I was angry after the screening and felt the film was manipulative when it had all the material to be Hearts and Minds. I'm for the cause, just not this film.
Juno Great film. At first I thought, awww another Rushmore rip off. The editing is quirky the main character is too smart to be in high school and so on. But its not that at all. the first scene just gives you a feeling that the film is going the wrong way, it has Rainn Wilson (that weird guy from the American Office) in it as a cashier and he shouldn't be in the film. It is a great film. It is so god that Jennifer Garner made me shed a tear. Really funny and sweet and great characters. Better than Thank You For Smoking which is the director's previous work. I think the film will do very well with a wide audience. Control i didn't know anything about Joy Division (nor have I seen 24 Hour Party People) and I LOVED this movie. It is really hard to believe that its the first feature from a music video director because it is not style over substance. Just see it. I'm probably in the minority on people who aren't into Joy Division liking it but I think its great. And so wonderfully shot (except for the 360 dolly shot, why is that in every director's first feature?)
The Living Wake It's the most original comedy I have ever seen. Seriously. These guys jump head first into such an absurd world and character and really pull it off. it runs a little long at 90 minutes but it doesn't matter because when the lead in this film is on, he's on fire. I don't know when you're gonna get a chance to see this, but if you do, watch it. Its another movie made with Original Media. They did The Squid and the Whale, Half Nelson and the horrible reality show I worked on Miami Ink. They're great people and they make great films, keep it up.
Yeti in the City you'll never get to see this movie. fucking crazy is all I can say. If you get your hands on it, take drugs and then maybe it will pull it all together. This film has really amazing moments, like a Yeti break dancing and cops with dog heads (like mcgruff), talking flies, French monkeys, random animated sequences (yes the previous things were not animated) and a ton of reflexive elements and the filmmakers purposefully muck up the plot and story just to....well I don't know why but its really experimental and i'd even watch it again just to see someone else's reaction. And to take the drugs.
Gimme Green this is a short about lawns. It is awesome. Check out its site HERE the movie played everywhere on the festival circuit and rightly should. It is wonderful. Really funny and addresses what no one thinks is a serious problem. Grass. its about more than that but basically grass. You can see it on the Sundance Channel real soon, check the gimme green site for times. I saw some other short docs but forgot them after I saw this.
I also missed a few movies. 2 of them I will see this week and post about, STREET TEAM MASSACRE and BEYOND THE PALE. I missed LARS AND THE REAL GIRL and I heard it sucks shit from everyone who I listen to. RANDY AND THE MOB was there but I'd rather chew glass than watch that turd again. I had to leave before THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY and I wanna see that. I saw Born on the 4th of July and saw Oliver Stone talk after. I don't really like Born on the 4th of July. I can just watch BEST YEARS OF OUR LIVES which is infinitely better. I just don't like the acting or editing or script or choices in music, so I pretty much just don't like it. Oh, I don't like the sound design either. Honestly, i laughed at the acting in the family breakdown scene. But I saw an Oliver Stone Q&A and I even got him fired up with a question about satire. And he and John Milius talked about war films for 90 minutes at another thing. That was cool. I also saw a ton of other great panels that i'll put in my blog.
All in all, Austin is a great town with what looks like 3 great film festivals. I hung out with folks from the Ann Arbor Film Festival (that needs your help, click here to learn more) the guys at Bside and bunches of random filmmakers and folks.
So this bitch Jodie Foster somehow got into my computer and read a script I wrote for a short film and made it into THE BRAVE ONE. If I told that fucker once, I told her a thousand times.
Well since I've heard that her film is a big 'ol shit sandwich and mine would have ruled- I have decided to post the script here for you to read. Please reply with you feedback- positive and negative. I especially enjoy it when someone really rips into something I write. You can't get better at anything without criticism.
here it is. It is called MY BOYFRIEND IS RETARD between myself and a couple people. I'm not sure that the title s really that good but you be the judge.
Black Title Card
BASED ON A TRUE STORY
INT. POOL BAR DAY The bar is almost empty being that it is noon. A MEXICAN YOUTH is playing pool in the corner of the bar with a slim young man in a white T-shirt and jeans. The young man quickly moves around the table as he sinks ball after ball. He is a pretty nice looking guy for a pool hustler, well kept- not a slimy dirtbag. This is MIKEY.
MIKEY In the corner.
MIKEY sinks the eight ball, grins at his opponent and shrugs. The Mexican youth take two hundred dollar bills from his pocket and gives them to Mikey. Mikey puts the money in his pocket and looks over into the corner where an attractive young woman sits reading a book and drinking a colorful cocktail. She has long brown hair and glasses. She is long, slender and not likely to be kicked out of bed by any sane man. She looks like a librarian in some graphic designer's wet dream This is FEMALE LEAD.
MIKEY (CONT'D) I won.
FEMALE LEAD Good. Are we leaving, Mikey? I'm hungry.
MIKEY I think. I'll see if he'll play one more. Then we can go and eat.
Female Lead looks up from her book and raises an eyebrow. Behind Mikey the Mexican Youth breaks the fat end of a pool cue over Mikey's head.
CUT TO:
BLACK CARD 2 YEARS LATER
INT. SMALL APARTMENT LIVING ROOM DAY Female Lead washes dishes. The sounds of a TV game show can be heard in the background. She looks over her shoulder to MIKEY who sits in front of the TV looking at the floor. He is slumped in a chair and rocks slightly back and forth. His eyes have dark circles under them and his skin is very pale. He is basically a vegetable.
INT. BATHROOM DAY Female lead undresses Mikey while bath water is heard running in the background. Mikey wears an adult diaper. Female lead takes off the diaper to bath him.
INT. BATHROOM DAY Female Lead shaves Mikey's face and combs his hair. She speaks to him like a child and says his name softly.
INT. SMALL APARTMENT LIVING ROOM DAY Female Lead reads a book and eats while Mikey continues to watch television.
INT. SMALL APARTMENT DAY Female Lead changes Mikey's Diaper. He has shit himself like an infant.
INT. PAWN SHOP DAY Female lead looks at the firearms in the pawn shop. She picks out two pistols and a large shotgun. The firearms are shown to her by a large man with a pony tail wearing a Motorhead T-shirt and carrying a hand-cannon on his waist- a .357 Or something. He is the PAWN BROKER and he is greasy, the kind of guy you expect to be hustling pool. She purchases the guns and ammunition. The pawn broker makes a racist comment or joke. The Female Lead doesn't respond.
EXT. JUNKYARD DAY Female lead loads the pistol and tries to shoot a bottle from about 20 yards away. She misses and walks very close to the bottle and shoots it. She then loads the shotgun with some difficulty and fires it at a car. The windshield explodes.
INT. BATHROOM DAY Female lead looks through the medicine cabinet and removes a few prescription pill bottles.
INT. KITCHEN DAY Female Lead is crying. She takes the pills from the bottles and places them in a blender that sits on the counter. She puts two scoops of ice cream into the blender and a small amount of milk. She blends the contents of the blender and pours the milkshake into a glass.
INT. SMALL APARTMENT LIVING ROOM DAY Female lead pets Mikey's head and feeds him the milkshake. She cries as Mikey drinks the shake down from one of his over sized sippy cups with his name on it.
FADE OUT.
FADE IN: INT. CAR DAY Female lead drives into a gas station. The station is filled with day laborers. Female Lead exits the car and speaks to one of the men in Spanish. All this is Spanish and someone will need to translate it because I don't speak Spanish for shit.
FEMALE LEAD I need two men to help me. Simple work, digging. How much?
MAN 1 50 dollars per day
FEMALE LEAD For both?
MAN 1 No. 50 each.
FEMALE LEAD Ok. get in.
INT. CAR DAY Female Lead and the two Mexican men ride in the car. They go down a dirt road. Female lead stops the car.
FEMALE LEAD Ok, we're here.
Female Lead and the two men exit the car. Female lead goes to her trunk. She removes the shotgun and shoots Man 1 at very close range. It is messy and sudden, there is no stylized manner about the violence. The nonchalant way it happens and is repulsive. Man 2 runs through the woods to get away. Female lead fires at him but he is too far away and escapes. Female Lead jumps into her small truck.
EXT. WOODS DAY Man 2 runs through the woods.
INT. CAR DAY Female lead drives quickly down the dirt road.
EXT ROAD DAY Man 2 runs out to the paved road and tries to flag down a car for help. No one stops for him. Female lead's car comes around the corner. Female Lead spots him and runs him over. She stops the car, takes the pistol from her glovebox and exits the car. Man 2 looks bad, getting hit by a car doesn't agree with him. Female lead shoots him in the head. Her face doesn't register insanity or rage and she doesn't have the satisfaction of a person who has exacted revenge.
INT. SMALL APARTMENT LIVING ROOM DAY Female lead comes home. She sees Mikey in the chair. Mikey is dead.
INT. BATHROOM DAY Female lead is bathing Mikey
INT. BEDROOM DAY Female lead has Mikey dressed on the bed. She curls up next to his body and closes her eyes.
FADE OUT.
EXT. DAY GAS STATION Female Lead is at a gas station picking up two more day laborers. One has a red hat the other is short and fat.
INT. CAR DAY Female lead drives her car with two different day laborers as passengers. Both are young and fit and are sipping water from the cooler in the back of the truck.
EXT. WOODS DAY Female lead gets out of a pickup truck with a shotgun and six Mexicans start to get out of the back. She speaks in Spanish.
FEMALE LEAD Hold on, hold on.
Female lead fires into the truck shooting the Mexican men. One gets away and runs into the woods. Female lead watches him run and decides not to give chase.
INT. BEDROOM DAY Female Lead trims the fingernails of Mikey.
INT. MEXICAN APARTMENT - DAY The fellow who just ran away from the Female lead sits at his small kitchen table with a woman holding a baby. They look at each other for a moment. The woman has been crying. They speak in Spanish.
MEXICAN WOMAN What will you do?
MEXICAN MAN Nothing.
INT. MEXICAN RESTAURANT DAY Female Lead sits and eats a taco. Salsa music plays in the background while two Mexican children laugh and giggle with their parents. Female Lead gets up from her table and walks past the other white patrons to the register. Female Lead pays her check at the counter and an average white suburban girl gives her change.
COUNTER GIRL Thank you for coming to Mexico Fantastico. Have a great day.
A tall man in a suit appears with a newspaper under his arm. This is COWORKER.
COWORKER Hey there, eating some lunch?
FEMALE LEAD Yeah, eating some tacos.
COWORKER OK OK. What have you been up to?
FEMALE LEAD Oh, about 5'11'' 125 pounds.
COWORKER Huh?
COUNTER GIRL Ha, ha . That's funny.
FEMALE LEAD Thanks. (TO COWORKER) I gotta run.
COWORKER OK, I'll see you around.
INT. OFFICE - DAY Female lead sits at her desk typing and doing work shit. A man walks up to her desk. We do not see his face or any part of him really. We only see Female Lead.
COURIER Excuse me, Miss Young?
FEMALE LEAD Yes?
The man hold out a package. The Female lead stares at his Courier Company name tag that reads M. GLASS
COURIER I just need you to-
FEMALE LEAD What does the M stand for?
COURIER Michael.
FEMALE LEAD Oh, really? Do people ever call you Mikey?
COURIER Some people call me Mikey.
FEMALE LEAD My boyfriend's name is Mikey.
COURIER Oh. That's nice. If you could just sign right there.
Female lead signs for the package and places it on her desk. The courier exits and she continues working. After some time passes and she does something mundane- the credits roll.
Well Jodie, if you would have asked me nicely I would have just written you a different script. You don't get to play this part. I don;t think you;re cut out for it. You were once, but things have changed, Jodie. Oh my, how they've changed.
couple more things. I saw Rebel Without a Cause on the big screen. Awesome. I saw Eastern Promises. Forgettable, except the asshole-naked fight scene. That was great- watch this fat guy get punched in the gut. This was shot on some job I was on
I had my #1 and #16 teeth removed earlier today or my top 2 wisdom teeth. Can't say I was unhappy to see them go. About two weeks ago my father called and asked how long it had been since I had gone to the see the dentist. I admitted it had been a while and said I would schedule an appointment. About 2 hours after he called my wisdom teeth started to cause a pain so great I won't flounder around in trying to accurately describe it. For the next week or more I spent a great deal, if not all of the day self medicating myself with liquor store remedies. I went into the Dr's and they pulled them and it was not unpleasant at all. The staff was really nice and the doctor called me (that's right, he called me, on the phone) to see how I was doing later that day. My advice to you, reader, is to get your wisdom teeth out before they hurt if you have health care.
I don;t have health care so I paid $790 to remove 2 teeth, and be put to sleep for the operation. My teeth had fully grown in so they were easier to remove than most. before I went to the dentist I was in pain and Katie found a website full of home tooth remedies. HERE It is really quite sad the lengths people must go to because they are in such pain (and tooth aches are debilitating) and can't afford treatment. If they only had some sort of preventative measures in place they would never get to such a state. I'm lucky- I have no family so I just charge that shit.
Speaking on the subject of health care, the Wal-Mart bastards have given on a bit and offered their employees better health care. Here's a bit from the NY Times article Starting Jan. 1, Wal-Mart’s insurance will look a lot like that offered by many other American companies, but with some twists that even longtime critics described as innovative. Independent experts praised several features of the plan and said it could represent a turning point for the retailer, the nation’s largest private employer.
And Hillary Clinton is the leading receiver of campaign contributions from health care organizations. Does this mean she's a sell out on her ideas of health care reform or has she learned to play the game? an MSNBC article touches on the fact that she is the front runner for the presidency, plain and simple. So Health care wants to give money to anyone on either side of the issue even her. Going into 2008 the GOP has fucked up so bad the democrats could get any candidate they put up elected. As long as they seem to not have had a recent frontal lobotomy. I hope sincerely that if Clinton is elected into the White House (that will make 2 families over at least 5 terms, isn't that odd to anyone?) that she has learned to slowly make strides towards socialized medicine. That's a pretty rough job in a country as numb-skulled as ours. We've been bred to believe socialism is communism and we still believe that the world is out to get us for no good reason at all. Come on folks. The argument that one of my friends makes is that you can't trust the government with your health care. If we can't trust our government with our health care than we can only blame ourselves because their our elected officials and our complacency that has let charlatans like our current administration run wild. We should trust that our government will be there to help us and make this a better place to live. Not that we need to work against them.
I tried to find this anti-hillary health care spot I read about that ran in 1997 and scared the shit out of people and away from the Clinton health reforms of that era. I wanna see that if anyone can dig it up.
I'm reading Dashiell Hammett's 5 novels at the moment. I'm on #2 The Dain Curse I read Red Harvest a couple weeks ago. Red Harvest has been remade into so many films (notably Yojimbo and A Fistfull of Dollars- Miller's Crossing has many elements of it too and the Coen's title Blood Simple comes right out of the mouth of the lead character in the book. He's talking about leaving town before he goes all 'blood-simple' like everyone else. Or everyone but him was finding the easiest way out of a situation was killing) The language and characters in these stories are amazing, and wow, talk about a misanthrope. This guy has no faith in anyone, and I love that in these stories. He has the Thomas Hobbes outlook on the world- that is all people are motivated solely by selfish concerns especially fear of death. Noone can be trusted to not be selfish in these books, even our (anti)hero, the detective. He's just there to do a job and abuse whoever needs it to get answers. In Red Harvest his only motivation is revenge, not cleaning up a town or anything admirable.
Stanley Kubrick had this outlook on the world in many of his works. I rewatched Barry Lyndon today- i gave it another shot and it is a great film. Really tough when I was younger because it is a slow film so I'm glad I gave it another shot at an older age- like David Lean films. Barry Lyndon is a man without any purpose in life but to improve his class and wealth. He is a completely soulless opportunistic leech but his life gets meaning when he has a son- something that wealth or nobility has nothing to do with. So really Barry would have been fulfilled without clawing his way to the top. But the narrator states it best- I'm paraphrasing "Men that strive for great wealth usually lose their riches because of the same traits that brought them to them" The VO in the movie is so fatal because it keeps us really distanced. The narrator tells of of Barry's fall before we see it. Which is to say that was Barry's fate and that's life and here ya go- its sucks.
Fatalism, cynicism and a hopeless outlook on basic human nature is a common theme in many works and is one that I am drawn to. It reflects the world or the outlook that we all have on it in this time. Caring about anything but yourself is really just a waste of time in the eyes of most people. I wonder how we came to this attitude. When I see good stories of people oppressed I get angry and want them to fight back, to overthrow the oppressors. I watch Battle of Algiers or Z and want to take up arms, or Harlan County USA and I'm so furious my hands are shaking and I'm crying. In the past 40 years all of our authority figures are corrupt in our stories and are rarely punished, usually just replaced, for their corruption. Think of the last time a politician or government or military wasn't portrayed as cold-hearted and unconcerned with the people over themselves. I'm sure there are tons of factors to blame but it is an odd phenomena to me. Is it because out Government and media have duped and lied to us so many times? Is it because we are a prosperous, fat and complacent people by nature and everyone should be duping us? Maybe these stories are just more entertaining- the only place we want to see people doing good is in the past. I mean, they already made Ghandi, right?
I hope that a person making strives to install a better way of life here is not torn down only because we just can't trust them or believe its possible. Because we no longer have the ability to believe that someone is actually looking out for our best interests on a serious issue. We as people may not be able to accept that someone is doing something to help us in spite of the money/power to be obtained by exploiting us. So hopefully when the changes to get health care affordable with out working for Wal-Mart or some corporation start to happen, we can accept it. Hopefully we will be ok with some government regulation getting us prescription drugs that we can afford. I know that sounds naive but I don't believe that after civil rights and Vietnam there's no room for anything but shrugging shoulders and bumper stickers for people to have a voice. I'd rather live in a progressive world of change with some hope and read about a fictional world in which it's every man for himself. I don't want the newspaper to read like Dashiell Hammett or Orwell. I want some Common Sense for the generatiom.
let me start with some gems from this baggy pants story in the AJC:
"Exposed boxer shorts and thongs would be illegal in any public place in Atlanta if the City Council approves a proposed amendment to the city's indecency laws."
it gets better "Saggy pants are an "epidemic"', said one moron who can ignore a million real problems in this city. AND they're gonna go after bras too. I love it when they turn back the clock in the south. the city council went on to say, "Seriously folks, we just need to give the APD another way to arrest black people. Why not get them by the pants?" Read the mind blowingly stupid story HERE
Another thing in the news is this War in Iraq. Anybody hear about this thing?!?
I went to this candlelight vigil tonight in East Atlanta. There were some empowered speakers and a Dr. Lowery who didn't show and then we all went outside and held candles and everyone read a list of dates and how many soldiers died on that day and where they were from. it read like:
May 3 6 troops were killed they were from Lebanon, Tennessee Seattle, Washington Independence, Iowa East Lansing, Michigan and so on
At first I was confused. I didn't know if I was supposed to listen or read along or what. Then people started reading and so did I. Then I became determined to not stop reading. I thought, "how can I read about this person who died and not that?" I read loudly and the pages and the cities were endless. My eyes started to go, every time I read Ohio I said Iowa, every city from Puerto Rico and Hawaii was horribly mispronounced- after a couple stumbles I laughed a bit and then felt immediate shame. my legs started to hurt, as did my voice so I lowered my volume and the candle I was holding burned all the way out and someone brought me another. It seemed like it would never end. After we finished I was sweating and dizzy. A man said to us, "The first time I started this ritual I thought it was stupid and silly. It was a very sloppy thing, these people all reading aloud for so long. People aren't in sync, they can't keep up. It's just a mess. Then I realized as I was reading for so long what a perfect metaphor for this war it is."
More news:
I ended the evening watching Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole. It's Network in 1951. A scathing story about yellow journalism, American Voyerism and the deterieroration of the human soul in the pursuit of success. It's really great except for the fact that you can't care about Kirk Douglas' Tatum like you can for William Holden's Schumacher, so in the end I liked the writing but none of the empty-chested characters. Still a really awesome movie, right up my alley. Sam Fuller with awesome cinematography and good acting (well, the female lead looks like she bought a one way ticket to run-down-slutsville but she doesn't really matter) that last bit was from watching the 50's newspaperman talk....sorry.
As for more newspaper facts. His Girl Friday- best paper movie ever (best dialogue comedy?), Hudsucker Proxy- best movie to steal so many jokes from the previous. Me- I can only do the Monday crossword puzzle and have stolen from both the previous films. The numbers-52% of people in the US read the newspaper and 80% of internet users read the newspaper and 89% of all dogs under 8 Lbs have shit on Ann Landers' by line.
