Peter Bogdanovich

Six Damn Fine Degrees #214: ’70s Movie Brat Musicals

Alan Kuhl Graham2 Comments

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

There’s a host of great directors that made their names in the 1970s, producing a body of work that revitalised moviegoing at the time and which still stands up to this day. But there is one genre that seemed to be beyond them – where their adoration of the past seemed to prevent them from producing something new and, crucially, very good.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #192: Star 80

Alan Kuhl Graham1 Comment

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness.

In the early ’80s, Bob Fosse’s stock as a film maker couldn’t have been higher. Having revolutionised the world of theatrical dance choreography, he’d spent the ’70s building up a reputation as a major new directing talent. Cabaret and Lenny had been well regarded successes, and he’d ended the decade with All That Jazz – winning the Palme D’Or and four Oscars alongside healthy box office returns.

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Criterion Corner: Targets (#1179)

Matt1 Comment

It’s the kind of meta filmmaking that’s catnip for critics and academics: screen legend Boris Karloff, firmly at the tail end of his career as a horror movie actor, plays the equally legendary Byron Orlok, a man firmly at the tail end of his career as a horror movie actor. Orlok announces his retirement from cinema, because he’s a has-been and his brand of cinematic horror is no longer scary, it’s camp. Meanwhile, a thoroughly modern kind of bogeyman stalks Los Angeles County: a young, blandly all-American insurance agent with an unsettlingly large gun collection, takes aim at random targets. Slowly but surely the two storylines converge, until they intersect – in a drive-in cinema, where Orlok is set to make his final public appearance. It’s cinema all the way down.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #63: What’s Up Doc?

Alan Kuhl Graham1 Comment

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

A lot is written about Hollywood’s tendency for remakes. And a lot of it seems needlessly negative in my opinion. There’s nothing wrong with having another spin at an old success, it’s a formula as old as Hollywood. Often it fails, but sometimes it’s worth the effort. I’ve not crunched the numbers but I’m pretty sure the ratio of few successes/mostly failures is probably the same as for brand new films.

But alongside the Hollywood remake there’s another interesting beast. The film that is so clearly inspired by another, which doesn’t so much wear the influence on its sleeves as don the exact same influence tuxedo. It’s not a remake because it doesn’t do anything so obvious as try to recreate the plot, or the characters but instead takes as the starting point what the film’s makers loved about the earlier film and tries to find ways to make that work in a brand new context.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: Thirsty work

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Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

Claire Denis’ films may not be for everyone, but earlier this week Matt wrote about seeing her Beau Travail for the first time, and while he bounced off of her most recent film High Life, her drama about French foreign legionnaires pulled him in considerably more.

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #62: The Cat’s Meow

Julie4 Comments

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

Peter Bogdanovich is probably best known for his early films such as The Last Picture Show or Paper Moon, although to a modern audience his face might be most recognizable as Dr. Elliot Kupferberg, the psychiatrist’s psychiatrist in The Sopranos. For all his many accomplishments I am perhaps most fond of his interviews. Books such as Who the Devil Made It or Who the Hell’s in It. His epic three-hour interview with Orson Welles, or the wistful Directed by John Ford. Bogdanovich was not just a filmmaker, he was a lover of movie culture and – notably – of movie lore.

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