Jason's Blog, page 93

Ridley Scott

Top 5 Ridley Scott films:

1. The Duellists
2. Alien
3. Legend
4. Bladerunner
5. Gladiator

Watched the Director's Cut of Legend, and okay, the scenes between Mia Sara and Tom Cruise are far too cute and annoying, but the rest of the film is pretty good. Visually, it's amazing, with some real magic going on, pre CGI, and Tim Curry is brilliant as Darkness.

Nostradamus panel

The Blue Nile

Barbarella

Jane Fonda is Barbarella, a groovy chick flying in her spaceship looking for Durand Durand. Directed by Roger Vadim.

God, movies from this period, the late 60s, could be slow - not slow interesting but slow boring. I managed to get through the film by splitting it in two viewings. It is very episodic, with no real motor driving the story. I've never read the comic, so I don't know how faithful the film is. Fonda is actually pretty good in her role, never looking too embarrassed, despite the skimpy outfits and the lines of dialogue she has to deliver. The producer is Dino De Laurentiis - it's a bit hard saying which film is most kitch, this or Flash Gordon. At least this film has the Fonda stripping scene during the title sequence. Unfortunately, it goes pretty much downhill into snoozeville after that.

Some books I've read 17

Report from the Interior by Paul Auster
A bit uneven book from Auster this time. The first part is good, the letters of the young writer are okay as well, but the retelling of two films that affected him as a kid maybe not so much.

Burt Lancaster: An American Life by Kate Buford
Interesting biography, even though you never really get a clear image of who Lancaster, the man was. Buford goes through all his films and also the creation of his early production company, giving Lancaster a certain freedom, but also a responsibility if the films didn't make any money, having then to do studio movies like Airport.

Scenes from a Revolution: The Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris
A great book about the five best picture nominees from 1967, In the Heat of the Night, Bonnie and Clyde, Doctor Doolittle, The Graduate and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, marking a generational shift in Hollywood. Harris tells how these movies were made, but also gets into what else happened in American films at the time.

It Don't Worry Me: Nashville, Jaws, Star Wars and Beyond by Ryan Gilbey
Hollywood in the 70s. Gilbey writes about Coppola, Lucas, Spielberg, Malick, De Palma, Altman, Kubrick, Allen, Demme and Scorsese. Where's Friedkin, Ashby and Bogdanovich? Gilbey makes a case for his choices, and it's fair enough. Less gossipy than Easy Riders Raging Bulls.

Dune by Frank Herbert
Watched the Lynch film again, so I decided to re-read the novel. It must be 20 years since I first read it. The book is well written. I was a bit afraid it would be no style, just plot. Lots of things I had forgotten and that isn't mentioned in the film, like Harkonnen being Paul's grandfather. Not sure if I'll move on to the sequels, though, are they any good?

Invasion of the Mind Sappers
Foodboy
Giraffes in My Hair: A Rock'n Roll Life
Crossing the Empty Quarter by Carol Swain
I've been aware of Swain's work, and remember reading an issue of Way Out Strips once, but recently got a copy of Giraffes, and then ordered the rest of her books as well. Maybe one of the most underestimated cartoonists around, she has a unique style of storytelling, sometimes spending panels just on people walking or exchanging glances, often seen in bird's perspective, sometimes jumping back in time for a panel or two without a warning. These are comics where you have to pay attention. But it's worth it! Her stories can be moody, poetic, sometimes dreamlike, but always fascinating, and often leaving it up to the reader to find the meaning inside. Crossing is possibly her best book so far, but I look forward to the new one, Gast, out soon.

John Austen

Violent Saturday

Bandits rob a bank in a small city. Starring Victor Mature, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine, directed by Richard Fleischer.

A great, little film - kind of noir, but in colour and cinemascope. The story is told with carefully composed images, building tension from the opening shot until the moment of the bank robbery. It's somewhere between Suddenly and Witness in the small city setting and the final shootout at the farm. That Mature turns out to be a hero is maybe not a big surprise, since it's built up to that from the earlier scene with his son. It makes me want to find more films by Richard Fleischer, who had a pretty long career. Checking imdb, I see I've only seen a few, like Narrow Margin and Armed Car Robbery, both very good as far as I can remember.

Airport sketch

Cat in chair

Ah, Berlin...

So you went to Berlin and only did a couple of lousy sketches? Yes, but as soon as I sat down to draw it started to rain. It was like a rule or something. And former Eastern European architecture is hard to draw, okay?