Rob Christopher's Blog, page 58

3 things about Richard Lester’s SUPERMAN II

Superman II [1980]

1. Valerie Perrine just sort of disappears.
2. Lady at Niagara Falls: “What a nice man!”
3. The return of Sherriff Pepper from Live and Let Die?

3 things about Preston Sturges’ THE LADY EVE

The Lady Eve [1941]

1. “But then she must be very, very … ?”
“Oh, very!”
2. Covered in roast and pan drippings.
3. Mr. Murgatroyd.

3 other things.

3 things about Daryl Duke’s THE SILENT PARTNER

The Silent Partner [1978]

1. “Personal letters” in her safety deposit box.
2. “If it’s all right with her it’s all right with me.” (Inadvertent nod to The Long Goodbye?) 
3. Christopher Plummer’s foot on her face.

3 other things.

3 things about Todd Haynes’ VELVET GOLDMINE

Velvet Goldmine [1998]

1. Shiny trenchcoat and fedora.
2. “We set out to change the world. Ended up just changing ourselves.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing. If you don’t look at the world.”
3. Snorting coke off the back of his thigh.

3 other things.

3 things about Richard Fleischer’s 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea [1954]

1. Eating with a knife only.
2. Volcania looks an awful lot like the prototype of a Bond villain’s lair.
3. Turtle-guitar.

3 things about Bertrand Tavernier’s ‘ROUND MIDNIGHT

‘Round Midnight [1986]

1. Running the cork from the bottle of rum around the rim of the glass of Coke.
2. “If we’re going, let’s go early. You know, Lady Francis, there’s not enough kindness in the world.”
3. The love in her eyes as she sings.

A new project (!)

I am beyond thrilled to announce that as my next film project, I will be adapting Gary Indiana’s wicked satire Depraved Indifference. This blurb from the publisher Semiotext(e) / Native Agents sums up its story quite effectively: “[The novel] follows Evangeline Slote, a dead ringer for Elizabeth Taylor ‘so compulsive she grifts herself when she runs out of other people’ through the circus of calamity that her compulsions invoke. Evangeline, or Evelyn Carson, or ‘Princess Shah Shah,’ among other pseudonyms, accompanied by her alcoholic husband Warren and fanatically devoted son Devin, moves from Las Vegas to Hawaii to Nassau in a maelstrom of forgery and fraud that constantly threatens to come undone. When Warren dies, Evangeline and her son embark upon an ever more brazen series of grifts, frauds, and crimes. Thriving on chaos, a master of manipulation and seduction, Evangeline concocts the scheme to end all schemes—which may take a murder to complete.”

John Waters has raved about it, saying, “Gary Indiana delves into the minds of his creepy, appalling characters with such probing wit and lip smacking glee that we actually enjoy our time with these amoral monsters.”

Deemed a “huge satirical talent” (New York Times), Gary Indiana is an American writer, actor, artist, and cultural critic. His other works include Horse Crazy, Three Month Fever: The Andrew Cunanan Story, Do Everything in the Dark, Fire Season: Selected Essays, 1984–2021, I Can Give You Anything But Love, and Gone Tomorrow. Called one of “the most brilliant critics writing in America today” by the London Review of Books, “the punk poet and pillar of lower-Manhattan society” by Jamaica Kincaid, and “one of the most important chroniclers of the modern psyche” by The Guardian, Indiana remains both inimitable and impossible to pin down.

Depraved Indifference is a book that I’ve been slightly obsessed with for years (the original paperback edition of which sports a cover designed by Barbara Kruger!) and so I am super excited to get started. Stay tuned …

3 things about James L. Brooks’ TERMS OF ENDEARMENT

Terms of Endearment [1983]

1. “Did you ask?”
“About 600 times.”
2. Running through the quad with an infant strapped to his chest.
3. After she dies, we never see her again.

3 things about Rian Johnson’s GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY

Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery [2022]

1. “It’s dangerous to confuse speaking without thinking with speaking the truth.”
2. A slow trickle of Jeremy Renner’s hot sauce.
3. Matisse in the bathroom.

3 things about Sophie Hyde’s GOOD LUCK TO YOU, LEO GRANDE

Good Luck to You, Leo Grande [2022]

1. Her suitcase leaves tracks in the hotel room carpet.
2. Wrapped around each other’s bodies.
3. Shared terrible coffee grimace.