Are you one of the many sci-fi and comic book geeks who’d be more interested in Push were it not for Dakota Fanning? Sure, the precocious child star is now a teen actress (she’s about to turn 15), yet that probably makes you even more worried about her appearance in the movie. But what can you do? She’s literally everywhere this week – voicing the title character in the animated Coraline and starring in two new video releases, Hounddog and The Secret Life of Bees, both of which were released Tuesday. In the tradition of child actors continuing careers into adolescence, it’s only a matter of time before she ruins a movie that would have been better without her.

We’ll have to wait until this weekend to see if that time is now, with Push, but in the meantime let’s take a look at some of the past offenders in this tradition. Most of the following former child actors (our definition: actors that began their career below the age of 13) have done great things in their adulthood, but each has done at least one film that could have been better without him or her. You may disagree with some of these picks, and you may think we’ve forgotten some (was Christian Bale really the worst part of The Dark Knight? did Mary-Kate Olsen’s disturbing kiss with Ben Kingsley take away from The Wackness?), so do share your own thoughts on former child stars below. We just ask that you keep your comments somewhat tasteful and law-abiding.
…Read more

• If I wasn’t going to be in Denver until the following morning, there’s no way I’d miss the Museum of the Moving Image’s event on Saturday night at the Times Center in Manhattan, wherein Jerry Lewis will be interviewed on stage by his long-time friend, Peter Bogdanovich. The event will include clips from Lewis’ films, which Chris Fujiwara considered in a piece posted on the Museum’s Moving Image Source yesterday.
• On Thursday, MoMA will begin their screening series dedicated to the titles nominated for the Not Coming to a Theater Near You award at the 2008 Gothams. Nina Paley’s Sita Sings the Blues kicks the series off; Wellness, Afterschool, The New Year Parade and Meadowlark will screen through Monday.
• Anthology Film Archives’ tribute to the films of Arthur Penn continues through Sunday. Tonight they’re screening Night Moves, which was recently the subject of one of Kevin B. Lee’s Shooting Down Pictures essays.

There are a number of obvious reasons why the Film Society might choose to show Some Came Running at Wednesday night’s Frankly Celebrating: A Sinatra Salute, their tribute to Frank Sinatra’s career in Hollywood. Vincente Minnelli’s teeming CinemaScope melodrama turns 50 this year, and even if it wasn’t the best of Sinatra’s films (and in my mind, it is), Minnelli’s tendency towards stylistic overstatement provides the perfect contrapuntal showcase for his star’s non-actor naturalism. It also opens up multiple points of conversation, from the rise of the Rat Pack to Sinatra’s own complicated identity as a man’s man who got his start singing love songs to swooning girls.

But maybe most significantly, this story of a man torn between two selves and two classes, between striving for the mature manhood that would comfit his artistic aspirations and slumming in a permanent adolescence of bar brawls and disposable broads, also represents the beginning of the end of Sinatra’s own flirtations with acting artistry, his patience with the concept of cinema as art. In his Who The Hell’s In It chapter on Sinatra, Peter Bogdanovich notes that the star “has rarely been as focused or committed” as he is in Running, and in fact, with the exception of The Manchurian Candidate, Sinatra never seems so invested in actual acting ever again. A clear line can be drawn from the making of Running to what Tom Santopietro, in his just-released Sinatra in Hollywood, refers to as “the start of personality acting as opposed to acting on film as a craft.” Sinatra’s “personality acting,” his general lack of interest in using a film role as much beyond an extender of Frank Sinatra The Brand, would hit its peak with the Rat Pack movies, which ironically celebrate the capricious self-interest and casual misogyny that Some Came Running would seem to function as an object lesson against.

…Read more

Watch Frankenstein (Edison, 1910) in Entertainment Videos |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

For city-dwelling adults without kids, Halloween can be truly frightening. With the pressure on to outdo ones friends, frenemies and total strangers with a costume that strikes the perfect balance between creative, alluring and topical, the average October 31st night out can be a lot like sixth grade, except with the added toxic influence of alcohol and biological clocks. Plus, this year the streets are expected to be full of Sexy and/or Ironic and/or Demonic Sarah Palins. Scary! So why not stay home and watch movies instead? If you’re gonna convince anyone to abandon their plans and spend the night on your couch instead, you’ve got to have a theme and a plan, so we’ve put together an outline for a full night of films, all of which are available on DVD and/or online, based around one of the ultimate icons of classic horror: Frankenstein. We lay it all out after the jump.

…Read more

Chris posted this a couple of weeks ago but, since the Bog Saget Comedy Central roast thing finally aired last night and the whole internet is going batshit crazy for Cloris Leachman, I thought I’d post this video again. Also, I just kind of get a kick out of imagining what Peter Bogdanovich thinks of all this. I know he was distracted on the set of The Last Picture Show, what with all that leaving his wife for his 18 year-old ingenue business, but even so, you have to assume he never imagined that his direction of Leachman would lead, almost 40 years later, to a nationally televised anal sex joke. I bet he’s really loosening his ascot over this one.

For more on the Bob Saget roast, check out Chris’ original post.

Our friend Kevin Kelly was at that Mark Cuban panel at the TCA featured in the vague WIRED post mentioned earlier, and he sent along some further context––and quotes!

Apparently, the panel’s essential purpose was to promote Humboldt County, a SXSW vet and now a Magnolia release which will debut on VOD three weeks before hitting theaters in September. Also on the panel was Humboldt co-star Peter Bogdanovich, and talk about an odd pairing. On the one hand, you’ve got mogul Cuban making his cocky techno-evangelist pitch about how business travelers held captive in hotels are dying to charge their corporate cards $12 for the chance to see films like Flawless and Finding Amanda.

Then there’s old Pete, still an active theatrical patron himself (“Sex in the City was amazing because it was all women. I was the only guy in the theater, and the women loved it, and I loved that the women loved it”), but conscious that it’s an experience that’s diminishing for a reason (in part because trailers are “unbelievably violent, fast, crazy, noisy garbage.”) And he acknowledges that even if, for him,  nothing’s going “to replace the experience of seeing a movie on the big screen with an audience,” alternate philosophies of distribution “seems to be working in terms of getting people to see the films.”

I wish I had been there. Excerpts from Kevin’s transcription of the even follow after the jump.

…Read more

• The Playlist recaps highlights from Diddy’s (is that his name now?) video review of Hancock: “‘As a black kid you’re like, ‘well, why ain’ there no super heros that look like me?’ Why aint’ there a black super hero?’ They got Wonder Woman, Underdog…[pauses, thinks about the absurdity of this for a minute and then catches up] They even have a dog super hero, they got no black super hero! (aside). That’s my white boy answering the phone.’”
• “[C]ertainly a lot of the greatest directors (and artists, musicians, etc.) have also had some of the most fucked up sex lives. There’s definitely not no connection between wanting to play god with a camera and thinking it’s a great idea to marry your dead wife’s twenty year old sister (that would be Peter Bogdanovich),” Molly Lambert notes, on her way to considering how and why Cameron Crowe’s “ambition to be a great American director…collapsed like a sad soufflé.”
• Friends: The Movie? Be afraid.

Idolator passes along the news that networks are feverishly trying to counterprogram against “the allegedly low starpower of the veteran rocker” at the center of Sunday’s Super Bowl halftime show, Tom Petty. But how could that be? Peter Bogdanovich spent four hours telling us that Petty is the biggest, most beloved, and most important rock star IN THE WORLD. I simply refuse to believe that a work-for-hire hagiography might have embellished the appeal of the man who commissioned it. If Spike TV execs think their competitive eating special will out-draw “Free Fallin’”, then I can only assume they didn’t see Bogdanovich’s movie.

To be fair to Bogdanovich, Idolator’s Maura Johnston calls a bit of bullshit on the story, which originated with The Hollywood Reporter, and Idolator’s hipster commenters come out in full force to defend Petty’s demo-crossing likability.

That still doesn’t change the fact that the most interesting thing about Bogdanovich’s film is the way it betrays the fact that Petty paid him to make it, an issue which I went into in this podcast. Also of note: I sat through the entire four-hour film, totally sober, and didn’t nod off once, and I STILL don’t know who did the guitar solo on Runnin’ Down a Dream. I would have liked to find out because, to use what I believe is the appropriate parlance, it’s fucking sick.

When I first learned of Bob Westal’s Bob Fosse Blogathon, my plan was to write about Star 80, a film I’ve never seen but have long wanted to. I had ample time, in the ensuing month and a half, to track down a copy of Star 80 on DVD, watch it two or three times, and come up with oodles of brilliant ideas in relation to it.

But I didn’t. I lost track of time. I forgot. And I inevitably found myself wandering around the East Village on Saturday, looking everywhere but finding Star 80 nowhere. Even Kim’s on St. Marks, which has a full Fosse section on its DVD sales floor, didn’t have it. “These are supposed to be the spoils of living in New York,” I grumbled internally on the subway back to Queens. “My apartment is too small and my savings are non existant, but at the very least, if I want to buy something, I’m supposed to be able to find it.”

I wasn’t necessarily shit out of luck, re: the blogathon–I have a copy of Cabaret on my DVD shelf, I could have just written about that–but at some point on the way home I decided that my inability to find a copy of Star 80 was significant. It certainly said something about my own laziness, but it also speaks to the film’s lasting legacy. Made by an Oscar-winning director, based on a true story, featuring actors portraying debatably significant real-life figures such as Hugh Hefner and Peter Bogdanovich, Star 80 has nonetheless fallen into the dustbin of cinema history. Even YouTube, the crumb catcher for the toaster of forgotten pop culture, offers no help.

I don’t have any explanations. I haven’t even seen the movie. But I can ramble a bit after the jump.

…Read more

• Harvey Weinstein said he’d shoot himself if Cate Blanchett doesn’t get an Oscar nomination for I’m Not There. Has he already forgotten?
• Eli Roth wants to do sketch comedy. Seriously.
• Lance Weiler has a new web series.
• Asia Argento: The next Marlene Dietrich?
• What works for the queer blogosphere doesn’t necessarily sell a blockbuster in Korea.
• Netflix has hired Dana Carvey to star in a crappy web series.
• If you have a recent picture of yourself in a costume and can make the appropriate value judgements about John Carpenter flicks, you could attend Harry Knowles’ 24-hour film festival.
• Film theorist Rudolf Arnheim died, but commenter Marco didn’t have anything to do with it.
• Fox is showing a lack of confidence in Parker Posey’s sitcom debut.
• YouTube is getting ready to launch a tool that will spoil the party for mashup artists.
• Kevin on Ultimate Blogger, possibly the web’s first reality show.
• John Cusack talks about playing an Iraq war supporter in Grace is Gone.
• If Will Ferrell barely has time to make content for FunnyOrDie, how is Judd Apatow gonna manage it?
• You can download a free issue of Film Quarterly that includes out takes from the script of Mark Rappaport’s From The Journals of Jean Seberg. I read them on the subway and they were awesome.
• Disney denies they’ve fired Vanessa “nudie pic” Hudgens from their flagship tween franchise. Here’s three reasons why they shouldn’t change their minds.
• Find out what *really* happened to the couples of Say Anything, Pretty Woman and The Princess Bride after the end credits.
• Thanks to a recent rule change, Silent Light is eligible for an Oscar.
• Robert Rodriguez’s Barbarella remake is in trouble, for a myriad of (mysterious, half-probable) reasons.
• Newsflash: Michael Moore blogs about himself. A lot.
• Should George Lucas try to hit the YouTube generation by making content for YouTube?
• Kimberley Pierce’s Stop-Loss has been infuriating critics for months, and the trailer only premiered yesterday.
• A tour through Warner Brothers’ recent marketing blunders.
• Think Tyler Perry’s a hack and Judd Apatow’s a genius? Armond White says that’s because you’re white.
• On FilmCouch: Paul and Kevin mull over Mike Mills’ depression in Japan doc Does Your Soul Have A Cold? and finally got around to seeing The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford — no thanks to Warner Brothers. And Karina tries to explain why a four hour Tom Petty documentary directed by Peter Bogdanovich makes perfect sense.
• After you listen to the podcast, you can read more about Peter Bogdanovich.
• Wristcutters: A Love Story’s road to theaters was much more of a slow bleed than the film itself.
• Is there really going to be a Brokeback Mountain sequel, or is OK! Magazine now just making stuff up for their own amusement?
• CIFF red carpet coverage: John Cusack, Mos Def & Jeffrey Wright, Anthony Hopkins, Malcolm McDowell,  Laura Linney

What you should see but may not know is showing this weekend: Does Your Soul Have a Cold? by Mike Mills (Thumbsucker), a documentary about depression and the pharmaceutical invasion of Japan playing on IFC. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford by Andrew Dominik, the best movie to come out of Hollywood you’ll have to strain to find. And a four and a half hour documentary by cinema legend Peter Bogdanovich on none other than… Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers?

 

 FilmCouch 42: Play Now | Download

FilmCouch 42
Subscribe in the iTunes store (search for “filmcouch” or click here to launch iTunes) and a new free episode will download every Friday.

Does Your Soul Have a Cold? The Assassination of Jesse James, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers: Runnin Down a Dream

In preparation for this week’s episode of FilmCouch (which, as always, will premiere Friday morning here on SpoutBlog), I gave myself a bit of re-education on the life and career of Peter Bogdanovich. In the podcast, I reference a number of interviews. Because I can’t (yet) insert hyperlinks directly into the podcast, below the jump I’ve put together a basic glossary of the stuff I read in preparation for the segment. Past episodes of FilmCouch can be found at our Podcasts page.

…Read more

I did it: I survived Peter Bogdanovich’s 4 hour and 15 minute Tom Petty documentary, Running Down A Dream. I cannot call myself a Tom Petty fan–In fact, I’d probably be more inherently receptive to a four hour documentary about Peter Bogdanovich–but there’s something about this film that fascinates me. I think maybe it’s that, in terms of the nature and total efficiency of the production, it actually achieves Bogdanovich’s apparent lifelong ambition to emulate Howard Hawks.

But more on that in a future episode of FilmCouch. Right now, here’s what you need to know: it feels shorter than four hours, it’s gonna be a wet dream for Tom Petty fans, it’s screening in 20+ cities on October 15 (you can find out where and buy tickets at TomPetty.com), the DVD will be available at Best Buy only the next day, and it premieres on the Sundance Channel October 29.

Bogdanovich did a press conference after the screening, and surprisingly, in forty minutes he lapsed into just one impersonation of a dead film icon. It makes sense that he’d want to make most of his time on stage at Lincoln Center to promote the movie–after all, this is his first appearance at the New York Film Festival in almost forty years. “This is the first time I’ve had a film in the New York Film Festival since 1971, when I had two films at the festival, The Last Picture Show and my first version of Directed By John Ford,” Bogdanovich said. “Which [together] totaled about four hours. So every 37 years, I get four hours at the New York Film Festival.”

The director is well aware that the film’s length lends it a bit of stigma–and he’s more than prepared to defend it. Listen to him do so here. We’ll have more Bogdanovich soundbites on next week’s podcast.

 

 Peter Bogdanovich at the New York Film Festival: Play Now | Download

It’s the final installment of Reeler TV from Toronto, and I’m terribly jealous that Stu got to interview Peter Bogdanovich. But, I got over my grudge just in time to talk about some of the final films that I caught at the festival, including Across the Universe.

Previous episodes:

Episode 1: Neil Jordan & Terrance Howard on The Brave One; Juno

Episode 2: Scott Hicks; Love Songs; Heavy Metal in Baghdad

Episode 3: Anton Corbijn/Control 

Episode 4: Phil Donahue/Body of War; Operation Filmmaker