I have friends and acquaintances from pretty much every department across the movie business and it never ceases to amaze me how any project ever makes it into the sunlight.
The whole enterprise of filmmaking is so fraught with peril. Movies get canned at the last moment. Movies get made but never distributed because they ran out of funding. Brilliant scripts find many lovers but no takers. The weather will mess you up exactly when you only have one shot at a scene. Your multiple national awards guarantee nothing... you will still spend many years struggling to get your own film produced. And then the weather will screw you over, your producers will bail just before distribution because the political climate changed, and suddenly you will find yourself friendless and alone. Etc. etc.
But then there are these flashes of brilliance... Those epic stories. Those immortal dialogues. Moments that shape a generation. Songs that move you to greatness, or get you through the hard times.
And I suppose my friends and their ilk live and die for those moments. They are all mad, I tell you. Stark raving mad.
Yes, quite similar, if we also stipulate that the whole "company" is a single project exposed to far more mercurial risks, staffed almost entirely with a dynamically changing hodgepodge of contractors, agencies, and free agents, with a definite (albeit uncertain) completion date. Sometimes, with unicorn-level sums of cash, hustle, and ruthless market competition expended to boot. And where your first week in theaters (two if you're lucky) is where you might make back your money.
Avatar, for example, is estimated to have consumed about ~500 MM USD in production, distribution, and promotion. If you spend that much, you are going to elbow out all the competition from theaters and OTT and what have you come launch time.
Yes, I think you get this similar climate in anything that is highly competitive but subjective. And I think it's the mix of two factors that that create the insanity. The idea that one can pick winners better than a flip of a coin could, and the fact that the pool of talent that could accomplish the goal is actually quite deep. So you have "kingmakers" trying to pretend like they can pick winners with just one weird trick from a pool that in reality is loaded with winners and maybe only a few duds.
I am heartily glad Tom Hanks has so far declined to appear in Star Wars.
I think "Bridge of Spies" which co-stars Mark Rylance as Colonel Abel is a very interesting little drama. They both occupy quite quirky corners of the problem space. Hanks has to be respectful of his client to perform his legal role but also is somewhat appalled by the systems disregard for the minor US student character caught up in the east-west barriers as he negotiates the release of Gary Powers.
Rylance is fantastic in that movie. his "would it help" comment about panic under duress is just awesome deadpan.
Hanks being robbed for his thick winter coat in East Berlin is also a good little vignette. I think this is what Hanks excels at: small vignettes of the human experience, which make a story believable.
Mark Rylance is excellent in the slow-moving Wolf Hall, about a no-name Thomas Cromwell's rise to influence in Henry VIII's court. I hope they go through with season 2.
It helps that the material they're working from is authored by Hilary Mantel. She did her homework. Thomas Cromwell historians differ on her views but she handled the material amazingly well.
Her "Place of greater safety" on the french revolution and Danton is fantastic.
Fantasy actor. I have always kicked myself for not going to see him in the play Jerusalem in London, which is meant to have been the best theatrical performance for many years.
Side note. Tom Hanks recently did a podcast interview hosted by the UK's Adam Buxton.
Adam's roughly hour-long interviews tend to follow the 'friendly, rambling chat' format, and he is well liked and respected by both his listeners and those he speaks with. Anybody interested in Tom Hanks' person and opinions could do a lot worse than check it out.
Adam Buxton is brilliant! His old radio show with Joe Cornish is greatly missed - used to love "Song Wars" where they each made up spoof songs that were really funny. "I've got licenses to kill, I've got licenses to fish" https://youtu.be/iAXVeKdrDOM
Charlie Wilson's War was an interesting movie... but in reality, it was William Casey's War. Which created the Taliban and Osama bin Laden as well, leading to Al Qaeda and 9/11... and then Al Qaeda became an 'ally' in the effort to overthrow Syria's government. Weird, isn' it?
The Mujahideen were not the Taliban, which did not exist until 5 years after the Soviet-Afghan War. Some of the US-backed resistance fighters did go on to join the Taliban, but others opposed it and later sided with the US when they invaded in 2001.
All that being said, obviously the US has failed repeatedly in Afghanistan, but the initial intervention against the Soviets was not the main factor. The Taliban's persistence is due to multiple US geopolitical blunders that happened in the decades after the Soviet-Afghan War.
Its true that US army created the Taliban, but it quickly brings the "the road not taken" fantasy that is only that, a fantasy, as in people imagine the middle east would be peas and roses if only America had not helped create the Taliban, and thats probably far from reality. I don't think it would have been take long for any other faction to use commercial Airlines to attack infrastructure, it was a very attractive attack vector for any enemy faction, specially given the lack of security (this days one hijacked plane wouldn't last long mid air).
This movie is a prime example of Hollywood's "machine" doing its thing.
I've read the book and watched the original movie adaptation and if you've done that you won't help but see right through the movie's producers' attempt to "commercialize" it.
In the original movie/book the woman is Indian, in the American version she's Mexican.. There's absolutely nothing wrong with an Indian woman spicing up the life of a grumpy old white man.
In the original movie/book the outcast boy is gay, in the American version they're trans.. This one was absolutely tacky. Gay people are still far from accepted universally even in the US..
All in all, this just proves the fact that movie making is primarily a business trying to cater to the audience (nothing wrong with that) but any talk about "the human" or artistic aspect is pure bullshit in my book.
To be fair, re: first point, they could have just liked the actress. Or even had a prior contract deal. And really are you going to tell anyone today, they can't play a role because of their ethnicity, unless it is key, pivotal to that role?
The second seems more plausible as a marketing tactic.
Re: book to script, I found I go less insane, if I just think of it this way. Two people were involved in events, one wrote a book, one a script.
In as those two people would have seen different things, talked to different people, been more/less involved in events, and just interpret the world differenty, as we all do, it makes sense their output would differ.
> Re: book to script, I found I go less insane, if I just think of it this way. Two people were involved in events, one wrote a book, one a script.
I go further than that - I explicitly prefer seeing the movie/show adaptation before going through the original books. I'm aphantasic - reading a book, I just can't picture anything in my mind. Every character and every scenery is mostly this cloud of facts, like an unresolved promise (the async programming kind), that I carry in my head 'till the last page. Seeing a movie/show, however, gives characters specific appearance, specific voice, specific cadence. Primed with those images and sounds, I find reading source material much easier and more enjoyable.
And yes, as much as adaptations differ from the original, I don't mind. I can fix the inconsistencies on the fly, or separate the book reality from movie/show reality entirely. It's not a big deal. Meanwhile, having some specific images and sounds to anchor my barely-existing imagination to, is very helpful to me.
I hated that movie. I'm pretty liberal but it was such blatant pandering. The message just seemed to comfort millennials; see, the grumpy boomer was a bleeding heart lib just like us all along!
It's a shame he distanced himself so completely from, arguably, one of his best movies: Joe Versus the Volcano (1990) (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099892/)
Hanks: 'Rubicon No. 3, the critical reaction to it—which is a version of the vox populi. Someone is going to say, “I hated it.” Other people can say, “I think it’s brilliant.” Somewhere in between the two is what the movie actually is.'
JVtV is extremely polarizing: people either love it, or hate it. But there's no 'in-between' here - a lot of people just don't 'get it'. John Patrick Shanley made a very personal, quirky movie, full of metaphor and wisdom - and it's great!
About 15 years ago I worked at an e-commerce website and answered the phones. One day a guy called in, gave his name (which sounded vaguely familiar to me), wanted to do an order over the phone, and have it shipped to an address in lower Manhattan.
I thought the address was weird because it had no apartment number, it was just like 144 E 13th Street or something. So I asked if it was a business because we got a lower rate for shipping to commercial addresses and he says something like, “Uh no, it’s my home.” So I kinda knew he had to be somebody to have that address.
Then a lightbulb went off in my head and I go, “Didn’t you write Joe vs. the Volcano?” And it definitely caught him by surprise and he was very gracious as he accepted both my praise and offer of free overnight shipping.
Another time, a co-worker there got a “don’t you know who I am?” from Seth Godin when they refused to bend over backward to fix an order he placed.
It was so funny. I heard her half of the conversation getting into an argument with him and she goes, “No, I don’t know who ‘Seth Godin’ is and I don’t care.” I guess he threatened to write about how bad her customer service was on his blog.
To be fair our customer service was terrible. When a customer asked for our manager, I had a fake email address that I’d give them that I was in charge of. I probably fired myself about a half-dozen times.
> When a customer asked for our manager, I had a fake email address that I’d give them that I was in charge of. I probably fired myself about a half-dozen times.
Might be all that HN exposure turning me cynical, but I kind of assumed this is what everyone does.
We sold Brookstone-style massagers and some yoga/exercise equipment. At the time we ranked well for a lot of massage/yoga search terms and did pretty brisk business for a tiny website run out of a random guy’s garage.
Arguably one of the deeper comedies I've seen. Few films almost immediately get to the business of reminding you that everyone in a movie is a person in their own right, down to the luggage salesman. You can sense The Toby's frustration with being forbidden to be the offering himself, and his disgusted sorrow that none of his people will volunteer. The long-undersold Amanda Plummer features as the gloomy but driven Dagmar, who seems to be harboring some unspoken of fixation of her own.
Hank's naif fully embraces that the world may seem to be entirely absurd, new, even explicable as he breaks from his his soul/sole-killing rut into his new role. ("I'm not arguing that. I'm not arguing that. I'm not arguing that with you. He can get the job ... but can he do the job? I'm not arguing that ...") Even if he is The Fool, on a fool's quest, he can still learn and grow from what he experiences along the way.
I've always found the film a slightly cautionary tale about the wonder (tinged with a little sympathetic horror) about taking a long look around you with fresh eyes: what you see can loom as large as the Moon on a landless Pacific horizon.
Any analysis you would recommend of JVtV? Does the volcano represent that Joe has to overcome the imagined fears that is preventing him from growing in life?
Thanks. This analysis really show me how I didn't understand the movie despite enjoying it on a superficial level. It's even better than my first impressions.
Does it need to? The whole premise is that he hates his “relatively” cushy factory management job enough to think jumping in a volcano is a better use of his life.
I wonder if there is a worse way to go? I mean even getting your skull crushed in car accident seems lights out in less than a second. Jumping into a volcano I can imagine you stay alive for some 10 seconds or so before you obviously pass out but not before tasting lava in your stomach.
For starters, he quit his job before the volcano opportunity came up. He choice was never "keep working or jump into a volcano."
He quit his job because he'd just been told he had just a few months to live, and didn't want to spend them like that.
Finally, he didn't have much money. He could either scrape by in his apartment for a few months, or go on a grand adventure and die just a little earlier than he would have anyway.
> limiting inquisitive journalists to a few distant glimpses of the process
The Devil's Candy mentioned at the beginning of the interview is an amazing book. The journalist had complete unimpeded access to the entire production from start to finish. Highly recommended.
There's usually a film production or two every summer in my neighborhood because there's a lot of iconic craftsman bungalows and such. These aren't AAA blockbusters just smaller dramas or Disney live action stuff for kids.
They hire a local production company, it's usually the same company cuz they're the best here but it's a non trivial amount of money going in locally.
One of the shows paid the owner of the convenience store to shoot some exterior shots at his spot. They painted a mural for the movie, then repainted his whole building after they were done along with cutting him a nice check.
They definitely eat food from all the neighborhood spots.
There's certainly plenty of shady BS in hollywood but I think you're painting with too broad a brush.
How is this viscous? I mean certainly we tend to rinse and wash viscous items because we don't want our things to be sticky or covered in syrupy liquid. But the rest of your comment doesn't seem to have anything to do with viscosity.
Making profitable movies is really really difficult. Just look at the huge list of failed studios.
It’s not just getting a good script it needs to be the right scrip at the right time, which can actually be filmed on an appropriate budget.
A huge issue is you need a large team of world class people that all work together, and then the movie ends in a few weeks or months and all those people need to find work on the next project. Actors, costumes, lighting, props, etc generally end up being very expensive sub contractors which you need to schedule together because a studio has trouble just paying those people year round. So now each of those subcontractors is going to be one of a handful of people/companies also need enough work to keep going etc etc.
And all of that isn’t even considered actors, post production, test audiences, promotion, etc.
> Making profitable movies is really really difficult. Just look at the huge list of failed studios.
You can make indie films for pennies. The fact that so many studios fail is exactly my point. Films are so easy to make, that you create an arms race in production costs.
If there were no major studios, our theaters would still be full of fine feature films.
The overwhelming majority of indie films are unprofitable.
You may personally enjoy many indy films more than what comes out of major studios but they’re niche products that mostly appeal to a specific and relatively small audience. If you want wide appeal costs really do spiral both for the film and just as importantly advertising it.
Again... my entire argument is that industries, like the film industry, are like an arms race, and are natural monopolies.
> The overwhelming majority of indie films are unprofitable.
We should expect this in this type of industry! My point is only that if the big studios were to go away, the film industry would still survive and reconstitute itself very quickly. The only reason why it's so difficult to make a profitable movie, is that there is limited, very expensive, access to getting a film in front of people. There are still large audience who seek out film, but the number of films they can consume is limited... this leads to a virtually unwinnable arms race to get people's attention.
Having major studios go away doesn’t make people go see new movies. You need publicly go get people in seats which has both an actual cost and requires content they might be interested in.
Movie theaters are happy to show independent films that have significant buzz. And several independent films have done so, but that’s such a small percent of total independent films as to suggest it’s hard.
Pretty much all of what you said is false. Especially the part about tax breaks, since that isn't how film tax incentives work...film tax incentives are statutory, with little to no options for negotiation, require audited records of local spending, and usually have other requirements (such as "cultural" content for French tax incentives).
Tom Hanks is a master of perfectly playing an unbelievably dull character -- with just enough subtle quirk that a half-awake audience can project their half-baked sensibilities onto.
No different than the New Yorker, that wafts on for ages -- that only someone looking too hard can find merit in.
They have to buy insurance against events that would derail production. DeForest Kelley was denied a role in ST:Generations because he was deemed an uninsurable death risk.
Completely false. Kelley turned down appearing in ST:Generations, despite a large payday.
"In The Fifty-Year Mission: The Next 25 Years oral history of Star Trek by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, DeForest Kelley explained that he was disappointed that Dr. Leonard McCoy and his crewmates only appeared in one scene, commenting: "When I read the script and saw we were only in the first ten minutes, I thought it was best to pass and go out with [Star Trek] VI." At that time, Kelley didn't know that Nimoy also said no and he admits, "I certainly wouldn't have done the film without him in it.""
> DeForest Kelley was denied a role in ST:Generations because he was deemed an uninsurable death risk.
I’ve seen accounts that the cost of his insurance was a factor in his rejecting the film (he wasn’t denied a role), but most accounts I’ve seen focus on his (and much of the TOS cast’s) issues with the structure of the story and the roles they would have had in it, and how they were much happier having The Undiscovered Country as their last film in their roles.
When your movie is thin retelling of another movie (think Kurosawa's "The Hidden Fortress" v Lucas' "Star Wars"), actuaries can help make sure the retelling is just enough different from the original to avoid a lawsuit.
Yeah, actuaries look at statistics and determine relative financial risks and benefits of a particular course of action. In the example I gave, the course of action is "remake 'The Hidden Fortress' as a space sci-fi fantasy movie" and the actuaries plug in various values for copyright and intellectual property lawsuit risks and costs, potential revenue from the new movie and give predictions for what level of copying (or other risky behavior) is acceptable to reduce costs below the projected revenue without risking a costly lawsuit. Or maybe they just recommend buying the rights as cheaper than the potential cost.
I worked two years on track to be an actuary, took the first three SoA/CAS exams. I’ve never heard of anything like what you’re describing. Do you actually know an actuary that does this?
