― sundar subramanian, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― anthony, Wednesday, 14 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Also, I just read the novel, and while it obv gets deeper into the characters (interior monologues, 280 pages) some of the emphases are off in the adaptation. The Cloris Leachman character is even more desperate and heartbreaking, a real triumph by McMurtry I think. In the film they never even specify what the medical problem she cries over is (a breast lump).
Timothy Bottoms is sweet and adequate, but somehow a bit lightweight as Sonny. Someone like John Cusack would've been great for it (12 years later).
Also, in the book they really do FUCK A BLIND HEIFER one Saturday night instead of talking about it.
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 30 December 2005 18:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― a spectator bird (a spectator bird), Friday, 30 December 2005 19:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― a spectator bird (a spectator bird), Friday, 30 December 2005 19:07 (eighteen years ago) link
― andy ---, Friday, 30 December 2005 20:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― [use of street parade as pivotal set piece] (nordicskilla), Friday, 30 December 2005 20:30 (eighteen years ago) link
Here is Cybill Shepherd in US Magazine on "dating" Elvis.
US: We have to talk about Elvis (Meaning we must discuss certain matters before we arrive at [her son’s] school.)
"Elvis has been bewitched by his fellow Memphian, and when he made love to her – well, here’s the passage from her manuscript: He nibbled down my body, virile and playful, then stopped most abruptly at my belly button. 'Is something wrong?' I asked. 'Uh, well, you see, me and the guys talk, and, well, white boys don’t….'"
Cybill: I took that line out of the book.
US: Why?
Cybill: I was thinking, "Oh, my God, this is going to be so offensive to people who love Elvis."
US: Really? A lot of men agree with Elvis; they don’t like….
Cybill: [Hooting] They’re the ones who are losing out! [A moment later, seriously] That’s the only way to achieve spiritual enlightenment.
US: You think Peter Bogdanovich is cooler than Elvis?
Cybill: Yeah.
US: [Disbelief] No!
Cybill: Well, he was a much more interesting conversationalist, for one thing.
US: But for God’s sake, it was Elvis!
Cybill: But Elvis was deep into drug addiction. I didn’t know it at the time.
US: He gave you a big diamond ring. He probably wanted to marry you.
Cybill: But he was not available. Drug addition makes you really not available on a profound level.
US: Was he beautiful to look at?
Cybill: Yes. And he was sweet. He was sweet, sweet, sweet.
In her book, Cybill adds:
"Fortunately, I was never asked to enact what I heard was one of Elvis’s favorite erotic scenarios: putting on waist high cotton panties, eating cookies and milk, and wrestling with another girl..."
― andy ---, Friday, 30 December 2005 20:47 (eighteen years ago) link
ientimg.msn.com/i/150/ ce/aug/pbogdanovich_150.jpg
vs.
http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/f/f1/180px-Elvis_Presley.jpg
― a spectator bird (a spectator bird), Friday, 30 December 2005 20:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― a spectator bird (a spectator bird), Friday, 30 December 2005 20:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Friday, 30 December 2005 22:25 (eighteen years ago) link
Nearly all the adult males except Sam the Lion are quite heinous.
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 30 December 2005 22:31 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 31 December 2005 01:43 (eighteen years ago) link
It led me to the book, which is magnificent too. McMurtry does funny and piercingly sad at the same time better than anyone else I've ever read, and creates some of the most memorable characters I've ever read. There are two sequels to it - the first, Texasville, was made into a lousy movie - which are as good, with more emphasis on the funny. It also took me to all of his other books, which are more or less as good, and one of those turned into a TV adaptation featuring the best small-screen acting performance I've ever seen, I think: Robert Duvall in Lonesome Dove. I think he's a slightly undervalued writer, in a taken-for-granted kind of way. Writers who turn out popular hits can be underrated because of that, stupidly. He's an utter joy to read, as moving a writer as I know. He writes a lot of sequels (I can think of five separate sequences of two or more without checking) - and EVERY time I've learnt of one, I've thought "Fantastic! More about [CharacterX]!"
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 31 December 2005 02:29 (eighteen years ago) link
― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Saturday, 31 December 2005 02:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 31 December 2005 10:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn (Alfred Soto), Saturday, 31 December 2005 14:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Saturday, 31 December 2005 14:50 (eighteen years ago) link
(I honestly haven't seen the film since the time of the original post, i.e. 4 yrs ago, when I was taking a couple gender studies courses and was quite possibly oversensitive to this. I'd have to watch again. Without thinking too much about it, and not remembering that clearly, the CS character seems a little more believable in my bitter old age. If anthony didn't have problems with it, I have to assume it can't have been that bad.)
― Sundar (sundar), Saturday, 31 December 2005 15:11 (eighteen years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 31 December 2005 16:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Redd Harvest (Ken L), Saturday, 31 December 2005 17:46 (eighteen years ago) link
it's not all that soapy though, is it? it seems much more quietly melancholy and nostalgic than melodramatic. there are plot points that sort of remind one of soap operas (elopements, anulments, affairs) but the overall tone and the stark black-and-white kind of cut into that interpretation. when i think "intelligent soap opera" i think marriage of maria braun, or something.
― a spectator bird (a spectator bird), Saturday, 31 December 2005 18:10 (eighteen years ago) link
Martin, it's Tim Bottoms who turns the cap around (of the kid played by his brother Joe). The broom kid's fate is one of the unfortunate things in the plot of both book and film -- a little too portentous.
btw, Bogdanovich and McMurtry planned to do Lonesome Dove as a feature circa 1974 with John Wayne, James Stewart and Henry Fonda!!! Wrote a script but Wayne killed it, not wanting to do an autumnal western (til his cancer came back and he did The Shootist, I guess).
― Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 31 December 2005 20:11 (eighteen years ago) link
For some reason this morning I thought of Cloris Leachman's last-scene tantrum.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Wednesday, 15 August 2007 12:55 (sixteen years ago) link
Martin, it's Tim Bottoms who turns the cap around (of the kid played by his brother Joe)
bridges character does it too! it's just sonny does it several times before that
anyway this is a pretty great dang movie
― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 6 January 2010 03:33 (fourteen years ago) link
anyone read the book before watching the movie?? wondering what you thought of the casting.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Friday, 16 September 2011 06:43 (twelve years ago) link
i gave up on the book when the main characters started raping livestock. is this retained in the film? if not, i might watch it
― not bulimic, just a cat (James Morrison), Friday, 16 September 2011 08:58 (twelve years ago) link
"I ain't no HEFFER."
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 16 September 2011 10:59 (twelve years ago) link
when the main characters started raping livestock
This is called "Texas."
― incredibly middlebrow (Dr Morbius), Friday, 16 September 2011 11:46 (twelve years ago) link
I wish Jeff Bridges was livestock.
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 16 September 2011 13:06 (twelve years ago) link
Cybill Shepherd
― buzza, Friday, 16 September 2011 14:32 (twelve years ago) link
That interview with Cybill on dating Elvis is great!
― Prostetnic Vogon Limbaugh (Dan Peterson), Friday, 16 September 2011 15:07 (twelve years ago) link
saw a beautiful new print of this last night for its 40th anniversary, w/ bogdanovich, and some of the cast present. pretty much every other sentence out of peter b's mouth began with "well, as my friend orson welles told me..." or "john ford said to me once..." or some variant thereof.
― GREENS (the putting kind) (donna rouge), Friday, 18 November 2011 16:17 (twelve years ago) link
Peter Bogdanovich Drinking Game
― Dr Morbois de Bologne (Dr Morbius), Friday, 18 November 2011 16:21 (twelve years ago) link
he did tell a funny story about how he convinced ben johnson to be in the film: BJ didn't like the script ("too many words"), but after talking with john ford about it, JF puts the screws to him in a phone call. fifteen minutes later PB gets a call from johnson: "you sic'ed the old man on me!"
― GREENS (the putting kind) (donna rouge), Friday, 18 November 2011 16:22 (twelve years ago) link
i saw him introduce grand illusion, he was in full form
― the jazz zinger (s1ocki), Friday, 18 November 2011 16:22 (twelve years ago) link
actually it's MY FRIEND ORSON
― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 18 November 2011 17:10 (twelve years ago) link
actually, you can play the drinking game for yourself at home! try not to die of alcohol poisoning:
http://www.oscars.org/live/index.html
― GREENS (the putting kind) (donna rouge), Friday, 18 November 2011 17:18 (twelve years ago) link
warning: eileen brennan is...not in good shape
― GREENS (the putting kind) (donna rouge), Friday, 18 November 2011 17:19 (twelve years ago) link
if he does his Cary Grant impression, you have to finish the bottle.
― Dr Morbois de Bologne (Dr Morbius), Friday, 18 November 2011 17:32 (twelve years ago) link
lol he totally did
― GREENS (the putting kind) (donna rouge), Friday, 18 November 2011 17:51 (twelve years ago) link
― Anakin Ska Walker (AKA Skarth Vader) (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, September 16, 2011
― lumber up, limbaugh down (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 18 November 2011 17:52 (twelve years ago) link
One thing I know for sure, a person can't sneeze in this town without somebody offering them a handkerchief.
― flappy bird, Monday, 24 April 2017 03:06 (six years ago) link
memories of a past that never existed
― flappy bird, Monday, 24 April 2017 04:43 (six years ago) link
Went to a rep screening last night. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood, but I was a little bored. Nothing wrong with it--well, it telegraphs everything, that's a problem. Best line in the film belongs to Ellen Burstyn: "Nope. I'll just go on home." I loved that.
― clemenza, Saturday, 23 March 2019 21:04 (five years ago) link
Timothy Bottoms as this tension-free hero contributes to the easy-steady quality -- the film equivalent of a Maze + Frankie Beverly song. I love Maze and Bottoms too, but I get how they can make the eyes roll.
― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, 23 March 2019 21:14 (five years ago) link
Bottoms' was the performance that bugged me the most--and I like him a bunch in The Paper Chase. His character is probably a cliche in that, too--Kael had a funny description of him--but at least he's a live-wire cliche, instead of a somnolent one.
The screening was at a Toronto rep house called the Royal, same name as the theatre in the film. I should have taken a picture of the marquee: seeing "The Last Picture Show" up there was kind of meta.
― clemenza, Saturday, 23 March 2019 21:34 (five years ago) link
just rented the BR of this, sorta liked it but mostly left me cold when I was a teenager and a couple years ago. my dad's favorite movie. he talks about walking around in a daze for hours after seeing it, still in high school.
― flappy bird, Saturday, 23 March 2019 21:37 (five years ago) link
This movie really had a hold on people, felt like an event, something new, and now I think it's hard to see why. What was it?
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Saturday, 12 October 2019 23:50 (four years ago) link
I think perhaps it was the first mainstream US film to look back *somewhat* nostalgically at an era 20 years past while being explicit about sex.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 13 October 2019 00:26 (four years ago) link
Yup. The Black & White in this is also practically supernatural.
― a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 13 October 2019 00:53 (four years ago) link
Everything above, plus great ensemble cast mixing old and new Hollywood. But I agree, it's held up a little less well than other key films of the era.
― clemenza, Sunday, 13 October 2019 01:25 (four years ago) link
I think that collision of old and new is the heart of it, yeah. And it’s inarguably beautifully put together. Haven’t seen it in years, but as a younger person seeing the zeitgeist US films of the era it felt less of a “you had to be there” sorta thing than Easy Rider or Bonnie & Clyde. To throw two out.
― circa1916, Sunday, 13 October 2019 02:19 (four years ago) link
I came around to Easy Rider later though.
― circa1916, Sunday, 13 October 2019 02:20 (four years ago) link
When it came out people hadn't seen a beautifully shot, well made black and white film for years. By then B&W if used at all, was mostly for economic reasons and rarely an artistic choice in a mainstream film (at least in the US). Old B&W classic films on TV looked bad and were dated (though loved.) This comes along and it's a modern film but in amazing looking black and white, a continual reminder via its story and medium, of the importance of cinema to people who were young in the mid-20th century.
― everything, Sunday, 13 October 2019 04:15 (four years ago) link
Great answers everyone, thank you :)
― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 13 October 2019 07:50 (four years ago) link
never connected to this, unlike paper moon and what's up doc
― buzza, Sunday, 13 October 2019 08:25 (four years ago) link
I wish someone like Natalie Wood or someone who seemed to bridge old and new Hollywood was actually IN the film but ymmv
― Master of Treacle, Sunday, 13 October 2019 08:57 (four years ago) link
Ben Johnson?
was in Ford films and The Wild Bunch
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 13 October 2019 12:23 (four years ago) link
Cloris Leachman was in Kiss Me Deadly.
― a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 13 October 2019 13:39 (four years ago) link
Some of that symbolism is provided by the characters watching Red River, ala Karina viewing The Passion of Joan of Arc in Vivre Sa Vie.
― a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 13 October 2019 13:42 (four years ago) link
My dad saw it when he was 16 and talks about coming out of the theater in a daze, just walking around aimlessly for hours. Besides connecting with elements of the story, he took it as of a piece with Dylan going country and the 20 year nostalgia cycle making Hank Williams hip again. it took a moldy, uncool milieu and updated it for the times, not only in terms of explicitness (that's imo all that's going on in Easy Rider and Bonnie & Clyde even more so, as circa said). it's returning to TV of the 50s but with the disillusionment of the 70s using European existentialism. people like my dad were part of the counterculture but grew up watching Ben Johnson ride horses in John Ford movies (he always talks about how devastating his speech to the kids is, that they're no longer welcome after what they did).
TLPS is practically an Antonioni movie, but it's not showy. it's hard to articulate what's so moving about this movie. Took me 3 viewings over 10 years for it to really hit, though.
― flappy bird, Monday, 14 October 2019 02:15 (four years ago) link
Timothy uh Bottoms sure is purty.
I prefer TLPS to Boggo's two followups; my circuity can't process Paper Moon.
― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 14 October 2019 02:20 (four years ago) link
I always loved the touch of all the Country songs on the soundtrack, but at the Farrow household, when you hear a Hank song, Tony Bennett is doing the singing!
The placing of the action is key: after the war, but before Rock'n'Roll. Korea is happening, but isn't quite real until a local boy ships out.
― a bevy of supermodels, musicians and Lena Dunham (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 14 October 2019 02:26 (four years ago) link
the radio playing softly in every scene, the lack of people, the bone bleach white, the wind. it's like wandering into a purgatory of Americana, vanishing with that last fade out of Bottoms & Leachman ("never you mind, honey."). evocative, dreamlike, and surreal without ever being silly. I think it moved a lot of people that wouldn't normally see or respond to more arch or oblique art films.
― flappy bird, Monday, 14 October 2019 02:29 (four years ago) link
I always forget that Hud was also based on a McMurtry novel, set in the same fictional town.
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 14 October 2019 02:38 (four years ago) link
Never realized they were set in the same town. Hud would be set about a decade later then...if there's any crossover between the two, I missed it. Not as famous, but I definitely like Hud more.
― clemenza, Monday, 14 October 2019 02:51 (four years ago) link
Apparently Hud was more loosely adapted from Horseman, Pass By (set in 1954, published '61) -- the Patricia Neal character is a black woman. And they "softened" Hud...
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Monday, 14 October 2019 02:56 (four years ago) link
TCM had this on last night: watched a few minutes and started wondering what happened to Timothy Bottoms (wasn't even sure if he was still alive). Looking at his IMDB page, 1) he continues to work, usually making one or two films a year (he's slowed down a bit the past five years), and 2) except for the LPS sequel, I don't think I recognize even one of them in the last 40 years--nothing since Hurricane in 1979. It's really remarkable; I wonder if there's ever been another actor who had a fast start to his career, then spent the next four decades choosing one nowhere role after another.
― clemenza, Sunday, 24 April 2022 03:06 (one year ago) link
He did give us this:
https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/to-hollywood-and-beyond/images/7/78/That%27s_My_Bush%21.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20141006083405
― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 24 April 2022 05:04 (one year ago) link
https://assets.nflxext.com/us/boxshots/hd1080/70055288.jpg
― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 24 April 2022 05:07 (one year ago) link
"Holiday in Handcuffs" (2006) is worth a watch if you enjoy unbelievably bad movies
― Hans Holbein (Chinchilla Volapük), Sunday, 24 April 2022 06:19 (one year ago) link
I don't remember him in Gus Van Sant's Elephant, but that was a prestige movie at least.
― Halfway there but for you, Tuesday, 26 April 2022 00:47 (one year ago) link
One of my favourite films, missed that--and I do remember recognizing him.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 26 April 2022 01:37 (one year ago) link