John Sayles

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hahaha, i just wanted to start a poll...

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:53 (seventeen years ago) link

sub-poll:

best screenplay:

Piranha

Alligator

Battle Beyond The Stars

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:54 (seventeen years ago) link

sub-sub-poll:

best book:

Union Dues

Pride Of The Bimbos

Los Gusanos

The Anarchist's Convention & Other Stories

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 19:56 (seventeen years ago) link

John Sayles is a bro.

― David R., Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:00 (seventeen years ago) link

I still haven't seen Silver City. I was kinda scared of it for some reason. Maybe cuz Sunshine State and Casa Baby were kinda dudly. Which is mean of me, cuz i'm a fan.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:04 (seventeen years ago) link

mmmm, Lone Star

― milo z, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:07 (seventeen years ago) link

I've only seen Eight Men Out ;_;

― David R., Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:17 (seventeen years ago) link

i liked silver city scott, it's enjoyable but kind of instantly dated... performances are all fantastic tho.

― ghost rider, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:18 (seventeen years ago) link

Silver City seemed retarded from the start. OMG Bush is dumb and corrupt LOL

You need to rent Lone Star, DR. It's about 100000000x better than any of his other movies (and I like Eight Men Out).

― milo z, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:24 (seventeen years ago) link

i'd say his strongest movies are:

baby it's you

eight men out

passion fish

lone star

but my fave just might be limbo.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:29 (seventeen years ago) link

hey i was just gonna post that limbo is my fave - i love love love movies that shift in tone halfway through, and few do it as well/unexpectedly as limbo

― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:31 (seventeen years ago) link

return of the secaucus 7 is a good five dollar movie. it's worth seeing.

i barely remember watching lianna on video 20 years ago.

the brother from another planet is entertaining.

matewan has kevin tighe in it. thus classic.

city of hope is kinda tortured and obvious and kind of a failure. yet i kinda like some of it too.

roan inish is for wee people.

men with guns in sticky. and there are guns!

sunshine state was missing a plot.

casa baby made me cringe a little.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 20:34 (seventeen years ago) link

i still love matewan so much. he wrote a book about making it and about how to make movies in general, it's called "thinking in pictures" and it's great too. perfect casting for everybody, the story fits together really well, it's political, it's got chris cooper bein a good guy, it's got bonnie prince billy as a 14-year-old preacher, david straithairn as the "well he's OUR asshole" sheriff, and you never quite know what's going to happen. plus the hillbillies coming down out of the trees to drive off the strikebreakers is one of my favorite moments in movies ever.

― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:05 (seventeen years ago) link

[i}Matewan[/i]

― Alex in SF, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:07 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah i voted for matewan

― ghost rider, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:08 (seventeen years ago) link

i'd like to have matewan on dvd.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:10 (seventeen years ago) link

there was some crazy script/treatment for Jurassic Park 4 that Sayles wrote a few years ago. the synopsis of it sounded totally batshit insane, in a good way.

― latebloomer, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:46 (seventeen years ago) link

Matewan is awesome. John Sayles is a goodlooking man and he frequently casts David Strathairn, another goodlooking man, which I appreciate.

― horseshoe, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:49 (seventeen years ago) link

i voted for city of hope. what scott said is totally right, of course, but it's not like you go to sayles expecting perfection. which is in part why it's easy for him to get overshadowed by edie falco or mary mcdonnell or david strathairn or....

― gabbneb, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:50 (seventeen years ago) link

i've only seen 1/2 of these tho

― gabbneb, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:51 (seventeen years ago) link

I've only seen Return of the Seacaucus 7 once, when I was on a big Sayles kick in college, and I totally adored it for some reason, but I'm not sure it would hold up?

― horseshoe, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:52 (seventeen years ago) link

Doesn't he get worse from Lone Star onwards?

As a screenwriter he's an ambitious Larry McMurtry (proles with problems, resolved via Screenwriting 101 techniques). Most of his films are a good 30 minutes too long.

Passion Fish and Alligator my faves.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:56 (seventeen years ago) link

John Sayles is a goodlooking man and he frequently casts David Strathairn, another goodlooking man

how old-fashioned (also otm)

― gabbneb, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:57 (seventeen years ago) link

straithairn is in, like, every one! from return of the secausus 7 on. he even plays the crazy homeless dude in city of hope.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:58 (seventeen years ago) link

John Sayles and Martin Donovan (goodlooking man #3!) have a cameo in Malcolm X as FBI agents who're listening in on Malcolm's phone calls.

xpost I know, I guess Sayles and Straithairn went to college together?

― horseshoe, Thursday, 5 April 2007 21:59 (seventeen years ago) link

Straithairn was quite sexy in Passion Fish.

― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:00 (seventeen years ago) link

i didn't go for the sub-sub-sub poll of john sayles as actor. though he has acted a lot. maybe give it to him as ring lardner in eight men out.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:00 (seventeen years ago) link

Straithairn always seems very uncomfortable with the fact that he's so hot. He wears it uneasily.

― horseshoe, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:01 (seventeen years ago) link

i liked him as a cop in married to the mob(?) i think that was the one.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:02 (seventeen years ago) link

sunshine state was missing a plot

it had a lot of little plots trickling into a big, wide, slow-moving plot

― gabbneb, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:02 (seventeen years ago) link

John Sayles was in Married to the Mob??? I need to watch that movie again.

― horseshoe, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:03 (seventeen years ago) link

it had a lot of little plots trickling into a big, wide, slow-moving plot

tho it's not like that isn't true of all them

― gabbneb, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:06 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah, i know, sunshine state had lots of stories going on, i just never felt like they added up like they were supposed to.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:08 (seventeen years ago) link

imdb sez the sayles-scripted jurassic park is in pre-production. that should pay for, like, a trilogy of mexican revolutionary movies.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:09 (seventeen years ago) link

oops! sorry, it was something wild, not married to the mob.

― scott seward, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:10 (seventeen years ago) link

LONE STAR

― jed_, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:12 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah, i know, sunshine state had lots of stories going on, i just never felt like they added up like they were supposed to

swamps aren't too tight

― gabbneb, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Lone Star.

haven't seen Matewan, though

― will, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:14 (seventeen years ago) link

sometimes it seems like all American lit crit of the 90s springs from Lone Star. why doesn't anyone ever cast Elizabeth Pena in anything?

― horseshoe, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:14 (seventeen years ago) link

honestly Matewan is the only one that's ever made an impression on me.

― Shakey Mo Collier, Thursday, 5 April 2007 22:18 (seventeen years ago) link

there was some crazy script/treatment for Jurassic Park 4 that Sayles wrote a few years ago. the synopsis of it sounded totally batshit insane, in a good way.

-- latebloomer, Thursday, April 5, 2007 1:46 PM (2 hours ago)

from AICN ( http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=18166 ):
"The script starts at a Little League game somewhere in America, an idyllic scene that quickly goes bad when pterosaurs attack the kids and their parents. It's a cool scene, and I couldn't help but immediately anticipate what might lay ahead. Dinosaurs in America. All-out warfare on home soil. This should be fun. In a series of television clips, we learn that this is the first attack on North American ground following months of this sort of thing in Central America and Mexico. The UN has created a task force to exterminate the dinosaurs.

[...]

"I want to tread lightly on what happens over the course of the rest of the film on the off chance that Mary Parent or someone at Universal is seriously going to make this thing. There's the eight-year-old-boy side of me that thinks that a DIRTY DOZEN-style mercenary team of hyper-smart dinosaurs in body armor killing drug dealers and rescuing kidnapped children will be impossible to resist. And then there's the side of me that says... WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT'! Nick is put in charge of training these five dinosaurs, X1 through X5, and the first thing he does is name them. 'Any soldier worth his pay has a name to answer to, not a number,' he says. So we are introduced to Achilles, Hector, Perseus, Orestes, and Spartacus, each of them a specially created deinonychus, which is sort of like a miniature T-rex. They have super-sensitive smell and hearing, incredible strength and speed and pack-hunting instincts, and they have modified forelegs, lengthened and topped with more dextrous fingers, as well as dog DNA for increased obedience and human DNA so they can solve problems well. All of this is topped off with a drug-regulating implant that can dose them with adrenaline or serotonin as the situation demands."

― abanana, Friday, 6 April 2007 00:48 (seventeen years ago) link

so wtf happened during [...]

― rps, Friday, 6 April 2007 00:57 (seventeen years ago) link

why doesn't anyone ever cast Elizabeth Pena in anything?

srsly

― gabbneb, Friday, 6 April 2007 00:59 (seventeen years ago) link

http://imdb.com/title/tt0372873/

― rps, Friday, 6 April 2007 01:07 (seventeen years ago) link

http://imdb.com/title/tt0787500/ is a lot more interesting-looking

― gabbneb, Friday, 6 April 2007 01:20 (seventeen years ago) link

elizabeth pena is sexy as hell

sayles is a good guy, and i have enjoyed some of his movies, but he's one of those directors who doesn't have ANY idea how to use the medium (ya know, the "visuals") i generally find tarantino annoying as fuck, and definitely overrated, but at least he gets what cinema is supposed to be about, even if his ideas are all secondhand.

― gershy, Friday, 6 April 2007 02:19 (seventeen years ago) link

why doesn't anyone ever cast Elizabeth Pena in anything?

They're too busy rewinding to the dance scene in Jacob's Ladder again?

― David R., Friday, 6 April 2007 02:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Are either of his novels worth reading? I'm going to order The Anarchists' Convention from Amazon but the Cuban exile novel and father-son '60s radical drama both sound kind of eh.

― milo z, Friday, 6 April 2007 03:18 (seventeen years ago) link

i liked union dues when i read it years ago. it's entertaining. but i read it when i was like 19 or something. who knows what i would think now. pride of the bimbos is funny! the short story collection is cool. i never wanted to read los gusanos. looked boring.

― scott seward, Friday, 6 April 2007 03:32 (seventeen years ago) link

jurassic park would be a total return to his roots! you guys probably know, because everything like this is knowable these days, that sayles cut his teeth writing scripts for things like PIRANHA! he talks about piranha a lot actually in "thinking in pictures" IIRC.

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 6 April 2007 21:53 (seventeen years ago) link

Skipping 10 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

Missed this poll, but would have voted for Baby, It's You.

Somebody once told me that when he learned Spanish, he made the task easier for himself by eliminating the second person. So he called everyone, including little kids, "usted."

― barney kestrel (James Redd and the Blecchs), Tuesday, 26 May 2009 15:51 (fourteen years ago) link

one year passes...

mcsweeneys putting the book out - http://store.mcsweeneys.net/index.cfm/fuseaction/catalog.detail/object_id/68196e93-725e-46fa-b2f7-be6ce45cee40/AMomentintheSun.cfm

― just sayin, Friday, 8 April 2011 22:27 (thirteen years ago) link

nearly 1,000 pages,

― johnny crunch, Friday, 8 April 2011 22:39 (thirteen years ago) link

one year passes...

McDonnell & Woodard just great together in Passion Fish.

he's one of those directors who doesn't have ANY idea how to use the medium

^This is baloney

― World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Friday, 25 May 2012 04:07 (eleven years ago) link

one year passes...

JS on a dozen influences:

http://thedissolve.com/features/5-10-15-20/261-john-sayles-on-the-12-films-that-most-influenced-h/

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 November 2013 18:23 (ten years ago) link

Matewan has a very young Will Oldham playing Danny the child preacher, only just noticed this recently.

http://img.rp.vhd.me/4741157_l2.jpg

― Damo Suzuki's Parrot, Wednesday, 13 November 2013 22:13 (ten years ago) link

yeah, when he started making records "the kid from Matewan" was not an uncommon note in the press.

― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 November 2013 22:15 (ten years ago) link

one year passes...

city of hope is the most like full movie ever, and really overwritten but reasonably watchable

― johnny crunch, Wednesday, 16 September 2015 02:54 (eight years ago) link

one month passes...

Baby It's You holds up nicely, esp R Arquette's performance, and despite Trenton being played by North Jersey.

― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 27 October 2015 20:53 (eight years ago) link

two years pass...

Limbo deserves more respect....

― scott seward, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 17:34 (six years ago) link

also, one vote for Passion Fish? disgusting savages...

― scott seward, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 17:35 (six years ago) link

lone star is *kisses fingers*

― marcos, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 17:35 (six years ago) link

kinda wish someone would just give him a ton of money to do an awesome netflix t.v. series. he deserves one big budget in his life. just one! he's no spring chicken.

― scott seward, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 17:46 (six years ago) link

Netflix series is perfect for Sayles, actually

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 17:48 (six years ago) link

Shannon's Deal came close to that at times.

― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 18:42 (six years ago) link

(breathes a sigh of relief that thread wasn't revived because of a sexual harassment accusation in the wake of the Weinstein scandal)

― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 18:54 (six years ago) link

...or that he died.

― to fly across the city and find Aerosmith's car (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 8 November 2017 18:57 (six years ago) link

one year passes...

Not dead! But I did just wonder, despite missing his last several movies, just what this cat has been up to.

― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 16 June 2019 02:35 (four years ago) link

seven months pass...

rewatched Matewan, which is generally inspiring and noble (in a good way) but damn are the characters and plotting broad

shooting the villain through the clothesline is always a good finish tho

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 9 February 2020 14:57 (four years ago) link

one of the most deliciously hateable villains in Sayles' oeuvre

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 9 February 2020 15:09 (four years ago) link

a bit heavy on the Snidely Whiplash

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 9 February 2020 15:11 (four years ago) link

impossible!

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Sunday, 9 February 2020 15:12 (four years ago) link

At the time PIRAHNA was released, John Sayles had a film journalist going for 20 minutes that the killer fish in the film were an allegory the Gang of Four and the Chinese Cultural Revolution until he had to stop and ask John, “Wait...are you fucking with me?” He was.
— 💡KJ RELTH💡 (@kj__relth) February 15, 2020

― brooklyn suicide cult (Dr Morbius), Monday, 17 February 2020 01:28 (four years ago) link

one year passes...

Sayles talks at length about what he would watch on TV in 1960 on the "TV Guidance Counselor" podcast (ep 490). Recommended.

― Josefa, Sunday, 24 October 2021 14:08 (two years ago) link

Interesting.

― Through with “What’s the Buzz” (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 24 October 2021 14:36 (two years ago) link

a bit heavy on the Snidely Whiplash

And here I have been spelling it Snively all these years.

― Through with “What’s the Buzz” (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 24 October 2021 14:38 (two years ago) link

Bad news. After a great time in France, John has tested positive for a breakthrough case of COVID. He tested negative before traveling home, started feeling lousy & tested again yesterday only to get a positive result today.Let's all wish him a speedy recovery! Stay safe everyone pic.twitter.com/7ZSFo7mLTs
— John Sayles (@john_sayles) October 26, 2021

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 27 October 2021 14:24 (two years ago) link

one year passes...

rewatched Matewan, which is generally inspiring and noble (in a good way) but damn are the characters and plotting broad
shooting the villain through the clothesline is always a good finish tho
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 9 February 2020 14:57 (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

i just did this too. my kids actually stayed awake for it too. shocking!

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 26 November 2022 22:25 (one year ago) link

and i obv appreciate this opportunity to reconnect with the ghost of morbs :)

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 26 November 2022 22:25 (one year ago) link

one month passes...

why did he stop making stuff and/or move to streaming? what has he been doing the last 10 years? bad health maybe. baby it's you is still my favorite

― buzza, Wednesday, 11 January 2023 08:56 (one year ago) link

loved shannon's deal way back when, wonder if it would hold up

― buzza, Wednesday, 11 January 2023 08:58 (one year ago) link

he wrote a novel last year that i bought and haven't read because i'm a criminal

― horseshoe, Thursday, 12 January 2023 17:26 (one year ago) link

https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1380-yellow-earth

― horseshoe, Thursday, 12 January 2023 17:27 (one year ago) link

thanks hs, i was rescreening city of hope the other day (haven't finished yet but seems like a sprawly mess in this viewing) and i was mentioning to my wife how i always felt Sayles was a writer-first and filmmaker as a cool side deal. tbf Morbs called me out about that upthread and i was being too glib but i'm not entirely wrong either

― buzza, Friday, 13 January 2023 09:38 (one year ago) link

No, you’re not. I kind of like City of Hope despite all that, taking all that into account.

― Farewell to Evening in Paradise (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 13 January 2023 12:07 (one year ago) link

nine months pass...

Passion Fish is his best, sorry.

Available on Amazon Prime.

― hat trick of trashiness (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 31 October 2023 13:33 (five months ago) link

Lone Star is getting a Criterion Blu-Ray release

― deep wubs and tribral rhythms (Boring, Maryland), Tuesday, 31 October 2023 14:25 (five months ago) link

two months pass...

New interview with Sayles about Lone Star:

Legendary writer/director John Sayles talks to Walter Chaw about his great 1996 film, “Lone Star,” on the eve of its release via The @Criterion Collection. https://t.co/Ps2k8VQoao
— Chaz (@ChazEbert) January 16, 2024

― underwater as a compliment (Eazy), Wednesday, 17 January 2024 01:12 (three months ago) link

Is Lone Star great?

― Pictish in the Woods (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 17 January 2024 01:19 (three months ago) link

Guess it won the POLL so…

― Pictish in the Woods (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 17 January 2024 01:21 (three months ago) link

Baby, It’s You got zero votes so I must have sat this one out.

― Pictish in the Woods (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 17 January 2024 01:22 (three months ago) link

I saw Lone Star in theaters and yeah, it's great.

― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Wednesday, 17 January 2024 01:32 (three months ago) link

Lone Star is up there among the movies I've rewatched multiple times.

― Elvis Telecom, Wednesday, 17 January 2024 01:33 (three months ago) link

I might have heard some funny story in Texas that gave me an excuse to take it down a peg.

― Pictish in the Woods (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 17 January 2024 01:34 (three months ago) link

But maybe I need to rewatch

― Pictish in the Woods (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 17 January 2024 01:34 (three months ago) link

I really need to see it again. I saw it in the cinema and loved it. I seem to remember it has a very satisfying ending

― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 17 January 2024 11:49 (three months ago) link

I rewatched it shortly before the Criterion disc was announced. It's superb.

― Chris L, Wednesday, 17 January 2024 13:19 (three months ago) link

I think it's currently showing on Tubi.

― Tahuti Watches L&O:SVU Reruns Without His Ape (unperson), Wednesday, 17 January 2024 15:37 (three months ago) link

I watched Passion Fish for the third time in November. Everything works. His best imo.

― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 17 January 2024 15:39 (three months ago) link

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