sidney lumet search and destroy etc

That's the best thing I've read so far.

Lumet on directing Brando, from the CC of The Fugitive Kind:

http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1810-the-craft-of-sidney-lumet

I started his book, it's very snappy. He suggested Vanessa Redgrave for Network, and when Paddy Chayefsky yelped "no, she's pro-PLO," Lumet told him that was blacklisting. PC: "Not when a Jew does it to a Gentile."

Watched Dog Day for the first time in eons on Friday -- really amazing neorealist texture, the quintessence of '70s New York (ie, better than Mean Streets or Taxi Driver). Possibly Pacino's peak, and I didn't realize Judith Malina and Lance Henriksen had small meaty roles. The principal location is blocks from where I lived for a dozen years.

Have you ever read the LIFE Magazine article on which the screenplay was based? Some of the photos accompanying that story look almost like stills from the movie.

I have not, but will later! Also I'm amused that the real-life love object paid for his sex change with the money from the movie rights, apparently.

From his book, the ppl on the set he really had no use for were the star's personal hair/makeup staff, and the Teamsters.

Got an invite to a memorial tribute for him at Lincoln Center Monday afternoon. Can't go.

watching 'network' i think that movie sort of epitomizes everything i might hate in a movie

What happened to you as a child? This is such a great movie. I always pair it with "Hospital" (another great Chayefsky script) in my mind.

Good scripts, not movies!

sometimes I credit Lumet for ameliorating some of the hysteria in Network; other times he just said fuck it and let the camera go.

The hysteria is the best thing about the movie, that and Dunaway's premature orgasm.

Carl Paladino did sort of ruin the "mad as hell" for me though.

Is The Deadly Affair worth watching? I got ten minutes in, decided that James Mason was vastly inferior to Guinness the George Smiley role, and gave up. I should probably give it another go.

did you guys know he was in yiddish theater as a child? and he was in a movie w/ sylvia sidney in the 1930s?

yes (he was also on Broadway as a teen)

yeah. dude had an interesting life. kind of wish i could chat w/ him.

the "strip search" thing he did for hbo is interesting, if a bit facile. on youtube btw if ur curious

imdb is weird abt it listing a bunch of extra actors and longer run times so maybe an 86 or 120 min vers exists..did they try and distribute it w/o hbo in other countries maybe?

the main thing is the controversy abt hbo pulling it in the wake of abu ghraib which i do kindof remember and is pretty bs

lol that 1 of the imdb plot keywords is Panties Hit The Floor

i'm about halfway thru prince and the city. must have watched this 20 times when it first made the rounds on cable back in the 80s, just loved the myriad "real" new york character actors. especially loving bob balaban's prissy little fed this time around. pretty crudely structured/directed as per usual with lumet but his style very much suits the story in this one.

My wife and I just watched Running on Empty last night (partly because of mentions in this thread). It was rock solid. Like a small indie film, except one made by consummate professionals at every level.

Incidentally, after so many years of watching a thousand names scroll by on the end credits of blockbuster movies, I was amazed at how few people were needed for this production. By modern Hollywood standards, just a handful.

Christine Lahti is so good!

http://imgur.com/a/HMuy2#7

The ending of Fail-Safe is really chilling without being graphic at all--those lightning-quick optical zooms, the hiss from the melted phone, Hagman & Fonda's small talk in their last scene, "He knows" re:First Lady.

on Fail-Safe (the guy doesn't really 'get' Strangelove)

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2014/10/fail_safe_50th_anniversary_sidney_lumet_s_nuclear_war_movie_is_better_than.html

The ending of Fail-Safe is really chilling without being graphic at all--those lightning-quick optical zooms, the hiss from the melted phone, Hagman & Fonda's small talk in their last scene, "He knows" re:First Lady.

― A Made Man In The Mellow Mafia (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, October 1, 2013 5:06 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yep otm; i was also very into all the silence, esp in the beginning & how it's used throughout. it's obv of its time but i also think quite timeless + great

god network is awful!
― cinniblount (James Blount), Thursday, February 26, 2004 4:14 PM (10 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Cannot be said enough.

no, that's silly. His last movie, THAT'S awful.

Probably (I didn't see it), but there seems to be a consensus on that. I still run into people who think Network is great.

The Offence w/ Connery is now on Bluray

looking at Q&A alongside... Akira

http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/bradlands/akira-q-a-joy-juxtapositions

Q&A is a really good one. otm there about how it starts to get very twisty and interesting in a lot of unexpected ways.

Mini-Lumet series at the Lightbox, five films. Saw Serpico today, Network and Prince of the City next weekend. (Skipping Dog Day and 12 Angry Men.) I like Serpico, but it gets a little repetitive about 2/3 of the way through. His first girlfriend, Cornelia Sharpe, gives a good performance; the second, Barbara Eda-Young, is good in his first scene, but during her big meltdown, where she cries that she wants to marry Serpico and have kids with him, I started wondering if she was the basis for Catherine O'Hara's Lola Heatherton. Saw M. Emmett Walsh's name in the credits--missed him in the film.

"good in her first scene"

I was trying and trying during the film last night to remember who won Best Actor in '73. I knew it wasn't Pacino, knew it wasn't Nicholson for The Last Detail--their first awards came later--knew that Hoffman and De Niro weren't up that year. Had to look it up when I got home: Lemmon for Save the Tiger. Which is dumb, because that's a film I've always liked more than most people.

Some of Prince of the City I like better than Serpico, and there are some good performances: Jerry Orbach, Norman Parker as the attorney who recruits Ciello, Ron Karabatsos, and the guy who plays Blomberg's lawyer. Great ending. Treat Williams always wears me down after a while--he aims for Brando and De Niro, occasionally gets partway there, occasionally gives you Bobby Bittman.

Kael: "And that may be why Williams, as a New York City police officer who agrees to be wired and to obtain evidence about corruption in his unit, plays each scene as an acting exercise--going through so much teary, spiritual agony that you want to throw something at him."

I'm enjoying his book Making Movies and how much he hates teamsters.

I just saw an interview with Ava DuVernay on TCM talking about Dog Day Afternoon & she said that Making Movies was what inspired her to direct and she gives copies of it to people she meets who want to work in film <3

Also I rewatched Dog Day Afternoon last weekend and it is perfect

the teamsters part is great. also about how some hair & makeup people are leeches.

oft overlooked Lumet-Brando-Tennessee out on Criterion

https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/blu-ray-review-sidney-lumet-the-fugitive-kind-on-the-criterion-collection/

Watched this last night on the Channel. There's something I just don't get about Williams' compulsive demon-exorcisms, but it was top notch filmmaking.

amazing I'd never watched Network until last night! familiar with the ott monologues from elsewhere, but I wasn't quite ready for how arch the performances would be. the idea people are playing out their roles in some metatextual way as if they're all caricatures of television characters, to the extent Holden articulates it in dialog, doesn't completely work as intended

it unintentionally bridges the gap between two movies I've recently watched: A Face in the Crowd and, for its subject matter and McLuhan-inspired theme, Videodrome

Fail-Safe CC is out too!

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6801-fail-safe-very-little-left-of-the-world

To create the animations of the various blips of planes and missiles seen on the massive screens that dominate many of Fail Safe’s spaces, the director turned to the acclaimed animators John and Faith Hubley.

had no idea of this

Is anything he did post-1990 worth watching? The Larry Cohen writing credit on Guilty as Sin intrigues me, but otherwise it looks like he fell off considerably in his last couple decades. A few of these titles (Night Falls on Manhattan, Strip Search) even sound like straight-to-video erotic thrillers.

MANHATTAN has one of Ian Holm's great performances and one of Andy Garcia's worst.

Some critics dig Q&A.

I haven't seen it, but Q&A is the most recent one that I've heard anything good about.

I liked Q&A alright, and skipped everything after til the last one (dreadful imho).

Before the Devil Knows Your Dead is aggressively grotesque, idk if I would actually call it good tho