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Feb 23 2011
Love0

“philistines, foes of art, craven bottom-liners, vulgarians” ... and us

By Asides, Cinema

A dis­pir­it­ing por­trait of the cur­rent com­mer­cial cinema from Mark Harris in GQ:

Such an unre­lent­ing focus on the sell rather than the goods may be why so many of the dis­pir­it­ingly awful movies that stu­di­os throw at us look as if they were planned from the poster back­ward rather than from the good idea for­ward. Marketers revere the idea of brands, because a brand means that some­body, some­where, once bought the thing they’re now try­ing to sell.

[From The Day the Movies Died: Movies + TV: GQ]

This is sadly a must-read for any­one who still enjoys going to the pic­tures but is won­der­ing why they still bother.

Interestingly, this is the third GQ art­icle I have linked to here in the last 12 months (Shatner and Shandling) and yet I still main­tain my sub­scrip­tion to Esquire and haven’t actu­ally bought a GQ in nearly 15 years. I may need to reas­sess that.

Nov 01 2010
Love0

“Hey now!”

By Asides, TV

The great Garry Shandling describ­ing Rip Torn’s audi­tion for “The Larry Sanders Show”:

Rip came in for the first time, and his agent said he wouldn’t read. Weeks later it was just him and me in a room with no one else, and I said to Rip, “Could we read half of this togeth­er?” And he said, “I don’t want to read.” I said, “That’s totally fine,” and I pushed it to the side of the table. We talked for less than anoth­er minute, and he reached over and took the page, and he starts the scene. It’s like try­ing to describe a good date to a friend the next day. I had to say to HBO and every­body else, “Honestly, this is the best sex I have had.”

[From Garry Shandling Recalls ‘Larry Sanders,’ – NYTimes.com]

“The Larry Sanders Show” is finally get­ting the full DVD treat­ment (I am a happy own­er of Season One). And, oh man, I’ve just dis­covered that the com­plete “It’s Gary Shandling’s Show” is on Region 1 DVD. Must. Have.

And on the sub­ject of “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show”, here’s the fam­ous theme tune:

[audio:https://funeralsandsnakes.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Its-Garry-Shandlings-Show.mp3]

And while we’re on the sub­ject of Garry, please read this exten­ded inter­view with the man at GQ. That is all.

“The dir­ec­tion I’m going in is even­tu­ally you won’t know if it’s a joke or not,” he explains, describ­ing his new act, which he has been quietly test­ing in clubs where his name nev­er appears on the mar­quee. “What I want to hap­pen is that I talk for an hour and the audi­ence does­n’t real­ize it is funny until they’re driv­ing home.”

Mar 31 2010
Love0

“the aurora that is SHATNER”

By Asides, Cinema, TV

Shatner inter­viewed in GQ (via @saniac):

Resistance is futile, of course. You aren’t in Shatner’s pres­ence ten minutes before he reverse-engineers your emo­tion­al state; first, you adopt those con­ver­sa­tion­al rhythms of his—everywhere, the jelly!—and then, by God, you start to feel the enthu­si­asm of your words, an enthu­si­asm inev­it­ably heightened by your know­ledge that this is WILLIAM TIBERIUS FUCKING SHATNER! you are deal­ing with, the most meta, the most absurd, human being in Western Civilization, and you fall in love with that meta-absurdity, the bon­anza of impun­ity and laughs it generates.

When I did The Immortals recently, the dir­ect­or and I had three short­cuts for line read­ings: Clarkson, Blessed and Shatner.

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