Movie review - "Good Luck, Miss Wyckoff" (1979) **

 Remarkable movie. Written by Polly Platt from a William Inge novel. Directed by Marvin Chomsky, and it has a 70s telemovie feel. Stars Anne Heywood and produced by Raymond Stross, the husband and wife team.

Heywood tries her best as usual, and isn't quite up to it, as usual. She goes for it though - naked, raped, consensual, coervice, forced oral sex... all on a black man whose body is festishised. 

There's a PhD in this movie.  It doesn't quite work. Needs better handling. But certainly lots of chew on.

Dorothy Malone has a small part. 

Book review - "Larry McMutry: A Life" by by Tracy Daugherty

 I was always going to find this interesting. Daugherty can write and has done research. The book isn't as good as McMurtry's own autobiographical writing which is so extensive. I was hoping for a little more numbers and date behind the books and movies (sales, etc) - Daugherty draws from letters and writings which have to be taken with a grain of salt. Some of the movie stuff, which I know a bit about, was a little wrong which made me wary of the rest of the book.

Ah, look, this is fine. It's better than fine it's very good. I guess I was hopeing for less quotations from people and letters and writing and more hard facts, like more specificity of who he was sleeping with and how much the different books sold and the money he made. And it'k okay on the novels, not amazing (I acknowledge this is due to the fact I have different opinions from Daughterty as to a few of them).

Movie review - "Targets" (1968) **** (re-watching)

 It's so audacious that the essentially silly idea does work - combining a sniper with an old Karloff movie. Karloff is a joy. Peter Bogdanovich is a very awkward actor, like surprisingly so, but he adds to the film's charm. Tim O'Kelly really impresses. MVP though goes to Nancy Hsueh, who is warm, smart and lovely - a Polly Platt surrogate. Sam Fuller's storylining keeps the pace fast. 

I wish Bogdanovich had done more thrillers he could handle violence well. I mean, kids get shot. And watch their parents get shot. This film packs a bang, aside from sixties skivvies and deejays.

Book review - "Last Picture Show" by Larry McMurtry

 McMurtry was later very harsh on this book which he said was written very quickly without style although he admits it had a strong sense of character and time and place. Lots of sex and writing about sex - this book was actually more commercial than i remembered because it's about young people growing up and having sex trapped in a small town and there's always a market for that eg Peyton Place, Kings Row.

This is better written than them of course. The leads are okay - Sonny, Duane, Jacy - but the adults really well sketched: the gay English teacher kicked out of town, the most likely gay football coach, the coach's wife (beautiful portral), Jacy's mother (who roots Sonny here but it basically a nice person giving good advice... like the dad in Leaving Cheyenne come to think of it), Sam the Lion, the horny youth who winds up kidnapping a little girl (maybe not as minor a crime as McMurtry paints). He admits to hating Archer City when he wrote it and you can tell.

Things feel so true though like the "fast" party where everyone is nude and urban legends growiung. Other stuff feels more location specific like having sex with cows and visiting Mexico.

Book review - "Flim Flam" by Larry McMurtry

 Collection of essays on movies by McMurtry mostly from the 70s which McMurtry finds a lot to gripe about. Some interesting takes on film critics and theorists - I wasn't that wild about his thoughts on movies - he doesn't like Keith Carradine. Not really great analyst. I did like his enthusiasms and his pieces on his own films especially Picture Show and Loving Molly (he gets stuck into Sidney Lumet).  Last chapter from the 80s is about his friendship with Diane Keaton. He chats briefly about some odd films like Velvet Vampire (in a piece on Times Square) and Istanbul with Errol Flynn. Criticises his own plot for Hud.

Book review - "All My Friends Are Going to be Strangers" by Larry McMurtry

 McMurtry once wrote that musicians love this book -  James Taylor had the film rights - and it's not hard to see why with its artistic hero who is a down to earh Texan and keeps encountering women he wants to bed but also loves and somehow makes a mess of it. He marries one and wants to marry a bunch of others. There's the girl from Terms of Endearment (the McMurtry universe!), a hot one good at sex (who he marries and impregnates and who is the least complex), a neurotic mess in Hollywood who works as a cartoonist, a horny tennis playing housewife, a Mexican prostitute. The novel feels as though it builds to the lead dying but McMurtry says that isn't the case and he wrote a sequel with the character. I wonder how autobiographical this is - I assume a lot.

The world is a little like Don's Party -  a conservative society starting to swing, heavy drinking, people getting married young but the marriages being open, lechy academics.

Some of the language hasn't aged too well and McMurtry's hero is a little rough with his hands but the book does work. Interior in the best way, very strongly felt. The scene where Danny and a mate are attacked by cops is brutally excellent. Fun sketch of Hollywood and the book worlds. I loved the guy who is always writing scripts about the Seventh Cavalry.

Book review - "Books: A Memoir" by Larry McMurtry

 There's some discussion of McMurtry's writing - his first few novels, his depression - but mostly this is about his adventures as a book shop owner and rare book collector. Sometimes interesting but not that interesting and probably better as an article. He makes fun of Peter Bogdanovich here and there which is entertaining. The books did help McMurtry keep his head screwed on - doing a job with physical labour, having a day job.

Book review - "Hollywood: A Third Memoir" by Larry McMurtry (2010)

 A series of reminisces by McMurtry about his adventures in the screen trade. He's had a very long career as a screenwriter - Horseman Pass By not only sold to the movies, it became a hit, so even though McMurtry had little to do with it, he benefited and was given screenwriting jobs. Since then he managed to have a big hit every decade or so - Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, Lonesome Dove, Brokeback Mountain.

 Buffs won't necessarily learn much new about Picture Show but I enjoyed glimpses of his random but long career: working for Lew Grade (including a stint on Raise the Titanic), various unmade films (including one on Wyoming lawman Ed Cantrell which sounded interesting).

He writes with great affection of good friend Diane Keaton, and collaborator Diana Ossana (who he started working with after his quadruple bypass and found he could still write novels but not the more disciplined sccripts). Moving account of Swifty Lazar who McMurtry liked but claims cost him $15 million with sloppy legal work post success of Lonesome Dove. He discusses his Dove sequel/prequel mini series, not in a huge amount of detail. There's talk of being on the Brokeback Mountain award trail. I wanted more - for instance more detail about his feud with Bogdanovich which he refers to, or if he had any thoughts why none of his lost Lonesome Dove books did that well as mini series - but this was very enjoyable.

Aside: he says George MacDonald Fraser wrote a script for the Lone Range film which I know he did but I thought that was a later one for John Landis, not for Lew Grade.

Book review - "My Name is Barbra" by Barbra Streisand

 I'm not a big Streisand head but have no particularly strong feelings about her. This book is very good though. Well written, enjoyable. Feels "her". Strong willed, eccentric, passionate. She's copped a lot of bad press over the years but from men trying to punish her. Arthur Laurents and Garson Kanin struggled to direct her with their "set and forget" methods. She had better luck with people like Jerome Robbins, William Wyler, and Peter Bogdanovich, people who challenged her. Did badly with weaker directors like Gene Kelly, Frank Pierson.

She writes affectionately of Elliot Gould which I liked - they had issues (he was partial to marijuana, jealousy and had a gambling habit) but was basically supportive. Also she has a lot of time for most of her exes: Ryan O'Neal, Geoge Lazenby (! - it was just a flirtation during On a Clear Day You Can See Forever), Kris Kristofferson, Warren Beatty (who she's not sure if she slept with), Pierre Trudeau, Omar Sharif, Anthony Newley (I didn't know that). Isn't nice about Sydney Chaplin who she had an affair with then called off and he behaved badly (Walter Matthau was a mate of his, hence his bad attitude on Hello Dolly). Likes most of her co stars even if she didn't fall in love with them (she was a method actress that way) - eg James Caan. She adored Brando and they had a friendship but not an affair (I don't think).

Full of "gee I wish you'd done that" moments-  she should've turned director on A Star is Born, should've made Merry Widow with Ingmar Bergman

She's ambivalent about Sue Menges (says Menges begged her to be in All Night Long), Jon Peters.

Particularly fascinating accounts of her musicals and movies especially The Way We Were (admits to not remembering much about For Pete's Sake). Also deep dives her albums and TV specials.

Lots of good juice like Arthur Laurents sending her a mean letter after her first album - but she also liked him because of The Way We Were; Mandy Patinkin demanding to have an affair; Complex descriptions of Ray Stark, Sydney Pollack

There's a bit too much about clothes and blocking of scenes. And the last few chapters are really grim - the Clintons, politicis, philanthropy, her 21st century career. But def read the first bit.

Movie review - "Irreconciliable Differences" (1984) ****

 Really excellent comedy-drama (you can't call it a rom com) which was Charles Shyer's debut as director although Nancy Meyers' influence is all over it, with a strong female voice. The first half is a brilliant take off of Bogdanovich and Polly Platt and Cybill Shepherd (though Bogdanovich didn't invent the dumping the wife and taking up with the starlet, the film nails its colours to the mast with Ryan O'Neal playing a film academic, and Sam Wanamaker as a cultured Roger Corman type - though clearly dealing with bigger budgets than Corman).

People who "discovered" Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct clearly hadn't seen this - she's brilliant as the gorgeous, manic, vulnerable girl; great funny nude scene where she takes her top off easily, but the highlight is her singing in the Civil War epic (I did wish her character had given evidence at the trial... I guess she didn't have to story wise I just wanted to see more of her).

Ryan O'Neal is simply terrific, one of his best performances. He always does best against strong women and here he's got Sharon Stone and Shelley Long (Drew Barrymore doesn't give him a hard time). Long is fabulous too, likeable but not afraid to go for the self obsession.

Like Shyer-Meyer's earlier Private Benjamin the last third is actually quite serious. Ryan O'Neal and Shelley Long are such narcissists they parcel their kid off to the housekeeper (who doesn't have much personality in the film it must be said), using her as a weapon in their fights against each other, ear bashing their kid about the other, basically not caring for being so self absorbed. This is very well done - I mean it's still funny but also grounded in reality and pain. (I could see Bogdanovich and Platt being upset by this bit - I don't think they'd ever been accused of dreadful parenting.)

The pain and seriousness (it ends with them getting along not getting back together) are probably what held this back from being a big hit; maybe also it was too "in". But it's a great movie.

Book review - "Picturing Peter Bogdanovich: My Conversations with the New Hollywood Director" by Peter Tonguette (2020)

 Entertaining book. I know a lot about PB, more than healthy but this had stuff I didn't know - mpostly unmade films in the 70s that actually sounded great esp Bugsy and some Howard Sackler scripts. There's probably too much on Robert Graves but it doesn't overdose on old Hollywood directors and discusses more post Golden era projects eg TV stuff. What a career he had. I wish he'd had another late period hit though.

Movie review - "Targets" (1968) **** (rewatching)

 Maybe it's more naturally three and a half stars but considering the restrictions this is four star. Excellent debut from Bogdanovich, presented with, as Quentin Tarantino says, a puzzle... some footage from The Terror, a few days of Karloff.

Bogdanovich's luck was strong at this stage: he picked a great idea (to do something based on a spree killer), had Sam Fuller and Polly Platt in his corner to help him write the script (which I think gave him a false idea of his skill in that area).

Bogdanovich's acting is awkward - he had a lot on his plate - and the character should have been killed for shock value but his presence has film buff appeal. There's an Asian lead which might be more progressive if people didn't comment on the girl's Asian-ness all the time.

The director's style is apparent from the get go - long takes, languid takes, momentum that builds. People were idiots to say he was Ford/Hawks when he was his own man (or rather couple).

Movie review - "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women" (1968) **1/2 (re watching)

 The grade is too high objectively speaking but I took into account the circumstances under which it was made: a Soviet film bought by Roger Corman to cut up without sound. Curtis Harrington had a go but this one, done by Peter Bogdanovich and Polly Platt, is better.

It's frustrating that the characters cant talk. Yes there's a Soviet section but also one on Venus with Mamie Van Doren. The sexy Venus women promise more than they deliver. They clamber through the surf in shells, trying to hang on to dignity. It is silly and fun and you can sense Bogdanovich and Platt really trying hard.

Movie review - "What's Up Doc?" (1972) ***1/2

 I don't meant to be a Debbie Downer but looking back this comedy has some serious consent issues. Madeleine Kahn is bossy it's true but she doesn't really deserve the shocking treatment from Barbra Streisand who charges at Ryan O'Neal with rich girl determination.

It does help that Streisand rarely looked more luminous or was more lovingly shot. She's in brilliant form. Ryan O'Neal is a lot of fun too - he was best playing against strong women.

The clever script involves government agents and thieves and the support cast is of high quality: Austin Pendleton, Kenneth Mars, etc. I don't think it's as good as the others in Bogdanovich's four film hot streak but it's a lot of fun.

Movie review - "Paper Moon" (1973) ****1/2

 A stunningly good movie. Looks fantastic - brilliantly shot. Superb locations. Ryan O'Neal gives a career high performance. The show is stolen by Tatum of course but Madeleine Kahn is also superb, as is John Hillerman in a duel role... actually everyone is excellent. Tough, funny, sentimental in the best way. A classic.

Documentary review - "Picture This" (1991) ****

 The story of the making of Texasville is everything that film is not - brilliantly evocative of a place (love those whining cowboys who want to be in the movie), memorable characters (Larry McMurtry's worried mother, the original inspiration for Jacy, cuckolded Polly Platt, tormented Bogdanovich, awkward Tim Bottoms), and true drama (returning to the scene of a film where so much happened). Very well done.

Movie review - "The Last Picture Show" (1971) ***** (warning: spoilers)

 This could've gone wrong so easily - Texasville gives some indication how - but this just works. Every decision: location work, black and white, being set twenty years ago, a 1971 view of 1951 meaning sex and violence could be shown but it was still in present memory, the casting.

It meanders on a bit but always with point. At times I was thinking this is a four star or four and a half star film but the ending walloped me: the shocking death of Billy (Sam Bottoms) and Sonny (Tim Bottoms) going to see Cloris Leachman who goes him. Stunning.

Although specific to time and place it is universal - leaving school, falling in love, regret, the death of an old man. It focuses on two boys but the women all get a turn: Jacey is a vixen but a three dimensional one, motivated by her mother who gets a terrific monologue, Eileen Brennan the waitress gets a great monologue and Leachman's speech is divine. I love the matter of fact acceptance by Ellen Burstyn of Bottoms having a fling with Leachman ("it's a scratchy age").

So much great stuff: the plot about a preacher's son being a pedophile and the way it's dealt with (I forgot that whole storyline but it's well done), the second-rate-ness of the football team, the matter of fact nudity, John Hillerman trying to engage his school class. 

Better writers have written about this movie but it is just damn good. Why didn't Bogdanovich make more dramas?

All the actors are perfect: both Bottoms, Ben Johnson, Cybil Shepherd, the old faces, etc.

Movie review - "Mask" (1985) ****

 Peter Bogdanovich's comeback hit after some fallow years, his most successful film without Polly Platt, but he managed to stuff it up by whingeing that the producers/studio cut some scenes and wouldn't let him use Bruce Springsteen because it was too expensive. I watched his cut... there's a few Springsteen songs, which are fine, but not that essential. The two extra scenes are nice but cut-able: a funeral for Harry Carey Jnr (enabling Bogdanovich to do a bikies John Ford homage) and Cher and Eric Stolz singing 'Little Egypt' which is fine but does take you out of the movie because Cher is famed as a singer.

But Bogdanovich went and whined and sued Universal for millions and slagged off Cher even before the film came out. So his career was damaged again.

He did a lovely job. He worked from a superb piece of material, it's sentimental (romance with blind girl, a mute bikie manages to say "he's proud"), the bikies are cuddly... but it holds because it's so well acted (Eric Stoltz is excellent, Cher is perfectly cast, Sam Elliot is perfect, Laura Dern a delight), and it was based on a true story. The concept of a tough drug taking bikie chick who is devoted to her ill son is gold and it's wonderfully realised.

Movie review - "Texasville" (1990) **

 There is something irresistible about Peter Bogdanovich returning to the scene of his greatest critical triumph and many of the key cast back, notably Cybill Shepherd and Jeff Bridges but also Tim Bottoms, Cloris Leachman and Eileen Brennan.

The original was about a universal theme - young people in a small town. This one is kind of universal - middle aged people who feel they've stuffed up their lives - but less identifiable, I feel. Jeff Bridges has made a fortune, but is facing bankruptcy. Cybill Shepherd has lost a child.

It's actually fascinating to view this through the prism of Bogdanovich's life - making this with his then ex Shepherd, after having stuffed up his career, and lost someone close to him.

The original was more of an ensemble piece, that gave several people a chance to shine. This it more a star vehicle for Shepherd and Bridges, particularly the latter, who is really the protagonist. The film's narrative arc centers around his mid life crisis.

There are two excellent support roles - Annie Potts, who steals the film as Bridges' wife, and Tim Bottoms, who is moving as the broken-headed Sonny. Come to think of it, Bridges and Shepherd are excellent two - both are better actors than in the original, particularly Shepherd; she's warmer, funnier. It's really good acting.

When the film relaxes it's a pleasure to be around - good actors in scenes that have room to breathe. Some of it is moving - Bottoms' mental state, the fact Shepherd lost a child.

But Bogdanovich made it without Polly Platt or Larry McMurtry (he did the novel but not the script). Bogdanovich was always a second rate screenwriter and we have scenes full of on the nose dialogue and silly bits. Too often he goes for the gag rather than truth, such as scenes with Bridges and his kids.

To be fair the story isn't as strong. It's really hard to care too much about Bridges' re-awakening feelings for Shepherd when he's married to Potts who is so clearly the perfect woman for him. Also he cheats on her in the movie - it seems comic, unmotivated, which I guess is fine, it's just hard to care. You really cared about the romances in the original because Bottoms loved Shepherd and Leachman developed feelings for Bottoms, and Eileen Brennan clearly still had feelings for Ben Johnson, and Bottoms and Bridges looked up to Johnson.

Brennan has barely anything to do, Quaid has the one comic note ("I'm going to prison"), Leachman's role is mostly "there there"... why not give these actors more to do?

Maybe this couldn't have been good but it could have been better. Don't write scripts, Peter!

Book review "Infamous players : a tale of movies, the mob (and sex)"- by Peter Bart (2011)

I've enjoyed Bart's writings in the past - his history of MGM, his collection of essays about the late 90s, his pieces for Variety and Deadline. I noticed the quality would drop whenever he talked about himself - he would always paint himself in the best possible light, claiming to have made key decisions that contributed to successes, claiming to have warned about choices that led to disaster - but he had good access and was a skilled writer. He is always easy to read.

This is a memoir of Bart's time at Paramount in the late 60s and early 70s, a period he often (as in, all the time) refers to in his essays. 

It's perhaps the most self-centered Hollywood memoir I've ever read - and I've read a lot of them - and around half-way through I started hating Bart and couldn't stop.

You see, according to Bart, it's Bart who has concerns about Darling Lili, it's Bart who suggests to Robert Evans that he get Francis Coppola to write The Godfather, it's Bart who champions Love Story and suggests Arthur Hiller direct, it's Bart who helps Warren Beatty cut the sex scene in Don't Look Now, it's Bart who thinks Where's Jack? is a bad idea but helps make The Italian Job behind Charles Bludhorn's back, it's Bart who's not sure Paddy Chayefsky is the right writer for Paint Your Wagon, it's Bart who champions Harold and Maude, it's Bart who liked The President's Analyst, it's Bart who suggests True Grit to Hal Wallis, it's Bart who cautions Paramount on Day of the Locust, it's Bart who swaps Emperor of the North for Play It Again Sam, it's Bart who has doubts about Redford's suitability for The Great Gatsby. 

Bart, according to Bart, is just so darn wise.

Look, any book about this time and that has up close looks at characters like Robert Evans and Sidney Korshak is going to be interesting, but most of it has been done before and better in other books. Bart wastes pages on recaps about Korshak and Gulf and Western when we want personal insights. 

Some of it is interesting - accounts of the making of Blue for instance and Downhill Racer, WUSA, The Parallax View and Sheila Levine is Dead. Stories of The Godfather, Rosemary's Baby and Love Story are more familiar. I would have loved more on the less familiar Paramount movies from his period - say, TR Baskin, Will Penny - or the movie Bart wrote, Making It.

Bart has exasperated affection for Bob Evans, as he should since Evans gave him his job - in part because Bart wrote a flattering article about Evans under the Old Mates Act. Charles Budhorn comes across as Bludhorn always does - a colorful cartoon. Bart is vicious on Frank Yablans - really vicious. There are digs at Robert Redford and Warren Beatty.

The book is laced with homophobia - he brings up Rock Hudson's sexuality all the time, ditto for William Inge and John Schlesinger, and not in a complimentary way. 

He also tends to slag off women - Elaine May is duplicitous, Ali MacGraw is a flake, Julie Andrews is sexless, Julia Phillips is a drug addled fool (he criticises plenty of men too but he also admires lots of them, whereas there's little admiration for women).

There is the odd surprise opinion - he would have preferred Bogdanovich's version of The Getaway with Cybil Shepherd as the girl, and wanted Marlon Brando and Coppola on Gatsby (which actually would have been awesome)

Robert Evans' memoirs are a lot more fun and actually feel more accurate. This feels like a book written in a hurry for cash and was really disappointing.