Book review - "The Uncool" by Cameron Crowe (2025)

 Superb memoir. Focuses on Crowe's childhood and career as a rock journo - winds up after he writes Fast Times at Ridgemount High apart from a book end of Almost Famous musical because that incorporates his mother's death. Not a lot of film stuff but plenty of rock stars - Bowie (didn't realise they were such friends), Allman Brothers, Kris Kristofferson etc. Also that random appearance in Other Side of the Wind.

Essential fact check against Almost Famous. Great read. Hope there's a second volume on the films. Why doesn't he do a second autobiographical film, like about him being a more established journo, or going to high school to write a book? 

Play review - "I'll Eat You Last: A Chat with Sue Mengers" by John Logan

 Very funny, cute, great role, I loved the name checks, the love of Streisand and Ali McGraw and Gene Hackman. 

Diller versus Evans

Am reading Barry Diller’s excellent memoirs which discuss his time running Paramount in the 1970s which made me decide to compare his regime with the fabled Robert Evans regime that proceeded it. (These lists below attribute films to various regimes as well as I can... it's entirely possible some started development under other regimes)

So films from the Evans regime which film bros (deservedly) always bang on about...  

Love Story, The Godfather Part 1 and 2, Harold and Maude, A New Leaf, Willy Wonka, Play It Again Sam, Lady Sings the Blues, Paper Moon, The Friends of Eddie Coyle, Serpico, The Conversation, Daisy Miller, The Parallax View, Chinatown, Death Wish, The Longest Yard, Three Days of the Condor, Hustle, Italian Job, Medium Cool, True Grit, Goodbye Columbus, Rosemary’s Baby, The Odd Couple, Romeo and Juliet, Barbrella, if..., Oh what a Lovely War, Downhill Racer. 

Great stuff. 

But films from Evans regime which film bros forget he made (or blame on Charlie Bludhorn)...

 The Molly Maguires, The Adventurers, Darling Lili, Friends, Little Fauss and Big Haley, Norwood, a weirdly large number of flop Neil Simon adaptations (Plaza Suite, Last of the Red Hot Lovers, Star Spangled Bannered Girl), Murphy’s Law, TR Baskin, Such Good Friends, Bad Company, The N***** Charley Films, Save the Children, Sterile Cuckoo, Hello Down There, My Side of the Mountain, Where’s Jack, Blue, No Way to Treat a Lady, 5 Card Stud, Skidoo, The Brotherhood, A Talent for Loving, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Scalawag, The White Dawn, Paint Your Wagon.

Not so great stuff. You just don't hear Peter Bart go one about these as much. 

Films from the Diller regime which film bros go on about:  

Saturday Night Fever, Bad News Bears, Marthon Man, King Kong, Mikey and Nicky (in its own way), Looking for Mr Goodbar, Saturday Night Fever, Pretty Baby, Grease 1 and 2, Heaven Can Wait, Foul Play, Days of Heaven, Up in Smoke, The Warriors, Escape from Alcatraz, Meatballs, North Dallas Forty, Star Trek 1 and 2, American Gigolo, Friday the 13th series, Urban Cowboy, Flying High 1 and 2, Ordinary People, Popeye, Raiders of the Lost Ark and Temple of Doom, Mommie Dearest, An Officer and.a Gentleman, 48 Hours, White Dog, Flashdance, Trading Places, Terms of Endearment, Uncommon Valor, The Keep, Footloose,  Top Secret, Beverly Hills Cop, Witness.

Again, a great line up of films. 

But there are films from the Diller regime which seem to be forgotten: 

Won Ton Ton the Dog That Saved Hollywood, Lifeguard, Handle with Care, First Love, The One and Only, Going South, Oliver's Story, An Almost Perfect Affair, Prophecy, Bloodline, Sunburn, French Postcards, Nijinsky, Rough Cut, The Hunter, Coast to Coast, Going Ape, Dragonslayer, First Monday in October, Paternity, Ragtime, I’m Dancing as Far as I Can, Some Kind of Hero, Partners, Jekyll and Hyde Together Again, It Came from Hollywood, Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Racing with the Moon, Best Defence, River Rat, Thief of Hearts, Falling in Love, King David, Rustlers Rhapsody, Compromising Positions. 

Don't forget the flops, that's all I'm saying. 

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.

Brat Pack Top Tens

In honour of the new Brat pack doco here is my top ten films that wrecked the Brat Pack

1) Blue City (1986) who better to star in a Walter Hill written adaptation of a Ross MacDonald noir novel than... Ally Sheedy and Judd Nelson??? Michelle Manning copped the blame for this but the script is terrible and I love Walter Hill

2) Wisdom (1986) - Emilio Estevez and Demi Moore in a film written and directed by Emilio who was the same age as when Orson Welles made Citizen Kane but Emilio didn't have Herman Mankiewicz, Gregg Toland, the Mercury players, ten years experience in theatre, the life of Randolph Hearst...

3) Kansas (1988) - Matt Dillon, Andrew McCarthy under the direction of Australia's own David Stevens

4) Fresh Horses (1988) - props to Molly Ringwald giving this a go, based on a play which made a name of Suzy Amis, it showed that audiences only really wanted to see Molly as the girl next door and then only at high school

5) The Pick Up Artist (1987) - Molly R has had a lot to say about the dodginess of John Hughes films... I haven't been able to find much she's said about James Toback (google him)... I would genuinely be interested to know her thoughts

6) For Keeps (1987) - another Molly film that under performed... although she was a high school kid... possibly the issue was the lack of star power via Randall Batinkoff

7) Illegally Yours (1988) - Peter Bogdanovich tries to get Rob Lowe to do Ryan O'Neal in a film which is perhaps the strongest argument that Peter B should have stayed away from the type writer

8 ) Square Dance (1988) - Rob Lowe goes the Simple Jack route and got a Golden Globe nom in a film no one went to see - he's still around though so who's laughing (my take on Lowe... as in most of the bratpackers... only Demi Moore was a proper star the rest were better in ensemble films)

9) Maid to Order (1987) - it is harder for female stars than male stars as shown by the fact Ally Sheedy had a huge hit with Short Circuit then made this then wasn't a star anymore - ditto it killed Amy Holden Jones' directorial career. (Compare this to Robert Downey Jnr who had the lead in something like twenty flops)

10) Out of Bounds (1986) - Anthony Michael Hall leaps to fame as a nerd then plays a tough guy in this, followed by a tough jock in Johnny Be Good,

And for fun here are ten Brat Pack movies not known for being Brat Pack movies that are actually really good

1) From the Hip - Judd Nelson lawyer comedy from David E Kelly script

2) Catholic Boys/Heaven Help Us - genuinely good coming of age teen film from Andrew McCarthy with people like Kevin Dillon and Patrick Dempsey in it

3) Bad Influence - Lowe and Spader and Curtis Harrington - underserved flop

4) Youngblood - decent hockey film with Lowe, Swayze and young Keanu and Cynthia Gibb should've been a bigger star

5) Maximum Overdrive - to lunaticly insane to not be fun

6) Masquerade (1988) unofficial remake of Hithcock's suspicion from script by Dick Wolfe... decent film

7) About Last Night (1986) - maybe cheating to have this but it's a good movie, the leads handle Mamet dialogue v well and showed how the Brat Packers could have evolved - keep co starring in films, have better writers..

8 )That Was Then This is Now - (1986) not bad SE Hinton film from Emilio

9) Rumble Fish (1983) - think The Outsiders counts as a Brat Pack film but Rumble Fish doesn't seem to but Rumble Fish is also awsome

10) Red Dawn (1984) - John Milius makes a proper Brat Pack action film

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 - "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 - "It: Chapter Two" (2019) **1/2

 A drop in quality. The adults aren't as good actors as the kids - Bill Hader is outstanding and James Ransome quite good but everyone else seems disinterested (Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy) or just not up to it. There's no chemistry, sense of the group, or personal drama.

Why get at least some good actors and not have them interact with drama? From memory there were subplots with the novel - Chastain had this abusive husband who came after her, and McAvoy was going to leave his wife who crashed the mission, and there was a love triangle between McAvoy and Jay Ryan.

That's cut out. Instead there's a bunch of ordinary set pieces and a bloated finale. The running time is so long. They would've been better off cutting the running time, increasing spookiness and having more character interaction, like a love triangle. Why have that dumb thing where a character's suicide is heroic instead of being terrifying? That's dumb.

I did enjoy the cameos from Steven King and Peter Bogdanovich and there's some nice shocks and Hader is amazing.

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.

Book review - "Cinema Speculation" by Quentin Tarantino

 Loved it. Full of genuinely fresh takes, fascinating autobiographical insights, so much love for cinema. In depth pieces on filmmakers like Brian de Palma, Don Siegel, Sam Peckinpah. Tobe Hooper. Jim Brown. Kenneth Thomas of the LA Times (who he attributes a lot of the success of the Corman school to - he'd give them a good review and they'd get an agent out of it.) Very seventies. I could read books by him on every decade.

Movie review - "Hooper" (1978) ***1/2

 Hal Needham's second feature as director is fun, engaging, with a very strong cast. It's better than Smokey because it touches on more serious themes: Burt Reynolds' stuntman is getting older, there's a young tyke coming up (Jan Michael Vincent), his girlfriend is long suffering (Sally Field, lovely in a thankless part), his bestie (James Best) is getting on, Fields' dad (Brian Keith), a stuntman (called "Jocko" the nickname of Fields' stepdad, Jock Mahoney, a real stuntman) has a stroke.

I love how Reynolds was so confident to be around all these scene stealing actors (even low energy Vincent was pretty). He was like John Wayne in that regard.

The director, Robert Klein, was meant to be a spoof of Peter Bogdanovich but you can only really tell at the end when he goes on about pieces of time. no wonder Bogdanovich got annoyed with him. They might've had more fun though doing a more direct take off.

A lovely sense of family, which the best of Hal Needham films had.

Movie review - "Runnin' Down the Dream" (2007) ***

 Four hours. Just a heads up. It goes for four hours. It packs in a lot - songs, background (mother died young, father abusive), some band shenanigans (not much... only a few line up changes), legal fights (zzzz), videos. Still leaves some stuff out - his heroin addiction, the end of the first marriage is very quickly skirted over. Lots of praise. Maybe too much. Not very many funny stories.

Had a great career, Petty. Serious musician. Everyone respects him. Some great songs. Not very handsome - funny looking guy. Laid back. Treated with a lot of affection. Stevie Nicks wanted to join the band. Bob Dylan got them to be his backing band. That whole Wilburys-Dylan-Lynn period was my favourite bit from the movie, maybe because it's the music I remember most.

Doesn't feel particularly Bogdanovich-y but it's one of the best of his later features. During it I kept thinking of that great riff from the title track. The whole way through the film. It was a relief to finally hear it.

Movie review - "The Great Buster" (2018) ***

 Peter Bogdanovich's last feature is a perfectly adequate documentary about Keaton's life and career. It's celebrator rather than with any in depth analysis.

A random collection of interview subjects - Cybill Shepherd, Johnny Knoxville, Richard Lewis (who knew his widow), Carl Reiner, Mel Brooks, Bill Hader, Dick Van Dyke, one of the directors of Spiderman, Nick Kroll, Quentin Tarantino. 

It is determined to appeal to the younger kids, which I get. It skimps on the personal drama. Really just shows a lot of clips and talks about them.

Bogdanovich narrates and his mates are in there but he never wrote about Keaton or had a connection with him (cf Chaplin) so it doesn't feel particularly Bogdanovich-ian. I'm glad he had a gig though.

Book review - "Texasville" by Larry McMurtry

 McMurtry has a relaxed style so it wasn't until a hundred pages in that I started getting annoyed with this book. But once I did the irritation only got worse. This is a hard slog. Long. Dull. Not compelling.

The characters in the first book you felt for. They were trapped - young kids, women trapped by society. Everyone in this is trapped by their own stupidity.

Main characters are Duane, Karla and Jacy. Jacy actually isn't in it too much. There's too much Duane.

Nothing happens. Sonny loses his mind a little. Jacy has lost a child but only occasionally brings it up. Duane roots around despite Karla being suited for him.

There's a lot of shenanigans and middle aged horny. The adults and kids are cartoons.

This is just bad. Sorry, Larry.

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).