All right, Roger! Damn it all! No one whoops at Black Hawk Down but me. I’m the only psycho who went, “Yeah!” when a truckload of RPG-bearing Somalis got blown up before they could take down any more fresh-faced Yanks. I’m the monster, me me ME ME ME!
Sarah: The Cowboy scene in Mulholland Drive is my favorite in the movie. The Cowboy’s lack of affect as he says, “You’ll see me one more time if you do good, you’ll see me two more times if you do bad” is one of the scariest things I’ve ever heard. The Cowboy rules. I want to hire The Cowboy to visit my enemies. I want to send him to see Roberto Benigni.
Roger: The best way to understand Vanilla Sky is not to see it twice but to see it once and then see Alejandro Amenábar’s Abre los Ojos (Open Your Eyes), on which it was based and which makes more sense. Better yet, skip Vanilla Sky and just see Abre los Ojos twice.
I’m here trying, trying to watch O.C. & Stiggs on one of the movie channels and thinking what a miracle GosfordPark is. Tony told me he heard Bob Balaban say that all the actors were miked and told to improvise and that Altman was able to sift quickly through all the voice tracks and find exactly what he needed in every scene—and it would have taken someone else, like, years. O.C. & Stiggs justifies its existence. I know it’s a cliché to invoke Rules of the Game in reference to shooting party movies, but Altman’s work here makes me think of Renoir more than Merchant and Ivory. The proportions are simply perfect. Is there a chance we’re underrating it because of its apparent ease? Can we agree on this one if on no other?
In hope,
David
