I Feel Free: Marina Pierro in Walerian Borowczyk's Jekyll.
For RogerEbert.com last week I wrote about new Blu-rays of Mario Bava's Blood And Black Lace and Walerian Borowczyk's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Miss Osbourne, two incredible films with a wealth of psychosexual provocation built in. So much so that I didn't mention how incredible both Blu-rays actually look. They look incredible. My friend James White, who's been a key figure in Arrow's still-ongoing Borowczyk project, informs me that Arrow won Focal International Awards "Best Archive Restoration/Preservation Project" just recently for the Borowczyk box Camera Obscura.
In a very nearly entirely different vein, I considered My Ferris Bueller Problem, And Ours, over at Decider.
May I suggest you change your official title from "Veteran Critic" to "Venerable Critic"?
Posted by: Petey | June 01, 2015 at 01:36 PM
"They could be fascist anarchists and it still wouldn't change the fact that I don't have a car." That's the line that pegs it as a Reagan-era artifact for me.
Posted by: Mike | June 01, 2015 at 03:06 PM
"What actually puzzles me is that "Entourage" the movie EVEN got made. Numbers couldn't have been THAT compelling. Blackmail? Lost bet?"
Very constrained budget. Built-in promotional. Built-in audience for first run and ancillaries. Absolute no-brainer, financially; can't lose money, could well make money.
-----
I'm certainly not going to defend Entourage the teevee show, let alone the unneeded movie. However, I'll watch pretty much anything HBO puts up there, so I saw the teevee show. No doubt it's pretty bad stuff. Far worse than SATC on its worst day. But we'll ALWAYS have that Stellan Skarsgård subplot with that hilarious episode ending. Those 3 minutes paid off the whole rotten series for me.
Posted by: Petey | June 04, 2015 at 08:04 PM
Or put another way, would you rather finance Aloha at 37M, or Entourage at 27M?
Even if Aloha had ended up a as a functionally working film, making decisions 18 months ago, from a strictly money POV, one made sense, and one didn't...
Posted by: Petey | June 04, 2015 at 09:06 PM
Dang, I've read everything currently in print originally issued under the "Donald Westlake" and "Richard Stark" names, and a smatterings of the others. AMA. (And can we get a SCR thread not exclusive centered on Stark on him one of these days?)
As far as the Dortmunders go, I counterintuitively wouldn't advise starting with The Hot Rock. I think What's The Worst That Could Happen is the place to start, though Jimmy the Kid obviously makes the most sense if you're coming at Dortmunder from Richard Stark fandom.
And for Glenn in particular, I assume you've already read The Hook, but if not, run, don't walk...
(Finally, why the hell isn't his entire output in 'print' in the days of the eBook? It's a crime against humanity. I read Help I Am Being Held Prisoner as an adolescent, thought is was the funniest thing I'd ever read, and am outraged it's not available.)
Posted by: Petey | June 21, 2015 at 10:25 PM