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Topic: A Message For H Rocco & MLWare From Howard L:
Chris Kinsinger
Oscar® Winner
I spent an hour on Friday trying to persuade Howard L. to get his butt over here, but for reasons only Howard The Great Himself could possibly understand, he refuses to join us.
Mr. L telephoned me last night, and we spoke at great lengths until the wee hours (I'm glad he's paying for that one!).
Although he's too much of a weenie to come here in person, he has hired me as his personal secretary to deliver the following message for H Rocco & MLWare:I just saw "Wonderboys", the new Curtis Hanson film starring Michael Douglas and Frances McDormand, and I think that you two would really like it, because it deals with writers and writing. There are several wonderful cello cues centering on the Tobey Maguire character who is a writer.
Satisfied, Howard?
posted 03-12-2000 06:31 PM PT (US) mlw
Oscar® Winner
hey thanks! i'll try to see it once i replenish my entertainment budget after being cleaned out by going to see mission to mars... 12 dollars for refreshments...just hope i get to see cool trailers for a change.. all they ever show here are ads for moronic "relationship comedies" and some idiotic car commercial starring nicholas (nic!) cage (you'll believe a thumb can talk, and roll its eyes and throw its armpits in the air and spout two tufts of hair and collect an oscar!), and what the hell was that crap-o-rific moving screensaver called "dinosaur"!!, and that hilarious "battlefield earth" thingy with travolta's new klingon look that just makes everyone laugh--
whereas we still have yet to see the trailer for ROMEO MUST DIE.writer movies-- i loved ken russell's great manic portrait of the shelleys and byron in GOTHIC. liked JULIA with ms. redgrave's richest playing. the jet li movie DR. WAI AND THE SCRIPTURE WITHOUT WORDS wasn't that good as a film but was really inspiring.
posted 03-12-2000 07:51 PM PT (US) H Rocco
Oscar® Winner
Huh ... I just read a piece about WONDER BOYS today that made me think I might like it after all. (I OUGHT to see it just because Christopher Young scored it, but I haven't seen THE HURRICANE either -- that looks more like some kind of chore than something I'd really WANT to see.)Good Lord, Mr. Ware, who are YOU to impugn someone like Nicolas CAGE? I don't see anyone begging YOU to run around making a total ass of your Academy-anointed self blowing up stuff. (GONE IN 60 SECONDS, my God, how many people even know that that's a REMAKE of some no-budget movie from the early seventies, mainly famous for a car chase that goes on for something like 40 minutes ... and that its star and auteur, H.B. Halicki, got himself killed by a falling telephone pole while staging a chase for the [unfinished] sequel? His death made his widow a rich woman, and later she became an interesting sideline figure during [but not AT] the first O.J. trial ... of such circles upon circles is the history of Hollywood ever built ... )
NP: THE BLUE MAX
P.S. Forward my thanks to HOWIE, Kinsinger, since he's too GOOD to appear here PERSONALLY. (Thank you too, Mr. K)
posted 03-12-2000 08:11 PM PT (US) Chris Kinsinger
Oscar® Winner
Mission Accomplished, Liverance.I'll deliver no more messages.
You weenie, you.
NP: "Under Fire" (Say...didn't this Goldfarb guy do "The Blue Max" too?)posted 03-12-2000 08:37 PM PT (US) H Rocco
Oscar® Winner
Goldfarb did UNDER FIRE, but THE BLUE MAX was Gerome (sic) Goldensteinerbergerwitz (not to be confused with Gason Golderburgermeisterburger).(Anyone remember when the old FAMOUS MONSTERS was selling LPs of the ALIEN score, as composed by the legendary "Gerry Goldsmith"? This was during the endless period where EVERY cover was either STAR WARS, CE3K, SUPERMAN or ALIEN.)
(Actually, Jerry Goldsmith has sometimes been miscredited with the song "Magic Mountain" as heard on the album for the early-seventies Don Johnson hippie classic MAGIC GARDEN OF STANLEY SWEETHEART, but I ran across the LP in an old-record store more than ten years ago, and the composer is actually Jerry GoldBERG. Who he? Dunno.)
posted 03-12-2000 09:29 PM PT (US) Andre Lux
unregistered
Hei, Howard, McDonald's breath, come here too pal!Please say this to him, mr. Kinsinger!!!
Thanx.posted 03-13-2000 04:54 AM PT (US) Chris Kinsinger
Oscar® Winner
Ah yes...Famous Monsters Of Filmland...
By 1977, my love affair with FM was over, so I don't recall the ad you mentioned, Rocco.
I made a TON of $$$ selling my ancient issues of FM in the 70's.
NP: "Lionheart" Goldfarbposted 03-13-2000 05:44 AM PT (US) Thor
Oscar® Winner
Oh, Howard, you old geezer you! I do understand his reasons for not joining this somewhat younger and not-so-eager-on-off-topic-postings board, but what are the alternatives anyway? And what should we do with the Canada excursion?[This message has been edited by Thor (edited 14 March 2000).]
posted 03-13-2000 09:59 AM PT (US) mlw
Oscar® Winner
FM was God for me all the way up to about 1980 when the industry changed into that nasty Friday the 13th cheapa$$ exploitation style that killed off my enthusiasm for the genre probably forever. Not that it wasn't exploitation before but when the new crap dominated the genre, the articles started losing conviction and everything collapsed into Fangoria. Lucio Fulci was the last person I wanted to read about at the time. I frikkin hated that Italo grue thingy (but Argento was cool sometimes). Cannibalism and misogyny and rape were not cool, Zombie was stupid, Luca Il Contrabandiere was vile-- great that's what I want to sit there and watch, some chick getting her face blowtorched off. New York Ripper was so idiotic you didn't even care that was supposed to be a razorblade through the breast. Fulci: F---- him! I looked at a magazine interview with Beatrice Ring, a poor obscure actress conned into appearing in Zombie 3 where Fulci basically directed her by screaming "Die you stupid f----- b---!!!" and then ordered the extras to mess her up even harder so the camera would get real pain and terror while he muttered to himself and rubbed his swollen diseased gut. Ick. Now of course all of it is so stupid it achieves a quaint sense of charm that someone would be so devoted to being offensive that you almost admire it (Sergio Salvati's widescreen lensing was always fascinating). Sorry I had to vent, but that a----le ruined Famous Monsters for me and he deserves some payback that mofo!
posted 03-13-2000 10:11 AM PT (US) H Rocco
Oscar® Winner
Brutarian magazine ran a really superb two-part article about the collapse of Warren Publications, as written by one who was there. Really awesomely nasty treatment of Forrest J. Ackerman; but I don't recall any mention of one of the probable reasons they went under, the Harlan Ellison plagiarism lawsuit.Hey, Ware, I thought you LIKED Fulci -- WHITE FANG and all that. I agree that FM went completely to hell when they started entering FANGORIA territory -- I couldn't read it after that, either.
To my amazement, late-night ABC TV in Los Angeles ran ZOMBIE (or ZOMBI 2 or whatever the hell we're supposed to call it these days). Edited for television, of course, but who ever dreamed of editing something like ZOMBIE for television?? Why not CALIGULA, that has some dialogue scenes too.
I WAS rather taken with the opening sequence on Manhattan's East River (or was it the Hudson? forgot). I'm somewhat nostalgic for the period when it was still cheap and easy to make pictures in New York, even a picture like this. The otherwise tedious MANIAC (1980) includes a hair-raising stalk-and-chase through the Columbus Circle subway station -- THAT one makes me think they stole the shot somehow, there's no way they'd get the MTA to shut down the whole platform.
NP: KING SOLOMON'S MINES (the aforementioned Golderburgermeisterburger)
posted 03-13-2000 12:04 PM PT (US) Chris Kinsinger
Oscar® Winner
I loved FM for a long, long time, but finally gave it up for CINEFANTASTIQUE around 1975.Rocco - I GOTZ TA' KNOW...what did Harlan Ellison sue Warren Pub. over?
P.S. Didja' know that FM has been resurrected? About two years ago I saw the NEW FM in a comic book store, and was instantly transported to my adolescenthood.
The new edition was running a Ray Harryhausen contest, and the deadline was two weeks away from the minute I picked up the magazine, so I bought it and entered the contest...and I WON! Got myself a gorgeous coffee mug autographed by Ray, and an 8 X 10 glossy of Ray & skeleton, also autographed.
Made me feel like a kid again!NP: Spartacus by North
posted 03-13-2000 01:41 PM PT (US) mlw
Oscar® Winner
It's really not FM. Ackerman was screwed over by a partner and shoved out in the nastiest fashion.Lucio is always good to make fun of. I don't know, maybe it's just post-traumatic syndrome from way back being a 9 year old watching Italian horror. My last article for FSM was a review of For Lucio Fulci A Symphony of Fear. Somebody had to do it.
posted 03-13-2000 02:28 PM PT (US) H Rocco
Oscar® Winner
What one keeps hearing is variations running from "Jim Warren is merely insane" to "Jim Warren is the Devil Incarnate." Well, Ackerman seems none the worse for wear; he's got that column over at CULT MOVIES.I've never been able to bring myself to see any other Fulci pictures. My father rented CONQUEST a decade ago and was startled at how gory it was.
Christopher: Ellison sued Warren -- whom he already professionally despised -- over alleged plagiarism of his story "A Boy and His Dog." Warren's people had approached Ellison to do a graphic adaptation of it for their black-and-white magazine 1984 (or was it called 1994 by then? not sure). As it turned out, a writer (name forgotten) and then-popular artist Alex Nino (maybe still popular, but what's he doing?) had ALREADY done the adaptation without Ellison's consent. Now stuck with this story that was already bought and paid for -- except for Ellison's fee -- editor Bill DuBay (and/or cohorts) simply went over it, changed a few letters and (presumably) the design of the "dog" (it became some kind of mutant dinosaur now), and retitled it "Mondo Megillah." Ellison caught wind of it and presto, lawsuit.
I've never seen the story, nor read Ellison's (though I saw the movie), so I can't comment as to the similarities; nor do I know precisely how it came out. I imagine Ellison was foiled when Warren declared bankruptcy.
I'll add that I find Ellison a bit overly litigious. I think it's ludicrous that he sued Hemdale and James Cameron over the first TERMINATOR -- the resemblances between that and his "Soldier" (from THE OUTER LIMITS) are tenuous at best. Though Cameron's not the most original soul in the world -- he sure pillaged "Starship Troopers" when he worked on ALIENS, didn't he.
I don't know if Ellison even asked for money in the TERMINATOR case -- he is fond of making points of principle, so I'd imagine that the humiliating Variety ad that I saw ("Hemdale and James Cameron acknowledge Harlan Ellison blah blah blah") was his idea. When he sued ABC over one or another idea he thought they stole from him, his main demand was that they take a billboard out on Sunset Boulevard apologizing to "all writers." He admitted he knew very well that wasn't going to happen, but he felt like putting the fear of God into them. (Man goes to heaven and sees Harlan Ellison there. "What's Harlan doing here?" he asks Saint Peter. "Oh, that's not Harlan," Peter explains, "that's God. He just THINKS he's Harlan.")
Ellison himself was sued by comic book author Michael Fleisher in a bizarre libel case that went on for MANY years, over some typically bombastic, but clearly praiseful, comments Ellison made about Fleisher's "insanity" as a writer. Fleisher decided to take it literally ...
posted 03-13-2000 02:44 PM PT (US) Luscious Lazlo
Oscar® Winner
Memo to H. Rocco: You're dead-right about Ellison's litigious self-aggrandizement. Ellison claimed that THE TERMINATOR was a plagiarism of an Ellison story called I HAVE NO MOUTH AND I MUST SCREAM. I've read that story and Ellison is full of crap. I'm surprised that Ellison hasn't tried to copyright the exclamation mark. What an egotistical blowhard. (Although to be fair to Harlan, he came up with a brilliant story called STRANGE WINE. Ursula LeGuin was right to include it in an anthology called THE NORTON BOOK OF SCIENCE FICTION.)Memo to Chris: So Howard is unimpressed with this discussion board, huh? I can't imagine why. This thread alone is enough to give me the dry heaves. The original subject-matter was Howard and it ended up being about gross-out zombie movies. It really renews my faith in God & Man & Rocco.
[This message has been edited by Luscious Lazlo (edited 14 March 2000).]
posted 03-14-2000 10:01 AM PT (US) H Rocco
Oscar® Winner
Ellison strikes me as such a wretched human being that no one would tolerate him if he weren't such an amazing wordsmith. At the very least, he comes up with some of the best TITLES in the business.Didn't he also say TERMINATOR stole from his other OUTER LIMITS episode, "Demon With a Glass Hand"?
posted 03-14-2000 11:45 AM PT (US) mlw
Oscar® Winner
writer movie number something or other--
REDS was a beautiful little movie at the time it released (I haven't seen it in several years). It may not have been close enough to John Reed and all those people but the gesture was good. Loved Nicholson as Eugene O'Neill. For all the highflown talk the momentum was paced well enough and the vignettes never really scattered into disarray as they could have. Respect and great, great admiration for the left was a rare thing in 1981. Beatty never let any of it stray from the emotional base, really a powerfully convicted work. Passion was once considered a good thing.[This message has been edited by mlw (edited 14 March 2000).]
posted 03-14-2000 11:49 AM PT (US) H Rocco
Oscar® Winner
Hmm, REDS is watchable? I'll make a note of that.I remember admiring JULIA, although I don't recall that that was much about writing -- mainly I think it was about the gorgeous wintry photography by Douglas Slocombe, that's all I really remember about it. (Slocombe's camera operator on that picture, and on others, was Robin Vidgeon, who went on to shoot stellar work of his own, the first two HELLRAISERs in particular look wonderful.)
posted 03-14-2000 12:20 PM PT (US) mlw
Oscar® Winner
I think I'm going to pick it up later. In fact I'm looking forward to it. Beat the hell out of Raiders of the Lost Ark if not in execution than in content, ambition. I'd forgotten much of the film til some of my radical left hardcore friends commented it was mostly good. I read Ten Days That Shook the World in my teens, already sold on the concept. It was always entertaining to see all that passionate energy fried by reality. Spetters by Verhoeven was out around then. Sweet little flic! 1981...A friend who runs the dance dept. here worked on Pennies From Heaven, which I didn't see but loved the Peak 1-sheet.
posted 03-14-2000 12:53 PM PT (US) Howard L
Oscar® Winner
What the--
SO, I STEP AWAY FOR BARELY A WEEK AND THIS IS WHAT I GET, "HOWARD THE GREAT L", HUH? Kinsinger, after you're finished converting the heathen evolutionists on Mars how about a nice quiet discussion on something non-controversial like, say, abortion viz-a-viz The Cider House Rules? Rocco, still crying the it's-quarter-to-three-there's-no-one-in-the-messageboard-except-you-and-me blues? mlw, my 9-year-old nephew just shot a few scenes around the dinner table and you can hardly see a thing since the lights were real low and you can hardly hear a thing since he forgot to turn on the mike so as the patron saint for lost cinematic causes won't this merit one of your rhapsodic Kerouac arias ? Hey Thor--surprise me and actually WATCH the movie FIRST before panning another soundtrack, SIGHT UNSEEN. Joan, just the mere thought of addressing you by your FSM moniker has me harkening back to DeNiro, NOT Darwell: "If my mother could see me now I'd say to her Ma, what're YOU doin' here you been DEAD 'fa nine years!" Tell me, Andre', when they stop you in Brazil do they read you your Carmen Miranda rights? And how many times must I tell you to change your name to Victor, Lazlo? Mr. Maher, keep on saying things like Lawrence Of Arabia was the worst film ever made and watch how long it takes for your film critic's license to renew after LCIII catches wind. But Yahoo Seriously folks, everytime they post from Down Under can't you just hear Robert Preston bellowing Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-----rian?Lady and gentlemen (and Wedge & Shaun), it's always fair weather when...you live on the gulf side of sunny Florida. We have to do this again real soon, say, the first weekend in June?
Greetings and Felicitations!
[This message has been edited by Howard L (edited 17 March 2000).]
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posted 03-17-2000 02:52 PM PT (US) Howard L
Oscar® Winner
...[This message has been edited by Howard L (edited 17 March 2000).]
posted 03-17-2000 02:55 PM PT (US) Howard L
Oscar® Winner
And while I think about it...[This message has been edited by Howard L (edited 17 March 2000).]
posted 03-17-2000 02:56 PM PT (US) Howard L
Oscar® Winner
...that goes for anyone I may have missed, too.[This message has been edited by Howard L (edited 17 March 2000).]
posted 03-17-2000 02:58 PM PT (US) Howard L
Oscar® Winner
Who does the editing here anyway, DANIEL2?
posted 03-17-2000 03:14 PM PT (US) Chris Kinsinger
Oscar® Winner
Ah, Howard...the Grande Entrance!What a maroon.
posted 03-17-2000 04:43 PM PT (US) Shaun Rutherford
Oscar® Winner
Howard L! Great script over at FSM! Can't wait to go back there!Shaun
posted 03-18-2000 07:47 PM PT (US) Chris Kinsinger
Oscar® Winner
To HELL with BEAVER!LEAVE IT TO LIVERANCE to make such a Grande Entrance and then leave ALL OF US in the lurch...
Howard, you really ARE a maroon!
NYUK, NYUK, NYUK!
(see, MOM? THAT's how it's done!)
posted 03-18-2000 08:45 PM PT (US) Luscious Lazlo
Oscar® Winner
Howard's theme song is "Hello, I Must Be Going". (The Groucho Marx tune.)Drop dead, Howard. Ya big fat weasel. You give boredom a bad name. Then again, maybe your machine is a dud and you're stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey. (Dammit, Howard---you just caused me to quote Bruce Springsteen. Come back here, Howard, and punish me for quoting Bruce Springsteen. I just can't go on without your "tough love".)
TODAY'S QUOTE: "I have nothing to say and I am saying it." [John Cage]
posted 03-19-2000 03:56 PM PT (US) Andre Lux
unregistered
FUNFA-FUN-FA!!
posted 03-19-2000 07:32 PM PT (US) Swashbuckler
Oscar® Winner
NP- "Chinatown" by Gerrold Goldschlagger.
posted 03-21-2000 08:19 AM PT (US) Chris Kinsinger
Oscar® Winner
That's GoldENshlagger, Swash!
GoldENshlagger!It's important to get people's names right. How would you like it if I called you "Swashbuckle"?
posted 03-21-2000 09:14 AM PT (US) H Rocco
Oscar® Winner
According to the IMDb, he also goes by Mitchell T. Henganmaniganwitzel.
posted 03-21-2000 11:52 AM PT (US) Chris Kinsinger
Oscar® Winner
Who?
posted 03-21-2000 03:45 PM PT (US) Wedge
Oscar® Winner
I think you're all talking about Germanos Chrysochoos[This message has been edited by Wedge (edited 21 March 2000).]
posted 03-21-2000 05:11 PM PT (US) joan hue
Oscar® Winner
So where is Howard???? Howard? Probably drinking Florida orange juice and getting a wonderful TAN!NP Vaughan William Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
posted 03-21-2000 06:02 PM PT (US) Chris Kinsinger
Oscar® Winner
HOOOOOOOOOWWWWWAAAARRRRRRRRRDDDDDDD!Think he heard that?
posted 03-21-2000 06:03 PM PT (US) Howard L
Oscar® Winner
"Howard???? Howard?"
Joan, you trying to do the Madeline Kahn routine from What's Up, Doc? or something?"HOOOOOOOOOWWWWWAAAARRRRRRRRRDDDDDDD!"
Chris, you've just quoted the opening line of Inherit the Wind! How appropriate considering all that witnessing going on over at Mars.Who needs a Templeton thread with all these film and literary geniuses around!
posted 03-22-2000 08:07 AM PT (US) John Maher
Oscar® Winner
"Lawrence of Arabia" is one of the worst films ever made. David Lean should have taken up still photography, not movie making. Boring! "Doctor Zhivago", even worse. Thanks, I feel better now.
posted 03-22-2000 08:20 AM PT (US) Thor
Oscar® Winner
John, have you seen the impressive Lean documentary aired on BBC some time back? In it, we get to see Lean's capability as a great editor, with some VERY original transitions (praised by a youngish Steven Spielberg). I don't know how he was as an actor-director, though, (since I didn't see all of it), but he did seem like a pseudo-Kubrick like perfectionist.My favourite Lean is A PASSAGE TO INDIA.
posted 03-22-2000 08:44 AM PT (US) H Rocco
Oscar® Winner
"Actor-director?" In what sense? His only credits as an "actor" are three appearances as himself in a trio of documentaries.
posted 03-22-2000 10:30 AM PT (US) Thor
Oscar® Winner
Oh, sorry. I forgot that there is a term for someone acting in a film and simultaneously directing it called actor-director (like Gibson in BRAVEHEART). But what I meant was ACTOR´S director, i.e. how a director handles the actors.
posted 03-23-2000 04:50 AM PT (US) Old Infopop Software by UBB