Great Movies
Interviews
A True Artiste: Lloyd Kaufman on His Career and His Final Film
An interview with Lloyd Kaufman, the co-founder of Troma Films, on the eve of the release of his last movie.
An interview with Lloyd Kaufman, the co-founder of Troma Films, on the eve of the release of his last movie.
A collection of some of our favorite interviews from 2017.
The great playwright and screen actor leaves behind a legacy of introspective, fascinating work, much of it having to do with America's self-image.
The legendary Sam Elliott talks about playing a version of himself in the new film, "The Hero."
I think my very favorite thing in Rian Johnson's "Looper" is a squiggly cloud. It hangs there in the sky above a cornfield and you can't help but notice it. Which is good, because this is a time-travel movie and the cloud comes in handy later when something happens again in this same spot and the cloud tells you what time it is. Thanks to that cloud, you know this is a re-run.
In one version of the present-future-past, Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) shoots his future self (Bruce Willis) and in another he doesn't. I couldn't remember why that happened at first just now, but then it came back to me. Johnson brought in Shane Carruth, writer-director of the meticulously planned and way more convoluted time-travel thriller "Primer" (2004) to do some special effects work, which indicates to me that RJ is fairly serious about his science-fiction. (He also wrote and directed "Brick" and "The Brothers Bloom," both of which contain some nifty, well-plotted twists.)
(Update: Here's a "Looper" timeline/infographic.)
Behold a most wondrous find...."The Shop that time Forgot" Elizabeth and Hugh. Every inch of space is crammed with shelving. Some of the items still in their original wrappers from the 1920s. Many goods are still marked with pre-decimal prices."There's a shop in a small village in rural Scotland which still sells boxes of goods marked with pre-decimal prices which may well have been placed there 80 years ago. This treasure trove of a hardware store sells new products too. But its shelves, exterior haven't changed for years; its contents forgotten, dust-covered and unusual, branded with the names of companies long since out of business. Photographer Chris Frears has immortalized this shop further on film..." - Matilda Battersby. To read the full story, visit the Guardian. And visit here to see more photos of the shop and a stunning shot of Morton Castle on the homepage for Photographer Chris Fears.
Q. In your review of "The Cell" you described the outfits worn by Jennifer Lopez and others while voyaging into the minds of patients as "virtual reality gear." I think the opposite was the case. The outfits were probably worn by the characters to completely desensitize them from the external world so that the therapy could not be interrupted. That's probably also why they were suspended in mid-air. During the therapy sessions the characters did not move their bodies at all. If they were wearing virtual reality gear their bodies, conceivably, would have been mimicking their movements. (Jordan Potasky, Toronto)
Q. I just saw the Golden Globe nominations, and "Babe" is nowhere in there. Not for best script, not for best direction, not for nothing. I consider this a scandal. I'd like Congress to investigate. (Don Hinkle, Green Village, NJ)
LOS ANGELES Bill Paxton has an Oscar contender and a giant gorilla movie coming out within a couple of weeks of each other, and that's the story of his career. He makes little movies ("One False Move," "Traveller," "Trespass") and big ones ("True Lies," "Apollo 13," "Twister"). In the big ones, he is a stalwart leading man - like his hero, the fellow Texan Ben Johnson, whose every word sounded like the simple truth. In the little ones, Paxton plays regular guys who get twisted into strange traps of crime and guilt.
Did I see that TV documentary about John Ford? Yeah, I saw it." Peter Bogdanovich looked slightly nauseated. "Did I ever see it! Say I disliked it very much. No. Say I loathed it."
