Bogdonovich interview at theonion.com - Bogdonovich interview at theonion.com

[akio]

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He mentions his first meeting with Welles, along with some interesting film anectdotes.

[mteal]

Bogdanovich is all over the place these days. There was also a very interesting profile of him in The New Yorker. And he also discusses The Other Side of The Wind in the latest issue of MovieMaker Magazine. Not a whole lot new there, but Bogdanovich does tell a funny anecdote about Welles and an industrial-size bag of Fritos.

I'm sure this Peter B. blitz is all because of his latest film, The Cat's Meow. Anyone see it yet? It sounds like it could be an interesting companion piece to his earlier film from the 70s, Nickelodeon, which dealt with the early silent era. But most of the reviews I've read so far have been pretty lukewarm on the film.

[Rick Schmidlin]

The Cats Meow is intereing but every bit as bad as Nickelodeon. I went to see in Sunday night great in jokes but a very bland movie. Peter with out Polly Platt is a prolem.

[jaime marzol]

NICKELODEON was awfull. given who bogdanovich was, his track record, his interest and love for the topic, it should have been great. polly platt broke off from peter and has scaled the heights of the industry. peter might have screwed her over years back, but he did put her on the first few rungs of that ladder.

it's a shame to hear CAT'S MEOW was bad. i was hoping it would turn out good and lead to more peter-projects (that didn't sound right - more bogdanovich projects).

for any one interested, there is a pretty good book out there on bogdanovich by andrew yule, it's selling for like 85-cents. don't let the price throw you off, it's a good read, and has orson stuff in it!

[Jeff Wilson]

Rosenbaum generally liked the film, and covers the Welles/Kane/Hearst angle well.

Chicago Reader Cat's Meow review

[Rick Schmidlin]

JR liked the film only because the dream of the story I suppose as that is what made it interesting but still a ore. In regard to Peter he once told me regarding "Nickelodeon." If they let me recut it and add five minutes it wood be a masterpiece. As ilike it a little as afilm student when it first came out, it later turned to trash as I knew the true story of that time.

[jaime marzol]

i had a treatment a while back, a silent movie company and cast, in the snow mountains, living in freight train cars for accomodations, editing and shooting, discovering new effects, and ways to move the camera from necessity of what they were trying to film, stuff like griffith's ice river sequence, camera on platform in back of old type car. hanging from ropes, mounted on sleed, etc. at night, because of the orietals they needed on the set, they aquired and experimented with opium, wine, hallucinated, sex, cocaine, then it begins to spill into their art, and the filming gets more wreckless, more risque, till the company has to come out on location and shut production down.

this paragraph i find more interesting than all of nickelodion.

imagine how great that bruce willys james garner movie would have been if some one had made it without that hollywood mentality, without those hollywood stars. even jarmush, or tarantino would have been better. what a great film it could have been. it's just a bit better than nickelodian.

i was very surprised when i saw nick.. surprised by how dick van dyke-ish it was. as comlex as an episode of dick van dyke meets bonanza. i was hoping for more. something more interesting, more poignant. poignient is not a word that can be applied to any part of nickelodian. you wonder what they thought of this stuff while they were making it?

>>>>

[jaime marzol]

.............

and now let me go back and clarify what i just said, the crit on peter B's film is not meant to lower him. undoubtedly, by the fact that he tried to bring this type of story to the screen, means his heart is in the right place, like eastwood for WHITE HUNTER BLACK HEART, minnely for THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFULL, 2 WEEKS IN ANOTHER TOWN, truffaut DAY FOR NIGHT, felini ENTREVISTA, burton ED WOOD. any of those directors have my respect and admiration much more that the directors of feel-good movies, or films like BOYS IN THE HOOD and that type of stuff.

[ToddBaesen]

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Just read Jonathan Rosenbaum's review of CAT'S MEOW, and agree with it wholeheartedly, and in fact most of the reviews I've read are praising it as a nice comeback picture for Bogdanovich, which is certainly worth checking out.

I think it's a very interesting film, (certainly far, far better than NICKELODEON), with marvelous performances from a fine ensemble cast, and a truly standout performance from Ed Herrmann as Heast - which, needless to say is much better than anything James Cromwell did in RKO 281.

To Rick: I don't quite understand what you mean by saying J. Rosenbaum only liked the film because it was "the dream of the story". It seems quite clear to me that JR liked it very much, as in the following passage:

'what's masterful about Bogdanovich's direction is the cumulative detail, which adds complexity to incidental as well as central characters. He has a graceful way of switching viewpoints from one character to another and an uninsistent yet mainly persuasive sense of period. He even presents a plausible version of Hearst's taste.'

[Rick Schmidlin]

Knowing JR's passion for the subject, I think he got a little caught up in this one. He is a critic and that can happen you know. I like the story, the actors, the set design which in includes great detail, even the script has great moments and in-jokes. What I felt lack luster was the direction, PB just could not make the story come alive and give the proper sympathy to the characters.

[Jaime N. Christley]

Knowing JR's passion for the subject, I think he got a little caught up in this one. He is a critic and that can happen you know. I like the story, the actors, the set design which in includes great detail, even the script has great moments and in-jokes. What I felt lack luster was the direction, PB just could not make the story come alive and give the proper sympathy to the characters.

From reading his stuff over the past few years, Rosenbaum - although he's my favorite film critic - has a tendency to overrate very conventional formal aspects (direction, photography) if he likes the story, the premise, the actors, or the director. Case in point: Small Soldiers, a cleverly conceived but ultimately pretty flat satire (and it ain't for kids, either: if I was a kid, I would think it was pretty lame) that he used as a platform to genuflect in the direction of Joe Dante, and (with the help of his shopping list of reasons to dislike of Dante's former mentor, Steven Spielberg) to slam Saving Private Ryan.

I have to admit that I'm interested in checking out The Cat's Meow, but it doesn't look like I'll be missing anything spectacular if I wait for the DVD.

[Peter Tonguette]

<!--QuoteBegin--Rick Schmidlin+April 26 2002,12:00--></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Rick Schmidlin @ April 26 2002,12:00)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"><!--QuoteEBegin-->The Cats Meow is intereing but every bit as bad as Nickelodeon. I went to see in Sunday night great in jokes but a very bland movie. Peter with out Polly Platt is a prolem.[/quote]
Rick:

I liked "The Cat's Meow" a great deal, but what I most valued about it was how the movie's very style harks back to the days of Welles. I'm not talking about "homages" to OW (or any other director), but rather that Bogdanovich has an extraordinary grasp of classical film grammar - all that crosscutting and the deep focus shots... quite refreshing to see in today's film enviroment.

Regards,
Peter

[jaime marzol]

...............

peter's post is the first thing written that makes me consider peter b's latest opus a must see. thanks, peter. is this first run now, of in the vid stores?

peter b also showed that grasp of the classic style with PAPER
MOON which i really enjoyed. have not seen THE LAST PICTURE SHOW since it was first released. wonder how it holds up today. have heard mcmurty and PB do the commentary track. i have the screenplay if any one wants to trade screenplay for picture, and commentary track on one tape in 4 hr mode.

[Peter Tonguette]

Jaime:

"The Cat's Meow" is still in first-run. I think it's currently playing in around 150 theatres nationwide (and continues to have pretty impressive per-screen averages). Not sure if Lion's Gate is planning on expanding.

Peter

[jaime marzol]

thanks for info.

that's impressive. glad to hear peter's new film didn't head straight for the specialty theaters. hope it's good, hope he makes money and makes more.

i saw NOISES OFF first run and didn't dig it. that was before i know who bogdanovich was, or of welles or anything. is it worth a look? did any one find any merit in it?