Before my post is criticized as being uninformed, let me say that I am speculating. I think there may have been similar investors in the two Isle of Man related films recently produced about Orson Welles: "Me and Orson Welles" and "Fade to Black". I hope that there are financiers with an interest in producing films about Orson Welles, as well as being focused on the return to be made on an investment.I wonder if the film was sold to investors because it would present “the real Orson Welles?”
"Me and Orson Welles"
Re:
by Alfred Willmore » Tue Dec 08, 2009 3:27 pm
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Re:
by Glenn Anders » Wed Dec 09, 2009 4:28 am
Thanks, Terry. I was not at home for Charlie Rose's interview with Director Richard Linklater, new Star Christian Mckay, femme fatale (if you will) Claire Danes, and ingenue Zac Efron. Having played the interview a couple of times, once for my son, Guy, who enjoyed meeting the engaging Christian McKay the other evening in San Francisco, here is an observation:
It is obvious that the entire public relations effort has turned 180 degrees since the initial clips, trailers, and interviews were released on ME AND ORSON WELLES. Originally, McKay as Welles, was relegated to a brief shot or two, and the emphasis seemed entirely upon Zac Efron's high school hero, his seemingly lucky break the "experienced" Miss Danes, and oh yeah, this Shakespeare play on Broadway, sometime years ago. For Charlie Rose (who didn't appear to know much about ME AND ORSON WELLES), the trailer and clips were concentrated on Orson Welles, McKay playing Welles, the significance of the play in Orson Welles' career and for Shakespeare in the modern American Theater.
Rose kept coming back to McKay, again and again, in the first two-thirds of his interview. In fact, at one point, I imagined likable young Efron looking proverbial "daggers" at McKay, but he later proved suitably modest about his contribution while Miss Danes was philosophical about the difficulties of being and portraying an actress on the screen.
Linklater, not the most transparent of figures, kept coming back to the importance of the play and Welles contribution to it and the incredible Nova of the man's career in the late 1930's. I might be entirely wrong, but I detected a rather wistful tinge to his remarks. He seemed to me acknowledging that he had neglected the real story behind Robert Kaplow's late teenage novel/yount adult novel, and now (when it is really too late), he was trying to pitch his film in a different light than the one he might have earlier. The opportunity had been missed through a lack of taste or perception, and he was trying to put the best face on it.
Thank you, Terry, for putting up Charlie Rose's interview in a way which allows us to meditate upon the film's accomplishments, and lack thereof.
Glenn
It is obvious that the entire public relations effort has turned 180 degrees since the initial clips, trailers, and interviews were released on ME AND ORSON WELLES. Originally, McKay as Welles, was relegated to a brief shot or two, and the emphasis seemed entirely upon Zac Efron's high school hero, his seemingly lucky break the "experienced" Miss Danes, and oh yeah, this Shakespeare play on Broadway, sometime years ago. For Charlie Rose (who didn't appear to know much about ME AND ORSON WELLES), the trailer and clips were concentrated on Orson Welles, McKay playing Welles, the significance of the play in Orson Welles' career and for Shakespeare in the modern American Theater.
Rose kept coming back to McKay, again and again, in the first two-thirds of his interview. In fact, at one point, I imagined likable young Efron looking proverbial "daggers" at McKay, but he later proved suitably modest about his contribution while Miss Danes was philosophical about the difficulties of being and portraying an actress on the screen.
Linklater, not the most transparent of figures, kept coming back to the importance of the play and Welles contribution to it and the incredible Nova of the man's career in the late 1930's. I might be entirely wrong, but I detected a rather wistful tinge to his remarks. He seemed to me acknowledging that he had neglected the real story behind Robert Kaplow's late teenage novel/yount adult novel, and now (when it is really too late), he was trying to pitch his film in a different light than the one he might have earlier. The opportunity had been missed through a lack of taste or perception, and he was trying to put the best face on it.
Thank you, Terry, for putting up Charlie Rose's interview in a way which allows us to meditate upon the film's accomplishments, and lack thereof.
Glenn
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Re:
by ToddBaesen » Wed Dec 09, 2009 5:14 am
Glenn:
I must strongly disagree with the last part of you post. The part where you state: "Linklater seemed to me to be acknowledging that he had neglected the real story behind Robert Kaplow's late teenage novel/young adult novel, and now (when it is really too late), he was trying to pitch his film in a different light than the one he might have earlier."
As Keats would say, "where does this mis-formation come from." I know you don't like the fact that Linklater's film does not focus on the political implications of JULIUS CAESAR, staged by Welles as a fascist statement in 1937, but you completely ignore the very astute answer Mr. Linklater gave directly to your question in San Francisco last week.
Namely, not all artists are concerned with politics. Richard Linklater told that to you directly after your rather pointed question as to why he had omitted more direct political reference in the film of the fascist political nature of Welles staging of JULIUS CAESAR.
Robert Kaplow, and Mr. Linklater did not see this as a piece about the political importance of Welles's staging of JULIUS CAESAR, but as a piece that was important from the point of view of the artistic level of putting on a show. Linklater is clearly following the novel, and the political aspects of the show are clearly present, but are not the main focus in either the novel or the film. And as Mr. Linklater told you, while growing up, he thought that becoming or being an artist was a sort of liberating way of actually avoiding what what going on in the world outside them, while they were making their art.
It seems to me you fault ME AND ORSON WELLES because you want it to be a movie as a political statement about Welles view of fascism in 1937. We all know Welles was against fascism, but the novel and Linklater do not address that, because the movie is about an artistic young boy meeting an artistic genius. I find your displeasure from the novel and film rather ironic, coming as it does from an English teacher, as is the author of the piece, Robert Kaplow.
The novel's fictional Richard Samuels meets Orson Welles by chance in 1937 and his life is changed. He knows nothing of the politics of the time. Furthermore, the movie is not really about Orson Welles, but is told totally through the eyes of the Zac Efron character.
That Christian McKay playing OW dominates the film is obvious from everyone who sees it, but Welles is still a supporting player to Zac Efron's character of Richard Samuels.
That is why Christian McKay will probably get a best supporting actor nomination. If Zac Efron where on that same level, he might conceivably get a best actor nomination... but of course, he is not on that level... at least not yet.
I must strongly disagree with the last part of you post. The part where you state: "Linklater seemed to me to be acknowledging that he had neglected the real story behind Robert Kaplow's late teenage novel/young adult novel, and now (when it is really too late), he was trying to pitch his film in a different light than the one he might have earlier."
As Keats would say, "where does this mis-formation come from." I know you don't like the fact that Linklater's film does not focus on the political implications of JULIUS CAESAR, staged by Welles as a fascist statement in 1937, but you completely ignore the very astute answer Mr. Linklater gave directly to your question in San Francisco last week.
Namely, not all artists are concerned with politics. Richard Linklater told that to you directly after your rather pointed question as to why he had omitted more direct political reference in the film of the fascist political nature of Welles staging of JULIUS CAESAR.
Robert Kaplow, and Mr. Linklater did not see this as a piece about the political importance of Welles's staging of JULIUS CAESAR, but as a piece that was important from the point of view of the artistic level of putting on a show. Linklater is clearly following the novel, and the political aspects of the show are clearly present, but are not the main focus in either the novel or the film. And as Mr. Linklater told you, while growing up, he thought that becoming or being an artist was a sort of liberating way of actually avoiding what what going on in the world outside them, while they were making their art.
It seems to me you fault ME AND ORSON WELLES because you want it to be a movie as a political statement about Welles view of fascism in 1937. We all know Welles was against fascism, but the novel and Linklater do not address that, because the movie is about an artistic young boy meeting an artistic genius. I find your displeasure from the novel and film rather ironic, coming as it does from an English teacher, as is the author of the piece, Robert Kaplow.
The novel's fictional Richard Samuels meets Orson Welles by chance in 1937 and his life is changed. He knows nothing of the politics of the time. Furthermore, the movie is not really about Orson Welles, but is told totally through the eyes of the Zac Efron character.
That Christian McKay playing OW dominates the film is obvious from everyone who sees it, but Welles is still a supporting player to Zac Efron's character of Richard Samuels.
That is why Christian McKay will probably get a best supporting actor nomination. If Zac Efron where on that same level, he might conceivably get a best actor nomination... but of course, he is not on that level... at least not yet.
Todd
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Re:
by tonyw » Wed Dec 09, 2009 3:52 pm
I've not seen the film yet since it will probably not come to this culturally deprived area but I find it rather peculiar than any young man in 1937 was growing up without any knowledge of the politics of the time. C'mon, this was the period of the Great Depression, the New Deal, and a very radical artistic period as the excellent book THE CULTURAL FRONT reveals. For all its faults, the film version of CRADLE WILL ROCK does document the artistic and political currents of the time and it does appear that this film has been made as a-political as possible to gain investment and distribution.
Again, I emphasize I've not seen the film but also find certain premises about the way JULIUS CAESAR is presented rather questionable. For all his undoubted talents, Linklater never reveals much political awareness in his films and this recent one may suffer from this.
Again, I emphasize I've not seen the film but also find certain premises about the way JULIUS CAESAR is presented rather questionable. For all his undoubted talents, Linklater never reveals much political awareness in his films and this recent one may suffer from this.
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Re:
by Glenn Anders » Wed Dec 09, 2009 8:39 pm
Exactly, tonyw: Dreadful as Tim Robbins' depiction of Orson Welles and John Houseman was in CRADLE WILL ROCK, the recreation of the actual production of Welles' Labor musical, The Cradle Will Rock, and the various ensemble elements which created it, was brilliant. The feeling one had at the end of that film, after its final sequence, and Emily Watson's L'envoi to the film's poetic explanation of how Art was turned into "a product" became truly moving. You wanted to stand up and applaud (or should have, if you had any heart), but no one watching ME AND ORSON WELLES really believes that the audience gasped at the death of Cinna the Poet -- or that they actually stood up and applauded for three straight minutes (not shown at all). There's only a "reaction shot" of a good actor like Christian McKay, trying to make you believe!
But in real life, the audience did those things.
And don't let anyone tell you, tonyw, that pictures in LIFE Magazine of the 1930's, or Andy Hardy movies, were the same as living in the 1930's, or experiencing the impact of Welles' Julius Caesar on the American Theater. Then, as now, there was Art and there was Kitsch. There was Art of merit, and meretricious Art. There was Art which fulfilled a people in a way which showed them the truth of their condition, and there was "escapism." Leafing through LIFE Magazine or going to Andy Hardy movies was escapism. Not necessarily bad, but . . . .
Arcane theory to one side, it always amazes me when a poster, who has neither experienced directly a given work of art (i.e., ME AND ORSON WELLES), either in the present or in the time it was set (November 1937), nor who actually lived through the 1930's, presumes to tell someone who has -- and did; a poster who did not experience the fresh wonder of Orson Welles' innovations as someone else did; that such a poster can tell someone who has had those experiences that HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT!! It's truly laughable. [For instance, no one in 1937 talked about "the free world"; that klinker dates from the Cold War.]
The audience as . . . "a blank slate," huh?
I think that such a poster should sit down, imagine, imagine, imagine REALLY HARD that he is alive in November 1937, as Orson Welles' production of Julius Caesar is opening at the Mercury Theater on West 41st Street in New York City, and then imagine that he is drinking a glass of fresh, chilled, slightly spritzy Beaujolais. The wine has just been raced across the Atlantic on the Normandie. He looks at the bottle. It says, "Mercurey." I wonder if that person has ever made, could ever make, such an association with Orson Welles and the spirit behind wanting to produce an Anti-Fascist "modern dress" Julius Caesar?
I'll bet the answer is, No! Anyway, not to worry: it's only a metaphor. Another one of those "blank slates."
-----------------
Todd: Do you actually believe that my over thirty year career as an English teacher should automatically cast me as a shill for a teen novel simply because it was written by a distant colleague in the profession of teaching English? It's like asking you to play Larry French in a bio-pic of his adventures when he was a prisoner in Manchuria during the Korean War! Are we at Wellesnet (thanks, I'll admit, in part due to my occasional jibes at you) in fact going to sink to the "good old boy" secret society level that some readers already think we have? That would be a pity.
Sorry, Todd, I've never played that game, probably to my detriment, and I don't intend to start now.
Only the mysterious "sock puppets" sometimes decried here follow a Party Line.
Robert Kaplow's Me and Orson Welles is a lightweight novel designed for the young readers market. Nothing wrong with that -- Lord knows, we need to get the next generation reading real books or our marriages will be based on sexting, our families performing on reality shows, our civil rights determined by MK-ULTRA Programs, and our foreign policy based on computer simulations. Nor should we object that, incidentally, a young reader might develop an interest in the vibrant period of American History before World War II. Those stipulations, however, in my opinion, do not excuse the missed opportunities so obvious in the motion picture adaptation of the book. What works in, say, a youth novel may not translate well into drama, even romantic drama. Such is the case with ME AND ORSON WELLES.
Almost every early review dismissed the film as a "pleasant but slight" romance of the theater. Few of the early Toronto Film Festival reviews, back in September 2008, were any more supportive after a partial showing at Cannes failed to draw a distributor. THE PLAYLIST review of September 12th of that year was rather typical:
" Easily the least engaging film we've seen so far, Richard Linklater's 'Me and Orson Welles,' wasn't terrible — it was mostly unremarkable.
"About a young aspiring actor (a surprisingly decent Zac Efron) who randomly lands a theater gig of 'Julius Caesar,' with pre-movie fame but still renowned Orson Welles. We wonder what compels a filmmaker to tell a story like this.
"Not because it's bad, but the story — set in the mid-'30s, must have felt like a nice period-piece change of pace. The script is rather clever at times but if you're going to spend two years or so of your life on a film you want probably want to tackle something that really means something . . . ."
In other words, my criticism of the film was deep in the bone of this and other early reviews.
Now, something happened to ME AND ORSON WELLES between the time it was shown in a digital print, five to seven minutes shorter, at Toronto (the same print I believe Larry French and I saw, well over a month ago, at a special screening), and the theatrical print we witnessed last week. The film, I would swear, had been tweaked to meet a few of the criticisms which had trailed it for over a year. As I told Director Richard Linklater, I was embarrassed that the version of his film I'd just seen was better than the one I had reviewed a week or two before. But as I also told him before a couple of hundred people, despite his easy explanation of wanting to make a film about "the theatrical experience," I still had misgivings that he had missed an opportunity to create a truly important picture about a time when Art could still move people to emotion and action.
[Sadly, what we see along those lines now-a-days either doesn't register or is purely propaganda for a partisan cause without any artistic pretensions.]
The perceptive critic, Vadim Rizov, working for Editor Alison Willmore's IFC.com Independent Eye makes the case in their November 30, 2009, issue for how the PR (perhaps, a real theatrical negative, and a vital additional seven minutes plugged into ME AND ORSON WELLES after the Toronto Film Festival) turned the emphasis onto the film's more serious subject, as much as was possible at a late date:
"Richard Linklater's long-delayed 'Me And Orson Welles' was met with respectful but largely unenthused, hands-off reviews. Despite that, an opening weekend of $16,200 per screen is no joke for a film that took over a year to straggle to theaters. I was part of the crowd; I'm from Austin, so solidarity with Linklater's work is key. As it happened, the theater was being polled by some diligent firm who gave a very cluttered survey breaking us down as demographics -- age, race, where you heard about the movie. Before the screening, you were invited to contemplate which factor which drove you to the theater, what made you choose (underlined) 'this movie': Zac Efron? 'The romance'? 'Looks different from other movies out'? Perhaps, more modestly, 'Richard Linklater, the director?'
"The audience, as it turned out, was mostly middle-aged and more interested in seeing a good, proper piece of Oscar bait than either another laid-back Linklater film or a close encounter Efron's dulcet pipes (though my viewing companion spotted six or seven Efron-tweens in the crowd). Though Efron gets to sing a song in his anachronistic Disney Channel-voice, he's mostly kept in the background while Christian McKay's enjoyable Orson Welles impersonation takes center stage. (With a bigger marketing budget, he'd be a nomination lock.)"
Again, the thrust of the criticism is that the film should highlight Orson Welles and Christian McKay
Claudia Puig sums up my argument in the November 26, 2009, USA TODAY:
"Awkward syntax aside, Me and Orson Welles would be a much better movie if the first part of the title were excised, or at least scaled back.
The story pertaining to Orson Welles (terrifically played by Christian McKay) is far more compelling than what happens to the young guy who gets unexpectedly swept up in Welles' brilliant circle. Had the movie, which is set in 1937, centered more on Welles and his seminal production of Julius Caesar, it would have been fascinating. But as a theatrical coming-of-age story, it's slight, only sporadically enjoyable and sometimes corny."
Again, in other words, Linklater, McKay, Danes, and Efron's arguments in favor of ME AND ORSON WELLES were substantially an attempt to satisfy Ms. Puig's just criticism.
Those are my "facts," Todd. Aside from an unfortunate mindset to call anyone who doesn't agree with the Wellesnet Party Line, "ridiculous," where are your "facts"?
Actually, this kind of discussion and argument is just the thing which will get many people out to a theater to see for themselves. [My ex-wife, who "doesn't go to the theater anymore," called me, when I was out on Monday evening, to alert me that the film I'd been telling her about was being discussed on Charlie Rose. She said the Director and Christian McKay were making points I had made to her.]
I think that ME AND ORSON WELLES will win its money back, encourage young people to read Mr. Kaplow's novel, and, most importantly, stimulate interest in other Welles' projects. The FACT is that the ME AND ORSON WELLES I don't like much (faithful to my fellow English teacher's teen coming of age novel), the one that flubs two romances, and fails to really generate much emotion for the greatest Pre-War American Shakespeare production but in a cynically embalmed "we tore their throats out" sense -- that film is gradually gaining a numerically positive weight of reviews, largely due to the performance of Christian McKay.
Under the circumstances, what could be better than that!?
Glenn
But in real life, the audience did those things.
And don't let anyone tell you, tonyw, that pictures in LIFE Magazine of the 1930's, or Andy Hardy movies, were the same as living in the 1930's, or experiencing the impact of Welles' Julius Caesar on the American Theater. Then, as now, there was Art and there was Kitsch. There was Art of merit, and meretricious Art. There was Art which fulfilled a people in a way which showed them the truth of their condition, and there was "escapism." Leafing through LIFE Magazine or going to Andy Hardy movies was escapism. Not necessarily bad, but . . . .
Arcane theory to one side, it always amazes me when a poster, who has neither experienced directly a given work of art (i.e., ME AND ORSON WELLES), either in the present or in the time it was set (November 1937), nor who actually lived through the 1930's, presumes to tell someone who has -- and did; a poster who did not experience the fresh wonder of Orson Welles' innovations as someone else did; that such a poster can tell someone who has had those experiences that HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT HE'S TALKING ABOUT!! It's truly laughable. [For instance, no one in 1937 talked about "the free world"; that klinker dates from the Cold War.]
The audience as . . . "a blank slate," huh?
I think that such a poster should sit down, imagine, imagine, imagine REALLY HARD that he is alive in November 1937, as Orson Welles' production of Julius Caesar is opening at the Mercury Theater on West 41st Street in New York City, and then imagine that he is drinking a glass of fresh, chilled, slightly spritzy Beaujolais. The wine has just been raced across the Atlantic on the Normandie. He looks at the bottle. It says, "Mercurey." I wonder if that person has ever made, could ever make, such an association with Orson Welles and the spirit behind wanting to produce an Anti-Fascist "modern dress" Julius Caesar?
I'll bet the answer is, No! Anyway, not to worry: it's only a metaphor. Another one of those "blank slates."
-----------------
Todd: Do you actually believe that my over thirty year career as an English teacher should automatically cast me as a shill for a teen novel simply because it was written by a distant colleague in the profession of teaching English? It's like asking you to play Larry French in a bio-pic of his adventures when he was a prisoner in Manchuria during the Korean War! Are we at Wellesnet (thanks, I'll admit, in part due to my occasional jibes at you) in fact going to sink to the "good old boy" secret society level that some readers already think we have? That would be a pity.
Sorry, Todd, I've never played that game, probably to my detriment, and I don't intend to start now.
Only the mysterious "sock puppets" sometimes decried here follow a Party Line.
Robert Kaplow's Me and Orson Welles is a lightweight novel designed for the young readers market. Nothing wrong with that -- Lord knows, we need to get the next generation reading real books or our marriages will be based on sexting, our families performing on reality shows, our civil rights determined by MK-ULTRA Programs, and our foreign policy based on computer simulations. Nor should we object that, incidentally, a young reader might develop an interest in the vibrant period of American History before World War II. Those stipulations, however, in my opinion, do not excuse the missed opportunities so obvious in the motion picture adaptation of the book. What works in, say, a youth novel may not translate well into drama, even romantic drama. Such is the case with ME AND ORSON WELLES.
Almost every early review dismissed the film as a "pleasant but slight" romance of the theater. Few of the early Toronto Film Festival reviews, back in September 2008, were any more supportive after a partial showing at Cannes failed to draw a distributor. THE PLAYLIST review of September 12th of that year was rather typical:
" Easily the least engaging film we've seen so far, Richard Linklater's 'Me and Orson Welles,' wasn't terrible — it was mostly unremarkable.
"About a young aspiring actor (a surprisingly decent Zac Efron) who randomly lands a theater gig of 'Julius Caesar,' with pre-movie fame but still renowned Orson Welles. We wonder what compels a filmmaker to tell a story like this.
"Not because it's bad, but the story — set in the mid-'30s, must have felt like a nice period-piece change of pace. The script is rather clever at times but if you're going to spend two years or so of your life on a film you want probably want to tackle something that really means something . . . ."
In other words, my criticism of the film was deep in the bone of this and other early reviews.
Now, something happened to ME AND ORSON WELLES between the time it was shown in a digital print, five to seven minutes shorter, at Toronto (the same print I believe Larry French and I saw, well over a month ago, at a special screening), and the theatrical print we witnessed last week. The film, I would swear, had been tweaked to meet a few of the criticisms which had trailed it for over a year. As I told Director Richard Linklater, I was embarrassed that the version of his film I'd just seen was better than the one I had reviewed a week or two before. But as I also told him before a couple of hundred people, despite his easy explanation of wanting to make a film about "the theatrical experience," I still had misgivings that he had missed an opportunity to create a truly important picture about a time when Art could still move people to emotion and action.
[Sadly, what we see along those lines now-a-days either doesn't register or is purely propaganda for a partisan cause without any artistic pretensions.]
The perceptive critic, Vadim Rizov, working for Editor Alison Willmore's IFC.com Independent Eye makes the case in their November 30, 2009, issue for how the PR (perhaps, a real theatrical negative, and a vital additional seven minutes plugged into ME AND ORSON WELLES after the Toronto Film Festival) turned the emphasis onto the film's more serious subject, as much as was possible at a late date:
"Richard Linklater's long-delayed 'Me And Orson Welles' was met with respectful but largely unenthused, hands-off reviews. Despite that, an opening weekend of $16,200 per screen is no joke for a film that took over a year to straggle to theaters. I was part of the crowd; I'm from Austin, so solidarity with Linklater's work is key. As it happened, the theater was being polled by some diligent firm who gave a very cluttered survey breaking us down as demographics -- age, race, where you heard about the movie. Before the screening, you were invited to contemplate which factor which drove you to the theater, what made you choose (underlined) 'this movie': Zac Efron? 'The romance'? 'Looks different from other movies out'? Perhaps, more modestly, 'Richard Linklater, the director?'
"The audience, as it turned out, was mostly middle-aged and more interested in seeing a good, proper piece of Oscar bait than either another laid-back Linklater film or a close encounter Efron's dulcet pipes (though my viewing companion spotted six or seven Efron-tweens in the crowd). Though Efron gets to sing a song in his anachronistic Disney Channel-voice, he's mostly kept in the background while Christian McKay's enjoyable Orson Welles impersonation takes center stage. (With a bigger marketing budget, he'd be a nomination lock.)"
Again, the thrust of the criticism is that the film should highlight Orson Welles and Christian McKay
Claudia Puig sums up my argument in the November 26, 2009, USA TODAY:
"Awkward syntax aside, Me and Orson Welles would be a much better movie if the first part of the title were excised, or at least scaled back.
The story pertaining to Orson Welles (terrifically played by Christian McKay) is far more compelling than what happens to the young guy who gets unexpectedly swept up in Welles' brilliant circle. Had the movie, which is set in 1937, centered more on Welles and his seminal production of Julius Caesar, it would have been fascinating. But as a theatrical coming-of-age story, it's slight, only sporadically enjoyable and sometimes corny."
Again, in other words, Linklater, McKay, Danes, and Efron's arguments in favor of ME AND ORSON WELLES were substantially an attempt to satisfy Ms. Puig's just criticism.
Those are my "facts," Todd. Aside from an unfortunate mindset to call anyone who doesn't agree with the Wellesnet Party Line, "ridiculous," where are your "facts"?
Actually, this kind of discussion and argument is just the thing which will get many people out to a theater to see for themselves. [My ex-wife, who "doesn't go to the theater anymore," called me, when I was out on Monday evening, to alert me that the film I'd been telling her about was being discussed on Charlie Rose. She said the Director and Christian McKay were making points I had made to her.]
I think that ME AND ORSON WELLES will win its money back, encourage young people to read Mr. Kaplow's novel, and, most importantly, stimulate interest in other Welles' projects. The FACT is that the ME AND ORSON WELLES I don't like much (faithful to my fellow English teacher's teen coming of age novel), the one that flubs two romances, and fails to really generate much emotion for the greatest Pre-War American Shakespeare production but in a cynically embalmed "we tore their throats out" sense -- that film is gradually gaining a numerically positive weight of reviews, largely due to the performance of Christian McKay.
Under the circumstances, what could be better than that!?
Glenn
Last edited by Glenn Anders on Wed Dec 09, 2009 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re:
by tonyw » Wed Dec 09, 2009 11:13 pm
Without wishing to fan the flames of this particular debate (but I know I will) I find Keats's arguments very reminiscent of the apolitical associations of postmodernism (aptly condemned by Andrew Britton in his article "Postmodernism: or the Bourgeois Intelligentsia in the Age of Reagan") as well as the hoary old chestnut of "Art for Art's Sake" condemned by Trotsky in LITERATURE AND REVOLUTION.
By dressing his actors in contemporary clothes very reminiscent of the Blackshirts, Welles was certainly guiding his audience to think both artistically and politically. In this respect, the two can not be separate unless a particular teen romantic movie is very much in the mind of a director who wishes to approach a particular industrial market.
The Popular Front era was radical in the artistic and political senses. Thus it was not accidental that the people involved who had moved to Hollywood became particular targets of virulent right-wing elements and Welles would have suffered had he not moved to Europe.
THE CULTURAL FRONT is a monumental study very well documented and relevant to the New York Theatre of MAOW but not to Fred and Ginger as well as Andy Hardy movies.
By dressing his actors in contemporary clothes very reminiscent of the Blackshirts, Welles was certainly guiding his audience to think both artistically and politically. In this respect, the two can not be separate unless a particular teen romantic movie is very much in the mind of a director who wishes to approach a particular industrial market.
The Popular Front era was radical in the artistic and political senses. Thus it was not accidental that the people involved who had moved to Hollywood became particular targets of virulent right-wing elements and Welles would have suffered had he not moved to Europe.
THE CULTURAL FRONT is a monumental study very well documented and relevant to the New York Theatre of MAOW but not to Fred and Ginger as well as Andy Hardy movies.
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Re:
by Glenn Anders » Thu Dec 10, 2009 2:27 am
The Poster writes: "I’m sorry if I can’t make my argument more clear; that is my failing I’m sure . . . ." This statement is a true one, the best he has made.
From what I can gather, you are right, tonyw, that as he suggests himself, his remarks are fairly illogical.
For instance, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is bigger than any one production, bigger than any one particular set of politics. That's why the play, and Welles' interpretation of it continues to have resonance. Neither Welles nor anyone else could have made an entirely successful film hewing to the scenario of Kaplow's Me and Orson Welles. That's the best argument for making a film which concentrated on the productions political implications.
I take it that the Poster has yet to see either the film or understand how weak the romantic triangle(s) may be.
Meanwhile, because there is only one other really active thread at the moment, is there anyone from over there who has a Chinese translation for these MAOW-ist theories?
Well done, tonyw.
From what I can gather, you are right, tonyw, that as he suggests himself, his remarks are fairly illogical.
For instance, Shakespeare's Julius Caesar is bigger than any one production, bigger than any one particular set of politics. That's why the play, and Welles' interpretation of it continues to have resonance. Neither Welles nor anyone else could have made an entirely successful film hewing to the scenario of Kaplow's Me and Orson Welles. That's the best argument for making a film which concentrated on the productions political implications.
I take it that the Poster has yet to see either the film or understand how weak the romantic triangle(s) may be.
Meanwhile, because there is only one other really active thread at the moment, is there anyone from over there who has a Chinese translation for these MAOW-ist theories?
Well done, tonyw.
-
Glenn Anders - Wellesnet Legend
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Re:
by ToddBaesen » Thu Dec 10, 2009 5:08 am
Glenn:
I must agree with Keats on the points he has expressed above, since you seemed to have ignored what I said in my post and then invented words I never used.
In your post you say this:
"Those are my "facts," Todd. Aside from an unfortunate mindset to call anyone who doesn't agree with the Wellesnet Party Line, "ridiculous," where are your "facts"?"
"Ridiculous" I don't believe I ever said that in my reply to your post. I think I made it very clear from the start -- What I said was "I MUST STRONGLY DISAGREE WITH THE LAST PART OF YOUR POST."
Now please tell me how that becomes "ridiculous" in your mind?
As for my facts, they come from the Q & A with Richard Linklater and Christian McKay that we both were at and which you completely ignored in your reply.
You wanted the film to be about the political aspects of Welles staging of JULIUS CAESAR, and didn't like it because of that omission. Fine, that is your opinion. Obviously I can't change that, but as I thought I made perfectly clear, I disagreed with it but I never said it was ridiculous in any way.
I, on the other hand loved the movie because it shows us a young Orson Welles working at the top of his bent. The omission of politics from the film never even entered my mind while I was watching it.
However, as TonyW noted, I did make a serious error in saying "Richard Samuels (Zac Efron) knows nothing about the politics of the time." Yes, he certainly must have known something of the politics of the time, but the point is, both Kaplow and Linklater felt he wasn't very concerned with the politics of the time. How many 17 year olds are? Obviously Orson Welles was very concerned with the politics of the time, but as I think everyone who sees the film will agree, the movie is told through the eyes of the young boy, and so it is not actually about Orson Welles, it's about Richard Samuels and his experience in working with Orson Welles. So while Richard Samuels was probably aware of the political situation in 1937, he was not interested in it as much as he was in becoming an actor. As Mr. Linklater said to you at the Q & A" "I went into movies to escape what was going on in the world outside." Such is the case with the young actor Zac Efron plays in ME AND ORSON WELLES. The world in 1937 was about to explode, but all he was interested in was becoming an actor in the Mercury Theater.
Those are my facts... straight from the pages of the novel and the director of the movie. You seem to want them to change their artistic work to suit your own political demands of the period, but quite obviously, neither Mr. Kaplow or Mr. Linklater agree with your view.
So let us "agree to disagree" on this point.
However, I would urge everyone to go see the film this weekend when it opens in more theatres across America. Then people can decide for themselves what to think about the movie and whether it is a lightweight piece of fluff or a wonderful recreation of Orson Welles historic staging of Shakepeare's JULIUS CAESAR.
I must agree with Keats on the points he has expressed above, since you seemed to have ignored what I said in my post and then invented words I never used.
In your post you say this:
"Those are my "facts," Todd. Aside from an unfortunate mindset to call anyone who doesn't agree with the Wellesnet Party Line, "ridiculous," where are your "facts"?"
"Ridiculous" I don't believe I ever said that in my reply to your post. I think I made it very clear from the start -- What I said was "I MUST STRONGLY DISAGREE WITH THE LAST PART OF YOUR POST."
Now please tell me how that becomes "ridiculous" in your mind?
As for my facts, they come from the Q & A with Richard Linklater and Christian McKay that we both were at and which you completely ignored in your reply.
You wanted the film to be about the political aspects of Welles staging of JULIUS CAESAR, and didn't like it because of that omission. Fine, that is your opinion. Obviously I can't change that, but as I thought I made perfectly clear, I disagreed with it but I never said it was ridiculous in any way.
I, on the other hand loved the movie because it shows us a young Orson Welles working at the top of his bent. The omission of politics from the film never even entered my mind while I was watching it.
However, as TonyW noted, I did make a serious error in saying "Richard Samuels (Zac Efron) knows nothing about the politics of the time." Yes, he certainly must have known something of the politics of the time, but the point is, both Kaplow and Linklater felt he wasn't very concerned with the politics of the time. How many 17 year olds are? Obviously Orson Welles was very concerned with the politics of the time, but as I think everyone who sees the film will agree, the movie is told through the eyes of the young boy, and so it is not actually about Orson Welles, it's about Richard Samuels and his experience in working with Orson Welles. So while Richard Samuels was probably aware of the political situation in 1937, he was not interested in it as much as he was in becoming an actor. As Mr. Linklater said to you at the Q & A" "I went into movies to escape what was going on in the world outside." Such is the case with the young actor Zac Efron plays in ME AND ORSON WELLES. The world in 1937 was about to explode, but all he was interested in was becoming an actor in the Mercury Theater.
Those are my facts... straight from the pages of the novel and the director of the movie. You seem to want them to change their artistic work to suit your own political demands of the period, but quite obviously, neither Mr. Kaplow or Mr. Linklater agree with your view.
So let us "agree to disagree" on this point.
However, I would urge everyone to go see the film this weekend when it opens in more theatres across America. Then people can decide for themselves what to think about the movie and whether it is a lightweight piece of fluff or a wonderful recreation of Orson Welles historic staging of Shakepeare's JULIUS CAESAR.
Todd
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ToddBaesen - Wellesnet Advanced
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Re:
by mido505 » Thu Dec 10, 2009 11:01 am
There is nothing more amusing than watching two professed peacenik lefty academics tear each other to pieces over a movie. It's almost as fun as watching anti-war protesters riot at an impeach Bush/Cheney rally! Come to think of it, thank God those two were in power on 9/11; had Keats or Glenn run the show, the Middle East would probably be a sheet of glass by now.
There is nothing like the stench of hypocrisy to clear ones sinuses in the morning, so keep at it, guys! As the board's lone Neanderthal conservative, I believe in giving war a chance. May the best man win, although in this case we may be looking at a case of mutually assured destruction.
There is nothing like the stench of hypocrisy to clear ones sinuses in the morning, so keep at it, guys! As the board's lone Neanderthal conservative, I believe in giving war a chance. May the best man win, although in this case we may be looking at a case of mutually assured destruction.
Last edited by mido505 on Thu Dec 10, 2009 6:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re:
by mido505 » Thu Dec 10, 2009 6:18 pm
Thanks, Keats! I spelled hypocricy (sic) wrong, and should have capitalized Neanderthal. All fixed now. Sorry, I usually pay attention to these things, but I've had a very Wellesian day, and got drunk before lunch. If you catch any misspellings in this post, please hold off posting about it until tomorrow, as I'm even drunker now. Cheers!
- mido505
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Re:
by Glenn Anders » Fri Dec 11, 2009 1:06 am
I have some very serious problems on my plate right now, and so you will forgive me, I hope, if I do not answer the myriad mini-points made in the above posts. Let me limit myself to simply restating the opinions in relation to ME AND ORSON WELLES, as I had earlier, before this discussion degenerated into an attempt to neutralize raving egos. [If my ego has been raving, I plead a certain relativity in the matter.] --
1) I believe that ME AND ORSON WELLES is a nice little light romance, which like the novel on which it was based, has been "hooked" to a fitfully convincing account of Orson Welles' 1937 "modern dress" production of Julius Caesar. My inclination is to urge people to go see it for what the picture is, but not by the wildest stretch would I call it "One of the Ten Best Films (sic?) of the Year." [Sorry, Larry, but that does not take away from my appreciation of the blurb you got for Wellesnet in the NY Times. And I fully understand Todd Baesen's rather fawning adulation toward the picture after being allowed to sit in on your interview with a couple of the ME AND ORSON WELLES' principals.] My understanding is that the critic who is making the most noise here, amazingly, has not yet even seen the movie, a serious handicap in telling us what it is really about, or how good it is.
2) ME AND ORSON WELLS has at least four important themes: a) youthful angst, ambition, and idealism, b) disillusioned romance, c) the birth of the Mercury Theater through its first production, and d) the awakening of Broadway audiences to the rise of Fascism and the Coming War by using the vehicle of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. My harshest criticism is that it does not develop or integrate effectively any of those themes within the context of the picture. ME AND ORSON WELLES always remains essentially a backstage coming of age romance, not a terribly together or satisfying one. That has always been my position, but that does not mean I would rather people not see it rather than, maybe, 2012 or the latest teen vampire movie.
3) I can assure anyone here that, in 1937, many a child and young person was intensely aware of the significance of a coming war, and if not specifically, what the rise of Fascism would mean. The Literary Sociologists here forget that 2,000,000 Americans went to fight in the First World War. Nearly 60,000 were killed and over 200,000 wounded at a time when the United States had a population of 90 million-odd. The survivors of the American Expeditionary Force came home to a Spanish Flu Epidemic (the most serious pandemic since the Middle Ages), also severe labor unrest, and then the Great Depression. Many of those young veterans (here and their counterparts in Europe) blamed their troubles on The War. Many of them were not yet 40 years-old in 1937, and many of their children had been conceived upon their return, had grown up among distant-minded fathers who either were bully-boy American Legionnaires riding around on trucks in full uniform, or distant men who did not wish to talk about what they had done or seen. [Too many having gotten a secret kick out of what they had survived, given the drudgery of their lives afterward.] I grew up, an only child, in a latter such family. [My father was a Vickers machine gunner with the Cameron Highlanders for four years.] I have not mentioned that a number of my classmates had fathers who had served in the British, German, Austrian, Italian, Greek, Russian, Serbian armies, etc. Please, whatever your political stripe, don't tell me I don't know what young people of the Heartland were thinking of in 1937.
3) For some strange reason, I believe that I do know a good deal about the origins of the production featured in ME AND ORSON WELLES. One of my first and lasting reading memories was of deciphering who Captain Shotwell was in George Bernard Shaw's Anti-War Heartbreak House from staring at Orson Welles picture' (in full white beard) on the cover of Time Magazine, the new American cultural and political arbiter of its day, That would have been in the Spring of 1938, after the formation of the Mercury Theater and its first production, Julius Caesar. From that moment, I was looking forward to hearing more about Orson Welles, and shortly, perhaps because of that very article, I was able to begin listening to "The Mercury Theater on the Air." We may skip ahead a few years to when I became teacher, and for many of thirty-odd years following, I taught Julius Caesar to high school Sophomores. We read the play, studied the various productions of the tragedy, including Welles' staging, produced it in the classroom, discussed its modern implications. [Julius Caesar, as some of you will know better than others, is a marvelous play for students to act out; they really get into it, especially the first couple of acts. One day, I remember, the alarmed principal bursting in upon us as "the groundlings, the citizenry of Rome" were crying for the blood of Brutus and Cassius during the funeral oration of Antony. The Principal was greatly relieved that he didn't have another student rebellion on his hands. This would have been after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and during the days of the Vietnam War, following the deaths of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy.] For a period of time, we English teachers also formed teams, again drawing at times on Welles' production, and played Julius Caesar before several hundred students per group, in a big multi-classroom setting on risers and a bare background, shining projector lamps upon them and ourselves. These students were furiously seeking "relevance," and we could not give enough of it to them. Funny, how someone who has not had that kind of intimacy with younger people can denigrate those who have!
4) In my opinion, I'll repeat, the most important reason to see ME AND ORSON WELLES, from the standpoint of a Wellesnetter, is to witness the extraordinary performance of Christian McKay as Orson Welles. A memorable portrait of Orson Welles at the beginning of his ascent is created, and a Star Is Born! His characterization is not fully effective as Welles in relation to the creation of "a modern dress" Julius Caesar, nor in the context of the film's dramaturgy, but that is not his fault. As I said, from my first word on this subject, ME AND ORSON WELLES was sunk as a fully realized movie from the moment someone okayed the script. It may be a faithful adaptation of Robert Kaplow's novel, but what works in a novel obviously does not work fully in this film, and so the impact of McKay's re-creation is dissipated. Christopher Welles Feder wrote in these pages and on her Facebook page that, much as she was impressed with McKay's performance as her father, he was able to show only the more high-handed side of him. The script did not allow him to reveal kindnesses toward his players, at this earlier point in Welles' life. [McKay had of course offered a fully developed Welles, from youth to old age, in his Edinburgh "Rosebud" production, from 2004 on.] Only a modernly cynical portrait was allowed, which destroys movie audience empathy with the the Mercury Players' achievement in bringing a relevant vision of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to 1937 Broadway theatergoers. [Would a Literary Sociologist have the GUTS to tell Chris Feder that she doesn't know what she's talking about? PLEASE!]
5) Finally, and I'll stop here, rather than hog the space further, I'll only repeat what I last wrote: All of this discussion, to a point, here and elsewhere, will only encourage people to go to see ME AND ORSON WELLES for themselves. The Movie about Orson Welles Is the Thing! Let the people decide who's right. The least they will find is a promising, credible performance by Zac Efron and a faithful adaptation of Robert Kaplow's Me and Orson Welles. That's just fine, but to paraphrase Bernstein: "Any one can faithfully adapt Robert Kaplow's novel . . . if all you want to do is adapt Robert Kaplow's novel." Orson Welles would have wanted to do more -- and did, with Julius Caesar, and the masterpieces which followed.
A nicely handled touch in ME AND ORSON WELLES is that Rick and Gretta (not Sonja) do touch the Grecian Urn after she has read (much too distractedly) the famous ode. That does not mean, however, that they are forced to kiss its behind. Gang, I won't do that either.
I write this on the day Our President, for whom I had such hopes, picked up a Nobel Peace Prize and committed himself and our nation to "a just war," not only in Afghanistan and the Middle East but in Sub-Sahara Africa and other places in the World. We are now deep in that "generational conflict" which Vice President Dick Cheney announced so happily eight years ago!
Where is Orson Welles when we need him?
Oh!
And you can relax, mido505. You write very ably, as you know. [We should have lunch together, when you visit San Francisco! We may reel over afterwards to the Mandarin Theater site in Chinatown, before the Ovaltine in Todd Baesen's Gin has worn off.] I think someone was getting at another example when he made that reference to "spell-check." Would someone tell me what these references to spell-check or misspellings mean? Fans may wish to see a continuation of the humiliation the Literary Sociologist has begun!
Glenn
1) I believe that ME AND ORSON WELLES is a nice little light romance, which like the novel on which it was based, has been "hooked" to a fitfully convincing account of Orson Welles' 1937 "modern dress" production of Julius Caesar. My inclination is to urge people to go see it for what the picture is, but not by the wildest stretch would I call it "One of the Ten Best Films (sic?) of the Year." [Sorry, Larry, but that does not take away from my appreciation of the blurb you got for Wellesnet in the NY Times. And I fully understand Todd Baesen's rather fawning adulation toward the picture after being allowed to sit in on your interview with a couple of the ME AND ORSON WELLES' principals.] My understanding is that the critic who is making the most noise here, amazingly, has not yet even seen the movie, a serious handicap in telling us what it is really about, or how good it is.
2) ME AND ORSON WELLS has at least four important themes: a) youthful angst, ambition, and idealism, b) disillusioned romance, c) the birth of the Mercury Theater through its first production, and d) the awakening of Broadway audiences to the rise of Fascism and the Coming War by using the vehicle of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. My harshest criticism is that it does not develop or integrate effectively any of those themes within the context of the picture. ME AND ORSON WELLES always remains essentially a backstage coming of age romance, not a terribly together or satisfying one. That has always been my position, but that does not mean I would rather people not see it rather than, maybe, 2012 or the latest teen vampire movie.
3) I can assure anyone here that, in 1937, many a child and young person was intensely aware of the significance of a coming war, and if not specifically, what the rise of Fascism would mean. The Literary Sociologists here forget that 2,000,000 Americans went to fight in the First World War. Nearly 60,000 were killed and over 200,000 wounded at a time when the United States had a population of 90 million-odd. The survivors of the American Expeditionary Force came home to a Spanish Flu Epidemic (the most serious pandemic since the Middle Ages), also severe labor unrest, and then the Great Depression. Many of those young veterans (here and their counterparts in Europe) blamed their troubles on The War. Many of them were not yet 40 years-old in 1937, and many of their children had been conceived upon their return, had grown up among distant-minded fathers who either were bully-boy American Legionnaires riding around on trucks in full uniform, or distant men who did not wish to talk about what they had done or seen. [Too many having gotten a secret kick out of what they had survived, given the drudgery of their lives afterward.] I grew up, an only child, in a latter such family. [My father was a Vickers machine gunner with the Cameron Highlanders for four years.] I have not mentioned that a number of my classmates had fathers who had served in the British, German, Austrian, Italian, Greek, Russian, Serbian armies, etc. Please, whatever your political stripe, don't tell me I don't know what young people of the Heartland were thinking of in 1937.
3) For some strange reason, I believe that I do know a good deal about the origins of the production featured in ME AND ORSON WELLES. One of my first and lasting reading memories was of deciphering who Captain Shotwell was in George Bernard Shaw's Anti-War Heartbreak House from staring at Orson Welles picture' (in full white beard) on the cover of Time Magazine, the new American cultural and political arbiter of its day, That would have been in the Spring of 1938, after the formation of the Mercury Theater and its first production, Julius Caesar. From that moment, I was looking forward to hearing more about Orson Welles, and shortly, perhaps because of that very article, I was able to begin listening to "The Mercury Theater on the Air." We may skip ahead a few years to when I became teacher, and for many of thirty-odd years following, I taught Julius Caesar to high school Sophomores. We read the play, studied the various productions of the tragedy, including Welles' staging, produced it in the classroom, discussed its modern implications. [Julius Caesar, as some of you will know better than others, is a marvelous play for students to act out; they really get into it, especially the first couple of acts. One day, I remember, the alarmed principal bursting in upon us as "the groundlings, the citizenry of Rome" were crying for the blood of Brutus and Cassius during the funeral oration of Antony. The Principal was greatly relieved that he didn't have another student rebellion on his hands. This would have been after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and during the days of the Vietnam War, following the deaths of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy.] For a period of time, we English teachers also formed teams, again drawing at times on Welles' production, and played Julius Caesar before several hundred students per group, in a big multi-classroom setting on risers and a bare background, shining projector lamps upon them and ourselves. These students were furiously seeking "relevance," and we could not give enough of it to them. Funny, how someone who has not had that kind of intimacy with younger people can denigrate those who have!
4) In my opinion, I'll repeat, the most important reason to see ME AND ORSON WELLES, from the standpoint of a Wellesnetter, is to witness the extraordinary performance of Christian McKay as Orson Welles. A memorable portrait of Orson Welles at the beginning of his ascent is created, and a Star Is Born! His characterization is not fully effective as Welles in relation to the creation of "a modern dress" Julius Caesar, nor in the context of the film's dramaturgy, but that is not his fault. As I said, from my first word on this subject, ME AND ORSON WELLES was sunk as a fully realized movie from the moment someone okayed the script. It may be a faithful adaptation of Robert Kaplow's novel, but what works in a novel obviously does not work fully in this film, and so the impact of McKay's re-creation is dissipated. Christopher Welles Feder wrote in these pages and on her Facebook page that, much as she was impressed with McKay's performance as her father, he was able to show only the more high-handed side of him. The script did not allow him to reveal kindnesses toward his players, at this earlier point in Welles' life. [McKay had of course offered a fully developed Welles, from youth to old age, in his Edinburgh "Rosebud" production, from 2004 on.] Only a modernly cynical portrait was allowed, which destroys movie audience empathy with the the Mercury Players' achievement in bringing a relevant vision of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to 1937 Broadway theatergoers. [Would a Literary Sociologist have the GUTS to tell Chris Feder that she doesn't know what she's talking about? PLEASE!]
5) Finally, and I'll stop here, rather than hog the space further, I'll only repeat what I last wrote: All of this discussion, to a point, here and elsewhere, will only encourage people to go to see ME AND ORSON WELLES for themselves. The Movie about Orson Welles Is the Thing! Let the people decide who's right. The least they will find is a promising, credible performance by Zac Efron and a faithful adaptation of Robert Kaplow's Me and Orson Welles. That's just fine, but to paraphrase Bernstein: "Any one can faithfully adapt Robert Kaplow's novel . . . if all you want to do is adapt Robert Kaplow's novel." Orson Welles would have wanted to do more -- and did, with Julius Caesar, and the masterpieces which followed.
A nicely handled touch in ME AND ORSON WELLES is that Rick and Gretta (not Sonja) do touch the Grecian Urn after she has read (much too distractedly) the famous ode. That does not mean, however, that they are forced to kiss its behind. Gang, I won't do that either.
I write this on the day Our President, for whom I had such hopes, picked up a Nobel Peace Prize and committed himself and our nation to "a just war," not only in Afghanistan and the Middle East but in Sub-Sahara Africa and other places in the World. We are now deep in that "generational conflict" which Vice President Dick Cheney announced so happily eight years ago!
Where is Orson Welles when we need him?
Oh!
And you can relax, mido505. You write very ably, as you know. [We should have lunch together, when you visit San Francisco! We may reel over afterwards to the Mandarin Theater site in Chinatown, before the Ovaltine in Todd Baesen's Gin has worn off.] I think someone was getting at another example when he made that reference to "spell-check." Would someone tell me what these references to spell-check or misspellings mean? Fans may wish to see a continuation of the humiliation the Literary Sociologist has begun!
Glenn
-
Glenn Anders - Wellesnet Legend
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Re:
by Glenn Anders » Fri Dec 11, 2009 3:35 am
My Wellesnet colleague: You seem to have way too much time on your hands.
You won't answer me about the "spell check," huh? What is your avid objection to drinking? Do you come from a WCTU family? [Careful you don't get drawn in with Larry and Todd Baesen!]
Oh, well . . . I have other things to do.
Let audiences, critics, and other Wellesnetters decide who has offered the most balanced assessment of ME AND ORSON WELLES. You appear to be half way there!
Glenn
You won't answer me about the "spell check," huh? What is your avid objection to drinking? Do you come from a WCTU family? [Careful you don't get drawn in with Larry and Todd Baesen!]
Oh, well . . . I have other things to do.
Let audiences, critics, and other Wellesnetters decide who has offered the most balanced assessment of ME AND ORSON WELLES. You appear to be half way there!
Glenn
-
Glenn Anders - Wellesnet Legend
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Re: Re:
by Store Hadji » Fri Dec 11, 2009 9:59 am
atcolomb wrote:Roger Ebert gives the movie 4 stars and Chicago film critic Michael Phillips gives it 3 1/2.
And it's doing well at Rotten Tomatoes.
Sto Pro Veritate
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