I'm aware that Wes is heavily influenced by Hal Ashby, I was just wondering what people's take on Ashby's films are. I myself, cannot comment, for I have not seen any of his films, but plan on watching Harold and Maude tonight or tomorrow.
Being There kicks Muhammud Ali's ass.
Being There = un-known classic
Harold and Maude = Not really that good even though it is considered an underground classic. The only thing that movie has going is the performances.
he also edited "in the heat of the night." being there is a fucking classic for sure!
I really enjoyed Harold & Maude, but then I love that whole "Catcher In The Rye"-esque genre anyway. I only saw it a few weeks ago, but I thought it was a great movie - very funny, and terrifically affecting performances.
Quote from: russiasushaHarold and Maude = Not really that good even though it is considered an underground classic. The only thing that movie has going is the performances.
And Cat Stevens' music.
This thread would probably benefit by being moved to The Director's Chair.
i saw Being There about a week ago and it's a great film, although i felt kinda uncomfortable with the bloopers at the ending credits.
Shampoo is Hal Ashby's best film, and Last Detail and Coming Home and Bound for Glory are pretty great, too. He had quite a winning streak in the 70's -- everything he made was great.
A lot of actors were nominated for Oscars in Ashby films -- Nicholson and Randy Quaid in Last Detail, Jack Warden in Shampoo, Bruce Dern in Coming Home, Peter Sellers in Coming Home. Oscar winners -- Lee Grant in Shampoo, Jon Voight and Jane Fonda in Coming Home, Melvyn Douglas in Being There.
Ashby was one of the great ones, and he is sorely missed.
I've asked this before, but why the hell not again:
anybody seen Lookin' To Get Out???? It sounds rockNroll, but I can't find it anywhere...
He was a wonderful filmmaker. My favorite film of his was Being There.
does anyone knows if it was his intention to have bloopers at the ending of Being There?
i think this applies to all movies
after the ending you need some time to evaluate "the meaning of the movie" (bla) and the bloopers interrupt that process.
what about Ashby's Stones documentary --- anybody seen that?
why are films by this fucker so hard to find?
Apparently, the video version just have the credits over TV white noise.
Ashby fell on hard times in the 80's.
He made a film called Second Hand Hearts with Robert Blake and Barbara Harris. He shot it in 1978, then went off to shoot Being There. The film was held up for a while, then given a perfunctory, one-week engagment at a 2nd run theater in Westwood in 1981 (the same treatment was accorded Robert Altman's Health, which sat on a shelf for a year before getting a one-week, zero-promotion run in Westwood).
I've never seen Second Hand Hearts. I did see Ashby's next film, Lookin' to Get Out, which was shot in 1980 but didn't arrive in theaters until 1982, when it was dumped by Paramount. This was the first Ashby film I didn't like, though maybe I need to give it another chance.
Ashby directed a concert film of the Rolling Stones 1981 tour, called Let's Spend the Night Together, and it's terrible.
In 1985, Ashby hit his nadir with The Slugger's Wife, written by Neil Simon.
In 1986, he made a comeback with the noir drama Eight Million Ways to Die, with Jeff Bridges and Rosanna Arquette. It was dumped by its distributor, but it is a great cult film, and it put Andy Garcia on the map.
Ashby was slated to direct Dustin Hoffman in an adaptation of Elmore Leonard's La Brava, but that fell through.
Ashby died in 1988.
okay last year i saw being there, which (i'm sad to admit) i didn't 'get'. i just didnt think it was funny. but after reading Easy Riders... i decided to try out a few more and this week saw Last Detail, Harold and Maude and Shampoo. i dont think i thought any were 'great', but all had interesting elements. its funny how many things you can notice were borrowed by other filmmakers. last detail 'lets shag ass' from royal tenenbaums. shampoo's 'do you wanna fuck?' from jackie brown. the opening shots of Harold and Maude i think were echoed in the beginning of the Ninth Gate. uhhh, thats it. he's okay. i thought the opening of Harold and Maude was brilliant, but i'm not rushing out to buy any of these.
being there was sweet but the outtakes were stupit.
BREAKING AWAY is the only film of Ashby's that I have seen. It won the Oscar for best screenplay I believe. It's a pretty good 70's teenage movie with Dennis Quaid. If you like Hal Ashby and your into sports, bicycling in particular, you should check it out.
Anybody remotely interested in Ashby must see Coming Home. Being There gets more press, but CH is his masterpiece.
Judging from A Decade Under the Influence, he was a lot like Chancy himself. He was like a free-spirit who was just happy to be making a movie.
Has anybody seen The Landlord? It looks good, but I don't believe it's ever been released on dvd. I liked, not loved, Harold and Maude and I have yet to see Being There. It's on my list for the next time I go to dvdplanet, as well as The Last Detail.
Quote from: SoNowThenAnybody remotely interested in Ashby must see Coming Home. Being There gets more press, but CH is his masterpiece.
I didn't remember that Hal Ashby directed this film. I had to write a paper on COMING HOME for a society in film class in college. The thing that sets it apart from other Vietnam films is that it shows how the war affects the people at home as opposed to in the war. This is a very emotional film. Anybody who is into psychology/sociology, this is definitely a film you should see. My professor says COMING HOME is the best example of anomie, or anomic suicide he has ever seen on film. I agree with SoNowThen. If you wanna become familiar with Ashby's work, see this film. Jon Voight and Jane Fonda won Best Actor/Actress respectively for COMING HOME.
Quote from: filmboy70My professor says COMING HOME is the best example of anomie, or anomic suicide he has ever seen on film.
whatever that means..
(i had to look it up...obviously, the only person who would actually know what it meant is probably godardian).
ANOMIE
1. Social instability caused by erosion of standards and values. 2. Alienation and purposelessness experienced by a person or a class as a result of a lack of standards, values, or ideals: "We must now brace ourselves for disquisitions on peer pressure, adolescent anomie and rage"
Breaking Away was directed by Peter Yates, not Hal Ashby.
Coming Home is one of Ashby's best films. Shampoo is my favorite, while Last Detail and Bound For Glory are well worth checking out.
So sorry guys. I totally meant to say what Anomie had to do with the film, but I got sidetracked. :oops:
I saw Coming Home this evening...man, is it good. The path Bruce Dern's character is just devastating. His scene with John Voigt by the pool broke my heart.
I haven't seen many Ashby movies, but I really like him. Harold and Maude was forced upon me during my Goth days in high school, when I was perusing the auto ads in the paper, looking for an inexpensive hearse. I liked it a lot, although I remember thinking it bordered on the precious now and then. I saw Shampoo on a particularly smoggy day in LA last year, and absolutely loved it. Ashby's style seems very reminiscent of Altman, sort of that fly on the wall approach.
Being There is worth watching for the last scene if nothing else. Best. Scene. Ever.
Ashby was good. You'd never know one of his films from another. They were almost kind of anonymous, yet individual. They were usually social or political -- probably a reason young people nowadays don't get him. But he had a pretty great run in the '70s. If his legacy isn't so strong it's because he died. Also he wasn't much of a visual stylist. He just told stories.
I just watched Harold and Maude and I did not like it. I thought the performances, music & direction were all very good. You would think that this would be enough but I found the movie boring and the story/script was something I just didn't like. There were 2 jokes in the entire film, ones about stealing cars and ones about faking suicide. I didn't really start to like or care for any of the characters. They were just eccentric, with each having their own little "i'm going to tell you a story of my past" section. Towards the end I started to feel a little something, but I realized it was all because of the Stevens' music and Ashby's direction, and not because of the characters.
**1/2 (out of 5 stars)
Saw 'Being There' this evening. I agree with everyone who's posted and liked it, and disagree with people who felt otherwise, but I've had far too much wine since watching it and don't particularly feel like arguing its case. It's on par with 'Network' as far as brilliantly subtle satire (although I think this is better than 'Network' overall).
Quote from: GhostboyIt's on par with 'Network' as far as brilliantly subtle satire (although I think this is better than 'Network' overall).
upon reading that sentence i reacted in this wise..
to the first part: :shock:
then, to the bracketed part: :yabbse-shocked:
it really isn't better than network. it's lazy, it's a one man vehicle with a one-note joke carried over one too many acts. i liked it (being there), but it ain't no revelation, which i think network is.
it's cute and all, but not gutsy.
I'll take Being There over Network. Being There doesn't use a sledgehammer to make its points they way Network does. Network's characters are prone to giving long speeches that are too on-the-nose. Pauline Kael's original review in 1976 will shed more light on this subject.
nah i think network is just a little bit better
The Next to Last Detail
Sequel to '70s classic in the works.
Variety reveals that a sequel to the 1973 classic The Last Detail is in the works. Two stars from the original Hal Ashby-directed dramedy, Jack Nicholson and Randy Quaid, are keen on reprising their roles. Morgan Freeman is said to be up for the role first played by the late Otis Young.
The trade reports that Darryl Ponicsan, author of the original Detail novel, has written a sequel, Last Flag Flying.
Variety got their information from none other than Quaid. "It's a moving revisitation of our characters re-captured by our relationships," said Quaid, who added that Nicholson's character will run a bar in the story. "All three are anxiously awaiting a final script before committing," according to Variety.
The Last Detail followed U.S. Navy lifers Billy "Bad Ass" Buddusky (Nicholson) and "Mule" Mulhall (Young) who are assigned to transport naive young petty thief Meadows (Quaid) from their Norfolk base to a brig up north. The kid's looking at the next several years in jail so Buddusky and Mule decide to treat Meadows to one last wild weekend. Managing to be both raucous and bleak, The Last Detail remains a profane but poignant study of liberty lost.
Being There is up there with my favorites.
I think the only way the film works is if you recognize the comedy. I do believe this is a satire, however people get much to bogged down by the enigmatic ending. I dont think I've ever laughed so hard at a film as I did when first viewing this. I think sellers saw the comedy in this as well ( i believe he self solicited the part). The simplcity is what makes it work so well. The tone never shifts and essentially its the same joke throughout the film (one may argue that wes anderson employs this same comedy technique in his films). The satire grows from the absolute absurdity of the situation, as it does with network (which i do think is a superior film). Sellers is absolutely brilliant -- one of kind magic.
Sequel to Last Detail -- please, no.
Ashby's best film -- Shampoo.
I was just on allmovie.com and this little factoid popped up: "The script for Harold and Maude was originally the 20-minute long graduate thesis of UCLA grad student Colin Higgins, who showed it to his landlady, coincidentally the wife of producer Edward Lewis." I decided that was my signal to post in this thread.
man I love Ashby. I'd consider Harold and Maude AND Being There as two of my favourite films. The Last Detail, Shampoo, Coming Home are the other Ashby films I've seen. I really like the guy.
I want to revisit Shampoo again soon because after initial viewing I shrugged it off as only okay but the film crosses my mind a lot and I think I would benifit from another viewing.
Quote from: BethieI was just on allmovie.com and this little factoid popped up: "The script for Harold and Maude was originally the 20-minute long graduate thesis of UCLA grad student Colin Higgins, who showed it to his landlady, coincidentally the wife of producer Edward Lewis." I decided that was my signal to post in this thread.
man I love Ashby. I'd consider Harold and Maude AND Being There as two of my favourite films. The Last Detail, Shampoo, Coming Home are the other Ashby films I've seen. I really like the guy.
I want to revisit Shampoo again soon because after initial viewing I shrugged it off as only okay but the film crosses my mind a lot and I think I would benifit from another viewing.
I've seen it about 15 times, and I find new things to appreciate every time. A masterpiece, one of the greatest films ever made, in my opinion.
(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fhome.earthlink.net%2F%7Eemulsional%2Fashby5.jpg&hash=5f75fd641fab61fe603acde60d866ba10332eca3)
http://home.earthlink.net/~emulsional/ashby.htm
Really interesting page here. Perhaps most of its quite well known though. How Ashby, after being refused the outtakes at the end of Being There, personally went to projection booths with his ending, and spliced it in.
Quote from: ®edlum(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fhome.earthlink.net%2F%7Eemulsional%2Fashby5.jpg&hash=5f75fd641fab61fe603acde60d866ba10332eca3)
http://home.earthlink.net/~emulsional/ashby.htm
Really interesting page here. Perhaps most of its quite well known though. How Ashby, after being refused the outtakes at the end of Being There, personally went to projection booths with his ending, and spliced it in.
The worst part of that paticular story is hiw it ended - the studios fucked Ahsby for breach of contract - not "properly delivering" the film - he was never paid a dime for his directorial efforts on Being There.
personally, I do not like the blooper's during the credit - the resonance of the ending becomes diffused.
i think they originally intended for tv commercials to be running, which (in my opinion) wouold be more appropraite.
says actor bruce dern " what happened to hal ashby, both what he did to himself, and they did to him, is as repulsive to me as anything i've seen in my forty years in the industry."
from easy riders raging bulls
if you have the book you know i haven't read it
Quote from: soixanteI've seen it [Shampoo] about 15 times, and I find new things to appreciate every time. A masterpiece, one of the greatest films ever made, in my opinion.
I'd like to hear more...
Karlovy high on Ashby's 'Maude'
Festgoers applaud 1971 cult film
Source: Variety
Czech auds gave Hal Ashby's 1971 cult romancer "Harold and Maude" five minutes of sustained applause at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival on Monday, bringing a tear to the eye of thesp Bud Cort.
Fest veterans reported never seeing such a response to a 36-year-old pic -- but this one, and most others in fest's New Hollywood section, is still unknown in the Czech Republic owing to Cold War censorship in the 1970s.
Journalists packed a conference room Tuesday to hear tales of how the pic, along with Monte Hellman's "Two-Lane Blacktop" and Peter Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show," came together in the days before corporate marketing strategies drove production, when film was "provocative" and political, "covert or overt," in the words of Cort.
Cort, Hellman and Cybill Shepherd, along with Daily Variety editor-in-chief Peter Bart and executive editor of features Steven Gaydos, shared tales of Hollywood in those days, including then-shocking nude scenes, creative risk-taking and a different world of moviemaking. One example offered was that Ashby's tale of a teen's affair with an 80-year-old woman was greenlit in a two-minute conversation in a car.
Hellman, who fascinated fest auds with his 1971 cult road movie, said, "It was a very unusual time ... I've never before or after experienced being given final cut."
Along with the collapse of the studio system, recalled Bart, the birth of revolutionary films was accompanied by rampant drug use.
Bart deadpanned that "better cinema resulted from a substantial intake of very good pot," but he also added that "in the end, so many, like Hal, were defeated by drugs."
I was going through some unmarked VHS tapes and found one where I recorded Harold and Maude off of TCM, so I ended up watching it. Great, great film.
Criterion really needs to issue a special edition DVD of this film.
I'm sure Wes Anderson and Bud Cort would do a commentary at least...
While looking up info on it I just found out that today they have finally released a limited vinyl edition of the soundtrack - a soundtrack was never released in the US and only an incomplete (not including the songs Stevens composed specifically for the film) version was released in Japan.
"What was interesting was, I'd done that project, I'd kind of put it behind me. But then, over the years it's just taken on so much importance. It's a milestone, and a part of people's memories, which they love... and I love it too. Other things disappear or assume smaller proportions. Harold and Maude just gets better and means more and more. It's the rarest thing. A film that gets better with age."
-Yusuf
Finally. The never-before-released soundtrack to the masterpiece Hal Ashby film.
Vinyl Films Records is honored to announce the release of the Holy Grail of unreleased soundtracks, Harold and Maude. Thirty-six years after its initial release, every one of Cat Stevens' masterful songs from the film are compiled in one incredible package. In addition to such classics as "Miles From Nowhere", "Where Do The Children Play?" and "Trouble", the album includes the two songs written specifically for Harold and Maude, "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out" and "Don't Be Shy", along with alternate versions of both Harold and Maude tracks.
Over two years in the making, the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack to Harold and Maude comes with an extensive 40-page full-color booklet filled with never-before-seen photographs and an oral history of the making of the film and the music, as told by the filmmakers and participants. Also included is a bonus 7" single with unreleased versions of "Don't Be Shy" and "If You Want To Sing Out, Sing Out", two suitable-for-framing posters, and much more!
Available only on 2500 copies of Limited Edition Vinyl.
After watching H&M, I looked up Ashby to see if any other of his films were playing soon. The Landlord came up first. From the TCM intro, I learned that Ashby started as an editor and this really shows. It's been too long since I've seen Being There, but I noticed that both The Landlord and H&M have scenes where a nurse or doctor is walking down a hall, but Ashby edits it so that several scenes play out during this "super long" walk and finally finish when the person reaches the camera.
I love the shot towards the beginning where Bridges is running with the plant and the camera is set way back so that Bridges is small at the top of the frame and the camera is static and holds while the tiny Bridges runs from the right to the left side of the screen.
finally got my order on the H&M vinyl.
man the packaging is superb. i think Cameron Crowe is responsible for putting this out - Vinyl Films is linked from his website.
gatefold. one side has a color 36 pg booklet with photos and interviews, then two full sized posters - one for the film and one for Cat Stevens. then the other side has the lp and then a seperate 7" with alternate versions of two songs. inside the 7" is a slip of paper with Cat's handwritten lyrics for the two songs - two songs were given specifically to the film, the rest were on his prior 2(?) albums.
if i was into reselling vinyl/ebay, i imagine these will go up seeing as there are only 2500 and there is no CD release - there never was a vinyl release at the time (or since) the film came out either.
After watching a documentary about Slavoj Zizek where in one scene he excitedly purchases a copy of Being There from a little video store I decided to grab BT from my video store having never seen it. It really knocked me out. I fucking love this movie. The one thing i was thinking of the entire time i was watching it was how (are you listening pube?) Bad Boy Bubby almost seems like some sort of twisted remake of it and I really like that idea. The end is fantastic and after re-reading this thread I really want to see Coming Home and, from soixante's praise, Shampoo. It's always nice to stumble across a director that's somehow always seemed to evade my attention.
Hal Ashby gets four-day salute
Peter Bart, Cameron Crowe to host
Source: Variety
A four-day salute to helmer Hal Ashby kicks off Thursday at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences in Beverly Hills with a screening of a new print of the cult classic "Harold and Maude."
Variety VP and editorial director Peter Bart and filmmaker Cameron Crowe host the opening-night program, with guests including Judd Apatow, Seth Rogen, Diablo Cody, Jeff Berg, Jon Voight and Haskell Wexler.
The number of industry figures expressing their support for the tribute "reflects the impact Ashby has had on generations of filmmakers," said Bart, who was VP of production at Paramount when the film was made.
Crowe released Cat Stevens' previously unreleased soundtrack for "Harold and Maude" on vinyl last year.
Also screening in the series are Ashby's "Shampoo," "The Landlord," "The Last Detail," "Coming Home" and "Being There."
I have a special place in my heart for Hal Ashby and all that comes with it. I haven't seen 'Being there' in a long time and I just revisted 'Harold and Maude' and 'Shampoo' last night. I have yet to see 'Coming Home' but its next on my queue, after 'Mikey and Nicky' and two kurasawa films that I have now.
Quote from: SiliasRuby on August 01, 2009, 04:39:07 PM
I have a special place in my heart for Hal Ashby and all that comes with it. I haven't seen 'Being there' in a long time and I just revisted 'Harold and Maude' and 'Shampoo' last night. I have yet to see 'Coming Home' but its next on my queue, after 'Mikey and Nicky' and two kurasawa films that I have now.
i feel the same way, i love being there, almost to the point of a sickness. his sensibility was ahead of the time, seems like a lot of comedies from wes anderson to alexander payne owe a lot to Ashby. i've actually never seen shampoo, thanks for reminding me i'm going to write it down so i don't forget to pick it up next time i'm renting. the only film i didn't really like of his was the last detail, one that i just recently revisited.
Quote from: socketlevel on August 01, 2009, 05:15:59 PM
Quote from: SiliasRuby on August 01, 2009, 04:39:07 PM
I have a special place in my heart for Hal Ashby and all that comes with it. I haven't seen 'Being there' in a long time and I just revisted 'Harold and Maude' and 'Shampoo' last night. I have yet to see 'Coming Home' but its next on my queue, after 'Mikey and Nicky' and two kurasawa films that I have now.
i feel the same way, i love being there, almost to the point of a sickness. his sensibility was ahead of the time, seems like a lot of comedies from wes anderson to alexander payne owe a lot to Ashby. i've actually never seen shampoo, thanks for reminding me i'm going to write it down so i don't forget to pick it up next time i'm renting. the only film i didn't really like of his was the last detail, one that i just recently revisited.
Any specific reason you didn't like 'the last detail'? It's hard edged but it works for me.
nothing easily defined, it just doesn't work for me. i don't see the humor or the point of it...
maybe i'm missing the frame of reference surrounding when it came out. like it was a-typical in an anti-vietnam way or something, the kinda thing written in the new yorker upon it's release. or maybe there was something in attitude and tone that was never seen before that just doesn't work now. you know, like asking a 15 year old to be impressed with the french connection's car chase, they'd think it sucks by today's standards. when i watch harold and maude or being there i feel they're kinda timeless and special.
i think it's kinda low budget in a way i don't like low budget films too. it seems to play out in wide shots which doesn't work for the piece, something that being there does as well but with better intent. in the last detail the wide shots detach me from the characters when i feel i shouldn't be.
sorry i'm not giving you a good answer, cuz i guess i don't have one. it doesn't work in the way that mediocre movies don't work, and i really wanted to like it. it just seems like the kind of first indie movie by a director that didn't really go anywhere after it came out... staring jack nicholson lol
i'm sure considering how much i love ashby i'll go back to it in a few years, maybe then it'll click... cuz hell i didn't get the pinkerton album by weezer until 10 years after it came out. you never never know.
sadly ashby died too early, he was doing his best stuff near the end imo.
ok so i rented shampoo, thanks again for reminding me Silas, and though i don't love it i do think it's a solid film. there is a nice balance between the humor and some tender moments. I'd give it a 6.5/10, which is 0.5 less than what it takes for me to "officially" recommend it. so i guess to people that are already Ashby fans or wanna get into Ashby, then I'd say it's one you should see for sure.
i got my imdb fanboy creep on it as the credits were rolling and noticed that Warren Beatty co-wrote it (with Robert Towne, big-ups chinatown)... which got me thinking. if you took out the hair dresser angle and made the character more successful, less misfortunate, and not so taking life day by day, i bet it plays off almost autobiographical to Warren Beaty's actual life. It's well known he was THE slut of holywood, probably jumping from bed to bed as much as his character does in this film. I'm sure he also has his regrets, as we come to see mirrored in the film. but just like his character, his lifestyle ultimately gave him a huge reputation, and not the good kind.
For example, as you all may already know "you're so vain" by Carlie Simon was supposedly written about Mr. Beatty. Sing it in your head, it's a pretty cold and frank tune :)
Another piece of trivia from imdb (I've gone total gossip mode):
"Carrie Fisher said she was cast in the role mainly through family connections. She said when Warren Beatty ran lines with her, he did it while eating. She said the whole thing for her was a lark. She also admitted years later in an article she wrote for Rolling Stone magazine that star Beatty unsuccessfully propositioned her."
now you gotta understand that at the time he was dating Julie Christie. who, after watching this movie, you'll probably agree is Smoking Hot in 1975 (argueably still smoking hot - as far as Gilfs go). So here is a guy making a film about a dude that sleeps around a lot, probably modeled after his own life to some extent, and the moral of the film (kinda) is that it comes back at you like a karmic heart attack. Yet he's propositioning the unknown actor (Carrie Fisher in her first ever on screen role) who was 18 maybe 19 if my math is good. by the way he's almost 40 at this point. It's like even while trying to teach the error of his ways, he can't help but get his groove on. like shit, I'd be happy going home to Julie's bed every night. Warren fucking Beatty... lol the living irony and life imitating art imitating life... is so awesome it puts a smile on my face.
and now he is a hollywood recluse living with only one woman, his wife, annette benning.
Quote from: SiliasRuby on August 03, 2009, 07:08:17 PM
and now he is a hollywood recluse living with only one woman, his wife, annette benning.
i hope you're right, for her sake.
Quote from: socketlevel on August 03, 2009, 07:14:05 PM
Quote from: SiliasRuby on August 03, 2009, 07:08:17 PM
and now he is a hollywood recluse living with only one woman, his wife, annette benning.
i hope you're right, for her sake.
I AM!....hehe...bleh.
(yes, i check up on 5 Films on RT every once in a while and came across both of these mentions)
Fred Durst likes 'em too :doh:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/education_of_charlie_banks/news/1829652/five_favorite_films_with_fred_durst
I love Harold and Maude. [Hal Ashby's] amazing. His characters, just the way he tells his story, the way he lets them breathe, the way he makes them so real. There's just something about it I identify with. All his choices seem to speak to me.
RT: One of the things I really liked about Charlie Banks was the way you integrated the music into it, and Harold and Maude seems to have that sort of thing too. It doesn't overwhelm what's going on on the screen, and it's not telegraphing the action.
FD: It sort of becomes a character in the film. It's sort of vital to the whole experience, but it doesn't take you out of the movie; it just enhances the experience, and telegraphing things I don't really believe in so much. Sometimes when it's just part of the process and that's what makes the movie fun, but not in the case of Charlie Banks. You know, if I had Cat Stevens in my hands, it would have been amazing. Charlie Banks, man, you should have heard the music before the studio bought it and took out all the music and made me replace most of it. You should have heard the original. Oh my God, I just felt so good about it. I mean, still, I love it; a lot of the original themes like Mick's theme [hums song]. But some of the source stuff that was timeless and classic, but they just didn't want to pay for it. I still love it, but I just thought it was better before they made me replace it. I mean, you know where they go, "Hey, we have $10,000 in music budget." You go, "Whoa, well that's definitely gonna be impossible." I'll call these publishers myself, I'll pull any favor I can, but we need a little more than that. But, you know, when it still has the music, the character, and Charlie Banks is still there, and it's the feel and overall tone and tension of those vibrations, I still think it works for it. The movie, personally, is a little long to me. I wish they would have let me finish editing it; I would have taken out 10, maybe 12, 15 minutes of it.
=============================================
and Dave Eggers/Sam Mendes
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/away_we_go/news/1829135/five_favorite_films_with_dave_eggers_and_vendela_vida
Dave Eggers: We're going to be doing this on the fly. We might start with The Landlord.
Vendela Vida: Hal Ashby film.
DE: And we might have [a] half Hal Ashby list because he was our main hero when we were writing this movie.
VV: We watched The Landlord together. It was sent to us by Sam Mendes before Away We Go was being filmed. We had told Sam about our love of Hal Ashby and some of his other films, and Sam was also an Ashby fan. That was kind of our common entry point, and the reason we knew we were in such good hands with Sam as director was because he was seeing the same references we were [seeing] and had the same idea for the look and feel of the movie. He sent us The Landlord and we watched it together and we loved it. The color and the tone, and the fact that it was a real movie taking place in a real specific time.
DE: [Anything in Ashby's] body of work is always recognizably him, but it's pretty elastic. Like Being There is very different than Shampoo in a lot of ways. There's a little bit of the surreal that can enter in, but at the same time, they're very grounded and very of their time, and have a certain gritty feel to them. They're not so clean. There's a naturalism there that he marries with some very bold moves and even magical realism.
[The Landlord] is this movie that not too many people have seen, didn't have a big release originally, and it's hard to find on DVD, and doesn't have the reputation of Harold and Maude and Coming Home. But I kind of think it might be his best movie. Maybe it's just because it's so screamingly brave in a lot of ways, and it hits so many issues. There's so few American movies that touch on class, and this just comes straight at you like a train, talking about class issues, race.
[It's about] this young man who's born into privilege, struggling with his place. "He is to the manor born," you know? He has money in his blood, and he can afford to go buy a building where people are living. Just a young man, Beau Bridges, and it's probably my favorite thing I've ever seen Beau Bridges do, too. It's sort of startling to see him in this role as the golden boy, and you can almost see Jeff Bridges playing it, too. And the fact that this white guy, automatically, just by the color of his skin and the place he was born and the family he was born into, has the ability to be responsible for the lives of all of these far less fortunate or privileged people. [He struggles] with that sense of responsibility and [tries] to reject it and give up that control, but [also] do right by these people. I don't know, it's so complex.
But [Ashby's] not afraid to have some very broad comic moments. You know, there's a few people who can do it since. Like Alexander Payne or David O. Russell, a few other people whose work you can see owe a lot to Ashby.
'Coming Home' was extremely powerful. It moved me to tears tonight and I have a huge headache and I'm a little drunk and I'm really angry. Possibly more later.
'Coming Home', is one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen and one of the most emotional. I was worried about the subject matter (war veterans severly injured in the war) it was going to be a complete downer and while it had those heavy, weighty moments, it had just as much slight sad humor thats in all Hal Ashby's movies. It may be his best but its not my favorite. That goes to 'Shampoo'. I'm still so happy that I have netflix to get this because I would never find this at Blockbuster. Oh and Jane Fonda is still hot in this film.