Movies about movies

[BonBon85]

I was thinking about movies about films and filmmaking and was wondering what everybody thinks of them. Are they really as good as we often label them or do we judge them differently simply because they are about a subject we're all so passionate about? I watched Cinema Paradiso the other day and had high expectations. I found that I only really enjoyed the film because it was so adoring of movies (especially the silent film sequence at the end). I don't know if the film was actually deserving of the best foreign film title or if it won because the members of the academy love movies so much.

So what do you think?

[xerxes]

cinema paradiso was a sweet movie... i had more to say but i think i have to go now

[Sigur Rós]

I can't say I generally have anything against the "movies about movies-genre". But almost every one of them is about a excentric director, who is struggling to get his film/films acknowledged.    

I watched one where Steve Buscemi played a director. Can't remember what it was called, but it was actually quite good. Also Ed Wood is a great film. I love the way they shot it. It was so classic and yet so new. Damn, I just thought of another great one....Shadow of the Vampire....I love it when that vampire eats the cameraman.  

[EL__SCORCHO]

Whenever I think about movies about movies I always think of "The Player", which I think is great. I saw "Cinema Paradiso" a few months ago and liked it, but didn't love it. I think oscar voters would most likely vote for a film like "Cinema Paradiso" because it's more about loving movies than it is about some of the asshole executives who finance them. Do you know which other foreign films were nominated that year?


Has anyone seen "The Big Picture" with Kevin Bacon, in which he plays a director trying to get a movie made? I think it's an incredibly cheesy 80 movies , but for some reason I like it. Maybe it's because they talk about movies or directing, who knows.

[ShanghaiOrange]

Sigur, you're talking about Living In Oblivion.

Other good ones: 8 1/2, Adaptation., State and Main, Barton Fink

[Gold Trumpet]

I absolutely loved Cinema Paradiso, and on a basically personal level. I understand the movie is essentially the very sweetest moments of Fellini's Amarcord played up to a level that goes into Movieland only rules, but it was still a great  feeling to see it, likely because of the unmistakable love it has for its characters and especially the cinema. I don't even care whether to think it was deserving of best this or that. Not it's purpose.

On movies about movies, I would definitely have to say 81/2 is by far the greatest example and seems to stand now as the definite work in film on being about an artist's own struggle in our times, regardless if he has a fetish for women that clouds his vision because it still deals with the feeling that is amounting in this world better than any, and that is the pure pressure it is to work in arts as high stake as the movies when the business becomes only bigger and bigger and difficulties as harder. My mate from the last forum, RC605, actually credited 8 1/2 for making him decide not to become a director. Scorsese called 8 1/2 one of the few films that changed his life and specifically addressed of how it deals with the life of the filmmaker in a way that has not been matched since.

I would mention other movies like Day For Night, which seems to understand the silliness of the people that are sometimes making the movies in juncture with how big their egos and insecurities are. Altman's The Player also stands as an indefinite mark onto the terms you have to give in a major force in Hollywood. I am currently reading a great book, called Lu Lu in Hollywood by the actress Louise Brooks that seems to make Altman's film even more true and rich.  But off the top of my head, thats all.

~rougerum

[MacGuffin]

budgie and I talked about "Living In Oblivion" here:
http://xixax.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1011

But to elaborate, for the blackest of comedies about making movies, it doesn't get any truer than "Swimming With Sharks." Kevin Spacey's character is apparently based on Joel Silver who director George Huang worked for.

Also good:
Get Shorty
Bowfinger

And an excellent classic:
The Bad And The Beautiful

[Duck Sauce]

Sigur, you're talking about Living In Oblivion.

Other good ones: 8 1/2, Adaptation., State and Main, Barton Fink

State and Main was awful. Not a second of that movie did I find entertaining, clever or funny.

[Ravi]

Sigur, you're talking about Living In Oblivion.

Other good ones: 8 1/2, Adaptation., State and Main, Barton Fink

State and Main was awful. Not a second of that movie did I find entertaining, clever or funny.

What about the line about Sarah Jessica Parker's character, "She'll take her top off for a voiceover."

8 1/2 is nothing compared to And God Spoke.  That film is the best film ever about anything ever!  (okay, it's not that good, but its pretty funny)

[polkablues]

State and Main was awful. Not a second of that movie did I find entertaining, clever or funny.

Not even the second after Alec Baldwin flipped the car, and he crawls out, looks at Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and says, "So that happened."?

I laughed for weeks about that one.

[cowboykurtis]

the best part in AND GOD SPOKE, is when jesus returns from teh burning bush with a frosty new beverage from god: coca-cola. is that film on dvd? i cant find it anywhere. i original saw AND GOD SPOKE on laser disc and have beening looking for it on dvd ever since.

[ShanghaiOrange]

Duck Sauce, have you seen any of David Mamet's other work?

[MacGuffin]

is that film on dvd? i cant find it anywhere. i original saw AND GOD SPOKE on laser disc and have beening looking for it on dvd ever since.

Not out yet.

My laserdisc copy just became more valuable until it is.

[Satcho9]

The Woman Chaser. Great movie about a movie.

[Victor]

swimming with sharks is the shit.
has anyone read "its all your fault: making it as a hollywood assistant"? im reading and loving it, even though it kind of scares the shit out of me.

i love The Anniversery Party, Full Frontal, and of course The Player.