James Toback

Started by soixante, March 28, 2003, 10:58:34 PM

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soixante

I think James Toback is underrated, and deserves more attention than a lot of over-hyped directors.  Black and White is worth seeing, and has so many layers and details that it deserves repeated viewings.  Two Girls and A Guy is cool.  Toback also wrote The Gambler, which was directed by Karel Reisz but has all the obsessions of Toback (gambling, sex, self-destructive academicians).  Also, Toback wrote and directed Fingers, with Harvey Keitel as a concert pianist who moonlights as a loan collector.  Toback actually gives the viewer something to think about, and captures the complexity of human nature as well as a novelist.  (Toback has made a few duds, like Exposed and The Pickup Artists, but everyone makes mistakes).
Music is your best entertainment value.

Ghostboy

All I've seen is Black and White and Two Girls and A Guy. I loved the latter to death...I had the poster on my wall for quite a long time. Black & White was provocative and good, but was more about ideas and didn't have a lot of narrative strength (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).

What about Harvard Man, did anyone see that? I hear it had a halfway decent acid trip scene...

soixante

Harvard Man was OK, although the lead actor was weak, and Sarah Michelle Gellar wasn't very good.  The trip scene was OK.  Toback is quite fond of using the plot device of a basketball player shaving points (a device deployed in The Gambler and Black & White).  In all, Harvard Man wasn't as good as Black & White or 2 Girls and a Guy.

Another film Toback directed is the Big Bang, which features interview segments with a diverse bunch of people (including producer Don Simpson) philosophizing about the meaning of life.  Also, Toback wrote Bugsy, which he didn't direct.

His commentary on Black & White was fascinating.  He's a very articulate guy.
Music is your best entertainment value.

AlguienEstolamiPantalones

ever hear his commentary for harvard man, he does not stop talking for a second all his stories blend together, i waited to hear a pause and nothin

MacGuffin

Toback will direct Tyson film
Documentary to tell ex-champ's story
Source: Variety

Director James Toback is in the ring with former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson on a feature documentary that traces how the fighter self-destructed and let a fortune and his ring legacy slip away.

Toback will prepare "Tyson" using more than 30 hours of recently completed interviews with the ex-champ. The director said his subject pulls no punches in chronicling every aspect of his rise and fall.

Damon Bingham, Harlan Werner, Tyson and Toback are producing. The film will be finished in the fall, and ICM will sell worldwide rights.

Toback told Daily Variety that he's been fascinated by Tyson since they first met in 1985, just as the fighter was about to win his first title at 19. He put Tyson in his movies "Black and White" and "When Will I Be Loved," and they stayed in touch during the fighter's spectacular rise and fall from grace, including his marriage to actresss Robin Givens, his knockout of Buster Douglas, the prison term for a sexual assault conviction and biting off Evander Holyfield's ear in the ring.

After the boxer emerged clean and sober following a recent rehab stint, Tyson and Toback decided it was time to tell his story in detail, from his time under the wing of promoter Don King to his conviction for sexual assault.

"The point is not to polish his image or make a cinematic apology, but rather to get a firsthand look at a very complex and epic story," Toback said.

"He was honest about all the things that have highlighted his life, from the bitter divorce, the ear-biting, prison, to his becoming a sex addict. He is self-aware, smart and a totally fractured personality, and he made himself completely vulnerable."

Tyson said he was "humbled and appreciate that Mr. Toback gave me an opportunity to be involved in this project. I will, to the best of my abilities, give a truthful account of myself."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

MacGuffin

James Toback Planning Film About Identity That Will Blur The Line Between Fiction & Documentary
Source: Playlist

It's been over three years now since James Toback released "Tyson," his gripping portrait of infamous boxer Mike Tyson, and other than keeping himself occupied scripting for the notoriously delayed "Gotti: In The Shadow Of My Father," it looks like the writer-director has been plotting another effort behind the camera with what he describes as a "totally unusual, inventive" film that will blur the line between fiction and documentary.

"It involves rethinking what the self is," Toback explained to Vulture. "If I say, 'I'm James Toback,' what does that mean? I could just as easily be walking over there and saying, 'I'm Harold Lerner.' I could go to a second country with a different identity. I have a friend who is a famous eye surgeon, and one day, he said, he was in a paranoid phase of his life, he said, 'How many identities do you have?' 'What do you mean? I have one identity.' He said he had six. 'What do you mean?' He had six passports, six birth certificates, six social security cards, six driver's licenses."

It's a fascinating notion Toback brings up. However, what begins as maybe a prologue to "The Bourne Identity" or any mistaken identity film is quickly dispensed with a much stranger, more philosophical explanation.

"It's going to say it's a 'James Toback Fiction Film,'" the writer-director adds. "Because the reason I say that is that it might otherwise be confused with a nonfiction film; it turns fiction on its head. So that's the official position...Let me put it this way: My life has been leading up to this moment. So that means I can die after this is over." Who knows where Toback is going with this, but plans are to shoot the film this summer in Cannes; could that be some sort of clue as to what the story may involve?

Toback also talked up the underrated, Playlist-favorite Ben Foster, who's set to lead the aforementioned 'Gotti' for Barry Levinson, adding that the actor "is going to be great, he's going to be terrific." We'll soon see.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

wiped_out

Does anyone have any of Toback's scripts. What projects has been attached to that never came to fruition