This week on the Silver Emulsion Podcast, Stephen and I talk about one of my favorite films of all time: Richard Donner’s 1985 adventure classic The Goonies! Listen and enjoy! 🙂
As I mention in the episode, I once had a Goonies website, and on it I had a poll for users to select their favorite Goonie and Goonie quote. Well, I was poking around and apparently the newer version of the poll is still accessible! Go and rock the vote here!
The Goonies (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (iTunes, Amazon)
If you’ve got feedback, throw it into the comments below or email it to me via the contact page! We’ll include it in a future show!
The podcast is embedded directly below this, or you can go directly to Podbean (or use their app) to listen. If you want to subscribe, paste http://silveremulsion.podbean.com/feed/ into whatever reader you’re using.
Starring Woody Allen, Letty Aronson, Marshall Brickman, Josh Brolin, Dick Cavett, Mariel Hemingway, Diane Keaton, Louise Lasser
Directed by Robert B. Weide
Expectations: High. I’m a big Woody Allen fan.
Woody Allen has been one of my favorite filmmakers since the early days of my film obsession. My first Allen film was Annie Hall, and the first time I saw it I hated it. I was a punk teenager that went into the movie with a chip on his shoulder. I found it wholly unfunny, but in the following months I also found that I couldn’t stop thinking about it. This eventually led me to re-watch the film a couple of months later, and an admiration of Allen’s style and wit has been growing ever since. He’s definitely not a filmmaker for everyone, but for anyone who’s a little neurotic and has contemplated the nature of life and death a few times, it really doesn’t get any better than the thought-provoking comedy of Woody Allen.
Allen is the perfect amalgamation of his two greatest influences: the Marx Brothers and Ingmar Bergman. I was never able to get into Bergman when I was younger, but I have a feeling my adult penchant for deep thought and analysis will reveal many intricacies in his work that were completely lost on me in my youth. Anyway, this documentary is a superb piece of work detailing the path Allen took to becoming a director, as well as examining the perennial themes in his work. I never noticed how many of his films are about choosing between fantasy and reality, but the film does a great job of making that fact readily apparent. Yes, I’d rather have come to it myself via a long, drawn-out review series, but once in a while it’s nice to get something quick and easy.
My main question with the film is whether those not harboring a love of Allen’s work will find anything of worth here. Surely anyone interested in filmmaking will enjoy seeing and hearing Allen talk about his process, and having his 40-year career laid out in front of you in three hours is a quick and easy way to become familiar with his catalog. But then there’s all the masturbatory “Woody is a genius” interviews that get tiresome, even for someone like me that holds Allen in very high regard. My girlfriend — who’s not a fan — watched most of it with me and said, “I still don’t get it” when it was all over. So I guess that’s my answer.
It’s too loving and biased to be a critical examination of Allen’s filmography, and it never concerns itself with delving too deep into Allen’s psyche. I don’t feel like I know him any better (which is fine), and the film didn’t make me love him any more. What it did do was remind me of all those precious Woody Allen movies I haven’t seen in years, and just how much fun I’m going to have when I eventually review my way through his filmography.
Starring Naomi Watts, Josh Brolin, Anthony Hopkins, Gemma Jones, Antonio Banderas, Freida Pinto, Lucy Punch, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Pauline Collins, Anna Friel, Ewen Bremner, Neil Jackson, Celia Imrie
Directed by Woody Allen
Expectations: Moderate, heard nothing but bad things, but I love Woody’s films.
You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger is not one of the high points of Woody Allen’s filmography of the last few years. It got lots of bad reviews and I have yet to talk to a single person who liked it. After watching it, I kinda get why everyone is against it, but it reminded me a lot of the Louis CK “Miracle of Flight” joke. People complain about the minutia of their horrible flying experiences, but never remember that they are basking in the glory of the miracle that is human flight! You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger is like this, where you can complain about parts of it, but at the end of the day, it’s still as gorgeously shot and well-crafted as any other Woody Allen picture and I for one am always happy to bask in his cinematic glory.
You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger follows a large set of varied people unhappy with their current situations. Anthony Hopkins has a late life crisis and leaves his wife of forty years, Gemma Jones. Their daughter Naomi Watts is married to struggling writer Josh Brolin, but he’s infatuated with the woman across the way and Watts is falling for her employer. The film hinges around these strained relationships and the varied ways they go, but the heart of the film is Gemma Jones’s character and her newfound faith in fortune-telling.
Starring Hailee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Domhnall Gleeson, Ed Corbin, Roy Lee Jones, Paul Rae, Nicholas Sadler
Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen
Expectations: Moderate.
It took the Coen Bros. to get me out of the house to see one of these new-fangled remakes, but unfortunately I cannot report that it is entirely worth the trouble. The original True Grit is a household favorite from my childhood and I’ve probably seen it through at least twenty times, with many half viewings and random scenes thrown in for good measure. It was such an integral part of my youth that certain lines became standard jargon around the house. Imagine my surprise when many of these lines are represented within this newer, shinier grittier version. I can’t say that I expected that.