Comments on: An Audience with Joe Dante

By: dcairns

dcairns — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:41:39 +0000

As Soderbergh said, “Big films have got to get better.” Unfortunately he made the Oceans films to prove his own point.

I’m weirdly quite excited about 3D, after seeing Coraline, which isn’t by any means perfect but seems to promise a kind of enchantment that most Hollywood entertainments have been conspicuously failing to deliver. And if 3D catches on more, it might actually spell the death of Transformers-type nonsense. I can’t imagine anybody wanting that kind of thing flung in their face. But then, I can’t imagine anybody wanting it at all.

At any rate, a shift in fashions would be welcome, because the most positive alternative would be the collapse of the industry as it stands, to be replaced by smaller films made for smaller markets.

By: Tony Williams

Tony Williams — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:33:07 +0000

As Bette says in NOW VOYAGER, Why mourn for the moon when we have the stars”, the latter being the best of classical cinema, the achievements of the post-classical era, and the efforts of people like Joe who give us hope.

When I was in a Cinema and Photography Department in the 1980s, I was marginalized by a wannabee scriptwriter who said we were too near to make any judgments and “people of integrity work in Hollywood.”

A few, but not everybody now.

By: David Ehrenstein

David Ehrenstein — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 21:26:43 +0000

I hear that the Transformers sequel is the final nail in the coffin.