Tag: Heaven’s Gate

Empire names ‘Batman and Robin’ all-time worst film

UK film mag Empire has polled its readers and assembled a list of the 50 worst films of all time, and the results make for fun reading, even if it would have you believe that hardly any bad films were made before the 1980s.

Anyway, the multiple Bat-fans around these parts will no doubt relish the appearance of Joel Schumacher’s universally derided “Batman and Robin” at the top of the list — apparently winning more than three times as many votes as the runner-up.

Empire describes it as follows: “From the neon design to the overblown script to the infamous Batnipples, it’s become a byword for franchise-killing and bad movie-making.”

Some of the inclusions strike me as a little hyperbolic — ridiculously so, in the case of Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate,” which I actually have a lot of time for. Sometimes the legend overshadows the actual film. Check out the full list here; their top (or bottom) 10 is after the cut.

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February 4, 2010
INTERVIEW: Jeff Bridges

For actor Jeff Bridges, whose career has already spanned five decades, Scott Cooper’s “Crazy Heart” was something of a homecoming and, the actor says, “a dream come true.”

Bridges stars in the film as Bad Blake, a ramblin’ country-western singer who travels the Southwest playing dive after dive, cut from the same cloth as Hank Williams Jr., maybe, or Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson, etc. A guitarist in his own right, Bridges was eager to take on a film so concerned with music, but was wary of underwhelming after the example set by another music-themed film from his past, Steve Kloves’s “The Fabulous Baker Boys” from 1989.

“What they did with that movie I thought was so wonderful that to do another music movie and not match that, it’s a pretty high bar there, so I was concerned about that,” Bridges says over lunch in Beverly Hills one November afternoon. “There were several music scripts that came down the pike, and sometimes it would have lyrics or little samples and it wouldn’t be right. And this one had no music. Then I thought maybe I could write the music, or my friend, but then, you know, I was busy, so I didn’t focus on it.”

Indeed, Bridges is quick to admit that he spends a great deal of his energy steering clear of new projects. It might be a phobia of commitment on one hand, but on the other, he’s a man who likes to keep his options open. Signing onto a new film means missing the chance to work on any number of other projects that might ultimately interest him more.

But “Crazy Heart” was a different story, especially once his good friend T Bone Burnett got involved as producer, music consultant and composer.

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December 1, 2009
The Dude abides

Snapped Tuesday afternoon over lunch at the Four Seasons. Interview to come, maybe next week/over the holiday. Fascinating discussion on “The Contender,” “Starman,” “Heaven’s Gate,” etc., including, of course, plenty of talk about “Crazy Heart.” Stay tuned.

November 21, 2009
1976: the last hurrah of the American western

The western was not yet dead in 1976 when four high-profile installments were released to varying degrees of success. Four years later, of course, Michael Cimino’s “Heaven’s Gate” would kill the genre for several years (and United Artists for longer), and though it has seen ups and downs in the years since, for the most part, the western remains one of the least popular genres with studios.

In my opinion, Cimino’s film was never as bad as the critics said it was at the time. Many of them were lying in wait for a Cimino failure, hoping to ambush him for the lies told during the press interviews for ‘The Deer Hunter,” which won the man an Oscar and was the Academy’s choice for Best Picture. He was not a Vietnam veteran, he had never seen Russian Roulette used as torture, in fact he had never been out of America until he made the “The Deer Hunter.” This all but ruined Cimino’s reputation, which is somewhat sad because the man had a hell of an eye for detail.

That of course was the issue with “Heaven’s Gate”; though stunning in its detail, the film is insufferably slow and ponderous, with perhaps two truly stunning sequences, the best among them the community roller skating sequence, which pulsates with energy driven by a young man, the film’s composer David Mansfield and his fiddle, as they skate around the rink, veering in and out of surrounding bodies.

There was a time in the 1950s and 1960s when 20% of the films coming out of Hollywood were westerns. There were 26 prime time western programs on television, all popular, and John Wayne ruled as the top box office star. By the 1970s, westerns were made less frequently, and Wayne’s box office throne had been usurped by another star of the genre: Clint Eastwood.

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July 17, 2009
Some suggestions for Special Edition DVDs

Every week, much to the delight of my children, several packages arrive at my door containing DVDs, movies that are not yet released in the home market that I am expected to review. Tough work, ain’t it? Seriously, I would do what I do just for the free movies.

That said, I have followed the history of DVD very closely and the manner in which several studios double dip with their releases. Most recently we have “The Godfather Restoration,” which is superb, but represents the third such DVD release for these films. The first came in 2001, The Godfather Trilogy, and then each film was released on its own so folks not wanting Part III could pass (sorry Kris).

Another film that went through many incarnations before the Ultimate Collector’s Edition was “Blade Runner,” though last year’s final release should be the final release. Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” went through several variations before coming to us in the ultimate edition, minus, of course, “Hearts of Darkness,” the splendid doc about the film’s making. What might have been cool is to see some footage of Harvey Keitel as Willard (if it exists).

But it all leads me to wonder which films out there deserve a double disc/special edition release.

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September 23, 2008