movies filter: Director's Cut

Knock On Woody

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 22:47:37 GMT

Oh, Mr. Allen! I will never leave you! I will see every damn movie you make til the day you drop. Why? Because in spite of your extra misses over hits of late, you've still got it.

With this in mind, I argued my point with David Fear in our Woody gab fest here at MSN. We could have gotten into a full scale argument but found ourselves agreeing with each other more than not. I mean, he likes "Small Time Crooks" too. But does he appreciate "Anything Else"? I did.

Here's my first point:

Kim Morgan: To use a trite phrase: Woody Allen, I can't quit you. I want to take a breather, get a little space, find another existential crisis to attach myself to. But ... I'm a sucker. The man is, after all, a legend. Heaped with accolades like the 2002 Cannes Film Festival's lifetime achievement award, Allen's career has spanned five decades, peppered with pictures of varied (and of late, incredibly varied) quality. An American original, Allen is one of the most important figures of 20th century cinema, with more than a few genuine masterpieces in his canon.

So what has he been doing the last 10, 11 years? As I recently stumbled out of "Cassandra's Dream" (and I do mean stumble) I was exasperated. Not only because the movie was so underwhelming, but because I felt like he'd tricked me again. (Maybe this one will be good. It's got Ewan McGregor and Tom Wilkinson in it, after all. Maybe he'll be inspired by working-class English life like, you know, Ken Loach or someone ... and ... oh God, what am I saying?) And then I realized I was possibly delusional. "Cassandra's Dream" was DOA, inert, soulless. Allen is merely going through the motions. Why, I wondered? Why?

Is it really, as he has recently said, because he simply knows he can get anyone to appear in his movies? Is he too secure and happy now that ex-muse/source of passive-aggressive inspiration Mia Farrow's been out of the picture? Recoil all you want from the borderline incestuous Soon Yi scenario; for me, the worst aspect to those shenanigans was Allen's creative decline. Yes, I know, a couple of good pictures have sneaked in (I defend the bitterly inspired "Deconstructing Harry" and find "Small Time Crooks" sweetly amusing, particularly his on-screen rapport with the great Elaine May). But "Cassandra's Dream," soaked in all its obvious Dostoyevskian, Raskolnikovian guilt was boringly similar to "Match Point" -- a movie that did have its moments but wasn't even in the same area code as Allen's brilliant "Crimes and Misdemeanors." (By the way, has Woody offed someone in his life? Now that would be interesting.) Anyway, I'm suspicious he's making movies to merely keep moving, to stave off death, something (or to simply get close enough to Scarlett Johansson's significant assets -- which I don't blame him for. Still, hasn't he learned enough about what he calls "kamikaze women?"). And I realize this is an odd start for the person in the pro-Woody camp, but this relationship, well ... it's become very dysfunctional.

Like Farrah in "The Burning Bed," I'm always giving him another chance. Sure you slapped me with "Hollywood Ending," you blackened my eye with "Curse of the Jade Scorpion," but dammit! I said I'd stick with you for better or for worse, and, obviously, suffering through "Scoop," I meant it. During the honeymoon period, when he was slapstick funny, intellectually mordant, revelatory and bitingly hilarious concerning the absurd complexities of human relationships; back when he deftly combined the wit of Groucho Marx with the intellectualism of Philip Roth; back when he made "Take the Money and Run" and "Sleeper," and "Annie Hall" and "Broadway Danny Rose" and "The Purple Rose of Cairo" and "Zelig" and "Husbands and Wives"; and, my god, "Manhattan" -- a movie with an opening Gershwin tuned sequence that would make the entire cast of "Baywatch" pine for New York -- I can't let him go. He's impossible to dismiss, even if I'm frequently cringing at his tired tropes (do I need to hear another joke about masturbation and polymorphous perversion? And wasn't his Bergman fetish enough back when his tortured beige movie "Interiors" made me want to smash every clay pot Geraldine Paige desperately presents?).

But, again, I cannot leave the man. In an odd parallel, I have a similar relationship with another one of my heroes, Rainer Fassbinder. He was mad prolific, so a few stinkers seeped into the brew. But, like Allen, I've got a connection to his vision, his love of movies, his force of nature personality and, of course, his tumultuous personal life. I also think the same of the late, great Robert Altman, whose career weathered a few horrors. Say what you want about Woody, but he never made a movie as execrable as "O.C. and Stiggs." OK, maybe "Celebrity," but you catch my drift. Altman, who had a near 10 years on Allen, managed to return with some bona fide classics, and I'm hoping that Allen does as well. Unlike those critics tired of his recycled jokes, his lusty crushes on young actresses, and his rather lackluster cinematic happenings, I'm like Tammy Wynette. I'm standing by my (Wood)man.

Read the entire piece here.

And yes, I bring up my beloved Fassbinder. I do that a lot. Not that would be a great point/counterpoint. Anyone want to take me on?

--posted by Kim

Auteur Homages

Thu, 16 Aug 2007 01:16:10 GMT

Woody Allen writing in the New York Times about his idol Ingmar Bergman:

"Bergman, for all his quirks and philosophic and religious obsessions, was a born spinner of tales who couldn’t help being entertaining even when all on his mind was dramatizing the ideas of Nietzsche or Kierkegaard. I used to have long phone conversations with him. He would arrange them from the island he lived on. I never accepted his invitations to visit because the plane travel bothered me, and I didn’t relish flying on a small aircraft to some speck near Russia for what I envisioned as a lunch of yogurt. We always discussed movies, and of course I let him do most of the talking because I felt privileged hearing his thoughts and ideas. He screened movies for himself every day and never tired of watching them. All kinds, silents and talkies. To go to sleep he’d watch a tape of the kind of movie that didn’t make him think and would relax his anxiety, sometimes a James Bond film."

And to double the homage, Martin Scorsese discusses Michelangelo Antonioni, also for the New York Times:

"The people Antonioni was dealing with, quite similar to the people in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels (of which I later discovered that Antonioni was very fond), were about as foreign to my own life as it was possible to be. But in the end that seemed unimportant. I was mesmerized by 'L’Avventura' and by Antonioni’s subsequent films, and it was the fact that they were unresolved in any conventional sense that kept drawing me back. They posed mysteries — or rather the mystery, of who we are, what we are, to each other, to ourselves, to time. You could say that Antonioni was looking directly at the mysteries of the soul. That’s why I kept going back. I wanted to keep experiencing these pictures, wandering through them. I still do."

--posted by Kim

Scorsese Shines A Light On The Stones

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 22:39:24 GMT

I can't stand it when people use the term "nuff said" but when first hearing the news that Martin Scorsese was making a documentary about The Rolling Stones, I was at the perilous brink of uttering words the general manager of Initech might proclaim when discussing "Bolton Swings Sinatra."

Instead, I'll just let Mr. Scorsese do the talking, via The Guardian. Here's just a sample of their conversation with Scorsese regarding a movie I cannot wait to see, his Stones' documentary "Shine A Light":

"You used 'Jumpin' Jack Flash' and 'Tell Me' to great effect in Mean Streets ...

"Mean Streets owes a debt to the Stones. The actual visualisation of sequences and scenes in Mean Streets comes from a lot of their music, of living with their music and listening to it. Not just the songs I use in the film. No, it's about the tone and the mood of their music, their attitude. The music itself. And ultimately, over the years what I became aware of - and this is something like a detective story, I really didn't know about music, I just responded to it - was that their music is blues-based. And I happen to really like the blues. Their music introduced me to the blues to a certain extent.

"And so, the point I wanna make is I never saw them in performance until late '69, I think, November '69 at the Madison Square Garden in New York. So all the inspiration that I was able to put into Mean Streets has to do with just listening to their music. Not watching them on stage. It came from the image I got in my head when I was listening to the Aftermath album, or 'Jumpin' Jack Flash', 'Sympathy For the Devil' - how 'Sympathy For the Devil' became this score for our lives. It was everywhere at that time, it was being played on the radio. 'Satisfaction', everywhere being played on the radio. When 'Satisfaction' starts, the authority of the guitar riff that begins it is something that became anthemic.

"I didn't intend that. I just kept listening to it. Then I kept imagining scenes in movies. And interpreting. It's not just imagining a scene of a tracking shot around a person's face or a car scene. It really was [taking] events and incidents in my own life that I was trying to interpret into film-making, to a story, a narrative. And it seemed that those songs inspired me to do that. To find a way to put them on film. To find a way to put those stories on film. So the debt is incalculable. I don't know what to say. In my mind, I did this film 40 years ago. It just happened to get around to being filmed right now."

Read the entire interview here.

--posted by Kim

Ken Russell's Top Ten (Including The So-Called Inventors Of Post It's)

Thu, 09 Aug 2007 21:22:55 GMT

Ribald, controversial and sometimes brilliant director Ken Russell (see "The Devils") offers his top ten list of cinematic masterpieces with an inclusion that might surprise you.

As he wrote for Times Online:

"Seven days later, after sleepless nights and much inner conflict, I clear my throat and the oracle (with 77 years of movie-going stored in the fleapits of his mind) speaks: ' Metropolis, Citizen Kane, La Belle et la Bête, Gone with the Wind, La Strada, Fantasia, The Red Shoes, A Night at the Opera, The 39 Steps and a surprise last choice.'

"Mutterings of dissent as they all wait for me to explain myself."

To ruin the suspense (sorry, can't help myself but I actually love the movie he chooses) number ten goes to "Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion" a picture that is highly, highly underrated. I wouldn't put it on a top ten list of all time but, I feel it Ken. Mr. Russell explains all of his choices (to a room full of his film students) but never "Romy and Michelle"--apparently all of the laughter muffled his words.

Read the entire piece here.

--posted by Kim

Gentlemen Prefer Hawks

Thu, 31 May 2007 20:44:50 GMT

I've sung his praises so many times but dammit if he doesn't deserve them! Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule flat-out rocks my movie obsessed world and that's all there is to it.

Here's his latest, a discussion concerning legendary auteur Howard Hawks, who would have been 113-years-old yesterday. After listing the filmmaker's remarkable pictures (some of them, personal favorites of mine), he ends his post asking the forum question: "Is Howard Hawks the greatest director ever?"

As Dennis asserts:

"The Dawn Patrol, The Criminal Code, Come and Get It, Twentieth Century and, of course, Scarface (now on DVD) are all terrific movies. But just look at that period from 1936 to 1948, starting with Come and Get It and ending with Red River. Not counting the uncredited jobs, has any other great director ever had a 12-year streak like that one? Maybe Ford. Maybe Bunuel. Maybe Altman. Maybe Godard. When a baseball player goes on a streak like that, one of the things said about him is that he’s 'unconscious.' But there’s nothing unconscious or automatic about any of the movies Hawks made in this period. And he still had The Big Sky, Monkey Business, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Hatari!, El Dorado and, most importantly, Rio Bravo still in his deck."

Read the entire post, take a gander at the master's movies and enjoy the various answers to Hawks' greatness by many other terrific film writers and bloggers.

As for me, I'm still trying to answer the question, but looking at Hawks' oeuvre is leading me to a possible yes.

--posted by Kim

Vintage James Toback

Wed, 30 May 2007 19:57:07 GMT

From back in the day.

Iconclast filmmaker James Toback on Rex Reed's movie reviews:

"Second rate re-runs of 'The Gong Show.'"

Hey, James, I love ya but don't diss "The Gong Show." Paul Reubens (aka Pee Wee Hermann) was on "The Gong Show." J.P. Morgan rules. And Chuck Barris is a genius.

To be fair, he's claiming Reed a second rate version so perhaps Toback is a fan of Barris and Company after all. He sure seems like he would be.

Watch the rest of Toback's interview here. Many thanks to ScreenGrab for highlighting this Toback gem.

--posted by Kim

Five Friedkin Classics

Fri, 25 May 2007 07:05:47 GMT

William Friedkin is back and I’m here to ask the 70’s auteur to please stay. Just keep going. Though his image has been tarnished through the decades with critically mixed pictures like "Jade," "Blue Chips," "Rules of Engagement" and "The Hunted" (pictures that remain interesting, especially "The Hunted"), 20-odd years ago he was one of Hollywood's most courted directors. Creating two bona-fide American classics, "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist" and some misunderstood masterpieces, "Cruising" and "Sorcerer," Friedkin’s work can be fearlessly visceral and cinematically ingenious (his use of sound is often brilliant, and his collaboration with wizard Jack Nitzsche is especially virtuoso). When Friedkin is on his game, he’s under-your-skin profound.

Provocative ideas have always been central to Friedkin's vision, and he's jumped genres to find them. Among other films (including Sonny and Cher's "Good Times"), he's adapted stage plays, such as Harold Pinter's "The Birthday Party" (1968), about a lodger harassed by two strangers, and "The Boys in the Band" (1970), a biting, soul-searching night in the life of gay friends and the police thriller "To Live and Die in L.A." (1985), which exposed both sides of the law's moral ambiguity even further than "The French Connection."

His newest study of insanity and horror, "Bug" (starring Ashley Judd) finds Friedkin venturing into a smaller though no less explosive milieu, adapting Trecy Letts off-Broadway play for a claustrophobic, paranoid thriller. With this, I'm looking at the best of Friedkin's work— work that helped shape a period of darker, more challenging and often more shocking movies. Here are five of Friedkin’s greatest—superior studies of flawed humanity, tension, fear and, of course, some wicked cool car chase sequences.

"The French Connection" (1971)

A tour de force of stylistic, kinetic editing, sweeping hand-held camerawork, savage realism and natural, anti-heroic leads, "The French Connection" won that rare honor in Hollywood, Academy Awards for best picture and best director and for an “action” picture. Within this complex police story exists wonderful hard boiled acting, ingenious cinematography, one of the best dirty cops in filmdom (Popeye Doyle, played by Gene Hackman at his porkpie hat hottest) and one of the grittiest, most exhilarating chase scenes ever filmed. To top it all off, a beautifully subtle yet tough Roy Scheider is Hackman’s partner, and Roy Scheider is great in just about everything.

Read the rest of the list here.

--posted by Kim

Lars Von Trier Suffering From Depression

Mon, 14 May 2007 19:29:54 GMT

Two of my favorite films of the last four years were written by Lars von Trier, "Dogville" starring Nicole Kidman (also directed by von Trier) and "Dear Wendy" starring Jamie Bell and a lot of guns.

The eccentric Danish director also conducts some of my favorite interviews. He's honest without being annoying about it, he never talks in sound-bites, he never pushes his movies with the typical "Oh it was AMAZING working with Nicole" type BS. And he's always frank about his mental state.

So it was of no surprise to me that von Trier claims he's been too depressed to direct a movie. And not just feeling blue, but clinically depressed. I hope he overcomes this.

One thing he's never been able to overcome is his fear of flying something he talked about briefly in a fascinating 2005 interview with Bright Lights Film Journal.

"...We began our interview discussing why it was he did not fly — why he took a trailer home from Sweden to Cannes — and he whispered: 'I have psychological problems. Many many. It’s hard right now.' And by the time our interview concluded — in midsentence (the publicist checking her watch) — he was on to new revelations about his family life. "

He also really, really doesn't like President Bush. Read his illuminating and funny discussion with Paul Thomas Anderson.

--posted by Kim

See, The Beart Suit IS Funny

Wed, 07 Mar 2007 05:13:40 GMT

A ha! As I suspected and have written about from the very start. When it comes to "The Wicker Man" Neil LaBute does have a sense of humor.

From an interview at The Nerve Film Lounge:

"Q: The film has a very offbeat and surreal sense of humor, much as the original did, and it was kind of surprising to see that a lot of critics didn't get that.

"A: The hardest thing is reading reviews and having people tell you what you were thinking — like people saying, 'This is unintentional.' How does someone know what I meant? I do think we made a bit of a misstep in marketing. Folks said, 'I don't know what you have here, but I know it makes me nervous.' So it was basically sold as a horror film. Not that horror films can't have humor in them, but not usually of the nature that we have. I mean, I'm not crazy. When I put Nic Cage in a bear suit, I know there's some potential for humor there! [Laughs.] I know that when he says, 'Step away from the vehicle," and he's talking about a bike, that's okay. That allows the temperature to drop a little bit. I'm aware of what's going on. It's hard to have people say that you didn't know that. That somehow it's all supposed to be taken totally seriously. You'd think people would remember the gallows humor from the original."

--posted by Kim

Three Hour And Forty Minutes The Charm?

Mon, 11 Sep 2006 07:15:37 GMT

Oliver Stone finds it hard to let go.

And though many critics, especially those who can't stomach Stone's frequently bombastic polemics, will sigh a collective "Oh Brother," the persisent director isn't giving up. No, I'm not talking his newest film, "World Trade Center," I'm talking his critically panned "Alexander."

The filmmaker told BBC One's Breakfast that the film "has haunted" him and he's set to release the version he intended--the three hour and 40 minute cut:

"By truncating it into three hours, we lost things that were important. This version allows you to immerse yourself in the classical world."

I hope we immerse ourselves. We sure don't want to suffer a sore ass just to watch a bunch of nutty actors chew the scenery. --posted by Kim

Friday Night At The Movies--'Wicker' Or 'Crank?'

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 16:06:19 GMT

--Uh-Oh. "The Wicker Man" received no press screenings. What's that saying about the only movie I'm excited to watch this weekend? I don't have high hopes exactly but I'm really curious to see how Neil La Bute handles his matriarchy spin on the horror cult classic. The one review I found (on Rotten Tomatoes) came from Johnny Butane of The Horror Channel. He hated it: "The pacing of 'The Wicker Man' never escapes the velocity of a trotting horse. Think of an old man making his way across the room, on a walker, to get at the Jello cups." Well that can work sometimes...

--Meantime, "Crank" sounds like another version of "D.O.A." I only hope it more resembles the masterful 1950 Edmond O' Brien "D.O.A." and not the 1988 Dennis Quaid "D.O.A." I hope for too much.

--posted by Kim

A Personal Journey Through DirectTV With Martin Scorsese

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 16:05:17 GMT

My Lord. When Martin Scorsese lodges a customer complaint, he's not messing around:

"Famed director Martin Scorsese has been hired as a film critic for a satellite TV service after complaining about their movie review system. 'The Aviator' director [yes, and also 'Mean Streets,' 'Taxi Driver,' 'Raging Bull,' 'The King of Comedy,' 'Goodfella's' and 'Casino.' My God people.] will pen a monthly column for On DirecTV, a magazine and program guide for people who subscribe to DirecTV. Scorsese will offer critiques of overlooked films on DirecTV. Executives at the company came up with the idea when Scorsese, a DirecTV subscriber, wrote to the firm to suggest changes in the movie review system."

I'd say he's qualified. --posted by Kim

Audiences Like Good Films?

Wed, 30 Aug 2006 21:17:51 GMT

It almost seems sad that Christopher Nolan, the talented director of "The Dark Knight Returns" would be surprised by audiences and critics appreciating a good film. But such is the state of cinema.

The "Memento" director told Comingsoon.net that his surprise came from:

"The simple reason that I felt we had really poured our hearts out in making a good film and that on our own terms we had succeeded. I never really expected to satisfy critics and 'Batman' fans and regular audiences equally. I mean I thought maybe we'd get two points on the drawing board if you like, but the fact that all three seemed to respond well, that was a big surprise to me. I mean it felt like you were going to lose one aspect or someone… I think we were very fortunate in that regard, it's very gratifying."

It should be. Now let's see if he accomplishes the same with "Batman Begins." --posted by Kim

No Oliver Stone Un-Turned

Wed, 09 Aug 2006 22:52:54 GMT

Jim Emerson offers a fascinating overview of Oliver Stone's career in his MSN piece, "Exile in Stonesville."

Emerson begins his essay by asking whatever happened to the "World Trade Center" director and then, very critically, goes on to answer that question.

According to Emerson: "When the famous New Yorker film critic Pauline Kael retired in 1991, she wrote that 'the prospect of having to sit through another Oliver Stone movie was too much.' You couldn't blame her. And the worst was still to come ... "

--posted by Kim

Not Michael, Anthony Mann

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 19:56:40 GMT

Time Magazine does a nice piece on the career of director Anthony Mann.

Giving the "T-Men," "Raw Deal," "El Cid," and "Naked Spur" director the respect he deserves, the article writes:

"Roaming like a lone gunman or freelance among the most popular genres, Mann found, or imposed, a consistent vision and visual style, making his films both fresh and lasting. He did what a director is supposed to do: tell stories through pictures."

The photo to the right is Shelley Winters in Mann's "Winchester '73."

--posted by Kim

Whatever Happened to Robert Aldrich?

Mon, 19 Jun 2006 09:59:42 GMT

The Guardian writes a short but interesting ode to filmmaker Robert Aldrich, wishing there was another Hollywood director like him today.

Thinking of "Le Gros Bob" (as Cahiers du Cinema coined him), the writer asks if any Hollywood director could craft both populist and political cinema so effortlessly, "someone with a tight, punchy, tabloid sensibility, politically edgy, interested in corruption and violence, and capable of rendering slices of the zeitgeist quickly onto film, all while entertaining a mass audience, and making money doing it."

The essay goes on to say that indeed, there is no such deeply subversive yet wholly mainstream Hollywood director currently out there.

I'd argue David Fincher gets somewhere close but then, his films feel more obviously pointed.

Aldrich's finest film is the seminal, sleazy noir "Kiss Me Deadly" with "The Longest Yard," "The Dirty Dozen" and "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" running a close second and third.

I love what the piece says about the underrated, popular though highly political "Longest Yard" (re-made, horribly, last year):

"An angry response to the suppression of the Attica prison riot three years earlier by his own cousin, New York governor and future vice-president Nelson A (for Aldrich) Rockefeller. Casting Eddie Albert as the explicitly Nixonian governor of a vicious southern prison farm, Aldrich asked why we shouldn't root for the prisoners in the inmates-vs-guards football game if the alleged good guys were so corrupt."

So, good question. Why can't films be made like this today? --posted by Kim

I Heart Herzog

Fri, 26 May 2006 20:22:25 GMT

Because sometimes you need to hear Werner Herzog's voice.

Here he is on the Henry Rollins show this year discussing "ecstatic truth" among other things.

Watch him tell a surprised Rollins that Los Angeles is a city of substance. The "most" substance you will find here declares Herzog. It's also important to be a part of the world's "collective dreams."

Also you gotta love that Herzog, who wouldn't call police after being shot comes off more "punk rock" than Rollins.

Why can't more people have such an eloquent command of the English language? And English isn't even his first language. He's German.

Herzog is an oftentimes brilliant filmmaker but I'd love to see him go on the lecture circuit.

I saw him speak years ago in Portland and it was one of the most unforgettable Q&A's I've ever witnessed. Electric, informative and even at times, scary. --posted by Kim

Out of the Shadows

Wed, 29 Mar 2006 19:03:06 GMT

A great piece on an underseen Jean-Pierre Melville film, "Army in the Shadows" made in 1969.

The film, adapted partly from Joseph Kessel's 1943 novel and partly from Melville's own experience as a resistance fighter, concerned French resistance fighers during the German occupation of France. Though Melville is famed for his gangster pictures including "Le Cercle Rouge," "Bob le Flambeur" and the brilliant "Le Samourai," "Army in the Shadows" made little impact upon release. According to this study, the picture was "eclipsed by the two most famous French films about the occupation - Marcel Ophuls' 'The Sorrow and the Pity' and Louis Malle's 'Lacombe Lucien.'"

But the writer finds a lot of intriguing facets to "Army in the Shadows" asserting that the German occupation "helped give birth to the roman noir and film noir after the war" and that the film has been misunderstood when compared to the director's earlier depictions of occupation. "Army in the Shadows" belongs to his gangster films which are marked by a "bleak fatalism."

This is great stuff but frustrating. The film is playing in London. Hopefully a larger release will follow. --posted by Kim

Inside Spike

Tue, 28 Mar 2006 20:04:49 GMT

If you're enjoying Spike Lee's newest film (and # 1 movie in America) "Inside Man" check out this New York Times article assessing Lee's career so far.

From "She's Gotta Have It" (does it hold up?) to "She Hate Me" (still the worst), Lee's films are an uneven bunch and yet, oddly consistent because of their flaws. --posted by Kim

Altman (Does) Not Explain It All To You

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 18:03:57 GMT

Maverick filmmaker and legend Robert Altman (who's set to release his 39th film, "A Prairie Home Companion" soon) is the subject of Vanity Fair's standard Proust Questionnaire in the latest April issue.

I say standard because a lot of these are soooo typical. Like, the question, "If you could change one thing about your family, what would it be?" is usually met with "Nothing."

Altman however, answers with a mysterious, "No comment."

I also like that the historical figure he most identifies with is Buffalo Bill.

But this is his best, most Altman-esque statement. In answer to "What is your greatest dislike?" the true independent replies, "Movies that explain everything."

Amen to that. --posted by Kim