David Mamet vs. Hollywood
 

Sounds like his new book would make a great movie! ;-)

http://www.forbes.com/2007/03/16/mam...mametbook.html

I read the book a few weeks ago. It's very entertaining and he even provides the long-lost screenwriting secret of the incas and explains why Galaxy Quest is a perfect movie.

Galaxy Quest?! That's surprising to me.

heath

That movie is perfect, as is The Fifth Element.

Mamet is arguing that Galaxy Quest is perfect in terms of dramatic structure.

A perfect film, he writes, starts ". . . with a simple premise and then proceeds logically, and inevitably, toward a conclusions that is both exciting and inevitable . . . . A washed-up bunch of television actors curse the long-gone success of their show; it has mired them in supermarket openings, portraying cut-out heros; they are given the chance to inhabit that fantasy turned real and discover, in themselves, real heroism."

Story is told without fat, that is, without any extra scences to distract the audience's attention from the plot.

I'll probably catch heat for this but, those movies (Galaxy Quest and The Fifth Element) are two of my all time favorites. I own both of them.

Just simply well done. Besides, the girl from The Fifth Element can stay with me anytime! What a great job of appealing to the protective nature of the human male.

Mike

P.S.: Just ordered the book.

Mike

Guys I like the Fifth Element okay, but perfect? No way!

I've never been good with the in-depth critical film analysis, but at the very least, that movie is tonally uneven, which I really despis.

What I mean is, for 2/3 of its length or so, it's a fairly campy film, lots of humor mixed in with the action/light drama. Toward the end, the humor goes away and it gets very serious. What's up with that?

It's the end of the world, for real! And, there was humor toward the end too. Remember Mom's phone call! :)

I still love it! Big bad-a-boom!

Mike

I don't remember that bit, actually.

Not saying there weren't a few jokes in that last act (I rememeber the awkward sex scene at the end), but compared to the tone of the first 2/3 of the movie, it's pretty different.

Art School Confidential is another example--

*POSSIBLE SPOILER*

Starts out as a pretty decent piece of intelligent comedy/satire, then becomes a very serious drama/murder mystery halfway through.

I had to take a Film Theory class...Ugh! Talk about really getting into a movie a little too much. I received an A- in the class, but for a long time, I couldn't look at movies the same way. I would just start analyzing it.

heath

That's the problem in getting into this. You start to analize things too much. I remember back in the 70's when I ran the post theater in Germany, and I learned about cues and reels etc., and since then I could not watch a move without out looking for the cues and such. That was very minor compared to what I look for now!!!!!!!!!

Now you/I can tear everything apart. OK, so most of it needs to be torn apart. But, sometimes you just want to enjoy the movie!

Mike

I was a film student and a film projectionist in film school a decade ago. No one liked going to the movies, because I'd comment on the way they shot it to how the theatre presented it. Usually said comments were negative. The film theory class was last year, before I graduated. Whew, that was a tough class.

heath

A lot like life one might say.

I liked the 5th Element, but it's not mentioned in Mamet's book. He kindly has a list of all the films mentioned as an appendix.

Ditto. They're absolutely diverting and I can watch either more than once. 90 minutes of sheer fun.

OTOH, I think Miller's Crossing is pefect. I could watch that almost daily.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070417/...ford_ads_mamet

Now he's directing commercials for Ford Motor Co.

I love Mamet and The 5th Element as well as Galaxy Quest are great films; something I never expected in watching GQ but walked away fullfilled :P

My favorite Mamet?

The Untouchables
House of Games

House of Games is my fav
2nd, the cop movie, Homicide(?)

I really loved SPANISH PRISONER, I can't say it enough. I watched it and went home and finished up a script I was writing. It had nothing to do with the S.P., but his filmmaking inspired me.

heath

SEXUAL PERVERSITY IN CHICAGO

About Last Night

I love it

i own it

I watched it

Awesome !

I'll step out on a limb again and say "Hot Fuzz" is brilliant!

All aspects of movie making and story telling are at a premium in my humble opinion.
Every shot and edit have a purpose, and better yet, sometimes not reveled 'till later.

Hopefully young Hollywood will see that great storytelling can be achieved with just the basics rules of shooting/editing and story development.
I think it's just to much work for some.

Anyway, go check it out.

Mamet's formidible skills as a playwright have never transferred over to his other creative sojourns, imo. And he ruined a couple films casting his girlfriend.

But it doesn't matter now. He's a known quantity so he can get big $ gigs directing Ford ads. For some reason, a lot of Hollywood "outsiders" end up directing commercials...

I'm a big Mamet fan ... loved House of Games, Spanish Prisoner, even like some of the Unit, though the story lines involving the wives are little soap opera for my taste, I even like his fasination with Ricky Jay.

Trying to recall the name of the movie he made with Don Ameche ... it was something about an innocent Italian-American barber or something who gets involved with the Mob. Title had "luck" in it.

Speaking of perfect movies: Rio Bravo. Perfect. Economical, concise ... the opening sequence that plays without dialouge .. camera movement, performances ... Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson's singing seems corny now but I remember liking it more when I first saw it.

"Let's make a little noise, Colorado" (Notice how all the good guys in the movie basically have nick names .. .OK, Wayne's character's name was actually Chance but its used like a nick name)