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Channing Tatum Foxcatcher
November 19, 2014
FILM & TELEVISION, KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

Oscar Race: The Uphill Battle of the Physical Genius

I first stumbled on the theory of multiple intelligences around a decade ago while training at a boxing gym in London. I was a competitive swimmer as a youth, then into “power yoga” as it was called when the craze first hit these shores, then weight lifting, all solitary sports that requite little interaction with anyone else. Learning how to box was transformative, empowering; fighting other men in a rather primal sport forces you to overcome the innate resistance to violence that most people are born with as a survival instinct. Contact sports like boxing teach your body that fight is as viable as flight.

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By James Killough
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Keira Knightley Interview Magazine
December 1, 2012
FILM & TELEVISION, KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

Too Beautiful to Act?

I had a conversation with a young, exceedingly good-looking actor last night about a script of mine that is currently in development.  He’d read it at his own request—it’s still a few drafts away from being camera ready, so not in wide circulation—after he heard me talking about it at a dinner party and realized that the description of the male lead was perfect for him: it’s about a guy in his mid-twenties, of German descent, from the Midwest.  Even though I promised to have him read for the role when the time comes, in my mind I am pretty sure I’m not going to cast him.  I can’t: I just don’t see this particular character as being that beautiful—someone who looks like that would be unlikely to suffer the same way as my hero.

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By James Killough
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March 10, 2012
KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

Mars or Bust: "Carter" Craters

THE WEEK FROM MY VIEW | REVIEW

by James Killough

I was moping in text messages to Tuttle yesterday afternoon about how lame my weekly round-up was turning out to be, when it hit me that I should write about what I’d been tweeting about all day: the colossal flop John Carter is destined to be.  Which meant that I had to get off my ass and fork over close to twenty dollars for the 3D version plus popcorn surcharge (it is a two-hour-nineteen-minute movie, and I’m a big guy who needs to be fed).  So I hope you appreciate the sacrifices this reviewer goes to bring you the freshest.

With "The Vow" killing at the B.O., and critics saying "21 Jump Street" is the next "Superbad," and advance word that "Magic Mike" is magic, this is Channing's year.

I admit it, I was drawn like Edward Cullen after Bella’s blood in Twilight to the throbbing, heady scent of schadenfreude emanating from the film: the industry awoke Friday morning to find out that analyst Alan Gould from Evercore had revised his predictions that John Carter’s losses could be one hundred sixty-five million, or double what he had previously estimated.  This is a lot of loss, and so far this weekend he is right.

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By Pure Film Creative
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May 27, 2011
KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

Ring Around A Volcano

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | REVIEWS

by James Killough

I know, I was supposed to post on Tuesday, but I’m not sure that properly speaking I had a Tuesday.  Well, I had sort of one, but it was in Delhi, which wasn’t really a Tuesday in the West, and we’re on a PST time schedule at PFC.  I worked flat-out all day, wrapped my last shoot a half hour before I travelled for twenty-eight hours home, eighteen of which were on a non-stop flight from Dubai to LA.  We had to skirt the volcano in Iceland and fly south.  The journey would have been more of a bitch than it was had it not been for the fact I was able to lie down and get a good night’s sleep, and gurgle when I was awake like a stupefied baby at the gazillion channels of entertainment on Emirates.

I would even be willing to endure a knee-lift like Demi if I thought I stood a chance with Kutcher.

I was going to blog from forty thousand feet, but I felt more inspired to watch inflight Hollywood crap.  Most of the plane was watching inflight Bollywood crap, which just goes to show that even when given the choice, Indians would rather keep it real with the caca; we will never prevail over them with our cinematic pablum.

Most inflight entertainment is crap that has just been released on DVD, which sort of justifies this mash-up of reviews.  In the case of Virgin Atlantic, which is more prone to have a selection of quality films side by side with the crap, they will often screen a British film that has yet to be released in the States, or an American one that hasn’t been released in the UK.  That’s what you get when a former entertainment company owns an airline: better contracts with the film companies. 

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By Pure Film Creative
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April 10, 2011
KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

The Joy of Stalking

THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES

by James Killough

Alan Cumming has a new site up dedicated to obsessions, itsasickness.com.  I would say it celebrates passions more than obsessions in the truest sense of the word, and I am hanging on the truest sense because the site does have “sickness” in its title.  And sick obsession reminds of the time I went truly mentally ill and stalked a former lover.

Knowing Alan as I do, he probably means sickness as in the recent colloquialism “That is so sick,” like it’s a really good thing.  In the video up on the site right now, Zoe Kravitz is obsessed with a green dragon plushie costume, with how it makes her feel empowered.  This isn’t my particular experience of people obsessed with plushie.  The plushophiles I’ve met are rather lovable, extreme introverts who like to dress up as cartoon characters and have kinky sex.

Zoe Kravitz vogues plushophile lite in Williamsburg for itsasickness.com.

I had a brush with plushophilia and diaper fetishists back in the early Noughties through a friend, Gene, who also had extreme social anxiety disorder (SAD).  Gene was one of a trio of people who would trigger the mnemonic that gave rise to my play Hatter, the film version of which Alan Cumming has been attached to, just so you follow my meandering train of thought.  Gene had some hilarious stories about “furries”

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By Pure Film Creative
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