There is something grotesquely comical about the way some film industry folk perceive themselves and their place in the world. Showbiz in general has always been vaguely sordid, with its financial shenanigans/money laundering and the colorful characters that come attached to those practices,
THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES
by James Killough
I was sent an article the other day by Rain Li’s boyfriend, Forest Liu. I think Forest is fantastic, and hope that, if or when Rain is done with him, she’ll pass him along to me. There aren’t many leftover dumplings I would eat from Rain Li’s dim sum brunch, but Forest is definitely one of them.
The New York Times article is about its author going to Cheyenne, Wyoming to meet his friend and former colleague, reformed gay activist Michael Glatze, now an ex-Ghey evangelical. It’s a long piece, so I’ll let you read it here at your leisure.
Michael Glatze in more miserable times (left) with his boyfriend, and now happy as a clam with a new companion, the Bible. You'll be back, baby. You'll be back.
In a nut’s shell, because such things are completely nutty, Glatze has abandoned cock worship for Bible worship, which says everything about religion right there, in a nutshell.
THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES
by James Killough
The moment I fell in love with my creative partner Rain Li was in the café of the Tate Britain museum when we were doing a location scout for our film Losing Her. We were talking about The Business and she said, in that eminently imitable Chinese version of a cockney accent, “I don’t know why everyone take film so seriously, yeah?”
Little cartoon hearts could be seen exploding around my head.
Now that PFC is so cozy with Ohlalamag.com, the images of bare-chested hunks will come fast and furious. Here is my buddy, Israeli actor Michael Lewis, whom I cast to replace Channing Tatum in "Hatter," front and back. No relationship to this article, of course.
In between takes on the set the other day, I was reminded by an actor of one of my great lessons about ego and humility in The Business. It goes without saying that filmmaking is where the big boys play, the high rollers table at the casino, the ones ready to lose millions on a roll of the dice, and probably will. I often compare it to thoroughbred horseracing. The stakes are high, the divas are nutty, the horses are extra skittish, and the mafia is all over the joint.
THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES
by James Killough
Tomorrow is the opening of the Cannes Film Festival, the Olympic Games of film, as I like to call it, except the participants in the real Olympics don’t drink and drug nearly as much as they do at Cannes — well, not with fun drugs, at least. I have it on good authority that Lynne Ramsay’s We Need To Talk About Kevin is absolutely brilliant and the one to beat. Based on a Lionel Shriver book that was so harrowing I couldn’t finish it, Kevin features a score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, and is about a teen who massacres a bunch of students and teachers at his high school, as seen through the eyes of his mother.
The mother is played by Tilda Swinton, whom I met for the first time a few years ago at the sixtieth anniversary of the festival. I can’t imagine better casting for that role. The person who gave me the sneak review about Kevin said he felt like taking a shower afterwards, always a good sign that a grisly film has hit its mark. I loved both of Ramsay’s earlier films, Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar. A former photographer, Ramsay has a way with composition and silence that is worthy of a Roger Ebert adjective like “electrifying.”
THE KILLOUGH CHRONICLES | REVIEWS
by James Killough
I have a good friend who sits on the opposite end of the filmmaking process from me. I simmer up to my neck with scalding brimstone in the deepest malebolge of development hell, while he, as the owner of an entertainment advertising firm, strums a harp strung with cash in marketing heaven, where desperate studios heap clouds of money in an attempt to polish their turds and dupe the public. This sensible friend once observed, “Nobody ever sets out to make a shitty film.” And yet so many are made.
The Chemical Brothers and epileptic seizure-inducing lighting follow Hanna-as-Alice as she escapes to less-than-Wonderland.
With regard to Joe Wright’s Hanna, I wholeheartedly agree with Rex Reed’s review in the New York Observer. It’s a “pretentious mess,” which I suppose isn’t so surprising given who made it. I’ll add my own observations to Reed’s from a more technical point of view in a bit, but not without taking this occasion to name drop and somehow tie Hanna into my own experience.
I promised you a gratuitously assonant title to make up for all of the wanton alliteration the past few days, so there you have it. I know you’ve been waiting for it like my nieces on Christmas Eve, peeking at my blog every so often trying to guess what sort...