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You May Have Missed: Steve Zahn

12/3/2013

by Matthew Howe

Even at the low end of the film biz in which I work, every once in a while you get to work with a celebrity. Folks I've done time with include Julie Andrews, Selma Hyak, Bradley Cooper and Julianne Moore. My M.O. for dealing with the famous is to pretend they're not. No gushing, no fan-boy bullshit (though that was tested when I shot an interview with Trey Parker and Matt Stone) and absolutely no posing for photos or getting autographs. They're professionals, I'm a professional. There.

You May Have Missed: Fish Story

11/18/2013

by Matthew Howe

The story of my solitude
If my solitude were a fish
It'd be so enormous, so militant
A whale would get out of there

In 1975, a bad English to Japanese translation of an obscure novel (called Fish Story) inspires Gekirin, a Japanese proto-punk band, to write a song called Fish Story. The band's first and only album (also called Fish Story) flops, the band breaks up, fades into obscurity having missed the punk revolution by just a few years. Yet Fish Story, the song that is the one true expression of their artistry, lives on. It echoes through the decades to the year 2012 when a comet on a collision course threatens to destroy the world.

But there is one last hope: Fish Story.

You May Have Missed: The Battle Of Pussy Willow Creek.

11/4/2013

Or How a New York Indie Filmmaker Refought the Civil War.
By Matthew Howe

FULL DISCLOSURE:

I was the first-unit cinematographer on The Battle of Pussy Willow Creek. Contrary to what some of you might think, that does not make me biased toward the film. I'm very, if not more, critical of the films I work on than I am on other movies. I honestly hate most of the films I've shot and their memory only brings me pain. If you want proof of my merciless self-critique, check out my book: Film is Hell: How I Sold my Soul to make the Crappiest Movies in History.

PWC is different. I knew from the script that this was something unique and exciting. That's why I signed o. After shooting a bunch of movies that were less than artistically fulfilling, I wanted to put my efforts toward making on something I could be proud of.

And proud I am. The Battle of Pussy Willow Creek is one of the most unique films I've ever seen. Not to mention hilarious. I've honestly never seen anything quite like it.

You May Have Missed: Observe And Report

10/7/2013

by Matthew Howe

As I watched Observe and Report, I hated it. I mean really, really hated it. Yet kept watching it. And I'm glad I did, because maybe for the first time in my viewing lifetime a movie not only turned it around in the last five minutes, but actually showed me that everything I had been thinking was wrong about the film was actually right.

I've also never been a big Seth Rogan fan. While I loved him in The 40 Year Old Virgin, I usually find him obnoxious. Especially in lead roles. (There is only so much Rogan one can take, after all.) The exception to this rule is the hit Superbad. I love the first half with all the Jonah Hill/Michael Cera stuff, but the Seth Rogan/Bill Hader/Christopher Mintz-Plasse subplot is almost unendurable.

And I didn't like him in Observe and Report, either. His character, Ronnie, a mall cop with dreams of glory, is arrogant, obnoxious, dangerous, and downright mean. Unpleasant as hell. And yet, as I discovered, that's the whole point.

You May Have Missed: Soderbergh

9/16/2013

by Matthew Howe

There's only one Stephen Soderbergh. The filmmaker who broke out huge in the late 80's with Sex, Lies and Videotapes, fell into near obscurity with Kafka and Underneath, then climbed back to prominence with Erin Brockovich. He even found Hollywood respectability with the Oceans series. Soderbergh has made a lot of movies. And some of his best work hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.

If you want a masters-level course in film adaptation, study Soderbergh's Out of Sight, the 1998 film version of the Elmore Leonard novel of the same name. Scott Frank's adaptation improves on the novel in a hundred different ways. The biggest change is the substitution of Leonard's mostly liner storytelling with a more non-linear, flashback based structure that turns what were predictable or even pedestrian moments in the novel into delightful surprises

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You May Have Missed: Steve Zahn

You May Have Missed: Fish Story

You May Have Missed: The Battle Of Pussy Willow Creek.

You May Have Missed: Observe And Report

You May Have Missed: Soderbergh

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