Mini Reviews

This past weekend I watched "Casablanca" at long last. I know, I know. I pretend to love movies and yet I own a copy of "The Divorce" but have never seen "Casablanca." It's embarrassing. But I have now fixed at least this one little thing. I liked it...of course I liked it. You're almost required to if you plan to go on living. So I won't bother to give you my review, only my favorite line.

Perhaps I just liked it because it wasn't one of the famous ones from the movie, but something about it made me laugh. I think it was the flippancy of it. Anyway, it's near the beginning when Renault says to Rick he has often speculated on why he doesn't return to America and there is a list of potential reasons he rattles off and then he says: "I like to think you killed a man. It's the romantic in me."

Funny.

I also, after much time, finished reading "Down and Dirty Pictures", which is about the rise and Hollywood-ization of the modern independent film industry, focusing primarily on Miramax and Sundance. It was as thorough as it could be, I suppose. At times it was a little text booky and hard to get through. Something the author went off on tangents within a story that made no sense. Other topics seem to go nowhere. And it was definitely a chapter too long. Though it also needs to be updated since Miramax isn't really Miramax any more. Their contract with Disney was up in 2005 and I'd like to know how that played out because Bob and Harvey now run the Weinstein Companies. [In case you're really interested this is what Wikipedia says, though that is only so trustworthy: The Weinstein Company is an independent American film studio founded by Harvey and Bob Weinstein in 2005 after the pair left the Disney-owned Miramax Films, which they had co-founded in 1979. The Dimension Films label of Miramax followed the brothers to their new company.]

Also there was a part near the end that I lived through and I don't remember Harvey being so involved in the battle for "Confederacy of Dunces" with Paramount, or involved at all. So then that made me question the accuracy of the rest of the book that I just read, which was really disappointing since I'd spend months trying to get through that thing. So in the end I'd say, if you really LOVE film, read it. If not, pass.

Next up: on DVD "The Candidate" (another classic I haven't seen) and on the written page "The Polysyllabic Spree" (which will then be on its way to you, Melinda).