I'll be honest -- John Cusack makes me feel like a smitten teenage girl. Great roles in some of favorite movies like Eight Men Out (1988), Say Anything (1989), The Grifters (1990), Bullets Over Broadway (1994), Being John Malkovitch (1999), High Fidelity (2000), and lest we forget the wonderful comedy he co-wrote Gross Pointe Blank (1997).I also happen to agree with his politics and so I encourage you to go see his latest effort War, Inc.. Despite minimal advertising, the movie has played now for 7 weeks and is still generating business. Political satire is one of the hardest genres to nail and War, Inc. does it.
And to add some incentive for you, here is a link to John's MySpace page, where just beneath the ad for his new movie, you can catch some home video he took of the "Naked Tour du France... er, England".
UPDATE: Hey, here's John Cusack in a sit-down interview with blog fave and Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody.
Artist on Artist: John Cusack and Diablo Cody
UPDATE #2: Well, it sure seems like Hwood is All Diablo Cody All The Time. Announced today that Cody is writing a comedy based on an idea by someone you might have heard of:
"Script based on original idea by Spielberg"
The article has an interesting historical tidbit:Cody first came to the attention of Spielberg when Mandate Pictures was looking for a domestic distributor for "Juno," well before Jason Reitman was attached as the film's director. Spielberg even considered directing the teen pregnancy comedy at one point.And so Diablo Cody's magical whirlwind ride through Hollywood continues unabated!
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6 comments:
I like Ms. Cody's name, her little red stockings, her tattooed thighs, but I swear if she continues making sophomoric comments -- which she invariably does in every interview -- as she did in this one, like: "People's reaction to art is often more about themselves than about the art," I'm going to finally return my overdue copy of "Juno" to Blockbuster. And I'm going to bring it back to the drop-off desk between the buns of a Big Mac. Riddle this... What's the difference between a Hollywood intellectual and a pseudo intellectual? Answer: A pseudo intellectual deludes only himself; a Hollywood intellectual deludes the rest of us.
Look, part of Diablo's charm is that she has no regulator on the words that come out of her mouth - or on her blog. In fact, it was that plus her good sense of humor that attracted a Hwood manager to her in the first place. Who knows? Perhaps she has the wool pulled over everybody's eyes -- but to have Spielberg giving her his ideas for her to write, I strongly suspect there's a 'there' there.
It's the wool I wonder about, and you're spot on with the Gertrude Stein line referring to Los Angeles, and the issue of any "there there" in Cody's long-term success. Don't get me wrong. I love her. I love her personal story,and I love her publicist, too. Why not? That's HoLAwood. Let's see how Diablo holds up when the bloom is off the "rose is a rose is rose." Give her another film or two. As always, grinning with Gertrude, Jeff
Oh, I've no doubt there are critics out there waiting to pounce on Ms. Cody's next effort, which happens to be a horror-comedy movie she wrote called Jennifer's Body.
Actually, her bigger problem may be magic. "Juno" is a magical piece of work and not legerdemain. Now, if she can do sleight of hand, which we refer to as "craft," then more power to her. Horror is huge. It's heavy metal for film. She may be smart to lower expectations with a horror script, take aim at a wider audience out for thrills and bring in the bucks for her studio, which will give her another chance to make real magic. I have a different beef with her. I simply want her to stop bloviating about art, because it makes her sound like a bore. I'd rather hear her talk about how she got to hang out with John Cusack: before "Juno" or after "Juno."
Your comments remind me of that great Steve Martin quote: “I believe entertainment can aspire to be art, and can become art, but if you set out to make art, you’re an idiot.”
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