Peter Bogdanovich

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Cold Bishop
Joined: Tue May 30, 2006 9:45 pm
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#76 Post by Cold Bishop » Sat Dec 25, 2010 7:48 pm

I actually think it's suppose to be some odd Einstein/Ben Stein concoction meant to ward off copyright claims. But yes, I've noticed the comparison. But no ascot obviously means no Blogdanovich.

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Professor Wagstaff
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#77 Post by Professor Wagstaff » Sat Apr 02, 2011 1:34 pm

I noticed At Long Last Love will be playing a handful of times on Fox Movie Channel during April and May, the first showing being April 7.

JMULL222
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#78 Post by JMULL222 » Sat Apr 02, 2011 1:52 pm

In terms of New Hollywood musical disasters, it's not quite as excellent as "New York New York", but its very far from the truly horrible "One from the Heart". This is worth a watch, if only to see Bogdanovich and Burt Reynolds chase after a Fred Astaire vibe (even if it is rather unsuccessful).

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domino harvey
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#79 Post by domino harvey » Sat Apr 02, 2011 2:18 pm

It'll be worth catching because it will be the first time any of us will have had a chance to see it in the OAR outside of a film festival/theatrical revival

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tavernier
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#80 Post by tavernier » Sat Apr 02, 2011 6:31 pm

It's also being shown on June 18 and 21 during Anthology Film Archives series "Hollywood Musicals of the 1970s & 80s," for anyone near NYC. (They're also showing "Phantom of the Paradise," "NY NY" and "The Wiz," among others.)

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starmanof51
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#81 Post by starmanof51 » Mon Apr 04, 2011 2:16 pm

domino harvey wrote:It'll be worth catching because it will be the first time any of us will have had a chance to see it in the OAR outside of a film festival/theatrical revival
The Fox Movie Channel website identifies it as playing in fullscreen, which may or may not be true. It started streaming on Netflix on 4/1, also fullscreen. It was noticeably problematic during the "Did You Evah?" number.

Giap
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#82 Post by Giap » Sat Jul 16, 2011 11:43 am

Most of the Boganovich films that work best for me are all shot by Laszlo Kovacs: Paper Moon, Targets, What's Up Doc, Nickelodeon and Mask (haven't seen the musical). I like Saint Jack as well, but find it a bit clunkily made in comparison. The funny thing being that Kovacs is also responsible for Bob Rafelson's two great movies (Five Easy Pieces, The King of Marvin Gardens) and two of Dennis Hopper's best (The Last Movie, Easy Rider) and also the only decent Norman Jewison film (FIST) so I wonder if this is all a coincidence (the counter-argument being that he also shot Free Willy 2 and My Best Friend's Wedding). I notice that the imdb biographer credits Polly Platt as the intelligence behind Bogdanovich's early films, but this seems a bit far-fetched.

Giap
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#83 Post by Giap » Fri Aug 12, 2011 10:10 pm

So I notice there's quite a bit of talk around here, especially in the 'list projects' threads about 'alternative methods of distribution', although it's not entirely clear what folks are talking about...

Anyway, would love to see At Long Last Love if anyone has any ideas on that!

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Cold Bishop
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#84 Post by Cold Bishop » Fri Aug 12, 2011 11:02 pm

At Long Last Love (Director's Cut) is on Netflix, and as far as I'm aware, no one has attempted to make a bootleg from it (although I'd certainly would love to have a permanent copy).

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Roger Ryan
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#85 Post by Roger Ryan » Sun Aug 14, 2011 2:20 pm

Cold Bishop wrote:At Long Last Love (Director's Cut) is on Netflix, and as far as I'm aware, no one has attempted to make a bootleg from it (although I'd certainly would love to have a permanent copy).
Unfortunately, everything but the opening credit sequence is cropped to 4:3 on the Netflix version so it is far from ideal.

stroszeck
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#86 Post by stroszeck » Sun Oct 16, 2011 4:01 pm

Just got through watching the 12 part interview on his work titled "By Bogdanovich," which is actually very fascinating except anytime he seems to have a rather juicy story to tell he just sort of says "that's a long story" and skips over it. But anyway, I was wondering if anyone knows the name of the song that is playing over the ending credits... I've heard it before but can't seem to name it.

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thethirdman
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#87 Post by thethirdman » Sun Oct 16, 2011 6:01 pm

It is Colleen Camp singing "One Day Since Yesterday." It was co-written by Bogdanovich and used during the closing credits of the excellent They All Laughed.

stroszeck
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#88 Post by stroszeck » Mon Oct 17, 2011 10:27 am

Thanks a lot! They All Laughed is definitely an underrated masterpiece, as are Saint Jack, Nickelodeon (The B&W version). Didn't know that the #2 boxoffice draw of 1972 was What's Up Doc? (With the first being the Godfather). I don't know, I feel that Bogdanovich's body of work from his writing and theatrical films through his later work on television really needs a critical re-appraisal, kind of in the same vein that Welles received in the 50s....There really is a lot there to be explored.

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knives
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#89 Post by knives » Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:55 pm

The black and white version of Nickelodeon is a turd and revisionism.

stroszeck
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#90 Post by stroszeck » Mon Oct 17, 2011 12:58 pm

From the horse's mouth....its the version he prefers and closest to what he intended.

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knives
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#91 Post by knives » Mon Oct 17, 2011 1:00 pm

Still revisionism. It's like Storaro changing things to 2:1.

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Roger Ryan
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#92 Post by Roger Ryan » Mon Oct 17, 2011 2:10 pm

The "director's cut" of NICKELODEON is only a couple of minutes longer than the theatrical release and most of that time is taken with a pie fight sequence that plays better in the abbreviated version. So, the only substantial change is in turning Laszlo Kovac's lovely muted color photography to black-and-white. Sure, Bogdanovich had considered shooting the film in black-and-white back in '76, but once the decision to shoot in color was reached, every shot was designed using a yellow-green-brown palette that was quite fetching even if the film itself wasn't. The ugly mustard yellow of Burt Reynolds' suit was something that stayed in my memory for decades after seeing the film first-run. The use of color perfectly captured the period, but that sense of place and time is weakened by the straight black-and-white which has none of the loveliness of LAST PICTURE SHOW or PAPER MOON.

I think Bogdanovich's decision to include his altered "director's cut" on the DVD release was based more on garnering some publicity for a film that does not have a high profile in his canon than in restoring a lost vision.

stroszeck
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#93 Post by stroszeck » Mon Oct 17, 2011 2:13 pm

The only time I saw the color version was on a subpar faded VHS. You guys sold me...now I have to track down a color copy. I do however remember that putrid ensemble Mr. Reynolds wore...

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domino harvey
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#94 Post by domino harvey » Mon Oct 17, 2011 3:09 pm

The color and black and white versions are on the same disc. And yes, the original colored version is superior

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domino harvey
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#95 Post by domino harvey » Sun Feb 19, 2012 1:44 am

Turns out the (superior) longer cut of At Long Last Love has an interesting origin, to say the least, and it looks like Fox is prepping it for a real release!
Before the screening, Bogdanovich came out to tell the story of which cut we were about to see, and I'll paraphrase because it's a very strange and sort of wonderful accident. A few years back, someone sent him an e-mail with some YouTube link, asking him about the footage in the clips. He went to look at it, and it was all material from "At Long Last Love," and much of it was stuff that wasn't in the release cut of the film. Bogdanovich was surprised to say the least, and he asked the guy who posted the footage where it came from. It was something the guy had taped off of Starz channel, a cut that had been running on pay TV at different times for over a decade by that point. Bogdanovich made this film at the height of his clout, and he had contractual final cut, but even so, the decisions made around that theatrical cut were motivated by some disastrous test screenings that may not have been particularly fair in the first place. It was a compromised cut, a movie cut in a panic, and after its failure at the box-office, the last thing anyone wanted to do was spend more money on recutting it. So then where could an alternate pay cable cut have come from, and why did it so closely resemble that first version that Bogdanovich test-screened? He spent a few years trying to track down how it happened, and finally pieced together a story involving a longtime employee of the Fox Archives who had been working at the studio in the '70s when they were making the film. He was a big fan of Cole Porter, so as the dailies were coming in, he was watching them and thought the movie looked great. The final cut in the theater didn't really look like that film, though, and he was so disappointed that he basically assembled his own cut based on the test screening version that he had access to at some point. Since he worked in the Archives, it was easy enough to just put that in rotation as the "official" version.

Bogdanovich revealed that the version he's talking about is the same one that's on Netflix Instant right now, the one that Fox Movie Channel has been playing recently. The film's never had an official VHS or laserdisc or DVD release, so they never had a reason to send it to Bogdanovich to sign off on, which is why it's been out there for so long without him realizing it. He asked Fox to let him do a little bit more work, totally only a few additional minutes, and then finally give it a real home video release sometime soon, and it appears that's actually happening. The cut he showed us on Thursday night was the one that will get that final release.

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knives
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich aka Captain Ascot

#96 Post by knives » Sun Feb 19, 2012 2:27 am

Now that's as beautiful a story as we'll ever get. Love that news.


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Highway 61
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich

#98 Post by Highway 61 » Mon Jun 13, 2016 1:25 pm

He's on the newest episode of Gilbert Gottfried's podcast. He seems pretty sullen, but still a good listen. I had no idea who he originally preferred (and still would have preferred) for the Timothy Bottoms part in Last Picture Show.


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mfunk9786
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Re: Peter Bogdanovich

#99 Post by mfunk9786 » Mon Aug 15, 2016 4:48 pm

Bogdanovich is on the Bret Easton Ellis podcast today, and it's a surprisingly strong interview - very little of Ellis' usual "what's the deal with Social Justice Warriors" prattle, and some interesting questions that bring out answers and anecdotes that are different from those that would come out of a typical "let's go through your career film by film" podcast interview. I would highly recommend this.

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Re: Peter Bogdanovich

#100 Post by flyonthewall2983 » Tue Aug 16, 2016 4:07 pm

I can't stand Ellis otherwise but he is surprisingly good as an interviewer.

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