Thursday, June 7, 2018

This Monkey's Gone to Eleven (Plus One)

Hey nerds here's me on The Projection Booth podcast talking with Mike White and Tony Black (not the Tony Black usually name-dropped on this blog) about Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys. I had a good time talking to those two and in preparation for the conversation did a lot of movie watching. Here's a quick list of films I used the upcoming podcast as an excuse to watch:
Hey nerds,

In the 'directed by Terry Gilliam' category

Time Bandits

Brazil

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen

The Fisher King

Twelve Monkeys

Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas

Tideland

The Brothers Grimm

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

The Zero Theorem

plus assorted short films

in the 'written by David Webb Peoples' category

Blade Runner

The Blood of Heroes

Fatal Sky (aka Projekt: Alien)

Hero

Unforgiven

Soldier

also

Lost in La Mancha - Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe's 2002 documentary about Gilliam's doomed production of The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (starring Johnny Depp and Jean Rochefort - congrats to Gilliam and company for finally realizing that story starring Adam Driver and Jonathan Pryce)

La Jetée Chris Marker's short film that inspired Twelve Monkeys

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo which influenced Gilliam and Peoples as well as Marker.

and Rian Johnson's Looper another time travel thriller only this time starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Bruce Willis because Twelve Monkeys Bruce is such a different performance than say Hudson Hawk Bruce I thought it'd be illuminating to watch somebody else point out all the mannerisms and tics that make him such a recognizable on screen presence. (Supposedly Gilliam gave Bruno a list of a dozen or so tics and crutches he was not allowed to use in Twelve Monkeys)

Finally, I checked out the first season of 12 Monkeys the TV show, but turned it off after only a couple of episodes because it clearly wasn't going to be anything like the film. I got the impression that it was a time-travel spec script somebody re-titled 12 Monkeys aaaaand I think that's probably exactly what happened. Probably a fine show on its own, but didn't suit my purposes - though I wish I'd seen the latter-season episode with a guest starring Madeleine Stowe.

On the episode Mike has a separate interview with Dahlia Schweitzer, author of Going Viral.

And check out Tony's X-Files podcast The X-Cast for more from him.

Thanks, Mike, for having me again on The Projection Booth - what a great show.

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