I went last night to see Say Anything in a public venue with (i'm gonna say...) 1000 (300?, i'm really bad at estimating) people. I've never been one to choose favorites, but the oeuvre of John Cusack's is something worth celebrating. It doesn't mean that everything he's in or has made is amazing, or even great or even good...
JC said something interesting in the "A Conversation with John Cusack" following the screening. Tiffany Ogle had the unenviable job of trying to provoke JC into conversation, which he didn't seem inclined to join. Ogle was asking some fairly banal questions around favorite memories or behind the scene stories of film making. JC said 2 things that were a bit interesting - that he liked "anything that had worked" and comparing successful film making to a batting average in baseball.
We live in such a quick to sneer culture (a good example was the balcony of the post-Say Anything crowd), and even though film making technologies are less expensive than ever, the risk-taking in film making is at an all-time low. JC's point was, I think (he needed a lot of interpreting, as he didn't seem inclined to elaborate much at all), that many films made in earlier days would not be made in today's environment. The larger point was essentially that bad movies - which is to say movies that fail to do something interesting - should be made and the makers and the actors ought not be blamed for doing something that doesn't pull it off.
The act of art-making ought to be a risky proposition. If you're sure something is going to be a hit, it's probably not that interesting. Putting something out in the world should be scary - are they going to like it, hate it, get it?
And so, herewith I bestow a new label to my blog - the first in quite a long time - #AIROAPG. For the name, I owe a debt to Benjamin Katz. In the comments of this post, will be a retrospective of the complete works of John Cusack. I've seen many of them previously, of course, perhaps almost all of them, but a fresh viewing seems worthwhile.
JC said something interesting in the "A Conversation with John Cusack" following the screening. Tiffany Ogle had the unenviable job of trying to provoke JC into conversation, which he didn't seem inclined to join. Ogle was asking some fairly banal questions around favorite memories or behind the scene stories of film making. JC said 2 things that were a bit interesting - that he liked "anything that had worked" and comparing successful film making to a batting average in baseball.
We live in such a quick to sneer culture (a good example was the balcony of the post-Say Anything crowd), and even though film making technologies are less expensive than ever, the risk-taking in film making is at an all-time low. JC's point was, I think (he needed a lot of interpreting, as he didn't seem inclined to elaborate much at all), that many films made in earlier days would not be made in today's environment. The larger point was essentially that bad movies - which is to say movies that fail to do something interesting - should be made and the makers and the actors ought not be blamed for doing something that doesn't pull it off.
The act of art-making ought to be a risky proposition. If you're sure something is going to be a hit, it's probably not that interesting. Putting something out in the world should be scary - are they going to like it, hate it, get it?
And so, herewith I bestow a new label to my blog - the first in quite a long time - #AIROAPG. For the name, I owe a debt to Benjamin Katz. In the comments of this post, will be a retrospective of the complete works of John Cusack. I've seen many of them previously, of course, perhaps almost all of them, but a fresh viewing seems worthwhile.
