My favorite Elliot anecdote; when he was shooting the final scene in The Big Lebowski, the Coens made him do take after take, and he finally got a little peeved and asked what was going on. Their response; "Aw, man, you got it on take eight. We just love watching you work." I can understand why he'd be pissed after…

Okay, this is why I really like this film; it remains one of the best portrayals of living under a totalitarian regime I've seen despite the fact you don't ever see an authority figure (other than a cop at one of the hotels Marcina goes to, and he comes off as a reasonable figure). Just the details of all the ways…

Along with The Silent Partner (which I agree he was great in) and 12 Monkeys, one movie I would have been curious to hear Plummer talk about is The Amateur; not the Hal Hartley film from the 90's, but a thriller from the early 80's where John Savage plays a CIA analyst who goes to Czechoslovakia to get revenge on the…

I would argue Hurt's performance is key to this movie too (don't get me wrong, I think Hoffman is brilliant here), because the movie is as much about how his character enables Hoffman to continue to gamble (arranging the money, for example) as it is about Hoffman's addiction. Also, since Hoffman gives such an…

I didn't like Full Frontal, but I agree about the others (including Kafka, which I did see and like).

It's not just Out of Sight and The Limey whose influence can be seen here. The way Soderbergh uses color to distinguish between flashbacks and the present (the day of the robbery, Gallagher's past as a gambling addict, and the lead up to the robbery that takes up most of the story) is the same thing he did to…

I like Criss Cross a lot, but this one has the better ending.

I remember when Nine (the Rob Marshall travesty, not the animated film) came out, and my co-worker was bitching about the fact it was a musical remake of 8 1/2, and I piped up, "Especially since there's already been a musical remake." He didn't know All That Jazz was based on Fellini's movie too. Of course, he also…

To me, Spader is Johnny Depp before Depp curdled into self-parody. There's something just off about his persona that makes all of his characters (even the rare times he plays "normal", as in Bad Influence and White Palace) beguilingly strange. He has eccentricities on top of his eccentricities, but when he's on, you…

Onomatopoeia every time I see ya
My senses tell me hubba and I just can't disagree-a

And even when Campbell's character gets hurt later in the movie, there's no melodrama attached to that either.

I'm hardly the biggest Franco fan - he's the main reason why I resisted watching Freaks & Geeks when it first came out on DVD, until a co-worker talked me into it - but I think calling his performance in Altman's film "smirking" is unfair. I think it's actually pretty relaxed, and I didn't see any mugging or "I'm so…

"I could have told you that."

I can see that about The Two Jakes, even though I have to admit there are parts of that movie that do work for me, but this is the first time I've ever heard Tequila Sunrise being described as "noir". To me, it's more like a romantic melodrama crossed with a crime story about the ex-con trying to go straight. There's…

All I'll say is the running gag about "associate producers" pays off.

"But that's absurd!"

Also has some great gags in the closing credits.

And it's also hard to get used to at first in Much Ado About Nothing. Gradually, you do warm up to him, but part of me still wishes he had done his Wesley voice to play Benedick.

True Crime starts off well, but the climax plays straight what The Player so adroitly mocked.

Yes, I would agree with that. Any filmography in the 70's that includes The Man who Would Be King, The Offence (this is the film sexyoldbag is referring to), Robin and Marian, and even slightly lesser-tier films such as the other films he did with Sidney Lumet (The Anderson Tapes, Murder on the Orient Express) is…