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Not only do I support artists doing these projects, in many cases they can either elevate the game of a genre picture ( I am looking forward to the new Egoyan) or use the experience to hone their craft.

Spike Lee's "pool picture" with Denzel, Jody and Clive was one of the best of his career. What about John Sayles; a true artist but also someone who hones his craft writing scripts for genre pics.

Not only do I have no problem with the concept of the "pool picture" I have absolute respect for the Clooney "One for them one for me approach".

If only Canada was such...

I like Kaufman a lot, but the only two of his movies I've ever rewatched and/or bought on DVD are, you guessed it...

Twisted and Rising Sun.

The sun wasn't the only thing RISING in the latter. BOOYAH!

TATJANA PATITZ with her legs up on that dude on the desk in her black heels = EPIC BONER 4TW.

Joking aside, this is all a very interesting discussion, but I wish EVERYBODY would stop saying "pool movies." It gives credence to some embarrassing nonexistent slang, kinda like all the cutesy Rosenburg dialogue in THINGS TO DO IN DENVER that NO ONE ever used before or since.

In other words, I am calling BUCKWHEATS on POOL MOVIES.

Signed, Mr. Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

"KOOOOJAI!!!!!!!!!!!"

(GONG RESOUNDS, FREEZE FRAME ON SNIPES WINKING!)

RISING SUN = PERFECTION.

"SEMPEI, APPLE PIE, WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS."

I want to get my fade done like Wesley.

I read Rising Sun in university as I was waiting for a phone interview for grad film school. I was afraid to leave the room for missing the call and could not put the book down.

The movie disappointed me greatly and is a genuine example of why colour blind casting does not always work.

In the book, when the lead character is accused of racism, it has a real weight. Crichton was commenting on the hard PC that was evolving at the time and was about to strangle the culture. It created a real tension in the book.

When Snipes was accused of racism in the movie all you could do was roll your eyes and say..."as if". All credibility went out the window.

This is a film that could and should be remade to be done right.

Wait, I thought people that aren't white could be racist too? Or is all this stuff I've been watching on C-SPAN this week just disingenuous bullshit?

David, here's another interesting question to think about. Why doesn't the JOURNALIST have that right? AnneT mentioned recently that she was invited to be part of a program that paid writers to offer their opinions on indie movies seeking distribution. She said it was a no-can-do, which is obviously the 'right' answer, especially from an ethical journalist. BUT, would a journalist/blogger (two very different things but still) be selling out if they accepted an invitation. After all, your opinion is not what's being paid for. It's the opportunity to share that informed opinion in the first place. There's no difference in the actual content, only who is paying for it, the program or the publication. I'd just be interested in your thoughts on this, especially during such a trying time for folks who write about film.

And as for swimming pool movies, there's really only one that I've seen this year, but maybe that's because of my definition of a swimming pool movie, which is: When a director knows he's better than the movie but knows even he can't save it, but then takes the job anyway because it's going to be a hit, whether it's because of the star or the source material. One movie has a confluence of both those factors -- Angels and Demons. I'm a big Ron Howard fan. Guy takes a lot of shit from various sites for being bland or whatever but I LOVE a lot of his movies. Parenthood, Backdraft, Apollo 13, Ransom, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, all great movies. Even most of his failures are ambitious (The Missing) or ahead of their time (EdTV). But The DaVinci Code was a bad movie. Worse, it took Dan Brown's page-turner of a book and made it boring. Tom Hanks was completely wrong for the role but hey, you don't say no to Tom Hanks and what he can do for the film's worldwide box office. But after the failure of that film (sure it made a ton of cash, but it failed to please audiences or critics), there was absolutely no reason for him to come back and do it again, other than some sort of obligation to the series, like he might as well finish what he started. Angels and Demons is far from the worst movie I've seen this year (or even the worst movie I saw that opened on May 15) but it suffered from the same flaws DaVinci did. Hanks was wrong. The girl was wrong. No chemistry from the leads. Clunky action (a lot of running) The bad guy was telegraphed. (I read the book, which is superior to the DaVinci Code in every way but still, it was pretty easy). Now I know Ron Howard doesn't need the money or any more swimming pools, so I'm not sure why he did it, besides the fact that it was a can't-miss opportunity. He just had to show up and shoot that shit and it'd be a hit. But we all know, at least I know, and I'm sure Ron knows, that he is so much better than a mediocre sequel. He's a great filmmaker IMHO, not the studio slave he's made out to be in the press, and he's capable of more. He should be spending his time telling original stories, not churning out uninspired popcorn for the masses. He got a lot of shit for The Grinch but if he's ever done a real swimming pool movie, Angels and Demons was it. No need. Could've been anyone. Loved Frost/Nixon. More of those please. How could another Langdon story excite him again? Hopefully he'll stay away from the inevitable third film. Take a producer credit, make some bucks and focus his real talents on a story that's worth his time and skill.

geez, maybe ron howard did 'angels & demons' precisely BECAUSE 'da vinci' was such a fizzer and he wanted to redeem himself. nobody knows nothing about why anybody really does anything, unless you're inside their head or they say it themselves. people are weird, particularly creative people

I think the most important point, which Insneider gets at, is that it's irritating to see a filmmaker slumming and taking a project that's beneath them and basically not bringing their A game. That's what both Dan Brown books felt like to me, Ron Howard being lazy and being powerful and influential enough to get a project that would be a sure-fire hit even though he had no particular interest in the material (the way he obviously did with Apollo 13 or Backdraft or The Missing) and so on.

In other words, it's insulting to the audience to see a filmmaker phoning it in and not living up to their full potential on every movie.

Francois Ozon. Best Swimming Pool movie ever.

I still don't know if we've established a working definition for "swimming pool movie," but I have to say that I was intrigued, amused and entertained by the results when two indisputable auteurs -- Robert Altman and Francis Coppola -- tried their hands at making movies inspired by John Grisham material: The Gingerbread Man and The Rainmaker. Both films actually are much better than some more "respectable" efforts by those great directors.

Who determines what is a swimming pool movie? I hate to comment at all on Land/Lost since I didn’t see it but as an aside to it I would say it’s within reason to believe that Silberling would want to direct it on its own merit because it might’ve been a favorite or impactful show during his formative years. Maybe it would help if he came to them and not vice versa. Maybe he wants to work w/Ferrell? Just because something is fun and simple doesn’t mean it’s stupid. But, anybody signing on to do a big budget film based on a kids’ TV show that’s been out of production for 30 years has to understand what the whispers would be. The best way to combat the criticism would be to make a quality genre-defining movie.

I don’t know if they accused Soderbergh of making a pool movie w/Ocean’s 11 or not but after Ocean’s 12, nobody’s sitting around thinking, “Gosh, there’s sooo many unanswered questions and an overwhelming sense of abandonment left by the lack of resolution of the first two movies that I pray they get around to making a third installment to bring solace to my existence.”

Special editing, camera tricks or lighting may help make a blasé movie bearable but it’s a flimsy excuse to justify making a film other than money, especially when less than 5% will even notice, much less care what kind of esthetic journey the director may be taking. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t mad at him, or anybody on that film but I know a lot of people were disappointed by how underwhelming the 3rd was or felt much more could’ve been gotten out of the cast and story. I’m not going to doubt that Soderbergh genuinely liked working w/the cast and crew but friendship is priceless. If they hadn’t made Ocean’s 13, do you think he would’ve invited the entire cast and crew over all summer for bbq and volleyball?

By comparison, no one’s gonna say that Christopher Nolan’s 3rd Batman installment is pool movie. Why is that? I mean I was one of the people who rolled his eyes when I found out they were making a 3rd Spiderman, despite thinking Spidey II was worthy of an Oscar nom. I don’t doubt that there could be more to tell or that a good movie could come about but the terms “contractual obligation” or “money grab” would be, at this point, the only real reasons I can see for doing number 4.

Maybe it’s unfair to assume to know people’s motivations. Maybe we the viewing public have an unreasonable hero’s worship in projecting what our stars should be/do/or produce. Spike Jonez gets Where the Wild Things Are and I think most people are curious and excited to see what he’d do with it, not pool movie. A lotta people liked Liz Phair and wish she got more props than the Britneys of the world, yet as soon “Why Can’t I” hit the airwaves, many were like, ‘WTF?’ Hammer gets on lunchboxes and has his own cartoon and that was it for him. Fiddy’s selling colored water and that just makes him supreme baller.

It’ll prolly always be a case of perception being reality. You hear women all the time mention artistic, tastefully done and female empowerment when talking about posing nude for Playboy. But who’s not thinking either a) you’re ass is broke or b) she wanted a quick way to jumpstart your career? Go pose for nude sculptors down at LACMA if it’s about the female form. Until then we’re all gonna believe it’s all about the chlorine.

Big surprise that Nicol claims Inside Man is one of Spike's best films. I guess he likes his uppity blacks doing genre fluff nstead of tackling controversial subjects. It was a fun movie, but in the same league as Do The Right Thing, Malcolm X, or even 25th Hour? No way.

I seriously believe that, decades from now, 25th Hour will be one of those "Geez, why didn't they appreciate it in its own time?" movies.

This life came so close to never happening...

"I think the most important point, which Insneider gets at, is that it's irritating to see a filmmaker slumming and taking a project that's beneath them and basically not bringing their A game. That's what both Dan Brown books felt like to me, Ron Howard being lazy and being powerful and influential enough to get a project that would be a sure-fire hit even though he had no particular interest in the material (the way he obviously did with Apollo 13 or Backdraft or The Missing) and so on.

In other words, it's insulting to the audience to see a filmmaker phoning it in and not living up to their full potential on every movie."

but jeff, to use ron howard as an example re: the stupidly-named 'pool movie' theory, i guess unless you were on set to experience it first hand and get a feel for howard's demeanor on the shoot (and even then directors can be right miserable gits on set or seemingly lackadaisical or whathaveyou and still be driven and committed to the material behind the scenes), isn't it a big assumption to say ron howard was phoning it in or slumming it or had no real interest in the 'a & d' material, that it was beneath him, or he did it for the $?

the assumption that because a good director makes a movie or movies that are flat/mediocre, it must mean the director wasn't invested in the material or just didn't give a shit is to ignore the fact that sometimes movies just fall flat in spite of best intentions/efforts and no matter how much talent is involved, serendipity is a bitch. a director may have a grand vision for their film but they just can't pull it off for whatever reason. it doesn't mean they don't care or didn't try their damnedest.

howard might be dan brown's #1 fan for all you and i or anybody knows and was pleased at punch to have a go at the material, then perhaps disappointed with his first effort he was happy to have another crack at it. and maybe it didn't live up to expectations (for you or even the majority) but that doesn't mean howard wasn't into it. i happen to believe directors worth their salt WANT to make good movies, it's in their nature, but film is fickle and sometimes it just doesn't work out.

perhaps howard simply doesn't have an affinity for that particular type of material/style of film-making (like fincher with 'button' for me), he may well have tried hard to do dan brown whatever justice he deserves (i don't find his books particularly great), but simply failed to whatever degree. all talented artists fail, the history of cinema is littered with the gravestones of good intentions gone awry, misfires and failed experiments by even the greats.

and just because a good director tackles what may be deemed a 'fluff' project doesn't mean they are doing it for the cash, they might be genuinely keen with a fire in the belly to tell that particular story the best they can, to try their hand at a different genre, to spread their wings and test their skilz, etc., we don't know.

(i'm sure directors do do projects mainly for the money, but assuming we know which ones they are is guessing at best)

"The irony is that portions of his vision – high end production design, cinematography, and effects work - may have been what made the movie harder to sell and, for some people, harder to enjoy."

Or the fact it wasn't funny and kinda offensive to a family audience?

Lazarus, considering the number of movies Spike Lee has made I think being the fourth best is quite an achievement.

Joe, I think we have covered the path of Coppola before. The Rainmaker isn't so much a "swimming pool movie" as merely, ala Kaufman, a "i need to pay my bills" sort of movie. And, yes, The Rainmaker is better than quite a few of his more "respectable" movies, true.

How about changing the name from "Swimming Pool Movie" to "Holiday in the South of France Movie" and with that Ridley Scott's A Good Year would certainly make the shortlist.

Natasha Vargas-Cooper is actually a wonderful and insightful writer. The Swimming Pool Movie article was, uncharacteristically for her, lazily written. Still, her thesis, if not her examples, was spot on. The SPM is a very real animal, though, as Poland astutely noted, sometimes the films in question represent more a misguided attempt to establish or re-establish commercial credibility than mere acts of greed. Nevertheless, I remember attending a party where I heard two old-school legendary agents casually explain away the declining career trajectory of a once A+ list director with "it all went downhill when he bought that fucking house North of Sunset and suddenly had to cover that huge fucking mortgage!"

Ironically, most SPMs prove to be commercial failures and wind up NOT helping the careers of the directors in question, perhaps because their cynically-motivated origins doom them to failure. Anyway, a few more SPMs to add to the debate (interestingly, note how many of these come from the Eisner/Katzenberg-era at Touchstone -- "Dead Poet's Society" notwithstanding, many auteurs seemed to have crashed and burned trying to navigate those treacherous micro-managed TV sensibility waters):

At #1 on the list, the all-time classic SPM:

JACK, Francis Coppola

The rest:

FINDING FORRESTER, Gus Van Sant
SOMEONE TO WATCH OVER ME/WHITE SQUALL, Ridley Scott
THE COLOR OF MONEY/CAPE FEAR/SHUTTER ISLAND, Martin Scorsese
COLD COMFORT FARM, Mike Figgis
MISSION TO MARS, Brian DePalma
A STRANGER AMONG US/GUILTY AS SIN, Sidney Lumet
DREAMCATCHER, Lawrence Kasdan
SPHERE, Barry Levinson
THE BRAVE ONE/WE'RE NO ANGELS, Neil Jordan
THE GUARDIAN, William Friedkin

Thoughts?

British actors seem to be more forthcoming about their pool movies. Michael Caine has talked about movies he knew would be lame but did them to buy new houses, and Anthony Hopkins straight up admits to doing movies he hadn't read the script to. English actors seem to be a little more into the blue collar work ethic of acting...sometimes for them, it's just a job.

Other Spike Lee movies I liked better than Inside Man (not counting his docs or tv work): Summer of Sam, Clockers, Bamboozled, Jungle Fever.

Also, the racism angle was the least of what made Rising Sun a totally boring, forgettable movie.

I dunno DC, I think for some of those examples, you're still missing it, which maybe is why you think NVC is such a wonderful and insightful writer (which she may be -- I haven't read anything else of hers -- but it's hard for me to picture anyone of much talent/insight writing an article as stupid and willfully ignorant as that one).

Dreamcatcher strikes me as something where Kasdan must have been somewhat invested in that material. It's difficult to make a movie so insanely misguided if you don't have some sort of conviction. The material with the old friends coming together again, I dunno, it seemed like something Kasdan would dig.

Mission to Mars... I dunno, is that so removed from De Palma's other commercial movies that it really sticks out? I guess a case could be made. Incidentally, about 45 minutes of that movie are fucking awesome. I've long accepted that most De Palma movies will have some awesome scenes or sections and that the rest won't really work, so in a weird way Mission to Mars was the beginning of me saying, screw it, he doesn't usually make movies that are great all the way through, I'm on board anyway.

Sphere, yes, maybe... although by that point, I think Levison was more in career-rehab mode than I-need-a-new-pool mode. Is that the same thing? Doing a big commercial movie because otherwise you might not be able to get funding for personal movies for the forseeable future? No doubt Sphere is impersonal and awful, but it strikes me less as cash-in than bail-out.

Also, dismissing Shutter Island sight unseen... nice. Well done. Reach for those Gawker stars!

Jesse: You make some good points, particularly about MISSION TO MARS. As for the SHUTTER ISLAND jab, admittedly that was rather bitchy and immature of me, but Jesus that movie looks like it's going to be awful! I hope I'm wrong, but it has all the signs of a classic whore-job.

"I guess he likes his uppity blacks doing genre fluff nstead of tackling controversial subjects."

Great, so now Laz wants to devolve the meaning of racism to complementing Spike Lee on a job well done on a film that was his biggest hit.

Great. Wonderful. Thanks for comin' out, Laz.

I'll flip it right back on you. I guess you like your black directors poor and making films that nobody likes to see so they can always be perveived as disenfranchised and outside the mainstream and striving to get budgets. The fact that you clearly imply Spike Lee should know his proverbial place and only make films about racial tensions says much. Would you say the same to Oliver Stone when he left politics behind to make The Doors or Any Given Sunday?

Wonderful view you have. Do you consider Tyler Perry a sell out or swimming pool director because he dares - DARES! - to make films a lot of people like?

1. John Schlesinger, not Mike Figgis, directed Cold Comfort Farm.

2. Cold Comfort Farm hardly qualifies as a SPM.

http://www.houstonpress.com/1996-06-06/film/deft-and-daft/

I think the title we're looking for on the Figgis one is Cold Creek Manor.

I don't think Mission to Mars counts as a SPM, either, because it's just too idiosyncratic and goofy. If we need to give DePalma a SPM, I'd vote for Mission: Impossible because it's the most impersonal thing he's probably ever done (even though I like his more than Woo's or Abrams's).

Nicol, Tyler Perry obviously doesn't fit this category. And Inside Man has more to do with racial tensions in NYC than 25th Hour does.

Leah, obviously I don't know what was in Ron Howard's head when he was making those movies. I guess I want to credit him with the intelligence to know that both Da Vinci Code and A&D were terribly stupid projects and he was holding his nose to do them, rather than believing that he was legitimately stupid enough himself to think that they were going to turn out to be good cinema and that he was challenging himself in some way.

Jeff,

Whaaaaaa...

"Nicol, Tyler Perry obviously doesn't fit this category. And Inside Man has more to do with racial tensions in NYC than 25th Hour does."

That was my point, Jeff. Did you even read Laz' comments against me? It was he that was suggesting that Inside Man is fluff. My point was that Tyler Perry does not fit in this category.

Maybe if you quit trying to go against me (and many others) as an autopilot knee jerk reaction all of the time you might find we agree more often than not.

Nicol, I've been saying that we agree more often than not since the very early years here. It's not the substantive issues that we generally differ on. To be blunt, I just plain don't like you.

Moving on from that point, I agree with you that Inside Man isn't substance free-fluff, but I agree with Lazarus that it's not in the same league as Do the Right Thing or 25th Hour.

dietcock wrote: The SPM is a very real animal, though, as Poland astutely noted, sometimes the films in question represent more a misguided attempt to establish or re-establish commercial credibility than mere acts of greed.”

I guess my question would be is there a difference? There are prolly the projects that you look at reputable people doing and think, “geeze, how many yachts can you water ski behind at one time anyway?” but could the mere notion of “commercial credibility” be an (not sure of best word) admission of pool concerns? I’m seriously asking.

A few years back, some guy who wrote for some show on Nickelodeon was mentioning how under paid he was. Not whining, mind you and he even admitted that he was underpaid like a player on the Montreal Expos comparatively underpaid to someone playing in NY or SF, not underpaid to the rest of society. When someone goes for a project to boost commercial visibility wouldn’t that be a form of greed? Assuming that work would otherwise be available.

Like I’ll admit there seems to be some contradiction. Talent working in relative obscurity want that breakout opportunity. Like dude working on the Nick show gets a shot on a half hour primetime sitcom. More money, bigger audience, for doing the same thing, writing. But let’s say some consistently working director or actor with a face people have seen before but don’t know their name maybe would recognize it if they heard it, wants the bigger payday to insure future big paydays, could there be some inkling to want to call that a pool movie?

Some people it seems like even if they aren’t getting what they used to could still continue to work even if slightly above scale wages. Should anybody boo hoo because they can’t keep their mansion out in Malibu but have to downsize to a home in Hermosa Beach? What, if anything, is the distinction?

Leydon: How very right you are. "Cold Comfort Farm" is a wonderful film. I did, indeed, mean "Cold Creek Manor." My bad. I stand humbly corrected.

Dietcock: A friend and I have long used a bit of Ian McKellan's hilarious "sermon" (hilarious, that is, only because of McKellan's glorious performance) as an inside-joke greeting for years: "There'll be NO BUTTER IN HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

This is, I admit, only tangentially connected to the thread but… One of my students noted a slight similarity in the production design of “Double Indemnity” and Vertigo,” so she did some research and found that the same Paramount-employed art director, Hal Pereira, had a hand in both films. But what I found really interesting is that, as a Paramount employee, he worked on such a wide range of films – sometimes, as many as eight a year. And that, in the course of a single year, the movies might run the gamut from Space Children….. to Vertigo.

http://www.filmreference.com/Writers-and-Production-Artists-Ni-Po/Pereira-Hal.html

Joe: I seem to recall Hal Pereira playing a cameo role as himself in THE OSCAR. Not sure why I remember this.

'Thoughts?'

wow, yeah, my thought is, 'this is kinda bogus!' and rather pompous and pretentious to boot (sorry but that's how i feel, no offence intended to any particular individual)

you (the general you i'm talking here) as FILM VIEWERS are taking a theory and working BACKWARDS to prove its existence. it doesn't work that way!

this entire 'swimming pool movie' notion is based on the horribly flawed assumption: that based on VIEWING a finished film you can tell anything about WHY IT WAS MADE, and then from the perceived stage and viability of the director's career and whether or not YOU the viewer deem the film to be worthy or beneath that director, you can somehow extrapolate whether or not the director was really 'into it' or just 'slumming for cash'. this is an impossible judgement to make, and presumptuous as hell.

some directors likely do flicks mostly for the $ from time to time, but you think just because a film is 'commercial' and perhaps YOU don't like the end results, it MUST have been for the dosh?

newsflash: a director doesn't know ahead of time that he/she is going to make a poor film, whether blockbuster or art-house fare. a director doesn't have the luxury of having the finished film to watch like you do to judge its relative merits before production.

all the director has is a skeleton (screenplay) to flesh out and breathe life into, assisted by what is hopefully a good cast and crew of artists/technicians on whom to rely to tell the story to the best of their collective ability.

the creative/technical process then involves so many people and so much time, hard work, cost, imagination, ingenuity, attention to detail, collaboration, chemistry, experience and expertise, so many elements have to come together to make a good movie. sometimes the magic happens and it all works, sometimes it doesn't (and whether it does or not is a subjective call anyway). one thing is certain: it's a collective failure, or a collective success.

but in whatever genre - 'fluff' or otherwise - the perceived failure of a film does NOT necessarily mean the director's heart wasn't in it, that is a baseless assumption by people who perhaps don't understand just how difficult it is and the effort that goes into actually trying to make a film - and everyone is trying to make a good film.

to watch a movie and deem it 'unworthy' of a director, then proclaim it must have been made merely to line the director's pockets is spurious and arrogant - and actually quite insulting to all the people who poured their time and talents into making the film, even if it wasn't a creative success.

go ahead and proclaim a movie mediocre or too commercial or a misfire, blame the director for what is up on the screen, that's fair enough; but don't for a moment assume you know what the director's MOTIVATION was for making that movie or how it all panned out (many terrific directors try their hands at diverse kinds of film-making for a myriad of different reasons - including financial - and sometimes it comes off, sometimes it doesn't. assuming it's for a swimming pool/paycheck is just presumptuous and flip...and to put it bluntly, you don't know shit)

"Dreamcatcher strikes me as something where Kasdan must have been somewhat invested in that material..."

by simply viewing 'dreamcatcher' in no way can anybody actually say kasdan was or wasn't properly 'invested' in the movie. the only conclusion you can draw is that the movie was a dire mess and kasdan missed the mark. does that mean he wasn't trying? doing it for $? no way. while he probably didn't manage to bring his vision to life to his satisfaction, only he and those who made the film with him know the reasons why the movie is a fuckarow)

saturday tirade, over and out

leahnz: Point well taken. That said, I challenge you (or anybody, for that matter) to attempt to defend Coppola's "Jack." Give it your best shot.

Thanks to the money he made for making Jack, Coppola was able to produce some killer Cabernet Savignon that year.

Leah, since it is, ultimately, impossible for us to ever know a filmmaker's 'intention' how about we just agree that we all hate it when a filmmaker does a movie that's obviously a huge lame waste of time?

To go back to Tarantino's original quote, what he said he disliked were movies that were made impersonally, with no sense of true passion or creativity. Being a filmmaker is a great privilege that too many treat as just another very high-paying job.

"Leah, since it is, ultimately, impossible for us to ever know a filmmaker's 'intention' how about we just agree that we all hate it when a filmmaker does a movie that's obviously a huge lame waste of time?"

"That said, I challenge you (or anybody, for that matter) to attempt to defend Coppola's "Jack." Give it your best shot."

well, these statements sort of illustrate my point, in that perhaps the 'film critic' mentality - judging the finished film - is to blame for this 'pool movie' construct (tho jeff i always assumed you were involved in the making side as a tech of some sort?), flawed by virtue of judging the end product instead of the process from the beginning.

dietcock (i feel giggly like a schoolgirl every time i read your moniker), by definition 'defending' JACK means starting at the end by judging the finished project and then making assumptions, which is precisely the flaw with the 'PM' theory. it works backwards.

by assuming that because JACK was a commercial film and perhaps seen as an embarrassing failure, coppola must have done it for the $, not having truly cared about making a great film, is nonsensical. because coppola did not KNOW how 'jack' would turn out until the final edit, and he may actually love the movie he made even if others do not.

(my conjecture:) perhaps coppola read the screenplay, found it charming and touching, thought it would be a challenge to tackle a commercial 'dramedy' (and maybe make a bit of dosh). so he assembled his troops and what he thought was a good cast at that time and set about telling what he likely deemed a sweet story with a message about humanity.

did it turn out a bit shit? well, that's for each viewer to judge for themselves. but coppola is the real deal and he no doubt has a healthy dose of 'director's ego', so i'd be willing to bet he had a real go at making a good movie, regardless if it worked or not. perhaps he failed, but that doesn't not mean he didn't try, or he didn't connect with the material, or that it was beneath him, or he did it for the $ (there is no way to know this unless he tells us so, and assuming otherwise is terribly presumptuous). it simply means he didn't pull it off for whatever reason.

if the movie had turned out to be a stunning winner, would he still be accused of having 'slummed it' for cash? doubtful

Sure, Leah, but the point I'm trying to make is that the movie isn't a stunning winner. It's a very conventional, fairly dull piece of work. And in the absence of the kind of bizarre lower-budget experimentation that you might find in, say, a Rumble Fish or a Youth Without Youth, or hell, even the kind of half-baked grandeur of a Godfather III, a movie like Jack doesn't really justify its own existence, artistically.

So maybe Coppola had a great time making the movie and learned a lot about something or enjoyed collaborating with Robin Williams, but none of that is on the screen. And while the 'pool movie' construct can be said to be based in postulating about what the filmmakers' intentions were, ultimately it all comes down to the finished product.

Let me put it another way: two Tony Scott movies that I disliked, Spy Game and Domino. I hated Domino, but watching it I could at least tell that Tony Scott was expressing himself and pushing his visual style and doing things that made him excited. Watching Spy Game, I just fell asleep. So both are worthless movies, but Domino redeems itself (somewhat) by at least being a genuine artistic attempt at something instead of a by-the-numbers bit of studio blandness.

Re: dietcock’s list:

1. THE COLOR OF MONEY/CAPE FEAR/SHUTTER ISLAND, Martin Scorsese

Has no one spotted the irony of calling Scorsese’s CAPE FEAR a supposed SPM when the film itself features Robert De Niro purposely hamming it up while mock laughing at scenes from a Dennis Dugan film?

2. A STRANGER AMONG US/GUILTY AS SIN, Sidney Lumet

You’re saying Lumet did these for the money? As prolific a workhorse as he is, hard to believe. Aside from that, GUILTY AS SIN is my favorite of his films.

ok, jeff, good example. so by that rationale, tony scott's 'pool movie' was 'spy game', right?

but the fact is, you don't know that. you're merely assuming by the finished product, which you deem a snoozefest, that because 'spy game' is a big, pedestrian studio movie that scott cruised it without much enthusiasm and didn't really care if he made a flat, boring movie, coasting along without pushing himself or the envelope for the paycheck.

but in fact, he may well have read the 'spy game' script and flipped his lid for it, relished the chance to work on a big-budget studio spy story with redford and pitt, and gone in all ADHD guns blazing to tell a great bloody tale. but sometimes the chemistry just isn't there, either with the cast or with the crew or both (for instance the director finds himself at odds with the DoP/producer/editor/whathaveyou) and things just don't gel. it's a delicate juggling act and sometimes it doesn't come off despite best intentions. there's no predicting chemistry, no way to know until filming begins, and then it's pretty much too late (unless things are dire enough to get people sacked).

so i'd argue the flat nature of 'spy game' in and of itself doesn't necessarily mean it's a scott 'pool movie' for which he had no passion, it might just mean his passion and enthusiasm didn't translated to the screen, and that is not uncommon when a director can't find his/her stride on a project. just WANTING to make a good movie isn't always enough, there are too many contributing factors.

there's a difference between striving and having your movie fall flat, which happens to the best of them, and not striving at all. and the kicker is, it's bloody hard to tell the difference when watching the finished film. and this is my point: you don't know whether scott just didn't give a shit - which i find unlikely somehow - or he gave all manner of shit and just couldn't pull 'spy game' off, because at the end of the day they often look exactly the same.

"Thanks to the money he made for making Jack, Coppola was able to produce some killer Cabernet Savignon that year."

That just makes "Jack" a vineyard movie.

SPY GAME FUCKING RULES.

And it's not even one of my favorite Scott movies, but have some respect and recognize it as a legitimate attempt to replicate the cold, espionage-heavy vibe of '70s Pollack, Pakula and Frankenheimer. In some ways, it's one of SIR TONY's more mature or "adult" movies, as it's a fairly conventional old school, Cold War-style "smart thriller."

I'd agree it isn't Scott going for broke and investing it with every ounce of personal mania he can summon (which is what Domino, Man on Fire, The Hunger, most of Revenge and The Fan are), but if it's a "pool movie" (again, STUPID concept), then guess what? So is Parallax View or Black Sunday or Three Days of the Condor, no?

Again, not so much picking a fight with Jeff or especially feeling the need to defend THE BETTER SCOTT, as it's a lost cause around most parts...

but mostly just pointing out this whole argument boils down to judgment calls and is mostly bullshit.

Fuck, I hate the music in "Nashville" but in its day it was a big hit, so, guess what? THAT'S ALTMAN'S POOL MOVIE, SUCKERS! VIVA VINCENT AND THEO!

See? RIDICULOUS.

That said, RUMBLE FISH is a MASTERPIECE.

I know a bunch of filmmakers who made movies ONLY for the money. Sure they wrote a script they liked and tried to make the best movie they could, but if they hadn't gotten those dollars, they wouldn't have thought about making those particular movies.

If Inglorious Basterds was a bomb and Tarantino couldn't get any money to make one of his movies, he wouldn't shoot Rush Hour 4 to put himself back in the game. THAT'S what he's saying. He'd probably write another Reservoir Dogs styled low budget movie and make it for a million. He's ALL about that art of the film, not the money. Maybe that's a bad thing, who knows?

Technically, The Godfathers 1 and 2 are pool movies because Coppola didn't want to make them because he looked at them as sell out trash. But he sold out and did them anyway. Same with Spielberg and Jaws.

So of course this is all judgment call. Talking about movies at all is about judgmnet calls!

"That just makes "Jack" a vineyard movie."

nice one, Hallick!

Leah, you hit the nail on the head in all of your above posts. Brava, lei è una signora saggia e bella.

Making assumptions about motivation based upon the final product is ridiculous but also the core of a lot of film criticism & this is the unfortunate disadvantage of most critics (professional or otherwise): it is the only vantage point available to them. Unless you actually work on a specific film, it is always difficult &, in many cases, impossible to know what really happened on it.

Compounding this difficulty is the fact that one can't always trust the publicly released behind the scenes info as gospel. I'm not merely talking about the differences & imperfections in memory when the participants get together decades later for a retrospective documentary. Even contemporary accounts may be highly flawed in their veracity.

For example, some years back I worked on a picture that shall remain nameless for diplomatic reasons & while my capacity was too minor to know absolutely everything that occurred behind the scenes, I knew enough to know that a number of statements made by the participants in the promotion of the film, in the DVD docs & commentary track, etc. were factually untrue. Not an issue of perspective or opinion, not second hand info, direct first hand experience told me that these statements were wrong. This kinda thing isn't uncommon.

Additionally, though this pic was a "disappointment" on financial/critical levels & the director made a few positively insane choices that didn't help its prospects in the market, there can be no doubt that his heart was totally in it 100%. I think it was Oscar Wilde who said, "All bad poetry springs from genuine feeling." Though the same can't be said for all bad movies, many of them do come from a more sincere place than quite a few critics & fans recognize.

Finally, one big issue I have with the SPM theory is that it doesn't account for the fact that an artist's motivation may change over the process. Big Perm used the great example of The Godfather. He's right. If published accounts can be believed, Coppola didn't want to make it initially & only did so for the money. But these same accounts also credit him with developing tremendous passion for the project as he dove into it.

Great discussion. Have a good Saturday everyone.

Mira, as always, you have the taste of a sixty-year-old housewife in Butte, Montana.

Geoff157: "'Guilty As Sin' is my favorite of his [Lumet's] films."

Wow. Seriously? You like it more than "Dog Day Afternoon," "Network," "Prince of the City," "Serpico," "The Verdict," and "Before The Devil Knows You're Dead?" You must REALLY like that movie, then. In that case, right on. I applaud you for your idiosyncratic taste.

From what I remember, I thought Guilty as Sin was really a good, solid film. That it until the end. It went from an intelligent cat-n-mouse to contrived blunt force. It's been well over a decade since I've seen it. Maybe I wouldn't sing it's praises any more and will admit to having a crush on Rebecca de Mornay at the time, so who knows. Don't know if I'd rank it top 5 of his films but I wouldn't have thought that was a pool movie for him.

I do think it's kinda interesting that there hasn't been a real consensus on what films were pool movies.

And per a question I brought up earlier, I know Coppola didn't want to make The Godfather but is it really a swimming pool movie or a carpool movie since he had no money and no other options of keeping his family fed? Do we count young and needing the money (shot/experience/etc) the same as middle age needing to make the Cayenne lease buyout?

I do indeed REALLY like GUILTY AS SIN, and more than those other Lumet films! It does go a little over the top at the end, but I feel that Lumet gets solid conviction from Rebecca DeMornay that really carries it over.

Godfather counts as a pool movie according to Tarantino's theory, because Coppola was living beyond his means and needed money, so he took on that movie. Tarantino has never made a movie for money...if he doesn't feel like making a movie, he takes off 5 years.

Actually, I love Guilty as Sin because Don Johnson does an absolutely inspired job of self-parody in the flick.

Hawks and Ford made RIO BRAVO and THE SEARCHERS because both had suffered setbacks and needed to retreat to the comfort and commercial viability of a John Wayne western. So does that make two of the greatest films ever made "pool movies?"

And worse, Billy Wilder chose AVANTI! to be his SPM after THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES;]

Cadavra, just because a movie may be great doesn't mean it wasn't made for purely crass commercial reasons. Casablanca was too.

Perm: So was Citizen Kane.

And it is a little known fact that Godard made LA CHINOISE to get a zippy Citroen he'd been coveting.

I would differ on Citizen Kane. As I understand, Welles had the idea to make the movie, Hollywood offered him the opportunity to make whatever movie he wanted based on his past sucess...and Welles made the movie he wanted. I'm no scholar so I could be wrong.

Guys, let me reiterate again that the crucial distinction isn't 'will this movie advance my career' or 'will this movie pay me a lot of money', it's 'I gotta make some movie so I'll do this one even though I don't give a crap about the material'. It's about being a passionate filmmaker and not being a cog in a machine more than anything else.

grazie, chairs missing, and right-on to pretty much everything you said

As i understand it, Wells didn't come up with the idea until after RKO offered him carte blanche to make any movie he wanted. But you're absolutely right: It's the movie he wanted to make -- arguably the one and only movie he ever made where he didn't have to compromise at all. But, hey, RKO didn't hire him to change film history -- they hired him to put asses in seats. And I'm sure Wells intended Citizen Kane to be a very commercial property. Not that there was anything wrong with him feeling that way, of course. But I submit that the overwhelming majority of indisputably great movies were made with the possibility of commercial success as a prime motivator.

But wanting the movie to be sucessful doesn't make for a pool movie...every artist wants their work to be sucessful. Tarantino isn't trying to make failures. He's just all about the absolute purity of an artist, and Welles did that with Citizen Kane. Maybe he didn't have the idea to make a movie, but when offered, he took it on and did what he want...which of course hurt his movie career.

Welles made pool movies too of course...especially as an actor. And Touch of Evil was made stricly for the money so he could make his personal movie Don Quixote, which of course was never finished but probably wouldn't have been as good.

Perm, you're right, but the term "pool movie" has a perjorative tone that implies that the movie was not only intended to be "commercial" but ended up being crap. If a film made for strictly commercial reasons ends up being great (TOUCH OF EVIL being a prime example), then it is not, as I understand the term, a pool movie. Right?

No, a pool movie, the way Tarantino used the term is made strictly for commercial reasons. Touch of Evil is absolutely a pool movie...doesn't mean that Orson Welles then wanted to make the greatest movie he could, but if the dollars weren't there, he wouldn't have made it. Unlike the way he fought and saved and personally paid for his Shakespeare movies.

Touch of Evil isn't a pool movie, because it's a masterpiece. A pool movie is only a pool movie if it (a) was made for no particular reason except to stave off poverty (in relative, Hollywood terms, that is), and (b) it sucks. Both are necessary.

Okay, looks like Perm and Jeff are gonna hafta duke this one out!

Jeff, read the interview. That's not the way Tarantino defines it, so if we're talking about pool movies, I'm using his rules. Godfather is a pool movie...Coppola made it to stay in the game but he wanted to make his artistic pictures. Touch of Evil is a pool movie because Welles was just hired on as an actor, and he took it on to make money to finance Don Quixote. Then they offered him to direct it. Welles would never have made Touch of Evil except for the money offered to him.

Tarantino would rather make a shit movie that he personally wanted to make than a masterpiece that he had tomake to stay in the game. Witness his mixed feelings about Jackie Brown (by the way, his best movie).

I can see why you'd interpret it that way, but I don't think Tarantino would agree. His issue isn't with people who make movies because they need to use them as stepping stones to make their dream projects, his issue is with directors who make movies to finance their lifestyles and/or have nothing better to do with their time. It's about careerism vs. having an artistic calling. And I think I've been repeating this same point about ten times now.

And Perm, I also disagree about your second point. The whole thrust of that section of the article is that Tarantino wouldn't make a movie 'just to stay in the game'. He only wants to make the movies he's passionate about, and pretty much as a consequence, it would be impossible for him to make a masterpiece by being a director-for-hire if he didn't fall in love with the material.

And I don't see what Jackie Brown has to do with anything since that was one of his dream projects.

You may have been repeating the same point, but since we disagree on what he meant, you can say it eleven! The thing is, Tarantino approaches things in general kind of like a teenager. or better or worse, it's an all or nothing thing with him.

Jackie Brown may have been one of his dream projects but he's said a lot of stuff about it later...how he'd never make anothe movie like that again, meaning make a movie based on someone else's work. He downplayed it quite a bit, and said he was sort of disappointed with it. He only wants to do his own stories, and I can sympathize with that. Maybe that's his problem and why he'll never make a truly great film again.

I'll go you one better - he approaches things like an Asperger's-addled speed junkie. And maybe he didn't phrase it in an especially elegant way, but that doesn't make him wrong, at the core.

And I like Jackie Brown a lot, but I like Kill Bill and Death Proof as much, if not more.

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