Posted by sean at threshold6n.jpmorgan.com on May 21, 2002 at 14:46:17:
In Reply to: sure it does, and I'm a she posted by Duffless on May 21, 2002 at 13:32:18:
: He doesn't want to devote 3 hours to a director that he doesn't love, ie Kubrick......but what is he basing not liking Anderson on? Boogie Nights, that is what he said.....
He didn't say that he didn't like Boogie Nights, nor that he didn't like Anderson, all he said was (basically) that he didn't consider the guy proven enough to justify spending three hours of his life on a movie whose merit and quality are points of big debate.
: and I was pointing out that at some point he was new to Kubrick, as he is now new to Anderson, and that he should give it a chance....just because he doesn't like boogie nights(if that is the case) it doesn't mean that Magnolia is at all like that movie...just as Spartacus or 2001 or The Shining are all very different....
right, but it's the length he's complaining about, not the subject matter. I can see his point that there's nothing in "Boogie Nights" (great as it is) that would suggest that he could do a movie like "Magnolia" would sound like without seeing it. (And I do grant that it's better than it can be described as.) After "Punch-Drunk Love" comes out, if Mike likes that, then that could then be a reason to go out and see it. But, looking at Kubrick, it's easy to say now that his career is great and all over the place ... but try convincing somebody in 1960 who didn't like "Paths of Glory" (or just thought it was good but dragged a little in the middle, or whatever) to go and see "Spartacus". "Spartacus" is one to see after you've seen a bunch of Kubricks and want to see the whole arc of his career. Not that it's not a really, really good movie, far from his best.
This Kubrick thing is confusing the issue, I think. It doesn't help when Anderson says things like "Oh, I haven't decided yet if I want to be Stanley Kubrick or Steven Spielberg". You want to just go, "You know, both of them established themselves as commercially successful great filmmakers which then justified their later attempts at more esoteric cinema..."
PS: Sorry if I accidentally referred to you as 'he'. Didn't realize, but I don't remember doing it either.