Dave Cullen: Best PostsDave's FavoritesIndie Spirit Award Noms just announced- November 29, 2005 Taking this quick writing break to spread the good word, announced just in the last hour. Nom list. Press release. I was happy to see two of my favorite small films of the year, Mysterious Skin and (to a lesser extent) Me and You and Everyone We Know nominated. (Skin for best director for Gregg Araki--quite the coup; and Me & You . . . for best first feature and best first screenplay.) Most of the big awards were dominated by films also in the running for Oscars: Capote, Brokeback Mountain,.http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/bestPosts/2005/11/29.html#a1773 Watching Brokeback Mountain -- just about perfect- November 20, 2005 Watched Brokeback Mountain last night. Wow. Just about perfect. Every bit as moving as the short story, and then some. They really fleshed out the characters, and I empathized with them more strongly. Enough that I'm not angry at Ennis anymore. I totally understand why he did it. How he thought he had to. The problem with preconceptions is that it was hard not to sit there in the first half hour thinking, "Heath Ledger is doing fine, but 'a revelation' Not quite getting that." (And there...http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/bestPosts/2005/11/20.html#a1767 How (much) will Brokeback Mountain change America- November 14, 2005 Friday, The Hollywood Reporter published this wonderful piece, Ang Lee's 'Brokeback' explores 'last frontier'. It opens like this: There's no doubt that a $13 million quality movie like Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain," which has wowed festivalgoers and reviewers in Telluride, Venice and Toronto, will play well in big movie markets around the country. The question is, how broad will it goNo one knows that answer, because no one has ventured into this territory before. The movie is a...http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/bestPosts/2005/11/14.html#a1760 Salon included me in their classics- November 13, 2005 This is kind of cool. Salon is celebrating its tenth and anniversary and every day the past week they have been highlighting their top stories from a single year. I did most of my work for them in 1999 and 2000, and two of my stories made the list each year. The lists for 1999 & 2000. From 1999, they picked two of my Columbine stories: &148;I smell like the presence of Satan&148; Is Littleton's evangelical subculture a solution to the youth alienation that played a role in the Columbine..http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/bestPosts/2005/11/12.html#a1759 The launch of my love affair (with Brokeback Mountain)- November 7, 2005 As anxiously as I've watched the Brokeback film project develop, undevelop and redevelop over the years, I had never actually read the story. I guess because I missed it when it first came out, and then I wanted to see it as a film first. (Book-first rarely works out well. By designlength books are nearly always far deeper and more complex, and the film never lives up. But I can appreciate a great film, and then go read the book for addeddifferent levels of complexity. Almost...http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/bestPosts/2005/11/06.html#a1756 Capote- November 6, 2005 I swore off blogging for a bit to stay focused, but this I need to talk about. Just saw Capote. Extraordinary. Especially for a writer. What a gift to get such a glimpse at his process. But . . . Huge but. But what a cynical take on him. I just don't buy it. He got all those people to open up to him by faking empathy When he was truly just cold blooded, calculating and entirely manipulative I guess there are con artists that good out there. I just found it way too hard to swallow. Now I totally.http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/bestPosts/2005/11/06.html#a1754 |