HowToFoldSoup

I was watching the Top 100 Child Actors on VH1 the other day. I could explain that it was a very slow day, and it probably was, but even in the face of that, I watch pointless pop-culture crap like this sometimes. It's a guilty pleasure of mine and I make no excuses. Regardless, they were going through the list of stars and they got to Tatum O'Neal

I had heard of Tatum O'Neal as the daughter of Ryan and thats about it. I had also seen her on the IFC show, Ultimate Film Fanatic (more on this later), but I digress. The VH1 show was reviewing clips of her role in "Paper Moon" as Addie Pray, a young orphan who gets put into the temporary care of a professional grifter, played by her real life father. Now I didn't know anything about this film prior to that showing, but there was something about the look and feel of the film style that made it appealing to me. I made a mental note to see if my local BlockBuster had the film available for rent the next time I was in.

A couple of weeks go by and I still haven't made it to BlockBuster, but I have almost an aching to see the movie. An aching very similar to when you purchase something you really want (be it kitchen appliance, comic book, computer component/software, or Nuclear Warhead), but your schedule messes with your chance to play with your new toy. Or even worse, you have it, you have time, but you don't have the proper batteries, and it's Sunday at 8:30, so no specialty battery places are open, so you can only look at your item du'jour, lamenting. That's how "Paper Moon" was affecting me, it was hellish, but in a good way.

Well, in that two week period I get to see a rerun of the 2nd(?) Season of Ulitmate Film Fanatic and noticed something I hadn't noticed before. A lot of the categories (the Trivia and Debate Categories, at least), were very director centric. Even on non-obviously director-based categories, they seemed to focus on directors. For instance, in the category of Comics, the question was, "After Tim Burton passed on making the third Batman Film, this director took the helm, and added nipples to the Batsuit." (See bottom of article for answer).

This all ties together, I swear...

A startling revelation occurs. I don't know my directors. I mean, I know the standards (GodFather=Coppola, Clerks=Smith, Orgasmo=Parker, GoodFellas=Scorsese, etc.) but I don't know it like I think I should. I eat and drink pre-reality TV pop-culture. I, or so I thought, could stand toe-to-toe with most people regarding movies or tv, but I don't know my directors. I certianly don't know them beyond their standards. So I decided it would be a good exercise, to work through a director's body of work, review the movies on my site here, and make note of their evolution in their craft. I would watch their films chronologically, and do some directors considered highly by many people, at least in one movie or genre. This is a much more difficult task than I could have imagined. And by "more" I mean "too". And by "much" I mean "way"

I get "Paper Moon", and begin my project, knowing that it was early in Peter Bogdanovich's directing days. I loved the movie, would recommend it to anyone and I'll probably purchase it, just so I can lend it out. Then I ran into a wall. The wall being film availability (or more likely, Blockbuster availability). They don't carry "Targets", "Last Picture Show", "Directed by John Ford", "What's Up Doc", "Illegally Yours", "Texasville". The next earliest piece they had by Bogdanovich was 19 years after the first I had watched. This isn't what I'd call a meticulous monitoring of the evolution of a Director, unless you're more intetested in a Gould view of evolution involving huge, sudden changes.

I'm not out of it yet. Just running into walls. I may start a new section on my site after all. Hopefully...

Joel Schumacher (German for Schmuck) I mean Joel, come on! Nipples? Really? Is that necessary? Such a fall from grace...St. Elmos Fire...Flatliners...Falling Down...Bat Nipples. You lose me with the bat nipples.