Art School Confidential (Terry Zwigoff, 2006)

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#1 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Fri Jul 29, 2005 12:34 pm

Daniel Clowes recently did an interview in the Guardian about his new movie, which will reunite him with Terry Zwigoff. Let's hope they can recreate the same magic they did on Ghost World. This is what he had to say about the movie;
He has just finished writing and producing Art School Confidential, a semi-autobiographical tale made with director Terry Zwigoff, who directed and co-wrote Ghost World with Clowes (the two received Oscar nominations for their script). Art School Confidential, which Clowes bafflingly describes as "a combination of Animal House and Vertigo, whatever that means", is due out next year. A boy-goes-to-art school, boy-falls-in-love-with-nude-model story, it boasts some heavyweight casting, including John Malkovich, Angelica Houston and Jim Broadbent.
And here are more stats:

Release Date: September 30, 2005 (limited)
Studio: Sony Pictures Classics
Director: Terry Zwigoff
Screenwriter: Dan Clowes, Terry Zwigoff
Starring: John Malkovich, Max Minghella, Jim Broadbent, Ezra Buzzington, Jesse Flanagan, Anjelica Huston, Joel Moore, Sophia Myles, Ethan Suplee
Genre: Comedy
MPAA Rating: R (for language including sexual references, nudity and a scene of violence)

Plot Summary: Based on a comic story in Dan Clowes' "Eightball," "Art School Confidential" follows Jerome (Minghella), an art student who dreams of becoming the greatest artist in the world. Arriving as a freshman at a prestigious East Coast art school filled with every artsy "type" there is, Jerome quickly discovers his affected style and arrogance won't get him very far. When he sees that a clueless jock is attracting the glory rightfully due him, he hatches an all-or-nothing plan to hit it big in the art world and win the heart of the most beautiful girl in the school.

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Steven H
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#2 Post by Steven H » Fri Jul 29, 2005 2:15 pm

I'm really looking forward to this. Hopefully a trailer will appear soon. The six or seven page Art School Confidential bit in Eightball had me laughing like a maniac.

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#3 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Fri Jul 29, 2005 3:42 pm

Steven H wrote:I'm really looking forward to this. Hopefully a trailer will appear soon. The six or seven page Art School Confidential bit in Eightball had me laughing like a maniac.
Yeah, I love Clowes' stuff. Hopefully, some day he'll tackle a cinematic adaption of Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron but only if he could get David Lynch to direct!

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Steven H
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#4 Post by Steven H » Sat Jul 30, 2005 11:05 am

I haven't read a Clowes book that I didn't love. David Boring seems the most filmmable, but then maybe that's a good enough reason. I really like the idea of Art School Confidential and that's it was just a few pages.

Like a Velvet Glove Cast In Iron is a great read though. Thanks for reminding me, I think I'll pick it back up for another go.

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#5 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Mon Aug 01, 2005 9:25 am

Steven H wrote:I haven't read a Clowes book that I didn't love. David Boring seems the most filmmable, but then maybe that's a good enough reason. I really like the idea of Art School Confidential and that's it was just a few pages.
I totally agree with you re: David Boring. I'd like to see that one get made into a movie. Just looking at the panels in that book feels like a film already storyboarded out to a certain degree.

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Lino
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#6 Post by Lino » Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:00 am

I really, really hope this one turns out great. I've been following Zwigoff's career ever since watching Crumb for the first time. What a jaw-dropper that was - and what a strange family too! I also had a tremendous kick out of Ghost World and despite the bad reviews, I think that Bad Santa was simply hilarious and the performances spot-on.

So, my expectations are high once again. I do hope he pulls it off good.

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#7 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Fri Aug 12, 2005 1:02 pm

A nice interview with Clowes, here:

http://readymademag.com/feature_18_clowes.php

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ben d banana
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#8 Post by ben d banana » Fri Aug 12, 2005 9:37 pm

Clowes is interviewed in the upcoming Punk Planet (#69) as well.

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Lino
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#9 Post by Lino » Sat Aug 13, 2005 5:27 am

I'm curious to know if anyone has been able to see Zwigoff's first feature, Louie Bluie. It's a documentary on Louis Armstrong and so far it's conspicuously not out on DVD. Everytime a Zwigoff film comes out on DVD, I pray that this one will come next but I've been disapointed every single time. What gives? And is the film any good?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089507/

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#10 Post by pianocrash » Sat Aug 13, 2005 12:24 pm

Louie Bluie is mostly a compendium of interviews & short performances by the man in question, along with his personal history of his rambunctious life (he keeps an ornate scrapbook of his doings, illustrated!). All in all, the same tone that Zwigoff has kept within his feature length films. It's short & sweet, and really overdue for a dvd release. I'm guessing the delay has to do with whoever owns it at this point.

I know Ebert isn't high on anyone's totem around here, but his take isn't so far from the truth.

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Lino
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#11 Post by Lino » Sat Aug 13, 2005 1:11 pm

Thank you both for the info and also for that Ebert review which gave me the link for the main underlying theme of all of Zwigoff's works - comics:
The film occasionally turns to the pages of the semi-pornographic journals Armstrong has kept through the years, filled with lurid cartoons and bawdy poems and his observations on life. (The journals will be published later this year, having been embraced by devotees of pop art.) Armstrong is a natural artist, and he remembers making his first colors out of dyes wrung out of crepe papier.
Well, in the meantime I can always buy the OST. It seems like it's worth every cent:


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#12 Post by emcflat » Mon Sep 05, 2005 11:56 am

Louie Bluie is one of my most wanted DVDs, and I've always secretly hoped it would turn up on the CC..

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Jeff
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#13 Post by Jeff » Mon Sep 05, 2005 12:42 pm

Art School Confidential has been moved to April 2006.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id ... ential.htm

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#14 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Tue Nov 22, 2005 5:31 pm

Annie Mall wrote:I really, really hope this one turns out great. I've been following Zwigoff's career ever since watching Crumb for the first time. What a jaw-dropper that was - and what a strange family too!
From DavisDVD:
A postscript to film critic Roger Ebert's latest "Great Movies" review of 1994's Crumb mentions that a new edition of the documentary will be released in 2006, including a commentary/conversation between director Terry Zwigoff and Ebert.

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#15 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Mon Jan 23, 2006 2:08 pm


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Lino
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#16 Post by Lino » Wed Feb 08, 2006 5:12 am

Trailer is up and it looks good:

http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2694254?htv=12

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Dylan
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#17 Post by Dylan » Sun Feb 12, 2006 7:57 pm

This looks very entertaining, I'm looking very forward to it. It's good that they don't give away any of the plot in the trailer, and this Max Minghella (Anthony's son) looks promising. And it's rare to see this brand of uncompromisingly bitter sarcasm pulled off so nicely, and as was the case with "Ghost World," this certainly seems like a success.

But, "From the Director of Bad Santa?" Wouldn't more people see this based off of "Ghost World" (especially with the Clowes connection) than "Bad Santa," not that "Bad Santa" was a bad movie (I thought it was funny, but also pretty stupid). But I guess the marketing drawing that connection will bring more random comedy fans in, and that can't be a bad thing.

So, yes, this looks good. Only about two months to go...

Dylan

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#18 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Tue Feb 21, 2006 1:52 pm

an interview with Daniel Clowes in Los Angeles City Beat:

http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?i ... sueNum=141

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#19 Post by David Ehrenstein » Tue Mar 14, 2006 6:31 pm

Saw it this morning. Smug crap with the ending pinched from Pickpocket.

(Hey Terry, there's only one Robert Bresson and you ain't him -- FUCK YOU!)

Max Minghella (no points for guessing whose spud he is) has the required kicked puppy look. Couldn't care less. Anjelica Huston, Steve Buscemi and Jim Broadbent totally wasted.

Malkovich also produced so it's his fault too.

Hey Malko -- pray that Manoel De Olivera retains his excellent health.

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#20 Post by starmanof51 » Tue Mar 14, 2006 6:50 pm

Dylan wrote:But, "From the Director of Bad Santa?" Wouldn't more people see this based off of "Ghost World" (especially with the Clowes connection) than "Bad Santa,"
Dylan
According to IMDB - Ghost World, $6.2 million, Bad Santa $60.0 million. So, maybe not.

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Gregory
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#21 Post by Gregory » Wed Apr 19, 2006 12:53 pm

However, there's a good chance that most of the people who went to see Bad Santa neither knew nor cared who the director was and wouldn't bother to seek out something like Art School Confidential, so Dylan still may be right.

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Gregory
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#22 Post by Gregory » Wed Apr 19, 2006 12:54 pm

I'm still deciding if I'm going to bother going to see it in the theater.

Ghost World was enjoyable and successful in some ways but I'm unavoidably left feeling that the comic is perfect as-is and that a lot was was lost in the transition to the screen. Zwigoff didn't even like Clowes' Ghost World book that he was adapting all that much, and I think he talked Clowes into accepting reinventing things too much. The main problem was that the character of Seymour they added so dominated the film that it shoved aside Enid's relationship with Becky, which was the main focus of the book and what made the original story succeed so well. Some of my doubts were put into relief in a New Yorker piece on Clowes, Zwigoff and Ghost World from July 30, 2001. Here's an excerpt:
Tad Friend wrote:"I wasn't that crazy about Dan's 'Ghost World' comic, to tell you the truth," [Zwigoff] said. "I didn't think it was as funny as his other stuff. If Dan has a problem, it's that his work is very derivative of Crumb's -- but that meant he had the right angry sensibility for me to work with. I had tried to write screenplays with Crumb, but he just went on for pages about the specific sound a girl's high heel made on linoleum."

In 1996, Clowes and Zwigoff started writing the screenplay of "Ghost World," producing some twenty-five versions over the next two years. Zwigoff introduced a crucial new character named Seymour (played by Steve Buscemi), a sad-sack record collector who wears a support girdle and hates the modern world. The focus of the movie shifted from Enid and Becky to Enid and Seymour, and it became more of a coming-of-age love story....

"Terry basically used Clowes's comic as a matrix for getting his own ideas across," Robert Crumb told me. "A middle-aged record collector who gets laid by a teen-aged girl is one of Terry's big fantasies."

"I told Dan from the beginning that he was going to hate this film," Zwigoff said, "because there's too much of me in it. In the editing room, Dan was very, very on edge-he eventually had to go home, because the scenes we'd cannibalized from the comic, where the girls stare at the ceiling or hunt for an apartment, were killing the film."
(Crumb, Zwigoff, and Clowes appear to have the healthiest and most harrowing friendship in the world: no complaint goes unexpressed or unreciprocated.)
Last edited by Gregory on Mon Jan 20, 2014 4:28 am, edited 2 times in total.

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#23 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Wed Apr 19, 2006 4:26 pm

Gregory wrote:I'm still deciding if I'm going to bother going to see it in the theater. Ghost World was enjoyable and successful in some ways but I'm unavoidably left feeling that the comic is perfect as-is and that a lot was was lost in the transition to the screen. Zwigoff didn't like Clowes' Ghost World book all that much, and I think he talked Clowes into accepting way too much tampering. In fact, some of the Art School COnfidential "material" was already brought into Ghost World in the whole Enid-as-art-student thing that was tacked on. The main problem was that the character of Seymour they added so dominated the film that it shoved aside Enid's relationship with Becky, which was the main focus of the book. Some of my doubts were put into relief in a New Yorker piece on Clowes, Zwigoff and Ghost World from July 30, 2001. Here's an excerpt:
That's very interesting! I did not know that. To add to what you've already said, The Comics Journal ran a very well-written review of the Ghost World movie, critiquing it against the comic book and its shortcomings: http://tcj.com/236/r_ghost.html

I dunno. I do love Clowes' book but the movie really is its own thing not to state the painfully obvious and I really love the mood and atmosphere that is created. For awhile, when it first came out, I must've watched it countless times but I haven't checked it out in a couple of years now. To me, it almost seems like a riff on The World of Henry Orient in some respects but with the girls a little older. There's even a visual nod to that movie with the poster in the background of a scene.
But if he feels safer doing comics, why has he drawn so little in the past five years? If Art School Confidential is disappointing, that disappointment will be compounded by the fact that the film took up a lot of time Clowes could have spent drawing.
Yeah... I think that he's been busy with the movie versions of GW and Art School Confidential but maybe he just hasn't gotten the creative inspiration either.

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#24 Post by hearthesilence » Wed Apr 19, 2006 7:09 pm

A week ago, I went to see Brick, then snuck into Friends with Money. Both had trailers for Art School Confidential, and it's amusing how they tailor each trailer.

The Brick trailer made it look like a goofy murder mystery, with an urban legend of a serial killer on campus who kills somebody every year.

The Friends trailer didn't mention any of that, instead, it sold the movie as a teenage sex comedy; i.e. art school student tries to get laid.

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Fletch F. Fletch
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#25 Post by Fletch F. Fletch » Thu May 04, 2006 12:54 pm


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