Saturday, July 30, 2005

Lost in the Movies

Ben and I watched Lost in La Mancha last night, a documentary about the attempt and failure of Terry Gilliam to bring an adaptation of Don Quixote to the screen. It was worth seeing, in that excrutiatingly uncomfortable After Hours/(Jack Lemmon/Sandy Dennis version) Out of Towners kind of way where you just desperately want them to get where they're going, in this case to beat the odds and make the damn movie, and you need to take a Tums after a while of people coming down with diseases, force majeure, and general lack of direction. It looks like it could have been a really great movie and that Gilliam is still trying, but it doesn't look likely.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes-- poor Terry Gilliam. I think I heard something like all of his movies go about 50-60% over-budget, and almost every single one of his big, eventually-cult-favorite movies (Munchausen, Brazil, Time Bandits) all lost millions in the theaters. I think he made out alright with 12 Monkeys, and I really can't wait to see Brother's Grimm(!).... else I think everyone's afraid of tapping him to do anything. He can do a movie about me anytime.

Anonymous said...

They mention Munchausen a lot in particular in the film as having lost insane amounts of money.

Ken Foster said...

I love the story about wanting to get the hamster spinning on a wheel in the background of a shot that was never used in 12 Monkeys.

I can't wait to see The Brothers Grimm, which is oddly being advertised without any big announcement that it is a Gilliam film.