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Posted
10 hours ago, Bender Bending Rodriguez said:

I never realized until recently that there was an Eddie-Landis feud. This is from a Playboy interview in 1990:

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PLAYBOY: You could have directed Coming to America but didn't. Why? 

MURPHY: I wanted to help out [the director, John] Landis. I figured I'd give this guy a shot because his career was fucked. But he wound up fucking me. 

PLAYBOY: What happened? 

MURPHY: As it turned out, John always resented that I hadn't gone to his Twilight Zone trial. I never knew that; I though we were cool. But he'd been harboring it for a year. Every now and then, he would make little remarks, like, "You didn't help me out; you don't realize how close I was to going to jail." I never paid any mind. 

PLAYBOY: Did you think he was guilty? 

MURPHY: I don't want to say who was guilty or who was innocent. [Pauses] But if you're directing a movie and two kids get their heads chopped off at fucking twelve o'clock at night when there ain't supposed to be kids working, and you said, "Action!" then you have some sort of responsibility. So my principles wouldn't let me go down there and sit in court. That's just the way I am. If somebody in my family was guilty of something, I wouldn't sit there for them in a courtroom and say, "You've got my support." Fuck that. The most it would be is, "Hey, you go work that out. I still love ya; I'm still your friend." 

PLAYBOY: So you hired Landis out of friendship despite thinking he'd been irresponsible? 

MURPHY: Yes. He'd done four fucked-up movies in a row and I knew he'd spent a lot of money on his trial. I went to Paramount and said I wanted to use Landis. But they had reservations: His career was fucked up. But I said, "I'm gonna use Landis." I liked the guy. I used to always say that the one fun experience I had with a director--and I've worked with directors I really liked: Marty Brest, Walter Hill, Tony Scott--was with Landis, because he plays around a lot on the set. I made Paramount hire him. 

PLAYBOY: Was he grateful? 

MURPHY: He came in demanding lots of money. Paramount was saying, "Hey, come on, Eddie, we're getting fucked here," but I made them pay his money. They bent over backward. But after he got the job, he brought along an attitude. He came in with this "I'm a director" shit. I was thinking, Wait a second, I fucking hired you, and now you're running around, going, "You have to remember: I'm the boss, I'm the director." 

One of his favorite things was to tell me, "When I worked with Michael Jackson, everyone was afraid of Michael, but I'm the only one who would tell Michael, 'Fuck you.' And I'm not afraid to tell you, 'Fuck you.'" And sure enough, he was always telling me, "Fuck you, Eddie. Everybody at Paramount is afraid on you." 

PLAYBOY: But Landis just gave you grief? 

MURPHY: It got worse and worse. What first put a bad taste in my mouth about him was when, after he hired [co-star] Shari Headley and all these other people, I said I wanted to take everybody to dinner. I didn't know anybody. But Landis grabbed Headley and said, "You stay away from Eddie. Don't go near him, because he's gonna fuck you and ruin my movie. He just wants your pussy." I'm thinking, Wait, ooohhh, nooo, that has nothing to do with being a fucking director. He's control freak. Just assuming that I was trying to get the pussy is one thing; and even if I was trying to get the pussy, for him to try to stop me from getting it because he was directing the movie.... He's got a lot of nerve. Plus, it wasn't even about pussy. 

 

Not sure if you listen to the Bill Simmons/Ringer podcast the Rewatchables, but they discussed this recently in the Coming to America one.  The funny part is after all that, they actually worked together again in Beverly Hills Cop 3.

Posted
6 minutes ago, Don Johnson said:

Not sure if you listen to the Bill Simmons/Ringer podcast the Rewatchables, but they discussed this recently in the Coming to America one.  The funny part is after all that, they actually worked together again in Beverly Hills Cop 3.

Yep! That’s where I heard about their feud. I’ve probably listened to 90% of their episodes over the past few years. I googled this stuff a few days ago and found the interview trascript online. 

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
On 4/20/2021 at 10:53 AM, Bateshorn said:

Verhoeven is such an interesting director.  The run of movies he had from Robocop, Total Recall, and Basic Instinct is incredible. I suspect Starship Troopers has nearly as many BFA thesis papers as Citizen Kane.  I'm not sure there is a more prescient film than Robocop.  His last film, Elle, was a huge critical smash.

But he also has Show Girls and Hollow Man just sitting there as total turds. 

I watched basic instinct the other day for the first time.  that had to be a product of its time, because i thought it was pretty bad.  i figure it must be just because it was so explicit, and that was a lot harder to access back then or something.  Movie-wise, though, it is a pretty lame non thrilling thriller story.

  • 4 years later...
Posted
On 4/29/2018 at 8:53 PM, Prepuce of Doom said:

Rounders has somehow become very difficult to take seriously. 

bump.  Last night I caught Rounders for the first time in at least 15 years. It's on Paramount+ which I get for free from a credit card.

There are definite plot cracks if not holes but I wonder if they occurred with the editing by dropping scenes.

  • What is Grama and Worm's past together, and did Worm screw Grama in some way?
  • Grama is angry at the end that Mike's paying off the debt. Isn't a loan shark satisfied about getting paid? He can still beat up Mike or Worm if he wants.
  • Feels like Gretchen Mol's character had a larger role but it was cut. She's also very aware of Knish and Worm so I doubt she doesn't have some not-so-clean past.
  • Petra was way too hot for the role especially in terms of Mike rejecting her while drinking after getting dumped.
  • With this rewatch, Landau (law professor) may have wanted more than Mike than a professor-student relationship. He's overly excited every time they speak in an off putting way.
  • The Mike-Johnny Chan play was ridiculous. Buying a pot off a world champ doesn't mean you can compete at that level.
  • Mike knew it was a mistake when Worm sat down at the police card game. Why didn't he just walk away after a couple of hands. He had most of the money to pay off the Worm's debt.

I don't know who owns the rights to this story but it's perplexing they never found a way to make a sequel in the early 00s. Even if you couldn't get Damon or Norton, create a rounder 2 with new characters. It might suck but it would make money.

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted
On 7/11/2025 at 2:43 PM, Nice Guy Eddie said:

bump.  Last night I caught Rounders for the first time in at least 15 years. It's on Paramount+ which I get for free from a credit card.

There are definite plot cracks if not holes but I wonder if they occurred with the editing by dropping scenes.

  • What is Grama and Worm's past together, and did Worm screw Grama in some way?
  • Grama is angry at the end that Mike's paying off the debt. Isn't a loan shark satisfied about getting paid? He can still beat up Mike or Worm if he wants.
  • Feels like Gretchen Mol's character had a larger role but it was cut. She's also very aware of Knish and Worm so I doubt she doesn't have some not-so-clean past.
  • Petra was way too hot for the role especially in terms of Mike rejecting her while drinking after getting dumped.
  • With this rewatch, Landau (law professor) may have wanted more than Mike than a professor-student relationship. He's overly excited every time they speak in an off putting way.
  • The Mike-Johnny Chan play was ridiculous. Buying a pot off a world champ doesn't mean you can compete at that level.
  • Mike knew it was a mistake when Worm sat down at the police card game. Why didn't he just walk away after a couple of hands. He had most of the money to pay off the Worm's debt.

I don't know who owns the rights to this story but it's perplexing they never found a way to make a sequel in the early 00s. Even if you couldn't get Damon or Norton, create a rounder 2 with new characters. It might suck but it would make money.

 

 

Fantastic film - almost went back and watched it because of this post.

I think Simmons is a dork, but his two part piece on the film is a recommended read:

https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/020411
https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060420

As far as your points:

  • Grama/Worm - They were "partners" but you can tell Worm totally fucked him over. I always got the sense that Grama might have gotten some heat for all the money Worm owed being his partner, that combined with Worm being a dick, you get why he was an asshole to him.
  • Grama pissed - that is one thing my old roommate thought was weird about that. Granted the way he was to the dog, you got that he was kind of sadistic and liked inflicting pain/punishment.
  • Nah, she was clean, she knew his buddies from his poker days because she overlapped withi his poker life.
  • Petra - TRUTH. The writers totally dropped the ball there (mentioned in part 2 above)
  • Professor - LOL
  • Chan - yeah, but it sells to to most people watching
  • Police game - yeah, that would have been the smart play. Granted, maybe he hasn't made the money needed yet.

There is talk that everyone involved in the film wants a sequel now. I agree they should have had one in the 2000s, but maybe having one now would be better?

Posted
8 hours ago, Captain Ron said:

 

 

Fantastic film - almost went back and watched it because of this post.

I think Simmons is a dork, but his two part piece on the film is a recommended read:

https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/020411
https://www.espn.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/060420

As far as your points:

  • Grama/Worm - They were "partners" but you can tell Worm totally fucked him over. I always got the sense that Grama might have gotten some heat for all the money Worm owed being his partner, that combined with Worm being a dick, you get why he was an asshole to him.
  • Grama pissed - that is one thing my old roommate thought was weird about that. Granted the way he was to the dog, you got that he was kind of sadistic and liked inflicting pain/punishment.
  • Nah, she was clean, she knew his buddies from his poker days because she overlapped withi his poker life.
  • Petra - TRUTH. The writers totally dropped the ball there (mentioned in part 2 above)
  • Professor - LOL
  • Chan - yeah, but it sells to to most people watching
  • Police game - yeah, that would have been the smart play. Granted, maybe he hasn't made the money needed yet.

There is talk that everyone involved in the film wants a sequel now. I agree they should have had one in the 2000s, but maybe having one now would be better?

I wonder how they would play up a sequel without just rehashing the story where Worm screws over Mike and Mike has to win a big tournament (wsop main event ) to get out of trouble. Almost identical to the original except at a bigger scale. Hopefully it wouldn’t be that. If they make it.

Posted
On 4/28/2018 at 2:08 PM, Parliament said:

Maybe it started with your 2nd viewing, maybe it was several years later.  Regardless, it's a movie that isn't very good now.

The Matrix. Great premise and revolutionary special effects.  But as good as they were then, those special effects pale in comparison today.  I blame green screen.  Green screen wasn't very good yet.  And the subsequent sequels left a bad taste in our mouths.

Avatar.  It was wildly popular and the special effects were also (nearly) revolutionary.  I think it was one of the 1st movies to use that "facial capture" thing?  But the dialogue, acting and plot were wholly forgettable.  And forget we have.

Saving Private Ryan.  The Normandy Beach scene is something never put of film before.  Raw, intense, real.  No war glamorization here.  But it's plot is terrible, and acting is uneven at best.  Those raw, intense, real war scenes?  Everybody is doing that today.  But you do hafta give SPR credit for that.

Se7en.  Gonna get neg rep for this one.  All the shocking scenes in it?  Meh.  Nothing like we get today.  And the acting is so-so.  Fincher's subsequent movies are a lot better.

Got damn.  You people are savage. 8 neg bombs?

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