John Lopez talks Frank or Francis on Vanity Fair's blog, specifically about how Charlie's script takes aim at Hollywood and tears the film industry a new one. Lopez wonders what kind of impact the film might have on the industry, if any, assuming that it gets made.
Now, casting announcements on the Internet are a dime a dozen, one degree above banner ads for online poker, but any motion to make Frank or Francis a reality is newsworthy if only because the script is a Trojan horse of knife-sharp meta-satire aimed straight at the heart of the industry Kaufman knows too well. It's an all-out attack on awards season.
[...] The text has swum around Hollywood's development kiddie pool as the current title holder for most "Unmakeable Film Out There." Not because it's a bizarre, phantasmagoric Rubik's cube of dark humor—it is—but because the movie aims to take down the entire raison d'être of awards season and the explosion of film blogging that's accompanied it. (Source)
I doubt it'll have a noticeable impact on Hollywood. I hope it does, but I doubt it.
A small correction to Lopez's piece, though: Francis isn't a blogger. He's a blog commenter. (I kept calling him a blogger, too, when the script was first being spoken about.)
Hollywood Reporter brings news that Elizabeth Banks has joined the cast of Frank or Francis.
Banks will play a highly-regarded actress making formulaic comedy bombs who is having an affair with Carell's Frank. (Source)
They also say:
Despite certain reports, THR can confirm Kate Winslet is not in the cast.
Meanwhile, Variety confirms the rumour I posted about a while ago:
Charlie Kaufman has cast Paul Reubens in his upcoming musical comedy ''Frank or Francis.''
Reubens will play a film critic in the pic which Anthony Bregman is producing. (Source)
I'm really happy about this. I think he'll be excellent.
I am losing track of who's in this and who they're playing. For the record, Hollywood Reporter lists Jack Black, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Reubens, Nicolas Cage, Steve Carell, Catherine Keener and Kevin Kline.
How's this for cool? Via New York Magazine's Vulture blog:
Vulture hears that Kate Winslet and Catherine Keener have come aboard Frank or Francis; the former was nominated for an Oscar for the Kaufman-penned Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, while the latter got her first Oscar nod thanks to Kaufman's script for Being John Malkovich.
[...] And though Kaufman's script is positively scathing when it comes to the Academy Awards (Cage plays a washed-up actor who serves as the emcee of the event), we should note that with the new additions to his cast, he's now got an ensemble that includes three Oscar winners and can boast a bounty of eleven total nominations. Not bad! (Source)
Here's a trippy little electronic ambient number called "I Owe My Sadnesses and My Returns to Charlie Kaufman." It was created by a user named Oscifer (real name Taylor Campbell).
The track is on SoundCloud, a website where you can "capture a voice, moment or music in seconds or upload audio you've already created." The song is tagged with the words "Eternal Sunshine."
A blogger named Scott recently responded to John August and Craig Mazin's discussion of Charlie's BAFTA lecture, and August and Mazin have posted a response to Scott's response. I could've sworn I had the link to Scott's blog somewhere in my computer, but do you think I can find it now? No. I can't. Sorry, guys. (I had a link to someone's response to the podcast. Maybe it wasn't Scott's. I don't know any more.) [Update: found it, and it wasn't Scott's blog; it was Josh Barkey's. And it wasn't even a response to August and Mazin. Duh me. Senility approacheth.]
ANYWAY. Here's the beginning of August and Mazin's latest post re: Charlie:
Responding to our podcast Zen and the Angst of Kaufman, reader Scott argues that Charlie Kaufman is in fact thinking of the audience:
He's just like you. He's trying to write movies that HE would want to sit in a theater and watch. But what he likes to watch is something true, not something he's seen before in a slightly different form. We may not be entertained by this, either because our culture has trained us that a movie should be a certain way, or because we simply like different things than Charlie Kaufman likes (because everyone's different).
He's putting himself in the theater seats as he writes, as we writers should, but he's asking us to be a more critical audience of ourselves than real audiences actually are.
We're conflating two points here. I think both are valid, but they shouldn't be confused:
Screenwriters should write movies they themselves want to see.
Screenwriters should consider the point-of-view of the audience. (Source)
"PronunciationManual" is probably my favourite YouTube channel. They teach you how to correctly pronounce stuff. A few days ago, they put up the correct pronunciation of the word "synecdoche."
I'll be performing a little maintenance work on the site over the next I-don't-know-how-long (could be a couple of days, could be a week, could be a couple of weeks if things go horribly wrong or if non-BCK things interrupt me), mostly on the "Media" section of BCK -- ie. where you go to download screenplays and whatnot. So, y'know. Things in that area might go buggy for a little while. Everything else should work fine. I'll try to keep disruptions to a minimum.
[Update: I think I've pretty much finished the bit of maintenance. I suspected it would be a complicated problem. I was mistooken. HOORAY.]
How about a poll, eh? It's not affiliated with BCK, and you won't win anything, but it's Charlie-related (kinda) so that makes me happy, and you shouldn't really need any other reason for doing anything except for "it makes Mick happy."
Focus Features are celebrating their 10th birthday, so on Facebook they're asking people to vote for your 10 favourite Focus Films. Eternal Sunshine is on the list, along with a lot of other cool flicks.
As I type this, Eternal is leading the pack with 10.54% of the votes, followed by Lost in Translation (6.13) and Brokeback Mountain (5.53). HUZZAH!
