My Year of Flops Read Online Free PDF Page B

have no legs. He had an opportunity to keep a very important character in the film, and that character was you and me, the ones who really were, for a while, afraid of their own president. But by deciding to keep the story in the White House, it looked like business as usual, so the character couldn’t appear. And there’s noreason to see the film after you get past the performances or whatever. Josh [Brolin] is great, [Elizabeth Banks] is great, I’m really good.
    And Oliver [Stone] is a putz who screamed that I was the worst actor he’d ever worked with, and I’d ruined his film, he had to cut around me. And I said, “Oliver, you’ve made one strategic error.” He said, “What was that?” I said, “The junket has yet to come.” And then I ripped him apart at the junket. They said, “What did you think of the film?” And I went … [Grimaces.] I answered the question. And as I’m doing now, I’m continuing to do that, because he was a bully, he was graceless at the top of his lungs, and he blew a great opportunity, artistically, commercially, whatever you want to call it. And I have a just-big-enough ego. I don’t do favors for people who treat me like a pig. So as far as I’m concerned, you can lead this story off by saying, “Richard Dreyfuss still thinks Oliver is an asshole.”
    Nathan Rabin: Were you able to empathize with Cheney over the course of playing him?
    RD: Empathize? No. I think that he was true to himself, you know? He really did believe that the executive branch was superior to the legislative and the courts. He really did believe that the executive had the right to tell Congress to go fuck itself.
    NR: It was an imperial presidency.
    RD: Yeah. And he believed in the PATRIOT Act. And there was never a conspiracy with the Bush people. They never planned anything. They just waited for our outrage, which never appeared, so they took the next step. We’re the villains, because we have lost our outrage.
    Book-Exclusive Patented, Pain-Free Case File: The Great Moment
    In Preston Sturges’ 1941 masterpiece
Sullivan’s Travels,
the pampered, wildly successful comedy director behind such fanciful frivolities as
Ants In Your Pants Of 1939, Hey Hey In The Hayloft,
and
So Long Sarong
tires of pumping out mindless escapism and sets out to make
O Brother, Where Art Thou?,
a timely, socially relevant drama about thehuman condition. To prepare, he escapes the comforting womb of Hollywood and experiences poverty firsthand as an undercover hobo. He ends up on a chain gang for his troubles but learns he can do far more good for the ever-suffering masses as a maker of mirth than as a dour chronicler of the human condition.
    In 1942, Preston Sturges, the pampered, wildly successful comedy director, set out to make a timely, socially relevant drama about the human condition and the cruelty of fate called
The Great Moment.
He was punished for his ambition with just about every indignity short of a stint on a chain gang.
    When he made
The Great Moment,
Sturges was in the midst of one of the greatest streaks in American film, a five-year stretch that encompassed such unassailable apogees of cinematic comedy as
The Great McGinty, Christmas In July, The Lady Eve, Sullivan’s Travels, The Palm Beach Story, The Miracle Of Morgan’s Creek,
and
Hail The Conquering Hero.
Yet Sturges’ success mattered little to his bosses over at Paramount. The debonair filmmaker watched in horror as
The Great Moment
was reedited against his will, his prologue discarded, the running time trimmed to 81 minutes, and the film’s title changed twice (from
Triumph Over Pain
to
Great Without Glory
to
The Great Moment
). Then it lingered on a shelf for years. Upon its eventual 1944 release, moviegoers ignored it and critics dismissed it.
    It was the beginning of the end for one of our greatest writer-directors. After
The Great Moment
spelled the death of