Sorry for the delay in responding to this, I've had a busy week. Anyway, the reason why I picked this was two-fold. First, I had been meaning to watch more of THE BOG!'s work after reading about him in
Easy Riders, Raging Bulls and reading his own criticism. More importantly, my buddy sent me the link to an interview he did with Wes Anderson which focuses on
They All Laughed (Available on the DVD). Bogdanovich's Renoir impression is tremendous. Shades of Charlie Rose.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQPzzNhqGCo
After hearing that it was his most personal and favorite of his films then hearing how it was a large influence on Anderson, I figured it'd be a good place to start, and for the most part, it was. I found myself agreeing a lot on what Lance said earlier about the genre mash-ups not working towards a cohesive whole, with the heightened dialogue and situations flourishing in various subplots (Russo and Angela's burgeoning relationship and Arthur and Charles' encounters, namely) and totally falling flat in others (I wanted to shoot Christy multiple times. In the head. Good lord). It was hard to keep track of each character's motivations at first, but after settling with the fact that the film will continue to be that loose, I enjoyed it. The manic energy was certainly elevated by Bogdanovich's emphasis on purely visual storytelling, made even more stellar by the guerilla nature of the shoot itself. And holy shit, was it gorgeously shot - that was a saving grace for me when I had to suffer through any scenes involving Christy or Ritter's seemingly out-of-place slapstick.
It was an interesting starting point, to say the least. I'm hoping to watch
The Last Picture Show and
What's Up, Doc? in the near future. You know, besides Colonel Blimp. Also, I feel a Jarmuschathon coming, or at least a jump into his work.