The @sydfilmfest is in full swing, and we're over the moon that Shinji Aoyama's EUREKA is screening as part of their Classics Restored program strand! 🍿
The epic 3.5-hour Japanese drama stars Yakusho Koji (Perfect Days) and follows the survivors of a tragedy who converge and attempt to overcome their damaged selves, all while a serial killer is on the loose.
Can't make it to Sydney, or simply looking to own a copy? Our Limited Edition release brings the meditative film to Blu-ray for the first time worldwide later this month! Pre-order now. 📀
Robert Altman explains the reason why 'Nashville' (1975) wasn't a big commercial success:
"Interviewer: 'Nashville' never became the commercial blockbuster that you and many pro-Altman critics anticipated. Why?
Altman: I can only think it's because we didn't have King Kong or a shark. I don't mean to take anything away from 'Jaws' (1975), but Nashville was not a one-focus thing like that. Also, maybe there was too much critical response; the word masterpiece frightens people away. It's still been more profitable for me personally than any film I've ever made; it's grossed about $8,000,000 and may go to $10,000,000. I think Buffalo Bill is going to be easier for audiences than Nashville, because it doesn't pose a threat: The indictment is in history, so we can always put that blame somewhere else. Nashville's indictment made too many people nervous. The whole community of 'Nashville' disowned it; the country music people said it was no good, it was a lie; and that kept a lot of those fans away.
Interviewer: Wasn't the specific charge they leveled against you that the music was phony, wouldn't pass muster at the Grand Ole Opry?
Altman: This crap about a Nashville sound is mainly a matter of opinion. I wasn't making records, goddamn it, I was making a movie. Take any song in there, I can point out a current hit or failure that's better and worse-musically, lyrically and every other way. The main reason for that criticism was that they saw the names of actors, not professional songwriters, on the songs; and Richard Baskin, who did all the arrangements, was not a country-and-western guy. It's my contention that anybody can write a song. The Nashville people have to claim they're more professional; otherwise, how are they going to justify the $1,000,000 a year they make?"
(Robert Altman's interview to Playboy, 1976)
P.S: On this day, 51 years ago, "Nashville" premiered in New York City, USA.
Happy Birthday to the effortlessly cool Kim Deal.
A career extending across four decades, helping define the alternative rock sound of the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Photo: Kim Deal playing with The Breeders, 1993.