October 09, 2005
In the News
Speaking to John Warner, the author of the writing guide Fondling Your Muse, Ron Hogan reveals the lengths he went to for art's sake: "I spent a half-week with a photo editor poring through the archives of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences looking for just the right picture of Harvey Korman in Americathon to anchor the entire project."
On a (just barely) more serious note, for an interview with The Reeler, Ron describes the writing process for Stewardess!: "For six months, my TiVo was filled with nothing but '70s films. But actually I shouldn't say 'my TiVo,' because it's actually my wife's TiVo, so that led to some testy moments over the course of the research period. It's like, 'Can we get rid of some of these trashy movies?' ... It would get to points where there were like a dozen cheap horror films mixed in with, like, The French Connection."
Speaking with Cinematical, he offers some more details on the research and production stages, as well as listing some of his favorite '70s films—including one that didn't make it into the book! The Spook Who Sat by the Door (left) is "like Shaft meets The Amateur meets The Battle of Algiers," he says. "Remember all the hoopla about how The Warriors was going to cause massive gang violence? By all rights, this film should have started urban uprisings from coast to coast." And an IM chat with Cinecultist explains why he never pursued a career in criticism after leaving USC's film studies program: "We used to joke about that in grad school, actually, about how hard it would be if we seriously thought about trying to get film critic gigs, because those really do seem like positions that most critics leave only when they're taken out on a stretcher."