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freddiekolbeck · 1 month

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CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT TASK 001: FAMILIES

louis kolbeck (alain delon): freddie's granddad was an actor that is past his prime. you would only know him if you were into old gangster movies, or really bad hallmark movies. pals with the likes of robert de niro and al pacino, though they didn't help him out when he drowned the family in debt due to his gambling addiction. freddie has only had a handful of interactions with him, and he learned where his father got it from. freddie has never really had a relationship with him, besides all the comparisons of how he's starting to look like a younger louis.

ralph kolbeck (nikolaj coster-waldau): an ogden alumni. born with a distaste for his surroundings, from his irresponsible father who couldn't be bothered to raise him to the debt collectors who were knocking on his door. his mother died when he was young and he was forced to raise himself. he had the drive to be better and a thirst for success. he vowed to provide for his family, to be a good father and husband but his priorities misaligned along the way. business became more important, he depended on alcohol to relieve his stress, and a poorly timed pregnancy threw a spanner in the works. he did not want a son, which in turn made him an angry man. freddie realised this later on in life.

cassie luker (margot robbie): ralph's current girlfriend, an up-and-coming actress. they've been dating for four years. her career has sky rocketed since. cassie and freddie had starred in a movie together, where she played his older sister. after he was blacklisted, she gave an interview about how unpleasant the set had been due to a young diva. freddie has been caught liking tweets which talk badly of her relationship with his dad.

naomi kolbeck née capper (sienna miller): a failed actress who once had stars in her eyes. she moved to la from a small town with dreams of making it big, and she was willing to do anything to get there. she really did love ralph, but she hadn't expected him to not lift a finger to help her career. so when he told her he'd gotten the maid pregnant, she'd convinced herself she always wanted kids. she was delighted when freddie expressed an interest in acting, despite pushing him in that direction, and she grew to love being his mother, for all the opportunities it gave her. divorcing ralph had been a long time coming, and running back to freddie with her tail between her legs had been humiliating. she was willing to grovel for his forgiveness. luckily he'd been willing to give her a chance, but their relationship remains strained, as he starts to realise that she'll never change.

jo woods (jaime pressly): freddie's birth mom. she'd been the maid at the kolbeck household whilst he was growing up. he watched as she was treated poorly, or as if she wasn't even there. he learned from his parents and acted no differently. but it'd come as a surprise to him when she quit her job, once it'd all become too much for her. she wrote him a letter, explaining everything, which he only read a few years later. they met and talked for hours, and he cried in her arms. he'd been sending her money ever since, but he's rarely seen her after finding out she had another family of her own. he had text her a photo of cassie after the news of his dad's new relationship broke out, pointing out how alike they look, to which jo replied: she's pretty, but are you okay? looking back on it, to his memory, she'd been the only one to ask him that whilst growing up, despite his behaviour towards her.

#ogdentask #hehe x

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apricior · 2 months

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idk if i've ever told this before, but sometimes i switch letters/syllables in my head or i confuse names just because they have the same vowels (i'm not dyslexic so idk why it happens), which means that for the longest time i was fully 100% convinced that al pacino and al capone were the same person. "dude how did you confuse an actor with a gangster" yeah i also thought it was weird that a criminal was a hollywood superstar but i just thought that they were more progressive back then. like a diversity hire but with a gangster

#everyone i've told this to has thought that i am deeply stupid. which is a fair assumption to make

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zoeology31 · 1 year

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Something I’ve noticed in all the excellent Goncharov analysis is is that people don’t seem to talk about Mario Ambrosini much? Like, he’s the main antagonist of the film, and Al Pacino’s billed second in the credits, but the fandom focus is always on Goncharov, Katya, and Andrey. I totally get why, I mean those three are the emotional core of the film, and flawed tragic leader/loyal lieutenant is an absolutely unmatched ship dynamic. Comparatively, Ambrosini is very much an external force and his dynamic with Goncharov doesn’t really change as the plot progresses.

But without Ambrosini, I honestly don’t think the entire story is possible. Like, at the beginning, why does Goncharov decide to have Russo killed? Because Ambrosini implied he’d switched loyalties. Sure, Katya already suspected that and probably would’ve done something soon, but it was that conversation that pushed Goncharov to act. Throughout the film, Goncharov is reacting to Ambrosini’s actions, always trying to gain the advantage over him and creating more pressure on himself and his allies in the process.

Now, the opening scene introduces us to the Goncharov-Ambrosini rivalry right away, but why is this rivalry such a big deal? We see in the dinner scene that there’s multiple other local mafia leaders who are probably bigger threats to Goncharov than Ambrosini and vice versa, but they’re clearly fixated on each other. This is where the context of the time period and the characters’ backgrounds comes into play. There’s definitely elements of nationalism/xenophobia in Ambrosini’s character; see how he treats Andrey vs the army captain in the dinner scene. He views Goncharov’s faction as a threat due to their “outside” status, while Goncharov feels he has to prove himself worthy and Ambrosini is the one standing in his way.

Adding another layer to this is Ice Pick Joe, who as others have discussed is written as Italian-American. Ambrosini, an Italian nationalist, has an Italian immigrant to the US as his closest associate while opposing Russian immigrants to Italy. This illustrates the main theme Ambrosini represents: what does it mean to be Italian? Scorsese pretty roundly condemns Ambrosini’s views on this subject, considering the strong parallels between Ice Pick Joe and Katya.

A quick breakdown, in case you haven’t heard of said parallels: We know Joe spent his early childhood in Italy (his offhand mention to Sofia of driving to Rome on holiday), and given actor John Cazale’s age at the time of filming, his family likely fled during WWII. Similarly, we know Katya’s departure from the USSR is something she tries to forget, and the letter from Valery she burns right before the apple buying scene implies their parents were dissidents. The two characters are mirrors of one another, and Joe’s death scene is even a literal mirror to the bit where Goncharov wakes Katya up the morning after the church scene. I don’t have screenshots handy, but look at how the doorway frames the shot when Ambrosini kneels over Joe’s body; the composition and lighting is exactly the same.

So Ambrosini’s a pretty static character, yeah, but that’s done intentionally. He symbolizes the challenges Goncharov faces, the motives that drive his spiral of self-destruction. And he’s not without depth; he cares about Ice Pick Joe in a way that no other character tries to (though I’d say Sofia understands Joe best), even if that care doesn’t show overtly until Joe’s death. I do think it’s fitting that Goncharov kills Ambrosini with 15 minutes still left in the movie, because though Ambrosini initiates the plot, it’s Goncharov’s own actions that make his ending inevitable. Katya and Andrey’s betrayals are already in motion and the clocks are running down.

#goncharov #mario ambrosini #katya #ice pick joe #unreality #wanted some meta writing practice so here we are #my stuff

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teach463146 · 1 year

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Filled with stupendous performances, 'The Offer' is a pleasant surprise that speaks of the art of producing, as well as being a love letter to an icon of contemporary cinema: 'The Godfather'

The art of producing

As everyone knows by now, The Offer (SkyShowtime) tells the adventures and misadventures of how Albert S. Ruddy (played by a terrific Miles Teller) managed to produce The Godfather for Paramount. He did it at a difficult time for the production company, which was about to be sold, after the dismissal of its CEO, Robert Evans (played by a Matthew Goode who eats up the screen). And under difficult conditions, when the Italian-American mafia refused to adapt a novel that, for many of them, gave a bad image of the Italian community.

This exceptional factor is added to other typical ones in any production: being able to find a director, convincing the goodness of the script, casting problems (because whoever has the economic power of a production does not have the necessary sensitivity to risk, as happened with a still beginner Al Pacino or a Marlon Brando considered conflictive and out of control…).

Matthew Goode is Robert Evans.

The Offer tells all of this and also the shreds that tear Ruddy's life apart due to his obsession with taking the project forward and gaining a place in the industry. His dangerous pacts with a mobster (Giovanni Ribisi as Joe Colombo is exceptional, in a performance as Strasberg as Brando himself in the film), his internal struggles, his deceptions (sometimes he seems like a poker player with his bosses), his balances …

And by doing it so brilliantly, the series reinforces an opinion that I have always held: the most creative profession in audiovisuals is that of the producer. The one of the good producer. Not that of the scriptwriter, director, actors... That of (I insist) the GOOD producer, as a generator of an idea, talent hunter and negotiator of the general balance of a good production. And not like the one who steals the talent of others, he endorses ideas that are not or signs scripts without having touched a key. Something that still happens too often in these parts.

THE OFFER IS AN ODE TO PASSION AS AN ESSENTIAL FACTOR TO TELL A STORY AND TO THE PROFESSION ITSELF

Narrating the essential and the anecdotal, the business and the artistic, The Offer is a pleasant surprise that speaks of the art of producing. And, by the way, it is a love letter to an icon of contemporary cinema: The Godfather, that masterpiece in its first two volumes that was modern (those two times in parallel in the second part opened the possibility of a different way of narrating ) and which is now a classic.

I don't think The Offer will become as classic a series because The Godfather is almost unbeatable in that. And because times are running so fast right now and there are such a number of new series that it is difficult for television fiction to reach such a level. But it is indeed a jewel that combines memories with excellent pop nods to a glorious era.

That it has an exceptional casting (for me, along with Everybody Loves Daisy Jones, two master classes on how to do a casting) with bets -among others- like Juno Temple, a surprising Justin Chambers as Brando and immeasurable Dan Fogler ( Coppola), Patrick Gallo (Puzo) and Stephanie Koenig (Andrea Eastman), ending with an impressive find: the casting of Anthony Ippolito as a young Al Pacino. Every time he appears, he is a chill: how can he resemble the original so much because of his attitudes, because of his interpretation... and not because of his physique.

The rest are civilians.

At one point in episode 4 of The Offer, Andrea Eastman's character (Stephanie Koenig) tries to cheer Ruddy up in a moment of depression. The cause? The problems that she has to be able to convince the bosses of Paramount that Pacino must be Michael Corleone, as Ford Coppola insists. And he wonders if so much effort is worth it. Eastman's character, in charge of the casting, responds in an exceptional monologue, which I allow myself to reproduce:

“You are seeing things the wrong way. The question you should be asking yourself is: why are we here, in show business? We are here because this is the life we have chosen, right? We all ran away from home to join the circus. And everything we say to make it sound like we care about the life we could have had… Wife, kids, dog… It's a lie. Because what really makes you feel bad isn't the fact that you're not a member of a country club or don't have a big deer's head hanging on your wall. None of that matters in life. What you really want in life, in fact all you want is for a man named Al Pacino to pretend to be a man named Michael Corleone. And you're right to feel horribly bad about this (for not getting it). Because it's very important. I feel the same way as you. And we can only be around other people who understand that. Everyone else is just civilians."

I have never seen a better definition of a profession and professionalism. Of the struggle of the creative against those who say they know what is going to be a success or not and who has to star in a movie or a series (among many other things) for that, for it to be a success.

It is not the only lesson that offers us (as it tells the story of how the film came to be produced) The Offer. It is an ode to passion as an essential factor in telling a story (what is truly important as Spielberg says) and of the trade itself. And, above all, it is a tribute to what true executive production is. In movies or in series, turning many of his sequences into an exhibition of…

How to trust the creative part as the basis of quality, making available what is necessary for it to grow.

How not to get carried away by that same creative part that is normally insatiable and that can lead to a lack of budget control.

How an executive producer should meet with people who know what he doesn't. That he decides after listening to experts, to his team, because he does not think he is smarter than anyone. Ruddy, in the series, when each crisis arrives, asks those closest to him: And now what do we do? ». He listens and then he decides. An executive producer who surrounds himself with people who only applaud his decisions and flatter him is dead: first lesson of the book. How an executive producer must balance wishes with reality under the guidelines of a production. Because the paper supports everything, but the image, no.

How to agree (if necessary) with the devil to achieve a goal. And, at the same time, manage to never sell your soul to the devil.

How a producer is a human resources manager. The evolution of the protagonist in the series is a master's degree in how to keep everyone satisfied when, on multiple occasions, the satisfaction of some seems incompatible with that of others.

This is not the case: The Offer also talks about…

Script: intentions and actions. About the importance of activities to define characters (wonderful sequence between Puzo and Coppola talking about Italian cooking and how that leads to writing). About how difficult it is for a novelist with no experience as a screenwriter to assume writing (due to narrative rhythm, delivery times...) like a professional screenwriter. But, above all, it recalls a historical moment in cinema in which the first thing producers look for is a good scriptwriter and, from there, build production, choose the director [1], the stars or those who don't. they are so much

Direction: with delicious tributes to the way of situating, getting into action, dealing with actors (and how to support them in their respectable and very dignified insecurity to know if they will manage to do it well), lighting, assembly ideas... applied at the same time in the way of making the series itself.

Concept: or how to turn a story with Mafia protagonists into a movie that was not typical of gangsters, applying the concept of family, social rejection, appealing to the best Shakespeare and his ability to narrate the great human passions. Because the concept, which Manquiña said in his day, is always the most important thing to differentiate your work from that of others, no matter how much it resembles others.

Stories within the story: narrative layers as forms of communication

The Offer, as an excellent series that it is, masterfully handles various layers. That of the memory of a Golden Age (of the real ones) of cinema, paying homage to a masterpiece and an industry. That of Ruddy's own story, in which sometimes you don't know whether to laugh at the tragedy and cry at the comedy, because the emotion with which it is told is remarkable. And that of entertainment, because he never forgets that this is the essential objective of every series. An entertainment within the reach of all audiences but which (it is my experience talking about this series with colleagues in the sector), becomes something very special if the viewer dedicates himself, in any of his facets, to the audiovisual industry.

Because, without being didactic at any time, it teaches something essential, which will never appear in teaching programs about it: that in this business (whether you are a producer, director or screenwriter), the passion to build a good story piece by piece is much more that the office hours, the repetition of rules, the appeal to the topic and -now- the algorithm (which is actually the sum of all those things).

It teaches us that, those of us who do it, do not dedicate ourselves to this to be members of a social club (and, sometimes, not even to make friends: another thing is that we are so stupid that we do not have empathy and create enemies. That is more clumsy yet). Not even to have the head of a deer hanging in the living room (take the deer as a metaphor). But, above all, The Offer shows us and reminds us that -and I'm not referring to the viewer, let's be clear- "the rest are civilians".

[1] Although in this case, Coppola covered both facets. Of course: taking Mario Puzo, author of the novel, into account. In fact, Coppola remarked on his day that he would never do new episodes of The Godfather without Puzo by his side.

Written by Javier Olivares on May 9, 2023.

See more on Cult TV, Myths, Nostalgia, The Offer.

#matthew goode #the offer

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rogerdeakinsdp · 1 year

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tbh i consider heat (1995) to be michael mann's love letter to goncharov (1973). he really took the clock motif and goncharov's inability to escape his past/being stuck in his way of life and decided to make an entire film about it. kinda disappointed we didn't get any parallels to katya in it because she was such an important presence in goncharov's life but at the same time i doubt anyone but marty could have done justice to katya 😔

oh, 100%, michael mann was truly a fan of goncharov (1973) and you can really see it. i would've loved to see his take on katya too, but i think the lack of a katya type character in neil's life was intentional. okay hear me out - katya is a humanizing factor in goncharov's life, it's not that obvious from the beginning that he won't be able to outrun his past, there's still hope and a lot of that hope is due to katya's presence and her love of life. whereas in heat (1995) neil mccauley is alone, there's no hope, he's doomed from the beginning.

i think in one interview michael mann said he was most shocked by mario's "betrayal" and that friendships break your heart just as much as romantic relationships, sometimes even harder. that's why he chose al pacino for vincent hanna, mario to his goncharov/neil, not harvey keitel, to draw parallels between goncharov/mario and neil/vincent, be it romantic or platonic or anything in between, because love is love, and it hurts both ways, it hurts always.

and overall, the main focus of heat (1995) is the dynamics between the characters and it's honestly fascinating how michael mann flipped it. goncharov from goncharov (1973) is clearly the protagonist, and to have robert de niro in a antagonist type of role in heat (1995) really emphasizes the overlapping theme of "we're not so different you and i", especially in the iconic diner scene. also i get a lot of mario apologist vibes from michael mann, it was never confirmed, but i think we all know where he stands on that "betrayal" debate... and don't even get me started how despite his murders goncharov is seen as a good guy but professional thief neil mccauley is a bad guy, the critique of capitalism is quite obvious

so maybe heat (1995) isn't as sophisticated as goncharov (1973) and has fewer moving parts, but it's a streamlined, emotionally solid, non-stop vehicle designed to break your heart.

p.s. are we even gonna touch the irishman (2019)? it's really amazing that bobby and al are such good friends despite of all sorts of fucked up relations scorsese/mann put them in.

#goncharov

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sweetadel1ne · 1 year

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al pacino’s love letter to diane keaton

#he looked like he was praying but he was talking to her #!!#foaming at the fucking mouth

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day0walkersdrafts · 1 year

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The assassination attempt on Dr. Sullivan is peculiar at best.

Happy stands at her desk, looking down at the black coffee cup. He picks it up and holds it underneath his nose. Doesn’t smell any different from her usual. Considering she drinks sludge for breakfast, any sort of poison would probably be masked by this oil slick coffee.

It’s not peculiar that someone would want to kill Bunny. He gets that; she’s pretty…killable. Not exactly everyones cup of tea—of coffee, he supposes, to himself with a small satisfied snort. That was a good one. He’d write it down later, or something. But, Dr. Sullivan, surely, is not nearly as high profile as an assassination attempt. Moreover, it feels…amateur.

There’s the intern that makes it obvious. She’s in heels—which makes it real obvious. Because she’s on her feet all day, running the errands. Picking up lunch orders, delivering paper, getting the coffee. They very poisoned coffee. Should be in flats, or loafers, or something comfortable like all the other interns wear. She’s not young enough to be in that stage of just got onboarded and I’m so excited to work! Which would explain that attention to detail regarding her appearance. But she’s also not old enough to be the type to I’ve worn heels longer than you’ve been alive, my feet are permanently destroyed and I don’t care.

Also the intern was really fucking nice to him. Which also made it far too apparent, because people weren’t generally nice to Happy. People usually ignored Happy—unless they had to directly interact with him, which wasn’t too often. People avoided Happy, he was easy to avoid; he was exhaustingly miserable, difficult to hold in conversation, good at his job in a ruthlessly efficient but baseline way. Clocked out every single day at the exact same time he was supposed to and took every hour of sick and personal hours he could.

Happy, also, notoriously, only got along with about two people if that. Sometimes three. Maybe, maybe, maybe four was stretching it.

That meant, someone had told the intern, stay on Happy’s good side. Which didn’t exist—but staying on no side was essentially the best way to be with Happy. She’d not done that. She’d brought him a coffee with extra cold foam, she’d warmed up his scone for him, she’d given him that big, I am so friendly and excited smile when she’d dropped it and Bunny’s tepid, oily, poisoned coffee.

She’d asked, “Need anything?” with bright, white, perfect teeth.

“More staples,” Happy had replied, tapping his stapler with two fingers. It had a label on it that read DO NOT REMOVE FROM DIONDRE’S DESK.

With her gone and the coffee moved from Bunny’s desk and over to his, he leans back in his office chair with the email open. S3RPIC0’s handle has always puzzled him. Unsure if the hacker is alluding to the 1973 neo-noir crime drama that Al Pacino looked ruggedly handsome in; or if they were trying for the serpent motif. Hm. Serpent. Happy flips to the crossword puzzle on his desk. WHAT IS A DANCE THAT IS ALSO A SNAKE? Six letters. Mamba. He quickly jots it down.

Anyway, S3RPIC0’s email is encrypted, or had been, an hour ago. But now it’s plain text, and it details the interns, well, details. Real name, country of origin, specific details, a faction list tacked onto her name. Big chunks of text that he doesn’t feel like imbibing. He sips his un-poisoned coffee.

Still no real reason for her to target Bunny specifically. Happy could potentially dig. He could email back, wire transfer the hacker more money, get a little more info on how she could have slipped her way onto this base unnoticed. But, he decides, glancing at the clock, that he really, truly does not care. They’re supposed to have dinner at one of those fancy places later, where the sushi costs twenty dollars for four pieces.

When the intern whose real name he’s already forgotten (kind of doesn’t remember the fake one either) returns, he says, “Thank you,” and then pulls the taser from his pocket and gets her in the throat. Its one swift, smooth motion. Really underlines the must be new to assassination thing, because she probably should have caught his hand. Instead, she crumbles, twitching and Happy scoots back from his desk.

The operator he’d asked to hide in the big steel locker slides from it. He gets her easy, a lanky arm around her neck. There’s only a bit of struggle, which makes Happy pick up the poisoned, and deliciously un-poisoned coffee off his desk so it doesn’t spill onto his keyboard. He places the black coffee on the windowsill and watches the blond operator efficiently finish off the little spy. He’d barely broken a sweat out and his long, slender body unfolds as he stands.

“Wicked,” he says, smiling at Happy. “Haven’t do-done that in a while.”

“My treat,” Happy says blandly, finishing off the iced coffee and licking a little bit of foam from his upper lip. The operator slings the woman up onto his shoulder, stumbling slightly under the weight.

Bunny’s wife opens their joint office door, stepping inside. Now there is a woman who can wear heels all day and not suffer a single sore muscle. Oh, four letter word, shoe that is also an animal. Mule. Happy crosses over to his desk to quickly write it down. Jack steps further into the office when Bunny comes slinking in as well, pushing back her short black hair.

“Forgot my fucking coffee,” she’s snapping, mumbling under her breath when she also stops. The weird, blond operator is huffing a little under the weight of the dead body and is staring with giant, pale blue eyes. He darts them back and forth awkwardly, huffing. “Happy, what the fuck?”

“Bunny,” he replies, tapping his pen on the book of crosswords. “Have you pissed someone off recently enough they’d wanna put poison in your coffee?”

She blinks those tired eyes and looks to her wife, then the operator, who is slowly attempting to flatten to the wall and slide out of the room. It’s awkward, with the dead woman. Her head keeps flopping around, her brown hair out of the bun she’d kept it in. The operator swallows and smiles and raises a hand at Jack, who has only tilted her chin slightly and looked at him in that way she looks at people. It’s either, I have summarized every single detail of you and pinned you like a bug for examination or your shoes are untied.

“Probably,” Bunny replies, opening a desk drawer to slip out her cigarettes. She hip checks it close and the blond operator finally manages to get out the office. Happy watches the dead womans shoes clack against the door as it shuts.

#happy #bunny #happy x bunny #jack #also a little smidge of benny in this LMAO

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