Squirrels to the Nuts (Peter Bogdanovich, 2015)

[domino harvey]

So… this isn't very good. Not surprising, of course, since Bogdanovich's filmmaking love and verve died with Dorothy Stratten, but I keep holding out hope regardless. Bogdanovich spent so long getting this made that I wish he'd taken some of that time to draft a funnier script. There are occasional moments of farce that work, but most everything that succeeds here is saved by the actors. I've never been the biggest fan but Jennifer Aniston steals the movie as an inept therapist with anger issues, and Imogen Poots is quite charming though not asked to do much but deliver a brighter but watered down Mira Sorvino in Mighty Aphrodite. And George Morfogen gets some cheap but dependable laughs as the terrible private detective (hard times befallen on his character in They All Laughed?) who employs a series of nicely underplayed awful guises. And there are plenty of "Catch the Bogdanovich Players" cameos (There's Tatum O'Neal! There's Colleen Camp! &c) and a big "reveal" cameo at the end that seems as sloppily executed and rushed as everything else here. Of more interest than most of Bogdanovich's post-Stratten career, but that's not saying much. Ah well.

[beamish13]

Not surprising, of course, since Bogdanovich's filmmaking love and verve died with Dorothy Stratten.

Harsh words, Domino. You don't even have any love for the hilarious NOISES OFF or very tender and emotionally rich THE THING CALLED LOVE?

[domino harvey]

Those are probably his two worst post-They All Laughed theatrical films, so, no

[bearcuborg]

I don't have much use for dismissing his career after the murder. I'll echo my affection for Noises Off as I found it hilarious, and a real technical accomplishment. While I can't wholly endorse Thing Called Love, it does has some very tender moments and a River Phoenix performance that's really charming.

I've found Bogdanovich's career to be pretty strong throughout, but if one wants to conveniently break down his filmography with high points like They All Laughed, I would say his next real low for me was Cat's Meow - when compared to something similar released that year by Altman, just kind of plays like a dull TV movie. It does have some pretty good performances though. Hustle didn't impress me much, but I can't imagine a better documentary made about music than Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream.

I consider Texasville as good a movie as he's ever made. I've always ask himed Peter to make a follow up, and he say's he intends too. Just for the record, I've run into him 6 times at book signings, film events, etc. It's not like he knows me or anything. Anyway, Texasville means a lot to me, as I saw when I was in my mid 20's in the summer of 2004-5, going through a hellish break up - and I felt like I got what he was doing with the characters as grown ups. The book is, of course, wonderful. Duane's Depressed is even better.

Another overlooked gem, post Stratten, is To Sir With Love II which I adore as much as the first one. Sidney has some really touching moments in the film.

Although he has a small cameo, The Dukes (a film by Robert Davi!) has some wonderful comedy, and more clever writing than would expect of a film of it's kind.

Anyway, I'm enamored with Peter. He's meant a lot to me and my appreciation of Cinema. His Pieces of Time book really connected the dots for me when I was a young teenager, much the same way another hero of mine, Kevin Brownlow, did with his books. Peter's Who The Devil Made It is a real treasure.

[domino harvey]

I agree that Noises Off is a superb technical achievement, I just think it's all at the service of a shrill and unfunny mess. Texasville is a good film, the best of his post-Stratten theatrical work for sure, and I appreciate how different it is in aims and delivery than the Last Picture Show (As I said elsewhere on the board, if the first film was about the inanity of small-town Texas life, then the sequel is about the insanity of small-town Texas life) and I like the little touches in a film like Illegally Yours. But it seems ludicrous to not acknowledge how drastically his style, care, and delivery changed post-Stratten, and as one of the biggest Bogdanovich supporters on the planet, post-They All Laughed he became a different person as clearly evidenced by his output. Trauma does that to a person, I can't fault him. But I'm not going to pretend he's doing the same level work because his optimism in the power of cinema died with Stratten.

[Calvin]

James Kenney writes about how he bought the original cut of Squirrels to the Nuts on eBay and shared it with Bogdanovich, who was making plans for a wider release prior to his death

She’s Funny That Way, what now stands as the final feature film of Bogdanovich, is already largely forgotten because it is, well, largely forgettable.

Squirrels to the Nuts, on the other hand, is an autumnal work of art, a rich and delightful summation of Bogdanovich’s style and obsessions, featuring surprising depth of characterization and expertly executed comic set pieces, including a hilarious extended scene involving Forte, Pendleton, Morfogen, Poots, a dog, and a bagpiper, that was lost in transition. Writing days after Peter’s death, I am moved, astonished, and above all, grateful that I got my hands on this film and returned it to him.

[domino harvey]

Wow. I hope this materializes somewhere, legally or otherwise.

[soundchaser]

There’s so much of Bogdanovich’s stuff that’s lingering in studio archives or the Lily Library in Indiana. It would be a shame if his death prevented the reevaluation of another of his films — particularly one this promising.

[swo17]

Wow. I hope this materializes somewhere, legally or otherwise.

[Bogdanovich] relayed in October 2021 that “We still need to tie in Sinatra’s song and a couple of other minor things. However, we’re deep into getting a proper print to be able to show in theaters and put it out on Blu-ray. Squirrels is moving along,” though in a later email he did add “we’re still stuck in the music rights black hole.”

And then, on January 6, 2022, he died.

[Ribs]

Clear your calendar: Squirrels to the Nuts will be doing a weeklong engagement at MoMA.

[soundchaser]

I’m not suggesting someone should sneak a camcorder in, but…

[therewillbeblus]

Does this bode well for any other screenings and/or release? Not sure of a track record with rare screenings at MoMA resulting in anything further...

[knives]

How do I get tickets?

[MitchPerrywinkle]

Looks like tickets will be going on sale as early as mid-March for certain dates. By sheer luck I'll be on vacation in NYC starting the 2nd of April, so I know exactly what I'll be doing Saturday night!

[diamonds]

New article with some more details on the MoMA screening, and Louise Stratten seems optimistic about an eventual home release:

At MoMA, moviegoers won’t see a completely polished movie; what’s on the tape wasn’t color-corrected and lacked a final sound mix and official credits. But Louise Stratten, who wrote the movie with Bogdanovich and was one of its producers, called it “the rough version of the director’s cut,” with all the scenes in place and no trims to be made. In the months before he died, Bogdanovich had been working on putting out a fully finished version of the cut that was on the tape, said Stratten, who was married to the director from 1988 to 2001. She said it will be available soon for home viewing.

[hearthesilence]

Louise Stratten and Adria Petty introduced the film tonight at MoMA, and Stratten did a Q&A afterwards with James Kenney invited up from the audience. The good news is Lionsgate is going to distribute this sometime this year. No details yet but the wheels are in motion and I think they've already "circulated" the film to all the cast members. As reported, the final mixing and finishing will be done before it gets a wider release.

First time I heard about this whole project was in 2011 at this BAM screening of They All Laughed. Back then, Noah Baumbach was the honorary chair of the BAM Cinema Club - IIRC they usually rotated in someone new each year and typically that translated into said person holding at least one special event. So this was kind of it, and at the end of the post-screening discussion, Bogdanovich mentioned that this film was in the works, adding that Wes Anderson and Baumbach were going to help him get it made and that they were kind of like his sons.

I never bothered to see it in theaters when it was re-done as She's Funny That Way, but I thought this version shared a lot of traits with They All Laughed. There are elements of a lot of his films in this one, so in a way it feels like an appropriate and worthy last film (if not by design), but the idiosyncrasy brought to mind They All Laughed more than anything else. Afterwards Kenney said it was Bogdanovich's first personal project since They All Laughed, so I guess the similarities are no surprise, but I would also say Bogdanovich's best work in the interim usually came out as highly personal even if it was hired gig work.

The sound mix was definitely not finished, the end credits weren't either (a jazz trio's members had yet to be named, replaced with question marks) but I think the film only needs polishing because it's pretty much all there. It's not perfect, but there's no mistaking this for anyone else's film and it's all the better for it.

To be clear, I mean it's Bogdanovich AND Louise Stratten's film as they both co-wrote it - according to Stratten, they wrote it when their marriage was falling apart, and not only does that permeate through the script, it's also reflected in the soundtrack. I guess the released film leaned on a new score, but this version opens with Frank Sinatra's "New York, New York" and then becomes 90% Tom Petty songs - a lot of songs actually, and except for "A Face in the Crowd" and "Kings Highway" (of which the latter is used for the end credits) everything comes from Wildflowers and Echo. Petty himself has called Wildflowers his real "divorce" album ("that’s me getting ready to leave") while Echo came out of the fallout with Petty often saying the material was too dark and depressing for him to revisit.

Petty's daughter didn't stay for the Q&A which was a shame because it would've been interesting to hear more about her father's relationship with the film. She also said her father actually gave her the push to go to film school - as mentioned in Bogdanovich's thread, Petty was a real film buff, and Petty's family remained close to Bogdanovich after Petty died. (Adria Petty also mentioned that she was constantly talking to Bogdanovich about this re-release up until the day Bogdanovich died. During the Q&A, it was mentioned that she basically gave her dad's songs to this film free of charge so that they could be included when it comes out.)

It took a little while to get into the film, and I think the problem falls mostly on two people: Jennifer Aniston and Austin Pendleton. I feel bad saying that - Aniston's casting probably got more financing and Pendleton is reportedly a wonderful human being - but they both have important roles and they're clearly the weakest links. Aniston is amusing, but she never rises up to her character's potential as a hilariously crazy and terrible person. Pendleton never seems to have a good grasp of his character - in his defense, the character itself may have needed more work in the script, but it's possible they just needed someone who's better at being an obsessive horny old man. They're probably the two craziest characters in the film and had those parts been nailed, I can see the chemistry being glorious end-to-end. But what's there is still good, and it's possible having those characters diminished in effectiveness allows other strong parts of the film to become more noticeable and more affecting.

Imogen Poots is especially good, and according to Kenney and Stratten, her performance was undermined in the re-shoots for the released version as they plowed a ton of expository dialogue into her lap that I imagine would have killed the momentum. (One of the best things about this film is that it hurtles forward at a breakneck pace, so even when stuff doesn't quite work, the pacing kind of mows over those flaws.) I actually know people EXACTLY like Poots's Izzy (they're not prostitutes, but without the thick accent, personality-wise they're a dead match) so it might've hit me harder than most, but I thought she was glorious. She's still doing a lot of work, but it's a shame this didn't help her career as much as it should have - that she replaced a still relatively unknown Brie Larson makes that fact all the more disappointing.

[Black Hat]

Interesting, I thought Poots' performance, to be kind, was uneven. The way her accent kept breaking through brought back fond memories of Dominic West in The Wire, but was off-putting at times too. Overall, while a bit too long, it would have benefitted from downsizing a couple of characters, this was really fun. Kathryn Hahn, especially, is magnificent. What a fabulous actress. I think the problem with Aniston's character isn't her, but rather, her connection to the group, Will Forte, is cardboard. Think Palm Beach Story crossed with What's Up Doc?. Stratten said the film is the latter's spiritual sibling.

One tangential note of interest, I'm sure, is that a script for a film about the Gershwin brothers was finished right before he died that is, cross your fingers, looking like a good bet to get made.

[hearthesilence]

Hahn really was great - I wasn't sure where I had seen her before, but apparently she's found fame in (what else these days?) the Marvel Universe as Agatha Harkness...man, haven't heard that name since grade school, and again it's staggering that these peripheral characters in the Marvel comic books can have their own shows now.

I can see how Will Forte could be called cardboard, but to me he was just really normal and I actually thought that made a lot of sense. It reminds me of something Howard Hawks said about Bringing Up Baby - he actually criticized it for having NO straight characters, and it wouldn't surprise me if Bogdanovich took that idea to heart. I don't think that hurt Bringing Up Baby at all, I'd certainly peg it as one of the greatest screwball comedies, but I can see how the effect is beneficial depending on what you're trying to say. I think some of the more affecting aspects of the film would've been diminished as well without a feeling that some part of the film was much more grounded.

By the same token, Aniston is just too inherently vanilla to do maniacal very convincingly. You know what Kirstie Alley was like when she first did Cheers? She did a young urban professional with batshit tendencies really well, and it never felt the least bit forced (though maybe for good reason when you see what's become of her). With Pendleton, I was thinking that Harvey Korman used to do this type of thing for Mel Brooks all the time (think him and Madeline Kahn in Blazing Saddles), and if he was alive and well, he'd have an easy time with the role. On the other hand, he's physically very different from the short, unthreatening looking Pendleton, and I'm guessing Bogdanovich wanted something out of that. (I do think Pendleton can be a great comic presence - he was perfect in Trial & Error and My Cousin Vinny.)

It's interesting you mentioned those two films because 1) I thought this was closer to Preston Sturges than Ernst Lubistch and 2) my least favorite aspect of What's Up, Doc? pops up in this film during the taxi cab scene. Maybe it's just the Midwesterner in me, but Jesus, move the goddamn car before you abandon it instead of walking away and laughing like a bunch of assholes.

I also saw Richard Brody's review and he's not wrong - some of the ideas do feel pretty outdated, but they also feel like an honest reflection of how Bogdanovich and Stratten probably feel, for better or worse. It's done in a way where this is room for criticism within the film, but the light-hearted resolution does make the film feel a little more anachronistic.

I don't want to be too hard on the film though - truth be told, I'm not really a fan of They All Laughed, but I get that it means a lot to some people, and what I see from that film in this one resonates much more this time around.

[Black Hat]

I agree, the cab part really asked you to suspend your disbelief to the point of distraction. See, I felt Owen Wilson had what you're saying with regard to Forte. With Rebecca Howe we knew what her anxieties were and thus, it built momentum for that thin line between comedy and tragedy to be played up. In Squirrels to the Nuts we know very little about what makes Aniston's character the way she is. It was like they said to themselves while writing, "You know what would be good? To plug in a character, a therapist, connected to these people." Instead of developing the character from the jump. In other words, she was playing a middle-aged Rachel Green without much support. I read Brody's review, great read, but I thought he was a little harsh in his critique and based on what was said about the earlier release probably way too nice towards that. What he did correctly point out was the brilliance of the restaurant scene, the film is a winner on that alone. Stunning that this was previously cut. Hahn's gone back and forth between tv and movies probably most notably in the excellent Netflix flick Private Life and the HBO limited series Mrs. Fletcher. She's also very good in Transparent and in a small film I have great affection for, Afternoon Delight.