All the Right Movies by John Barker
John Barker turned his All the Right Movies podcast into a book. Writing with Luke Cardy, he offers quick takes in profusely illustrated chapters on more than two dozen familiar movies. Each chapter includes an interview with a cast or crew member. Many of them are enlightening, but by nature of the project, Barker’s chronicle is limited to the past 60 years of cinema. The oldest film for which he could find a living spokesperson, 2001: A Space Odyssey, was released in 1968.
The interviewee, Dan Richter, donned a furry suit and realistically portrayed the lead ape in the opening sequence. Richter recalls that director Stanley Kubrick told him to study the body language of monkeys at the London Zoo; Kubrick was also alert to random input. “If something happened, Stanley was ready to take advantage of it and throw all the work away he had done if this new thing was better,” Richter said.
For 2001, Kubrick, demanded NASA level accuracy, predicted future technologies long “before Jobs and Zuckerberg” and filmed Africa and outer space in his adopted home, England. Pink Floyd (then an obscure new band) was offered the soundtrack but turned Kubrick down.
Central to each chapter are 50 “How It Was Made” points, text-message-length bits on script development, casting choices, camera placement and other production insights. They are always informative. Take the chapter on Blue Velvet (1986). David Lynch wanted Debbie Harry as the troubled nightclub singer but after David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983), she wanted to avoid typecasting for “weirdo parts.” Then Lynch sought … Helen Mirren? A chance meeting led Isabella Rossellini to the role.
Casting the psychotic villain, Frank Booth, proved even more difficult. Wisconsin’s Willem Dafoe was among the actors who turned down the “unpalatable” role. However, Dennis Hopper pursued the part, telling Lynch, “I am Frank!”
The f-word is heard 55 times in Blue Velvet (54 from Booth), yet Lynch never uttered it once. He’d point to the script and say, “that word.” Lynch was a painter and several information points describe his detailed use of color to set the emotional mood of each scene.
All the Right Movies is divided into broad sections: Action, Drama, Horror, Science Fiction and Thriller, and provides introductions to the importance of each film as well as box office statistics. The most recent film included in All the Right Movies is Training Day (2000), a tacit acknowledgment of cinema’s decline?
