Friday, December 18, 2015

Lost in La Mancha (2002)

Directors: Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe

Writers: Keith Fulton, Louis Pepe

Composer: Miriam Cutler

Staring: Jeff Bridges, Terry Gilliam, Tony Grisoni, Philip A. Patterson, Rene Cleitman, Nicola Pecorini, Jose Luis Escolar, Jean Rochefort, Miranda Richardson, Christopher Eccleston, Johnny Depp

More info: IMDb

Tagline: They've got a story...but have lost the plot.

Plot: Terry Gilliam's doomed attempt to get his film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, off the ground.



My rating: 8/10

Will I watch it again?  Probably not.  Twice was fine.

I REALLY dig Gilliam and his work.  I want him to succeed at everything and to get what he needs to keep making wonderfully creative pictures.  This documentary does its best at simply being there when everything that can go wrong does go wrong with Gilliam at the center like a circus ring master trying to keep the show going during a hurricane.  It's hard not to feel for the guy when massive setbacks happen that are completely out of his control.  It's one thing if someone fucks up or is the root of the problems but this film was plagued with one disaster after another.  They were just days into shooting the movie (not the documentary) when the plug was pulled on the project altogether.  Sadly it's Gilliam who is the only one who has seen the finished film (countless times but only in his mind).  It's another potential Gilliam masterpiece left unsung.  How many movies have to die before someone stands up and does something about it?  Fuck climate change.  Give this man anything he wants.  Just don't sacrifice allotting money to the space program to do it.  It would be great to see what Gilliam could do with everything at his disposal, money be damned. 

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