Brianland

  I’ve been on a James Mangold deep-dive recently and this guy needs to be in any conversation about the greatest directors working today. He’s averaged a new film roughly every two years since his first low-budget indie (Heavy) in 1995, which won a Special Jury Recognition for Directing at Sundance and kind-of jump-started his […]

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  I recently stumbled on a Paul Thomas Anderson (PTA) interview about Boogie Nights from 1997 and began revisiting of his work. I’ve now seen all of his nine written-&-directed films, most more than once, and he’s certainly up there with the greatest of the active mid-career contemporary filmmakers. Since Boogie Nights he’s been compared […]

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  This is a scene-by-scene breakdown of the Dylan biopic masterpiece A Complete Unknown co-written and directed by James Mangold.  Besides being one of the best living filmmakers, Mangold was undoubtably tapped because of how well he handled the Oscar-winning Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line. After Jeff Rosen and Bob’s management team optioned the […]

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On this weekend 17 years ago — in the heat of the Democratic primary of 2008 between Hillary & Obama — I started BrianHassett.com. Every month since then for 17 years I’ve written at least one new piece for the site. “17” has been a weird number that’s followed me around my whole life from […]

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  A Portrait of The Artist As A Young Man   Here’s what I riffed to social media after I got home from the advance screening on December 18th . . . Caught the sold-out “A Complete Unknown” IMAX screening in Toronto last night — and boy was it GREAT to see it on a […]

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Here’s part of the script I’ll be riffing from when I introduce the movie “Magic Trip: Ken Kesey’s Search for a Kool Place” at Lowell Celebrates Kerouac on Sunday October 13th.   Edit Update  —  Here’s video of the event . . . . Here’s the post-screening Q&A . . . ============================================ This is the original […]

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The Benefits of Biopics   . With James Mangold’s Dylan biopic currently shooting in New York with the Bobster’s blessing; and four different Beatle biopics greenlit for Sam Mendes;  and Michael Jackson’s cousin Jaafar playing the King of Pop in a coming Lionsgate production;  and Coleman Domingo directing, co-writing and starring in a musical based […]

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“The Greatest Night in Pop” is The Greatest Documentary About Collective Creation . The Greatest Night in Pop (Netflix, 2024) directed by Bao Nguyen, is a spectacular riveting colorful fun documentary about the behind-the-scenes making of We Are The World in 1985 with footage of everybody who was involved.  This is not only one of […]

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Jack on Film: Take 2 at Lowell Celebrates Kerouac . Here’s a YouTube playlist with great video of the entire Jack on Film show — . =========================================== Here’s a riffing interview with WCAP in Lowell about all things Kerouac — and the new “Jack on Film: Take 2” show — with nearly a hundred photos […]

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. The Academy Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role is *the* story of the 2023 Oscars. I’ve seen all the nominated performances, and thought un-nominated Margot Robbie sure as hell should have been in the mix for Babylon. Her co-star Eric Roberts, he of the 621 on-screen acting credits, compared her performance to […]

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