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2 articles from 2009

12 April 2009 12:32 PM, PDT | The Hollywood Interview | See recent The Hollywood Interview news »

Director Roger Spottiswoode.

Neglected Gems of the 1980’s: Roger Spottiswoode Remembers Under Fire

by Jon Zelazny

Editor's Note: The following article appeared on EightMillionStories.com in 2008.

The name may not ring a bell, but Roger Spottiswoode has been directing feature films for nearly thirty years, including popular hits like Turner and Hooch (1989), Air America (1990), and the James Bond adventure Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), as well as outstanding made-for-cable dramas like And the Band Played On (1993), Hiroshima (1995), and Noriega (2000).

2008 marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of his remarkable third feature Under Fire, which starred Nick Nolte and Gene Hackman as journalists covering the 1979 revolution in Nicaragua.

It’s generally a given that every Hollywood movie endures a long, tortuous road to find financing, but not Under Fire. It had a long, hard road as well… but only after the film had been completed. Roger Spottiswoode and I spoke by phone:

You began your career as an editor, …

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21 February 2009 1:43 PM, PST | Gold Derby | See recent Gold Derby news »

The Independent Spirit award is supposed to salute what past ceremony host Samuel L. Jackson once called "the strange, the weird, the eclectic, the visionary, the new blood." Ideally, its purpose is to help those low-profile quality films that could use a boost so that someday, maybe, the filmmakers and performers could compete in the big league of the Oscars.

And back when the Spirits took flight, they tried hard to keep to that mission. Indeed, its first best-picture winner in 1985, "After Hours," wasn't nominated for a single Oscar. But then "Platoon" won best pic at both the Spirits and the Oscars the next year. From then on, the Spirits focused more and more on seemingly academy-friendly films, with a corresponding increase in its own profile. While 1987 best-pic winner "River's Edge" was snubbed at the Oscars, other early champs made it into Oscar categories like screenplay ("sex, lies and videotape, …

- tomoneil

2 articles from 2009