Paul Williams Still Alive -- anyone seen it?

Note that Paul Williams did very well with his life and wound up as the president of ASCAP (which I believe he's done for the past five years), and he's a pretty tireless fighter for the rights of songwriters out there. By his own account, it's amazing he's still alive and active these days.

 

Just finished it , Excellent !

 

I thought Williams did make a deal with El Diablo and ultimately ended up dead. No, wait, that was just his character in The Phantom of The Paradise.

 

I adored him in The Loved One. He should do another movie like that one....

 

Speaking of Phantom, it's inconceivable to me that it never really became a cult classic. It's still as fresh as ever and the only movie that ever successfully welded music and comedy and horror together. William's songs are hilarious, but they're amazingly accurate representations of their genres. The comedy, especially in the scenes between Williams and William Finley is sharp and cutting, and the horror scenes have real teeth. You had DePalma at his creative peak, before he started reading Pauline's reviews and decided he was a genius. The performances by Williams, Finley, Jessica Harper, and Gerrit Graham were note perfect and you had amazing art direction by Jack Fisk (who deserves to be better known) and his eventual wife, Sissy Spacek, who went on to a pretty good partnership with De Palma herself.

I saw this in its first run in an old downtown movie theater in Lansing, Michigan where it got booked, somehow, instead of in East Lansing where it would have been discovered by its natural audience. I've seen it dozens of times over the years and it never ages. DePalma made a lot of movies that were more popular and more highly rated, but he never made a better one.

 

Phantom of the Paradise is the living definition of a "cult classic".

 

It sure is in Winnipeg....

http://thedissolve.com/features/mov...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

 

I like Paul, he reminds me of my teen years. He was quite ubiquitous during the late '70s, then he just seemed to vanish.

 

I always wanted to emigrate to Canada....

 

Looks interesting.

 

If your definition means "cult movies that never appear on lists of great cult movies" then I guess you're right. But google "classic cult movies" and try to find "Phantom..." on the referenced sites and you'll have a better understanding of its underappreciation.

 

I respectfully disagree. In fact, I entirely disagree.

 

I dug the doc.
And I really dug the song "Still Alive" during the credits.

 

Have to see, as a teen I remember playing his album called "Classics" endlessly !

 

I just finished watching it.
As some others have posted, it does seem like it's more about the filmmaker(who seemed to be a little full of himself) than it did about Paul Williams.
I didn't like or really understand why toward the end, he had him sit through the old videos even after he was clearly uncomfortable watching them.
I found it very interesting nonetheless.
I ended up very much liking
Paul Williams.

 

It's on YouTube.