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CS
Weekly Archive > Weekend Read > 09/08/06
Surviving the Cinema
By Jason davis
Buzz
Spiro Taravias (also director)
A sentimental look back at the career of screenwriter A.I. "Buzz" Bezzerides, who crafted screenplays for noir films like Kiss Me Deadly and Thieves' Highway, Buzz assembles anecdotes from the 98-year-old with interviews from family and friends (including Thieves' Highway director Jules Dassin and Kiss Me Deadly's actor Cloris Leachman) to create a portrait of the writer's career. Tinged with sadness, the documentary recounts Bezzerides' dealings with treacherous Hollywood studios and puts a face to the traditional "they screwed the writer" stories that the business is known for. Along the way, Buzz remembers buddies like William Faulkner, Humphrey Bogart, and Robert Mitchum with stories that bring the long lost luminaries back to life. Powered by the strength of the subject's personality, the film's narrative ambles along with Buzz's reminiscences but fails to develop any particular thrust of its own, leaving a pall of melancholic nostalgia instead of a solid image of the documentary's star.
Buzz
Outsider Pictures
Rated PG-13; 118 min.
Jason Davis is the DVD Manager for CS Weekly, a contributing editor for Creative Screenwriting Magazine, and writes "TV Wasteland" for Cinescape.com. He lives and writes in Burbank.
Buzz courtesy Outsider Pictures
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