Mike Thomas
My blogs
| Gender | Male |
|---|---|
| Industry | Arts |
| Occupation | Director/Screenwriter/Film Critic/Editor |
| Location | Los Angeles, CA, United States |
| Introduction | I studied film at UCSD under Manny Farber and Stanton Kaye, founded the San Diego Film Society bringing Billy Wilder, Frank Capra, Robert Wise, Stanley Kramer, Haskell Wexler and others to screen their films. I also directed PSAs with Ronald Reagan and Al Gore and wrote film journalism for the San Diego Union, LA Times and others. I've worked for Robert Wise on "A Storm in Summer," was a publicist on the 2001 Academy Awards, produced DVD audio commentaries for "The Set-Up," (with Martin Scorsese), "Executive Suite," (with Oliver Stone), "The Haunting" (with Robert Wise) and "Somebody Up There Likes Me," (with Paul Newman). I found the lost footage of "Sunset Boulevard," "Platoon," "The Sand Pebbles" and "Fall of the Roman Empire" and wrote and directed documentaries for the Sony "Some Like it Hot" DVD. My 1984 Kirk Douglas interview was used on the "Ace in the Hole” DVD. I have written spec scripts for “The Simpsons,” “Larry Sanders” and the 2008 Oscars, re-cut Oliver Stone’s "Alexander" for the DVD "Alexander Revisited," and edited a documentary on Stan Lee. I recently directed the comedy "Tough Love." which can be viewed at http://www.vimeo.com/7947933. |
| Interests | Films, Theatre, TV, Music, Architecture, Chargers football, Democratic politics, philosophy, religion, history, literature, biography, writing, directing & editing movies, composing music, songwriting |
| Favorite Movies | Intolerance, Passion of Joan of Arc, City Lights, M, Meet John Doe, the Magnificent Ambersons, Fantasia, His Girl Friday, Children of Paradise, Miracle of Morgan's Creek, Sullivan's Travels, Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, Best Years of Our Lives, It's a Wonderful Life, My Darling Clementine, the Ghost & Mrs. Muir, the Set-Up, the Day the Earth Stood Still, Sunset Boulevard, Roman Holiday, Ace in the Hole, Stalag 17, Seven Samurai, Quiet Man, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, Rio Bravo, Some Like it Hot, the Apt., 1, 2, 3, Seventh Seal, Virgin Spring, Wild Strawberries, 400 Blows, Vivre sa Vie, the Music Man, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lawrence of Arabia, the Great Escape, From Russia with Love, A Hard Day's Night, Masculin/Feminin, Alphaville, the Sand Pebbles, 2001, the Graduate, Wild Bunch, MASH, Godfather Saga, the Long Goodbye, What's Up Doc?, Fata Morgana, Aguirre the Wrath of God, Kings of the Road, Blazing Saddles, Love & Death, Man Who Would be King, Robin & Marian, All the President's Men, Badlands, Days of Heaven, Annie Hall, Manhattan, Heaven's Gate (the Mike Thomas cut), Providence, Mon Oncle D'Amerique, Body Heat, Modern Romance, Blade Runner, Sophie's Choice, Dreamchild, Empire of the Sun, Terminator, Aliens, Salvador, Wall Street, JFK, Glory, Unforgiven, Pulp Fiction, Thin Red Line (the Mike Thomas cut), the Lord of the Rings (the Mike Thomas cut), Alexander (the Mike Thomas cut), Traffic, Human Nature, Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Million Dollar Baby, Letters from Iwo Jima, Atonement, Juno, (500) Days of Summer, the Road |
| Favorite Music | Gregorian Chants, Vivaldi, Handel, Mozart, Bach, Wagner, Debussy, Satie, Herrmann, Elmer Bernstein, Jarre, Goldsmith, Barry, Django, Clifford Brown, Miles Davis, Coltrane, Stan Getz, Sinatra, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Neil Young (esp. Buffalo Springfield/CSNY/Crazy Horse), the Rolling Stones, Astral Weeks, Aja, Hejira, Joshua Tree, the River, Tunnel of Love, Desperado, So, Sunshine Superman, Achtung Baby, Zooropa, Watermark |
| Favorite Books | A Study of History by Toynbee, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire by Gibbon, Once & Future King by TH White, Works of Shakepseare, Don Quixote, Tristam Shandy, Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain, Moby Dick, Remembrance of Things Past, anything by Dostoyevsky, SHort Stories of Hemingway, Magic Mountain, Ulysses, anything by Raymond Chandler, King Jesus by Robert Graves, Ian Fleming, the Lord of the Rings by Tolkien, Confederacy of Dunces, Armies of the Night, Why Are We in Vietnam?, Advertisements for Myself, Executioner's Song, Creation, American Cinema by Sarris, Negative Space by Manny Farber, New Wave by James Monaco, Howard Hawks by Todd McCarthy, Genius of the System, the Parade's Gone By, Art of Alfred Hitchcock by Spoto, Name Above the Title by Frank Capra, Chaplin by Robinson, David Lean by Brownlow, Hitchcock/Truffaut, anything by Bogdanovich, the poetry of Yeats, Eliot, Dickinson |