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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Don't Call Me John Travolta

No, it’s not a personal thing. It’s the title of a new film out of Singapore about a guy who wants a motorcycle that he can’t afford. Inevitably, he turns to polyester and floors with colored lights. Isn’t that what you’d do? Well, in Ah Hocks case, he is after $6,500 from the local dance contest. It’s kind of The Full Monty in Singapore instead of England: both countries are suffering financial troubles and both films have men looking for innovative financing. Will Ah Hock win the dance contest? Will he end up sad on the subway? Will Sylvester Stallone make him wear a headband in a sequel? Get out your Chinese-to-English dictionary and watch for the film sometime next year.
Mira Nair has had to cut her film, Kama Sutra, repeatedly in order to have it seen in her native India. The English-language version may or may not have finally opened in Bombay last Friday after six months of wrestling with censors over nudity. The Indian-language versions of the film (in Hindi, Tamil and Telugu) are still awaiting clearance. The problem? Nudity! Here’s a clue. It’s the Kama Sutra, guys! You wrote it! You sold it to the world! There’s stuff in there that can’t be accomplished by circus performers! Who has time to worry about nudity when they’re trying to do a half-gainer while tying their tongue into a bow? Making Kama Sutra without nudity would be like making Gone With The Wind without fire, Little Women without crinoline or The Bible without sheep. Can’t do it.
Sometimes, DeNiro isn’t enough. Out On My Feet lived up to its name on Friday by shutting down despite big-name Bobby D. and Boogie Nights sensation Mark Wahlberg. The boxing project had been running on fumes for weeks with paychecks for everyone from painters and set dressers to office staff going unsigned for about a month already. The culprit? Apparently, first-time producer David B. Pritchard who was “privately financing” the $9 million movie. That is, until his primary financier fell out. Hmmm. Better not write anymore about this if I want to keep my fingers.
Don’t hesitate to email for tips on the art of good lovin’ (no, not really!) or anything else that touches your hot button (yes, really).

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon