MCN Columnists
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Saturday, November 1st, 1997 - Comments Off on Weekend, 01 November 1997
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Weekend, 01 November 1997

Here’s a plotline: A movie producer learns a lesson about life after his child’s wish that he can’t litigate for two years comes true. Nah! Never’ll happen! Aaron Russo, who produced a half a dozen hits in the ’80s, is suing Imagine Entertainment for $25 million, claiming that producer Brian Grazer stole his idea for the Jim Carrey smash, Liar, Liar. If the suit goes to court, Russo will have produced more lawsuits (at least one) in the last five years than movies (zero). He has, however, found time to run for the Governorship of Nevada. Aha! He wanted to be a big league politician. And in the land of casino gambling, no less. Call Jim Carrey! I smell a sequel!
Never slowed by lawsuits, Imagine is gearing up behind director/co-owner Ron Howard to make Ed TV, a movie that may finally offer a character stupid enough for Matthew McConaughey to bring to life realistically. The story is about a kind of MTV’s “The Real World” spin-off (another lawsuit to come) in which a video store employee named Ed agrees to have his life filmed 24/7 by a cable network. (also sounds like the premise of The Truman Show — another lawsuit!) Wackiness ensues.
If you’re depressed because your lawsuit fails, try calling Dial-A-Wife. It’s not only a real business (no, I don’t have the number), but it’s soon to be a major motion picture. Twentieth Century Fox purchased the rights to a New Yorker article about the business which sends women to perform wifely duties without any emotional connection (in show business, that’s just called marriage). They also bought “life rights” to Beth Berg, the proprietor of the business. Fox left her payment on the bedside table and Ms. Berg took it without emotion.
Ever had an idea for a movie that was stolen by a big, bad studio? Let me know via email.

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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