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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Friday, December 19th, 1997 - Comments Off on Chris Farley is Dead
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Chris Farley is Dead

To say we saw it coming is to state the obvious. When we, as an audience, fall in love with the comedy of self-abuse, there is a reason. We see the pain in the eyes of the comic and our human instincts take over. It’s as fundamental as taking a lost puppy in from the cold. Friends who knew Farley before the fame tell stories of the self-destructive behavior of his early ’20s. But no one could save him. Not then. Not later, when the world was his friend. The movies included Beverly Hills Ninja, Black Sheep and Tommy Boy. He was always the butt of the joke. And his gentle nature made him the winner in the end. May it be so, wherever his soul is now. Chris Farley was 33.
WEEKEND PREVIEW
After Scream 2 broke December records by almost cracking the $40 million opening mark, what do you think Titanic and Bond will do for an encore? (Mouse Hunt is another, sadder story. Later.) Well, logic will tell you that all three can’t be huge. Big, but not huge. Despite buzz in town that Bond isn’t tracking well, my bet is that Tomorrow Never Dies will take first place with about $25 million. Scream 2 should drop by 50 percent to about $24.5 million. And Titanic should have the highest percentage of seats filled, but suffer from about 30 percent (or more) fewer shows per screen. Hard to imagine more than $20 million under those conditions.
Everything else should pale in comparison. Much like last weekend, but worse. Mouse Hunt should take fourth, beating out the fourth week of Flubber with about $6.5 million. Flubber in fifth with another 40 percent drop to $4.1 million. Amistad should drop to sixth ($3.7 million, off 20 percent), actually passing the two kids flicks that beat it last weekend. The kid flicks should drop about 40 percent each, with For Richer or Poorer (in seventh with $3.6 million) staying ahead of Home Alone 3 (in eighth with $3.1 million). The Rainmaker should start to disintegrate in week five, not only having to compete with the new wide release dramas, but also being inundated with big-ticket exclusive NY/LA releases looking for Oscar nods before opening wide in January. Expect a ninth place finish with a 50 percent drop to $1.7 million. And bringing up the rear, it’s Anastasia with a 45 percent drop to $1.7 million.
The Hot Button is going on Holiday hiatus starting tomorrow. But there will be new content every day, as usual. I know, because I already wrote it. For the weekend box office figures, try Yahoo on Sunday after 6 P.M. eastern. And as far as the Christmas Day releases, Jackie Brown, As Good As It Gets, Mr. Magoo, An American Werewolf in Paris and The Postman , I will now venture $17 million, $11 million, $5 million, $7 million and $12 million. Not necessarily in that order. (Just kidding) The Hot Button will be back with a brand new box office review by noon on December 29.
E-mail works though the holidays. Try it. You’ll like it.

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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