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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Tuesday, December 2nd, 1997 - Comments Off on DreamWorks Continues to Break Weird Ground With Its New Slate of Films
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DreamWorks Continues to Break Weird Ground With Its New Slate of Films

This Christmas’ Mousehunt seems to be Home Alone with the rodent as McCauley Culkin. Next, it’s Alien Dog, the Terminator-esque story of two aliens chasing each other on earth, only the hero alien misunderstands nature’s hierarchy of earth and disguises himself as a dog instead of a human. Can you see the headlines on the reviews? If so, e-mail me a good one and I’ll print it Thursday.
The cool new gadget in the upcoming James Bond flick, Tomorrow Never Dies, is a mobile phone that blows stuff up, sees around corners, and operates a brand new BMW by remote. Of course, in Los Angeles, cell phones already make a trip to the market feel like a Bond chase scene. Ericsson’s phone is just one of what seems like a million Bond product placement and promotion deals. No “McDonalds Moneypenny Meals” for Bond. Bond has joined Bob Dole as one of the funniest and one of the least appropriate spokesmen for Visa. BMW has a major hit with the Z3 from GoldenEye, so budgets to promote the new Bond Beemer are soaring. And of course, there are the liquor ads. I guess Bond always was a whore. The whole thing leaves me stirred, but not shaken. I’m still looking forward to the film.
Finally, Meg Ryan tells People that she doesn’t see the resemblance between herself and the animated version of her in Anastasia. “Just some of the bad hair days,” she jokes. Kind of like trying to see the resemblance between Anastasia and Disney product. It’s occurred to me that the difference between the great Disney animated hits and the “misses” is the music. Do any of you remember a song from Hunchback? Did anyone love Michael Bolton‘s tepid version of Hercules’ “Go The Distance?” Likewise, I can’t think of a song I’ll remember from Anastasia. Pretty pictures though.

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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