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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Universal and A Few Indie Websites

Universal Pictures has an expansive site. It takes a month to load, but such is the life of the Web. You can check out their only major Oscar release, The Boxer before you have any chance to see it. But the most popular thing on the site is the retro-horror section, which brings back Universal’s horrific past (Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, et al). But back to its horrific present. Take an early look at Blues Brothers 2000 or other coming attractions.
Universal recently purchased a piece of October Films. They are the people who brought us Oscar nominee Secrets & Lies last year. They have posters for you and a look at some interesting movies, though no nominations are expected this year, unless Robert Duvall‘s The Apostle (still without its own link) comes through with the Billy Bob Thornton vote.
As alternatives, check out some of the independent Web sites. Polygram became a hot indie with Four Wedding and A Funeral. They are still busy pushing Fargo, last year’s big critical hit. Castle Rock is the home of Rob Reiner, but these days Seinfeld takes precedence even over Rob. Not much there, but Coming Attractions includes — what else? — Seinfeld creator Larry David’s first movie, Sour Grapes, starring Steven Weber, the hubby of Rough Cut TV’s Juliette Hohnen. Last, but least, check out Trimark Picture’s site, which is still pushing Chairman of the Board, starring Carrot Top. But seriously folks, the company put out the wonderful Eve’s Bayou, probably by mistake.
E-mail your box office predictions. I’m back, live, on Monday and I’ll give credit where credit is due.

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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