MCN Blogs
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Wednesday, March 18th, 1998 - Comments Off on Ranting and Raving
Be Sociable, Share!

Ranting and Raving

I’ve been to the desert for a week with no sleep. It feels good to come back where it rains. (For those of you who aren’t singing along to the tune of America’s “Horse With No Name,” try it, you’ll like it.) Well, maybe not so good. After spending the week in Las Vegas at ShoWest you might expect that I am all show-bized out. But it’s the opposite. For all the glitz, for all the selling, ShoWest is a show for real people. You hang out with people who own movie theaters, but most of them are every bit as star-struck as teenagers at a rock concert. You walk with them through the concession-laden trade show and, like Patty Duke, a hot dog makes them lose control. Offer up a T-shirt and a shortfall will turn into a mob scene. I know that I may sound like I’m mocking these folks, but quite the opposite. See, I had to come home.
It started at the ShoWest awards. Star after star ran through the press room because they had “to catch a plane.” So L.A. Tom Arnold died with a “real” audience with material that would’ve received laughs in L.A. See, these folks weren’t used to laughing on cue. Certain media outlets brought their L.A. attitudes with them to the press room. I’ll give you a hint. They were TV people. But can I really blame them? After all, they had to get their segment with each star in the couple of minutes they had with them. No time to bother with perspective. They didn’t really care about ShoWest or the exhibitors. They needed Oscar exclusives. And I guess that’s where the disparity lays. In perspective. The wine doesn’t taste as good if you don’t let it breathe, but L.A. is all about getting drunk quickly, not enjoying the experience.
Maybe it’s because we have too much to intoxicate us out here. I returned to three screenings at the same time on the same day. Obviously, I couldn’t attend all three. I chose the one that was most important to my business needs. The news from Renny Harlin‘s birthday party was about how expensive the house was and who was there. (Kevin Costner says that Titanic will sweep, if you care about what “The Postman” thinks. Jim Carrey and Lauren Holly are back in love and acting like teens. And Renny still drinks like a Fin.) The Coffee Bean is still loaded to the gills with long-legged wannabes and the men who wanna be with them, at least for a few hours. Tuesday was St. Patricks Day and in L.A. the green flowed freely. Only here, it’s the color of cash and envy. Welcome.
TOYS FOR YOU: Not only will there be a Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas T-shirt up for grabs in the box office competition this week, but we have to have an Oscar competition too, right? Get your e-mail warmed up. The contests and the rules in tomorrow’s The Hot Button.
MORE SELF PROMOTION: Today is the day that rough cut’s weekly page is updated. There’s a brand new chapter of The Whole Picture and more coverage on NoShoWest.
READER OF THE DAY: From Erin P: “I haven’t seen The Man in the Iron Mask yet, but Janet Maslin’s review in the New York Times is one of the funniest things I’ve read in quite some time.”
I was in Las Vegas when Maslin’s review ran. Thanks to Erin, I’ve read it and I agree that it’s very funny. One quote from Ms. Maslin: “When the mask comes off, the story’s glowing young hero appears to have undergone a seaweed wrap at that exceptionally punishing spa, the Bastille. And he later delivers this self-help credo: `I wear the mask. It does not wear me.'”

Be Sociable, Share!

Comments Off on Ranting and Raving

Comments are closed.

Quote Unquotesee all »

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