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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Tuesday, March 10th, 1998 - Comments Off on ShoWest: Day one
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ShoWest: Day one

ShoWest is a bit of a mixed bag for we Americans, on Day One. The entire day is focused on the international movie business. Domestic types are not invited, though my Amsterdam-based buddy Frank did attend and got a lovely watch from Disney for his efforts. More than they wanted to give Jeffrey Katzenberg and a whole lot less than it cost them to settle with him. (By the way, Katzenberg, the “K” in DreamWorks SKG, is hosting an event tomorrow night.)
The evening activity was a double feature of independent films. Attendees got their choice of two of four, including The Mighty, starring Sharon Stone, One Tough Cop, starring Stephen Baldwin, The Opposite of Sex, centered around a blonde Christina Ricci, and big-name-free Under Heaven. The only star who showed was Stephen Baldwin, who didn’t look too happy about the vast number of people who failed to recognize him. Sharon Stone should make up for absence with an appearance at the Miramax event on Thursday. I wish I could tell you I liked or hated any of them, but I missed the first screening after having to change my room twice at the New York, New York Hotel & Casino and when I got to the cocktail party in between, pallid descriptions of all four films helped me make up my mind to run out for dinner instead of subjecting myself to a mediocre movie and a midnight dinner. I have to be up for an 8 A.M. breakfast with Jack Valenti and a room full of other reporters to talk about the state of the industry. At 11:30, Sony goes Godzilla, and in the evening, its DreamWorks. The trade show also starts tomorrow and I’ll be gathering lots of cool junk that Andy Jones will be writing about in weeks to come.
But even before Sony starts its event, it’s made an impact with another smart visual display. You may remember hearing about the traffic-stopping Godzilla sign on New York’s Flatiron Building. Well, here it’s Bally’s that gets the Godzilla treatment. A five foot wide sliver of the building is green from top to bottom, painted with “He’s as tall as Bally’s,” with a Godzilla logo. Then, on the convention center directly next door, a five foot slab that runs from one end of the building to the other proclaims “His tail is longer than this building.” Standing on the sidewalk and looking at both signs at the same time, you can almost see the mammoth monster in your mind. You certainly understand that there is no way to escape his wrath. Very cool.
The buzz of the convention is the lack of the major studios. Warner Bros., who comes every year, passed this time. Nothing good to talk about, I guess. (I know.) Paramount and Fox couldn’t have foreseen the glow of Titanic back when they would have had to commit, so better safe than sorry, I suppose. And Universal doesn’t have a really big summer movie. Disney does (Armageddon and Mulan), but they couldn’t book the venue they wanted for their event. That’s disappointing, because Disney always puts on the best show. That leaves Sony, who I’m sure will tell us all about that fact tomorrow when they crow about the year of Men In Black (at least it was pre-Titanic) and the year of Godzilla by which we are about to be overwhelmed.
Until tomorrow,
David

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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