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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Thursday, March 5th, 1998 - Comments Off on The Whole Lawsuit
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The Whole Lawsuit

Today’s column is for adults, teenagers and precocious pre-adolescents. Parental Guidance is suggested for parents who can’t deal with sex.
THE WHOLE LAWSUIT: The plagiarism lawsuit over The Full Monty seems to be as inappropriate as the one recently settled by DreamWorks over Amistad in which Barbara Chase-Riboud unsuccessfully claimed legal rights to history. The plaintiffs du jour, playwrights Anthony McCarten and Stephen Sinclair, claim the rights to the idea of out-of-work Brits who end up baring it all, saying it was stolen from their play, “Ladies Night.” One problem. In addition to the plaintiffs’ play, there were TV projects by the BBC and Granada TV in development along the same lines when The Full Monty went into production. The specific matching points the writers claim infringed on their work? One black character, one ambiguously gay character and one character with impotence and a failing marriage. I went out to dinner last night and those three guys were sitting at the next table. Fortunately, they left their hats and the rest of their clothes on.
THE FULLER MONTY: It’s hard for Hollywood to remake a successful English-language film, but America had its own male strippers long before the Brits. Men In Black director Barry Sonnenfeld has signed on to direct the life story of Steve Banerjee, the man who created Chippendales. The studio, Disney, is calling the story “the Casino of the male dancing industry” (Wasn’t Casino the ‘Sunset Boulevard’ of the Las Vegas bimbo industry?). But Sonnenfeld has too much of a sense of humor to play it that straight, laughing “I love the idea of doing Chippendales at Disney.” Can’t wait to see his version of the seven dwarves.
MORE THAN A SCENT OF HEATHER: Come on you Heather Graham fans, stand up and clap your hands: she’s made it above the title for the first time as the star of Committed, a comic road trip romp that’s expected to end up at Miramax. The actress, who has become one of teen America’s favorite obsessions since baring it all, rather impressively, in Boogie Nights, is up next in Lost In Space, then gets serviced on screen next month by Robert Downey Jr. in a way that is driving the MPAA nuts in Two Girls and A Guy, and is about to start shooting Bofinger’s Big Thing, a completely non-pornographic comedy co-starring Steve Martin and Eddie Murphy. As if that weren’t enough, she graces this month’s Details wearing nothing but Oscar gold. Just goes to show you, Hollywood loves roller skates.
FA FA FA FA FA, FA FA FA FA: When I bought Bret Easton Ellis‘ “American Psycho” almost 10 years ago, it came with a note from the bookstore that said they were only selling it because they believed in the First Amendment. The book was that grotesque. It was the grisly tale of an obsessive-compulsive Wall Street yuppie who likes to dismember the women in his life with power tools. And now it will be coming to a theater near you. Aren’t you lucky? The film will star Christian Bale (the kid from Empire of the Sun), Jared Leto (Prefontaine) and the right man for any movie with “psycho” in the title, Willem Dafoe. No actresses have signed on to subject themselves to this abuse. Yet. (And if you don’t get the headline, think Talking Heads.)
THE UNREAL BLONDE: Ever see a fake naked picture of a major movie star who doesn’t do nudity? They’re all over the ‘Net. Now, Alyssa “I Won’t Take Off My Clothes More Than A Dozen Times Per Movie” Milano‘s mother has started a business called Cyber-Trackers, dedicated to tracking this kind of material (and legitimate stuff too) for stars who sign up with her. And the service only costs $2000 a month. But isn’t this kind of like Tracy Lords‘ mother starting up “Virgin-Finders?”
READER OF THE DAY: From D. Gary: “The problem with Leo right now is just the typical backlash that occurs when a star is over-hyped. I used to enjoy his work, but now I am totally sick of him! Therefore, I definitely won’t be going to see The Man in the Iron Mask. I have had my fill of him. Ditto John Travolta. Take him away, please!”

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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