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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Tuesday, May 12th, 1998 - Comments Off on The Edgar Watch
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The Edgar Watch

Well, it looks like Edgar Bronfman Jr. has passed on his much-mocked interest in overpaying for EMI ($9 million) and has greenlit the purchase of PolyGram (as high as $15 million). After months of negotiations, the EMI talks ended abruptly on Friday after Philips made public its intentions to sell PolyGram. The move would make Universal’s record business holdings the biggest in the world, a goal that Mr. Bronfman seems to have placed above the movie business. In fact, amongst the casualties of this transaction is likely to be Polygram Filmed Entertainment, which will likely lose Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner’s Working Title, the central production outlet for PFE, which is responsible for Bean, Dead Man Walking, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Fargo, Bob Roberts and about 20 others. PloyGram has no ongoing deal with the duo, and others (read: Warner Bros. and Paramount) should be anxious to sign them up. Especially with the industry lusting for quality, salable films with budgets under $30 million.
RUMORVILLE: This one comes from a source who tends to lie to self-aggrandize, but he claims he had this first-hand contact, and I don’t know why he would have made this particular story up. (That qualification is almost longer than the story!) So, he has Leo hanging out at the Playboy Mansion, chased all over by young honeys, but paying little attention. And he has Leo telling him it wasn’t his reticence to take the All the Pretty Horses role that cost him the lead in the Columbia/Miramax project, but rather the studios’ unwillingness to pay the $15 million price tag when they could get Matt Damon for less than half the price.
JUST WONDERING: Universal picked up a pitch for David Spade about a gay man who gets amnesia, leaving him vulnerable to his father’s efforts to convince him that he’s straight. My question is this. Is this project the result of David Spade‘s determination to confirm his hetero- (he must be straight to be willing to play gay) or homo- (he must be gay if he’s willing to play a gay man) sexuality?
SCHINDLER’S HEIST: Does the idea of mixing the Holocaust with a heist movie seem like it’s going a bit far to give an emotional foundation to a thriller? Brian DePalma does not. He just inked a deal with MGM to co-write and direct Nazi Gold, a modern-day story about a commercial producer who is shooting a commercial in a Swiss bank where they are rumored to be storing large gold reserves that came from the teeth and jewelry of concentration camp victims. (No, I’m not making this up.) The producer teams up with some pros to get the gold and to return it to the families of the victims. This is some rough sledding. Just play a few notes off-key and this one offends everyone. Besides the classic horror that is Swing Kids: The Nazi Musical, I’m just trying to imagine whether anyone would be making this film about black-American slavery or the slaughter of American-Indians.
SPEAKING OF OFFENSIVE: What is up with all this whining about Denzel having a fling with Milla Jovovich in He Got Game? Would black women (who are being accused of caring the most) prefer that there be a black prostitute in the film? (And by the way, the idea that Milla was drug-free goes against her body type. If anyone’s body ever looked like that of a strung-out junkie, it’s skinnier-than-angel-hair Milla.) And would white men (accused of caring second most) have any clever excuse other than overt racism to object to this coupling? Truthfully, it’s kind of embarrassing that everyone noticed, though I guess that’s the way people see the world. I overheard people talking about Morgan Freeman as the president in Deep Impact after the film let out. I’d rather have him than anyone else who’s run lately. And, of course, there is the great irony that as soon as America has a black president, the world is coming to an end. Shall we overcome?
READER OF THE DAY: From Nathan H: “Question: Will ‘The Whole Picture’ ever actually be published, or do I need to waste $5.00 in printer/paper ink instead of paying $12.95 at Borders six months from now?” (Answer from David P: Yes, it will be published. A release date is not yet set.) Back to Nathan: “Comment 1: I agree with Mike Cidoni. Deep Impact is ‘One of the most important films you’ll see this summer!’ assuming you’re an aspiring screenwriter-actor-director just yearning to know how to make a mediocre picture. Comment 2: Sony and LucasFilm have some seriously savvy negotiators. Not only do they get a truckload of cash from Taco Bell for the right to sell Godzilla and Star Wars tostada meals, but Taco Bell apparently covers all advertising as well. Comment 3: Is it just me or should Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, with their proven trailer prowess, open up an advertising firm on the side?”

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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