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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Thursday, June 25th, 1998 - Comments Off on THE OLD MAN & THE CARR-EY
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THE OLD MAN & THE CARR-EY

Remaking Jerry Lewis movies has become a popular fad since the smashing success of The Nutty Professor. Films to come include The Nutty Professor 2, and remakes of Cinderfella, The Errand Boy, The Bell Boy and The Family Jewels. Of course, everyone is after Jim Carrey to “go Jerry,” but Lewis himself has said that he thinks Carrey, with all due respect, is too old for the job. Hold on! Jim Carrey is 36. Lewis was 38 and 39 when he made the multi-role comedy The Family Jewels. Oh, well, that’s why he’s The King of the French. Lewis did The Family Jewels with wigs and mustaches, but it would actually be really interesting to see Carrey do a Murphy-esque series of physical transformations given current make-up technology. Hmmm.
THE EDGAR WATCH: I’ve been pretty comfortable slamming Edgar Bronfman Jr. for his goofs, so I suppose he is due some praise when he does well. The positive story of the week is his skill in separating Alain Levy from PolyGram for only $10 million (about 7 percent of the Michael Ovitz separation fee) and also separating PolyGram from Phillips Electronics for $200 million less than they agreed on after the company had a weak second quarter showing. You know I hate to say it, but good job, Mr. B.
THE GRAVY BOAT SAILS: The Washington Post ran a story Tuesday about the current trend away from studio deals for stars. As usual, Alicia Silverstone takes the brunt of the abuse. Like her production deal, she earned it. Not surprisingly, the list of names losing deals is made up almost exclusively of actors who are experiencing dry spells. And while Universal Chairman Casey Silver talks tough about the “selective” stance at Universal, he forgets to mention Sylvester Stallone, who still owes Universal two pictures at $20 million apiece. That’s $13 million less than Daylight (the first film to come of the three-picture deal and Stallone’s most recent major studio release) grossed domestically.
AIR ERR: The globalization of the movie business hit a snag this week as KirchGruppe’s DF-1 satellite pay-TV business appeared to be on its last legs. Why does that matter? The satellite service was formed by two of the world’s richest brothers, Leo and Thomas (ranked 103 in the world by Forbes with $3 billion) to dominate the German market. The move meant bold deals with Hollywood studios for product. About $4 billion in deals with four majors that was signed just two years ago (That’s over $1 billion for Universal, $800 million for Warner Bros., $930 million for Sony and between $1.5 and $2 billion for Paramount.) Plus, Disney is signed to launch their German Disney Channel via Kirsch’s satellites. Most of the money committed will likely be matched by competing satellite nets if Kirch can’t survive. Most. (About 75 percent, it appears.) But with 21 million happily cable-running and 7.1 million satellite-running households, Kirch has only sold their Hollywood-driven dream to 160,000 folks. Now, THAT’S a small world.
MORE MULAN: Disney continues to break ground with their Web sites. Check out their Mulan site to see what I mean. Really neat stuff to play with. But I’ll warn you now. If you have less than 24 MB of RAM, beware. It’s a high-powered site.
SMALL INCONVENIENCE: I was supposed to see Small Soldiers last night, but the screening was canceled because the effects are still being laid in. Yet another effects film pushing their post schedule to the limit. But don’t worry, rough cut will be with all the Small Soldiers at the movie’s premiere on July 8. Keep an eye out for event promo. And also keep an eye out for regular chats with me. I know I’ve been promising this for a while, but it’s getting close.
JUNKET JUNK: Small Soldiers may be on hold, but I will be talking to the casts of Ever After: A Cinderella Story (the Drew Barrymore version of Cinderella) and There’s Something About Mary (the new film from Dumb & Dumber creators the Farrelly Brothers, starring Matt Dillon, his main squeeze, Cameron Diaz and Ben Stiller). If you have questions that you want to me to ask, now is the time to send them to me. I’ll get you some answers next week.
THE BEYOND CONTEST: You ball, I ball, we all ball for eye ball! Still looking for 100 word descriptions of the most disgusting moments you’ve ever seen on film. Most of you who have sent stuff in so far have been a little shy about grossing me out. Cut it out, or I’ll cut you up! I want readers to flinch the same way you did when you experienced the terrifyingly queasy film moments. And if you make the Top 10, you’ll get a real eyeball for your trouble!
READER OF THE DAY: Krillian sent in his grossest. I won’t tell you the top entry, but he gave me more than one, so take a read: “The second grossest thing I’ve seen on film was watching Woody Allen kiss Juliette Lewis in Husbands and Wives right after the Soon-Yi story broke out. Third grossest: A 10-year-old boy carrying around a dead fetus which he thinks is his dead friend who has come back as an angel. How’d his friend die? By being gang-raped by teenagers. Never ever see The Reflective Skin? If you already have, I’m sorry. Fourth grossest: All those bees flying out of Tony Todd‘s mouth in Candyman. Fifth grossest: The little kid’s nose with the giant snot bubble in Little Giants. Sixth grossest: Thomas Haden Church falling face-first with his mouth open into a pile of elephant poop in George of the Jungle. Seventh grossest: That very skinny naked man in Schindler’s List. It was gross and very disturbing. And sad. Eighth grossest: Craig T. Nelson puking up a giant possessed tequila worm in Poltergeist 2. Ninth grossest: Linda Blair viciously masturbating with a crucifix in The Exorcist. Tenth grossest: The third-nipple woman from Mallrats.”

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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