I’m quoted aging up the Academy membership, but the punch line, which I think is significant, is that I don’t think that Rock will ever host again after this.
I do think that most Academy members are hip to the room, but they can be prickly and a guy who doesn’t show real restraint is a danger, much as Whoopi Goldberg was.
He’s not going to get dumped… they’ll be thrilled if this “controversy” draws more eyeballs. But never again.
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[twitter-widget username="DavidPoland" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"][twitter-widget username="MCNTweets" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"]
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
Have you bought your “As Seen On PageSix” T-Shirt yet?
they wanted younger and hipper and edgier. they’re getting it
has to feel good making page 6 every week dave. ur the paris hilton of journalists now. wells is lohan. friedman is tara reid. begging for publicity.
excuse me… just trying to get in here.. a giant sycophant is blocking the door. Not sure I agree about Rock not hosting again. First it’s a little preemie to make such bold claims, secondly Drudge is a maroon who actually looks like a cross between Mike Judge and Tarantino (do u see it?) and thirdly if this year rates its socks off, money will talk. End of story.
If they were really trying to quell things down a little and just get it over with, why would Gil be going ahead with all the proposed changes in the format?
I’m thinking, it’ll be the most entertaining Oscars, no cringy opening crystal song’n’dance-mix (which be honest, have paled as years went on) and everyone will be on the edge of their seats for the Lohan bashing.
I’m a fairly conservative guy who checks Drudge at least once a day, but I must say he’s embarassing himself with this relentless non-story.
Of course, the best host would be Jim Carrey, who has been the highlight of any Oscar telecast he’s been on. I doubt he would do it, but at least ask!
How about Jerry Seinfeld? I’ll bet he has been the first person asked every year for the last 6 or seven years, don’t you think? Wonder why he doesn’t do it once. I’m sure he’d kill on that stage…..
Re: Seinfeld, I’d suspect he *hasn’t* been asked, but I’d agree with you that he should host the show at some point. Gil Cates’ recent mantra has been they want a standup comedian who’s also a movie star (criteria that they’ve obviously bent a bit for Rock, since he’s had success in movies, but no one would yet refer to him as a movie star). Seinfeld, for all his abilities, has had no movie profile, save for his doc from a couple years back. That said, he’d kill on that show, imho. I also think Rock will be funny as hell. The TV audience will love him…the mountain-sized egos in the Kodak Theater…a whole other story.
i bet seinfeld has turned it down every yr.
If that’s Cates’ mantra, it’s kind of a dumb self-imposed limitation. Everyone agrees how good Carson was and he wasn’t a movie star.
carson was bigger than a movie star. and its not like he didn’t get offers for huge roles. he just turned them all down. thomas crown affair, kings of comedy, etc
Wow – Carson turned down appearing as a black comedian in the Kings of Comedy?
and no offense to Carson purists and Bi-Bob. 2 things. The Oscars are a worldwide affair. A massive int’l audience. It aint just about the US.
Carson is not bigger than any major movie star and I’ll tell you why. The tonight show doesn’t even play to 75% of the world’s population. Ask someone in Beijing if they know Tom Cruise, Julia Roberts and Carson are. Guess who they don’t know?
This subliminal jingoistic behaviour has to be capped now and then, capiche?
I think bob meant “King of Comedy”, not “KingS of Comedy.” As you should know by now, bob can’t get through a single posting without making at least two or three mistakes.
Dr. Jeff:
First off, I think Bi-Bob was thinking (insert joke here) of “The King of Comedy,” which Scorsese really did offer to Johnny Carson before casting Jerry Lewis. And yes, Carson did turn down that and (reportedly) several other movie roles.
Also: I don’t think it’s jingoistic or imperialistic or anything else in the Leftie Catchphrase Book (which, truth to tell, approvingly quotes me in a footnote or two) to say that, for all their talk about international audiences and grosses, Academy members care first and foremost about appealing to the U.S. viewers (a.k.a., the only people measured by Nielsen ratings). And in his time, at his peak, Johnny Carson was certainly a bigger star than Cruise, Roberts or even John Wayne — if only in the eyes of the U.S. TV audience. Which may explain the experiment with David Letterman (who, I must admit, I enjoyed more than Crystal or Goldberg as an Oscar host). And which is why I was joking, but only half-kidding, about Teri Hatcher being a possible Oscar host.
But Joe, it is, I think, true that with US ratings having gone way, way down for the Oscars over the last couple of decades, the money made selling international rights becomes more important than ever to the Academy. I’m sure it costs them a fortune to put on that show. Besides that, they probably rely on the extra revenue a bit for their library and other expenses. Obviously they’d get a lower price for, say, the Australian broadcast rights if the show were to be hosted by a TV actor that nobody in Australia had ever heard of.
Come on the real story is they LOVE all this press, it just means that more people will tune in to see if he does do something bad. Heck they’ll probably get the same group of dolts that got worked up over Janet Jackson’s floppy saggy boob.
Don’t worry, Jon: I answered on the wrong thread.
To repeat here: There is no American TV actor — well, OK, no American TV actor who’s a big enough star to be reasonably considered as an Oscar host — who’s unknown in Australia. At the risk of sounding like a couple of our least favorite posters — U.S. pop culture products in general, but movies and TV in particular, dominate the globe. Indeed, critic Stanley Kauffmann argued not too long ago that there is no such thing as “an American movie star.” Sure, there may be Italian movie stars who are beloved in their own country, but remain unknown everywhere else. Just as there are Korean, French, Russian and German film stars. But if you hit it big in American movies, you aren’t “an American film star” — you are an international star, because U.S. films are seen EVERYWHERE. I’m not saying there aren’t French film stars who are internationally known. But I am saying that there aren’t any Amercian film stars — and no TV stars, either — who aren’t known everywhere. (There may be a few TV personalities — say, Ted Koppell, or Conan O’Brian — who aren’t known in Australia, but “stars” and “actors” are the operative words in this discussion.) Put it another way: Teri Hatcher will be an Oscar host long before Catherine Deneuve or Ziyi Zhang ever will be.
oh god jeff. who didn’t know i was tlaking about the scorsese movie??? got some real nitpickers here. anything else jeffs doc?
would have been cool to see carson in the lewis role in that.
I may be totally dreaming this up, but I think I remember one of the female FRIENDS stars (Kudrow, Ansiton…can’t remember) on THE TONIGHT SHOW several years ago telling Leno that she liked hanging out in France because nobody recognized her there. When Leno acted surprised, she said FRIENDS never caught on in France so none of them are really known over there.
WHY did JLO cancel her tour?
Maybe it’s because she’s PREGNANT? She said her doctor reccomended she not go on the tour and if she’s so ill why didn’t it show in the grammy’s?
I refuse to comment, other than to say that Jennifer Lopez and I are just good friends.
She couldn’t even look Marc Anthony in the eyes the other night. I bet its Ben’s kid.
And based on the last three posts, this thread is officially OVER.
Any celebrity couple ever hit a career wall like Lopez and Affleck? When they met they were both at the top of their professions. Now they’re featured at the Razzie’s.
Burt Reynolds and Lonnie A?
That’s “Loni” A. Lonnie’s a man’s name. Your repressed homosexuality’s coming dangerously close to the surface, Mark. If you come out of the closet, you can get over your gun fetish and lose most of that anger, buddy.
hes really obsessed with u mark. u better watch out. i think ty boy a stalker. hes in love
There’s more projection going on here than in a Movies 18 multiplex. Is that you’re ONLY way of debating, “I know you are but what am I?”??? Most people outgrow that one at fourteen.
Why do you always bring up others Ty Smith? Can’t you engage in frank discussion without reverting to fifth grade taunts and insults?
Sure, Holman, as long as I’m talking with people beyond a fifth-grade mentality. It’s a little difficult to have an intellegent discussion with bob and Mark, considering their level of discourse.
Seems to me that you are the one throwing and hurling insults at others. Your discourse leaves something to be desired here.
When I first came on this blog, “Terence” bob and Mark were constantly tormenting Peppers with personal emails, threats, and fake postings under his own name intended to humiliate him. Bob, as I recall, also responded to an intelligent poster, one who has never come back to the blog as far as I can tell, with a tirade about how all the women in that poster’s city were “dogs”, that in response to an intelligent comment about Michael Moore, as I recall. I say give them back what they give us, especially since their personal philosophy seems to be that people who don’t fight (as in Iraq) are homo cowards who deserve contempt. If David Poland wants this blog to be the respectable sight it should be, he needs to set up some limits so poo-throwers like bob are weeded out once and for all.
I know this would require a major overhaul of typepad’s programming, but there should be some kind of moderator implemented into the comment section. As it is, the comments in a blog as popular as this one has become chaotic and unwieldy.
I’m not saying there should be a message board, and i’m sure that Dave doesn’t have the time or patience to make one. There should just be a way for respected posters to weed through the crap that’s posted in here.
guys like u jon can’t have a discussion without resorting to insults. if u can’t take, stay out the kitchen. defend your ideas and comments. thats all anyone asks. if ur just gonna resort to insults and defaming characters, then why bother even posting? sorry u don’t like the right wing, conservative views i got but deal with it
Put in a registration system. It’s not hard. And I do not like my name in air quotes. Kind of dispresectful if you ask me. If you want to acknowledge me please just say Terence or TD, or Mr. Dailey. Thanks.
Wow, still the projection from you. If I cared, I’d go back and count the number of times you’ve called me or Stella or Pepper or Ty a moron or worse. I can take the heat or I wouldn’t be here. As for those people who don’t come here anymore because you called their girlfriends “dogs”, well, I can’t speak for them, but you did call those women (was it in Rochester?) “dogs”. Nobody has gotten ruder on here than you or Mark. Nobody. And at least we answer your questions without evasion or changing the subject. That’s all I’m going to say to you, no matter how much you annoy me in the future.
u just reference yourself in the third person? thats the problem with u libs. u just don’t have a clue. u do a mighty fine job of proving ur a moron, ty boy. u have some anger issues that should be helped by professional help. no one should hate as much as u do.
That last post was aimed at bob, not Terence. And I’ll do as you ask, Terence. It’s just with so many people here seemingly under three or four different names, I wasn’t entirely sure you weren’t just Mark or Randall yet again under another name. But as I said, I’ll agree to “play nice” here no matter how much us liberals get baited as homos, wackos, or worse.
As for my predictons:
Best Picture: Million Dollar Baby
Director: Scorsese (this may just be wishful thinking but I just can’t believe they’ll snub him again. I may have egg on my face on the 28th, but no matter how much you like M$B, its all in the acting and script. That film was no better directed than half the films made straight for HBO. I’m just hoping the acadamy will see that.)
Actor: Jamie Foxx
Actress: Annette Benning
Supporting Actor: Morgan Freeman
Supporting Actress: Cate Blanchett
Adapted Screenplay: Million Dollar Baby
Original Screenplay: The Aviator
Why dont you just ignore the people you dont like (Im talking..well..writing to all of you)and really discus things. You are fun for a while, but only for a while, because then you are anoying. Take it outside the blog would you.
Okay this is it, bob, my last comment to you. Ty is NOT, admittedly, my real name. Do you think I’d give my real name on here after the way you tormented Pepper once you found out how to contact after he used his real name on this blog? Somehow I don’t think your first name on your birth certificate is bicycle with a lower case “b.”
You call me angry and yet when people disagree with you, you call them morons and call their girlfriends “dogs.” You really are a piece of work, but if it gets you through life to project all your hatred, anger, and idiocy back at other people, be my guest. The imperious Barbara Bush supposedly has a line she uses with people she doesn’t like: “I’m through with you,” she says at the moment she decides she will never talk to them again. Well, bob, I am totally and completely THROUGH with you.
you posted that when I was writing but thankyou for cuting it off anyway.
My predictons:
because im in México i have only seen the aviator, finding neverland and ray; And I would prefer ray to win (though it wont) So I am hopefull that M$B is good and wins.
Taylor Hackford was very good, but Martin was better, but maybe Clint is better and I have not a doubt that Mike is better (but he wont win, unless of course he gets to be this years Polansky). So from what I´ve seen I think I will go to Martin.
Ray will win the oscar, I mean Jamie Foxx.
Don´t want Annette to win, I want Kate to win, I would love Moreno to win (I am latino, I feel so proud), But I think its either Swank or Staunton who will.
Mogan will win.
Cate v.s Virginia.
Original screenplay: Eternal Sunshine.. though not a lock.
Adapted screenplay: Sideways…though you never know.
ty boy if i believed that i’d be a bigger suck than liberal voters. ur never thru with anyone. u live for angry discussions and insults. which is fine. but if u hurl ’em at least be able to take ’em.
mex, my friend. i agree on million dollar baby. i hope clint wins best actor but if i put money on it i’d go with foxx. and i hope eternal sunshine wins best original screenplay. the best race right now is director. eastwood and scorsese. two heavyweights.
okay since no new posts I’ll start the ball rolling… Dave would your phone number be on Paris Hilton’s phone? The recently leaked lists have a : HOT-Dave
C’mon its you Mr Poland.. admit it 😉
Hmmm. Could that be why David hasn’t updated the main page for a while? He’s consulting with his lawyers?
I would give David a lot of credit if he is in her rolodex.
Well if she’s going to start blowing critics, someone should have at least been kind enough to direct her towards Ebert for starters. There is some kind of heirachy when it comes to receiving those favourable nods. (both ways)
I refuse to comment, other than to say that Paris Hilton and I are just good friends.
Joe Leydon, you said you loved me!
Er… You don’t have that on tape, do you?
Paris, you aren’t taking anymore porn stars from me. Leydon is mine and he has the scars to prove it.
See, Dave was right: When you’re a paunchy, sad-eyed, clumsy oaf, beautiful women really will fight over you.
Back to movies: I’ve been told that neither “Curse” nor “Man of the House” will be screened in advance for critics. Er, does that tell you something?
Hardly surprising. The production history behind Cursed is already infamous, and Man of the House looks like, well, it doesn’t look good. And both are critic-proof, so why bother? Is this happening more and more, or was it just as common, say, five or six years ago?
Actually, opening without press previews is a fairly common occurrence. I mean, it doesn’t happen every week, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it averaged out over the course of a year to once or twice (or more) a month. It seems to me that August and September are the worst months, even worse than January, because that’s when studios tend to dump the weakest product, and it’s not uncommon for two unpreviewed movies to open on the same weekend. (Early last fall, for example, “Paparazzi” and “The Cookout” opened on the same day without previews.) Whether it’s more common today than five or ten years ago, it’s tough to say. The thing is, with the advent of the Internet, no movie goes unreviewed for very long. You can see the first showing on a Friday, rush back to your office and crank out a review, and it can be posted on line by late Friday afternoon. (And if you’re in the right time zone, you can get it on line by mid-afternoon L.A. time.) Of course, sometimes a studio decides not to screen a movie that actually turns out to be pretty good. It’s rare, of course, but it happens. Way back in the ‘80s, for example, “The Terminator” opened in my market without press screenings.
“The thing is, with the advent of the Internet, no movie goes unreviewed for very long.”
You got that right. Cursed was reviewed months ago on AICN.
And let me guess: It got flamed, right?
I think they were mixed. I believe one said that the R-rated version, while nothing exceptional, was OK and featured a few good scares to go along with the gore. The major problems were in the third act.
I wonder if this is becoming standard operational procedure for horror flicks: Release the PG-13 version in theaters, then, four or five months later, release the R version in video stores. There’s an article in today’s Variety pointing out that, in thse censorious times, exhibitors are becoming increasingly leery of R-rated product. Of course, the timing for this concern may be a bit off: R-rated “Constantine” apparently grossed more during its opening 4-day holiday weekend than any other R-rated flick has ever earned on a 4-day holiday weekend.
The PG-13 horror movie is definitely all the rage right now, and the box office numbers certainly speak volumes (with exceptions here and there). I wonder if Warner Bros./Dark Castle is at all tempted to release a PG-13 House of Wax, and whether or not certain remakes, like The Fog, will aim for a PG-13 rather than an R. I think The Amityville Horror remake is R at this point.
Tough to make an R rated flick nowadays. Keeping out 40% of your customers? Not good business.
Except youngsters don’t want to see rated PG-13, it’s more fun to get into an R movie. It doesn’t keep them out. I was going to R movies at 13 and 14 yrs old all the time.
I also accompanied all my brothers and their friends when they wanted to go to an R movie and when neither of the parental units would take them. Crime and horror movies which are PG-13 aren’t “scary enough” to alot of younger people. at least this is their perception, and their desensitized minds from years of video/computer games.
I’ve never been into video games and only played John Madden when I had a video game system, but I enjoy an R-rated horror or crime movie from time to time. I know critics hate the genre, as do “serious” film fans, but horror movies are my guilty pleasure, even the bad ones(with some exceptions, of course). Some movies should be R.
i wonder if many of the horror or crime or genre-benders in the thriller/horror or thriller/crime which would be rated “R” are so popular (especially in Europe), becasue the PG-13 level is considered too safe/dull by many younger people.
Takashi Miike is very popular (at least in Europe & Asia which are big markets) partly because he is never boring and is always shocking/provocative in some way. Many of his movies aren’t available in the US yet but Canadians and americans seem to be buying pirate or region free DVD in large numbers. Battle Royale (Fukusaku’s last stand) was a huge pirated CD by young people.
I don’t/didn’t play computer games at all but I definitely prefer “R” crime dramas/thrillers.
its not that r rated movies are more fun to go to because u can’t get in. they’re usually better than pg movies. when ur 15 who wants to see a pg disney movie?
HOUSE OF WAX got its rating last week–it’s a PG-13.