In the Four Seasons bar this afternoon (favored nations billing) –
Kate Bosworth
Cliff Collins
Larry Flynt
Catherine Keener
Johnny Knoxville
Bennett Miller
Sean Penn
Quentin Tarantino (and 7 hot brunettes)
Slow day.
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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
Does anyone take advantage of celebrity more than QT? A film every 5 years. And plows a different model/actress/LA girl every 12 hours. And gets called a genuis everywhere he goes. Livin the dream.
Hey Larry, why not ask Quentin to direct one of your Barely Legal movies? Or maybe that’s why they were there together at the Four Seasons bar in the first place…. I’m sure Dave could tour the set and write a story for MCN…
Flynt must be in there all the time – I’ve seen him a few times in there. The last time I was in there – early ’99, I believe – it was a bit surreal.
Wes Craven, Courteney Cox and David Arquette were holed up in one corner, Harvey Keitel was behind my left shoulder, Robert Duvall and Paul Gleason (the “Breakfast Club” principal) were behind my right shoulder drinking together, and Flynt rolled by a couple of times. And Seinfeld was in the bar area.
Being quite drunk added to the experience, I must tell you.
Being drunk adds to any experience.
Oh come on, he directed Pulp Fiction. Name a more important American movie to come along in the last 20 years. The more I think about it, the more obvious it seems that it is the single touchstone movie of Generation X. Who cares if the guy’s a horndog?
i don’t think anyone cares. i think most are envious. but real fans would like a little more output than a movie every 7 yrs.
He’s one of THOSE directors. Just like David Lynch, Baz Luhrmann and so on who only make 1 movie ever 5 years or so, but who also have the most loyal followings of any directors.
The huge difference is that QT gets in 100+ at the BO. Lynch gets 10 tops.
Other than Pulp Fiction, nothing QT has done has grossed over 100 million at the Box office. He has his fan base now (the AICN fanboy crowd and critics who love to pick apart every reference in his films as an homage) but he is not a ‘mainstream’ talent.
He peaked and is now profitable with ancillary markets and the fact that companies can release 10 different versions of one of his DVD’s and his base will buy them all even if the only difference between them is two seconds added to the trailer on the extras.
11 years later and for all of its influence Pulp fiction is incredibly dated. Natural Born Killers which was realesed at the same time and had a lot of its fire stolen by Pulp Fiction seems so much more relevant and urgent by today’s standards.
Natural Born Killers was a one-note exercise in nihilism. Stone takes a fun, trashy script and transforms into a pretentious bore. (The media can be just as crazy as a serial killer, we get it, Oliver)
My guess is you’re on of the ones who thought Requiem For A Dream was great.
And Pulp Fiction dated? It gets better every time I see it.
Kill Bill made 180$ mill worldwide.
Kill Bill 2 made 152$ mill worldwide.
Jackie Brown made 40$mill with a budget of 12$.
Pulp Fiction didn’t make 100. It made 213$ worldwide.
Pretty impressive box office for an “art” director who’s not “mainstream”.
Crow,
Because you asked,
I reserve a special place on my top ten worst films of all time for Requiem for a Dream. It is postitively one of the worst pieces of pretentious trash I have ever seen. It is officially on my top ten worst films of all time and we are all the happier that he has not made a film since.
Number one worst piece of trash I have ever seen:Gregg Araki’s The Doom Generation.
Spun, Pecker and Roadkill also rate on the list.
Again…just ’cause you’re asking.
At least Requim was creative filmmaking and had some great performances. To put it on a list with Doom Generation and Pecker???
Now that is a travesty.
Josh,
On a world-wide scale many things become mainstream that aren’t necessarily domestically.
On that level Troy becomes one of the most successful films ever made and the James Bond series-which many North Americans see as running out of steam-one of the most liveliest on the planet.
Rowan Atkinson as Johnny English was more successful in its overseas grosses than any QT flick including Pulp Fiction. Where is the sequel to that? Then one has to take into account the grosses of many other foreign films…Bollywood, China etc.
Again, I take your point that Tarantino has a world wide audience…but on a playing field that big…he is still fairly select and things that we dismiss here (eg. Johnny English, Troy) then have to also come into play.
As a side note. I do not consider QT an ‘art’ director. He does genre films. He is not Kubrick. He does not traffic in ideas. He does stylish re-creations of genres he loves. That does not invalidate him but he has not proven to be the auteur he was made out to be (or thinks he is).
Josh…
Requiem for a Dream was a travesty.
Troy wasn’t mainstream????
Your argument is falling apart here. And Pulp Fiction is mainstream and QT is a mainstream director. He is not off making art house movies with budgets of 1 million. He is making movies with budgets of 50 million. Thats mainstream as it gets.
Trying to compare a worthless movie like Johnny English to Pulp Fiction is ludicrous.
Overseas grosses don’t rate sequels. American BO does. Pulp had it by almost 80 million. But comparing the two films is fruitless. We’ll still talking and debating QT and Pulp 50 yrs from now. Will anyone except Rowan Atkinsons kids remember English?
“The huge difference is that QT gets in 100+ at the BO. Lynch gets 10 tops.”
That wasn’t my point Josh. I was merely saying that Tarantino, alongside directors such as Lynch and Luhrmann, only seem to make 1 film ever 5 years or so but still have some of the most loyal fanbases out of anyone. Where exactly did I lose you with what I said up there?
I agree though that Pulp Fiction is still an extremely important piece of cinema.
Who can think Requiem For A Dream is one of the 10 worst of all time? Now THAT is bizarre.
I’m interested in seeing The Doom Generation now since I saw Mysterious Skin yesterday and thought it was the best of the year so far (and will definitely be in my top 5 for the year).
Mainstream is not the size of your budget…it is how many people actually sit down and watch your film. Many films are given large budgets for different reasons.
QT films make their budget back but not by appealing to a large mainstream audience…but by appealing to the same niche audience over and over again in different formats. Why do you think the bare bones DVD for Sin City was cynically released with 4 different covers…the studios know the same people will buy them just ’cause.
I agree that Pulp Fiction is important just by virtue of how influencial it was to the style of filmmaking in the ’90’s but will we be discussing QT in 50 years. Nobody really knows.
He will always have a place in cinema history but Pulp was his most mainstream work and nothing he has done since has captured the public zeigeist like it.
Everyone knew Pulp and its lines intrinsically. Young and old saw it out of curiosity. The same can not be said for any of his work since and 80 mill domestic for KB Vol 1 now is not the same as the 100 + mill for Pulp 10 years ago.
100 mill now is also not 100 mill twenty years ago. Many films pass 100 mill now but are forgotten and do not penetrate the public consciousness. People consume films now like BigMacs. They are cultural food if you will and most are easily disposable.
I know QT has his fans and they are loyal…but they are also the same fan base that clamour to AVP or FVJ and the like. There are no ideas in a QT film and that will be his biggest obstacle to achieving longevity. Style always dates…it is the nature of the beast.
Ideas can transcend their era.
i’m a quentin fan and have never heard of any of those geek things nicol.
pulp fiction. we’re all still debating it now and its been ten years.
Kamikaze Camel,
If your point was QT only makes a film every few years like those guys then I totally agree with you.
I wish all three would increase their ouput since I like all of their work.
Yeah Josh, when I made my original post I was merely making an out-of-topic point.
Definitely agree that they need to make more. But then, if they make more stuff does that make it diluted and thus of a lesser quality?
I know Moulin Rouge wouldn’t have been the same if it was a rushed job by some director who cranks out 1 or more films a year (calling Mr. Spielberg). It needed time. Same goes for Kill Bill, Mulholland Drive, etc.
I’d like more output but not for the sake of quality.
Well with some directors you can’t have it both ways. If Tarantino banged out a script in a couple of weeks and made it right then there is no doubt that it would be a poorer quality than all his other work (ALL of which i am a HUGE fan of… er, except Natural Born Killers. That was dumb – and I never call movies ‘dumb’).
Moulin Rouge is dumped in with Requim For a Dream. It sells hope and love in the same cynical way that Dream sells despair. Style above all! I agree with Nicol, style can only take you far… the audience has a subconcious aversion to bullshit, they know (after 100 years of product) when it’s being shoveled their way. What new directors don’t get is that in Pulp, the filmmaker made (or assembled) his own “cool.” Instead of following his lead, many have simply recycled that “cool.” There hasn’t been anyone since to really redefine it for this generation. That’s what we need… a new cool.
Style sometimes can overcome a bad movie and actually make it watchable.Much like it being funny. Either intentionally or unintentionally.
And you can’t make that argument about time lapse. If QT did make 2 films a year who is to say that they wouldn’t be quality? Maybe he can do that. Maybe he can churn them out but chooses not to. I don’t think any real movie fan begrudges Steven Spielberg for making two films a year.
I always like to see more from directors. You can sit around when you’re dead. I don’t think it hurts the creativity by working more. Ask Spielberg.
It’s all well and good to say you want directors to churn out more movies (hell, i do it all the time) but it’s just a fact that certain people work diferently. Plus some people do other projects. Quite a few directors (Luhrmann, Nicols, etc) work in theatre. Others work on TV.
Didn’t Kill Bill take a year to film, not to mention the time it took to write and put together. Plus we was writing something else beforehand and so on.
“I don’t think any real movie fan begrudges Steven Spielberg for making two films a year.”
Well, if he keeps making shit like War of the Worlds and The Terminal then I do begrudge it.