MCN Blogs
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Check Out Our New Blog…

The Reeler

Be Sociable, Share!

37 Responses to “Check Out Our New Blog…”

  1. Josh says:

    I hope it’s better than Mutiny City News.

  2. Josh Massey says:

    Could it be worse than Mutiny City News?
    No, seriously, thank God for the new blog. The New York market has been ignored for far too long.
    (Sorry, I’m feeling snarky today).

  3. DanYuma says:

    Well, good idea, but no mention yet of John Waters appearing at the Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday? (Oddly enough, yesterday’s NYPost piece covered more new ground than the Times one did. Arguable best line: “I’m weary of irony, even though I’m an irony peddler.”)

  4. LesterFreed says:

    Odd? The Post is ten times better than the Times.

  5. jeffmcm says:

    Is there more than one New York Post now? Because the one I remember is a tabloid rag.

  6. Mark Ziegler says:

    No self respecting New Yorker is caught with the Times. The Times is for Ivory Tower types. There film stuff isn’t even worth a damn anymore either.
    You have a huge election taking place in Iraq. World changing. History type stuff. And on their front page they put out a story about the US eavesdropping on suspected terrorists. The reporter of said story who happens to have a book coming out on it in a few weeks. But, no they don’t have any agendas at the Times. I hope they appoint a special prosecutor to get behind who leaked the info that was legal by the way.

  7. jeffmcm says:

    Do you live in New York, Mark?

  8. PandaBear says:

    Page Six is the best.

  9. joefitz84 says:

    Don’t bring up Mutiny City again. I still have nightmares.

  10. martin says:

    never explored mutiny city, what was the problem with it? is that where those sorta lame box office videos were located?

  11. jeffmcm says:

    MCN was sort of inexplicable. For some reason Poland got it into his head to hire a young and very inexperienced guy to make some video skits as added-content for the site. Based on his writings on the blog Jamie Stuart’s not a dumb guy, but his videos were longer and less funny than they really needed to be and were very amateurish. First-year film school stuff that Poland refused to see as anything other than ‘promising’. Good platform for the guy to irritate a lot of people, though.

  12. martin says:

    how did he irritate people? it was free. I just didn’t watch a lot of the videos cause the actors and skits were kind of annoying, but it was just another part of the site. What’s the big deal?

  13. David Poland says:

    Fortunately, among the people Jamie “irritated” were agents, execs and publicists who have offered him more opportunities based on his Mutiny efforts.
    I have my favorites and my not-so-thrilleds among his pieces. But I think his interview pieces for March of the Penguins, Murderball,and Junebug, amongst others are amongst the best coverage of those filmmakers done by anyone. And his NY Film Fest coverage, particularly the first year, but certainly including the second year was excellent. I would have cut his “Ebert Rips WOTW” piece in half, but the ideas in the work were remarkable.
    To say it was “first year film school stuff” is to show, in my opinion, a lack of imagination or reality. I have watched a lot of first films, post film school and often with celebrities in them, in my life and Jamie’s work was better and a lot more inventive than a lot of them.
    Sorry if some of you didn’t like the pieces. If I could afford to hire Jamie to cover every junket and the studios would allow him to do his work, I would do it in a NY minute, because it would give Movie City News the kind of “coverage with a perspective” that very few places even attempt.
    As for the new blog, I think STV kicks ass. He is young, smart, and willing to sting. I also believe he works hard to be fair and completely honest in his work and he is very serious about movies. We’re very proud to bring him to MCN. I hope you’ll all give him a chance. I’m pretty sure you’ll find him a daily stop before too long.

  14. jeffmcm says:

    DP, it just goes to show: talent is not a requirement to go far in Hollywood. Just a platform and connections.
    Like I said, Jamie seems like a good guy. Maybe I didn’t watch his best stuff to see what you saw…but I felt like I watched enough.
    And I went to USC film school, so I know what I’m talking about. Thanks for the tossed-off insult.

  15. jeffmcm says:

    (clarification):
    I went to USC film school, so I know what crappy student films looks like. At least Jamie’s didn’t rip off The OC or 24. But I still have “Revenge of the Shit” ringing through my ears from his first installment, repeated about 2 dozen times.

  16. jeffmcm says:

    BTW, Josh brought up MCN first. Not me.

  17. David Poland says:

    Fair enough, J-Mac. You were turned off early and often. So be it.
    My rule is that if I am going to rip on someone’s work, I make sure I have a comprehensive knowledge of it, even if it pains me to do so. Seems fair to me. But my professional obligation is not yours to uphold. So fair enough.

  18. jeffmcm says:

    Well played, Poland. Well played.

  19. jeffmcm says:

    Okay Poland, I took on your implied challenge and watched the War of the Worlds and Murderball interview segments. To Jamie’s credit, he does know how to get proper exposure and white balance. And yet, he didn’t think it would be necessary to edit out incoherent off-mike interview questions. The WOTW/Ebert pieces were indeed too long and, to my mind, not particularly inventive or imaginative.
    But it’s your site and you’re entitled to your tastes. After all, you did want to have ten thousand of Phantom of the Opera’s babies. (Joking!)

  20. martin says:

    not to get schmaltzy here, but moviecitynews is one of the best movie sites going now, so the occasional bad idea doesn’t bother me.
    Been an AICN/DH/etc. reader for awhile, read Wells on occasion, Variety/yahoo entertainment news daily. But for comprehensiveness and sheer intellect in coverage of all things film, this is the place to be. MCN is on a very short list of places to go for intelligent, thorough movie coverage. Not sure how this site stacks up in terms of hits, etc. but I’ve never gotten the feeling out sellout or desperation that you get on other movie sites. Bunch of professionals here which is apparently rare in entertainment journalism. So props to them, and if you don’t like something here there’s countless other articles/links etc that you could be taking in.

  21. jeffmcm says:

    I agree, Martin.
    The people who keep throwing ‘smug’ at Poland obviously haven’t seen Wells’ page.

  22. martin says:

    I’m sort of lazy when it comes to my news-reading, so it’s basically MCN and Drudge right now. I’m sure the people here would hate to be lumped in with Drudge, but for movie-news that’s how this site functions for me.
    I was one of the few that bought a hat from Poland back in the hot button/roughcut days and still search around for better movie columnists but haven’t found one yet. Moviepoopchute is a good description of most of the competition unfortunately.

  23. Angelus21 says:

    You’re not going to find better than MCN for movie news. Plus it has links to everyone. What more do you need?

  24. Bruce says:

    Not everything can be a slam dunk can it? But you got to take chances or you will just stay stagnant which is the kiss of death online.

  25. Terence D says:

    Since when did going to film school make someone an expert? I thought film school was for the lazy, bored and the people who couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with math.

  26. James Leer says:

    Yeah, no one big ever went to film school. Wait…

  27. LesterFreed says:

    No. No. No. That’s what Liberal Arts Colleges are for. To party, sleep around and drink and forget about life for four or five or six years.

  28. Mark Ziegler says:

    What’s so wrong about drinking and partying five years away when you’re 18???
    I want to go back.

  29. Richard Nash says:

    Film school is a waste of time and money. Either you can do it or not. You need to shoot and edit and write and shoot some more. No classroom is going to make you a good director. The classroom has to be doing it.

  30. jeffmcm says:

    Film school for me has indeed been expensive, but if not for it I would have just worked at a desk job and not met any interesting people or worked on good projects.
    And anyway, I didn’t say it made me an expert on good student films…I specifically said _bad_ ones.

  31. James Leer says:

    If you’re intent on going to college after high school and you love film enough to want to make a career out of it, I don’t see why you wouldn’t consider going to film school. Now, if you’ve already gone to college it might be a different choice, but when I was looking for an undergraduate education, it was a no-brainer to go (excuse the pun).

  32. jeffmcm says:

    I’d be curious to know how many working filmmakers there actually are on this blog…I may not be Spielberg, but I earn my living from writing and editing and I would have been able to do neither if not for film school.

  33. Bruce says:

    Jeff,
    Writing and shooting porn doesn’t exactly count as “in the business”.

  34. jeffmcm says:

    I would make a lot more money if I did that.
    And nobody ‘writes’ porn.

  35. Angelus21 says:

    Someone has to write the story right? “Pizza delivery boy walks in hot wife’s house….”

  36. sky_capitan says:

    Anyone see “How The Grinch Stole Kwanzaa” ?
    f#*$!%g funny
    And he had to write the porn into that
    just google it…

  37. BluStealer says:

    I’m scared of Kwanza now. Lol.

The Hot Blog

Quote Unquotesee all »

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