April 24, 2024
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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
There is obviously a market for this kind of coverage. Why wouldn’t someone cater to it?
The question isn’t ‘is there a market’, the question is ‘should every news organization be going into E! territory, and if so is that a bad thing’.
whys that a bad thing? the people are clamoring for it and want it. should they not respect the wishes of the people who pay than their own ideals and elitist attitudes? when theres money to be made, make the money.
I like reading serious industry stuff and also getting celeb gossip. Why shouldn’t one place have both?
And hey, maybe the Washington Post should cater to the market for pornography. Circulation would… throb.
To get back to the main point, how about this: which of these people is going to get more media attention for the next month, Steven Spielberg or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
Celeb gossip is the tops. More half naked features though. Now that’s reporting!
Too little, too late for the Mainstream Media. They are not even in the game when it comes to new media.
not a big fan of the Oscar prognosticating but if there’s a place for it, it’s here, not in the papers.
How can you come here and post and say you’re not a fan of Oscar prognosticating?
It’s like an alcoholic walking in a bar and saying he doesn’t like booze.
You can be a huge boozer, but when Walter Cronkite shows up drunk, it’s still depressing.
“If one or both of the Times had been as thorough in their reporting of the White House, Pentagon, CIA and the last two presidential races — as is their coverage of entirely meaningless Oscar and Golden Globe campaigns — would the incumbent President have been cocky enough to employ false premises to invade Iraq?”
Does he really mean if they had done the ‘thorough’ job that Michael Moore and John Stewart do?
I do not know Dretzka’s work enough to know that this is true, but I have heard this line sputtered by many people for whom it was.
Yes, there is way too much reporting of Oscars in the mainstream media and journals. But when the mainstream media gets so much of its ‘truth’ and culture from Hollywood and movies…what does one expect?
It has become a symbiotic relationship.
The generation of the sixties which gave up on the traditional sources of stability and ‘truth’ in society which they saw as corrupt (family, government, police, religion) then turned to the arts for their philosophers, deifying such people as John Lennon, Joan Biaz, Bob Dylan etc. They saw the ‘arts’ as a way of formulating the counter-culture.
They saw the emotion of the arts as enlightened and evolved. A way to find ‘truth’. Sadly, in many cases they confused this with art that just shocked and titilated for its own sake.
Now, with a mainstream media that is deep seated with its values in the counter-culture of the sixties generation, we are seeing an obsession with the ‘arts’ culture. Hence the obsession with Oscar and all that it entails. It goes well beyond just ‘pandering’ to the public.
Most journalists (I know a few) deify the arts and by extension the entertainment industry in general.
They see journalism not as a way of reporting but as a potential route to being an entertainer themselves. The next, Oprah Winfey, the next Larry King, the next Katie Couric.
One of America’s top Anchormen, CBS’ John Roberts, did not have his origins in journalism at all but as a VJ on Much Music in Toronto. He had shaggy mullet metal hair and wore lots o’ leather and tight jeans. A product of the ‘counter-culture’ now made good.
Did John (JD) Roberts become a serious journalist or did the journalism industry just take a counter-culture type because he was in tune with the right counter-cultural values of the time?
If one accepts that most journalists have values that are at least sympathetic to the counter-culture values of the sixties, does it not stand to reason that these same journalists would trumpet the Oscars, which also has sympathies to the same values?
Sadly, we have become an entertainment obsessed culture. I do think that there is a wave that is trying to break this but just like it has taken us decades to arrive at this place, most of us will be old men and women before we have evolved again.
It all comes with the territory of the internet. Way more people with the ability to write stuff, way more people to read it.
“If one or both of the Times had been as thorough in their reporting of the White House, Pentagon, CIA and the last two presidential races — as is their coverage of entirely meaningless Oscar and Golden Globe campaigns — would the incumbent President have been cocky enough to employ false premises to invade Iraq?”
Does Dretzka even read the news on a daily basis or just get his from Jon Stewart and Bill Maher? I wish some movie writers would really stay out of where they have no idea and stick to what they know. Because it really ruins their whole argument when they do things like this.
Terence D, you’re not offering a counterargument to Dretzka; you’re just saying “I can’t believe this garbage, that is so wrong, he obviously has no idea what he’s talking about, this is just liberal claptrap.” OK… that’s not a real argument.
I’m sorry to change the subject, but David you have to talk about Kong’s crushingly mediocre Wednesday numbers.
What happened? Was it the weather? End of semester complications for college aged folk? Lack of interest? What is going on?
Yeah, an opening day under $10million? That’s less than half of WOTW’s opening Wednesday. What happened?
Wasn’t trying to argue, Jesse. Was just pointing out a fallacy of the article and an obvious viewpoint that is inherently wrong. Nothing much more to say on it.
Well, it is a long movie, limiting its showings. But then you have the ROTK numbers. So who knows?
Well, if the viewpoint is obviously and inherently wrong, then to offer a counterargument would just be to waste everyone’s time. Right, Terence?
I would like to assure Terence D and Nicol D that I neither get my news from or even watch with any regularity the shows hosted by Mr. Maher and Stewart, nor do I admire all of Mr. Moore’s methodology. I subscribe to the print versions of the NYT and LAT, and daily scan dozens of other sites, including those of Daily Variety and Hollywood Reporter.
Before becoming an entertainment editor and writer, I was a news editor at several major publications, including the Chicago Tribune. I’ll put those credentials up against anyone else’s in this debate … which I appreciate, by the way.
Anyone who thinks the mainstream media did a more thorough job covering the events leading up to the current morass in Iraq — going back at least 50 years — than it’s attempting to do covering the Oscars, is fooling themselves. Even President Bush, yesterday, admitted that his decision to invade Iraq was based on faulty date, that was quickly regurgitated into the newsholes of the NYT, LAT, WP, CT, Time and Newsweek. And, of course, Hollywood’s relationship with reality is tenuous at best.
This exchange from the response-blog sums up my feelings quite well:
“How can you come here and post and say you’re not a fan of Oscar prognosticating?
“It’s like an alcoholic walking in a bar and saying he doesn’t like booze.”
“You can be a huge boozer, but when Walter Cronkite shows up drunk, it’s still depressing.”
Precisely. There’s a place for obsessive coverage of the Oscars, and it’s not on the websites of fair-weather Big/Old Media outlets, whose analysts and prognosticators have been assigned to the beat, and will be off with the wind, when re-assigned to another one.
That’s all I was trying to say.
On the bright side, this is the first time I’ve ever even tried to read Gary D.
what president or gov’t official gets all their news from the nyt or was post? dont u think they have real hard news facts and other outlets? like maybe a central intelligence agency and other country’s? like maybe a federal bureau of investigation? just because we didn’t find huge warehouses full of nuclear bombs doesn’t mean they weren’t trying to procure them and build them u know. everyone from bill clinton to kerry to bush to blair to australia knew they wanted weapons. they all liars too?
Jeffmcm,
My five year old daughter has more sense and is easier to have a discussion with than you. But that isn’t saying much since she is much smarter than you. So, I really don’t expect you to understand anything I or anyone else here says. You just look to get involved with arguments and start fights when none exist. Basically, you’re a jerk but you already know that. Good night and Good luck.
Yeah, well you smell like poopy poop poop!
Kong going to be behind Narnia. Who would have thought????
My cologne is French. It may have something to do with it.
Good answer.