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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Thursday, February 16th, 2006 - Comments Off on NYC's Asian Film Guru Hendrix in Company of 'Wolves'
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NYC's Asian Film Guru Hendrix in Company of 'Wolves'

Over at the sweaty film orgy that is Cinemarati, Andrew Grant recently had a go at the controversial new film Valley of the Wolves: Iraq. A churlish little curio that The Times disclosed is the most expensive Turkish picture ever made, Wolves has earned more than its share of stateside criticism for anti-American depictions of torture, civilian deaths and Turkish prisoners of war. Better yet, actors Billy Zane and Gary Busey have drawn fire for their roles in the film–the latter as “a Jewish doctor who removes organs from Iraqi prisoners and sends them off to patients in America, Israel, and the UK.”
But while Grant references an episode of MSNBC’s Scarborough Country in which Catholic League president William Donahue wanly protests that such actors would “sodomize their own mother [sic] in a movie, if asked to do so,” he omits one mega-important factor: Also joining Donahue and Scarborough was Grady Hendrix–blogger extraordinaire, co-founder of the New York Asian Film Festival and the segment’s official Sacrificial Liberal Lamb.
And bless his heart, Hendrix journaled every last detail of the encounter over on Kaiju Shakedown:

They told me there’d be cookies. That’s what the producers promised me. “Oh, you’re in Media 3? We’ve got great cookies there.” But when I showed up what did I find? Three lone chocolate chip cookies on a paper plate sitting at the reception desk like something left out for Santa Claus. With only three cookies I couldn’t bring myself to take one, it would be like taking the last piece of cake. These cookies weren’t a yummy treat. These cookies were a trap for the unwary. Sort of like the show itself. …

Honestly, Hendrix’s deposition is one of the funniest and most engaging things I have read online in months. Grab a few more prime nuggets after the jump, and make sure you get the full-on, talk-show clusterfuck experience at MSNBC’s Web site.

A producer called and told me that host Chuck Scarborough “responds well to facts” and that the other guest was going to be William Donahue, president of the Catholic League. The make-up woman told me my skin was very well moisturized and problem-free. …

“Keep your mouth closed so you don’t look like stupid,” said one. “Don’t touch your face or clear your throat. It’s called ‘respiratory avoidance’ and it makes it look like you’re lying.” …

There wasn’t even a camera, just a lens on the wall. A long, dildo-like earpiece, covered in alcohol, was inserted into my right ear; an experience akin to getting a Wet Willie that just won’t stop. … My only connection to the show was the Wet Willie, which was barking instructions at me: “Don’t look away from the lens. Sit up!” In the background I could hear Scarborough’s voice talking about anti-American extremists and that’s when I realized what I was: the designated extremist. …

This was a political debate and (Scarborough) had just said “Whatever”? The word that makes parents see red. The word that is the conversational nuclear option for tweens? “Whatever? What are you guys?” I asked. “A couple of teenage girls?” I began to laugh and threw the “whatever” W but the camera had cut away and the conversation was over. I would like to take this moment to apologize to teenage girls. I know teenage girls and Donahue and Scarborough are no teenage girls.

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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