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
Sounds like some really interesting and off beat films.
Dave, what are you wearing right now?
I could be totally wrong here, but I’m pretty sure that if there’s a Terry Zwigoff movie there, it’s gonna be Art School Confidential.
Methinks the program has a typo.
Wow, Roger Ebert is a big fan of Year of the Quiet Sun. He makes me want to see it now.
A Year of the Quiet Sun is GREAT. Didn’t get the US release it deserved back in the mid-Eighties. I heard the company that bought it spent so much getting the rights that they didn’t have enough left afterward to launch it properly. It’s been on DVD since 2002, but you never see it anywhere. Let’s hope this gives it a bit of a second chance.
There is a LOOK BOTH WAYS out from 2005 but not from Zwigoff.
Is this the 1970s Liza with a Z, or some brand new one?
You tend to forget how great a performer Liza Minnelli really was.
Sounds great! Speaking of….anyone check out the lineup for SXSW???? Holy CRAP! That fest has really stepped up this year and it’s already the best festival around. You should go Dave…..unless waterbucket goes….
“On a Clear Day” is pretty damn good — it was at Sundance in 2005. In fact, it’s the kind of movie that most people who complain about Sundance somehow manage NOT to see during the festival, because they’re to busy seeing the high-profile films that want to bitch and moan about.
I really wish they would find a way to show these movies to the public and not just people that can go to Sundance. I’d love to see a Brenda Blethyn movie. She’s a phenomenal actress. So great in SECRETS AND LIES.
Anyone catch the “Marie Antoinette” teaser trailer? Looks off beat and pretty good. I think Sophia Coppola may have the good genes. Maybe Dunst can shake the terrible stench of “Elizabethtown”.
Petaluma, what’s that supposed to mean?
I love the Marie Antoinette trailer. Can’t wait for that movie.
Maybe Kirsten Dunst can shake the terrible stench of being Kirsten Dunst.
“Marie-Antionette” is, after “Inland Empire” by David Lynch, my most anticipated film from 06.
And, yes, I believe your program has a type (or, a big one). There is a film called “Look Both Ways” being released in the states soon written and directed by animator Sarah Watt. It’s an Australian movie was is in my Top 3 of 2005. Such a great movie. It won Best Film, Best Direction and Best Original Screenplay at the Australian Film Institute awards late last year and won at Toronto.
I really, really love the “Marie Antoinette” trailer and the Sex Pistols-ish font they’re using to market the title. The movie looks to me like Sofia Coppola’s take on “Barry Lyndon” through a hipster lens.
Sophia Coppola is a space cadet. The stupid titles and the stupid music of the trailer is pretty much in keeping with her stupid, boring, self-indulgence people keep mistaking for talent. Like many other geek directors, she’d rather show off her worldly detachment than tell a real story. (God forbid one inch of her movie be accessible and fun)
Which is to say that if her name was Sophia Johnson, the only Oscar she’d have in her home would end with a “Mayer Wiener.”
I wouldn’t go that far, I liked The Virgin Suicides quite a bit, but I thought Lost in Translation was overrated and derivative of several Wong Kar-Wai movies, and Marie Antoinette has me puzzled. I don’t feel like the hip style of the music and the graphics really match the footage, which could be any period costume movie. That and Kirsten Dunst looks miscast. I always thought of Marie A. as one of history’s biggest dopes, but apparently here she’s a lovelorn teenager.
the virgin suicides was crap but lost in translation was good work. helped by two great lead performances. bill murray deserved an oscar for that.
dunst looked pretty good in that trailer though. and the offbeat casting of jason schwartzman is nice.
I still won’t forgive little Sophia for ruining the Godfather 3.
Is there any one left to see Night Watch when it finally hits theatres next week? between press screenings, film festivals and the import DVDs, it seems like more people have seen it than Hero before it finally got released… except it’s not nearly as good so there’s no reason to pay to see it in theatres.
Art School Confidential is also here…
And I will be at SXSW (aka Barbecue Mountain) as well. And then Bermuda.
Liza With A Z, from the 70s, was a fun watch… it is amazing how much things have changed in 30 years… except for Liza’s hair.
I assume that Look Both Ways is the Australian Film from Sarah Watt. It was at Toronto last year, where it won the Discovery Award. It also won Best Picture, Director, and Screenplay at the Australian Film Institute Awards. It was also my personal favorite film that I saw at Toronto last year.
Kino International will distribute it in the US this Spring – http://www.kino.com/lookbothways/.
i thought the Marie Antoinette trailer looked fucking annoying. If Marie Antoinette “really” was like that then she really did deserve to eat cake and die.
I’m sure Coppola will figure out a way for Marie to be listening to The Clash on 12″ vinyl while Schwartzman smokes a fatty at a party. She’ll stare out a window for five minutes, take a pee in a bedpan (for grit, you know) and then a vicious sex scene from the point of view of her feet. The leader singer of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs will play the ghost of Joan of Arc.
Sample dialogue: “Marie… dude… do you like believe in god and stuff?”
Crow, I get the “staring out the window” bit, but the rest of your post seems to be satirizing a Sofia Coppola I’m unfamiliar with. Grit? Vicious sex scenes? Drug use? Musician cameos? Maybe Gus Van Sant’s “Marie Antoinette,” but not Sofia’s…
After watching the trailer for “Marie Antoinette” I don’t know what to think. It could go in many different ways. From great to a disaster. I don’t have much faith in Dunst to carry a movie where she’s not a cheerleader though. But I do have faith in the Coppola genes.
Sorry Leer, I get a little worked up. I enjoyed Virgin Suicides. I’m just tired of the new pseudo-smart standard of dopey metaphors and oh-so-clever references that young filmmakers try to pass off as a story. The expiration date for that brand of cool (1999?) has long passed.
Give us real drama… give it to us raw and wiggling.
Give us Brokeback Mountain.
LOST IN TRANSLATION was a definate leap up on ability and prestige for Sophia Coppola. I’m looking forward to her take on this story. I like the use of the music in the trailer. Set a fun mood up.
I thought Lost in Translation was always a bit overrated. What happend in it? I’m a big Bill Murray guy so I had to like it but was it him or the movie? He’s that good that I think he brought the movie up to his level. Scarlett J isn’t a slouch either.
i liked LIT very much–good minimalism and it was made cheap, made a good profit.
I much rather have an LIT Marie Antoinette than a Virgin Suicides Antoinette. Too much pop music and mood, not enough story in VS. james woods and K turner, for one, were not used enough.
The worst movie of the year: definitely “The Grammys”. Poor Sly Stone. The billy idol mohican wasn’t flattering. I loved Sly and the FS from my parents playing their music so much, I wan’t sure if I should laugh or cry during that “tribute”. I am watching Stalag 17 to cheer myself up.
well the use of New Order in the teaser of “Marie-Antionette” just goes to the theory that she was a frivilous girl who did whatever she wanted. The music helps give it that vibe, while also setting it apart from countless other period dramas.
Plus, the song is a killer.
“Lost In Translation” is one of my favourite movies. Hit all the right notes. Plus, I like it when my prestige movies are short and sweet (like Good Night, and Good Luck.)
She was probably thinking a New Order song in a Marie-Antionette trailer would be original. It is. But in a Sophia Coppola trailer it’s embarassingly expected.
Nonconformists are all alike.
“Night Watch” would have been in US theaters last summer except for the bombings in London on 7 July.
“embarassingly expected” for a film about MARIE-ANTIONETTE. Note to self – if I ever make a period film make sure the trailer is exactly the same as every other one out there, because otherwise it will be embarassing that I try something different.
She has yet to show that the movie is something different – no dialogue in the trailer and just a lot of footage of giggling girls makes the trailer look an awful lot like both of her previous movies. Just with more lavish costumes.
How is that trailer is anything like “Lost in Translation” (a movie that was not filled with “a lot of footage of giggling girls,” as far as I remember)?
It’s a teaser trailer, besides, and a very intriguing one at that. I’m sure we’ll learn more as the release date approaches, but it’s not coming out til the fall, right?
You’re right that LIT didn’t have multiple giggling teenagers. I just don’t get a sense of what the movie is really about, just a sort of vague attitude which feels applied. You could have taken footage from any other period costume movie, stripped out the dialogue, put in some anachronistic music, and gotten the exact same result. Personally, for me, Ms. Coppola has not yet proven herself.
Looking forward to seeing Nightwatch. Heard good things about it.
What director who has directed two films has proven themselves???
But she has noticable talent.
Nothing happend in Lost in Trans. Just two hours of boredom. Even Bill Murray looked bored. You’re getting paid a fortune in a foreign country to be in commercials. Wheres the fun? And how did Scalets character end up with that photog? Thats a bigger mystery.
I think that’s the point Lester. She doesn’t know how she ended up with him herself, let alone the audience.
I still don’t understand how anyone can really complain about this teaser for a movie that’s 8 months away from release (it’s released on Oct. 13 – my birthday, yay!) because it, what? Shows that it’s a period film? What exactly did the creators of the teaser have to do in order to not be “embarassingly expected”? Would having characters speaking made it less embarassingly expected? Would putting classicl music instead of New Order prove Sofia Coppola to you? ugh, you make no sense.
Basically nothing the teaser could have done would’ve satisfied you.