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
Wow, who’s NOT in this movie?
Charlie Sheen.
While I don’t like using this board to link to my own stuff, here’s crazy Sharon Stone gushing about the cast… and the extras!
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=13801
This week, on Hollywood Squares…
Wait–Demi Moore is in this? Yes!! We’re finally getting that Wisdom reunion!
I want them to get into a Dynasty like catfight, but I guess we won’t see t hat happening in the movie.
Seriously, Demi Moore and Sharon Stone are BOTH in this. Isn’t that just delicious!
But seriously, this movie’s cast is huge. Can’t say it’s all quality but a lot of it surprisingly is.
btw, Douglas, I’ve linked your article from my blog. This project just became a must-see.
http://kamikazecamel.blogspot.com/
KCamel, Body Heat is a much better movie than you’re giving it credit for. (Meanwhile, Pi is much worse).
If they link the assassination of RFK to the Republican Party this thing will be Oscar bait.
Guaranteed win if a young Ronald Reagan or George HW Bush is involved.
I must admit that I do not know much about the behind the scenes players and conspiracy theories involving the RFK assassination. Care to fill me in? I haven’t come across any lefties claiming that the Republican party was somehow involved.
Stella, you missed Nicol’s incredibly clever, biting wit at work. Clearly you are some kind of head-in-the-sand liberal loser.
The favorite target for RFK assassination theorists is J. Edgar Hoover.
Question: how many of these people are in it for more than two or three minutes?
Jeff, was loving Body Heat at the start (the great dialogue and the muggy atmosphere) but then it just turned into a cliched affair movie. I know seeing it 25 years (my god, that’s a long time!) after the fact doesn’t help, but I’ve seen this so many times before.
Pi, on the other hand, wasn’t anything I had seen before.
(feel free to keep reading my stuff. I’m awesome.
I think Body Heat is one of those movies that has spawned so many imitators that it can’t be seen for how original it was at the time; also, it helps if you’re seeing it, as I did, in a film theory class so all of its subversions and genre tweaks are pointed out to you.
Pi, meanwhile, outside of its cyberpunk visuals, is a really hackneyed story (there are some things man was not meant to know).
Midnight Cowboy is indeed a little dated, but the central relationship is really the key to the movie, outside of all the dated 60s flash.
The final scenes of Midnight Cowboy were what made it for me. While, as you know, I didn’t like it that much, those scenes were what raised it from a C+ to a B-.
And, yes, I freely admit that Body Heat was, essentially, ruined for me by 25 years of copying from other movies and tv shows. My friend recently watched “Rear Window” and he didn’t like it. He said he’d seen it so many other places and, while I too had seen The Simpsons and all the other imitators I still loved it enought to be a #5 of all time member.
Body Heat might actually be the movie that invented the modern ‘erotic thriller’ as discussed in the Basic Instinct 2 thread.
Rear Window is endlessly rewatchable because it has so many details and layers of meaning. And hell, what classic movie hasn’t been imitated?
I know. Remember “Head Over Heals” with Freddie Prinze Jr? jeepers.
I’m gonna go watch “The Godfather” now for the first time. Ummm… wish me luck?
BODY HEAT was original only to those who’d never seen THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE, DOUBLE INDEMNITY, or a ton of other films where a woman seduces a horny numbskull into murdering her husband.
I think it’s more of an homage/update/genre twister than a sheer ripoff.
Even so, it’s still not an “original” idea.
But what is these days, with the kids and their hip-hop and baggy clothes.