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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Monday, June 19th, 2006 - Comments Off on Has-Been Seagal, Horny Hawke: At the Movies with the New York Post
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Has-Been Seagal, Horny Hawke: At the Movies with the New York Post


I am such a slouch. On an unproductive morning during which I must now rush off to check out Superman Returns, I feel like I have left you hanging. But let me introduce you to your substitute, the New York Post, which spent virtually all weekend unearthing the glimmering jewels I have been too neglectful to polish for you myself.
Page Six is back in particularly vicious sniper mode, peering through its slender crosshairs at all sorts of cinematic targets. The ever-popular Steven Seagal takes the bloodiest hit by far, with the Sixers dubbing him “Action Zero” for his commitment to sigh autographs alongside “Rowdy Roddy” Piper, “Captain Lou” Albano and “the guys who played Michael Myers in Halloween and Jason in Friday the 13th” at this weekend’s Big Apple Convention and Geek Puppy Pile. The item fails to mention, however, that Seagal and his band Thunderbox are going to rock New York at BB King’s, a far more terrifying trauma about which readers need adequate warning. Like a potential Ron Burkle payday, consider this another opportunity missed for Page Six.
The coverage gets far tamer from there: Ethan Hawke memorized Salinger to get laid; Harvey Weinstein dumped a few million bucks (not Weinstein Co. capital, he swears) in some Euro-trash dating site; Disney has taken the trend in withholding press screenings one step further by not testing Pirates of the Carribean 2 (“We didn’t think we could gain anything by research screenings,” a Disney spokesman said, but they are refurbishing the Disneyland ride just in case); Kevin Spacey modeled Lex Luthor after Kenneth Lay; and former Luna frontman Dean Wareham is back onscreen in Matthew Ross’s short film Lola.
But the real credit goes to noted ideologue and critical trailblazer Liz Smith, who has the semi-latest on Mike Nichols’ next project:

With some movie studios canceling projects right and left, it’s comforting to see Universal stepping up to the plate with a meaningful idea. Oscar winners Philip Seymour Hoffman, Tom Hanks and Broadway’s current box-office darling Julia Roberts, will be together doing Charlie Wilson’s War, based on George Crile’s book about a rogue congressman and a CIA agent secretly arming rebels against the Russians in Afghanistan, circa 1980. The intellectually gifted and charmingly disarming Mike Nichols is to direct, and The West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin is the screenwriter, so this one seems really worth the wait.

“Comforting” indeed–follow the links until I return, kids, and I will try to be back with a note or two this afternoon.

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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