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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Full Service Don Murphy

If you want a crash course on Don Murphy, it is offered on this recent thread at his website.
He manages to rip…
Jon Favreau
Avi Arad
Mark Steven Johnson
Tim Story
Kevin Smith
Tom Cruise
Katie Holmes
And Ain

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23 Responses to “Full Service Don Murphy”

  1. jeffmcm says:

    Wouldn’t Hollywood be better if everyone was this open?

  2. RoyBatty says:

    Open is one thing, Murphy is belligerent just to amuse himself. Meanwhile, what does this ass-clown have to show for himself?
    Put it another way: Murphy produces Alan Moore = FROM HELL & THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTS. Alan Moore produced without Murphy’s graces = V FOR VENDETTA.
    ‘Nuff Said?

  3. jeffmcm says:

    Uh…no.

  4. EDouglas says:

    Someone should buy Murphy a copy of this book:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671723650/sr=8-1/qid=1154431746/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-6985991-9823010?ie=UTF8
    And then force feed him it page after page.

  5. waveblue says:

    Harry deserves some ripping. The thing I find amusing, is why did Hollywood decide Harry had any power in the first place? Has anyone proven that he can drive any box office dollars?

  6. EDouglas says:

    I think they’re still blaming him for Rollerball…rather than blaming themselves for making Rollerball and allowing it to get so bad so fast.

  7. PetalumaFilms says:

    I couldn’t get through the Ratner interview to find the Knowles bash. Is there anyone more annoying than Ratner? Jesus, he name drops great directors and great films left and right and makes no *real* comment about them. He’s like that douche in your film class who knows names of great movies but hasn’t seen em. If he says his favorite film of all time is “Killing of a Chinese Bookie” one more time, I’m gonna hire a Chinese bookie and whack him.
    And that Don Murphy stuff is classic. I like “Favs,” but can’t help but think most of what Murphy says about him is right.

  8. MASON says:

    DM reminds me of Kevin Smith. It’s okay for them to rag on anybody they want, but if you say anything about them they go ballistic via their internet message board.
    Tarantino annoys the crap out of me, but I’m starting to see why he just couldn’t resist slapping the shit out of Murphy.

  9. Krazy Eyes says:

    Hmmm . . . the link to the Murphy thread is down. Has damage control already started?

  10. MASON says:

    DM is just mad at the world because he lost his deal at Sony and is a producer in name only on Transformers.
    Chill, Don. You’re still living the dream.

  11. THX5334 says:

    Yeah, he took the link down. Can somebody fill us in on what the gist of the Murphy thread was?

  12. Jeffrey Boam's Doctor says:

    The power of Dave. Silencing doughy Don with one link. Gis of thread.
    DM – IRON MAN will suck ass. Favreau is a tool. Avi Arad is a moron because he backs people like Favreau, Johnson, Story… more hate, more anger, more pettiness.
    He’s kinda safe from similar attacks from others as he has one thing all his enemies don’t have. An empty slate.

  13. EDouglas says:

    Murphy’s involved with Transformers (just not sure to what degree) and he’s developing Deadman with Guillermo Del Toro (which could be a very cool movie)

  14. SpamDooley says:

    Mason you sad ugly boy
    Murphy started Transformers oye oye
    You can slag him as much as you want
    You still are a loser fat cunt
    I am Spam Dooley and I feed my people.

  15. the keoki says:

    So what the hell did he say? It’s all gone.

  16. Spacesheik says:

    Yes, yes I see the subtext of KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE prevalent in masterpieces such as AFTER THE SUNSET.

  17. Cadavra says:

    Now that’s just silly. One can have an affection for Cassavetes without trying to imitate him in every picture. SUNSET is nothing more than a ’60s-style romp with beautiful people in beautiful locations, and on that level it works just fine. If you’re gonna dump on Ratner, at least do it in a way that makes sense.

  18. David Poland says:

    The return of Spam Dooley… it’s been too long.

  19. jeffmcm says:

    Well, I think it makes sense to wonder how Ratner can call Killing of a Chinese Bookie his favorite movie when there is absolutely no sense, in his own films, that he has any idea what it’s about or what is happening in it. It’s like when you hear that a guy on a street corner playing a kazoo says that his favorite musician is Stravinsky, you wonder ‘huh?’

  20. Cadavra says:

    Again, personal tastes are being mixed with work. One of my absolute favorite movies is TOUCH OF EVIL, but never in my wildest dreams could I even write, much less direct, anything remotely like it.

  21. jeffmcm says:

    Ah, but you are not a big-time, highly paid director, either, touting your favorite movie as something with an aesthetic that it does not appear, from your filmography, that you understand in the slightest.

  22. Martin S says:

    That Ratner interview is one the best things I’ve read in some time…I swear he’s Joel Silver’s bastard child.
    What I love is that Brett never mentions is who his family is. He can claim to be at one time minus 250K in the bank, but that really means nothing when you’re a Ratner of NY.
    Do you know why he and Knowles cannot stand each other? Because it’s the battle of the gluttons.

  23. Cadavra says:

    Again, not really trying to defend Ratner, but in fairness, none of his films to date have been an attempt to replicate the Cassavetes aesthetic. (Ask yourself this: could Cassavetes have made AFTER THE SUNSET? I don’t think so; that kind of breezy caper really wasn’t in his DNA.) If you wanna criticize Ratner’s movies for what they are, fine, but let’s not attack them for what they’re not. When the time comes for him to make his CHINESE BOOKIE-type film, I’ll be the first in line to rip him a new one if he mucks it up, but for now, I’m giving him a pass on this.

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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.”
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“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