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” ā 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 ā 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 ā he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” ā and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging ā I was with her at that moment ā 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 namedā” “Yeah, sure ā 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 Iām on the phone with you now, after all thatās 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 didnāt seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. Thereās not a case of that. He wasnāt using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had ā if that were what the accusation involved ā 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. Iām not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, āYou know, itās not this, itās thatā? Because ā let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. TimesĀ piece, thatās what it lacked. Thatās 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
Yeah, a bad fashion choice and a bright flash in you face is not tantamount to cleverage. From the urbandictionary.com: A tool used by women to get what they want from life. Cleverage is often used to distract men during negotiations. Combination of clevage and leverage.
first off, Happy Birthday to The Hot Button! Kudos Dave!
And, c’mon… what do you expect, its late August and with so many bloggers now covering the minute-by-minute ups-and-downs of the Hollywood movie business, there is a lot of space to fill…
but, we’ll all be in Toronto soon enough talking and writing about awards season and Cruise, Gibson (and whatever else) will long be forgotten. that will keep everyone occupied until early March…
“And like Gibson, will be a non-story in all of two weeks.”
Do you really believe that the Cruise and Gibson stories are ‘no biggies’ and nobody in Hollywood is talking about them?
I find it hard to believe that you really believe that.
No one is talking about Gibson anymore in Hollywood, and that’s a fact.
Well, I do not live there and cannot say for certain…it just seems hard to believe that once Apocalypto comes out or Tom Cruise makes his next deal, all will be forgotten and back to business as usual as though it were still the days of Lethal Weapon 2 and The Firm.
I find that very hard to believe.
It wasn’t the days of Lethal Weapon and The Firm a year ago either, Nicol.
The Gibson story will have more institutional memory, but no, it is no longer being discussed in print or otherwise. (Don’t be blaimg this shit on bloggers, Eugene… the NY and LA Times are drooling and overassigning all over this one.)
And the Cruise story means very little in reality. He is in his 40s. He will fade like every other young star. But Paramount has been overspending on movies/scripts they won’t ever make like sailors on leave for a couple of years and just recently realized it was time to slow it down. Well, la dee fucking da. Blaming Tom Cruise is like honey to the media flies. But it is not reality. And as a result, will not last much longer.
DP,
Fair enough, but I think in both cases it was the institutional memory I was referring to. People might not be writing about either story in a month, but as long as they have a memory of them and will let them influence their decisions, I do not think they are dead (for better or for worse).
Oh well, time will tell.
But what is there to remember about this Cruise story, Nicol?
Sumner was mean… mean enough for people to start questioning his sanity.
Cruise is expensive… expensive enough to be risky at 20% of gross.
Nothing new.
Was it unbearably hot outside today or something, it was quite pleasant here inside.
Who is the ‘we’ who are trying to capture attention?
Wow, I actually agree with Nicol for once. These stories may cease to be printed about in a month’s time, but they will be remembered for the taint they leave on both stars. DP may claim this news is nothing new and not interesting (despite the multiple blog entries), but to people who aren’t Hollywood insiders, these ARE new developments, and they’re significant.
It’s been the history of this country for some time now to build people up just so they can be torn down again. It’s not that I necessarily want to defend Cruise, but really, what has he done that’s so terrible? Let’s analyze this:
1) He jumped on a couch. Big fucking deal. We all do stupid shit when we’re in love, and that was one of the more benign things one can do.
2) He proselytizes Scientology. It may be loony, but if he wants to believe we’re all descended from the great space alien Xenu or whatever, so what? If we condemn him for his religion while piling on Mel Gibson for being anti-semitic, aren’t we being just a tad hypocritical?
2a) It should also be noted that other Scientologists (e.g., Kirstie Alley, Jenna Elfman) do the same thing and get a pass from the public on this.
3) He attacked Brooke Shields. Obnoxious? Of course. But they’re just words. Russell Crowe has a history of physically assaulting people, but he has yet to be ostracized by either the industry or the movie-going public.
4) His Svengali-like relationship with Katie: how is this different from what John Derek did 25 years ago to Bo and her career? People didn’t obsess over that, and she was much hotter (in the B.O. sense) after “10” than Holmes could ever be.
Bottom line: Cruise is a wacko, but he hasn’t committed any crimes or done anything genuinely repellent. If his stardom were on the level of, say, Jeff Bridges or Kevin Kline, would anyone even care? Really?
Cadavra, are you suggesting that anti-Semitism is part of Mel’s Catholicism? Not sure I agree. There’s a difference between having crazy beliefs and having crazy, harmful, racist beliefs.
Jeffmcm, one or more of those testaments IS anti-semitic. A long time ago, an old pope decreed something or other to make it not so, but Mel doesn’t buy it, so he belongs to a conservative or ultra orthodox branch and reverts to Latin mass. And for extra security and purity and paranoia, he built his own chuch, make that church compound in Agora Hills, kind of remote. And the guy doesn’t want some version of obscurity at some point, sooner or later, perhaps complete with retreats and visitors?
There are only two testaments, and I don’t think it’s the Old one that would be anti-Semitic.
THUng is refering to the question of responsibility for Christ’s death. The Pope essentially absolved the jews (not that long ago). Mel doesn’t buy it… or for that matter, saying mass in English.
And yes, Christ doesn’t appear in the Old Testament. He’s pure Godfather III.
(I am kidding! Calm down! If you believe in Christ as deity, God bless you.)
My Catholic Scholar says there’s a lot more to it — not the kind of stuff Diane Sawyer would, could or did test her metal with.
And Cadavra, I hear ya, I live in Hollywood (practically in the Hills, ok slightly below the foot of the hills), and I don’t know if you ever visited the area, but the Church of Scientology is rampant. They own a shitload of beautiful, prime, old real estate from their large Galaxy Press offices near La Brea Avenue, to their Church of Scientology and Self Realization Fellowship in the Los Feliz area and their Celebrity Center in the Bronson Canyon area with testing centers and more real estate in between, particularly on heavy foot traffic Hollywood Blvd, where they solicit potential recruits on the street with offers of free personality tests to
it’s ‘mettle’, not ‘metal’
Petal to the metal.
Oh, I pass by their Hollywood Blvd. place all the time on my way to/from the American Cinematheque. And like all religious fanatics, the one thing they can’t process is humor. So whenever one of them tries to exhort me into signing up, I simply reply, “I’m sorry, I could never join any religion that compels me to watch John Travolta movies,” or something similar. Stops them dead in their tracks.
I have a running joke with my friends about their IQ tests. I can guarantee that when anybody takes one of them, the tester comes back with their results with a surprised look on their face and says something along the lines of “your results are _very_ interesting”.
John Derek wasn’t a supserstar actor, and Russell Crowe didn’t attack a famous woman that many people know and feel protective of.
Derek’s stardom doesn’t matter; the circumstances are alike, even if the degrees aren’t. And Russell Crowe broke the law; Cruise didn’t, unless there’s a law against being an asshole.
But Crowe apologized for his boorishness (in relation to the phone incident, anyway). Cruise hasn’t and probably never will.
Crowe’s apology was about as sincere as Mel Gibson’s. And it wasn’t a one-time incident; it’s a pattern of violent behavior. As for Cruise, I believe he did eventually apologize to Shields (can anyone verify?), though it too was likely less than heartfelt. Bottom line: he’s a bit of a creep, but everyone’s overreacting to it.
I understand, Cadavra, let me put it this way: I’d rather hang out with someone who’s going to get rowdy and violent from time to time, like Russell Crowe, than somebody who’s going to be insane all the time, like Cruise.
Wow, Jeff, that’s an intriguing way of looking at it, and your point is very valid–a sort of variation on the old W.C. Fields line: “I’ll be sober tomorrow but you’ll be crazy the rest of your life”–assuming Cruise is always insane, or at least visibly/audibly so. (I find it hard to believe he could’ve gotten this far in the biz without be able to turn it on and off.) I don’t travel in either fellow’s circles, so fortunately I’ll never hafta make that choice! š
I had a friend who was working in post on MI3, and he had a certain amount of interaction with Mr. Cruise and Ms. Wagner. According to him, while Cruise was polite and professional and charming, it could not be said that he was in touch with reality.