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
I’m sure it’s funny (haven’t seen it, and never watch Leno) but my question is, what in the Academy’s history would indicate that they might go for SBC? They are not a hip crowd and they don’t recognize this kind of daring, right away at least. Look at the fact that this year might see the first wins for Scorsese and O’Toole, and (as previously mentioned) they never gave competitive awards to Tati, Sellers, etc.
Stewart had an opportunity to deliver the best line of the night when Borat asked her if she lived in a cage. But she didn’t take the bait.
Well, if the Oscar were for “acting like an idiot”, Cohen would be first in line… followed by an award for Steve Martin’s Inspector Clouseau. Honestly, if Cohen’s performance is even considered nominatable for a second, I’m done with the Oscar game, because then it really would be a bigger joke than it is now.
And then come this time next year you’ll be here again sprouting more wisdom about the race. It happens every year.
I don’t think it’s gonna happen, but if it did I wouldn’t complain. It’d be a change from picking somebody from a (most likely) stuffy “intelectual” movie, usually about a teacher or leader of some kind.
Let us remember though that it took $300mil and A LOT of goodwill to get Johnny Depp a nomination for Pirates.
I have to say that I’m not “feeling” the Peter O’Toole frontrunner thing after seeing “Venus.” Still won’t see Pursuit of Happyness for a few weeks but having seen “The Fountain” again last night, I’m feeling better about my own “crackhead” prediction for Hugh getting a nomination. The guy has already won an Emmy and a Tony, so actors must like him and I think they’ll appreciate his performance even if they don’t get the movie.
I realize that Cohen isn’t going on Leno to appeal to people who are already fans of him and Borat (like myself), but I think I had already heard every single joke he told last night at least five times. I didn’t stay up to watch him and Martha.
EDouglas, if all Cohen does is act like an idiot, I don’t think you saw the movie, or watched closely. But you already know how I feel about your taste and that of comingsoon, and I guess I’m hardly shocked that you don’t like Borat.
I don’t know how much of the Borat Meets Martha segment was scripted versus improv, but it was definitely funny. So much of it went near the danger point, where Borat wanted to go beyond and Martha wanted to restrain things. Yes, it was a great TV moment.
Mr Poland’s obsession with Oscars seems to know no bounds. A Borat nomination. Uh huh. Sure.
We’re not laughing it off- we are all laughing AT you.
Do you go to Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf and turn to your friend and say “call me nutty, but I think this Coffee could win an award next year?”
I think perhaps you do.
I am Jeff Wells’ Ego!
Oh look! Spammy has something bitter and snarky to say. Must be a Friday. Or Saturday. Or Tuesday or a Common Year.
The truth can help you Kamikaze, it really can.
I am Jeff Wells’ Ego!
Haha, Camel dropped “common year” on us. lol
There is zero chance Hugh Jackman gets nominted for THE FOUNTAIN. He and Rachel were fine, but the movie was garbage, and it ain’t gonna sniff any awards…best case scenario, somebody shoots the thing and puts it out of it’s misery.
I co-sign DP on the Borat nomination. Once you look at the other possibilities, it ain’t as far fetched as it once seemed…they nominated Benigni, didn’t they?
Question: Has anyone ever seen Roberto Benigni and Borat at the same time? Curious…
Hey, this morning I searched “Borat Leno” on youtube but didn’t find anything. Has anyone else found it?
Seriously? I mean…seriously? Maybe a Golden Globe, but Oscar is tough to predict now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt-w-5t9Mso
I can’t find the Martha Stewart one though.
FYI’s
Humiliated Frat Boys Sue ‘Borat’
Laemmle Theatres newsletter attributes Variety, in a rave, calling Borat “an Archie Bunker for the new world order, the idiot anti-Semitic, sexist Kazakhstani TV journalist….”
Borat hoisting his underpants from under that quilt was like raising a comedy flag on top of a flagpole. Very funny. Laughed out loud.
The Academy nominated Benigni for one of their favorite kinds of roles: sad clown in a Holocaust movie. Remember?
If SBC learned a valuable lesson about Jews instead of throwing money at cockroaches, he would have a stronger chance.
“one of their favorite kinds of roles: sad clown in a Holocaust movie”
Huh? When did that happen before?
Are you really Jerry Lewis, J Mc? Are you hiding a copy of The Day The Clown Cried?
Or Harry Shearer, who’s one of the lucky few to have ever seen it.
Well, you’ve got me that those two elements have only appeared in that one movie, but I’m right in the aggregate: there have been plenty of Holocause Oscar nominees and plenty of sad-clown nominees.
Benigni didn’t get Academy attention for one of his purely comic performances in Il Mostro or Johnny Stecchino or Son of the Pink Panther.
P.S. To be fair, the holocaust movie part is real… I do know what you’re saying… but the point I guess I am trying to make is that peopel want to put everything in the same box all the time – usually while complaining that Hollywood puts eveyrthing in the same box all the time – and that isn’t right.
The Borat perfomance is more than a stunt or a gag. It both pierces and heals. It is stupid and smart. It is bawdy and sweet.
It is unique. ED doesn’t like the movie. Cool. Many won’t. Many will see it as overrated. And the character is weakest when he is just telling the same joke. But when you see something like the Martha Stewart interraction, you see the amount of intellegence in play. He is as stupid as a man can be while also being as smooth as anyone who has ever sat on a Tonight Show couch.
But besides selling the performance to you… my point is… think outside of what is obvious. The Academy – especially when broken into branches – does.
I’m all for Cohen getting nominated myself. It’s the best male performance I’ve seen this year so far, although I haven’t seen THE FOUNTAIN yet.
Basically what it boils down to me is that I don’t see “It both pierces and heals.” I don’t know where that is in the movie.
I think it’s a smart, brave, outrageous performance – none of that needs to be sold. I might even put him in my top 5 best male performances of the year. But I don’t think it’s safe or redemptive enough for the Academy to ultimately get behind. If Borat had learned a valuable lesson or – more basically – actually had a character arc, I would be more inclined to agree with DP’s forecast.
jeffmcm, when Borat goes back to the hooker’s house, it seemed to me that his character learned that there’s all types of people in this world, and you can get along with all of them if you don’t judge by outside appearances. I was weirdly and unexpectedly moved by that, actually.
I feel like Borat very much had a character arc in that way. He even learned a thing or two about the Jews.
I feel weird typing about this, and I don’t know why. The one image of BORAT stuck in my head is… well. Hard to get rid of.
“The one image of BORAT stuck in my head is…”
what? don’t leave us hanging! Was it the balls in his face?
My position is that the return to the prostitute’s house is basically just there to provide the semblance of a conclusion/arc, but isn’t very satisfying to me.
Why so hooked on story arc?
I;m not talking about a Best Picture nomination. I’m talking about actors voting for a performance.
Did they vote for Depp because of the story arc? Was Daniel Day Lewis’ performance in Gangs, as Gangs was released, a great arc or a bunch of powerful scenes? Did Will Smith get a nod for Ali’s story… or is the story structure of that film why it failed to catch fire? Did Sean Penn in Swet & Lowdown learn anything? Etc, etc.
Of course, all of those examples are of actors better known here than SBC. But the last two times I remember a performance with this kind of leap out significance was Depp in Pirates and Benigni in Life is Beautiful… not to mention Blanchett in Elizabeth, Swank in Boys Don’t Cry, Bardem in Before Night Falls and the unnominated one, Vince Vaughn in Swingers, which was a much smaller film, but a major break-out nonetheless.
No, but all of those characters had more to do in each of their movies than a string of skits, and each of them was ultimately more lovable, in a safe, family-and-old-people Academy kind of way.
I don’t see how Blanchett, Swank, or Bardem are in any way comparable. Those were all movies in the Oscar wheelhouse, plus you notice that Depp was already a huge movie star.
I’m think it’s more likely for SBC to be nominated for Bruno than for Borat.
“what? don’t leave us hanging! Was it the balls in his face?”
You pretty much nailed it in one. Or two, as the case may be.
Remember that great character arc that won Hopkins the Oscar? At the beginning he was the cannibal in prison and at the end he was the cannibal out of prison?
Not comparing the performances, but just pointing out that the presence or strength of an arc isn’t first and foremost in their minds.
I don’t disagree, but Silence of the Lambs was a normal, typical movie. I think a lot of Academy voters are not going to go for SBC because they’re going to see his performance as an interesting stunt in a slightly more clever version of Jackass The Movie. I’m not saying that’s what I think myself, just that I am skeptical of the acting branch’s openmindedness.
Sean Penn did have an arc in “Sweet and Lowdown.” He even breaks down at the end and has a crying scene.
I know he was basically playing “Vince Vaughn” (though we didn’t know that at the time) but I agree that his performance in “Swingers” was worthy of some more distinction than it got.
Most everything about “Swingers” was worthy of a lot more than it got.
“Haha, Camel dropped “common year” on us. lol”
…please explain?