So…. how are you feeling about sequels?
Is the Transformers trailer playing this room?
Is the Women Film Critic’s Circle a drag?
Does an angry Chris Gardner make you want to see Pursuit of Happyness more or less?
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Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
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Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
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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
I see that Armond White loves The Good Shepherd (in one of his trademark perversely political reviews) and dislikes Dreamgirls.
Women Film Critic’s Circle isn’t a drag but the Transformers trailer is. I thought this movie was supposed to be about cars that transform into robots, not ID4 meets Starship Troopers meets Michael Bay.
An unhappy Chris Gardner makes me want to see a full length documentary of an unhappy Chris Gardner in the back of a cab (ala American Fabulous) a lot more than I want to see the Hollywood version.
That was fantastic. It felt like watching a deleted scene from “The Wire” or something.
Ditto what Hallick said.
Reminds me of the stories in the SNL tell-all “Live from New York” about how Eddie Murphy, at the peak of his TV-stardom, would need one of the white cast members or writers to go downstairs with him and hail his cab.
I only watched The Transformers as a kid, and even then only occasionally. Still, for cheap 80’s animation, at least I could tell what the robot’s faces were supposed to be emoting. These new Transformers are so overly-stylized I honestly can’t tell you what even a single one’s face looks like after viewing that trailer.
I’m just hoping for an animal-cracker love scene between Optimus Prime and Josh Duhamel.
That made me laugh out loud jeff. Transformers looks ridiculous and even worse than Die Hard: Annoying Young Sidekick.
i saw pursuit of happyness and really loved the story and will smith’s performance. now i love chris gardner. there’s just so much truth even in the hyped up hollywood movie, and his rant further exemplifies that truth. because of this clip, i will buy the dvd. and i thought the transformers thing wasn’t that bad, but i have to hate it on principle for the gratuitous use of a strokes t-shirt. puke.
That Transformer trailer looks…so…boring. Never mind style or anything. Is there a less visceral trailer this year? Venus looks like it has more edge-of-the-seat action suspense thrills.
The Transformers trailer is cool. At least it has potential. Anyhow, I was born in ’81…so, for me to hate this movie, well it’s gonna have to be worse than Armageddon and Pearl Harbor combined.
The real Chris Gardner is much more interesting that the Will Smith version. That clip made me like the movie just a little bit more. Strange how that works out right?
Worse than Armageddon and Pearl Harbor? Just imagining a movie worse than those two is cause for horrific nightmares.
I’ve never seen Transformers, but the trailer looks fine to me.
I’m much more surprised that Nancy Drew looks like it might be pretty funny. I didn’t remember who Emma Roberts was until I checked out the movie on imdb.com either, but she’s good from what I see in the trailer.
http://raincloud.warnerbros.com/wbmovies/nancydrew/trailer/trailer_500.mov
The good news is that everyone else has pretty much cleared out of the month. But the films in the first two weekends of June are just asking for trouble.
The more I think about it, the more the result becomes clear. Ocean’s 13 will have to fight tooth and nail to even come close to the century mark.
There’s a fine line between winking at the camera and being smug…
And by the looks of that trailer, Ocean’s 13 is far into Smug Territory. I didn’t see the last one, and I doubt I’ll see this one.
I was also born in ’81 and I like the idea of a bad ass Transformer’s movie, i hope this is it. Loved the cartoons as a kid, but I’m no longer a kid so I feel no loyalty to see this (or the TMNT movie). After Spiderman 3, Pirates 3, I’m not sure how much heavy CGI action i’ll be willing to stomach in a 2-month time span.
Seriously not sure what to make of the trailer…looks like War of the Worlds…much bluster and noise…then again it ISN’T a sequel so maybe I’ll see it.
I am Jeff Wells’out of control ego
I would say that a remake of a cartoon based on a toy line is pretty the same thing as a sequel of a remake. That said, I’ll take a Soderbergh movie over a Bay movie any day of the week – even Full Frontal.
I don’t have a ton of emotional investment in Transformers, but I would like to see a kickass film done…now Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles…well, I’ll see it. Somehow I never saw the original film in theaters when I was 8 years old (although, I did rectify that by showing it at the theater I worked at when I turned 20), so that makes at least one viewing of the new one essential.
Just watched the Ocean’s 13 trailer. I expect more of the same as the first two. If I get anything more or less, I’d be disappointed.
Transformers? Meh . . .
I got Charlie Rose on the tube with Alfonso Cuaron, Del Toro and Gonzales Inarritu in a round-table discussion.
Great stuff. Best way to end a “slow” day.
Let’s see now… The silliest commercial property of the 1980s meets the silliest commercial director of the 1990s…
Looks like the large popcorn and Coke won’t be enough here, guys.
I’ll have to call in Twizzlers for backup on this one.
Where have you guys seen the trailer for ocean’s 13?
http://movies.aol.com/movie/oceans-13/24822/main
The script for Transformers leaked a few months ago and I actually stopped reading it about halfway through, as it actually seemed vaguely possible that it would make a decent movie. I felt as though I had stepped into some kind of Bizarro World. I probably will all come down to how silly or impressive the Transformers look…
I’m starting to wonder if Bay isn’t Bay without Bruckheimer behind him. Why? Because I loved the shiny, smarmy, contemptuous fuck-you bombast of all the Bruckheimer-produced Bay movies. Fuck “guilty pleasure”; They’re balls-out epics of insanity– I think Manohla Dargis referred to BB2 as “an exercise in shock-and-awe brilliance,” and she was right. Something about the patented Bruckheimer sheen and big-league actors just compounded the zillion-dollar budget hysteria of THE ROCK, ARMAGEDDON, PEARL HARBOR, and BAD BOYS 2.
But sans Bruckheimer, as he’s been on THE ISLAND and now TRANSFORMERS, Bay seems almost a different director: Sure THE ISLAND was chockfull of oversaturated colors and bad comedy and crashing action scenes, but the movie was cold, sterile, unpleasant, low-wattage: Kind of like a better-cast Brett Leonard movie from 1995. THE TRANSFORMERS has that same vibe, starting with the clunky cast of D-listers. And something seems inherently wrong about such an unapologetically go-go, winners-take-all, pussyhound Hollywood shark director like Bay doing a “geek” franchise like TRANSFORMERS. I mean, you’re eliminating a huge audience right off the bat when the property in question has no appeal to anyone born before, say, 1977. I was born in ’73, and “Transformers” was geeky kids stuff to me.
Where’s he gonna find room to dress a pouty actress in Asian print dresses and blow up Ferraris? Something seems wrong about Bay applying his trademark golden sheen to an actor as goofy as Shia LaBueof.
If Transformers bombs, as it seems somewhat likely to, then history will probably show that Bay peaked at Pearl Harbor and it was all downhill from there.
and yet, Crow T., that would still not be enough. You will have to ask them to turn the volume up to ‘eleven’ in the Multiplex.
I got Charlie Rose on the tube with Alfonso Cuaron, Del Toro and Gonzales Inarritu in a round-table discussion.
That was really quite awesome.