April 19, 2024
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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 saw it a couple of weeks back and had a very different reaction from yours.
I didn’t think it was a masterpiece by a long shot, but I thought it was a really well made, balls to the wall action flick and I had a lot of fun with it. You complain that it doesn’t take a political stance, and I agree it doesn’t. You complain that it doesn’t ultimately have much meaning, and I agree it doesn’t.
That doesn’t mean that it isn’t FUN. ‘Cause in my mind, it is.
Sometimes that’s all I need, a well-made, hard-hitting action movie that doesn’t have big pretenses of greatness, and this one was it. Testosterone filled eye candy (and PUHLEESE, could everyone just STOP with the “it’s like a videogame” analogy every time something CGI comes on-screen…it’s tired at this point and certainly not true) that satisfies both my lust for blood, spectacle, well-staged action and ripped sweaty men (and I’m not even gay). I’ll take my political message movie another day.
Personally, I think the CGI approach to this movie was the right choice. If you’re going to deliver a truly larger-than-life portrayal of superheroics, why not go all the way and make it as exaggerated as you can? I certainly dug it, and suspect that a lot of people will.
Btw: I’ve read the comic it’s based on, and it’s incredibly truthful to it, down to the exact appearance of Xerxes. If Xerxes looks exactly the same in Tarsem’s movie, then that’s because Tarsem stole the concept from Frank Miller’s book which was written before the turn of the century.
Well, at least the movie wasn’t just talking heads… like your review. 🙂
ripped sweaty men?! That’s enough for me. I just hope there are well shaped calves.
If I want politics I’ll see Norma Rae or Matewan or It’s a wonderful life, since most movies with any message even remotely political end up failing at doing it in a non-preachy way.
“Looks like we’ll have to wait until Spider-Man 3 for any real entertainment.”
Um, you have heard of a little movie called Hot Fuzz, haven’t you?
I don’t worship Shaun of the Dead like some folks, but I did laugh my ass off for the first 45 minutes or so. This should be solid. You really should peruse the release calendar before you write the next two months off.
As for 300, what a shocker – a giant comic book fanboy wank-off isn’t any good. Really, I’m crushed.
And “The Host” too! So good.
Looks like DP took the “no more distracting backgrounds” comments to heart. Now he’s just a disembodied floating head.
Haven’t seen 300 yet and DP’s comments are in line with my worries about the film in general. But then again DPs reviews been batting about .000% with me over the past few months so I guess I should expect to love it.
I am so looking forward to seeing how bad this movie is. I’m hoping for a hugely entertaining, so-bad-it’s-good time. Because this movie looks like the dumbest thing ever.
I love video games. I hate movies like video games (one of my strongest objections to CoM). I go to the movies for movies, not video games.
I can’t lie, I am looking forward to this and will see it next week, but Dave’s review does not surprise me and there is probably truth to it.
I think what we are seeing is the difference between action movies made by a generation raised on films where the focus was on story vs. a generation where the focus is on the visual gimmicks.
Older action directors (Cameron, Spielberg, Scott, Miller and yes, even Lucas,) understood that that the story had to come first and merely revelled in using modern technology to help make the stories more realistic. They were weened on cinema from an era where the screenwriter was not a peon and action was motivated by plot and emotion.
Now, the current generation is moved more by video games and music videos and slick cinematography. They have been raised in an era where the screenwriter is considered a peon and a slick visual style can get you a pass to the Warner’s lot regardless of whether or not the story is there.
Now if this film is not political, I will say I am glad. But if it is also shallow and just a visual feast without story, it will not age well.
Special effects always date…stories and character are what last.
Looking forward to it though.
Unfortunately, I saw a really long trailer for Grindhouse at the theatre last weekend and I am anticipating more of the same.
Tarantino and Rodriguez seem more and more to be like two chefs who you know can cook a gourmet meal but just keep cooking great burgers and fries. Problem is, they’ve been cooking burgers and fries for so long I now question if they can make a gourmet meal again.
I don’t know if it is a complement that the thing I look forward to most in a Rodriguez or Tarantino film is that they both have great taste in women and dress them really hot.
Is that a complement or a backhanded insult to these guys?
The absence a political stance is a political stance in and of itself.
It’s not an insult if making burgers and fries is what they truly want to do and enjoy doing it. A great burger at Cassell’s beats many a meal I’ve had in some fancy-shmancy restaurant that makes you feel like they’re doing you a favor even showing you the menu.
I would also say that I am not convinced that Rodriguez has a ‘gourmet meal’ inside of him. Okay, maybe literally inside of him, but none of his movies has ever been anything other than a pulpy action or kids’ movie.
Anyone else find it hard to sit through 5 minutes? Honestly, I can take 5-30 minutes to read through one of DP’s columns, but I hope this video thing is a trend.
er not a trend, sorry.
If lust and hate is the candy,
if blood and love tastes so sweet,
then we give ’em what they want.
Hey, hey, give ’em what they want…
Nicol, just what era are/were you referring to in which writers weren’t thought of as peons? As I understand it, writers in the studio era were like factory workers at a vehicle plant – if they happened to churn out a classic, it was almost purely by accident. I won’t argue that technology has usurped story in most action films, but how many crappy Westerns (the predecessor of the modern action film) got turned out between stuff like The Searchers and Winchester 73?
And as for Tarantino and Rodriguez – Rodriguez might be capable of a gourmet meal, but no way in hell he’s made anything but burgers (and pure McDonalds burgers at that) yet.
For Tarantino, my feeling on him is that his first two burgers were so good that they made us think that he was capable of gourmet – which he approached with Jackie Brown. But now it looks as if he’s resigned himself to making more burgers – it’s more a matter of disappointment, when he’s obviously capable of much more than what he’s been putting out.
And now we need to officially drop this burger thing.
But the question, Cad, is how often you are in the McDonald’s drive-thru because you don’t have time for the fancy schmanzy stuff OR the trip to Cassell’s. And is the trip to McDonald’s okay because the fries are great and you just don’t think to much about the nutritional value (or lack thereof) of the meal?
Or make it harder… make it the meal you love versus something that’s just mediocre. (McDonald’s is a loaded metaphor.)
A great burger is, absolutely, as great an experience as a great steak or a fancy meal. But while anyone can attempt a “fancy meal” with varying degrees of success, the standard depends on expectations – who is cooking, what are their ingrediants, etc.
But a “step down” burger? Expectations start lower and covering the lack of quality in the meat is much easier. Some people LOVE In-n-Out, some LOVE Wendy’s, some McDonald’s, etc. But the raw materials… pretty much the same.
It’s a lot easier to argue Dennis Dugan versus Scorsese than Coppola versus Scorsese… or Tarantino versus Scorsese, for that matter.
Mark VH,
Every Hollywood era has certain types of films that they ‘churn out’. But at least in the early days of cinema, leading to the first golden era (I’m thinking post WWII, the forties) there was less emphasis on the flair and more emphasis on the story because many screenwriters came from theatre backgrounds where character, dialogue and story were paramount.
Now, many of these flms felt stagy and were all in static mid or wide shot, but 60 playwrights in a room trying to crank out a classic story will give you a better chance of getting a classic story than 60 screenwriters weened on pop culture, cartoons, rock videos and video games.
I think the same could be said of the seventies era (Silver Age?) when the Spieberg’s, Scorsese’s et al came of age. Weened on the films of Ford, Hawks etc. they implicityly knew the importance of a good story to complement the new era of effects. Even look at early eighties blockbusters such as Superman, Raiders, Road Warrior and Ghostbusters. They merged the best of gritty, realistic seventies movies with the more stylized visuals of the new decade.
Now, in every way writers are looked down upon and there are thousands of em, just like actors trying to break into the industry with their latest Spiderman, superhero script. They don’t aspire to telling a great story but to selling the hot spec. The studios, no longer run by the Mayers or Thalbergs merely want a formula to sell to teen boys.
Am I generalizing a lttle? Sure. But within degrees there is validity to the point I make that story and character have become less relevant since the dawn of the proliferation of digital effects.
Can you really say the quality of story is the same in early FX hits like Raiders, BTTF or Star Wars compared to Twister, Armageddon or Sin City etc?
I know there are exceptions, but by and large current CGI action films, by focussing almost exclusively on FX do it at the expense of story. What used to be the 3rd act climax in early blockbusters is now the beginning of the movie and the actual climax is anti-climactic.
Its become the culture of bigger, better, faster, more and it does not always mean quality.
Well, I can think of some recent action-y movies where story has been a consideration: Batman Begins, Shaun of the Dead, Hellboy, maybe? Umm…
Anyone care to lend a hand here?
“Looks like DP took the “no more distracting backgrounds” comments to heart. Now he’s just a disembodied floating head”
What next?
How about a giant disembodied DP head with mouth fixed wide open (his distinctive patter only in voice-over), floating through the clouds Zardoz-like, the camera occasionally panning down to reveal Hollywood far below in all its wretched banality and decadence.
If I knew how to do it, Welly, I would try it…
What if it was just the TV with no Dave?…
Then it would be a Mutiny Co movie.
All this talk of DP’s disembodied head and mouth fixed open makes me think he should try to go for something reminiscent of the opening of Eraserhead.
Gotta love the Rotten Tomatoes commenters:
“That was the most pathetic attempt at comedy I’ve seen since Date Movie.” — smitty112485
300 = 63% critics rating – not looking good. I wanted to see it, think I’ll stand back for awhile.
300 = 63% critics rating – not looking good. I wanted to see it, think I’ll stand back for awhile.
It’s hard to tell who’s stupider, the IMDB commenters or the RT commenters.
300 is already on the IMDb Top 250!!!
^ We have our answer.
David, you’re overly parsing my burger analogy. No one over the age of 22 goes to McDonald’s because they like the food; they go because it’s fast, cheap, relatively tasty and not likely to get them poisoned. Or to put it another way: GRINDHOUSE and SIN CITY are Cassell’s; RESIDENT EVIL and UNDERWORLD are McDonald’s.
Anyone catch the IMDB thread where they’re predicting, hilariously, that this will have a 110-MILLION DOLLAR OPENING WEEKEND????
No, but based on the Friday matinees, this could well exceed expectations unless the WOM is really horrible.