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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Daily David – A New York State Of Michael Moore

I caught Michael Moore on the streets of Manhatten, literally and figuratively, on Tuesday night after being at SXSW for the premiere of Manufacturing Dissent. The “caught” part was that he was, with two of his producers, having his first (and last) cigarette. After years in editing rooms with editors and others catching a butt break, he decided to see what it was all about.
Was this really Mike’s first cigarette ever? He says so… and one hopes so. He was so amused about the idea of being caught by “the media” having his only cigarette that I can’t believe that it wasn’t 100% true. Yet, it seems so unusual. And I didn’t talk about it in the Daily David for that reason. I really don’t want to have a bunch of people e-mailing me to tell me that they saw MM smoking some other time. But the conversation is interesting and amusing either way, which is just sooooo Michael Moore.
And I already feel guilty for questioning his veracity, because he was so funny and sweet and generous about the whole exchange. Also sooooooo Michael Moore.
Anyway… it’s a long one, but hopefully it will add to the conversation.
QuickTime | YouTube | iKlipz

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5 Responses to “Daily David – A New York State Of Michael Moore”

  1. T.Holly says:

    That is so fucking hilarious. Can’t watch these long daily David’s at work, but looking forward to it later. I take umbrage about editors smoking, by and large, they are not a smoking crowd, they’re too busy, chained to their desk long hours. And there’s no drug and sex either, not since the late 90’s.

  2. T.Holly says:

    That is so fucking hilarious. Can’t watch these long daily David’s at work, but looking forward to it later. I take umbrage about editors smoking, by and large, they are not a smoking crowd, they’re too busy, chained to their desk long hours. And there’s no drug and sex either, not since the late 90’s.

  3. ADL says:

    Michael Moore attracts a great deal of criticism — some of it justified, some of it misplaced, and most of it unequivocally unjustified. Read this response to Christopher Hitchens’ 2004 Slate Magazine piece, Unfairenheit 9/11. It provides a good example of the kind of criticism Moore attracts and, most importantly, readers can decide for themselves whether the analysis is valid or not.

  4. T.Holly says:

    Sorry for the double post up there. Not only is it funny, it’s one of the most sophomoric posts I’ve ever read. Could Moore have been pulling “the media’s” leg, even pandering to it?

  5. Richard Nash says:

    Moore lying? I cannot believe it.

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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