As we put away the last notion of this last awards season – it’s been amazing how many people were talking about not remembering who won in any year for more than 24 hours – I want to send it off with one last thought
amit on: Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
Christian on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
YancySkancy on: Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Hcat on: Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: I Should Be Doing Box Office
Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
see all »
[twitter-widget username="DavidPoland" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"][twitter-widget username="MCNTweets" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"]
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
by my rough calculations, it’d cost between 12 and 15 thousand dollars for someone shopping at Costco to make 6000 dvds on their ow , isn’t that cheaper than booking multiple theatres in multiple states? that seems like a heavier financial burden to me.
Good recommendations in those categories, many more people would watch the high profile films in these categories if they got dvds of them, and the festival showings ensures they’re still being seen theatrically, not just made for the small screen.
I recently made 1000 DVDs for a cost of about $1200, so 6000 could be made for probably half of what you’re thinking above.
It seems to me if only a small amount (hundreds) vote for the documentary and foreign language category, then surely the same can be done for actors. Why does the whole 5800 member academy vote for actors and best picture. The academy should be broken into mini-guilds. Actors vote for actors, editors vote for editors, etc. As an actor, do you know who is a better editor? As a cinematographer do you know who is the better actor? I just think the academy needs a thorough makeover when it comes to voting rules….and starting with the child actor, who should not be put in the same category as adults…give the child actor their own category…other critics awards do, the Academy should to.
If there were acting nominations and awards specifically for children, the kids’ lives would become even more success-driven and surreal than they are now. I think that would be a particularly bad idea.
The day the Academy introduces a child actor performance category is the day they sink into a vat of human waste. Maybe one or in a rare year two performances by someone under the age of, say, 15 is award worthy. So why should kids just automatically be given a category. Ugh. I can’t think of an award that would be worse for the Academy to introduce. Really. It’d sort of be grotesqe to have five kids all fighting for a prize such as an Oscar against one another. Do we really want to see on DVD boxes “War of the Worlds – Nominated for Best Performance by a Child Actor, Dakota Fanning” or something like that. Ridiculous idea.
Anyway.
Onto the subject at hand.
In one way I think the foreign film category works as it does. It’s unfair for France to occupy 3/5 spots. But then I agree that it’s really bad for films such as (just to take my own country’s snubbed entry) Ten Canoes which was hailed as a masterpiece here and won many awards (inc multiple Best Film/Picture awards) yet don’t have a distributer and are from a country not well known at all in the category. And then to be snubbed over stuff like Avenue Montaine from, yet again, France is sort of sad. But I really don’t know how they can change it. I really don’t.
I choose not to discuss the Documentary category since An Inconvenient Truth won and stuff like Shut Up & Sing weren’t even nominated.
Oh, but the doco plan (the 50 screenings thing) does make sense. Just fyi.
the length of time it takes foreign films to get released in the US is a pain, if they even get released (and even bigger pain).
I love Rolf de Heer Camel–I can’t wait to see Ten Canoes…maybe I will have to travel to see it.
and join my voice to the choir singing NO to a child acting category in any awards race.
India produces more films than France does. Do we want a foreign film category that consists of three or four Bollywood musicals every year?
Lota, nice to hear some Rolf de Heer appreciation. Even when his films are bad they’re utterly fascinating. He’s my choice for Best Director of 2006. That he managed to even get that film off the ground is enough to warrent him the prize in my eyes.
Bad Boy Bubby has scarred me for life Camel, but there is no denying that Rolf de Heer is a rare talent–he will go on the list as unsung genius in retrospect.
Some of his movies give me nightmares, they are so disturbing.