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
This poster doesn’t do it for me at all. Besides, shouldn’t the tagline be “I want my dog back”?
I don’t know. I am getting a “Legend of Billie Jean” vibe from that poster.
It looks more like a Bon Jovi poster.
Mmmm… I like it too!
WB does a lot of great one sheets. Hate their latest Harry Potter stuff, though. Very disappointing.
I feel like I need to yell at someone for spoiling the trailer, which is apparently infamous already, but what would be the point.
Interesting passive-agression Jeff, but sorry for spoiling the trailer. I didn’t know that it was possible to do such a thing, but I guess I did.
Perhaps the teaser spoiled the trailer?
Why is this being dumped in September?
Didn’t Flightplan open in September? Well, that one seemed to turn out OK.
True… but this film looks as though it might be good, which is why September seems odd.
Haven’t seen the trailer, but I’d go based on the poster. It’s pretty stark.
I wasn’t trying to be passive-aggressive, Noah, I’m just annoyed that there are apparently numerous trailers currently playing that I haven’t seen, which strikes me as very strange since I see a movie or two every week, and not in critics’ screenings.
Synopsis of the flick (from Yahoo):
“Erica Bain has a life that she loves and a fianc
I like this poster a lot and think it’s a sleek, striking image. I’m even willing to overlook the gun as penis metaphor dangling at the bottom of it.
If it weren’t for her name staring at me from the poster, I wouldn’t be able to tell that the woman is Foster.
So in August Bacon delivers vigilante justice, and Foster follows a month later. They should have just teamed up. I like Neil Jordan, but I’m not a big fan of revenge flicks and the trailer did nothing for me.
That gun looks like it’s placed to be a symbolic penis or something. As if to say that enacting vengeance is some manly trait? Or am I looking into the poster too much? 😀
I kind of like the poster. It looks like a giant skull is coming towards her from the background.
Nah, that’s no skull — it’s The Punisher, about to give her a major beatdown for muscling in on his truf.
Don’t like the title, don’t like the trailer, and Jodie is the opposite of sleek and sexy in the footage I’ve seen.
Mystery: Well, I have to admit, when I first heard the title, I thought this movie might be a remake of the 1957 movie about the kid who runs off to save his pet bull.
Joe: She DOES want her dog back. Does that cut it?
This has lesbian camp classic written all over it.
William Goss: Actually, that made me think of Ryan O’Neal’s classic moment in Tough Guys Don’t Dance, when he gets medieval on the punk who killed his dog: “Your knife…is in..my dog!!!!”
“This has lesbian camp classic written all over it.”
EXACTLY.
“Dumped”?!? So does that mean no good movies come out in September?
After the rapid failure of so many summer blockbusters I was hoping the one lesson the chiefs might learn was not to cram so many friggin’ action movies into such a tiny season. There’s so many new films out now that it’s nearly impossible to see them all (unless you have no job, no family, no life…), but come September we’ll be sitting around bored silly because all the action movies already came and went.
I think the real reason THE MATRIX took off so quickly was because it was “dumped” in a month where nobody was willing to release an action movie, and so those of us desperate for a break from desperately serious and desperately boring fare jumped on this action bandwagon.
Sexy. As. Hell.
That is one amazing poster. I don’t know whether it appeals to my intellect of another region, but Jodie Foster is perhaps one of the great unsung sex symbols in modern Hollywood history.
And that’s all I have to say about that.
Sexy? Not so much.
Jodie Foster and sexy just don’t go together. Whenever she’s been cast as a romantic lead, it hasn’t worked (see Maverick, Sommersby). Which is why for the most part she’s avoided it, I imagine. Was she sexy in Inside Man? I could buy that argument, but sexy in a power way, not a sex way.
That Jodie Foster is becoming the new Harrison Ford comment was right on. Is it now in her contract that if she has a husband, said husband must be dead by the end of the first act?
OK, but I dig Neil Jordan big time – in my estimation, he’s made three masterpieces (Crying Game, Butcher Boy & End of the Affair) & also made very cool movies like Interview and Mona Lisa, and if not for the epic casting mistake of putting Julia Roberts in Michael Collins, maybe a 4th masterpiece.
And Jodie Foster rocks, as strange as her career’s become. And Terrence Howard can do no wrong.
Say I second hope.
Even if the poster does look very Legend of Billie Jean…
Munchers: Actually, I think Jodie Foster herself would agree with you. Here’s what she told me when I interviewed her for Flightplan: “Luckily, nobody hires me for my looks. I never played the girlfriend. I didn’t get the wife part. To be the mother of the child on this plane, I don’t need to not have love handles.”
To me, the worst thing about Jodie Foster is that she is so successful that she just doesn’t have to work very much, and so we only get to see her once a year at best it seems. Seeing her play a supporting role in INSIDE MAN was really, really fun.
Sort of makes you pine for the studio system, when great stars made 3 or 4 movies a year.
Then again, would a talent like Jodie Foster have survived in the studio system?
Re: “Would a talent like Jodie Foster have survived in the studio system?”
Perhaps, perhaps not. But to support my claim that she would have, may I mention the names Bette Davis and Barbra Stanwyck. Neither of them conventional beauties, but there were extremely talented, portrayed emotionally and verbally articulate women capable of behaving independently while also convincing as characters in need of companionship. In other words, they played well rounded and, more compellingly, vulnerable and even unhinged people. Which is what Foster has done.
In relation to The Brave One, I think both she and Jordan are treading water. Jordan, phenomonally talented as he is, deliveres his best work when working from his own screenplay (original or adapted). I know he has been trying repeatedly to get a project on the Borgias off the ground for at least the last six years. He makes these films to keep himself in the game. Which is fine. Only on at times like these, it appears he is boxing below his weight.
“My name is Domino Harvey. I am a bounty hunter.”
The poster’s still doesn’t do much for me, but the trailer “sounds” sooooo on the money. Directors like Jordan can do one of two things with movies like this: slum and enjoy cashing the check; or elevate the material until you’re left with something more profound than just another high gloss exploitation flick. This trailer feels like the latter. Fingers crossed.
I really love the title for this movie. “The Brave One” sounds epic and powerful.
And Jodie in Inside Man was sexy and hell. Did you see her legs? Yowzers.
Man, I just love Jodie though. I do wish she’d work more, but she’s getting back into it from the sounds of things. It’s disappointing her Flora Plum never got off the ground.
Carpetmuncher, I hated The Butcher Boy. What was it that you thought made it a masterpiece?
Also, Terrence Howard makes me want to go to sleep everytime I hear his voice. It is like some weird cross between a whisper, nasal and booze-slurred.
Did no one see “A Very Long Engagement”? Foster appears (speaking French) for a sequence that can’t last much more than five minutes, but it’s romantic, subtle, and even sexy. It’s so far afield from her usual work that it’s a must-see if you want to discuss her range.
James: Glad someone else remembers. It was my favorite movie of 2004. And yes, she was very sensuous in a fleeting but memorable performance.
I was a big fan of The Butcher Boy as well- in general I like movies in which the protagonist goes completely insane, and Jordan added a lot of his own personal fun flair to it. The End of the Affair is also a really great movie, and even Jordan’s bad movies, like In Dreams, are vastly more interesting than most directors’ failures.
The Butcher Boy didn’t really work for me because I saw it on TV at 5am when I couldn’t sleep and I had work at 9am and I couldn’t understand a blood word those screaming gits were saying. I wanted to scratch my eyes out.
The Crying Game is finally out on DVD this money (July) in Australia so I can finally see it.
And yes, Foster’s brief cameo in Engagement was kind of touching and beautiful.
The trailer was stupid. The audience at Die Hard 4 was incredulous, especially at the dog line. This one looks dumb, dumb, dumb.