May 18, 2024
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Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
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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
Seeing this on Tuesday, I can’t wait. Interesting that both Lumet and Woody are doing different takes on a similar theme; brothers turning to a life of crime. This Lumet film, though, is one that if I had remembered it was coming out this year would have been on my “ten films to look forward to” list.
If the average plebeian even sees this movie, they’ll probably just ask for “That Ethan Hawke Movie” or “That Devil Movie,” like they’ve done at the theatres I’ve ever worked at for the past twenty-one years, whenever they’ve been a title that is more than one or two words long.
Last year, one of the times I was doing a cash drop in the box office, some guy came up and asked for “That Bruce Willis movie,” and it took my cashier a good two minutes to figure out if he wanted 16 Blocks or Lucky Number Slevin, because the customer didn’t know anything about the film other than that Bruce Willis was in it.
I don’t know if people will always get the title correct when saying it, but I guarantee people will remember titles like “Before the Devil Knows Your Dead” or “The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford” better than titles like “Fracture” or “Frailty” or “Premonition” or any other one-word disposable title. They might be easier to remember because they’re shorter, but everytime someone tries to tell me about those movies, it’s always “that one with Anthony Hopkins” or something along those lines. At least with the longer titles, they might say something like “the Jesse James movie” or “the Devil one.” I don’t know why, but I think it’s better that they get a part of the title than to have a title that is so arbitrary as to be unnecessary.
“Sidney Lumet
I cannot believe that you are criticising the title of this film for being too complicated. Seriously, it is six words long. I am astonished that you should even think of it as something to criticise. You yourself describe it as poetic – are you seriously suggesting that poetry should be discarded in favour of simplicity?
You write that, “The thing that is so compelling about this film is that it makes the audience work for it.” Well, if they can work for the film, I’m sure they’ll be able to remember the title.
In any case, you seem to have a remarkably low opinion of the average moviegoer. I don’t know that many people who just go to see “that Bruce Willis movie”. Certainly, I don’t think that these people make up 95% of the moviegoing public, as you suggest. And even if it did, then this movie would present further problems, wouldn’t it? Or perhaps you think that Philip Seymour Hoffman should have fewer names as well.