May 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’m gonna guess how this one ends… the creature is never seen (because it doesn’t really exist) and the US government uses the attack as an excuse to invade uranium rich Mars… because the planet may have more “monsters of mass destruction.”
I just wish that, if they were going to make a verite-style horror movie, they had cast actors that didn’t look like actors or models.
who cares what they look like? as long as they can act I say.
Well, I care. If the point was to reinvigorate the monster movie genre through some verite-style neorealism, casting young WB hotties kind of defeats the purpose as far as I’m concerned.
…or shooting HD when it’s supposed to be a camcorder…
…or how the camera just happens to be on characters as they’re saying their lines of dialogue…
Well, those are hardly real criticisms of a film’s quality. I guess all those good looking actors in movies should just kill themselves, they’re taking away from the “art.”
And aren’t there HD camcorders available?
I must not be making myself clear: the point of the movie seems to be to make a monster movie in a verite ‘you-are-there’ style, sort of like Godzilla meets Blair Witch, which should, in that case, mean handheld, crappy-looking video. But instead, by casting the same kind of actors that you’d see in every other youth-oriented horror movie and by using professional-quality cameras, not to mention constantly winking at the camera in terms of dialogue, performance, and camera placement, they’re undermining their own concept. Or, they’re half-assing it.
Since 9/11, most american movie makers have been very guarded about some of the images that they show, careful to not want to drudge up too many bad memories, or offend sensibilities. The end footage of people running from the dust cloud and ending up in the grocery store and watching the dust cloud go by is eerily similiar to the 9/11 documentary I saw on HBO. I vividly remember it was a woman telling the story and thanking a man for saving her life by pulling her into the store. I wonder how this movie will go down, especially with New Yorkers.
Well jeff, you have a real talent at figuring out a movie solely on a trailer, congrats.
Again, HD camcorders exist.
Camcorders that shoot HDV. Which is basically hi-res mini-DV. Nobody casually shooting at a friend’s party would have anything more than that.
What you’re seeing in this movie is very obviously 1080. They used the Genesis.
Brack, if the movie actually turns out to be operating under different principles or for different goals, I’ll be happy to admit my preconceptions are wrong. I can even overlook the unnecessarily high-resolution format. But just imagine how much better this kind of movie would be without the default Hollywood thinking “our audience likes young, attractive actors, so let’s give them what they want’
“Camcorders that shoot HDV. Which is basically hi-res mini-DV. Nobody casually shooting at a friend’s party would have anything more than that.
What you’re seeing in this movie is very obviously 1080. They used the Genesis.”
Yeah, I know used that, but that’s not really the point. I saw the trailer at the theater, and the quality didn’t look that terrific.
They degraded the image to try to simulate consumer-quality. They probably wanted to shoot higher-res for the VFX. But if you know what you’re looking at, it’s very obviously 1080 that’s been pushed and color-corrected.
And that’s unrealistic?
I really doubt most people who decide to see this movie are going to notice that.
The #1 movie of the year was Spiderman 3. People don’t go to movies looking for quality.
Like I said, if you know what you’re looking at, it makes a difference. I’ll stick with 28 Days later in genuine DV.
But part of The Blair Witch Project‘s hook was that it was real. I don’t think anybody in their right mind would mistake Cloverfield for being actual discovered footage and the like. Hence, better quality is excusable.
But that’s its pretense. That it’s being shot on a camcorder. Which it obviously isn’t. Which makes it shite, in my opinion.
I didn’t go into Blair Witch thinking it was real.
It’s all about suspension of disbelief, which obviously has a lot of range to it. I don’t have a problem with, say, a man who can shoot webs out of his hands because that’s the underlying premise of the movies. But here the underlying premise appears to be ‘real-life monster attack’ and I can already see the places where they compromised that vision or decided nobody would care.
Like I said, it’s possible that verite realism might not actually be their primary interest in this particular film’s experience, but that’s how they’re selling it so far.
Thn again, it could just be made by people that are used to being around pretty people. Not defending that. The characters we’re shown seem to be the typical upwardly mobile types. (Which is one of the reasons I’m going into this one with trepedation because I frankly couldn’t care less about those types.) But if that’s who the filmmakers feel more affinity for, that’s who ends up on screen.
More reason why I appreciated Ben Affleck’s effort to fill GONE BABY GONE with people who have real character in their faces and looks. That added a richness to the landscape.
Again, I generally find these types pretty dull, but if that’s who they want to go with, okay. What they do with them beyond that will decide whether I like it or not.
And, yeah, they went with something higher than consumer grade so they could work out the effects better. I don’t really have a problem with this since the main conceit is getting a ton of action/disaster money shots shot in an indirect way. That idea interests me enough that I’m willing to cut them slack for not making the job that much harder.
I’ll take nice looking handheld over junk looking handheld any day, and it looks like the creators agree.
That’s your choice, but junk-looking handheld is more appropriate to a movie with ‘people fleeing from a monster and catching snippets of video’ as its premise. Nice-looking handheld in that circumstance waters down the impact.
J.J. Abrams produced this. He’s known for making good entertainment with beautiful people.
Which is one reason why he’s the wrong producer for this material. Just like I wouldn’t have Oliver Stone direct a romantic comedy or Michael Bay handle a mumblecore drama.
As most romantic comedies suck, I think Oliver Stone would make a good offbeat one. He sort of did that with Natural Born Killers. Michael Bay would have a random explosion during a deep conversation. Both ideas are gold.
Actually, you’re right on both of those counts. My mistake.
My underlying point, though, is that I really like the concept of a monster movie caught on shaky handheld video and I see this movie as taking that concept and watering it down for mainstream consumption, which is very annoying.
I see what you mean, it definitely is pretending to be cutting edge, but I still think it looks more interesting than most monster movies.
Hell, it’s a monster movie. If it can just deliver the goods on that level I’ll forgive it any number of auxiliary sins. It’s not like we have a glut of good monster movies lately. This one seems to have found an interesting approach and I hope it’s good. Because, honestly, who hopes a movie they’re going to see sucks?
^^^ I’d say half of the people who post on here unfortunately.
Yeah, the cast seems attractive. That’s not a huge problem for me, because that’s true for most movies, but it would have been nice if they were more “realistic” looking. Yes, the footage is sharp, but it just makes it harder to watch a movie with authentically crappy footage.
The big issue with all mockumentaries is that there needs to be a legit reason for the “camera operator” in the film to keep filming. The Blair Witch Project managed to make this work (just barely) but it’s the only example I can think of in the horror genre. The movie needs to show either news people or documentarians to have a legitimate reason to keep shooting, no matter how bad things get, and that limits your story.
Based on the trailer and this clip it does add an energy and does tap into the current trend of video being everywhere all the time. Anyone could document terrible things if they’re in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And this seems like a much better way than the Devlin-Emmerich approach, unless you were going to do the Old School Toho style.