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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

20 Weeks To Oscar – 17 Days To Go

The Ten Rules Of The Season
Don’t Be The Frontrunner … Unless You Can’t Lose
Don’t Start Late … Unless You Have The Nuts
Being The Underdog Requires Illusion
Every Scheme Works … Every Scheme Fails
Critics Only Matter When Unanimous

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15 Responses to “20 Weeks To Oscar – 17 Days To Go”

  1. Me says:

    Well, Brokeback sort of shows that even when critics do line up, it doesn’t necessarily mean much, either. Sideways is another example.
    That said, it seems like No Country is not only the critic’s movie, it is also the current frontrunner. It’d be a mighty shame if it didn’t stick through as the winner. Nothing else is in its class this year.

  2. Noah says:

    But ME, if it weren’t for the unanimous love given to Brokeback and Sideways by the critics, they probably wouldn’t have gotten nominated in the first place. At least, I don’t think so.

  3. David Poland says:

    Yeah… critics have zero effect on the winner… only nods.

  4. Me says:

    I’m sorry, you’re both right, I just jumped to the end, and didn’t mention that the critic love even got those movies in the game.
    I’m just hoping that all the critic love, which got No Country into the game this year, will be enough to propel it to the end.

  5. Noah says:

    I think it probably will, ME, simply because the love machine just hasn’t stopped. It went from being praised by the critics to picking up nominations at all the guilds, to WINNING all those guild awards, etc. It’s really got all the momentum. I think Juno is the only film that could really play spoiler since it keeps making bank at the box office and the Academy loves to go for the popular movie.

  6. Me says:

    I agree that Juno is probably the main contender, but these little comedies never seem to be able to break through to winning. Four Weddings, Full Monty, Little Miss Sunshine, all were supposed to be in the race, but none have been able to win. I think that history will work against Juno.
    I also wonder if TWBB and No Country are going to split the part of the Academy that is willing to go for a dark, brooding, challenging film. But the Coens are so established that I think many people will be see that it is time to give them their due.

  7. lazarus says:

    This is, though, do you think the academy is going to check their names 4 times? Even if they’re oblivious to the whole Roderick Jaynes thing, producing, directing, AND writing? I don’t think it’s inconceivable to think they’ll throw a bone to PTA. It did tie for most nominations. I’d probably give PTA direction, as this wasn’t really the Coens at their most…Coen-like, even if the overall film is spectacular.

  8. doug r says:

    Comedies, Actual Adventure Films, Animated Films-all get screwed.

  9. IOIOIOI says:

    Juno can easily be the CULMINATION flick this year. It wins an award that Sideways or Little Miss Sunshine could have easily won in their awards years, and becomes the quirky FOX SEARCHLIGHT RETURN OF THE KING. There’s also something MORE about Juno then those two films. So I would not be surprised if it took home the gold on Oscar night.

  10. People always say the “little movie that could” will prevail and it never does!

  11. Joe Leydon says:

    “People always say the ‘little movie that could’ will prevail and it never does!”
    Well, what about Crash?

  12. jeffmcm says:

    Sometimes it shouldn’t.

  13. Ben C says:

    CRASH was the little movie that shouldn’t.

  14. Ben C says:

    Oops.
    Didn’t see that.

  15. Cadavra says:

    The CRASH analogy is dubious–the unique situation of BROKEBACK’s (substantially anti-gay) backlash played a considerable part in its victory. Of course, GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK should have won, but I’m not jumping back on that soapbox…

Quote Unquotesee all »

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