Relased on DVD less than 2 months ago… though you can also buy this on Amazon.com brand new for $14.99.
And next month… buy the still-left-over AG DVDs for under $7.
For all the hand-wringing over internet delivery, the industry, just as it did by pushing the front-loading of theatrical release and making the marketing costs beyond sanity, is killing the goose so it can squeeze out the last golden egss all on its own.
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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
Is this the best example? Blockbuster buys insane quantities of new DVDs so that they guarantee having new films in stock and not turn renters away. When the initial rush is over each store is still going to have 50 copies to get rid of.
Blockbuster has always sold previously viewed DVDs at discount in the store. Sometimes for movies that are a week or two old. Nothing new.
I think a better example is Virgin’s $10 sale. Always a good selection.
This is just what came over the e-mail transom today… there are many examples.
And yes, Devin… I know the Blockbuster situation… which floods the market and lowers the price point across the board, because that 50 is more than 10,000 nationwide.
Wow, at $7 a DVD, LexG can empty his bank account, fill up a bathtub with them, and off himself
I always contain myself and wait for Blockbuster or Hollywood video to sell used DVDs for like, $10.00 rather than buy new.
Plus that AMERICAN GANGSTER DVD isn’t even the special edition one that’s out there. I’m sure that one is still $20.00 or higher.
Exactly Peta: this is the regular two disc special edition. It’s not like Blockbuster is selling that 3-Discs set for 10 bucks. Everyone knows the money is in that extra disc. So please do not take this as a sign. Especially in light of this country needing the GRID to make substantial HD product deliverable.
My problem, in theory, with previously viewed DVDs is, despite what everyone says about DVD 4 EVA and shit, rental discs are usually SCRATCHED TO SHIT. I got nothing against Blockbuster or anyone buying Previously Viewed… hell, I used to buy used VHS *all* the time. And when they hit 7 bucks, why not? Sure, roll the dice.
But at 12 or 14 or 16 bucks, you’re basically paying for a scratched, fingerprinted, likely jerked-off-to disc touched by someone’s unwashed piss hands, which you could’ve bought NEW for 14 or 15 bucks at some Fry’s or BB the very day of its release.
Who masturbates to American Gangster?
Just the Armand Assante scenes.
(I meant other movies, goofball.)
thanks for that lex….you’ve just made me reconsider my netflix subscription…..
Fuck that; Does Netflix carry porn? I don’t know if it does or not. But any video service or store that carries both legit and porn movies, you can all but GUARANTEE your tapes or disc have *cum* into contact with some other dude’s unwashed stroke hand.
Porn has some stigma for some reason. I have no idea why really, but people still look down on it. Shameful. Absolutely shameful. So this means that there’s no junk any Netflix disc. Unless you count Poison Ivy… the collection.
IVY 2: MILANO.
YEP YEP.
My local Mom and Pop sells previously viewed copies of big releases for $12.95 two weeks after the release date. 2 weeks after that, it goes down to $9.95 and then 2 weeks later $7.95. They have been doing this for years. I used to go in exactly 2 weeks after a big release date to get those deals. Not anymore…blu-ray baby!!
Blockbuster, like WalMart, will sell popular titles at cost or below to bring in customers. There is no story here.
There is a story here, Montreal… because the studios have lowered the wholesale prices, these kinds of numbers have become the norm, and the retail price can be controlled by studios… and has not been.
My point in posting this is not that it is one of a kind, but as a reminder that we continue to see the devaluation of the medium, which is how this industry keeps killing off its darlings.
The reason there’s no story here is that this is the way it’s been for years.
Does anyone else feel bad when you see a movie you love dumped in the 2.99 Previously viewed box at Blockbuster? My local Blockbuster has about 20 copies of United 93 in the battered box that also contains such “gems” as Epic Movie and Date Movie…Granted not exactly a movie you want to watch everyday, but I feel that it is one of the best films of the decade.
“Does anyone else feel bad when you see a movie you love dumped in the 2.99 Previously viewed box at Blockbuster?”
Yeah, and then I feel worse about it when I see a mediocre waste of plastic that’s six months old and still being foisted off for $12.99.
Blockbuster needs the money for its hostile takeover of Circuit City.