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
FYI, standard DVD Juno 2-discs come with the digital copy. The one-disc has a sizable amount of extras, but the 2-disc has more extras AND a digital copy. Standard DVD.
Know your facts.
*Hope everyone noted my AP level transcription skillz, as 2-disc as a modifier uses the digit, but “one” traditional gets spelled out no matter what the case.
Example #271 that English major and professional genius Lex is probably smarter than you.
You work as a transcriber.
Actually not at the moment, haven’t done so in a year or so, but curious about the bluntness of that statement. Are you somehow insinuating that’s a job that’s beneath you?
A job that pays 30-60k guaranteed, stable income, stable living, etc.?
Maybe your observation was simply innocuous, but considering you bounce around here clinging to my every syllable with some disdain, excuse me if I’m suspicious. Are you saying that a solid middle class job is somehow ripe for ridicule? As opposed to, what? Waiting for post-production jobs to fall out of the sky, with no security?
I’m not asking that mockingly… actually, I’m really not. In my decade plus in LA, it’s a constant dilemma… selling out to make a steady, white collar paycheck, or playing the STARVING ARTIST. I’m assuming you opt for the latter. If you can pull that off, mad props… but really, wouldn’t it be easier to just clock in to some 9 to 5 and collect a solid income? (If not now, at some point?)
On topic… er, what IS a digital copy? I’m so behind the times. Not even sure what that implies. A second disc for portable media players? I don’t get it.
This is, as far as I can tell, a first for Sony.
They’ve been doing it on a kinda-sorta-experimental basis since the beginning of the year. The hitch is you had to buy the movies at Wal-Mart and the digital copies are set to “expire” after a few months.
I’m not sure why people should be expected to pay a premium for a digital copy of a movie they just purchased. The logical next step (which I know already exists, but hasn’t become as widespread yet) would be software that can rip a DVD like iTunes can CDs, allowing people to digitize their movies and put them on any device they want. People are paying for the use of the copyrighted material, and not the piece of plastic (or so the studios and music companies have asserted for as long as it served their interests), so it should be their right to do what they will with it, as long as it remains only in their personal use and not for distribution. Putting digital copies on their dvds allows the studios to have some say of control over this process and is better for them than it is for the consumer, hence they shouldn’t be trying to charge a “premium” for it.
Me: DVD BOB actually came up with such software, that got him in trouble. The problem of course with ripping a DVD, stems from the rather trippy way they are configured. The movie has one file. There is a read me file. There is a file for the extras. While I believe there’s even a file for the different audio tracks. So, yeah, ripping DVDS is a huge gosh darn hassle. The thing with the JUNO DIGITAL COPY is this… it got me a free shirt from Circuit City and the 2-disc has more feature. So it’s worth a premium price for a shirt and a t-shirt!
IO, well yeah, because cool extras are worth paying more for.
I know there are plenty of pieces of software that let you rip a DVD to an AVI or DIVX or whatever is, which work fine. From there, I imagine it’s pretty easy to use a Roxio package or whatever to convert the AVIs into whatever plays on the iPod (I think that’s what my copy of Roxio keps crowing about).
Lex, does working as a transcriber allow you to sleep with hot actresses and models? Perhaps I’ve misunderstood you in the past, but if not, then it is indeed a worthless job.
The thing is, its really easy to rip a DVD to your hard drive, to make another copy or to convert to whatever format you choose, more specifically to play on your Ipod. The ripping process can take 10-15 minutes tops with no noticeable loss in quality, even more so if you don’t want any extras and just the film.Converting to an Ipod format can take 30-45 minutes and it’ll look fine on your little screen. If these programs were to become mainstream then the process can be shortened even more on a higher end PC.
“A job that pays 30-60k guaranteed, stable income, stable living, etc.?”
Am I the only one surprised to find “stable living” in the Lex(G)icon? I’d expect that to be no part of his vocabulary, let alone his persona.
harosa, exactly. The thing that kind of surprises me is that Apple hasn’t already rigged their iTunes to do exactly that. One would think it’d be a natural extension of what they did for cds.
I can only think that they don’t want to rock the boat with the studios as they attempt to become THE place for legit downloading of movies. Hence why these programs will probably stay underground for a while.
There are no us based software companies that sell software to rip dvds. Some people give it away but or it’s donateware but nothing for sale. Apple would gladly do it if they could but they can’t. But Sony’s arrogance by bypassing Apple is incredibly. I rarely see any kids with PSPs but they all have ipods… Sony lost that war long ago.