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
Where the hell is Eric Kohn now that the world needs him?
Here’s what Eric Kohn’s been up to lately.
Well, wasn’t it a surprise that Che was showing up at Cannes at all, let alone in it’s four-hour form. I don’t think there had been any plan to release the four-hour version until Cannes. Right?
It might be worth pointing out that there weren’t even any credits at the end of the film. Also, in our screening, they accidentally started showing the second part first before realizing the mistake. It definitely had the feel of something rushed to the project booth at the very last minute.
I mean projection booth.
I have no idea what was shown at Cannes. What I can say with 100 per cent certainty is that any modern film about Che that omits the horror and torture show of La Cabana can – only – be a useless endeavor.
I am sure Sean Penn knew going in that is the film he would award the top prize to and I am sure he loved it.
You’re sure of a lot of things there.
psychic friends network…(twilight zone music)
We’ll see in a few days.
I think it’s more like we’ll see in a few months when the movie is out.
Well we – know – the film doesn’t deal with La Cabana.
Are they going to shoot more footage?
I think you might want to try a little html action there, Nicol.
I’m just waiting to see the movie and then make a decision about it. It doesn’t have to depict something to ‘deal’ with it.
Jeff,
By all accounts the film does not “deal” with the horror and torture show at La Cabana.
Do you have any information to the contrary that I could read?
To not depict or deal with it in a film of this running time makes the film moot.
Sometimes Nicol sounds like the Comic Book Guy of right-wing demagoguery.
Did Stone’s NIXON include close-up of dead burning Vietnamese babies covered in Napalm?
Is this Che movie just out of an Entourage episode?
Latin hero, movie too long, Cannes not impressed and nobody wants to buy it?