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
Billboards are the devil’s work.
TWILIGHT IS GOING TO OWN. Christ, they should put me on their payroll and consider me a street team member, for all I’m talking them up.
What will I have to rant about after THE LIGHT drops?
Oh, never mind… Valkyrie four weeks later.
YES.
Fuck these billboards. Just what LA needs. More visual pollution and another excuse for already dangerous drivers to be further distracted.
Time for a law.
Whenever I see the billboards I always think of BLADE RUNNER.
there is an ongoing investigation on how much energy those billboards consume.
it seems an outrageous amount, the owner don’t want to disclose it.
Speaking only in Southern California, but Summit plastered the Burbank/Hollywood area with P2 billboards and bus stop posters last year. They were everywhere. If they could have afforded to have actual TV spots and trailers where people might see them, they might have had a hit film on their hands. Sony/Screen Gems could have pulled a $15-20 million opening on that one easily. It’s a shame, as it was actually a pretty good movie.
This is actually a nice little way around the rules. I work in a studio dept that buys the ad space. They will no longer allow a movie to buy ads in succession on the digital billboards for safety reasons. Therefore, having a sponsor of the film buy an ad, in-between the film ads, is a way around this.
They will soon be severely restricted in SoCal and for good reason: they are going to cause accidents. A standard billboard can be scanned in 1 or 2 seconds. These things demand your attention for 15 – 30 for the full rotation which is too fast.
So either they will agree to some sort of 1 – 2 minute minimum or they will be restricted to like 2 ads.
The ones on Santa Monica Blvd were flicking through every 10 seconds the other day.
Every time I
“the neighborhood associations and zoning committees?”
What is this strange thing you speak of?
Don’t they have any rules at all down there?
Here, the neighbors fight tooth and nail against every McDonald’s and Starbucks — which is fine with me.
I love liostening to SM City Council meetings on KCRW. Last night, it was about smoking in the public areas of apartment buildings and whether this was a ploy to move towards banning smoking in people’s apartments, since with windows, smoke still travels.
So much structure and pomposity. Love it.