April 26, 2024
BYOB
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BYOB: 235 Years Of Relative independence
BYOB Weekend: Hop, An April Fool’s Gag?
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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
I have a serious question even though other people will probably assume I’m being obnoxious for its own sake.
Like, when you see HOT CHICKS in movies or on TV, is your instant reaction a combination of arousal and extreme depression?
Like, doesn’t it fucking suck that we’re not BANGING ACTRESSES? All the women I meet in real life are like SMART AND SHIT, with boring fucking jobs, and that’s a HUGE turnoff for me. I like dumb, hot chicks who get paid to be fucking hot… or at least I THINK I do. Everyone in my sphere is kind of cerebral and arty, and it’s FUCKING BORING. I want to BANG DUMB CHICKS, and I want to BANG FAMOUS CHICKS, but you can’t do them unless you otherwise role in that sphere, which I MOST ASSUREDLY DO NOT, or if you HAVE ENOUGH MONEY… which I MOST ASSUREDLY DO NOT.
I was just watching Sons of Anarchy and for all I know Taryn Manning is a Rhodes Scholar and a famed humanitarian. All I know is I’m watching it and thinking like, All these LUCKY MOTHERFUCKERS get to chill with this AWESOME CHICK on the set and then get to be FILMED talking to her.
THAT WOULD OWN. Why the FUCKING FUCK do I have to have like BORING DAY JOBS where I do MUNDANE SHIT that doesn’t entail MEETING TARYN MANNING? It usually entails some fucking OFFICE SPACE-level NOTHING SHIT, which I could be doing in fucking Milwaukee. Like, yeah, THX-BITCH, “Get out there and study your craft, put yourself out there, blah blah blah.” Motherfucker, I got fucking RENT, OK? Got any part-time ACTOR SURVIVAL JOB that I can make 60K at till I turn pro?
IT BLOWS MY MIND — like it’s MORE UNREAL THAN SUPERMAN FLYING — that some of you get to BE IN THE SAME ROOM WITH FAMOUS PEOPLE. Like, they even EXIST? How the FUCK DO YOU MEET FAMOUS PEOPLE?
I WANT TO BE FUCKING FAMOUS. FUCK YEAH. I’d bang a new chick every hour.
Like, you don’t have to be at some jack-fuck office for 11 hours a day making mpegs and checking levels and writing bullshit emails? And by the time you get off you’re all angry and beaten down and depressed and near-suicidal and all you can do is not write, not go to a class, but head to the liquor store because it’s 9:38 PM and the night is fucked?
The world I know is rolling with people from the workplace to a dive bar, not some TECHNO-BUMPING FUCKING CLUB WITH RAPPERS AND MODELS AND SHIT.
I AM SO FUCKING TIRED OF BEING A DOUCHE, I WANT TO RISE UP LIKE THE MIGHTY ZEUS AND COMMAND THE WORLD. BE GOD.
You’re a plague.
In other news, I just watched The Happening. What was that? Is that that worst screenplay ever written? Why did Zooey Deschanel have heart-shaped pupil? Why did those two kids randomly get shot to death? Why was that girl in the opening scene so nonplussed that her friend was stabbing herself in the neck? And just how much greenhouse gasses were created by the use of all those wind machines? ay ay ay!
Wasn’t Wahlberg’s performance a hoot, Camel? All of those close-ups on his caveman-esque face as he tried to give the appearance that there were actual thoughts churning in his head..just priceless.
Funnily enough, Lex, I was thinking of you just the other day when I was hanging out with Jewel in her tour bus. Just me and Jewel, chilling, talking about life and truth and beauty and music… And I couldn’t help thinking, “Damn. This is a lovely young lady. I bet Lex would kill to be me right now.”
“I AM SO FUCKING TIRED OF BEING A DOUCHE”
Then stop acting like one, Lex. Voila!
Lex, as someone who once actually dated and banged a hot, dumb chick, let me state this as clearly as possible:
IT AIN’T FUCKIN’ WORTH IT!!!
If you believe nothing else I ever tell you, believe this.
JEWEL OWNS.
When that WHO WILL SAVE YOUR SOUL song came on, I’d be listening to it all earnestly like a total rod and thinking, “YES! JEWEL WOULD GET ME!!!!!” Sort of like that Michelle Branch ALL YOU WANTED song, TOTAL OWNAGE!
Singing hot chicks OWN almost as hard as TARYN MANNING.
FUCK YEAH.
THE HAPPENING OWNS. Zooey Deschanel = AWESOME.
In movie news, why isn’t KRISTEN STEWART the CENTERPIECE of the “What Just Happened?” campaign?
How can you make statements and questions like the above, and then claim to not be trying to be obnoxious for its own sake? You’re either lying to yourself, or to all of us.
“In movie news, why isn’t KRISTEN STEWART the CENTERPIECE of the “What Just Happened?” campaign?”
Because no one outside of teenage girls, and you, give a shit about her?
Because she only has two brief scenes in the movie?
Zahn it was hilarious. That moment on the hill where he’s all “why won’t anyone give me a moment to think” was quite hysterial, but my personal favourite Wahlberg moment was when he was talking to the train conductors and merely copying whatever they said.
Lex, your lamentations are downright poetic. A passage from Goethe’s Faust, in a translation by David Luke (with a touch of Walter Arndt):
FAUST. The earth’s a prison
Goethe, a pioneer in CAPS.
Sorry jeff, I lexified the text. Can’t pass that off on old Goethe.
I had a feeling. Perhaps that could be a new web application – Translate English to Lex. Now anyone all over the world can overcompensate for clinical depression!
THE STEW might be in only two scenes of WJH?, but look how she elevates De Niro’s game. He’s incredible in that funeral scene… have to agree with The Mank on At the Movies that this is the most energized De Niro has seemed in a long time. Even though I liked “Bandits” and haven’t seen “Man of the Year,” it’s certainly Levinson’s best in a while.
K-STEW RAISES EVERYBODY’S GAME! She is like the female JAMES DEAN. On the flip side, NO IDEA what the fuck Turturro was going for, or more specifically why Levinson flipped to tone to so broad for all those bits. Some of that was positively embarassing. PENN OWNED though.
Not David Bordwell, that was AWESOME! Thanks, man.
Lex, Taryn Manning is a sad case to get depressed over. She’s a fine actress, but she looks like the little alien inside the guy’s head in MEN IN BLACK.
TARYN MANNING OWNS.
Proof positive of hotness:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EfrDklLpPI
(Well, except for the whooping cough…)
OK, I did my part. Got in line today, did the early voting thing here in Houston. And I can’t begin to tell you how good I feel right now.
“Got any part-time ACTOR SURVIVAL JOB that I can make 60K at till I turn pro?”
Live on 25K until you make it. Suffer! Get rid of your car. Live in a dump in a bad neighborhood. Get to know the locals and create a one-man show based on them. Switch to cheap booze, or quit.
Or keep on going the way you are until your liver sells up to the size of a watermelon. That’s probably the path of least resistance.
And stop listening to Leykis. You’ll end up as fat and arrogant as him minus the money and strippers.
According to Lex, he’s already fat. But he’s too pathetic to be arrogant — which is actually one of his more endearing qualities.
How ’bout this — audition for jeffmcm’s next short. No risk (aside from making a fool of yourself) and you’ll have something for your reel to show agents.
Maybe you guys can do some kind of action movie parody in which Lex OWNS everybody. Or a horror film in which he gets tortured. Put it on youtube, link to it here and everyone will want to see it.
If I thought Lex was like a Horatio Sanz or Danny McBride funny overweight guy, I’d totally cast him in something (although, Lex, I have no money and don’t typically work with bimbos).
“The Lex Story” all by itself might be a decent project.
Leaving Lex Vegas.
Two movie points:
SAW V *drops* tomorrow. Obviously I am a huge fan of this series, but does it seem like this entry is a little less… anticipated than usual? Did they ever even cut a proper trailer for it? As recently as a couple weeks ago, they were still only running a brief teaser for it both in theaters and online. Maybe they just know it has a built-in audience, but doesn’t seem like the campaign was very persistent for “5.”
My next point is about “W.” I hate to contribute to the opening weekend mentality, but does it seem like after all that buildup, all the op-ed pieces, all the publicity… the movie itself has come and gone in a week? Unlike the increasingly rare movies that build some word of mouth, I get the perception that this was a one-weekend wonder if ever there was one; Six days into its release, is anyone still talking about it?
Perversely, I kind of hope the new Saw movie – and the inevitable #6 – both do well, so that Darren Bousman understands that his lousy movies’ success had nothing to do with his directorial abilities.
Damn, didn’t even realize they switched directors.
Bousman OWNS, McDouche. Do you hear me? He FUCKING OWNS. He was the STEVE MINER of the SAW franchise.
Every single SAW has been equally good. It owns how they expand the plot outward with geometric precision in each new entry. And Tobin Bell is Oscar worthy in these things. OSCAR WORTHY!
SAW = TOTAL OWNAGE.
Lex, this is a discussion I would be interested in having, but only with someone whose positions I can take seriously.
Nice dodge, Lex. Coward.
You just wanna keep drinking and bitching, don’t you?
hey, don’t knock drinking & bitching, frankbooth, it’s a beloved pass time the world over! (right up there with drinking & laughing, drinking & singing, drinking & staggering, drinking & fighting, and drinking & bonking)
I’d actually go see a SAW movie if Lex played one of the victims.
“OWWWWNNNNAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
drinking & driving: inexcusable
Yes, but Lex never does any of the latter. It’s just drink, drink, drink, bitch, bitch, bitch, puke, puke, puke.
(That last one is extrapolation. You do puke, don’t you, Lex?)
Cadavra: your comment made me imagine Lex as Plainview.
Oooooooownage, Eli, oooooooownage!
He’s Plainview minus the money.
lex definitely isn’t drinking & bonking, he’s made that much perfectly clear
Not women, at least.
Did anyone see the episode of that horror show that Darren Bousman directed? Was it called Fear Itself or something? Anyway, it was horrible.
Yes, Fear Itself on NBC. Did you at least think it was well-shot?
speaking of horror: from the files of ‘notable nordic remakes’ (i’m also particularly fond of nolan’s ‘insomnia’ redo), i was in the mood for something creepy – not to mention some ewan and josh – late last night so i popped in ‘nightwatch’ (no, not that ridiculous russian hockum)…i had forgotten what a creepy, sinister little piece of work it is, one of the few movies that actually makes me look through my fingers. i could never figure out why it’s not more popular (maybe my phobia of morgues makes it esp. squeamish for me); it has a great cast (mcgregor, nolte, brolin, arquette) and effectively builds the serial killer mystery, suspense and spooks through to a satisfying finish…an under-appreciated little creeper, imho.
Leanhz! The remake of Nightwatch OWNS, especially BROLIN, but I always kinda keep that quiet, since it’s widely recognized that the original, which I haven’t seen, is infinitely superior. Since I can’t speak to that, I always figure it’s maybe a case where I’m overrating a carbon copy that owes its strengths to the original.
I think Nolan’s remake of Insomnia is better than the original (which I saw in its inital release and kinda liked.)
Jeff, since I’m sure you cannot WAIT, I will have my thoughts on SAW V sometime soon…
lex, i’m embarrassed to admit i’ve never seen the original ‘nightwatch’ either, it’s been on my ‘to do’ list for years now…(and i, too, prefer nolan’s ‘insomnia’ to the original, so there you go). i think the same guy directed both the original ‘nightwatch’ and remake, so at the very least he didn’t pull a ‘nakata’ a la ringu 2
Did you guys notice that, when Variety released its weeklong Oct. 17-23 numbers today, W. was the second-highest grossing flick, beating both the Bees and the Chihuahua movies? Maybe we place a bit too much importance on weekend numbers?
I’m gonna go to Lex’s house and have some fun with him. I’ll pretend to be a ghost by moving various objects around so it looks like they’re floating. I’ll go woooooooooooo in a low voice. I’ll smack him on the back of the head and when he turns around, no one will be there.
How can I do this? I’m invisible to Lex!
That or he’s hiding from me.
Frank, what are you talking about?
I was amused by your posts, but to you and Cadavra, I used the Plainview/OWWWNNAGE/DRAAAAINAGE gag well before the both of you. Obviously, PLAINVIEW being my all-time idol right after Tyler Durden and Dirk Diggler.
And considering Jeff’s already expressed an interest in punching and throwing bottles at me, I’ll just as soon sit out his never-coming episode of Fear Itself.
What are you gonna do with your life, son?
And yeah, Jeff’s real scary. (How do you do a “rolling eyes” emoticon?)
Lex, how can I heckle you if you never appear on stage? Where are these mysterious open mikes you (used to) appear at?
In actual movie news, I just got back from seeing W., which left me disappointed for a lot of the same reasons I think it did David Poland (rambling screenplay, plus some lazy dialogue, overemphasis on Iraq and Oedipus), but one thing that struck me – and again, somebody else here already mentioned this, I think – was the bizarro Thandie Newton performance as Condoleeza Rice. I don’t mind that she was acting in a different movie than everybody else, more strangely self-conscious and mannered in her clownish caricature – what I can’t decide about is, maybe that’s the way the whole movie should have been?
Did anyone else get a trailer emailed to them by Don Murphy for a movie that he doesn’t seem to have been officially involved with?
Jeff, I didn’t think that episode of Fear Itself was well shot…in that the reason it was so horrible was BECAUSE of how it was shot. It was just a bunch of constant music video techniques. It just seemed like they let a hyper 14 year old direct the show.
I agree with you on that – his directing philosophy, as far as covering action, seems to be to just point the camera everywhere and let the editor figure it out.
I guess my question was really, did people think it was well lit? And I ask because I am acquainted with a person involved in that department.
I don’t remember the lighting sticking out one way or another. Must have been okay at least.
Does he direct actors too, do you know? I’ve been on some sets where the direct just seemed to be the guy who everyone works around, but doesn’t make a single decision once shooting has started. The actors direct themselves, the DP frames the shots, gaffers light it, etc. Director reads the newspaper.
I don’t really know, but I hear say that he spends a LOT of time on his Blackberry.
So you’ve been on a Ratner set, Perm?
NO RECENT BYOB SO PAY ATTENTION STUDENTS OF LEXG:
Do you ever have ONE OF THOSE NIGHTS where you don’t buy enough beer, so you have to HARD LIQUOR IT?
I only started with SEVEN BEERS tonight, which is POINTLESS, because you can’t even feel shit on SEVEN BEERS.
So I’ve downed:
SEVEN BEERS.
1/3 BOTTLE OF VODKA.
NO BUZZ YET, so on to EIGHT SHOTS OF JIM BEAM, fuck yeah.
DRINKING RULLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS/
YES, I am CANNONBALLING VODKA NOW, BUZZ FINALLY KICKING IN at 12:52am, I will be OWNING by 4am just in time to wake up at 8am.
TIME TO DOWN SIX RED BULLS TO KEEP THE PARTY GOING.
TOO BAD THERE’S NO HOT HOOKERS HERE, just me as a MOSH PIT OF ONE in my apartment LISTENING TO METAL and watching SAW 3, FUCK YEAH, I OWN.
TARYN MANNING OWNS. I WANT TO DO HER.
YEP TO THE YEP.
BALLAD OF JAYNE OWNZ.
3am update for the LEXFANS ( yeah, I know, but this thread is five days old by now and wound down ):
HOLY SHIT AM I FUCKED UP, 3AM AND CHUGGING D.K.A. like it was fucking cola. And I gotta be up in 4-5 hours. WATCHING EVERY GUNS AND ROSES VIDEO and remembering once upon a time, a certain open-faced, earnest douchebag arrived in H-Town thinking he’d be an actor, writer, or comedian.
Imstead he’s guzzling 8-15 beers, a half bottle of vodka, several shots of WHISKY, and Fuck Knows what else, most nights of the week, hating himself, crying, bitchslapping himself like American Benning, and being too much of a pussy to order the 147 escorts a day he’d need to satisfy his sex addiction.
ANOTHER SHOT DOWNED, FUCK YEAH.
HOW DO YOU MAKE THE CLOCK GO BACKWARDS? HOW DO YOU START ALL OVER AGAIN AT 1999? HOW THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE THE TIME AND MONEY TO TAKE ACTING AND COMEDY CLASSES INSTEAD OF DESK JOCKEYING SOME BULLSHIT JOB FOR A DECADE AND A HALF????
WATCHING GNR ESTRANGED AND DESPISING MYSELF, SO DESPONDENT AND MISERABLE; I know I have SOME talent but I have to HAVE A GODDAMN FUCKING JOB.
DRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNKKKKKKKKKINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.
LEXG IS A FUCKING ASSHOLE.
I think it’s time to consider whether an intervention might be in order.
I’m sorry, but a lot of this reads like a Mad Magazine parody of a Bukowski novel.
Lex: In the interest of time management, you should stop seeing your favorite movies multiple times, no matter how much they own. If you see Body of Lies once instead of seven times, there’s 12 hours you save. I assume your booze-and-metal party of one last night ate up at least 4 or 5 hours. Hours add up to days. Didn’t Schrader write Taxi Driver in like 3 days?
Does all this work you do allow you to save a few bucks? Maybe you could invest in a good prosumer camcorder and make some shorts. Put ’em on line. Before long, maybe you’ve got enough footage of yourself for a decent reel.
Of course, it’s a heartbreakingly tough business and you may fail despite your best efforts. But at least you’ll be able to say you tried. R-rated “guy comedy” has been OWNING lately. You’re missing your cultural moment!
I already suggested some options to Lex, yancy.
He’s not interested. He’s looking for an excuse to drink and cry.
He didn’t want to hear it, but I hoped I had at least shamed him into ceasing with the blathering self-pity posts. And it seemed he did quit, briefly. There was even some genuine movie-talk from him. But then he got drunk.
I think it’s time to start ignoring him.