MCN Blogs
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

A Quick Touch Of Clarity

Yes, I know that I repeat a phrase in the Ly entry…
Much as the ego stroke of everything at MCN being attributed as “David Poland’s,” this is a fallacy. I have not touched a single list this year (aside from forwarding those sent to me). Laura, Ray, and Kim have been driving that train. I, in fact, am still seeing a few stragglers before doing my real list… other outlets asking for early December opinions get early December opinions.
As for the chart, the philosophy behind the list that will top out between 200 and 250 lists has always been to mix the sublime, the mainstream, and even a few of the absurd. This has given the list a nice balance, in our opinion. Indeed, of you want the arty view, check out the very valuable indiewire and VVM polls.
(via iPhone)

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7 Responses to “A Quick Touch Of Clarity”

  1. T. Holly says:

    I must have latent sexual Nazi fantasies, because I keep taking the long route to Film Essent to leave comments. I’m certain that’s the point of the story that got linked on the home page this morning about how Suri dealt with the eyepatch. The only way to handle these feelings is to demand accuracy in our infotainment, even if that means boycotting a Nazi sexual fantasy.

  2. T. Holly says:

    Nothing against (or for) hot Kim, of course, just to be clear.

  3. mutinyco says:

    Laura, Ray, Kim… make sure to correct the spelling of Stu VanAirsdale in the post below…

  4. T. Holly says:

    I like it Arsdale. What’s up with the space? If your last name was La Boheme, you’d never leave out the space.

  5. leahnz says:

    wtf? i musta been out in sun too long today

  6. Kim Voynar says:

    Er … sorry, seems I missed something while buried under snow and wrapping paper (okay, okay, and Guitar Hero World Tour). But T Holly, you can comment on Nazi sexual fantasies on Film Essent any time.

  7. T. Holly says:

    That thread was dead, but I managed to move on to a different one.

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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