April 24, 2024
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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’ll be in L.A. this weekend…my short doc DRAG KING is playing the Beverly Hills Shorts Festival. I screen at 2:30 Saturday at the Fine Arts Theater on Wilshire. Which is ironic in many ways. Come down and see my mooovie! Post-screeneing party at HOOTERS! Hopefully. if anyone comes. Lex G…represent or we’re finished professionally.
Zach Galifianakis (3/11) and Patton Oswalt (3/28) appearing at the new Largo in Los Angeles.
LEX REVIEWS COMEDIANS: (Inspired by a brilliant passage in Private Parts where Stern critiqued the big guns of his day…)
Zach Galifianakis: Pretentious, arcane, aridly unfunny hipster. Shave that stupid beard. NOT FUNNY.
Patton Oswalt: Annoying, douchey, whiny-voiced, unfunny food-snob asshole; Looks like the lead singer of ACCEPT. NOT FUNNY.
Also NOT FUNNY:
Jon Stewart– smug, partisan, self-righteous political douchebag. Also, why does this prick have GRAY HAIR when he’s like 28 years old?
David Cross– aridly hateful, annoyingly above-it-all hipster asshole.
Magaret Cho– The unfunniest unfunny ever to unfunny. Unless you’re gay or a fat woman, and suddenly it’s the funniest shit ever apparently. The thing where she imitates her stupid mom in that stupid voice is the most annoying thing ever.
Laura Kightlinger: Annoying.
Wendy Liebman: Same delivery x 100,000,000 = NOT FUNNY.
All Female Comedians– Long as I’m at it, might as well clear the whole slate, excepting MAYBE Sarah Silverman. She’s funny.
Paul F. Tompkins: Prick.
Stephen Colbert: Funny once for 10 minutes 10 years ago, now NOT FUNNY.
FUNNY: Bill Maher, Joe Rogan, The Diceman, Artie Lange, Dane Cook, Greg Behrendt, Louis C.K., Ari Shaffir, Pauly Shore, Eddie Griffin, Paul Mooney.
Where is the new Largo?
Thanks for the list Lex. You’re just confirming what we’ve already known about your sense of humor for ages.
“Where is the new Largo?”
It’s at the corner of Smug Prick Dr. and Contempt For Audience Blvd.
http://www.largo-la.com/largohome.html
366 N La Cienega, just north of Beverly
Nice 280-seat Coronet Theater
“It’s at the corner of Smug Prick Dr. and Contempt For Audience Blvd.”
How far away is that from your home at Manic-Depressive Drunk Road and Self-Loathing Loser Parkway?
How does one dislike Jon Stewart for being a smug, partisan, self-righteous political douchebag, and like Bill Maher?
“How does one dislike Jon Stewart for being a smug, partisan, self-righteous political douchebag, and like Bill Maher?”
That’s actually an excellent question. The short answer is, because Bill Maher is actually funny.
The long answer is, Stewart is kind of like Maher for pussies, the blunt misanthropy, pothead humor, and casual sexism/pussyhoundism sanded away into a disingenuous, P.C. form of anger and outrage that plays like the airplane edit of Maher’s much more caustic shtick.
Though some of their political leanings are similar, and both have evolved from standup comic into partisan pundit blowhard, Stewart’s on-air personality has a hand-holding, patronizing quality that Maher doesn’t bother with; Stewart’s all outraged liberal and faux-“voice of the people,” but is still essentially a chick-friendly P.C. comic and genial host, sort of a condescending, smug version of Conan O’Brien. Safe fodder for college kids and Television Without Pity readers who think their every political thought is original and like every bit and joke to be preaching to their particular choir.
Wow, a whole list of people funnier than Lex.
okay, maybe not Dane Cook….
“ALTERNATIVE COMEDY” = alternative to being funny.
But good to see that all you up-with-the-people, open-minded, “we are the world” ObamaNation liberals prefer the “comedy” of hateful, condescending, elitist, above-it-all, hipper-than-thou arch ironist assholes.
At least I own up to my misanthropy.
Really, most people on this blog and in Hollywood in general SHOULD JUST GO AHEAD AND VOTE REPUBLICAN ALREADY. Not exactly like any of you live up to the warm, positive, progressive and all-accepting tenets set forth by your Iconic Leader Obama.
Just admit that you live in a sheltered Caucasian world of annoying white irony in your priviledged Los Feliz/Hollywood existence and YOU DON’T GIVE A FUCK about poor people or people you consider BENEATH YOU.
Because 90% of you are condescending, angry pricks. Fuck, at least vote for the guy who’ll let you keep all that money you’re not making.
GOOD POST.
“It’s at the corner of Smug Prick Dr. and Contempt For Audience Blvd.”
Dude, I just LOLed at that…literally.
Lex-if you don’t come out to my screening Saturday, I’m callin’ you out as a big fat phony ala “The Family Guy.”
Lex, shut the fuck up.
“Lex, shut the fuck up.”
This post brought to you by an Obama fan. Doing his idol proud.
Jesus Christ – and down goes the Rocky Mountain News. Always thought it was strange to see a two-paper town (growing up in Dallas and Houston, I watched both become a one-daily city), but that’s just one of those regional institutions. I feel like LBJ after his inauguration bemoaning the fact that Charles Marsh isn’t around to help anymore.
Oh, and anyone else up here in San Francisco for WonderCon? The great thing about the W are the iPod docks and DVD stations. Blasting the new Lily Allen while watching “The Captain’s Paradise” on mute and thinking about actually typing something.
Lex, shut the fuck up.
I’m from Denver, and the Rocky Mountain News was our family newspaper, so that sucks.
Why is Obama being dragged into this? He never said he likes annoying assholes.
JeffMcM,
You’re from Denver? I’m from Greeley (I know, not something to be proud off)
JeffMcM,
You’re from Denver? I’m from Greeley (I know, not something to be proud off)
Sorry, for the double post (damn phone..)
THX-
you’re invited Saturday too if you’re around. Don’t worry, Lex won’t show…he’ll be polishing his wit and vagine that day.
Lex – you forgot Carlos Mencia, Gallagher, Carrot Top and Jeff Dunham on your FUNNY list.
The bad thing about the closure of the Rocky Mountain News is that it leaves Denver with only one daily. The worst thing is, that one daily is owned and run by Dean Singleton, the Great Satan. I don’t hold that against any of the fine people who actually work at the Denver Post. But Singleton… Singleton… no, I can’t let myself think about this SOB who bought The Houston Post only to pick the meat off its bones, then closed it so he could profitably sell its assets to Hearst. I wouldn’t piss on this bastard if he were on fire. I wouldn’t give him the sweat off my balls if he were dying of thirst. I must think about something else. Anything else.
Hey, is The Velveteen Rabbit opening in anyone’s market this Friday? It’s actually a sweet little movie.
As far as I’m concerned, we’ve finally gotten to the heart of the LexG hatred on this blog, which is more boring and ultimately more offensive than Lex’s worst antics — and takes up far more space here than either Lex’s ALL-CAPS BENDERS or intelligent, sustained discussion of film and filmmaking.
Lex owns his misanthropy and the Lex Haterz Club does not. Lex’s misanthropy extends to himself, and the only real soft spot in his heart is for other misanthropes who wear it on their sleeves — and do not hide it behind postures of self-righteousness, moral superiority, smug self-satisfaction, or most disgusting, the attitude that only you and your opinion/politics/taste in movies is well-reasoned, rational, and deserving of thought and attention, and therefore the only thing that should ever be read on this blog. Those of us who share Lex’s despair understand where he’s coming from.
As for those who regularly spew the most vicious, inhuman bile in his direction — your words are always the most transparent projections of your own self-hatred, and everyone who posts and lurks here knows it. I actually became sick to my stomach reading the posts on the French Connection thread, because a couple of posters said things that were so unnecessarily hateful and misanthropic about people they disagreed with — the cyber equivalent of what happens to Carice van Houten in Verhoeven’s Black Book. It completely derailed a real discussion about the creative conflicts inherent in making film.
And Lex had nothing to do with that — he said insightful things about his appreciation of William Friedkin, recognized the common themes in a series of films, good and bad, that constitute an oeuvre — and nobody responded to him. For people who claim to want to discuss these things all the time, you sure seem to spend a lot more of your precious time measuring your dicks and calling for Lex’s head.
As Joe Leydon pointed out recently, that’s what this blog has become. The second anyone tries to steer it in another direction, ya’ll steer it right back again.
Screw you guys, I’m going home.
Lex, since I’ve only typed that out about twice in my web career, I feel okay. Especially next to your assaultive faux-Leykis 101 rants. You have some film smarts but the rest… Obama is not my idol (you’re the Idol fan), just a politician I admire. But I’m giving up all web rage for Lent.
THX, I am indeed from Denver. Greeley’s not bad, it’s at least better than Wyoming.
Not David Bordwell, I respectfully disagree with you re: Lex.
Someone once asked me, if I could punch any living person in the face with no reprecussions whatsoever — physical, legal or otherwise — whom would I choose?
I went back and forth between Sean Hannity and Dane Cook, but I think I went with Dane Cook.
I captured of this from Huffington earlier. Tell me this guy doesn’t look like he came straight out of villain casting from a 1980’s Stallone flick: http://mutinycompany.com/unimaginative/1980sbadguy.png
Well, at least Dave Krieger got picked up by the Denver Post, save me from having to wade through two papers for just his column. Twenty years ago if you asked me which one would fold I would’ve said the Post. At one time it was even an afternoon paper but it switched to AM long before the Internet age. Obviously there were financial considerations but I wondered why they switched when they did. They could easily get a hefty portion of the day’s news from DC and Wall St when you consider the time difference.
Feel like going home and listening to Kansas album w/Dust in the Wind on it. Oh wait, that’s right. I no longer have a turntable. Hopefully I can download it off iTunes. I swear so many good songs of yore aren’t even available because of who knows what rights dispute. Grrrrrr
Joe L: The closest theater to me with “The Velveteen Rabbit” is in Allentown PA — a Carmike megaplex that passed over “Milk” and “The Reader”. That theater also has 3 prints of the Jonas Brothers concert flick for some strange reason.
Speaking of the Oscar winners, “Milk” gets a second re-release and “The Reader” goes wide to cash in.
Whoa, was ANYONE aware that “Crossing Over” (the Ford/Liotta/Kramer border thing) comes out tomorrow in L.A.?
Must be going for a stealth release to rival “Killshot,” ‘cuz I haven’t seen a single TV spot or bus-stop poster.
Or a trailer. Ever.
Who said anything that hateful in the William Friedkin thread?
Jeez, the reason it’s so easy to make fun of Lex is most of the stuff he says is made up crap to get attention anyway.
“I actually became sick to my stomach reading the posts on the French Connection thread, because a couple of posters said things that were so unnecessarily hateful and misanthropic about people they disagreed with — the cyber equivalent of what happens to Carice van Houten in Verhoeven’s Black Book. It completely derailed a real discussion about the creative conflicts inherent in making film.”
What in the world are you talking about? I just read, re-read, and re-read AGAIN that entire thread, and the worst things I could find was David asking MarkVH, “are you out of your fucking mind?”; LeahNZ saying, “what a lot of pretentious twaddle”; and Jeffrey Boam’s Doctor calling people obsessed with the colorizing issue “nerds”. Where is this unbelievably hateful and misanthropic material hiding? I can’t find it. Did Carice Van Houten’s character get called a nerd in Black Book? Did another character tell her she was speaking “a lot of pretentious twaddle” before asking her if she was out of her fucking mind?
If that thread, OF ALL THREADS, made you sick to your stomach, then you really shouldn’t look at blogs anymore. Spare your appetite the grief.
THE VELVETEEN RABBIT is a Carmike Cinemas exclusive and CROSSING OVER’s closet showing to Los Angeles is the Regency Theater in Santa Ana.
Weird.
Seriously: Anyone with very young children might enjoy The Velveteen Rabbit as a weekend movie outing. The theastrical release is limited, mostly to grab attention for next month’s DVD release. But if you’re interested, and it’s playing near you…
Ah. Anchor Bay is releasing VELVETEEN on DVD March 17.
I hope Not David Bordwell never stumbles on the thread where I offer to beat IO to death with a hammer.
Can I mention that I’m watching Never Cry Werewolf on the Sci-Fi Channel right now while doing some paperwork? I think that Brenton Spencer is not a very good director.
i KNEW that ‘pretentious twaddle’ thing would come back to bite me in the ass
leahnz, you are worse than Hitler! Or at the very least, the average workaday Nazi.
which means a hot post-adolescent boy is on his way over to read to you…atta girl…
You’re the one who hit me with the HAMMER? Thanks a lot, asshole.
I get threaten with bodily harm, and NDB gets pissed over that slight stuff? Really? COME ON, MAN! COME ON! What’s worse? Bodily harm or calling someone a motherfucker? I mean really man, get your priorities in order.
I am sober, so you can consider this a Lex Unplugged performance. That’s right, when you read the following words, think Eddie Vedder body surfing on a stool, writing “Choice” on his forearm:
I was just rewatching that Joaquin Letterman from two weeks back, and lost in the shuffle was that the second guest was SI cover model and sometime Leo girlfriend Bar Rafaeli.
Yeah, obviously she owns and is charming, etc., etc., whatever. But Letterman was really touching and sad and melancholy about it all, riffing about her and Leo earlier on and how he’s the kind of guy who’d *never* be in that position to get girls like that, and how there’s guys in this world (Leo) to whom it’s second nature, and that even now it nags at him.
How depressing is that? I always figure that hitting it super-rich or famous will be the insta-pass to supermodel squack, but if your looks or charisma or overall vibe aren’t on point, it’s conceivable it could still not happen. I’m sure I’d be able to work the Stern/Leykis kinda low-rent thing and pull strippers and porn stars and attention whores and maybe C-list actresses, and that’s fine; It’s what all that capped ranting gets at.
But the creme of the crop, SI, Victoria’s Secret, Alessandra Ambrosio, Adriana Lima, Bar Rafaeli level vag is like the exclusive domain of rock stars, royalty, princes, and guys like Leo. Fuck, even a huge, charming megastar *Clooney* or *Willis* is usually just pulling reality show chicks and gameshow contestants.
Without an air of true mystique, the real supermodel is so beyond impossible– Letterman, Bill Gates, Jay Leno: Can’t see Victoria’s Secret chicks with the long legs and the low-rise panties and the oiled abs and vaguely Euro ennui gravitating to schlub types no matter how many BILLIONS they’re worth.
I need to work on adapting a more internacionale appeal, replete with beret and cigarette holder, to achieve more of a mystique, ’cause now I’m worried that on top of everything else, even with money I’d never crack that echelon of squack.
Which makes me suicidal.
Adrian Lima apparently caused her man to lose his basketball playing ability. True. He never had much ability, but he sure as fuck does not have any now. So focus on a non-model Lex.
Hold on. I have to unleash the Smoke Monster. ARE YOU DUMB MOTHERFUCKER? Seriously; how motherfucking dumb are you?
You live in the SOUTHLAND. You know the area where all the hot chicks from across the country, gather together, and do hot chick things. Seriously… THE MOTHERFUCKING SOUTHLAND IS THE HOT CHICK CAPITAL OF THE WORLD! Grow a pair, go find one of the 1 million or more hot chicks in that area, and get the fuck over yourself… MOTHERFUCKER.
That has been the Smoke Monster. The Smoke Monster is sponsored by Ben Linus. When you have to choke out a bitch. Make sure you use really good cord.
“One million hot chicks”? In L.A.? Maybe in 1977.
Hey, “smoke monster,” hitch a ride with me on my daily trevails through the Valley and east Hollywood and you might beg to differ. That mythology of L.A. as some Hefneresque paradise of sunny blonde Playmates and Latina bombshells is about as dated as “Three’s Company.” Or at least it doesn’t extend to my Van Nuys-to-Burbank commute, where I generally see four types of women: Jane Goodall types, 40-year-old tweakers, moms with 35 kids, and Filipina Emo muffin-tops.
Maybe it’s a vag-man’s paradise over in the Melrose-Beverly Hills-Brentwood-Santa Monica part of town where I usually have zero business being, as I’m not as cool or a high roller like Poland or Jeff McDouche. But I don’t think I’ve seen a hot blonde chick between 20 and 30 in this town since ’98.
Lex I don’t know how many times I’ve said it but after working with 100s of models, some of them the famous types you are pining for, you aren’t missing anything. Beauty is 2 mm deep on the outside.
I have a number of friends who are good-looking males, lots of money, charming…they wouldn’t waste their time. Sure some of them did to get laid for awhile but the model fascination thing was short-lived when they realized they were bored with those girls and didn’t want to get STDs.
Many mentally unstable, heavy-drug using, gold-digging and not-too-bright girls in the modeling business.
Give it up and work on yourself. From the way you describe yourself you will only be attracting flies if YOU don;t do something positive with yourself.
WHy don’t you dry out, get in shape and develop charm–you’ll get a pretty girl who isn;t psycho, dense, and a drug addict.
You staying on the internet complaining does nothing but keep you in the same place.
and sorry Don, I’m spending more time in NYC than LA this last year so I won’t be there to see your docu, and hope it goes well!
Hold on Lota…maybe a model is perfect for Lex. Drug using, not too bright…they won’t share STDs in common since you have to get some for that, so Lex at least should be clean. It could work!
Oh wait, I forgot about Lex’s fatness. Forget it.
Hold on! Women like humor! Funny guys score chicks all the time! So Lex..
Oh. Shit. I forgot about that too. Oh well, sucks to be you, Lex.
What do you think about THAT, Not David Bordwell?
I just want to take another moment to say – I love reading Michael Wilmington’s reviews on MCN and am fucking glad he’s here (even though I still find his appraisal of “Miracle at St. Anna” shocking). That is all.
Don Lewis – I’m gonna try to make your film screening but a prior commitment might overlap, so I don’t know if I’ll be able to pull it off. Hope it goes well.
I meant to ask, was it set to screen any place else any time soon?
Lex: Does Sardo’s on Pass Ave. in Burbank still do porn star karaoke night? You might want to pop in there after work (I think it’s Thursday nights?) and find out. Also, it seems like I always see at least one pneumatic blonde shopping at the nearby Von’s every time I stop in there, so maybe you’re hitting the wrong supermarkets too.
Lex, I will say this again as someone who has been there: super-hot chicks are NOT worth it. If you believe anything I ever tell you, believe this. You are driving yourself crazy over something that will make you more miserable than ever. Until you’ve been thrown out of a hotel room THAT YOU PAID FOR by a drunk hottie who suddenly decided for no reason that she had lost interest in you, you don’t truly know the meaning of Hell.
“Many mentally unstable, heavy-drug using, gold-digging and not-too-bright girls in the modeling business.”
FUCK YEAH. I fail to see where ANY of those things are a minus.
I am also not saying yay or nay, but just floating this out there as an unlikely possibility: If I were reading my miserable, sexless, angry posts coming from someone else, I wouldn’t assume they were some shut-in desperate loser.
I’d assume they were in an unhappy marriage.
But you’re not, so what point are you trying to make?
That for all your dumb ass knows, I’ve got a wife, three kids, I weigh 205, and I haven’t dr-drunk/drinked (?) — er, consumed — anything more severe than Grape Crush in the last three years. And, Lota, I’m CHARMING as a motherfucker.
Perm, you are a meanie.
Lex you are not charming or you would be further along your Hollywood dream. Stop the whine-blogging and do something with yourself unless it is the attention you crave rather than success.
Trip-Op….just 2:30 tomorrow in L.A….hope you can make it.
Lota- ah well, maybe next time.
LEX G- get at me son. I got some parties we can hit. You know my email.
I pretty much zoned out of this entry when Lex criticised Margaret Cho. Shouldn’t get get the fat humour since he is, apparently, a fatty himself. Nevertheless, I’m the One that I Want is a masterpiece but, of course, doesn’t get any due because it’s overtly feminine and queer. A very lethal combination to certain groups.