April 26, 2024
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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” â 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 â 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 â he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” â and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging â I was with her at that moment â 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 namedâ” “Yeah, sure â 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 Iâm on the phone with you now, after all thatâs 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 didnât seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. Thereâs not a case of that. He wasnât using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had â if that were what the accusation involved â 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. Iâm not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, âYou know, itâs not this, itâs thatâ? Because â let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, thatâs what it lacked. Thatâs 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
Hey there, Sasha Grey horn-dogs.
Time Warner Cable has banished HDNet and HD Movies to the ether. No more Sasha for you!
Saw Terminator 4 today. Not as terrible as everyone was saying. It’s an effective, workmanklike summer adventure flick. Quite the pastiche of various elements besides nods to the earlier flicks. I was reminded of, among others, Mad Max, Matrix Revolutions, Transformers, War of the Worlds (Spielberg), the Halo video games, and the Half-Life 2 games. Ending was pretty risible, though. They must have come up with that at the last minute if they couldn’t think up a better way to save the protagonist.
Blackcloud-
See, I thought the pastiche was what made it so sucky. It was like McG was handed the complete Terminator toy set and filmed himself playing with it in his backyard.And it SO wants to be the Road Warrior movies it wasn’t even homage or pastiche as much as extension. Did not like.
Don, I appreciate that viewpoint. The seams holding the various elements together are rough and uneven. And the pieces themselves are all shapes and sizes, and colors. Someone’s attention could easily get snagged on the rough stitching and try to unravel it. I don’t think saying it was “effective, workmanlike” qualifies as effusive praise. But for me, I thought the garment, though rough hewn, fits well enough to serve.
I didn’t have any great expectations or ambitions for the film. It’s been years since I saw the first two, and I don’t remember them that well. Nor do I have any animus for McG. I can’t say I’ve seen a complete movie of his before. So I thought it was okay, and would give it a marginal thumbs up. But I certainly did find the pastiche distracting enough to keep a running tally in my head of what was being recycled. And there are plenty of holes, too. I’d certainly like to know where the rebuilt Marcus Wright came from. He just shows up. He also seems oddly uncurious about what’s been going on; as does Kyle Reese, when he shows up. And I agree that the movie is strangely disconnected from what’s come before, and what we’ve been led to expect will come.
So, yeah, flaws aplenty. But I liked it better than Star Trek because it annoyed me less.
MOON BLOODGOOD for the win. HOT AS HELL.
And in general I agree with Blackcloud.
Yeah, I don’t get the geek vitriol that’s been leveled at T:S. It’s not a great film, or even a good one, but it’s not terrible. It’s not even bad.
I certainly understand people not liking it, but the casual vehemence directed at it by the AICN gang and others confuses me a bit. (Comments like “Of course I hated Terminator: Salvation” and Harry’s review for examples). It’s not even the first film after the Cameron originals… and it tries to adhere to his themes and concepts more than T3 did. So why the outright hatred?
Tele: AICN has a hate-on for Warners at the moment. If I remember correctly. So there’s your explanation.
‘Yeah, I don’t get the geek vitriol that’s been leveled at T:S. It’s not a great film, or even a good one, but it’s not terrible. It’s not even bad.’
that, telemachos, is an entirely subjective statement.
as a die-hard, hard-core terminator fan (cam’s revolutionary terminator/T2, the real terminators, had a big impact on my youth and really, the direction my life would ultimately take), i fucking hated t:sal; it’s an overblown, disjointed, nonsensical, shit-blows-up, grim, style-less, character-less, waste of space, clueless mcg piece of blasphemous crap that has NO business calling itself ‘terminator’ anything. where is john connor, the legend that is sarah connor’s son, the inspirational saviour of humanity? oh yeah, he’s some humourless prick with all the charisma of a damp dishrag, consistantly henpecked by his ‘superior’ (WTF?) who growls/shouts everything (ironically, anton yelchin – about whom i was most worried – actually annoyed me the least). i would give anything to un-see that movie, fuck that shit (and if i ever see that clueless fuckwit weenie mcg i’ll happily stab HIM through the heart with my BIC ballpoint, never mind yates. really)
whew, ok, good to get that off my chest, all better now
(and ftr, think i’ve looked at AICN maybe twice in my entire life)
oh yeah, and i went in with an open mind and full of hope as always, because even tho i’d heard some bad shit about t:sal beforehand, i’m my own woman and other people’s opinions don’t influence me in the slightest, so i was willing to give t:sal a go
Wow, leahnz, see, I just don’t get that. And I’m as big a fan of the originals as anyone. To me, T3 was less interesting and more generic — it felt like imitation-Cameron. T4 for all its issues (and it has a lot) at least was trying to tell an interesting story. And, as I said, it restores the human element of making our own fate (as opposed to T3’s casual “well, fuck it, the end of the world happens regardless.”)
Your post does bring up something interesting though — the people who were expecting/hoping a dynamic John Connor story are the ones who’re angriest. (And I suppose that makes some sort of sense).
But I still don’t think it’s “blasphemous crap” or “character-less” or a “waste of space”. đ
One more thing: T:S was supposedly the first in a trilogy (one that I doubt will be completed now). So I assume the plan was to show John Connor growing into the great leader he becomes later.
And for all his one-note growling (and yes, it wasn’t a well-developed part) Christian Bale is still better than Nick Stahl.
‘One more thing: T:S was supposedly the first in a trilogy (one that I doubt will be completed now)’
thank christ!
(and i’ll take nick stahl’s sympathetic, vulnerable john connor – and i’m NOT a particular fan of t:3 – over bale’s dull, one-note shout-fest any day, but that’s just me. and weirdly, i’m generally a fan of bale)
past that i’m not in the frame of mind for doing a lengthy rebuttal or justifying/defending my loathing of t:sal, mainly because i’d rather not even think about that unholy mess of a film. but suffice to say: terminator is not transformers; terminator is not mad max; terminator is not a video game.
terminator is a very clear, specific vision of a family fighting to prevent an apocalyptic future, a moving story dishonoured by mcg, who never should have been trusted with fleshing out the future war (if it had to be done – and it didn’t -why in god’s green acre choose mcg??!! bloody hell). beyond setting up big, exciting set piece action sequences, he is a clueless bugger with a very limited skill set, unable to infuse his film with the tension to grip me and the continuity, emotion, humour, warmth and humanity it desperately needs as a continuation of cameron’s terminator universe (i think mostow actually had a better sense of it, even tho t:3 at times flirts with becoming a parody of itself).
mcg was in WAY over his head (note to mcg: action to SERVE THE STORY, not the other way around) and it showed with each passing disjointed, overblown, heartless moment; i didn’t give two farts in the wind about anybody in that movie (except yelchin’s reese, just barely), and i can’t even explain how much that bums me out. for me, it stands as shining example of everything WRONG with action film-making today. it stayed with me for about 10 minutes afterwards, and even tho i just recently saw it i’m struggling to remember specific details. granted my memory isn’t what it used to be but in this case i blame the movie
If anyone can get Dr. Warren Hern on AC360 up on youtube, you’d be doing humanity a huge favor.
Fuck Terminator.
New Rancid is motherfucking astonishing.
So there.
Rancid better than David Garrett (pant, h-h-h, pant)?
I saw UP in 3-d, 9:50 p.m., Century City tonight. It was nearly full, and some douche in the front row texted throughout the whole movie.
Why would you do that when you just paid $16 for a movie that depends upon you actually looking at the screen the whole time? And this didn’t seem to be some high school kid either.
I yelled from three rows back: “Stop texting in the front row!” after which the offender tried to be stealthy about it, but kept on doing it.
LOU…
I saw My Bloody Valentine 3D at the Arclight opening weekend, also in 3D, and this dude ASSIGNED-SEATED about five rows to my right texted, likewise, through the ENTIRE FUCKING MOVIE. Fortunately the clunky glasses mostly obscured it, but just knowing that it was going on was enough to enrage me, most because, yeah, I kept wondering WHY you would pay the extra rate and then not even look at the screen. Maybe with the glasses on, TEXTS COME OFF THE BLACKBERRY IN 3 DIMENSIONS.
(Related note, WHAT THE HELL is the point of including 3-D versions on the DVDs of these movies? Threw in Bloody Valentine last night, coincidentally, and it had those CHEESY red-and-blue glasses, barely looked 3-D AT ALL, and gave me a fucking headache within four minutes. SOLVE THAT PROBLEM, James Cameron. HOW is the Avatar DVD *not* going to look at smeary, blue/red/green and unwatchable????)
I had that problem with, ahem, Friday the 13th Part III as I tried to watch it with the red/blue glasses that came with the DVD, but it is nigh on impossible. It doesn’t come off as 3D at all, the entire screen ends up looking – shockingly enough – red and blue and can barely see a darn thing. Plus, the edges of the glasses dig into the ears.
I’d rather watch it without the glasses. At least it’s funnier watching people wave things in front of the screen that loses all sense of funniness while wearing those horrible glasses.
LEXG’S BONER SCALE FOR 6/2/2009 in ORDER:
Russian chicks, Armenian chicks, firecrotch, blonde Jewish chicks, Eurasian squack, Caucasian brunettes, black chicks, blonde bimbos, more Eastern Bloc chicks, brunette Jewish chicks, Korean Party Girls, Japanese chicks who like white dudes, more Eastern Bloc chicks, corn-fed Canadian vag, Latinas, porn chicks, Australian chicks with A or B cups like Rachael Taylor, anorexics, cutters, and basically any broad with self-esteem low enough to talk to me.
Oops, none of them will talk to me? YAY I’ve got beer and vodka and can punch the clown to fucking TMZ no worries.
SOMEDAY WHEN I HAVE MONEY I WILL MAKE UP FOR THIS CURRENT LACK OF VAG WITH A FUCKING VENGEANCE. And I WILL MAKE THEM BOW.
BOO-YAH! I AM GOD.
How much longer do you let this go on, David Poland? At what point does it stop being funny and start becoming offensive? “Eurasian squack”? Really? This is what you want representing your (once) respectable websites? Keep it up and maybe you can pick up the traffic that Craig’s List just got rid of.
I’m really curious what the male/female split here is/used to be. I can’t imagine why any woman would want to have to scroll past this shit on a daily basis.
I’d ask a chronic texter to post an explanation of their behavior, but of course sites like this attract only film fans, and no true film fan would text through an entire movie.
Lazarus, fuck off, you joyless Nurse Ratched motherfucker. I’m sure you were a great teacher’s pet tattletale in school 50 years back, but lighten the fuck up, you hardon prick. Have some fun in life, old fuck.
“BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH, DAVID, HOW LONG WILL YOU LET THIS GO ON?????” Get a FUCKING LIFE, toolbag, or man up and address me personally, instead of crying to teacher anytime you see something you don’t like, you stupid-named fucking idiot. What, are you religious or something? Fuckin’ tool.
Lazarus: It’s called BEING HORNY, you no-dick fucking pussy. Fuck off.
And since Poland’ll probably delete half my GEMS as usual, Laz, FEEL FUCKING FREE to chim in at my blog and EXPLAIN your IRRATIONAL HATRED of someone you DON’T KNOW who posts words on the Internet.
Fucking assbag.
The red-blue glasses for the Superbowl commercials and episode of Chuck worked pretty well. Not, of course, on my crappy TV, but on my friend’s HD set and then online at NBC.com.
Not a perfect solution, but the best red/blue process I’ve seen, by a longshot.
THAT CHICK ON CHUCK WITH THE RUSSKIE NAME GIVES ME A BONER.
OOPS I DID IT AGAIN, LAZARUS, YOU BITCH. CALL THE HOT BLOG SHERIFF IN!
In other news: LAZARUS is a gay-baiting psycho who encourages depressed people to COMMIT FUCKING SUICIDE. WHY is this cockknocker not the fucking KING PARIAH of this board?
Come on, LAZ, no reply? No comeback? Can’t say something back to me, gotta go behind my back to DP? Come on, I got all fucking night, I’m not going anywhere. What’s your deal? What’s your name? Post a link to some of YOUR creativity. Post some of your info? No? Nothing you wanna share? Real fucking easy to sit back being some anonymous nobody shit-talker from afar. Either man up or shut the fuck up. Come on, toolbag, post your info. Post a link to your credits. I’m working at a disadvantage here. I want to know all about your game, you jealous, joyless, SUICIDE-ENCOURAGING class act with no sense of humor who’s the scourge of this place.
IF I DO COMMIT SUICIDE, I want it to be known that a guy who posts on the HOT BLOG and calls himself LAZARUS encouraged me to do so, and I want EVERYONE who knows me to RISE UP and seek out his SUICIDE ENCOURAGING POSTS and make him LEGALLY responsible.
His name is LAZARUS and a quick GOOGLE SEARCH will lead to the POST where he encouraged ONE LEXG to COMMIT SUICIDE, and was immediately called on the carpet for it.
Come on, bitch, speak up now. Let’s hear it, LAZARUS. NICE FUCKING NAME, YOU RELIGIOUS FUCKING IDIOT.
And while I’m at it, BIG PERM, you fucking hilljack WASHINGTON DC name-dropping, immature, unfunny, no-personality 20-something fucking no-empathy sociopath who couldn’t hack it in L.A. and ran crybabying back to your nobody hick town and its comforts? FUCK YOU TOO. BITCH ASS.
If BIG PERM doesn’t post his REAL NAME, his IMDB info or his CREDENTIALS by noon tomorrow, that fucking poseur name-dropping snide, unfunny, untalented no-name loser doesn’t get to say JACK or fucking SHIT about anyone here ever again.
FUCK YOU.
KOREAN PARTY GIRLS give me a GIANT BONER, come on KOREAN CHICKS there’s a drunken douche who’s MORE THAN WILLING to piss off your traditional dad.
NOW GIVE IT UP GIVE IT UP YEP YEPS TO THE KIM CHI.
BULGOGI PLATE 4 LIFE KOREAN CHICKZ YEP YEP.
IF I HAD A KOREAN CHICK I’d take her to that CLUB FROM COLLATERAL and listen to that awesome OAKENFOLD SONG that was also in BOURNE 1 while I BANGED HER. BONEAGE.
WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO ANOTHER MAN CAN DO. WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO ANOTHER MAN CAN DO. WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO ANOTHER MAN CAN DO. WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO ANOTHER MAN CAN DO. WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO ANOTHER MAN CAN DO. WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO ANOTHER MAN CAN DO. WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO ANOTHER MAN CAN DO. WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO ANOTHER MAN CAN DO. WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO ANOTHER MAN CAN DO. WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO ANOTHER MAN CAN DO. WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO ANOTHER MAN CAN DO. WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO ANOTHER MAN CAN DO. WHAT ONE MAN CAN DO ANOTHER MAN CAN DO.
Terminator Salvation, in my opinion, was terrible.
You can apologize for the idiocy and the flaws, but other than some decent action sequences, it was not good.
And with 200 million dollars, the action scenes should be spectacular. Who can’t direct good action sequences and produce quality special FX with 200 million dollars?
The pass people give blockbusters these days seems less salient than it did in years past. Everyone has the same CG tools and paintboxes. What can’t they do with the visceral?
It’s the cerebral that’s lacking.
“Who can’t direct good action sequences and produce quality special FX with 200 million dollars?”
Ridley Scott in GLADIATOR.
Lex has a blog? Also, this made me LOL “Get a FUCKING LIFE, toolbag, or man up”
Anghus, I’d say a lot of people can’t do that. And yet they keep getting money thrown at them like it grows on trees.
If Lex kills himself, I’m buying Lazurus a beer!
“Who can’t direct good action sequences and produce quality special FX with 200 million dollars?”
Chris Nolan in “The Dark Knight.” Yeah, I said it. And I loves me some Dark Knight, but that chase scene in the armored van is horribly directed.
I agree. You can’t tell who is where during any of that chase.
Eight hours later, I’m thinking Korean Party Girls are taking a backseat to the ever-elusive HOT WHITE CHICK.
I know that sounds like an odd thing to say because people have this (mis)perception that L.A. is some Girls Next Door bounty of blonde bimbos. But it’s not.
And I’m all for taxing the full SPECTRUM of vag, but maybe it’s just a Burbank thing: I haven’t seen a HOT WHITE CHICK since like 1998. Yeah, when I go to Los Feliz or Hollywood I see YOUNG HIPSTER WHITE COUPLES, but in the Burbank, Glendale, Toluca Lake, SGV, Van Nuys neighborhoods where I roll, I see the following:
White dudes with Asian chick. White dudes with Central American chick. Old fucks. Tweakers. Equestrian/Horse People Who Look Dirty.
Maybe I should move to McDouche’s neighborhood, because the East Valley is a NO-SQUACK ZONE.
Lazarus, while I’ve got no info on the male/female split, I can tell you that as a female I did find Lex’s schtick pretty crude when I first started coming around here about two years ago, but since then I began to tune him out once I caught on that he’s kind of a sad dude. LexG helpfully uses caps so I know to keep going past those posts.
I’m not complaining though, it’s Poland’s blog and I can always just avoid coming here if I don’t like it. It’s kind of annoying, but what can you do. It’s rare to find a decent site that doesn’t have at least one resident asshat.
Lex, don’t kill yourself.
There. My vote balances Laz’s vote. Now you can get back to the squack parade.
And Anghus, “Terminator: Salvation” didn’t cost $200 million. Not even close. Keep in mind, it was not paid for by Warner Bros. It’s an independent film, technically, and Warner just paid a distribution fee. The Halcyon Company kept costs shaved very, very close on the film, and it barely capped out around $130. And a chunk of that went to McG and Bale in salary form. So you’re really looking at something closer to a $100 million film.
Which, of course, is a ton of money. No doubt. But it’s half of what you suggest.
FIONA APPLE SHADOWBOXER = GREATEST FUCKING SONG IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.
FIONA APPLE RULES, “THIS WHOLE WORLD IS BULLSHIT.”
LOVE HER. LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVER HER.
I wish I had a TIME MACHINE so I could go back in time to 1997 when I was skinny, awesome, had hair and got chicks.
My life is bullshit.
Can I nullify Drew’s vote?
Can I buy Perm a beer?
Yes Cris it is annoying to have to try to wade by it, by such cheering negativity about females who are nothing but squack here, aren’t they, many LCDM.
T4
Terminator was not good. The machines failed me, the humans were so non-functional at times they *should* have been programmed. At least humans in the first two were tough scrappers with a bit of survival common sense even though Sara was politically ‘aligned’ with with the Contras (It would have been more sensible to align with the Sandinistas for what she was doing. Or Greenpeace.)
by the end of T4 I could see why there’s been a bit of an internet movement to “let Connor die, keep Marcus” amongst the Terminator armchair quarterbacks.
back out of town again
Hey what happened to that alleged cougar chick “Sultry” who was all on my BOZACK the night my first column went live?
Poland, do my columns get any fan mail from wet females? Pass those along to my email if so.
GOOD IDEA.
I still wish I could reenter my SELMA BLAIR EROTIC DREAM from last night.
Then I wish I could enter SELMA BLAIR.
ZIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIING.
Lota (if you’re there) what makes you say that Sarah Conner was ‘aligned’ with the Contras? It appeared to me that she was aligned with some nondescript Latin American mercenaries of no particular stripe? Either way she wouldn’t have cared since she would have expected that they were all doomed.