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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

BYOB For A New TIFFy Week

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20 Responses to “BYOB For A New TIFFy Week”

  1. Chucky in Jersey says:

    Shed a tear for Patrick Swayze … he certainly had the time of his life.

  2. Cadavra says:

    And for those of us over 30, likewise for Paul Burke. Truly underrated.

  3. yancyskancy says:

    Cadavra: Since Burke retired about 20 years ago, I didn’t even realize he was still alive. He had a cool presence, and I always thought he should’ve had more movie leads. RIP
    According to imdb, he was the maternal grandfather of Alia Shawkat of Arrested Development and Whip It.

  4. LEX! Where are you in Scream? You never replied to my asking in the other Labor Day BYOB entry. I’m curious to know.

  5. LexG says:

    KC, don’t get too excited, I’m not. I was a standby extra for Scream 2 (not quite as impressive), all done up in my best 1997 Structure shirt with my hair all Seven’d-out to play FRAT DOUCHE #236, chillin’ in the pen then never getting called to set and never so much as getting an eyeful of the PRIME 1997 hot chicks that were in that movie.

  6. LexG says:

    ANYONE see CHARLIZE on Conan last night?
    Pure hotness. Still SMOKING HOT and CHARMING and AWESOME. She and Kate Beckinsale should do a movie together where they play SMART AWESOME 30-SOMETHING CHICKS WHO ARE STILL SMOKING HOT.
    Or when they make WHITEOUT 2: THE AWESOMEING, they could have Theron in the North Pole and as some megavillainess and Beckinsale goes up there to solve the crime.
    Which is funny because MY POLE IS POINTING NORTH, and I’d like to GO DOWN and solve something else, if you know what I mean.
    And if you don’t, I mean THEY BOTH GIVE ME A GIANT BONER.
    WHITEOUT POWER. The snow wasn’t the only thing WHITE when I was watching it.
    THERON POWER. BECKINSALE POWER. BOW.

  7. jeffmcm says:

    Hey Lex, have you worked out your plans to quit your job and move to Japan yet?
    Yeah, I know that you aren’t doing either of things ever, but I thought I would ask because my current job is winding up soon and I would KILL for your stable, high-paying employment.

  8. LYT says:

    I just saw Jennifer’s Body.
    Full-screen close-up on the girl-girl liplock, like, all mouths and chin fill the screen.
    That’s all anyone really wanted to know, right?

  9. LexG says:

    LOU: FUCK YES but doesn’t sound like they SCISSOR EACH OTHER, the ULTIMATE in sapphic hotness.
    HEY what the FUCK is this INVENTION OF LYING movie? It looks TERRRRRRRRRRRRRIBLE, looks like the kind of thing that’s been on a shelf since 1991 “Eight Heads in a Duffle Bag” Orion era…
    But Garner, Rob Lowe and Jonah Hill are all guaranteed 10000% awesomeness, pure fucking gold every time out. What are these three pros doing in some Brit-com Upstairs/Downstairs bullshit with that guy NO ONE on this side of the pond cares about?

  10. LYT says:

    Louis CK = genius. All you need to know about that movie.

  11. LexG says:

    ALL I NEED TO KNOW is it’s 3:35am and I am BORED AS FUCK because I AM NOT A HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITY, I am just a NOBODY, and it SUCKS DICK.
    How can I be IN A MOVIE? LOUIS CK ain’t exactly fucking Zac Effron. And Ricky Gervaise isn’t exactly Brad Pitt.
    PATTON MOTHERFUCKING OSWALT, who I’M WAAAAY FUNNIER AND MORE AWESOME THAN, is in the SCREEN ACTORS GUILD. Shit, I’m EASILY better looking than THAT dude. And that’s not even to hate on the guy… juat a fact, I occupy the uncomfortable middle ground of an OK, bland looking guy who happens to be overweight. I’m not 360 pounds or some shit that would ACTUALLY GET ME CAST IN FAT GUY ROLES. No, I’m in the WHAT THE FUCK WOULD WE DO WITH THIS GUY? range of tubby, boring looking white dork with minor hair loss.
    Obviously not handsome and thus not castable in any kind of leading man shit.
    But this NOT being 1975, I’m not weird or sleazy looking enough to be in Charles Durning, Vic Tayback, Burt Young kinda shit. Plus they don’t have guys like that in movies anyway. So much for my hoped-for goal of being THE NEW DAN HEDAYA.
    There’s no void I could fill even if I DID have a SAG CARD or the contacts necessary. I’m not in shape, at all… but I’m not like GROSSBURGER IN STIR CRAZY FAT.
    Actually I probably have the same physique as Ricky Gervaise/Nathan Lane, but I’m not some theater queen or British comedy dude…
    I could always try LOSING THE WEIGHT, but that might take a year or more, and that’s not going to get me face-first in vag by Friday.
    Acting is THE HARDEST THING ON THIS PLANET.
    Hey, Cadavra, you old bastard, why don’t you just put me in one of those goddamn movies you allegedly make?
    MAKE IT HAPPEN.

  12. Cadavra says:

    Tell ya what, Lex. Make good on your promise to move to Japan, and I’ll call a friend at Toho and you can get stomped in the next Godzilla movie.

  13. EthanG says:

    Boo I was hoping against hope for “Jennifer’s Body” to actually be good.
    A lot of good movies coming this weekend…The Informant!, Disgrace, 35 Shots of Rum, and the only one likely to get any awards kudos…Bright Star. Actually, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs may get nominated for an animated Oscar….
    And Guillermo Ariaga is apparently the douche he appeared to be when he sank “Babel’s” awards run a few years back. Hah!

  14. LexG says:

    THERON POWER ON FALLON.
    (Like you guys care. But for anyone who likes HOTNESS…)
    Also, on one of the cable channels is “S.F.W.” Anybody see/remember this slacker prize from the irony-drenched mid-90s? STEPHEN DORFF and SMOKING HOT 1994 REESE WITHERSPOON in some Clerks/Dazed/Mallrats/Reality Bites arch Gen X ennui bullshit.
    That era looks more dated than the Old West, but VINTAGE SPOON is PURE HOTNESS, and she’s also FUN AND DOWN AND TOTALLY GAME in movies back then, instead of all high maintenance like she seems now.
    Plus DORFF IS GOD. DORFF POWER.

  15. LYT says:

    The director of SFW was one of my teachers at USC.
    Kind of a douche.

  16. LexG says:

    I don’t doubt your opinion, Lou, but per his credits that dude is, or was, a frequent collaborator with the dude who played Rick in Last American Virgin (and was also in Goonies and The Accused and whose sister is the PCD chick and whose brother is celeb-hairstylist Jonathan Antin.)
    That makes the SFW guy awesome by osmosis.

  17. LexG says:

    And way to kill a guy’s boner:
    CHARLIZE was AWWWWESOME and CHARMING beyond belief on Fallon… then they have to bring out David Motherfucking Boreanz. Christ.
    That’s like being in the middle of banging Sasha Grey then you look up and she’s put on a Craig Sheffer Mask.

  18. LexG says:

    HELL ON EARTH:
    Watching Carson Daly interview Seth Green at a poolhall at 1:37am while drinking warm PBR.
    Christ, Seth Green is MY AGE? WHAT THE HELL.

  19. yancyskancy says:

    Lex: So the interview was in a pool hall at 1:37 a.m., or you watched it in a pool hall at 1:37 a.m.? Or the interview took place in a pool hall, but you watched at home at 1:37 am? And who was drinking the PBR – Carson or Seth or you? Or all three? šŸ™‚
    I met Seth Green in a bowling alley in Big Bear a few years ago. He had purple hair. He was super nice, and signed an autograph for my girlfriend.

Quote Unquotesee all »

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” ā€” 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 ā€” 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 ā€” he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” ā€” and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging ā€” I was with her at that moment ā€” 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 namedā€”” “Yeah, sure ā€” 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 Iā€™m on the phone with you now, after all thatā€™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 didnā€™t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. Thereā€™s not a case of that. He wasnā€™t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had ā€” if that were what the accusation involved ā€” 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. Iā€™m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, ā€œYou know, itā€™s not this, itā€™s thatā€? Because ā€” let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. TimesĀ piece, thatā€™s what it lacked. Thatā€™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