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’ve been saying forever that they need to man up and preempt everyone, because it’s the awards fatigue/afterthought flavor that is really keeping ratings down at this point.
They could get away with making the ceremony earlier if they made film ineligible for Oscars if they haven’t reached a certain number of screens or something to that effect. Get rid of those despicable one-week only releases at the very end of December that give people the excuse that “i haven’t seen all the movies!”, maybe the studios would release movies better and then they could be held earlier and nobody would complain.
Camel, I think the “one week on one screen in December” release wouldn’t happen at all if the Oscar date was early enough to keep those movies from being seen. Any studio with Oscar hopes wouldn’t jeopardize its movie’s chances like that. Change the Oscar date and the studios will adjust quickly.
Or, to put it another way: I suspect the limited release crunch in December only exists because of the late Oscar date.
The fact that so many movies are only in limited release at that time must also have something to do with the huge crunch of movies all trying to be released at the same time, both for awards purposes and otherwise.
If they did move them earlier, we’d probably still get the crunch, but in late November instead of late December, or in the two weeks before whenver the new deadline would be, since one effect of moving them earlier would likely be changing the eligibility dates from the calendar year to December-November or November-October.
but it would at least allow them time to be released, unlike something that gets released on the 31st of December, disappears for three months and then pops up again the week before Oscars. Which is why that distribution method needs to be outlawed. If your movie gets a one-week release and then disappears it should be ineligible since not even Academy members have a valid way of seeing the movie on a big screen let alone general audiences.