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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

BYOB Wednesday… Because There Has To Be Something Better To Talk About…

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19 Responses to “BYOB Wednesday… Because There Has To Be Something Better To Talk About…”

  1. IOv2 says:

    There apparently is nothing to talk about.

  2. MeekayD says:

    Two things to talk about:
    1) It’s Thursday.
    2) Finally get to see Toy Story 3 tonight at midnight. I was a senior in high school for TS2, and even a really awkward first date couldn’t spoil the movie. No date this time, but the expectations are probably higher…

  3. Foamy Squirrel says:

    Obviously you go on the wrong sort of dates.

  4. IOv2 says:

    Hiyoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

  5. Foamy Squirrel says:

    I’m curious for the people who’ve seen Jonah Hex (and I wont be one of them) – what’s the level of “weird stuff” in the movie?
    My knowledge of the character is admittedly very limited, but the sense that I got is that he’s unusual due to the life he has lived. The following exchanges from the animated Justice League probably sum it up:
    Hex – “Fancy gunbelt you got there. I’m thinking you folks are from the future.”
    Batman – “What gave you that idea?”
    Hex – “Experience. I’ve lead an interesting life”
    (later)
    Batlash – “Shoot – I wanted me one of them fancy ray guns.”
    Hex – “Ain’t dependable. They jam.”
    The hook for the character appears to be that he’s “seen it all before”, which makes an origin story where he’s seeing it for the first time an odd choice. Doubly so if it’s a relatively straight “western with Native American mysticism” movie.
    So are the issues that people have with the movie more to do with the character concept, or with the execution?

  6. IOv2 says:

    Foamy, the whole idea of doing a Jonah Hex movie the way they are doing it is a weird idea. I always find it weird when they adapt something only to completely and utterly ignore the source material. It seems they took Jonah Hex, threw in Megan Fox, and hoped it would work. They must have a weird idea for what works.

  7. chris says:

    It’s all about execution. There’s some good stuff, actually — Brolin, Malkovich, the opening credits — but it’s one of the year’s worst-directed films.

  8. I have like, 3 different Jonah Hex comic books and never got the appeal. Plus, Brolin’s makeup looks like makeup so….pass.

  9. Bob Violence says:

    Toy Story 3 is fine of course, at last someone has really worked through the creepy implications of a sentient, mobile Mr. Potato Head

  10. a_loco says:

    The problem with Jonah Hex is that it’s 80 minutes of bad action, bad acting, and bad directing, only (very) slightly tempered by some mildly interesting ideas in the script.
    As for the mythology and whatnot, I know nothing about the comic, but there is nothing interesting about this character. All we learn is that his family dies and he has a superpower. Added to that is John Malkovitch’s Wild Wild Westish 19th century scifi plot which is even worse than the rest of the dreck. At least it’s only 80 minutes.
    I really wish Neveldine/Taylor got to make the movie they wanted, it might not have been good, but it’s would have been interesting. I think we should all hold out for that Ghost Rider sequel with them at the helm.

  11. I’m hearing alot of complaints along the lines of what you mentioned, a_loco but I’m starting to wonder if there’s also some difficulty people are having when it comes to highly mixed genre films.
    Hex looks like a sci-fi western and if you incorporate western motifs into sci-fi, people seem to dig and get it. When you flat out MIX them, it screws people up. I had some examples at the top of my head and just brain-farted them away…but do you guys know what I mean??

  12. Cadavra says:

    Since I make it a rule to attend anything that even remotely qualifies as a western, I was kinda looking forward to this. The biggest sadness is that its failure will probably be blamed on its “western”-ness, and unless TRUE GRIT really explodes (not likely given the Coens’ BO track record), it’s gonna make it even more difficult to get another one off the ground.

  13. The Big Perm says:

    Don’s right…I hear lots of complaints about movies that switch tones or genres around…like if a movie is serious but has funny crazy scenes, like what Tarantino does, people will say he has no idea what tone he wants…even though it’s completely obvious he knows EXACTLY what he’s doing. And I would hear the same bitching about Jonah Hex, like since it’s a western why are there supernatural shit in it…like if you do Hellboy in the modern day it suddenly becomes more realistic.

  14. Martin S says:

    Hex as a comic never had a distinct “tone”, which is why the movie doesn’t have one. Hell, the character gets transported into the deep future for one relaunch and it works just the same.

  15. Lota says:

    Way to go EN ZED!!!! Gooooooooooaaaaallll!
    ACtually that was one of the dirtiest games I’ve seen Italy play – such poor gamesmanship. 23 shots on goal and all italy can muster is a fake penalty. They are capable without the diving.
    I’m in England listening to the film progrsm on BBC radio (far better than telly) and the topics are please give and 12 min downloads of the avg film (findanyfilm.com etc) ; interesting interviews

  16. Lota says:

    I mean PLEASE GIVE the movie

  17. leahnz says:

    ha, loooooooooooooota! (i haven’t seen it yet just heard the score, italia played dirty? well hopefully our lily-white strips got soiled then in the name of a good draw)
    i very much want to see ‘please give’
    (oh for the hilarious days of yore when our news presenters used to ape ‘bbc english’ trying to sound ‘official in the colonies’. england must be getting its freak-on for the cup, remember to drink sensibly and pace yourself, ms lota! and please do some updates from the palace if you can)

  18. Blackcloud says:

    Although the officiating has been abysmal at the World Cup, and not just because of FIFA’s ridiculous geographic affirmative action policy, I am one of the few who think the penalty call against the All Whites was perfectly legit. In fact, if there were more like it, we wouldn’t see all this ridiculous diving and flopping, since players would know stuff would get called without them having to make the proverbial meal out of it. And though we may criticize De Rossi for tumbling, most of the blame goes to Smith, who clearly pulled his jersey. Last time I checked, that’s a foul, and a foul in the box is a penalty. As Rob Smyth said on the Guardian’s live blog of the game, “it was an excellent and brave decision.” Let’s hope Koman Coulibaly, the guy who screwed up the US-Slovenia and was fourth offical in this game, took a good look at how a ref performs who doesn’t have his head up his ass.

  19. Lota says:

    Disagree with that analysis and speculation on referees–if anything it is shockingly erratic and ‘affirmative action’ …oh please. The Guardian is fine Except for sport.
    South America is doing awesome for representation and here’s to En Zed for a decent show of verve Leah!
    RSA certainly has kicked France’s arse even though I am a major Francophhile, they are a shadow what they could be. POor RSA.
    Watching on Wales with halfway decent ITV coverage.

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” — 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