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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

BYOB 1111

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29 Responses to “BYOB 1111”

  1. sanj says:

    reddit – a non movie blog has some great discussion about
    movies lately..

    the best documentary ..

    http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/e4jen/what_is_in_your_opinion_the_best_documentary_you/

    discussion on Scott Pilgrim vs the World

    http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/e3amk/scott_pilgrim_vs_the_world_deserves_recognition/

  2. Blackcloud says:

    Finally caught up to “Fantastic Mr. Fox” the other day. Very witty and enjoyably loopy. A bit twee and self-aware in spots, but I suppose that comes with the Wes Anderson territory. Also saw “The Young Victoria,” which has a good idea in depicting that part of her life before she became the plump, dowdy old widow everyone associates with her name. But who came up with the idea of dropping a sappy ballad sung by Sinead O’Connor – of all people! – over the end credits? I don’t know any better, so I’ll blame Sarah Ferguson.

    I saw a picture the other day of Gary Oldman in character as George Smiley from the forthcoming adaptation of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.” No one will be able to fill Alec Guinness’ shoes in that role, so he’s as good a choice as any, and probably better than most. Colin Firth can definitely pull of the combination of charm and unctuousness that is Bill Haydon, though maybe he’ll be less oleaginous than Ian Richardson. Not a bad thing, in my opinion. I’d also like to see how Benedict Cumberbatch does as Smiley’s right-hand man, Peter Guillam. Cumberbatch was impressive as the title character in the BBC’s modernized version of Sherlock Holmes.

    “CoD Black Ops” made enough money to reduce the national debut by a tenth of a tenth of a tenth of a per cent. Anyone play it? Any good? It’s received rather polarized reviews. I’ll pick it up when it’s half-off during the Christmas sales.

  3. IOv3 says:

    Fantastic Mr. Fox may be one of the most wonderful films ever made. It gets better upon each additional viewing. Also, Kristofferson rules. Period.

  4. sanj says:

    DP – which actors are coming up on dp/30 .. any chance
    people can ask questions ?

  5. anghus says:

    RIP Dino Delaurentis.

    He brought movies to my part of the world. We had an industry for 25 years here in North Carolina thanks to Dino. Great Producer. Wonderful guy.

  6. LexG says:

    SERIOUSLY, FUCK AFI this year. FUCK THEM. Tonight I suffered the INDIGNITY of waiting in a line for FOUR FUCKING HOURS to get into BLACK SWAN at the AFI PREMIERE; I have frequented AFI events for YEARS, and there is NO PERSON IN LA who NEEDS TO SEE BLACK SWAN more than I DO.

    I have hinted, implored, begged DAVID POLAND and to a lesser degree WELLS to try to get me into ANY SCREENING of THIS MOVIE, because IT IS MY LIFE, I have been waiting ALL YEAR FOR IT, and it is KILLING ME that all you dudes have seen it but I have not, since it is so FIRMLY in my wheelhouse, up my alley, whatever.

    PLUS I AM AN IMPORTANT FILM VOICE IN LA… It is INSANE that there are people off the fucking STREET–LITERALLY– seeing BLACK SWAN when I have not.

    But thanks to AFI’s INSANE FREE TICKETING ruse this year, a lot of SMART MOVIE PEOPLE LIKE LEXG were shut out of a lot of screenings, while HOMELESS PEOPLE and STUPID FUCKING TEENAGER STREET KIDS got in. THIS IS AN INJUSTICE.

    I knew this going in, BLACK SWAN’s tickets all went first day, but there was an ALLEGED RUSH LINE tonight, for which I showed up MID AFTERNOON, and had to stand for FOUR FUCKING HOURS between a bunch of HOMELESS PEOPLE, UNSHOWERED LOSERS, Mexican street kids, and fat fucking slobs name-dropping while I stood in AGONIZING PAIN, all to see THE MOVIE OF THE YEAR, which if I don’t see soon I’ll have DESTROYED because of my SHITFUCK POST JOB.

    SO I STOOD AND STOOD, for HOURS, being INSULTED AND CONDESCENDED TO, by the ASSHOLE AFI employees, some fucking idiot cholitas in the line YAMMERING FOR HOURS ON END, and in the end THEY OPENED UP AN ENTIRE SECOND SCREENING of the movie in the Mann 6, and still NOT ONE RUSH LINE PERSON got in….

    I AM SERIOUSLY DEPRESSED OUT OF MY FUCKING SKULL that I have not seen this movie. IT MEANS MORE TO ME than I COULD EVER DESCRIBE; IT IS MY STAR WARS, and it fucking KILLS ME that a bunch of idiot HOMELESS FUCKS and FAT KIDS got into it, and I got stuck in a LINE for FOUR HOURS to no avail.

    POLAND: CAN YOU DO ANNNNNNNNNNNYTHING to get me into ANY SCREENING of this movie? IT IS IMPORTANT THAT I SEE IT.

    I even hung around the WILL CALL LINE for a half hour beforehand, hoping to see TAPLEY or POLAND or LUKE Y THOMPSON, ALL ALLEGED FRIENDS, hoping they could squeak me in. NO DICE. I saw some shrimpy Asian chick being a diva who I thought was JEN YAMATO, but maybe it wasn’t.

    SERIOUSLY, get me into a screening of this movie before I EXPLODE from anticipation.

    IT IS INSANE that LEXG. THE MOST IMPORTANT NEW VOICE IN LA FILM CRITICISM, can’t see this movie, but a bunch of brain-dead party girls and fat teenagers could.

    INSANE.

    PETITION FOR LEXG TO GET INTO A SCREENING OF BLACK SWAN.

    Tweet or email me. my email is LEX_MCH at yahoo.com if ANYONE can get me into ANY SCREENING of BLACK SWAN.

    In MANY WAYS, my life DEPENDS on this movie.

    EMAIL ME if you can get me in.

    Seriously.

    POLAND, I WILL POST THIS SHIT 40 TIMES A DAY UNTIL YOU EMAIL ME WITH PRESS PASSES TO THE NEXT BLACK SWAN SCREENING.

  7. Paul MD (Stella's Boy) says:

    Blackcloud, my wife and I recently watched both Fantastic Mr. Fox and The Young Victoria as well. Really enjoyed both of them. Great viewing on chilly November evenings. And Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy seems extremely promising. Looking forward to it.

  8. anghus says:

    saw a UK film at the local film festival called Skeletons. Thought it was fucking brilliant. If you have the opportunity to see it, check it out. Really good low budget/high concept filmmaking.

  9. sanj says:

    i saw Enter the Void – nice camerawork but didn’t get it

  10. Keil Shults says:

    Does LexG actually work for anybody (excluding Satan)? Why should he see Black Swan before any other weirdo on the internet?

  11. Keil Shults says:

    Also, Fantastic Mr. Fox is indeed fantastic. It’s easily the best Wes Anderson film since The Royal Tenenbaums and one of the best non-Pixar animated films of the past decade. Hopefully the radically different filmmaking process shook something loose in him that will keep him moving in a new, better direction. He was becoming too predictable, his style and pageantry too blatant and redundant.

  12. Hallick says:

    Lex, that was like one of those raving nervous breakdown scenes in a movie where the character losing it has a Freudian slip at the end and says “MY MOM…” and the character that’s listening says “Black Swan – you meant to say Black Swan”, and it dawns on the angry character that they were actually crying out for…well, you’ve seen as many of these scenes as anybody here, so you know the rest.

    But I can’t find one of those slips in your post. I guess you just really want Black Swan tickets. Sorry I can’t help you out.

  13. Krillian says:

    Saw the trailers for No Strings Attached and Friends with Benefits on the same day. I think I want to watch those movies on DVD on two TV’s at the same time.

    Nice to see the trailer for Battle: Los Angeles show up just in time to say “You want to see an alien-invasion movie but Skyline looks like crap? Wait patiently for March.”

  14. mutinyco says:

    Lex, believe it or not, your post above is actually a pretty perfect imitation of the movie itself.

  15. movieman says:

    Does anyone know the story behind that new Adam Sandler/Dennis Dugan comedy opening in February?
    Every site lists Nicole Kidman as one of the two female leads (along with Jennifer Aniston), but the trailer–which I must have seen six times in the past week–only features Sandler, Aniston and some anonymous, model-looking blonde chick. Is Kidman really in this thing, or did she drop out in pre-production? If it’s the latter (which I’m assuming it must be, unless Sony thinks Kidman might scare away “Grown Ups” fans), I don’t understand why IMDB, etc. didn’t fix their cast list.

  16. sanj says:

    one of the questions about movies that doesn’t get brought up often is closeups of faces – how comfortable are actors doing that ? …when the scene lasts a few minutes or more …

    most of these cloeups are usually films with action / sci-fi / horror…

    the best example is Scott Pilgrim Vs the World – nearly everybody on the cast had a closeup

    Avatar – lots of cloesups but everybody had makeup on

    Knight and Day – older actors – Cruise and Diaz with lots of closeups..

    Buried – lots of closeups of Ryan Reylonds

    Lost tv show – everybody had a closeup

  17. Paul MD (Stella's Boy) says:

    sanj have you read the story about Michael Mann and closeups?

    http://www.wrightonfilm.com/?p=583

  18. sanj says:

    nice article about closeups

    i’d say the best closeup is a music video

    Sinéad O’Connor performing Nothing Compares 2 U

  19. berg says:

    black swan is showing in houston sunday aft. as part of the cultural arts (film) festival [edwards grand palace, 4 pm.] … but jeez the film opens in three weeks

  20. leahnz says:

    wait, DP calls me “hysterical” for posting a list of rom-coms in the other thread, and yet not a peep in this thread? fascinating

    everyone can just be glad you weren’t on this airplane (at least i hope not, i would have had a massive coronary, my god):

    http://www.break.com/index/german-plane-nearly-crashes-during-landing.html

    that talking at the end must be german variations for ‘holy shit’

  21. Ray Pride says:

    Anghus, SKELETONS was just released on DVD in the U.S. It was shown in Chicago, and I saw it, knowing nothing about it, as part of the choices for a jury I was on… Definitely of a piece if its verbals and whimsy strike a viewer right.

  22. Krillian says:

    My theory on Just Got With It, the Sandler/Aniston movie, is that the third actress, who looks a lot like Nicole Kidman, was mistaken for actually being Nicole Kidman by some photographer, and there’s been no official denial ever since.

  23. movieman says:

    Interesting hypothesis, Krillian.
    But GAWD! Talk about lazy reporting/fact-checking from IMDB and similar sites if that’s true.

  24. sanj says:

    Just Got With It – Jennifer Aniston doesn’t seem to be acting ..shes been herself .

    People on IMDB mentioned this seems to be a remake of
    Cactus Flower (1969) – A dentist pretends to be married to avoid commitment, but when he falls for his girlfriend and proposes, he must recruit his lovelorn nurse to pose as his wife.

    I predict Just go with It will not win any awards – it’ll do well on dvd and probably be forgotten about in 2 weeks after it hits theatres – the reviews will be 50% or so on RT.

  25. movielocke says:

    Has anyone else seen the Winnie the Pooh trailer? looks like they did it right, keeping the whimsy and style of the originals (remember, they were three made for tv specials later packaged together on one home video) including the fantasmagorical dream sequences it seems. :-p I wonder how widely the film will play though, the brand has skewed to the 7-and-under only crowd in recent decades, so I’m very curious if Disney can break out of the branding corner they built themselves into.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QbFz–GCkOM&feature=player_embedded

  26. JoJo says:

    Kidman is definitely in Just Go With It:

    http://ramascreen.com/watch-nicole-kidman-and-jennifer-aniston-bikini-hula-dancing-for-just-go-with-it/

    http://www.celebitchy.com/101211/star_jennifer_aniston_nicole_kidman_bond_over_their_terrible_ex_husbands/

    She just doesn’t play a major role.

    I also have a hard time believing anyone could confuse Brooklyn Decker for Nicole Kidman.

  27. movieman says:

    Wow; I guess Kidman really is in “Just Go With It.”
    Am I the only one who finds it downright bizarre that she’s nowhere to be found in the movie’s trailer?
    Any theories, JoJo?

  28. JoJo says:

    I get the impression that the role is essentially a glorified cameo. There’s really no reason for her to be in the trailer, other than to say, “Hey, look! It’s Nicole Kidman!”

  29. movieman says:

    Which begs the question: why would Nicole Kidman bother doing a walk-on in a Sandler/Dugan flick? And why would her name be third-billed in every cast list I’ve seen if it’s nothing more than a cameo?
    The whole thing is just plain weird.
    But I’m still relieved that Nic is actually in the movie.

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