April 26, 2024
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BYOB: 235 Years Of Relative independence
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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
Happy Birthday to both Dakota Fanning AND Emily Blunt.
YEP and YEP. Times a billion on both.
Seriously, though, any word on BEASTLY? That looks so depressing and unhealthy, just the poster alone, with that guy’s disturbing makeup. But on the flip side… LOOK AT HER SHE’S A LITTLE HUDGENSY YAAAAAAAAY!
Also: Is it a NEW RULE that literally EVERY actor has to drop in two movies simultaneously? Alex Pettyfer has Beastly and Number Four, Garrett Hedlund had Tron and Country Strong, Carey Mulligan had An Education and Public Enemies like two weeks apart, Leighton Meester has Roommate and Country Strong… even the vets: Damon had True Grit and Hereafter weeks apart, Bridges in True Grit and Tron THE SAME WEEK, Cage always seems to have two things a few weeks apart…
How does that ALWAYS happen?
Hasn’t Beastly been delayed? Seems like it filmed forever ago. Might make a good double feature with Red Riding Hood.
Early March is too crowded: I thought BATTLE LOS ANGELES was going to be THE biggest hugest surprise hit of all time… but RED RIDING (MORE LIKE I’D LIKE HER TO RIDE ME) opens the same day. THE BUREAU, TAKE ME HOME and BEASTLY all on the same day.
Too many damn movies. But that’s a LOT of hot tail.
Yeah March is majorly crowded. 10 new wide releases the first 3 weekends.
Also: LIMITLESS looks AWWWWWWWESOME, like a Fight Club/Wanted manifesto that’s gonna set me into a ranting fury.
theatre chains aren’t smart enough to give out a nice deal on movies – a simple watch 2 movies – save 3 bucks or something like that …so people just watch 1 movie and wait for the dvd …in this case Battle LA will be an experience in theatres and the other 10 releases are good for dvd . ..this doesn’t apply to movie critics cause they get to see everything for free ..
also no DP/30 of Drive Angry…
why so hard to get Nic Cage for interview ?
i’d like to see a double dp/30 team – open vs closed
2 people who are more open / honest when talking about
movies in general – Thandie Newton / Stephen Dorff
2 people who are closed – Robert De Niro and Harrison Ford .. they don’t answer questions from anybody in any
detail
Beastly was originally slated for Summer 2010 but got pushed back.
I remember reading somewhere Sharlto Copley was going to be in I Am Number Four, but I guess that didn’t work out. I’m assuming Timothy Olyphant got the role they wanted him for.
Nic Cage does five movies a year, so collisions will happen.
Natalie Portman’s got No Strings, Other Woman, Hesher, Your Highness and Thor all within 17 weeks of each other.
Jason Bateman’s going to have The Change-Up and Horrible Bosses within two weeks of each other this summer…
For me it’s weirder when a director has two movies to close to each other, like how Spielberg has War Horse and Tintin in the same month.
The greatest same director two-weeks-apart one-two punch was Renny Harlin serving notice with FORD FAIRLANE and DIE HARD 2 back to back (mostly because the former had been on the shelf for months.)
Kind of wondering where Sharlto Copley goes from here… His performance in District 9 was a “who the hell is THIS guy?” awesome revelation… then his A-Team mugging was awful enough that it almost canceled out his debut.
Eh I liked him in A-TEAM quite a bit. I thought he fit the tone of that movie well, and played off the other guys decently. I actually liked that movie well enough that I wish it was being sequel-ized, but I don’t think that’s the case. My favorite traditional summer blockbuster of last summer by far. (I don’t count INCEPTION in that)
He’s also apparently in Blomkamp’s follow-up to D-9 with Damon and Jodie Foster.
Sharlto’s in Men in Black III as well.
One of my faves, David Gordon Green, is having another weird year where one movie being long-completed and another getting a relatively quick release means he has two movies months apart after a long gap. After doing a movie every couple of years through Undertow, it was four years until Snow Angels and Pineapple Express came out in March and August of 2008. Now it’s been another three years and he’s got Your Highness in April, The Sitter in August. Kinda wish he was doing another one drama/one crazy comedy combo, but still pretty cool/weird. That 2008 combination was the best two-directors-one-year punch since Spielberg’s Jurassic/Schindler’s and WOTW/Munich.
Will Gluck also has Friends with Benefits in July less than a year after Easy A, while the I Love You Philip Morris guys had that finally out in December, and a new comedy for July… opening around the same time as Friends with Benefits, with Emma Stone supporting in both.
Is this also a strike thing, where people knocked out a bunch of movies right before and right after and we’re still feeling the aftershocks?
Although: given the lack of trailer for The Sitter and the fact that I’d swear they were still shooting this in my neighborhood just a month or two ago, and the glut of starry summer comedies that all seem like they’re Apatow-produced even though only one is (Bridemaids, Bad Teacher, Horrible Bosses, Friends with Benefits, The Change-Up, 30 Minutes or Less) maybe it’ll get pushed out of summer into fall.
Oh, and Emma Stone is also in The Help, so she might be in as many as three movies in about four weeks.
i haven’t seen any of Alfred Hitchcock’s films …Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo are probably most popular ..
yeah they are classic movies but they never seem to show
up on tv …
seems like movie history is being ereased when none of his films end up on basic cable .
he’s made like 60 movies – how many have you seen ?
i assume DP has seen them all and has them all on BluRay..
sanj, you are evil.
Beastly is….well, kinda terrible. It has been sitting on the shelf…and has been moved around a bit. The movie just doesn’t work on any level.
Yeah but does Hudgens show her feet?
Sanj: You do know that Turner Classic Movies is on basic cable, right? Or does mommy not let you channel surf all by yourself?
TCM is NOT on basic cable where I live. It’s not on digital starter. I don’t know what the hell package it’s on but I certainly can’t afford it; yet another reason to loathe our corporate overlords…
TB: Looks like you’re right. Checked with Comcast, my local cable provider, and apparently “basic cable” is VERY basic these days. They don’t even include USA and TBS. Yikes.
on my podcast, The Regimen, me and some friends discuss our favorite Best Original Songs from the Oscars, and what we think are the biggest snubs. It’s about 18mins. enjoy.
http://theregimen.wordpress.com/2011/02/24/movie-music-best-original-song/
Cable is the joke.
wow i’m pretty sure we actually get TCM on basic movie cable here, finally something to gloat over.
from the bizarro files: tom hooper supposedly turning down iron man 3 before shane black got the gig (yay…tho i wish it was the further misadventures of harry and perry instead, maybe one fine day).
i have nothing against hooper, quite the contrary, but i wonder what it was about his body of work that screamed ‘action jackson chops!’ to the powers that be on iron man? the dynamic motion spectacle of ‘king’s speech’? or kidding aside, the heart-breaking dramatic finale of ‘prime suspect’? the interpersonal football dramedy of ‘damned united’? i don’t get it.
No one will care probably, but what happened with CEDAR RAPIDS? Is that still going to expand out? Seems like that ship has sailed… Mendelson was asking elsewhere why they didn’t just go wide right away on that? Loved that movie, but feels like it’s already come and gone without a trace, especially since HALL PASS is THE EXACT SAME MOVIE.
According to Box Office Mojo, Searchlight is only adding 30 or so additional sites for CEDAR RAPIDS this weekend. It’s doing fine in limited release but this is a much slower roll out than I would have anticipated for something that looked so mainstream.
That’s the problem with Searchlight and it has been for a while: they are scared to pull the trigger. Cedar Rapids is a many stream flick that should be opening all over the place this week, but this could be because of Black Swan. We shall see next weekend when… THE SPRUMMER OF POSSIBLY EPIC LEVEL AWESOME (or GINORMOUS DISAPPOINTMENT) BEGINS!
A director who makes an Oscar-nominated movie that grosses anywhere near $100 million (on a budget of 15) will be offered every project the major studios are developing, at least for a hot minute.
What yancy said. I don’t think “chops” really enters into it anymore. THE AVENGERS should be the mother of all superhero spectacles, and they’re letting a TV guy direct that.
Lex should drop legal papers on Sheen. This is material thievery of Mencia proportions.
Tim, Whedon is not a TV GUY. He’s a BETTER THAN JUST ABOUT EVERYONE IN HOLLYWOOD GUY! Go read Astonishing X-Men, go watch Buffy, Angel, and go watch Firefly. Seriously, Whedon is a next level guy and the perfect choice to make an ENSEMBLE SUPERHERO MOVIE!
Good lord, I thought people like you were extinct. Slamming Whedon? In 2011? Wow.
Hey, Joss directed Serenity!…
Yeah, slow rollouts only seem to work for Oscar-bait movies. I wanted to see Cedar Rapids, but it hasn’t come near here. Same thing happened to The Runaways last year.
just ftr re: hooper and the baffling iron man offer,
i didn’t mean to insinuate by my comment that i thought of hooper as ‘just a tv guy’ – many talented directors start out and even go back and forth between the mediums of tv and cinema film production, the cross pollination between the two is not by nature a conclusively negative indication of directorial ability imo – but rather that in having seen most of hooper’s work both in cinema and tv production, he is a fine shaper of character and story in the dramatic arena, but he has done virtually nothing in the way of directing action and i’ve seen nothing to indicate that he would be even remotely suited to directing a big-budget action spectacle on the scale of what iron man 3 is almost certainly designed to be (hopefully a good deal better than the weird patchy mess that was ‘iron man 2’). i find offering him such a film very odd.
also re: joss whedon, i wouldn’t think he is an apt comparison to hooper in regard to working in action, in that even whedon’s tv work required him to at least stage a variety of action sequences from simple close-quarters stuff to the often rather excellent handling of both small and larger-scale set-pieces in ‘firefly’, not to mention the competent and at times compellingly designed and executed large-scale action sequences in ‘serenity’. compared to hooper, wheadon’s a grizzled and seasoned old action veteran. trusting him with ‘the avengers’ is a judgement call, but not inexplicable in my eyes.
Hey, I think Whedon is one of the best showrunners out there for setting a strong direction and appealing tone. He makes shit that’s enjoyable, and I like his shows for that.
But I’ve said this before – I think his character dialogue and his plot arcs suck balls.
The dialogue itself is fun to listen to (if you like “banter”-style dialogue), but it ends up homogenizing the characters – they all make the same jokes with the same dry sense of humor. You could assign lines by having the actors pulling them out of a hat, and unless they have specific self-references like “Aren’t you glad I got my soul back?” you’d never notice the difference.
And as for plotting – it’s no coincidence that the practice of replacing characters or killing them off without warning is known as “Getting Jossed” in Brown Coat circles. The payoff for weeks of buildup is a rushed and vaguely confusing showdown, and then onto the next arc (usually with an added case of power inflation “Oh no, we’ve defeated Ancient Demons but now we’re facing A HYBRID/we defeated A HYBRID, but now we’re facing A GOD/we defeated A GOD, but now we’re facing THE FIRST EVIL”).
I watch Joss’s stuff for a bit of fun. I don’t watch it for his plotting or characterization.
Is it true Whedon’s really into feet?
COOL. I AM SO HORNY. I WANT TO BE A SHOW RUNNER and cast every chick from every Whedon show ever.
Bah, I can’t even get into it. So depressing to know you’ll NEVER have sex again and physically cannot.
FS, that’s the worst post you have ever posted. I like you too much now to respond to it harshly. Instead I will just walk off like a very upset Cameron Tucker.
Seriously, the “Willow goes nuts” that came out of the blue at the end of Season 6? Wtf was that? Whedon should have known better as a self-proclaimed geek – do the words “Emerald Toilet” ring any bells?
DAWN POWER.
FS, the world breaks people and Tara dying pushed Willow over the edge. All of season six’s problems are pretty much explained by Joss in the season overview. The season six overview may not solve these problems for you, but the basic explanation is: life was their enemy that season and it almost led to the earth being burnt to a cinder.
IO has just proved himself no fan of Green Lantern. đ
I’m a RED LANTERN for a reason, sir.
Some backstory for the less comic-versed people out there.
“Emerald Twilight” was a story arc in the mid 90s for Green Lantern where DC wanted to phase out the current Green Lantern, Hal Jordan. Essentially his home city got destroyed, and Hal’s inability to restore it drove him insane. He proceeded to destroy the Green Lantern Corps, killing them and taking their rings, and rechristened himself “Parallax”. The sole remaining Green Lantern Ring (with a new set of rules as to how it worked) was given to Kyle Raynor, which allowed the DC writers to reinvent the whole Green Lantern mythos.
Needless to say, Hal Jordan being driven insane in the span of one issue infuriated fans who had followed his 30-odd year career as one of the most strong-willed characters in the universe (the Green Lantern Rings themselves are powered by their wearer’s willpower), and the story arc earned the nickname “Emerald Toilet”. While Kyle Raynor later became a fan favorite, it took over 10 years of constant “here’s what REALLY happened” retconning to try and salvage the Hal Jordan character.
Joss Whedon should really have been paying more attention when he wrote the exact same thing for the Season 6 Buffy finale.
1) Joss is not responsible for season six outside of Once More with Feeling and the overall season story. Marti Noxon was the exec on seasons 6 and 7.
2) The main reason they phased Hal out remains… BOREDOM! Everything with the character had been done to death and they needed Kyle to revitalize the mythos.
3) One of the best parts of that story remains how Hal dealt with being Parallax and he’s STILL DEALING WITH IT! It’s a huge part of his character and it’s what made him a BETTER CHARACTER! I look forward to his instability manifesting itself again in… THE BATTLE OF THE GREEN LANTERNS!
4) That’s the real problem with that analogy because turning Hal into Parallax is the best thing that ever happened to that character. Without that happening, you don’t have at least 5 great GL story arcs over the last 5 years, you DEFINITELY do not have a GL movie, and you DEFINITELY do not have the character getting the rep it’s been getting in pop culture.
5) Buffy season six is not a toilet, it features a great musical episode, a great ending, and a sets up THE REALLY UNEVEN SEASON SEVEN!
6) Slamming season six is still sort of weird to me, when you can slam a REALLY UNEVEN AND WHACK SEASON SEVEN! Seriously, that season has a good beginning and a good end. Everything in between is god awful. Absolutely god awful.
7) So, really, Buffy season six is about the world kicking your ass, and that does not need to be retconed since that’s what the world does. I will always enjoy the hell out of that season because Marti and Joss decided to put their characters through hell and made them better off for it. You also get Dark Willow out of it, which remains a huge part of that show much in the same way Parallax begot all of the current entities in the GL universe.
What the hell are you guys talking about?
Seasons 5 and 6 of Buffy are the two best seasons the show ever did.
Got to argue. Season 3 of Buffy was the best! Eliza Dushku was never sexier, the Mayor was the best “Big Bad”, and the Scooby Gang graduated. Everything started downhill after that.
the final season had too many slayers in Buffy and can’t tell them apart ..
where is Sarah Michelle Gellar – she should have been a huge movie star by now .. yes i want a DP/30
Gellar is heading to CBS for a show called Ringer. Sounds like it should last at least 3 episodes.
“Sarah will play Bridget, a troubled young woman on the run from the mob, who hides by pretending to be her rich twin sister, Siobhan, only to learn her twinâs life has a bounty on it as well.”
Sarah needs HBO / Showtime ..not network tv
I only watched the first two seasons of Buffy. On DVD. About four years ago.
There is not a single character interchangeable with another on Firefly. One of the best shows ever made.
Gonna go with Pete and say season 3 of Buffy was the best. There isn’t a season I didn’t like, but 6 ranks lowest for me (though it has some stellar stand-out episodes).
Fair enough to your second point, leah, though I wasn’t really comparing Whedon to Hooper wrt action, just suggesting that THE AVENGERS demands a sense of epic cinematic grandeur and Whedon at the helm indicates less awesome large-scale spectacle and more Tony Stark & co. standing around a conference room trading snappy dialogue.
Paul MD: I think I liked that scenario better when it was called Dead Ringer, and featured Bette Davis in a dual role.
Tim, did you ever read Astonishing X-Men? Have you ever seen an episode of Firefly? Angel? Buffy? Did you watch Dr. Impossible? Seriously, what on earth has you convinced that Joss has no sense of grandeur? Seriously, there is absolutely no proof of what you post in any of his material. If anything the dude is more cinematic than he has any right to be.
Dr. Horrible, IO….
I imagine there’s good reason for feeling that way Joe.
Yes to some of those, IO, but none of them is a MOVIE.
I saw SERENITY and wasn’t impressed.
“Yes to some of those, IO, but none of them is a MOVIE.”
well, i beg to differ tim, and if you put any stock in critics (i don’t really, individual interpretations are just that), so do many critics. serenity is cinema; perhaps it wasn’t your cup of tea (personally i liked it; didn’t love it) but saying it isn’t a MOVIE is a bit of a stretch:
http://www.metacritic.com/movie/serenity/critic-reviews
(i thought the emerald toilet was a derogatory nickname for northern ireland. i couldn’t figure out what the hell that had to do with ‘green lantern’. but i have heard of ‘green twilight’)
I meant none of IO’s 5 examples is a movie, and mentioned SERENITY to illustrate that Whedon’s one feature to date didn’t convince me he was a strong choice for THE AVENGERS.
oh. ok i see what you meant.
Tim, you referenced CINEMATIC SCALE. I gave you references of shows (Story, seriously, I hated it when shit like that happens) and his comics, where he USES GRAND CINEMATIC SCALE! That dude is nothing but GRAND CINEMATIC SCALE!
Seriously, Serenity features on of the best cinematic space battles in history. The Astonishing X-Men is a huge space opera. Runaways is a great ensemble piece. His movie and just two of his comics are proof enough of his scale and there is a reason why he got the job because Marvel knows there are few storytellers out there better at telling an AVENGER-SIZED story than Joss Whedon. I would put out there that there is no other director alive who could wear as many hats as Joss and do it as successfully.
World War 2 gave us massive technological leaps and lead to the heavy industrialization that created the internet and global travel – but I don’t think too many people would be keen to repeat it.
Same for Emerald Twilight and Buffy S6. While parts were great (Once More With Feeling is a notable example) the arc itself was pretty terrible. Evil Willow came out of nowhere, and pretty much went back to nowhere. Same for Hal Jordan. Writers managed to salvage them afterwards, but the actual initial events was horribly executed, and as the season story planner Joss should have learned from the events of 10 years before.
Season 7 was more uneven, and Season 4 had a completely snore-inducing arc (although with plenty of fantastic individual episodes), but Season 6 for me showed Joss’ weakness with plotting.
ETA – I’d like to add, to be fair to Joss, that long-form plot arcs are very hard to do. Especially with a large writing team and a healthy dose of studio input (which, apparently, all Mutant Enemy productions have run into). And he’s certainly in the top tier of showrunners. So it may be that another medium (such as film or comics) would give him more opportunity to flex his muscle.
I’ve just watched too many teeth-grating moments from shows under his creative jurisdiction to give him full confidence for Avengers. I don’t want 100 minutes of Cocky Billionaire sharing exactly the same banter with Repressed Personality Issues Scientist and Thawed Out Patriotic Hero, followed by 15minutes of “Oh shit, we have to beat the villain too?” It would be enjoyable, but not particularly satisfying.