April 19, 2024
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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” — 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
Introducing Greta Gerwig? And they cut out half of her on the poster? Is she that big of an unknown?
GARNER POWER.
Russell Brand IS Willy Wonka Jr.
Chloe is in the corner and she LOOKS DISGRUNTLED!
I added Greta… she’s not on the poster at all, actually.
I photoshopped her in – thus the “(almost)” – and did my best to make it flow with what they did keeping her off the poster.
She plays the Liza Minnelli role… aka The Love Interest.. aka The Female Lead.
what is the hell is with mirren on that sheet? she’s only slightly taller than garner, who is seated.
freakishly wonky, body all out of proportion: head way too big (or is it body way too small?…i think that’s more accurate), ultra stumpy legs on the too-skinny torso… shudder. good to see the movie poster people are carrying in this new vein of freak-show one-sheets grotesques.
The only person who looks like themselves on that poster is Garner and maybe Brand. Why on earth do they photoshop these posters to such as ridiculous degree? Seriously, someone who knows about these things, please answer this question because I have to know why on earth most posters are so fucking horrible.
yikes if i could type properly that last sentence of mine above should read, ‘good to see the movie poster people are carrying on in this new vein of freak-show one-sheet grotesques.’
mirren looks like a ‘little person’. if they didn’t want her head to block the title font, then place “arthur” higher on the sheet – it’s too low anyway, the eye is drawn up to those two gilded motifs atop the pillars, bizarrely prominent in the space. instead, they shrink poor mirren. i think it’s a conspiracy of some sort.
Is anyone really that eager for the next Jennifer Garner vehicle?
I am. HUUUUUGE Garner fan, Alias being one of my favorite shows of all time… love Garner’s mix of sexy dorkiness and legit action skills. She rules. Also has some brilliant scenes in JUNO, which everyone now likes to pretend they didn’t love when it came out, but I have no problem admitting is a 3.5-star movie.
Garner is indeed great in JUNO, and she should’ve been nominated on its coattails that year. I think she also does a good job with a somewhat impossible role in THE INVENTION OF LYING. I’ve never seen ALIAS, alas — I was hospitalized the night it premiered. I tried to watch, but I was on morphine for pain and just couldn’t concentrate on it. I did glimpse her one day filming a scene for the show while I was having a bite at Papoo’s Hot Dog Show in Toluca Lake.
She’s charming in 13 GOING ON 30, though frankly she plays it more like 9 GOING ON 30, or perhaps MILDLY BRAIN DAMAGED GOING ON 30.
Yance…
Heh, at 9 GOING ON 30; Going off topic, but I’ve ALWAYS maintained that in BIG, Tom Hanks acts like no 13yo EVER. When I was 13 I was stealing cigarettes and shoplifting penthouse and watching SCARFACE. Hanks in BIG is all geeking out over FAO SCHWARTZ and wearing his jammies and totally clueless about “girls.” Good movie, but Hanks is definitely playing 9, not 13.
Brand is smiling like one of those toy monkeys that bang the cymbals together, Mirren looks like her head was photoshopped onto one of the extras from Aphex Twin’s “Come To Daddy” video, and the throwaway Magritte reference is just odd.
Then again to be fair, the poster for the original movie sucked too.
You got that right, Yancy: I remember saying the same thing about Garner in my “13/30” review back in 2004 (“mildly retarded” may have been the description I used for her interp).
But I do consider myself a Garner fan. Does anyone remember her great scene with DiCaprio in “Catch Me if You Can”? And as Lex previously noted, her wonderful performance in “Juno” truly merited Oscar consideration (I’m still surprised she didn’t get one). Also, I don’t have to remind anyone what a big “Invention of Lying” fan I am (got reprimanded on here once for having the temerity to mention it in the same breath as Albert Brooks’ great “Defending Your Life”).
That said, the “Arthur” remake–like most remakes in general, I suppose–does make me a tad nervous. And the “introducing Greta Gerwig” tag is just plain bizarre. Oh, well. I’m sure it’ll at least make more cash than Brand/Mirren’s previous pairing in Taymor’s “Tempest” which still hasn’t grossed a half-million domestically.
movieman-
DP ADDED that Gerwig photo and the “introducing” tag. In other words, she got stricken from the poster completely. Either her star is falling fast (or they put too much into the GREENBERG phenom) or she needs a better agent. As the female lead in the movie, it’s insane she’s not on the poster.
Then again, maybe they’re trying to sneak attack her again like they did in GREENBERG. Still, seems reallllly weird.
Saw a bit of Brand on SNL and High Def does not do this guy any favors. He actually looked a bit terrifying. Does Gerwig have a stipulation in her contract that she only gets to make out with nerdy or unattractive losers?
He does indeed need a beard to avoid looking a bit… weird. Gerwig had that clause but now she’s trying to get out of it. Finally, I am pretty sure that’s Mirren’s head on someone else’s body. Once again I ask… WHY WHY WHY?
How can her star be falling fast, no one knows who she is? Greenberg was her biggest film to date and it only made around 3 million. She is a remarkable actress and this film will hopefully open more doors for her but out of that cast, Garner is the most bankable.
On a side note I am sure Gerwig is happy to finally be in a movie she might be able to show her grandmother. I imagine her at Thanksgiving dinner after getting some great notices for her mumblecore work and her mother taking her aside and whispering “as far as Nana is concerned you are still waiting tables.”
Perhaps the focus is different this time around? More on the obnoxious fiancee (Garner), less on the new squeeze (Gerwig)? It pretty much has to be, since the Garner role is virtually nonexistent in the original.
There’s a secret tactic in advertising to actually make the body parts appear slightly off – this gets you to notice the ads.
Wasn’t Gerwig in No Strings Attached?
The thing is, no one who doesn’t frequent movie sites knows who Gerwig is.
Exactly: Greta Gerwig is the female version of Michael Fassbender; I’ve seen more internet ink spilled in the last two years stroking off to both than any actual “star” in recent history, yet NO ONE outside of bloggers and their commenters knows or cares who either one is.
Also Gerwig I think is in that realm of “approachable” movie chick that critics go all gaga over, as if she or Amy Adams would be any nicer to them in real life than Keira Knightley or Jessica Alba. She’s the new Zooey… who apparently is doing SERIES TELEVISION now. What the hell happened there?
“Mirren looks like her head was photoshopped onto one of the extras from Aphex Twin’s “Come To Daddy” video”
holy shit, hallick, that’s EXACTLY what it looks like. lmao bonza
(and until gerwig turns in several truly epic perfs in some really interesting flicks – and has several leading roles lined up in big flicks to come – she isn’t even in the same UNIVERSE as fassbender, let alone the same league)
As I have posted elsewhere: If you go back and look at the posters and TV ads for the original Arthur, you’ll see Liza Minnelli appears nowhere (except in the credit block). Seriously. Remember: Arthur was released in 1981 — in the wake of Lucky Lady (1975), A Matter of Time (1976) and New York, New York (1977) — so Minnelli was not exactly considered a prime box-office draw at the time. (And, mind you, this is not from a Liza hater: I loved her in Sterile Cuckoo, Cabaret and, most recently, The OH in Ohio. And I yearn for a Blu-Ray of Charlie Bubbles.)
I don’t know what constitutes epic but Nights and Weekends was stupendous. And she is not just approachable but the romantic leads in her films are downright homely, so I am sure there are a lot of film geeks out there thinking “that could be me playing trumpet in the bathtub with her.”
Aw, hell, guess I’m gonna have to see this now. When I first heard of it, I couldn’t have cared less, but Brand has grown on me, and like Lex, I am a HUGE Jen Garner fan (ALIAS ROCKS!!!), but didn’t know she was in this until seeing this poster. Guess they’ve got my ticket.
well, maybe it’s just me, hcat, but i’ve seen ‘nights and weekends’ and ‘greenberg’ and a couple other mumblecore flicks gerwig is in what i can’t remember their names, and for me her low-key likable perfs and persona that would appear to pretty much mirror her real-life sensibility don’t quite stack up against the gut-wrenching fassbender in ‘hunger’ (possibly one of the all-time great perfs of modern cinema), the sexy/creepy of ‘fish tank’ (a hell of a challenge that fassbender nails scarily well), the panache of ‘basterds’, the bravado of ‘centurion’ (just saw that last night), the terror of ‘eden lake’, the abs of ‘300’…well maybe not the abs. fassbender is way beyond gerwig’s league in terms of accomplishment and career trajectory by any measure.
To be fair, Joe, the original Arthur poster – and movie, for that matter, was not a movie star poster. Moore had some heat off of 10, but no one else in the film drew flies at the time…
This poster for the new movie is a star sell, even if it’s not all heads.
And Minnelli was all over the trailer and TV ads, along with Barney Martin, whose character is being played (it seems) by a real unknown – Peter Van Wagner – so we can probably assumed the role has been cut down.
Still, as Liza did, Greta plays the woman who saves Arthur’s soul. And while I hope she gets a great boost out of being a surprise charm of the movie, you would think that a studio looking to make a star – and they always are – would at least get her in there somewhere.
OK, I’m a little confused. First you say the poster “was not a movie star poster.” Then you post the poster, and say it “is a star sell, even if it’s not all heads.” Huh?
Also: There were other posters — and newspaper ads. Check out Google Images, and you’ll see what I mean — even in other countries, poor Liza was kept hidden.
And again, please don’t misunderstand: I am not saying this to dis Liza. But I vividly remember that when the movie came out — I was working at the Dallas Morning News at the time — I actually had co-workers as well as civilians express surprise to me that “a big star like Liza Minnelli” wasn’t being played up in the ads. The only thing I can compare it to: Remember how James Garner was conspicuously absent from all the Murphy’s Romance one-sheets — even though he was, well, you know, Murphy?
I am going to do a Hunger/Fish Tank double feature next week to see about Fassbender. But as far as Gerwig’s Mumblecore flicks I can’t see how she has a likable persona. She eats those men alive. She is like a Venus Flytrap drawing them in with her insecurities, taking what she needs from them and shuffling on leaving them emotional wrecks (not that they were all that stable to begin with). That we don’t absolutly hate her at the end and still kind of feel bad that she is such a mess might speak to some inherent likeability to the actress but there is a lot going on there.
I just saw Centurion in the last few days as well. Anyone have any theories on why there seems to be an uptick in the amount of clanging sword movies lately?
I can’t keep recycling my own material (though it’s never stopped me before), but I am MYSTIFIED by the Michael Fassbender Boner across the Movie Blog Universe. I even checked out HUNGER last weekend just because so many people said THAT was the missing link I’m not getting when I ask, “What, that Cole Hauser Version of Kim Coates who had two lines in Basterds and shuffled around in the background of 300, but is mostly in stuff like Blood Creek, Centurion and Jonah Hex? THIS is the new Daniel Day-Lewis???? He’s not even the new Sam Worthington.”
To be fair, he was excellent in HUNGER, but the movie was such a misshapen half-movie that, as always, I spent thirty minutes wondering which one Fassbender even WAS (since it spends 20 minutes on two Eric Balfour-looking guys smearing shit)… Then when THE BENDER finally showed up, he was great and all, but that one-take babble-thon is more exhausting and showy than a great actor’s setpiece… then he pulls a Bale and he’s good and all…. But he’s no Worthington.
I can never even remember what he looks like. I have not, however, seen FISH TANK. But people on movie blogs HATE EVERY ACTOR EVER, and somehow THIS guy is the greatest thing in the history of time?
Also, his name draws a total blank any time he’s mentioned outside the movie blogosphere.
I edited the comment to clarify, Joe. The NEW poster is a star sell.
Truth is, if you meet Fassbender, you know he’s got the juice, Lex. And if you look at the range of his roles, you can see that he can act his ass off. In some ways, he is Sean Penn in Matthew McConaughey’s body. And he’s hungry for stardom, so he won’t blow it off like Ryan Gosling, aka The Last Great Hope.
what was up with that crazy scene in HUNGER where the two guys just talk to each other in the interrogation room for like 30 minutes?
22 minutes of a 90 minute movie. I also think it’s over-written, Fassbender dropping the knowledge with some oh-so-poetic and spot-on tale about mercy killing a foal.
That scene is like Exhibit 10 Zillion in the ongoing screenwriting issue, “Nobody Talks Like This EVER In Real Life.” I should think the guy would be more like “FUCK I’M IN PRISON AND IT SUCKS AND THERE’S FECES EVERYWHERE! GET ME OUT!”
The most harrowing thing about HUNGER was trying to figure out how everyone wasn’t dead from E Coli by minute eight.
Also, movies about THE TROUBLES? Honestly, I never have ANY IDEA what’s going on or what they’re talking about. Can’t even picture it. Aren’t England and Ireland all kinda the same thing? I never know what they’re fighting about. God’s honest truth.
That was a great scene, too bad it wasn’t subtitled.
Lex – EXACTLY the same. Sort of like Palestine and Israel.
Yeah, I never get that either; I’ve done that rant here too… But it’s true. What is Palestine? Is Israeli like a synonym for Jewish? I don’t get it, don’t know where THE WEST BANK is, have NO IDEA what Bill Maher is talking about when he brings up Israel or any of that stuff.
Also, on the subject: I can never remember which side wore which coats in the Civil War. Was Confederacy like the blue and that was the states, versus Union grey in the South?
Who needs to know THAT shit? WHO CARES. Wouldn’t help get anyone laid.
Apparently you’ve never seen SHERMAN’S MARCH.
just quickly re: greta as described earlier, i meant low-key likable perfs, and as a separate thought, her persona that doesn’t seem very far removed from her own real-life sensibility. she’s similar in her roles, esp. compared to fassbender’s wide-ranging characters that require him to draw on quite a myriad of skills and physicalities.
“But as far as Gerwig’s Mumblecore flicks I can’t see how she has a likable persona. She eats those men alive. She is like a Venus Flytrap drawing them in with her insecurities, taking what she needs from them and shuffling on leaving them emotional wrecks (not that they were all that stable to begin with). That we don’t absolutly hate her at the end and still kind of feel bad that she is such a mess might speak to some inherent likeability to the actress but there is a lot going on there.”
my goodness, really hcat? a man-destroying succubus? fair enough if that’s your interpretation of her mumblecore – just as valid as mine and perhaps a male pov(?) – but that’s not my impression of her at all (describing her as likable and low-key i probably left out most importantly ‘neurotic’ as a major recurring component of her characters, which doesn’t make her unlikeable in my eyes, just perhaps a bit annoying at times). i’ve seen a couple of her mumbleperfs quite some time ago and they aren’t fresh in my memory at all, so i wouldn’t trust myself to make a solid determination there, but from what i can remember of greta in ‘nights & w’, i didn’t see her as some destroyer of her helpless man, just a bit of an insecure, needy young woman trying to make her way thru a struggling relationship where both partners are a bit of a mess and participants in their own undoing. and i think as ‘florence’ in greenberg, greta’s terribly likable — flawed and a little complicated and grasping for meaning in her life but likable none the less, a good perf.
edited to say: lol re: subtitles, i’m sure this will make me imminently even more popular here but i’ll never really understand some american’s apparent inability to understand other english accents as if they’re a foreign language. i remember watching ‘sexy beast’ with an american guy and we had to fucking translate the entire movie for him, both hilarious and exasperating, but he felt bad about it. as he should.
I had to stop streaming the first installment of Red Riding Hood and get the dvd because I had no clue what they were saying.
I guess in HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS there is a bit of her character using and then throwing away guys but it doesn’t seem to be malicious and is more a part of her general indecision and insecurity, as Leahnz says, than anything else. All the characters in the Swanberg movies tend to be that way, so that’s more a product of the conception of these movies. In NIGHTS AND WEEKENDS, both couples seem responsible for the relationship, for good and ill. Neither are really bad guys.
I don’t get how anyone couldn’t love her in GREENBERG.
Actually, the more I look at it, the more I see a touch of Magritte to this poster.
The second half of Nights and Weekends she completly seduces him knowing full well he is in a new relationship. Now the guy is weak and a willing accomplice since he puts up almost no resistance to her advances, likely out of nostalgia for the way things were or thoughts of what could have been. Then halfway through their reunion sex she flips out over something random, and turns completly cold on him. He is left with nothing, new relationship ruined, old relationship still gone. The last scene is of him pleading and sobbing in public groveling for her to take him back and she just has this sort of embarresed nonchalant look on her face that just says “ya, sorry, terrible idea, don’t know what I was thinking.”
In Hannah, she is starved for attention. When the cooler boyfriend grabs it all, she dumps him for someone she is socially superior to. When he stops absolutly worshiping her, she moves on to his Best Friend. Never talking about her problems with boy #2, just sort of sliding along to the next guy who will shower her with attention. And the kicker is that she doesn’t really show much of an interest in any of them. It was obvious that she was not all that into the basket case’s owl collection, but hey he thinks she’s really pretty sooooo she guesses she likes him alright.
Just my take on the two, I apperently see her as slightly more selfish than others.
wait on, hcat, i don’t think i’ve seen ‘hannah’ – it doesn’t ring a bell from the description – but in ‘nights and weekends’, your take on james as the weak, helpless victim without blame is sorta bizarre.
HE is the one in a new relationship with loyalties to another person; HE is the one who betrays that trust by choosing to engage in a nostalgic one-night stand that comes with no guarantees. james and james alone is responsible for the choices he makes.
this ‘man as the helpless victim of seduction with no choice or responsibly in the situation becuase he is weak and helpless’ excuse is one of the oldest misogynist myths in the book, a false construct to absolve men of responsibility for their actions and blame women. why is he the victim again? it mightn’t have been easy (what is in relationships) but he could have rebuked maddie and that would have been that; but he didn’t, he CHOSE not to, and he is responsible for the situation he found himself in, either out of weak character or just plain stupidity, either way he is the architect of his own destruction by way of poor form. and furthermore, he betrays someone whom he supposedly cares for, which arguably makes him far worse of an ass than maddie.
maddie realises she’s made a big mistake (it happens) so SHE is to blame for james being left with nothing at the end? wait a minute, isn’t HE to blame for having nothing, becuase he is the one who chose to betray his new flame, with whom he could have been happy, the consequence of which as it turns out was ending up with no-one. (as for him begging at the end, well, what can one say about that when someone has already made it clear they do not want to engage in a relationship with you? this says everything about jame’s character, not maddie’s, that he has no good sense of even basic pride. saying it’s her fault he ends up the way he does is terribly off base, imo)
crap i forgot:
‘I had to stop streaming the first installment of Red Riding Hood and get the dvd because I had no clue what they were saying.’
that actually must be frustrating. i can’t really relate, but i can say i work with a young guy from england – i’m drawing a complete blank on where from, i’m thinking ‘middlesburough’ or something like that, but i don’t think that’s right – and he talks quite fast with an emphasis on vowel sounds at the soberist of times, and when he’s really on the piss, pretty much all his consonants go right out the window so when he’s babbling on he’s like, ‘e on ay to en a ooo e ave a ide o ay, you know’ and i just crack up, like what the fuck did you just say? consonants are your friend
Like any man in the history of the universe ever would or should turn down sex.
Not possible.
well fine, psycho-doo. but don’t blame someone else when it all goes to shit for you, or grovel like a little twat when it was made clear it was a mistake
If the guy got to bang Greta Gerwig AND it ended with him not getting married, that dude hit the jackpot.
YEP YEP.
I was not saying that the guy is without blame, did mention it in the earlier post, and he did make a decision to pursue actions that would end his current relationship. But by his actions at the end you can determine that he thought they were getting back together. Or at least he thought that having one more night with his old flame was worth the loss of the current relationship. And he didn’t even get the one night stand! Yes, he and only he is to blame for the end of the new relationship, but he did so at the prompt and promise of reuniting with his ex, whether for a night or awhile, and thirty seconds after he gets past the point of no return she yanks the rug out from under him.
While I was writing this I thought about how this had made me enjoy this movie more. Here we are going back and forth on this like these are people we know and invested in their relationship and personalities and who got the rawer deal. If they were not so three dimensional I doubt we would be doing that, I can’t imagine going back and forth over Going The Distance.