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
LOOK AT HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love Franco. He’s awesome.
I’m looking forward to RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES more than probably any of the big movies this summer now that I think about it.
I like a lot of the Apes movies, mainly from watching Ape Week on TBS as a kid. I have fond memories of Tim Roth’s performance in Tim Burton’s Apes movie (even if I’ve tried to forget everything else – especially Marky Mark). Looking forward to see how this movie fits in with the rest (or reboots them), though James Franco is definitely a mark against it.
Burton’s Planet of the Apes had great makeup and support work by Roth, Giamatti and Heston. Everything else, forget it.
My enthusiasm for Franco’s really gone downhill since the Oscars, back to Spider-Man 3 levels.
Wahlberg RULES ALL. Among the TEN TRILLION THINGS I hate about the internet is how EVERY MOOK SLOB GUY has to ALWAYS hate on ANY MALE MOVIE STAR who came AFTER his Age 13 formative years.
Devin Faraci is the KING OF THIS, but even that casual post above from Mike: He didn’t like Wahlberg, he doesn’t like Franco… Same deal afflicts Gyllenhaal, Gosling, Leo, Gordon-Levitt, whoever, from ALL THE HATERS until they finally do some comic movie to either prove themselves (Maguire, Ledger) or earn the hatred FOREEEEEVER (Hedlund, everyone…)
This is one of the most JUVENILE and EMBARRASSING recurring net patterns. It REEKS of being the sporto meathead who HATES that his girlfriend or sister has a crush on Justin Timberlake or John Travolta or David Cassidy or whoever. At what point do you just throw in the towel and admit you’re being a hardhead about this?
And, really, it affects every guy I know over, say, 30… They can NEVER accept the “new” actors, like it’s some affront to their delicate manhood to embrace James Franco or Ryan Gosling or whoever.
Now, if James Franco were ASIAN and working with Tsui Hark, it would be DIFFERENT, because Asian people and movies are MAGICAL to this crew.
I’ve lurked here long enough to know it’s a mistake to engage Lex, but that’s such a crock of $#!& theory. Can’t a movie fan just not like some actors? Marky Mark and Franco just have never done anything that made me think they were all that good.
Of the others you mentioned, I’m a big fan of Gordon-Levitt from Brick and Gyllenhaal from Moonlight Mile. I’ll even take the other Whalberg – Donnie – thanks to Band of Brothers. Put any of those three in the next Ape movie and I’d be a lot happier.
Dreamcatcher
Everyone was like this about Leo until The Departed.
Whalberg – BOOGIE NIGHTS, I HEART HUCKABEES, THREE KINGS, THE DEPARTED, THE FIGHTER
Franco – PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, MILK, 127 HOURS, HOWL
How could anyone think those performances were ” not all that good”?
I think Lex is being over the top, but I think he has a point.
I seem to recall everyone loving Franco in PINEAPPLE EXPRESS. Then he got overexposed and can do nothing right for some people. Haven’t seen HOWL, Harry Osborne was a pretty thankless role, and the Oscar gig was probably a mistake, but he’s great in FREAKS & GEEKS and most everything else I’ve seen him in. I think Lex is onto something — and it also gets at why every male sex symbol ever is dogged by rumors of homosexuality, many of which are probably started by some jealous nimrod telling his girlfriend, “I heard he’s gay.”
while we’re on Franco, what about SONNY, CITY BY THE SEA, and THE GREAT RAID …. i am sure on Sonny, which was directed by Nic Cage, Cage told his actors “I haven’t even acted in the remake of WIcker Man for another five years, but I want you to take that performance as a benchmark, and exceed that with a nitro-thrust”
City By the Sea was note for note old school method acting between Franco and De Niro … and The Great Raid is just a great WW II pacific genre flick in the mode of Too Late the Hero
to add to what lex said, women do the same thing when they trash Megan Fox. But women in general are much pickier about what actresses they thrash and attack than guys are about what actors they thrash and attack. Guys are equal opportunity attackers, any male actor that smells like a threat to their beta-male status gets a good solid whinging. Girls tend to go after different targets, Megan Fox is the most universally loathed female (by females) I’ve ever come across though. Women Really Really REALLY hate her with a suprising intensity.
But worse than the beta-males chest-thumping and the snippy women are the cineaste film snobs. The people who are so pathetic they have no opinion, they only attack that which is popular; they only praise that which is obscure. If Transformers is popular they attack Megan Fox. If Juno or Slumdog or Lil Miss is some indy film no one has heard about they praise it as the great discovery of our time, an unheralded masterpiece and triumph of the cinematic art that only they–the enlightened–can appreciate; if it’s a 100 million dollar success they attack it as though it’s one of the great offenders and villains of our time, a sign of the utter decline and decrepitude of modern cinema and they will loudly lament the loss of cinematic art to crass commericalism.
The really sad part about it is how readily they will flock to a failed blockbuster. If you have a Heaven’s Gate type of film, you can be certain that cineastes will hoist it on some bullshit pedestal because they have discovered the magical art lottery that lets them–And Only Them–understand the true arty-artness of the misunderstood masterpiece. Heaven’s Gate is in the TSPDT top 1000, how fucking stupid–and sheep-like–is that?
I’ve more than once pined for a return of the days of SERIOUS FRANCO, when he was a mid-aughts leading man they didn’t QUITE know what to do with… Post-FREAKS AND GEEKS, pre-Pineapple/Milk heyday… I’m talking about ANNAPOLIS, FLYBOYS, SONNY, CITY BY THE SEA, GREAT RAID, TRISTAN + ISOLDE.
It’s the same thing as my Vince Vaughn complaint, but speaking as an actual FAILED ACTOR who’s done standup AND Classical Theatre, I would’ve KILLED to be in something like TRISTAN + ISOLDE or SONNY, but COMEDIES are the LOWEST form of entertainment.
Were I Vince Vaughn, I’d be on year 13 of remaking RETURN TO PARADISE. Comedy is worthless.
i like megan fox ok, she seems like she’s always tripping on shrooms
so wait, now people aren’t allowed to dislike the actors they don’t like? good luck with that. who cares if mike up there doesn’t care for wahlberg, or franco or whoever, what skin is it off anyone’s else’s nose? this is a blog of shared opinions, don’t read movie blogs if you don’t want to hear people’s unvarnished opinions about thespians, good and bad. there may be a bit of a tendency for negative opinions/comments to be expressed more readily just because people are fantastic complainers when something gets up their nose (myself included), and let’s face it, people have been rubbing other people up the wrong way since year dot, and actors are no exception (people have been judging tall poppies – ie in this case actors/tresses – just as long and cutting them down to size can be perversely satisfying). the internet just makes everything appear more acute because it’s a concentration of people congregated around a certain subject and venting their spleens/clashing opinions in relative anonymity; where there’s a gathering of subjective opinion there’s likely to be elements of groupthink/a desire to conform/a desire to rebel etc. within the pack, it’s to be expected. but you can’t browbeat people into liking actors they don’t care for for whatever reason, whether it’s because the person threatens their manhood or has an annoying cowlick or ‘lights-on-but-nobody-home’ eyes, it doesn’t really matter, it’s valid for that person.
Looking at the next few weeks of releases, which one has the best preview? Fast Five. Why? That ending shot. The whole audience sucked their breath in when that car went off the cliff. All the CGI in the world can’t make up for legitimate stuntmen.
It’s also funny watching Priest and Thor trailers back-to-back. They look like they have the same eyeless creature chomping at the air like that asteroid dweller that almost ate the Millenium Falcon.
There are two factors to weigh in with Thor:
1) The 3D. If the 3D fucking sucks, that’s going to be a problem.
2) Does it interest people enough to get an opening weekend of 75m?
Let me also add my that it blows my mind that a new Beastie Boys album and a Thor movie, come out in the same week.
i think Thor is going to be ok.
i just don’t know what anyone’s definition of ‘ok’ is.
Kids want to see it. Geeks want to see it. If they marketed it better, you could get women to want to see it.
For me, ‘ok’ is where a movie like Thor usually ends up: 150-200 million domestic.
I realize it may not be an apt comparison, but if Green Hornet can get to 100 million, surely Thor can get to 150-200 million.
Thor’s marketing is terrible. Awful posters, bad trailers…but when actual extended clips are shown, they look decent. If I were in charge of marketing it, I would also not be playing up the whole “god” angle, because it needlessly pisses off fundamentalist nutjobs right off the bat. I know Thor is a god, but the marketing ought to emphasize the superhero angle more, IMO.
I’m hoping the movie itself is solid. I liked the Comic-Con reel a lot.
When I see the “Thor” trailer, I feel like the movie’s best hope is to be a pretty fun B movie and that’s it. Although anything’s possible with the movie itself, it doesn’t seem likely to ring a higher bell than that one, which would be fine and totally justify the time and money spent on watching this picture. “Great blockbuster” fumes just aren’t coming off of it at the moment.
In the continuum of comic book movies, it looks to be better than stuff at the “Fantastic Four”-level, but not near as good as “Spider-Man” or “Batman Begins”. At worst, it’ll be down there with “Daredevil”, “Electra”, “The Punisher”, etc.
Middle of the pack is fine. I don’t expect every comic book film to be The Dark Knight. In fact, i expect most to be shit.
Let’s face it, there’s more comic films that end up like Fantastic Four, Daredevil, Ghost Rider, Electra, and Punisher.
Punisher War Zone was awful, but in a hilarious way.
In fact, i think you can name the good comic book films on two hands. For the sake of the argument, i’m going to leave off stuff like Ghost World, American Splendor. I’m taking about superhero comic books.
Two Nolan Batmans, Two Burton Batmans, Two Spidermans, One Superman, One Iron Man.
Am i missing any?
I liked the first two Supermans. Just below your good list, let’s say kinda-good, I’d add X-Men 2 and Incredible Hulk. I wish Norton was in Avengers.
Of this summer’s superheroes I think Captain America has the best chance of being good, and that wouldn’t have been my guess last year. I like Branagh, and I really hope Thor’s just got bad marketing, but Branagh is quite capable of missing the mark (Love’s Labours Lost).
I still don’t have faith in Green Lantern.
Krillian, Green Lantern looks…. odd. I’ve never seen so much footage from a film and still had no idea what kind of movie i’ll be seeing.
Overrated douche
masongil is a very overrated douche.
To Anghus’ list of at least “good” comic book movies I’d add Hellboy, Kick Ass, Blade, and 300 (with a special mention for about 50% of Watchmen and the first X-Men movie). Venturing outside of the super hero corner (as if 300 doesn’t already), Ghost In The Shell and Oldboy are a couple of chart-toppers too.
As ubiquitous as this genre seems to have been in the last decade, there isn’t a whole lot of good to choose from when you see everything listed together.
I’d add Unbreakable to the very good list, even if the last five minutes are pretty awful.
Has anyone else noticed that this thread began with Lex saying LOOK AT HIM!!! instead of the usual LOOK AT HER!!! Is this some sort of breakthrough?