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Kim Voynar

By Kim Voynar Voynar@moviecitynews.com

Hospital, Schmospital

Luka’s back in the hospital for a five-day video EEG, which means that I am also in the hospital for the duration. They caught some good seizure spikes back in June when we did the overnight stay (“good” here meaning: we were glad the EEG caught them, so that his neurologist has some info to work with), but he did not have any of his hallucinations or yucky headaches on that stay.

So this time we’re in for a longer stretch, in the hopes that they will be able to catch him having hallucinatory activity, and/or a headache, while he’s hooked up. We’re trying to figure out if the hallucinations are “aura” activity that’s preceding (warning of) impending seizure activity, or if they are migraine-related as he has had some pretty debilitating headaches over the past year or so.

At least we have a decent view from Luka’s room. And having been through this before, we are prepared for our time embedded in the peds seizure disorder unit: Luka has two brand-new birthday LEGO sets to work on, all his drawing supplies, a couple card games (UNO and Slamwich) and a spandy-new Rubik’s Cube that I bought because he’s good with puzzles and has been wanting to learn to solve the Cube since he saw a friend do it at the school talent show last spring. Also, video games and DVDs.

As for me, when I’m not keeping Luka busy and distracted so he doesn’t mess with the 27 electrodes super-glued to his scalp, I plan to use this time to catch up on a couple DVDs I brought with me; An indie called Missing Pieces, which I watched part of last week, but need to start over from the beginning and watch again. It has a fairly complicated plot, and I kept getting distracted by the cinematography. I also brought Go Fish, which we found while unpacking some boxes that had been stored in the garage. Score! Go Fish is one of the earlier films produced by Christine Vachon, and for some reason I haven’t ever seen it, so this is a good time to check it out. Then I have a short to check out, and a whole list of Mubi.com stuff I’ve been meaning to catch up on.

And then there’s TIFF, which will be here before we know it. Need to get my previews written up for that, pronto. And I have a column on indie auteurs that I started feverishly working on late last night when some ideas rose to the surface of my brain just as I needed to be going to sleep. And I have a couple side projects I’m working in my spare time as well. So, lots to do to keep us distracted, and hopefully our time embedded in the hospital will fly by.

Meanwhile, though, if you’re an indie filmmaker who’s made a short that you think is definitely a cut about average as far as story, acting and production value (especially if you have a URL where I can see it), drop me a line and let me know. I can’t promise to watch every short film that comes my way, but the ones that seem most compelling, I will check out, and the ones that really impress me in some way, I’ll write about here. Thanks, folks.

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One Response to “Hospital, Schmospital”

  1. Don R. Lewis says:

    Good luck, Luka!!!

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