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
Funny to group Priest, which is already out on video, with Conan and Fright Night, which havn’t been released at all yet.
Storymark, I thought the same thing…
Did anyone happen to come upon McWeeney’s review of CONAN over at Hitflix? I just skimmed it because I don’t, as a rule, read reviews before I see movies but he makes it sound bats*** insane, and kind of like a must-see for those who are into that kind of a thing.
Didn’t want to leave them out… but don’t see them as likely to dent the top group.
RE: those kids titles. Whoever wins, we lose.
I have a suspicion “Fright Night” is going to do a ton of business. (Also: It’s good.)
I would really love for you to qualify what you think is “good” about Fright Night, chris, ’cause everything I’ve seen makes it look like any other property Marti Noxon has ruined.
what exactly has marti noxin ruined? (and, don’t even try to sell buffy/6 because she wasn’t running the show)…
Well, since you asked (with apologies to Keith Phipps)…
Commentary Tracks of the Damned, Buffy Edition
Bargaining 1&2 (2002)
Crimes
• Setting expectations for the BtVS run on UPN absurdly low
• A relentlessly grim season opener to bring in that youth crowd
• Establishing an oft-repeated formula of effects-laden action set pieces deadened by vast expanses of expository dialogue
• Not letting Buffy kick enough ass
• Drawing and quartering Sarah Michelle Gellar
Defenders
Marti Noxon and David Fury
Tone Of Commentary
Fury is jocular, charming, and self-deprecating. Noxon comes off bitter, uptight, and not very funny in contrast. When she seems about to digress into a tirade of spiteful criticism, he cracks a joke, compliments somebody, or changes the subject. When he discusses plot points coming up later in the season that are “foreshadowed” (read: “telegraphed”) in the opener, she shushes him like a schoolmarm, as if people are listening to the commentary before they watch the show itself. While she obsesses about everything that’s wrong (effects, makeup, wardrobe, reshoots, etc.), he accentuates the positive. When he mentions his disastrous first outing as director (“Gone”), all she says is “Well, yeah, exactly.” When he expresses admiration for her ability to write pathos in scenes involving female characters, she uses the horrendously vulgar term “pussification” to describe the effect.
What Went Wrong
According to Noxon, hardly anything went right. Joss Whedon, still recovering from the bitter experience of Buffy’s cancellation on the WB, abandoned everyone to go work on his musical. Noxon had never been totally in charge before. While she and Fury were working on the opener, UPN suddenly demanded a “2-hour event,” leaving Fury to expand his small contribution into a full-fledged episode. Noxon was unhappy with the demon biker makeup, some of the CGI effects, and the general lack of menace represented by the bikers. She thought the comic actor playing a loser vampire was funny, but wanted him to be more “Ratso Rizzo,” even though it was her idea to have him wear a “Hanson” T-shirt. She thinks Buffy looks too fabulous after clawing her way out of the grave. Noxon also laments her own writing as “maudlin,” and wishes out loud that she were as funny as David Fury. “That’ll put marzipan in your pie-plate, Bingo!” while a very funny line, is a tribute to Jane Espenson, who thinks “marzipan” is an inherently funny word. The only truly moving moment in Noxon’s episode, when Dawn falls asleep next to the lifeless body of the Buffybot, was Joss’s idea.
Comments On The Cast
Noxon was outraged when Emma Caulfield returned to the show with hair “just like Sarah’s” and demanded wardrobe changes to make her look “just like Sarah.” In every subsequent scene, she points out how much Emma looks like Sarah from the back, even in scenes without Sarah where nobody would be confused. Noxon praises Tony Head’s penchant to always be doing something while reciting lines (whence the cleaning of the glasses) as “naturalistic,” whereas in a later scene, Fury suggests that Head’s broad emoting is “theatrical.” Both agree that Allyson Hannigan cries like a champ and can turn it on and off like a spigot, which somewhat disturbs Fury, but not Noxon. Hannigan apparently had a small breakdown after filming the scene where she ritually slaughters the fawn. Noxon suggests that playing the Buffybot was a blessing for SMG, who just got to be “brainless and pretty.” This is her idea of a compliment. Later, Fury points out the misogyny of drawing and quartering the Buffybot, whereas Noxon quips, “We actually cut off Sarah’s head and stuck it to the torso of the robot for this scene.”
Inevitable Dash Of Pretension
Noxon is clearly enamored of how well they set up the “Dark Willow” plotline in the first episode, which has the unfortunate effect of making David Fury see foreshadowing in just about everything. Noxon is most pretentious when she compares her banter with Fury about their respective writing strengths to “The Gift of the Magi.” Not only does she seem unaware that this is a poignant gem of a short story by O. Henry rather than a fairy tale, she mispronounces “Magi,” covering it with a lame joke about the “Gift of the Magpie.” Uncomfortable chuckles from Fury, who also wishes she were as funny as he.
The Commentary In A Nutshell
At one point, Noxon evaluates their UPN debut: “We screwed it up.”
Nerds, man. Buffy Season 6 is great. Seasons 5 and 6 are a little less even than 2 and 3, but overall probably the best two seasons of the show. Marti Noxon ruined nothing.
I was surprised that she wrote Fright Night, though, because it’s incredibly bland and underdeveloped on the screenplay level, even though it’s well-assembled. Whatever her strengths and weaknesses in doing Buffy, I’d think she’d at least write something a little more cohesive than this movie.
I consider myself a Nerd – and that shit was embarrassing.
I think Noxon must have run over NDB Grandma or something. Or she needs to take out a restraining order.
Why do I fear that NDB’s post is just an excerpt from a much longer document (written in tiny letters across several notebooks)? 🙂
Can we also ask what is up with Priest doing so well in these rankings? I love Screen Gems genre trash and hated Priest!
Not David Bordwell: I’m supposed to convince you what’s good about a movie you’ve decided is bad based on not seeing it? No thanks.