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
I just saw Drive.
The amount of praise being hurled at this one baffles me.
average w/ a distracting soundtrack.
well I liked it a lot
but at the same time it is being way overpraised
Babysitter fell through tonight, otherwise Wife & I would’ve seen Drive.
Did see NBC’s Free Agents. Would’ve been better if Azaria & Hahn had killed all their coworkers at the end and skipped town.
i always wait for the afternoons to watch movies – never
pay full price for a movie .. i’m not in a huge rush ..
i always find it odd that in 5 hours the price goes up by 50% .. for the same movie in the same theatre..
= none of this applies to movie critics – they get in free. they got an unlimited media pass . yeah sounds cool
but you have to put up with some super bad movies .
movie critics – last movie you paid full price and did you
get your moneys worth ?
the emmys are coming – big tv awards show – out of all the programs out there that i want to win its Louie –
the shows have stories – pretty good guest stars and they are all different .. yet some network tv show will win best comedy …
i’m pretty sure Mildred Pierce will win some sort of award … DP liked it …i totally hated this . hated it enough to never watch any of it again ever. its not the actors – its the lame story.
Evan Rachel Wood dp/30 …she might win for Mildred Pierce so this will get crazy number of views .
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5F6BFz2oKo
also i wonder if Emma Stone personal life has changed a lot since the help made like 100 million bucks vs being in Spiderman 4 …
also i think 10% of actors who get a dp/30 are just lucky. right place right time . some of them never come back for 5 years or longer and nobody knows why.
i want a special Anderson Cooper 360 report ..or if hes busy get one of the super old 60 minutes guys to look into this .
received ‘the complete saga’ blu-ray and the scorsese/harrison doc in the mail today…weekend is looking good..
also, fwiw: the tim burton exhibit at lacma is nothing short of wonderful…we went today (kinda late to the party) and were thoroughly entertained…
“Drive” was absolutely great. I saw it, and “Melancholia” within days of each other, and they’ll both wind up on my top 10 for the year for sure.
I don’t remember when last (if ever) a film filled me with such exquisite existential dread as “Melancholia” did…can’t stop thinking about it.
2 minute perfume commercial where Eva Mendes sings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnFxcTwsEV8
And it is, it is a glorious thing to be The Lion King.
Glad to see people keep digging DRIVE. Its images, music and vibe keeps banging around my head to the point that I can’t wait to see it again.
But I’m really curious to what people thought of Rod Lurie’s STRAW DOGS. I don’t want to go too much into it at this point but it’s a pretty prime example of why I’m not against remakes as a rule.
Joe is the very model of a modern major publicist.
Foamy: I wonder if Sanj has any idea what we’re joking about.
Is Dangerous Method trying to tell us that Jung invented sexual healing? I guess I should see the movie.
i don’t think drive was bad by any stretch, but it felt like 45 minutes of story and emotional beats stretched out to 90 minutes.
I’ll give an non-spoiler example. There’s a scene where Gosling, Mulligan, and another guy are in an elevator. And there’s this moment before something happens where he choreographs a distraction in slow motion. In any other movie it would have been a 30 second moment. Drive stretches it out that moment what feels like an eternity.
And i realize it was deliberate. There were some very indulgent things being done, and i’m fine with that. Not ever movie has to be set at 78rpm. But when the choices become distracting to the point where you notice the choices, it starts to pull me out of the story like i’m watching someone’s director’s reel.
The soundtrack was weird, as were the constant synthesizer tones playing behind so many moments in the movie. i didn’t need all the ‘mood music’, and it was weird to hear the same songs synth heavy band playing at the coming home party or Standard. Did the music playing in the background of that scene have to match all the others? Odd, distracting choices.
It was a movie with really strong choices and i thought it was decent. I’m glad i saw it because it was so different, but all this praise feels unwarranted. What did Drive do that other movies in this genre didn’t?
SPOILER TERRITORY…
It made me think a lot about Leon/TheProfessional, a movie that i downright love. But what was missing in Drive was a real connecton between the protagonist and the family he was trying to protect. Both Drive and Leon set up a great sense of dread, a kind of “the whole world is against us” kind of vibe that i liked. These characters in both films both feel kind of trapped by their circumstances.
There’s a line in Drive where Gosling calls Mulligan and says that the time he spent with her and Benicio was ‘the best thing that ever happened to him’. I never felt that at all because the movie is so devoid of emotion.
Leon/The Professional in comparison gives you that kind of relationship where you absolutely believe this little girl is the first thing of value in his life and that he would kill anyone that got in the way of their happiness.
I’m not saying every movie has to be the same, but Drive seemed to focus so much on style that the substance ended up being non-existent.
“Joe is the very model of a modern major publicist.”
I’ve got the second line for this musical.
“If his client isn’t interviewed he’ll probably go and slit his wrists”
VARIETY! THE MUSICAL
16 syllables, yo. That’s 17 by my count.
ETA – For his client has barely read it,
But he surely wants his credit,
That he is a leading man!
Joe i have no idea what your talking about – also did you do any video interviews at tiff . its the most important festival in the world. you know. cause DP said it.
Sanj – it’s the one about duty.
how come theatres don’t sell fresh fruit – apples – bananas – grapes .. is it the pop and candy and popcorn companies that have a total monopoly on food sold ..
there’s a 50 year old history of selling junk food and that
ain’t going to change .
you think people would like buy 4 bananas or a small bag of grapes instead of junkfood ? on the downside
people can drop grapes and it’ll get on the seats and
nobody wants to sit down on a grape filled seat …
i want a special dp/30 on this ..
Also: Banana peels.
Fresh fruit has a shelf life. People going to movies want to eat crap. Unsold fresh fruit spoils and has to be thrown out. Theatre eats the loss and raises ticket prices another buck.
This has been another edition of simple answers to simple questions.
walmart has sliced fruit – like apple slices – walmart can supply all the fruit. its one thing they haven’t taken over yet .
is it so hard to imagine entire theatre audiences eating apple slices . yes it is. so get George Lucas to edit in
some apple slices and people will finally be able to imagine that and suddenly apples slices will be the #1 snack.
I saw Drive. Liked it, didn’t love it. I liked the style and the music. I agree a lot w/what anghus said. I thought it was needlessly slow. And by slow I don’t mean pacing. I mean I was sitting there at times thinking, ‘why isn’t something going on here?’
Possible ** MILD SPOILER** This film never really specialized in anything. Sometimes a film will make sacrifices in one area and then make up for it in another. Cast wise it’s not like this was Gosling and the 7 unknown dwarfs. A movie called Drive and given its premise, I was expecting one helluva Ronin-esque car chase. Nope. Again, I like the style of the film and really liked the way it opened but it wasn’t a precursor to seeing the baddest MF’ing wheelman on the planet. He was sharp but I was expecting genius that never came. This cat seemed so in tune to his surrounding and an intuitive understanding of human behavior that surely it’d all come into play w/some wild-ass twists and turns throughout, right??? Umm, well, not exactly, huh.
I’m gonna be vague about this but they brought up coincidence of one of the heists he chooses but really I thought they could’ve gotten around it by tying in some of the circle of characters another way. Instead of making it a stretch, link them.
Which leads me to another coincidence **SPOILER TAGS STILL ON** Did Gosling’s character disable whatsherface’s car? It never got explained. If not, holy crap, the mother of all suspension of disbelief problems. And I know we’re led to believe they’ve spent some time together but how could you not have one scene together with him and her alone where there’s a conversation, spoken or otherwise, to show how much they really get or are connected to each other??
**SPOILERS OFF** Honestly, I stayed engaged though there could’ve (should’ve?) been much more to hold me there. I think a lot of films could’ve really been in love with themselves and had zero self control and make it over stylized but that wasn’t the case here. It just seems like more could’ve been made with the time they had.
Actually, I wouldn’t mind being able to buy dried fruit — or even raisins — at movie theaters. But I can’t. So I bring my own.
slicing fruit is a pain so outsource that to China … help people get off poverty .. build some new factories …
then they’ll ship millions of fruits just for theatres per month…
people eat healthy and people get off poverty – i solved the biggest issues today. somebody give me a noble prize.
A little dried fruits and nuts combo would be a seemingly healthy alternative to popcorn at the movies. So long as there’s not a lotta salt & sugar added. I could go for that! Thanks, Joe. I’ll have to remember to grab a bag the next time I’m in Costco.
Is that a noble prize for economics, sanj or medicine? You figure out a way to get people to stop texting in the theater and I’ll definitely promote you for a Nobel Peace Prize.
getting people off poverty – so economics …
theatres should buy 5000 bananas and 5 minutes before
the movie starts – everybody gets one free.
then they’ll be addicted and want more the next time .
this would have been perfect if they did this with the planet of apes movie.
stopping texting … just put some cell phone jamming device . simple.
watched the dp/30 with my sisters sister …interview was okay … seems like DP really like small indie films and somehow never seems to interview the big blockbusters like Thor / Captain America..
also the lighting is bad so i want a retake plus i want Emily Blunt to be 25% funnier .
I really, really liked DRIVE but also agree with the issues listed above. HOWEVER, I can’t decide if Winding Refn has made a pretty brilliant film or if it’s just bullshit that was so fresh and different (yet homage-ey) that I was blown away and thus snowed by the fact there’s nothing there. Does that make sense?
It just had so many weird yet bold choices that I’m not sure what they all mean in the end. I really want to see it again too….there’s alot to love…especially if you love film.
all this peer pressure makes me want to run out and watch drive but i’ll wait .
i did watch – I Want to Be a Soldier 2010
– story of Alex, an average eight year old kid who seems to grow a morbid fascination for images portraying violence… plus he has a fake friend.
i see where they were going with this but the ending
needed to have more impact ..plus the parents could
have been more interesting ..
the fake friend did a really good job with the acting .
trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYANEQZaHkI
some tiff pictures of huge movie stars . takes 30 secs to see them all .
http://thestar.blogs.com/photoblog/2011/09/tiff-sixty-seconds-at-a-time.html
Sanj, what are you going to do about the hundreds of banana peels lying on the floor? It’s bad enough to have so many ambulance chasing attys cluttering up the legal system w/exaggerated slip-n-fall claims, what happens when they bring a class action suit against half of Hollywood? I don’t know if they’ve ever revoked a Nobel Prize but I could see that being grounds for the first.
Don, yes, I get what you’re saying. I don’t think Drive was all smoke & mirrors. I was cool with it despite my complaints. There was a great deal of tension throughout that I don’t think was artificially manufactured or manipulated. Sometimes you go back over a film and start picking it apart and you really change your mind about how you feel. I can rattle off a few things and perhaps w/other films they’d be spine breakers but my temperament towards Drive remains the same.
This is generally the kind of flick I stumble across on video or cable a few years after the fact and wonder why I didn’t hear about it when it was in the theaters after being unexpectedly sucked into my couch for a couple of hours. It’s not a film where I’d scream opportunity wasted but yet I feel like if this film had gunned it coming high out of corner 3, it could’ve found its way into a lot of people’s top ten list along with the Brazil, Bladerunner, Fight Club, Goodfellas type films that don’t seem to garner that many awards but people revere for ages to come. It was definitely more than a mild like for me but at the same time it’s a head scratcher why there wasn’t more to it. Normally, I’d blame the lack of either of the two most critical resources, time and/or money, from preventing a film from being all that it could be, here, it doesn’t seem like it would’ve taken much to overcome those obstacles.
triple – just put the banana peels and whatever else in small paper bag..there will be special boxes right outside
the doors just for food recycling stuff. i only want the nobel prize if 50% of the theatre is eating fresh fruit and
not any other junkfood.
DRIVE SPOILERS DRIVE SPOILERS DRIVE SPOILERS
One of the reasons I loved it so much were the odd choices listed above. Not only were they aestheticaly interesting and beautiful but I thought they highlighted what the movie was about in a way that its stoic main character could never articulate. I thought the 80s sounding, electronic pop was an expression of the romanticism and loneliness churning inside him. The entire movie is about this conflict between the love he wants in his life and the violence and hate that he actually has to operate in. The brilliant elevator scene (the most iconic of this year?)captures this pretty strongly with its sharp contrast between affection and brutality. Even if the movie was pure style I would still be taken with it, but because it seemed essential to the proceedings and so bold, I was in love with it.
END SPOILERS
DRIVE SPOILERS
People mentioned laughter at Drive screenings in the box office thread. That occurred a lot when my wife and I saw it last night. She said “I love it when people know nothing about the movie they’re going to see.” Overall I don’t think too many people liked it.
We absolutely loved it, though I think some of the criticism is dead on. When Gosling and Brooks are making arrangements to meet for a money transfer, I realized how utterly predictable the movie is. Any seasoned moviegoer could easily predict pretty much every single thing that happened. And I did not care at all. I also found the pacing to be perfect. This is a case of a great director being in total control, and I was more than happy to savor his work, shortcomings and all. A superb cast, hypnotic music, beautiful cinematography. I was totally mesmerized from start to finish. Refn had me in the palm of his hand, and I was more than happy to be there. I wasn’t expecting huge car chases and was more than impressed with the car chases on screen, brief as they may be. It is style over substance, but the style is so strong and the movie is so well-made, I didn’t care.
Laughter, though, can always be counted on during the screening of any off-beat violent movie. Any Tarantino, SIN CITY, WATCHMEN, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN…I think it makes people uncomfortable, and they just default to laughter. Also, general audiences don’t know how to deal with movies that are formally bold or stylized, and when they are, they also take that to be some kind of a joke.
all this peer pressure is making me to run out and watch drive .. but i’ll wait. for some reason DP hasn’t reviewed it yet ?
i got some diced peaches in a cup ..
can theatres offer this – sure . the problem is the opening
the can – there is a lot of juice that spills out plus
the lid can hurt people cause its sharp ..
bananas and apples and other fresh fruit can happen in movie theatres … theatres are addicted to the sweet candy and pop.
movie critics probably get 100 dollars worth of wine when drinking to something like tree of life. you know a high end movie made for super smart people.
one dude made his bank lose 2 billion bucks .
DP interview the real guy now before theres a movie made
out of this ..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14965438
Russia media boss Alexander Lebedev in TV punch-up
1 minute video
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14963426
how come DP doesn’t punch actors in the face when they
make bad movies ?
ain’t nobody watching tv shows anymore ?
playboy club with Amber Heard – not so great – too dark – plus gangsters .
two broke girls with Kat Dennings – i liked it . Kat is great.
more new tv shows this week – where are the dp/30’s … DP only does them for emmy awards but forgets the rest of the year ?
I caught 2 BROKE GIRLS, too, sanj. Nothing great, but a few good lines, and yes, Kat Dennings is highly watchable.
Made it through the first 15 minutes or so of RINGER. It’s probably okay — but nothing I felt like committing to.
Will check out Zooey Deschanel’s NEW GIRL, maybe a few other things. Funny how the summer had more interesting new shows to me: SUITS, THE HOUR, ALPHAS, even NECESSARY ROUGHNESS, which was pretty mild but a decent time-waster. And of course great returning shows like LOUIE and BREAKING BAD, not to mention bad but somehow addictive crap like TRUE BLOOD and TORCHWOOD: MIRACLE DAY.
I know it’s old hat to complain about the lack of quality on network TV, but not too many new shows on network TV this fall look like they are worth making time for. Up All Night looks funny and Terra Nova looks OK, but overall it looks like more of the same old crap: bad sitcoms, generic cop shows, etc. At least Boardwalk Empire and Dexter are arriving soon, and there’s 3 more episodes in what has been a fantastic season for Breaking Bad.
Terra Nova looks really expensive to make –
i really liked SMG in buffy but i hate the ringer . so bad .
generic cop drama would be unforgettable which has Poppy Montgomery who was in another cop drama without a trace ..
plot for first episode – Carrie Wells remembers every day, every hour, every second of her entire life… except for the day her sister was murdered.
other cop drama is remake of prime suspect uk … prime suspect with Maria Bello . she’s a cop. she also a big time movie star so expect her to win an emmy if this thing doesn’t get cancelled .
Maria Bello is huge billboards – just one billboard. shes the star. nobody else exists. must be some pressure there.
http://dailybillboard.blogspot.com/2011/08/tv-week-prime-suspect-remake-billboards.html