By DP30 david@thehotbuttonl.com
DP/30: Natural Selection, writer/director Robbie Pickering, actor Rachel Harris
A rollicking interview… these two are very funny together.
A rollicking interview… these two are very funny together.
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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 was wondering what happened to this film. Didn’t hear anything about since Ebertfest…hopefully will see it soon.
Fun interview, they sound very much like a couple bickering…it’s good stuff.
Funnily enough, according to The Wrap, I was one of the first people to praise this movie.
http://www.thewrap.com/movies/column-post/good-morning-austin-march-16-sxsws-big-winner-25541
But I’m fairly sure David is the first person to give it the video love it deserves.
50 minutes – longest dp/30 yet
Robbie Pickering needs to act in sitcoms …very funny guy. he should do acting instead of directing .. it’ll make him richer probably and then he can use that tv money to direct movies. see problem solved for him.
i want another dp/30 with him this year.
my favorite part is “you talk”
i give this 8/10 . would have been higher if at any point DP spent 2 minutes explaining what the movie was about without spoilers.
I watched it entirely because of Ms. Harris, the (hot) mom from the Wimpy Kid movies. Parent service at its best!
( http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ParentService )
Oops, hope you had nothing to do today.
I was lucky enough to catch Robbie along with Rachel and Matt O’Leary on the day the film premiered last year at SXSW: http://www.tpr.org/news/2011/03/news1103222.html
A fun interview (17 min.) at the link. I second the cheers for interview chemistry between director and stars!