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 don’t get things like this, because who has a DAD that likes movies?
Don’t all our dads love sports first and foremost? My dad hates movies, has always hated movies, thought I was weird for liking movies… Somehow that taints my image of other dads, but at least growing up in Pittsburgh, movies, even action movies, were a chick thing, and guys were all about sports.
It’s really weird to me, the concept of a FATHER who has even any marginal, minor interest or curiosity about MOVIES. Even something like TAKEN. Most adult men I know outside of LA or NYC don’t have that “willing suspension of disbelief” thing… This is mildly O/T, but it’s something I ask bloggers about all the time– I seem to ask Glenn Kenny this on Twitter a lot–
Did most of you guys get into film because of your Mom, your Dad, or neither?
My dad hates movies too. One of my earliest really vivid memories of hanging out with just my dad is when he took me to see Terminator 2. He slept through the entire movie. Literally. I got into film because of my mom and grandmother. They took me to the movies all the time, starting when I was around 10.
Random thoughts – My dad liked/likes movies, but I always presume that he overcompensated in order to be able to talk to me about it when I was growing up. I can’t imagine he really cared about how much a movie made over its opening weekend but he always put on a game face and seemed to know what he was talking about. I actually got a little wistful when The Avengers opened because I knew that ten years ago I would have called him aghast as soon as the Friday numbers popped up on ShowbizData (usually Saturday at noon EST). Of course, I’ll happily pretend to give a crap about whatever hobbies/interests my kids get into when the time comes and I almost relish the opportunity to let one stay up late to watch a game and/or take the other one to a concert. He was usually the one who took me to the movies and most of my better movie-going memories are from my dad (the best – an advance-night 10pm screening of Jurassic Park just over 19 years ago). Of course, he and my brother were sports fans and I certainly overcompensated a little in order to keep up in those conversations. I still do now and then, inquiring about how the Indians are doing and/or if Tiger choked last Sunday. He humored me and I humored him. We both enjoyed it and we both learned something in the process.
My dad likes to watch movies, but he has no particular interest in them, if that makes sense. Every time I’ve gone to see a movie with my dad, whether meh or masterpiece, he says exactly the same thing afterward: “That was a pretty good movie.”
My true love for movies is mostly self-generated, I suppose.
Dad likes one movie. Jaws. Every time I’ve gone to the theater with him, he doesn’t talk about the movie afterward. Just about the ticket price. Last movie we saw together was a decade ago.
His father was the same. They were charging a quarter for tickets to Patton. Granddad loaded the entire family back in the wagon and drove straight back home.
Wow. I guess I’m lucky. I grew up with a father who loves geek stuff – sci-fi, action, horror, tech, etc. He still calls to ask what movies I’ve recently seen, books I’ve read, and vice versa. For a 64 year old guy, I love the fact he still gets giddy that a new Batman movie is coming out. I’m 40 and hope I still feel the same way in 24 years.
My dad does not appreciate movies. Most of my interest came from my mother humoring me or a visit from my aunt. It’s strange, because although my dad’s knee jerk answer to a favorite movie is “Dune” without pause, I don’t think he has even seen the movie in the 20 years since he showed it to me. Kind of like how he says “Tom Clancy” to favorite author, even though I don’t think he has read a book (outside of medical textbooks) since he was in college.
The movies that my father and I both enjoyed (outside of the obvious movies that bring men and boys alike together– aliens, indiana jones, etc…) were always incredibly offbeat genre movies that usually don’t hit with anyone. The last time I saw a film with my dad that he didn’t fall asleep during/talk through/leave was ‘Willard’ and we both felt it sufficient for a movie going experience. But the best Father-son bonding was Starship Troopers. Nothing says paternal love like taking your son to a movie with several sets of boobs glistening majestically on celluloid. Of course, anything he likes, he treats like a guilty pleasure, no matter what, unless it’s some gung-ho stupid ra-ra nationalistic crap like ‘act of valor.’ So although I’m sure he had a blast at ‘Starship Troopers’ the movie was stupid when we left the theater for it’s satire of american militarism.
Though his reaction to any film is quite predictable in this way, it really does get me jazzed when I see a movie that I know my father will at least engage with. District 9 obviously really fascinated a nerdy sci fi guy like my dad, but of course it was ‘stupid’ for all the medical inaccuracies. But just to see the look on his face during a movie like that, regardless of his reaction to it afterwards, is a reward– that moment during a film when you see the light from the screen bouncing off his face, slightly obfuscating that 9-year-old look of cinemagoing glee that I have always wanted to share with him. I guess I am in one way or another.
LexG – I dig you, but you kind of overdo it with all of this crap about how “real” men or fathers don’t this or that when it comes to movies….
I grew up in New York and my father was middle class – loved watching the games….baseball, football, otherwise. But he also enjoyed going to the movies and taking me to the movies – he took me to see of the best pop-genre stuff out there that every man and/or boy was eager to see: Die Hard, Lethal Weapon, Aliens, Ghostbusters, Wargames, etc…..that was some good father-son bonding there and I highly doubt I was the only kid of the ’80’s who had that experience.
And I don’t know what the moviegoing experience was like in Pittsburgh during the ’80’s (and compared to the sports – the Steelers actually sucked for most of the decade, though the Penguins and Pirates were probably better), but seriously??
That decade was probably the best one for movies for real men, whether they were fathers or otherwise – it was dominated by big-time mainstream action movies, shit that defined the genre. I mean really….you’re telling me that millions of fathers were NOT seeing Indiana Jones or Rocky movies??? I would be curious to know just what circumstances under which you grew up where the men were just too “manly” to plunk down $4 to see Rambo.
My folks went to the movies occasionally, maybe 2 or 3 times a month. It was what people did back in the Stone Age. When I was old enough, I’d be dropped off with friends, then eventually went on my own. So I’d hafta classify my case as neutral.
My movie mania started at an early age and was pretty much self-generated.
My parents took me to any movie I wanted to see (rarely together: my father worked 6, sometimes 7 days a week), even incredibly inappropriate ones like “Midnight Cowboy” and “The Wild Bunch” (saw both for the first time when I was 11) because I could always be counted on to cop the, “…but I read the reviews and know what’s in it” rationale. (My mother genuinely enjoyed movies whereas my father mostly tolerated them for my sake.)
Mom died when I was still in high school, but dad is still around, albeit in the mid stages of Alzheimer’s.
We still go to the movies occasionally, but he doesn’t seem any more enthused about them now than he was back in the day when we’d see “Nashville” or “The Last Picture Show” together.
That’s so sad on multiple levels.
My dad kind of was my gateway into movies. He ran a Curtis Mathis store, and he also had VHS rentals with a bunch of fullscreen titles so they could show off their now big screens that required a forklift to transport. My brother and I almost went through the entire collection because, hey, free movies. We watched a bunch of stuff from Ghostbusters to a REALLY obscure title called The Jet Betty Show which was a sci-fi parody of Jack Benny. It’s actually not bad considering the budget had to be extremely low.
my dad, rest his soul, had to like movies … he piloted a b-17 that clark gable shot 16mm footage from during wwii …. he would always test me by asking me what other films actors had been in … he took me to meet joan crawford (at a pepsi factory) when i was a lad …. dad liked movies
My dad was a huge Marx Bros. fan, and his favorite movie was The Dirty Dozen. He had a relatively wide range of taste for a midwestern, middle-class suburban guy (not including foreign films); I saw Citizen Kane as a teenager because he had rented it. He took me to all the seminal geek culture films: the Star Wars OT, Jaws, Close Encounters, a double feature of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Clash of the Titans, and the Roger Moore-era Bonds.
But my real education came from my father’s uncle. He got me into Hitchcock, Capra, and other films starring Cary Grant and James Stewart. That was really my gateway.
My dad LOOOOVED movies, its how I got to be such a big fan. Watched Sneak Previews on PBS with him every saturday, and he would always let me watch the R stuff he knew would scare the shit out of me on the condition I had to cover my eyes when he told me to. He still watched football every sunday, but movies were what we could talk about the most.
I still remember a summer afternoon when I was 6 and my Dad said ‘hey, lets see a movie today’, and I rattled off the long list of terrible crap I was dying to see (Superfuzz, Heartbeeps) and he said ‘Hell No we’re going to Time Bandits.’ Its that type of guidence that a father is there for.
I’m pretty sure not only could my father beat the piss out of LexG’s dad (my high school years were made harder because my father had in fact beat the piss out of my principle when they were younger for picking on my uncle), but most certainly could out-macho him as well: Southern boy, Eagle scout, army vet, weight-lifter (gets better – he built the bench himself), and general general fan of both playing & watching sports (especially college football).
So, putting Lex’s premise here to death, this was also the guy who mostly took me to movies when I was 5 – 11 years old. Sure, mom had taken me to some Disney films. But it was my pop who took me to see re-issues of Ray Harryhausen (7th Voyage of Sinbad) and war movies (Midway in “Sensurround” that basically made your ass vibrate). He wasn’t a big fan of sci-fi, but the rest were fair game. He tried to get me into Westerns, but in the 80’s they just didn’t hold up against what was coming out.
We came full circle when I got him to watch RAIDERS which I knew he would love because as a kid of the 40’s/50’s he had seen all those 30’s serials that got recycled as features. Plus, without a family TV, he went to movies at least every week if not more.
So, face it Lex, your dad is simply the last generation’s version of you. Only instead of Pixar, Kurosawa and anything made before 1960, he simply hated all films.
My Dad likes to watch movies at home but detests seeing movies in the theater. And this was pre-texting days! He also tends to fall asleep on them watching from his recliner. I try to give him suggestions of what I’d think he’d like. I remember my mom telling me that he really liked Quiz Show, which he said he did, and she goes “He actually stayed awake through all of it!” He’ll even nod off in action films that he really enjoys.
I think he prefers sports to movies. He’d rather attend basketball or baseball when it’s warmer than going to see a football game in the cold but he’d never complain about taking me when I was young. As I got older if he got tix, if they were nose bleed seats, he’d give them to me to go with a friend.
He’s less critical of movies than I am. He will say when he thinks something is lousy. I try to warn them of films to avoid but they’ll always claim to not know I said anything. Sometimes I’ll get movies for my Dad for Father’s day or his bday, same for my mom, and sometimes they’ll watch that same day, and it serves as good entertainment for other family members over. Other times it’ll be a year later I’ll be home and notice the movie still in the plastic. “Oh, I forgot I had it. We were even looking for that at the library but it was never in.”
God bless ‘em.