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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

BYOB – One Week Later

It’s remarkable how the world keeps on truckin’…

Sad. Liberating. Horrible. Glorious.

And the conversation moves on… box office ramifications, Olympics, elections, film festivals…

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53 Responses to “BYOB – One Week Later”

  1. movieman says:

    Did anyone else experience a little shiver during “The Watch” when Jonah Hill gleefully reveals his stash of automatic weapons to his fellow “Watch”-ers (and the sadly wasted Rosemarie DeWitt)?

    Not a terrible movie (the cast–especially Vaughn and Hill–is too good for it to be entirely negligible), but very lazy and just sort of dull.

  2. LexG says:

    Speaking of Rosemary DeWitt, I get you have to be a chick and appreciate sisterhood or something, but her character in YOUR SISTER’S SISTER is THE most evil and loathsome villain since Wings Hauser as Ramrod. The movie could’ve ended with Duplass and Blunty committing a joint homicide, and I would’ve left the theater pumping my fists. What she tries to pull with Duplass in the movie is a crime worthy of the fucking death penalty.

  3. sanj says:

    so after the avengers – Joss goes and does shakespeare with much ado about nothing – why ? i won’t be watching cause
    shakespeare is one of the worst things ever.

    DP – are you getting ready for tiff 2012 ? you have to hype all the movies l s…my guess is Jennifer Lawerence is going to be there . so do another dp/30. this should be epic.

    i want dp/30 with Thomas Haden Church – Tom Hardy –
    Ari Graynor – Milla Jovovich – Michael Pena –
    Winona Ryder – Edward Burns – Todd Phillips – Mitt Romney

    why isn’t Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry on pbs by now ?
    Alison Klayman keeps going on on how important this
    artist is – so give it away for free on tv …
    this story will never end. if Alison comes back for another dp/30 – i’d rather see her talk about the art
    instead of the politics. still waiting for a dp/30 with banksy – remember when he was important ?

    the watch is at 15% on RT – bring Akiva Schaffer back for a dp/30 and ask about all the reviews. that would be interesting.

    it’s been a month since Kevin left attack of the show and they haven’t found a real co-host yet – they got lots of comics on to guest host but its a technology show .
    if nobody on g4 tv cares about the show then the viewers will leave …i hope somebody makes a documentary about
    the network …

    any of you watching any low rated tv shows nobody else is watching ?

    also the louis ck sitcom – there are producers nobody has ever heard of like Vernon Chatman – he’s a writer for 10 years and nobody has interviewed him ?
    its nice to know you can do tv shows and still not be
    extra super famous …

  4. LexG says:

    Also that Kartina Richardson quote on the sidebar here about Moonrise Kingdom is literally the worst thing I’ve ever read, EVER, which is no mean feat when it’s followed by an Armond White quote.

    SMUG, sophomoric, indulgent, embarrassing… I never liked this chick on the PBS Ebert; I imagine her as having a LOT of cats and zero interaction with straight males.

    When you guys piss and cry about movie critics losing their jobs and amateur bloggers taking up primo spots from the vets, look no further than these two quotes to see how far up their own ass most film essayists are.

  5. etguild2 says:

    Potential big news: Weinstein has switched PT Anderson’s The Master to mid-September from October and has advanced Andrew Dominik’s Killing Them Softly from September to October.

    The weekend Anderson’s work lands on is one of the slowest of the year. Not a good sign?

  6. sanj says:

    i like louie tv series – the writing is great but then you need to have the right actors and louie sure gets them …
    Mellisa Leo and Parker Posey need some tv awards .

    its nice to see Louis C.K is too famous for a dp/30 …in that 30 minutes he could bed doing standup comedy and
    making like million dollars in a sold out theatre .

    Louis seems like a person who can be funny without thinking too much vs the comics who have to think .

  7. movieman says:

    Et- Since “Master” will have the “limited,” early awards season market completely to itself for essentially the entire month of September, I don’t particularly see the new date as a negative.
    I’m still a little puzzled, though.
    Because the Anderson wasn’t among the TIFF titles announced earlier this week, I assumed it was because NYFF had an exclusive (for opening or closing night).
    Now I’m wondering if it’s bypassing the North American fest circuit entirely (Telluride?) after its Venice world premiere.
    October 19th doesn’t seem to be a particularly fortuitous date for “Killing.” Did Harvey move it to October because of the current spotlight on “violent” films?
    I’m bummed that two of the September titles I was most looking forward to (“Gangster Squad” and “Killing”) have been moved back; “Gangster” all the way to 2013.

  8. Triple Option says:

    Anyone care about the Olympics? Anyone know how the NBC.com streamming is supposed to work? Will it just be the same programming as NBC, MSNBC & CNBC? It’ll be pointless if there’s no live coverage of high profile events.

  9. sanj says:

    22 funny movie posters …

    also amc cancels the killing .

  10. movieman says:

    I was disappointed (but not surprised) that AMC axed “The Killing.”
    Of course, I’m still mourning the cancellation of “Rubicon” which was my favorite new AMC series since “Breaking Bad.”

    Sanj was right about Parker Posey on “Louie.” She was fantastic in her two-episode stint that ended last night.
    Does anyone know whether she’ll be returning for any add’l eps?
    I’ve been a huge Posey fan since her days as Sundance Poster Girl back in the ’90s.

  11. Joe Leydon says:

    As I recall, it was Francois Truffaut who opined that if you’re going to make a movie dealing with expressions of grand passions, you must make it a period piece, because audiences simply won’t accept those expressions during movies set in contemporary times. Glad to see the people who make Bollywood movies don’t share that point of view.

  12. Don R. Lewis says:

    Lex-
    agree about that WES Anderson “Whinedown,” rather than a takedown…God…who IS that person??? I hate them on principal. This month has been an CRAZY eye opener for some reason. Even before Aurora.

  13. sanj says:

    watched the Aaron Paul dp/30 – interesting cause i haven’t watched any episodes of breaking bad …but for once the actor doesn’t go on and on about how they spent time doing theatre …overall DP made Aaron repeat the same stuff over and over and this interview could have been 20 minutes but i liked the DP/30 @ Sundance: Smashed dp/30 way better ….next time Aaron does a dp/30 i want him to go off topic about anything in the entertainment business.

    i figure the only way the dp/30’s will be super popular is if Ellen DeGeneres promote them on her show . DP should go on there and promote them ..she has no idea who DP is … so that’ll be fun.

  14. Krillian says:

    Yeah, Kartina’s Ebert essays were crawl-under-the-table, “how dare this person get airtime over me and every other person I’ve ever met” awful. Now picture her saying those words to the camera in a sun-drenched kitchen, with the occasional shot of a floating curtain or a close-up of flowers in her garden. If smoking were still cool, she would have used one of those long black cigarette holders.

    Looks like neither The Watch nor Step Up 4 will hit $15 million this weekend. A month ago, The Watch was tracking at $29 million. The closer it got, the worse it looked.

    I’m disappointed The Killing was cancelled too. I think the producers learned their lesson and would have had a new mystery and would’ve had it resolved at the end of the same season.

  15. Chucky says:

    In Canada the Olympics opening ceremony aired live on 8 networks — 4 in English, 2 in French, 2 in Cantonese. In the USA, NBC banned live-streaming and withheld the opening ceremony for a delayed, ad-filled package in prime time. The twitterverse lit up and no amount of groveling by NBC can deny that American viewers are angry.

    Naturally the liberal media drooled over the ceremony without bringing up NBC’s Soviet-style telecast.

  16. JKill says:

    YOUR SISTER’S SISTER SPOILERS

    Lex, one of the interesting things about that movie, though, is that Blunt (rightfully, in my opinion) doesn’t really get that mad at Duplass but instead is more upset with the sister. I feel like the Hollywood version of the movie would have went the opposite way. The idea of him leaving so they can repair their relationship was refreshingly different from the usual way these things go in films.

    END SPOILERS

    Also, I loved the movie, except for the part where two middle aged women walked in during the last fifteen minutes and I had to loudly “SHUSH!!!” them, in order to get them to shut up.

  17. Paul D/Stella says:

    I’m disappointed that The Killing never came close to living up to its potential, but I’m sure as hell not disappointed that it got cancelled. Veena Sud did not get it and there’s no reason to believe the show would have improved had she remained in charge of it. Starting with a new showrunner is the only thing that might have redeemed it. Season 2 was just as bad as season 1, if not worse. It failed on almost every level. Joel Kinnaman was fun and Brent Sexton solid, but that’s about all the show had going for it.

  18. scooterzz says:

    movieman — i’m sitting in the ‘louie’ tca session right now and he says that posey will ‘kind of’ be returning in a couple of of eps this season…she was only intended to be ‘one date’ but will be used again…

  19. Joe Leydon says:

    Chucky: I don’t think the term “Soviet” should apply to something that so vividly demonstrates capitalism in action. NBC bought the rights for 2012 Olympics coverage for a honking huge sum, and now they want a return on their investment. Blame it on the people running the Olympics: If they wanted everyone everywhere to see everything, they’d stream all events for free. But then how do they pay for such a glitzy Opening Ceremonies pageant?

  20. sanj says:

    hey Joe – are you ready for tiff 2012 – the most important movie festival ever ? do you ever get forced to go to movie festivals ? take LexG with you and have some fun
    with actors.

  21. sanj says:

    dp/30 request time – James Hong – he was super awesome in big trouble in little china – he’s been in a lot of tv series.

  22. Joe Leydon says:

    Yes, Sanj, people “force” me to go to film festivals all the time. Just like smart, witty and beautiful women “force” me to make love with them all the time. It’s a curse, I’ll tell you.

  23. sanj says:

    hey Joe – which movie festival have you been to the longest and the shortest .. do you ever get lost at festivals and end up in the middle of nowhere in a bad part of town where there are gang members and drug dealers ?

  24. sanj says:

    just a little problem … why wasn’t this breaking news on cnn..

    NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Grid failure left more than 300 million people without power in New Delhi and much of northern India for hours on Monday in the worst blackout for more than a decade, highlighting chronic infrastructure woes holding back Asia’s third-largest economy.

  25. Joe Leydon says:

    Sanj: I’ve been going to the Toronto Festival almost every year since 1982. Fortunately, there are no bad parts of town in Toronto, so I don’t ever have to worry about being anywhere dangerous there.

  26. movieman says:

    Thanks, Scooter.
    I hope her great work on “Louie” this season translates to a lot more Posey in the future (in films or on TV).
    She’s been sorely missed.

  27. sanj says:

    i figure that K-Stew and Rob will be a surprise at the mtv movie awards – they’ll make nice with each other …

    cnn fails at reporting news. 600 million in India without power…and they keep pushing olympics and politics. somebody important needs to yell at them.

    i’ve seen total recall commercials on every cable tv channel .. more indie movies should give that a try .

    Joe – get me free tickets to tiff. you must have hundreds lying around that you get from big movie stars daily .

  28. Joe Leydon says:

    Sanj: How about I buy you some wings at my favorite Toronto bistro?

    http://www.movingpictureblog.com/2007/08/fox-among-chickens.html

  29. Krillian says:

    sanj, I’ve seen the New Delhi story all over news websites. Don’t really watch much CNN. But it’s the largest blackout in world history. 600 million people affected.

  30. sanj says:

    Joe – i don’t go to restaurants at all.

    is DP going to have some meetups since the fest is at all hours …

    as for tiff reviews – slashfilm does good 5 minute review usually ..

    thing about tiff – why does the government sponsor this thing when every corporation pays big money to sponsor it too …

    the deal with cnn and blackout story is – cnn has entire tv channel called cnn ibn that was reporting on this and cnn kept going with olympics and politics .
    if nyc went lights out for 15 hours ..cnn would have 50 reporters on this and the whole world would know .

  31. etguild2 says:

    It can’t be true that TOTAL RECALL cost $200 million to make can it? I was excited to see it for awhile, and am rooting for it because it might be Colin Farrell and Jessica Biel’s last shot at major Hollywood redemption, but the lack of reviews this late is a pretty bad sign…and if it cost that much it will probably be the biggest bomb of the summer.

  32. bulldog68 says:

    Seeing Recall on Thursday. I’m a huge fan of the original because I thought it was deliciously gory and Verhoven packed it with ample portions of B movie violence goodness.

    I have not been jazzed to see this version, even though it is supposed to be more faithful to the original story. Colin Farrell was also disastrous in hos other remake, Fright Night.

    At this point I’m just looking forward to being as bad as I think it would be. And as for spending $200m, well I have a bridge that I want to sell these people.

  33. Paul D/Stella says:

    Back in December 2010 The Toronto Star (among others) claimed it was going to cost $200 million. What’s the real number? I am not expecting much. It has reeked of mediocrity since it was announced. Len Wiseman? Ugh. Maybe it will be dumb fun. That’s probably best case scenario.

  34. bulldog68 says:

    Sidenote: Soderbergh directing an HBO movie called Behind the Candelabra with Michael Douglas as Liberace and Matt Damon as his lover. Wow. That’s the most interesting casting news I’ve seen in a while. It tops Anthony Hopkins as Alfred Hitchcock, and being teamed with Scarlett Johanssen as Janet Leigh and Jessica Biel as Vera Miles.

  35. etguild2 says:

    I actually liked FRIGHT NIGHT. I’ve liked a lot of what Farrell has done the last few years..ONDINE, THE WAY BACK, his perf in HORRIBLE BOSSES and CRAZY HEART were all very good.

    Yeah bulldog have you seen the on-set pics? Love Damon’s and Douglas’s wigs haha, though not sure how Damon will pull off being 17 years old. Regardless, ScarJo and Biel in the same movie? Mmmm sign me up.

  36. Paul D/Stella says:

    I thought Fright Night was a decent remake. A little too much CGI and not as good as the original, but the cast is solid and it’s pretty entertaining.

  37. Don R. Lewis says:

    Agree with you guys on FRIGHT NIGHT and as mentioned upon release, I hold the original in pretty high regard.

    I’m also a big fan of Farrell’s…when did everyone sour on him? I loved TIGERLAND and thought he was great in PHONE BOOTH. IN BRUGES might be one of my recent all time favorites too. CRAZY HEART and HORRIBLE BOSSES are terrific performances as well. I think he should be allowed out of the doghouse. Reminds me of Costner hate that just cropped up out of nowhere.

  38. SamLowry says:

    Don’t expect any “make nice” from a couple fighting over custody of a dog.

    And I thought this quote from Marshall Fine was rather odd: “If Stewart has really alienated her teeny-bop fan base, well, so what? Though she’s done a handful of big-budget studio films, she’s made even more independent films, though only a comparatively few people saw them.”

    Is he happy she’s destroying her fanbase so she can make movies nobody wants to see?

    (My guess is that plenty of folks at Universal and Summit are shitting themselves at the thought of the Twihards abandoning KStew. Does anyone really think SWatH would have made more than $50 mil if, say, Mia Wasikowska or Amanda Seyfried had taken the lead?)

  39. Paul D/Stella says:

    Don I feel like some people got annoyed by the amount of press Farrell got in relation to the box office performance of the movie’s he’s been a lead in. Because he hasn’t fronted many outright hits, he doesn’t deserve the fame. Or something like that. I like him too.

  40. storymark says:

    “Does anyone really think SWatH would have made more than $50 mil if, say, Mia Wasikowska or Amanda Seyfried had taken the lead?”

    This is anecdotal, of course – but every person I know who saw the movie did it in spite of her, not for her. So, quite possibly, yes.

  41. SamLowry says:

    Ah well, I guess I’m prejudiced in this matter because I just saw Mirror Mirror and found it the polar opposite of SWatH–very good, well done, and actually pretty funny.

    Could you even imagine KStew trying to lead a Bollywood dance number? Sheeeeit.

    And as for Fine dismissing RPats as a talentless “empty suit” who can’t open a film on his own, I admit I felt sorry for the guy after reading his quote on the front page recently where he admitted his entourage won’t even follow him to “the middle of nowhere” but they’re more than happy to move into free hotel rooms in more civilized locales like New York City.

  42. SamLowry says:

    As for the Olympics, if you’re interested in athletes you should watch NBC. But if you’re interested in sports then avoid it like the plague.

    I lucked out in being able to watch the ’04 games on the CBC; switching back and forth to NBC was pretty damn funny because Americans had to watch one interview after another while everyone else in the world got to see the actual Olympics.

  43. sanj says:

    so the power is back on for 600 million people over in India …

    there must be thousands of cool stories to tell … i hoping somebody makes a documentary …

    also Matthew McConaughey is making all sorts of movies this year that don’t involve Kate Hudson …. somehow DP can’t get this guy for a dp/30 …. i wanted a dp/30 with him for The Lincoln Lawyer ……

  44. etguild2 says:

    The week of Romney bad press seems to be taking its toll. All the state polls out today show states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan slipping out of reach from him–even a bad result in Florida. RealClearPolitics now gives Obama a 247-191 electoral advantage.

    And now a report out showing his tax plan would raise rates on 95% of Americans and lower them for the ultra-wealthy. Yikes.

  45. Krillian says:

    538.com is the only political poll-tracking that matters.

  46. Ray Pride says:

    “I’m beginning to seriously doubt your commitment to sparkle magic.”

  47. sanj says:

    abc news doing some hard hitting journalism right here …

    My Teen Is Pregnant And So Am I Debuts on TLC – 3 minutes

  48. etguild2 says:

    538 gets its poll results primarily from RealClearPolitics’ poll page…but yeah they do incorporate economic data. And they have it even worse for Romney now. 297-241…and haven’t updated for today’s awful Romney numbers

  49. christian says:

    Nobody cares but I’ve been waiting for over a year for Romney to get picked and implode. As anybody with the bare amount of awareness can see, he truly HATES ANSWERING QUESTIONS. Watch the Brett Baier FOX interview – Romney sputters about WHAT HE WOULD DO AS PRESIDENT as if it’s a gotcha question.

    Historians will note this election was not about the economy as much as perceived competence – and today’s GOP is unarguably collectively insane. Nobody noticed that Sarah Palin actually smirked an attack on Cheney by calling him “Dick” the other day. Wow.

    And he’s gotten an amazing pass on his pathological lying. He said he wouldn’t even watch his own wife’s Olympic event – Why? So he wouldn’t be labeled an elite. What a pillar of strength. And his Epic Global Fail says it all. The GOP thinks it can talk to the world the way it talks on FOX and AM radio. Big mistake.

    But I digress:

    “I’m a huge fan of the original because I thought it was deliciously gory and Verhoven packed it with ample portions of B movie violence goodness.”

    Which is exactly what a Philip K. Dick adaptation should be at the core. Verhoven took a famously terrific script and pumped it full of his FU audience obsessions. TR is a dumb ugly film. The fake Mars sets still give me an eyesore.

  50. etguild2 says:

    christian, totally agree with everything you said. Romney is the amalgam end-product you get from a party that has gone off the deep end but still needs a so-called non-extremist as its nominee. Forget Romney and the Salt Lake Olympics. He’s competing in Olympic level political gymnastics.

    I almost feel sorry for him…he would have been a strong nominee in 2004, maybe even 2008. Today, he’s either out of touch with his base, out of touch with mainstream America and unquestionably out of touch with authenticity.

  51. SamLowry says:

    “And he’s gotten an amazing pass on his pathological lying….”

    The Startling Accuracy of Referring to Politicians as ‘Psychopaths’, from yesterday’s Atlantic.

    I’m just pissed because I’d read that Ann Romney received a $77k tax deduction for her horse, when the deduction for a child is $3.8k? That can’t possibly be right, can it?

  52. cadavra says:

    Sam: Yes. As the old saying goes, “The rich, they are different from you and me.”

  53. SamLowry says:

    “It’s remarkable how the world keeps on truckin’…”

    I just read Total Recall Revisited: What Colin and Arnold Can Tell Us About Pop Culture and can’t believe the author claimed TWICE that 9/11 is largely responsible for the change in tone between the two flicks (I consider “the world we live in these days” the second reference to 9/11, coming barely one paragraph after the first).

    I brought in David’s quote at the start because I’ve felt the same way about 9/11 that folks are now starting to feel about Aurora: “Well, that was something, but hey, back to the grindstone.” Maybe it’s because I grew up when the threat of nuclear war was omnipresent whereas today’s young’uns never felt anything like that fear until the second plane hit. Yeah, three thousand dead is sad and all, but nothing like the hundreds of millions that could’ve fried in the ’80s, or the hundreds of thousands we’ll lose when terrorists eventually set off a nuke in a large city.

    C’mon folks, snap out of it and move on.

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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