May 5, 2024
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Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
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Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
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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
While I can’t say I “enjoyed” this film, I’m excited it’s coming out and recommend it highly. Any film that can spark the amount of discussion this one already has is a-o.k. by me.
I saw a great segment on 20/20 or Dateline about the story (or one of the stories) behind the film. Can’t wait to see the movie. Sounds really compelling and provocative.
instantly one of my favorite films of the year
Gee, middle managers being told to do things that are not in their own or in their subordinates’ best interests? Sounds like the experience I had a decade ago when not even a week after I was promoted I was asked if I would be willing to ride with the other managers to a store in another state and cross the picket line in case they went on strike (I said yes, only because I wanted to sabotage the company’s efforts from the inside, but there was no strike after all).
Took no time at all for them to show me just how sleazy they were, and until I lost that job the sleaze got deeper and deeper until the 48-hour managers admitted they were essentially the company’s slaves–if something happened in the middle of the night or on a day off (this is retail we’re talking about) they could be called and told to report RIGHT NOW if they want to keep their jobs.
Of course there was all the usual B.S. about telling my overworked and underpaid subordinates that their hours were getting cut because of poor sales when the real reason was that The Big Guy wanted to win a bonus based on how few labor hours we were using, but that happened all the time.
I’ve read so much whining here–mostly on the front-page sidebars–from people wishing they could enter a theater with no foreknowledge whatsoever, yet when they got that opportunity at Sundance they freaked the hell out. Ah irony, how painful is thy sting.
The paradox of choice discussion immediately brought Moscow on the Hudson to mind, and though I haven’t seen it in at least 26 years I clearly remember the scene with Robin Williams as a Soviet defector making his first trip to an American grocery store, where he has a collapsing-to-the-floor meltdown when faced with so many choices in the coffee aisle. I’ve since heard that this situation is not rare, and I’ve been telling people for years that working in a grocery store will turn you into a socialist. Why 80 varieties of coffee? Why 40 types of toilet paper? And the chip aisle, as they pointed out in the interview, holeeeey crap–I think ours is about 96 feet long.
(Don’t get me started on pet food–that hideously overpriced stuff looks and smells better than what I’ve been eating, and it’s being fed to creatures that routinely eat their own crap. By the way, if anyone reminds me of all the times I’ve had to slice $20 worth of roast beef for someone who said they were going to feed it to their dogs, I just might have a conniption.)
And people actually believe that having so many choices keeps prices low–competition!–when in fact the opposite is true: What is going to be cheaper, the product coming from an immense factory that produces nothing but nacho cheese Doritos all day and all night, or the 20 varieties of corn chips coming from 20 smaller factories with 20 sets of production staff and 20 sets of office staff that do work fewer hours but only because they have smaller batch runs since their market is so fragmented?
“The list of things you learn about yourself when you get out of prison after 17 years is long: You’re allergic to shrimp, or you’re paralyzed by the choices in a grocery store….”
From West Memphis Three, a Year Out of Prison, Navigate New Paths.
Pretty sad that their only crime was choosing to be Satanists in Arkansas. But then that’s still pretty darn stupid.