April 26, 2024
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Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
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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
LOOK AT HER. The world’s most perfect and CHARMING woman.
I thought she was frighteningly good in Anna Karenina. It really takes a fearless actress to play such an unlikable/complex character. She deserves praise for playing such a role and I hope AMPAS gives her a second Oscar nomination.
I would like to point out that she played an equally unlikable/complex character without fear in Cronenberg’s A DANGEROUS METHOD without all this effusive praise. She was already astonishing in that film, but now she gets the Oscar buzz? Perplexing.
Sooooooo disgusted that AK hasn’t opened in my area. What are they doing with the release of this supposedly groundbreaking adaptation?
She’s stunningly beautiful, and hugely talented, a rare combo. Have always been a massive fan. Domino POWER.
Anna Karenina is terrific, big Joe Wright fan, and Keira is one of my absolute favorites (and the only woman for whom I’d maybe take a pass on K-Stew), but quick stylistic question about AK:
This is a minority opinion, but anyone else think its stylistic “audacity” is being maybe overstated? Reviews both pro- and con talk at length about its formalistic quirks, like the “staged” elements and going backstage, etc. Anyone else feel like those were kind of neither here nor there? Honestly, 95% of the movie seemed to play like a really good, invested, visceral period movie, and then every 25 minutes or so they’d break the fourth wall just a smidge, and you kinda go, “Okay, fine, going with it, whatever,” then it returns to the big epic movie that it is.
Just everyone talking about how CRA-A-A-AZY Wright’s choice to do that is, but it’s hardly what I remember about the movie, and didn’t seem to add or detract in any real way. Honestly think a lot of casual viewers wouldn’t even notice it.
Lex, I haven’t seen AK, but I remember bits and pieces of Atonement in a similar way. I remember the weird score–which used the typewriter–and how I thought it was clever at first, but then overused. The same with the long uncut shot on the beach in Dunkirk. His flair for the dramatic feels too calculated sometimes, and adds little to the whole work.
That shot at Dunkirk is a fucking marvel of filmmaking, and his one-take-fight with Bana in Hanna was supreme. Joe Wright feels like he came from the same school as Mendes.