April 26, 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
Yes. And GROUNDHOG DAY is not just considered an American comedy classic, but one of the greatest, most profound films of the last fifty years. Really. There’s a “BFI Film Classics” book devoted to it: http://us.macmillan.com/groundhogday/RyanGilbey.
RIP
oh no, another heartbreaker, one of the great comedy writers and fixture of my misspent youth as russell and egon… peace be the journey harold ramis, you made the world a more entertaining, amusing place, thanks for the memories RIP
“I never heard BONES creak like that….” It’s not hyperbole to call him a true comedy treasure.
Dang. PS Hoffman and now Harold Ramis. This is a bad month for celebrity deaths.
“Yes. And GROUNDHOG DAY is not just considered an American comedy classic, but one of the greatest, most profound films of the last fifty years.”
This.
How did Groundhog Day not get a Screenplay nomination at the Oscars? I realize 1993 was a killer year for movies and there was only space for one populist comedy; but why did they nominate “Dave” instead?!
People didn’t really realize how great Groundhog Day was when it first came out. It was extremely well liked, sometimes even loved, but, well, it’s like Ebert said: “Groundhog Day is a film that finds its note and purpose so precisely that its genius may not be immediately noticeable. It unfolds so inevitably, is so entertaining, so apparently effortless, that you have to stand back and slap yourself before you see how good it really is.”
It wasn’t really until some time had passed, and people realized they STILL loved it, long after other comedies they reacted to favorably had been forgotten, that people started realizing it was something more than just a really solid, entertaining comedy.
Certainly this was the case for me: I saw it, loved it, introduced friends and family to it who also loved it. But I did this with “Dave” as well and felt similarly about it. But months, a couple years later, by which time “Dave” and countless other worthy films had receded to “Oh yeah, that movie — I really liked that” status, my enthusiasm for Groundhog Day was undiminished. And eventually I started noticing other people remembering Groundhog Day in the same way. It wasn’t like a cult film that nobody saw initially and discovered later; everybody saw it right away and only in time discovered, hey, that’s something really special. Who’d have thought?
Ramis’s little cameo in Knocked Up as Seth Rogen’s dad was pretty much the best scene in the movie, too. If you have the DVD of Knocked Up, then you can see the complete take of that sequence, and it’s just a joy to see Ramis and Rogen riffing and bouncing off one another so naturally and effortlessly. In fact that scene now looks like almost the exact moment where the torch was passed from one generation of comic actors and directors to the next. From the Belushi/Murray SNL fraternity to Apatow and his crowd.
Seth Rogen is in no way comparable to Harold Ramis. Rogen’s “improvs” look exactly like that.
“the torch was passed from one generation of comic actors and directors to the next. From the Belushi/Murray SNL fraternity to Apatow and his crowd.”
Oh gag.
I watched GROUNDHOG DAY on Groundhog Day and decided to make an event of it, with the youngling. I hadn’t seen it in over a decade, probably because I watched it so many times in the ’90s, yet after it was done I felt bothered that the movie seemed so unique–how many other classic comedies can adults and kids watch together without feeling insulted or disgusted? Aside from the obvious CHRISTMAS STORY, I keep trying but can’t come up with anything that doesn’t skew too mature or go in the other direction, like WRECK IT RALPH, that doesn’t eventually resort to poop jokes.
And yet are those poop jokes targeting the funnybones of kids or the Apatow crowd, because I can’t really see the difference between them (the directors of THE LEGO MOVIE said in an interview that the “butt jokes” were intentionally inserted to draw the teenage crowd to what was otherwise perceived to be a kiddie movie; LEGO HQ wasn’t too happy about it, but they deferred to the expertise of the Hollywood guys). Strip out the nudity, language and gross-out material from the current crop of comedies and what’s left, aside from ten minutes of montages and reaction shots? Is it funny? Is it worth the price of a ticket? I’d say no.
And yes, you could level the same argument against the vast majority of comedies released in the ’80s and ’90s, but how many of them have you watched lately? PORKY’S? NAKED GUN? THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY? Most of them are heading for the memory hole, and Apatow’s work will soon be joining them.
If the current generation of R-rated comedies picked up a torch, it was dropped not by Ramis or Reitman, but by Bob Clark and the Farrelly brothers.
BTW, the music is GROUNDHOG DAY’S only flaw, which is odd considering his other big movies are remembered almost as much for their music as their stories. If the studio was getting cheap with him, that would explain the third-rate Jimmy Buffett knockoff that opens the movie and the fairly innocuous music afterward.
Telling, though, is the choice of “I Got You, Babe”, which inspires the question “Who has Phil?” Is it a trickster god or was he the victim of some Gypsy curse? Funny how people call it a “spiritual” movie and yet it is clearly not a Christian movie. The Buddhists love it, apparently.
Ask Rogen and Apatow to do a 10 minute comedy sketch minus farts, dicks and weed. You’ll get 10 minutes of silence.
Cute dismissals of Apatow and company, but I call b.s. It’s not your style of comedy, fine. But guess what? I’m not that big on fart, dick and weed jokes either, but there’s plenty else going on in those films to make me laugh and relate to the characters. Apatow was influenced by the Ramis/SNL/Lampoon contingent, I’m sure, as well as James L. Brooks, and then he put his personal spin on it. Generally works for me, even when he goes long.
I would disagree about Naked Gun, timeless and brilliant. Reaches a Duck Soup level of comedic achievement.
And I do think Apatow is brilliant in good company like Shandling, Brooks and Paul Feig. On his own we get a guy asking his wife to look up his asshole.
Oh, and I didn’t say NAKED GUN was bad, just that it’s a movie I can’t watch with a tween who freaks out at profanity or anything even remotely sexual–the beaver scene immediately comes to mind, in a manner of speaking, that is.
BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA went over well, however, though the ’80s clothes and makeup were an unintentional knee-slapper at times. Another point in GROUNDHOG DAY’s favor is that it doesn’t look dated at all, stuck right in the sensible middle between ’80s Day-Glo and ’90s grunge. (The woman who slept with Phil because she thought they went to school together is clearly trapped in her own ’80s-glory-days time loop, however.)
Also forgot to point out (since I was getting ready for work) that an early draft of GD showed an angry ex putting a spell on Phil, so she was the “I” in “I Got You, Babe”, which therefore became a cruel reminder of his predicament. Another early draft also had him and Rita stuck in the loop together, and for 10,000 years. So yeah, it wasn’t great writing so much as great rewriting.
You might try something made before STAR WARS. I’m hearing that the Criterion release of IT’S A MAD MAD MAD MAD WORLD is getting a shitload of family-time watching.