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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

BYOB: Back to LA

Apologies for the disappearing act. It was a brutal week of production for me and a hard-to-hype festival this year. More to come on that…

byobflight

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5 Responses to “BYOB: Back to LA”

  1. Stella's Boy says:

    Had a fantastic time at TIFF. So nice to be back in Toronto. Love that place. Saw The Judge, Nightcrawler, The Drop, Welcome to Me, and Miss Julie. Ate some great meals. Weather was mostly beautiful. Saw some celebs. Fest has changed some since I was last there, but I still love it.

  2. EtGuild2 says:

    Finally caught up with “The Congress.” I know studios wouldn’t touch it, for good reason (animated Jesus, animated Hitler)…but what a trip. Robin Wright showed true bravery, Harvey Keitel, in a single monologue, reminded moviegoers why he’s a legend, and Ari Folman became one of the few filmmakers of the last decade to get his batshit passion project made and delivered.

    Good for him. Yes, there are sections of the movie that don’t quite fit. It’s minor quibbling.

    On the same note: “The Double” is quite an achievement. Ayoade has made two memorable films with distinct stylistic impulses. I don’t know that he’s taken seriously enough given his (till recently) primary career.

  3. cadavra says:

    Agreed on CONGRESS. A bit unwieldy, but wow, so much to chew on, and Wright is indeed fearless.

    Also was impressed by FRONTERA, which is ostensibly about illegal immigrants (one of whom is falsely accused of murder), but is really about the American experience and our capacity to change our ways of thinking. Really striking, with a remarkable performance by Ed Harris as an embittered rancher around whom the various plot threads slowly coalesce.

    Too bad neither of these films got much of a chance to be seen in theatres. But hey, those fucking turtles are more important.

  4. leahnz says:

    in honour of McT getting out of prison

    http://tinypic.com/m/ifzdia/4

  5. Greg says:

    My TIFF this year:

    Shrew’s Nest
    Spring
    Big Game
    It Follows
    Wasteland
    99 Homes
    1001 Grams
    Adult Beginners
    Hyena
    Rec 4:Apocolypse
    Alleluia
    Over Your Dead Body
    Cub
    The Editor
    Escobar: Paradise Lost
    Tusk
    Shelter
    Nightcrawler
    What we Do In The Shadows
    Men, Women and Children
    The Tribe
    The Guest
    The Grump

    Hit me stride yesterday with 6 good to great movies.

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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