May 8, 2024
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Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
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
Lorne Michaels and Jimmy Fallon’s producer.
Craig Zadan:
Hoping that whoever produces the #Oscars next year will retain our innovation: long packages on television and movie musicals that we produced, whether relevant to the year’s nominees or not.
@Mike: Snap! Who can forget their tribute to great movie musicals that lasted the test of time such as Les Miserables a whole year after it was released! They even included Chicago which was over a decade old!!!
That was a big f–ing missed opportunity to maybe get Debbie Reynolds to sing something from Singing In the Rain.
Tommy Lee Jones and Robert Duvall.
At this point I’m doubtful that there’s any producer who can make the show fun and watchable. The last 3-4 years have been different shades of awful. Even the best one (Ellen) wasn’t that good unless you compare it to the others.
“Innovations”? Methinks he sees himself as the Steve Jobs of bloated letdowns for having shoehorned too many numbers from irrelevent musicals at the expense of new films that deserved the attention in a given year. Let’s have a big hand for Lil’ Tommy Edison everybody!
“Lorne Michaels and Jimmy Fallon’s producer.”
My assisted-suicide dream team.
I just looked at Zadan’s tweet again, and it’s pretty sad really. The TeamOscar nonsense is a ridiculous waste of time. So a bunch of kids get face time on the Oscar-cast because they made one-minute films that didn’t cause whoever’s judging the thing to pull their own eyes out. The odds that any of them will do anything at all in the film biz are slim, but even if they all go on to win Oscars and big box office, so what? It will make a nice time-wasting alumni montage on a future Oscar-cast — that’s about it.
And reading the nominations in all 24 categories on nomination morning is a nice gesture, but since the vast majority of interested people get the info online later in the day, it’s not an earth-shaker.
Let’s do this one more fucking time: THE BEST OSCARS SHOW OF THE 21st CENTURY, happened in the year 2000. That’s how they should do these shows, but they seemingly want to make a cheesy fucking Broadway spectacle every year. Have an MC. Let the NC be a respected actor or actress, and let them be the voice of the show.
Move the god damn orchestra back to the fucking theatre. Treat the show as SPECIAL. It’s the fucking Oscars. It’s not a local town talent show.
This show is also about the fucking movies, so HONOR ALL OF THE FUCKING MOVIES! Go all out to celebrate film. Giving shit to Comic Book films, is just moronic bullshit. I am sorry that the TRUE ARTIST feel that their work is being overlooked by god damn Iron Man, but IT’S FILM! It’s all FILM! Celebrate it. Honor it. Sell the fuck out of it.
Finally, figure out someway to make the older, whiter, and ancient voters… matter less. If you still have old white dudes, making old white dude choices, that most moviegoers absolute abhor. There’s no real fix to this problem, and this is a problem.
it’s like a hotblog time warp with jf sebastian still banging on about the 2000 telecast (which was pretty darn good, to this day i still blame canada for everything thanks to robin williams rip man)
the ‘innovations’ thing is kind of sad, maybe it’s symptomatic of a larger problem that the teamoscar thing and reading 24 names out loud is considered an ‘innovation’. my latest innovation is taking the garbage and recycling out to the curb THE NIGHT BEFORE. i really hope my kin retain this brilliance when i’m gone.
Give it to Wes Anderson have oft nominated set designers create different sets, have bill Murray mc and all the presenters give their lines in character.
LOL leah!
Hcat: I’d watch the hell out of that.
Ultimately, there are no real fixes. Every year, producers pay lip service to the notion that they’ve come up with ways to keep the show moving and entertaining, and every year they fail. Maybe if they’d stop trying, the show would automatically become more streamlined and fun, as if by magic.
Chris Rock, Billy Crystal and Jane Fonda as co-hosts. Cyrstal for the opening montage and song (and imagine those if there are 10 nominees), Rock because he’s funny & relevant and Fonda for a touch of class.
Next host: Johnny Carson hologram, maybe voiced by Kevin Spacey.
How about we innovate with some actual comedy writers in the room?
Where’s Bruce Vilanch when you don’t need him?
it does feel a bit like they need to shit or get off the pot as my granddad used to say, stop tinkering, you’re doing it wrong. it is down to the writing, as always. clean concepts executed well. about movies helps. i honestly don’t see what’s so hard, they just keep finding ways to fuck it up.
settle on a host for a few years would be good, you can try to grow a style with time, hopefully improve. hosts with stand-up backgrounds tend to fare a little better i think because they can ‘sense the room’ and change it up if something’s working/not working – like that prediction box gag wtf who thought spending all that time on such nonsense – in a show in which time is of the essence and evidently they already struggle with enough time for the nominees – was a good idea? seriously, the shed out back. maybe whoever wrote that was partying with terrence howard at the time, thought it was funny as shit tripping balls
it is a weird show in that it’s always been a kind of mash-up – a musical theatre tribute to cinema, a theatre show about excellence in cinema, it’s odd if you think about it. obviously it’s veered too far into the ‘musical theatre’ realm at the expense of the subject matter at this point.
or go a completely different way, that would be great, but i don’t see the academy ever going for something that’s actually innovative, reading more names out loud is probably as good as it gets.
(haha bill murray to host like hcat said, to narrate, maybe ‘the-criminologist-in-rocky horror-show’-style, from his own set off/sidestage – talking to the viewers at home – while the awards are handed out, best song musical numbers performed and tributes given on differently-designed revolving sets with huge screens to play clips (MOVIE CLIPS, eh? for a show about movies) perhaps in tribute to some specific theme that year or to honour the nominees, bring back the ‘live band’ as per jf sebastian for some real-live-people energy and pizazz, class it up, it’s the arts, use artists, artistic concepts; and it’s film technicians – how about some compelling visual and sound concepts to drive an awards show about visual and audio excellence (but not drawings, hey producers: hand sketches of people, not cinema). there’s got to be some people who can think up a tight, compelling show (tight as in 3 1/2 hours instead of 4 probably, don’t cut out the actual awards for achievement in film, enough has been cut out already and it’s like the one thing the show does right)
You guys remember that Oscar train wreck of the late 90s with Donald Sutherland and Peter Coyote on the sidelines all wired up like anchors announcing the events? I have not seen anything as jaw-dropping bad as that.
But yeah this year’s Oscar was one of the worst I’ve ever witnessed: tedious, witless…
I’m old enough to remember Johnny Carson hosting – those were the days.
Space, that’s the best ceremony, and it was the year 2000 event. Almost every oscars that has followed, have paled in comparison. I remember Johnny as well, but Billy was one of the best.