April 25, 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” â 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 â 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 â he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” â and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging â I was with her at that moment â 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 namedâ” “Yeah, sure â 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 Iâm on the phone with you now, after all thatâs 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 didnât seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. Thereâs not a case of that. He wasnât using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had â if that were what the accusation involved â 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. Iâm not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, âYou know, itâs not this, itâs thatâ? Because â let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, thatâs what it lacked. Thatâs 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
Great question…
Veep and Silicon Valley, probably #1 and #2 shows for me right now. I never got into GOT. Might be the last person in LA county to not watch it.
My wife is obsessed with Peeky Blinders.
Tonight is the last twenty minutes of Taken 3, an absolute dog of a movie. It’s a testament to the talent of Paul Greengrass that he can fashion a super quick cut action scene that throws a ton of visual information at you and keeps you off kilter and exhilarated, putting you right in the scene, as opposed to this Megaton guy who thinks “time for an action sequence” and just tosses the camera down a flight of stairs.
After Taken is The Hunters with Mitchum and Wagner. Much higher hopes for that one.
I’ve been watching the Christopher Guest films. Rewatched Spinal Tap first and it’s still the funniest movie I’ve ever seen. Got Guffman and Best In Show queued up for the weekend.
But first I finally get to see MM:Fury Road and 4:00pm today. The internet has me primed for an astonishing experience. Should reign my hopes in some but it’s tough.
Watched the first two episodes of Wayward Pines. Not sold on it yet. Actually just makes me want to rewatch the first season of Twin Peaks for the 4th or 5th time.
I’ve been watching the Wesley Morris/Chris Connelly/Bill Simmons summer movie preview segments over at Grantland. For all of the vast amounts of movie information available on the internet right now, I still get a kick out of just watching professionals talk about movies in this way since there’s really nothing on TV like that anymore.
I wish Dave would go back to doing that kind of thing himself once in a while. Has he ever done a DP30 with a film critic before?
Been on a major Sondheim kick since the release of Into The Woods last year, having only seen Burton’s Sweeney Todd and the video of Sunday In The Park With George prior to that.
Last night while browsing films via Apple TV I stumbled upon a cheeky whodunnit from the early 70s called The Last Of Sheila, written by Sondheim and Anthony Perkins, both of whom were apparently big mystery buffs. Great cast with James Coburn, James Mason, Dyan Cannon, Racquel a Welch, Richard Benjamin, Joan Hackett, and the surprising presence of a young Ian McShane. Herbert Ross directed.
Very witty script with a lot of Hollywood insider humor, and a legitimately well-constructed mystery. Not a masterpiece but well worth watching, especially for only $2.99. Apple TV actually has a lot of Warner Archive films, which I can already tell is going to get time-consuming for me.
Game of Thrones, Veep, Last Week Tonight
Bloodline, Daredevil
Halfway thru S3 of The Americans.
Saw Mad Max Fury Road twice.
Cameron Crowe mini retrospective. Having a blast!
Veep is the best thing on TV right now and it’s not close. The Good Wife was right up there last season but dipped badly this (although to be fair, the quality was unsustainably high.)
In the past few weeks I’ve watched a few Japanese classics: Ichikawa’s THE BURMESE HARP, Naruse’s SUDDEN RAIN and Kurosawa’s NO REGRETS FOR OUR YOUTH, plus Marcel Carne’s GATES OF THE NIGHT and last year’s NEIGHBORS. As for TV series, I finished up AMERICAN CRIME and the French procedural WITNESSES, and started to binge on the British cop show SCOTT & BAILEY (tonight I watched the first three episodes of Season 2). I watch LOUIE and SILICON VALLEY, and I’m behind on GAME OF THRONES. I cut the cable cord a few weeks back, so I need to buy the last few episodes of MAD MEN and THE AMERICANS.
Watching Silicon Valley. Yes, that monkey is the same one that was used in Outbreak and one of the monkeys used in Friends. Also watched the last couple of episodes of The Flash a couple of times.
Heard about the Supergirl pilot leak-I’m still wrestling with my conscience about searching it out online. I wish CBS would just broadcast it-I know they used to throw the occasional pilot out there in July or August.
Frankie and Grace with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin. I wasn’t sold on it for the first few episodes…especially not buying Martin Sheen and Sam Waterson as a couple. But somehwere in the middle of the series I got hooked and fell in love with this show. Jane Fonda is amazing and Lily Tomlin has never had a role that has allowed her this much depth. I would definitely recommend it–but with a note that it takes a while for the show to really gel.
VEEP. GRACE AND FRANKIE is enjoyable in a middle-brow sort of way
BELOVED SISTERS is a strange beast. It’s as if the director was working in an alternate universe in which Friedrich Schiller has die-hard fanboys who yearn for a completist account of the poet’s love life.
HBO’s “Bessie” is damn good.
Maybe not in the same league as HBO’s last two Memorial Day original movies (“Behind the Candelabra” and “The Normal Heart”), but very impressive nonetheless.
And it’s a vast improvement over Dee Rees’ overpraised Sundance-generated indie “Pariah.”
Finished up the final season of Mad Men. Great ending to a great show. I already miss it, but it was time to end the show when it was still good, if not as good as the first 5 seasons.
Seeing Rosemarie DeWitt and Jared Harris in “Poltergeist” made me realize how much I’m already missing “Mad Men.”
Hard to believe I won’t have any new “MM” episodes to look forward to ever again.
Just Mad Men: The Movie. đ
Have you heard something I didn’t, Brack, lol?
The last half of the last season of Mad Men was not very good, and the final episode was crap. Gets my vote for most overrated TV show ever. Relieved it’s over. Watching it felt like doing homework. I feel the same about Game of Thrones. This season has been really slow and dull.
I like Penny Dreadful a lot. Wayward Pines is OK. I like it enough to keep watching but it’s not great or anything. Veep and Silicon Valley are excellent. Love those shows.
That’s blasphemy in my house, SB. “MM” is the single greatest dramatic series in television history as far as I’m concerned.
But I agree that the current season of “GOT” has been “really slow and dull.”
That show has become akin to doing homework for me.
Watching it pre-“MM” on Sunday nights was like eating my broccoli before the sizzling porterhouse arrived.
“The last half of the last season of Mad Men was not very good, and the final episode was crap. Gets my vote for most overrated TV show ever. Relieved itâs over. Watching it felt like doing homework. I feel the same about Game of Thrones. This season has been really slow and dull.”
You have so many other options in your life, why did you keep going back to these shows? Is this perverse dedication how a “Grey’s Anatomy” stays on the air forever?
I don’t even think MM was the best show on Sunday nights, much less all-time. I can’t even fathom that. Hell I got more out of the most recent season of Bates Motel than I did MM. But too each their own.
My wife loves Mad Men and I watched it with her. We don’t watch too many of the same shows and we enjoyed watching it together. As for Game of Thrones, I’m a big fan of the first 4 seasons. This one just hasn’t done much for me.
@ Stella’s Boy
Yeah! Some love for Penny Dreadful! For my money its probably the most gorgeous show on TV, and I’m not just talking about Eva Green. The sets on that show are amazing.
I couldn’t agree more Pete. That show is a visual feast.