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
So a couple low-budget Blumhouse thrillers revitalize Shyamalan’s career. Will he be back in the big leagues now?
Hope so. Night’s run of duds from about Lady in the Water onwards has led to his earlier efforts becoming somewhat neglected nowadays. People seem to have forgotten the ecstatic praise heaped upon The Sixth Sense back in 99 and now seem to just remember it for it’s last minute twist (when actually the scene immediately prior in the car serves as the true emotional climax of the film). If you’ve not seen it in a while then give it another go – it really does hold up well.
I hope Split is better than The Visit, which I absolutely hated. I was cheering against both of those kids after about 10 minutes.
Wondering how 20th Century Women did in expansion…
I FINALLY caught up with Moonlight last night. Problem with living in a smallish town. Forgive me. And I still have others to see. I know it’s been discussed a ton already but I was pretty amazed by it, and surprised about how involved I was by the end, most thanks to amazing performances. The final couple of scenes…the scenes leading up to that final moment…I have yet to better acting this year. Trevante Rhodes was amazing.
Beautiful film.
Wally- Agree re: “Sixth Sense.” I watched it again recently in anticipation of “Split,” and was a little stunned at how good it truly is. Finally understood why everyone loves it.
My ’99 viewing of the film was ruined by Todd McCarthy’s wink-wink, nudge-nudge Variety review (learned my lesson: now I only glean reviews of movies I haven’t seen). I kept waiting for my theory–that Bruce was dead–to be contradicted. Which, obviously, it never was. Was never able to truly get into it because of that unwanted distraction.
Yes, the true emotional climax is the car scene between Haley Joel Osment and Toni Collette (in fact, I said precisely the same thing to a friend while discussing the film last week).
Osment is really kind of amazing: truly one of the all-time great kid movie performances. (He should have won the Oscar.) And Collette richly deserved her nomination.
Also loved the scenic/atmospheric mileage Shyamalan got out of Philly. (Best cinematic use of the city since the original “Rocky.”)
My only (minor) criticism was Bruce who maybe tries a little too hard.
Kept thinking that someone like Tom Hanks would have been more effective.
the Hidden Figues and LLL cumes are wrong. LLL is about $83M and HF $73M. HF will almost ctch up with LLL, though, this weekend. Its drop was only 20%.
Chris Tucker comparison isn’t fair. Tucker never tried to do another franchise. He took the money and ran. I wish more people did that. Why work more than you need to? I thin the second Pitch Black movie was pretty good and it did okay given how little it cost.
Also I don’t mind Vin trying these things. The market is starved for action. If this thing was halfway decent it could be fun. Apparently it’s just barely halfway decent.
Bitplaya, do you mean the 3rd Pitch Black movie? The 2nd one was Chronicles of Riddick. It cost over $100M, and grossed under $120M worldwide.
Look at the drop on Patriots Day, that one isn’t even going to get to $50 million. I really believed that PD could do Lone Survivor business but it’s not even going to come close to Deepwater Horizon or even Battleship. That’s gotta hurt.
The Chronicles of Riddick did fairly well in DVD sales I believe. That’s a movie I have a soft spot for as they threw everything including the kitchen sink into making a mythology. I think it was just too densely packed for the average viewer.
Dame Judi Dench had the great line:
“In normal times, evil would be fought with good. But in times like these, well, it should be fought by another kind of evil.”
That could have been the theme of the 2016 election.
TrackerBacker I meant the third one. It’s actually Pitch Black for a second time. This time with dogs.