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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Cruel & Crude, But Funny

A Zipperfish Attack On Scientology

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12 Responses to “Cruel & Crude, But Funny”

  1. The Premadator says:

    Hmmm…
    It’s the only religion I know that conceals its “life changing doctrines” from the general non-paying public. Very interesting. The Celebrity Centre right down the street is really spooky… all that’s missing is Orson Welles and a snowglobe.
    And as Bono once said… my God isn’t short of cash, mister.

  2. bicycle bob says:

    attack scientology? way too easy.

  3. Crow T Robot says:

    “…all that’s missing is Orson Welles and a snowglobe.”
    Don’t you mean Olivia Newton John and a pair of roller skates?

  4. Terence D says:

    Tom Cruise is going to sue. Watch out.

  5. PandaBear says:

    I’ll laugh at anything that makes fun of Scientology.

  6. Josh says:

    There goes the Battlefield Earth sequel. Damn!

  7. PandaBear says:

    You think Forest Whitaker has nightmares about signing up for that movie?

  8. lazarus says:

    Shooting fish in a barrel, and about as funny as Mutiny City News.
    As in “not very”.

  9. joefitz84 says:

    Mutiny City News. An easier target than Scientology? Say it ain’t so.

  10. The Premadator says:

    Well that’s the last time I try to pick a fight with cultists on this board.
    Hmph I say. Hmph!

  11. lazarus says:

    Premadator, Bono was referring to Christian evangelicals on American TV when he said “The god I believe in isn’t short of cash, mister”, not Scientologist.
    You can point the 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T at Scientology, and be right on target, but not that one. Bible-thumping Christians have fleeced more idiots out of their money in this country than any other organization could dare to dream of.

  12. murt says:

    We’re thinking about a scientology Tshirt and wonder ing if anyone has acerbic or absurd suggestions for the T-shirt insurgency.
    http://tshirtinsurgency.com/

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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