April 30, 2024
BYOB
Triple Option on: BYO Oscar
Sideshow Bill on: BYO Oscar
Stella's Boy on: BYO Oscar
Pete B on: BYO Oscar
movieman on: BYO Oscar
movieman on: BYO Oscar
Stella's Boy on: BYO Oscar
Hcat on: BYO Oscar
brack on: BYO Oscar
iothereturned on: BYO Oscar
BYOB: 235 Years Of Relative independence
BYOB Weekend: Hop, An April Fool’s Gag?
see all »
[twitter-widget username="DavidPoland" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"][twitter-widget username="MCNTweets" hiderss="true" hidereplies="true" hidefrom="true" items="3" showts="60" title=" " targetBlank="true"]
Quote Unquotesee all »
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
Don’t forget the WEREWOLVES! THE SUPER-HOT WEREWOLF POSSE! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!
I see whispers of a $100M weekend for New Moon. Erroneous in my mind. But if the movie going public lets me down so tremendously, then whatever faith I had left is gone.
While I may not be the exact target demographic for these flicks, i saw Twilight for the first time two weeks ago. Man, talk about boring. I want my vampires to have..well…VAMPIRES. Not brooding teenagers always a heartbeat away from being reduced to tears. Everyone is competing for that Most Tortured Trophy. WTF. That movie was absolutely no fun.
Even the bad guys were boring. They have literally sucked the life out of the vampire genre, and they should be ashamed of themselves. Where are The Frog Brothers when you need them.
That should be ‘I want my vampire movies to have well..vampires.’
Okies – here’s one that probably gets trotted out every 6 months or so: what’s the secret behind a successful adaptation of a popular property? Why did Twilight score big and Eragon flunk?
Both received similar critical maulings so it wasn’t a “quality” issue (for a given value of “quality”… we’re talking fairly targeted audiences here).
Hrm… a quick search reveals that Eragon and Twilight did similar international business ($174mil and $191mil respectively) – is it purely an artefact of the US market?
‘twilight’ made bank cause girls wanna fuck edward cullen (sorry if that sounds crass but NEVER underestimate the power of horny chicks and how much they are willing to pay to live vicariously and feed their fantasies. same reason ‘titanic’, ‘trek’, even ‘iron man’ made so much $, girls wanna screw the the lead characters. when will hollyweird figure this out? boys shmoys, girls are the real money)
If I had written something that sexist you would have had a hot fit shit snit.
Lemme guess…when you write it you think it’s female empowerment, eh?
Leah…you are such a simplistic, hypocritial ass.
Let the bile flow…
Eh… estrogen brigade bait isn’t exactly a new phenomena.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EstrogenBrigadeBait
I have it on good authority that the supporting guy for Eragon was “hot as fuck” – why didn’t that translate into box office?
“when will hollyweird figure this out? boys shmoys, girls are the real money”
1) They have. You’ve cited only some examples. Hell, Disney has been bleeding the tween and teen girl market dry for years. Haven’t you noticed?
2) The term “Hollyweird” is so abominably stupid that I’m shocked anyone of near-normal intellect would use it.
Nicol, there’s this thing called ‘reality’, I’d give you the address to get there but it would involve leaving your bubble.
I don’t even see what the ‘sexist’ part of what Leah said could be – it’s like asking “what’s the big deal with porn?” getting the response “men want to fuck Sasha Grey” or whoever, and then decrying that response as somehow off the reservation. Kee-rist.
“boys shmoys, girls are the real money”
This is true…but I have also noticed that teen girls’ tastes seem to change much faster than those of boys. Given the time it takes to make a movie, it can be hard to get one out quick enough to capitalize on a girl trend. Those 3-D concert movies of Hannah Montana and the Jonas Bros are relatively quick to make, and they make bank because they come out while the trend is still hot. But I don’t think that big-screen Lizzie McGuire movie did so well…it took too long.
;-* kisses NICOL!
only a truly chauvinist narrow-minded weenie would think everything a feminist says is for the sake of ‘female empowerment’. just one more way for you to label women by putting them into a box where you are comfortable with believing they should think and act a certain way, rather than accepting women as fully-realised, diverse, complicated, capable, messy human beings. now off you go to find a damsel in distress with a terrible case of the vapours about to faint dead away from offence to her delicate sensibilities in need of rescue. ride, starlight, ride!
“I have it on good authority that the supporting guy for Eragon was “hot as fuck” – why didn’t that translate into box office?”
uh, because quite obviously not nearly enough girls found him ‘hot as fuck’
re: chicks and box office, i’m not talking just the usual ‘disney’ and tweens paradigm, that’s sort of the problem in a nutshell. i’m talking mainstream flicks made to appeal to women as well as men. the powers that be OBVIOUSLY have not cottoned on to the fact that women are the ticket to box office beyond cookie cutter romcoms, or they would stop spending most of their time and money making movies geared solely towards the minds of teenage boys/men
(so wrecktum, calling a town with an unusually high proportion of fake-grinning ass-kissing back-stabbing self-important surgically-altered creatively-bereft try-hard superficial buffoons ‘weird’ is ‘abominably stupid’?)
re: the porn thing, here’s the difference for women (a huge generalisation of course): women tend to get turned on by living vicariously through movie stars, fantasising with themselves in the role of the female lead doing stuff with the male object of their fantasy — they generally don’t want to actually SEE some pneumatic bimbo getting pummeled by the object of their affection, there’s no vicarious mystery, imagination or sensuality in that
re: chicks and box office….
i saw ‘the princess and the frog’ on the disney lot over the week-end (followed by the ‘disney experience’)…….LOTS of little girls in ‘disney princess’ frocks, lots of little boys who couldn’t be convinced to interact with all the disney princesses working the room….. grrrrrl power at the box-office starts before teen and tween…..
fwiw— ‘princess and the frog’ is a brilliant return to 2-d with a randy newman score equal to anything he’s done before…a lock for award consideration (and a probable win with ‘almost there’)…..jus’ my thought…..
Leah, I don’t think men are too far off from what you’re saying about women and fantasy identification – remember that old expression or marketing line, “Men want to be him and women want to be with him” which goes at least as far back as Cary Grant. And I don’t want to see Cary Grant in a porno.
Jeff, it would involve Mr. Blackwell, and it would most likely not be enjoyable to watch. Just a thought.
The whole thing with the ladies and the box office. Ladies are bank, but they do not buy the right ancillaries. They may be a t-shirt, they may buy a DVD, but cannot be count on to do these things. Why? The ladies are fickle. They have always been fickle. If you give a fickle audience ALWAYS what they want, then you are asking for trouble.
The Twilight series is cool to me because finally girls/women have a reason to act like dudes about something, and have it not be lame. People can hate on Twilight all they want, but it sure as fuck is not a boy band. Even if girls want Donny Whalberg as much as Rob Pattinson.
Leah – Totally agree that ladies are a demographic that hollywood overlooks at their peril:
http://www.thewrap.com/article/fanboys-may-not-be-who-marketers-think-8613
However, I hope you’ll forgive me if I hold off embracing your theory that “Ladies didn’t find Eragon actors hot enough” until I see that come through in the demographic numbers. I’m not quite sure it’s a simple as piling on the eyecandy… (but, hey, eyecandy has its place). 😉
interesting survey, foamy. and yet they continue to be called ‘fanboys’…
(my ‘eragon’ comment was just an offhand guess – i can remember very little about that movie except jeremy irons was in it. i didn’t mean to imply that appealing to women is as simple as piling on the eyecandy, quite the contrary, piling on meaningless ‘eyecandy’ is far more the accepted paradigm for pandering to male movie-goers. women tend to want charisma, excitement, chemistry, connection, sensuality – more complex fantasy fodder
“Leah, I don’t think men are too far off from what you’re saying about women and fantasy identification – remember that old expression or marketing line, “Men want to be him and women want to be with him” which goes at least as far back as Cary Grant. And I don’t want to see Cary Grant in a porno.”
what a relief, glad to hear it!
Didn’t see TWILIGHT and got on plans to see this one or any of them either.
I’d like to just say that I just discovered Lex G’s Twitter feed and, let me tell you, it is GOLD, Jerry!
If ever a guy was perfect for Twitter, it’s Lex. I know he grates on most of you, but I am rooting for the guy and find him amusing and often LOL funny. He has talent. Really. For what? I don’t know.
I think Leah’s on to something. My wife begged me to go see Iron Man once she saw the preview with Robert Downey Jr. Same with Spiderman and Tobey Maguire. She saw the preview for Watchmen and told me that I was going by myself. Granted this is really anecdotal, but I think studios should focus a lot more on getting girls to agree to go to their geek movie rather than spending so much to keep the geeks happy.
I don’t even see what the ‘sexist’ part of what Leah said could be
The objectification of a person as sex object? In this case, a male? That you didn’t connect those dots makes Nicol’s point, I think (re: double standards).
So, Leah pointing out that Twilight (as well as other films) succeeded partly due to the fact that females are attracted to the lead male character is sexist, proves a double standard and justifies Nicol’s outrage? I don’t think anyone failed to “connect the dots.” I just don’t think anyone agrees with Nicol’s post.
Nicol’s observations are straight out of Rush Limbaugh’s show circa 1990. And just as valid.
So, Leah pointing out that Twilight (as well as other films) succeeded partly due to the fact that females are attracted to the lead male character is sexist
She actually said, “girls wanna fuck edward cullen” If you don’t see the distinction between that and your more tactful interpretation, approach a female coworker that you find attractive and say, “I want to fuck you.” See how that goes over.
So that is the exact same thing mystery? What Leah said and meant is exactly like me walking up to a female co-worker and saying “I want to fuck you.”
Nicol and mystery are perfect examples of the willfull ignorance that hallmarks today’s right-wing. See Palin, Sarah.
You’re missing the point. The point was never that what leahnz said wasn’t true– it could be entirely accurate (and seems reasonable to me).
The point is that it was a crass objectification that would be considered sexist if LexG had said it about a female. Its about political correctness, in my opinion.
I think there’s a difference with telling a random female coworker that you want to fuck them, and saying that girls might want to fuck a movie star. Dude, come on.
I doubt anyone would have a problem if I said there are many many men who would enjoy doing Angelina Jolie. Maybe even in the ass, if she would let them!
Yeah what Big Perm said. There is a world of difference between the two.
I’ve never gotten too worked up about LexG and his comments about females, but I believe he has said far worse and more offensive things than “I want to fuck ________________.” If that was the worst thing he ever said, I doubt anyone here would have gotten worked up about it.
“so wrecktum, calling a town with an unusually high proportion of fake-grinning ass-kissing back-stabbing self-important surgically-altered creatively-bereft try-hard superficial buffoons ‘weird’ is ‘abominably stupid’?”
Yes. L.A. doesn’t have any more or less of those stereotypes than other comparable cities, which you’d know if you’ve ever lived here.
Its not about being offended by a statement, its about whether the statement sexually objectifies and demeans its subject (in this case, Edward Cullen). You’re not offended because it has nothing to do with you. If the subject were your sister/mom, you might feel differently (or not, offense is subjective).
I don’t want to make too much of it; Nicol said it because he doesn’t like leahnz. But I do think that he is technically correct; if he was the author of leahnz’s initial statement, it would have been met with a different response.
Why would anyone be upset if Nicol had said females flock to Twilight because they want to fuck Edward Cullen? I just don’t buy that him stating that would have caused outrage. Maybe the statement does “sexually objectify” Edward Cullen, but wouldn’t you say that Summit and the actor have played a part in sexually objectifying the character?
Ha ha ha, poor Edward Cullen, he’s been sexually objectified!
I think if I were Angelina Jolie’s mom and I were offended by someone wanting to fuck my daughter, I’d want a friend to whisper in my ear “then maybe she shouldn’t have done that nudie lesbo sex scene in Gia.” A good friend would do that for me.
So, “New Moon” is tracking at near $100 million for the weekend. Wowza.
others have already pretty much expressed my sentiments re: nicol and mystery’s comments so i’ll leave it at that
“L.A. doesn’t have any more or less of those stereotypes than other comparable cities, which you’d know if you’ve ever lived here”
wrong, wrecktum. i have lived there. several of my immediate family members still live in the southland, incl one that works within the studio system. i work in production design and i’ve been there in a professional capacity as well as privately; i meet and work with people from there on a fairly regular basis, some of whom are lovely, some of whom are about as genuine as the boobs in LA. if you actually think people in the business there are as down to earth as everywhere else, perhaps it’s you who needs to get OUT of lalaland for a bit
Vampires have moved from silly to kewl starting with Coppola’s Dracula, Cruise and Pitt in Interview and Buffy. The needle for full-on sword & sorcery is still stuck on Dork. It moved a little due to Bloom in LOTR but that heat followed him to Pirates which shares common ground, in the fun end of the fantasy pool.
Think of the LCD between Depp in Pirates and Downey in IM. It’s the space Bond inhabited with Connery at its peak and occassionaly with Moore. Or see it as if Star Wars was about Han Solo, you would have POTC In Space. Eragon is cub scout fun like Star Wars and LOTR, chaste and virtuous. The common ground with Twilight and Pirates for females is the allure of the bad boy. Twilight simply put vampires on a Leo-level of pretty bad boy by swiping Romeo&Juliet.
That should say “shares common ground with Iron Man”…
Well said, Martin.
If somebody was talking about one of my mom’s former boyfriends, “he’s just hanging out with her because he wants to fuck her” I would (a) have to agree, and (b) be flattered on her behalf, seeing as how she’s 60.
And considering that the Twilight franchise pretty much does appear to objectify its men (all I know about Taylor Lautner is that he’s like 17 and has amazing abs) I don’t think it’s inappropriate to say so.
“if you actually think people in the business there are as down to earth as everywhere else, perhaps it’s you who needs to get OUT of lalaland for a bit”
I guess you’ve surrounded yourself with assholes while I’ve surrounded myself with nice, decent people. Now who’s fault is that?
Is it just me, or can you, too, just FEEL the sexual tension whenever Leahnz and Nicol D start swapping comments?
Wrecktum, your last comment doesn’t make sense. Leah says LA is loaded with weirdos; she does not live in LA. Therefore, in her home setting in New Zealand…oh, never mind.
I meant in L.A….oh, never mind.
And SCENE.
And then, of course, there is the palpable sexual tension between Wrecktum and Jeffmcm…
Actually, thinking about Leah’s comment (and discussion re: Leap Year) a bit more – there might be something there in terms of variety of selection.
New Moon has the target audience divided over who is hotter – Taylor Lautner or Robert Pattinson. A similar thing happened with Star Trek (Cpt Kirk vs. Spock), Pirates (Jack Sparrow vs. Whoever Orlando Bloom Played), Dark Knight (Christian Bale vs. Heath Ledger) and even Lord of the Rings (Legolas vs. Aragorn, with a third party ticket from Frodo).
Iron Man throws a bit of a spanner in the works, but who ever let data get in the way of a good theory?
Thought I’d check in and see if anything had changed here.
Seems slightly better, but there are always a couple of dickheads looking to start something, aren’t there?
“getting girls to agree to go to their geek movie rather than spending so much to keep the geeks happy.”
Exactly **Me**…especially since you cannot please most of the geeks most of the time (a couple exceptions to that of course).
V for Vendetta was much better simply because they made Natalie Portman much more girl-power than the weak Evey in the book (I love the book, but not the excessivley helpless Evey).
Many girls went to see it, I think, because Portman was in it instead of a bimb.
Eh… but V did less business than Watchmen and less worldwide than League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – all Alan Moore adaptations (and League was pretty horrific).
Of the two theories (Strong Female Character vs. Estrogen Brigade Bait) the 2nd seems to match the data better. God knows Joss Whedon’s been struggling in the ratings despite his love of heroic superwomen.
Oh, and Frank – you wanna take this outside?!
Outside where the Liberal Media are choking on the hype they have wrought. Their premise is
“New Moon” = white movie = good
“Precious” = black movie = bad
What planet do you live on, Chucky? Right now at Rottentomatoes, Precious is at 91% positive, New Moon is at a rotten-to-mediocre 53%.
You’re an idiot.
Most people don’t visit Rotten Tomatoes, they follow press/TV coverage which has been:
“New Moon” = white movie = lots of stories and pictures
“Precious” = black movie = nothing
Chucky, you make Dee Zee look positively illuminating.
Chucky, your first sentence “Most people don’t follow Rotten Tomatoes” is irrelevant and shows you miss the point – RT is a way to quantify (roughly) the amount of critical acclaim that a movie is getting, and according to it, critics vastly prefer Precious to New Moon.
What you’re talking about (“press/TV coverage” has to do with the fact that the Twilight movies are a mega-franchise which means that the studio is spending tens of millions of dollars on advertising, and Precious is a small indie movie relying on a slow expansion roll-out.
You’re an idiot.
I’m not an idiot, I’m just bringing up what I’ve seen.
Also, I don’t put words in other people’s mouths and I don’t rewrite quotes to suit my fancy. Anyone who does is an a$$hole who would be fired from a news organization — for cause.
No, by objective, rational, detached standards, you, Chucky, are prone to spewing falsehoods and distortions. I presume this is out of ignorance and not out of malice, although you do seem to be malicious from time to time. So calling you an ‘idiot’ is actually giving you the benefit of the doubt.
I spew falsehoods and distortions? Who changed one word in a previous post and passed it off as a direct quote?
Pull that crap where I work and you’ll be fired on the spot.
Chucky, did you just threaten to fire me? You can’t fire me, I quit!
Curious to know where you work, though, since that might add context to your persistent bubble of anti-thought.