MCN Columnists
David Poland

20 Weeks to Oscar By David Polandpoland@moviecitynews.com

20W2O: 18 Weeks To Go – Surprise!

By David Poland - Thursday, October 25th, 2012

I would love to tell you that I thought there would be as big a surprise in the awards races as, say, Ben Mendelsohn in Killing Them Softly. Great, memorable performance. But that momentum is just not there. But there are some cases that I do think could upset the apple cart as we move through the next six weeks… and in terms of Oscar nominations, that’s about all that’s left, folks, thanks to the bizarre choice by The Academy to institute “early voting” and a harshly short window on all nomination voting of January 3.

Read the full article »

20W2O: 19 Weeks (minus 5 days) To Go – Season Of The Switcheroo

By David Poland - Tuesday, October 23rd, 2012

I’ve been noticing a trend this award season. There are movies – from the best to not-the-best – that suggest that you’re going to see one movie… and end up seeing something altogether unexpected.

This doesn’t mean that the audience suffers. There is something wonderful about going in one direction and then being pushed somewhere else unexpectedly. The audience has to do some work. They have to be on their toes.

Read the full article »

20 Weeks To Oscar: 20 Weeks To Go

By David Poland - Thursday, October 11th, 2012

This seems like the beginning of the season. But in reality, we’re already pretty far down the road. By next week at this time, the only legitimately contending movies not widely seen by NY/LA media will be Les Miserables, Django Unchained, Zero Dark Thirty, and Hitchcock. So there may be a performance or two that changes the acting categories. If you want a “The Year Of…” tag, here it is: This is the Year Of The Close Fight.

Read the full article »

20 Weeks to Oscar

Comments Most Recent Archives

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