Note Pad Archive for February, 2011

DP/30: With The Oscar Winners

ACTOR Colin Firth, The King’s Speech ACTRESS Natalie Portman, Black Swan SUPPORTING ACTRESS Melissa Leo, The Fighter DIRECTOR Tom Hooper, The King’s Speech SCREENWRITER Aaron Sorkin, The Social Network CINEMATOGRAPHER Wally Pfister, Inception EDITOR Angus Wall & Kirk Baxter, The Social Network ANIMATED FEATURE Lee Unkrich, Toy Story 3 DOCUMENTARIES Inside Job – director Charles…

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DP/30 – 43 Oscar Nominees

ACTOR Javier Bardem, Biutiful Jeff Bridges, True Grit Jesse Eisenberg, The Social Network with Andrew Garfield James Franco, 127 Hours Colin Firth, The King’s Speech ACTRESS Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole Jennifer Lawrence, Winter’s Bone Natalie Portman, Black Swan Michelle Williams, Blue Valentine SUPPORTING ACTRESS Amy Adams, The Fighter Melissa Leo, The Fighter Hailee Steinfeld, True…

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DP/30 Oscar Nominees 2010/11: The King’s Speech

actor Colin Firth actor Geoffrey Rush director Tom Hooper

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DP/30 Oscar Nominees 2010/11: The Social Network

screenwriter Aaron Sorkin actor Jesse Eisenberg (with Andrew Garfield) mp3 of the conversation editors Angus Wall & Kirk Baxter cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth

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DP/30 Oscar Nominees 2010/11: Black Swan

3 nominees – cinematographer Matthew Libatique, director Darren Aronofsky, editor Andrew Weisblum actor Natalie Portman director Darren Aronofsky screenwriter Mark Heyman (with choreographer/actor Benjamin Millepied)

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DP/30 Oscar Nominees 2010/11: The Cinematographers

Jeff Cronenweth, The Social Network Roger Deakins, True Grit Matty Libatique, Black Swan Wally Pfister, Inception

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DP/30 – 43 Oscar Nominees

30 minutes, charring with an Oscar nominee. Either you can sneak into the Nominees Lunch on Monday or you can watch them hanging out on DP/30…

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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