MCN Columnists
Other Voices

Columns By Other Voicesvoices@moviecitynews.com

A Good Year For The Oscars

I leave it up to the TV critics to analyze the Oscar ceremonies as an entertainment TV show. However, as far as I am concerned, Chris Rock did a good job, even if had expected him to be edgier and more provocative. One of the things that struck me about the show was the large…

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Born to be Mad…

Though tracking was upbeat, no one expected Diary of a Mad Black Woman to top weekend movie going with an estimated $21.2 million gross. In a very close competition with the third weekend of Hitch, the independently produced social comedy starring and conceived by Tyler Perry appeared to have the edge and certainly ranks immediately…

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The MCN 100: The Early Poll 2003

In an awards season fraught with new issues, Movie City News introduces the “MCN 100,” a voting group of 100 film journalists from across the globe, representing print, television, radio and the internet. Members have been drawn from some of the best known and the most obscure publications in the world in hopes of finding…

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The Oscar Tradition: Celebrating Mediocrity?

How good are Oscar-winning movies, artistically? More specifically, applying the dimensions of timeliness/timelessness to Oscar’s history, two issues are pertinent. First, how many of the Oscar winners were artistically decent when they were made and honored? And second, how many of the celebrated pictures have withstood the test of time, the ultimate criterion in any…

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Date From Hell

The anticipation was enormous and the results impressive but the final estimated tally of $35.1 million for the supernatural thriller Constantine still lagged slightly behind Hitch, which took weekend box office honors with slightly more than $37 million. Modest results for several other debuts during the four-day Presidents holiday frame pushed business to about $160…

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Oscar 2004: Flashback to Oscar’s Memorable Speeches

Suppose You won the Oscar! What would You say? How would you grab your 45 seconds–unless you are Warren Beatty or Julia Roberts and get to talk much longer–in the spotlight? The Oscar speeches are often the show’s most memorable–and most hilarious–moments, perhaps because they still maintain some aura of suspense and spontaneity, if not sensibility. Over…

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Hitch & Run!

Where there’s a Will, there’s a Hit (ch). Unabashedly playing up actor Will Smith‘s popularity provided Hitch with a sensational debut estimated at $45.6 million and pegged as the biggest opening gross for a romantic comedy. Rebounding from the traditional Super Bowl box office dip, weekend movie going jumped 22% from seven days earlier and…

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Oscar 2004: The Critics vs. Clint

Or How Hollywood Taught Us to Stop Worrying and Love the Critics I don’t think Clint Eastwood has bloomed. I think the press has been Hornswoggled. “Unforgiven” was another Western in which you were pacifist until it’s necessary for you to start shooting. I always see Eastwood following the script slavishly; I never see him…

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Scare Tactics

Do I hear a franchise? Boogeyman provided the shock and awe in movie theaters this past weekend as it debuted to an estimated $20.2 million. While exhibitors and distributors were girding for the annual hard hit of Super Bowl Sunday, business was better than expected overall and also featured a very good bow for The…

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Sundance 2005: The Mainstreaming of Indies

Let’s assume that the only source of information about American indies is Sundance’s premier section, the Dramatic Competition – excluding world premieres, American Spectrum, Frontier and other series that exhibit new films. What kind of conclusions can be draw about prevalent trends in paradigms, themes, and styles? What’s the state of the art of American…

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Columns

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Ophelia, Ambition, Werewolf in Girls' Dorm, Byleth, Humble Pie, Good Omens, Yellowstone …More

rohit aggarwal on: The DVD Wrapup: Ophelia, Ambition, Werewolf in Girls' Dorm, Byleth, Humble Pie, Good Omens, Yellowstone …More

https://bestwatches.club/ on: The DVD Wrapup: Diamonds of the Night, School of Life, Red Room, Witch/Hagazussa, Tito & the Birds, Keoma, Andre’s Gospel, Noir

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Sleep With Anger, Ralph Wrecks Internet, Liz & Blue Bird, Hannah Grace, Unseen, Jupiter's Moon, Legally Blonde, Willard, Bang … More

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Bumblebee, Ginsburg, Buster, Silent Voice, Nazi Junkies, Prisoner, Golden Vampires, Highway Rat, Terra Formars, No Alternative … More

GDA on: The DVD Wrapup: Bumblebee, Ginsburg, Buster, Silent Voice, Nazi Junkies, Prisoner, Golden Vampires, Highway Rat, Terra Formars, No Alternative … More

Larry K on: The DVD Wrapup: Sleep With Anger, Ralph Wrecks Internet, Liz & Blue Bird, Hannah Grace, Unseen, Jupiter's Moon, Legally Blonde, Willard, Bang … More

Gary Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Shoplifters, Front Runner, Nobody’s Fool, Peppermint Soda, Haunted Hospital, Valentine, Possum, Mermaid, Guilty, Antonio Lopez, 4 Weddings … More

gwehan on: The DVD Wrapup: Shoplifters, Front Runner, Nobody’s Fool, Peppermint Soda, Haunted Hospital, Valentine, Possum, Mermaid, Guilty, Antonio Lopez, 4 Weddings … More

Gary J Dretzka on: The DVD Wrapup: Peppermint, Wild Boys, Un Traductor, Await Instructions, Lizzie, Coby, Afghan Love Story, Elizabeth Harvest, Brutal, Holiday Horror, Sound & Fury … More

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