MCN Columnists
Noah Forrest

Columns By Noah ForrestForrest@moviecitynews.com

Neil LaBute, What’s Up?/ Paul Newman is Family

What Happened to Neil LaBute? Neil LaBute has never been a filmmaker who shied away from controversial topics. Mostly, he has seemed fascinated by gender in general and, specifically, people’s need to penetrate – both literally and figuratively. In his earlier films, he takes a microscope to the machinations and manipulations of people that are…

Read the full article »

Flow

Global-warning crusader Al Gore asked his audiences to consider the possibility of the world not ending with a bang, but a gurgle. Irena Salina, director of the cautionary documentary, Flow, fears the world might end, instead, with a parched plea for water. T.S. Eliot couldn’t have imagined that the final stanza of “The Hollow Men” might…

Read the full article »

Fly Like an Eagle

There was little ocular strain as audiences focused on the anxiety-raising Eagle Eye with a potent debut estimated at $29.5 million. The weekend leader’s closest competition came from another newcomer, the romantically drenched Nights of Rodanthe that grossed $13.7 million. Two other films bowed nationally with the uplifting drama Fireproof preaching effectively to $6.4 million…

Read the full article »

Paul Newman

You knew something was wrong when Paul Newman announced that he was retiring from acting a couple of years ago. Oh, there had been others that had made it “official” in the past. Cary Grant stuck to his guns and Cagney stayed out of the picture for two decades until his doctor ordered him back to work. Grace…

Read the full article »

How The West Was Won

When it was made, the story in How the West Was Won concluded at a point that reached the lifetime of some of the 1963 MGM film’s oldest viewers (and background extras), so that its own narrative span, depicting in an episodic fashion, the gradual settlement of western America during the Nineteenth Century, could present a…

Read the full article »

If I Had A Ballot Today

We’re just about nine months into this year and we’ve got the three months ahead of us that are usually best for “awards movies.” This has been a solid, if not exactly terrific, first nine months of the year and I thought it would be nice to honor some of the films and performances we’ve…

Read the full article »

Suburban Crawl

The debut of Lakeview Terrace was the idyll of choice for weekend movie goers as it grossed an estimated $15.4 million. Three other films bowed in the current session including the Dane Cook comedy My Best Friend’s Girl that ranked third with $8.3 million and the family animated offering Igor that opened to $7.6 million….

Read the full article »

Why Salo Matters Or: How I Managed Not to Vomit and Learned to Love Pasolini

For years, I’ve heard people tell me that Salo would mess me up. I’ve never walked out of a film because I was offended or because I was grossed out, but I’ve been told again and again that Salo would be the film that would really get to me. So I picked up the new Criterion DVD…

Read the full article »

Stu VanAirsdale of Defamer

Listen to Noah Forrest Podcast with Stu VanAirsdale

Read the full article »

Pyromaniac’s Revenge

In a hotly contested weekend race, the political comedy Burn After Reading emerged as the box office leader with an estimated $19.2 million. Two other debuting titles were right behind with Tyler Perry’s relative drama The Family That Preys grossing $18 million and the DeNiro-Pacino cop meller Righteous Kill posting a $16.4 million box office….

Read the full article »

Toronto From New York

It would be great to be in Toronto this week, sampling some of the movies that will be released to all the regular folks in the coming months. Alas, I didn’t get a chance to see Che, Burn After Reading, Apaloosa, Me and Orson Welles, The Wrestler, Blindness, The Brothers Bloom, Un Conte de Noel…

Read the full article »

Birds of Prey

Too comic booky for the masses, or even the WB subset thereof, the short-lived Birds of Prey TV series, about female crime fighters in ‘New Gotham City,’ has finally been delivered to the medium where it can be the most appreciated, as Warner Home Video has released Birds of Prey The Complete Series, a four platter set…

Read the full article »

The Weekend Report: September 7, 2008

There’s no Weekend Report column this weekend. Leonard Klady is Festivaling in Toronto. Weekend Estimates – September 5-7, 2008 Title Distributor Gross (average) % change Theaters Cume Bangkok Dangerous Lions Gate 7.9 (2,990) – 2650 7.9 Tropic Thunder Par 7.3 (2,120) -36% 3446 96.6 The Dark Knight WB 5.7 (2,210) -34% 2575 512.2 The House…

Read the full article »

Fall Movie Preview Part II

After the enormous box office success of “Fall Preview – Part I,” it seemed that a Part II was inevitable. So, let’s just pick up right where we left off, shall we? November 7 Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Dir. Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath) – Inexplicably, we have a sequel to one of the most boring…

Read the full article »

Slow and Sure

Tropic Thunder executed the hat trick as its estimated $14.5 million holiday weekend tally emerged as the top viewing choice. As the season came to a close a quartet of new national releases sought some late breaking coin. The sci-fi opus Babylon A.D. was ranked second with $12.1 million while the spy thriller Traitor slipped…

Read the full article »

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