MCN Columnists
Leonard Klady

Klady By Leonard KladyKlady@moviecitynews.com

That Was No Lady…

Weekend movie going was dominated by a couple of unusual females as the debuts of Big Momma’s House 2 and Nanny McPhee ranked first and second in box office sales with respective estimates of $27.4 million and $14 million. There was also a passable national bow for the military romance Annapolis and good limited bows…

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A Shock to the System…

Underworld: Evolution sent a chill through the domestic marketplace with a potent debut estimated at $27.1 million. The vampire yarn far out-distanced all competition including no better than fair launches of the family values End of the Spear and the national bow of The New World.Nonetheless, it was a sufficient lead to send grosses soaring…

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Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge…

The animated spoof Hoodwinked nosed ahead of the competition to claim the weekend box office crown with an estimated $16.7 million. Two other new releases were in close pursuit. The sport-themed Glory Road grossed $16.4 million while the Queen Latifah human comedy Last Holidayranked third with $14.9 million. However, the report card for the 4-day…

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Hostel Takeover…

The new year had the smell of blood as Hostel entered the marketplace with an estimated $19.4 million and the Narniates headed for the safety of the closet. The new calendar was less gracious to the frame’s other freshmen entries Grandma’s Boys and BloodRayne but relatively strong holdovers allowed for a modest improvement from one…

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Not With ABang…

As 2005 segued into 2006 The Chronicles of Narnia and King Kong once again battled for the weekend box office crown and respectively grossed an estimated $33.3 million and $31.5 million. Activity at the nation’s multiplexes was generally brisk, just not quite as brisk as it had been in 2004 when one places the comparable…

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Klady

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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