MCN Columnists
Leonard Klady

Klady By Leonard KladyKlady@moviecitynews.com

Next Can’t Happen Too Soon…

April 29, 2007 Weekend Finals Domestic Market Share The weekend box office buzz primarily focused on next weekend’s debut of Spider-Man 3 rather than anything with currency. And it was for good reason! Disturbia was for the third weekend the top grosser with an estimated $9.1 million and a quartet of freshmen releases failed to spark much…

Read the full article »

Jack Be Nimble

Late Thursday afternoon I was on the phone with Seth Oster of the Motion Picture Association of America. Toward the end of our conversation he made reference to Jack Valenti and indicated he wasn’t in the best of shape since his stroke in March. I asked him if he was at home and receiving a lot…

Read the full article »

Shaken, But Not Destirred …

April 22, 2007 Weekend Finals Domestic Market Share While four new films entered the marketplace, last week’s top-slotted Disturbia held first place with an estimated $13.7 million gross. The freshmen class included a place position for the psychological thriller Fracture of $10.7 million; the chiller Vacancy ranked fourth with $7.5 million; Brit hit comedyHot Fuzz grossed $5.8 million…

Read the full article »

Be Disturbed .. Be Very, Very Disturbed!

April 15, 2007 Weekend Finals Domestic Market Share The offbeat teen thriller Disturbia took top honors in weekend movie going with an estimated $22.8 gross. Five other films bowed nationally to generally disappointing results as the industry appeared to be emulating the August tradition of dumping product. However, in this instance new entries were anticipating quick…

Read the full article »

The Grind Who Stole Easter?

April 8, 2007 Weekend Finals Domestic Market Share The mood was eggstatic as the Easter weekend frame eggceeded 2006 business with a quartet of new releases. However, last weekend toppers Blades of Glory and Meet the Robinsons once again held top spots with respective estimated grosses of $23.2 million and $17.1 million. Freshmen entries generally opened well…

Read the full article »

Thick Ice …

April 1, 2007 Weekend Finals Domestic Market Share Blades of Glory figured an impressive estimated $33.1 million to take the gold in weekend box office viewing. There was also good news for the animated Meet the Robinsons that ranked second with $25.7 million but eyes were elsewhere for The Lookout. Additionally the stealth reissue of Peaceful Warrior…

Read the full article »

Klady

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