MCN Columnists
Leonard Klady

Klady By Leonard KladyKlady@moviecitynews.com

Crystal Blue Persuasion…

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder and if that’s not quite the case for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, one can certainly say that audiences maintained a healthy enthusiasm for the fedora-topped adventurer. The long in the musing fourth chapter of the franchise grossed an estimated $123.7 million during…

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Caspian Sees Wave…

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian crested with an estimated $56.7 million to rank as the weekend’s top movie attraction. The anticipated commercial potency of the franchise had competitors large and small avoiding a head on and giving the youth appeal adventure a clear shot among debuting national releases. Debuting niche and regional newcomers were…

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Torpid Racer!

Iron Man rigidly held sway in the marketplace despite a 49% box office decline with an estimated $50.2 million gross. That proved to be bad news for the bow of Speed Racer that was expected to rank a close second but wound up fighting a hard race with the romantic comedy What Happens in Vegas….

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Mahvalous!

The industry crossed its fingers and let out a sigh in hopes that Iron Man would kick off the summer season with a $100 million debut. And when Thursday sneaks were tossed into the mix the tally reached an estimated $101.8 million. In the record books it ranked second among non-sequel debut weekends and elevated…

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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