MCN Columnists
Leonard Klady

Klady By Leonard KladyKlady@moviecitynews.com

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…

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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…

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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….

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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….

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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…

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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…

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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