MCN Columnists
Leonard Klady

Klady By Leonard KladyKlady@moviecitynews.com

Monster Smash

The debut of Monsters vs. Aliens scared up an estimated $57.3 million to handily take control of weekend movie viewing.The Haunting in Connecticut, a more traditional chiller, also bowed to an impressive $23.2 million and the two top sellers accounted for approximately 55% of the frame’s admissions. The session also saw a rather flaccid bow…

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Knowing … and Not Knowing

The science-fiction anxiety raiser Knowing led the weekend box office chart with an estimated $24.1 million. In a session where a trio of national releases was expected to be closely bunched, the separations were noticeable. The romantic comedy I Love You, Man debuted in second spot with $17.6 million and the tongue-in-cheek thriller Duplicity took…

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Witch Way to the Front

Race to Witch Mountain ambled to the top of weekend ticket sales with an estimated $24.8 million. The frame’s other national debuts also showed predictable potency. The horror remake Last House on the Left ranked third with a $14.6 million gross and the twenty-something comedy Miss March mustered $2.3 million. Additionally there were a slew…

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A Watchmen Pot Boils

Propelled by the debut of Watchmen, domestic box office rose by 12% from 2008. The adaptation of the acclaimed graphic novel opened to an estimated $56.7 million and accounted for roughly 50% of all movie ticket sales on its opening weekend. The Watchmen saga – at least in regard to its tortured journey to the…

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Jonas and the Wail

Despite a 60% drop in business and anticipated fierce competition, Madea Goes to Jail retained its position as top ticket seller with an estimated $16.4 million gross. The presumed champ – Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience – got off to a fast start but quickly faltered and finished second overall with a $12.6 million…

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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