MCN Columnists
Leonard Klady

Klady By Leonard KladyKlady@moviecitynews.com

Train Wreck

March 28 , 2010 Opening numbers for weekend freshmen How to Train Your Dragon and Hot Tub Time Machine fell below expectations and for the first time in two months frame revenues lagged behind the comparable 2009 session. Dragon topped the charts with an estimated $41.7 million while Hot Tub slotted third in the lineup…

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Reap What You Til

Til Schweiger is probably the biggest star in the German film industry today. He recalls the rugged masculinity of the likes of William Holden. Schweiger became a star with the release of the social comedy Der Bewegte Mann (Maybe … Maybe Not in the U.S.) in 1994 and has managed a career that has encompassed high and low brow…

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It’s an (Organic) Wrap

Las Vegas – There was a lot to digest at the recently concluded Showest convention, ranging from matters of life and death (digital conversion, access to diverse movies) to the frankly frivolous (healthier snack foods). On balance, one left with the sense that at least the distribution sector was 1) on relatively stable economic ground and 2)…

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Diary of a Wimpy Weekend

March 21 , 2010 There was good response for national freshmen releases Diary of a Wimpy Kid and The Bounty Hunter but the third weekend of Alice in Wonderland prevailed at the top of the box office with an estimated $34.6 million. Diary, based on the teen lit favorite, ranked second with $22.1 million; followed…

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It Was the Showest of Times, It Was the Showorst of Times

The film industry ought to be giddy. Box office is booming thanks to a pair of 3D movies; namely Avatar and Alice in Wonderland. Attendance is up; people, according to industry statistics, are going more often and rate the experience with four stars. Yet, apart from the rare instance of hyperbole, you’d have to characterize the mood…

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Whole in One

March 14 , 2010 Alice in Wonderland didn’t quite fall by half but its estimated $61.9 million was more than adequate to lead weekend movie sales. Four new releases followed the leader with the most potent being the Iraq War-set thriller Green Zone, which grossed $14.5 million. The beauty and the geek comedy She’s Out…

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The Cash in the Hat

March 7 , 2010 Holy Moolah! Alice in Wonderland fell down the hole and landed on a record-breaking $115.2 million estimate. Business was buoyant and even the counter-programmed bow of Brooklyn’s Finest exceeded projections with a $13.5 million debut that ranked second in the lineup. Aside from a sturdy $37,400 single engagement for animation nominee…

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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