BYOB Archive for October, 2007

BYOB – Halloween

By David Poland - Wednesday, October 31st, 2007

I am out for most of the day today, though there is a new Hot Button going up sometime today, as well as Gurus 2.0 on MCN.
Let me also say that while her coverage is extremely narrow because of how it is being fed to her, Nikki Finke’s site is clearly worth reading in these early pre-strike days. She is getting propaganda from both sides and running it. She seems to have no idea when she is being played or not, but if you can parse it, there is some great stuff there and she is clearly working her ass off lately to be the one on top of this all. So credit to her… and let’s hope the fools are still letting their working members work this time next week instead of pretending to be heroes of the working class who are driving their Porsche SUVs to the rallys to bring down the system that they simply want a bigger piece of. (Strike when it’s right… not when expedient.)

85 Comments »

BYOB – October 29

By David Poland - Monday, October 29th, 2007

A new week… lots to wonder about… I’ll be posting, but here is some space for you to Bring Your Own Blog…

91 Comments »

BYOB – Oct 25

By David Poland - Thursday, October 25th, 2007

That last BYOB went back in time… sorry.
In New Jersey/New York… lots on the agenda for the next week, including 6 shows (no musicals… sorry). I should catch up with some actual thinking tonight for the blog.
Until then, it’s all yours. Be kind… if not to me, at least to each other.

58 Comments »

BYOB – Oct 14

By David Poland - Wednesday, October 24th, 2007

Another travelling day…

21 Comments »

BYOB – October 22

By David Poland - Sunday, October 21st, 2007
78 Comments »

BYOB – October 18

By David Poland - Thursday, October 18th, 2007

Should have put this up last night… sorry.
Long day of travel… now in Indianapolis for the Heartland Film Festival.
What’s been going on while I have been stuck in the long tubes of stale air all day?
ADDED: Oh yes… let me say… the #1 reason why Michael Clayton is being seen as a negative opening by anyone this week? Because idiots who know nothing about the box office are trying to sell a story that doesn’t exist.
The danger of box office reporting is not that it detracts from the art. It’s that anyone who can go on Box Office Mojo assumes they “get it.” They do not.
BTW… Michael Clayton moved from fourth place for the weekend (2-4 were all within $700k of one another) to third on Monday and Tuesday and second yesterday. So please… just shut up and let a movie emerge. Do I really need to point out that the only Best Picture nominee last year to have a single weeked as strong as Clayton’s opening -ever- was The Departed. A gread total of ZERO of the BP noms from the year before ever had a weekend as good.
So what’s the bad part? If the movie grosses $50 million domestic, $75 million overseas, and scores 7 or more Oscar noms… is that a bad thing now? Is this all idiot blowback from Good Night, and Good Luck. Or is George Clooney and this movie just this week’s victim of “legitimate” Hollywood journalists turning into hype-driven non-thinkers who thrive on the harshest headline.
There is a real discussion to be had about what George Clooney’s level of stardom is. As I pointed out earlier this week in another discussion, I rank him in the #30s of star power at the box office. But at the very least, people who want to start going negative for no real reason should be forced to start with an offering of what number and what achievement the movie needs for them to apologize… like they would ever be that honest!

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BYOB – October 16

By David Poland - Tuesday, October 16th, 2007
26 Comments »

BYOB – October 12

By David Poland - Friday, October 12th, 2007

After cracking 100 entries on the last one, perhaps a little more room to flex…

63 Comments »

BYOB – October 10

By David Poland - Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

anyone… anyone…

106 Comments »

BYOB – October 4

By David Poland - Thursday, October 4th, 2007

If you don’t know… it’s Bring Your Own Blog… space for commenters to discuss whatever is on their mind and is not otherwise covered in here.

16 Comments »

BYOB 3 – October 1

By David Poland - Monday, October 1st, 2007
70 Comments »

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