BYOB Archive for February, 2008

BYOB Mazatlan

The boat cruises along…
How floats your boat?

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BYO Bon Voyage

We’re pulling out of dock… The 10th Floating Film Festival is on its way.
I will be doing some writing as the cruise goes along. They have wi-fi this time. But mostly, it’s up to you guys for a while.
Have fun without me… Just not too much!!!

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Bring Your Own Oscar Yammering

Liveblogging died today… as every monkey with a keyboard, Traditional Media or New, feels a need to comment minute-by-minute on a show that everyone gets to see live. It seems to me to be about the equivalent of reading a column about sex during sex. Methinks your “partner” would be better served by a little concentration.
The day of verbal diarrhea as a communications medium is coming to an end.
I don

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BYOscarB

It’s the Friday before Oscar… three new wide releases (over 1000 screens) and I can only hope that Vantage Point doesn’t suck relentlessly. Proud moments!
Is there anything left to say about Oscar (or anything else)?
You tell me.

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BYOB – Tuesday 2/19

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BYOB – President's Day… oy…

David “Not The Bagger Here” Carr kicks out an excellent column about Obama fever and the idea that it may actually be changing news viewing habits of the younger set (and more).
And btw, it finally occurred to me what a nasty spin the whole “Is Obama ready?” scam is… when you realize that Mrs. Clinton should be asked about how her husband had even less experience in international affairs when he took office.
The is that the last 30 years of The Presidency (five presidents) has consisted of 4 governors and one experienced Washington figure… George HW Bush. All governors come up against the question of international experience. And before Carter, you had the very experienced, very ineffective Gerald Ford, political maven Tricky Dick Nixon, smoky room man LBJ, and John F Kennedy

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BYOB – Thursday 2/14

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BYOB – 2/7/8

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BYOB – Super Tuesday

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BYOB – Weekend 2/1 – Apolitical

Here’s some more space for those who wish to delve into matters without governmental import, as the last entry seemed to become all that and a bag of Barack…

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BYOB – Weekend 2/1 – Political

Hannah will earn Montana… yawn.
There must be something worth talking about, but I don’t see it.
I was up late watching the rerun of the Democratic debate last night… and suddenly, as reflected in today’s Hot Button (I seem to be writing a monthly now), I got the stirrings of the first great election cycle of my adult lifetime. The idea of McCain, a psuedo-centrist Republican representing the military that learned from Vietnam and old white men versus Barack Obama, the first black candidate who is a true charismatic and doesn’t have to grin from ear-to-ear while trying to convey warmth… with so few, but such strong distinctions between the side… wow… that would be a race.
But that’s not about movies, is it?

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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