BYOB Archive for August, 2008

BYOB – Do You Know What It Means To Miss New Orleans?

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BYOB – Travelin'

The floor is yours… for the moment…

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BYOB – The Non-Political Movie One (Traitor Opens)

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BYOB – The Political One (Nomination By Proclamation)

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BYOB – Democratic National Convention Week

I’m not going to stop working, but while on a constant schedule of movies for TIFF and planning for the fest and watching the convention, I might be a little absent. Self-amusers are welcome… if asked for a touch of restraint.

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BYOB – Slow Roll

Sorry for being distracted…
Three movies today in anticipation of Toronto… the beat goes on…

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BYOB – Sunday

Not much more to say about the Sunday estimates… enjoying the TT excuses… of course, we all know that The Clone Wars underperformed as a result of the geek reverse embargo.
Still in NC, seeking the best BBQ. Had to come east to see Phelps win his seventh and eighth gold in real time.
Onward.

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byob on the road…

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BYOB – 8138

I have the urge to weigh in on Paula Wagner, trying to balance out Crazy Nikki’s Wag-Wag Attack and Anne Thompson’s generous appraisal of all things Paula. The most interesting unturned rock to me is why Paula and Rick both got the boot/took the exit in the same few weeks. Odd.
But the truth is, this story is still all spin and little substance. And I don’t feel like speculating.
You have to wonder, however, who talked Team MaGMa into releasing Valkyrie in the most expensive release month of the year, a week after Will freakin’ Smith and Brad bearded Pitt, not to mention a perhaps-funny-for-a-change Jim Carrey arrive in the marketplace to rape and pillage.
Oh yes… it’s also head-to-head with Oscar hopeful Revolutionary Road and The Spirit, which may not seem to be the same demo, but will draw anyone interested in a little adult action.
Are they out of their bloody minds?
Perhaps they know they are dead and this is the most aggressive, really-we-love-it way of putting it out there and letting it die at the altar of bigger movies.
Even with that, they should at least open the thing on December 12 so that it has a week to breath.
God, I would love this movie to be good.
ADD, 6:42p – MGM’s press release on the date change just landed… the headline…
MGM ANNOUNCES CHRISTMAS RELEASE DATE FOR VALKYRIE
All I want for Christmas is a Nazi film… a Nazi film… a Nazi film…
All I want for Christmas is a Nazi film… so I can wish you Merry Heil Mass
(Oddly, the “christmas release” is on dec 26)

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BYOB – Starring Mutiny

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BYOB – Sloooooow

Did I mention that it’s a slow time of the year….
Whaddya got?

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BYOB – Friday

I like Pineapple Express.
I wanted to love it.
Guess I should have been stoned.
It’s a movie that really demans no review. David Gordon Green did what he does. Apatow, Rogen, and Goldberg did what they do. James Franco gives one of the most memorable performances of the year, even if I kept finding myself thinking, “Seth & Evan were watching True Romance and said, ‘We want to see a movie about Pitt and Rappaport doing a deal, not Slater.” And thus… Pineapple Express!!!
Fun. Not too sticky.
My favorite pull-quote of the week is “No one’s going to listen to me. I’m just a guy with a big mouth and i just like to write every day.” Proud moments for the internets.
Sad to see Bernie Brillstein go. A good guy. Old school… but created some new ideas in his slot. Survived Brad Grey… unlike Paramount. A few great loyalties gave him a life of eventfulness.
Iron Man announces a Sept DVD release… to beat The Dark Knight out before their inevitable November date.
This weekend, it’s finally time to stay in for Chinese.

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BYOB – Weekend

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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