The July 8th New York Times has an article, Intellectual Science Fiction Is Hollywood's Orphan (the link will only be good for about a week). Despite all the hype over AI being a rare intelligent SF film, true films about ideas are rarely made. Octavia Butler's Kindred has been optioned, but no producer has been able to raise the money to get it made. The article does neglect to mention that the Scifi channel will be making mini-series of Ursula K. Leguin's The Left Hand of Darkness and Earthsea books (and their website did an audio version of Kindred). And the very debasement of science fiction on film helps prevent the situation from changing. From the article:

"Hollywood in general is terrified of the notion of ideas," says the award-winning science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany [who was recently interviewed by Nerve]. "People in Hollywood are afraid that anything that is perceived as an abstract idea will drive people from the theater," says Mr. Delany. "They always say they have a good idea for a story, but in science fiction what you need is a good story for an idea, a story that will dramatize an idea."...

But there is also a feeling, left over from the pulp magazine days of the 1930's and 1940's, that science fiction is some sort of debased form, meant primarily for consumption by male adolescents. In this respect, Ms. Butler remembers being at a science fiction convention a few years ago where two Hollywood producers were promoting their latest project.

"I remember they stood in front of this audience and said they made science fiction films so they could finance their `real' work," says Ms. Butler. "They said they didn't like science fiction, because it's not about people and character."

posted by steve rhodes 7/8/2001 02:12:52 PM link for this item

Time has a pretty funny story about the making of The Score staring Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Edward Norton and Angela Bassett (who is ignored in the article) and directed by Frank Oz. It sounds like a Hearts of Darkness style behind the scenes documentary would have been more interesting than the film itself. The New York Times has a related story (the link will be good for about a week) by Patricia Bosworth on her attempts to interview the actor for a biography.

From the article in Time (with fuck and ass complete since this is the web):

...wrangling Brando was anything but simple. When the Method-acting legend showed up to shoot his first scene, he was in full makeup (eye shadow, rosy cheeks, the works), and his initial performance as the gay Max looked something like Barbara Bush doing her best Truman Capote impression. "He had earnestly worked on his character," says Oz diplomatically, "but my tone was more reality based." In take after take, Oz asked Brando to "bring it down." Brando obliged, but told the director, "Fuck you."

In the ensuing battle of wills, Brando would refuse to come to the set if Oz was present. De Niro had to direct Brando's big emotional scene, while Oz watched the action on an off-site monitor and sent instructions to De Niro via an assistant director. When they were in the same room, Brando also jabbed at Oz by calling him Miss Piggy and telling him, "I bet you wish I was a puppet so you could stick your hand up my ass and make me do what you want." Still, Oz gave Brando plenty of freedom to ad-lib. During one scene--an argument with De Niro's character--Brando picked up a water bottle and, pretending it was a phone, mumbled, "Operator, we got a nut down here."

posted by steve rhodes 7/8/2001 02:14:34 PM link for this item

Some upcoming shows of interest on tv:

Jon Else's Sing Faster airs on KQED Ch. 9 at 6 pm today (and is also airing on other PBS stations). I interviewed Else about the documentary.

The British mini-series Traffik (which was the basis for the film Traffic) airs tonight and next Sunday as part of Masterpiece Theater on many PBS stations. It is also now available on video and DVD.

And on Wednesday, the wonderful documentary, A Natural History of the Chicken, airs on many PBS stations. It will be on KQED at 10 pm.
posted by steve rhodes 7/8/2001 02:17:29 PM link for this item