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There is little I take contention with when people talk about what’s on their minds.
I appreciate that we live in a country where people can say what they want and not fear that their government will put them in jail or, worse yet, put them to death for expressing themselves. However, James Greenberg of the Hollywood Reporter is genuinely testing my tolerance for ignorant, stupid, misinformed, shallow and despicable scribblings. How one person can be given a platform where he can can say that Roman Polanski has done his time by having to leave this country, fleeing his rightful (however of a gross miscarriage of justice one person thinks has happened to another) conviction for having sex with a minor.
I wanted this to be a column about a film that’s rocking the Sundance boat, ROMAN POLANSKI: WANTED AND DESIRED, how it was nice that there was a documentary out there that explored the effects of media attention and the way in which justice is meted out. No one would argue the effects of this during the O.J. Simpson case in the 90’s where prime time punditry, media spotlights, the legal system and the insatiable need some have for celebrity caused such a hallmark for academics who are still discussing its effects today.
Even though I haven’t seen this film I have read that filmmaker Marina Zenovich’s documentary opens on the predatory pedophile who, as Yahoo! reports, is shown in archival footage talking about his predilection for really young girls. I initially thought this would be an excellent story about someone has finally taken the time to examine the way the justice system and media have coalesced in this odd amalgam of the saying “separate but equal” with regard to people getting a fair trial but then I read what James Greenberg had to say about the film’s message. And, to my satisfaction, he takes an admirably tough peek at what the film’s thrust actually is but then the guy has to say this:
Most people remember that Polanski left the country, but few know why and under what circumstances. “Wanted and Desired” finally sets the record straight, and, if there is any justice in the world, Polanski will be allowed to return to this country not as a pariah but as someone who made a mistake and has more than paid for it.
What fucking country do you live in James where it’s OK to have sex with a little girl and, all you have to do to be absolved of it, is to leave the country for a while without ever having to step into a prison to atone for the crime? Better yet, you ignorant asshole, how about you stop thinking like a media whore who thinks that because this guy had a media circus to deal with but then fled like the pussy he is because he knew he was going to jail where, if I’m not mistaken, they don’t look too kindly on men who pump and dump into little kids that he has “more than paid for it”? No, that would be asking too much because even though his victim has long since reconciled the event in her life and, because of that, there should be a de facto kind of settlement between the rapist and his victim it I am sure you would be better served getting the opinion of the many women’s organizations whose sole mission is to help young women deal with traumatic events like this, some of whom never get over it. I believe a lot of these groups would love to be able and sit you down to talk you about how twisted and poor your thought process is if you were to hear the stories of other women who might of had this happen if only once in their lives.
I get it.
You’re willing to look past this monster’s past in order to have this human reject grace the soil of America as a free man. I wish I could say something else about the kind of life he’s been allowed to live “in exile” but there is a problem with your flawed, broken logic: he’s never served his time. He’s been allowed to roam free all these years, living the kind of life those who are convicted sex offenders never get the chance to do because they don’t have well-heeled friends help then ESCAPE this country. I may think I’m getting a raw deal if I’m famous and am being treated too harshly but, if I’m not mistaken, having the book thrown at you only means that any and all things you can rightfully be charged with are applied; they’re not making up shit.
I could go on and on about how utterly shitty your 2nd grade logic is by comparing rape of a 13 year-old is to a “mistake” but it’s obvious that even if you are the parent of little girls I weep for their fate if any of them are dealt the same fate as Samantha Geimer. I think you wouldn’t be calling it a “mistake” but calling it for what it was: rape.
You, along with a lot of other critical eggheads who love Polanski’s work without weighing this aspect of his life fairly, are what’s truly amazing about this country. I may not like what you have to say but it’s a delight that you are allowed to speak your mind without the repercussions if you were to say these things in a country where they actually do care about the safety and welfare of their women.
Soooo….I heard the U2-3D film is all sorts of awesome.
You may not like the Messiah Bono but I have read review after review extolling this movie’s immersing sensation. I happen to be a marginally big U2 fan but I understand where someone might get the notion that Bono needs a little throttling every now and then. I happen to also understand when you’ve got to look at something like this as an opportunity to see this movie as a step forward in movie going and it could make the argument as to what it would take to get people back into the theater.
New opportunities.
Few know and even less care but I have been listening to some of the comments below (Yes, you can now publicly call me out if you’d like to. I’m an equal opportunity offender) and some of the e-mail I’ve received about the deluge of interviews I’ve been doing in lieu of the trailer column here. As an aside, really, of all those I’ve come in contact with who wield some kind of power at the various studios or PR houses, no one really seems to care that I have been doing this now for over 4 years.
I have been approached where all I’m needed to do is churn out interviews (1 a month or so) with directors, writers and/or actors. The best part is that it’s for the writer of Fight Club’s Chuck Palahniuk’s web site, The Cult.
This not only represents more work I’ll be doing on the side when not properly employed at my day job but it’ll also mark the chance for me to finally be writing for the same site as Joshua Jabcuga, writer extraordinaire of the latest and greatest Scarface graphic novel “Scarface: Devil in Disguise” from IDW, and again represents the chance for the Wonder Twins to churn out some of the greatest milquetoast writing since the days of MoviePoopShoot.com.
This is truly a blessing to be a part of a site which is owned by the kung-fu master of explosive, focused fiction and I hope it shows you how multi-faceted my musings actually are; at the very least I hope you don’t think it sucks.
Have you seen the slow build-up for Sam Rockwell’s CHOKE? You should. I hope to bring you something big out of it.
Director: Andy Wachowski, Larry Wachowki
Cast: Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox, Hiroyuki Sanada, Richard Roundtree, Ji Hoon Jung (aka “Rainâ€)
Release: May 9, 2008
Synopsis: Born to race cars, Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) is aggressive, instinctive and, most of all, fearless. His only real competition is the memory of the brother he idolized—the legendary Rex Racer, whose death in a race has left behind a legacy that Speed is driven to fulfill. Speed is loyal to the family racing business, led by his father, Pops Racer (John Goodman), the designer of Speed’s thundering Mach 5. When Speed turns down a lucrative and tempting offer from Royalton Industries, he not only infuriates the company’s maniacal owner (Roger Allam) but uncovers a terrible secret—some of the biggest races are being fixed by a handful of ruthless moguls who manipulate the top drivers to boost profits. If Speed won’t drive for Royalton, Royalton will see to it that the Mach 5 never crosses another finish line. The only way for Speed to save his family’s business and the sport he loves is to beat Royalton at his own game. With the support of his family and his loyal girlfriend, Trixie (Christina Ricci), Speed teams with his one-time rival—the mysterious Racer X (Matthew Fox)—to win the race that had taken his brother’s life: the death-defying, cross-country rally known as The Crucible.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Negative. If you’ve got LSD, take it, and if you have an epileptic sensitivity to flashing lights look away now.
I am really unable to put into words just how this movie breathes by itself but this film definitely has its own style, I will give it that. There’s a hyper-accelerated, kinetic vibe that just drips off the screen but I am really unsure how that will translate to middle America. I think kids of a certain age will dig this for the most part but, for those of us who are all too familiar with one of the brothers’ erotic predilection for stretched laxtex, there are elements of this trailer that make you scratch your head in wondering why the Wachowski’s don’t tone down their need to inject latent and overt sexuality in their pictures. Of course, I could be wrong but I’d like one person to try and make an opposing viewpoint after seeing Emile Hirsch’s overly tousled locks, his brow spray bottled with a hint of glistening moisture and Matthew Fox’s George Michael inspired facial hair in that black leather.
I almost think this is a promo video for how to become someone’s gimp.
Save that, though, there is an issue of the trailer at hand and who here isn’t a little crazed at the full-tilt CGI of the opening sequences of what looks like the latest racing game for the PS3? The cars looping around on a track that looks cobbled together by someone who was obviously colorblind while putting in the hued pieces of the roadway but I am drawn in. That much I have to concede.
The voiceover that comes over the speakers, the monologue that says our titular hero needs to race, here I’m thinking I wandered in some NASCAR bio pic, but the visuals don’t relent. The flames coming out of the back of Racer’s white Batmobile at the very least feels real, it feels like it’s couched in a land governed by physics.
I do have to roll my eyes by the Superboy curly Q haircut that Hirsch in which Emile says, without irony, that racing is a form of religion for his family. I mean he looks like he is about to cry me a river. Seriously, that curl is about as aggravating as Frank Whaley’s curl in CAREER OPPORTUNITIES; at least John Candy had the brass balls to tell the kid to lose it before working at the local Target.
I dig the baddie in the film that tries to have Speed sign a contract, the shot dissolving in a 360-degree rotation that almost leaves you queasy, but coherent enough to see some of the other cartoon characters that are no doubt racing against our young lad. Ricci, as Speed’s biggest athletic supporter, looks just delicious as Trixie so I do have to, Psh!, high five for that creation.
Really now, Emile’s admission in a breathy, laughable, parlance that this is all he knows how to do is just painful to watch. Thankfully we’re whisked promptly away by the same kind of Matrix hard rockin’ techno which made those films at least listenable but Ricci’s wickedly bright pink outfit, pink headphones and pink seatbelt and pink seats in what is probably a pink helicopter and fake concern for Speed to “move it†is only matched by the wickedly homoerotic fight between Racer X and some masked interloper who’s shirtless (of course…).
I just don’t know what to make of the unrelated cut scenes of the racing, the comedic blocking for these people who are supposed to be acting against overly saturated backgrounds and Fox’s overly dramatic line that “if they don’t destroy him first†that is unintentionally hilarious.
I just don’t know about this film’s potential as a viable theatrical vehicle; it’ll probably do well as one of those movies where you recommend to someone by starting out, “Well, first you’ve got to be really high…â€
Director: Steven Greenstreet
Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Neil LaBute, Mike Huckabee, Walter Cronkite and many many more…
Release: Coming Soon to a festival near you in 2008
Synopsis: An overview of the politics, social effects and problems associated with the rising epidemic of American obesity.
View Trailer:
* Large (QuickTime)
Prognosis: Shockingly Positive. I’m a Kids in the Hall fan. HUGE.
They did one scene where Scott Thompson, Kevin McDonald, Bruce McCulloch and Dave Foley play off one another for a song that’s performed in a restaurant called “Liposuction.†It, perhaps, perfectly encapsulates the issue with what modern obesity is doing to people who cannot stop the need to gorge themselves. Regardless of the health problems, regardless of the problems that it creates, regardless of a person’s likelihood to die from eating a bag full of warm barf from any number of fast food restaurants if done consistently enough there is no stopping this epidemic.
I am perfectly in tune with the focus on the right hand before being socked with the left of this trailer’s opening. I usually frown on this practice from the standpoint that it can sometimes be used as a trailer crutch but it works because of the inclusion of Dr. Richard Carmona, the Surgeon General of the United States. The music is perfectly chosen; it’s genuinely tense and it leads you down a path you think you’re familiar with even though you know there’s the fist just waiting to impale your jaw.
Carmona gives an excellent description of what his daily activities usually are with regard to his dealings with the press corps and how route the practice of giving answers to the populist inquiries of the day. The visuals are just as compelling when you consider what reporters are more inclined to talk about: war, plague, death. The screen fades and we get one statistic.
“In 2006, the U.S. State Department reported that terrorism killed 28 American citizens.â€
The left you don’t expect comes as Carmona recounts being asked his opinion on what is on his mind. The answer that comes, and the silence it causes, is telling from the position that you wouldn’t think that Carmona would say “obesity.â€
“It’s a terror from withinâ€
The 112,000 people who died from being seriously overweight is telling. What’s more is Carmona’s rhetorical trick in twisting the idea of terrorism and “terrorist killers,†and the mind meld that we all have from events that have seriously shaped our lives since September 11th with the nomenclature we all understand, to ourselves is sharp. The requisite shot of overweight people, no doubt Americans, helps to illustrate his message but it’s something of a needless tactic because if you don’t know that we are the heaviest country on the planet for reasons that are all to easy to understand then you’re probably one of the people in the file footage.
I’m touched by the graphics that show the factual information about how this problem has spread across the country like a virus. The weigh-in, no pun intended, from pundits who have a stake in making people aware of how serious this is can’t be understated but I am telling you I don’t think anything will ever be as effective in putting up a mirror to our culture than the introduction of a 12 year-old girl who is shown getting ready for liposuction.
The paint shaker sound in the background as the doctor explicitly shakes the body of this young, sedated girl to complete this procedure should be nothing less than shocking, depressing and sad.
I could go on to explain what else bookends this trailer but nothing is as effective as seeing the youth of a girl being altered because of not only what she’s done to herself but to a culture that has slowly crept its way towards obesity with open arms and mouths.
Comments: 4 Comments
4 Responses to “Trailer Park: THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s James Greenberg Seems To Have No Problem With Polanski’s Pedophilia”Leave a Reply |
January 25th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
the link to killer at large goes to the hancock movie website
January 25th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Max,
Caught it. Appreciate the heads-up…
January 27th, 2008 at 11:49 pm
After the karmic imbalanced that was caused by my recent comments about Heath Ledger…I’m saying nothing negative about anybody.
Just a quick note to give props to the mention of “Kids in the Hall”. Nothin’ beats a publicity for rarely mentioned Canadian TV. Although, you might want to be careful. If you start encroaching of Degrassi…Kevin Smith might have to take you out back to the woodshed, eh!
January 29th, 2008 at 11:37 am
I agree with Mr. Stipp that Polanski’s past crimes against young, underaged women IS a big deal. Likewise, when the situation is reversed and an older woman is pursuing underaged men.
(This has been a big stumbling block for me when I contemplate purchasing home videos of Polanski’s films. The fact that some of the money that I pay for a DVD of his older films might get back to support him in France has been the reason I’ve PASSED on buying any of his films. I just don’t think the scumbag deserves any of my money until he faces up and willingly pays for what he’s done in the past. If I believed there was a possibility a serial pedophile could be rehabilitated, then I’d spend the cash on a Polanski film. Of course, I’d believe that when pigs grow wings and start flying through the air.)
This is certainly the type of activity that SHOULD be prosecuted AND condemned — especially in an era where it seems increasingly obvious that persons charged with watching over and educating our children can’t seem to NOT touch them inappropriately and cross the lines where laws of consent and professional/educational relationships are concerned.
This situation of educators dating and/or having sex with their pupils has gotten so bad that they even had to codify this as a big “NO-NO” at a local state university in my area of the country.
And educators at this university STILL had a big problem with a rule being passed that they SHOULDN’T be dating and engaging in sexual relations with students! If this situation weren’t epidemic and the mentors (educators) in this area HAD common sense and decency, the rule wouldn’t have had to been officially written down and passed by the university!
You’d think this stuff would be common sense AND a no-brainer where morality is concerned.