Day: August 20, 2018

Harvey’s Argento Card

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Ben Brafman, attorney for accused rapist and former Hollywood hotshot Harvey Weinstein, released a statement today about an 8.19 N.Y. Times report about Asia Argento having paid off a 22 year-old ex-actor after he accused her of sexual assault five years ago, when he was 17:

“This development reveals a stunning level of hypocrisy by Asia Argento, one of the most vocal catalysts who sought to destroy Harvey Weinstein. What is perhaps most egregious, is the timing, which suggests that at the very same time Argento was working on her own secret settlement for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor, she was positioning herself at the forefront of those condemning Mr. Weinstein, despite the fact that her sexual relationship with Mr. Weinstein was between two consenting adults which lasted for more than four years.

“The sheer duplicity of her conduct is quite extraordinary and should demonstrate to everyone how poorly the allegations against Mr. Weinstein were actually vetted and accordingly, cause all of us to pause and allow due process to prevail, not condemnation by fundamental dishonesty.”

Road Trip

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In the interest of saving a few bucks, next week I’ll be driving to Telluride with hotshot Variety music reporter and AARP magazine film critic Chris Willman. We’ll begin our return trip on Monday, 9.3.

The Telluride Film Festival begins on Friday, 8.31, but you have to get your pass, buy groceries and get squared away the day before. We’ll be departing in the early morning of Wednesday, 8.29. The idea is to reach Gallup, New Mexico by dusk or thereabouts, and then cruise easy to Telluride the next day or Thursday, 8.30.

Chris has made this trip this several times and is therefore The Authority, but this is how it seems to me:

El Lay to Gallup is an estimated 9 and 1/2 hours, according to online authorities. Obviously the idea is to avoid L.A. rush hour traffic. That means leaving no later than 7 am or waiting to leave at 10 am. 7 am departure = 5:30 or 6 pm arrival with allowances for an extra 90 minutes for gas, rest stops, maybe a lunch. A 10 am departure = 8:30 or 9 pm arrival in Gallup with same allowances.

Right now we’re both leaning toward an early morning departure. Our current plan is to stay in Gallup’s Econo-Crap Lodge. Seriously, we’re looking at the El Rancho.

The Gallup-to-Telluride trip is estimated at 3 hours, 45 minutes. Call it four, four and a half hours with gas stops and whatnot. Leave at 9 am, arrive at 1:30 pm.

The webmasters of the Telluride Film Festival website are still running last year’s data, and the ’18 gathering begins 12 days from now. Hubba hubba, get the lead out, etc.

Congrats In Order

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Vulture‘s Hollywood guy Kyle Buchanan is the new “Carpetbagger” for the New York Times. He’ll be the fourth to carry that brand, the previous three being Cara Buckley, Melena Ryzik and the late, great David Carr.

The carpetbagger term fit Carr because he was basically a brainy, independent-minded New York guy (lived in Montclair) who never really played the Hollywood game. Buchanan, on the other hand, has been playing it all along, Los Angeles-based in more ways than one, schnorring and observing his way through the six-month-long award season with the rest of us.

Buchanan will launch his Times coverage with the early fall film festivals — Telluride, Toronto, New York. This morning I asked Buchanan who will succeed him as the new Vulture award-season person. “To be determined,” he said.

It always bothered me when Buckley and Ryzik would declare that Oscar season begins in December….no! It begins with Telluride and ends with the Oscar telecast, which this year will take five and a half months. Get that through your heads.

Buchanan quoted by Indiewire‘s Anne Thompson: “I’m excited to cover Hollywood out of Hollywood. Mostly, though, I hope to bring the same wit and curiosity to the job that my predecessors did. Yes, there are a lot of silly things about the Oscars — and trust, I love covering the silly things too — but I believe that when you really understand awards season, this is a continually exciting and surprising beat where the stories lend us a prism through which we can better know the world. Even a simple snub isn’t always just a snub: It can tell us a lot about what we canonize as a society and reveal where our blind spots still lie.”

Well said, Kyle. This is what L.A. Daily News critic and Oscar disser Bob Strauss is either incapable of understanding or refuses to consider.

Should Have Had Kids

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Are The Matrix Reloaded and The Matrix Revolutions (both released in ’03) the least satisfying, most ruinously awful sequels ever made? Not just because they blew chunks on their own terms, but they tarnished the reputation of The Matrix (’99), the perfect, almost-jewel-like original that launched the mini-franchise.

This led me to contemplate a list of stand-alone films that never should have given birth to a sequel or sequels or a spinoff TV series. The Jaws movies after Steven Spielberg‘s 1975 original. The Jurassic Park sequels. The Hangover sequels. The Terminator sequels. A voice is telling me Jim Cameron should have left Avatar alone and not gone on to commit to…what is it, three sequels? But of course everyone has written about these.

What about the reverse? What first-rate films that never inspired any follow-ups should have spawned a sequel or cable series? I honestly would’ve loved to see a Michael Clayton series on Showtime, Hulu or HBO, perhaps not with George Clooney in the title role but then again why not? He arguably delivered his career-best performance in Tony Gilroy’s 2007 legal thriller, and the film itself is surely his finest ever. I would’ve been down with a mid ’80s TV series about the continuing legal adventures of Frank Galvin, the wounded Boston attorney played by Paul Newman in The Verdict.

Which others?

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Argento and Hypocrisy

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An 8.19 N.Y. Times story reports that Asia Argento paid a go-away fee of $380K to former child actor Jimmy Bennett after the latter accused her of sexual assault in 2013, when he’d just turned 17. Argento is being called a hypocrite for having this episode under her belt while strongly promoting a #MeToo agenda vis a vis her assaultive encounters with Harvey Weinstein. But what she went through with Harvey — oppressive sexual intimidation that resulted in something like a form of Hollywood date rape — doesn’t sound remotely analogous to what happened between her and Bennett.

My limited understanding is that Argento manipulated the youth into submitting to oral sex and then rode him like Hopalong Cassidy. As in “come over here, kid.” Okay, maybe Bennett wasn’t into it. Maybe he found getting blown to be traumatic. Maybe on some level what Argento did with Bennett was vaguely akin to Kevin Spacey’s reported assault of Anthony Rapp. I wouldn’t know.

I have to be honest — my first reaction was “manipulated”? Five years ago Bennett was a teen actor trying to land parts. Has anyone ever heard of a male actor of any persuasion who wasn’t randy, particularly one in his hormonal prime? Has there ever been a young actor in the history of the planet whose basic attitude was “gee, I’m not sure if I’m ready for sex”?

Has anyone ever read about what Mickey Rooney was up to in the 1930s, when he was in his mid teens? Were there any half-willing older female actresses whom Rooney ran into that he didn’t have it off with? When he was 24 Rooney reportedly had a longish affair with 14 year-old Liz Taylor. Imagine what the twitter comintern would’ve done with that, etc.

I was 17 once. I got shitty grades in school because I spent half my day dreaming about some older ravenous hottie having her way with me. I started dreaming about older naked women when I was nine or ten. I couldn’t get laid to save my life in my mid teens — I was a teenage incel before anyone knew the term — and it was a very sad and lonely time, let me tell you. I don’t mean to sound callous or indifferent, but my understanding of “assault” does not include notions of some Asia Argento-level woman winking and saying “come over here, Jeffie” when I was 17.

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