Hollywood Wiretap‘s Tom Tapp has posted Harvey Weinstein‘s reply to Patrick Goldstein‘s “what happened to the old Harvey?” piece that ran a few days ago in the L.A. Times. Weinstein’s answer is published in today’s Calendar section but not online (and barely visible in the paper) so Tapp has reproduced it for everyone’s reading pleasure:

“Goldstein says he misses ‘the Harvey Weinstein (he) used to know,'” Weinstein begins, “claiming that ‘the Oscar impresario who…was truly, madly, deeply in love with movies’ has been replaced by a ‘slimmed-down mogul…who has lost his way.’

“I never fell out of love with movies,” Weinstein insists. “I did have to spend time building the infrastructure of our new company, but we still produced films I’m extremely proud of, like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez‘s daring Grindhouse, Anthony Minghella‘s beautiful Breaking and Entering“and the politically charged Bobby.”

Wells replies: Some of us found Breaking and Entering a bit lethargic, Harvey. And if Bobby had in fact been politically charged it might have been a whole different kettle of fish.

“Moreover, Patrick knows full well (because I told him) that I decided to rededicate myself to cutting-edge movies six months ago,” Weinstein continues. “That’s why I went to Sundance in January and bought La Misma Luna, Grace Is Gone, Dedication and Teeth. He also knows (because I told him) that as a result of my rededication, the Weinstein Co. (sic.) will have three movies in the official selection at Cannes next month — Michael Moore‘s Sicko, Quentin Tarantino‘s Death Proof, and Wong Kar Wai‘s My Blueberry Nights, which is being featured as the opening-night movie.

“In addition, we are co-financing the Portuguese-language Elite Squad (the same way we did City of God); Wayne Kramer‘s >Crossing Over starring Sean Penn and Harrison Ford; Denzel Washington‘s The Great Debaters; Richard Shepherd‘s Spring Break in Bosnia and Stephen Daldry‘s The Reader, written by David Hare.

“As I told Patrick, it was six months ago that my brother Bob told me, ‘It’s time for you to get back to making and acquiring movies — to the kind of movies you were once known for.’ Since then, I’ve been doing just that — and it’s just like the good old days.”