Weinsteins step down as Miramax CEOs

I see it. now I can't unsee it.

young harvey clearly taking fashion and grooming tips from ron jeremy

he looks like mark ruffalo a bit

jesus don't give ruffalo an epic rise and fall of harvey movie idea. although..........

he'd have to go the full lamotta.

looks like Al Lettieri in The Getaway

Jeff Garlin is the obvious pick for a Harvey Weinstein biopic.

Whoever the fake-Harvey was on Entourage did it well.

Linda Bloodworth-Thomason: Lessons from Witnessing Four Decades of Harassment in Hollywood

In Quebec today, a major radio/TV personality (Eric Salvail) was put on leave following a major report on his workplace sexual harassment. The Weinstein affair reportedly motivated the main accuser to go public.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/quebec-media-star-eric-salvail-on-leave-following-allegations-of-sexual-harassment/article36641603/

12 hours later, one of the most powerful men in Quebec culture - Gilbert Rozon, founder of the Just For Laughs comedy festival - has stepped down as similar allegations begin to surface:
http://www.lapresse.ca/arts/201710/18/01-5140481-allegations-dinconduite-sexuelle-gilbert-rozon-demissionne-de-ses-fonctions.php

I liked that Bloodworth-Thomason piece a lot, but I still don't understand the free pass that is given to Bill Clinton. Does she just not believe the allegations against him from multiple women?

However, I will be the first to admit that clearly delineated moral choices can still be painfully complex where friendship is involved. One of the best friends I will ever have and a man I love dearly, former President Bill Clinton, has certainly taxed my feminist conscience, but always without diminishing my affection. I even helped write his apology to the nation for his own sexual misconduct, was sitting next to him when he delivered it, and believe to this day it was based on something that was none of our business. And yes, some may call it hypocritical, but I confess to having had no problem warning at least three top-level Democratic operatives against allowing Harvey Weinstein to host political fundraisers. A warning that evidently (and to the glee of Fox News) fell on deaf ears.

yeah this is unfortunately right-wing fodder for left-wing hypocrisy.

painfully phony

otoh, quebec is outlawing the use of scarves and sunglasses ('while receiving public services') in an attempt to stamp out creeping sharia

what Morbs said

had to wonder if this had always been the case, but the first piece of trivia" that appears when I just watched "Caddyshack" on Amazon was:

"Cindy Morgan did not want to appear topless in the movie. While Harold Ramis was amenable to changing the scene, producer Jon Peters asked to talk to her while Ramis had her on the phone. When the call ended, Peters informed Ramis that Morgan would do the topless scene--because he told her she would never work again in Hollywood if she didn't."

quick search later and

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/08/jon-peters-sexual-harassment.html

Then another major Quebec media personality today:

[DERNIÈRE HEURE] L'animateur vedette @GillesParent visé par des allégations d'inconduites sexuelles #JDQ https://t.co/g9RCAbpUly pic.twitter.com/MY2m2nWSgt

— Le Journal de Québec (@JdeQuebec) October 19, 2017

I mention all this because it occurs to me that one of the possible outcomes of the (snowballing) Ghomeshi/Cosby/Weinstein parade is not a major upset of systemic misogyny and sexual harassment or assault, but just a slaying of some of the (hundreds of) big whales.

yep, there is quite a lot of light being shed, it seems.

Can't help but hope that slaying a bunch of the whales and upsetting systemic misogyny are interrelated

now Ann Coulter of all people is going after the gossip columnists who wrote the hit pieces on Ambra Gutierrez. it must be the "Democratic donor" angle w/Weinstein that got her going.

Tarantino speaks

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/19/movies/tarantino-weinstein.html

“I knew enough to do more than I did,” he said, citing several episodes involving prominent actresses. “There was more to it than just the normal rumors, the normal gossip. It wasn’t secondhand. I knew he did a couple of these things.”

“I wish I had taken responsibility for what I heard,” he added. “If I had done the work I should have done then, I would have had to not work with him.”

Uh.

well, that seems like one of the more honest apologies at least, although it's hard to understand why he didn't do anything even with his own girlfriend getting harassed.

The anecdotes coming from men are really just stark illustrations of the ludicrous amount of power this shitbag wielded in his corner of the world.

also indicative of those men's tolerance of assholes with power

I'm not defending him, but QT's career would've been over (or at the very least radically different/diminished) if he tried to buck his major benefactor. Weinstein's industry power was basically hush money for people like QT.

and yeah obviously people like QT ultimately weighed getting to make their movies the way they wanted to as being worth more than their coworkers/employees/significant others' safety

otm

frankly I think Tarantino comes off about as well as he possibly could in that piece, given his own admitted culpability

I dunno. Weinstein was no doubt instrumental in turning Tarantino into a star director, but he became a star pretty early on. Basically, after Pulp Fiction he could have got anyone to produce his films, he was probably just more comfortable continuing with Weinstein. There weren't too many people who could have challenged Weinstein without paying much of a price, but I'd say Tarantino was one of them.

there is so much dodgy shit in Tarantino's films that other studios/producers would have balked at

not to mention ridiculous money-losing schemes like 70mm roadshows and grindhouse double feature tours

Is it an honest apology though? He really only heard about Weinstein's bad behavior secondhand? They collaborated for over two decades.

what would firsthand be? witnessing it? participating in it?

He says "It wasn’t secondhand".

Hateful 8 made 100 million over production budget, 70mm screenings sold well and got the film twice the publicity it would have otherwise

Printing the programmes for each territory probably cut into things, but that's on the local distributors/exhibitors, not Weinstein Co

xpost

Past Tarantino interviews and books have suggested he found Harvey's publicly-known behaviour personally disturbing, but that nobody fought harder to get them, which indicates how hard he'd fight to sell them.

(This could back up Shakey's perception of Grindhouse as a boondoggle, being a Bob joint)

there is so much dodgy shit in Tarantino's films that other studios/producers would have balked at

not to mention ridiculous money-losing schemes like 70mm roadshows and grindhouse double feature tours

no argument there

w/out Weinstein we might've been spared Q's career

o brave new world

Maybe I'm just old/jaded/grumpy but I've come to think art is overvalued when it's weighed against this level of victimization. I don't even like Tarantino, but even if it was someone I liked I'd trade their whole body of work to end systemic rape and molestation.

That sounds kind of duh now that I read it back.

Someone's films? Sure. Think the entire system's morally corrupt anyway, predatory men becoming (consciously or unconciously (though the latter's a bit generous, we're not talking paedophilia)) directors/producers due to access to beautiful young (and ever younger, since they control so much casting) women, etc.

in many cases we ARE talking about paedophilia

I dunno. Weinstein was no doubt instrumental in turning Tarantino into a star director, but he became a star pretty early on. Basically, after Pulp Fiction he could have got anyone to produce his films, he was probably just more comfortable continuing with Weinstein. There weren't too many people who could have challenged Weinstein without paying much of a price, but I'd say Tarantino was one of them.

― Zelda Zonk, Thursday, October 19, 2017 6:49 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he could've easily become a flash in the pan after Pulp Fiction. i can totally see him being the Michael Cimino of the 90s in another universe. i mean i think he could've done Jackie Brown with another studio, but probably not Kill Bill. not excusing it of course but the Weinsteins could and did destroy lives and careers over this shit. QT along with many others stayed silent to avoid that personal destruction, moreso than any allegiance to Harvey & Bob.

the USA is built on slavery and genocide

behind every great fortune/nation/industry lies a crime

or as Jerry Lewis said of '50s Vegas, "THOSE GUYS knew how to run this town."

To be honest Tarantino also stayed at Miramax because the entire industry is rife with misogynistic, controlling assholes and at least Harvey was in his corner. There are worse out there and I guess QT was comfortable living with the kind of harassment he alluded to as “chasing the secretary around the desk,” as opposed to options he considered worse (either professionally or ethically).

It’s telling how few A-list male directors/producers have spoken openly and in an enlightened way about this, I think. Lots of skeletons being buried deep in lots of closets, shirts thrown over the top, and the Academy’s general kicking-out saving a lot of top-shelf talent from having to make hypocritical comments that might draw the bead on their own NDAs.

The most telling thing to me in Tarantino's comments was the reference to the "boss chasing the secretary around the desk," which he then immediately acknowledged was not OK as a trope. It speaks to how engrained all of this is in the culture, it's been the stuff of jokes and gags and knowing invocations of the "casting couch" for decades. That doesn't excuse anybody, but there is a whole sense of a bunch of people suddenly going, "Oh, wait ... this thing we're all used to is actually terrible."

similar to Woody Allen's "the guy winking in the office," but he's almost 30 years older