The Hot Blog Archive for January, 2006
The Nigerian E-Mail Scam Gets Grosser
Urgent and Confidential from Sgt Richard Murphy.
Good Day,
I hope my email meets you well. I am in need of your assistance. My name is Sgt Richard Murphy, I am in the Military Engineering Unit here Baghdad, Iraq. We have about $15 Million US dollars that we want to move out of the country. My colleagues and I need a good partner, someone we can trust. This is a risk free and legal business (oil money).
But we are moving it through diplomatic means, to send it to your house directly or a bank of your choice using diplomatic courier service. The most important thing is that can we trust you? Once the funds get to you, you take your 50% out and keep our own 50%. Your own part of this deal is to find a safe place where the funds can be kept. Our own part is sending it to you. If you are interested, I will furnish you with more details. The whole process is simple and you must please ensure strict confidentiality at all times.
I look forward to your reply and co-operation, and I thank you in
advance as I anticipate your co-operation. You can reach me on via email: XXXXX
Waiting for your urgent response.
Best regards,
Sgt Richard Murphy.
Name Faking
I am utterly ignorant about how this works, but it appears that joefitz84, TerenceD, josh, and LesterFreed (as well as an attempt at me with “Poland”) have been identity theft for the sake of someone’s idea of humor in the New World thread.
I don’t want to ban the IP address (all the fakes so far uncovered are from the same IP address), though it seems that whoever is doing this would figure out a way around that.
Mostly, it is just inappropriate. If you want to parody people, go to town, but at least be reasonable and do it under your own assumed name. The level of discourse is usually pretty reasonable on The Hot Blog and it would be a shame to lower them by playing stupid internet games.
The Thin World Edit
There is a new film school standard in town. It
80 Comments »Brokeback Website
If you’ve been wondering where the BBM rage has come from, Jeffrey Wells was kind enough to cough it up today. Dave Cullen’s boards.
Enjoy.
Friday Estimates By Klady
Not a lot to say. Glory Road and Last Holiday are both movies aimed at specific niches and should remain strong in those niches. Even off 58%, Hostel has done fine for Lions Gate and continues to do okay with its niche. And Hoodwinked, which has barely been advertised or touted, could do $9 million in its niche market, which while even behind the $12.2 million weekend for Derailed, has to be considered the Weinstein Company
93 Comments »Another Great Idea
Slamdance has put a load of trailers and shorts from this year’s festival onto iTunes, making it much easier to preview the fest.
If I were a Sundance entrant, I’d be all over that.
3 On Munich
“The trickier paradox is Louis and Papa–
How to say this but they are both the best and the worst thing about the film.
Best because in a peculiar sense, that your analysis conveys, they are actually where Spielberg’s own personal moral comfort lies–they are the poetic-amoral-professionals-but-with-a-code that every Hollywood auteur that Spielberg has idolized and has wanted himself to be, Hawks-Ford-Hitchcock etc. The tough but talented guys who operate with skill and success in the arena of moral ambiguity, and know that no ‘ideology’ or intellectual justification can ever be absolute or pure, and are sustained by their own aesthetic response to things, food, cars, children, exquisite French farmhouses, perfect grandchildren etc…they are emblematically both purer and dirtier than everyone else, because they know the ideological treacherousness of the world, but they have routinized their response to this condition through their commitment to money and privacy–they are both the “wise child” (Louis/Amalric has a presence that mixes up Leaud, Truffaut, an early Spielberg mentor-deity, and as one critic noted an uncanny resemblance to another amoral holocaust child survivor, Roman Polanski…Papa/Lonsdale is the dream rabbinical dad, magically free institutional illusions and governmental hypocrisy or taint, that all abandoned children like Spielberg always dream of)
The problem with Louis and Papa as a concept is that despite their vividness and considerable on -screen charm, they feel almost completely phony–they are a conceptual necessity of Spielberg’s own intellectual conflicts rather than a consistently believable entity in the story–first of all–why aren’t any of the groups who they betray to Avner after them? Was sending the Palestinians to the safe house, their idea of whimsy–since the cost in bloodshed was rather high Avner’s continuing to work with them seems low on the plausibility meter.”
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Ennui
Do you ever wonder why it sometimes feels like all the real targets have disappeared and all that is left is a room filled with people with guns, trying to figure out how they ended up in the real-life version of the climax of a Quentin Tarantino movie?
I didn
V For Vendetta
V For Vendetta is a return to the style of the first Matrix film. But in many ways, it is a more powerful, more important film, even if it can never match the visual freshness of the Wachowski’s first big budget film. V for Vendetta reaches past the purely visual and may well be the best film of 2006. (It won’t have much competition for the honor when it opens on March 17.) And no, I am not exaggerating.
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A Reminder That The Bottom Of The Barrel Is Never Far Away
Ironic that as Brokeback Mountain allegedly is opening minds, a magazine run by a man who stepped into a gay life late in his life (Jann Wenner) is running a nasty National Enquirer level story digging into the sex life of Larry Wachowski that has little if any new information outside of quotes from one idiot who sued them and a bunch of people who live and work and promote themselves in Porn World because… uh… because… it’ll get the fuckers some attention. Oh yes, and because someone has the temerity to keep their private life private.
People are shit. I am embarrassed to be in the media business today.
A Little More On Munich
I had 20 minutes or so free, so I knocked out this little blog piece on Munich>…
103 Comments »Observations From The Critics Choice Awards
Amy Adams, Reese Witherspoon, and Rachel Weisz laughing and telling stories to one another during a break… and Weisz, still petite, towering over the other two by what seemed like an entire head.
Dennis Miller digging out an old joke about cyber-sex and how men will do nothing else when they can virtual sex with a supermodel for 20 bucks from the comfort of their couches when things weren’t going so good.
The little girl from Narnia looking more beautiful and every bit as poised as she played in the film.
Emmy Rossum, seated at an outside table, diving into the heated scene in the middle of the room and then running back to her seat between every commerical break. (And that dress was ok on TV, but a jaw dropper in person.)
The sense of relief coming from Paul Haggis and Bennett Miller that their perceived fortunes have changed so much in recent weeks.
The hum of disapproval of Mark Gill taking so much credit for March of The Penguins and getting in a shot at Spielberg to boot.
The joyous noise of the 40 Year Old Virgin group… especially Leslie Mann.
Rachel Weisz patiently talking to eveyrone who said, “hi” and taking photos… and not in a campaigning way at all, as she was the sole rep of The Constant Gardener.
Seeing Giamatti arrive and kind of knowing then that he would win.
Q’Orianka Kilcher wearing a gown involving no animal skins of any kind.
Three celebs announced as being in the room who were not in the room.
Terrence Howard as happy as a baby boy with a brand new toy.
Jim Mangold sitting front and center for Walk The Line… and still not getting the attention he deserves.
Why The Searchlight Team Remains Among The Best
Arriving on the doorstep yesterday… six quality paperbacks from which six of the films in their 2006 schedule were made… plus an excerpt from the Christopher Buckley article that inspired Thank You For Smoking.
This is so smart.
Most of these movies are months from release. But the studio is establishing, in a memorable way, the literary foundations of so much of their line-up. Plus for those of us inspired, we can dig into what is coming from the studio without having to work too hard at it.
Of course, it will help a lot if the films are as good as the books….
Who Will Win The Critics' Choice Awards Tonight
BEST PICTURE
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Cinderella Man
The Constant Gardener
Crash
Good Night, and Good Luck.
King Kong
Memoirs of a Geisha
Munich
Walk the Line
BEST ACTOR
Russell Crowe