News & Notes Inside the Week in Film

Getting Famous the Hard Way

Why do so many men keep filing sexual assault suits against John Travolta?  According to Travolta’s lawyer, it’s so they can get their 15 minutes of fame.

by Chris Neumer

John Travolta is in the news again because another masseur is suing him for sexual assault.  Yes, that makes three in the last four months.  The impact of these lawsuits has amazingly moved Travolta atop Hollywood’s “Oh-yeah-he-has-to-be-gay” list, knocking Tom Cruise from the leader board for the first time in ages.  Please don’t take note of the fact that both men are hardcore Scientologists, a religion that helps people cure their gayness.  And definitely don’t ask what this means for Will Smith…

Travolta’s camp has come out and vigorously denied the charges, which again read like a Danielle Steele novel for gay men who are into non-consensual massage with a Caribbean flavor.  This is not a surprise or something of which one should take note;  Team Travolta always denies the homosexual rumors floating about and assault charges that are levied at Travolta.

What is worth noting, however, is that (in my favorite part of the Travolta gay rumor timeline) after issuing their standard denial, Travolta’s lawyer, Martin Singer, attempted to make sense of why this latest masseur stepped forward to publicly accuse Travolta of sexually assaulting him: the accuser wanted his 15 minutes of fame.

I have written at length (include link here) about how much I enjoy the way Travolta’s representatives always seem to feel the need to explain why the rumors about Travolta aren’t true—“He’s not gay!  He just likes kissing other men.  On the mouth.  With his eyes closed.”—and it is no different here.

Obviously, the American public is starting to wonder exactly how and why so many different male masseurs are stepping forward to accuse the allegedly super straight Travolta of sexually assaulting them.  I mean, Edward Norton and Daniel Craig don’t seem to have these issues… Frankly, neither do Anderson Cooper or Rupert Everett, but I digress.  There are only so many times that an allegedly heterosexual man can be accused of pressing his erect penis against another man before people start to ask questions.  Attempting to explain away the latest masseurs lawsuit, Singer explained, “This is another ludicrous lawsuit with inane claims.  It’s obvious that [the accuser] and his lawyers are looking for their 15 minutes of fame.”

Yes.

Absolutely..

Because it’s a lot easier to believe that a Chilean-born, cruise liner employee filed a sexual assault lawsuit against Travolta because he wanted the world over to know him as the guy John Travolta waggled his penis at than because Travolta actually did anything.

Undoubtedly.

Just Asking…

The Lethal Weapon 2 Edition

by Chris Neumer

If the bad guy in Lethal Weapon 2, the menacing and gravelly-throated Arjen Rudd (Joss Ackland, see picture to the left), really did have diplomatic immunity and couldn’t be arrested for such ‘minor’ infractions of United States law like narcotics trafficking, murder, money laundering, tax evasion, general douchebaggery and fraud, why was he ever worried about sending a message to Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) and Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) to leave his illegal drug operation alone?

The whole reason he ordered the totally ineffective hits on Riggs and Murtaugh–Riggs’ beach front trailer gets shot up and Murtaugh ends up on the booby-trapped toilet–was so that they would back off their investigation of him!  If I understand this correctly, the man who couldn’t have been arrested for his crimes was worried about being, uh, arrested for his crimes?

The name is Bong. James Bong.

Typos rarely lead to anything good. Except when your misplaced fingers accidentally create a multi-million summer franchise idea.

by Chris Neumer

Writing about Sean Connery recently, I misspelled the name of his most famous character, James Bond, as that of “James Bong”.

After some cursory investigating, it appears that no one else has thought of a weed-themed action hero named James Bong. And by ‘no one else has thought of this’ I mean, 1) nothing about it appears on the first five pages of my google search for ‘James Bong’, 2) it’s distinctly possible that someone else did, in fact, think about it, but went on to investigate the potential copyright violations and then gave up on the idea, or 3) slews of people everywhere came up with this idea and just haven’t quite gotten around to writing it but are, honest, really going to this weekend.

I’m not in anyway arguing that this is a good idea for a movie or franchise, nor suggesting that I’d ever want to see the film based upon this typo, I’m just saying that in today’s creativity starved film world, a chronic obsessed ass-kicker (other than Jay and Silent Bob) might appeal to some studio executives somewhere. Possibly at Paramount. I mean, if you’re green-lighting Pootie Tang, The Prince & Me, Crossroads and Just My Luck, my James Bong idea can’t be that much of a stretch. If I could assure my studio overlords that I’d be able to keep the budget under $20 million, I’m pretty sure I could get a deal with Lions Gate too. Chances are good I could probably guarantee a better opening weekend than Hostel Part 2 had. What’s more, in either case, I’d be able to supply the above-average DVD numbers for Half Baked as proof that there is a big market (of couch-dwelling junior college students) for my James Bong franchise. Whether we could get them to apply themselves and get to the theater for opening weekend would be another matter entirely.

Bong would be good with the ladies, order his weed in the same unique way that Bond ordered his martinis, “Cannabis. Blunts, not brownies,” and fight the good fight against the world’s evil-doers all the while standing up to glaucoma and working to ‘legalize it’. At first I was tempted to call Bong agent 420, but I think that’d be a little bit of overkill. I mean, let’s be honest, at a certain point the constant ganja references would turn my Bong franchise into a one-joke movie. Check that, at a certain point, the constant ganja references would turn my Bong franchise from a tolerable one-joke movie into something treading close to the level of stupidity normally associated with a National Lampoon Presents movie. Ideally, I’d like to be able to screen my James Bong movie for critics.

As for the title of my initial James Bong film, I see four potential options, with one rising well above the others. First the three contenders: The Hashish Who Loved Me, Live and Let Me Get High and From British Columbia with Love. Anyone who notes the grammatically incorrect usage of the word ‘who’ in the first title (it should be ‘that’, not ‘who’) would automatically be barred from ever seeing a Bong film… and possibly Hostel Part 2.

The title victor though is unquestionably High Another Day. The only question surrounding the James Bong series is what my targeted lead, Marlon Wayans’, schedule looks like. I will deal with the Cypress Hill musical and White Castle late-night food tie-ins later.

The Photo of the Week

Independence Day

The 5 Things I Learned This Week

Fascinatingly true things to broaden your mind

1) Warren Buffett not only was married (his wife passed away in 2004), but he had a long-term mistress as well. Both women not only knew of each other, but the trio would send out Christmas cards with all three of their names on them.

2) Norway made a penguin Colonel-in-Chief of its King’s Guard in 2005.

3) Afghanistan has legalized rape. A married woman cannot refuse sex to her husband unless she is ill.

4) There is a Napoleon Dynamite video game.

5) The film Mamma Mia! grossed more than $550 million worldwide.