The Trades Are Beefing

Is Francis Ford Coppola a handsy old molester or the world's nicest Italian grandpa? Different factions of Penske Media can't seem to agree.

Welcome to The #Content Report, a newsletter by Vince Mancini. I’ve been writing about movies, culture, and food since I founded FilmDrunk in 2007. Now I’m delivering it straight to you, with none of the autoplay videos, takeover ads, or chumboxes of the ad-ruined internet. Support my work and help me bring back the cool internet by subscribing, sharing, commenting, and keeping it real.

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Photo by Nathan DeFiesta on Unsplash

I started a movie blog back in the days when that kind of thing was exploding. There were tons of great movie sites, all catering to slightly different kinds of readers who wanted to know about the latest movie news and gossip (Rope of Silicon, Cinematical, Film.com, ScreenJunkies, CHUD, ThePlaylist, etc. etc.). Starting in the early 2010s, there was a big wave of corporate consolidation, where a lot of the little sites got bought up and absorbed by big ones, with lots of the little sites dying and most of their writers receiving less creative freedom in exchange for benefits and bigger paychecks, with fewer outlets for readers.

Then the venture capital money started to dry up in the late 20-teens, and the now-big sites started to do waves of massive layoffs, with many going dark altogether. As people gamed the system of web traffic that underpinned this whole ecosystem, first through manipulating the Google and Facebook algorithms, and later by using AI to scrape and repost legitimate content almost infinitely, the traffic numbers all became basically worthless (because what advertiser wanted to pay for fake numbers?).

Which brings us to today, where news exists only in vastly diminished form, underwritten by a handful of billionaires willing to lose money in exchange for the sheen of influence (Elon Musk ruining Twitter being the most obvious, but by no means the only example), and largely dictated by a handful of trending topics. And some of it written by former staffers like me who just said fuck it and started newsletters.

The movie trades are just a handy example of how things currently work. Almost all of the major trades — Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, Deadline — are owned by the same conglomerate, Penske Media (yes, of the car-racing Penskes), which also owns Rolling Stone, The Robb Report, Billboard, Artforum, Indiewire, TVLine… so many publications. (Many of which I applied to after getting laid off, never getting further than a form rejection letter).

Sorry about the long preamble, but it does explain why this latest kerfuffle was so funny to me. A few days ago, Mike Fleming, who works for Penske-subsidiary Deadline, wrote a piece essentially trashing the previous reporting of other Penske-subsidiary Variety.

Variety had published last week, “Video of Francis Ford Coppola Kissing ‘Megalopolis’ Extras Surfaces as Crew Members Detail Unprofessional Behavior on Set (EXCLUSIVE).”

Two sources told Variety that Coppola appeared to act with impunity on set. And unlike traditional movies, Coppola financed the entire $120 million budget himself, so there were none of the traditional checks and balances in place. The videos would appear to corroborate a bombshell report in the Guardian that claimed the 85-year-old director “tried to kiss some of the topless and scantily clad female extras” and told them “he was ‘trying to get them in the mood.’” The Guardian story broke right before “Megalopolis” made its world premiere in Competition in Cannes.

To which Fleming at Deadline had shot back, six days later: “Salacious Variety ‘Megalopolis’ Video Claims False, Says Rayna Menz, The Extra Shown With Francis Coppola.”

As I’ve noted re: The Rock and his alleged piss bottle, anonymously-sourced movie grousing is some of my favorite stuff to read. Variety had clearly quoted some Megalopolis crew who were mad at Francis Ford Coppola, while Deadline had found the extra from the video and basically agreed to be Coppola’s mouthpiece. You can usually tell who the sources are for these pieces, though rarely as transparently as with the Fleming piece. My God, it’s incredible.

This is the LEDE:

Our sister publication Variety last Friday published for clicks what it called an exclusive video of Francis Ford Coppola kissing Megalopolis extras, along with crew members who detailed what they called unprofessional behavior on set. The story did not get much traction, though it caused pain for the filmmaker: It broke and he found out about the story as he was on his way to join his incoming children and relatives as they were gathering for a family memorial for Eleanor Coppola.

I love this because it feels exactly like something Trump would’ve written if he was an access journalist. “The failing publication Variety wrote this purely for clicks, which they didn’t even get, and in the process they were very unfair to my close personal friend, Francis Ford Coppola, who just lost his wife. Nasty work.”

Fleming goes on to quote the extra from the Coppola-kissing video, who describes Coppola as a “cute Italian grandfather.” Those kinds of quotes, you’d think, could stand on their own. But not if you’re Mike Fleming. Hell, he was just warming up. Let the man cook!

This was just the latest in a trail of surprisingly aggressive reports, including one by our other sister trade, THR, which used Coppola letting go some below-the-liners to fuel a report that his production was out of control.

Damn, another Penske rag is catching strays! “Surprisingly aggressive.” Not something we would want in our trade journalism, would we folks? Very nasty.

Coppola said his film came in on time and on budget.

And who am I to question this characterization, a movie reporter?

One wonders why journos are working so hard trying to tarnish one of the greatest living filmmakers America has produced, at a time when he is grieving the loss of his wife. Some would think it a good time to celebrate Coppola for his bold gamble to put $120 million of his own money into Megalopolis.

And who are journalists if not people whose mission it is to say “good job” to the powerful? (He goes on for three or four more sentences here. The slurping sounds could be heard from space).

Not that I necessarily disagree with Mr. Fleming about Megalopolis. Good job, Francis! I too would much rather watch a costly boondoggle than more conglomerate-funded IP drivel (even the kind with Cards Against Humanity jokes).

I’m just thrilled that the 2020s have produced our own version of Hedda Hopper and Luella Parsons (the latter of whom was rumored to have obtained her position as part of hush agreement with William Randolph Hearst to stay quiet about Hearst’s alleged murder of Thomas Ince — definitely check out Hollywood Babylon for a great, trashy read).

Only now, because we live in a corporate-ruined, monopoly-driven hellscape, they all work for the same company. I’m dying to know what that Slack channel looked like the next day.

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Miscellaneous

The World’s Dumbest Trans Panic

Be careful out there, folks, there’s some truly wild stuff happening in the discourse right now. An Italian boxer named Angela Carini quit her match in the Olympics after getting punched in the face by Algerian Imane Khelif. Carini got punched once in the face, said “no way, that’s too hard,” and quit. Relatable. Kind of weird for a boxer, but whatever.

Anyway, now all the worst people on the internet are convinced that Carini lost because Khelif is trans. This despite Khelif coming from Algeria, where transitioning is not allowed, and there being pictures of her as a child, when she was clearly a little girl. She also has nine losses on her record, which would seem to suggest that whatever advantage she has is demonstrably not insurmountable. There was some weirdness with a shady gender test a few years ago, but whatever is happening with her hormones or chromosomes (the body that did the testing won’t say) it seems pretty safe to assume she was born with a vagina, and that seems like the basic criteria the alarmists were all pushing for, so I’m not sure what we’re doing here.

Now everyone is weighing in, from JK Rowling (of course) to Pat McAfee. A candidate for Secretary of State in Missouri, Valentina Gomez, who has been trying to shitpost her way to relevancy, took this as an opportunity to make a video of herself saying “fagg*t” as many times as she could. We used to talk about “saying the quiet parts out loud,” but clearly we’re way past that. Screaming slurs into a canyon?

Anyway, Patrick Stumberg at BadLeftHook and Ben Fowlkes both had good pieces about this. Probably read those and ignore the inevitable video where Kid Rock dynamites a Toyota Prius with “GENDER” written on the side or whatever.

Related: I guess people are saying Kyle Rittenhouse is trans now too, because he said he wasn’t voting for Trump, before he had to walk it back. /Yakoff Smirnov voice: What a country!

New Recipes

-These meatballs were bomb as hell. As a major piggy for seasoned ground meat, I’ve made a zillion different meatballs, kebabs, cevapi, etc., but these might be my new favorite. I didn’t make mine oval, but I don’t think it matters:

Send me more Moroccan stuff. They seem to have it all figured out down there.

-I finally attempted sabzi. I used love this Afghani restaurant in San Diego, Khyber Pass, where most of the dishes were these herbacious stews. I ate a lot of Armenian food growing up (and a lot of Middle Eastern food is very similar), but a lot of it was different variations of “meat on stick.” Ghormeh Sabzi is a Persian version of one of these herb stews, and I don’t know why it took me this long to make it myself. I guess I just needed the right Instagram video:

chefjjskitchen

A post shared by @chefjjskitchen

“Literally butter.” Haha, okay, settle down, buddy, nice recipe though. I added pickled onions to mine because I had them. And potatoes, because that seemed fun. It was good.

Kneecap is Ireland’s submission for Best International Feature at the Academy Awards.

I loved Kneecap. I look forward to being pissed in six months when it inevitably loses to some dour slog about the Holocaust I never bothered seeing.