Category: interviews

I have removed the identifying information from this email, after assuring myself of the writer’s veracity. If I can give the entertainment journalism world just one gift this Christmas, it’d be a sharp thunk on the melon of anyone who asserts that Spike Jonze is “the heir to the Spiegel Catalogue fortune”:

To: greg.org
From: [name withheld]
Subject: Spike Jonze is not a Spiegel heir at all
Body:My name is [snip] and I live in [a Midwestern city… I am the great-[grandchild] of Modie Spiegel Sr, the man who made the Spiegel company a nationally known enterprise.
I have become interested in my family’s geneaology, and Googled Edward Spiegel. Your post about Spike not being a Spiegel heir was one of the first listed. [Umm, yeah. Hope you’re not too upset about that “scion of my butt” comment. -g.]
You make a very good point in your post, and nearly everything you say is true, but I felt I should correct you on your errors and provide you with a few facts.
Spike’s great-grandfather Arthur was considered the “boy genius” of the family. It was actually he who came up with the idea for buying on credit, and the catalogue was basically his idea. He left Spiegel to form his own movie business.
Now here is where you make your most egregious mistake. Arthur died in 1912, and although his company fell apart soon afterwards, he had made it quite successful. Also, after his death, (of pneumonia by the way) his widow remained close to the family for many years, but it is true that none of her children were ever involved in the company.
You are correct that Spike is not an “heir” is terms of money. [Hmm. but if a ‘scion’ is also a ‘descendant,’ not just an ‘heir,’ does that mean he IS a scion?] Sidney left the company after a fight with Modie’s son Modie Jr., and Modie eventually gave the shares of the company to his four children: Modie Jr, Freddie, Polly and John [one of these is the writer’s grandparent. -g.]
Modie Jr. ran Spiegel Inc. for nearly thirty years after his father retired, and after it was sold to the Otto family, the money from the sale was split amongst him and his siblings.
I have no idea how the idea got started that Spike was an heir. I believe that he has denied it on occasion, but it still seems to get mentioned in every article about him. [no kidding. -g.]
Sincerely, [snip]

Thanks for filling in the gaps that resulted from my not rummaging through Spike’s quarterly statements.
Related: Spike Jonze: Scion of my BUTT

So after playing softball with his own corporate overlords the Weinsteins at a MoMA Q&A last Thursday, Quentin Tarantino chased some skirt on his flight back to LA. Read the dovetailing eyewitness accounts below.
[greg.org making wiggling-thumb-and-pinky-as-phone gesture and mouthing ‘I’ll call you’ to a fast-receding blackout Navigator.]
Shill Bill [artforum diary]
Tarantino’s Airport Pick-Up Service [defamer]
[update via GreenCine: Sheldrake publishes a complete transcript–or maybe you should call it a fanscript–at AICN. Yow.]

Cinecultist Karen is at it again, this time working the crowd of above-the-line talent at the The Life Aquatic junket. No word on the buffet, which I would expect to contain smoked salmon, shrimp cocktail, or some other agua-themed items.
Gothamist on the [The] Life Aquatic Junket [gothamist]
Cinecultist: Crazy For Movies
[update: a-ha. the catering details are on Cinecultist. Fresh fruit and lukewarm coffee.]

The Gothamist Life Aquatic contest is over, and Congratulations! Everyone’s a winner. A few people won more than the rest, obviously. And G-mist and Cinecultist’s Karen–whose brainchild this publicity coup was–got the big prize, a phone interview with director Wes Anderson himself.
Eerily enough, it sounds like he’s right there with her at Lucky Strike.
Karen came to last night’s Reel Roundtable screening of After Life [thanks, Elizabeth!], by the way; and on Jan. 17, she’s starring in a Reel Roundtable screening of Kieron Walsh’s When Brendan Met Trudy, so clear your calendars.
Today is Wes Anderson Day! [cinecultist]
Wes Anderson: he knows where you are [Gothamist]
Reel Roundtable’s Film & Blogs Series [reelroundtable.com]

Gothamist has an excellent interview with Errol Morris about his Switch ads featuring former Bush voters who are now voting for Kerry. Morris talks at length about The Fog of War and its relevance today, his interviewing techniques, and how we’re doomed to repeat the past–the only difference is whether we do it with irony or not.
Errol Morris: The Gothamist Interview, as time closes in
Errol Morris: see his ever-expanding Ex-Bush Voters For Kerry Ad Campaign
Errol Morris: The greg.org Interview, just before the Oscar.

Gothamist has an excellent interview with Errol Morris about his Switch ads featuring former Bush voters who are now voting for Kerry. Morris talks at length about The Fog of War and its relevance today, his interviewing techniques, and how we’re doomed to repeat the past–the only difference is whether we do it with irony or not.
Errol Morris: The Gothamist Interview, as time closes in
Errol Morris: see his ever-expanding Ex-Bush Voters For Kerry Ad Campaign
Errol Morris: The greg.org Interview, just before the Oscar.

My boy David O. Russell may be shooting negative karma beams at the back of Sharon Waxman’s head, but that’s not stopping him from spelling “P&A” with a capital “N-Y-T.”
It feels like those multimedia interstitials for I [Heart] Huckabee’s have been running for weeks now (Seriously, what’s the buy on those things? If it’s entirely clickthrough-based, they’ll have to start pushing the DVD before too much longer.) And if People Who Don’t Skip This Ad wasn’t niche enough, Fox Searchlight is pitching the film at the even smaller People Who Actually Opt In For Ad Mail market.
Here’s the kicker: This morning’s I[H]H spam was a plaintive 1,000-word Story of My Life And My Movie by the director himself. And I mean himself. No copy editors were harmed or even inconvenienced in the making of this email, which Gawker helpfully published this afternoon.
And which I’ve happily pasted in its spamalicious entirety after the jump. Now if you copy it and forward it to all your friends, not only will you help save the life of a little girl with cancer–who’s been kidnapped–but Bill Gates will take you on a trip to Disneyland. Which has to be good for your karma.

Continue reading “I [Heart] Huckstering”

Wingnuts on both ends of the political spectrum, it’s not about you. So take a chill pill, throw another fat Costco steak on the grill, and read Matt Stone & Trey Parker’s interview with Heather Havrilesky in Salon. I so called it.
Embittered filmmakers, meanwhile, should read it to find out how the script went from South Park 2 comedy to Dr. Strangelove play-it-straight satire, before becoming the scintillating assfest you see before you.
“it’s not just us, and the fact that we live in this L.A. bubble” [salon]

Ousmane Sembene on WNYC, of course, which I already posted
John Waters on WPS1 [although for my money, no Waters interview is better than this Oct 1998 dicussion of Pecker on Fresh Air, which makes me cry laughing to this day.]
Melvin Van Peebles from 1971, speaking at MoMA about his just-released Sweet, Sweetback’s Badassss Song.
WPS1‘s been getting its groove on lately, in case you haven’t noticed. The talk shows are tightening up a bit, and the music is rocking. Now if they can only figure out podcasting…

Wong Kar Wai Week continues. Remember that “interview” with Wong Kar Wai I just linked to? Turns out it’s the Access Hollywood Movie Minute version. The HBO Original Series version–long, convoluted, emotional tumult spread out over the whole thing, lots of special guest cameos, no easy plot wrapups–is in the New York Times Magazine. Titled “The Director’s Director,” Jaime Wolf doesn’t actually work many other directors into the story. Go figure.
I only mention this because Wong’s–and his last/family name is Wong, just so you don’t embarass yourself in print or conversation–films and career have a such deep, meaningful resonance with my own.
The Director’s Director [NYT Magazine]

Richard Kelly was on Fresh Air last week to discuss the director’s cut of Donnie Darko, which is platforming out into theaters now.
Who noted that theatrical re-release is fast becoming a standard marketing element for a remastered or new-version DVD?
Listen to Richard Kelly’s interview [9/7/04, 12 min., NPR]
Buy the old DVD version on Amazon, while supplies last [“Customers also bought Requiem for a Dream, Lost in Translation, Kill Bill and Pi“? Yeah, no kidding.]

I first came across Jay Rosenblatt‘s short film in March, as I was surfing across the Silverdocs site, getting ready to submit my own tape.
It wasn’t just the title, but the combination of title and picture. Rosenblatt was holding his daughter up in the air. The one sentence-synopsis read, “Video cameras come with an owner’s manual and babies don’t, so documentary filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt uses the first to understand the second.” The title: I Used to Be A Filmmaker.
In the first few weeks after our own kid was born, when even dubbing a couple of screeners felt like a major accomplishment, I saw my entire life in Rosenblatt’s title alone. I read some reviews (all very good) and thought, the guy spent two years on one short? I am cooked.
Actually, what Rosenblatt did was construct an interface between two worlds: his own as a documentarian and film instructor, and his new daughter’s. Or more precisely, he bridged his own two worlds, his passion/profession and his family. All in about 10 minutes. 10 minutes over the course of two years.
In I Used to be a Filmmaker, Rosenblatt uses scenes from the first 18 months of his daughter’s life to illustrate various film production terms. The still above was from “pickup shot,” for example. A scene where he gets her to stop crying is called MOS. It’s sometimes corny, but usually very funny, and it works. Rosenblatt takes some of the most unrepentantly self-indulgent imagery known to mankind–a smitten new dad’s home movies–and by giving it structure and context, makes it not just watchable by others, but actually entertaining. No small feat.
Unlike most shorts, which directors use as calling cards for the coming feature, I Used to be a Filmmaker is what it is, complete. Which made it stand out on the festival circuit enough for Shiela Nevins to buy it for Cinemax, the Sabrina to HBO’s Samantha. It premiered on Father’s Day, and will have its last scheduled broadcast is tonight, Thurs. 7/29, at 6:35PM east coast, 9:35PM west coast.

Oy. If I see one more mention of Spike Jonze being the “heir” to “the Spiegel catalogue fortune…” This title is nothing but an artifact of lazy-ass entertainment journalism.[not you, Gawker. I know you’re not journalism.]
1. Spike’s, aka Adam Spiegel’s father is Arthur Spiegel III, a healthcare consultant in New York. [So he’s an heir to the APM/CSC fortune?] Trip, we can assume, is descended from Arthur Spiegel, one of the sons of one of the founders of the Spiegel mail order furniture business.
Trouble is, that Arthur way back then left the mailorder business for Hollywood. David Selznick convinced him to invest in World Picture Company, a pre-Gone With The Wind flop. Arthur died early and rather unattractively in a New York hotel room. Drugs? Suicide? Something. But was he an heir to anything? And did he have any descendants to be heirs to anything?
And heir to what? The Spiegel fortune itself, such as it is/was, had more than its share of ups and downs. The company nearly went bust more than once because it had overextended credit to indigent rural shoppers to finance their purchases. It’s certainly no Marshall Fields fortune, which actually exists and continues to underpin socialite lifestyles and hippy chic communes to this day.
And anyway, the Spiegel that almost anyone alive now knows was the work of the German conglomerate which bought the catalogue in the mid-70’s, and which has been bleeding red ink for years, both on Spiegel and on the “only the Ford Explorer’s worth a damn” brand, Eddie Bauer.
The only family member to have been involved with the company in ages is Ted Spiegel–a fourth cousin?? I don’t know–who was also a marketing professor at Northwestern.
How the Spiegel cousins four generations ago divvied up their stock is a mystery to me, and frankly I don’t care. And why should I? By Spike-profile standards, I’d be scion to the Ethan Allen furniture fortune.
If you’re an “All the research I need comes from Entertainment Weekly” journalist looking for a meaningless tidbit for yet another piece on Spike, why not try something more interesting than “heir to the Spiegel catalog fortune”? How about “abandoned by parents and raised in a skateboard shop,”? Or, if you are some genetic determinist, how about “Spike Jonze, son of the guy who replaced rent control with rent stabilization” or “Spike Jonze, whose great grandfather didn’t invest in Gone With The Wind?” At least that one’s got something to do with films.
As for Sofia Coppola, in addition to being the heir to a Central American shack-n-hammock resort fortune, she IS the scion of a middlebrow wine fortune. But now that it comes in cans, it’s not just for tables anymore.

Oy. If I see one more mention of Spike Jonze being the “heir” to “the Spiegel catalogue fortune…” This title is nothing but an artifact of lazy-ass entertainment journalism.[not you, Gawker. I know you’re not journalism.]
1. Spike’s, aka Adam Spiegel’s father is Arthur Spiegel III, a healthcare consultant in New York. [So he’s an heir to the APM/CSC fortune?] Trip, we can assume, is descended from Arthur Spiegel, one of the sons of one of the founders of the Spiegel mail order furniture business.
Trouble is, that Arthur way back then left the mailorder business for Hollywood. David Selznick convinced him to invest in World Picture Company, a pre-Gone With The Wind flop. Arthur died early and rather unattractively in a New York hotel room. Drugs? Suicide? Something. But was he an heir to anything? And did he have any descendants to be heirs to anything?
And heir to what? The Spiegel fortune itself, such as it is/was, had more than its share of ups and downs. The company nearly went bust more than once because it had overextended credit to indigent rural shoppers to finance their purchases. It’s certainly no Marshall Fields fortune, which actually exists and continues to underpin socialite lifestyles and hippy chic communes to this day.
And anyway, the Spiegel that almost anyone alive now knows was the work of the German conglomerate which bought the catalogue in the mid-70’s, and which has been bleeding red ink for years, both on Spiegel and on the “only the Ford Explorer’s worth a damn” brand, Eddie Bauer.
The only family member to have been involved with the company in ages is Ted Spiegel–a fourth cousin?? I don’t know–who was also a marketing professor at Northwestern.
How the Spiegel cousins four generations ago divvied up their stock is a mystery to me, and frankly I don’t care. And why should I? By Spike-profile standards, I’d be scion to the Ethan Allen furniture fortune.
If you’re an “All the research I need comes from Entertainment Weekly” journalist looking for a meaningless tidbit for yet another piece on Spike, why not try something more interesting than “heir to the Spiegel catalog fortune”? How about “abandoned by parents and raised in a skateboard shop,”? Or, if you are some genetic determinist, how about “Spike Jonze, son of the guy who replaced rent control with rent stabilization” or “Spike Jonze, whose great grandfather didn’t invest in Gone With The Wind?” At least that one’s got something to do with films.
As for Sofia Coppola, in addition to being the heir to a Central American shack-n-hammock resort fortune, she IS the scion of a middlebrow wine fortune. But now that it comes in cans, it’s not just for tables anymore.