Roman Polanski is terrible at PR

05.03.10 Written by Vince Mancini
Polanski-Short-Shorts

"Excuse me leetel girl, but would you like to trade shorts?"

Seven months after his initial arrest in Switzerland, Roman Polanski has issued his own statement to the press:

Throughout my seven months since September 26, 2009, the date of my arrest at Zurich Airport, where I had landed with a view to receiving a lifetime award for my work from the representative of the Swiss Minister of Culture*, I have refrained from making any public statements and have requested my lawyers to confine their comments to a bare minimum.
I wanted the legal authorities of Switzerland and the United States, as well as my lawyers, to do their work without any polemics on my part. I have decided to break my silence in order to address myself directly to you without any intermediaries and in my own words.
I have had my share of dramas and joys, as we all have, and I am not going to try to ask you to pity my lot in life. I ask only to be treated fairly like anyone else**.
It is true: 33 years ago I pleaded guilty, and I served time at the prison*** for common law crimes at Chino, not in a VIP prison. That period was to have covered the totality of my sentence. By the time I left prison, the judge had changed his mind and claimed that the time served at Chino did not fulfil the entire sentence, and it is this reversal that justified my leaving the United States.
This affair was roused from its slumbers of over three decades by a documentary film-maker who gathered evidence from persons involved at the time. I took no part in that project, either directly or indirectly.
The resulting documentary not only highlighted the fact that I left the United States because I had been treated unjustly; it also drew the ire of the Los Angeles authorities, who felt that they had been attacked and decided to request my extradition from Switzerland, a country I have been visiting regularly for over 30 years without let or hindrance.
I can now remain silent no longer!
I can remain silent no longer because the American authorities have just decided, in defiance of all the arguments and depositions submitted by third parties, not to agree to sentence me in absentia even though the same Court of Appeal recommended the contrary.
I can remain silent no longer because the California court has dismissed the victim’s numerous requests that proceedings against me be dropped, once and for all, to spare her from further harassment every time this affair is raised once more.
I can remain silent no longer because there has just been a new development of immense significance.
On February 26 last, Roger Gunson, the deputy district attorney in charge of the case in 1977, now retired, testified under oath before Judge Mary Lou Villar in the presence of David Walgren, the present deputy district attorney in charge of the case, who was at liberty to contradict and question him, that on September 16, 1977, Judge Rittenband stated to all the parties concerned that my term of imprisonment in Chino constituted the totality of the sentence I would have to serve.
I can remain silent no longer because the request for my extradition addressed to the Swiss authorities is founded on a lie. In the same statement, retired deputy district attorney Roger Gunson added that it was false to claim, as the present district attorney’s office does in their request for my extradition, that the time I spent in Chino was for the purpose of a diagnostic study.
The said request asserts that I fled in order to escape sentencing by the U.S. judicial authorities, but under the plea-bargaining process I had acknowledged the facts and returned to the United States in order to serve my sentence. All that remained was for the court to confirm this agreement, but the judge decided to repudiate it in order to gain himself some publicity at my expense.
I can remain silent no longer because for over 30 years my lawyers have never ceased to insist that I was betrayed by the judge, that the judge perjured himself, and that I served my sentence.
Today it is the deputy district attorney who handled the case in the 1970s, a man of irreproachable reputation, who has confirmed all my statements under oath, and this has shed a whole new light on the matter.
I can remain silent no longer because the same causes are now producing the same effects. The new District Attorney, who is handling this case and has requested my extradition, is himself campaigning for election and needs media publicity!
I can no longer remain silent because the United States continues to demand my extradition more to serve me on a platter to the media of the world than to pronounce a judgment concerning which an agreement was reached 33 years ago.
I can remain silent no longer because I have been placed under house arrest in Gstaad and bailed in very large sum of money**** which I have managed to raise only by mortgaging the apartment that has been my home for over 30 years*****, and because I am far from my family and unable to work.
Such are the facts I wished to put before you in the hope that Switzerland will recognize that there are no grounds for extradition, and that I shall be able to find peace, be reunited with my family, and live in freedom in my native land.
[via Twitch]

Well allow me to retort.

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GUUUH. THE GLENN BECK-JAMES CAMERON “FEUD.”

03.25.10 Written by Vince Mancini

GlennBeck-JamesCameron

I would like nothing more than for the world to stop paying attention to this mealy, fuzz-headed queef, but every other story this morning is just as boring, so here we go: James Cameron called Glenn Beck an A-hole at a junket a few days ago, as, obviously, they have differing views on global warming.  So then Glenn Beck went on his show last night and did his usual act of amusing the sh*t out of himself without ever actually saying anything the least bit funny or interesting, put on 3D glasses and called James Cameron a “smurf murderer.”  Hilarious and interesting, right?  F*ck yourselves.

You can watch the segment below if you hate yourself.

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MEL GIBSON CALLS SOME SUGARTIT AN A-HOLE

02.03.10 Written by Vince Mancini

Mel Gibson went on WGN TV recently, no doubt expecting the usual round of asinine fluff for which these local-TV apes train their entire lives.  (“You heard it here first, folks, it was a pleasure to work with such a talented crew.  Now back to Jojo the water skiing squirrel.”)  Instead, the guy wanted to keep needling him about the whole sugartits incident.  Gibson, who you have to admit has been a pretty good sport about this whole thing (see also: Gervais’ introduction at the Golden Globes, the Colonel Sanders sketch on Kimmel) even at one point says “I think I’m the same person I always was,” which is a nice departure from the usual Hollywood line of “Ever since I went to sex rehab and found Scientology, I’ve been the vessel for a 3,000-year-old alien spirit named Xangief. I find he’s a calming influence.”

Anyway, Mel Gibson does his best to keep things civil, and then once he thinks the interview is over and the cameras are off, he says “asshole” under his breath.  What a jerk.  Someone needs to send that guy to sex rehab or something.

MelGibson-AHole

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GO KILL YOURSELF, DI BONAVENTURA

07.23.09 Written by Vince Mancini

Lorenzo Di Bonaventura, the Hollywood a-super producer behind-a dis-a year’s Transformers 2, Imagine That, and G.I. Joe, made headlines a few weeks back when he announced plans to make a movie based on the Asteroids arcade game.  But IGN recently caught up with him, and he reassured fans that there’s a lot more to the idea than just triangles and polygonal blobs (haha, because that would be stupid!).  Here’s the quote, and I warn you, you might wanna put on a helmet because this is going to make you bang your head against something.

“It’s funny because people say there’s nothing in the game, but that’s not entirely right,” he said. “I was attracted to Asteroids, plain and simple, because I think what it tells you is that there’s going to be this big thing in space. We’ve crafted a really strong, deep mythology for the thing.”

Yeah, there was this big thing in space, and it was called the Big Bang.  The mythology is that first there was the big bang, then there was Lorenzo Di Bonaventura.  F*ck you, universe.  F*ck you in the black hole.

“Without divulging too much about it, it’s two lead characters – two brothers – who have to go through a seminal experience to figure out their relationship, against this huge backdrop.”

Wait, didn’t they already make this movie?  I’m pretty sure they did, it was called Seminal Brothers 6.  They figure out that their relationship involves double teaming white girls.  This discovery came pretty early in the movie, from what I remember.

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BILLY BOB: ‘IT WAS SOMEONE ELSE’S FAULT’

04.22.09 Written by Vince Mancini

A contrite Billy Bob Thornton went on Jimmy Kimmel last night to apologize for being a total dick to that Canadian radio guy for basically no reason.  Ha, just kidding, he blamed it on the DJ, called everyone names, and laughed at us for being petty.

“Well first of all, the fact that that was news was astounding to me. It gave humpbacked geeks all over the world something to do for a couple of days.” [scattered laughter]

But after that he did express some remorse. Psyche!  Fooled you again!

“I do that all the time. It wasn’t the first time.”  [Thornton then talked about a show he did in Germany ten years ago in which the female host didn’t adhere to his requirements and he responded the same way]
“This woman said something that she wasn’t supposed to say and I told her that I receive signals from Venus from a metal plate in my head. Then of course you get calls from all your friends ‘are you ok?’ ‘Of course I’m ok. I told a DJ to kiss my ass, that’s all that happened….’  If I tell some guy who lied to me in my face to not say something, you know… it doesn’t make any sense to me, plus the fact that… it’s news?”

Hmmm, three names… lacks empathy… struggling musician… former actor… What else does this guy have to do before we lock him up, put on a clown suit and carve up a puppy?

[hat tip, celebitchy]

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