As usual, me and the rest of the blog chutes are a little behind the local news, and as it turns out Dale Fout, the Texas theater A-hole who claimed whiplash because a woman tapped his shoulder and asked him to stop texting during a movie, already sat down for a follow-up interview with the Fort Worth Weekly. In his defense, Fout claims he never asked to press charges and only wanted an apology, and that he wasn’t the one who called the paramedics. And if you still think he’s a jerk, it’s probably because you’re a liberal and if you say something to his face he will punch you. A-PLUS FOR PR, DALE FOUT! YOU MUST BE A MARKETING CONSULTANT!

[Fout] was also offended by the way [Dave] Lieber [the writer of the original story] presented the story.
“Obviously the guy slanted the story because in all likelihood he’s a liberal,” Fout said.

“I mean, at the very least he sounds like a Jew.”

Lieber’s story makes it sound as if Fout called police and pressed charges, but Fout said all he wanted was an apology from Godwin.
Fout complained to a manager in the lobby. While doing so, a woman approached him to say she was a physical therapist. She looked at his neck and noticed a knot.
“Before I knew it here comes Emergency Medical Services and police,” Fout said. “The theater management said by law they had to do that.”
But Fout said he never asked police to press charges.
“The police came up and they’d already escorted her out and wrote her a ticket,” he said. “What am I supposed to do, ask the police not to do it? Are they going to listen to me? No. They’re going to do what they want to do.”

Oh I don’t know, maybe you could’ve not complained about your neck after a lady tapped you on the shoulder with a perfectly reasonable request, you big, blubbering vagina. Still, he seems to have charmed this new reporter.

I found Fout to be a blowhard, condescending at times, and difficult to like.

Oh, Dale Fout, you silver tongue! Keep using that world class charm!

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Tobey Maguire’s double life as a high-stakes poker player is coming to light as a result of an FBI investigation into a an embezzling hedge-fund manager who was also a degenerate gambler (shocking, I know).  Basically, this guy, Brad Ruderman, whose name couldn’t possibly sound more like the name of a douchey hedge-fund manager, lost $25 million of his clients’ money in secret poker games with Hollywood stars like Maguire, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Webster.  Okay, I made that last one up. Now, some of Ruderman’s clients say they’re entitled to Maguire’s winnings, because they were acquired through illegal means, and because the money Ruderman money lost was rightfully theirs.  Yeah, yeah, and America “rightfully” belongs to the Indians, here’s me playing the world’s smallest invisible dick violin with my dismissive wank hand.

As Ruderman sits in a Texas jail until 2018, convicted on two counts of wire fraud and two counts of investment adviser fraud, lawyers for the clients whose funds he embezzled are filing a series of civil suits against those who won big in the illegal poker dens, in the hope of recouping some of their lost savings.
Ruderman lost $311,300 to Maguire, including one losing hand of $110,000, on July 30, 2007, it’s claimed.
The games were “exclusive events, by invitation only, and that there was a regular roster of players consisting of wealthy celebrities, entrepreneurs, attorneys and businessmen,” according to the lawsuit.
Tinsel town A-listers Leonardo DiCaprio, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon also played in the no-limit Texas Hold ‘em games held on a twice weekly basis in suites at the luxury Beverly Hills hotel, Four Seasons, and the Viper Room on Sunset Boulevard, which had a buy-in of $100,000, multiple members of the ring told Star.  DiCaprio, Affleck and Damon are not being sued.
Others who were part of the secret society and are facing hefty lawsuits include billionaire businessman Alex Gores, The Notebook director Nick Cassavetes, Welcome Back, Kotter star Gabe Kaplan, Paris Hilton’s infamous sex tape partner, Rick Salomon, record label owner Cody Leibel and Las Vegas nightlife entrepreneur and real-estate developer Andrew Sasson, among others.
Maguire won as much as $1 million a month over a period of three years, one source told Star, which is on newsstands Wednesday.
“That means he could have made up to $30 to $40 million from these games,” the whistle-blowing card shark predicted. [RadarOnline]

And I’m sure that’s an accurate estimate, because if there’s one thing I know about poker, it’s that your earnings from it are as constant and reliable as Old Faithful. One Hollywood A-lister whose name you WON’T find among the invitees to the games, however, is Paul Walker, who was no doubt presumed to have an unfair advantage. If you’ve seen any of his movies, you know the one thing that guy’s got going for him is an impenetrable poker face.

RELEVANT

Buried screenwriter Chris Sparling recently sent an email directly to Academy members urging them to nominate his script for a Best Original Screenplay Oscar — a violation of Academy rules, which expressly state that “Mailings that extol the merits of a film, an achievement or an individual are not permitted.”  Amazingly, Sparling’s email does all of that and more, WITH ONLY A SINGLE LOCATION!

Under the heading FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION “BURIED” BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY, Sparling writes:

“Dear Screenwriter,

Here’s your writing prompt.

You are to write a feature-length screenplay with only one on-screen character. This character is to remain in only one location for the entire duration of the film, and that one location must be a 2′ x 7′ wooden box. You cannot use flashbacks, cut-aways, or any other narrative device that would take the action outside that box.

And…

The film based on your screenplay must be met by incredibly high critical praise. Roger Ebert must give it 3 1/2 out of 4 stars and give it two thumbs up; Variety must remark that the film is “…an ingenious exercise in sustained tension that would have made Alfred Hitchcock proud;” Jeffrey Lyons must describe the film you wrote as “Mesmerizing;” and you must be awarded Best Original Screenplay of 2010 by the National Board of Review.

Sound impossible? It’s not. In fact, all this exactly describes the film BURIED.”

In addition to being a clear violation of Academy rules, Sparling broke, nay, TRAMPLED, rules 12 through 17 of Not Being a Huge Douche.

And…

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(“Hey, bro, is your refrigerator running?  Yeah, well.  It’s been running through my mind all night.”)

Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland was lame and sh*tty and still made a billion dollars, so why not another fairy tale adaptation?  A lot of blow and bad decisions, yadda yadda yadda, Brett Ratner is producing an “edgy” take on Snow White.

Relativity Media has made a preemptive acquisition of The Brothers Grimm: Snow White, an edgy 3D re-imagining of the German folk tale written by Melisa Wallack.
The Brothers Grimm: Snow White will be produced by Bernie Goldmann, Ryan Kavanaugh and Brett Ratner, with Tucker Tooley exec producing.

What a coincidence, “Tucker Tooley” was Brett Ratner’s nickname in Hebrew school.  Hey, Rat Man, do that impression of a hilariously cliché, Hollywood dipsh*t you do.

“This is not your grandfather’s Snow White,” Ratner said.

Beautiful, brother.  You are so talented.

“Melisa went back to the 500 year old folk tale and put in some of the things that were missing from Walt Disney’s film. His dwarves were miners, and here they are robbers. There is also a dragon that was in the original folk tale. Walt made one of the great movies of all time, but ours is edgy and there is more comedy. The original, made for its time, was soft compared to what we’re going to do.”  [Deadline]

YOUR SNOW WHITE WAS SOFT, GRANDPA!  MEET THE NEW DWARVES, JUNKIE, SKULL TAT, AND NOT A FAG!  You want comedy?  Knock knock, who’s there? DRAGONS, F*GGOT!

Keep in mind, at this point Brett Ratner is only co-producing.  And in Hollywood, the actual job duties of a producer vary widely.  Though in this case, I think it’s pretty safe to assume they mostly involve “expressing asinine opinions with your mouth full.”

"HURRRRRRR."

Congratulations to Hollywood super director Brett Ratner, who recently discovered the Cheeto he lost last week while absent-mindedly scratching his balls.  You see?  The lord works in mysterious ways.  Also: It’s hard to tell if the coat collar thing is accidental or if popped lapels is just the new tubby Hollywood cool-guy thing.

True Story: Brett Ratner’s last five script meetings have ended in disputes over bros icing bros.

[via Gawker, thanks, Kurt]