If you were watching the news a few years ago, you might remember disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff showing up to his sentencing hearing in a black trenchcoat and fedora looking like Frank Miller‘s fat brother.  Well Alex Gibney (Gonzo, Enron: Smartest Guys in the Room) has made a documentary, Casino Jack and the United States of Money, which promises to tell us the story behind the pear-shaped douchewipe in a hat.  The movie looks good and I’ll almost certainly see it (opens May 7th), but I don’t know. This kind of thing keeps happening.  Am I the only one annoyed with us always painting these guys as “geniuses?”  Just because they were the first ones to try some scam, does that mean they were the first ones smart enough to think of it?  Or does it mean they were just the first miserable f*cks unscrupulous enough to try?  And am I the only one who constantly misreads his name as “Jack Mehoffer”?

Tell me you don’t want to kick this asshole right in his tubby little stomach.

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Kevin Spacey recently visited a federal, pound-me-in-the-ass prison (assemble your own joke!) in Maryland to meet with “disgraced lobbyist*” Jack Abramoff as research for a possible film about Abramoff. You may remember Abramoff as the guy who thought it’d be a good idea to show up to his trial looking like the villain in a Jimmy Cagney movie, except fatter.

Spacey and director George Hickenlooper (Factory Girl) met with Abramoff Friday afternoon to discuss plans for a film called Casino Jack or Bagman, based loosely on Abramoff’s career in Washington.  Abramoff, 50, began serving a six-year sentence in November 2006 for conspiracy, honest-services fraud and tax evasion in the purchase of casino boats in Florida, and was given four years last September for mail fraud, conspiracy and tax evasion. His projected release date is Dec. 1, 2011, according to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

I’ve always found Casino Jacks to be radically overpriced, but I digress – you haven’t gotten to the best quote of the piece yet:

Abramoff is no stranger to Hollywood. He and his brother Robert produced the 1989 Dolph Lundgren action movie Red Scorpion and its sequel, Red Scorpion 2. [USA Today]

Red Scorpion, by the way, was a film partially financed by the propaganda wing of South Africa’s apartheid government, which was basically a ripoff of Commando starring Dolph Lundgren in short shorts.  Kevin Spacey called it “an under-appreciated classic.”
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