Showing posts with label Brent Lang. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Brent Lang. Show all posts

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Hollywood PR gambit or simply returning a favor? Brent Lang in TheWrap: Robert Downey Jr. Urges Hollywood: 'Forgive Mel Gibson'; But some NEVER will

Hollywood PR gambit or simply returning a favor? Brent Lang in TheWrap: Robert Downey Jr. Urges Hollywood: 'Forgive Mel Gibson'; But some NEVER will

Given the Hollywood-based news media's fascination for constantly recreating the same old narratives over and over again with different faces -it's not just Hollywood studios that like remakes- esp. their version of re-birth or redemption -regardless of whether it's factually either- it'll be interesting to see next week how talent-friendly, lowest common denominator TV shows like Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood and the like treat this story from Friday night, since there are a LOT of hard feelings in the Los Angeles entertainment industry about Mel Gibson, and an awful lot of people who have no intention of letting Gibson feel he's socially acceptable again in either polite society or the film industry.

Even people who usually try their best to stay "above it all" and not take sides if it's bad for business or ratings.
But the Mel Gibson issue is different.

Not that you'd know it from what your read in most U.S. newspapers or magazines -much less ones in South Florida- but there are a lot of smart and savvy TV program/network producers in LA who usually try their best to act agnostic editorially about some entertainment/celebrity stories they run that are clearly banal or self-serving but let them fly anyway, because they are, at heart, well, harmless.

But on this subject, they might just put their feet down and say, essentially, "Nope, I won't accommodate you, Mel Gibson. I won't allow you and your reps to finesse us in to giving you a one-sided forum to plead your case for public redemption.
Nope, first you must actually say that you're sorry publicly, specifically say what you're sorry about and then show some genuine remorse over an extended period of time.
Don't call us, we'll call you."

The conundrum of course, is how do you really ever know if a once hugely-popular actor like Gibson who has said and done what many people believe are some truly reprehensible things -consistently- is showing true remorse?
Or, frankly, is even worth trying to salvage?

Sometimes, despite your past history with talented-but-troublesome people, you have to let people with a documented history of 'burning bridges behind them' stay on the outside looking in, if for no other reason than self-preservation, so that you yourself aren't burned in the future. (Completion bonds exist for a reason, no?)

There are a lot of successful industry people who no longer are interested in being in the "Mel Gibson business,' no matter how artistically creative or financially reasonable the project he pitches sounds.
He's dead to them.
Period.

Someone else in LA will have to give him a rope or ladder to crawl out from the entertainment 'Phantom Zone' he's exiled in, but it won't be them.
They're throwing him an anchor, not an olive branch.

Over the weeks and months to come, we are all going to come to know just who those people are in Hollywood who put principles over profit.


TheWrap
Robert Downey Jr. Urges Hollywood: 'Forgive Mel Gibson'
Published: October 14, 2011 @ 11:50 pm
By Brent Lang
It was supposed to be Robert Downey Jr.’s night, but somehow Friday’s American Cinematheque Award ceremony became all about Mel Gibson.

When the evening’s honoree took to the stage at the Beverly Hills Hilton to accept his doorstop, he had a clear message for Hollywood.
Read the rest of the article at:

Also writing with some insight on this story was reporter Julie Makinen of the L.A. Times at their 24 Frames film blog.

24 Frames blog
Los Angeles Times
Mel Gibson gets a boost from Robert Downey Jr.
October 15, 2011 | 12:34 am

The slow but methodical rehabilitation of Mel Gibson in Hollywood took another step forward Friday night, courtesy of Robert Downey Jr.

Dozens of famous faces who've performed onscreen with Downey or directed him -- among them Gibson, Jodie Foster, Gary Shandling, Michael Douglas and Jon Favreau -- gathered to pay tribute to (and roast) the "Iron Man" star at the Beverly Hilton as he received the 2011 American Cinematheque Award.

Read the rest of her take at:

And in case you forgot, as you watch the videos below, of his Good Morning America interviews with ABC News Diane Sawyer from October 12th and 13th 2006, recall that this was BEFORE the most recent scandal involving former Gibson love interest Oksana Grigorieva, whom he took up with even before officially divorcing his wife, Robyn.


Mel Gibson Accounts for his Drunken Anti-Semitic Tirade (Part 1 of 2)

Mel Gibson Accounts for his Drunken Anti-Semitic Tirade (Part 2 of 2)

Friday, January 14, 2011

While her opponents are busy trying to brainstorm and reinvent themselves to thwart her, like the Mississippi River, Sarah Palin keeps rolling along..

See my response to this story at TheWrap amongst their reader comments.

Brand Palin Takes a Hit With 'Blood Libel' Video
By Brent Lang
Published: January 12, 2011 @ 7:21 pm

http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/after-giffords-shooting-brand-palin-takes-hit-23857


I must admit that I make a mistake in responsing to this post in such haste, as I was wrong about there being only one person quoted, as I forgot about Laurence Barton's comments and...

Then again, I also neglected to attack the asinine 'remain a punching-bag' remarks by
John Feehery
“She should let others defend her and keep quiet for a while,” John Feehery, a Republican political consultant and the president of Quinn Gillespie Communications, wrote in an email message to TheWrap.
His comments may be the single dumbest thing I read all year.

Consider this:

In the 2008 Democratic primary -you know, the one that the MSM said was already Hillary's in 2007- if Obama's media acolytes and union pals at SEIU kept attacking Hillary with untrue info and she let it stand for nearly a week, the media would've said that she showed weakness, correct?
Yes, he said in answering his own rhetorical question.

Palin waits five days after being hammered for something she didn't do and is promptly attacked for "inserting" herself into the situation by ABC News.
http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2011/01/the-note-obama-palin-and-arizona-a-tale-of-two-speeches.html?cid=6a00d8341c4df253ef0148c78e402e970c

You don't have to want Sarah Palin to be either the face of the GOP or president -and I don't- to know that this was a 'high-tech lynching.' and a probable preview of what the MSM has in store for the GOP this year.

Go ahead, explain the difference in media sentiment.


Welcome to the American mainstream media's 2011 version of civility: They'll attack you and say things that are clearly absurd, then attack you for defending yourself, and when you finally respond, they'll selectively run stories featuring people who never liked you, who then further attack you.
Afterwards, they'll attack you for needlessly "inserting" yourself.


And after it's all over, and the lack of evidence is even more stark, and there are recriminations for the lynch mob, they'll say, "Well, even if it's not true this time..."


My favorite version
of Ol' Man River, from the 1936 film starring the amazing Irene Dunne, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0028249/



Paul Robeson - Ol' Man River (Showboat - 1936) J.Kern O. Hammerstein II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh9WayN7R-s