More Polanski Talk, Sorry

FINALLY, someone has the balls (i.e., the public forum) to say what we've all been thinking (i.e., what I've been bitching about): that stupid "Free Roman Polanski" petition is NOT signed by a bunch of "Hollywood insiders." The vast majority of those people don't live in Hollywood, and even the ones who do are super out-of-the-mainstream weirdies. It's just a factual error that bugs me everytime I see it, which is often. Especially on the Fox News headlines that pop up on Google News. They always say something to the effect of, "Hollywood elite rally behind Polanski." Well, okay, except that no real big-money-making directors have signed it. And the big names that have mostly are New York based. You know how Woody Allen is, always making films about Hollywood and how much he loves it! Oh wait. That is inaccurate. Oh well, put it in the article anyway. (That was my impression of someone who writes news articles.)
Anyway, the guy that wrote "A History of Violence" wrote an essay about it, and it's interesting.

Polanski Redux

The David Lynch in my head is the David Lynch that puts things like this on twitter:
I built a fish over the weekend. You?

And then a few hours later, writes this:
For those asking, my fish is made of plaster, wood, wire and epoxy.

In-my-head David Lynch is currently battling it out with Real-Life David Lynch right now, since Real-Life David Lynch signed this (from Videogum, obviously). I've been coming up with ways to justify this all day (because that is what I need to do, because I am a totally normal person!) and here's what I've come up with: David Lynch is probably friends with Roman Polanski, and you defend your friends, right? I mean, if one of my friends was accused of murder I would probably still not want her to go to jail. Or whatever.
I guess Alex ought to get busy printing up those TEAM POLANSKI tees, because the demand is far greater than I ever anticipated. Tilda Swinton called, she wants her TEAM POLANSKI baby tee STAT!

Thought on Polanski

Did you guys watch The View today? I didn't* (even though, on my Mondays off work, I've been known to), but I read Lindsay's article about it on Jezebel. Alex and I have been talking a lot about this. There's always an icky, uncomfortable feeling that comes along with liking the creative work of someone who's done horrible things in their personal life. Well, I can only speak for myself, but I assume others would agree. It has always been hard for me to reconcile that some of my favorite films are made by a man who left his wife for her adopted daughter (I'm talking about Woody Allen, of course). And last week, we all learned about Mackenzie Phillips's incestuous relationship with her father, which makes enjoying the Mamas and the Papas all but impossible. Most of us aren't capable of divorcing an artist's creative output from the context behind it. I can't ever hear "You Look Wonderful Tonight" on the soft rock radio without thinking of Eric Clapton writing it for George Harrison's wife, nor can I hear "Lady in Red" without thinking about how the singer wrote it for his children's babysitter. I'm not even entirely sure that last one is true, but it's still all I think about.
What I'm saying is, it's difficult for me to think of Roman Polanski as someone who drugged and raped a 13 year old child. But he did.
Alex has a new business venture that's come out of all of this...t-shirts that say TEAM POLANSKI. He'll apparently have at least one customer, and that customer is named Whoopi Goldberg! Probably no one else though, aside from the entire country of France.

*I watched The Golden Girls instead. Blanche's daughter wanted to have a child through artificial insemination, hilarity ensued.