The Will Leitch Experience

Because, sometimes, I just don't think people have enough access to my opinions.

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Jul 1
The circled gentleman in this photo is Tim Cain, a reporter at the Decatur Herald-Review and purveyor of the intricately named Crouching Weblog, Hidden Baldwin blog over there. This is a screengrab from the hilarious just-released trailer for Matt Damon’s The Informant!, directed by Steven Soderbergh. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while because the amazing (and just as funny as it seems in the trailers, even if most journalists have treated it with bizarrely solemn seriousness) story is about Mark Whitacre, who, during the course of the film, lives in Moweaqua, a tiny Central Illinois town of 2,000 people, a bowling alley, a coal miners museum and one stop sign. It also happens to be where my mother grew up and where I spent the first 28 Christmases of my life.
Soderbergh actually filmed in Moweaqua; here’s an awesome story about how the town’s “diner” Hog Trough Too had to change its name to The Cat & The Griddle, “for legal reasons, apparently.” Cain had written a few stories about the filming — it’s probably important for a lifestyle and entertainment reporter at the Decatur, Ill. paper to be all over a story about Steven Soderbergh and Matt Damon making a movie over in Moweaqua — and the casting director “they thought I might get a kick out of doing it … We got to met Soderbergh briefly, and I didn’t wet my pants, so I considered that a win. … We filmed the second day. Two takes from one side, three takes from the other, and we were done.” (Cain is an exceptionally diligent reporter; he once interviewed my mom  for a story.) I kind of love that Soderbergh is a freewheeling enough filmmaker that he’ll be like, “Whatever, you look like a reporter, here’s a notebook, hold it and pretend like you’re writing.”
My grandmother, who lived on Putnam Street just south of the Moweaqua high school for 50 years, died four years ago and thus wasn’t able to call me with daily updates on just how fat that boy from the World War II movie made himself for that thing they’re filming “in town.” She would have loved it. She would have just eaten it up.

The circled gentleman in this photo is Tim Cain, a reporter at the Decatur Herald-Review and purveyor of the intricately named Crouching Weblog, Hidden Baldwin blog over there. This is a screengrab from the hilarious just-released trailer for Matt Damon’s The Informant!, directed by Steven Soderbergh. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while because the amazing (and just as funny as it seems in the trailers, even if most journalists have treated it with bizarrely solemn seriousness) story is about Mark Whitacre, who, during the course of the film, lives in Moweaqua, a tiny Central Illinois town of 2,000 people, a bowling alley, a coal miners museum and one stop sign. It also happens to be where my mother grew up and where I spent the first 28 Christmases of my life.

Soderbergh actually filmed in Moweaqua; here’s an awesome story about how the town’s “diner” Hog Trough Too had to change its name to The Cat & The Griddle, “for legal reasons, apparently.” Cain had written a few stories about the filming — it’s probably important for a lifestyle and entertainment reporter at the Decatur, Ill. paper to be all over a story about Steven Soderbergh and Matt Damon making a movie over in Moweaqua — and the casting director “they thought I might get a kick out of doing it … We got to met Soderbergh briefly, and I didn’t wet my pants, so I considered that a win. … We filmed the second day. Two takes from one side, three takes from the other, and we were done.” (Cain is an exceptionally diligent reporter; he once interviewed my mom for a story.) I kind of love that Soderbergh is a freewheeling enough filmmaker that he’ll be like, “Whatever, you look like a reporter, here’s a notebook, hold it and pretend like you’re writing.”

My grandmother, who lived on Putnam Street just south of the Moweaqua high school for 50 years, died four years ago and thus wasn’t able to call me with daily updates on just how fat that boy from the World War II movie made himself for that thing they’re filming “in town.” She would have loved it. She would have just eaten it up.


Jun 30

Email Dated June 15, 2010

Sir

So I saw your Twitter post, the one that said “deadspin dudes new book sux balls he can blow me.” You make it sound in your Tweet that your review is somehow a sane and fair assessment; surely, you’re aware you’re a child molester, right? Only a child molester would write something like that. Or an Albino. I bet you’re an Albino. I bet you look like Powder.

In my eyes, and all those who have read it with anything like impartiality, it is a Tweet  driven by an almost manic desire to bad-mouth and perversely depreciate anything of value, or, failing that, my book. The accusations you level at me are simply extraordinary. I’ll have you know, SIR, that I will not, in fact, “blow you,” however politely you might extend the invite. And my book does NOT suck balls. You would know this, had you done even a modicum of research. I found this out the hard way. Repeatedly. The book will not suck testicles. JUST A LITTLE BIT OF WORK WOULD HAVE TOLD YOU THIS. And you would have saved yourself such an embarrassing, error-riddled “statement.” I have no idea how you got this job in the first place.

I genuinely hope that you will find yourself on the receiving end of such a daft review some time very soon — so that you can grow up and start to take some responsibility for your work as a Tweeter. You have now killed my book among your 47 followers, nothing short of that. So that’s two, maybe three months of work down the drain in one miserable 140 character review.

I would have posted your home phone number on my own site, but apparently you use Skype, and I don’t know what that is. Now any idiot can be a critic. Writers used to review writers. My first book was reviewed by rangersfan4324. So who are you, tomtom24? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU? Your Twitter page says you are from “Tehran.” SO WHY AREN’T YOU SPEAKING IN FARSI? Yeah, that’s what I thought: BUSTED. Hey, everyone out there in Twitterland: Don’t trust tomtom24!

I will hate you till the day I die and wish you nothing but ill will in every career move you make. Consider yourself UNFOLLOWED.

Best,
Will

P.S. I will in no way regret this email in five minutes.

(Ed. Note Update: Uh, I thought it was kind of obvious this was a joke. Check here and here for enlightenment.)


Jun 26
“I’m an Internet freak and I go on all the draft boards, and nobody’s got me going second round. That’s almost guaranteed to me.” Pittsburgh power forward DeJuan Blair, two months ago, when he announced he was leaving school for the NBA. He was selected in the second round of the Draft last night and responded by pouring out a 40 for Jeff Goldblum.

Jun 25
“I didn’t have a stop watch, but it seemed to me the elephantine action scenes were pretty much spaced out evenly through the movie. There was no starting out slow and building up to a big climax. The movie is pretty much all climax. The Autobots® and Deceptibots® must not have read the warning label on their Viagra. At last we see what a four-hour erection looks like.”

Roger Ebert on Transformers 2.

Also, I’ve enjoyed Brothers Bloom and Brick director Rian Johnson’s Twitter, in which he defines Michael Bay’s creative process as, “clarified by describing any scene from the film then putting the words “and shit” at the end of it.”

‘And they need to get to this machine they have to bust up the pyramids and shit.’
‘And then there’s a whole prophecy and it’s something about astronomy and shit.’
‘And this sliver thing activates something in Shia’s brain so he’s seeing symbols and shit.’”


Jun 24

Just wrote a section of the book about how my mom used to keep score at my youth league baseball games in a lawn chair while drinking wine coolers. I had forgotten that brief moment in American history in which wine coolers were hip. I blame Bruce Willis.

Related, and Related (with Sharon Stone!)

(Update: Related!)


My favorite part of President Obama’s press conference yesterday was when he answered one of Chuck Todd’s pesky questions with, “I know everybody here is on a 24-hour news cycle. I’m not.” I am totally using this in all my interactions: A vague, general, perhaps bullshit yet still portentous and wise sense that you are the only person in the room, or even the planet, who understands the big picture.

If you can pull this off, you can get away with anything. Disagreements with your boss?  Arguments with your spouse? Caught cheating on your taxes? You don’t understand. I see the big picture; you don’t, you can’t. In 15 years, you’ll grow to see I am right. Thus, please let me continue to strangle this drifter until you ultimately come around to fathoming the foresight of my actions.

I am not saying that President Obama is wrong. (I don’t think he is … but what the hell do I know?) I am just saying that “I know you’re on a 24-hour news cycle. I’m not” is going to be my response any time anyone questions anything I do, pretty much from now on.


Jun 21
Hey, Father’s Day is awesome. Dads rule. Hey, Father’s Day is awesome. Dads rule.

Jun 19
“There are two robots in the film called Mudflap and Skids, and despite being red and green, respectively, they are voiced in a way that clearly designates them to be the “black” robots. Also, Skids has a gold front tooth (no, I’m serious) and both cannot read.” Yeah, I think I’m gonna just sit the Transformers movie out, thank you.

Jun 18
“He could do a bit more reporting in his columns, he could actually TALK to someone… What really pissed me off about him the most was when he fucking knew who WC Heinz was… I’m the best thing that ever happened to him.”

I do try to take the high road when Buzz pulls this every few months or so … but it’s not always easy.

(related)


Movie Roundup: Films I didn’t have time to do full reviews for, in handy capsule format, as is all the rage.
Away We Go. “This movie does not like you,” Times critic A.O. Scott memorably wrote about Away We Go, though I think it’s more accurate to say that this movie does not care about you. This movie lives in a bubbleland of its main two characters’ heads, who shamble along to and fro, never really engaging the planet or stepping outside themselves in any noteworthy way. These are nice, friendly, likable people … as long as you don’t scratch below the surface. To them, the world is just a playground for their own mutual regard, and somewhere out there, there’s a good movie about that, one about two people who are so in love that the rest of the planet can’t help but be a supporting character to their ongoing romance. (I’m thinking Barfly meets Bio-Dome. Or something.) But here, even though we’re presented with a world is full of scary people to be ignored, cocooned away from, Away We Go still wants to tilt at profundity. It wants to mean something. It doesn’t: This is a film about two charming sociopaths that has no idea it’s a film about two charming sociopaths. (And the cloying, tip-toeing score by Alexi Murdoch will make you want to put your fist through a wall.) The film still almost works, thanks partly to some lovely (if awfully writerly) detail and lyricism, and mostly to Maya Rudolph, who finds a real human being underneath all the winsome narcissism. (Even if the script botches its lone attempt at a storyline, Rudolph’s struggles dealing with the death of her parents.) This film is smart about the little things and deeply, grotesquely wrong about the big ones. Grade: C+.
Moon. The premise seems promising: A man dispatched by a megacorporation to spend three years in solitary on the moon finds himself going mad by the end of his tour of duty. Interesting! And those elegant shots of lunar landers plodding across the moon’s surface, empty machinery in an indifferent universe? Pretty! Unfortunately, those are all the ideas Moon has, shifting from a quiet meditation on loneliness into a ponderous, half-baked plot about, well, clones. Yep: For all the big ideas this movie wants to play around with, ultimately, it’s about cloning, and how big corporations will use it for … well, you know, I kind of lost track after a while. I think Sam Rockwell did, too; he’s certainly up for the challenge of playing multiple roles, but ultimately, he’s just yammering to himself. This movie has half an idea and, and the end, tries to convince you it had seven. Grade: C.
The Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3. Dull, paint-by-numbers Urban Thriller. Much has already been made of how dreary and bored John Travolta looks — he honestly appears to have sprinted off to his trailer every time Tony Scott said cut — but Denzel Washington is sleepingwalking here too, taking a potentially compelling character and consistently steering him into Everyday Hero mode. (Washington’s so good that even his sleepwalking can enthrall, but have no doubt, that’s exactly what he’s doing here.) It seems unfair to pick on the actors, though; this whole film is on autopilot, from the empty Look! Locals! NYC “flavor” to an entirely unnecessary police-car-screaming-through-New-York City “chase” sequence. (Scott has several buses crash into an important police car because, well, because otherwise the movie would have been over in half an hour, and because a movie about a stalled subway car makes it difficult for things to crash and explode.) It’s funny how Scott’s trademark blurry quick-cutting — once considered so cutting edge — feels so dated now, isn’t it? (And Paul Greengrass does it so much better anyway.) This movie isn’t really trying. Only James Gandolfini escapes the carnage as a mayor who’s part Bloomberg, part Giuliani and part Spitzer. He should have his own, better film. Grade: C-.

Movie Roundup: Films I didn’t have time to do full reviews for, in handy capsule format, as is all the rage.

Away We Go. “This movie does not like you,” Times critic A.O. Scott memorably wrote about Away We Go, though I think it’s more accurate to say that this movie does not care about you. This movie lives in a bubbleland of its main two characters’ heads, who shamble along to and fro, never really engaging the planet or stepping outside themselves in any noteworthy way. These are nice, friendly, likable people … as long as you don’t scratch below the surface. To them, the world is just a playground for their own mutual regard, and somewhere out there, there’s a good movie about that, one about two people who are so in love that the rest of the planet can’t help but be a supporting character to their ongoing romance. (I’m thinking Barfly meets Bio-Dome. Or something.) But here, even though we’re presented with a world is full of scary people to be ignored, cocooned away from, Away We Go still wants to tilt at profundity. It wants to mean something. It doesn’t: This is a film about two charming sociopaths that has no idea it’s a film about two charming sociopaths. (And the cloying, tip-toeing score by Alexi Murdoch will make you want to put your fist through a wall.) The film still almost works, thanks partly to some lovely (if awfully writerly) detail and lyricism, and mostly to Maya Rudolph, who finds a real human being underneath all the winsome narcissism. (Even if the script botches its lone attempt at a storyline, Rudolph’s struggles dealing with the death of her parents.) This film is smart about the little things and deeply, grotesquely wrong about the big ones. Grade: C+.

Moon. The premise seems promising: A man dispatched by a megacorporation to spend three years in solitary on the moon finds himself going mad by the end of his tour of duty. Interesting! And those elegant shots of lunar landers plodding across the moon’s surface, empty machinery in an indifferent universe? Pretty! Unfortunately, those are all the ideas Moon has, shifting from a quiet meditation on loneliness into a ponderous, half-baked plot about, well, clones. Yep: For all the big ideas this movie wants to play around with, ultimately, it’s about cloning, and how big corporations will use it for … well, you know, I kind of lost track after a while. I think Sam Rockwell did, too; he’s certainly up for the challenge of playing multiple roles, but ultimately, he’s just yammering to himself. This movie has half an idea and, and the end, tries to convince you it had seven. Grade: C.

The Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3. Dull, paint-by-numbers Urban Thriller. Much has already been made of how dreary and bored John Travolta looks — he honestly appears to have sprinted off to his trailer every time Tony Scott said cut — but Denzel Washington is sleepingwalking here too, taking a potentially compelling character and consistently steering him into Everyday Hero mode. (Washington’s so good that even his sleepwalking can enthrall, but have no doubt, that’s exactly what he’s doing here.) It seems unfair to pick on the actors, though; this whole film is on autopilot, from the empty Look! Locals! NYC “flavor” to an entirely unnecessary police-car-screaming-through-New-York City “chase” sequence. (Scott has several buses crash into an important police car because, well, because otherwise the movie would have been over in half an hour, and because a movie about a stalled subway car makes it difficult for things to crash and explode.) It’s funny how Scott’s trademark blurry quick-cutting — once considered so cutting edge — feels so dated now, isn’t it? (And Paul Greengrass does it so much better anyway.) This movie isn’t really trying. Only James Gandolfini escapes the carnage as a mayor who’s part Bloomberg, part Giuliani and part Spitzer. He should have his own, better film. Grade: C-.


Jun 17
I’m guessing this Fandango photo gallery isn’t quite the type of movie promotion Woody Allen would have in mind. I’m guessing this Fandango photo gallery isn’t quite the type of movie promotion Woody Allen would have in mind.

bullshit:

deleteyourself:
Revolutionary Iranian women, risking their life to post about the protests on Twitter, meet Google contextual ads (Link)

bullshit:

deleteyourself:

Revolutionary Iranian women, risking their life to post about the protests on Twitter, meet Google contextual ads (Link)

Jun 16
(via fuckyeahmovieposters)
This poster was on my wall throughout college. You can probably guess how many women came by.

(via fuckyeahmovieposters)

This poster was on my wall throughout college. You can probably guess how many women came by.


“Lange was the ideal foil to all this, and I suspect that’s why he — along with Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis — was invited onto the show. Buck was outsourcing the funny. And now Buck professes himself to be shocked, shocked!, that an old Howard Stern sidekick might waddle onto an HBO set and go off-color. This is just too perfect. One show in, Joe Buck, guardian of middle-American virtue, has already found something about which to moralize: His own goddamn show.” Tommy Craggs shoots Joe Buck right in the brain.

Jun 14
(via alexbalk) (via alexbalk)

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