I am flattered to have received today an e-mail from Gary Larson’s people with regard to my using a Far Side cartoon in this “Snide Remarks” column from last year. Apparently my reprinting of the comic infringed on their copyright (which was not news to me) and they noticed (which was news to me) and wanted it taken down. So it’s gone, replaced with a Ziggy that serves the same purpose in the context of the column. You can read the cease-and-desist letter in the “Comments & Reaction” section of the column.

Vice President Dick “Richard” Cheney’s visit to Brigham Young University’s commencement ceremony on Thursday passed smoothly and without incident, though there had been much controversy beforehand. The cantankerous, go-F-yourself-encouraging veep, known in some circles as Bush’s “attack dog,” came across as likable and pleasant in his address to graduates and their guests. He didn’t say anything controversial or political (I don’t think anyone expected him to; it wouldn’t be the right forum for that), and he even earned a couple of laughs.

You can hear his entire speech here. Note the places where he got the biggest applause: when he extended President Bush’s well wishes to the graduates, and when he mentioned BYU’s consistent ranking as No. 1 in the category of “stone-cold sober” colleges.

He cracked a few jokes at his own expense. He said that in his own college career, he nearly earned a doctorate, lacking only the dissertation. “I’ll get started as soon as I come up with a topic,” he said.

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With all of pop-culture-savvy Mormondom (that’s about 50 people) abuzz over news of filmmaker Richard Dutcher’s announcement that he has left both the Mormon cinema movement and the Mormon church, it was only a matter of time before the man himself stepped forward to offer some clarifications. And now he has done so, not by writing another commentary in the Daily Herald, but by posting a comment on a blog. (See, mainstream media? Blogs ARE important!)

The site is By Common Consent, and it’s a smart, Mormon-faithful group of thoughtful writers. One of them, Taryn Nelson-Seawright, wrote a stirring essay about Dutcher’s work, prompting a lively Dutchergate discussion. Then Dutcher himself piped up. His comment is #77, and this link should take you directly to it.

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Kieth Merrill: You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry.

Richard Dutcher’s commentary in last Thursday’s edition of the (Provo, Utah) Daily Herald sent shockwaves throughout the Mormon blogging community. (Of course there’s a Mormon blogging community. There’s a blogging community for everything.) I recommend reading it in its entirety, but here are some key excerpts:

The church would never allow shoddy, inexperienced architects and builders to create one of its temples. In its sacred commitment to excellence, the church searches for and employs those with the necessary talents, non-Mormons and Mormons alike. Some day, church leaders also will understand the power and potential of film. The cinema of a movement as great as Mormonism must be directed by great artists, not by inexperienced committees. Imagine the potential of images to convey the deepest, most sacred doctrines of Mormonism.

Look at the movies that play on the screen of the theater in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. These films are the introduction of Mormonism to hundreds of thousands of people from across the globe. Shouldn’t these be the most powerful films on the face of the earth? For whatever reason — nepotism, ignorance … who knows? — this opportunity is squandered. Why not share with visitors the beauty and power of Mormonism, rather than treating them to polite, remedial and not-so-factual recitations of Mormon History and scripture? Viewers should leave those films weak in the knees, their minds reeling, their spirits soaring. Film has the power to do that.

He also said he is no longer a practicing Mormon (a big shock to most readers), but he loves the church and its doctrines and has simply gone a different direction, spiritually.

On Saturday, the Herald ran a viewpoint by Chris Heimerdinger, a popular LDS novelist whose book “Passage to Zarahemla” is being made into a film to be released this summer. Heimerdinger’s comments don’t really interest me, so I’m not going to talk about them.

The real juicy response to Dutcher’s article was published right next to Heimerdinger’s, both covered by one central headline: “Answering Dutcher.” This one was by Kieth Merrill (misspelling of “Keith” is correct), who won a Best Documentary Feature Oscar in 1973 for “The Great American Cowboy.” He was a little annoyed by Dutcher’s dismissal of the films that play at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building. These movies, first “Legacy” and most recently “The Testaments,” are hour-long motion pictures that depict stories, dramatized but fact-based, pertaining to Mormonism. Dutcher described them as “polite, remedial and not-so-factual recitations of Mormon History and scripture.” This offended Merrill because, um, he wrote and directed them.

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Richard Dutcher in his upcoming film “Falling.”

Richard Dutcher, whose 2000 film “God’s Army” launched a new wave of Mormon-themed theatrical features, announced two things last week: that he’s leaving Mormon cinema, and that he’s leaving the Mormon church.

This is big news to followers of LDS cinema, and small news to people who didn’t realize there was such a thing as LDS cinema. But in Utah there has been no bigger film-related story in this decade than Mormon cinema — films made by, for, and about Mormons.

“God’s Army,” released March 10, 2000, was the first. Its $2.1 million gross showed Utah filmmakers that a movie with a niche audience (Mormons comprise only about 2 percent of the U.S. population) could be successful, provided they kept costs low and turned out a good product. Dutcher himself made the movement’s second entry, “Brigham City” (2001). By the end of 2003, 10 more non-Dutcher LDS films had been released, some good, some bad, some profitable, some not. As of this writing, another dozen or so entries have been filed, including Dutcher’s third film, “States of Grace” (2005), which is far and away the best of the lot and one of the best films of any kind of that year.

Most of these played only in Utah theaters. A few did well enough to move into other locations, mostly in the western U.S., where the highest concentration of Mormon audiences is. None ever managed to be the illusory “crossover success” that many directors were hoping for; in general, non-Mormons have shown no interest in watching movies they perceived as being for Mormons only.

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Looks like I stepped in it just a little bit in my last blog entry. On the subject of gays vs. straights, I said this:

Religious people, meanwhile, often want the gay community to understand that they (they religious people) have every right to consider gay conduct sinful. And they do have that right. But when those beliefs are being used to champion secular laws restricting gays’ rights, then a line has been crossed. Preach what you want in your churches, but leave the laws out of it. [Emphasis added.]

This led some people, knowing my LDS background, to wonder: Am I saying I think the LDS Church is wrong when it urges its members to vote against legislation that would legalize gay marriage?

My thoughts can be summed up thus: Doh!

The line originally read, “But when those beliefs are being used to champion secular laws restricting gays’ rights, then maybe a line has been crossed.” Note the word “maybe.” I was covering both sides of the argument in that post, and this paragraph was addressing the gay community’s point of view. I didn’t necessarily mean for it to be a statement of my own feelings, but simply a summary of one argument: that maybe, in some people’s view, a line has been crossed.

Late in the writing process, I took out the “maybe.” It’s an old journalism-school habit, where weasel words like “maybe” and “I think” and “in my opinion” should be used sparingly, and only when necessary. I removed this “maybe” carelessly, though, without stopping to consider how it changed the tone of the sentence.

My own opinions on this topic are evolving, not to mention irrelevant to what this Web site is all about. It’s a complicated, thorny issue. Even if one opposes gay marriage, should one campaign for legislation against it? Even if one supports the church leadership generally, must one agree with every single point? If one believes gay marriage should be banned, does that mean one is anti-homosexual or bigoted? Where is the line, discussed in that Larry Miller blog entry, between “understanding” and “tolerance”?

Finally: Gay marriage is a controversial subject, with good arguments on both sides. Unfortunately, the same good arguments (as well as the stupid ones) keep getting repeated back and forth, to where you could make a template of what Every Gay-Marriage Discussion sounds like. It’s always rancorous and headache-inducing, and I don’t like it. And thus, since this is my blog and I can do whatever I want, I’m not going to allow this or any other thread to turn into a debate on the pros and cons of gay marriage. Any comments submitted that do address the pros or cons of the issue will be deleted. Trust me, this is a necessary preemptive measure. If I let it, these threads would become overloaded with posts debating gay marriage, and it would make me irritable.

In lieu of that, please read these previous message board discussions. Whatever your feeling is, I can almost guarantee someone expressed it in one of these threads, and hence there is no need to reiterate it here. If you’re reading along, and you think of a great rebuttal, keep reading: I promise, somebody else made the same rebuttal.

About the LDS Church’s official statement on gay marriage (SPOILER ALERT: They were against it)
About the LDS Church’s subsequent, more specific statement, about gay marriage legislation
About a BYU professor being fired for speaking out against the LDS Church’s position
About the Larry Miller/”Brokeback” thing

Many readers, especially in Utah, will remember the uproar when local businessman Larry Miller pulled “Brokeback Mountain” from one of his movie theaters in January 2006. The problem wasn’t that he wouldn’t show the movie (it’s his theater; he can do whatever he wants), but that he pulled it at the last minute because of its content, yet failed to pull movies like “Hostel” and “Grandma’s Boy” that were much, much more vulgar, violent, and sexual.

Last week, Miller did a very big thing: He publicly admitted that canceling “Brokeback Mountain” was a mistake.

“Not because I got beaten up over it, but because it was a knee-jerk reaction,” he said in last Thursday’s Salt Lake Tribune. “You have to choose your spots to draw your lines and I didn’t choose a very good one.”

The reason the subject came up now is that Miller owns the Utah Jazz, and a former Jazz player, John Amaechi, has recently come out of the closet, making him the first NBA player, active or retired, to publicly acknowledge being gay. Miller was being interviewed to get his reaction to Amaechi’s announcement, and naturally the “Brokeback Mountain” controversy was addressed.

I think this is remarkable. The incident is a year old and could be considered a moot point now, yet Miller takes the opportunity in the Amaechi interview to admit that he made a mistake. That shows real class and character, I think.

Miller is a devout Mormon and was praised by some in the LDS community for rejecting “Brokeback Mountain,” but I don’t think anyone sensible would turn against him now for admitting his error. He does an excellent job in the Salt Lake Tribune interview at maintaining his religious convictions while expressing understanding:

“It was good for me in a couple of ways,” he said [in regards to a meeting he had last April with a gay and lesbian group at the University of Utah]. “I learned a lot about them with some open and honest dialogue. It didn’t change my way of thinking or theirs, but we all realized after talking with each other we have a better understanding of each other.

“I’m still outspoken on issues, but I know I have to look at people’s feelings and lives. I’d like to say I’m more understanding now. To say I’m tolerant would be less accurate, but I am more understanding.”

The fight between the gay community and religion is ongoing, and I think Miller’s sentiments are the closest anyone’s going to get to a truce.

The gay community wants religious people to be “tolerant,” but to them “tolerant” often means “not considering homosexual conduct sinful.” And most religious people simply aren’t going to reach that level of “tolerance” (if that’s even a legitimate definition of that word).

The gay community often sees this as a slap in the face: Anything short of embracing, encouraging, and welcoming homosexuality is considered “intolerant.” But it’s arrogant to try to tell any religion what they ought to believe, especially if you’re not even a member of that religion. (And if you ARE a member, wouldn’t you rather your church’s leadership base its core doctrines on what they believe is God’s will, not on member voting? If my church suddenly started changing policies based solely on what I wanted, I’d have to conclude that that church was not divinely inspired, and leave it.)

Religious people, meanwhile, often want the gay community to understand that they (they religious people) have every right to consider gay conduct sinful. And they do have that right. But when those beliefs are being used to champion secular laws restricting gays’ rights, then a line has been crossed. Preach what you want in your churches, but leave the laws out of it.

So I think Miller’s statement is excellent, and it’s what religious people should strive for. “Tolerant”? Not in the sense of having changed his mind about homosexuality, no. He still believes homosexual conduct is sinful. But “understanding”? Yes. Understanding someone means you can relate to him in some ways, you have common ground, you can see his point of view — whether you agree with it or not. You can be understanding of someone’s circumstances, proclivities, and personal affairs without having to believe that what that person does is right in the sight of God.

And NO, believing that someone is sinning is NOT the same thing as judging him, or believing yourself to be better than him, or looking down at him. Some people act that way, but they shouldn’t: Haughtiness and judgmentalism are sins, too. True Christians remain humbled by the fact that they, too, have sinned, and realize that rather than scorning or condemning homosexuals, they should be grateful that they haven’t had to face a struggle like that. If Miller’s statements accurately reflect his beliefs, then he strikes me as a good man and a true Christian.

Bob Garfield of National Public Radio’s “On the Media” program interviewed me Thursday morning for this week’s edition of the show. It was a 20-minute interview, but (and not being a regular listener, I was unaware this would happen) it was edited down to about 7 minutes. They’re professionals over there at NPR, though, and didn’t edit my comments out of context to make me sound stupid — that is to say, if I sound stupid, it is because I actually sounded stupid.

You can find out when your local NPR affiliate airs “On the Media” by going here, or you can just go to the “On the Media” site and listen to the interview there at your leisure. (Here is a link directly to an MP3 of my segment.)

[EDIT: It's too late to hear it on the radio now, of course. Go to the site to listen. They have also added a transcript, if you prefer reading over listening.]

The topics were my “I Was a Junket Whore” article, my subsequent blog about Tim Nasson’s shady journalism tactics, and journalism ethics in general. Bob was a friendly and well-prepared interviewer — again, they’re professionals over there at NPR — and I greatly enjoyed the experience.

(If Bob is reading this, though, he should know that he mispronounced “Willamette.” It’s Will-AM-ette, not WILL-am-ette. You can remember it because “Willamette” rhymes with “dammit.”)

If you’re wondering how the recording sounds so clear when it must have been a phone interview, the answer is IT WASN’T. They arranged for me to go to the local NPR affiliate, Oregon Public Radio, except they were booked up that day, so I went to another recording facility in SW Portland and they had a link-up and satellites were probably involved and it was very high-tech.

Ryan Ritchey from The Flux interviewed me Thursday for his weekly podcast. The subject: The junket whore article, of course, and Paramount’s reaction to it. It’s the Aug. 11 edition; look for it here.

In a recent “Snide Remarks” column entitled “I Was a Junket Whore,” I cited one instance of a fellow junketeer stretching the truth in his blog. From my column:

Let me jump forward in time a couple days to quote what one of the Web site writers posted on his site’s gossipy blog regarding this roundtable with [Oliver] Stone: “[I] just finished up lunch with the director — a plate of fruit and cheese, and crackers — none of which Stone touched, he just wanted his coffee — and learned that Stone has decided to release a director’s director’s cut of ‘Alexander.’” “Lunch with the director” makes it sound like he sat one-on-one with Stone and chatted over lunch, doesn’t it? And I’m sure that was the point: to make it sound like this guy had lunch with Oliver Stone, to impress you. When in fact this guy shared a table with a half-dozen other people, and the only one having lunch was Stone. (It’s true Stone didn’t actually eat anything; that part wasn’t a lie.)

I didn’t name the writer in question (nor any of the others on the junket) because I didn’t intend for the article to be a declaration of war on anyone. But I’m naming him now — Tim Nasson, of Wild About Movies — and I’m doing it because I have more to tell you about him. It’s more or less journalism at its very worst, and it deserves to be exposed.

While reading Nasson’s feature recounting his “World Trade Center” interviews, I discovered two alarming things:

1) He is one of the worst writers I’ve ever read. I mean truly, just a miserable grasp of the English language. Try to make sense of this tortured paragraph:

“World Trade Center�? tells the story of the two PAPD (Port Authority Police Department) cops who were buried alive, when one of the towers collapsed on top of them, and who were dug out and rescued a day later – all while enduring a gun that went off was shooting at them, accidentally, from one of the other PAPD cop’s guns, also buried (dead) with them. (Yes, that really happened. When you see the movie, you’ll know what I am talking about.)

At least he offers hope that at some point in the future you will know what he’s talking about.

2) Not a single one of the quotes he attributes to the celebrities involved is an actual quote.

This is by far the more serious charge. What he has done is to paraphrase the people and put quotation marks around it. He doesn’t change the IDEA of what the people said; he just rewrites it in his own words.

Now, the top three rules of journalism, even entertainment journalism, are Don’t Plagiarize, Don’t Make Stuff Up and Don’t Put Quotation Marks Around Something Unless It’s the Person’s ACTUAL EXACT WORDS.

So how do I know he’s misquoting everyone? Because I was in the same interviews he was, and I had a tape recorder. (I thought he had one, too, but either my memory is mistaken or he chose not to use his recording.)

I wrote to Nasson to give him a chance to fix things. I thought maybe he had the tape and could refer to it now that he’d been called out on his lazy quoting methods. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, said I didn’t know what his background was, maybe it was an honest misunderstanding of journalism protocol, etc., etc. He responded with this:

Thanks for your email. I am have been attending junkets for fifteen years, and interviewed the entire ["World Trade Center"] cast on set, in NYC, twice, in addition to being in Seattle. The Seattle trip was one of three times I spoke to each of the cast about the movie. What I chose to write in my feature from whichever time I spoke to them, was up to me.

If I may pull a Nasson and paraphrase his e-mail, he was saying this: “The quotes are all accurate. They came from the OTHER times I interviewed everyone. Not in Seattle, with you, but other times. The times when you weren’t there.” (See also: Bart Simpson, “I won it in a truth-telling contest two towns over.”)

I thought: Maybe that’s true. Maybe he interviewed everyone in New York, too, and maybe everyone got asked the same questions they were asked in Seattle, and gave similar answers. And maybe he chose not to use ANY quotes from the Seattle interviews. Not a single one. (Any quote claiming to be from the Seattle interviews would be a lie, because nothing in the story matches what anyone said in Seattle.)

But while scanning Nasson’s feature again, I found this paragraph:

“A lot of people, most people,�? says Stone, sitting in a suite at Hotel 1000 in downtown Seattle, a hop skip and a jump from The Space Needle, one of the possible American landmarks targeted by terrorists on September 11, 2001, “think I am this left wing nutcase. And when they hear that I chose to direct this picture [“World Trade Center�?] all the bells and whistles start sounding. ‘What agenda is he going to bring to this picture?’ they ask. And what I say is ‘This is America. Every citizen, of which I am one, has the right to speak up, whenever he wants to. The fact is, in between my pictures, my political comments may be picked up and played out in the media. But my comments have nothing at all to do the way I direct any movie. I dare anyone to watch ‘JFK’ and find anything in it that would remotely paint that picture as an agenda picture. I took no sides. It just so happens that a lot of the stories I am attracted to, most, in fact, are based on true events and real people.�?

Did you catch it? Oliver Stone said the things in this paragraph while sitting “in a suite at Hotel 1000 in downtown Seattle.” In other words, during the same interview I was present for, and which I have a tape recording of.

Here is a breakdown of what Nasson has Stone saying and what Stone ACTUALLY said:

NASSON’S VERSION: “A lot of people, most people, think I am this left wing nutcase. And when they hear that I chose to direct this picture all the bells and whistles start sounding. ‘What agenda is he going to bring to this picture?’ they ask.

STONE’S ACTUAL STATEMENTS: Actually, Stone didn’t say any of that. In regard to his politics, he said: “I consider myself an independent, a radical independent if you want, or whatever you want to use. Centrist. I’m a conservative in some ways, I’m a liberal in others.” The stuff about “bells and whistles” and “agenda” — not in the interview. Pure fabrication.

NASSON’S VERSION: “It just so happens that a lot of the stories I am attracted to, most, in fact, are based on true events and real people.”

CLOSEST THING I COULD FIND IN THE ACTUAL INTERVIEW: “I’ve generally worked a lot with real subjects, and I work closely with them, sit in the same room with them and listen. It goes back and forth on the set.”

NASSON: “And what I say is ‘This is America. Every citizen, of which I am one, has the right to speak up, whenever he wants to.”

WHAT STONE REALLY SAID: “I consider myself John Q. Citizen. I just don’t consider myself a director, I consider myself to have the rights of a citizen. I have the right to speak out as you do.”

NASSON: “The fact is, in between my pictures, my political comments may be picked up and played out in the media. But my comments have nothing at all to do the way I direct any movie.”

ACTUAL QUOTE: “I think my problem is I probably have been outspoken politically in between movies, and they confuse that with the movies.”

NASSON: “I dare anyone to watch ‘JFK’ and find anything in it that would remotely paint that picture as an agenda picture. I took no sides.”

ACTUAL QUOTE: “If you look at ‘JFK’ and ‘Nixon,’ they defy type. ‘Nixon’ was attacked by the right wing before they saw it, but in fact it’s very empathetic to the character, the humanity of Nixon. ‘JFK’ is neither left nor right, it’s a question mark, it’s a radical question mark.”

Elsewhere in his article, Nasson asks everyone where they were on 9/11. He gives Stone’s response as: “I was in bed. My wife woke me up. I was in Los Angeles. It was about 9:00 AM. I was shell-shocked.”

In our roundtable interview, Stone actually gave this answer: “I was asleep in L.A. My wife woke me up. It was early, it was 5:30. My wife woke me up, put on the TV, and the rest you know.”

Now, maybe when Nasson interviewed Stone those other times, Stone gave a different answer and that’s the one Nasson quoted. And maybe Stone really did get the time wrong when he talked to Nasson the first time, saying it was 9:00 in L.A. when in fact it was more like 5:30.

At the end, Nasson “quotes” Stone as follows:

“‘Nixon’ was painful. ‘Heaven and Earth’ was painful. “Alexander” was the biggest disappointment for me. I had the attitude of ‘[expletive] it.’ I am doing the third version of “Alexander” for DVD, a 3 3/4 hour version. The Cecille B. DeMille version. I shot a million, two hundred thousand feet on ‘Alexander.’ But that was the most I have ever shot on a film. I recently heard of a director, of a one and a half hour comedy, that shot one million feet! I can’t waist film. I am going to put every inch of ‘Alexander’ to good use.”

This is obviously from the Seattle interview. The news about the “Alexander” DVD was new, and Stone’s discussion of how much film stock he uses was in response to a direct, specific question about it.

So here’s another breakdown of Nasson’s version vs. what Stone really said:

NASSON: “‘Nixon’ was painful. ‘Heaven and Earth’ was painful. ‘Alexander’ was the biggest disappointment for me.’

REAL QUOTE: “‘Nixon’ was painful, ‘Heaven and Earth’ was a tremendous setback for me, because that was a lot of work on that, a lot of energy. 1993. ‘Alexander’ was probably the biggest visible blotch, in America and England only. I have to say that it was top 20 abroad, which is significant.”

NASSON: “I had the attitude of ‘[expletive] it.’ I am doing the third version of “Alexander” for DVD, a 3 3/4 hour version. The Cecille B. DeMille version.”

REAL QUOTE: [answering why he didn't release the director's cut of "Alexander" in theaters] “I had the attitude of [expletive] it. I just, I don’t want to fight this war anymore. I’m going to put it out, because I did feel it was a structurally correct version. And I’m doing a third version, by the way, on DVD, not theatrical at all, so it’s not made for theatrical. I’m gonna do a Cecil B. DeMille, Oliver Stone, three hours 45-minute thing.”

NASSON: “I shot a million, two hundred thousand feet on ‘Alexander.’ But that was the most I have ever shot on a film. I recently heard of a director, of a one and a half hour comedy, that shot one million feet! I can’t waist film. I am going to put every inch of ‘Alexander’ to good use.”

REAL QUOTE: “The most I ever shot was a million two or three on ‘Alexander,’ and that’s a big story. But usually I try to keep it down. I mean, this movie ['World Trade Center'] we shot with 300,000 feet, which is — I heard about one director recently, did a million feet on a domestic comedy or something. I mean, there ought to be a rigor to this thing. But I’m a film school student, so we had to struggle in those days to get our stock, and I never lost that sense of, you know, ‘A thousand feet is a thousand feet!’ I make my camera crew — I don’t shorthand, I say, ‘Make sure you roll it down to the very end, and tell me if you’re going to lose more than two, three hundred feet, or even a hundred feet, tell me, because I may do the take differently.’ I don’t want to waste — I just can’t waste film. It’s a habit.”

Notice the real quotes are actually more interesting than the made-up ones Nasson uses. That stuff about Stone not wanting to waste film, how it’s a habit from his film-school days — that’s fascinating to a film buff! It gives you some small insight into Stone’s personality and character, and it contradicts many people’s preconceived notions (i.e., that he’s a bombastic, extravagant filmmaker).

I don’t know why Nasson didn’t use the real quotes. Maybe his tape recorder malfunctioned and he had to go by his notes or memory. Maybe he didn’t have a recorder to begin with. When I wrote back to him with my refutation of his “the quotes were from different interviews” story, he never responded. I suggested he either take the story down or replace the fake quotes with real ones, figuring if he did one of those two things, I’d leave him alone. Since he didn’t, though, here it is, for everyone to see.

If he’s a junket whore, fine. I was once a junket whore, too, for a day. And we’ve all made errors in judgment before. But shoddy journalism — especially being unapologetic about it when confronted — makes us all look bad.