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.

A few concerned readers wondered whether my column “I Was a Junket Whore,” in which I discussed the wasteful and elaborate means by which movie studios secure fluffy news coverage, would have any repercussions for me. I figured the worst that could happen is I wouldn’t get invited to any more publicity junkets (where you interview the cast and director), which is fine, because I wouldn’t want to go anyway.

But no! Paramount Pictures has gone a step further. They have barred me from all Paramount press screenings. And Allied Advertising, the Seattle branch of which handles Paramount screenings in my area, has decided (no doubt under pressure from Paramount) to ban me from screenings for the other studios it represents, too.

Now, it’s not as bad as it sounds. The studios affected are Paramount, Weinstein Co., Dimension and Miramax. The bigger ones — Warner Bros., Universal, 20th Century Fox, etc. — are handled by different P.R. agencies in Seattle and Portland, so they’re not involved. For the studios that are affected, it means that while in the past I’ve been able to go to advance screenings and run my reviews on opening day, now I may not be able to see the films until they open, meaning my reviews may be a day or two late. But again, it’s not that many movies that will actually be affected.

It’s amusing that Paramount’s response to my airing their dirty laundry is to ban me from their screenings. Has my reliability or professionalism as a film critic been called into question? No; they just don’t like that I made fun of their junket system, the inner workings of which are apparently some kind of secret. In my conversation with the Seattle publicist — who I like and who was just reporting what she’d been told — there was no mention that I had broken a specific rule or violated any contract. Paramount had never said, “Don’t write articles making fun of our junkets.” So banning me from screenings is entirely retributive: We’re mad at you, and this is how we’re going to punish you.

After “World Trade Center” (which was the focus of the junket I attended), Paramount’s next release is “Jackass: Number Two,” the further adventures of Johnny Knoxville and his friends stapling things to themselves while wearing jock straps. So you can see why Paramount would want people to take the studio seriously.

UPDATE: I had suspected this, but now I have it confirmed: Paramount wants me to remove the article from my site — but even if I do, I still won’t be invited to screenings. But they want me to take it down anyway. Why on earth would I remove the article if doing so would benefit me in no way whatsoever? That question seems to have evaded them. (I probably wouldn’t do it anyway, but if removing it would get me reinstated, I would at least think about it for a few minutes before saying no.)

Here’s the latest plagiarism update: We won!

The University of Missouri-Kansas City has paid the money we demanded after a student there, Samir Patel, plagiarized 58 movie reviews by me and 14 of my fellow writers from HollywoodB****slap.com/EFilmCritic.com.

The complete story can be found here.

The previous blog entries on the subject are, in order, here, here and here. There’s a thread about it on the message board, too.

(The first story.)

(The first round of updates.)

- The Kansas City Star’s story, which ran Tuesday, has been rewritten by the Associated Press and is thus available for pretty much any paper in the country to run. We know a few papers have done so, particularly in Missouri and Kansas.

- The Chronicle of Higher Education has a story about it. Having already been mentioned at journalism sites and movie-review sites, the story appearing on a university-news site completes the trifecta of institutions that would be interested in the scandal.

- One of the writers at the Hollywood Reporter, Anne Thompson, mentions the story in her official HR blog.

- The Kansas City Aurora, which functions as an underground, non-sanctioned student paper for UMKC, has written a news story and an editorial on the subject. The editorial notes that this is the second time in a year that UMKC has been hit with a plagiarism scandal, as the dean of the College of Fine Arts and Sciences was caught plagiarizing parts of his commencement address last spring. So apparently this is a “thing” over there at UMKC. One more incident and it becomes a full-fledged trend!

- Continued investigation into Samir Patel’s work reveals that it wasn’t just his movie reviews that were stolen. Some of his features and columns were plagiarized, too, including one where he borrowed several paragraphs from — whoops! — the New York Times. The Times’ legal department has been informed of the theft. That sound you hear is UMKC administrators peeing their pants.

- A few people have asked how we spotted the plagiarism in the first place, so I will explain it.

There’s a site called Copyscape that helps writers look for plagiarism of their work. You give it a specific Web page, and it trolls the Internet looking for pages with identical or very similar text.

One of our HollywoodB****slap/EFilmCritic writers was doing that for some of his reviews and found a Patel rip-off. He told us about it, so another writer Copyscaped a few of his own reviews, and found MORE Patel plagiarisms.

That’s when I stepped in, figuring if the guy plagiarized a few times, he probably plagiarized a million times.

I didn’t use Copyscape, however. I used good old-fashioned Google, my preferred method of catching plagiarists. It’s very simple. First I pulled up all of Patel’s reviews from his newspaper’s online archives. Then I skimmed each one, looking for interesting or distinctive phrases — six or seven words or so — that seemed unusual enough that they wouldn’t appear anywhere else on the Web.

For example, where I saw, “The movie is not afraid to get down and dirty with plenty of toilet humor” (in his review of “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”), I Googled “down and dirty with plenty of toilet humor” — with the quotation marks, so Google would look for that exact phrase — and found it in an HBS/EFC review. A simple glance at the context of the phrase on both sites, Patel’s and HBS/EFC, showed that it wasn’t just that phrase that recurred (which could have been a coincidence); it was an entire paragraph.

Having found one plagiarism source and noted which parts Patel had copied, I’d continue scouring his review to see if other parts came from other sources. In many cases, it turned out he’d stolen from as many as four other reviews in the course of compiling one of his.

- Finally, a reader named Mike e-mailed me in reference to Monday’s “Snide Remarks” column, which pretended to be the further confessions of Samir Patel. He says: “I’m sure you know how the law applies to your profession, but I’m ignorant in that regard. Is it possible that you could get into trouble for writing that?”

The short answer is no. You get a lot of leeway with satire. No reasonable person would believe that the column was really written by Patel, nor that the outrageous things said in it were true, nor that I even intended anyone to think they were. Publishing such a column on the front page of a newspaper might be actionable, because people don’t expect parody there (unless they’re reading the Daily Herald) and thus might think it was real. But under the heading “Snide Remarks,” where material is understood to be satirical and humorous, no.

(For background, see April 6 entry, in which I announced having been plagiarized, along with 18 of my colleagues, by a writer at the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s student paper.)

- This week’s “Snide Remarks” column addresses the plagiarist and his wanton ways. It can be viewed by everyone, not just “Snide Remarks” subscribers (though by all means, you should still subscribe).

- The student newspaper in question comes out on Mondays, and sure enough, today’s issue contains the apology we asked for, along with a list of which reviews were stolen and from whom. The reviews were removed from the paper’s online archives over the weekend. The plagiarist, Samir Patel, resigned Thursday from his positions at the paper, but as far as we know still teaches a writing class in the English Department.

- The just-linked apology notice, written by the paper’s editor-in-chief, says that Patel wrote this in his resignation e-mail: “While I do feel there may have been somewhat of a misunderstanding, I apologize to the readers and am resigning due to my actions.”

Dear Samir: What part of this is a “misunderstanding,” exactly? Are there huge chunks of my writing that you only SEEMED to copy and paste into your reviews? Have I misunderstood some key factor which, if you were to explain it to me, would make me say, “Oh, OK! I understand now! It’s not plagiarism after all!”?

- The story has been linked at Movie City News, Jim Romenesko’s column (left sidebar) at journalism site Poynter Online, TotalFark.com (requires subscription), and at the blogs of film critic friends of mine (Sean Means, Shawn Levy and Dawn Taylor). The Kansas City Star is allegedly doing a news story about it (a reporter talked to me on Friday); I’ll of course link to it here when/if it happens. (UPDATE: Here it is, from Tuesday’s paper. I’m not quoted, but I am the “West Coast editor” referred to.)

The last several days of my life have been occupied with researching the material summarized in this article.

Basically, a writer for the student paper at University of Missouri-Kansas City, a fellow by the name of Samir Patel, has been rampantly and brazenly plagiarizing movie reviews for the past 13 months or so. I’m one of 19 critics (that we know of) from whom he has stolen regularly. He found me at EFilmCritic.com and HollywoodB****slap.com, two sister sites where my reviews are published. I assume it’s there that he found me, as opposed to here at EricDSnider.com, because he stole from 14 other EFC/HBS critics, too.

Read the above-linked article for details on what action we’ve taken. I’m afraid Mr. Patel’s life is about to become very unpleasant.

I am delighted by the comedy of errors surrounding “Brokeback Mountain” and the Jordan Commons theater in Sandy, Utah.

As locals know, Jordan Commons is owned by Larry Miller, a car-dealership tycoon who also owns the Utah Jazz. A devoted Mormon, he has also financed production of some LDS-themed films such as “The Work and the Glory” and “States of Grace.”

Well, “Brokeback Mountain” was scheduled to open at Jordan Commons this past Friday. It was already playing to record-setting crowds at the Broadway Centre in downtown Salt Lake City (Sandy is a suburb 20 minutes south), and was set to open in two other area theaters on Friday, too.

On Thursday, Miller was being interviewed by KCPW-FM reporter Jonathan Brown, who brought up the imminent showing of “Brokeback Mountain.” I haven’t heard the interview, which aired on the NPR affiliate Friday, but I gather from Miller’s quoted response that Brown was expressing surprise that Jordan Commons, which has occasionally shied away from controversial movies, was showing it.

Miller said, “It’s something that I have to let the market speak to some degree…. I don’t think I’m qualified to be the community censor.”

But here’s the thing: Turns out Miller didn’t actually know what “Brokeback Mountain” was about until Brown told him.

Two hours after the interview was conducted, Jordan Commons told the local papers to pull “Brokeback Mountain” from its Friday ads, because they weren’t going to show it after all.

Now, if Jordan Commons doesn’t want to show “Brokeback Mountain,” that’s fine. Theaters are entitled to show or not show whatever films they want, and they’re not beholden to anyone to explain or justify their actions. We went through this two years ago, when nobody in Salt Lake wanted to show the gay missionary drama “Latter Days.” (The Broadway Centre eventually did show it.) Whatever your reasons — political, social, moral, financial — if you own the theater, you can drop a film.

Of course, you should probably do the dropping sometime BEFORE it’s too late, not after. In Miller’s case, it was too late to change the ads in Friday’s paper, and patrons showed up at Jordan Commons on Friday expecting to see the movie.

But here’s the funny part: Larry Miller, who owns not just Jordan Commons but the Gateway Megaplex downtown, DIDN’T KNOW what “Brokeback Mountain” was about?! What kind of bubble do you live in to not have heard AT LEAST the basic two-word summary that everyone uses to describe the film? (It’s the “gay cowboy” movie.) Even your everyday citizens have surely heard about the film, but this guy — who OWNS MOVIE THEATERS — hasn’t? I think that’s hilarious.

Naturally, Utah’s Eagle Forum was quick to applaud the decision. The Eagle Forum is run locally by Gayle Ruzicka, an ultra-conservative activist who wields enormous influence over Utah politicians despite holding no elected office. She speaks quickly and harshly against anything that cannot be squeezed into her very narrow, very black-and-white, very religious worldview. (Being religious is not a problem, of course. But expecting everyone around you to follow the same rules is.) She’s so conservative — and so outspoken about it — that even some of the conservative Mormons around her say, “Dang, she’s really conservative.”

One of the better examples of her hyperbole and fear-mongering was during the 2002 Winter Olympics, when she spoke out against the Salt Lake Organizing Committee’s having condoms available to athletes, free for the asking, at the Olympic Village health center. “Where are the athletes … getting their sex partners?” she asked. “Are they bringing their own with them … or are they going out on the streets of Salt Lake City looking for our sons and daughters? Are we giving them permission to do this with the distribution of condoms?!?!?!?!??!?!??!?!” [extra hysterical punctuation added; see this column for more background])

Anyway, here’s what Gayle said about the decision not to show “Brokeback Mountain” at Jordan Commons:

“I think it sets an example for all the people in Utah and, like I said before, he’s my new hero…. It’s such a terrible show, and it is such a horrible message. I just think (pulling it) tells the young people especially that maybe there is something wrong with this show.”

Some points:

POINT NO. 1: It’s not a “show,” Gayle, it’s a movie. Shows are on TV or in live theatrical or concert venues. If it’s been filmed and is now being projected on a screen, it’s a movie.

POINT NO. 2: How do you know it’s such a terrible movie, Gayle? Have you seen it? I would bet money that you have not. I suspect you’re relying on your legions of flying monkeys to report back to you on its content — “It has men in love with each other!” — and that’s as far as you went. You can dislike a film’s message, as gleaned from outside sources, but don’t call a movie “terrible” unless you’ve actually seen it.

POINT NO. 3: If you HAVE seen it, shame on you. It’s rated R.

POINT NO. 4: Gayle, you hypocritical gargoyle, do you know what movies DID open at Jordan Commons on Friday? “Grandma’s Boy” and “Hostel.” If we’re talking just about content, and not dealing with matters of artistic or entertainment merit, both films are far more graphic and potentially damaging to the community than “Brokeback Mountain.” Unlike “Brokeback Mountain,” which has one brief, fully clothed sex scene between two men and a few brief scenes of heterosexual married sex later on, “Grandma’s Boy” and “Hostel” feature wall-to-wall profanity, sexual vulgarity, nudity, very graphic illicit sexual activity, and rampant drug use. On top of that, “Hostel” also has gruesome, horrific violence and gore.

And that’s just the onscreen content! If we get into the ideas or “themes” of the films, it’s much more disturbing. We have premarital sex being encouraged, promiscuous young people being lionized, drug use being championed, and sadistic torturers of human beings being granted a free pass.

But don’t worry, Gayle! “Grandma’s Boy” and “Hostel” may be depraved, degrading and salacious — but at least don’t have any implications of adult men being in love with each other! So they’re totally fine, and Larry Miller can still be your new hero even though he’s showing them. I wonder, though. If pulling “Brokeback Mountain” tells young people that there’s something wrong with the movie, does NOT pulling “Hostel” or “Grandma’s Boy” tell young people that there’s NOT something wrong with them? If one move is a condemnation, then the other, logically, has to be an endorsement.

(By the way, last weekend the Broadway Centre’s box office for “Brokeback Mountain” was 12th-highest among the 300-plus theaters that were showing it. I’m sure the folks at the Broadway are happy to have Jordan Commons cancel it, because it means more audiences for them.)

Sources:
The Salt Lake Tribune
Deseret Morning News

I recently began a thread on my message board (aka “The Online Village of Nerds”) desiring to know people’s opinions about the recent vote in Cedar Hills, Utah. An initiative had been proposed that, if passed, would require all businesses within the city to be closed on Sundays, and would ban the sale of beer completely, seven days a week.

Though a vast majority of the town’s residents are Mormon and don’t personally buy beer or shop on Sundays, there was some question over whether such personal choices should be turned into laws. Others countered that the laws would be better for the community, and that since nearly everyone in town followed those principles anyway, a law wouldn’t be disrupting anyone’s life.

In the end, the initiative was voted down, 60 percent to 40 percent.

But I was curious what others thought of it, so I posed a brief description of it, and then we enjoyed a (mostly) civil discussion weighing the pros and cons of it. Most of the people who spoke up said they would not have favored such an initiative, but several regular members of the message board community voiced opinions supporting it, too.

Then someone joined the board (you have to register a user name first) JUST to tell us how wrong we were. His user name was JonBird. He was heavily in favor of the initiative. He posted four messages in rapid succession replying to, disagreeing with, and piously mocking those who had said they were against it.

He said: “Surprised to see how many LDS in this nerd villiage got this issue wrong.”

When someone said, “The fact that you think there is a ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ here indicates you are either naive or ignorant. Feel free to disagree with me if you want to but don’t tell me I’m wrong. I won’t tell you you’re wrong either,” he responded: “I guess you are not person of faith because religious faith is all about what is right and wrong and proclaiming as such.”

When someone said, “Is there no room for different opinions in the LDS Church, even when the doctrine isn’t completely clear-cut?,” he responded: “There is room when the doctrine is not clear. But this is as clear as it gets. Are you unfamiliar with the Word of Wisdom or Sabbath day teachings?”

People would counter his arguments with questions, or point out logical fallacies, and he would respond to some while ignoring others (presumably the ones he couldn’t think of answers for).

Feel free to browse the thread to read more. (He shows up on page 3.)

The issue, of course, was not that he was in favor of an initiative that many others had spoken out against. Disagreeing is perfectly acceptable. There’s no right or wrong answer on an issue like this. It was the smarmy, self-righteous way he talked about it that was off-putting.

The surprising thing, and the point of this blog entry, was this: When someone asked who he was and why he had suddenly appeared on the message board, he said:

I’m a really long time fan of Eric’s from his Daily Universe days when we were both students. Long time reader of the boards. Usually i think the LDS on this board play it safe and error on the side of righteousness, but not today.

How can someone as self-righteous as this guy be a fan of mine since all the way back in the BYU days? Didn’t I used to make fun of self-righteous people, like, every week? Did he not realize I meant him, too?