David Mamet Directs Movie About Phil Spector Co-Starring Jeffrey Tambor

[Greggulator]

Didn't see this discussed anywhere else but figured this was of URGENT concern to FOTs!

It's a HBO movie that Mamet is writing/directing. Al Pacino is playing Phil Spector. Bette Middler (!) is playing his attorney. The movie explores the gripping relationship between client and attorney.

No word on what Tambor is playing. PLEASE say it's Johnny Ramone when Spector pulled a gun on them when recording End of the Century.

http://www.theatermania.com/los-angeles/news/05-2011/david-mamet-bette-midler-al-pacino-jeffrey-tambor_37510.html

[Kormod]

I'm hearing rumors that Sean Hannity as Dee Dee Ramone is practically a lock.

[JonFromMaplewood]

Speaking of Sean Hannity, David Mamet has apparently turned into a right-wing nut job as of late.

[nec13]

Speaking of Sean Hannity, David Mamet has apparently turned into a right-wing nut job as of late.

Apparently he joined the VRWC in 2008.

These cherished precepts had, over the years, become ingrained as increasingly impracticable prejudices. Why do I say impracticable? Because although I still held these beliefs, I no longer applied them in my life. How do I know? My wife informed me. We were riding along and listening to NPR. I felt my facial muscles tightening, and the words beginning to form in my mind: Shut the fuck up. "?" she prompted. And her terse, elegant summation, as always, awakened me to a deeper truth: I had been listening to NPR and reading various organs of national opinion for years, wonder and rage contending for pride of place. Further: I found I had been—rather charmingly, I thought—referring to myself for years as "a brain-dead liberal," and to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-03-11/news/why-i-am-no-longer-a-brain-dead-liberal/

I guess he never received his tote bag from NPR.

[cavorting with nudists]

I always thought the nuttiest thing about that article was this:

I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine. . .

Uh, that mandates hard-right politics how?  I'm pretty liberal and think people can behave considerably worse than swine, even not under stress. In fact, I think some of the swiniest* behavior comes from people whose wealth defends them from many of the worst effects of stress. And I even think one of the tasks of government is to mitigate some of the stresses that bring out swinish* behavior in the less-defended.


*"Swinishness" accepted as term of opprobrium merely for the argument's sake.  Apologies to all pigs.

[Kormod]

Here's a twist:

The Hollywood website TMZ reported yesterday that Clarkson's friends and family are terrified Spector will be portrayed "with some kind of sympathy" in the new project, describing Mamet's comments as "mind-boggling and wrong in so many ways".

According to the website, the main concern of the unnamed group of friends and relatives is that the "loathsome, lying, gun-abusing convicted murderer of our friend Lana Clarkson will be portrayed with some kind of sympathy". They have written to the playwright to remind him of Spector's conviction and beg him to "refrain from rewriting history for creative licence".

"I don't think he's guilty," Mamet told the Financial Times last week. "I definitely think there is reasonable doubt. They should never have sent him away. Whether he did it or not we'll never know, but if he'd just been a regular citizen, they never would have indicted him." 

As for his newly found love for the right wing (his "Glengarry Glenn Beck" phase), the quotes in this excerpt make me think that he's just trolling us:

Slate zeroed in on Mamet’s revealing that he is a big fan of Sarah Palin. “I am crazy about her. Would she make a good candidate for president? I don’t know but she seems to have succeeded at everything she put her hand to,” the dramatist reportedly said. Gapper went on to say Mamet compared Palin to a late friend in Cabot, Vt., where he owns a cabin. His friend was “a hardworking guy, a man of honor who was looking out for the town’s interests. I thought of him when I saw Sarah Palin. She started with the PTA and then became the mayor and then governor [of Alaska]. I thought, well, OK. That’s someone who knows how to work.”

Read more: http://blogs.forward.com/the-shmooze/138634/#ixzz1PU886k1c

[cavorting with nudists]

Oh, and:

No word on what Tambor is playing. PLEASE say it's Johnny Ramone when Spector pulled a gun on them when recording End of the Century.

Actually, the article does mention that Tambor will be playing a lawyer colleague to Midler.  In any case, Tambor would probably be more plausibly cast as Leonard Cohen, who also got drawn on by Spector. (John Lennon too.  Hey, did Phil Spector ever produce anybody without pulling a gun on 'em?)

[cavorting with nudists]

I'm not sure that quote about Palin proves trolling.  In the Voice article he called Thomas Sowell "our greatest contemporary philosopher." No one is embarrassment-proof enough to say that without meaning it.

[dave from knoxville]

I always thought the nuttiest thing about that article was this:

I began to question what I actually thought and found that I do not think that people are basically good at heart; indeed, that view of human nature has both prompted and informed my writing for the last 40 years. I think that people, in circumstances of stress, can behave like swine. . .

Uh, that mandates hard-right politics how?  I'm pretty liberal and think people can behave considerably worse than swine, even not under stress. In fact, I think some of the swiniest* behavior comes from people whose wealth defends them from many of the worst effects of stress. And I even think one of the tasks of government is to mitigate some of the stresses that bring out swinish* behavior in the less-defended.


*"Swinishness" accepted as term of opprobrium merely for the argument's sake.  Apologies to all pigs.

My assumption is that if "some people can behave like swine, why can't I?" Think of it with an over-the-top John Lithgow voice and you will really be sold.

[buffcoat]

I think Mamet's more being iconoclastic.  Most of the stuff he says he agrees with isn't really that right-wing - it just sounds that way to other artists who are very, very liberal.

Sort of like Matt Rombley and Jon Huntsman are pretty conservative, but they're looked up as relative liberals by the rest of their party, which has moved so far right as to be incomprehensible.


Meanwhile, the mass of people don't pay enough attention to politics, economics or culture to have much of an ideology, anyway, and just hear things in soundbites.  "All playwrights are extremely liberal, except for David Mamet, who has become an extreme conservative."

[cavorting with nudists]

I think Mamet's more being iconoclastic.  Most of the stuff he says he agrees with isn't really that right-wing - it just sounds that way to other artists who are very, very liberal.

Uh, have you ever actually read a column by Thomas Sowell?

[Kormod]

I think Mamet's more being iconoclastic.  Most of the stuff he says he agrees with isn't really that right-wing - it just sounds that way to other artists who are very, very liberal.

Sort of like Matt Rombley and Jon Huntsman are pretty conservative, but they're looked up as relative liberals by the rest of their party, which has moved so far right as to be incomprehensible.


Meanwhile, the mass of people don't pay enough attention to politics, economics or culture to have much of an ideology, anyway, and just hear things in soundbites.  "All playwrights are extremely liberal, except for David Mamet, who has become an extreme conservative."

Mamet 2.0 is pretty conservative. From reading reviews of the Secret Knowledge, I've learned that he:

- Is a big fan of Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Milton Friedman, and Thomas Sowell.
- Sees the legalization of gay marriage and abortion as "moral affronts."
- Wants a much smaller government and much lower taxes.
- Is very pro-Israel, refers to NPR as "National Palestinian Radio."
- Thinks we won the war in Vietnam.
- Strongly dislikes affirmative action.
- Believes "Biblical values" are the primary reason America has been prosperous.
- Believes Obama is a socialist.
- Thinks the Democrats are "soft on terrorism."
- Thinks global warming is a hoax.
- Thinks the New Deal was a disaster.

[buffcoat]

I think Mamet's more being iconoclastic.  Most of the stuff he says he agrees with isn't really that right-wing - it just sounds that way to other artists who are very, very liberal.

Not gonna fight with you boys (at least not big time) this time.  The positions you've outlined, fortunately or unfortunately, are no longer that extreme.  See how many US states have constitutionally prevented gay marriage, for just one example.

Mamet has certainly morphed into a jerky knee-jerk conservative, but it sounds like he just transitioned from jerky knee-jerk liberal.  It's much less common for a jerky person to transition to a non-jerky person than to simply switch jerky teams.  See Horowitz, D.

Mamet probably was dissatisfied with the number of people who would listen to him that he could piss off as a liberal anymore and decided to leave for greener pastures, where he could make all the people who had admired him angry.

[cavorting with nudists]

I'm sorry, but that Obama is a socialist, that the New Deal was a disaster, that NPR can appropriately be called "National Palestinian Radio," and that global warming is a hoax are very, very right-wing positions.  It doesn't matter whether the hard-right fringe is larger or louder than it used to be; these are still the property of the fringe. You seem to be making two separate arguments: That Mamet is just a contrarian asshole, and that "really right-wing" ideas only seem that way to liberals.  One is speculative but open to argument; the other is just sheer relativism.

[Greggulator]

I think we should get back to focusing on Bette Middler's involvement in this production.