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Matt Damon, Russell Crowe Allegedly Helped Prove Gaffers Only Read Thread Titles
- Thread starter PsychoSoldier
- Start date
That's fair, it's just difficult for me to believe that you can have multiple people in your close social circle enabling or perpetrating this kind of thing and not also be complicit on some level (if even by turning a blind eye.) Also, this interview from awhile back is gross as fuck and is exactly the kind of unprofessional shit that seems rampant in Hollywood.
Very trueEven better:
Never idolize people you don't know personally.
Does seem like a total clickbait article. This update also doesnt really help her case:
Not really sure why it matters that Miramax isn't part of Disney, especially if you're writing this article. Same with Lombardos current job. And if she didn't have sufficient evidence to write about the payoff, by her own admission, why does she think an editor would have allowed it?
Really seems like sour grapes that someone else was able to get the story published that she couldn't a decade ago when she was newer to her field.
She also mentions that Disney wasn't aware of him, which would explain why Damon and Crowe might have been asked to vouch for his job, especially if he is setting up parties for actors to premiere movies and shit. And don't expect Disney to know all of the people each of there subsidiaries has threw out the world, especially if you don't mention who you asked.
Very well could be that Damon is a douchebags that new all about Weinstein and helped him get it swept under the rug, but her story isn't really proving that. Really just reads more like "one of my first big stories was going to be this, but I couldn't get it pulled off (blame everyone above me)"
Would have been nice if she got it published, but really seems like her reporting wasn't complete enough to get it published.
May reporters never dig dirt on Nintendo executives, so we can live in blissful ignorance forever that Miyamoto, Koizumi and the rest are 100% good guys.
Why does there need to be? If he was being accused of covering the rape, there would need to be connective tissue. As it is, all of these associates of Weinstein are being accused of assisting in killing the article which included the accusation.
Unclear if Damon/Crowe knew about the Weinstein stuff in the article but this is why it's a bad idea to vouch for people sight unseen.
The article is a response to the NYT's about Media Enablers. The point is that this person had a story and it was buried because the NYT (in '04) collapsed under pressure from Weinstein and industry friends.
It's impossible to say how much sway Russell Crowe and Matt Damon had on the story being buried but maybe we can read between the lines and say it was enough that they felt the need to name and shame all these years later. I don't know.
I mean, it's pretty well known that Miyamoto is a tough boss and not above dressing down employees to get results. Hardly the worst thing in the world, but it's not a surprise that he can be pretty tough to deal with.
It wasnt sight unseen. They worked with Lombardo.
I think this is the best read. From Damon and Crowe's perspectives, what presumably happened is he tells them someone is writing a profile on Lombardo and asks if they'd send a quick message to the reporter about their experiences. There's no evidence they were even told what the reporter was looking into. It's a step too far to say they were knowingly complicit in killing the angle the reporter was most interested in.
--
Read this old NY Mag piece by David Carr. He gets a lot of insinuations and off-the-record suggestions about Weinstein's worst behavior while doing a profile. At the same time, Weinstein is enlisting all kinds of people to randomly call him up and provide positive anecdotes about him, including the likes of Nicole Kidman, Gwyneth Paltrow, Paul Newman, etc.
An interesting excerpt:
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
matt damon gonna have to resign from ben affleck
Certainly, if you're being asked to call up a reporter and give a positive comment, you should probably ask some questions about the story your comment would be accompanying, and what agenda it may or may not be serving.
But they ran the article along with the quotes from Crowe and Damon.
Look, Weinstein in a shitbag. But it doesn't mean that Crowe or Damon helped him out just by providing background quotes on Lombardo doing actual work.
There is zero allegation in this article that
1) Lombardo paid off the woman in London
2) Damon or Crowe had anything to do with covering up or burring a story on Weinstein
In fact, this article is conflating several things and fails to mention that Lombardo was fired for having a second undisclosed job at the same time.
Facts do matter and going on a witch hunt is just going to give cover to those who actually did do something wrong by creating noise which will allow people to dismiss claims against people that are actually proven.
I mean without understanding what the article was about. Did they just say, "yeah he works in the movies" and hang up or did they know the details of the article? They called in to help kill it off so if they knew about the Weinstein stuff in the article that is what makes them complicit. If you call to help kill an article, you can't beg off that you were only trying to kill this little bit not that part.
Im not sure why this all gets lumped into one thing here. They vouched for Lombardo. Thats all we know. That dude so far has no known relevance to the payoff or the abuses. Hes mentioned as a guy who the author alleges to have provided Russian escorts at parties. Was that going to be used to flesh out a profile of Weinstein? I dont know. Nothing from the author gives us those details.
Hi this is Matt Damon and Im calling to kill the article about Harvey Weinstein. Yes, Ill hold.
I mean, cmon. They were asked to provide background on some guy they worked with at Miramax. Thats the extent of what we have.
yeah I agree with everything you're saying (and stooge above) it's conflating issues which is causing some confusion. My takeaway from it was that even if they didn't know the whole story it speaks more broadly to an industry and a culture that protects its own which enables powerful people to do awful things.
I'm sure he said it in a nicer way but that's literally why he called. How about "I was asked to call to provide background for this article but didn't hear what it's about. What's the story on?" When you are asked to put your good name on the line, which is literally what vouching for someone is, it's probably a good idea to get some idea of what you are doing.
What did he mean by this?
Member
Milkshake Damon is....a face on a poster
This fall in theaters. Weinstein will be back I guarantee it.
This fall in theaters. Weinstein will be back I guarantee it.
Don't let critical thinking get in the way of the daily milkshake duck quota. /s
As long as its nothing worse than that.
I think this is correct. My guess is someone as powerful as Weinstein can call up any A lister he wants and have them say something good about him without having to have people actually cover for him.
That Paul Newman quote above is telling. It has nothing to do with anything, but is a nice view into what he could have done. "Paul, someone is trying to write a negative article about me, could you provide some background" and then bam. Paul Newman is telling someone about the gym that Weinstein paid for.
Bedameister
Member
Milkshake ducks, milkshake ducks everywhere. Very depressing to find out all those people are assholes in real life.
They called and said they did in fact work with a guy. What does that guy have to do with the payoff or anything else being talked about? I dont know where youre trying to go here.
Or they were told there was an article coming out that was alleging that he wasn't actually doing any real work for Miramax and someone asked Damon to call up and talk about the guy running a party of Master and Commander premier successfully.
Why would you not do that?
Like, if I got a call from someone I worked with on a project who was being accused of not actually doing job A, why would I now mind putting my name on the line saying "naw, I saw that dude. He did Job A pretty well"
Yeah, it really sucks.
UrbanDandy
Member
Wasn't Matt Damon getting heat for mansplaining a topic to a woman? If so, I would not doubt it if he did try to shut down an article implicating Harvey.
I would ask myself why a guy being accused of not doing his job is a story in a national paper and get more information probably.
not psycho
Member
If they were vouching for his general morality, or recounting good deeds that would tend to support his moral standing, then yes. It would be wise to ask what it is about (and the author should also mention what it was about). We know nothing about any of that, because even though the author apparently talked with them directly, they don't mention what they asked (if anything) or expand details on what anybody said. Maybe they did ask what it was about, and were told it was about Lombardo not being capable of his job? We don't know.
And we aren't told that they said anything about upstanding morals. It seems Crowe mentioned that Lombardo was able to get a whole lot of Oscar voters to show up at a premiere. That's "vouching" for him in a job-related scenario. He can get Oscar voters to show up, great. Does that mean Crowe is "vouching" for his morals?
And what would be that more information?
Lets say he did ask that, still why vouching for Lombardo work bad and makes you guilty of burying a story?
What the article is about more specifically which should reveal the sexual allegations, "What are they accusing him of?" Things like that which are fairly natural questions a person would have.
What did Lombardo have to do with the article? You keep just assuming a connection here despite it being not just completely unsubstantiated but entirely unstated.
Why were they calling to vouch for him if he's not involved in the article?
But regardless, we're just kind spinning our wheels at this point. I agree that there's not as much meat on the bone as there should be so I'll stop arguing about it.
The author was alledging Lombardo didnt do anything related to making movies. Damon and Crowe provided background stating that they worked with him.
Thats the extent of our knowledge. If they asked, what would the author have told them? Im writing about Lombardo? You require an answer to this question to sustain your position here.
THE:MILKMAN
Member
Well it has been done now without proof/conviction? Also I completely disagree about a job or career coming before something like this. If multiple people say the same thing and presumably discussed/shared this info between themselves, then they should have collectively flagged this up years ago.
Here is the BBC article I mentioned earlier: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-41557010
Just look how defensive Meryl Streep gets about not knowing anything and others views about what they had heard/knew.
The Illiterati
Member
This thread is an absolute garbage fire, despite numerous attempts by a mod to post actual information, the userbase at large seemingly has little no reading comprehension. Pretty sad to see. Most don't read OPs, threads, discussions, just can't wait to post their hot take.
PHOENIXZERO
Member
Even better:
Never idolize people you don't know personally.
Why stop at the GIF?
Over 100 In Film Community Sign Polanski Petition
Given the Polanski ovation, his freedom petition signed by tons of Hollywood film stars, along with plenty of available documentaries detailing the dark underbelly of Hollywood it's easy to read things like this and immediately speed past the investigation into guilty until proven innocent territory.
With that said, the guilty by association process is always something that kind of pesters me.
"How could this person not know about this other person's dark history? They know each other and have worked with one another for years!"
Quite simple, really. How often do serial killers and pedophiles get away with crimes for years under the noses of family members, coworkers, and the general public? You can "know" people for years and think you really "know" them when you actually don't.
With that said, where there is smoke there's usually fire. Especially considering allegations against Harvey have been circulating for years.
With that said, the guilty by association process is always something that kind of pesters me.
"How could this person not know about this other person's dark history? They know each other and have worked with one another for years!"
Quite simple, really. How often do serial killers and pedophiles get away with crimes for years under the noses of family members, coworkers, and the general public? You can "know" people for years and think you really "know" them when you actually don't.
With that said, where there is smoke there's usually fire. Especially considering allegations against Harvey have been circulating for years.
Napoleonthechimp
Member
But yet we've still got people crucifying Matt Damon in here.
not psycho
Member
It's actually less than that. As far as I can tell, there isn't even an allegation that Lombardo covered up sexual assault.
As KHarvey points out, Damon and Crowe would likely never have been told anything about the sexual assault story at all, even by the author themself, because there was no connection to Lombardo. And despite "direct calls", we are given no details on what, if anything, the author did tell them, or what, if anything, they asked the author.
The story didn't fizzle out because Crowe said Lombardo got Oscar voters to show up at a premiere. The story fizzled out because they simply had no connection to Lombardo in the first place. Probably not enough connection to even mention it to Damon and Crowe, but again, the only one who can tell us that is the author, and they left it out of the article.
Haha. Wait you're serious.
Professional Enthusiast
Member
Kinda figured Damon was an asshole ever since he interrupted a black female movie director to tell her about diversity. Jesus, that shit was awful.