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marisatomay · 1 year

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i was listening to a podcast about the 2002 movie “catch me if you can” (great movie. highly recommend it.) and on the podcast they talked about leo dicaprio and his career and his stardom and i was hit with a critique of leo that the hosts seemed intent on overlooking: when was the last time leonardo dicaprio, one of the few people in hollywood who can greenlight anything by attaching his face to it, lent his star power to a film director who was not already Quite Established?

it turns out that the last time he worked with someone who did not already have an oscar/nomination was r.d. robb’s “don’s plum” which came out in *2001* but was filmed before titanic even, leo and tobey maguire apparently fought against the film’s release, and it made zero money.

but, while talking about leo’s career on the podcast they also talk about other movie stars (toms hanks and cruise specifically) and what they’ve done with the past 20 years versus dicaprio and, yes, leo has consistently worked with seemingly The Best and, for the most part, only makes critical hits but, when you sit down and compare the filmographies of the three, To Me it’s far more interesting that the toms have been able to maintain their star power over the last two decades while still taking risks with their directors — giving new talent, talent in another field like tv or animation, or talent that has been stuck in movie jail — a shot at the big leagues (and people can quibble all they want but, between you and me, live action theatrical films are still the undisputed Big Leagues of hollywood). and, beyond just the films that get made, there are even more stories of the toms using their influence to help first-time directors find a distributor, or fight off over-reaching studio execs, or just being unofficial and uncredited script doctors and producing consultants, for pretty much anyone who asks. those stories just don’t exist with leo. with him there are actually more stories, straight from the mouths of writer/directors, about how leo will be interested in their script but flat out refuses to work with any director who isn’t a big brand name themselves. easier to have a somewhat perfect career when you refuse to take risks.

i’m not actually trying to pit the toms (or any other star — i just talked about the toms in this post because the podcast in question used them as comps) against leo — in the IP era, it’s good that there are still people who can get non comic book movies made. but, it felt disingenuous listening to a conversation about how great a star leo is that refused to confront how safe his career has been. because, if we really get down to it, he never really does what a movie star should. he never lends his face on a poster, his name above a title, to a movie that would not have been made otherwise, to someone who isn’t already in the club. he never does a movie for scale, with the potential for box office points if it does well financially, just so something can get made. maybe leo will change his tune as he ages. i hope so. but, he’s already 48 and by his age hanks and cruise were very much into their current eras of regularly working with new talent and imparting what they learned from the greats to a new generation. there are so few people with his power, his clout, his knowledge that we need people like him to pass it on. i hope he starts passing it on.

#to give this all a very flippant end:#basically tom cruise could do the revenant or wolf of wall street but leo dicaprio couldn’t do jerry maguire or edge of tomorrow #it’s also interesting that leo refuses to audition and had to be dragged in to read some titanic lines for jim cameron #but cruise insists on sitting down with a filmmaker offering him a movie to go over it and see if they would be a good fit together #like one is above the audition process and the other knows that people won’t really let him audition because that’s supposed to be #beneath a star of his caliber so he forces an audition to happen anyway. idk. says something to me.

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greensparty · 2 years

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Movie Reviews: A Christmas Story Christmas / She Said

This week I got to review two movies at polar opposites of the cinematic spectrum:

A Christmas Story Christmas

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1983′s A Christmas Story, a nostalgic look back at small town 1940s America as little Ralphie plots to get a BB gun for the holidays, has become a classic. It is something you expect to see every year like the annual tree lighting. So many of the quotes from the movie have made their way into the lexicon: “you’ll shoot your eye out!”, “I triple dog dare you!”, and “Fraj-ee-lay! It must be Italian!”. There have been several attempts over the years to do sequels and spin-offs. American Playhouse did some spin-offs, the characters came back in 1994′s My Summer Story and 2012′s A Christmas Story 2 about Ralphie as a teenager. But after writer/narrator Jean Sheppard died in 1999 and ACS director Bob Clark died in 2007, it looked bleak to see a reunion of the original cast. Until now that is. Majority of the original cast of reunited to play their characters from ACS thirty-something years later in the mid-70s with A Christmas Story Christmas premiering on HBO Max this week.

Ralphie (played by Peter Billingsley) is now married with two kids in Chicago and he has given himself a year to try and make it as a published writer. It’s not looking good as the end of that year is nearing. Then Ralphie’s Mother (played by Julie Hagerty, replacing original mother Melinda Dillon, who is now retired from acting) calls about a death in the family. Ralphie packs up his kids and wife Sandy (Erinn Hayes) and they head back to Indiana to help Mrs. Parker and prepare for Christmas. While there, he runs into many old friends including Flick (Scott Schwartz) and Schwartz (R.D. Robb).

Hayes and Billingsly decorate the tree

Here is the thing with making a sequel to a modern classic and/or making that audience wait decades for the sequel: nostalgia is a double-edged sword. It is rare to top the original so in reuniting the cast, it can be fun to see these beloved characters return, but if it’s not engaging or entertaining enough, it’s just going to remind the audience how good the original was. One of the biggest hits of this year is Top Gun: Maverick, which was a sequel that came 36 years after the original, but the genius in that sequel is that it brought the characters into the present in a film that felt very much like the original but with even better action and set pieces. That kind of lightning striking is super rare, but when it works it works really well. 39 years after ACS was released, this sequel does have a clear affection and love of the original as you can see in countless shot compositions reflecting the original, exact replicas of the production design and dialogue in the same vein and the original cast members returning. Star / producer / co-writer Billingsley himself has actually been quite prolific in his adult life having produced a lot of films for Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn, who is a producer on this film. It also tugged at my heartstrings as I, myself, dealt with a personal loss earlier this year. Story-wise I wished there was a little more to it and some of the gags don’t always land, but there actually were quite a few laughs to be had (more so than your average holiday movie). Semi-spoiler alert: The film also doesn’t cop out to make a super-happy ending, instead it goes more for realistic happy. This is not the Top Gun: Maverick of holiday movies by any means, but it is way better than it should be. Going into this I thought they’d just ride the coattails of the original cast, but they definitely tried to make this a loving tribute to the original. Worth watching!

For info on ACSC: https://www.hbomax.com/feature/a-christmas-story-christmas

3.5 out of 5 stars

She Said

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In October 2017, the New York Times published a report from investigative journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey about the sexual harassment and abuse of Miramax Films executive Harvey Weinstein. This article lead to more and more actresses coming forward to acknowledge the abuses of Weinstein and others in Hollywood and it became the catalyst for the #MeToo movement. Both Kantor and Twohey wrote a book in 2019 about their process of writing this investigative report. That book has now been adapted into the movie She Said, opening today from Universal Pictures.

Before I begin this review, I do want to acknowledge: I did an internship for a semester in 2001 at Miramax Films. I never once had any interaction or contact with the Weinstein brothers. I, myself, was not only not aware of anything going on behind closed doors, I actually worked for numerous female executives and from where I was standing (which was even below the ladder as a lowly intern) it seemed like a good place to work and make films with. Little did I know! But I worked with some amazing people, some of whom I’m still good friends with today. When the news broke in 2017 I was as surprised as anyone. There had been rumors for years of Harvey Weinstein being flirtatious, but no one expected the allegations and abuse of power. It was horrible and should not have happened in the first place, let alone for as long as it did.

Mulligan and Kazan

The film begins in 2016 as Twohey (played by Carrie Mulligan) is investigating then-presidential-candidate Donald Trump for sexual misconduct. Insult to injury is that Trump gets elected president. The following year, Twohey and Kantor (Zoe Kazan) begin an investigative story upon hearing some accusations about Harvey Weinstein. The film, directed by Maria Schrader, shows their process of digging deeper and deeper as they talk to people who have either been silenced or chosen not to speak for fear of being blackballed in Hollywood. It also shows the work-life balance of both journalists, as they go further and further down the rabbit hole.

I’m a big fan of the newspaper movie as a genre and this one is in that pantheon of Spotlight and The Post, where it shows the inner workings of a newspaper, the concerns of the editor and the question of when to run the story. Now going into this movie, I knew about NYT story and the impact it had, so the stakes were only so high, i.e. you know walking into this movie that the story is going to get finished and published. But there was quite a bit I didn’t know about in terms of how the journalists got their sources to speak on the record. That was fascinating. It also breaks down the third wall: there is one actress who was mentioned in the story and instead of having an actress portray her, she actually appears in the film as herself. It also feels like it is a movie that is very of-the-moment. 2017 is now five years ago, but it felt like watching a movie about something very recent. At times it reminded me a lot of All the President’s Men (the Sgt. Pepper of newspaper movies!), which was released in 1976 and took place between 1972 and 1974. That film showed the journalists in their process to uncover Watergate. Here Twohey and Kantor deep dive to uncover Weinstein but it also shows the newspaper itself and the decisions they made along the way. This is a solid historical drama and I’m thrilled to see both Mulligan and Kazan, both of whom I’ve always been a big fan of, swing for the fences!

For info on She Said: https://www.shesaidmovie.com/

4.5 out of 5 stars

#Movie Reviews #a christmas story christmas #a christmas story #clay kaytis #she said #maria schrader #film geek

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machetelanding · 4 years

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#a christmas story #comedy #movies #1980s #1983 #peter billingsley #melinda dillon #darren mcgavin #scott schwartz #r.d. robb #zack ward #ian petrella #jean shepherd #main titles #christmas #holiday #december

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jls1792 · 5 years

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Christmas movie child stars: then and now

Peter Billingsley as Ralphie - A Christmas Story (1983)

Ian Petrella as Randy - A Christmas Story (1983)

Scott Schwartz as Flick - A Christmas Story (1983)

R.D. Robb as Schwartz - A Christmas Story (1983)

Zack Ward as Scut Farkus - A Christmas Story (1983)

Yano Anaya as Grover Dill - A Christmas Story (1983)

Juliette Lewis as Audrey Griswold - National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

Johnny Galecki as Rusty Griswold - National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

Ellen Hamilton Latzen as Ruby Sue Johnson - National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

Cody Burger as Rocky Johnson - National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989)

#christmas movie child stars #a christmas story #peter billingsley #ian petrella #scott schwartz #r.d. robb #zack ward #yano anaya #christmas vacation #national lampoon's christmas vacation #juliette lewis #johnny galecki #ellen hamilton latzen #cody burger

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genevieveetguy · 6 years

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- A book? What do you want a book for? - To read. - To read? Why would you want to read when you got the television set sitting right in front of you? There's nothing you can get from a book that you can't get from a television faster.

Matilda, Danny DeVito (1996)

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in-love-with-movies · 7 years

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Don's Plum (USA - Denmark - Sweden, 2000)

#Don's Plum #Leonardo DiCaprio #dicaprioedit #Tobey Maguire #Meadow Sisto #Jenny Lewis #Amber Benson #Heather McComb #R.D. Robb #David Stutman #my gifs #movie gifs

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90smovies · 7 years

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Don's Plum

#Don's Plum #R.D. Robb #Leonardo DiCaprio #Jenny Lewis #Ethan Suplee #Dale Wheatley #Bethany Ashton Wolf #Tawd Beckman #David Stutman

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analogscum · 5 years

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DON’S PLUM (2001, d. R.D. Robb)

Why is it, my dear Scumbags, that forbidden fruit is the sweetest fruit of all? Why is it that, when we know that we can’t have something, it only makes us want it that much more? This applies to any number of life’s pleasures, but especially to movies. Just think of the number of films that are out there, just waiting to be viewed, but because they’ve either been lost to time, or the powers that be have locked them away somewhere, we may never get to experience. London After Midnight. The Day the Clown Cried. Until recently, anyway, The Other Side of the Wind. Well, tonight, thanks to the magic of illegal YouTube uploads, I’m here to tell you about some of that forbidden fruit. We’re going to talk about a film that its stars do not want you to see (if you live in America or Canada, that is), a film that to this day they continue to try and bury via any legal shenanigans they can. So get ready, because it’s time to take a big juicy bite out of Don’s Plum.

To start, we must talk about the nineties. In the nineties, two big things happened that allowed Don’s Plum to come into existence: the advent of low-budget Indies with cool kids talking in verbose, provocative lingo (see: Pulp Fiction, Clerks, Reality Bites, Kids, etc.), and the teen heartthrob coronation of Leonardo DiCaprio. As an infamous New York magazine profile from 1998 established, young Leo ran with a gang of fellow young thespians who would be immortalized as “the Pussy Posse.” The modus operandi of the Pussy Posse was…well, you can probably guess what it was. These guys were all about scoring chicks and getting loaded and not tipping waitresses, and they lived like goddamn boy kings. Leo was the leader, with his two best friends Tobey Maguire and Kevin Connolly on either side of the pussy throne. Other members of the Pussy Posse included David Blaine, Lucas Haas, and R.D. Robb, who you undoubtedly remember as the kid who played Schwartz in A Christmas Story. Anyway, around 1995, Robb had a boffo idea: if I could get my hands on a camera and some black and white film, I could shoot my friends doing what we do every night, just hanging out acting like douchebags, and somehow this will magically congeal into a smash indie hit. So Leo and Tobey, who were allegedly under the impression that this was just going to be a short film, gave Robb a bunch of money to make this thing, which he did, casting Leo, Tobey, Kevin Connolly, and a bunch of their other friends, shooting on and off for a two year period, with the young actors improvising almost all of their dialogue. And with that, let’s get into the finished film itself, shall we?

Los Angeles. The mid to late nineties. Everything is in black and white and super fuckin’ suave, because, again, it’s Los Angeles in the mid to late nineties. Jeremy Sisto is driving a pickup truck with leopard print seats. He kicks a hippie chick out of the passenger seat, mumbling something about “I need…pleasure. And…I need…to know that with…BRUTE FORCE, I got you out of my life, mmkay?” So, uh, right off the bat, um, that dialogue. Yikes, right? The hippie chick, for her part, gets very angry and yells, “You were supposed to take me to Vegas!” Don’t worry, we never find out why she was going to Vegas in the first place, or who Jeremy Sisto’s character is, because he then promptly drives out of the movie. Bye, Jeremy Sisto! Beep beep!

Cut to Tobey Maguire, who looks like he just finished going through puberty roughly five minutes before Robb called “action!” He’s got a dopey look on his face, and an unfortunate bowl cut/chin scruff combo that makes him look like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. He’s sitting in a moody mid to late nineties café, drinking a comically large cappuccino, and half paying attention to the absolute worst goddamn music I have ever heard in my life. The end credits describe this band as “acid jazz,” but I think a more accurate description would be “music to try and swallow your own tongue to.” It’s like a fiendishly unlistenable combination of free jazz, ska, Tom Waits hobo wailing, and beat poetry, and it should’ve been left back in the nineties where it belongs, alongside Olestra and the Kosovo war. Tobey is trying to pick up some ladies to bring to hang out with his friends later, but oddly enough none of these women want to hang out with an arrogant sad sack who has all the charisma and sex appeal of Uncle Joey from Full House. Meanwhile, there’s like a full-on burlesque dance number happening to accompany this zoot suit cacophony, and the director only occasionally cuts to it for a few seconds at a time. I guess, who needs to see a big splashy musical number when you can watch a comic relief wet blanket who just got his first pubes strike out with every woman he talks to, right? Luckily, the café waitress takes pity on him and agrees to accompany him to meet up with his friends, and then does basically nothing else for the rest of the movie. Occasionally the scene will cut to her to remind us that she’s there, but, like, is she really there, though?

Jenny Lewis from Rilo Kiley is sitting facing a dude who is showing his bare ass to the camera, because that’s how real fuckin’ life just is, maaaaan, not everyone always wears pants, dude! They apparently just had sex, even though she’s fully clothed, and they get into a philosophical argument about nothing and everything, as if they’re in the worst deleted scene from Slacker. Even though they clearly hate each other, the dude, Brad, invites Jenny Lewis to come meet up with his friends, and she makes some overly hostile joke about how he didn’t make her cum earlier, because low-budget indie movie. Next we see Kevin Connolly driving down the street in his Jeep, when he encounters the hippie girl from the beginning of the movie, like a couple of star-crossed blabbedy blahs. Finally, FINALLY, we’re introduced to Leo, when he borrows a comically large mid to late nineties cell phone from this little hood rat kid who insists on telling him some boring story about a brawl at the Viper Room even though Leo is CLEARLY trying to use said comically large mid to late nineties cell phone to call up every fine young female he knows to meet up with him and his friends. This makes the little hood rat kid very very angry, and its supposed to be funny, I guess? Anyway, like they were all fated since time immemorial to do, all of our leads finally converge down at the titular greasy spoon eatery, Don’s Plum.

Now, have you ever been at a restaurant, and you find yourself sitting near a table of people who are so obnoxious, so vapid, so relentlessly annoying and unpleasant, that you can no longer enjoy your food, and just find yourself eavesdropping on every improbably stupid thing that these goddamn condom leaks are rattling on about, slowly being pulled further and further into their vortex of suck? You have? Well, then, congratulations, because that experience is the rest of this fuckin’ movie. Jenny Lewis and Brad are the first to arrive, and what do they do? They start playing a goddamn harmonica. Um, no. Hell no. I’m trying to enjoy my meal in relative peace and quiet, you know what I don’t need? Your shitty ass John Popper impressions, ok? Get that shit all the way outta here. Then, just to really up the insufferability factor, Jenny Lewis starts opining about Bob Dylan, but she only calls him Bob, which, you can take that one away from here right away, and then launches into the following diatribe...

“You know what I’m so sick of though? All that fucking commercial grunge crap. It all sounds alike. It’s like the record companies that are promoting sterile music. I mean, I love Nirvana, don’t get me wrong, but they weren’t the Beatles.”

WOOF. Mercifully, Brad interrupts her to tell her that he loves her, even though it’s their like, first or second date. She’s reasonably creeped out by this, and just by how earnest and dark and brooding Brad is in general, until thankfully Tobey and the waitress show up, soon followed by Kevin and the hippie hitchhiker. Leo gets his own grand entrance, checking himself out in the reflection of an aquarium while some mid to late nineties boom bap hip hop blares on the soundtrack, natch. For the next hour or so, the group basically just chain smoke countless cigarettes (remember when restaurants had smoking sections?), harasses their waitress, Flo (hey, it’s a mid to late nineties indie movie, were they supposed to NOT name the waitress Flo?) and talk shit endlessly. They also say the word “bro” a lot. Like, a lot a lot. Like, way too much. The world’s most date rapey frat dude would tell them to relax with how much they say the word “bro.”

Suddenly, in between all of the cigarettes and “bros,” a morbidly obese lady walks past the table, and Leo mocks her for daring to be morbidly obese. The hippie hitchhiker takes umbrage with this, and Leo, charming guy that he is, calls her a “squatty piece of hippie shit cunt.” This escalates to the point where the hippie hitchhiker storms off, throwing her Birkenstocks at Leo, and then smashes Kevin’s windshield with a bat that she found…somewhere? Anyway, she’s out of the movie now, and replacing her is Jenny Lewis’s friend Constance, who they just happen to run into. So more bullshitting and chain smoking unfolds. Female masturbation is discussed, because mid to late nineties indie movie. They play Never Have I Ever, and Kevin doesn’t understand the rules, which is kinda endearing. They almost get into a fight with some creep in a mechanics outfit and Buddy Holly glasses. A horrible ska cover of the “Menomena” song from The Muppet Show pops up for a minute of your life that you’ll never get back. Leo sends the group into more turmoil when he outs Brad as bisexual and gives Tobey shit for being vegan. He also gropes Jenny Lewis’s breasts countless times, but no one seems to mind. They all fight about this for awhile, but eventually apologies are offered and they’re bros once again. However, upon learning that Brad is into both girls and guys, Jenny Lewis begins freaking out about AIDS, because ugggh. Then she and Constance start making out for absolutely no reason other than mid to late nineties indie movie. At one point, the film fades out for no reason, and then fades up again on the exact same scene just in time to hear one of the ladies ask the table, “do you guys bathe every day and, like, wash yourself with soap?” Meanwhile, the film will occasionally cut to short vignettes of the characters each saying non-sequiturs into the restroom mirror. Why? Again, because mid to late nineties indie movie. DUH.

The absolute weirdest scene occurs when Kevin Connolly notices a lady producer whom he auditioned for the previous week. He calls her “Spielberg with a pussy,” because of course he does, what else would he call her? The rest of the table convinces him to go talk to her. To both our surprise and his, when he tentatively approaches her at the bar, she’s like, Oh my god, Kevin Connolly! It’s so good to see you! I’m sorry you didn’t get that part you auditioned for, but get this, I was just watching your tape again the other day, and I want to cast you in the lead in this other movie that I’m doing! Not only that, I have to admit, I find you and your Cub Scout haircut and thrift store bowling shirt to be super fucking sexy, and later on tonight I wanna fuck your brains out so hard, so take my number and call me, hot stuff.

WHAT?!?! Like, is this supposed to be a fantasy sequence? Is it? If it is, you have to tell me, movie! Shellshocked and erect, Kevin returns to the table and recounts the whole thing, including the line “bro, it was crazy, bro! She was on my dick so hard!” Leo, meanwhile, is wearing some fake redneck dentures, talking in an exaggerated Southern accent, and eating his own boogers. This is all real, you guys, I promise.

Anyway, some more shit happens, and everyone is yapping about some stupid, possibly offensive nonsense when suddenly a lady at the next table over slaps the guy that she’s with. Hard. Slaps him really hard. Our heroes get quiet for less than a second, before remarking on the slap that just took place. Holy shit bro, that bitch slapped that guy so hard bro, bro bro bro bro, etc. When things get back to normal, Leo is suddenly quiet and sullen. Kevin notices, and tries to coax it out of him the best way he knows how, which is by asking, “you fuckin’ thinkin’ about something, bro?” Leo starts giving all of these cagey, mysterious non-answers, and before long everyone at the table wants to know if he’s fuckin’ thinkin’ about something, bro. Leo takes a deep drag off of his cigarette, and tells everyone, “my dad committed suicide bro.”

WHAAAT?!?! I’ve gotta say, I honestly did not see this coming. In a mood, Leo storms off for the back bar. Jenny Lewis follows him, and tries to make him feel better by relating her OWN familial sob story: “My dad is gone. And my mom is a junkie. She sells her ass on the corner.”

WHAAAAAAT?!?! All of these sudden dollops of soap opera drama, man! Good gravy. For whatever reason, this turns Leo on, and he tries to bang her. She rebuffs his advances, and they get into an overwrought screaming match that plays out like a Level One improv exercise at the world’s shittiest acting school. Meanwhile, back at the table, Tobey gets mad at Kevin for pushing Leo to reveal the truth about his dead dad, and this escalates into a full on fist fight! BRO!

Now, holy shit, you guys, the last five minutes of this movie. Jenny Lewis runs into the bathroom, and begins lamenting into the mirror about how she let a “perfectly good fuck” get away. As she’s saying all this, she pulls some tinfoil, a straw and a lighter out of her purse and just straight up starts FREEBASING CRACK COCAINE.

WHAAAAAAAAAT?!?! Kinda makes all that AIDS talk seem kinda hollow, huh? Then, oh my god, she starts crying and launches into this fucking after school special monologue, screaming into the mirror about how “I was the one that came on to Uncle Jerry! I was the one that was curious!”

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT?!?! Excuse me, waitress, but it seems you got drug abuse and child molestation in my mid to late nineties indie movie! What is ANY OF THAT doing in here?! And in the last five goddamn minutes of the movie, no less! So now Tobey and Kevin’s bro fight has spilled out onto the street, so Leo goes and breaks it up, he and Kevin do a very intricate secret bro handshake, everyone has a good laugh, Brad lights Kevin’s bowling shirt on fire, everyone goes prancing down the street, and the movie ends.

Now, imagine that you’re Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. It’s late 1997, or possibly early 1998. One of you is now the biggest movie star on the planet, thanks to a movie about a big-ass boat. You’ve just seen this Don’s Plum movie that your little buddy R.D. Robb made. First of all, it’s a full-length fucking movie, not a short like you both thought it would be. Second of all, both of you are in there saying terrible things about women, doing terrible things to women, and oh shit, the majority of your fans…wait for it…are women! Bro! But worst of all, our little buddy R.D. Robb, who we thought was our friend, our fellow Pussy Posse member, our BRO, is shopping this fucking movie around to distributors? This fucking movie that could possibly end our careers if anyone ever sees it? Tell me, if you were Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire in late 1997 or early 1998, would you do everything in your power to make sure that Don’s Plum never saw the light of day?

Well, according to a lawsuit filed in 1998 by one of the film’s producers, David Stutman, that’s exactly what Leo and Tobey did. Interestingly enough, according to court documents, apparently it was Tobey who was more concerned with how his performance in the film would negatively affect his nascent stardom, and therefore enlisted his much more famous best friend to help him carry out “a fraudulent and coercive campaign to prevent the release of the film.” I mean, Leo comes off as WAY more of an asshole than Tobey, who mainly just mopes around and eventually bro fights with Kevin Connolly, but in any case, both parties eventually reached a settlement in which Stutman agreed that Don’s Plum would not be released in the U.S. or Canada. It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival on February 10, 2001, and quickly faded into Hollywood lore.

Every few years, talk of this wild, black and white, mostly improvised movie with some big celebrities before they got famous will pop up again. Most recently, back in early 2016, another of the film’s producers, Dale Wheatley, uploaded the film to Vimeo and posted it to his website, freedonsplum.com, where anyone could watch it for free. Within days, Leo and Tobey’s respective legal teams had the video removed. You would think that after more than twenty years, with Leo now a respected Oscar winner, and Tobey having brought Spider-Man to life on the big screen, they’d be willing to let bygones be bygones. But it seems that they’re still legitimately concerned that they would stand to lose their vaunted place amongst the Hollywood elite if North American audiences ever got to see Don’s Plum. They still fear it. They still think it’s dangerous. In reality, it’s just embarrassing, which isn’t the same thing.

Truth is, there are a million movies out there just like Don’s Plum. There are a million other overly earnest, needlessly vulgar, navel-gazing indie movies made by overly earnest, needlessly vulgar, navel-gazing young people about the lives of overly earnest, needlessly vulgar, navel-gazing young people out there. I mean, I went to film school, fer chrissakes, I can say with some level of authority that Don’s Plum is the sort of project that my classmates and I poured our hearts and souls Into, only to be embarrassed by its messy, guileless sincerity later. The only thing that distinguishes Don’s Plum from the horde of other cringeworthy embryonic efforts like it is, as I said before, its status as cinematic forbidden fruit. Will its two stars ever allow the audience that it was made for to have a taste? Somehow I doubt it, bro.

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