How does one handle a name-calling, lying punk on a street corner who is trying to pick a fight? This is a real problem and apparently one that I am going to be stuck with as long as I am in this game.
Today’s gum on my heel is Tom O’Neil, whose response to what I thought was a pretty factual and not remotely personal take on his Sunday NYT article is to call names and to use lies to try to besmirch my name.
I am one of those people who tends to respond. My most experienced colleagues would tell me to just shut the hell up and to let the peripheral players say whatever they want. But I’m not quite that strong yet.
Responding in kind to O’Neil would be stupid. Suffice it to say that my alleged ignorance seems to lead to me taking positions and leading the way long before he ever puts his neck on the line. I acknowledge my occasional failures and try not to gloat about my successes. And I sure do not think that I or anyone else is “The Real Awards Expert.” I’m a guy who listens to a lot of people with a lot of opinions and I study my history and make my calls. I do not work for a major media outlet, so if anyone wants to disregard what I write, they are completely free to do so.
It is sad that Tom is so obsessed with five hours we spent together almost four years ago. (At the Oscars, not the Globes.) I don’t remember it that well. What I do remember is that the dumbest – and maybe, funniest – thing I said that night was “With God as my witness, Gladiator will not win Best Picture.” I was wrong. But it was funny. And that was the point. (I do seem to remember picking Benecio del Toro when Tom said he was the only nominee who had no chance… or something like that.)
As far as the next year on E!, Tom O’Neil had nothing to do with my invitation to appear that came and got rescinded a week before the event. E! Online did not want online competition. I have no idea how much Andy Jones had to do with it. He had bitched and moaned about me being on air the year before, but no one listened then, so I assume it was someone higher on the foot chain that made the call. And frankly, it was a shitty gig. No money and a ten hour day for 10 minutes of face time on E!. But I was irritated that E! invited and then disinvited me to play. The fact is, I have never pursued any media exposure outside of my work… not my appearances on Ebert or E! or anywhere else. I was recruited to work for EW and later, to come be on the web, by of all people, Andy Jones. It’s probably foolish, but I prefer to let my work – for better or for worse – do the talking.
The idea that I promised revenge on Tom is an outright lie. After I got the call from Patrick Goldstein, who told me that Tom had attacked me before he could even ask about me, I sent Tom a fairly courteous note asking whether it was true. Tom didn’t answer the e-mail. That was the only e-mail I sent. There were no threats. What could I do to Tom O’Neil? What would I want to do to Tom O’Neil… except get him of my back.
Roger Friedman has received, over the years, a few profane notes. When he attacks others with outright lies – even people I also dislike - it really pisses me off. Roger, quite smartly, leaves me out of his column. Tom, on the other hand, has not been a bad guy … except, apparently, when it comes to me.
My column about Searchlight making a mistake, in my opinion, by not sending out Garden State, I Heart Huckabees or Napoleon Dynamite, was about just that. (I still feel that way, even though I have my copy of Napoleon Dynamite now.) If someone wants to read it some other way, so be it. That is the price of being in print. You give up your right to determine context for others.
Likewise, the obsession with a two-month old column about The Phantom that was a bit pig-headed on my part, given that I had no idea what the release pattern was or how relentless Tom and Anne Thompson and Dave Karger and others would be about trashing the movie before anyone else had seen it. Such are the lows of writing weekly. You won’t see him trashing my call on Million Dollar Baby or Sideways or other early reaches that are coming to fruition. But again, I can’t control the way people want to assess me.
I wish I knew what the “selfish” accusation is. I can’t even conceive about what I am being selfish about. Call me an egomaniac and I wouldn’t even flinch. But selfish?
Anyway, I guess my arrogant, faux macho position this is that I don’t like guys who creep around attacking people without having the courage to confront them directly. Some people, I’m sure, agree with Tom. Others, I’m sure, like to whisper these things as gossips do. But I believe in sunlight as the best disinfectant.
Keep in mind, O’Neil’s rant below is a response to a piece I did that questioned Tom’s work. Notice how he completely fails to address any of the issues in the piece. When the truth is not with you, attack the man.
Five years ago, Tom was “The Man” when it came to the Oscar thing. No one else was even making an effort. Things change. People grow. People learn. And when a veteran loses some of his turf, he has a choice… keep growing and get better (like doing Q&A screenings for studios a couple months after MCN had great success in doing the same) or lash out at the new people and try to slow them by attacking them.
I now leave it to you to determine the truth. My side of it all is now on the record.
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From GoldDerby.com posted
David Poland knows NOTHING about awards and keeps proving it when he says such ridiculous things as Phantom is the only pic that can beat Aviator for Best Pic. Recently Patrick Goldstein of the L.A. Times asked me what I thought of David as an awards "expert" and I laughed and pointed out his many doozies. Like Phantom, but also his ALL-TIME CLASSIC. The only time he was ever on E!'s award shows, he was with me and Andy Jones from E! Online. Just hours before Soderbergh won best director for Traffic -- as everyone on planet earth knew he would in the event Scott didn't win for Gladiator -- David actually said on TV: "If Soderbergh wins for either Traffic or Brockovich, it'll definitely be for Brockovich. It's impossible that he could win for Traffic." Andy and I were DUMBSTRUCK with horror over what he had just said. Shockingly stupid. Andy leaned over to me and said, "That's the single dumbest thing I've ever heard uttered on TV in my life."
David is ONE MORE FILM CRITIC who thinks he's an awards expert and that's laughable. Awards are a separate science and these buffoons with their overblown egos just can't accept that. David keeps on making a fool of himself in public and because I had the GALL to call him on that to the L.A. Times, I got THREATENING, NASTY EMAILS from David SWEARING REVENGE. Honest to god -- that petty.
That's what his column is -- the promised revenge.
HA! HA! HA!
I have been told by people who know David well that he LOATHES me sooooo much because he was never used on E! again after his boneheaded appearance at that Globes. So he stalks me, determined to keep lashing out at the REAL awards expert acknowledged by all top media sources, including the New York Times. Just beware: This petty foot-stomping bully has a private, selfish agenda that has nothing to do with me, but with his own personal failure as a TV personality and showbiz authority. He will continue to stalk me in the future. I might consider his ferocious jealousy to be a compliment if David was anyone of substance.
Just two weeks ago gads of Hollywooders were howling with laughter over the tantrum in his column -- bitching about how one studio had the NERVE not to give him a movie screener he wanted. HA! He whined and babbled like a pathetic spoiled child. One top studio exec said to me on the phone, "The only reason I sometimes even bother to read his column is to see what outrageously clueless, selfish thing he's going to whine about again. Every time I do, I think to myself, 'What is this joker doing in the business?'"
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