Nikki Finke: high again.
I see our sister website Elle.com has posted an interview with the ever-hilarious aesthete Nikki Finke, in which, among other things, she takes credit for the downturn in torture-porn box office:
I waged a campaign this year against horribly violent horror movies and especially torture porn. I really shamed the Hollywood execs making money on these movies. I do believe that no Hollywood player should earn a dime from a film he's ashamed to show in his own home. Then other journalists started doing the story. I'm not saying I'm solely responsible, but it's been gratifying to see that those movies have gone from doing very well at the box office to doing almost no business.
Well, exactly. Because when today's Americans decide where they're going to spend their moviegoing dollars, the first thing they take into consideration is Nikki Finke's finely calibrated sense of outrage.
"Hey, honey, I read here that Nikki Finke's awfully, terribly upset about Hostel 2!"
"Oh, gosh, dear—I suppose we'd best not go see it then. I was kind of looking forward to it, but if it's got poor Nikki's bloomers in a bunch I certainly wouldn't want to contribute to any chafing. Maybe we should just stroll over to Blockbuster and get the Lindsay Lohan version of Freaky Friday, thus striking a positive blow for women in Hollywood."
"Oh, yes, let's do!"
I'd suggest that Finke get out more, but then again, I'm not sure I want her at large.
UPDATE: Hokey smoke. It's not every weekend that one incurs the wrath of both the divine Ms. Finke and the inimitable N.P. Thompson (see comments). What can one say that the Ramones haven't already said so much better?
Nikki Finke has three "I's" in her name for a reason....
Posted by: don | October 12, 2007 at 01:25 AM
Didn't your dumb-ass movie magazine go out of business in the U.S. because a) it sucked, and b) it sucked up to Hollywood so pathetically that even the movie biz lost respect for it?
Posted by: Nikki Finke | October 12, 2007 at 12:36 PM
Hey, great to hear from you, Nikki. Say, are you ready to file that Ovitz piece yet? When did we assign it to you—1997?
Stay classy!
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | October 12, 2007 at 12:49 PM
Get a clue. I did file it -- 15,000 words about Ovitz leaving Disney. And your magazine told me it couldn't run because it told the truth.
Then, years later, your mag gave me two more assignments, both subsequently cancelled because the subjects didn't want me doing the stories because I'd be too tough. Now that's a publication with integrity!
Posted by: Nikki Finke | October 12, 2007 at 01:28 PM
I have to admit it: there was a period during my tenure at the magazine where my attendance record at edit meetings was, shall we say, spotty. So it's entirely possible that I missed the one wherein it was announced, "We have recieved Nikki Finke's piece, but we're going to have to spike it, because it contains The Truth." My bad.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | October 12, 2007 at 01:46 PM
How you could STILL be working for a publication -- oh, excuse me, downgraded to a website -- so ethically bankrupt speaks volumes.
Posted by: Nikki Finke | October 12, 2007 at 03:03 PM
Why don't you two just get it over with and make-out
Posted by: craptastic | October 12, 2007 at 03:10 PM
We're on separate coasts, Crap. Also, I'm married.
Posted by: Glenn Kenny | October 12, 2007 at 03:33 PM
I know Ms. Finke is full of shit, because this:
"it sucked up to Hollywood so pathetically that even the movie biz lost respect for it..."
is a mathematic impossibility. Not only that, but if there were even a hint of truth to this, Entertainment Weekly would have folded like a cheap suit a decade ago.
Posted by: bill | October 12, 2007 at 04:36 PM
Oh, that's OK, honey!! You just go right ahead.
Posted by: Claire K. | October 12, 2007 at 04:46 PM
I heard on the mean streets of NY that Nikki lives to gobble down creamy corn-eyed buttsnakes. Oh, that's our Nikki; a shrill, self-important, self-righteous coprophagiac!
Posted by: Shabadoo | October 12, 2007 at 05:20 PM
http://www.amazon.ca/Pay-Play-Rise-Hollywood-Agent/dp/0679400729
Posted by: Agent Orange | October 12, 2007 at 07:03 PM
Nikki Finke is a complete joke. Expect a defense of Eli Roth, from a group of Eli Roth haters, over at Deadlantern.com this evening.
P.S. I loved the Freddy Krueger, Leatherface, and Jason advertisement she has no problem accepting for her blog. Apparently, when it comes to horror films, she has no problem complaining about anti-women perspectives while at the same time accepting advertising of those same killers :)
Prepare to be dismantled later this evening Nikki Finke, courtesy of your friends at Deadlantern.com!
Posted by: MaT | October 13, 2007 at 01:45 PM
If I may say a word in favor of Nikki, she is one terrific writer. Even when I disagree with her, I still find her work compelling. She has a voice that rings with an immediacy and an authority that is all too rare in writing about the movie business (or any other kind of business). Because she's good at what she does, she's open to attack, and the attacks are inevitably bound to emanate from a boring, devoid-of-style hack on the disorder of Glenn Kenny. Kenny is a boring writer. He's smug. His writing, such as it is, betrays no traces of having studied anything, or exposure to much besides sitting there like a zombie in the dark, having a bland cannibalistic feast on whatever's placed before him. Kenny is one of those typical, in-record-numbers movie reviewers (as distinct from a critic) who goes along with the herd, praises the usual junk and only vents on films that are safe to pan. It is understandable that someone as yawn-inducing as Kenny, a professional misser of the point, would feel threatened by Nikki and thus feel the need to tear her down -- another example of a pathetic man who can only demonstrate his "superiority" by attempting to demolish a woman's. I guess another word for that is jealousy.
Posted by: NPT | October 13, 2007 at 03:31 PM
I have many probelms with Mr. Kenny, and I've voiced a few of them here. But NPT...what you just said is just stupid. If you're going to take issue with Glenn Kenny's writing, it would be super if you could show that you've read any of it.
But anyway, calling Nikki Finke "one terrific writer" kind of ends things right off the bat. The kind of people who get labeled "terrific" or "brilliant" writers these days, especially on the internet, just turns my stomach.
Posted by: bill | October 13, 2007 at 04:40 PM
http://www.deadlantern.com/2007/10/14/commentary-nikki-finke-destroys-eli-roths-career/
Posted by: Deadlantern.com | October 14, 2007 at 01:15 AM
Beware anyone who speaks of The Truth, from evangelical ministers to power-hungry freaks such as Nikki Finke. Her so-called 15,000-word piece on Ovitz was not published in Premiere because it wasn't FINISHED, and when deadline after deadline was missed, those of us at the magazine finally threw up our hands. I was deputy editor at the time, and I can say with confidence that The Truth was not an issue when it came to publishing her uncompleted masterpiece. Premiere was not the slightest bit worried about offending Ovitz -- indeed, Kim Masters had already challenged his tactics openly in the magazine's pages when he was at the height of his power at CAA. Besides, Premiere had also been willing to publish a piece about Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne at New Line and the sexual harassment of female executives at the company (among other revelations that many reporters knew about and mostly ignored) that cost Premiere hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising and a good deal of future access. But it is Finke, and only Finke, who knows about The Truth. And she'll write it, even when it means using comments made by journalists that are clearly private and not meant for publication, such as Anne Thompson's about Tim Swanson, when he replaced her as west coast editor. Swanson grew significantly in that job, and is more than worthy of his position at the LA Times. But when you understand what The Truth is, as Finke does, sliming other journalists like a HUAC lawyer is not really a problem.
Posted by: Howard Karren | October 17, 2007 at 04:20 PM
Thank you SO much for taking the fascist Rat Finke down a peg. Her 'no holds barred' reporting is nothing short of a joke. Look at her coverage of the strike for exhibit A.
Whenever a press release from the AMPTP comes out she, to her credit openly, says she's waiting for the 'truth' from the WGA's press release. That's reporting? That's journalism to take the word of one source as gospel? To bash the other side based on personal politics? She's an extremely opinionated person with a blog who writes for a cut rate paper that they hand out for free next to the free porn and escort rag, LA XPress, because no one on earth would pay for the LA Weekly. She is, however, NOT a journalist.
Oh and see for yourself. Post a negative comment about the WGA or anything else she supports and you'll see your comment never appear. She allows 1 in a day to make the illusion of balance.
Oh and lastly, she is SO overrated as a writer. I've seen wittier musings on a bathroom wall. Have you seen the one about 'if you are up for fun be here at 4:30pm'? It's to die for.
Posted by: manny | December 10, 2007 at 02:26 AM
Wow... It appears that Howard Karren just slapped the bejesus out of Nikki Finke with a handful of the same "Truth" she seems to endlessly spout off about, yet almost never actually gets around to "Reporting". Her brand of "The Truth" always seems to have some sort of self-serving nature to it, backed with pseudo-feminist rage bordering on a near schizophrenic fear of ever coming across as weak. When finishing one of her articles, one usually feels like patting her on the head, then telling her to take a Valium and have a nap before she bursts a blood vessel in her brain.
Posted by: PfizerX | January 11, 2008 at 03:48 AM