When Harvey Weinstein Met Barbie
I finished writing The Fractured Mirror, my epic upcoming book on American movies about filmmaking, late last year. Or at least I thought I did.
I am currently on the fifteenth draft of a five hundred and twenty page book that covers roughly five hundred movies and a solid century of film history.
I didn’t just set out to write about important films on moviemaking; I aspire to write about every movie that fits the criteria, no matter how obscure, irrelevant, or terrible, as well as a generous cross-section of documentaries on the subject.
That’s setting the bar almost impossibly high, but over the last three to ten years, I’ve accomplished the borderline impossible in writing nearly every narrative American film about moviemaking.
I’ve been working on draft after draft of The Fractured Mirror because I want it to be as tight, professional, original, and entertaining as possible. I also keep discovering movies about filmmaking I haven’t written about because I didn’t know they existed.
I’ll be revising the manuscript, and it will lead me to the Wikipedia page of an actor whose filmography reveals that they appeared in additional movies about filmmaking that I feel duty-bound to see and write up, no matter how obscure or inconsequential.
Alternatively, an obscure movie I previously had no way of watching will unexpectedly become available. For example, one of the many godawful movies I write about is 1976’s Goodbye, Norma Jean, a Z-movie biography of Marilyn Monroe from self-professed schlockmeister Larry Buchanan.
It’s an ugly exploitation movie that casts Hee Haw honey Misty Rowe as the young sex symbol paying her dues in a 1940s Hollywood that looks unmistakably like the softcore porn world of the mid-1970s.
Goodbye, Norma Jean is exploitative, creepy, and an insult to Monroe’s memory from a bottom-feeding trash auteur as distinctive as he is wildly inept.
I thought that movies about filmmaking couldn’t get worse than Goodbye, Norma Jean. I thought movies couldn’t get worse than Goodbye, Norma Jean.
I was wrong. Thirteen years after Goodbye, Norma Jean insulted the taste, judgment, and intelligence of the moviegoing public, Buchanan returned with 1989’s Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn.
The bizarre exploitation movie consists mainly of recycled footage from Goodbye, Norma Jean, clumsily duct-taped together with an insulting framing device. In it, a forty-year-old Marilyn, played by an actress in her sixties, tells her story to John F. Kennedy’s henchmen, who want to eliminate her before she can embarrass their boss.
This uniquely inept and mercenary endeavor is one of the worst, most reprehensible movies I’ve ever seen. I have seen my share. It somehow makes something that was already bad and sleazy to a historic degree much creepier and much worse.
Needless to say, neither Goodbye, Norma Jean nor Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn made it into the Criterion Collection. They’re not even on Blu-Ray or DVD. Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn isn’t streaming legally anywhere, but I asked Facebook where I might find it. Less than an hour later, a kind stranger sent a file with the movie. Such is the magic of the Internet.
Nobody would notice, let alone complain, if Goodnight, Sweet Marilyn was not in The Fractured Mirror. Very few people know it exists, let alone have seen it. But its presence in the book makes it weirder, better, and more complete, so I had to add it.
Another late addition to the book was a low-budget direct-to-video animated film called My Scene Goes Hollywood: The Movie that has the following distinctions:
It is an officially licensed Barbie feature film, released for the home video market eighteen years before Barbie made over a billion dollars and scored eight Oscar nominations.
It’s more specifically an adaptation of My Scene, a line of fashion dolls that ripped off Bratz so shamelessly that they sued successfully for copyright infringement.
It’s a vehicle for Lindsay Lohan, the star of the film-within-a-film and a chill, relatable, down-to-earth everywoman who is down to hang out with mere extras despite being a big star.
Despite its title, My Scene Goes Hollywood: The Movie takes place entirely in New York
A thin, stylishly dressed, suspiciously young-looking Harvey Weinstein has a cameo as himself as the producer of the Lindsay Lohan vehicle. Weinstein shows up just long enough to compliment Barbie's teen friend, who won an unexpected promotion from extra to a leading role as the villain. This makes Barbie jealous because she wishes that she was the one receiving praise from the notorious sex criminal. Miramax’s short-lived children’s division released the film in a related development.
The film became briefly notorious when the Weinstein sex scandal broke, and folks with an eye for the obscure, absurd, and obscene noted the incongruous weirdness of America’s favorite doll sharing the screen with a man who will die in prison for being one of the most prolific sex criminals in Hollywood history.
It’s Lindsay, bitch!
It’s not as if Weinstein had a good reputation when he lent his voice to one of four direct-to-video Barbie movies from one of the low points in the doll’s history, when it was shamelessly chasing trends instead of setting them.
Even before his fall from grace, Weinstein had a terrible reputation as the meanest man in Hollywood. He was widely reviled as a vicious bully who terrorized filmmakers and earned the nickname Harvey Scissorhands for his predilection for re-editing films against their directors’ wishes.
But he was also an Academy Award winner and one of the most important figures in the history of independent films.
As with Goodnight, Marilyn, no one would object if My Scene Goes to Hollywood: The Movie, were not in The Fractured Mirror, but the book is better and weirder for its inclusion.
I’ve spent long months obsessively working to make The Fractured Mirror a little better and a little better and a little better. All those tiny improvements have paid off, resulting in a magnum opus of a book I can’t wait to share with the world.
You can pre-order The Fractured Mirror here: https://the-fractured-mirror.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
Nathan needed expensive, life-saving dental implants, and his dental plan didn’t cover them, so he started a GoFundMe at https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-nathans-journey-to-dental-implants. Give if you can!
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