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The Propoganda Surrounding Don's Plum |
Whether you're mentioned as hot or as not, and the only crime you have committed is being a big part of the biggest selling movie of all time, and your name is Leonardo DiCaprio, then the negativity flows from the media as smoothely and as easily, and as naturally as melted butter regarding just about EVERYTHING you do. First...the GOOD stuff.. The Daily Telepraph - 16.02.01 A glimpse of Leo the young lion SF Said reports from the Berlin Film Festival A LEONARDO DICAPRIO movie had its world premiere at the 51st Berlin Film Festival this week. Last year, the appearance of the star of The Beach ignited passions that justified the term "Leomania"; this year, the man himself stayed away.  The new film, Don's Plum, has been the subject of litigation in the US. It was
shot in 1995 before DiCaprio or co-star Tobey Maguire hit the heights of
Hollywood. The pair have sought to prevent its release, claiming that it was an
acting exercise, never intended for the big screen. The outcome is that it can
be shown only outside North America - where it will surely become a cult
item.While not as good as the best independent films of its day, such as Slacker or Swingers, it is in that vein, following a group of twenty-somethings who sit around in diners terrorising each other and everyone around them. It is startling to see DiCaprio's feral intensity at its peak, and to remember just why he became a star. True, the film looks improvised, with accordingly uneven plotting and dialogue, but its raw energy is seldom dull. Mrshowbiz: Berlin Gets First Look at Banned Leo Film By Stephen Schaefer February 12, 2001 BERLIN — The Berlin Film Festival seemed an appropriate site to "liberate" Don's Plum, the better-than-you'd-expect, low-budget, black-and-white indie drama Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire made before becoming famous. At its world premiere last weekend in the festival's Panorama section, co-writer and director R.D. Robb talked obliquely about the end of his friendship with DiCaprio but did not address the court ruling that bans Don's Plum from being shown in the United States or Canada. "Yeah, it's a divorce," Robb managed to say between phrases of lawyer-speak like "We want to put this misunderstanding behind us." Constrained by a gag order not to discuss the settlement, a cheerful Robb got a kick out of his inquisition-style handling at the press conference. Asked how two actors could hold a movie hostage, Robb could only gesture to his co-writer and producer, David Matthew Stutman, and say, "David and I have both been through so much and now we're here to celebrate the film." The film is being distributed around the world thanks to Zentropa Films, which stepped in and paid Plum's postproduction costs. Because of DiCaprio's name, it has been sold in every Asian territory and all of Europe. Still, Peter Aalbaek Jensen, director Lars Von Trier's partner in Zentropa Films, compared the Hollywood hotshots at International Creative Management who tried to "kill these two guys" to East Germany's reviled secret police force, "The Stasi." A Film or an Audition Piece? The film was shot four years ago over three days of largely improvised filmmaking, then supplemented six months later with scripted material. It's set in a Los Angeles diner called Don's Plum as a group of friends, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Amber Benson, fight and flirt while talking about masturbation and bisexuality. DiCaprio had acted as an unofficial producer but felt betrayed when Robb decided to show the film once Titanic made DiCaprio a superstar.  DiCaprio's objections are not, apparently, because of his bratty, sex-crazed character, but because he saw Don's Plum solely as an improvisation piece for Robb to use as an audition to get hired as a director, not as a finished film that would be reviewed. So, Robb and Stutman, were asked, were they the ones responsible for circulating that doctored porn-style photo of Maguire and DiCaprio with magician David Blaine on the Internet? "No," Robb laughed. — La Republicca - 12.02.01 Übersetzung: Among the curiosities of the Festival, the section Panorama has introduced Don's Plum of RD Robb, a " Dogma " (it is coprodotto from the society of Lars von Trier) American that it resembles to so many independent films of Oltreatlantico but that him it is made to notice for a particular circumstance: Leonardo DiCaprio, that has interpreted him/it before becoming famous (her date of the catalog is 19952000), you/he/she has tried to prevent her/it of it distribution resorting to the legal streets. Turned in a white and black poor man and shelled, the filmetto puts in scene the night good of some young ones in the place of a certain Don. Ian (Tobey Maguire) and the other ones make up for girls for the evening; Derek (Leo) it arrives only, but it seems to find her/it on the place. DiCaprio doesn't make then to us bad impression. It is arrogant, aggressive and ready to lead the hands. However his Derek informs us that you/he/she has suffered for guilt of the adults and it also makes us know of not possession ever made use of drugs. Next the "bad"....propoganda (spread by the Don's Plum Team) and half truths... Corriere della Sera - 11.02.01 Übersetzung: DiCaprio fragile and little macho in the disowned film To Berlin the true debut of «Don's Plum», that Leo has done to disappear after a battle from the cinemas Usa  FROM OUR ENVOYBerlin - The announced scandals were two: French «Á. but soeur!» of Catherine Breillat, two adolescent sisters and a rape and the American «Quill» of Philip Kaufman or the last days of libertinism of the marquis De Sade. To surprise, instead, third inconvenient, you/he/she has come to disarrange the prognostications «Don's Plum» of R.D. Robb, turned film six years ago with Leonardo DiCaprio that, after the planetary successes of «Titanic», it has him/it hopelessly disowned. A sin of youth that the actor has succeeded, after a long judicial battle, to make to disappear from the screens Usa and Canadian, but not from those European. To take advantage has been Lars of it von Trier. The director of «Dancer in the dark» if him is bought up for the Trust Film Sales, society of tied up distribution to his Zentropa, that you/he/she now is selling him/it in the varied Countries. For Italy the institute Light has run. Preceded by an inviting trailer that uses the fondoschiena of Leonardo as label and small mirror for the allodoles, the films in white and black, turned by a director to the first weapons in way amatoriale, yesterday you/he/she has disclosed the rest of his secret. What, scabrousness, result as for a po disappointing. That that he/she is seen in fact for ninety minutes it is a group of boys that, as every evening, in their preferred place are found again for, to smoke, to drink coffee to make of spinelli and of crack. But above all to speak. A river of words, the more gettonata of which it is «f---», declined by all in obsessive way. They follow in the order: «shit», «bitch», «whore» and by turpiloquiando. In the few remained spaces are inserted considerations on the life, on the death, but above all on the sex, analyzed, as they make the boys of the whole world, in his usual variations: sex gay, sex etero, bisesso, solitary sex, sex of group, sex with violence, active sex and passive sex. Provocative and arrogant to oltranza, sometimes however someone surrenders and, for an instant, it allows to glimpse brittleness, fears and disastrous family situations. To console them a spinello, a little envelope of crack, a scazzottata. And the to feel to belong to a group that, to the until end, it protects. A tear of youth singed years Ninety, that one charm of his has today still tant'? that, according to the surveys done for the European distribution, the 80 percent of the potential young spectators it is recognized in the characters. Is this proper to put on the ardent carbons the beautiful Leo, by now next to the wedding with the top model Brazilian Gisele (on February 14 in Venice?), timorous to dirty his/her own romantic image. But to worry even more it, is perhaps, that that in «Don's Plum» doesn't happen. During to conclude with a girl the big seducer it doesn't make her/it. And his partner treats him/it to fishes in face, hurting him/it there where you/he/she is more macho. «I regret that Leo has picked her up so crooked - R.D comments. Robb, the director, 28 years -. When we made the movie we were all friends. Besides DiCaprio, among those today famous, there was also Tobey Maguire. We had decided to tell us. On the script the roles and the situations were outlined only. For the rest it was gone to free wheel, the dialogues are almost all improvised. The resumptions lasted in all six days. You/he/she has been amusing, few more than a game». And with Leo? Are you you more visas? «I have felt him to the telephone six months ago. But after all the polemics the relationships are not certain more those». «An absurd circumstance - it comments the distributor of the Zentropa -, in Europe it would be said that it is guilt of the system. In America, business is called more simply».
Each Saturday, some friends are gathered Don's Plum to the restaurant. Each has to bring a girl. The group is very heterogeneous and particular. The boys will spend the whole night together, discovering more to fund some aspects of their personality. And they will meet a lot of people strange.  Later
an infinity of polemics, delays and boycotting, are finally introduced
to the Berlinale Don's Plum, a film realized in 1995. Leonardo
Of Caprio and Tobey Maguire, protagonists of the film, to the epoch
they were not the actual superstars. Insofar you/they have looked for with everybody,
the means to stop the film, but at the end the reasons for the young director
(the ventottenne R. D. Robb) you/they have had the best. Above all from
the superstar's part of Titanic the embarrassment can be understood. In her
before scene ours is put a hand in the jewels of family.
Subsequently, a girl heavily offends from a little known, offering her
provocatively of the money and inviting her/it to prostitute. Then him
it puts the fingers in the nose and immediately later in mouth. I don't satisfy, draws
with contempt a friend, with which, few instants before he/she wanted to do,
sex. But it is necessary to understand him/it, to the boy his/her father has died (suicide)…
In short an Of Caprio ever seen, that would do better however to stop
to complain, considering that nobody has forced him to participate in the
film. Better of him the timid Tobey Maguire is involved, that
with his face innocent seeding doubts and it provokes liking. The film
it suffers unfortunately from many problems. Evident E' that the budget is inferior
to the daily catering of a production hollywoodiana. But it is not
possible that the table where the boys are gathered (and where you/he/she is turned
good part of the film) you almost result invisible for guilt of a photo
sovraesposta that becomes objects of the indefinite outlines. Sin,
because for the rest the director has a good hand and search (some
turns with intelligence) to outline an universe among Kevin Smith
(Clerks) and Richard Linklater (Life is a dream, Before
of the dawn). Excellent the use of the music and very beautiful the five
you draft initials (turned out not by chance of the restaurant,). Amusing
some characters of contour (above all the producer). In short,
not a fraud as you/he/she could be feared, but a small film with as
defects and some qualities.
Now the "ugly"...the propoganda at its height! How dare these superstars think they deserve loyalty, respect and most of all, legal rights? BERLIN 2001: Hannibal's Fears, Zentropa's Anti-American Imperialism, and Strong Docs by Brandon Judell (indieWIRE/ 02.14.01) -- At what other film festival can you walk away with a free knapsack from Mercedes Benz and a CD-Rom disc entitled Films From Latvia. Yes, everything you ever wanted to know about Latvian films is here for your perusal, including info on the animated short "Home Hole Horrors." Plot: a raccoon while doing his morning exercises in his tree cavity is disturbed by a woodpecker attacking a worm. It's hard to top that, but the Berlinale did so with gusto. In fact, one of the hottest tickets and the most heated press conferences belonged to a film called "Don's Plum." This sensationally acted tale chronicles a group of young, disaffected 20-year-olds at a diner one evening and how they rage against themselves and each other. It might just be the best American movie you won't view this year or any other. Two of its stars, Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire, have squelched its US release. It's finally gotten a life overseas thanks to its pick up by Lars von Trier's Zentropa Films. Director RD Robb noted, "We're here to celebrate the film itself and I'd really like to talk about the film," but the press wouldn't let him. "We have amicably agreed on the settlement and all parties are happy to put this misunderstanding behind," noted his partner, Dale Wheatley. Finally, with the reporters being relentless on the matter, producer and Zentropa spokesperson Peter Aalbaek Jensen jumped in: "We from Europe had to save an American film from the worst kind of American imperialism: the studio system . . . the star system that was going to kill these two young guys. These nationalists used every fucking power play to squeeze these young guys that just made a film together with their friends. So that's a disgrace really, for the business in America that treats young artists like that. ICM tried to kill them. Because I'm a radical left wing communist, these guys repelled me so we had a rebellion against the American monster business." "I would correct that though," Mr. Robb jumped in. ICM had no involvement." Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey McGuire fail to stop the release of Don's Plum Wednesday, July 5, 2000 Don's Plum, the 1995 film that Titanic star Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire went to court in an attempt to block its release, is finally on the verge of cinema distribution. DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire - the Pleasantville and Ride with the Devil star - succeeded last year in preventing the indie flick from reaching American and Canadian cinemas, claiming in court that they had not been aware it was intended for commercial release. Producer David Stutman alleged that Maguire wanted to block its release because the actor felt he did not come off as strong a leading man as DiCaprio, and that some improvisational comments he had made in the course of the film would undermine his public image. DiCaprio - despite apparently liking the film when he first saw it - opted to put his considable weight behind his pal's attempts to prevent the film's release. But earlier this year, Danish director Lars von Trier's Zentropa studio snapped up the pic for international distribution. Its release is now imminent. "We are adding the finishing touches to the movie right now and expect it to be complete around August 1," says a spokesperson for the Copenhagen-based studio. The likelihood of a worldwide release will alarm DiCaprio and Maguire - the film is rumoured to feature 'steamy' scenes involving the pair and several of their friends. Director David Stutman has always denied the duo's claims. In his legal case against DiCaprio and Maguire, Stutman claims that "Maguire and DiCaprio decided to stop the film for their own egomaniacal purposes." He alleges that the pair, using DiCaprio's clout as a newly-annointed superstar, "carried out a fraudulent and coercive campaign to prevent release of the film and destroy its value." When, earlier this year, an unnamed executive producer complimented the pair publicly for "their amicable spirits, gentlemanly behaviour and wisdom" throughout the imbroglio, Maguire and DiCaprio promptly sued him too for so much as mentioning the affair because doing so violated a confidential settlement agreement. |
Don's
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