You wouldn't really expect a sports site like ESPN.com to have anything, well smart and engaging, about movies. But, for the Page 2 of the site, they have hired a guy named Rob Ryder who is a former college basketball player and now Hollywood screen writer, among other things, to write a weekly column.
Naturally, the focus of Mr. Ryder's efforts are sports oriented, but still interesting.
Here is the link to this week's column, and the other columns are archived to the right of the current one.
Small taste:
At least Burg has a pretty good sense of humor. Like the time we were prepping "Eddie." We hadn't left for Charlotte yet, so we were working in one of Disney's high rises in Burbank. Whoopi was visiting, and she was one very unhappy camper.
You learn to keep your head down in the movie business. Doesn't matter what department you're in. As soon as the s--- starts flying you close your door (if you're lucky enough to have one). So there I was, alone at my desk, trying to figure out how in hell, in the midst of a nasty NBA lockout, we were gonna put actual NBA players in uniforms when the uniforms belonged to management.
Suddenly, I heard Whoopi go off. This wasn't one of those slow builds. Oh no, this was an explosion — a monumental, seven-expletive tirade laced with what sounded like a string of extremely imaginative, quasi-sexual improbabilities about to be committed on said producer, Mark Burg.
I closed my door.
The thing about movie stars ... when they yell at you, you can't yell back. You've gotta eat it. You've gotta take it like the hot-shot producer you are.
Then you turn around and dump it on your assistant.
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