I found these today on the Junk Feud blog as I was doing my rounds. They reminded me of something I once said many years ago – that celebrities should start fighting back using the same weapons as the paparazzi do. Cameras! I remember thinking that if I was ever in the situation of being a celebrity and I was pissed off with the paparazzi then that’s what I would do. I mean why not?

Obviously Drew Barrymore and Reese Witherspoon have had the same idea, going by these pictures.

It also reminded me of a couple of other things. One of my wonderful network of people who help me out at The REG Temple sent me a link to a video of Richard E. Grant a number of years back. I checked it out (in my capacity as Richard’s official webmeister) and it was pretty darn cool. No sound at all and filmed in a jerky scratchy type way – a little like that famous suspect sighting of Bigfoot from the 70′s (or whenever it was) except REG was in a dinner suit and a lot better looking. The intriguing thing though is that part way through the filming Richard takes out a camera of his own and takes a picture, before disappearing through a doorway.

Now the web page that the video was on didn’t really contain any info at all as to how or why this little piece of film came about? I decided to email the webmaster of the site for permission to use the video on The Temple and to maybe find out a bit about the background of it. Apparently the people who shot the film were making their own documentary about the making of a major motion picture, The Age Of Innocence, when they just happened to see Richard walking down the street on his way to the next scene. For some reason he just happened to have his own camera and decided to use it – probably thinking that the documentary makers were paparazzi? The film was originally shot on Super8 and then transferred to video, before being made into a Quicktime movie for the web. I can’t remember whether or not I’ve asked REG about it but he might not remember the incident anyway? Actually I should email him and let him know it’s up on the site because he might get a laugh from it? If anyone else wants to see it you can do so here. Keep in mind that the quality isn’t great though after being through so many transitions.

Another thing I was reminded of also involved Richard and was also a number of years ago. I awoke one morning to receive a whole lot of emails from different people around the world wanting confirmation on Richard’s “impending retirement”. Some sent me links and scanned newspaper articles which clearly stated that Richard was retiring and was never going to work on another movie ever again. It all seemed a little odd as REG had not mentioned it at all to me. I immediately sent an email off to him to ask him if it was true and what it was all about? He emailed me back the next day basically stating that it was all crap, but that he had actually started it the night before.

Richard had been a special guest at an awards presentation where the paparazzi were out in force. One particular newspaper reporter apparently harassed Richard so much that, in his annoyance, he’d turned around and stated to them that he was retiring and that they should basically piss off and leave him alone. The next thing he knows is that it’s in all the newspapers the next morning and the phone is ringing off the hook. An unfortunate example of having it all backfire on you.

I’ve also noticed that quite a few celebrities out there are logging on to the net and starting up their own blogs. I’ve not been to any of them though but I’ll check them out sometime soonish. I think it’s cool actually, as it gives them the opportunity to tell their fans their own version of events rather than have a whole lot of crap being told about them in the newspapers and glossy magazines! Of course all of that stuff will still happen but at least the “power” of blogging means that people can get a different perspective on things rather than just automatically swallowing the media’s bullshit. In fact you can’t trust any major media outlet nowadays. You REALLY have to get your information from a whole lot of different sources before you can make a truly considered opinion!

As a nice little finish to this post I saw this example at The Mad Pigeon blog. I thought it was apt and quite funny.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 11th, 2005 at 11:45 pm and is filed under Blogs, The REG Temple, The Web. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.