Invictus, Inschmictus

Last Friday night around 3 a.m., one of our readers sent me an email with some photos and a poster concept for Invictus. I’d seen the new title for Eastwood’s Mandela project on a few different sites last week, but didn’t think the news was important enough to post. Friday was a slow though, so I posted the artwork anyway, and mentioned the new important-sounding Latin title. Tried to check for “Invictus” on IMDb, but it wasn’t listed under the new title yet. I did a backdoor search through Matt Damon (always fun), and found the movie still being referred to as “The Human Factor” on IMDb, so I mentioned that offhand.

It was a simple bare bones post on the slowest traffic day of the week, but we still managed to churn it up into an 80+ comment topic that had legs all weekend, didn’t we? So what’s the problem? I dunno, you’ll have to ask Jeff Wells at Huffymood Elsinor, or whatever he calls his little movie blog.

This conceptual Invictus poster, posted yesterday by Ryan Adams on Awards Daily, is embarassing… I mean, it’s just crap… Plus Adams says the IMDB “hasn’t yet caught up with the title change” from The Human Factor to Invictus. Except they have.

Except they hadn’t. Not Friday morning when I wrote and posted the item. Wells links to the updated IMDb page on Sunday morning — a full 48 hours after I noticed IMDb lagging behind the news. Wells might be one of those people for whom nothing exists unless he says it exists. There’s probably an important-sounding Latin word for that.

Our buddy Kris Tapley next enters the fray, commenting on Wells’ eruption:

Also note the lack of sourcing where the title news broke (ditto Variety’s release date story, not that I’d expect more from them, but AD, yeah).

Always a diplomat, Kris is careful to clarify:

I say Ryan, by the way, because he posted it, not Sasha.

Wells cuddles up to console Kris:

They should have given you credit, Kris — you had it first.

ok, so apparently Tapley saw a twitter about the title and announced it with twitterpated fanfare early last week on I’m Contentious, or whatever he calls his little movie blog. Well, shit. Alrighty then. I might have known that, if I ever read anything Kris wrote, but I only visit his site to see what Guy Lodge has to say. Tapley might be one of those people who dreams of being a destination news source on the web. There’s probably an important-sounding Latin word for that.

I’d already read about Invictus on several other sites over a period of several days. Not only was it not very important news, it was old news. I thought the title had already entered the realm of common knowledge by the time I wrote about it.

But just to be safe, how about every time any one of us mentions the title ‘Invictus’ between now and next February, we be sure to pay a perpetual finders-fee to Kris Tapley in the same breath, ok? Because Kris’s little snit has forced me to go searching for the source of his fact, breathlessly narrated by Kris himself:

But back to that Twitter message. It read, quite simply, “Eastwood’s film called Invictus.” So I called Malpaso, Eastwood’s production company. I asked if this was indeed the case and was told, swiftly, “that’s still all in the works.” No confirmation was forthcoming. Fair enough. I got Chad on the phone and tracked down his source, which was an internal industry email that read: “Please note, Clint Eastwood’s untitled Nelson Mandela film is now titled ‘Invictus.’” A quick email to his source at Warner Bros. and I got the confirmation. We have a title. But what does it mean?

oh hell, screw what it means. Please, Kris, oh please can’t you provide more self-satisfied details? Can’t you tell us any more about A Day In The Life of Kris Tapley? Which brand of phone did you use to call Chad? Which finger do you normally use to dial? What were you wearing? What did you have for breakfast that morning? I don’t know about the rest of you, but I never get enough of Kris Tapley and His Astonishing Address Book.

Sorry, but is this a story about Eastwood choosing Invictus as the title, or is it a story about Kris Tapley, Ace Reporter, Maestro of the Speed Dial, Prince of Googlers?

You two are hilarious.

“Ryan Adams Slanders IMDb!!” — a scathing expos√© by Jeff Wells

“Houston, We Have a Title!!” — the intimate memoirs of Kris Tapley

yeah, I’m beating the hell out of this, but c’mon. You guys have nothing better to do than mince around the web seeing if people are paying enough attention to you? I know the poster was skimpy basis for a post, but here at Awards Daily our readers are famous for grasping at the straws I toss out and spinning them into pure gold.

I’ll tell you how I feel about that poster we featured. I admire a fan who takes the time and has the talent to pay tribute to a movie he’s enthusiastic about by creating his own personal concept for a poster. I have a lot more respect for that kind of passion than I do for the skill of flipping open a cell phone to confirm some news that the whole world will find out about a day or two later anyway, regardless of who dug it up first.

So Kris, if you want exclusive rights to a story, try finding a story that’s not on the verge of splashing all over the web on its on momentum. Face it, they were gonna have to tell us the title of Invictus sooner or later, whether you dragged it out of them or not.

And Jeff, don’t call me out over something so ridiculous as a laggy IMDb update. Especially when your own laggy ass is two days late checking out the page for yourself. geez, what possible reason do you imagine I’d have to invent such a story?

I can’t explain why IMDb didn’t update their page until after I posted about it on Friday. Maybe the IMDb updater dude doesn’t ever read In Contention, but he’s a big fan of AD?

Finally, who really cares who breaks the news about a friggen title? While you guys were busy sneering at a poster, we turned the topic into one the most lively we’ve had here in days. It was never about the poster or the title — it’s about having an excuse to hash things out about the movie and the filmmakers.

Look, I don’t want to do what those guys do. Who needs another self-important insider guru? Too many wankers spoil the circle jerk. I write about things that interest me, post a basic framework, and hope our readers want build extensions into launchpads for good conversation. If a topic catches fire here, we always have a lot more meaningful things to say in the comments, don’t we? That’s more important to me than anything I write in the original post that might light the fuse.

Sure, the debate we had about about Invictus and Eastwood might have spun off on half a dozen wild tangents. Because we step right around the standard bullshit the news pipeline spews out. That’s what I love about Awards Daily. We don’t have our heads stuck up the industry’s ass.