Hopefully LaBeouf will enjoy the infringement lawsuit...

Shia LaBeouf has been trying to be hip and cool for years now. So far, it's not working.

I think it's part of his contract that in every film he makes, he must be shown riding a motorcycle.

At this point, who cares?

I care, and I'm one of those people who thought Bukowski was an ass.

But to see this guy, who lives like a fairy princess, try to pass off the man's work as his own is just disgusting.

Then again, the 'Battlefield Earth' screenwriter now teaches screenwriting, so maybe it's just Hollywood's idea of talent. Business as usual in Babylon and all that.

I think you'll find in the case of your Raymond Chandler example that Rebecca Harding Davis never said that, it's just that someone attached her name by mistake to the ThinkExist quote.

Is there anything sadder than a 27 year-old ripping off *Bukowski* and thinking no one will notice?

Possibly caring about Bukowski in the first place is sadder.

I read him - waste of time that it was - and I wouldn't have noticed that.

Then again, the 'Battlefield Earth' screenwriter now teaches screenwriting

Are you serious? I'm not fan of Lron the man, but Battlefeild Earth was a good book, once you remove the paragraph he so obviously inserted just to say "FU" to psychiatry, and than movie was one of the worst adaptation I have ever seen, and that was before it just cut the story in half

I don't understand what's going on with this guy, if he's having a breakdown or what. These days it's hard to get away with plagiarizing anything to any degree, so when someone tries, I have to wonder if he was in his right mind.

It's not like he was under any pressure to write a short film. He has a whole acting career that seems to be in fine shape.

Somehow I have never developed enough care about any art form from painting, sculpture, poetry, writing, dance, or any of the rest to care whether I have Van Gogh or cousin Phillip's oil painting hanging on the wall.

I'll say what I do and don't like, but the eye chart of a dot in the center of a canvas is totally lost on me; no matter how many times it is explained.

So if some idiot stole from another, I don't care.

> to see this guy, who lives like a fairy
> princess, try to pass off the man's
> work as his own is just disgusting

Well, yeah... Listen, I'm enjoying this and the next post as much as anybody. But snarking at actors, young ones, is fish in a barrel.

I spent a youth drunk on pop culture, then built a career in it (while consuming moderately in private life). With the passage of time, there seems less and less actual 'talent' in movie stars, or in any actor.

They often look cool. That's really all it takes, if they're willing to show up on time when the movie's being filmed. A few grams of muscle at the delta of the jawline, an unusually mild fold to the eyelid, and some people will pay fourteen dollars three times a year.

I once edited a TV interview with (googling) Christopher Walken, where he was asked why he'd been so successful, especially at playing horrible men, guys nothing like himself. He answered sincerely as if he'd thought about it a lot, but said he had no idea. Paraphrase: 'They see something in my countenance, and they respond to it. It has nothing to do with me.' He was humble and grateful.

So they get paid a lot of money, but it's not worth getting too upset about.

No one should, and almost no one really does, count on them for clarity or courage in any context. When they are doing something admirable, it's usually happening in the most intimate and private settings of their lives... Just as it is with everyone else, just as it is with everyone reading this blog post.

Gog may well be right about Bukowski, from whom I've never read a word. But as described by Pierce and others, were Bukowski alive to see this happening this week, he'd be much more amused than offended…

Because Shia LaBouef.

Breaking News: Shia LaBeouf acts like a spoiled brat. In other shocking events, grass is now green.

Shia started a fight with someone he thought he could beat. Well instead he got beaten up by a fat shirtless hairy Canadian man.

He got beaten up in London for filming women vomiting.

He has been beaten up other times at bars.

Shia laPiñata.

"He answered sincerely as if he'd thought about it a lot, but said he had no idea. "

This is why Hollywood types perceive wealth and success as being so inherently unfair. Because in their world, success is largely determined by genetics and connections; talent and hard work have little to do with it. I know that in the music industry, for every band that makes it, I can show you ten bands that are at least as good and work at least as hard, but never get a sniff from anyone who can make them -- a major label, or a top manager or promoter. Hollywood is a world full of gatekeepers, and their criteria for who gets through the gate can be pretty arbitrary.

And I must confess that, although I've heard the name before, I had to Google Shia LaBouef to find out who he is.

> This is why Hollywood types perceive
> wealth and success as being so
> inherently unfair.

True enough, but—

[1.] When they're decent enough to feel gratitude, they'll remember their own toil, and see the toil of the talented people around them who really to have to struggle to do well.

[2.] We're making some sour-grapes-y psychological presumptions, but a person who perceives that unfairness knows on some conscious level that they're not as special as they seem.

True enough, Crid, but I think [1] contributes to [2] which in turn contributes to the whole attitude. Practically everyone in the industry has friends that they regard as just as talented and hard-working as themselves, yet the friends don't have any success. They see this, and I think it corrupts their whole attitude towards success.

I'm not sure if actors' opinions can be generalized any more than anyone else's – I've spoken to Peter Jurasik, and a few other actors not considered to be "A-list", and they are remarkably reasonable and wonderful people to speak to.

> yet the friends don't have any success

CD- You're right, it's circuitous. For example:

> they are remarkably reasonable and wonderful
> people to speak to.

Undoubtedly! But again, most people reading this blog probably have a social circle, or at least a social sector, like that. Duzzinmeen those opinions should carry extra value.