Not many people have the cojones to stand up to Nikki Finke, but Joe Carnahan does– pretty much ensuring him a lifelong enemy.
In a video interview with other Finke-hater/movie blogger Dave Poland, Carnahan let loose on Finke who had recently posted a news report/hit piece on the merry-go-round of writers on “The A-Team” just two days before it theaters. If you want to see the difference between an actual journalist/reporter and Finke, just look at the LA Times coverage of the same story. But this isn’t the first time Carnahan has been in Finke’s crosshairs. Back in 2007 Finke called him an “incredible asshole” after the director made some rather outrageous statements on his now defunct blog about the writer’s strike. At the time, the two made nice and Finke published his retraction.
In the video, Carnahan doesn’t hold back (really, this guy should blog again) spewing forth what a lot of people in the industry already think. Of course, we read Deadline as much as the next person because they do have the inside track and often break stories. But Finke (though not so much her co-bloggers Tim Adler and ex-Variety scribe Mike Fleming) also likes to stir the pot, targeting specific movies or personalities that have pissed her off or crossed her for whatever negligible reason. See her recent posts on the supposedly low-tracking for “Knight & Day” (that also conveniently ignores Mike Fleming giving the film the Hot Trailer treatment the previous month); between that and “The A-Team” post, you wonder who on the Fox lot ended up tangling with her. The site as a whole also has a tendency to pretend the rest of the movie blogging world doesn’t exist while deleting comments that don’t fall in line with their staggeringly huge number of supporters who always tend to back up whatever line Finke is spouting at the moment.
But whatever, this is the game and we suppose it must be played. Carnahan probably would’ve been better off just ignoring her but hell, it’s entertaining and we’re sure there are more than a few people who are glad he had the stones to stay it. And he is kind of right, aside from being able throw her weight around certain industry corridors does Joe Moviefan in St. Louis know who she is or care what she thinks? Probably not. And it says something about Finke that she’s delighted she managed to get a reaction out of Carnahan. Nothing like supposed professionals acting like twelve-year-olds. Transcript and video after the jump:
She’s an idiot. You’ve got this fuckin’ moron who, I believe, her influence doesn’t stretch west of Bundy. I just think this town… But 99.999% of people outside of Hollywood have no fuckin’ idea who she is, or will miss her when she’s gone. She’s someone I really want to see, she’s got to, go down in flames. I just think she’s a miserable… That’s someone who’s antithetical to every good thing about this business, Nikki Finke. That’s why I don’t engage. I think she’s a putz. I can just see her surrounded by like 47 cats and, yes, she hasn’t been laid in about 17 years. And that’s fine. It’s unfortunate that she knows nothing and she just spits out venom and expects people to kind of circle the wagons. I swear to god the sun will set on her sooner rather than later, guaranteed. People like that don’t make it.