Yesterday I had one of those eureka moments that was once sole the province of dedicated conspiracy theorists with walls covered in red twine, but which the internet now makes available to all and sundry.
In the course of my daily web rounds, I stumbled upon a new blog–new to me, anyway–that’s part entertainment industry gossip rag and part Hollywood corruption whistle blower site. The blog, Crazy Days and Nights, has been running since 2006, and the writers are prolific.
Between celebrity photos and tabloid micro-posts, you find gut-wrenching exposes like this one. The bloggers never name names, but they give you enough clues that a quick IMDb search is usually enough to ID the accused.
It’s natural to be skeptical about an anonymous web site that claims to have the deepest, darkest, filthiest dirt on A list celebrities. I’d affirm that such skepticism is healthy. But in this case there’s a twist that may lend Crazy Days and Nights an extra measure of credibility.
Almost all of the content on the site is posted under two main accounts. The main account holder, who is also the blog’s proprietor, claims to be an entertainment lawyer. This account is responsible for 90% of the posts. The other 10% are credited to an account known only as Himmmm.
The Himmmm posts are the diamonds buried in the Hollywood dirt unearthed at Crazy Days and Nights. They’re alleged to be written by a major player within the film industry who often provides firsthand exposes of the scummiest enormities imaginable, including the sexual abuse of minors by name celebrities.
“So what?” You might ask. “Any dog at a keyboard could claim to be a Hollywood insider blowing the whistle on assault, financial scams, and pedo rings. Why give any more credence to Himmmm?”
Fair question. And there’s no definite answer. However, enticing hints have surfaced from certain quarters that have, shall we say, a reputation for infallibility.
In case the above image is too hard to see, here’s a Reddit thread linked from the /pol/ discussion.
Again, these forum threads could rightly be seen as kicking the can a little farther down the road. By themselves, they’re hearsay at best.
Now let’s take a look at a Himmmm post, hear what he has to say for himself, and see if we can connect some dots with more solid lines.
Let’s rewind the clock to the early aughts in this century when my own personal and professional lives intersected on a single project with friends. A foreign-born director (who has done about three projects in the past decade after working on one blockbuster after another as a cinematographer) was fairly new to the job with only a couple of films he directed and he really wanted to make a good impression. He’d been the Director of Photography for major action movies and dramas for many years, and worked with the biggest s**itheels and pricks in the biz. He was probably the best cinematographer in the biz and he was a total pro, and a real gentleman, and loved by everyone including this demanding prima donna (Permanent A list singer/actress who is an Academy Award winner/nominee in more than one category) who said he was the only one who could light and shoot her correctly. He didn’t care, he just wanted to be a successful director. Most of all? He wanted to be a nice guy – and he always was.
I had met the director on another project for the same studio in 1998 (A sequel to a huge hit which had been based on a television show) and more than working together, we enjoyed being friends. As it happened, the director’s manager was also my manager at the time (you will have better luck guessing him as the producer of a movie which stars an original friend of the site, a permanent A list singer who would kill to be a movie star and that foreign born actor everyone loves) and I got to know the director pretty well. The director and I shared a love for the same old movies, cars, and yummy wine. Boxes, bags, or bottles didn’t matter. We weren’t snobs. The manager was helping steer the director into his full time directing career and out of being a D.P. So the manager was also Fourth-Executive-Uncredited-Associate Producer on their newest upcoming movie project (action movie with a pretty good cast and a multiple mug shot taker). In other words the manager was there doing nothing but hanging out with the director. This movie was one of several directed under the Warner Bros. Studios deal of a major big Producer (permanent A+ list producer who has not had his name in the trades regarding any sexual harassment) who basically gave them the keys and let them run with the project (as long as it was profitable). It would also turn out to be the first film where I’d make several important life-long relationships, including one lady who was cutting her teeth as a Third-Associate-Executive Producer on this project for the big producer (The wife of someone we all initialize and adore on the site).
Following the trail of breadcrumbs, there were only two movies from 1998 that were sequels to TV show properties. One was the sequel to The Odd Couple, which could never be called “a huge hit”.
The other was U.S. Marshals, the follow up to 1993’s smash hit The Fugitive.
U.S. Marshals co-starred Robert Downey Jr.
It gets better. The cinematographer on U.S. Marshals was Andrzej Bartkowiak. He originally hails from Poland, has been an accomplished DP on acclaimed action films and dramas since the 70s, made the move to director in the early 2000s, and was divorced at the time, just as Himmmm said.
Bartkowiak perfectly fits every detail of the squeamish director in Himmmm’s story.
The theory hits a snag when you notice that IMDb doesn’t list RDJ as having worked on any of Bartkowiak’s early 2000’s films. But that’s not a deal-breaker since Himmmm mentions going uncredited in the story.
Is Robert Downey Jr. the anonymous blogger–or one of the anonymous bloggers–known as Himmm?
Who knows? But with the way the wind is blowing in Hollywood of late, it wouldn’t be too much of a surprise to see RDJ testifying before a grand jury or two against the scumbags who’ve made Tinseltown their debauched playground for far too long.