Dear Mr. Biskind,

I am dizzy having read DOWN AND DIRTY PICTURES. With your sloppy research and opinionated writing you have actually made me feel DIRTY as well. I want a bath. It seems that whoever bowed and curtsied to you gets worshipped and whoever challenges you gets skewered.

Let's start with the personal. As in the past with me, you print a story without even bothering to get another side of it. I never sought to be in your self-aggrandizing book, but if you were going to print two pages about something that happened to me you could have at least tried to contact me. I know you had Vanity Fair contact me seeking a number for someone else so you certainly could have reached me if you wanted. How many other people did you fail to contact because lies made for a better story?

My long-put-to-rest beef with Quentin Tarantino involved things that happen between friends when they drift apart. Now this is a common paradigm in Hollywood and maybe to some no big deal. To me who was just starting out at the time and to many others, these things were a big deal and I come from a background where the truth is very important (after reading your book, you clearly come from a different neighborhood).

Everything finally culminated in my former partner Jane Hamsher's book KILLER INSTINCT (which you choose to ignore altogether while addressing Tarantino) in which she outlined truthfully every thing that Quentin did at the time. Sort of a final word on the subject. Of course you can't sue over the truth, so as his last refuge, he sucker punched me in a restaurant. And the world still turns. It probably wasn't the biggest thing that happened to either of us that day.

Fortunately for the truth, Quentin recounts the moment rather accurately for you or at least for your purposes. You don't even try to get the other side of the story. That really sets the tone for your book. As far as Quentin goes, we made peace I believe years ago now and I wish him and his films well.

But it gets better. It seems if you cooperated with Biskind, you are a prince (Tarantino, Bingham Ray, Ethan Hawke) and if you didn't, or did too late, you suck wind (Weinstein, Malin, Redford). How asinine and how obvious! How sad! Do you really believe that Bingham Ray stood outside Malin's door and slagged him off on a daily basis? How can you talk about what happened in the sale of THE APOSTLE when I personally have confirmed you never contacted some of the parties on one side? How can you do little things like say that Chloe Sevigny was an established actress before KIDS when I know Larry Clark told you she was his discovery and never acted before? Fact after fact is just wrong, muddled and unchecked. Person after person just grinds their axes against Redford, Weinstein et al. And when you allow people to grind an ax unchallenged, how is that good reporting?

Where you fall flat on your face is where so many lazy entertainment reporters fall on their face- YOUR ENTIRE PREMISE IS BASED ON FALSE INFORMATION. The clearest example of this comes when most places report Box Office Grosses and say that "Bad Boys 2 earned $130 million at the BO for Columbia" when in reality Columbia might see $70 million of that. Reporters don't want to do the real work and just want to spoon feed nonsense to the public. This is what you do repeatedly while jumping on Harvey Weinstein. Examples?

The writers feel they are owed more money on GOOD WILL HUNTING.
Merchant Ivory feel they are owed back end on ROOM WITH A VIEW (from October/Cinecom)
Someone thinks Harvey owes them backend on MY LEFT FOOT.
Julie Taymor is upset since Harvey is recutting Frida.
Harvey decimiates Todd Haynes by recutting VELVET GOLDMINE.
Miramax employees work insane hours.

On and on you hold up these circumstances of how horrible Harvey is without ever truly addressing the REAL point- Harvey may be nasty, may be horrible, may be an ogre I don't know but EACH and EVERY person that complains to you agreed to their own fate. How can I say that so clearly? - because I promise you that those employees knew what the job was and could have quit at any time. They CHOSE not to. I promise you that those people whining about back end agreed to accounting mechanisms that will leave them without any profit into the next 100 years. THEY SIGNED CONTRACTS to that effect with legal counsel advising them. Directors sign agreements with Miramax where they don't have final cut- and then they get recut. Either negotiate for final cut and gross points which Miramax will HAVE to respect as a public company or shut the hell up and deal with it. Blaming Harvey for doing what he has a RIGHT to do is stupid and you are more stupid for slanting it otherwise.

Ohhh how horrible!!! Harvey holds up the "I'll put your film direct to video card"! WELL somebody agreed to that in the contract. Film sits on shelf? Somebody signed off on their own demise. And if someone is too desperate, I sympathize, but why blame Harvey? The OTHELLO people had a guaranteed release in their contract. Other people do get gross from Miramax. It can be done. But if you sign a contract otherwise how dare you bitch about it later. The HAIRY BIRD lady deserves some sympathy I suppose but what did Harvey do wrong?- he bought a film and it is his to eat if he wants to. The fact that she put up her own money for P and A shows that she is a masochist, nothing more.

For the record I have no business dealings with Harvey and never had. Outside of the Tarantino attack I've met him maybe twice in passing. I have some business with Bob but very little and none going anywhere. I am not defending them to curry any favor but because you are a fool who didn't bother to research facts (I mean how could WATERWORLD lose money for Warners when Universal made it? Please explain.) and who holds up as fact ignorant opinions.

Indeed, in the chapter when you go on about Harvey losing his shit at fundraisers and various places, I shook my head- did it never occur to you that after the hospitalization, the poor guy might have been on medicines that made him act irrationally? That doesn't excuse bad behavior, but to not even offer that as a possibility speaks volumes to your agenda, doesn't it?

When he finally passes away Harvey Weinstein will be remembered as many things, but to the general public he will be venerated as a larger than life character who made cool, difficult films happen. What will people say about you?

We could go on and on about this but why bother? You think I am a jerk just ranting on about your masterwork and I know you are an obsessed bad journalist who ignores pesky facts that don't add to his skewed point of view.

I rest happy that this book will barely sell (can you imagine someone in Arkansas calling in from the other room "Sugah, you won't believe what that Weinstein guy just said to Salma Hayek? Dang!") and that you know that at least one person out there knows you for what you are.

Sincerely,
Don Murphy