An Open Letter to Murali K. Thalluri, Part II

Murali,

Thank you for replying to my earlier letter.

It was slightly better than your previous attempts - emphasise the word slightly. You obviously made an attempt to show signs of rudimentary compromise, by conceding a few preliminary points, despite refusing to budge on their corollaries.

Even so, your reply was filled with the same sort of fallacious, inconsistent arguments I've long become accustomed to. Some of your errors include misleading vividness, special pleading, a continued disingenuous framing of several points (intentional or otherwise), a strategic omission of at least one point from my letter that pre-emptively responded to your reply, and numerous appeals to emotion. I will address all of these in suitable detail another time.

For now, though, let me address a single point from your blog entry Rants and Raves:

I wish I never used my life story to promote this film. The fact is I talked about it in one interview, and after that it was all that reporters wanted to talk about, I foolishly obliged.

Murali K. Thalluri, 1/14/2007

I reflected on this when I initially read it. This seemed to come from a Murali I'd rarely seen before: humbler, candid, regretful. It was in line with an earlier plea:

I would really appreciate it if you can stop all of this, and allow the public to focus on my film, and not me. I don't want the focus on me, I want it on my film.

Murali K. Thalluri, 29/5/2006

In congruence with this statement, you later claimed "everything else I have to say is in the film". You also criticised the film Apocalypse Now for requiring the making-of documentary Hearts of Darkness to further appreciate it.

So, to summarise, the position you present is:

• One's appreciation of a film should be confined to its contents - the film should "speak for itself".


• Conversely, external material about a film is superfluous to its appreciation.


• You don't want the public to focus on your personal story.


• You in fact regret using your personal story to promote your film.

However, it turns out it was only a matter of time before this stance was ultimately botched.

Case in point:

You recently published The 2:37 Story, a vivid and very personal account of the events behind the making of 2:37, placing it prominently on your site. Despite the points above you appeared to argue for in earnest, you have gone to notable efforts to tell "those who don't know anything about [you]" about your "incredible journey".

Your distaste for using external material to heighten appreciation of a piece apparently disappears when you can employ it for your benefit.

Your claimed regret about using your personal story for promotional purposes has evidently been jettisoned.

This, frankly, is blatant hypocrisy. You, sir, are incorrigible.

Until next time,

Clayfoot

An Open Letter to Murali K. Thalluri

Dear Murali,

I noticed your blog entry entitled Tall Poppy? lasted about three days before it was taken down (click here for a reprint of Thalluri's original blog entry). I'm uncertain if this is because you retracted your reply or if it was lost in some technical glitch. It's been about a week since it disappeared, with no sign of it returning. Either way, I think enough time has passed to warrant a reply.

I was amused how you framed your response: for instance, you brand your critics with accusations of tall poppy syndrome, as if this would somehow invalidate their claims against you. In reality, this is an ad hominem attack, a classic fallacy. Even if your opponents were jealous of you, it might explain why they have the position they do, but it would have no bearing whatsoever on whether that position was true or not.

Likewise, you ask rhetorically "does the fact that [Daniel Krige] has a film about suicide called 'West' coming out next year mean anything? Hmmm?"

Again, this is a fallacious argument, specifically a circumstantial ad hominem attack. Krige may have indeed said things that serve his own interests, but it does not automatically follow that his claims must be false.

To demonstrate this, consider the same argument with the name changed: "does the fact Thalluri has a film about suicide called 2:37 coming out next year on DVD mean anything? Hmm?"

Another amusing aspect of your response was this insistence that answering questions was "unnecessary", and your chiding of people "who won't let sleeping dogs lie".

This would imply the controversy had actually been settled. But just a few days ago (December 7th), an article from the AAP was published on news.com.au, stating:

Thalluri said [2:37] was inspired by a video suicide note sent to him from an Adelaide friend, known only as Kelly, before she took her life.

Media and industry have criticised Thalluri, accusing him of fabricating the note and saying no suicides occurred in Adelaide on the day of the alleged incident.

Thalluri has maintained he simply did not want to reveal the victim's identity in order protect her family.

Critics have also said the film is too similar to American director Gus Van Sant's movie Elephant.

Though you may wish it was, the controversy surrounding you and your movie has been far from resolved.

Grave doubts persist over your honesty and integrity.

I would now like to address some of your responses to my questions:

On that 17 minute standing ovation:

Make no mistake, a standing ovation at Cannes is a wonderful thing, and nobody disputes that you are entitled to feel proud of it. But to exaggerate its length would be a horribly conceited act indeed.

In your response to me, you are emphatic that the first standing ovation at Cannes went for "17 minutes, if not longer". Yet you then rush to add a disclaimer that it doesn't matter if the standing ovation was "10-14-15 or 17 minutes".

You were evidently hedging your bets.

The standing ovation video you released shows the credits for 2:37, which last 6 minutes, still rolling after 15 minutes of applause have supposedly elapsed. You claim that this is not due to deceptive but rushed editing. How much time do you think you saved? 5 minutes? 15 minutes?

As evidence of your claims, you suggest I just "ask ANYONE who was in the room, and who doesn't have some sort of axe to grind".

But I've looked for impartial third party accounts, from the media, reviewers or bloggers who were there. Even the most positive reviews from the time don't mention a standing ovation of the length you assert. In contrast, the 15-20 minute standing ovations at Cannes for Fahrenheit 9/11 and Don't Come Knocking were reported widely. Even Kevin Smith's 8 minute standing ovation for Clerks II was widely reported.

I am also somewhat puzzled why the first standing ovation was 2-3 times longer than the second one that day.

Yes, perhaps I could find somebody who was there and ask them to guess how long they thought it was, 6 months later.

But why bother?

Why should we rely on imperfect human memory when you have a tape documenting the event? Nobody could possibly argue against 17+ unblinking minutes of applause caught on camera. It would finally silence your critics on this issue and give you a boost in credibility.

Why not release the raw footage?

On Paul Fabbro:

I am glad you at least tried to address this question, as it is more or less consistent with what I have learned. I asked it mainly to put this ghostwriter rumour to rest.

However, one might criticise your answer for what it omitted: are you and Paul still such good friends now? Wasn't Paul's discontent for the way he was treated expressed to you via his lawyer in the form of a threat of legal action? Is it also worth mentioning that Fabbro is gagged by a non-disclosure agreement, and thus is prevented from commenting directly on the matter?

On "Kelly's" suicide tape:

You claim that you don't know when your friend "Kelly" made her suicide note, and therefore don't know how long before her alleged suicide it took place.

This does seem to be back-pedalling from the language that suggests immediacy you used earlier: eg. "watching someone scream, cry, shout and beg as they prepare to carry through with the act of taking their own life", "she knew as soon as she pressed that stop button she knew she was going to take her own life".

But more significantly, since the note is on DV format, you should know when it was recorded. Along with the timecode, every frame of DV footage has the date and time of recording embedded in it. With any digital video camera, you usually press a button in playback mode (date/time) and this information is superimposed over the picture. Voilà, date of creation. But why am I the one telling you this?

It's also interesting that you also claim you don't know who delivered this suicide note to you. You suggest the possibility a friend of "Kelly" delivered it to you.

If so, this raises a bunch of questions.

For one, it contradicts what you said in your interview with Richard Fidler:

Fidler: Going back to your friend Kelly, why did she send you the note, did she send it to other people?

Thalluri: Oh, no, we were very close friends, so... (trails off)

Since you now think that a friend could have received the tape and forwarded it on to you, one wonders, if these were indeed her last words in a desperate state, why the friend didn't try to warn "Kelly's" family? Have you spoken to any of "Kelly's" friends? At the funeral or otherwise?

On Daniel Krige's claims:

You have disputed Krige's claim that he heard Nick Matthews declare in Sydney that the suicide story of "Kelly" and yourself was fabricated for publicity. You offer two arguments for this:

1) You claim Matthews is a good friend and would never say such a thing because he knows your story is true.

2) You claim Matthews has not spent any length of time in Sydney for a year, and so could not have possibly been overheard by Krige.

Without any further evidence to substantiate these points other than your say-so, one must assume they are true to accept them. But this is an act of circular logic, as the whole point of the exercise is to work out if you are telling the truth or not.

There is no definitive evidence to show whether you are telling the truth or not.

Instead, let us examine Krige's story. Though you claim there are three different locations where this encounter supposedly took place, I have to date only seen one account, which is consistent with the story printed in The Australian.

But for fun, let's assume Krige is lying. He did not overhear Matthews in a Sydney bar and has never met Thalluri or his family. His story is nothing but a unsubstantiated jealous barb concocted to hurt a rival production company. "Kelly" really existed, and Krige doesn't know anything about her. Thalluri and Matthews, with the truth on their side, hold all the cards.

Krige is thus incredibly lucky he has when he starts to spread this nasty rumour. Though Thalluri and Matthews retain expensive lawyers, they don't slap him with a defamation suit in an open and shut case, despite knowing he's behind it. (I should point out, Murali, that you have not hesitated in the past to threaten litigation at the merest whiff of a potential defamation action).

Krige is luckier still when, for reasons he didn't anticipate, Thalluri and Matthews refuse to prove his story bogus by simply naming "Kelly". The fear of humiliation from being exposed for the lie it is must have been awful for Krige.

But Krige's luck hasn't stopped yet. Reporters look for obituaries and funeral notices matching Thalluri's description and find nothing. They interview his teachers who have never heard of "Kelly". They interview Thalluri's mother and get evasive answers.

Daniel Krige, if he made the whole thing up, has had a miraculous run and should buy a lottery ticket immediately.

Unsurprisingly, I find that story of compounding, improbable good luck rather unbelievable. I am completely perplexed that no legal action has been taken against him. Given it would be strongly in Thalluri's interest to dispel this story, the simplest explanation I can think of is that Krige's claims bear some truth. Cue the angry denials...

In conclusion:

Murali, you claim everything else you have to say is in the film. I interpret this to mean you want the film to speak for itself.

But judging from the past, this cannot be true. Why would you (or, if you insist, "your team") seed the IMDb boards with fake reviews before the movie even came out? Why would you post reviews and news articles about the film there and on your website? Why would you quarrel with people who make the obvious connection with 2:37 and Elephant, or arrogantly (and ignorantly) dismiss decades of research into media inspired imitative suicide? Why would you promote this film with vivid personal tales that began to crumble on closer inspection?

As pointed out above, this controversy continues to haunt you, and this sort of publicity cannot be good for one's career. I am aware 60 Minutes were filming a positive piece about you that had to be scrapped once the controversy hit the papers. Perhaps there were others?

Any "message" you may claim to have as a filmmaker can only be sapped and diminished by these gnawing issues that refuse to go away.

If you do want to shake this monkey off your back, you ought to deliver compelling, unambiguous evidence for your past claims. The piecemeal approach appealing to emotion, followed by long tracts of silence will get you nowhere.

Sincerely,

Clayfoot




Murali K. Thalluri's original post on his now-defunct blog, to which the above letter is a response:

Tall Poppy?

I have kept silent on the controversy surrounding 2:37, but I feel the need to answer a few lingering questions by certain individuals who won’t let sleeping dogs lie. Here are some questions that have been asked on the internet.

1) How long was your standing ovation at Cannes, really? Surely you could release the full, unedited tape of it on Google Video to quell the nay-sayers?

The standing ovation was 17 minutes, the tape was edited quickly because we wanted it to be available asap on the internet. There were two standing ovations on that day, one of them went for about 5-7 minutes (it wasn’t filmed) that was our second screening, however the first one went for 17 minutes, if not longer, all you have to do is ask ANYONE who was in the room, and doesn’t have some sort of axe to grind. However, regardless of whether it was 10-14-15 or 17 minutes, the reaction in Cannes was nothing short of amazing, and like I said, that day will forever go down in my mind as the day my dreams came true. I

2) Who is Paul Fabbro?

Paul Fabbro was a script editor on the film, and a good friend of mine, he was also my year 8 english teacher. In the making of 2:37, everyone (myself included) got paid minimal amounts, that is how we got the film made. Paul felt his work as a script editor far outweighed the payment he received, he let that be known to us, and over a series of negotiations we came to a figure that he felt reflected the amount of time he had put in the film. He never asserted that he wrote the script, nor would he. I wrote the script, and it was edited with the help of about 7 or 8 script editors. Everyone from Rolf De Heer, to my own cousins, read the script and gave me comments on it.

3) How in the name of Harry Houdini did your friend "Kelly" manage to post you that tape if she killed herself "as soon as she pressed the stop button" (your words).

I have no idea, I was not a fly on the wall, I was not there watching my friend ‘Kelly’. I just know that after she had passed on (a couple of days later) I received the video tape in the mail. I’d imagine she sent it before she did it, or gave it to a friend to send, I honestly cannot say, as I don’t know. I can’t answer that. In my interviews where I say, it was terrifying knowing that she was going to kill herself once she pressed the stop button, I meant that it was scary knowing that she made the tape knowing she was going to kill herself after making the tape, whether it was one hour after, or 3 days after I don’t know.

Re: the whole Daniel Krige issue, he said that he overheard Nick Matthews in three different places, saying that I made the entire thing up. a) Nick would never say this, because as one of my best friends, he knows it is all true. b) Krige initially said that Nick said this in a Sydney bar, when the last time Nick had been in Sydney (barring a stop off on our way to Cannes which was no more than an hour), was in December 2005, when we went over to screen the film to the Cannes selectors, and I was with him that entire night, but Krige said he heard Nick, weeks before the Melbourne Film Festival. All that doesn’t add up. Regardless, Krige didn’t approach me (i have never met him) he sent an e-mail out to every media outlet, film organization etc in the country. Does the fact that he has a film about suicide called ‘West’ coming out next year mean anything? Hmmm?

Now that is the first, and last time I am going to answer questions to faceless people on the internet. No more, I am working on my next project, and don’t want to keep answering unnecessary questions. Everything else I have to say is in the film.

My message to all those people ‘Clayfoot’, Michael Griffin etc, who dedicate so much time to trying to bring me down, I advise you live your own life. I wish you’d spend the amount of time you spend analyzing everything I do, on doing something productive.

I am a film maker, regardless of whether you like or hate my film, I am not hear to prove myself to anyone, I am here to make movies, and that is what I will continue to do. Stop trying to vilify me.

Tall Poppy? I think so...

Return

The Hydra

"If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged."

— Cardinal Richelieu.

The media has begun to pick up where we left off.

The Bunny is dead. Long live the Bunny.

RIP
Matthew Clayfoot
Born: 28 August, 2005
Killed: 17 August, 2006

The Tuttle Rebuttal

This site was recently featured in GreenCine Daily. Judging by the comments, reader reaction was mixed, from cautious support to ambivalence. One reader, HarryTuttle, was quite aghast at the whole affair, dismissing it as inconsistent. We believe this was borne from a misinterpretion of our statements, and we encouraged him to voice any specific qualms he had. Harry has done so with gusto, but we believe he still misses the point, and we respond in turn.

HarryTuttle: If Murali told the press already [about forging a teaching certificate to get a job] he doesn't need you to break the news...

Clayfoot: The very "blogosphere" itself revolves around disseminating existing news and ideas and adding one's own commentary to it. That post is no different from any other.

Besides, if we're trying to illustrate how we've come to conclusions about Murali's behaviour, wouldn't it be stupid to ignore strong circumstantial evidence like this?

What's absurd is your nitpicky suspision of every word [Spoken by Murali in the media about a friend 'Kelly', whose suicide partially inspired 2:37]... Try to trust him for a second and read it again. Give some rhetorical licence to what he says. The fact he doesn't recount the story precisely (intentionaly or not) doesn't make it untrue.

If Murali's tongue had slipped in one instance, we wouldn't have brought it up. However, he has repeated the same story in the media several times, creating the exact same impression: Kelly recorded the video immediately before committing suicide.

How did the tape get into the mail?

What's your claim here? That someone cannot record and send a video before suicide? Or that it's not possible to cry during recording if the suicide is (actually) delayed by the posting of the video?

By your implicit suggestion that recording the suicide video was not immediately followed by the final act, you contradict the story as told on multiple occasions, replacing it with one amended to be more plausible. Perhaps it's even the truth. We don't know, but we think we have apt reason for questioning the words of somebody we perceive as something of a mythomaniac.

We have found no evidence, beyond Murali's claims, that suggests his friend actually existed. Until we have more specific evidence of this, however, we are forced to rely on what we have, which is pointing out the inherent flaw in the story itself. We are not going to make up fake evidence, even to try to prove something we strongly believe. We are trying to conduct this as ethically and honestly as possible.

Decency begs not to ask for petty details in such circumpstances... are you from the police?

Of course, this is made very difficult by the sensitive nature of Murali's story. Anyone who questions these things - the suicide of his friend, his own suicide attempt - is inevitably going to come off as being extraordinarily cruel. We are very mindful of this. We are not callous people, and we hate being in this position.

However, our opinion of Murali, built from what we have seen, allows us to entertain the possibility that something could be amiss. We implore anybody able to definitively resolve this either way to come forward and do so.

Now in the hypothetical you're right, what's your motive to bring it up but for gossips? Since when directors are polygraphed to give interviews?

If the claim is correct, surely that makes Murali supremely insensitive, exploiting the public's sympathy on such a touchy issue, purely for furthering his own career and 2:37's success? That is not "gossip" in the here's-what-she's-wearing-this-week sense.

We are all for freedom of artistic expression, though while the boundaries between fact and fiction can be toyed with, they should be able to be ultimately delineated. Should we really believe in a Blair Witch haunting filmmakers in a forest, or that the events in Fargo actually took place since both were hinted at being real in some way? In the same vein, if a filmmaker's generally unquantifiable effusive hyperbole drifts into mentioning specific events and people as factual, the burden of proof for these statements should increase in a corresponding fashion.

Pot calling kettle black.
You write well. Quit living off other people's achievements and get on to work on your own original creation.

Thank you for the compliment.

This lovely disclaimer doesn't excuse your insistant and jealous bickering.

It is not jealousy that sparked this. We have tried to make this clear repeatedly. We are instead somewhat miffed that Murali, who appears to liberally stretch the truth should do so continually unchallenged, especially considering he threatened us for even hinting at the notion.

This caveat lector is a legal disclaimer, and a reminder to those who comment that we don't automatically publish their submissions.

We continuously receive unsubstantiated comments from readers making accusations about Murali. Many of these comments contain material that would be considered defamatory, which would leave us with a legal liability. We're not a gossip column - there are some standards here.

Fake multiple accounts might be a fraud on IMDb, not posting anonymously though, not posting unverifiable lies, or just stupid comments...
However official critics published in official papers have a responsability to follow ethics. Faking a critic is illegal. Faking an anonymous forum poster is not. Cite some laws proving otherwise please if you're so obsessive.
If it's true it makes Murali looks bad cause he shamelessly promote himself... that's all.

I hate to say it, but you've misread us again. (We appreciate that all this material verges on unwieldiness.)

As I have already written on my comment to you on Daily GreenCine and on this page itself, using multiple accounts to commit fraud on the IMDB may be somewhat unethical, but in the grand scheme of things it is a trifling indiscretion and is certainly not a crime. We have never said otherwise.

In our original post, MSN P[r]omo, we indirectly pointed out that Murali was likely using fake accounts on the IMDb to promote his film. This was done in a humorous context, with no editorialising on our part; we did not say this behaviour was unethical or illegal.

Murali then sent us a legal threat, which claimed that we had acted both unethically and illegally in MSN P[r]omo. This was untrue, offensive and hypocritical.

So, we thought that we would defend our claims. We weren't going to be bullied. We doubt you would put up with it either.

So, we called his bluff and raised the stakes.

Do you have a proof IMDb deleted these posts and not the author(s)? If not then you feed your fire with assumptions.

All the deleted threads are marked as being deleted by the administrator, not the poster. The users still exist, but have not, so far as I can tell, resumed commenting on 2:37 or any other film.

Pointing to Murali's bad spelling is shameful of you! and assuming that if a poster can't spell AND praise 2:37 must prove it IS Murali is ludicrous, not to mention insulting.

Why is pointing out his spelling shameful? He is a literate adult who not only speaks English natively, but works as a professional writer! That aside, spelling and praising the film are only a two of the confluence of other factors we drew from to form our perception of multiple accounts, you appear to have overlooked the others. Others have previously used Murali's writing style and grammatical errors to reach conclusions of fakery.

You don't trust what anonymous claim to be online? Welcome on the web! What else are you going to uncover? Water is wet btw ;) This policing of IMDb posters is not your job, how come you got invested of such mission? You just love denounciation? You really think you have the high moral ground there? You fancy yourself Woodward & Bernstein?

No, we don't fancy ourselves Woodward and Bernstein. Maybe closer to the guy who wrote this.

Even if it's him, or his crew, the cheap scoop isn't worth this sort of indiscreet spying, since it's not illegal. All he risks is a ban from IMDb.

Isn't 'indiscreet spying' an oxymoron?

Again, this is not about "scooping" Murali with his newfound stardom, nor pointing out how horrible it is he might lie on the internet, it is about proving that our suspicions are justifiable, nullifying any potential basis for further bullying legal action he may have.

What do you have against Frenchmen?

Absolument rien.

25 users voted for the film and you complain about a ballot stuffing of 11 votes??? gimme a break...

Okay, take a break.

This is a tangential claim, at best, but it's legitimate.

I guess the Cannes direction selecting the film proves it is plagiarism-proof, since you didn't see it, what entice you to purport such gossips if not jealousy? And you think you're impartial?

We have not accused Two Thirty 7 of plagiarising Elephant, but we are clearly aware that reviewers, who we assume don't have an axe to grind with Thalluri, are making the comparison. Why shouldn't the Cannes selectors pick out a film that shares aspects with a past winner, anyway?

Again, judgement is to be withheld until actually either of us actually see the film, though we would be idiots to ignore the fact that virtually every reputable review published so far has made the connection between the two films.

There remains another instance of plagiarism, in the form of "Jean Pierre" (we doubt he's really french) plagiarising Ms Michelle Wheeler's review of the movie. That is not open to dispute - she's even thanked us for pointing it out.

Footnotes : you're desperate for pseudo-evidences...

You're referring to the fact that several of the suspected fake accounts have similar number sequences in their names. Again, it's tangential, which is why it's a footnote. If we performed proper statistical sampling, though, what would you think then - academic rigour or unhealthy obsession?

Who cares? What's your accusation? He stole 5 mins from his first-time Cannes standing ovation? Get real...

Firstly, Thalluri's claim of a seventeen minute standing ovation is at odds with an independent claim stating it was five minutes - a difference of twelve minutes, not five as you say. This raises the question what kind of person, having attained his dream of entry into Cannes, is not satisfied with a marvellous truth and must instead exaggerate it to a degree that teeters on the brink of farce. A frank, honest account of the event would have been more impressive (because it'd be credible) than the mythology he may otherwise concoct for himself, at least in our view.

abc website says: "2:37 owes a big debt to Gus Van Sant's film Elephant, which also followed a group of teenagers in their intersecting paths in a suburban high school; and it's a debt Thalluri has acknowledged from the outset."

And what Murali says on the mic is he wrote the plot before seeing GVS's Elephant (about Columbine massacre), which has nothing to do with 2:37 (suicide whodunnit). Then says he borrowed the mise-en-scene (intertwined long takes) from GVS after watching the DVD.

Did you guys see either of these 3 films?

Again, the fact that 2:37 (apparantly) so closely resembles Elephant is, in and of itself, no particular cause for concern. Rather, it is the combination of all these elements that leads us to bring it up.

False Credentials

Murali K. Thalluri makes this admission is an interview with the ABC's Richard Fidler:

"I made a certificate saying I'd graduated from a certain drama school and I got a job working at a local acting school in South Australia as an acting teacher for 10 weeks and this allowed me to go in there and slowly spot talent. They thought I was their teacher so they opened up to me and if I liked someone I'd bring them in on the weekend and workshop them.

See also Peter Galvin's article on 2:37 in the latest issue of Inside Film Magazine (p. 22, issue 90, August 2006):

[Murali] faked a certificate and got a job teaching acting after school to spot talent.

This is the evidence. See for yourself. Make up your own mind.

There seems, to us, to be two obvious options here:

A) This story is a lie. Murali did not falsify his academic credentials in order to obtain employment, which he took advantage of towards his own ulterior motives. It is, rather, a memorable story to illustrate Murali's ambition, his desire to bend the rules and succeed, to fight the system.

B) This story is the truth. Murali falsified academic credentials in order to obtain employment, which he took advantage of to further his own ulterior motives. In doing so, he may have breached the South Australian Criminal Law Consolidation Act. According to section 144B(1) of the Act,

(1) A person who—

...

(b) falsely pretends—
(i) to have particular qualifications...

makes a false pretence to which this section applies.

We suggest you look closely at these particular offences in this context:

Deception
Dishonest dealings with documents
Dishonest manipulation of machines

If this story is the truth, Murali has perhaps broken other specific laws. For instance, aren't teachers supposed to be adequately qualified if they are dealing with minors? We're not sure. We're not lawyers.

Ultimately, this incident indicates the precise pattern of behaviour that we have been reporting from the very start of this whole shambles.

Don't just take our word for it. After all, who are we? A couple of anonymous nobodies, too scared of Murali's revenge to put our names up here.

Be open-minded. We haven't made anything up. The evidence is all out there. Read it. Ask questions.

Sydney Morning Herald

Filmmaker defends suicide story, an article from the Sydney Morning Herald, has been brought to our attention.

According to the article, an anonymous email has been circulated to industry associations and government film agencies. The email apparently expresses some concerns similar to those raised by our site.

For the record, we are not responsible for this email.

We do not know who is.

We suggest you read the article. Murali K. Thalluri adds no additional evidence for the story and we must continue to rely solely on his word.

Kelly & Co.

A friend of mine committed suicide in 2003 and two days after this person committed suicide I received a videotape in the mail, and before they'd done it recorded a video suicide note and mailed it to me.

And it was the most horrifying thing you could ever imagine watching someone scream and shout knowing they're going to die as soon as they press that stop button. It's horrific.

- Murali K Thalluri, interview with Michael Turtle on the the ABC, August 1, 2006.

Tragic. Terrible. Two Thirty 7 is dedicated to this friend, Kelly, and one of the central characters is named after her.

However, read these lines again, carefully. Do you notice that they are inherently, unambiguously absurd?

With all due respect to Murali, this story strikes us as being very strange.

The events, according to Murali, are chronologically thus:

• The friend turned on a video camera.
• The friend screamed and shouted as she recorded a suicide video note.
• The friend stopped the camera.
• The friend, despite being in an extraordinarily fragile mental state, wrapped and addressed the tape to Murali and added several dollars worth of stamps.
• The friend took it to the nearest postbox.
• The friend returned home and committed suicide.

No, wrong. Murali has made it very clear that the friend committed suicide immediately after stopping the video camera. He writes in the film's Cannes pressbook:

Watching someone scream, cry, shout, and beg as they prepare themselves to carry through with the act of taking their own life is something that haunts me to this day. (Emphasis ours)

Kelly can't have mailed the videotape, then. Who did?

The parents of this dead teen?

What parent would post such a videotape immediately after discovering their child's dead body?

For that matter, what friend or sibling or paramedic or doctor or police officer would think doing so was in any way a priority?

Normally, we would consider questioning such a thing to be beyond the pale, abhorrent, supremely insensitive. Publishing fake reviews of the film and mockumentaries inflating the duration of applause at Cannes are one thing, but this is an order of magnitude more serious.

We hope we are wrong. We sincerely apologise if we are.

However, like so much behind this film, this is just plain fishy. If anyone can clarify this puzzling story and set us right, please do so via the comments function below. Your message will not be published if you prefer.

Caveat Lector

For readers new and old, what follows is a new disclaimer for this blog. It has been primarily culled from previously published material. We advise that all visitors carefully note what it has to say about reading and contributing to Energiser Bunny:

This blog represents the authors’ opinions, which are primarily based on publicly available information. There is no intention to maliciously or falsely harm the reputation of anyone discussed on this blog. We are dedicated to providing a corrective to what we believe is a ruthlessly perpetuated campaign of distortion and sanitisation. We strive to provide thorough justification for all of our claims. We advise that all readers consider the evidence put before them and make up their own minds.

We welcome submissions from readers via the comments feature. However, all submissions are reviewed before publication. If submissions are statements of fact, we will be required to substantiate their claims before publication. Generally, we will publish statements of honest opinion provided that they have a reasonable basis in the matters discussed on this site.

Two Thirty 7: A Corrupted Chronology?

In which dubious editing thrusts into doubt claims of a standing ovation over 15 minutes long for Two Thirty 7 at Cannes.


An anonymous reader writes:

Finally checked out Murali's home video of the much-debated 17 minute standing ovation of "2:37" at Cannes and noticed something odd.

According to Murali's own narration, the Cannes' applause started after the third end credit appeared on the screen, around 12:49pm, according to the conveniently located on-screen timer.

Cut back some 16 minutes later into the standing ovation - now 1:05pm, according to our handy on-screen clock - and the camera briefly catches a glimpse of the bottom of the cinema screen above Teresa Palmer's head, and it would appear that the film's credits are still rolling, which would make "2:37" rival "Matrix: Reloaded" in terms of the length of its end credits.

A conspiracy of manipulated montage or did someone simply forget to wind the clock back for daylight savings? You be the judge.

Qui est Murali K. Thalluri?

The truth is out there...

Fast forwarding to 8:05 on the video, Murali recounts his experience immediately after Two Thirty 7 premiered at the Théâtre Claude Debussy.

In his own words:

The dedication at the end of the film came up, the first credit came up, the second credit, there was silence, we were waiting, the third credit comes and then all of a sudden as if planned one thousand people stood up and started clapping and clapping and cheering, and it was mind blowing. And we thought "oh great, thank god first of all we didn't get booed. But then we sort of looked around and they kept on clapping, and they kept on going on and on and then the credits ended. And we thought "OK, this is amazing, it's over now. It wasn't, because they kept on clapping and clapping. (Emphasis ours.)

Let's see if this holds up.

The clock overlay begins at '12:49'. We see the credits for the cast just beginnig to roll, applause is seen and heard:


While the clock reads '1:05', the applause continues, while the credits are clearly still rolling:






The last time inside the theater reads '1:06', a single minute after the credits were last seen, before cutting to Murali in the foyer at '1:12'.

As the anonymous reader points out, there are two possibilities here. The first assumes the video is accurate. This means the credits for the movie must be about 16 minutes long, dwarfing much larger, special-effects laden films like The Matrix Reloaded, which has credits that last a mammoth 9 minutes (we checked).

Alternatively, and far more likely, is that the 5 minutes of edited footage has had the clock overlay intentionally manipulated to misrepresent the amount of time elapsed. This would put the claimed duration of the standing ovation and the veracity of the video into serious doubt.

Murali goes on to say:

This is something we just didn't expect because I'd never heard about this or I'd never seen it.

Who's never heard of a standing ovation at Cannes*?

Kevin Smith, who was in the audience, went on to receive an 8 minute standing ovation for Clerks II.

Who could forget Fahrenheit 9/11 and its 15-25 minute standing ovation?

Even Somersault received one!

We've tried to find a reliable, independent verification of the 15+ minute standing ovation, but the evidence is meager. The only major press reporting it we could find was written by Stephanie Bunbury, but report that mentions the standing ovation for Two Thirty 7 was written two months after the premiere. While we know she was at Cannes this year, did she actually attend the Two Thirty 7 screening, or is she just relying on Murali's word?

On the IMDb, adsl87686, a familar name, reported:

I was also at both the 11am screening, and the 4pm screening [of Two Thirty 7 at Cannes].

At the 11am one there was about 12-15 minutes standing ovation at the 4pm one they had to usher everyone out quickly so it was about 5-8 minutes.

The film did remind me of elephant, but at the same time it was moving.

Since adsl87686, aka 'Jean Pierre' is strongly suspected of being involved in the production of Two Thirty 7 if not Murali himself (who else but the film makers would see it twice at Cannes?), and is a known plagiarist, his account is far from reputable. Contrast this with the account from enjoy pacific:

well, I was there in the Debussy. There was a standing ovation but no longer than 3 minutes. I don't wanna argue about the minutes, but it wasn't like the greatest and the best film screened in Cannes. There were heaps of films that amazed people.

We have also found an independent review that claims the standing ovation was 5 minutes long. To be accepted into Cannes and receive a standing ovation of any length is impressive, but to exaggerate it so flagrantly is quite perplexing...

Special thanks to our anonymous contributor.

Footnote
* But, then again, Murali's never shown himself to be particularly knowledgable about, or even that interested in cinema in and of itself (hell, he couldn't even be bothered buying the film books he's boasted ad nauseum about reading for free in Borders).

Case in point: Murali was questioned (he must be getting used to this by now) about the similarities between 2:37 and Gus van Sant's Elephant in a recent interview with the ABC's Julie Rigg. Murali claims that he had 'written the film entirely' before seeing Elephant. Rigg is, understandably, taken aback:

Rigg: ... formally, that's an amazing kind of coincidence. I guess there must be other films structured like that as well?

Murali: There's another film called Elephant, actually, which is set in a school, about a shoot-up, you know, that Gus took from as well.

Murali is referring to Alan Clarke's Elephant, which has absolutely nothing to do with school shootings (it's about separatist violence in Northern Ireland).

Either Murali doesn't know this, and is betraying his cinematic ignorance, or he does, and is trying to smear Van Sant with the same dishonest practices that he himself has perpetrated.

The Peacock

We've been alerted to an eyewitness report of Murali in Cannes back in May. Read on:

... [Summer Palace] is one of the most beautiful films that I saw at Cannes. Such a film redeems the festival by allowing people to experience inventive, truthful, uncompromising cinema.

It helps to redeem the festival from films like 2.37, which showed alongside it in Un Certain Regard. 2.37 is a poor imitation of Gus Van Sant's Elephant, and doesn't hesitate to blatantly copy Elephant's plot as well as its characters with all of their problems and tics intact. The film ultimately yields to a common temptation amongst young directors: have a shocking twist, preferably at the end for maximum effect. This final scene, in which a girl slashes her wrists and slowly bleeds to death is unbearable not because it's tragic, but because it closes a film that has been made by hustlers and cheats.

And when one sees the director of this pathetic film descending the steps, strutting like a peacock, accompanied by his team, all dressed in t-shirts on the back of which the Palme D'or is accompanied by the question 'Who is Murali K Thalluri?', one thinks that this is just too much: This much self-satisfaction is utterly nauseating.

Courtesy of Cinelogs. Emphasis ours. Translated from the original French.

MKT: The Saga Continues

Filmmaker Murali K. Thalluri adds plagiarism to his list of apparent misdeeds.



Update 7/7/2006


Hello. If this is your first visit to this blog, we direct your attention to the post below, The Bully and the Bunny in which we allege that Murali K Thalluri, writer/director of the Cannes-nominated film Two Thirty 7 was guilty of using multiple fake accounts on the IMDb to promote his film in a mendacious fashion akin to David Manning.

We'd hoped we'd seen the end of Mr Thalluri and his online charades. No such luck.

But first, a brief digression. Two Thirty 7 screened last month in Cannes to a mixed reception and no prizes. However, the critics were unanimous in one regard: Two Thirty 7 unmistakably bears the pachydermous footprint of the 2003 winner of the Palme D'Or, Gus Van Sant's Elephant.

Some have suggested mere homage, others outright plagiarism. One wag has suggested that Mr Thalluri is suffering from Elephantitis. We have not seen Two Thirty 7 yet (although we eagerly anticipate doing so) and are thus not in a position to judge the merits of these claims.

However, we ARE in a position to continue to monitor what we suspect is Mr Thalluri's continued fraud on the IMDb.

We have been tracking the account adsl87686 for some time now as it appears to be a likely fake, instigated by Mr Thalluri or one of his confederates.

Consider the evidence:

• The account was set up on May 28, a couple of days after Two Thirty 7 screened at Cannes. Murali claimed to us he was still in Cannes on the 30th of May, and could have easily adopted the French nom de guerre Jean Pierre (see below).
  
  
• adsl87686 has posted twenty times. Eighteen of these entries are on Two Thirty 7. Two are on other films, a laughably unconvincing sop to those who may suspect that Mr Thalluri is up to his old tricks.
  
  
• The content of the posts is invariably sycophantic towards Mr Thalluri and the film, collecting as many reviews for the film as possible. Despite attempting to do this for a better critically received film also at Cannes, Babel, the effort clearly lacks the gusto seen with Two Thirty 7. Why might that be?
  
  
• The sloppy writing style of the posts is similar to that established to be Mr Thalluri's.
  
  
• The number sequence '8768786' at the end of adsl's user name smacks of other suspected Murali accounts: amadeus87987987 and moviebuff49384 (Footnote 1).
  

After posting 2:37 reviews on the IMDb collated from numerous sources, adsl87686 has now posted a review of his 'own' on the IMDb. Apparantly his name is 'Jean Pierre' and he is from France (Writer's note to Mr Thalluri - this is like calling a character from Mumbai 'Sanjay').

At first it was jarring to read the review – it seemed to be written as an American pastiche, with references to 'junior year' and 'pep club'. Why would a Frenchman write as if he were an American college Freshman? Even more disconcertingly, the style did not match up with adsl87686's other posts. It in fact appeared to be written by a woman, using yet another distinctive Americanism 'Susie High School' when describing themselves.

A brief look at some of adsl87686's previous posts revealed that he had already posted the exact same review, word-for-word here under the reviews thread he started on the IMDb message board.

The punchline, ladies and gentlemen, is that in that original post, he credited the actual author of the review, a Michelle Wheeler from Georgia, USA - the exact same review he later claimed to be his own.

If this is not fraud at its most jaw-droppingly incompetent, we're not sure what is.

PS. 'Somebody' made this T-shirt, which poses the question on its back "Qui est (who is) Murali K. Thalluri?"

The answer appears to be multiple online personae at any given time!

Update 3/7/2006
Since we wrote this,'Jean Pierre' has altered his review to
include a link to the site it originated, to rid itself of the taint of plagiarism.

7/7/2006: He's since changed the review omitting the citation for Michelle Wheeler's site. It's once again a plagiarised work!

Of course, he still doesn't make it explicit that he is not the author of the review, and there is still no explanation for why a Frenchman feels he must copy an American review instead of writing his own. 'Jean Pierre' has also since gone on to write a smattering of non Two Thirty 7 related comments.

This comment is particularly ironic given what we know about this user:

adsl87686: ... Superman is as much about his identity struggle with Clark as it is about him saving the world.

To us, this activity signals an effort to cover one's tracks after being caught out. It stands to reason that 'Jean Pierre' has seen this article and acted upon it.

Yet these changes have taken place in spite of receiving precisely zero hits from France since writing this article, consolidating our view that he is probably Murali or an accomplice. There have been multiple hits from TPG, Murali's ISP since writing this article, after all.

More digging on the IMDb brought up a breakdown of user ratings for Two Thirty 7:



The film is not yet in wide theatrical release, and thus there are few user ratings for it.

Recall we originally suspected 11 user accounts to be puppets under the control of Murali. Is it by any coincidence that the same number of users have given the movie a perfect 10 out of 10 score?

Return


Footnotes

1 Click here to return
Most numbers that append IMDb usernames are short, no more than 4 digits long. Birth years, or years of registration seem to be the most frequently occurring. Other instances feature words followed with a hyphen and two or three digits. These digits seem to be either low numbers or distinctive combinations that would be easy to remember but require a little effort to type.

Contrast what is usually found on the boards with what we see in the names above. These numbers are long and quite high, and can be generated with careless methods that fit a sham account.

In the case of adsl8768786 and amadeus87987987, it looks as though they have been generated in a similar matter. Putting the middle finger of the right hand over the 8 key in the case of the former, the 9 key in the case of the latter, and drumming three fingers from right to left (much easier to do than left to right) on the keyboard a few times we can create the sequence of numbers for both names.

The numbers at the end of moviebuff49384's name appear to be generated in a similarly careless fashion. By placing one's hand at either end of the keyboard and alternating carelessly, we can replicate the low-high-low-high-low number pattern.

Is this proof of anything? No. But for three names sharing these traits to come to the same forum which already is suspected of having fake accounts, it's very suspicious.

The Bully and the Bunny

On the trail of a Cannes-nominated director who posts fake reviews of his own film on the internet, then threatens legal action against those who call him on it.

Since originally writing this, the plot has only thickened. Click for updates here: update 1, update 2, update 3, update 4 (We’ve been vindicated)

Forgive us as we drop our regular flippant and satirical tone in this entry, for there is a serious matter to discuss for a change.

Chances are you are familiar with an upcoming movie called Two Thirty 7 (aka 2:37), written and directed by Murali K. Thalluri. There has been a lot of buzz about it, especially now that it has been accepted into competition at the Cannes Film Festival. The fact that Two Thirty 7 has been accepted into this most prestigious of film festivals suggests the film has some commendable qualities. Neither of us have seen it yet, and we are all too willing to judge it with an open mind. In fact, we wish Murali luck on the merit of the film itself. It’s also worth mentioning that we have never met Mr. Murali K. Thalluri in person, and he might, for all we know, be a very polite, intelligent and charming individual.

This aside, we have become increasingly repulsed by Murali’s character from what we have seen of his behaviour online. He has frequently acted in self-centered, immature and, generally, revolting ways. We have every right to express our opinion on this.

To the uninitiated, this site is a parody of the Esoteric Rabbit Blog kept by the ambitious, well–read young filmmaker, Matthew Clayfield. Generally, our guiding principle has been thus: anything Clayfield writes is fair game: Film theory, politics, pastimes. Stylistically, anything goes – from purple prose, to subtle word changes to remixed media. Clayfield is a good sport and has taken Energiser Bunny in his stride, with humour and humility.

Murali Thalluri has been a regular contributor to the comments section on Esoteric Rabbit for some time, and has consequently been thrown into the melange here. His remarks typically appear arrogant, are generally horrendously written and are ultimately redolent of an obnoxious personality even more eligible for satire than the thoughtful Clayfield (who, we should make clear, has nothing to do with this post).

Inspired by internet conversations between their real life counterparts, an amusing comedic duo was formed: Matthew Clayfoot, a sensitive aesthete plagued by occasional pretension and prolixity, matched against Murali Thallassemia, a village-idiot-type who nevertheless outdid Clayfoot at every turn. Though art might be imitating life to some degree, these conversations are, of course, clearly marked as imaginary, as they are fictional creations. Yet, they are not completely divorced from the truth.

Murali, an obsessive self-promotor, eventually caught our interest. Researching his movie on the Internet Movie Database, we discovered a number of extraordinarily suspicious entries under several different names, all written in Murali’s excruciating English, all extravagantly gushing over the brilliance of Murali and his film. In short, it appeared to us that he had written them himself.

Initially, we were willing to give Murali the benefit of the doubt. However, Googling his name revealed that this type of behaviour doesn’t appear to be new for him at all.

In late 2004, shortly before Murali began production on Two Thirty 7, he was banned from the MJJ Forum, a site that prides itself on providing ‘The Most Accurate Michael Jackson News on the Internet’. Trawling through the archives reveals that Murali appears to have engaged in an extensive history of deceit amongst this online community of Michael Jacksons fans. Murali, with the help of several user accounts, assumed multiple fraudulent identities.

He appears to have claimed to know Jackson personally, and posted false information about up-coming video clips (Footnote 1). Even more disturbingly, he appears to have pretended to be one of Jackson’s alleged child-abuse victims (Footnote 2), Jordan Chandler. At one point he even appears to have claimed that Michael Jackson was dead (Footnote 3).

The story is sordid and perversely compelling. As the members of the forum became increasingly aware that something was amiss, an entire discussion thread was established, devoted to ferreting out the impostor. Murali appears to have been caught completely red-handed. See, especially, this page of the thread, for full details of how they figured out who was fooling them.

We imagine it will be galling to these Michael Jackson fans that Mr Jackson is given a ’special thanks’ credit in Two Thirty 7.

We therefore felt our instincts were right: Murali appears to have been likely responsible for what we believe are fraudulent entries on the IMDb. We decided to integrate this into one of our Imaginary Conversations between Clayfoot and Murali Thalassemia, entitled ‘MSN: P[r]oMo: An Imaginary Conversation’ .

More than two months later, to our surprise and amusement, we received an email from Murali’s lawyers. The letter claimed that MSN: P[r]oMo defamed Murali by misleading readers into believing that Murali would post fraudulent reviews. Murali, via his lawyers, demanded that the Imaginary Conversation be removed immediately.

Murali’s aggressive, bullying attempt to undermine our First Amendment rights was all the more disquieting because of its legal baselessness.

Firstly, the Imaginary Conversation had taken place in a blatantly parodical context.

Secondly, the accusation that the real Murali is posting reviews of his film under false identities, falls far short of the standard of actual malice necessary to establish libel. The standard is, of course, a reckless disregard of the truth to the extent that there is high degree of awareness of probable falsity of or serious doubts as to the truth of the publication.

Now, we don’t know for sure that Murali has posted the fraudulent messages on the IMDb. By the same token, though, we don’t know for sure that the earth is actually round. There is compelling evidence for both propositions, and we will now outline exactly why we’ve come to believe that Murali appears to be responsible for these messages.

What follows are the top ten candidates for what we believe are fraudulent messages posted by Murali on the IMDb.

In the case that we are mistaken about any of these, we are perfectly willing to offer a full apology and retraction. We invite all of these members to contact us using the comments feature below the footnotes to confirm their true identities.

You can find the Two Thirty 7 message board on which these accounts have been posting here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472582/board/threads/

Please note, if you don’t already have one, you will need to register for a free account with the IMDb in order to access them.

#10) ‘petes_the_man‘ has only ever posted one message on the IMDb, and it is for Two Thirty 7. He claims in his post to have auditioned for the film. He praises the script, cast and film itself, despite the fact that it has not been released. Grammar and punctuation are notably sloppy. The fact that the user account was set up in 2001, however, suggests that perhaps Murali was either unusually prescient - or not actually behind it.

#9) ‘Deb-215‘ registered on the IMDB on April 28 2006 and only has one post. Deb is nonetheless generous with bestowing accolades, declaring the movie to be “brilliant stuff, confronintg and hard hitting - and all by a 19 year old”. The fudged age is interesting. Murali is almost 22, after all. However, according to our logs, a Google search for “Murali K. Thalluri only 20″ led to a hit on our site from TPG (Murali’s ISP, according to his email address). So, perhaps skewing the age down is not so surprising.

#8) ‘what_ever_4_eva‘ set up his account in July 2005, and has posted four messages, one of which is on Two Thirty 7, and two of which are on its lead actress. He claims to been yet another putative extra on the film, and his spelling and punctuation are positively Chaucerian. But without the, y’know, groovy Medieval stuff.

#7) ‘hey_zeus_freeballing‘ is another account that has only surfaced very recently (April 26, 2006), but all his posts are directed at Two Thirty 7. His spelling may be an indication of the presence of Murali. His posts are inconsequential in their material, perhaps he is watching for something, or simply adding bulk to the discussion.

#6) ‘amadeus87987987‘ has had an account since February 2006 and has only posted twice, once on Two Thirty 7, once on a Gus van Sant project. The Two Thirty 7 post concerns the release date of the film in Canada - surely the kind of information Murali would be privy to, and not a member of the general public on the boards?

To explain the Gus van Sant connection: Murali appears to be a fan of van Sant’s work, and Two Thirty 7 is reportedly stylistically and thematically similar to van Sant’s Elephant. Murali allegedly met van Sant in Cannes last year. We also draw your attention to these comments of Murali’s in the Esoteric Rabbit Blog:

‘Have you seen Last Days yet? Fucking Genius! I saw it in Cannes, and then saw it again, and I’m just blown away by the genius of Mr Van Sant!’

Finally, some conjecture regarding the choice of this user name. Does Murali feel some kind of kinship with that proto-wunderkind, Wolfgang Mozart? It may explain his tendency towards underestimating his age (see #9, Deb-215). Or maybe he just saw the name at the video store and thought it sounded cool.

#5) ‘anthonyd-2‘ set up his account in January 2004 and has posted twice on Two Thirty 7. He claims to have worked on the film and one of his messages amounts to a casting call for extras. His writing style is as shoddy as Murali’s. However, he has an extensive posting history on a wide variety of films outside of Murali’s known interests, so this is only a tentative suggestion.

#4) ‘massimo-serena‘ set up his account in March 2006 and has posted two messages, one of which is on Two Thirty 7. It is yet another review of this unreleased film, and is replete with grade-school-quality English, hyperbolic praise, trashing of the Australian film industry (read: Murali’s competitors) and blatant self-promot- sorry, Murali-promotion. We quote:

“i’m not normally a fan of australian films but this is somehting no one has done before. I can’t get it out of my head!!!! It sticks with you long after its finished. teresa palmer is gonna be a massive actress ( she’s in the grudge 2) and she and the rest of the cast are incredible. there were some american studio people at the screening and they were going nuts at the end of it. Supposedly they have offered murali the director a studio deal for some american movies”

#3) ‘meddie86‘ set up his account in April 2006, and has posted three times, all on Two Thirty 7. He claims to have worked on the film. The writing style is positively Muralian. A couple of quotes should make our case:

I’m dying to see [the film]. I had such a blast on set and Murali was such a champ!

In response to reviews of a ‘test screening’ which were written under other suspected Murali accounts:

Sounds like the reaction you guys are having to this film is exactly what Murali was going for. He’s going to be absolutely wrapped.

Oh, what a tangled web we weave…

#2) ‘film-a-maniac‘ set up his account in December 2005. Since then, four of his six posts concern Two Thirty 7. The first of these consists of a reprint of an extended, sycophantic newspaper article about Murali K. Thalluri, with little explanation for the motivations behind its posting. The second post describes Joel Mackenzie, one of the film’s lead actors, as being ‘unbeleivable’. The third post is a borderline-incoherent, but overwhelmingly positive review of a ‘test screening’ of the film. Finally, the fourth post poses the question: ‘Should they be able to get away with showing a suicide scene that is so realistic in a film? I’m not too sure… What are your thoughts?‘

#1) ‘moviebuff49384‘ has had an account since September 4, 2005. Needless to say, his posts are full of Muraliesqe misspellings and overzealous punctuation. He states he has seen a test screening of Two Thirty 7. 44% of his posts deal with the movie, also lavishing praise on two of its actors Joel Mackenzie and Teresa Palmer.

Moviebuff49384 has evidently been driven to near spiritual rapture by the film:

“I really don’t know how to take it… it’s really quite spectacular, its been well over a month since I’ve seen it, and I still can’t get it out of my head.”

Can’t get it out of your head? Where have we heard this before? Why, from #4, massimo-serena of course!

The ‘buffster also writes:“I can’t wait to see how the general public take it, it’s so hard hitting“.

Likewise, #9, Deb-215 wrote: “confronintg and hard hitting - and all by a 19 year old.”

Moviebuff49384 expresses his dream cast for The Time Traveller’s Wife, directed by Gus van Sant, a man we have already shown Murali to be a fan of. You may recall #6, amadeus87987987 sharing this enthusiasm for the same movie, exclaiming he “can not wait to see this film!!!” How curious.

When he isn’t heaping praise on Two Thirty 7, he’s savaging another Australian film, One Perfect Day, declaring “it didn’t deserve to be printed on celluloid”, or playing down the critically well received Somersault and its lead, “Abey Cornish”, who will “hang around till her mid thirties then dissapear?!!?!”. Who else doesn’t like Australian films? Again, see #4, massimo-serena.

The most remarkable comment made, however, is this:

“I really don’t know how to take [Two Thirty 7]… it’s really quite spectacular, its been well over a month since I’ve seen it, and I still can’t get it out of my head.

The performances are just something else, they were amazing, the camera work is fantastic, but the story in itself is just beautiful, and disturbing at the same time. “

The next bit is the absolute kicker. Murali: if you’re being ironic, it’s blunt, but effective to those of us in on the joke.

“I can’t wait to see how the general public take it it’s so hard hitting in a way you’d never expect, I almost feel like writing to the guy who wrote it, I mean I feel as though the writer had like a direct line into my head, and wrote a script from it, it’s scary!”

Scary is right. Scary as hell.

*Updates*

7/5/2005: A comment on our site from “sarah” seems to confirm our suspicions.

She writes:

“moviebuff49384 on IMDb is definitely Murali. He posted a thread here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472582/board/thread/41900032 and accidentally signed the first post (before it was deleted by the poster…) as “MTK”.”

This is further corroborated by the reply made by the user vergissmeinnicht38 on the Two Thirty 7 board, which shines light on some of the contents of the deleted message:

“Veeeery subtle, “MKT”. “

It’s not a great leap to infer that this is probably referring to “MTK”, a transparent anagram of “MKT” (Murali Krishna Thalluri). Moviebuff49384 already had an extensive history of posting as somebody praising the writer of Two Thirty 7 in the third person. Deleting the post signed “MTK” would be a move to prevent revealing he was in fact the writer-director, Murali K. Thalluri, blowing his own horn.

Incidentally, Vergissmeinnicht is German for “forget me not”. How very appropriate!

Return

17/5/2006: Things just keep getting stranger.

The original MJJ Forum links that implicate Murali K. Thalluri used multiple user accounts to portray several fraudulent identities seem to have been suddenly deleted. Fortunately, the Google cache remains and our links have been modified accordingly. Why were they deleted? We suspect Murali’s lawyers intervened.

In a similar vein, kateg002 left a message on the 2:37 IMDB boards, asking about “The Bully and the Bunny”, this very article, on May 10. No, she is not either of us or a plant on our behalf. We don’t know who she is. But we took great interest in this, as it would hopefully lead to further unravelling of the truth.

Yet this promising development was dashed, as days later the thread has been deleted by the administrators. What is going on? Flagged as objectionable by somebody with something to hide?

Here is the thread, before it was taken down:

kateg002: Did anybody read “the bully and the bunny” article? Too weird. Did any of you reply and do you exist? If it hadn’t happened before Cannes you think it was “sour grapes”, maybe it still is. Does anyone know anything else about it?

vergissmeinnicht38: Dude, what the hell? They quoted (and translated my name…) me?!

Hrmm, like Ain’t It Cool News has picked up on that blog article… http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=23238

Nazzy19: “Just cos some idiot can spin on his head it don’t mean he’s a b-boy. Just means he is an idiot who can spin on his head”. (The Freshest Kids 2002).

Any idiot can keep a blog about whatever he/she wants. The existence of a blog doesn’t make that person’s views any more useful or relevant. It just means they are an idiot keeping a blog.

Seldom do idiots have such weight of cross-referenced evidence! We officially nominate Nazzy19 for the #11 spot on our list of Murali’s phony IMDb accounts.

Despite being visible for a week, none of the ten identities we named responded to kateg002’s question. Nobody has sought to clear their name, to identify themselves as anybody else other than Murali K. Thalluri himself. There has only been a disturbing trend of material disappearing down an Orwellian memory hole.

P.S. Cannes begins today, good luck Murali, I hope they appreciate your genius in France!

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23/5/2006:

What follows is an abridged copy of the latest interesting developments on Two Thirty 7’s IMDb message board.

troy_act: [Two Thirty 7], which I have seen through my agent, is a huge rip off a short film called ‘None of the Above’ directed by Alex Goddard which was doing the festival circuit around four years ago. It use’s exactly the same suicide technique! Something, which is very original and will make you squirm!! Not just the suicide…exactly the same character plots…it’s uncanny. The short film was made in Perth and it went well over east I think. It’s ashame that this director will take the credit for all this.
…

I just felt like I should post this cause I think its all a bit dodgy… I’m trying to get more info on the short film, so you guys can make up your own mind!

find_wilson: um, i KNOW murali T. personally, and no, he didnt rip it off. he’s had the idea for yrs, way before the flim u mentioned.

more info on him here: http://www.smh.com.au/news/film/reality-becomes-reel/2006/05/19/1147545528816.html

clayfootbeta: None of the Above, the film in question, was screened, apparently, four years ago. The article from the Sydney Morning Herald you’ve linked to here indicates that Murali K Thalluri was inspired to write Two Thirty 7 about three years ago. How could it be ‘way before the flim (sic) [Troy Act] mentioned’ then?

You mentioned that you know Murali personally. Are you sure you’re not actually him? Several users posting on this board, including Nazzy19 below, appear to be Murali himself.

Evidence here: http://energiserbunny.blogspot.com

Nazzy19: *idiot posts link to own blog*

krazed_nutz: sounds like somebody’s jealous that Murali has made it and you haven’t. I’m an aspiring film-maker and I’m delighted that he’s made it. I don’t know him but I know that he nor anybody else involved in the film would like your as*hole attitude!

It is a shame that ‘krazed_nutz‘ has obviously not taken any care to read what’s been written on this site. We have gone to great pains, expending significant time and effort to precisely outline our position in order to ward off these kinds of daft and flimsy accusations that attempt to impugn our motives; opting for personal attacks while failing to challenge any of our arguments. We have tried to be scrupulously fair, despite a continuing lack of reciprocal treatment.

To be honest, we are offended by the claim that we have been motivated by jealousy. We would like to direct readers, especially ‘krazed_nutz’ and ‘Nazzy19‘ to the opening paragraph of this post, in which we point out the basis on which we have made the decision to write this piece - Murali’s dishonest and bullying behaviour.

Were this about mere jealousy, would we have made the effort to seperate the man from his deeds? Would we have congratulated Murali’s extraordinary achievement? Would we have wished him luck for Two Thirty 7 at Cannes? We have acknowledged that we do not know him personally – and hold no vendetta against him.

Were this about jealousy, where are our jealous posts about other Cannes nominees Patrick Grandperret, Oxide Pang and Rolf de Heer?

In and of itself, Murali’s demonstrated fraud on the IMDb message boards did not raise our ire. It was actually somewhat amusing, and it simply became a throwaway gag.

This gag would have been long forgotten had Murali decided to not aggravate the situation by getting his lawyers to threaten us with a lawsuit.

If that is not an abuse of the legal system and harassment of the most repugnant kind, inimical to the hard-won principles of freedom of expression sacred to democracy and enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then we’re not sure what is. Murali, you should be ashamed.

And ‘krazed_nutz’ and ‘Nazzy19′ - you may call us assholes or idiots, but we’re willing to defend your right to do so. Can you say the same?

All these legal threats and dirty words are distractions from the real issue at hand. Murali has been using false accounts on the IMDb to dishonestly promote the film. Surely if you are talented enough and your film is good enough to be accepted into Cannes, you don’t need to engage in a sloppy, transparent web of lies to try to promote it. And when you get caught out, you don’t need to try to crush those who catch you into submission.

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28/5/2006:

We submitted this message to the Two Thirty 7 IMDb boards in attempt to jolt this whole affair into some form of resolution. We appealed to our 11 Murali-candidates to come forward and identify themselves. We also requested the IMDb board administrators to check the IP address and ISP of these users.

The administrators have obviously heeded our request. They must have agreed with us, as they did some pruning:

moviebuff49384, our #1 candidate as a bogus account set up by Murali, has had his entire message history deleted by the adminstrators, most dramatically seen in this thread, pictured above.

#9 Deb-215’s single sycophantic message on the IMDb has been wiped.

All messages pertaining to Two Thirty 7 by #4 massimo-serena and #6 amadeus87987987 are now gone, as have certain messages by #2 film-a-maniac and #3 meddie86.

These deletions are extremely compelling evidence that Murali has abused the IMDb boards by adopting at least one false identity to deceitfully promote his film in the manner we originally described.

So, to recap:

Murali’s lawyers originally threatened us with a phony defamation claim, demanding we immediately take down material on our site that suggested Murali K. Thalluri posted fake reviews under fraudulent accounts on the IMDb.

Three weeks later, Murali’s phony reviews on the IMDb posted under fraudulent accounts have been taken down. And our material still remains.

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FOOTNOTES

1 (Click to return)

“I am only going to post once, and I will not reply to any messages, nor will I reply to the posts.

Firstly, if I PM someone, it is a PRIVATE message, and I expect the idea behind the concept of PRIVATE messages to be respected.

I have watched these boards for a while now. Recently I have seen a lot of threads talking about me coming forward to put forward what we all know is the truth.

The reason I used this name in regestering on a couple of these boards is to let you guys know that I hear you all. To let you guys know that Michael’s innocence means as much to me as it does to you guys. To let you know that I regret everything that happened a decade ago. To let you guys know as I said to a certain person on a different board before they so rudely posted my PRIVATE message all over the internet, that I love Michael. Michael is like the father I never had…literally.

I will speak out, but I don’t feel that the TV, Newspapers, or any other place other than the courtroom is the right place to do this.

You guys will see it as it unfolds over the coming year.

Contrary to popular beleif I no longer have contact with any of my immediate family barring my mother of course.

Hopefully by the time both Michael’s, and my life can settle down, my biological father, certain lawyers, amongst others will be behind bars.By the time this has finished playing out, you guys will be completely shocked to see what really happened a decade ago. The people involved will blow your minds. Although I don’t know any more than I read about the 2003 case, I am convinced the same players (the ones not known even to the most die hard fans) are involved.

Please have faith that I will do the right thing.

Love Jordy!”

Allegedly Murali K. Thalluri, October 3, 2004 posing as ‘Jordan Chandler’

Originally published on http://www.mjjforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=37920&st=50

2 (Click to return)

"I have official word that whatever people like Sugar Rose said, although Mike is annoyed that Xscape was released a little early, he is not ‘furious’. The original intended release date was May, but because of the release he is moving it up to Mid-Late february, just weeks after the Bashir interview. The song Xscape is not to be a theme song for the Matrix 2 as suggested on other boards. But the video of the song is a houdini style video, all the magic that Michael has been learning from Sigfried and Roy as well as David Blaine will all come into practice with the song Xscape… It is all making sense now huh? Uri Geller, David Blaine, Sigfried and Roy, and surprise surprise Chris Tucker are to star in the new short film video of Michaels. I can’t wait!!!!

Peace Out

Murali. K. Thalluri "

Cited by ‘Complexity’, Oct 3 2004

Originally published on: http://207.58.140.95/forums/lofiversion/index.php/t37920-200.html

3 (Click to return)

http://cc.msnscache.com/cache.aspx?q=3255489136185&lang=en-AU&mkt=en-AU&FORM=CVRE

” THIS IS NOT JORDAN CHANDLER!

The person who posted the original message under the ID “Jordan” is posting from an Australian ISP. Tracking that down, I found that there is another poster on this board using that same ISP. His ID is: Murali.

Now Murali has posted before with many of his posts being removed for inappropriate content. For example, remember the “Michael is dead” spoof several months ago? Our friend Murali was the one to post it on MJJF. His post was outlandish. It was also removed by the mods very quickly (our Mods are fantastic!).

Interestingly enough, the posts made by Jordan and by Murali contained the same writing style and grammatical errors. In other words, they appeared to be written by the same person.

Same ISP. Same outrageous posts. Same writing style. Hmm…

Checking Murali’s email address, murali.k.thalluri@tpg.com.au , I discovered that he is a poster on KOP by the ID: MikeIsInvincible.

Clicking on the profile for MikeIsInvincible, I noticed that he just happened to also be the person who copied “Jordy’s” post from MJJF to KOP. What a coincidence!

Jordan, Murali and MikeIsInvincible are all one person.

And it is my distinctive pleasure to announce…

YOUR ASS IS BANNED!”

‘Complexity’, Oct 3 2004.

“Wet Fart”

Murali K. Thalluri, la pétard mouillé, au Festival de Cannes? Hein? Incroyable!

MSN: P[r]oMo – an imaginary conversation

MURALI
hay mat remember my movie??

CLAYFOOT85
Yes, Murali. I’m still waiting to see a trailer, of course.

MURALI
all in god time my chum. can i ask u a favor?

CLAYFOOT85
What is it?

MURALI
i want get some good buzz on this movie. can u help me with the grass roots stuff?

CLAYFOOT85
But, of course! What kind of strategy you were looking for? May I suggest an innovative series of promotional V-Logs?

MURALI
actualy -… jsut set up sum fake acounts at the imdb and post good reveiws of the movie!!!

CLAYFOOT85
AAAUGH!