This Is [sh]It

Nearly three years have passed since this blog was last updated.

2:37 came and went. The reviews were middling-to-bad; the box-office receipts, meagre.

The project seemed to curse many of those who were involved. Much of its young cast swiftly, embarrassingly, slid into obscurity, or, worse still, ended up with the kind of a career in which the highlight is a bit part in an Adam Sandler movie.

And, of course, there's the man himself, the Bunny's old bugaboo, Mr Murali K. Thalluri.

At the height of the controversy, Thalluri was on the cusp of big things - or, so he'd have us believe.

By May 2006, before 2:37 had even been released, he claimed to be going into production on a second film in late 2006, and a further, 'big budget American film' in early 2007. He'd also, apparently, written more than a dozen scripts, claiming that he wanted to 'make as many films as possible.'

By August 2006, his career was supposedly going so well that he claimed to have turned down an offer from Harvey Weinstein to direct a thriller and to have a 'suitcase full of scripts' that producers desperately wanted him to make. But, how could he, when he was simultaneously working on a 'feature comedy' he described as being 'a blend of Woody Allen and Charlie Kaufman' and a Hollywood adaptation of a book that had 'been top of the New York bestsellers list for 38 weeks with a budget of $40 million dollars (a claim so preposterous that one wag suggested that the book was the South Beach Diet).

Even if one has talent and is willing to work hard, a career as a filmmaker is a rare thing. Many try. Few succeed. Some are lucky enough to catch the kind of break that leads to a real career - such as having one's first film accepted into the Cannes Film Festival.

Inexplicably, Thalluri was given this gift.

Even more inexplicably, he squandered it.

How many feature films has Thalluri made since 2:37?

None.

How many short films has Thalluri made since 2:37?

None. (Unless you include this 2m 37s masterpiece of nuance and wit, featuring 'Writer/producer', Stealthy Selthy - or, maybe this dazzling, single unbroken take in which Thalluri bullies directs a bucktoothed little girl and her brother from behind the camera - apparently in order to try to impress Teresa Palmer).

What has he done since he made 2:37?

Well, there was the stint as Che Guevaraesque fashion icon. And then there was the 'celebrity' endorsement.

Understandably, Thalluri may have been smarting from all of the accusations that 2:37 was nothing but an inferior, muddled rehash of Gus Van Sant's Elephant. When barely a review of 2:37 was published that didn't note the obvious, blatant similarities between the two films, even Thalluri himself was forced to acknowledge he'd gone waaaay beyond homage.

Even Geoffrey Rush got in on the act, dubbing Thalluri 'Milli Vanilli' in the press - a byword for being a phony.

In order to rid himself of any further association with plagiarism (which, to this day, still earns him derision), Thalluri would have of course aggressively pursued unique, fresh projects. No?

No.

In the wake of the hit film, Slumdog Millionaire, Thalluri was peddling Jewel - the tale of two Indian boys who escape from a cruel, Fagin-esque slavemaster, seeking salvation from a game show their Bollywood idol. Understandably, people were wary of sinking any money into the project - to the extent that a desperate Thalluri had to travel as far as Hong Kong to try hawking the thing before it finally died.

Following that, in an even more desperate move, came World War 3, a nakedly derivative ripoff of the Tomorrow, When the War Began series of novels by John Marsden. The project appeared to get as far as clumsily photoshopped promo artwork on Thalluri's website until, thank God, Paramount (with its own adaptation of Tomorrow, When the War Began in the works) apparently nipped it in the bud, forcing Thalluri to retract, tail between his legs.

[Editors' note - an advance copy of this entry was provided to Thalluri in November 2009 to provide him with an opportunity to identify anything that he considered was incorrect, prior to publication. Thalluri's only specific objection was to the preceding two paragraphs with an assertion that the Jewel and World War 3 projects were, apparently, still active. However, he declined to elaborate on his position, to provide any supporting material or, notably, to respond to the allegation that both projects appeared to be plagiarised.]

And then... nothing.

Until now.

Thalluri (who, apparently, still lives with his long-suffering parents) has now popped back up into the spotlight (albeit, on cut-rate movie website with a history of Thalluri obsequy) with a 'review' of the Michael Jackson documentary, This Is It.

Trying to refashion himself as a film critic, of all things, would seem to be an infelicitous move for Thalluri. Firstly, there is his vocal ignorance of/antipathy towards film criticism/history/culture. Secondly, there is his apparent inability to string together a coherent sentence.

Still, you might think, more than three and a half years have passed since the 2:37 hoopla - perhaps Thalluri has taken some basic writing classes since then? Maybe he's read a few film reviews and has acquired something of a sense of the process of critical evaluation?

The evidence, unfortunately, indicates otherwise.

Just when Thalluri thought it was safe to dip his toe back into the public domain, herewith, then, is a blow-by-blow dissection of his 'review'. It would be churlish, perhaps, to dwell on Thalluri's scattershot approach to punctuation, so the focus will be, primarily, on the review's structure and content.

1) Long before the world turned on Michael Jackson through tabloid sensationalism, long before the pigment crippling skin disease - Vitiligo - turned his color to a porcelain doll white, and long before the Peter Pan of Pop was accused and acquitted of child molestation, he was and remained to the end one thing, the greatest entertainer who ever lived.

STRUCTURE

The cumbersome, over-elaborate, illogical opening sentence sets the tone of what is to come. Let's break it down. The point that Thalluri seems to be trying to make is that Jackson's talent was unfairly overshadowed by the notoriety resulting from his bizarre appearance and alleged child molestation. Fine, but the way sentence is structured just doesn't make sense. Thalluri sets out three negative events that happened in Jackson's life:

1. the world turned on him;
2. his skin turned white; and
3. he was accused and acquitted of child molestation.
   

He next establishes a period of time during which Jackson 'was and remained to the end the greatest entertainer who ever lived'. This period of time occurs 'long before' the events listed above.

Let's say Michael Jackson's status as 'the greatest entertainer who ever lived' kicked off in 1971.

Following Thalluri's description as it is written, a timeline of events would look something like this:

This sequence is, of course, patently absurd and grossly inaccurate. By mentioning an ongoing time period with language meant to describe a discrete event in the past, Thalluri completely mangles his words. No stranger to corrupted chronologies, the only logically consistent way to interpret Thalluri's wording is to presume Jackson died years ago, (a theory that Thalluri already tried, and failed, to propagate on the internet), and must have somehow suffered these humiliations posthumously! For the interests of clarity, the sequence of events that Thalluri was likely striving for, with Jackson's vitiligo diagnosis in 1986 and first (public) accusations of child abuse in 1993, was meant to look like this:

CONTENT

'Long before the world turned on Michael Jackson through tabloid sensationalism...'

This does not make sense. The fact of your 'turning on someone' may be reflected by 'tabloid sensationalism' (whatever that means, in and of itself), but you can't 'turn on someone' through 'tabloid sensationalism' - you either turn on them or you don't.

'long before the pigment crippling skin disease - Vitiligo - turned his color to a porcelain doll white...'

How can a pigment be crippled? Surely he means 'the crippling skin disease, Vitiligo'? And why refer to it as 'porcelain doll white' - why not just 'porcelain white'?

'long before the Peter Pan of Pop was accused and acquitted of child molestation...'

Yes, Jackson compared himself to Peter Pan, and, yes - he named his ranch 'Neverland', but isn't the nickname 'the Peter Pan of Pop' usually reserved for Cliff Richard? Jackson's own nicknames, based on actual public usage, would include 'the King of Pop' and 'Wacko Jacko'.

Additionally, Thalluri's reference to Jackson being 'accused and acquitted of child molestation' is misleadingly suggestive that the accusation and acquittal was a one-off event - when, as Thalluri knows, it was anything but.

'he was and remained to the end one thing, the greatest entertainer who ever lived.'

Wait a second, Jackson was one thing? Only one thing, an entertainer? That seems like a horribly reductive way of weighing up a life, and one entirely consistent with the blinkered way that Jackson's abusive father apparently viewed his son.

2) The new documentary THIS IS IT shows us that despite what we were reading about him in the press, this was a gentle genius who just wanted to help the world through his art, it shows us the man still had talent, that when he sang, he sang with the voice of angels, and when he danced he did so with the grace of god, and though he is no longer with us, the man’s legend will live on through the legacy piece, THIS IS IT.

STRUCTURE

The sentence opens with the words '... THIS IS IT shows us that...'.

On this basis, the ostensible purpose of the sentence is to describe some of the things that This Is It shows its audience, namely:

1. '... that despite ... the press, [Jackson] was a gentle genius... ';
   
2. '... that [Jackson] had talent... when he sang... and when he danced'; and
   
3. '[that] though [Jackson] is no longer with us... [his] legend will live on through the legacy piece, THIS IS IT.'
   

Yes, that's correct, reader. Thalluri just wrote that This Is It shows us that Jackson's legend will live on through This is It.

CONTENT

'[Jackson] just wanted to help the world through his art...'

This is sycophantic hyperbole at its worst. Does a man on the verge of bankruptcy set up a 50-concert tour that would have, apparently, netted him hundreds of millions of dollars in order to 'help the world through his art'?

'he sang with the voice of angels...'

Angels, plural? What, in harmony with himself? Like a barbershop quartet?

'he danced... with the grace of god'

While God is known for his grace, he is not known for his dancing ability. Thalluri seems not to realise that the word 'grace' has a specific meaning in the theological context - namely, forgiveness or benefaction. Not graceful, in the swan sense.

(Anyway, here is a video of a dancing God for your viewing pleasure!)

3) The film chronicles the final few months of Michael Jackson’s life from the moment he announced his eagerly awaited comeback right down to the night before he died.

STRUCTURE

Bear this sentence in mind later on and note, for now, Thalluri's suggestion that the film chronicles 'the final few months of... Jackson's life', beginning with the announcement of the concert tour and ending on the night before Jackson's death.

CONTENT

'... right down to the night before [Jackson] died.'

Right down to the night before he died or right up to the night before he died?

4) It is a mixture of performance as well as an in-depth behind the scenes look at the man at work. Together with the director of the show Kenny Ortega, Michael goes about directing his crew and team of dancer with grace and humility but also with a sternness that was not not expected from the softly spoken pop star.

Okay, just a couple of cheap shots:

1. a 'team of dancer' - just the one?
   
2. '[A] sternness that was not not expected'? Not not expected - so, what, a double negative? It was expected?
   

Still, though - things like this are just lazy, especially if:

1. something you are writing is going to be available on the internet for all to see, forever, and picked up by aggregators such as Google News;
   
2. the piece of writing is your own 'comeback';
   
3. you purport to be a professional writer;
   
4. you are writing on a topic that is particularly close to your heart; and
   
5. you have a history of being publicly mocked for your poor writing skills.
   

Irrespective of the fundamental structural flaws with the piece, surely a quick read-through once it had been drafted would have eliminated glitches like these?

5) This was not a man who was eight hours away from dying, here was a man who was excited to bring his latest creation to the world, a man who despite his thin frame, moved better than the dancers half his age and despite four decades on stage still had the voice that thrilled the world.

STRUCTURE

Thalluri is, apparently, a Michael-Jackson-was-murdered conspiracy theorist. He seems to be trying, at the outset of this sentence, to make the point that, by the end of the film, notwithstanding Jackson's impending death, he appeared to be healthy, spry and in a positive frame of mind: therefore, his death must have been caused by something other than natural causes.

However, again, Thalluri's clunky, hamfisted sentence starts to make a point, but then branches out tangentially, without resolution.

Really, the way that the sentence should be structured as follows:

1. The film closes with footage shot eight hours prior to Jackson's death. However, Jackson could not have died from natural causes, given that:
   

1. he was excited to bring his latest creation to the world;
   
2. he danced well; and
   
3. he sang well.
   

By the second half of the sentence, however, Thalluri jettisons the original point and then abruptly shifts to making a separate point about how good a performer Jackson supposedly was!

CONTENT

'[Jackson, by the end of the film, did not appear to be] a man who was eight hours away from dying'

The 'away' is redundant. And 'dying' should be 'death'.

'This was not a man... here was a man'

If you are going to open the sentence with 'this was not a man', why then go on to write 'here was a man'? These kinds of inconsistencies disrupt what little flow there is in the piece.

'a man who despite his thin frame, moved better than the dancers half his age and despite four decades on stage still had the voice that thrilled the world'

The points that Thalluri wants to make are clear, but he consistently flubs them as he manufactures imaginary setbacks for Jackson to transcend:

1. Jackson dances well despite his thin frame? Surely, being thin is a good thing if you're a dancer?
   
2. Jackson still sings well despite four decades on stage? Again - what? Wouldn't those decades of experience be an asset for a singer?
   

Separately, Thalluri claims that Jackson had 'the voice that thrilled the world'. We get the point that Thalluri has some serious man-love going on for Jackson, but to say that Jackson had 'the', rather than 'a' voice that thrilled the world is excessive by anyone's standards.

6) The rehearsals were filmed for Michael Jackson’s personal archives and were never meant to be a movie, but despite that, this documentary proves to be one of the most revealing insight into Jackson’s persona.

Nonsense on all counts.

Point: 'the rehearsals were filmed for... Jackson's personal archives and were never meant to be a movie'.
Counterpoint: 'this documentary proves to be one of the most revealing insight (sic) into [Jackson]'.

Surely if the footage was shot for Jackson's personal archives and not for public consumption, it would be exactly that: candid, frank - revealing?

Separately, the second half of the sentence is contradictory. The point that Thalluri seems to be trying to make is that the documentary is a 'revealing insight' into Jackson's true personality, his psyche - as distinct from his 'persona', ie, the facade that Jackson presented to the public.

7) Starting with the explosive 1983 hit ‘Wanna Be Startin Something’ Jackson glides across the stage mesmerizing those watching in awe as the man moves with the some graceful aggression that defined him as the King of Rock, Pop and Soul.

STRUCTURE

Refer to the commentary on sentence #3 above. Thalluri has already clearly stated that the film begins with Jackson's announcement of the concert tour.

Now, it supposedly beings with, either, footage from 1983, or with contemporary footage of a performance of a 1983 song?

CONTENT

'... mesmerizing those watching in awe...'

If the audience is already mesmerised, the 'in awe' is redundant and excessive.

'... the man moves with the some (sic) graceful aggression that defined him as the King of Rock, Pop and Soul.'

Graceful aggression? Either oxymoronic or just plain moronic.

And Jackson wasn't defined as being the 'King of Rock, Pop and Soul' by his 'graceful aggression' - we can thank this renowned music critic and cultural commentator for that.

Also, this is the third - count 'em - time that Thalluri has used the word 'grace' in the 'review'. He seems to have a habit of fixating on particular words and using them over and over and over again...

8) From here the film jumps back to the announcement of the concerts, before splicing live performance with behind the scenes footage.

Again, refer back to the commentary on #3 and #7. Apparently, the chronology of the film does not move in a linear fashion after all and, rather, has flashbacks and flashforwards.

This is not a difficult point to make. Why has Thalluri muddied it in this way, to no apparent end?

9) At the concert announcement it was said that he would be doing the songs the fans want to hear, and the film delivers them all from ‘Billie Jean’ to the lesser known but beautiful ‘Human Nature’, from the highly political ‘They Don’t Care About Us’, to the plea for world consciousness in ‘Earth Song’.

'At the concert announcement it was said that he would be doing the songs the fans want to hear...' (emphasis added)

Thalluri has already said that that the film shows Jackson's announcement of the concert tour. Why then use passive voice and past tense? Why not just say that 'At the concert announcement, Jackson says that he will do the songs the fans want to hear'?

Thalluri then seems to try to set up two spectra in order to demonstrate the breadth of the Jackson back-catalogue. The first works - from Billie Jean, one of Jackson's biggest hits, to the lesser-known Human Nature.

However, in the second, for some reason, Thalluri then chooses two explicitly political songs. Why?

10) The entire stage was to be backed with a 130 foot 3D screen so the audience could watch Michael interact with 3D elements, something that was developed specifically for this show and would have been a world first.

An official press release from 3D Eye Solutions, Inc the company hired to perform the 3D conversion for the concert tour, states that the screen was a '90 foot by 30 foot LED screen'.

So, where did Thalluri pull the "130 foot 3D screen" from?

From deep within his own imagination, apparently.

11) We see the recreation of ‘Thriller’ in 3D, Michael Jackson’s army of love all dancing in unison to ‘They Don’t Care About Us’, and in perhaps one of the most stunning sequences of the film, he uses digital technology to insert himself as a character into an old black and white Rita Hayworth and Edward G. Robison movie before allowing it to transition into ‘Smooth Criminal’. I’ll say this, when I walked into that theatre I did not expect MJ to be shot at by a 1940s gangster in a variation of a film classic! Epic!

Edward G. Robinson and Rita Hayworth only acted in one film together, 1942's Tales of Manhattan.

Tales of Manhattan does not feature in This Is It.

Rather, clips from a number of films noir do, including those which feature Humphrey Bogart and Gloria Grahame, along with Robinson and Hayworth.

However, Thalluri - bless him - appears to have thought that the black and white footage all came from one film! A 'film classic', to boot.

'I have no film knowledge,' Thalluri once confessed.

Um, yeah.

12) As he glides through an extended ‘Billie Jean’, caresses his way through the sublime ‘Human Nature’, roars his way through ‘Jam’ and fights his way through ‘Beat It’ we see Jackson as he’s never been seen before - unguarded doing what he does best.

'... glides ... caresses ... roars ... fights'

Thalluri seems to have pulled the ol' Roget's for this one. Too bad he's used 'glides' already - see #7 above. And, how, exactly, does one 'caress' or 'fight' one's way through a song?

'we see Jackson as he’s never been seen before - unguarded doing what he does best.'

What, we've never seen Jackson 'doing what he does best' before? Presumably, by 'doing what he does best', Thalluri means singing and dancing? Or, does he mean that we've never seen Jackson 'doing what he does best' in an 'unguarded' manner? Very confusing.

13) The only issue I had with this film was that the Michael Jackson we see in the film was such a perfectionist that I’m sure he would turn in his grave if he knew that the world was seeing him in rehearsals and not the full blown show where he is putting in 100% of his effort.

If anything gets Jackson's corpse spinning, it is more likely to be something like this. Or, maybe these...

14) Whatever you want to think about Michael Jackson, there is one thing that can not be denied, the man was the best that ever did it and this film shows it. Even when not putting in a film effort, he still completely outshines today’s stars like Usher, Justin Timberlake and Chris Brown. This Is It is a beautiful film that will remind the world that Michael Jackson was far from all of the things that the tabloid media painted him out to be, he was a gentle genius. It is just tragic that it took his death for us to see that. I for one was looking for Michael-Mania to sweep the world once again through what would have been one of the biggest comebacks in music history, instead we get this emotive, thrilling and heartbreaking tribute to him, this shouldn’t be it, but unfortunately it is!

Again, more awkward purple prose that reads like a primary school assignment. In that vein, please discuss the following questions:

1. What is a 'film' effort?
   
2. Why does Thalluri, in his 'review', alternate between using, respectively, capitalisation, quotation marks and nothing to identify proper nouns?
   
3. Why does Thalluri use the phrase 'gentle genius' twice in the same 'review'

One can't help but wonder if this 'review' would be yet another cause of chagrin to Thalluri's old high-school English teacher...

In sum, then - one piece of advice for Thalluri: he shouldn't quit his day job.

Oh, whoops, that's right. Almost forgot.

He doesn't have one.

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.