#also unrelated to all of that but i love the concept of having a “Harvey night”

[dreams-of-void]

I have thoughts about Batman and Robin 18 (spoilers below the cut)

In this issue, Damian declares he'd quit being Robin after finding Memento to instead start an internship at the hospital.

This may seem sudden, especially since he said that he wasn't quitting Robin in favor of the hospital two issues ago, but he had overheard Jason and Bruce talking over the comms, with Bruce being his usual self

this is making Damian feel like not only does Bruce doesn't believe in his capabilities, he doesn't trust his judgment either. Which is why Damian wants to prove himself by doing something even Bruce couldn't (catching Memento) before putting down the mantle to forge his own path.

But the thing to note here, is that Bruce just sees that as a form of conflict, something that separates him from Damian. In fact, he believes that Damian only stays in Gotham because he is Robin, that he'd just leave if it wasn't for that.

Which, sure, they have mostly bonded as Batman and Robin and a lot less as Bruce and Damian, and this might have been true when Damian first started to live with him; but in this case- it's plainly false!

In fact, Damian's interest in medicine was partly started because of his legacy as Thomas' grandson (Bruce's son). It was the journals Bruce gave him. It was the first reason he mentioned when he talked about why he started volunteering at the hospital.

In any case, Damian isn't quitting Robin to get away from Bruce, nor was Batman and Robin the only buffer between them; he's... about 14 here? (I'm not certain because DC timelines are a Lot to keep up with). it's been a long time since Damian went to live with Bruce. He has changed, developed over time, and the thing is that Bruce still sees the 10 year old in him and not who he grew up into

Which is kinda upsetting, both because Damian has changed a lot since then, but because it also creates hardly attainable expectations of him. Damian is just starting to try to find himself (as teenagers do), and he has his family to help him, but he doesn't feel comfortable sharing this side of him, his doubts (is what we're doing in Gotham not just making things worse in the long run? What use is it to fight to help people if we still hurt them that way?) or things he thinks of as weaknesses to Bruce.

His feelings here can be explained further by the fact he's still grieving both of his grandfathers' deaths (Alfred and Ra's), who he failed to save. All of this is weighting him down, and he's trying to find a better path for himself, after an entire life of hurting others (no matter the reason). And I think that's admirable. But Bruce's apparent rejection when it comes to letting him grow into his own person hurt him badly.

Even though we know it's because Bruce is insecure about his place in Damian's heart, Damian doesn't. And if they can't manage to communicate better in the next few issues, this is quickly going to become a huge problem between them.

I sure hope that Dr Bashar being part of the LoA and trying to manipulate Damian is just Bruce overthinking though.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

FUCK IT. UNEXPECTEDLY CATSITTING FOR A SECOND NIGHT. LET'S GO.

Gotham 5x08

the Previously On including a flashback to season one bodes SO poorly

presumably some time has elapsed since the last episode since Barbara has a baby bump and Ed has, mercifully, gotten a haircut

Pengriddler have gone straight back to homoerotic bickering which is extremely understandable considering Oswald is doing fuckall while Ed, a former crime scene analyst, teaches himself how to build a fucking submarine

there's a topical and tasteless OceanGate joke that I could make here but some fruit is simply too low-hanging even for me

Harvey accidentally forgot to check on his disabled former partner for MONTHS after the city went full apocalypse mode... oopsie poopsie lmao

anyway I don't really care for Scarface and the Ventriloquist but I do actually COMPLETELY understand the choice to throw him in. if you're running a Batman show and it turns out some guy you cast as a totally unrelated character happens to be an actual factual irl ventriloquist you'd be crazy not to, right?

anyway personally thrilled for Ed finally having someone even he can bully

oh clayface? we're doing clayface? again??

... lady clayface?

..... just a weird and fucked up oc?

chums if I can be totally real with you I don't really care about the Jim plot or the Bruce plot in this episode I just want to see two wretched homosexuals get menaced by a puppet

Ed has chosen to side with the puppet... brutality

you can also tell time has passed because there's been time for the toxins dumped in the river last episode to turn a man into a deranged cannibal sewer mutant

fucking bargain bin of a killer croc

his hair...

look I have complicated feelings about the term "filler" as a point of criticism since it seems to have widely suffered concept creep from its origin as a term to describe anime episodes, and also because I'm deeply skeptical of the notion that every episode needs to immediately advance the plot. things that don't directly move the story along still enrich the world, flesh out characters, contribute to the ambiance, etc.

now, having said that. why the FUCK are we doing Scarface filler when there are ONLY FOUR EPISODES LEFT OF THIS ENTIRE SHOW. FOREVER. what were they smoking in the writers room !!!!

alright walking back all of my previous criticism. Oswald shooting the puppet in the head instead of the ventriloquist, and that actually works? funny. Ed promptly killing the ventriloquist anyway to Oswald's shock and horror? FUNNY.

Ed calling himself a "cold logician" is so funny baby girl you have a breakdown like every episode. you're an unevenly microwaved pot pie at best.

Ed saves Oswald's life and says "this friendship is great" and Oswald says "we really are meant for each other" and I'm biting through drywall. imagine being noted queers Robin Lord Taylor and Cory Michael Smith having to do this for five years knowing your characters should be giving each other the worst sloppy imaginable and not being allowed to do that. they deserve to kill tbh.

Bruce's hair is so fluffy this episode I love my son (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

if I had a nickel for every time an episode ends with Harvey pouring his soul out to Jim while Jim actually stonewalls him I would have enough nickels to fill a sock and beat myself unconscious so I could stop watching this show

gotham time feat. special guest Phoebe

what's up everybody, time for a special liveblog featuring the cat who I'm currently babysitting and subjecting to my awful taste in television!

last time I was babysitting Phoebe and made her watch Gotham with me she tried to smother herself to death in the couch, so I really can't wait to see what she thinks of season 5.

Gotham 5x07

I am actually going to stay mad about how stupid it is that Barbara somehow knows she's pregnant like a week, tops, after she and Jim had sex

the passage of time in this season is in shambles. like it's never been a particularly solid timeline, we are infamously NOT running a tight ship over here on Gotham, but come on

whatever compliment sandwich: sweet young David Mazouz really mastered the Bruce Wayne tendency to stand hunched over a series of maps looking stoic and haunted in a black turtleneck

this episode just casually drops that Bruce's parents were murdered on June 27th and I'm so glad that I'm watching this episode today (June 24th) instead of three days from now because I probably would have been so unnerved seeing the real date reflected back at me from this show that I'd like. I don't know. start believing in angel numbers and crystal healing or something.

Barbara asking Lee to be her obstetrician is actually like. insane 4d chess flirting. yes I still think they should hook up I don't care they've both done worse (Jim)

is Lee even qualified to be an obstetrician.

anyway I don't believe for a second Barbara wouldn't abort that thang for the love of god the city is a smoking crater

this is what happened when Oswald hoards all the Plan B (a joke exclusively for @dykerory and I)

Cameron Monaghan's Jeremiah look is so fugly but that purple (???) lip is kind of cunt cunt serve

once again begging for literally any information on how old the Valeska twins are supposed to be as Jeremiah becomes more and more of a yandere to our little teen Bruce. for those of you just joining us Jeremiah is played by a mid-twenties Monaghan but is old enough to have had a very successful career in architecture prior to becoming basically the Joker, so. truly anyone's guess.

in conclusion: why is he obsessed with this teenager.

sorry maybe I should clarify that the main Bruce plot of this episode is tht Jeremiah has kidnapped and brainwashed a.) Alfred and b.) two randos who have been given plastic surgery to look like Thomas and Martha so that he can force Bruce to relive the night they were murdered BUT with Jeremiah there this time because he's upset that he wasn't there for one of the most important nights of Bruce's life. they're currently having dinner in the Wayne Manor kitchen while Jeremiah breathes heavily at Bruce about how intimate this is.

what I'm saying is that this would all be deeply and upsettingly erotic were one participant not almost certainly too young to vote

like I said the timeline is SO funky and they're so careful to never tell you how old Bruce and Selina are but David Mazouz is 22 RIGHT NOW four years after the series ended. so.

"I've realized if we can't be friends then we can be connected in... other ways" Jeremiah I'm calling the cops

JERVIS IS ALIVE ???

how were the first six episodes so nothing and then this episode has literally everything happening all at the same time

okay so Wayne Manor just got blown to kingdom come

they literally have Ecco zipping around fighting on roller skates... you wanna be Harley soooo bad

honestly love to see the #growth of Oswald not immediately offering to suck off anyone who helps him anymore. Alfred just saved this little bitch's life and Oswald promptly told him to go fuck himself, which rules extra hard because you all know I hate Alfred

man this part in the movie theater is like that part of Joker War in the movie theater if Joker War didn't fucking suck

wanting to kill Bruce's father figure and going after Jim instead of Alfred is so disrespectful jesus christ

also god there's never been a Leslie Thompkins who is LESS of a mother to Bruce get out of here

wait oh my god Selina had a whole thing last episode about how much she hates herself for being too selfish to help when she (at 12 years old) saw Bruce's parents get murdered but she's going to come in now to help him stop Jeremiah from recreating that night with Jim and Lee... I see the vision I GET IT

this is like a freshman level plot to thread the needle on but that's really impressive for Gotham

oh my god Jeremiah fell in a vat at Ace Chemicals that's crazy. I'm sure that'll stick he's definitely dead.

they even managed to cram the Riddler in this episode jesus christ. pengriddler are fighting about Oswald homosexually naming his dog after Ed if you were curious. Oswald would like it to be noted that this was a compliment because he's VERY fond of that dog.

left off on Pengriddler deciding to make nice again and then promptly cuts to Oswald leading Ed into his house... this close to inventing m/m sex in the Gotham universe if Barbara hadn't interrupted

the Riddler has like 9263 unpleasant and unnerving traits but being able to look at a woman who's three days pregnant and instantly clock that she's expecting just rocketed to the top of the list

honestly. honestly. Emmy for Cory Michael Smith's delivery of "it's a submarine ¯\_(ツ)_/¯."

Barbara can't... kill people anymore... because she's pregnant... okay...

if we don't get the rogues throwing a baby shower literally what's the point of anything. this will all be for nothing.

genuinely thank god I'm only doing the one episode tonight this is SO LONG

[alecthemovieguy]

Have yourself a ‘Star Wars’ Christmas

With Christmas just over a week away and “Star Wars: The Last Jedi” now in theaters, it seems only fitting to talk about “Star Wars” universe’s bizarre history with the holiday season.  Over the years, there have been several “Star Wars” spin-offs of varying degrees of quality,  including two Ewok-centric TV movies as well as the Saturday morning cartoons “Ewoks” and “Droids” in the 1980s. But the “Star Wars Holiday Special” is by far the strangest officially sanctioned “Star Wars” product put to screen. The “Holiday Special” aired Friday, Nov. 17, 1978, and never again. Despite the involvement of original cast members Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Anthony Daniels as C-3PO, Peter Mayhew as Chewbacca and James Earl Jones as the voice of Darth Vader, it quickly became “Star Wars” creator George Lucas’ greatest shame.

Lucas allegedly once said at a “Star Wars” convention that “If I had the time and a sledgehammer, I would track down every copy of that show and smash it.”

Much to Lucas’ chagrin, the special lived on through bootleg copies and the internet.

The plot, or what there is of one, focuses on Han Solo (Ford) and Chewbacca trying to get back to the Wookiee home planet to celebrate Life Day with Chewie’s family. The traditions of Life Day are not explained. It is just a stand-in for all holidays.

Much of the special doesn’t focus on Han and Chewie but rather Chewie’s family who all moan in that familiar Wookiee way. The issue is that there are no subtitles. After only a few minutes of Wookiee conversation, confusion sets in followed by a migraine. There is also a collection of celebrity guests, including Art Carney, Bea Arthur, Harvey Korman and Jefferson Starship. You’d be correct in assuming that none of those people fits into the Star Wars universe.

Korman, who seems like he wandered in from the set of “The Carol Burnett Show,” plays three different characters in a series of random sketches that feel completely out of place. One involves him as a four-armed chef hosting a cooking show because, sure why not? Jefferson Starship, having nearly completed the transition from Jefferson Airplane to Starship, performs a truly dreadful song that is watched by the youngest Wookiee. Grandpa Wookiee watches a song performed by Diahann Carroll that comes across like he’s watching a phone sex girl. Seriously. Arthur fares best as the singing owner of a bar that is being shut down by the evil Empire, but the scene feels disconnected from the rest of the special.

Thanks to too much makeup and an odd haircut, Hamill looks like a Ken doll version of Luke Skywalker in his brief and meaningless cameo.

Ford’s appearance as Han Solo is the definition of a paycheck performance. This may well be the beginning of his love-hate relationship with a character he had been hoping to kill off since “Empire Strikes Back.”

The special is perhaps best-known for a cheaply animated sequence that features the inauspicious introduction of the bounty hunter Boba Fett.

Fisher as Princess Leia concludes the special singing a song celebrating Life Day to the tune of the “Star Wars” theme. This may read as borderline parody and while some of it does play as so-bad-it’s-good fun, most of it is unwatchable.

You would think Lucas would have learned his lesson to steer clear of Christmas, but in 1980 “Christmas in the Stars: Star Wars Christmas Album” surfaced. The album was the brainchild of producer Meco who found great success with “Star Wars and Other Galactic Funk,” a surprisingly enjoyable disco version of the “Star Wars” score.

Meco wrote Lucas a letter with his concept for the album and Lucas signed off on it. Daniels once again appeared as C-3PO and sound designer Ben Burtt contributed authentic sound effects for R2-D2 and Chewbacca.

While the “Holiday Special” was seen as an abject failure, the album became a success with “What Can You Get a Wookiee for Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb),” reaching No. 69 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Due to the success of the first printing of 150,000 albums, RSO Records was ready to do a second printing, but the studio shut down due to an unrelated lawsuit before that could happen.

“Christmas in the Stars” also has the distinction of featuring the first professional recording of Jon Bon Jovi (credited under his birth name John Bongiovi) on “R2-D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas.” His cousin Tony Bongiovi co-produced the album and ran the recording studio at which it was recorded.

To call “Christmas in the Stars” genuinely good would be an overstatement, but the album succeeds where the special failed by creating a product that is aware of its absurdity and doesn’t shy away from it.

As the title suggests, the album fully embraces the idea of Christmas in the “Star Wars” universe, which makes no logical sense, but that’s part of the album’s campy appeal. With lyrics like “Everyone will have a cookie, I brought extra for the Wookiee,” it is pure unadulterated cheese. Odd as it may seem, in the right mindset, “Christmas in the Stars” may actually help you get in the holiday spirit. So, while it is wise to wish R2D2 a merry Christmas, Chewie may rip your arms off if you wish him a happy Life Day.

[dweemeister]

Seven Days to Noon (1950)

Less attentive movie critics and historians would have readers believe that the nuclear thriller began with and is defined by Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). But fourteen years before Dr. Strangelove came John and Roy Boulting’s Seven Days to Noon where, unlike Dr. Strangelove, Fail-Safe (1964), or Crimson Tide (1995), the moral center in the Boulting brothers’ film is not a military figure or a politician. Its central character is a civilian, and the debate over nuclear warfare is not just discussed among military and political officials, but on a civilian front. Only five years after the Second World War’s conclusion and the beginning of the Cold War, it is remarkable how Seven Days to Noon – produced by British Lion Films and distributed in Britain by London Films – works as entertainment and a thinkpiece. Though it might not be as eloquent as its successors – given its release date, how could it be (whether or not those cinematic successors have ever shifted cultural attitudes towards nuclear weapons, however, is dubious)?  – this is a nuclear thriller pulsating with urgency and desperation.

That aforementioned civilian is a conscience-stricken Professor Willingdon (Barry Jones), who has penned a letter to the British Prime Minister (Ronald Adam) that he has stolen a small nuclear warhead from a research center. The warhead is small enough to fit in a briefcase, and Willingdon has threatened to detonate the device near the center of British government unless his demands are met. Those demands: that the government stops plans for nuclear proliferation immediately and moves towards disarmament. Willingdon has given the government a week – the deadline is noon on the next Sunday. Scotland Yard, MI5, and eventually the military are mobilized to find Willingdon and neutralize the device. From the government and security forces’ point of view, we follow Scotland Yard Superintendent Folland (André Morell) and his subordinates as they convince the professor’s daughter, Ann (Sheila Manahan) and his assistant, Stephen Lane Hugh Cross) to cooperate with the search. Meanwhile, Willingdon attempts to avoid authority figures, searching for bed-and-breakfasts and introducing himself to people as a British Museum researcher.

The screenplay, written by James Bernard (a film score composer best known for his Hammer Horror work, who would proceed to win a writing Academy Award for his only screenplay), Roy Boulting, Paul Dehn (1964′s Goldfinger,1965′s The Spy Who Came in from the Cold), and Frank Harvey (1959′s I’m All Right Jack, 1963′s Heavens Above!) balance their writing between the powerful and the powerless. As Sunday midday draws closer, the viewer learns of the considerations the government and security forces must make in protecting the civilians within the potential blast radius. Evacuation plans are prepared. Could information have been released sooner, or would that have necessarily inspired a destructive panic? Well before the government reveals Willingdon’s intentions and reasons for visible military buildups, Londoners and those in its outskirts gossip about the causes for these developments. The Soviets are amassing troops in Central Europe, says one woman the professor just happens to overhear. If so, Britain will have the firepower to annihilate them all, says an intoxicated man. Willingdon’s head snaps towards that inebriated bloke during that scene, as the professor – in his meek, hushed tone laced with prim lecture – attempts to educate his fellow man of the madness of mutually assured destruction.

The screenwriters are willing to display anti-nuclear politics in ways that would not mature for another decade, as well as juxtaposing those politics with those believing that a zero-sum international environment can only be resolved through unrelenting nuclear force. Again, the distinction comes not among military brass and politicians – who, in Seven Days to Noon, are almost uniformly pro-proliferation (not once does the Prime Minister consider Willingdon’s demands, even when catastrophe is imminent – differences of opinion from other government and military officials probably should exist, but the writers somehow let the Prime Minister go unchallenged) – but among civilians. Too many nuclear thrillers deprive civilians of that agency to have inflexible political stances on nuclear warfare, as if they have not given this whole atomic warfare issue much thought. Instead, it seems like non-combatants only care about nuclear holocaust only after it has happened. What a ridiculous thought, Seven Days to Noon’s writers assert, that people who are not the ultimate masters of their own destiny are apathetic towards usually intangible issues. This is courageous writing.

With all these details packed into how the government is managing the crisis and how Willingdon is spending his time across London’s neighborhoods and skirting the police and military, the Boulting brothers – who co-edited Seven Days to Noon as well – establish a steady drumbeat to the passing days of the interministerial effort to apprehend Willingdon. No scene and no individual day depicted in the film feels misplaced, too short, or too long. The use of around seven locations in and around London – including (and not limited to) – Westminster, various London Underground stations, the London Zoo, and the old Wembley Stadium – offer realism, urgency. And however the filmmakers received permission, cinematographer Gilbert Taylor’s (Dr. Strangelove, 1977′s Star Wars) shots of Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, and Westminster Bridge all bereft of any human life contribute to the enormity and seriousness of this fictional situation. A sequence within St. Stephen’s Church in Westbourne Park – still devastated from The Blitz – creates a dreadful atmosphere contrasting two conceptions of salvation.

Professor Willingdon, willing to slaughter millions just to illustrate his beliefs in the wastefulness and futility of nuclear proliferation, has witnessed how his life’s passion – science – can be twisted for apocalyptic purposes. In his writings to the Prime Minister and conversations with others, his utopian, egalitarian worldviews of scientific progress have been devastated by his proximity to his work on a weapon of mass destruction. Opposed to the Prime Minister’s stiff upper-lipped support for proliferation, Professor Willingdon is sometimes portrayed sympathetically. Jones (1954′s Brigadoon, 1956′s War and Peace) provides his character with haggard sensibilities and a suicidal determination that he is acting for a greater good. Willingdon is recognized as mentally unfit, but this is given little attention after it is briefly mentioned by investigators. For in Seven Days to Noon, we witness a man realizing the extent of his moral limitations, and how humanity – tethered to the contradictions of nuclear warfare’s wholesale extermination – is confined to the whims of a responsible few.

Composer John Addison made his feature film debut with Seven Days to Noon, launching a five-decade career in which he became one of the best film score composers from Britain. His work in Seven Days to Noon has no sweeping melodic themes, but brief dissonant punctuations from the orchestra to amplify the editing’s already-surging tension as revelations are unearthed and Willingdon’s deadline approaches. It is a journeyman-like debut for an esteemed composer.

The Boulting brothers – identical twins from England that produced, co-wrote, and directed several socially-conscious dramas – are better known in Europe than in the United States. Seven Days to Noon, modestly received in the United States, is the only film in the brothers’ filmography that they directed jointly. The brothers also co-produced and, as mentioned prior, co-edited the film. Similar to the Coen brothers, it is difficult to disentangle how much responsibility each brother placed into a certain aspect of the filmmaking. But no matter the division of labor, the Boultings have crafted a movie deserving of regards in the canon of Western nuclear thriller movies.

My rating: 9/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[maclitpub]

Ask an Expert: Can the Plagiarism Charges Against Emma Cline Hold Up in Court?

They were little-known writers when they fell in love. Then she rose to stardom, and he did not. Now they’re suing each other in a San Francisco court.

Emma Cline, the author of last year’s spectacularly successful debut novel The Girls, and her ex, Chaz Reetz-Laiolo, filed dueling federal lawsuits on Wednesday that tell conflicting stories about the death of their relationship and the birth of a literary hit. Reetz-Laiolo says Cline spied on him and plagiarized parts of his unproduced screenplay to write The Girls. Cline says Reetz-Laiolo abused her and now is trying to extort her and destroy her reputation.

Plagiarism cases can be notoriously difficult to prove, especially between a pair of writers who once collaborated and critiqued each other’s work, as Cline and Reezt-Laiolo did. So will the plagiarism charges hold up if the case goes to trial, as both parties have requested? Orly Lobel, a professor of law at the University of San Diego and the author of You Don’t Own Me: How Mattel v. MGA Entertainment Exposed Barbie’s Dark Side was skeptical, particularly since nearly all of the instances of plagiarism Reetz-Laiolo’s complaint cited were not word-for-word quotations, but rather ideas, images, and fragments of anecdotes from their lives together — none of which are protected under copyright law.

The story begins with a few undisputed facts. They met in 2009, when Cline was 20 and Reetz-Laiolo was 33. Part of what drew them together was their literary ambitions. But the relationship was not without problems, and not long after they started dating, Cline installed spy software on her own computer — a computer that Reetz-Laiolo occasionally used. Her complaint says she did this because she knew he was cheating on her, because he was abusive, because she “could no longer distinguish the truth from ReetzLaiolo’s [sic] constant lies.” His complaint says that they were never monogamous to begin with. In any event, in 2013, after they’d broken up, Cline agreed to sell Reetz-Laiolo the laptop with the spyware. From there, the stories diverge even further. His complaint argues that Cline intentionally left the software on the computer, and suggests that she “may” have upgraded to a more advanced version of the spyware program that would have allowed Cline continued remote access to the computer. Cline’s complaint calls this theory “ludicrous.”

Both agree that after Cline sold her book to Random House, in 2014, she approached Reetz-Laiolo and asked him to read a draft of the manuscript; he declined. Her complaint asserts that he delayed reading the book because “the stakes for Cline would only rise higher as she moved further along in the publication process.” In 2015 — according to his complaint, the year he discovered the spyware on his computer — Reetz-Laiolo began to review drafts of The Girls. Over the course of the following year, he sent Cline and her publisher (also named in the suit) dozens of instances of alleged plagiarism.

According to Lobel, most of these examples would not hold up in court. One instance includes the mention of the body brush, a personal grooming implement. In an earlier draft of the book, Cline included this sentence: “My mother spoke to Sal about body brushing, of the movement of energies around meridian points. The charts.” Reetz-Laiolo claimed this plagiarized a sentence that appeared in his short story, “Animals,” in Ecotone magazine: “Laurel in the morning brushing her body on the patio with a body brush, slowly combing it up her legs towards her heart, up her arms towards her heart. Circling her belly. There was something totemic about her out there in the sun.”

But Cline’s complaint stated that she owned a body brush. “The law does not allow you to own those kinds of ideas for art,” said Lobel. “There’s no copyright infringement there. It’s very clear that our whole history of art, of writing, of literature is built on paying homage to previous authors, other authors, being in conversation, and that’s actually part of what art is.”

Regardless of whether these “snippets” amounted to plagiarism, Cline and her publisher removed all the sentences that Reetz-Laiolo identified prior to publication so they could resolve the dispute, her complaint stated. But Reetz-Laiolo had also asked Cline to remove a small section of the text that his complaint alleged resembled a section of his screenplay, a script she could only have read if she did, in fact, remotely hack into his computer. If the case does go to trial, this will likely be at the center of it, since it is the only instance of alleged plagiarism that made its way into the published version of The Girls. Lobel was skeptical of the plagiarism charge here as well, but if Reetz-Laiolo’s legal team is able to prove that Cline hacked into Reetz-Laiolo’s computer, Cline may be charged with something, though likely not plagiarism.

“I discuss in my book the concept of ‘scenes a faire’ — the fact that a lot of times there will be elements that are similar in two works but the courts understand that those elements are necessary to the genres so even if there is similarity, it’s not copyright infringement,” Lobel wrote in an email. At the same time, Lobel added, breaking into someone else’s computer and taking “proprietary information” can amount to “theft and unjust enrichment.” “You cannot steal an idea for a story line by hacking into someone’s computer,” she wrote. “So this will be a factual inquiry.”

It’s important to note that Reetz-Laiolo hired Harvey Weinstein’s former law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner, and that the law firm used a trove of Cline’s personal documents — captured by the spyware program she installed on her own computer — to threaten Cline. Reetz-Laiolo’s complaint is threaded with salacious and humiliating details about Cline that are completely unrelated to any charge of plagiarism. (The complaint also alleges that Cline hacked into the email accounts of two other acquaintances, one of whom is Reetz-Laiolo’s ex-girlfriend, also named as plaintiffs in the suit.) According to The New Yorker, an earlier draft of the complaint contained even more salacious details, including naked selfies, explicit chat messages, and a section called “Cline’s History of Manipulating Older Men,” which began like this: “[E]vidence shows that Cline was not the innocent and inexperienced naïf she portrayed herself to be, and had instead for many years maintained numerous ‘relations’ with older men and others, from whom she extracted gifts and money.” The New Yorker also reported that after news broke that David Boies had hired private investigators to discredit an actress who accused Weinstein of rape, Boies’s name was removed from Reetz-Laiolo’s complaint.

As Cline’s complaint noted, this earlier draft of Reetz-Laiolo’s lawsuit “followed an age-old playbook: it invoked the specter of sexual shame to threaten a woman into silence and acquiescence.”

Neither Cline nor Reetz-Laiolo responded to request for comment, but Cline’s literary agent Bill Clegg described Reetz-Laiolo’s lawsuit as a baseless attack “designed to damage her reputation and extract undeserved financial windfall.”

“It has been heartbreaking and enraging to watch a bitter ex-boyfriend whom Emma met when she was still in college — a man thirteen years her senior — try to disgrace her and leverage their shared time for his personal gain,” Clegg wrote in a statement provided to Vulture. “Emma’s success is her own, and any claims that she infringed her ex-boyfriend’s work in her novel The Girls are false. There is a long, documented history showing that Emma’s idea for and work on The Girls preceded and remained completely separate from this person. Before they met, Emma had already won two prestigious literary prizes, been published at the age of seventeen in a national literary journal, and written the story, ‘Marion’, about a young girl’s experience on a commune in California, which would later be published in The Paris Review and prompt her to win that journal’s once-a-year citation, the Plimpton Prize for Fiction. These facts speak for themselves, as do the actions and histories of those who have tried to intimidate and exploit Emma.”

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