Bollywood loves stealing from Hollywood films.
Maybe not as much as other countries (I’m looking at you Turkish Batman)
Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena lifts from the best (House of Games) and the worst (Confidence). IMDB describes the film as:
Meet Arjun Verma, a conman who plays the biggest odds and wins. Trained in the belly of Bombay, he knows how to score with women, money, and the law. His playground is his alone - AND NOBODY F***S WITH THAT.
The good news is that they have made a musical of the Frank Abagnale Book and Steven Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can.
The bad news is that they have made a musical of the Frank Abagnale Book and Steven Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can.
This email in from my friend Ester in Scotland.
Looking at some of the fandom drama out there I remembered about a person called Victoria Bitter/Amy Player. She was involved in a fandom convention called tentmoot and defrauded some fans.
I thought if you have a chance to read through it might be useful for the encylopedia of scams. It’s certainly a bit of a bizzare story…
And it is.
Amy Player, a Lord of the Rings fan from Virginia created an online fan club in homage to actor Sean Astin and his LOTR character.
She teamed up with fellow fan and started a ‘Bit of Earth’ - a charity based around gardening and literacy.
The signed up Astin to assist them and, with the actor supporting, created a small army of nerds around the word willing to help out.
They created a LOTR convention in New Zealand which fell apart at the last minute, resulting in several very pissed off actors who had jetted around the world to attend the event.
The failed event revealed the Bit of Earth charity to be a fraud and that Player had being lying to celebrities and businesses to get support for her fake fundraisers.
It also turns out she had multiple characters (both in real life and in the fictional LOTR world.)
She was reported missing by her parents and ended up on the side of a milk carton.
She changed her name to Jordan Wood , Elijah Wood’s male cousin who was on the run from IRA.
And then things got weird…
The whole fiasco can be found in When A Fan Hits The Shit by Jeanine Renne.
Number Two: Advance Fee Fraud
In 1997 - David Mamet released The Spanish Prisoner, a taught pyschological thriller about a scientist who gives up an item of great value when promised an even greater treasure. (Sorry to sound vague but I don’t want to ruin the plot).
13 years later and the storyline is now everyday. Each day, everyone else is bombarded with emails with promises of millions from long lost inheritences, won lotteries and foreign fortunes.
All we need to do is send them a small fee, a little bribe and perhaps a few thousand dollars for expenses and the money is ours.
The Spanish Prisoner, or Advance Fee Fraud, is now one of the biggest scams in the world, netting it’s mostly Spanish and Nigerian perpertrators billions each year.
It’s so common place that the most recent victims are mocked as idiots for not already being aware of the scam.
Which means less and less victims are going public with their experiences meaning more and more people will fall foul in the future.
Tomorrow: Bernie Madoff
Number Seven: Illegal Downloads
You didn’t think you were going to escape the Top Ten Scams of the Decade did you?
If you’re reading this, the chances are that you’ve downloaded something illegally off the internet.
The last ten years have seen a rapid rise in the speed of internet leading to more and more music, software, TV and movies being illegally shared around the world.
The more it happens, the more excuses we come up with.
“If I really like a TV series that I’ve downloaded, I might buy the DVD.”
(Sure - I steal stuff from shops all the time. And if I like it, I go back pay for it.)
“Information should be freely available to the masses.”
(You know who else said that…STALIN. But I don’t see you don’t at the fruit and veg co-op redistributing the wealth do I?)
“TV stations don’t show programs at regular hours so I have to watch it somehow.”
(I agree, network TV sucks. But just because someone is a jerk doesn’t excuse the crime.)
If I’m brutally honest, I think my real problem with the illegal downloaders is not the crime itself. I hang out with card cheats, short con men and petty thieves all the time. Why really rubs me the wrong way is the crappy excuses.
You’re a con artist.
Deal with it.
Tomorrow: Weight Loss
Used without permission of FOX. But I might buy the DVD if I enjoy this picture enough…
One of the great con man films of all kind is the 1972 classic, Paper Moon.
Here is a clip with some added commentary from myself. Enjoy.
I’m not a big fan of the Twilight books and movies and even less of a fan of the brooding, emo lite, tweens who obsessed over the stories and dream of being drag off by a pale, cheek boned vampire.
But this new spam scam email is still sad, preying on the weak fans of those who prey on the weak.
This email has been arriving in the in-box of teens around the world looking for extras for the third
This is a nationwide casting and [Portland]-area movie extras are still needed. No experience is necessary, all looks/types are wanted and the pay ranges from $80-$250 per day depending on whether it’s part or full time.”
Once the victims click on the link, they are sent to a website that requires payment before the casting call details can be viewed.
Suckers.
One. Two. Two Meanings. Mha-ha-ha!
AS FEATURED ON ABC RADIO WITH KATHY BEDFORD
In recent years, fictional con artists have taken a slick turn.
Con artists are either depicted as suave and sophisticated characters such as in the TV shows Hustle and White Collar.
Or we have the grim dose of reality in Nine Queens and Matchstick Men.
So it’s nice that a film like Brothers Bloom comes along, bringing back the classic caper con man last seen in films like The Sting or Paper Moon.
Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo play Bloom and Stephen, two brothers and con artists who reunite for ‘one last scam’ enlisting the help of eccentric heiress Penelope (Rachael Weiss) along the way.
Directed by Rian Johnson whose debut, the brooding and stylized teenager noir thriller Brick, is one of my favourites, Brothers Bloom, brings the fun back to the con artist film.
It feels like a Wes Anderson film, with the story packed with kooky characters and odd situations.
Like most con artists films, the swindle itself is overly complex to the point of leaving me a little disinterested but such great characters to watch and fantastic dialouge, I just don’t care.
FACTOID - The film was shot in Romania, the home to more con artists the most swindley country in Europe.
Swindley is a word. Look it up.