Another Hollywood Suicide Leap: Brian Gerber

It's happened again. Hollywood has suffered another self-death.

LA Weekly has announced that Hollywood's 11th Hour producer Brian Gerber has died by suicide by propelling himself over a cliff. In many ways, the method of suicide copies Tony Scott's jump from a Hollywood area bridge a mere ten days ago.

Gerber's suicide was just confirmed in a post on his Facebook profile....
Another well-loved member of the L.A. film industry -- documentary producer and digital-tech pioneer Brian Gerber -- took his life this week by driving his car off the Angeles Crest Highway. (Ridley Scott's brother, producer Tony Scott, just jumped off the Vincent Thomas Bridge last week.)

 

According to Battalion Chief Ron Larriva of the L.A. County Fire Department, the LAPD and Sheriff's Department began searching Angeles Crest Highway for Gerber early this morning, after being informed by his family that he was distraught and thinking of running his car off a cliff in the area.

 

Around 7:30 a.m., Larriva says investigators found "a suicide note up on the rock" at mile marker 32, as well as a car that had plummeted 500 to 600 feet down the embankment into Angeles National Forest. "It must have happened late last night or early this morning," says Larriva.
Inside the vehicle was a fatally injured 41-year-old Los Angeles resident, says Sheriff's Lieutenant Angela Shepherd, although she's "not releasing any names."

Thanks Arcadia Pariah.

Filmography/IMBd/Brian Gerber

Walk & Talk - The West Wing Reunion: Behind the Scenes (short) (executive producer)

2012Walk & Talk: The West Wing Reunion (short) (executive producer)

2010Sex and the Austen Girl (TV series) (executive producer/director - 6 episodes)

Independent Lens (TV series documentary) (associate producer - 1 episode, 2010) (producer - 1 episode, 2002)

– Project Kashmir (2010) (associate producer)

– Jimmy Scott: If You Only Knew (2002) (producer)

2008The Dungeon Masters (documentary) (producer)

2008Save It (short) (line producer)

2008Project Kashmir (documentary) (associate producer)

2007Sunny & Share Love You (producer)

2007/IThe 11th Hour (documentary) (producer)

2007Compañeras (documentary) (associate producer)

2006The Making of 'RockPaperScissors' (video documentary short) (producer)

2006Tell Me Do You Miss Me (documentary) (co-producer)

2006Putting the River in Reverse (documentary short) (producer)

2005I Believe to My Soul (video documentary short) (producer)

2003Briar Patch (associate producer)

2002Bug (producer)

2001Daniel Johnston: Rock (documentary short) (producer)

2000Dean Wareham: Psychobabble (short) (producer)

2000Jimmy Scott: Alone Together (short) (producer)

American Psycho Copycat?

Violent movies can serve as models for violent behavior. This is a well-known fact, a subtheme of my book The Copycat Effect, and decades of research attest to popular culture inspired-murders, suicides, terror, and more. But the reality of breaking news events certainly makes it more than academic. The continuing saga of synchromystic cannibals now enters the overlapping world of films, culture, and killings.

At the end of the week, evidence mounted that Luka Rocco Magnotta, accused media-labeled "Montreal Cannibal" of 33-year-old Lin Jun, patterned segments of what he allegedly did via cinema inspirations. The primary film he used was American Psycho.

This is not the first time this specific story has been used as the model for murder. In Canada, the novel on which the movie is based, American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, published in 1991, was highlighted during the trial of serial killer Paul Bernardo. It was discovered that Bernardo owned a copy of the book and had "read it as his 'bible'." 

Bernardo committed the serial rapes and murders that were characterized as "The Scarborough Rapist" and "The Schoolgirl Killer" (see here). Magnotta, then named Eric Clinton Newman, was born in Scarborough, Ontario. A few news stories emerged in 2007 claiming that Magnotta was in a relationship with Karla Homolka, the high-profile Canadian murderer, partner-in-crime and wife of Bernardo. But Magnotta denied in a "creepy" interview with reporter Joe Warmington of Toronto Sun that he had ever even met her. During the 2012 "cannibal" murder investigation, Montreal police initially announced that the pair had dated, but subsequently retracted the statement and acknowledged that they had no new evidence to corroborate the claim. (Suggested update by aferrismoon.)

American Psycho is told in the first person by Patrick Bateman, a serial killer and Manhattan businessman, who commits bloody, violent dismemberments. The book's graphic violence and sexual content generated a great deal of controversy before and after publication. A film adaptation starring Christian Bale was released in 2000 and attained a cult following. Indeed, the "Uncut Version" of American Psycho is called the "Killer Collector's Edition."

One of the followers apparently was the 29-year-old Magnotta.

Patrick Bateman: Did you know that Ted Bundy's first dog, 

a collie, was named Lassie? [laughs] 

Jean: Who's Ted Bundy? 

Magnotta's murder and the partial eating of his victim included clues to his movie inspirations, for he uses music from the movie to go with his footage.

AFP reporter Michael Thurston summarized what the police have discovered after analyzing the Magnotta-filmed "snuff footage":

The music playing in the background of the horrific Montreal murder video -- easily viewable online as recently as this week -- is from the 2000 serial killer movie American Psycho.
In the film, a wealthy New York banker, played by Hollywood A-lister Christian Bale, hides his alternate psychopathic ego from co-workers and friends as he acts out gratuitous fantasies.
They climax in a notorious scene in which Bale's character uses an axe in the frenzied slaughter of a colleague, set to the Huey Lewis and the News song It's Hip to be Square.
In the video, Magnotta appears to be filming himself on the night of May 24-25 killing Lin with a pickaxe [incorrect detail by Thurston - should be ice pick - LC], to a soundtrack of New Order's True Faith, which plays over the opening credits of American Psycho.
One of the videos of Magnotta which has surfaced since the slaying became public is entitled Luka Magnotta Official Theme Song, and is set the tune of True Faith.

Magnotta may have even tried to appear as close to the looks of Christian Bale, as he could.

Magnotta also employed the "name game" too. When he was on the run in Europe, he used the pseudonym "Tramell" when he got on a bus from Paris to Berlin. In the 1992 erotic serial murderer film, Basic Instinct, the killer is named "Catherine Tramell," played by Sharon Stone.

Like the ice pick murder at the beginning of Basic Instinct, after sexual intercourse, the method appears to match the scenario as it unfolds, shown in Magnotta's video, regarding how the Montreal victim was killed.

Police recently were investigating a literal link that Magnotta may have purposely left tying himself directly to Hollywood. In January 2012, the head, hands and feet of 66-year-old Hervey Medellin -- dismembered like the Chinese student -- were found in the Hollywood Hills, on a hiking trail leading up to the iconic Hollywood sign. Police "know that Magnotta was on the US West Coast" around the time of the killing and earlier in the week were looking to see if there is a link.

Los Angeles police released statements about Hervey Medellin, 66, the Hollywood sign victim, being, like Magnotta, openly gay (as if that even means anything, forensically). Medellin's head was discovered in Bronson Canyon Park on January 17, when a dog found a plastic bag that contained the head near the sign. The accompanying dog walker called the police, and investigators discovered severed hands and feet during the course of a two-day search.

But now, the LAPD say there is no link between Magnotta and Medellin's killing. Instead, an unsolved 2009 Miami murder case, involving Omar Laparra, 21, whose body was found in the Biscayne Bay, dismembered and floating in plastic bags, is being examined for a Magnotta link. The disposition of the victim mirrors that on the television program, Dexter, also set in Miami.

There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory. And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there. ~ Patrick Bateman, American Psycho

Patrick Bateman: Wasn't Rothschild originally handling the Fisher account? How did you get it?
Paul Allen: Well, Halberstram, I could tell you... but then I'd have to kill ya.

Patrick Bateman: Do you know what Ed Gein said about women?
David Van Patten: Ed Gein? The maitre 'd at Canal Bar?
Patrick Bateman: No, serial killer, Wisconsin, the '50s.
Craig McDermott: So what did he say?
Patrick Bateman: "When I see a pretty girl walking down the street, I think two things. One part wants me to take her out, talk to her, be real nice and sweet and treat her right."
David Van Patten: And what did the other part think?
Patrick Bateman: "What her head would look like on a stick... " [laughs]

+++

Movies don't create psychos, movies make psychos more creative! ~ Billy Loomis, Scream (Quote suggested by Mark.)

Death Threats Phoned To Casting Directors

On November 7, 2010, five casting directors in the Los Angeles area received death threats via their office telephones. All reported the threats to Teamsters Local 399 , which represents Hollywood industry casting directors. Local police and their studios were notified.

Teamsters business representative Ed Duffy, who confirmed to the blog Back Stage that the threats took place, sent a mass email to members of the L.A. casting community warning them of the phone calls and encouraging anyone else who has been threatened to come forward. On November 15, 2010, a sixth casting director came forth telling of another death threat. Duffy would not identify the members threatened. 

"It's a pretty low blow to do something like that to these casting directors," Duffy said. "Whether it's a reality or not, it has to be taken seriously."

Of course, then on Tuesday November 16, 2010, famed publicist Ronni Chasen was shot multiple times while driving her Mercedes-Benz through Beverly Hills on her way home from the premiere of Cher and Christina Aguilera's new film Burlesque. She died after being transported to a local hospital.

"Invaders" Creator Talks of Murdered Sister

Director Larry Cohen, the man who created "The Invaders," has paid tribute to his sister, publicist Ronni Chasen, who was shot dead in Los Angeles on Tuesday 16 November 2010. The public relations mogul was shot multiple times while driving her Mercedes-Benz through Beverly Hills on her way home from the premiere of Cher and Christina Aguilera's new film Burlesque.

Her brother Cohen says, "She was my sister and best friend and we shared so many wonderful times together. Ronni was a loving and caring person who treated her clients like they were her own family."

Film composer Hans Zimmer, who was also a client of Chasen, added, "I'm profoundly sad, devastated, mad, incredulous and lonely. She was radiant. She knew everybody in the room. She took Chris Nolan over to the next table and introduced him to George Lucas. I was watching her (and) standing there listening to them and I thought, 'There's my friend Ronni, introducing two great directors to each other. She's on top of her game.'"

Lawrence G. "Larry" Cohen (born July 15, 1941) is an American film producer, director, and screenwriter. Although he writes and produces for others, he is best known for directing his own low-budget, satirical, and inventive horror films and thrillers that are laced with scathing social commentary about modern American society.

Cohen was born in Kingston, New York, USA. Cohen moved to the Riverdale section of the Bronx at an early age, eventually majoring in film at the City College of New York. He started his career in television, writing on many shows and creating the cult classics "Branded" and "The Invaders." 


He wrote, produced, and directed his first feature film, Bone, in 1972. He came to prominence with It's Alive (1974), a horror film about a mutant killer baby. Though cheaply produced, it is notable for its satirical black humor (the hero's son slaughters the medical staff at birth) and for its exploration of the parents’ dilemma: the hero, who has fathered one of the creatures, at first disowns it but later tries to protect it despite its obvious anti-social tendencies. It's Alive is also noted for being scored by Bernard Herrmann. Cohen made two sequels, It Lives Again (1978) and It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987).


Cohen's films are full of quotable dialogue. In Full-Moon High (1981), a teenage werewolf puts off his girlfriend's advances with the excuse that it's “his time of the month.” In Q (aka The Winged Serpent, 1982), the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl is resurrected and flies about New York City snatching human sacrifices off the skyscrapers. Cohen was able to employ the talents of Michael Moriarty, David Carradine, and Candy Clark, and the film is one of his most sophisticated, but it still manages to include such lines as “Maybe his head got loose and fell off.” and "I want a Nixon-type pardon!" The Stuff(1985) concerns a parasitic goo from beneath the Earth's crust that manages to get itself marketed as a dessert. The film's hero announces proudly at the beginning, "Nobody could be as dumb as I appear," and later delivers the maxim that "everybody has to eat shaving cream once in a while."


Perhaps Cohen’s most complex film, as well as his darkest, is God Told Me To (a.k.a. Demon, 1976), in which a troubled Catholic detective is faced with an epidemic of murders carried out by apparently normal people who claim, with quiet satisfaction, that God told them to do it. The film mixes science fiction and horror with religious satire.
In 1987, Cohen made an unofficial sequel to Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot. With typical chutzpah, Cohen threw out all of King’s characters and kept only the basic premise of a small American town inhabited by vampires. A Return to Salem's Lot starred Michael Moriarty (a Cohen regular) and Samuel Fuller, and satirizes small-town snobbery and hypocrisy: a little old woman vampire refers coyly to her drinking problem while the evil king vampire is shown to be, at bottom, little more than a rather nasty conservative politician.


Besides monster movies, Cohen has also made thrillers such as The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977), which portrays the FBI chief as a sexually repressed and paranoid megalomaniac. Ronni Chasen worked on that movie as the publicist.  Cohen also made Special Effects (1984), the twisted tale of a policeman, a murderous film director, and the woman who gets turned into the double of his leading lady; and The Ambulance (1990), a Hitchcock-style entertainment in which Eric Roberts investigates the sudden disappearance of a young woman.


Because of their frequently hurried guerrilla production style and their bargain-basement budgets, Cohen's films are sometimes murkily shot or messily edited, but Cohen’s freewheeling approach (and complete independence from studio interference) enables him to attack a number of satirical targets that often get off lightly in the mainstream—for example, ruthless food companies in The Stuff. In the third film of the Alive trilogy, Cohen even manages to work in some telling swipes against the American demonization of Cuba.
Cohen was influenced by director Samuel Fuller and now lives in a house formerly owned by Mr. Fuller. In recent years, Cohen has curtailed his directing and producing activities, and has focused mainly on writing. His work was primarily for low-budget films and television until 1998, when Cohen's spec script Phone Booth triggered active interest and aggressive bidding from major Hollywood players. Joel Schumacher directed the resulting 2002 film, which starred Colin Farrell. Cohen was also credited with the story for the 2004 release Cellular, another thriller with a telecommunications theme. However, in 2006, Cohen returned to directing briefly with the episode “Pick Me Up” of the Showtime series Masters of Horror.


In 2003, Cohen, together with production partner Martin Poll was at the center of a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox, claiming the company had intentionally plagiarized a script of theirs titled Cast of Characters in order to create the Sean Connery-starring League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film in 2003. According to the BBC, the lawsuit alleged "that Mr Cohen and Mr Poll pitched the idea to Fox several times between 1993 and 1996, under the name Cast of Characters."


The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was an adaptation of the 1999 published comic book series by Alan Moore and artist Kevin O'Neill. The lawsuit alleged that Fox had solicited the comics series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen from Moore as a smokescreen for its intent to produce a movie plagiarizing Cast of Characters. It also claimed that both films shared similar public domain characters, including Tom Sawyer and Dorian Gray, characters who did not appear in the comic book series. Although Fox dismissed the lawsuit as "absurd nonsense," the case was ultimately settled out-of-court, a decision that Moore, according to the New York Times "took...as an especially bitter blow, believing that he had been denied the chance to exonerate himself."


Police have launched an investigation into Ronni Chasen's death.  No new leads have surfaced.


Chasen worked on campaigns for more than 100 movies, including last year's Best Picture Oscar winner, The Hurt Locker, as well as Cocoon, Baby Boom, On Golden Pond and the 1989 best picture winner Driving Miss Daisy.

"She worked with us on every picture we made since The Verdict and has been a loving and dear friend for so many years," said producer Richard Zanuck, who won the Oscar for "Driving Miss Daisy' along with his wife, Lili Fini Zanuck. "To think of not being able to get her on the other line of the phone is unimaginable.

"She was the best publicist in the business in our opinion whose tireless and determined energy combined with her love of movies made her one of a very special breed. We can't tell you how much we will miss her."

Actor Morgan Freeman, who earned an Oscar nomination for Driving Miss Daisy, also praised Chasen.

"I had the extreme pleasure of working with Ronni on Driving Miss Daisy," Freeman said. "We've been friends ever since. She is someone I greatly admired and she will be remembered."

Born and raised in New York, Chasen began her career doing theater publicity.

She later moved to Los Angeles and was head of publicity for American International Pictures.

She eventually became executive vice president of motion pictures at Rogers & Cowan, and was senior vice president of publicity for MGM.

Larry Cohen's Filmography

• Masters of Horror—"Pick Me Up" (2006)
• Air Force One: The Final Mission (2004)
• Cellular (2004) (Story)
• Phone Booth (2002) (Writer)
• Original Gangstas (1996)
• As Good As Dead (1995)
• The Ambulance (1990)
• Wicked Stepmother (1989)
• Deadly Illusion (1987)
• It's Alive III: Island of the Alive (1987)
• A Return to Salem's Lot (1987)
• The Stuff (1985)
• Special Effects (1984)
• Perfect Strangers (1984)
• Q (1982)
• See China and Die (1981)
• Full Moon High (1981)
• It Lives Again (1978)
• The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977)
• God Told Me To (1976)
• It's Alive (1974)
• Hell Up in Harlem (1973)
• Black Caesar (1973)
• Bone (1972)