extends its condolences to the families of Andy Jones and Daniel Robert Epstein. I read their work online and enjoyed it; I regret never having met these men who were, by all accounts, well worth knowing. Andy, was a critic, reporter, junketeer and natural-born eccentric.
He was a contributor to E! Online, a commentator in the cable network's insta-documentaries, and an editor at the now-defunct roughcut.com, where he encouraged future blogger extraordinaire David Poland to start his first online-only movie column back in 1997.
As an online writer and TV gadfly, Jones created a sort of Hollywood EveryFan persona, showcased in colums for FilmStew.com that read like outtakes from a Kathy Griffin routine. Among other misadventures, he recounted getting hit by a car outside of a Pioneer Chicken ("The good news?
The guy who hit me stopped") and how Jennifer Love Hewitt ended up paying for his meal at Taco Bell ("My friends are saying, "Maybe she thought you were homeless"). Jones suffered a heart attack June 22 at Los Angeles' Arclight theater during a screening of (don't even think about it) and died en route to the hospital. Poland remembers Jones as a man who ".
..always led with his sexuality, his race, and his ambitions.
I became his co-worker, his friend, and eventually, his boss, which kind of killed the friend part. But no matter how rough he could get while angry, there was always a sweetness and vulnerability that made me (and many others) want to do whatever we could for him. No one who heard it will ever forget that laugh that somehow combined a squeal and a giggle.
No one who encountered it will ever forget his rage at all the things he considered injustices. Or the questions that only Andy could come up with or would dare to ask." For more about Jones, see MediaBistro.
com, Variety, Movie City Indie, L.A. Observed, FilmStew.
com and at CHUD.com, where Mark Wheaton ends his remembrance with the following anecdote: "Before we parted ways, he gave me his business card. It’s simple – black type on a white background – with 'Anderson Jones II' written imperiously over his address on Normandie.
In the lower right corner is his phone number and e-mail address. In the lower left, the words: “Open 24 Hours” and under it: 'For Hire.' No hint of occupation, press affiliation, etc.
But the thing that catches your eye is actually what is written – in tiny letters and, actually, within quotation marks above his name as he is quoting himself. It reads: 'I am legendary. You are not.
'" Condolences can be sent to Jones' sister-in-law and brother, Anna and Arnold L. Jones, at 1471 E. Epstein, who was found dead in his Astoria, Queens apartment by his wife June 13, and whose cause of death has still not been determined, was a superb interviewer and a wordsmith whose sheer productivity defied Newton's laws.
(He published over 800 interviews at SuicideGirls alone.) He had a knack for cajoling subjects into dropping their guard long enough to say something spontaneous and revealing -- or at the very least, honest. His pieces didn't seem so much written as overheard, probably in a bar.
Ellen Burstyn told him, "I don’t think there’s an actor alive who doesn’t want an Oscar. And once they have one, they want another one." David Koepp, writer of the fourth movie, told Epstein, "The first thing is that you realize this is a beloved character, probably one of the most in film history, and a lot of people are going to be angry no matter what I do.
...
I’m going to get my *ss handed to me on some level, even by my fellow filmmakers or the audience." He gave Bootsy Collins a forum to wax eloquent about record industry ego-tripping and his latest, greatest self-designed equipment (including the Traben Bootzilla bass). He got star Kevin Sorbo to unload on Sam Raimi.
And he let filmmaker Eric Schaeffer, long notorious for dining on his own foot, keep going until he reached the knee. Obituaries and testimonials can be found at Publishers Weekly, The New York Times, CHUD, ComingSoon.net, Suicide Girls, Newsarama, FilmStew.
com, Blackfilm.com, Dark Horizons and Cinematical, among other sites. posted by Matt Zoller Seitz at 6:30 AM These are sad to hear.
I met Jones once on a junket and gave him a cassette tape to use for an interview in a pinch because he'd run out of his own.
News RSS