NEWS: Gus Van Sant Trolls for Kids on MySpace

CELEB: Gus Van Sant Trolls for Kids on MySpace

For those who lose sleep at night pondering the identity of the lurkers peeping their MySpace profile, ponder no more -- it is probably filmmaker Gus Van Sant. Apparently, when he's not getting busted for DUIs, Van Sant is quite the profile lurker and even went so far as to cast his new movie, Paranoid Park, with youngsters he "discovered" on that compost heap of a social networking site. Like the Pied Piper himself, Van Sant plucked the kids from their hazy, Internet-laden lives, lured them outdoors with promises of stardom and led them away into his cave of movie making madness.

He went on to tell the press,

According to Paranoid Park's MySpace profile, Van Sant only had eyes for:

The only thing not listed is a call for aging, has-beens. Sorry, Matt Damon.

I can't wait for Dateline to catch Van Sant scamming a preeny for an upcoming role.

"but I was trying to capture the innocence of unspolied youth!"

Sure Gus,


We believe you...

Is this the sequel to Larry Clarke's KIDS?

The headline makes him sound like a pedophile. What was illegal, immoral, or unethical about the method he used to cast his movie? What does the DUI have to do with how he cast his movie?

I am so happy he is discovering he stars of future fine films made in the spirit of "Jersey Girl".

Did Gus cast those kids so his own hair would look less ridiculous?

x100

Elephant was horrible.

wow. clever idea! too bad some pervs will no doubt try the same approach "hey, im an up and coming filmmaker and you are perfect for this part!"
MySpace. what a useless thing to complain about...

it's SO much better to be some lame rock band casting your video using suicidegirls.

i can't believe he used myspace!

omg.

Touche!

The article is also innacurately portrays the ability for an adult to troll for "kids" on Myspace. MySpace sets all profiles for users who are under 17 automatically to "private" - thus, nothing on their profile other than their main profile avater and their headline can be seen by a viewer.

I personally can't wait to see this film. I like his work. my friend says that there's only 3 Gus Van Sant fans in the world: him, me, and Gus Van Sant.

I agree; the bias is totally unnecessary. This is nearly the same approach Larry Clark used when casting Kids. Chloë Sevigny and Rosario Dawson were unknown to the public before Clark approached them on the street (like a creep, one would say) and offered them parts in his film. I'm sure they were grateful for the opportunity.

I second (or third) that. As far as we know, Van Sant (unlike Roman Polanski) isn't guilty of any hanky-panky. So let's not insinuate...

Yea, but you're basically saying - "this doesn't sound like a creepy pedophile, it sounds more like how they made Kids" - and that's a pretty funny statement.

Why is this article so heavily insinuating that Gus Van Sant is some kind of kiddy-fiddler? What does his DUI incident have to do with anything? Is it because he's a gay man in his 50's? Because of the subject matter of some of his past films? Because the author of the article doesn't like him? It's not like he's "luring" innocent teenagers off the internet into a life of porn...

If Asia Argento were using the same tactics to cast her new movie would she get a "news article" like this written about her? Fuck no, SG newswire would likely be all over how awesome she was. (Yeah, I'm playing the gender/age/sexuality card in his defense..)

Record companies troll MySpace trying to find the "young! new! hot!" bands and artists to exploit all the time..

Why's this different from film companies/modeling agencies/etc scouting for talent in the street?

Dating myself, but I must say that I have always held him personally responsible for talking River Phoenix into using heroin in order to acheive more reality in teh role of the narcoleptic hooker in 'drugstore cowboy'. Ok, i know better than to blame, but...

No, no. They said accidentally killed a security guard.

That post is confusing on a lot of levels.

Do you mean My Own Private Idaho?