An Excellent and Potentially True Rumor about Lord Spielberg

We've been laying off the whole Steven Spielberg taking over Budapest thing for a while, but just got word of something that requires us to pile back on, and hard. According to a friend with excellent connections in the local film business, some of the director's main lackeys have made some of their smaller, local lackeys sign contracts which stipulate the ground rules for any interaction with the big man. One is that the great auteur should be addressed only as "maestro," rather than (we assume) "Mr. Spielberg" or (shudder at the thought) "Steven." Then again, few of Spielberg's Hungarian peons are likely to ever get the chance to address the maestro directly, as one of the other rules is that staffers are not supposed to make eye contact with him, unless absolutely necessary.

Like we said, this excellently deranged piece of Tinseltown protocol may not actually exist, though the source in question is good, and the use of similarly feudal rules is apparently all the rage among American super-celebrities these days. (Singer/actress/former Ben Affleck blow-up doll Jennifer Lopez is the most famous fan of the "look away, lowly serf" approach to staff management.) You'd just think that as a nice Jewish liberal who sometimes makes movies about how dehumanizing people is a bad thing, Spielberg wouldn't treat his colleagues like sub-humans. And no, we haven't called his office for comment, because a) they aren't giving interviews, and b) we have no reason to suspect they'd tell the truth if they did stoop to actually talking to the press.

Either way, Steve, we really hope that after all this nonsense "Munich" turns out better than "A.I.." (Oh, sorry - maestro.) Because if Hungary is going to submit to a royal tyrant again, it can probably do a lot better than a B-movie director.