Key Highlights
- Spinotti worked with Ratner on movies such as “Red Dragon” and “X-Men: The Last Stand.” Ratner’s career seemed to have come to an end in 2017, after he was accused by at least ten women of sexual misconduct.
- The actress Natasha Henstridge said that Ratner forced her to perform oral sex; the actress Olivia Munn said that Ratner masturbated in front of her in his trailer and later told her that he ejaculated on magazine covers featuring her image; the model Keri Claussen Khalighi said that when she was seventeen, she was sexually assaulted by Russell Simmons while Ratner watched.
- (Ratner has denied all the accusations; Simmons, who has been accused of misconduct by multiple women, said that the encounter was consensual.)Ratner was recently selected by the Trump family to direct the new documentary “Melania,” which was financed by Amazon and is currently playing in theatres across the country.
- The film has been screened at the White House, with Tim Cook and Mike Tyson in attendance, and at the recently renamed Trump Kennedy Center.
- Spinotti is one of the film’s three cinematographers; he told the Times, of the experience, that it was “nice to see Brett being his old self.” (Despite awful reviews, the film grossed an estimated seven million dollars in its first weekend, the best opening weekend for a documentary in more than a decade.)Spinotti and I recently spoke by phone.
