No, Really, I Can See The Elephant Right There…
Posted by Dirty Harry on Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
UPDATE: Pestilence Here: The debate continues at this post.
Over at his L.A. Times’ blog, Patrick Goldstein looks at the humiliating flop that is Body of Lies and asks a bigger question, “What’s going on here?”
All the explanations have a ring of truth, but the real sea change here involves Hollywood movie stars. This isn’t movie fatigue. This is movie star fatigue. Russell Crowe and Leonardo DiCaprio (and Johnny Depp and Tom Hanks and Brad Pitt et al) get paid huge sums of money because they are supposed to open movies. Period. …
Paying a movie star $20 million is supposed to be a high-percentage bet, a way of giving studio chiefs a reasonable chance at getting a good night’s sleep in the weeks before a film’s release. But there’s a growing tension today between the kind of material movie stars want to do and the kind of material studios want to build their slates around. Having spent years honing their craft and building an image, most stars want a dramatic challenge–they don’t want to stand in front of green screens for three months doing a special-effects thriller.
Warners may want George Clooney to continue starring in its “Oceans” franchise, but Clooney is more challenged by films like “The Good German” or “Leatherheads.” Everyone would love Reese Witherspoon to do another “Legally Blonde” sequel, but she clearly prefers taking parts in meatier projects, be it the period drama “Vanity Fair” or the terrorism thriller “Rendition.” From a financial standpoint, the results have not been pretty. Most movie star pet projects are risky business. With the adult drama being a genre that’s almost dead at most studios, it’s increasingly hard to find a common ground where stars can jump into challenging material that studios see as marketable material at the box office.
Goldstein writes a thoughtful, lengthy piece but never approaches the idea that adult drama might be all but dead due to the fact that when it comes to this particular genre, many, many Americans no longer trust Hollywood not to insult their beliefs and values. And it’s not just politics. How many unsuspecting people looked forward to lush, escapist romance in Atonement only to discover the film’s affection for the word c**t? Atonement was a modest hit but at what price to the brand?
Goldstein also brushes past the idea that the fall of the movie star (other than Will Smith and Adam Sandler) might have something to do with their strident and boorish politicking. Even Americans in sympathy with what DiCaprio and Clooney believe don’t want to be scolded about the environment by the private jet, mansion-dwelling crowd.
We want to like our movie stars but today’s crop just isn’t all that likable. We want to project onto our movie stars and neither in real life nor even up on the screen are we allowed to do so anymore. A movie star must also be reliable in the material they choose and when they wig out and go all liberal or outright anti-American it destroys their reliability, likability, and our ability to project all in one fell swoop.
Hollywood is the only industry I’m aware of that consistently insults a large portion of its customers. The problem worsens every year, and so the adult drama is all but dead. I agree that this is a shame, but I’d rather talking chihuahuas insult my intelligence than the most blessed people on earth insult all that I hold dear, most especially my faith in God, my love of country, and my reverence for the men and women who with their very lives protect all that is good in this world.
It’s a simple formula: To attract customers, the product must be attractive.
Regardless of one’s politics, I think we can all agree that ingratitude, hypocrisy, and sanctimony are not all that attractive.
Filed in General |
BoffoTMCon 14 Oct 2008 at 10:26 am 1Hollywood is the only industry I’m aware of that consistently insults a large portion of its customers.
What about the news media. And the education industry.
And now that I think about it, the diet industry. Their sales pitch is generally, “You’re fat. Give us money.”
Chris Bon 14 Oct 2008 at 10:27 am 2I worked for several years for a major industrial/financial/media company (lets call them Company X) that consistently insulted its customers for years because it management believed that its customers didn’t have anywhere else to go. There was even a saying among industrial customers that no one was ever fired for buying Company X’s products. Things changed and over the last 6 years that company’s stock has fallen from $60+ per share to around $20 per share. Tens of thousands will lose their jobs before its over and to this day management of company X does not “get it”. As for Hollywood they may never “get it” either.
TROon 14 Oct 2008 at 10:33 am 3It applies to all entertainers from TV to movies and from drama to comedy. I was a big Tina Fey fan up until her moronic insults about Sarah Palin and, while I still acknowledge she is a talented gal, I will never see her in the same way again.
When are these people going to realize we don’t want to know their opinions on politics - especially if those opinions are anti-American which they usually are. We want them to entertain us and nothing more.
So just shut the hell up and dance, folks. That is what I am paying you for.
abeon 14 Oct 2008 at 10:34 am 4No DH.
YOU’RE the only one who perceives “scolding” from actors.
YOU’RE the only one sensitive to their politics.
Most Americans couldn’t care less about the politics of Hollywood actors.
If it were otherwise, their perspective would undoubtedly AFFECT how actors develop their politics!
In this case crafting an “attractive product” would mean not offending your prudish sensibilities!
More power to actors who choose daring and challenging roles rather than opting for simplistic drivel. True artists, those people!
JamesTon 14 Oct 2008 at 10:45 am 5“It’s a simple formula: To attract customers, the product must be attractive.”
Creativity dies on the altar of fanaticism.
Old Hollywood was filled with liberals (many of them commies!), but they were not fanatics. They produced quality, creative materail because they understood the one rule of entertainment that has been true for thousands of years:
To give pleasure to your audience. And if a message is sneaked in, fine. But it was subtle.
Creativity is a rare thing in modern Hollywood, movies or TV. I saw it back in the eighties and nineties, which is why I defected to entertainment coming out of England. Now, they too are sadly are begining to imitate American entertainment.
Fanacticism, whether political or religious, stifles creativity.
I don’t want ‘conservative’ movies or ‘liberal’ movies.
I want GOOD movies, CREATIVE movies.
ONeilon 14 Oct 2008 at 11:00 am 6I saw Body of Lies (or at least 3/4th of it) yesterday– and promptly walked out during the torture scene. That is, the torture scene in which the “film maker” is so eager to demonstrate his sophistication that he equates the tortured with the torturer– while simulatneously demonizing America.
It’s too bad they already GOT my money. I won’t make the mistake of giving them the same chance in the future.
Mr Naronon 14 Oct 2008 at 11:03 am 7Hollywood is the only industry I’m aware of that consistently insults a large portion of its customers.
The S&M industry insults all its customers.
CrippleHawkon 14 Oct 2008 at 11:14 am 8I started watching Japanese flicks now even Anime
(YES I AM A GEEK I ADMIT IT!!!!!)
but I only started watching them because Hollywood has fallen so far with ADS.
Avery Bullardon 14 Oct 2008 at 11:15 am 9ld Hollywood was filled with liberals (many of them commies!), but they were not fanatics. They produced quality, creative materail because they understood the one rule of entertainment that has been true for thousands of years:
To give pleasure to your audience.
The late paleo-libertarian Murray Rothbard used to write excellent movie reviews and he touched on this very subject writing about Robert Altman’s The Player:
“This movie led me to ruminate about the tremendous cultural decline from the quasi-Commie Old Left of the good old days of cinema to the nihilistic New Left of today. Such great Old Left movies, for example, as Casablanca may have pushed a Commie message (Humphrey Bogart as stand-in for America, tough-talking but with a heart of gold, originally isolationist but slowly but surely drawn into World War II as he/it became aware of the horrors of “fascism”), but they did so totally within the trappings of the bourgeois Old Culture. Neither were Old Left movies afraid of pleasing the audience by way of happy endings. (And what’s wrong with happy endings, anyway, except that they make the audience feel happy and they don’t push the message that life is evil and meaningless?) But now the grand Old Culture is not only cast aside but scorned and ridiculed, and this nihilist message seems to have the highest priority on the current left agenda.”
Link
The trappings of bourgeois culture are absent from modern Hollywood.
blackhawk12151on 14 Oct 2008 at 11:19 am 10abe
I’m all for actors taking challenging roles. What I could do without is actors taking roles that are nothing more than liberal hissy-fits.
You don’t mind being talked down to by celebrities who think they are better than you. That’s fine. I still have a problem with it and I’m not going to give them my money to sit through 2 hour “message” movies that insult my intelligence.
blackhawk12151on 14 Oct 2008 at 11:25 am 11Also, it takes more that just a “desire” to take on challenging roles to be a true artist.
One must also have “talent”, something that is sorely lacking in Hollywood these days
Sharon Fergusonon 14 Oct 2008 at 11:49 am 12Hey Hollywood Leftists, think your sympathizing and support will save you? Watch this video of a former Soviet journalist and pay special attention to what the REAL Marxists think of you. Your posturing means NOTHING. You are USELESS IDIOTS.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x32cxf_yuri-bezmenov
Buggon 14 Oct 2008 at 11:50 am 13All of the above may be true.
But bigger that any of that; I have a big, beautiful plasma HDtv in front of my big, comfy couch in my ac/heated house, attached to my kitchen and bathroom, with a remote to stop everything when I have to get a drink or use the facilities.I can eve have a beer or 2, or order a pizza. Why am I forced to go to a decrepit, smelly, nasty theater filled with strangers and idiots talking and overpay for lousy concessions to see first release movies when I cam have a much more pleasant and cost-reasonable experience in my home?
I will go to the movies to take the tyke to see talking chihuhua and superhero movies. But even if I were inclined to see such dreck as “Body of Lies” as the rest of Hollywood insists on putting out, why is it not available on pay per view in short order? Auto makers did not keep horse&buggy concerns in business; why do movie companies insist on keeping theater owners in business? There may always be a place for theaters, but for most adults, it’s a better experience in our own homes.
It may only be antecdotal, but most adults I know now wait for movies they want to see to come out on DVD or PPV (or getting a decent bootleg) rather than going to the movies. Why Hollywood fights this instead of embracing it boggles the mind. Many would buy movies as a PPV susbcription for first run flicks. The business is there to be taken,and yet they keep an antiquated business model in place out of stubborness.
Ohio Wolverine momon 14 Oct 2008 at 11:51 am 14Amen,Harry—-of my many friend and family, NO ONE pays a sitter to go to the movies anymore—as conservative to moderate, middle class, Judeao-Christians who love our country, the offerings that appeal to us are either non-existent or hard to find (American Carol, Fireproof).
The crowd staying away from theatres is immense.
We stay home and watch classics on our big screens—no bathroom lines, better popcorn, and a pause button for potty breaks.
If there is a flick I want to see, (especially one by a LML - loud mouthed liberal—not redundant yet, but getting there)
I borrow it for free from the public library.
Ginaon 14 Oct 2008 at 11:51 am 15I have to put in a word for “Atonement.” I don’t like the use of the word c–t at all, but to be fair, it was in the book too. And while I would have preferred that it not be in the book either, at least it wasn’t dwelled on for too long, and it wasn’t what I’d call gratuitous (that is, it was part of an essential plot point).
Both the book and the movie had wise and sobering things to say about writers and some of their besetting sins, which, as a writer, I appreciated. The use of a profanity, even though I didn’t like it, doesn’t change that bigger picture.
Sharon Fergusonon 14 Oct 2008 at 11:52 am 16I like Russell Crowe because he DOES have talent. He’s also very savvy about the parts he chooses…well, he was until this one.
Hey Hollywood Leftists, think your sympathizing and support will save you? Watch this video of a former Soviet journalist and pay special attention to what the REAL Marxists think of you. Your posturing means NOTHING. You are USELESS IDIOTS.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x32cxf_yuri-bezmenov
Bubbaon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:01 pm 17The author interviewed Warner Bros. chief Alan Horn in his article:
“I know we get criticized for doing mindless popcorn pictures–and that’s fair to a point,” he told me. “But this was our opportunity to step out and try to do something bold, that’s more than the easily digestible fare that all studios, including us, tend to do. ‘Body of Lies’ had a great script, a classy director and a really interesting take on our country’s role in world events.”
“Something bold”?
“A really interesting take on our country’s role in world events”?
It’s the same old shit, if you’ll pardon my language: another piece of garbage that lectures us — quite explicitly, apparently — that we’re at least as bad as the barbarians we’re fighting, those enemies of Western civilization, and that we’re the “real” bad guys.
I love Crowe, and I knew enough to avoid this movie, not because it’s so challenging, but because the anti-American war/espionage film has become so disgustingly cliched.
Elleon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:02 pm 18Oh, and I will say - two movies I enjoyed on DVD:
Lars and the Real Girl
Stay
Both Ryan Gosling films. Quirky and good.
Elleon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:03 pm 19I’m a Russell Crowe fan - suspect I wouldn’t much like the man, but I like his work - , but I avoided Body of Lies for the same reason I avoided “One Good Year” and American Gangster - his role in each looks. He needs to get away from Ridley Scott, too.
I saw three movies this year. Adam Sandlers (okay but a little too goofy), Iron Man (my new favorite actor is Robert Downey Jr) and Batman.
For the rest of the movie year, I don’t feel like I missed a damn thing.
And btw, your assessment of Atonement was spot on. I rented it on Netflix hoping for a lush period piece - despite my dislike of the perpetually pouting Knightly - and a bit of escapism and got slapped with a anachronistic word that is the F*CK of the 21st Century, (and would that little sister even have known that word, at her age, back then?). Also the conceit of the director - with that damned, pointless 20 minute crane shot on the beach…I completely hated that movie, and I felt quite distinctly that the director HATED ME.
I got the same impression from his Pride & Prejudice…so it saddens me to know that the next Downey movie is also directed by that guy. I’ll wait for that to come out on netflix, too.
You know, I rarely sit in front of the tv anymore, but when I do, my viewing is down to Seinfeld reruns, Project Runway reruns and an occasional South Park or Colbert. The entertainment industry hates me to much to hold my attention or my regard.
Keiraon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:05 pm 20Sharon, I agree with you about Crowe. Even a movie choice like this won’t really change his essential likability for me…not sure why.
Leo, however, could be in a movie about flag-waving Boy Scouts reconquering the West Bank and he’d still make me want to hurl…
That said, I thought that Matt Damon was in the Crowe camp for me until the final Bourne movie or what I like to call, “The Unending 6-hour Sucker Punch.” Now, it would take a lot to get me to see something he’s done. His public statements intrude themselves too much on the screen.
ItsOmaron 14 Oct 2008 at 12:06 pm 21Interesting essay, DH; does this apply to Mel Gibson and Eddie Murphy too? Because for this piece (esp. the last line) to mean anything, it has to! Ingratitude? Check (esp. Eddie). Hypocritical? Check. Sanctimonious? CHECK (Mel)!
wfon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:14 pm 22There are many reasons for the decline in audiences - lousy theatres and audiences have certainly deterred me - but this post is about the inability of “stars” to open a movie. I couldn´t agree more. It´s the lack of humility. Not likeable or reliable and we are not allowed to project onto them. It´s so obvious that I am not surprised industry leaders have a hard time to get it.
romanon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:18 pm 23“It’s a simple formula: To attract customers, the product must be attractive.”
Attractive like, say… An American Carol?
So that miserable failure gets a pass because of the election, but not this. Welcome to Dirty Credibility’s Place.
Emilyon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:19 pm 24I don’t really have anything to say about the post, because frankly I really don’t watch alot of movies, so I never was unlucky enough to walk into an America basher.
However, I was watching CNN a little while ago, and they were doing this promo thing for their new Planet in Peril, which I’m sure will be fabulous. It’s about…OFF-SHORE DRILILNG. They travelled up to the Arctic Circle, and interviewed the people who live there, and specifically live off the whales in the area (Didn’t some other Planet in Peril tell us that it’s BAD BAD BAD to kill whales?? I can’t remember) and it’s tell us about their concerns about drilling offshore there…not sure if it’s coming out before election day or not.
blackhawk12151on 14 Oct 2008 at 12:23 pm 25Another problem is the entertainment industry is telling us who the stars are these days (George Clooney the “Last Movie Star”? Gimme a break).
We are constantly told people like Leo and Clooney are stars but the numbers don’t lie. People just don’t flock to the theaters to see any of the people working these days.
We should determine who we are willing to shell out hard earned cash to see, not E! and MTV.
whiskeyon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:25 pm 26Abe –
Consider that around half the country voted for GWB both in 2000, and 2004. How wise was it to insult half the potential customers.
Besides, even hard-left Obama lovers HATE movie stars and love to laugh at them. Go to a site like TMZ or Dlisted, and see how the mostly female posters there refer to various celebs. Britney is “Our Lady of Cheetohs” and Jake Gyllenhall, various other metrosexual male stars go in for serious mocking as “gay” by the ladies.
Most movie stars are “dead” and are instead tabloid stars. When you see on various tabs and websites, unattractive pictures of Katherine Heigl next to unattractive pictures of say, some reality “star” the debasement of the star is complete. It’s not merely the environmental lectures, it’s the total hypocrisy of tabloid stars (as they all are) posturing as some idol.
Furious D is quite correct on this … tabloid exposure is equated to love by the audience. I’m sure most guys don’t even know that Clooney backs Obama, or cares, but his arrogance and high-living playboy ways irks them tremendously, while Adam Sandler’s carefully constructed “Joe Average” image makes them like him. Sandler’s movies are usually pretty awful, but guys show up because they LIKE Sandler. They don’t show for Clooney’s stuff because they don’t like him.
Moreover, as I’ve blogged extensively, the material the Clooneys choose is pedestrian dogma that was old in 1968.
wfon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:25 pm 27roman, you do realize that your drivel has nothing to do with the content of this post, do you?
steveon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:25 pm 28“Warner Bros. chief Alan Horn gently chided me today for being the first to call when the studio has a failure with a challenging film.”
That quote about says it all. The studios had best give up movie-critic driven films. The days when newspaper critics could deliver an audience are gone too.
‘Film’ people don’t want to admit it, but the elites are no longer commanding where the culture and art goes.
Zundfolgeon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:25 pm 29THAT is it right there in a nutshell … even the non political among us are sick and tired of the preaching, the hypocrisy, the self indulgence, and the condescension we see from Hollywood toward the rest of America.
If I had thousands of dollars to waste I’d put that up on a hundred billboards all around Hollywood.
I’d be willing to bet even abe finds the current crop of movie “stars” less appealing than in generations past.
TROon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:40 pm 30“More power to actors who choose daring and challenging roles rather than opting for simplistic drivel. True artists, those people!”
That might make sense if they rolls they choose were truly daring and challenging. How daring does one have to be to be anti-American in films these days? Hell, everyone is doing it. And how challenging are these roles? They are the same thing over and over again. None of the performances are particularly original or unique.
I finally watched Rendition the other day on HBO. Forget how anti-American the film was, the script sucked as did the performances.
Most actors today are not that great at their art and without all the CGI people notice.
Emilyon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:41 pm 31OMFG. I was just on Hot Air, and they have this story about this 8-year-old girl who sold cookies to buy air time for an anti-McCain ad that attacks his cheating on his wife, and the time Cindy McCain was addicted to prescription drugs…it’s really shocking stuff. First time I’ve felt like punching an 8-year-old.
Jonnyon 14 Oct 2008 at 12:59 pm 32“True artists, those people!”
You really do believe this, don’t you abe? Heh heh heh heh
Chris Bon 14 Oct 2008 at 1:00 pm 33Emily - its the Onion News Network —
akatoshon 14 Oct 2008 at 1:00 pm 34Haven’t posted on here for a while, but it is topics like this that really used to interest me about this site and Harry’s writing elsewhere.
I have, and always will, believe that Harry drastically over estimates the political knowledge of the American people. He attributes George Clooney’s inability to attract huge crowds as a direct comment on Clooney’s liberal political beliefs. I believe, on the other hand, that it has far more to do with the content of Clooney’s films, much as the writer of the article does. Perhaps the true reason is somewhere in the middle.
The fact is, though, that non comic book, teen comedy, or other franchise films simply do not make money. Sure, you have the occasional Passion type breakout, but generally the only movies that make big money are directly targeted at 13-28 year old males. “Adult” dramas are simply not going to achieve massive box office success. Nor, apparently, will anything even remotely related to the current political climate. This is both a failure of Hollywood but also us as consumers. We are given what we pay to see.
If you want interesting and provocative dramas, you actually have to go out and see the ones that we do get. In the last two years alone, 3:10 to Yuma, There Will be Blood, No Country for Old Men, The Assassination of Jesse James, Burn After Reading, Into the Wild, The Bank Job, Be Kind Rewind, The Counterfeiters, Sweeney Todd, Zodiac, and Hot Fuzz all combined to make less than The Dark Knight. Now, The Dark Knight was an amazing film, but all of the ones I mentioned ranged from good to great and no one saw them. You can’t even begin to tell me it’s because they all “hate America.”
In the absence of having either a tent pole event film or the impetus to create real art, we are going to be stuck watching pet projects about Iraq (or how stupid Michael Moore is). If we want good films, we have to watch the ones that actually are and give studios the incentive to create more of them.
Emilyon 14 Oct 2008 at 1:09 pm 35Chris B,
I know, but all the same…XD
T.S.Benchon 14 Oct 2008 at 1:21 pm 36Chris B,
I know, but all the same…XD
All the same what/ I
PerfectTommyon 14 Oct 2008 at 1:27 pm 37Akatosh, recent history has shown there are other profitable markets beside the comic and teen films. Well marketed children’s films (see the rat dog of the last two weekends) and women’s films (the Abba fest and SITC) pulled in the bucks this summer.
But most of the films you mentioned (several of them I like very much) that didn’t make money were obviously made to amuse there makers and the makers friends and not made to appeal to a broad audience. That’s fine if they keep the budgets down (I think the Coens did so, therefore No Country and Burn should be profitable ventures). But film is a business as well as art. If film makers are trying to make a statement, they should try to keep their budgets reasonable (not a Michael Moore fan, but most of his films I believe are profitable.)
But modern film makers are failing at the business side of things, making product that is highly desired by a large audience. Television has been losing viewers as well, but overall it’s better at making a product that entertains its audience.
ScottDSon 14 Oct 2008 at 1:30 pm 38akatosh -
I completely agree. Personally I think it’s a variety of factors, too. My parents (I’m 25, they’re in their early 50s) don’t go to see movies, not because they don’t want to be offended but because nothing interests them. My mom wants me to Netflix the Sex in the City movie for her and my dad is content watching TCM and Animal House whenever it airs… and that’s about it.
My dad thinks almost every leading actor today (with some exceptions) is the same. I even told him movies are rarely driven by stars anymore (Smith, Sandler, and Depp being possible exceptions). Did anyone really go see Spiderman for Tobey Maguire?
And there are plenty of good movies coming out too. (You cited two of my favorites from last year - Zodiac and Sweeney Todd). Persoanlly, all I need to see for the rest of this year are Quantum of Solace and Benjamin Button.
Mighty Skipon 14 Oct 2008 at 1:36 pm 39When there are troubled times, people just don’t want to see films that obviously portray an outright message, hence The Dark Knight. It has a message, but one that is told in a complete fantasy. Some are more or less obvious. I think in this climate, the less obvious the better. Stars mouthing off wanting so desperately to be important, instead of the pampered, overblown dunces as they are, probably doesn’t help much. It cannot be good when your audience has a hard time separating character from actor, and that works on both sides of the spectrum.
I don’t think anyone is giving An American Carol a pass. Zucker, for all his enthusiasm makes zany movies and I know many many people who scratch their heads at Airplane. They easily outweigh those who think it is funny. It targeted a small audience and got one.
mjkon 14 Oct 2008 at 1:40 pm 40I have the disposable income to go to movies all the time. I just choose not to. Most movies now are souless, simplistic drivel “acted” by people who aren’t fit to carry Jimmy Stewart’s shoes, much less be considered in the same category as him.
I love movies. I really enjoyed “Penelope” with Christina Ricci - it was cute and sweet. I loved the Batman movie this year. It was very very good. But for the most part, movies are just no longer worth my time or my intelligence.
akatoshon 14 Oct 2008 at 1:40 pm 41Tommy, I think you missed my point a bit. I know the movies I named weren’t necessarily aimed at large audiences. However, they were aimed at the “adult drama” audience, but weren’t able to connect. Now, I understand everyone is not me. I saw all those movies in the theater, whereas many would wait for dvd or never see them at all. If you truly want good movies, though, you need to get out of your house and see them. As I said, we get the movies we deserve as an audience.
Emilyon 14 Oct 2008 at 1:46 pm 42T.S. Bench,
All the same, it’s not funny considering how close to the truth it is.
Carolynon 14 Oct 2008 at 1:54 pm 43Samuel Goldwyn warned stars decades ago - ‘If you want to send a message, use Western Union.’
So when the stars turn themselves into ministers, they shouldn’t complain that the pews are empty.
T.S.Benchon 14 Oct 2008 at 2:37 pm 44………T.S. Bench,
All the same, it’s not funny considering how close to the truth it is…….
Which truth is that. That some 8 year old is making $50,000 media buys? Producing advertising agency-quality commercials? That you want to punch some kid working in a obvious spoof?
That spoof isn’t anti-McCain. It’s actually making fun of over-the-top attack ads, fawning reporters, mock-serious news anchors under video game combat graphics. The War for the White House, indeed! The kid is obviously playing a self-important, pseudo-politically sophisticated precocious doofus parroting a bunch of BS she learned from lefty websites, and she’s wearing a Obama/Biden tee-shirt. And she is absolutely skewered in the report.
Emily, IIRC, your role here in our little passion play is that of the high school student. If so, here is some good advice: Sometimes, it better just say you got snookered rather than keep digging and make yourself look like a twit.
And learn to understand what you’re watching..
Regards,
TSB
Tamar1973on 14 Oct 2008 at 2:52 pm 45I don’t watch Hollywood stuff anymore, except rentals from blockbuster. I am sick and tired of having to be on my guard for liberal propaganda garbage. Even children’s movies like Finding Nemo and Happy Feet sneak it in. The last movie I saw in the theater was Speed Racer (because Rain was in it). The last movie I loved was The Forbidden Kingdom (and I saw that on DVD).
I spend my hard earned money buying Korean dramas and movies instead. Check out Korean movies like Untold Scandal, April Snow, Joint Security Area, 2009 Lost Memories, Shadowless Sword, D-War, and Yesterday.
Korean TV dramas are also wonderful: Winter Sonata, Autumn in My Heart, Hotelier, The Legend (Tae Wang Sa Shin Gi), Coffee Prince, Full House, and Dae Jang Geum among others.
Just watch a few of these movies or dramas and you’ll never go back to Hollywood movies or TV shows. I haven’t had cable in over a year.
Jaredon 14 Oct 2008 at 3:16 pm 46I think a lot of it comes from the drivel formula. Star X + Plot Y = Z
Star X sub for anyone from Matt Damon or George Clooney to Christian Bale or Denzel.
Plot Y = formula with 1 unique feature, such as two-guy crime drama (American Gangster, Denzel was a moral family man while Crowe had a rough past) Political Semi-Action (Kingdom, Body of Lies, Traitor) Non-teen non-kid “Comedy” (No Reservations, Fool’s Gold) and wait for the result.
Periodically someone’ll break the mold, like Nolan did for Dark Knight by making Two-guy crime drama combine with superhero flick.
Though for the record, this summer I saw Forbidden Kingdom (A great example of the Drivel Formula but won’t hear me complain) Iron Man (Hail the return of Downey!) Dark Knight, Death Race (It was *good* as long as you like the idea of the Road Warrior combined with a car-race) Tropic Thunder (a great example of non-drivel by ripping exactly what it is people hate) Pineapple Express (I like Apatow’s crew, so sue me) A friend dragged me to What Happens in Vegas (Perfect example of The Drivel Formula) & Indy Jones
movie girlon 14 Oct 2008 at 4:27 pm 47This is the Statement of Principles from the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. I wish such an alliance still existed in Hollywood:
“We believe in, and like, the American way of life: the liberty and freedom which generations before us have fought to create and preserve; the freedom to speak, to think, to live, to worship, to work, and to govern ourselves as individuals, as free men; the right to succeed or fail as free men, according to the measure of our ability and our strength.
Believing in these things, we find ourselves in sharp revolt against a rising tide of communism, fascism, and kindred beliefs, that seek by subversive means to undermine and change this way of life; groups that have forfeited their right to exist in this country of ours, because they seek to achieve their change by means other than the vested procedure of the ballot and to deny the right of the majority opinion of the people to rule.
In our special field of motion pictures, we resent the growing impression that this industry is made of, and dominated by, Communists, radicals, and crackpots. We believe that we represent the vast majority of the people who serve this great medium of expression. But unfortunately it has been an unorganized majority. This has been almost inevitable. The very love of freedom, of the rights of the individual, make this great majority reluctant to organize. But now we must, or we shall meanly lose “the last, best hope on earth.”
As Americans, we have no new plan to offer. We want no new plan, we want only to defend against its enemies that which is our priceless heritage; that freedom which has given man, in this country, the fullest life and the richest expression the world has ever known; that system which, in the present emergency, has fathered an effort that, more than any other single factor, will make possible the winning of this war.
As members of the motion-picture industry, we must face and accept an especial responsibility. Motion pictures are inescapably one of the world’s greatest forces for influencing public thought and opinion, both at home and abroad. In this fact lies solemn obligation. We refuse to permit the effort of Communist, Fascist, and other totalitarian-minded groups to pervert this powerful medium into an instrument for the dissemination of un-American ideas and beliefs. We pledge ourselves to fight, with every means at our organized command, any effort of any group or individual, to divert the loyalty of the screen from the free America that give it birth. And to dedicate our work, in the fullest possible measure, to the presentation of the American scene, its standards and its freedoms, its beliefs and its ideals, as we know them and believe in them.”
http://www.cobbles.com/simpp_archive/huac_alliance.htm
whiskeyon 14 Oct 2008 at 5:41 pm 48Most movies are bad, dull, uninteresting, and share the same volk-Calvinist Dogma — a few are saved, the rest damned, out of Providence without God.
That is why most movies suck right there.
Of course, Movie Stars acting like jerks doesn’t help. Clooney HAD the Joe Average regular guy thing going, and threw it away for being a tabloid king. Had he remained out of the limelight, like Sandler, and carefully tailored his roles to that of the pickup-basketball game type of guy, he could have maintained box office clout. Others, like Brad Pitt or Leo DiCaprio, are absolutely HATED by guys, Shia LaPoof being currently the most hated.
Guys go out to see guys they’d like to be or become in movies. Just as women go out to see actresses they’d like to imagine themselves as — not tabloid queens or pretty boy metrosexuals.
If Patrick Goldstein ever went and read the comments at AICN or Dlisted, he’d get the yin and yang of what men and women are thinking. It’s pretty clear — aside from politics, men and women both find their matinee idols lacking.
EvanaJoyon 14 Oct 2008 at 6:47 pm 49I would love for more movies to be available that I could watch with my Mom. Neither of us like cursing, we’d like for the premarital relations to be kept to a minimum (or if it is happening, please don’t have it too explicit), and a happy ending. (Thousands or more romance novels are sold every day — why can’t Hollywood make just a few romantic movies a year?)
Somebody famous said years ago that Americans like tragedies with happy endings (I think he was talking about plays), but a lot of movies now just seem to be tragedies.
Johnny Ed's Babyon 14 Oct 2008 at 7:02 pm 50I agree that most Americans do not know the political leanings of the stars.
They just assume they are whacked out crazy, conservative-hating, Bush is Hitler, Sarah Palin should be sent to the North Pole forever liberals.
And that’s a pretty good assumption - maybe 4 out of 5 do fit that description and maybe 1 out of 10 are worse.
So yeah, I think Harry got a lot right about the attitudes of the movie audience.
Kiton 14 Oct 2008 at 7:12 pm 51EvanaJoy,
We’ll there is SHADOWLANDS, wins on no cursing (I think) and lack of premarital sex, but loses on happy ending (It is about C.S. Lewis’s marriage to Joy Gresham). It is an amazing true story romance, with an old movie feel (It is directed by The Great Richard Attenborough)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLKS0XGRYi8
NAPOLEON DYNAMITE: Some cursing but mostly goshes and gahs -really nothing worse than that. No premarital sex. And a happy ending (Stay after the credits for the real prize). Granted, it is really more of a teen movie, but still fun nonetheless.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YwUh4Lgiks
Then there is ENCHANTED, a fun Disney musical film that pays tribute to the musicals of old -and some classic Disney films.
GHOSTOWN has its crude moments, but is a good romantic comedy nonetheless.
WALL-E is a good romance too between two robots.
PerfectTommyon 14 Oct 2008 at 9:12 pm 52There is better version of Shadowlands than the Attenbourough version, I think it was made for the BBC starring Joss Ackland:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090005/
The remake gets Lewis’ theology all wrong.
MovieBobon 14 Oct 2008 at 9:17 pm 53Goldstein slips a bit when he holds up “green screen” (read: genre films) as the stuff proven actors are looking to avoid - it’s just not the case. Christian Bale didn’t need to be Batman once, let alone TWICE in two physically-demanding films, to become a well-regarded and sought-after actor; he was already there. Robert Downey Jr. is certainly more financially secure with Iron Man royalties to look forward to for the rest of his life, but he in spite of all his troubles he never lost the respect of his peers nor fully lost the ability to get the sort of roles that had defined the middle-part of his career. Sir Ian McKellan was not hurting for roles prior to being Magneto and Gandalf, nor Tilda Swinton pre-Narnia.
Good, established actors are seeking these films out now at least partly because it’s a field that offers them interesting material AND profit. Kenneth Brannagh is signed to make “The Mighty Thor,” for pity’s sake. What good actors tend to disdain doing are middlebrow disposable films - generally romantic comedies and the like.
YOU, on the other hand, still slip up in the same basic place: Assuming that even a semblance of a majority of Michael Bay’s America has the cognitive power to comprehend politics enough to be outrage by the entertainment industry practice of such - they AIN’T. If they WERE, they wouldn’t so eagerly turn out for the pro-multiculturalism, pro-illegal immigration (one sequence involves a helpful coyote… as in an ACTUAL coyote, har har… who helps Mexican dogs cross the border) “Beverly Hills Chihuahua.”
Ron 15 Oct 2008 at 7:14 am 54This has got to be the dopiest blog posting I’ve ever read. People who spend their lives in this industry have no idea why some movies are successful and other aren’t. But I guess you’ve figured it out… It’s politics. That isn’t the last gasp of a dying man without an answer.
Isn’t possible that “Body of Lies” just isn’t very good?
Leonardo DiCarpio has been pretty clear about his politics for years now but ‘Blood Diamond’, ‘The Departed’ and ‘The Aviator’ were all huge moneymakers. ‘The Departed’ made over 200 million dollars and features a parade of Hollywood liberals.
‘Wall-E’, a movie that gave conservative bloggers a reason get up in the morning made 220 million dollars this past summer.
‘American Carol’ is a huge failure but both ‘Religulous’ and ‘Expelled’ are both relative successes.
In television, ‘24′ (conservative) was a huge success and so was ‘the West Wing’ (liberal).
Nobody really cares about the politics they just want their movies to be good.
Kinda like the way, regardless of the politics, we all want the blogs we read to be good. But I guess that’s just wishful thinking.