Wednesday 25 January 2012

Hollywood Babble On & On #842: Random Drippings From My Brain Pan

HARVEY'S CAN STILL ROPE THEM IN!

Jack Selby, a former grande fromage at PayPal, has started an independent film company Incognito Pictures.  The purpose of the company is to take $50 million and use it for “creating intelligent, genre-agnostic films with worldwide appeal.”

Which brings me to my first question: What the hell does he mean by "genre-agnostic?"

Are his movies going to be undecided if they're comedies, horror movies, or musicals, or will they just wander around wondering if there really is such a thing as a genre?

The mind boggles.

Anyway, while I applaud Mr. Selby for wanting to make movies and for having the cash to pull it off, I do have to ask a second, probably more important question:


The Weinstein Company is where the whole concept of the producer / distributor partnership goes to die. The company's business model is to not distribute movies that can't get the Weinsteins Oscars or money they don't have to share with anyone else.  If your film doesn't fit into either category, you will be bombarded with all sorts of excuses for them to not release your movie, there will be lawsuits, counter-lawsuits, and then they're just going to be dumped into the discount DVD bin.

TWC is in an almost constant state of litigation with former partners. The only time a partnership has managed to come back from the brink of turning into a full on blood feud is with Relativity Media, and that's probably because both know that they only have the money to sue each other, or do the Crow remake that only they are asking for, they can't do both.

I'm really amazed that a survivor of the madhouse that is the online business world like Selby would dive head first into this black hole. There are other distributors out there that would love someone who can put out product on a regular basis. The Weinstein Company is only really good at selling Oscar bait, talking rich people into going into business with them, and making lawyers lots of money.

The mind boggles once again.

SPIKE LEE MAKES A POINT, BUT MISSES THE BIG PICTURE

Director Spike Lee went on a bit of a tirade at the Sundance Film Festival. The highlight of this spiel was his declaration that Hollywood executives "know nothing about black people."

He's right. Hollywood executives don't know a thing about black people.

But he also misses the big issue at hand.

Hollywood executives do know absolutely nothing about black people, but they also know absolutely nothing about:

- White people.
- Asian people.
- Christian people.
- Jewish people.
- Muslim people.
- Hindu people.
- Buddhist people.
- Poor people.
- Rich people.
- Middle Class people.

Hell, it's easier to just say that Hollywood executives don't know anything about anyone who isn't part of the upper class, Ivy League graduate, greater Los Angeles - Beverly Hills - Malibu Axis of Ego social clique that they belong to. 

They live in a strange extra-dimensional bubble where everyone is either kissing their ass or stabbing their back, and possess a screaming ignorance of how the rest of humanity lives. 

JAY'S JOKE TO BE JUDGED?

Jay Leno is being sued over a joke.

Apparently the former comedian late night host made a joke claiming Republican candidate Mitt Romney lived here:
The problem is that this isn't the lavish mansion of rampant capitalist excess Leno's writers thought it was, it is, in fact, the Harmandir Sahib; the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the holy center of Sikhism.

Now Sikhs are calling their lawyers and suing Leno and NBC for libel and defamation.

I'm actually surprised. I expected Leno to get hit with a class action suit by other comedians for rampant hackery way before he got sued by anyone else.

1 comment:

  1. Yes you are correct about the movie business and its lack of understanding. But they don't have to do any understanding because they are the movie business and the leaders of what is trendy. Pathetic! They make some mighty lousy entertainment and wonder why we,the potential audience doesn't show up for these tired, raunchy,mini-mind fests.Which just goes to show there are waaaayyyy tooo many drugs in Hollywood.

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