DRIP #1: IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY LAWSUIT....
Okay, take a second and read this...
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When I first read it I thought it was a rather florid pitch for a new thriller starring Marky Mark, or the beginning of someone's novel, and that the next paragraph was going to be all about a "dame with epic length legs wrapped in a haiku length skirt."
But no, it's not any of that, it's the opening statement in yet another movie related lawsuit, this time between Aramid Entertainment, Relativity Media, and other defendants.
What's the fundamental truth of this story?
That nothing about it matters.
That's right, the purple prose of the plaintiff's lawyer doesn't matter.
The amount being sued for doesn't matter.
The guilt or innocence of the parties involve definitely doesn't matter.
What does matter is that this is just another lawsuit proving my point that the movie business, both studio and indie, is such an organizational and financial pig's breakfast the only true winners in the movie business are the lawyers.
DRIP #2: PARADISE LOST IS LOST
Legendary Pictures has scrapped plans for a big budget movie version of John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, starring Bradley Cooper as the fallen angel Lucifer.
Apparently the reason was because they couldn't get the budget below $120 million no matter how hard they tried.
Now I have to ask: What the hell is wrong with Hollywood?
Seriously, when I was kid, and that wasn't that long ago, film-making was a much more arduous, and time consuming process, requiring renting hyper-expensive equipment, and large crews of talented, highly paid specialists. You could only shoot in specific areas, just loading film into the camera took time, steady hands, and and special effects required complex and time consuming optical processes to pull off.
Then a mega-budget epic cost $40 million.
That's not even going to pay for a romantic comedy with more than one star these days. And this is during a time when one can buy cameras, lights, and other equipment for less than the cost of a week's camera rental in the old days. Loading a digital video camera now takes seconds, and special effects can be done on inexpensive computers in days or weeks, rather than months.
It's not inflation, because the rest of the economy hasn't faced the inflation that Hollywood faces. It can only be Hollywood's own shoddy and often shady business practices that have caused this insane inflation.
Do you see a theme forming here?
DRIP #3: NOW A PALATE CLEANSER
Now something a little more cheerful, with The Artist's Jean Dujardin...
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