Hollywood Babble On & On #1230: Knowing When To NOT Take A Stand

DOWNEY WALKS

By now you've seen the video of Robert Downey Jr. walking out of an Avengers press junket interview because a British "journalist" ambushed him with questions about his past battle with addiction and his personal politics.

Good for RDJ.

It's not like he was trying to keep his past a secret. He's done multiple interviews about getting clean, most of them very frank and revealing. There was nothing new to be learned from bringing it up now, being a subject more fit for history over news.

Then there's the reporter's insistence that RDJ take some sort of public political stance, which RDJ refused, rightly.

Why was RDJ right to refuse to take a stance?

Because there is no good that can come out of him making some sort of partisan political stand. All he would succeed in doing is risk alienating a big chunk of the audience either way, and if he comes out as politically "conservative" he runs the risk of alienating Hollywood and possibly losing work.

Which is why I think it was right of him to walk out of that ambush. That reporter was just looking for attention for himself as "hard-hitting" which is why I deliberately left his name out of this post.

THE PEN IS NOT MIGHTIER THAN OFFENDING SOMEONE

Michael Ondaatje, Francine Prose (fitting name) and four other writers are boycotting the PEN America gala's tribute to Charlie Hebdo.

You may recall that Charlie Hebdo is the often off-colour French satirical magazine whose staff and contributors were massacred by radical Islamist terrorists out to avenge offensive cartoons. PEN America is a literary journal published by the PEN American Centre, a group dedicated to the promotion of free speech and free expression.

This means that Ondaatje/Prose and company are missing one of the fundamental points of PEN's mission. That in order for freedom of speech to exist, it must accept speech that some might find offensive or even enraging. The onus of responsibility for acts of violence perpetrated by the "offended" rests not on the offender, but on the perpetrator of the violence.

This boycott is an unwitting endorsement of violence as a means of imposing censorship by people who should know better. It's telling terrorists and wannabes that violence will get them what they want. 

That ain't right.

Then there's the whiff of hypocrisy that clings to this boycott like the pong of a rotting whale carcass. How would these same sensitive souls have reacted if Charlie Hebdo had been attacked by a gang of Christians who had been enraged by the magazine's more common attacks on their beliefs? I'd bet dollars to dirt-clods that these same people would be waving "Je Suis Charlie" flags and demanding that the magazine get the Nobel Peace Prize.

If the boycotters really believe in free speech then they will have to hold their nose and accept that non-PC speech has to be free too.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1229: Tax Credit Where Credit Is Due...

Nova Scotia's growing film and television industry may have narrowly dodged a bullet.

A few weeks ago the provincial government released their annual budget, and one of the big items was the slashing of the Nova Scotia Film & Television payroll tax credit, a move that threatened to destroy an industry that in the last twenty years had grown from $6 million a year to between $125-$139 million a year.

Basically before the budget if you were a film/TV producer in Nova Scotia you could claim 100% of your payroll expenses as a credit toward your taxes. After the budget that amount was slashed to 25%, which threatened destroy the profit margin and competitive edge of many Nova Scotia film/TV companies. Naturally those who make Nova Scotian film and television protested, loudly and passionately, and even got rapper Snoop Dogg to back them to save his favourite show The Trailer Park Boys.

Recently a tentative agreement was reached to save the industry and end the stream of bad press bombarding Nova Scotia's Liberal government. The tentative deal will keep the credit/rebate at 25% but expand what qualifies for it from just payroll to include all of the company's expenses. 

Why did this new deal become necessary?

Why did the Liberal government come close to destroying one of the few economic success stories the province could boast of?

The ruling Liberals fell victim to three fundamental fallacies that threatened to do more harm than good.

FALLACY #1: THE TAX CREDIT IS A SUBSIDY:

If you believe that, you couldn't be more wrong if you climbed Mt. Wrong when you were supposed to be exploring the Grand Canyon. To understand why you need to know exactly what is a subsidy, and what this tax credit really is.

NS Finance Minister Whelan.

A subsidy is when you go to the government and ask them to give you money in exchange that you will do something with that money that will allegedly benefit the province. If the ruling party likes you, they will give you that money. If the ruling party doesn't like you, you don't get a dime.

The Nova Scotia Film and Television Tax Credit was basically a bit of relief on the taxes paid by businesses in the film and television industry for the privilege of creating taxpaying jobs based upon the size of the payroll the business is shelling out. Under the old system film & TV businesses in Nova Scotia got 100% of their payroll taxes back, to the tune of about $24-$25 million a year. Under the new system, they will only be able to claim a 25% credit on their payroll taxes, which will pretty much kill the profit margin and competitive edge for many Nova Scotia based film and television companies.

So the credit is not really a subsidy, it is, in fact, a relief from a tax that exists not so much to earn revenue, but to suppress wages and job creation.

FALLACY #2: THE TAX CREDIT COSTS NOVA SCOTIA MONEY:

As I said, this not a subsidy, it's a form of relief from a counterproductive tax.

But what about the revenue, the roughly $24 million, that the Nova Scotia government "loses" every year, isn't that an expense when you come down to it?

Well, probably not if you crunch the numbers.

Remember, the Nova Scotia government regularly and gladly drops tens of millions of dollars on a "make-work" project like a customer service call centre that will create about 100 jobs until the company running it goes out of business when that money runs out. Then tens of millions more taxpayer dollars have to be doled out to subsidize another company's purchase of the make-work project, this time to keep 50 jobs running.

Meanwhile the $24 million not taken by the NS government in the tax credit has led to the creation of about 2100 full time jobs that work every year, year in, year out, and about $139 million being spent in the province by productions every year.

The companies that employ those 2100 people all pay corporate income taxes.

Those 2100 employees all pay income taxes.

A percentage of every dollar of that $139 million spent on anything that isn't groceries in Nova Scotia is collected in "Goods & Services" sales taxes. Half of that money goes straight to Nova Scotia's treasury.

The vendors who supply everything from food to furniture to these productions also pay sales taxes, as well as their own corporate and income taxes.

I'll bet dollars to Doritos that the Nova Scotia film industry results in more going into the province's coffers than the $24 million "lost" by the tax credit.

If something pulls in more money than you're allegedly putting out, it's not an expense, it's an investment.

FALLACY #3: THE MONEY GOES TO RICH HOLLYWOOD FAT CATS:

Foreign productions don't pay income and payroll taxes in Nova Scotia. Hence, they don't get the tax credit.

The myth of the crew coming entirely from Hollywood is just that, a myth. It's too expensive and awkward to bring an entire crew and their equipment all the way from Hollywood. Instead, foreign productions just bring in a handful of "above the line" personnel and everything else is done by hiring local subcontractors.

Those local sub-contractors who provide equipment, crews, casting, and a myriad of other services pay taxes, and are the people who get the tax credit. Also, unlike the big Hollywood studios and TV networks, these subcontractors are usually small businesses who rely on the tax credit to be competitive with other locations and the services they provide.

Once you get past these fallacies you might get to the truth that the tax credit is more of a positive than a negative. So let's hope this new tax relief deal helps keep the industry growing.

__________

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SPITFIRE

During WW2 a fighter pilot must battle a mythical beast with the fate of the Allies in the balance.

Buy it HERE!

United Kingdom!

Canada!

Australia!

My short story A CHOICE OF MONSTERS is now available for Kindle users for 99¢ US.

It's a blend of actual movie history, adventure, and fantastical horror for any fans of monsters, movies, and monster movies.

Also available around the world, including:

United Kingdom

Canada

Australia

Not into monsters?

Maybe a crime story is more your thing.

Hollywood player Carter Bennett is losing friends fast. They're dying young, in the weirdest ways, and there's a strange old man showing up at their funerals and leaving the same cryptic message.

Bennett's investigation uncovers a brutal revenge from the darkest corner of the Cold War.

Only 99¢!

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Hollywood Babble On & On #1228: The Affleck Effect?

I've been trying to avoid talking about the leaked Sony e-mails, not wanting to feed upon that particularly stinky carcass, but this story I really couldn't ignore.

You see among the recent batch of leaked e-mails was talk between senior Hollywood folks that Ben Affleck the actor, director, and upcoming Batman, had turned an ancient sin of his ancestor into his own modern gaffe.

While participating in the PBS show Finding Your Roots With Dr. Henry Louis Gates Affleck was told he had an ancestor who owned slaves.

Affleck then pressured the show to edit out all references to this ancestor in order to preserve his image as the arch-liberal good guy.

Well, word got out, as it inevitably would, and now Ben Affleck has the image of an obnoxious hypocrite who has never heard of the "Streisand Effect."

"What's the Streisand Effect?" you ask, furrowing your brow in a feeble attempt to understand.

A few years ago a group wanted to promote awareness of coastal erosion in California. Their plan was to take pictures up and down the California shore, and use those pictures to illustrate their point. 

But there was a problem.

One of those pictures had Barbara Streisand's Malibu beach house in it. No one thought it was a problem, since it was just another mansion nestled among dozens of other similar mansions.

But that wasn't enough for Streisand.

Streisand promptly shit kittens and she did everything she could to get that picture pulled from the project.

This is where the Streisand Effect kicked in.

All of Streisand's attempts to censor the picture made that picture news. It went from a photo of coastal erosion seen only by a handful of environmentalists and legislators to a big news story about Streisand's house that was seen by EVERYONE.

Over the run of Finding Your Roots the show has had several celebrities who turned out to have slave-owning ancestors. They were discussed on the show, mentioned the next day on some websites, and then promptly forgotten. It's not like the show revealed that the celebrities themselves currently kept a slave wrapped in a latex gimp-suit in their basement, it merely mentioned something done by someone who has been dead for over a century.

With Affleck, since he is such a big activist for the Democratic Party, he probably would have been the punchline on conservative websites for a day, and then quickly forgotten.

However, that would have only happened if he just let his family tree go out unexpurgated.

He didn't do that.

He tried to cover it up, and the cover up always amplifies the original crime right out of proportion. Now Affleck has "slave-owning hypocrite" branded onto his forehead for at least the foreseeable future.

What Affleck did was just plain dumb.

__________

Wanna support this blog?

Then get yourself some of my short stories on your Kindle for 99¢ USD.

SPITFIRE

During WW2 a fighter pilot must battle a mythical beast with the fate of the Allies in the balance.

Buy it HERE!

United Kingdom!

Canada!

Australia!

My short story A CHOICE OF MONSTERS is now available for Kindle users for 99¢ US.

It's a blend of actual movie history, adventure, and fantastical horror for any fans of monsters, movies, and monster movies.

Also available around the world, including:

United Kingdom

Canada

Australia

Not into monsters?

Maybe a crime story is more your thing.

Hollywood player Carter Bennett is losing friends fast. They're dying young, in the weirdest ways, and there's a strange old man showing up at their funerals and leaving the same cryptic message.

Bennett's investigation uncovers a brutal revenge from the darkest corner of the Cold War.

Only 99¢!

Also available in the 

UK

CANADA

AUSTRALIA

Buy them, read them, leave reviews, and tell all your friends and family to do the same.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1227: Casting The Rumours

You can't spend 5 minutes on the internet without seeing some entertainment site breathlessly pitching that an actor was "circling," "being considered," "in talks," or "the front runner" for a movie role.

I understand why the entertainment media reports on them, they are expected to delivers so-called "exclusives" and "scoops" 24/7/365 and there no better click-bait than claiming some actor is up for a big part.

The problem is that 99% of these reports are total bullshit.

When a major Hollywood studio film is being cast there are literally dozens of actors being considered for every role. Big names, middle names, and total unknowns are all looked at and judged on how right they are for the part and how well they can sell to the audience.

So reporting that an actor is somehow being looked at for a part is basically the Hollywood equivalent of reporting that the sun has risen as if it's an exclusive scoop that should win the Pulitzer Prize.

Which is why, when I seize power and impose my brutal dictatorship upon the world, I will declare a law that casting rumours should only be reported if they involve these three actors:

GENE HACKMAN

BRIDGET FONDA

RICK MORANIS

Now if they are "circling" or "being considered for" a role, that's actually news.

Then you will be allowed to report it.

All other pointless rumours will be punished by CATAPULT!!

Which is why you should all vote for me as your despot of choice.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1226: In Cold Blood…Again?

The Weinstein Company has bought the rights to adapt Truman Capote's "non-fiction" novel In Cold Blood for television as an "event series."

This news has inspired one question:

WHY?

In case you spent the last 60 years in a cave I'll do some explaining.

In 1959 two recent parolees Dick Hickock and Perry Smith slaughtered four members of the Clutter family in rural Kansas because they heard a nonsensical rumour that the family had a mythical stash of money in their house.

Truman Capote, already a successful author, and his childhood friend turned personal secretary Harper Lee, travelled to Kansas to write about the case, and Capote got to know the killers very well as they waited for their execution in 1966.

The book was a monster best-seller and opened the door to a flood of "True Crime" books that sell well even to this day. Ironically it was the last substantial work Capote ever wrote, producing only short pieces, one unfinished novel, while transforming himself from an author who became a celebrity into a celebrity who was once an author.

Despite some disputes over its accuracy In Cold Blood became his most famous and enduring work.

Which brings us back to the question: Why do it again?

The first adaptation was in 1967 and is considered a classic due to the powerful performances and Conrad Hall's vivid black and white cinematography.

Then it was done again in 1996 as a TV miniseries.

Then two other movies, Capote and Infamous, were made and released almost on top of each other and they were about Truman Capote's writing of the book.

So, it's not exactly as if the story's never been told on screen.

In fact, it's been told FOUR TIMES.

Even by remake-crazy Hollywood standards that's a little extreme. Even reboot nutty superhero movies they at least try to change things up with different villains and situations.

This is not that kind of story.

It's a story that's been told, repeatedly, and often pretty well, so why try again?

Hollywood Babble On & On #1225: Farewell To Nova Scotia?

The Finance Minister of Nova Scotia is planning to slash the payroll tax credit for film and television jobs by about 75%. Local producers naturally object to this, because it burdens them with extra costs, and even American rapper Snoop Dogg declared his support for the tax credit because it makes his favourite show, Netflix's The Trailer Park Boys, possible.

Now you're probably wondering what all the fooferall is about, so I'll do a little explaining.

A little over 20 years ago the Nova Scotia government instituted what's called a payroll tax credit program for film and television productions that shoot in Nova Scotia and employ Nova Scotians. At the time, there was about $6 million a year spent in film/TV production in Nova Scotia, but it has grown to about $130-$140 million a year.

That's a lot of jobs created by taxpaying companies, and held by taxpaying citizens.

That's not counting the secondary and tertiary jobs created by the spending of those same taxpaying citizens. Usually an industry creates between 2-3 secondary and tertiary jobs for for every one of their jobs.

That's a lot of jobs that otherwise wouldn't exist.

I'm betting that the Nova Scotia government breaks even on the income taxes at the very least, but more likely turns a profit when all the numbers are crunched.

And dropping the tax credit would be really stupid since without it the province would probably lose Tom Selleck's freshly revived Jesse Stone TV movie franchise, The Trailer Park Boys, and CBC's flagship political satire series This Hour Has 22 Minutes. For many productions the credit makes Nova Scotia affordable, and in many cases possible. 

Now you're probably wondering why I'm defending what many see as a government subsidy, since I regularly state my opposition to government subsidies in the film business.

Well, it's not a subsidy when you look at the facts, and it's not run like a subsidy.

You see, the tax credit is basically a refund of all or some of the payroll taxes employers in film and TV would normally have to pay the government for the privilege of employing Nova Scotians.

That's right, the payroll tax is a tax on anyone who is creating taxpaying jobs.

That's a stupid tax.

It's also not handled like a normal film subsidy. You don't have to go to a funding agency and kiss the ass of bureaucrats in Toronto to prove your worthiness of taxpayer's money by employing the same-old same-old pack of cronies you see in 90% of Canadian productions. All you had to do for the tax credit was prove that you were making film and television programming that was shooting in Nova Scotia, and that you were employing Nova Scotian taxpayers.

Then you didn't get a subsidy, you got relief from a stupid and counterproductive tax regime.

And let's not forget that it's not just foreign productions shooting on location getting these benefits, there's also a hell of a lot of 100% homegrown work that wouldn't otherwise exist without it.

So save the tax credit and save Nova Scotia's fledgeling industry. A quick way to make your voice heard is via social media, like Twitter, so let the Nova Scotia Finance Minister know what you think.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1224: It's Just A Joke.

First South African comedian Trevor Noah was tapped to be the replacement for Jon Stewart at Comedy Central's The Daily Show.

Second came increased interest in this guy who most Americans have never seen, since he had only three Daily Show appearances before being crowned heir apparent. More people were tweeting about Noah than actually watch The Daily Show.

Then came the inevitable event for any comedian, close scrutiny of Noah's Twitter feed uncovered jokes, but not just any jokes, jokes that offended some people, by going outside the list of pre-approved subjects and targets.

Naturally this led to outrageous outrage that a comedian would dare to joke about something that might hurt the feelings of someone somewhere. Then comedian Patton Oswalt stepped in with an epic Twitter rant mocking those outraged at mockery.

Leading to Oswalt to be declared "Problematic" yet again by the authors of many an online think-piece.

This controversy taught me three important things.

1. It explains why Jon Stewart avoided doing ANYTHING where every single word he said wasn't pre-written and pre-scrutinized by a staff of 20 professional writers, producers, and probably a few lawyers. He learned to avoid talking or joking off the cuff, because it was nothing but trouble. Better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak, and remove all doubt, even better to have professionals do all the heavy lifting for you.

2. The post of Daily Show anchor is extremely important to the people who staff the Twitter outrage machine. This is because whether they actually watch the show or not, they use the Daily Show, and the hundreds of almost daily on-line think-pieces it inspires, to determine who or what they're supposed to be outraged at while not feeling like a censorious prig because they're the right kind of hip for following The Daily Show. For a host-apparent to violate their shibboleths must feel like a horrible betrayal.

3. If Noah gets the same ratings as Jon Stewart, but doesn't get paid the exact same money that Jon Stewart got for the exact same job, then Comedy Central is irredeemably racist.

______________

In other news...

My short story A CHOICE OF MONSTERS is now available for Kindle users for 99¢ US.

It's a blend of actual movie history, adventure, and fantastical horror for any fans of monsters, movies, and monster movies.

Also available around the world, including:

United Kingdom

Canada

Australia

Not into monsters?

Maybe a crime story is more your thing.

Hollywood player Carter Bennett is losing friends fast. They're dying young, in the weirdest ways, and there's a strange old man showing up at their funerals and leaving the same cryptic message.

Bennett's investigation uncovers a brutal revenge from the darkest corner of the Cold War.

Only 99¢!

Also available in the 

UK

CANADA

AUSTRALIA

Buy them, read them, leave reviews, and tell all your friends and family to do the same.