A Personal Note And Then It's Answer Time!!

Sorry for the long delays between posts. Had some family business to take care of in the form of taking my parents, both in the seventies for a trip. The plan was to visit my mother's sister in Ontario, then go visit my brother's family in the suburbs of Detroit, Michigan.

The trip itself went well. Even saw the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, which I would recommend to anyone visiting the area, but the voyage back was another story.

We booked our return tickets to Canada on an airline based in the USA that shall remain nameless, because it looked like a good deal.

Looked like.

Our first two flights on last Tuesday were cancelled. One was due to bad weather, but I'm not sure why the second one was cancelled.

We had already checked out of our hotel by then, and had to book new rooms at an airport hotel to make our new 6:00 AM Wednesday flight to New Jersey to make our connection to Halifax. (This required being at the security checkpoint by 4:00AM)

Our 6:00 AM flight didn't take off until around 7:30 AM because they didn't have the right weather paperwork from the right government agency.

By the time we arrived in Newark our flight was half-way across New England.

We were put on a new flight, but that flight had been oversold by one ticket.

They decided that my mother, who needs a wheelchair to go long distances, was the passenger to get bumped, and wait 8 hours until the next flight.

My Dad and I couldn't abandon my Mother in New Jersey, nor could I trade my seat to her and leave them stranded in the Halifax airport until the wee hours of the night waiting for me, so we all had to stay.

The 8 hour wait turned into a 9 hour wait, but then we finally got on an airplane to Nova Scotia and checked into another hotel at 1:30 AM Thursday.

When we landed in Halifax, we discovered that the airline lost our luggage.

It literally took us 3 days to accomplish 3.5 hours of flying, and then we had to wait until Saturday to get our luggage.

That was then followed by a stream of hassles and problems both petty and major, that had to be dealt with before I can deliver the answers you crave like the salivating dogs that you are.

LET'S GET THE BALL ROLLING!!

Rainforest Giant asked... 

Howdy Furiousness,

With all the new superhero themed shows out this would seem to be a golden age. Especially, since most of the show runners have shown respect to the original material.  

Are we entering a true golden age like the Westerns did for nearly fifty years or is this a passing fad? Is fantasy on TV going to get bigger than GoT or will it fade on the vine? Is there a family friendly fantasy out there now that Merlin is gone?  

Finally, do you think TV sci fi is in an upward trend or just the superhero stuff?

I think sci-fi TV is in an upward trend both in regards to superheroes and with more traditional science fiction material. It's caught in that rising tide that's affecting all of television.

The TV market is hyper-competitive with every outlet not only competing for market share with each other, but with big screen movies, and the internet. That means you have to bring your "A-Game" or you might as well not play at all.

Also, the ability to make a show that looks like a big budget A-List movie has never been cheaper, which means TV is freer to do more both visually and narratively.

As for family friendly fantasy, something will come up. If there's a profitable niche someone will fill it.

How long will this last?

I don't know.

In the 1950s and 1960s the TV Western looked unassailable, now they're rarer then hen's teeth, but I think it will be a while barring some sort of dramatic crash and burn.

Next question...

Nate Winchester asked... 

Hmm... how best to put this... 

Ok, what, in your opinion, is the best way to handle product placement in a movie? 

I mean I don't entirely object to product placement. In fact I've always found it a bit hypocritical how on some sites you'll see people complaining about how characters are drinking BEER (a bottle with the super generic label) in one review of a movie, then complain about "Bud Lite" products in another movie (then some will end up complaining about knock-off products some movies/tv/etc will make too). One gets the feeling people are never happy. So in instances like Man of Steel the complaints make no sense to me. I don't mind it quite as much because I know that if Superman was having a fight in my hometown (which is about the size of Smallville) and was filmed, one would see hundreds of businesses being trashed. It strikes me as less product placement and more realism. But some folks complain about that in movies. 

(and although it sometimes can bug me in TV shows, I'm willing to let it slide more because I know the show has to pay bills)

Product placement works best if it's done subtly.

However, among the Mad Men of Marketing, subtlety is seen as a vice, and they feel they have to beat the audience's head with their stitched on sales pitches.

Filmmakers and advertisers must find that happy medium where the film looks realistic, labels can be seen, but where things don't look like a badly made commercial.

By the way… I had heard a possible urban legend that the Alex Cox movie Repo Man became famous, incorrectly, as statement against product placement for its use of generic products. The twist is that the generic products were from a product placement deal with a grocery store to use their in-house  brand as free props in exchange for giving it a lot of screen time. 

ILDC said... 

Right now, Disney's film slate doesn't have much going for it besides Marvel, Pixar, live-action cartoon remakes, etc. Is having an increasingly narrow film focus something that's going to someday bite them in the ass? While I'm not saying they have to go back to making R-rated movies, there's something thoughtlessly cynical about saying you only produce tentpoles and "brand deposits".

It will bite them in the ass.

Maybe not today.

Maybe not tomorrow.

But someday.

That's because when a studio starts narrowing its focus to only certain kinds of movies, then they are putting themselves on a path that's only going to get narrower.

Because if they only make Marvel and Pixar movies, then, if some films don't all succeed 100% they're going to limit themselves to certain kinds of Marvel and Pixar movies.

Then they'll limit themselves even further to sequels and reboots of previously successful movies.

And then nothing.

Anonymous said... 

In your opinion, is the lack of original projects, as opposed to sequels, remakes et al , a function of the copyright laws? Just think, if the original 28 year copyright law was in effect, Star Wars, Mad Max and a host of other properties would be public domain and would not be profitable for media companies to continue to turn out unoriginal material. The whole idea of copyright was to boost and stimulate creativity. Now it's strangling it.

I don't think it's the fault of copyright law.

If the old 28 year law was still in effect the studios would be much more militant in renewing their copyrights like they were before the laws were expanded. 

The main cause of unoriginality is fear.

New material is an unknown quantity, and that's terrifying to someone whose job and expense account are dependent on how the company's next quarter is going to go.

Better to stick with things that are known, and those things are franchises and filmmakers with a track record.

ILDC said... 

Do you agree with Ennio Morricone saying film music has gotten less memorable? 

http://www.avclub.com/article/ennio-morricone-not-impressed-modern-movie-soundtr-220401

5/6/15 6:00 p.m. 

I love Ennio Morricone's music, and I do agree that he has a point. A lot of the movie music is forgettable.

But memorable movie music is a double edged sword.

A memorable movie soundtrack needs to be part of an extremely memorable movie, or it could overwhelm the movie and become the only thing people can remember.

Maestro Morricone has consistently done great and groundbreaking work for decades, but more than a few of the over 500 films he's provided music for have been truly worthy of his work.

If a lot of modern movie music comes across as bland, it's because in many cases it kind of has to be bland.

maurice asked... 

What's your view of the future of the integration of the most popular YouTube and other Internet stars (formerly known as "user-generated content") into the mainstream entertainment business? Disney just bought an aggregation of YouTube-stars (a new-media "studio"?) for $500m. This seems to be a chip on the table, maybe nothing more. Tastes for that kind of content change rapidly and barriers to entry are low, and so it doesn't seem to jibe with Disney/Iger's current hyper-monetization of big intellectual property brands and tentpoles. Jeff Zucker's jibe of a few years back, that it doesn't make sense to trade analog dollars for digital pennies, is relevant as well. So, perhaps, is the BuzzFeed model of clickbait garbage masquerading as journalism (although the best YouTube performers are definitely good entertainers). Will big data analytics and targeted advertising even out the differences and help the two worlds converge in a structural way? Or, despite some obvious opporunities for synergy, are the two worlds simply too different to merge?

I think it will all hinge on one thing: the star quality of the specific project or person.

I don't see YouTube or another form of social media completely taking over entertainment. It's too anarchic, too splintered, and outside of periodic fads like Gangnam Style, incapable of getting a project to stand above all the static and reach the sort of wide audience that the major professional media outlets can.

However, if the big media companies are smart, they'll look beyond the flash-in-the-pan YouTube "stars" to look for real talent, they way they used to hunt for talent on theatrical and nightclub stages and radio.

But that takes effort, and I don't see the big studios doing that unless they're really desperate.

Gary Burnaska said… 

What is your take on hollywood pairing up 20 year old femaies with leading men in their 40s. We've seen this many times with Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper. Is this some sort of Hollywood mid-life crisis.  

I do have to admit they also work well together.

I did recently write about this phenomenon, so click here, and thanks for giving me an excuse to post a picture of Jennifer Lawrence with whom I am somewhat smitten.

I hope I answered your questions in this edition that managed to be both rushed and late at the same time.

Feel free to ask me anything in the comments.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1207: Random Sick Thoughts

Welcome to my first blog post of 2015.

Sorry, it's so late, first came the holidays, which were really busy and frantic, then came gastroenteritis. I will spare you the awful details, let's just say it was nasty.

Anyway, I'm feeling better and ready to pass off some random thoughts…

*

While I was sick a cable channel ran a Portlandia marathon. I had only caught snippets and individual sketches before, and found what I had seen funny, and since I wasn't going anywhere I decided to dive into the show head first.

First thing I thought was that Carrie Brownstein's work was well worth the hype, the second thought was that she and co-creator Fred Armisen had the most purely natural comedic chemistry I've seen in a team in ages, and the last thought was that this was the gentlest satire I had seen since the days of SCTV.

Too many satirical comedy vehicles see themselves as a battle tank, crashing through barriers, destroying, obliterating, and decimating their targets. That's because too many comedians, especially on television, see themselves not so much as performers, but as advocates. They cannot have fun with the foibles of the people they like, they must use comedy to crush those they hate, see them driven before them, and hear the lamentations of their women.

Portlandia reminds me of SCTV in that it while SCTV made fun of television, movies, and show biz, there was a lot of affection for their subject matter. The creative core of Portlandia, Armisen and Brownstein, have a lot of fondness for Portland, its people, and its place as a perpetually quirky 1990s never-never-land. There's no attempt to make a point, or to destroy anyone, they just want you to laugh.

You don't really see much of that these days. Maybe because to do it, the bit must be about the performance and not about the performer.

*

While I was ill I was also doing a lot of reading. One book is Thomas Schatz's The Genius of the System, about filmmaking in the golden age of the Hollywood studios. One story about MGM stuck with me as an illustration of what I call keeping the eyes on the prize.

MGM was created in the mid-1920s when theatre conglomerate Loew's Inc. merged the large, but struggling, Metropolitan Pictures, with the powerhouse Goldwyn Pictures, and upstart Louis B. Mayer Productions. Mayer's company was purchased not because of its big library, or physical assets like studios and theatres, but because of the men who ran it: the titular Louis B. Mayer, his New York based deputy Robert Rubin, and the boy-wonder producer Irving Thalberg who had started as a senior executive at Universal almost right out of high school.

Mayer handled all business negotiations, as well as distribution, marketing, and corporate administration, Rubin handled relations with the theatres, the banks, and their parent company, while Thalberg found the material, and put everyone and everything together to turn it into a movie. To keep these three as happy employees of Loew's Inc. their contract dictated that they split 20% of MGM's profits between them. Mayer got 53%, Rubin got 27% and Thalberg got 20%. 

This unprecedented deal came about because the trio were running a tiny company that was making top grade product for the coveted "first run" market, successfully competing with exponentially larger studios. The folks running Loew's thought was that if this trio had bigger resources to work with, they'd do even bigger things.

They were right. MGM very quickly became a juggernaut fighting off competition and even the Great Depression. Everyone recognized that a key player in the studio's success was young Thalberg, since it was his skill at picking material and nurturing talent was essential to keep the hits rolling out. This was when Louis B. Mayer made what many today would call a crazy move.

He cut down on his own share of the MGM profit package by 10% and gave it to Thalberg. Essentially giving the youngster a raise of at least $250,000 a year, a king's ransom in the early 1930s.

Now at the surface it seems crazy generous, and it was.

It was also the smart move.

Thalberg was the key reason their profit share package grew. If the boy wonder had a bigger stake in it, then he would be more inclined to keep it growing even bigger. There was an element of risk to the move, but Mayer didn't reach the top of the movie business without being a risk taker. He saw talent, and made the right move to nurture it for the good of the company, its stakeholders, and yes even himself.

It's enlightened self-interest at its best.

Ironically it's exactly the sort of thing you would never see a modern studio executive even contemplate. They have no stake, even emotional, in the companies they run, they're just functionaries picked more for their backgrounds from elite schools, and their ability to spout corporate jargon, than their abilities as administrators and filmmakers. If a young whippersnapper turns out to be a hit machine, the first instinct of the modern executive is to oust them for fear of losing their own position to the wunderkind. 

Crying shame, it might solve a few of the problems that currently plague the industry.

That's what I thought of while I was off sick.

Hollywood Babble On & On #773: QUESTIONS & ANSWERS!

I got two questions from a reader, and I'm going to bluster and fake my way through them...

ILDC asked... Where do you get your info/research? Are you experienced or just have common sense?

When it comes to experience and common sense, I like to think that I have a little of both. As for experience I'm a film school graduate and spent some time scurrying along the outer fringes of Canadian film-making. I did score a TV appearance as a holocaust survivor in a documentary's reenactment scene, which is ironic since I'm the last person you'd ever imagine being cast in that part*, but it worked because all they used was my shadow. Other than that I spent most of my time being told that the only way to beyond fetching coffee in the Canadian TV and Film industry was to already be in a senior position in the Canadian TV and Film industry. And they wonder why our business is mostly stagnant.

And that's why I vent my bitterness and bile on this blog.

As for the common sense I suspect that I was born with it, and it's sort of this blog's mission, beyond my own bitterness and bile, is to get other people to use their common sense when thinking about the business.

As for the research.... some of it I was taught in film school, I was the only one who paid attention in the Business of Film class, and a lot of it I learned on my own through reading books about the business, and business news websites like Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood are great sources not only for research, but also up to date news.

ILDC asked... Do you think My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic can be the next SpongeBob and make a huge profit off of both kid and adult fans? I'm only asking you this because you posted a brony mashup video.

I really can't judge, because all I know about the show are the mash up videos like this extremely offensive and NSFW video (h/t Topless Robot)...

If it can go beyond mash-up material to Spongebob levels of mainstream success I can't really say.




*that's code for "Fat Bastard."

Hello Gentle Readers

Welcome to the show folks...

If you came looking for a fresh blog....

APRIL FOOLS!

Sorry folks, just a bit slow today on news that blows up my kilt with excitement. Gets like that around holiday weekends.

Anyway, tiptoe through the tulips of my archives, and maybe you can figure out the exact moment I jumped the shark. ;)

Sorry I've Been Away Folks

Welcome back to the show...

At least welcome back to me.

Monday night my computer was attacked by a hacker using some bogus "anti-virus" scam to take over my computer and steal things like credit card numbers. This despite my being an extremely cautious, nay paranoid, web-surfer, having been burned once before.

I had to shut everything down, and have my computer swept by an expert, and I just got it back and working. So I will hopefully find something to gripe about tonight other than my internet security issues.

See you later.

Hollywood Babble On & On #441: From The Fevered Snakepit of My Brain!

Welcome to the show folks...

A LITTLE PERSONAL NOTE

Today I made my last payment on my student loan.

Huzzah!

My degree is finally 100% mine.

Now maybe it might be worth something.

Anyway, you don't want to read about me, you want to read me ragging on people way richer than I am, so away we go...

LENOPRAH

Jay Leno will be sitting down with Oprah Winfrey to tell his side of the whole NBC late night debacle. It will be followed by a visit to Dr. Oz, who will retrieve Jay's nuts from the jar in Jeff Zucker's office, and try to reattach them, and attempt a dangerous integrity implant.

A FAMILY GUY GUILD AWARDS

Family Guy creator Seth McFarlane will host the Writer's Guild of America (West) awards this year.

His monologue will consist entirely of him saying: "You know this reminds me of the time..." and then someone will act out a lame visual gag involving Kathy Griffin farting.

WEINSTEINS WANT THEIR BABY BACK

And I'm not talking about baby back ribs. Though I can understand someone wanting to get their hands on some slow smoked baby back ribs...hmmmmm.....drool....
Oh, sorry, where was I?

Right! The Weinstein Co. wants to spend some other people's money buying back the name of their first company Miramax from Disney. Right now old Miramax is as moribund as a dodo, and TWC thinks it could bring back some of the old 90s magic to their beleaguered money pit.

I for one think it would be the corporate equivalent of painting the porch on a haunted house.

However, who am I to judge?

Oh, right, I'm an obnoxious internet know it all!

I judge everything!

Twitter is now no longer cool

Because I finally caved and got a Twitter account at http://twitter.com/FuriousDShow.

I predict that "tweeting" will now stop being the hot trend to do within about a week. So follow me there and I'll post links to my latest blog updates.

Hello, I'm Back...

Welcome to the show folks, I hope you had a Merry Christmas.

I did, in fact, I spent a good part of Christmas Day beating the snot out of my nine year old niece....

....in boxing on the Nintendo Wii.

Which I must say it is a workout for a someone with a metabolism akin to a tree sloth like myself, but it was all in good fun.

As the family's chef in residence I was put in charge of roasting the family turkey, which I did to perfection, but the road to that perfect poultry almost led me to murder.

You see, my sister, who was hosting our Xmas feast, needed a new roasting pan that was big enough for the monster bird we purchased. So I went down to the local big box store to get a roasting pan, simple right?

Wrong.

First, I found the very last large roasting pan in the entire store. Lucky for me, or was it?

Now the pan had a price tag that said $19.97, and I went to the "Express Check Out" for speedy service because my ride was waiting for me outside.

As the wise man Apu once said: "The express line is the fastest not always."

I got to the checkout, and there we found that someone had ripped the bar code off the box. I thought that wasn't going to be a problem since it had a price tag, but the pimply faced teen working the check-out told me that he didn't have the authority to accept the price tag, and called his supervisor.

His supervisor, a delicate flower of a lady with the ink still wet on her prison tats, showed up and said that the pubescent clerk had to go to housewares and look for some sign of the price. I tried to explain that there was nothing there other than the price tag on the box, but they had to investigate it themselves, leaving me to stew at the "express" checkout for what seemed like an eternity and a half.

Now I'm a fairly laid back person, who is slow to anger, and I'm even more laid back at Xmas time, being chock full of peace on Earth and good will toward men, but this was starting to try my patience. Then the teen titan clerk returned, admitted that I wasn't lying about there being no other roasting pans or any signs saying "Roasting Pans $19.97" and then proceeded to call his supervisor again.

The supervisor then called the manager, who then must have consulted the Elvish runes of his Dark Lord Sauron, because he soon called back and gave them permission to use the company's own price tag.

All the while I was fighting the urge to just Hulk out and completely ruin everyone's Xmas with a flurry of fatal cash register beatings up the corporate food chain, going all the way up to the store's CEO. It wasn't the morality of committing fatal cash register beatings during the Xmas season that stopped me, but the fact that I don't like to Hulk out without my stretchy pants on.

By the time it was over I had literally spent over half an hour at the "express" check out trying to pay for my purchase like an honest man.

Anyway, everyone got out alive, so it truly was a Xmas miracle, and another miracle was the turkey I cooked on that pan, which was perfection itself.

The toughest part of cooking a turkey is getting the dark meat of the legs cooked without drying out the white meat, and I stumbled on the solution.

The key is to start the cooking with the oven at 450 degrees. Yes 450. You put the turkey in the oven at that high temperature with the dark meat side up for an hour.

Then you take the bird out, turn down the heat to 325 degrees, flip the bird with the white meat now facing up, and cook it for the recommended time per pound, basting periodically, but not as much as you'd think.

The turkey will be done when the dark meat's internal temperature is at 185 degrees, so an instant read thermometer is a must have.

It creates a perfectly juicy turkey that everyone will love.

Anyway, that was my Xmas adventure, I hope yours was comparatively free of contemplated homicide.

Argh....

Sorry for the light posting this weekend. The 3 1/2 weeks I spent on the road have caught up with me, and flattened me with a wicked cold.

I hope to be posting again tomorrow.

A-CHOO!

*SNIFF*

YES I AM STILL ALIVE!!

Welcome to the show folks...

I'd like to drop a big hello to both of my loyal readers. After 3 1/2 weeks away I have returned.

Anyhoo, long story short. I saw a lot of nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles, cousins, and other assorted relatives, internet access was spotty, but now I'm back at what I do best... being an internet know-it-all jerk!

It's good to be back.

Just a quick note...

Welcome to the show folks...

I'm on the road right now, Michigan to be exact. The trip over was an adventure in itself.

I had to make a connection from Toronto airport to Detroit, and had to take a bus ride to the "special" terminal, that had me pass through Michigan twice. Then I boarded a prop plane that was so old, the first man who flew it, used it to shoot down the Red Baron.

Hopefully I'll find some time to do some the showbiz vitriol I do so well, but that will be tricky while I'm traveling.

So, feel free to roam the archives, because things tend to repeat themselves in Hollywood, and much of it will still be fitting.

Going Down The Road...

Welcome to the show folks...

Sorry I wasn't able to post my usual vitriol today, because I was busy packing. I'm going to be traveling for a spell, and my postings may be a tad more irregular in timing than usual.

But be patient, I'll be back. And since I'm Canadian I do not fall under the FTC's threatened regulations of blogs, so come on big studios, BRIBE ME!

Anyway, to help assuage the undoubtedly ravenous hunger you have for my material, I'll just post a quick list of what I think will be the top stories during my travels...

1. The Weinstein Co. will continue to implode.

2. NBC will continue to make really stupid decisions and soon be whupped in the ratings by the Lawn Channel, all watching grass grow, all the time.

3. Hollywood folks will continue to do things that make the people that buy the tickets shake their heads in a mix of confusion, despair, and disgust.

4. Hollywood in general will continue to be a confusing, confounding, and anarchic business, because no one there will acknowledge that it is a business.

I'll try to post while I'm traveling, so until next time...

Hollywood Babble On & On #328: Miscellaneous Money-Movie-Media Musings

As I mentioned in my last post, today was the day of the annual library sale, where the public and school libraries of three counties put all their over-stock books together and sell them at great prices. I'm talking $5 for 3 hardcovers, and $2 for 3 paperbacks (mass market and trade size).

For a stingy yet voracious reader like myself, I always go ape-shit crazy at this sale, and I bought a huge load of books for about $25 in just about every genre and subject. The trick is that you have to get to the back room of a small town library at before 8:00 AM on a Saturday, and wait amid a cloud of blackflies and mosquitoes for them to unlock the door. Then you have to fight the crowd, which gets bigger every year and these book buyers can get pretty aggressive.

Thankfully I had my mace.
I showed that little old lady who's the boss when she tried to poach that book about movies from me. And the lesson is: Don't bring a brittle hip to a mace fight.

Anyway, enough about me, because I'm really boring. You've come here to read me gripe about the business of show biz, so let's go...

1. UNIVERSAL TAKES A BATH

The flailing NBC-U empire just released their second quarter revenue report, and their profits are down 41%.

Ouch.

And don't expect things to get much better, especially with their summer tent-pole mockumentary Bruno collapsing 89% at the Box Office after a big opening night, showing that despite spending around $100 million to promote the film they bought for $42 million, the film did not have legs to wax.

While it's predecessor Borat made over $100 million domestically, the film cost less thant $20 million total, and had nowhere near the promotion budget Bruno had. Which means that NBC-Universal forgot that the real key to Borat's success was that it was so cheap to produce and release. They thought that if they spent more, they would make more, and forgetting that a hard-R comedy based on an already over-exposed concept.

And don't get me started on the NBC network. The former home of "must see TV" has become a black hole where shows go to die.

And when it comes to the management of the company, all they seem to do is worry about public relations. At this stage, changing your "message" is like giving the Titanic a paint-job as the North Atlantic comes over the poop deck. The problems with the company start and end at the very top of the company.

In my arrogant opinion, management at the top of NBC-U is completely and totally dysfunctional. And what I don't understand is that General Electric doesn't seem to see it. I know that Zucker, the CEO of NBC-U has a reputation as an ass kisser, but if I ran GE, I don't care if an executive's head shows up on my colonoscopy, if they cost me over 40% of a subsidiary's profits, I'm going to drop them the way NBC Universal dropped Life with Sarah Shahi and some guy named Damian Lewis or something like that.

Anyway, if GE actually realizes that today's economy requires all facets of a company to be at least functional, they may make a move for some reform.

Of course any move to fix NBC-U would require more than a few pink slips at the top, I could loan them a mace if they want it, but I don't think they do anything. It's the law of commercial inertia.

2. E-BOOK THE FLYING CAR OF LITERATURE

Amazon, the online bookseller, has convinced a lot of people to not buy the e-book reader The Kindle when they snuck into people's machines and deleted copies of George Orwell's 1984 because they were having a dispute with Orwell's publisher. Now they refunded the cost of the e-book to those customers but it does tells me why the e-book will be the flying car of literature, always right around the corner, but never really coming to fruition beyond a novelty.

Why?

Because when you buy a Kindle edition, you don't really own that e-book. You are merely licensing the right to read it as long as Amazon keeps on good terms with the publisher, or doesn't just take it back in an act of corporate whimsy. What's to keep them from changing the terms of use, and jack up their prices and demand that you pay the difference, or have your Kindle library deleted?

Nothing, except the fear of litigation, which companies tend to lose when they become big enough to crush all who oppose them.

That's why I will remain a Luddite when it comes to books, I prefer hard copies, and if you want to take them, you not only have to pry them from my cold dead hands, but you will have to get past my mace to even try.

3. SOMETIMES THE CLOSET ISN'T A BAD PLACE

Director/producer Todd Holland is apologizing for remarks he made at the Outfest Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, where he said that some gay actors should stay in the closet for the sake of their careers.

Now I think he was partially right. I think all actors, regardless of sexual preferences, should be in the closet.

I don't care if an actor is gay, straight, bi, tri, or has a fetish for goldfish, and I don't want to hear about it either. I would like to go on line on the internet, or in line at the supermarket, and not see yet another cover story about who the royal hell Jennifer Aniston is dating this week.

Also, I would like to get Jada Pinkett-Smith to stop going on about her and Will Smith's sex lives. Yes, you have a lot of sex, so why are you here talking about instead of at home getting your freak on? Have all the sex you want, let Will wear the French Maid outfit this time, just don't make it national freaking news, because I don't want to hear about it.

So here's my proposal, if gay actors have to be in the closet to protect their careers, then everyone else has to be in the closet as well, and place a moratorium on the media from speculating on their sex lives. Maybe this will make people learn to live without giving a shit about which actor is sleeping with which, and demand more of that bottomless chum bucket called the media than just a sexual tally card.

Sorry folks...

Sorry that I didn't blog today. A mix of slow news, hot weather, and too much else to do. Though I did get a lot of work done on my book about Hollywood business today, so it wasn't a complete wank.

My search for a literary agent is going strong. I sent out just about a dozen queries for this round, got 3 rejections so far, and all the rejections had one thing in common. All three came literally within the amount of time it took to hit the reply button, and paste in a form rejection letter, which tells me that those agents didn't even read the materials their submission guidelines asked for. The fastest was literally within an hour of the e-mail query being sent.

Well, if they don't bother to read the letter and the other materials their guidelines claimed to ask for, I won't be wasting my time with them.

Anyway, posting for tomorrow is a tad uncertain. I have to attend a funeral tomorrow, and will be gone most of the day, and Saturday is the annual summer library overstock sale. Which has a huge selection of used books at rock bottom prices. So I will probably be going ape-shit crazy at the sale, like I do every year.

Be good, and I'll be back posting as soon as possible, until then feel free to read my last two posts, and place your 2 cents in the comments.

Hollywood Babble On & On #236: Some Musings Before The Oscars...

1. The Academy Awards are on tonight. So far the nominated films haven't enjoyed the traditional "Oscar Bounce" in their box-office, and the awards themselves, despite the charms of host Hugh Jackman, are expecting to hit new lows in the ratings.

Of all the nominated films, I believeJSlumdog Millionaire deserves to win in every category it's been nominated in.

Not because of the quality of the film, I haven't seen it, but because it's the only film on the Best Picture list that wasn't made solely to win an Oscar for someone. Benjamin Button, made to get Brad Pitt a nomination, Milk, ditto for Sean Penn, The Reader, get one for Harvey Weinstein. Slumdog, with its rags to riches story, romance, and even suspense, appears to have been made because the filmmakers had a story they felt needed to be told, because they believed that story would make that all important emotional connection.

All the others strike me as just Oscar bait, and after so many years of the Academy Awards rewarding such blatant Oscar whoring, it's cheapened the value of the awards themselves. Quality has very little to do with winning an Oscar, just convincing the 5,000 Academy voters that you're better than anything that demeans itself by being entertaining.

Perhaps an underdog Slumdog win could shock the Oscars back into the real world.

It probably won't but it would be worth a shot.

I for one will be checking out the Mythbusters rerun marathon on the Canadian Discovery Channel.

And I'm not mentioning that as a cheap excuse to post a cheesecake picture of Kari Byron, it was a serious editorial decision.

Really, it was.

Honest.

I have my integrity.

______________________

2. Nikki Finke watched the Independent Spirit Awards and pondered on just how independent these movies really are.

And I'm inclined to ponder that issue myself. Just about all the winners were not only produced by the boutique "indie" branches of major media companies, and the "fresh indie talent" making those films are pretty much the same people who have been making indie films and winning Independent Spirit Awards since the boom of the 1990s.

I fear that American independent film has become Canadianized.

No, I'm not implying that independent films have started drinking better quality beer, and having better manners than the other films, I'm saying that the independent film industry is turning into a Americanized version of the Canadian film industry.

Here's how...

Like Canadian films American indie films are for a shrinking niche audience, and no, I'm not talking about the "art house" crowd who dress in black and think everything's better with subtitles. I'm talking about a niche of a niche audience. You see Canadian films, except for the Francophone Quebec cinema, is, for the most part, not for the general public.

Canadian films are made by industry insiders for the other industry insiders who judge a festivals, hand out awards, and to the bureaucrats who control the purse strings of the film industry.

In Canada, those bureaucrats work for the government, in the USA, the bureaucrats work for the big media conglomerates, but what they do share is a dislike of these films enjoying mainstream success. Because these films are not made to earn money, or even entertain people. These films are made to give "street cred" as patrons of the arts to gray men in gray suits. It gets these gray men lots of fawning attention at film festivals, praise from filmmakers for the "creative freedom" they give them, honours for the "courage" they show in spending other people's money for little or no return, and a heavily subsidized social life among the cultural and financial elite that helps their own ambitions.

It's really showing in Canada, where our main film awards The Geminis, don't even rate an airing on our main public broadcaster, the CBC. A similar fate is no doubt waiting in the wings, first for the Spirit awards, and then the Oscars themselves. Because barring a major paradigm shift, it's inevitable.

There was a time when indie film sought to fill gaps left in the cultural mosaic by the big players, now they just look to please those same big players they claim to be rebelling against.

Update:

Sorry no blog today, I was working on a chapter summarizing the history of war movies, but I will have a fresh Saturday Silliness Cinema tomorrow.

A Message From the Frozen Wastelands...

Yesterday, my region was hit with a record snow-storm. Effectively burying everything under a minimum of 2 feet, and the town snowplow put a 5 foot high wall of snow and ice in my driveway that I'm still trying to tunnel out of like Charles Bronson in The Great Escape.

And to top it all off, I didn't have any electricity for most of New Year's Day, which was very dark and very cold.

And that's why I haven't been blogging much since New Year's Eve. I've been digging, bringing in firewood, and otherwise living life like an 18th century trapper without the benefit of a jaunty fur outfit.

But at least the power's back on. For now.

A MESSAGE FROM FURIOUS D!

Discount Bin Diving, Or Why Boxing Week Is Great!

It's the most wonderful time of the year... okay, it's not as wonderful as Christmas itself, but the Boxing Week sales are pretty freaking sweet for a movie buff.

Just yesterday I picked up the 20th Century Fox "Best Picture" collection containing FW Murnau's Sunrise, All About Eve, Gentlemen's Agreement, and John Ford's How Green Was My Valley. And I got them all for $14.98 Canadian.

Sweet.

I'll be back to my normal ranting and raving soon.

I'm also considering getting Adobe Photoshop Elements, and Adobe Premier Elements to replace the photo and video editing software I lost in a recent malware attack. I'd like to hear if they're worth it, so if you know anything about them, let me know.

Merry Christmas

With the Xmas holidays upon us I'll be taking a little break from the blogging, and spending time with the family. So here's a little bloggy Christmas card for all my readers. (Both of you)
So have a Merry Xmas, and I'll probably be posting something new on Saturday.