Hollywood Babble On & On #229: A Lions Share of Lionsgate?

According to the always indefatigable Nikki Finke for this report on the fortunes, or to be more exact misfortunes of Lionsgate Entertainment.

Lionsgate started out in Vancouver, Canada in the mid-90s to take advantage of a boom of film production in the region. It quickly made a name for itself as a distributor willing to handle controversial or edgy material. One of its best money makers was a string of low budget horror films, chief among them the grotesque Saw franchise.

Now recent years saw it step away from its low budget horror roots to invest in bigger, more lavish productions.

And that's where the trouble started.

Too many expensive films sold too few tickets in too short a time. The stock is tumbling, and the investors are getting restless. Nikki reports that Carl Icahn, the superstar investor and 9% stakeholder in Lionsgate, is chief among the displeased, and has a history of shaking up companies that are under-performing.

Which leads me to the lesson of this piece.

When you do something well, like handling profitable low budget movies, you don't phase that out. You keep doing what you do right, reinvesting the profits and using the films themselves as a training ground for new talent, talent that would view Lionsgate as their home base when they move on to bigger and better things.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't have moved into making bigger movies, but they should have paced themselves better. Having one big flop is bad enough, having them come in a cluster like many recent Lionsgate releases, shows a sincere problem with management. It was all just too much too soon, the company that was like a baby that had just perfected crawling, and then tried to start running, before mastering walking.

They also made a mistake trying to copy the sort of films that the major studios make, like big budget action flicks, and comic book adaptations. What they needed to do was to look at what the major studios were not doing, that the audience was interested in, and then trying to fill that void in a way that's both cost-effective, and audience pleasing.

In other words, the management has to pass on becoming a major studio for now, and rely on just being the best Lionsgate it can be. It may not please the ego as much as being a major mogul, but who cares when you're company is making truckloads of money.

And speaking of management, in case the shareholders are thinking of making a change

You can't blame me for trying.

Hollywood Babble On & On #228: The Business of Evil, and the Evil of Business

Writer James Hudnall did a post last month at the conservative pop culture blog 'Big Hollywood' about 10 More Cliches That Must Die. One of the first cliches mentioned is the "Evil Businessman / Corporation."

You've seen this cliche in action. I can't name all the

One of the most egregious examples is the movie movies that feature some evil businessman or corporation plotting to stage terrorist attacks, make zombies, or do whatever sinister doings need doing whether it makes any rational sense or not, but usually not. The Constant Gardener, which won rave reviews, awards, and was on a truckload of "Best of the Year" lists was one of the most egregious examples. For those of you who haven't seen it, or read the original John LeCarre novel, a bureaucrat goes to Africa and beyond to solve the murder of his wife, which is part of a big international corporate conspiracy. Which is the big problem I have with the film.

Now if you're going to read on, I must warn you that the following contains spoilers.

Okay here's the conspiracy. A multinational pharmaceutical company, which I'll call EvilCo Inc., starts giving an experimental tuberculosis drug to AIDS patients in Africa. Now the company knows their TB drug won't do anything for these AIDS patients, and will probably do more harm. Well, it does do more harm, and a bunch of people die. To keep this secret, and to maintain the TB drug's marketability the drug company then goes on a international killing spree as a cover up.

Do you see the problem inherent in this conspiracy?

If not, I'll explain, and I'll write slowly so you'll can catch up.

The conspiracy doesn't make any sense.

Think about it, you own a drug company, and you have a new drug that you hope will combat an antibiotic resistant strain of tuberculosis, and you've spent millions of dollars to do the research, and navigate it through the complex and expensive web of the drug approval system.

What do you do?

Well, one thing you wouldn't do is anything that would screw it up, like giving it to people in a third world country with a different terminal disease without any thought as to the effects. Because doing that will pretty much toss all your expensive research out the window, leave you open to the threat of millions, if not billions in litigation, and probably criminal charges for all involved. And that's not including all the killings that you have to cover it up, and then you have to bribe all the law enforcement, media, and anyone with an internet connection who might expose your plot. It's an ever-expanding web of murders and cover ups, and new murders and cover ups, that not only will never end, it just doesn't make any sense.

Yes, I know that the people behind the story were making a statement about the lawless behaviour of businesses operating in Africa. But failing to offer a remotely logical crime, only trivializes their cause.

In many cases these EvilCo Inc. corporations are solely doing these things not for profit, because there's no profit in zombies, or plagues, or zombie plagues, but solely as a stock evil-doer who only exist to do evil. They're the modern equivalent of the Mad Scientist from the old movie serials. They have no rhyme or reason, because they don't need it, especially when there's evil to be done.

Can you imagine the board meetings at EvilCo Inc.?

"Okay," said the CEO, "what's our plans for the third quarter?"

"I think we can unleash man-eating aliens on the planet," said Terwilliger, Vice President in Charge of Evil Research and Development.

"What can we do with man-eating aliens?" asked the CEO.

"We can sell them as weapons," said Terwilliger.

"How are they controlled?"

"You can't control them," said Terwilliger, "they eat everyone they can get, even our own people."

"Who will buy a man eating alien that they can't control and will most likely turn on you?" asked the CEO. "Because a weapon you can't aim, isn't a weapon, it's a problem."

"That's marketing's problem," said Terwilliger, just before one of his aliens broke out of its cage and ate his head.

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

Now you wonder why do they keep dredging up this cliche, even though it only serves to dumb down stories. Well I think there are three reasons:

1. POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: Hollywood cannot allow anyone that isn't a rich white male be the villain, unless they are under the secret control of the rich white villain, for fear of being accused of racism. That's how the Middle Eastern Islamic terrorists in Tom Clancy's novel The Sum Of All Fears, ended up transformed by Paramount into a cabal of Teutonic Neo-Nazi businessmen in the movie.

2. CLASS WARFARE: Film has always had pretensions of being the art of the working class, even though the people making it have nothing to do with the working class as soon as the start making major films. So they need to appear like they're on the side of the "working man" and to do that, they must raise the red flag and start banging on businessmen. It's not a new phenomenon, in fact, look at any silent movie and you'll see mustachioed tycoons plotting to close the orphanage and tie damsels to railway tracks. The problem is that they're still doing that, albeit in more expensive suits, but audiences need a certain amount of verisimilitude. They don't need much, just enough to keep them from saying: "Damn this story is stupid."

3. THEY DON'T KNOW THE REAL WORLD: Think about it. The only businesspeople Hollywood people are regularly exposed to are media industry businesspeople. Here are business people who will do something outrageously stupid and unprofitable to fulfill some irrational, ego-based goals that would make no sense at all outside of Hollywood. Then they see the cases of Bernie Madoff, and other Wall Street scoundrels, which makes them think the real world is like their world, and can't conceive of someone who just wants to make money and not commit any crimes.

My advice, try to find some new villains, because Hollywood needs them, badly, or at least give them something logical to do.

Hollywood Babble On & On #227: Rourke VS Penn

An interesting debate has popped up over at Nikki Finke's blog over who should win the Best Actor Award, and that the top contenders are Sean Penn for Milk, and Mickey Rourke for The Wrestler. So I've decided, as an outsider, to offer my services as a neutral voice and look at the reasons why and why not.

WHY THEY WOULD WIN:

SEAN PENN: Just about everyone agrees that his performance in Milk was a startling transformation. And not just for playing a gay character, hundreds have done it before, but for Penn's ability to play Harvey Milk as witty, charming, and lively, something Penn has not been able to do in a very, very, long time. Plus, playing a gay character gives him a political edge, allowing Hollywood to ensure their gay-friendly bona-fides in the aftermath of losing the Prop 8 vote.

MICKEY ROURKE: Just about everyone agrees that Rourke's performance as a washed up wrestler struggling to reconnect with not only his family, but normalcy in general, was a gut wrenchingly honest performance full of real emotion. Plus, he's already won the Golden Globe and the BAFTA award, and his performance is more than just a comeback, it's a re-invention of his entire career.

WHY THEY WON'T WIN:

SEAN PENN: Penn's role in Milk was Oscar-bait, pure and simple. Because Penn needs the Oscars to maintain his status as a movie "star" and keep working at the level, and salary, that he does. Without regular nominations Penn would be forced to do things to prove his box office worth, and he doesn't really have much box office worth,* and he doesn't have much, if any good-will with the American audience. If Milk had been an HBO TV movie, with no hope for Oscar qualification, I doubt Penn would have taken the role, because he doesn't strike me as someone who would settle for an Emmy.

MICKEY ROURKE: Rourke had a shot at stardom in the 80s, but lost it, and spent a long period in the comparable wilderness by Hollywood standards. After winning the Golden Globe and the BAFTA, many Academy voters figure he doesn't really need the Oscar to revive his career as much as Sean Penn does to maintain his. Plus, there was also a recent incident where Rourke made, by Hollywood standards, a shocking political statement. He refused to criticize former President George W. Bush. He didn't openly support the former president, he just refused to criticize him the way about 90% of Hollywood regularly criticizes him. That probably killed his chance with Oscar as much as anything.

Of course all this could be moot, and Richard Jenkins could be the upset winner for The Visitor.


*Milk has made about $25 million domestically, with a $20 million production budget, if they're lucky they might break even after a $15+ million post-Oscar boost to cover their prints, advertising, and publicity costs.

Hollywood Babble On & On #226: A Pledge From Me...

Like just about everyone on the internet I jumped on the old bandwagon over the whole Christian Bale taped tirade incident, although I do admit, I used it to make fun of big media bosses, but that's not an excuse.

The more I read about the cause of the incident, the more I can understand what he did, he may have over-reacted, but now I don't think it was the spoiled star-brat sort of temper tantrum a lot of celebrities are prone to.

I really should have seen through it. Because despite what the media says, there's one sure fire test to find out if an actor is "difficult" or not, and it's really simple.

Just look at the number of people who work with him more than once, and those who say they would work with him again.

Some have called Russel Crowe difficult, but Ridley Scott has him in just about every movie, and Scott's not the type to work with someone he considers difficult.

And it strikes me the same with Bale, Warner Bros. treat actors playing Batman as fairly disposable, (Remember the ones made in the 90s, and that whoever's cast spends over half the movie under a mask?), and Nolan cast him in his non-Batman film The Prestige, which doesn't strike me as something you do with an actor you don't get along with.

I like Bale as an actor, he works very hard at his job, and he usually does a very good job, you don't see him partying his brains out like many modern celebutards, preferring life with his wife and family, a refreshing change. Plus, unlike a lot of modern actors, he's not afraid to play unabashedly heroic characters, without the ironic smarm, laughable implausibility, or gag-inducing posturing found in so many other leading men.

So, in conclusion, I would like to say that I will no longer make fun of Christian Bale, and would like to apologize for jumping on the Bale bashing bandwagon. Face it, deep down, I'm just another internet lemming.

Saturday Silliness Cinema: The One & Only Don Rickles

For decades Don Rickles has been inaccurately described as an "insult" comic, while his style is a combination of lightning quick improv and a form of teasing that actually leaves his targets feeling honoured for getting zinged. After serving in the navy on a torpedo boat in WW2, Rickles tried to make it as a dramatic actor, but had to make ends meet doing stand up in the booming nightclub circuit. At first he did standard impressions and jokes, but really hit his comedic stride by diverging from scripted material and playing with the audience.

He hit it big in the 1950s when Frank Sinatra caught his act. Rickles spotted Sinatra in the audience and said: "I just saw your movie, The Pride and the Passion and I want to tell you, the cannon's acting was great." He then said: "Make yourself at home, Frank. Hit somebody!"

Sinatra loved it and got a lot of his celebrity friends to go to be "zinged" by the man dubbed Mr. Warmth by the press, and Rickles became the hottest act in Vegas.

No one is safe from Rickles' unique brand of venom, not even the then governor of California, and future US President Ronald Reagan, as seen in this roast.



Rickles has always been a popular guest on talk shows, because of his ability to liven up the show without a script, and only the foibles of the people around him, like in this 1984 clip from the Tonight Show, where Rickles has some fun at the expense of host Carson's recent, and highly costly divorce.



Rickles is still a big draw on the stand-up circuit, the usual success in sitcoms that most comedians pursued, having eluded him because heavily scripted and censored comedy really doesn't mesh with his loose, improvisational style. But he has had some good turns as a dramatic actor, most notably in Martin Scorsese's crime epic Casino, where, according to Rickles he "carried DeNiro."

Hollywood Babble On & On #225: Dream a Little Dream of DreamWorks.

According to the always indefatigable and inestimable Nikki Finke the deal between Universal and DreamWorks 2.0 has been kiboshed. Word has it that DreamWorks wanted money, a lot of money, as well as distribution, lots of money, and that Universal, wasn't willing to give money and already had too much on its plate, distribution wise.

Now all is not lost for DreamWorks because Disney is waiting in the wings, they need DreamWorks' output to fill their release slate, and might sell Miramax to finance the deal. Which strikes me as odd, but I'll get back to that in a moment.

This incident illustrates one of the major problems Hollywood has and they have only themselves to blame.

Some folks have asked why DreamWorks Bosses Spielberg and Katzenberg haven't ponied up their own dough to make the Universal deal go through. Well, they don't because they're intelligent men, and there's a word people have to describe people who invest their own money in the movie business: Suckers.

I'm not accusing Spielberg and Katzenberg of anything untoward, I don't know them, and I don't know how they do business, though I will say that they do have the least complaints against them, which does say something. What I am saying is that Hollywood is a terrible place to do business, and nobody is willing to be played for a sucker anymore.

When high-price litigation is considered standard operating procedure, your industry is in trouble. Because the days when people were willing to piss away their money for a tax write-off are over. They want results, and the don't want the headaches associated with doing business with Hollywood.

So now the credit crunch is threatening the viability one industry that managed to thrive during the Great Depression. There is a solution, but it is a painful and drastic one: Hollywood must reinvent its business model, it must simplify all facets of the business, and realize that there is no shame in both sides of a deal getting what they want. In fact, they need to realize that it's a good thing.

-- Okay, now onto Miramax. The report said that Disney might sell Miramax to finance the DreamWorks deal, which strikes me as odd, because I thought Miramax was just a name Disney slapped on its occasional "indie" release in the years since the Weinsteins went off on their own. So who would want to buy a name that doesn't really have the cachet it once had in the 1990s?

Hollywood Babble On & On #224: Image Is Everything

John Nolte (nee Dirty Harry) of the conservative film site Big Hollywood recently posted a piece decrying the assertion that colour film is the main reason behind the dearth of quality movie stars among today's celebrities. To sum it up, the theory states that colour made the stars look too human, and thus brought them down to Earth, and ruined stardom. Nolte refutes the argument by showing select clips of many classic actors, maintaining their star status in colour films like The Quiet Man and Rear Window.

Now some think that the main reason today's stars don't shine as bright as those in the past is that not only are only the old stars good movies remembered, they were "hyper-idealized" through a false image presenting them as more heroic, romantic, suave, or just plain nicer than they actually were.

Now both assertions are true, to a point, but there's some nuance to them, especially when it comes to the role of the image in a star's career.

Back in the olden days of Hollywood stars did have carefully constructed images, and those images were constructed by the studios they were contracted too. Because back then actors were viewed as entertainers, and since it was the job of the entertainer to win over audiences, a carefully constructed image was needed. This image was needed to not only appeal to the audience, and some were pretty dead on the money, like Jimmy Stewart as the likable decent middle-American everyman, but also as a form of protection. You see, Jimmy Stewart-types are pretty rare in the real world, and even rarer in Hollywood, and the simple fact is that actors with a penchant for snorting cocaine off the buttocks of underage transvestite prostitutes while lying on a bed made of hundred dollar bills don't really connect emotionally with the general public. So you have to create an image for the public.

Yes, the image is a lie, but like most good stories, it's a lie meant to entertain the audience. Because to be blunt: assholes aren't really very entertaining, unless they're falling flat on their face in a big burst of schadenfreude.

However, things started to change. The power of the studios began to wane, stars began to strike out on their own, and forge their own images. This also coincided with the emergence of method actors, which elevated the actor's opinion of himself from being an entertainer, to an artiste gifted with unusually keen insight into the human condition. So the image many actors pursued was in imitation of Marlon Brando, the rebellious eccentric, who claims to exist above the fray of Hollywood, and looks down on industry with contempt.

This got worse in the 60s and 70s, where actors took to the spirit of rebellion, and ran with it like an ADD child hopped up sugar. What were they rebelling against? Good taste definitely, judging by the clothes, and anything else they could get.

This meshed perfectly with the rising tabloid culture that fed on celebrity scandal, which the celebrities gleefully supplied.

But by the time the 2000s rolled along, the "rebels" of the 60s and 70s, were the elder statesmen of the industry, and had been the dominant players in the business side since at least the 1980s. While the image of being a rebel was still desirable in Hollywood, there wasn't anything left in Hollywood to rebel against. That is, except for the audience.

So the status quo shaking rebel, morphed into the obnoxious self-important asshole, eschewing the lives of quiet desperation lived by the great unwashed, in favour of a life of loud and obnoxious self inflation. And with a 24/7/365 tabloid news cycle, there was a bottomless chum-bucket that needed filling, and the celebrities were eager to try. Because a mindset became formed in Hollywood that said it didn't really matter if anyone was willing to pay to see you in a movie to get you work in Hollywood, what really mattered was how much attention you got from the paparazzi and tabloid media.

It's not an exactly accurate mindset, just ask Lindsey Lohan how her career is going, but it's still a powerful one.

To sum up, in the old days: images were created to hide the somewhat asshole natures of certain movie stars, but nowadays, asshole has become the desired image of movie stars.

And that's just one of the reasons why today's movie stars don't really shine as bright as the old ones.

Strictly Business: Makers & Takers

I just saw that President Obama has tacked on a $500,000 pay cap for the CEOs of businesses receiving federal bailout money. His critics are calling this a political ploy, and it probably is, but it does bring up an important issue in the business world: Executive salaries.

As my guest blogger Christian Bale tried to tell you yesterday, CEOs are getting paid huge salaries that more often than not have nothing to do with their job performance or the financial health of their company. And that's not counting the massive amounts earned in bonuses, stock options, and other perks. In many cases, especially in Hollywood, these CEOs are literally sucking the life out of the companies they are supposed to guide to prosperity. Everybody's getting screwed out of their share of the profits, and in some cases, massive multibillion dollar strikes can be averted for the cost of one CEO's salary.

Now before you start thinking that this is going to be some sort of crypto-Marxist polemic calling people to raise the black flag, man the barricades and break wind in the palaces of the mighty while all wearing grey overalls. This isn't one of those.

In fact, I don't really see a problem with a CEO earning big money.

However, the keyword is "earn."

You see there are two types of people in business: Makers, and Takers.

A maker earns money by making money. This is an act of creation, it is literally the taking of that proverbial economic pie, and making it either bigger, or making a whole new pie. A maker creates wealth, spreads it around, which increases the all around economy, and lo and behold, increases the maker's personal wealth as well. This is because businesses run by Makers, tend to grow, and grow, and grow.

Takers can only see the proverbial pie as finite, and then try to take all of it for themselves. This is an act of destruction, draining wealth from the general economy, and using every trick in the book, and some they just pull out of their ass, to keep things exactly the way they are. And while they may believe that they are "winners" by acting this way, they are in fact limiting at best, or sabotaging at worst, their own success and personal prosperity. This is because Taker-run businesses may have short runs of success, but ultimately shrink, or end up chopped up and the pieces sold.

Makers build successful businesses, while Takers run them into the ground for their own aggrandizement.

So I guess you could sum up that I'm saying that the business world needs more Makers, and a hell of a lot fewer Takers.

HOLLYWOOD BABBLE ON & ON #223: BALE BARKS ABOUT BOSSES (NSFW)

"IT'S A FUCKING OUTRAGE!"
BY
GUEST
BLOGGER
CHRISTIAN BALE
(actor/raconteur)

This is just too fucking much!

Can you fucking believe it, I just had a fucking look at what the fucking big media bosses are getting paid, and I can't fucking believe it!

Robert Iger, CEO of Walt fucking Disney got paid 30 million fucking dollars even though the fucking stock price dropped over $10 a fucking share!

Rupert fucking Murdoch got $27 fucking million, and his fucking COO, Peter fucking Chernin got $28 fucking million, even though the fucking share value of fucking News fucking Corp. dropped almost 2/3s!

Les Moonves, CEO of CB-fucking-S, got paid $36.8 million even though their fucking stock dropped from $25.55 to $5.80 a share. That's almost 4/5s of its fucking value. And he got almost $37 million fucking dollars!

I can't fucking believe it!

And you can't say that these people are all doing it for the fucking bottom line. The bottom fucking line means that other people with a stake in the fucking business are going to get their fair fucking share. These fuckers don't care about the fucking bottom line, but a couple of fucking lines above that.

You know what I'm fucking talking about. The fucking line that marks off what these fuckers are going to get fucking paid. Then it's sweet fuck all for everyone else. Including the stars of fucking movies that make a billion fucking dollars at the box office, while the head company fucker pockets $19 million fucking dollars!

I got nothing against making a good fucking living. But you gotta make that fucking money, not just fucking take it, especially when the company is supposedly losing fucking money!

If the company's making lots of fucking money for fucking everyone, then go right ahead and pocket the big fucking bucks. But don't just take it from your fucking investors, fucking shareholders, and fucking people with fucking points in their fucking movies.

Because that would be just fucked.

Hollywood Babble On & On #222: He's Got A Right To Sing the Blues

Allan Rosenberg, character actor and president of the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG), has been having a rough time. His union's divided, his hand picked negotiator Doug Allan was bounced in a inside coup, and the AMPTP is giving him and the union the steam off their pee in negotiations.

I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and declare that Rosenberg is somehow a bad person for all these problems, and I'm not going to make mock of his recent blues singing about his recent troubles.

Okay, maybe a little, but that's because deep down, I am a really petty, petty man.

But to get back on track, I am going to discuss why I think Rosenberg was the wrong man, at the wrong job, at the wrong time.

Just about anyone who has reported on Rosenberg says that he's an idealist. Someone who thinks that the Screen Actors Guild can somehow make Hollywood a utopia replete with money for everyone, unicorns, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Sadly, idealism and $3.50 will get you a vente mocha latte, and not much else.

And the union he took over wasn't in any shape to face down the AMPTP in any form because:

1. SAG was rife with internal divisions.

2. SAG wasn't in any shape financially to endure a lengthy strike, and because of those divisions that situation has become even worse.

3. The "A-List" of SAG membership doesn't give a tinker's cuss about the work-a-day actors, and many will often act against the union to avoid anything that might make the studios look at the actual box-office value of those same "A-List" actors.

4. Other unions, AFTRA I'm looking in your direction, were actively undermining SAG in their plan to be the last union standing for actors in Hollywood.

5. The moguls of the AMPTP were actively promoting problems 1-4, because it improved their standing.

Surrounded by clashing agendas and outright treachery, Rosenberg really didn't stand much of a chance, and neither would any idealist.

Now a cynical conniving bastard, might have, but he's not available.