Hollywood Babble On & On #314: The Secret of Michael Bay's Success

You know, I used to be befuddled by the success of Michael Bay. His films are loud, annoying, and with stories buried and sometimes completely lost under the incoherence of big eye-popping visuals.

For years I laboured under the concept that Bay did not direct films, but instead put all his energies into directing the trailers. Creating melodramatic imagery for the ad campaigns, but not bothering if the story made sense or not.

Well, I now think I was only partly right. (You see, I'm never wrong)

I think Bay's success is based on an unspoken invisible contract between him and the audience, one that cannot be articulated by either side, but each sort of understands that it's there. This invisible contract is based on something that Hollywood claims to revere, but in fact abhors: rebellion.

Yes, I've come to the conclusion that Michael Bay is the last rebel left in Hollywood.

I can read you're mind, and you're thinking that I've lost mine. Well don't worry, just let me explain, and everything will come clear.

In Hollywood, everything is about conformity, especially among those that Hollywood considers rebels. Just look at them, they all wear the same designer tattered clothing, have the same artfully messy hair, the same tattoos, and the same stereotypical vices. They're sort of person you meet at a bar who lectures you about how you're a slave to corporate consumer culture while they're dragging on Phillip Morris cigarette, and downing Seagram's brand liquor.

These are safe rebels, and no matter how much they deny it, they're corporate friendly rebels. Their style and lifestyle ensures their dependence on the largess of their corporate masters. They'll make fun of the beliefs and attitudes of the general audience, making jabs at religion, middle class mores, and their so-called "consumerist" culture, while never challenging the innate hypocrisy within their own social circle.

They'll take the occasional jab about their employers, but that's actually preferred by their masters, because it makes them feel like they're one of the cynical post-modern cool kids, hanging with the rebels with the wild hair and clothes and joining in on "sticking it to the man."

It's all phonier than an studio executive's expense claim.

Michael Bay makes no pretense of sticking it to the man, in fact, he goes swanning around like he is The Man. His image is of the cocky, arrogant, I'm Michael Fucking Bay and you're not, who still has the same haircut and dress sense he had in the 1980s, and he isn't going to change just to fit in with the other messy haired pseudo-rebels.

He knows that he's never going to win an Oscar, or even get nominated, or even a good review from a major critic, and he doesn't seem to give a shit because he's literally making Optimus Prime-loads of cash and those who don't like him or his films can kiss his probably well-toned behind.

Just look at his recent ad for M&Ms, if that isn't a great big "eat me" to his critics, both cinematic and personal, I don't know what is.

(Add the fact that he's a peanut M&M makes it all a Freudian festival.)

He's not rebelling against the middle class mores that they themselves live by, he's rebelling against the snobbishness and insularity of Hollywood itself. This drives Hollywood nuts, spawning a mini-industry of Michael Bay haters, who can't stand him, or his movies, resent that most of them make a lot of money, and that he's doesn't want to be one of the "cool kids" preferring to just be one of the "rich kids" and rubbing it in. He goads the haters even further, making his films, and his own image, bigger, louder, and more obnoxious every year.

The audience catches this vibe from him, even though they can't articulate it, they go to his movies, knowing that while his films only offer spectacle and may insult their intelligence, they're not going to insult their existence, like many so-called "smarter" films, and that making it a hit will really bug those who claim to know better. This makes the audience Bay's ally in his one man war on Hollywood's shibboleths, and sells tickets by the boatload.

So, to sum it all up, the secret of Bay's success is that he's literally the bug up Hollywood's ass. It's really that simple.

A Reader Writes....

Okay, today I got this comment from a reader about my recent post about Michael Jackson:

Anonymous said...

Actually, the Times UK reports Jackson had recorded 100 unreleased songs that Sony will compile & release over the next 5 years. He's also #1 on the Itunes & Billboard charts which means he is earning more than the reported 20 million he generated per year prior to his death.

You (& Mr Burnaska) seem to know so much about Jackson, his delusions, etc.
Why didn't you know that?

D, w/ all due respect, you appear to have an interesting, generally insightful perspective on the workings of the entertainment biz. But occasionally you allow your lack of personal success in that realm & the hatred for those who have succeeded to cloud that insight.

You might want to work on that in order to remain credible.

You'll probably delete this post.

Gee thanks for the advice and the psychological analysis Anonymous, if that is your real name. You have completely convinced me that I was completely and totally wrong about everything.

Michael Jackson was the greatest musician who ever lived, whose songs never annoyed me by repetitiveness and overplaying, he never mutilated himself with plastic surgery, and he didn't share his bed with little boys, monkeys, and do other weird and creepy things.

But I have a few questions:

If Jackson was so sane, and so consistently successful, and earning $20 million a year, why are folks reporting that he left behind $400 million in debts? Couldn't he live on $20 million a year? I could.

Why did every deal involving Michael Jackson, from auctioning off his curios, to shopping at his local pharmacy end in lawsuits? He was making $20 million a year, he had 100 songs banked with his record company, why not pay his bills?

Sure, Michael Jackson is #1 in sales right now, but will that actually translate into continuing sales for this 100 song back catalog over the next 5 years, or is it just ghoulish memento hunting, like folks who dipped their handkerchiefs in the blood at the scene of John Dillinger's shooting?

And while the songs maybe selling, even in the millions, how much of that $400 million debt will it cover?

And one last question...

Anonymous, are you just an Anonymous Jackson fan, a co-delusional, trolling for anyone daring to bad-mouth your pop-idol, or are you a sock-puppet for the record company/concert promoter trying to tamp down criticism while your employers try to squeeze out something to cover the millions pissed away on Jackson's now aborted comeback, in other words, a profiteer?

And by the way, I won't delete the post. I stand by my opinions, and won't let anyone who doesn't even have the balls to even make up a phony name, tell me otherwise. Also I probably should remind you of something: I'm talking about Hollywood, I still have, and always will have, more credibility as an obnoxious cranky blogger than 99.9% of Hollywood's media machine.

Thanks for commenting, I haven't had some troll in a while.

UPDATE: My critic speaks again-

You can read their full comment, but we'll skip the part about my bitterness and get to the meat of the issue:

thought about explaining the intricacies of Jackson's situation to you re: his 50-100mil music library, the other multi mil $ library's he owns, not to mention the fact his potential to earn much more than what he owed gave him leeway w/ his creditors. In addition to the publicity & payment for media exposure those lawsuits generate.

Now the value of his music library, and his partial share of the old ATV Music library, and the Lennon/McCartney songs are all well and good, but they didn't do him much good during his life. Plus, there are reports that the contract for the Lennon/McCartney songs are going to revert to the original owners in a few years, thus chopping a couple of hundred million off the catalogue's value.

I see his post-mortem albums having some sales at first, out of ghoulish curiosity, but I fully expect them to perform much like the way his last few albums did. A lot of hype, but resulting in little sales to recoup the costs spent on the hype, and lawsuits flying with the regularity of the swallows of Capistrano. This aborted tour was the 3rd comeback attempt that I can recall off the top of my head, and it showed all the signs of being exactly like the other two.

His creditors are going to realize this too, and they're going to pounce like ravenous wolves. I feel bad for his children, because by the time this is all over, they won't have anything left. Lawyers have a nasty habit of making everything cost more, exponentially more.

If you wanted a serious discussion, you would have said something more like:

"I must disagree with your points, I think the value of his song catalogue will solve all his estate's financial problems. I also believe that Jackson's history of bizarre behaviour, accusations of pedophilia, and the opinion of critics that the quality of his work was declining, will not affect future sales of his bank of over 100 unreleased new songs."

Then I would have said that you were free to disagree, I'd reiterate my points, and we'd leave it at that.

However, you made your comment an anonymous personal attack by claiming to know everything about me, you invited vitriol, which if you really understood me, you'd know that analysis liberally seasoned with sarcasm, snark, and even vitriol is what this blog is all about.

How can I criticize Hollywood and not criticize those who are considered "successful," especially when they insist on pissing that success away? Should I start a blog satirizing the homeless?

Your tendency to turn what should be a simple disagreement into some sort of personal vendetta doesn't bode well for your alleged career as a show-runner. Which sort of makes me glad that I won't be working for you, because I appear to have touched a nerve with you, and you are apparently very bitter about the writings of unknown Canadian bloggers.

(Do you see how that just invites a flaming?)

I knew writing about Jackson was going to bring out the obsessives. That's why I put the warning in the original post.

Hollywood Babble On & On #313: The 5 Stages of Gossip

I try to avoid celebrity gossip on this blog. Not so much out of a sense of moral superiority, but because after living in the 24/7/365 celebrity culture that surrounds us, I've come to realize that famous people are fundamentally boring people.

Too many follow predictable patterns of rise, fall, comeback, and crash, and usually for no better reason than common stupidity.

But I would like to take a moment to talk about the business of gossip.

Gossip, especially about the rich and the famous, is as old as civilization itself. I'm sure on a back wall of an ancient ruin in Iraq someone scratched Xerxes is cheating on his concubines with his catamite in cuneiform.

Of course that went into overdrive with the birth of the modern film industry. Hollywood created "more stars than in heaven" and while at first the studios kept the gossip under some semblance of control, they couldn't control it completely.

Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper became legends as the first modern gossip columnists, reporting on the sins, both mortal and venal of Hollywood's new elite. Walter Winchell soon followed, putting the power brokers of Washington and New York in his sights as well.

One thing that these groundbreaking gossips learned was that they didn't get ahead by being liked, they got ahead by being feared.

Celebrities had to kiss their ass or find their careers being slaughtered with rumor, innuendo, and sometimes outright slander at the hands of this unholy trio and their acolytes. Lawsuits were pointless, since the gossip's expenses were covered by their publishers, whose lawyers could tie up litigation for years.

This industry burst from newspaper columns, and the occasional fly-by-night gossip rag, to take over first the tabloid newspapers, luring them away from reports of Bigfoot and gruesome crimes, then mainstream "general interest" magazines, and TV shows from Entertainment Tonight to TMZ.

Gossip also became coin of the realm of the internet, leading the transformation of failed actor, turned freelance writer, turned receptionist, Mario Lavendeira into gossip king Perez Hilton.

Hilton's specialty was going lower than any other before him. His trademark was scribbling penises, or white-dots (for cocaine) all over poached paparazzi pics of celebrities, outing closeted (or just suspected of being closeted) celebrities, and putting general acceptance of the gay community back about two decades by embodying every negative stereotype you know, and making up a few new ones.

Of course his career is following the usual arc of a gossip monarch, he's just doing it way faster than the others, probably because of the lightspeed nature of the media itself.

1. NOVELTY: Most of the major gossip "stars" become gossips because of their failure to become celebrities based on anything like talent or ability. So they dig up some dirt, create a public image: Hedda Hopper- big hats and faux moral superiority, Walter Winchell- the "hard living" newspaperman, and Perez Hilton- The catty hairdresser stereotype. This novelty, coupled with the celebrity dirt people crave leads to initial success. This success leads to...

2. POWER THROUGH FEAR: Soon people start to fear appearing badly in the column or blog, so they start kissing the gossip's ass. The gossip starts getting invited to parties with the beautiful people, and treated like they were one of them. However, they are not one of them, and somewhere deep down they know this and this breeds deeper resentment. They start to take the power they have accrued, and the fear it creates, and they develop...

3. POWER MADNESS: The whole business of gossip transforms from just reporting the rumours to making and breaking people. Those who don't pay obeisance to them will be destroyed. Be it an actor Hedda Hopper doesn't like, a politician Winchell considered a "red," or a beauty queen that has the same religious beliefs as the president Hilton voted for.

4. CONSEQUENCES COME CALLING: When you make your living shoveling shit, the wind is going to change and some shit is going to blow into your face. It's a law of nature. Hedda Hopper got kicked in the ass by Spencer Tracy, Louella Parsons had more drinks thrown in her face than you can shake a stick at, and Walter Winchell eventually became a pariah from the people he wanted to hobnob with.

Hilton's hissy fit certainly didn't help his case. By going on the internet before going to the police, he trivialized the incident to one of his own stories, and the childish use of a homophobic slur, alienated the gay community that was already trying to distance themselves from him.

5. CRASH & BURN: With the consequences coming fast and furious, the sources of gossip tend to dry up. Hopper and Parsons eventually ended up just regurgitating press releases, and became "quaint and old fashioned" by the standards of their former acolytes. Winchell lost all his sources, all his clout, and ended up printing his column on a mimeograph in his apartment and handing it out on the street to passersby.

It's the cycle of life, and Perez is right in the middle of it, and he can't even see it.

Saturday Silliness Cinema: The Sketch Show

I'm not feeling 100% today, and I'll get back to my rantings about the business of show biz as soon as possible, so sit back and enjoy these rapid fire sketches from England.

Hollywood Babble On & On #312: Michael Jackson Is Dead, But The Mess Will Live On

I should start off by making a very blunt declaration.

I never liked Michael Jackson.

I didn't care for his music, I didn't care for his public image, and that ambivalence quickly shifted to outright disgust as the words "bizarre" and "wacky" began to dominate his life and career. I'm going to be blunt, cruelly blunt, so if you're a Michael Jackson fan, you might want to find another blog.

Michael Jackson went from a child star to grotesque self parody as he became a failed version of the Emperor Norton of pop culture.

Emperor Norton I was once a San Francisco businessman named Joshua Abraham Norton. When Norton lost his fortune in a fiasco over the price of rice, he disappeared for several years, only to reappear in Frisco, where he declared himself the Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico.

The thing was the entire city of San Francisco went along with his delusion. Businesses accepted the currency he printed, he lived in the "Imperial Suite" of the city's top hotel, and people accepted his decrees with applause, whether they followed them or not. This game went along for around 20 years until Norton's death in 1880. Even at this funeral, 30,000 people formed a parade to honour their deceased delusional monarch.

Michael Jackson's story is a little different. Jackson was never able to get businesses to accept his own currency, which is why almost every business deal Jackson got involved with appeared to end in expensive litigation.

But let's get back to the people involved in his delusion, they break down to two basic types:

THE PROFITEERS: These were the people who hung around him, telling him that everything he did was right, whether it was excessive plastic surgery, or dangling a baby off a balcony. Why? Because they wanted the Michael Jackson gravy train to keep on trucking. Despite having album sales in the toilet since the 1980s, and that he was hemorrhaging cash like a stuck pig, there was always a chance for a buck, thanks to the second type...

THE CO-DELUSIONALS: These were people who appeared to honestly believe the lunacy that Jackson believed, and even they can be broken down into two groups. On the fan side there were the now middle-aged women who would look at the surgically mangled face of Jackson and still see the cute little 10 year old dancing and singing his heart out, because if he didn't, his daddy was going to beat his ass into next week. They accepted his crazy behaviour out of sympathy for his tragic childhood.

Then there were the wannabe profiteers, folks who bought into Jackson's self-declaration as the "King of Pop," and figured that since the man was still living big, he had to still be big. A huge comeback was always just around the corner, and that if they got in on the ground floor, they'd make mucho dinero. Yet those comebacks never really happened.

None of these groups wanted Jackson to face the brutal truth that his career was washed up, he had no money coming in, and had more lawsuits than faux-military dress-suits. Or admit that people bought tickets to his concerts either out of nostalgic delusions, or a desire to watch a car-wreck in action. They had their own delusions to protect, and guarded them as much as the profiteers wanted to protect their meal ticket.

Of course this is just the beginning. Profiteers and Co-Delusionals will start clawing at the ragged remains of his estate in the vain hope of flogging something out of that dead horse. There will be lawsuits over debts, properties, custody of his children, and the music library that included a share in the Beatles-Lennon/McCartney song catalogue.

This is because when you live in a dream-world you don't really pay attention to petty mortal things like balancing a checkbook, or figuring how your kids will live after you're gone. You just rely on the fact that the magical unicorn will come along and drop off whatever you need.

Michael Jackson lived crazy, and attracted crazy like moths to a flame. So, fully expect for his death to attract even more crazy.

It Always Happens In Threes...

Shortly after the death of TV host Ed McMahon we have two more celebrity deaths to report.

FARRAH FAWCETT- Died at the age of 62 after a 3 year battle with cancer. She was a sexual icon of the 1970s, who reinvented her career during the TV movie and miniseries boom of the 1980s, including a chilling performance as a sociopath who kills her own child and tries to kill two more in Small Sacrifices.

MICHAEL JACKSON- Is dead of a reported heart attack at the age of 50. All I have to say is that this is going to start a media circus that will make the Anna Nicole Smith fiasco look tasteful and restrained.

There will also be lawsuits. The poor man couldn't shop for groceries without it ending in a lawsuit, so you can only imagine what his death will start. Expect suits over money, contracts, the custody of his children, and all sorts of things that will make his bizarre story even more bizarre.

His death will be just the beginning.

Hollywood Babble On & On #311: Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun, Double Your Bullshit Tolerance

Just when you think the Academy Awards have lost all credibility, they start slipping into the negative zone.

In case you haven't heard, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences have doubled the number of Best Picture nominees from the traditional 5 to 10.

10 nominees.

What the hell?

Of course the official reason for this incredibly dumb-ass move is that the studios want some of the more mainstream fare to have a chance over the actor-friendly, overly serious, pseudo-sincere melodramas, mostly released by studio's pseudo-indie divisions for the last few years.

However, Hollywood is the land of unintended consequences and there are going to be plenty with this decision.

Because when you double the number of Best Picture nominees you're going to:

1. Double the chances for Harvey Weinstein to be obnoxious while wasting millions of investor's money in the vain hope of getting another Oscar.

2. Double the number of tedious movie star vanity projects.

3. End Sean Penn's leave of absence from movie-making immediately, because it doubles his chances of justifying his existence.

4. Double the amount of screener DVDs filling landfills across Southern California.

5. Double the run time of the awards ceremony and halving the audience. (Which pretty much puts it down to two quadriplegics who caregiver left the TV remote out of reach.)

6. Completely ruining of the nice configuration of 5 TV monitors at the nomination press conference. No more 2 on each side, one over the announcer's head, now they're going to be stacking them like cord-wood.

7. Double the odds of a Miley Cyrus film getting a best picture nomination.

8. Double the chances of the Best Picture presenter getting lost reading the nominees, and starting all over again.

9. Double the chances of a Michael Bay film getting a nomination.

10. Doubling the odds of voters just saying "fuck it," and tossing their ballots.

10 nominees, 10 unintended consequences.

What a coincidence.

If You Have A Scary Story...

...and a face for radio, then I have just the contest for you.

The Wildclaw Theatre Company of Chicago is doing their annual "DeathScribe" competition, for short radio plays in the genres of horror or thriller.

And no, I'm not talking about the Michael Jackson album. I'm talking scary creepy, not creepy creepy.

So if you have, or can whip up, a short radio play (under 10 min) complete with audio and music cues, before July 30th, then you might get it performed by professional actors and sound FX artists.

Details are here.

I wrote a short piece called The Vivisection, inspired by my love of old Hammer horror films, and it was a lot of fun trying something new.

So give it a shot. Who knows, you might end up scaring something up.

Hollywood Babble On & On #310: Miscellaneous Money, Media, Movie, & Mourning Related Musings...

1. NIKKI FINKE GOES BIG.

Groundbreaking Hollywood business blogger Nikki Finke has sold her site Deadline Hollywood Daily to the Mail.com internet empire.

DHD will reportedly add a New York correspondent, and add a few new features to her site.

I wish her luck. I don't think she "sold out" in the proverbial and pejorative sense. She was basically a one woman show, and the demands of running such a popular site would overwhelm anyone, and would probably eventually effect the quality of the work she does.

That's not saying that there aren't any potential pitfalls, and I hope that Mail.com fully understands what they're getting into.

DHD was founded on a reputation of being the site that bucks the big-media friendly sites who basically just regurgitated press releases under the guise of investigative journalism. DHD got inside dope and put it up, whether the big media companies wanted it up there or not, especially if it was "or not."

That means any attempt to fiddle with the site and its standard of muckraking, would have the immediate effect of driving away first the sources who give the site its precious info, and then the audience that made the site so popular.

My advice to Mail.com, don't screw it up.

2. WHAT ABOUT PARAMOUNT?

I got this question from a reader:

Tony said...
Following your analogy, if Paramount's pending re-rescue is indeed a remake of Gulf + Western's 1966 takeover, how successful it is will depend on if the buyer "gets" what made the source material work, and can get something fresh out of it; if not, just as most current remakes flop, this new Paramount may, if not fold, be as moribund as MGM (even having another studio own its (Second) Golden Age films, as Universal now owns Paramount's First Golden Age features)

That is pretty accurate that anyone who takes over Paramount must truly "get" what made the source material (the company) successful, and putting a fresh spin on it.

Interestingly, what made Paramount successful was pretty much the opposite of what Paramount does now. You see during its first golden age (1920s-1950s) the company was known for hiring top producing, directing, and writing talent at their creative and commercial peak, and then not meddling with them like most studios, simply because if the powers that be didn't trust their judgment, they wouldn't have signed them to Paramount in the first place. Which is why Paramount had such heavy hitters as Alfred Hitchcock, Preston Sturges, Billy Wilder, and others on their roster at various times.

The second revival of the 1960s-1970s was brought on by marrying young film-making talent, with direct high-concept projects that won both commercial and critical success, like The Godfather (Francis Coppola) and Chinatown (Roman Polanski).

Nowadays they have to figure out a way to bring in top new talent, quality material, and make it in the most cost-effective way possible. Because if they don't, they just might end up like MGM, which is basically a library whose profits get swallowed up to pay corporate debt.

3. ED MCMAHON R.I.P.

Ed McMahon who was best known as Johnny Carson's sidekick on the Tonight Show, and probably one of the best pitchmen in TV history passed away at the age of 86. I'd rather not remember the last couple of years of his life, plagued by poor health, and bad finances, and think back to the laughs. Like this moment of TV history...

Hollywood Babble On & On #309: First As Tragedy, Next As Farce...

There's been a big shake-up at the top management of cash strapped major studio Paramount. Studio President John Lesher is out, to become a producer, and swiftly replaced by a former Dreamworks production head named Adam Goodman. It's suffered a massive bomb with the latest Eddie Murphy vehicle Imagine That, is bleeding money, thanks to massive debts, and can't seem to make anything remotely original, doing either reboots, or riffing off of old 80s toy franchises, like the Transformers, G.I. Joe, and would have done a movie version of My Little Pony, if they weren't hit with a trademark infringement suit from Sarah Jessica Parker.

And to top it all off, all of the company's summer releases are being produced by one man. All of their eggs are literally in one basket.

Despite the success of Star Trek's reboot, the company is in rough shape.

But it's happened before.

You see Paramount has been one of the biggest studios in Hollywood since almost the beginning. The United Artists company, now part of the moribund MGM, was started as an act of rebellion against the immense size and dominance of Paramount.

But with size Paramount has also been cursed with a very bureaucratic system. It tends to be slow to react to changing trends, and has a bad tendency of trying to force trends through tossing way too much money on big films that probably shouldn't be made, but get made simply because someone at Paramount thinks it's the sort of film they should be making simply because it's big.

Can anyone say Paint Your Wagon?

Can anyone say G.I. Joe, which looks like six kinds of suck judging by the trailers and marketing materials?

Some folks are predicting that Paramount may actually fold up shop. I think that's a little far fetched. What's more likely to happen is that like in the past it'll come close to complete collapse, then like every time before, someone will take advantage of the fire sale price, buy it, bring in fresh blood, and history will repeat itself all over again.

Because Hollywood history is more than cyclical, it's actually the historical equivalent of remakes. The same story told over and over, just not told as well as the first time, and increasingly dumbed down with every telling.