Hollywood Babble On & On #565: Bits & Bites

Welcome to the show folks...

1. RUSSEL BRAND TO GET MEDIEVAL?

Brit comedian/professional image Russel Brand has expressed interest in doing a historical action comedy where he plays legendary medieval mercenary John Hawkwood. For those not well versed in the history of late medieval Condottieri, Hawkwood was an English mercenary who went on to command the armies of various factions in war torn Italy.

I'll admit that I'm not a Brand fan, and I have the bad feeling that he'll play the character, like he plays all other characters like a washed up 80s rock star. My prediction, he'll drop out screaming "I can't ruin my image!" the moment he finds out that he needs a haircut to look like Hawkwood.

2. ALIENS TO GET LOST?

Fox and Ridley Scott have reportedly hired Damon Lindelof, the former head writer of TV's Lost to work on the script for the planned prequel to Alien.

My prediction: The movie will features various humans and aliens wandering around an island where nothing makes sense, then it will have a vague ending that won't answer any questions raised during the movie.

3. THIS IS NOT HOW YOU DO IT!

TV mogul Haim Saban has asked CBS honcho Les Moonves to pull Oliver Stone's Secret History of America from Showtime's schedule as punishment over Stone's recent comments about a so-called Jewish dominated media preventing Hitler from being seen "in context" and for making the Holocaust "a big deal."

Haim, I'm sure you're a lovely guy, but I have to say that this sort of talk is not how you deflate an obnoxious windbag like Oliver Stone. Get his show taken off the air and suddenly Oliver Stone is a martyr in the sort of places where he seems to seek approval, like among the rulers of Venezuela and Iran. You need an all new tactic.

Stone is basically one massive ego who thinks he knows everything about everything, and that everyone else is just a puppet of some shadowy conspiracy between the US Military/Industrial Complex, Big Oil, the Freemasons, that's secretly being run by Will Wheaton, otherwise known as TV's Wesley Crusher. If he hadn't made such big movies in the 80s like Platoon and the first Wall Street, he'd be living in a shack in Idaho writing manifestos on an old Smith Corona about how the antlers of the local deer conceal hidden devices designed to steal his brainwaves.

So here's what you do: You mock him. You make fun of his documentary. You get a bunch of historians a platform to discuss his factual errors, trust me, they will find them. Make him a laughingstock.

Make him a martyr and he'll never shut up. Make him a walking joke, and he might just clue in if he has any brain cells left.

Then you make him apologize for Alexander. Egad that was a steaming POS.

4. INEXPERIENCED ACTRESS SCREWS UP, FILM AT ELEVEN!

A lot of people are making hay over reports from observers that model turned singer turned First Lady of France Carla Bruni-Sarkozy screwed up her silent cameo in a Woody Allen movie by looking at the camera, possibly up to 35 times.

Well, when you stunt cast you gotta accept that there will be some risk involved. Film acting isn't as easy for some as people would like you to think it is. In fact, it's loaded with tricks and traps that long time pros don't even think of after they've corrected their screw ups for the 100th time. This is especially true when you stunt cast someone who spent somewhere around 20 years engaging the camera by looking directly at it with a sexy 'come hither' look when she was a model. You need a cattle-prod to break that habit.

5. AT THE MOVIES OF MADNESS

Guillermo Del Toro has signed on to adapt HP Lovecraft's novella At The Mountains of Madness with James Cameron producing.

The novella's the story of a 1920s expedition to the Antarctic that uncovers some ancient horrors that defy imagination. It was a direct inspiration for "Who Goes There," the story used as the basis for the classic 80s horror film The Thing. Now if there ever was someone born to do Lovecraft on film, it's Del Toro. However, I do have some advice for him.

A. Macho up the characters. The average Lovercraft protagonist usually faints at the sight of horror and then goes mad. Audiences aren't going to dig that. Someone's going to have to take some sort of stand when the Great Old Ones start sliming up the joint.

B. Don't let Cameron write the script. Let him sign the checks, but don't let do rewrites. If you do, he'll toss in some deranged ex-Marine who goes bat-shit crazy and tries to kill everyone for no good reason.

C. Make a film that will work in 2D too. I know the theaters are saying it's the wave of the future and will remain forever, but audiences are already starting to get a little tired of sub-standard film-making hiding behind a 3D bush. By the time you're done post-production, the whole craze could be deader than Mel Gibson's image.

D. Don't let James Cameron anywhere near the script. Seriously, it's for your own good and the good of the film. He'll slap in the plot from Ferngully and that will be bad for everyone.

6. SAY WHA?

The Weinstein Company has announced that it will boost it's release slate in the coming year.

Translation: They might actually try to release a movie into theaters instead of just announcing they're going to release it several times, only to play it in one theater in Utah, then dump it into the nearest DVD discount bin which is their usual practice.

Sure, I'll believe it when I see it.

Hollywood Babble On & On #564: Hawaii Five No?

Welcome to the show folks...

The CBS TV network is hyping the holy hell out of their remake-reboot-rehash of legendary cop show Hawaii Five-O. At a recent press event the new Steve McGarrett Alex O'Loughlin stated that if this show doesn't work, he doesn't know what would.

Well, I'm not so sure that Hawaii Five-O Redux will work Senor O'Loughlin.

Why?

Look at his picture, and a lot of the publicity material, and you'll see that the new version of super-cop Steve McGarrett is sporting a five o'clock shadow.

Still wondering what my point is?

Well allow me to explain...

There's a reason for the stubble, it's the one thing that allows the actor in question to avoid being mistaken for a cast member of Glee. But that's not the thing about it that bugs me.

It tells me that there's a lot of thought about the style and marketing of H5-O, but I'm getting a twee bit concerned that they're not paying attention to story, or characters.

I can just picture the pitch meeting:

CBS BOSS: All right, we need a new show for the Fall and we need it fast. And if there's a way to work in at least an appearance by Julie Chen, all the better.

MINION #1: We could do a remake of Hawaii Five-O.

CBS BOSS: Brilliant! Consider yourself the new vice-president of programming! Can we get Julie Chen in it somehow?

MINION #2: I don't see why not, maybe a cameo somewhere or a guest spot.

CBS BOSS: Brilliant, now you're the vice president of programming, because you have ideas! Now we have to make it hip and happening.

MINION #1: We'll cast a hot babe to be in the team, and cast a very young looking actor to play McGarrett!

CBS BOSS: That's the sort of thinking a new vice president of programming needs, but what if people think he's too young?

MINION #2: He could have some stubble.

CBS BOSS: That's the sort of problem solving a new vice president of programming needs! You're a genius. You, the other one, get out of my sight, you make me sick! You're fired!

MINION #1: But sir...?

CBS BOSS: But nothing! You're fired!

MINION #2: Tough luck.

CBS BOSS: You're fired too! Everyone's fired! I'm fired too! Bwah-hah-hah!

Okay, maybe I exaggerate with that little reenactment a little bit for humorous effect, but I guess the point I'm trying to make is not what they were talking about, but what they were not talking about.

The material promoting the show just screams very shallow thinking over the series. I see no signs of any real plots, character development beyond some basic types and stereotypes, or any sign that the show might go beyond the gloss of bikini clad beach bunnies, to look into the complex societal structures and problems of modern Hawaii. There's a lot of material to be mined from those crowded little islands, but I don't think they're going to do any real digging.

Instead, they rehash the quintessential square authority figure with bullet proof hair of McGarrett into some sort of baby-face-gets-stubbly pseudo-rebel who doesn't really project any authority, or power. Then they toss in a lot of chicks in bikinis in the hope that it will titillate viewers enough to forsake the more powerful titillation they can find on cable.

In conclusion, I'm just not that into this new Hawaii Five-O.

What do you expect?

Time To Waste A Little Time

Welcome to the show folks...

Not much in the way of big news to blog about today, so I'll do some little stupid things:

1. Pop singer Rihanna has been signed to star in Universal's movie version of the board game Battleship. She'll be playing a crusty sea captain serving under an even crustier Rear Admiral played by Justin Bieber.

2. Daniel Craig has been signed to star in the American version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Putting him in the title role struck me as a little odd, but I guess that just makes me old fashioned.

3. Oliver Stone has apologized for claiming that a "Jewish dominated media" hadn't been portraying Adolph Hitler "in context." What's this world coming too when Oliver Stone can't stand by his nutty anti-Semitic beliefs.

3a. In a related story, Oliver Stone has started development on a remake of Fiddler On The Roof, with Mel Gibson as Tevye.

4. Carl Icahn has filed a lawsuit against Lionsgate over its management stock dilution scheme. This story is immediately filed under "W" for "Well D'uh!"

5. The US Government is investing money in developing an "anti-sex" video game. Someone should have told them that playing any video game too much does a lot to prevent the player from having sex all on its own.

That's all for now folks. Hopefully something interesting will pop up.

Hollywood Babble On & On #563: UK DK OR OK?

Welcome to the show folks...

The relatively new Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition that's running the show in the British Parliament has ordered the scrapping of the UK Film Council. For those who the UK Film Council doled out taxpayer dollars to British filmmakers to promote British film-making.

Now such an entity is a double edged sword, which is why I must admit that I'm a twee bit ambivalent about this news.

Allow me to explain:

In theory, a taxpayer, non-profit type organization like the UK Film Council, or its Canadian cousin Telefilm Canada, is supposed to finance and promote the making of films that are free from the shackles of mainstream corporate considerations like profit, loss, and risk. They are supposed to foster and promote new talent, open doors, and develop an entertainment industry independent of Hollywood corporate interference.

In theory.

In theory, communism works.

Reality is often a different story.

Instead of opening doors and fostering new talent, most government film finance agencies tend to become even more closed than the Hollywood studio system. The studio system is always looking for novelty, new faces, and the 'next big thing,' because they have to be. The studios may be really lazy and bad at doing it, but they at least stumble around attempting it nonetheless.

Where talent and looks might get you noticed in Hollywood, they won't get you noticed in a government subsidized system unless you are in someway already juiced into that system. That means that you need someone in the system, either a political, familial, or professional connection to grandfather you in. If you don't have someone like that to open the doors for you, you are out, and will never, ever, get in.

Now since these organizations are free from considerations of profit, loss, and risk, they are also free from considering other factors like distribution, marketing, and above all the general audience.

The word "entertainment" in such circles becomes synonymous with "shit," and a whole new paradigm is established. Entertainment is eschewed, in its place is importance. Importance means that it has to tackle taboos (but in the least titillating manner possible), make political-social statements, and win awards at film festivals because those are the only places where they're going to play before they become a ratings black hole on the late night schedule of the country's public broadcaster.

On the political front such taxpayer supported bodies also become incredibly lopsided, favoring one party or ideology over another. I'll bet dollars to donuts that you are not going to find many dyed in the wool Tories in the management of the UK Film Council either. Which while they may complain about the group's shuttering, they must understand that if you live by the whims of the ruling party, you also face the risk of dying by the whims of the ruling party.

In conclusion, these groups do succeed in creating a film scene that's independent of Hollywood. But that scene is not an industry, and it's usually totally dependent on the government and its favors. Any industry that manages to survive on their own usually do by making some sort of accommodation with Hollywood instead of standing completely against it.

So you can see what I'm getting at. I like the idea of an organization like the UK Film Council, or Telefilm Canada, but I'm all too aware of the traps that are inherent in such an organization.

Now it's your turn to tell me what you think about this news in the comments.

Hollywood Babble On & On #562: Where Have I Seen That Before?

Welcome to the show folks...

I've been seeing a lot about the upcoming film RED, starring Bruce Willis, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich and others. It's based on a graphic novel written by Warren Ellis and is about elite government operatives who are hunted by their former employers and have to kick the ass of the US government to save their lives and the day.

Where have I heard that before?

Let me think about that for a minute....

Oh, yeah, I heard that story before in:

Salt
The A-Team
Green Zone
The Losers
The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Ultimatum
Shooter
Mission: Impossible 1
The Long Kiss Goodnight

Those are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head. I think they were planning to do the same plot if they went through with the proposed, yet never made, third installment of the Agent Cody Banks movies.

These stories are the ultimate in formulaic. You can use this randomly determined form to make your own Hollywood spy action-thriller:

My lead character(s) is/are a

A) SPY
B) SPECIAL FORCES SOLDIER
C) ELITE ESPIONAGE/MILITARY UNIT

that the

A) CIA
B) FBI
C) US MILITARY

has declared a

A) KNOW-TOO-MUCH TROUBLEMAKER
B) TRAITOR
C) CRIMINAL
D) NUISANCE

in order to further a conspiracy of

A) ASSASSINATION
B) FINANCIAL MALFEASANCE
C) DRUG SMUGGLING
D) WARMONGERING FOR PROFIT
E) COVERING UP ATROCITIES OR SHENANIGANS

involving the

A) CIA-FBI-PENTAGON
B) SINISTER CORPORATION INC.
C) DRUG LORD
D) POLITICIANS
E) ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Now that you have your plot, just toss in some car chases, shoot-outs, and a truckload of explosions, and you've got a movie.

It will probably lose money, like The Losers, and The A-Team, but that won't stop Hollywood from doing it over, and over, and over again.

Why?

Multiple reasons:

1. CLICHE: Hollywood has a complex relationship with cliches, they both crave them for their familiarity, yet want to be seen as original and daring artists, especially when they're not original, daring, or artists. They look at the classic espionage plot of a foreign power or warlord plotting evil against the west, and say: Leave the foreign villains for the more or less foreign James Bond franchise.

But if you can't do that, then what are they going to do? Well, they have to do something, but not anything too daring, because that might alienate a target demographic somewhere. So they look at some movie somebody made years ago about someone running & fighting the CIA, and go for that.

2. MISUNDERSTANDING THE CIA: Hollywood's understanding of the CIA is that it is an omnipresent, omnipotent organization run by shadowy right wing zealots who are capable of committing untraceable assassinations, disappearances, and regularly do surveillance of every aspect of a target's life with the press of a button.

Reality is a little bit different. The CIA failed to connect the dots on the overthrow of Cuba's Batista regime, the fall of the Soviet Union, the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the 9/11 Attacks, and literally hundreds of other incidents, most of them still classified, leaving the agency to keep a scintilla of dignity. That pretty much debunks the myth of omnipotence and omnipresence. Assassinations, or "wetwork" was banned from CIA operations in the 1970s, and they also banned doing business with shady people at around the same time. (Which pretty much puts you out of most intelligence gathering) It also leaks like a sieve, with many major operations ending up on the front page of the New York Times as a matter of course.

3. POLITICAL CORRECTNESS: The classic example of political correctness rewriting movies that's always cited was when Paramount changed the villains in the movie version of The Sum Of All Fears from Middle Eastern terrorists, to Austrian-German Neo-Nazi businessmen. The main motivation for that was a deep seeded fear of offending a potential ticket-buying market that might threaten a boycott, accuse them of racism, or toss death threats at their executives.

Of course if you ask the studios making these movies, they'll say that they're merely avoiding cliches, by constantly replaying other cliches.

4. MISGUIDED NATIONALISM: This is different than patriotism. Patriotism wouldn't be using the government as the villain. Misguided nationalism means that the people green-lighting these rehashes believe that someone who isn't American could not possibly be tough or smart enough to be a credible threat to an all-powerful American hero.

This means that the villains have to be their hero's fellow countrymen, usually from the very same agencies or branches of the military that the hero came from to make them credible in the eyes of Hollywood.

So we have basically the same movie being released over and over again, with minor variations on the same theme. Will it stop? As long as one or two make money, they'll keep tossing them out. It's a hell of a lot easier than having to come up with something new.

Saturday Silliness Cinema: Look Around You

Welcome to the show folks...

Time for me to take a little break from my usual ranting and raving about the business behind pop culture and have a little.... education?

Yep, for a change I have a very educational film from England called Look Around You, it's all about about Water, and remember to take notes, there will be a test:

Hollywood Babble On & On #561: Everything Relativity?

Welcome to the show folks...

Two posts, one night, who'd have thunk it.

Anyway, to the business at hand, film financier Relativity Media has just dropped a few million to take over the marketing and distribution operations of Overture Films from its parent company Starz, who are moving out of theatrical features and more into making content for their cable TV assets.

My question is why?

Yes, owning a distribution company is good, I once scolded Relativity Media for spending millions on buying Rogue Pictures from Universal when it had no distribution capability, and nothing more than a name that they tried to turn into a 'lifestyle' brand, and a decidedly lackluster film library.

But here's my point, the original sale offer included Anchor Bay home video and it's very sizable library of cult films, TV shows, and other cinematic assets.

So why buy the marketing and distribution arm, and leave the home video company, and its valuable library, behind?

If you're going for distribution and marketing for your films, why just do theatrical, which is a nightmare if you are not a major studio pumping out blockbuster after blockbuster, and eschew home video?

I'm sure Relativity has their reasons, but I really can't see them myself.

Hollywood Babble On & On #560: Cutting Off The Saw...

Welcome to the show folks...

Lionsgate Pictures has announced that upcoming seventh Saw film in 3D will be the final nail in the coffin of the venerable torture porn franchise. For those who don't know, the Saw films centered on the victims of a super-genius serial killer named Jigsaw who kidnaps them and forces them to go through horrendous suffering to teach them a lesson about valuing life or some such bullshit.

The main point is that first three made big money, over $100 million a piece with the sort of production and marketing budgets usually spent on teeth whitener for Julia Roberts. The following films started to slip at the box office, but it didn't matter, they were still done cheap enough to be profitable. Now they've come to realize that when they felt they had to do the next one in 3D the whole thing was past over. Too bad they didn't come to that realization before pissing away millions on making it a 3D movie.

There are two hard and fast rules in the world of low budget horror film-making:

1. If the movie makes money, there will be sequels. That's inevitable. When horror fans find something that scares them, they will want more, and the companies will be glad to provide them. However, doing the sequels leads to rule two...

2. After the third installment the movies will become self-parody. The plots will get really repetitive, the gore effects will go far beyond the laws anatomy and physics, and the killer/monster will reach a point of total unbelievability that even the supernatural can't carry.

With rule two in effect the producers will try all kinds of stunts, especially in the torture porn/slasher genres. They'll announce that the killer will get his comeuppance, only to be replaced by a 'new generation' killer, then the original killer will somehow come back from the dead, yadda, yadda, yadda...

Then even the hardcore fans will say: "Why bother? It's doing nothing but setting up another sequel," and start to stay away. Then they start spending more money on bigger stunts... like doing it in the new and expensive 3D, and watch it start to lose money.

So here's some sage advice when you have a horror franchise:

HAVE A PLAN.

Assume that sequels will be in offing, so come up with a plan where you can make a nice, neat trilogy, a quadrilogy at the complete most, and wrap it up. Then move onto the next franchise with fans who don't have a sense of bitter resentment from watching you flog a dead horse.

It's not rocket science, it's entertainment.

SAY IT AIN'T SO DARTH!

Welcome to the show...

It looks like Darth Vader has gone over to the dark side.... again.
I asked his former colleague Yoda for a comment and he said...

"Tweaking on the meth, this one is."

I know Lucas banned him from conventions, but this is harsh.

Hollywood Babble On & On #559: Little Things Mean A Lot

Welcome to the show folks...

It's nice to see some folks are liking the new look for this little blog. I'm hoping you find it easier to read and navigate and all that. But enough about the new streamlined look, this blog needs the sort of irate obnoxious content that I do best, and that you all know and love.

So let's get started with a few smaller stories...

1. WRITE IN HONOR OF HG WELLS, JUST NOT LIKE HG WELLS

Sometimes you can sum up all the problems with the literary scene in one neat little package. Here's the story, but if you're too lazy to click the link, I'll sum it up. A writing contest was started in honor of the groundbreaking science fiction scribbler HG Wells. Sounds fairly simple, but it wasn't, especially when you see the rules:

-All entries must be handwritten.

-All entries must be about life in the British county of Kent in the year 2010.

That means--

-No fantasy,

-No horror

-NO SCIENCE FICTION.

Not surprisingly, they didn't receive a single entry. Especially when you look at the fact that most HG Wells readers tend towards being technophiles, and fans of science fiction.

I'll leave it to you, my gentle and fragrant readers, to figure out for yourself how this reflects on the publishing business/literary scene in general.

2. UNLEASH THE KRAKEN....AND THE LAWYERS!

As I predicted when I gave him his Magnificent Bastard Award, takeover maven Carl Icahn has opened the doors of the cages and unleashed the fury of his attorneys on Lionsgate for their recent poison pill stunt.

A poison pill is when a company prints off more shares in order to dilute the ownership of major shareholders. Now Lionsgate's management tried this a couple of months ago, but was denied by Canadian regulators, because when you dilute stock, you will inevitably devalue it. Lionsgate's management is claiming that they were cleaning up the company's debt, when they printed off more shares and traded them to major shareholder/former Icahn ally turned management ally Mark Racheskey in exchange for the $100 million in debt that he bought from their creditors.

I don't know the ins and outs of high finance law, but I suspect that Icahn feels that he has a case, especially if he points out how this plan was tossed before by regulators when it was under a different name.

3. DISNEY TRIES TO TURN SHIT INTO GOLD

The Walt Disney Co. has inked a deal with film-making fantasist Guillermo Del Toro to make a new movie based on their Haunted Mansion theme park attraction.

For those with short memories, Disney did make a Haunted Mansion movie back in 2003. It starred former comedian Eddie Murphy, and it was an un-funny, un-scary steaming pile of shit.

Now when I was a kid, I loved old haunted house movies, especially the ones that sprinkled some humor among the ghostly ghoulishness like The Cat & The Canary, or anything involving Abbot & Costello, so there is precedent of this genre succeeding. Also a good scary movie doesn't have to be "R Rated" and graphic. Look up The Changeling directed by Peter Medak and starring George C. Scott. It has no graphic violence, no gore, and no obvious monster, but it's one of the scariest movies I've ever seen, and still is. Compared to CSI, it's downright bland, but the suspense is almost overwhelming. So you can make a movie that is scary, and palatable for a wider family audience. (Though I don't think most parents were like mine allowing me to see The Changeling on TV when I was 12 years old)

I wish Del Toro luck. He's got a very hard job ahead of him consigning the last version into the dustbin of cinema history where it belongs. It's not impossible, just tough.