Hollywood Babble On & On #1079: Everybody's Doing TV These Days

Everybody's doing TV these days...

Most recently Robert DeNiro's signed on with a legal drama on HBO to take over a role originally meant for the recently deceased James Gandolfini, and Halle Berry's signed on to do a  sci-fi thriller for CBS. Even Dustin Hoffman and Nick Nolte tried to do it with the HBO series Luck, which was quickly sunk before it could find its feet by the fragility of thoroughbred horses, and Nick Nolte's tendency to bite them.

They join the ranks of other big screen names who have defected to TV, and to name just a few Alec Baldwin, Glenn Close, Bill Paxton, Don Cheadle, Joe Mantegna, Steve Buscemi, Ann Paquin, Robin Williams, Jeff Daniels, Kevin Spacey, Zooey Deschanel, and many many others.

At first the migration began with the top-rank character actors, like Joe Mantegna, Steve Buscemi, William Petersen and Forest Whittaker. But now leads from the movies are doing it to.

It wasn't always like this. Once upon a time it was considered a step down for a "movie actor" to do television and was judged as a sign of desperation. "You heard of so-&-so, the poor guy's so desperate for a paycheque he's agreed to do TV show."

Not anymore.

So let's look at the real reasons why they're doing it.

1. QUANTITY. The major studios are slashing their outputs and show no signs of stopping. Indie companies are having a hard time filling the gaps because it's become so expensive to be heard above the racket made over the majors' blockbusters. If an actor wants to work, then the ever expanding television universe offers lots of it. 

2. QUALITY. Right now TV is going through a golden age. Cable led the way with complex dramas and cutting edge comedies and the big networks are, slowly and unevenly, following suit. 

Can anyone see similar quality coming to the big screen recently in such amounts?

3. SECURITY. If you land a hit series, or even a series that does well, you're going to do great. The pay is good, and regular, and then come the royalties and residuals from re-runs and home video sales/rentals. Sure, it's not as big as the up-front pay-offs given to A-List movie stars, but it's a lot less hassle, and it adds up over time. Now not every show is going to be a success, but when compared to making movies there's a lot less...

4. STRESS. If you're a star trying to get a movie made, good luck. You could be the most popular star in the world, whose home videos of you with a farting dog make a minimum of $300 million domestic it doesn't matter. You could be have a script that literally glows with entertainment brilliance, the hottest director in the industry, and a supporting cast of all stars, all willing to work for scale and still get nowhere. 

Why? 

Because some VP at the studio didn't like the colour of the tie someone wore at the meeting and screwed you out of your green-light. Or, the studio VP loved your pitch, but the Studio CEO axes it, because he doesn't want to green-light anything that will make the ambitious VP look good, and become a possible replacement. So either you're forced to give up, or you have to truck your project to another studio and go through the same thing.

The big four networks aren't much different, but the cable channels are much more streamlined and easier to deal with in the management department.

That's what I think, tell me what you think.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1078: Sexual, Sexy, & Just Plain Sleazy.

Hollywood doesn't know what's sexy anymore.

I've suspected that for some time, but all the hype and furor over Miley Cyrus has convinced me that, as usual, I've been right all along.

Let's take a moment to think of the horror of that performance at the MTV Music Awards. She ran around shaking her bony ass like a baboon in heat, and flicking around her tongue like a lizard, and the media and their toadies in the Parents Television Council go on like it was the peak of sexiness.

Not Sexy, Just Shameless

It wasn't sexy, it was a very poorly done recreation, via mime, of a season of National Geographic Specials.

However, it did follow what I call Hollywood's Rules of What Hollywood Thinks Is Sexy.

They are:

1. Lack of clothing.

2. Figure that's below a certain percentage of body fat. Big boobs preferred, but not essential, especially if it threatens to cross that precious body fat threshold, which can lead to some anatomical oddities.

3. Behaving in such a way that while they're not sexually attractive, they are at least sexually available.

This is creating a weird schizophrenia that's affecting pretty much all corners of popular culture. From ex-child stars turned pop-tarts like Cyrus, to trashy reality TV starlets, and to those Hollywood hopes will be mainstream movie and TV stars.

It's also in comics, where the female anatomy defies the laws of physics and physiology, and their costumes make the outfits worn by strippers look demure.

This all comes from the notion that "sex sells" and to sell more you really have to cram sex down the throat of the audience by exaggerating everything sexual, from clothing, to behaviour, into extremes that go from the realm of the sexual into the realm of the ridiculous.

And that's where we encounter the next problem...

The whole concept of "Sex Sells" is really a myth.

Think about it, when was the last time you bought or watched something because someone associated with any given project presented an image of being sexually available, or that the product itself was promoted as sexually stimulating?

P0rn doesn't count.

I'm talking about mainstream movies, TV shows, and music.

Pop music acts can pull it off for short periods of time, because the core audience is an ever-shifting gelatinous mass of dim-witted, easily malleable teenage minds that is constantly replaced by a new crop every year who honestly think "shocking" sexual behaviour by entertainment is something new, novel, and done only for them. But this doesn't last, causing brief bursts of popularity usually ending in a "Where Are The Now" segment on an entertainment show set at a rehab centre.

However, movies and television are a different matter all together.

The audience for movies and television, unlike pop music, absolutely must include people who, unlike teenagers, don't have brains made of pudding if they're going to be profitable. Try to sell something along the lines of "sexy sex-people doing sexy sex-stuff" and you'll probably crash and burn. That's because when it comes to sex selling it has a limit.

People will buy into entertainment where the people in it are sexually attractive, but if that sexual element is the one being pushed the most the audience gets turned off. Why? Because the audience, as a subconscious mass-mind, is smarter than we give it credit for. They see a network or studio using sex as the main selling point, and their collective subconscious says: "This will be a piece of crap and they're hoping that little skin will distract us from the smell of failure." And the amazing thing is that 95.6% of the time this mass-subconscious is right.

It can also repel customers, because who wants to be known as the person who is into that "sex show."

Will these simple truths inspire Hollywood to change their ways?

Probably not. It took a whole blog post to explain it, while the marketing people still have the old nostrum of "sex sells" which hits about the maximum number of words that Hollywood management can understand in any given sentence. 

Hollywood Babble On & On #1077: The Bulletproof Bracelet Is Cast...

Take a look at this trailer.

Was it made by DC Comics and parent company Warner Brothers?

No.

It's a fan made short film that has no official connection to DC Comics and Warner Brothers with resources that would be only a tiny fraction of a quantum of what a major studio and comic publisher have to work with.

So why can't Warner Brothers make a Wonder Woman TV show and/or feature film?

Back in the 1980s and 1990s DC/Warner Bros. were the kings of the superhero movies. Superman and Batman provided some major blockbusters and rival Marvel comics couldn't organize a screw in a brothel.

My how things have changed. 

Today Marvel dominates the movies, while DC/WB can still put out Batman and Superman movies, and even a modestly successful TV series called Arrow, they're playing catch up and doing it poorly. One of the problems that keeps popping up is DC/WB's total inability to produce anything live-action starring Wonder Woman.

It should be a natural next step, she's right up there in status with Superman and Batman on DC's A-List. She's got legions of fans, and is probably the longest running female superhero in comics.

Yet dozens of big-screen adaptations have died screaming in development hell. Even Joss Whedon, the king of kick-ass heroines, was fired from Wonder Woman. And then there was the laughably bad TV pilot by Ally McBeal creator David E. Kelly. It transformed Wonder Woman from a female superhero from the fantasy island of Themyscira who embodied a confident strong woman into a woman with a borderline multiple personality disorder. In the pilot she was Wonder Woman a gritty vigilante who is not afraid to kill minions in horrible ways, Diana Themyscira, a corporate tycoon, and Diana Prince, an emotionally needy Ally McBeal knock-off. They even forgot to use the lasso of truth when it was right there, hanging on her belt.

Anyway, the show didn't sell, and Wonder Woman's been trapped in development hell ever since.

But why?

Here are some things that I think are reasons:

1. POLITICAL EXPECTATIONS: the people running studios think they can't do Wonder Woman as just a superhero engaged in entertaining adventures. They believe that it must be a statement. You see any live action project is assumed to not be about Wonder Woman, but about all women.

That's why the David E. Kelly pilot was such a mish mash. They tried to make her more than just a hero, easily the equal of any male hero, she had to be a commanding corporate tycoon, and a gritty two-fisted vigilante, and a modern single woman navigating the dating scene. She had to be everything to all women, and nothing to the viewers.

This comes from the fact that they...

2. DON'T UNDERSTAND THE AUDIENCE: There's a paradox associated with the Wonder Woman character. The comics industry thinks that only men read comics, and on top of that, only extremely lecherous men who can't get pr0n from the internet. So women must be presented in supremely skimpy costumes and crammed into poses that defy the laws of physics, physiology, and good taste.

But women do read comics, and a lot of men get annoyed by the hyper-sexualized characters and costumes that often come at the expense of story and character.

It's one of the many reasons why the comics industry is going the way of the dinosaur. It's also why they can't make up their minds on what the hell to do with a major female superhero.

They can't grasp that all the audience wants is a good story featuring the hero whose adventures they grew up enjoying.

This is just one symptom of...

3. MANAGERIAL MALAISE: Marvel's film/TV wing is much leaner than DC/WB's operation. Even as part of the Disney empire, decisions are still being made by a handful of people whose judgement is trusted.

At Warner Brothers decisions are made by a complex web of producers, executives, marketing consultants, their spouses, extramarital lovers, and dominatrixes. It's just easier for anyone at any stage to just say no, because saying no is their protection. No one gets fired for not making a movie, they can get fired for making a bomb.

Saying yes requires imagination and hard work.

That's terrifying to the average studio executive.

That's what I think, let me know what you think in the comments... 

Hollywood Babble On & On #1076: Little Bits...

1. Someone Agrees With Me...

I see that someone inside the comics industry not only agrees with many of the things I've been saying about the comics industry, but can expand on them.

2. Now That's A Long Run...

Producer A.C. Lyles, Paramount's longest serving employee, passed away at the age of 95 after working for the studio for almost 80 years.

Cause of death was extreme surprise after receiving his first net profit participation cheque for the 1957 film Shortcut To Hell.

3. Hollywood Gets Into The God Business...

By hiring director Kevin Reynolds to direct Resurrection, a film about a Roman soldier investigating reports of the resurrection of a recently executed rabble rouser named Jesus.

I can't judge the film's quality before it's even made. But I can harbour worries that it will probably under-perform at the box office. Not because the audience doesn't want religious themed entertainment, but because they don't trust Hollywood to do it right.

4. Breaking Bad As An Excuse...

Breaking Bad wrapped up its five season run to beaucoup ratings and praise from critics and audiences alike.

But some took it as an excuse to use the internet to shit on writer/producer Damon Lindelof over the finale to Lost.

I can see their point.

Breaking Bad's finale embodied the shows central themes very well and tied up the main storyline in a satisfactory manner that fed the audience's desire for a sense of cosmic justice.

Lost on the other hand didn't even bother to tie up any of the hundreds of unanswerable mysteries the writers pulled out of their asses. It just pulled another one out of its ass, said goodbye, and declared that anyone who didn't love it was just too stupid to "get it."

They failed in their job as artists, and then they compounded it by insulting the audience.

That makes me understand the venomous reaction to Lindelof.

However, I don't support the reaction, especially the childish name-calling, obscenities, and other hostility sent to him.

If you don't like someone's work there are two reactions that I will permit when I rule the world:

A. Cogent criticisms where people outline how and where they think things went wrong pertaining to the project in question.

B. People will also be allowed to not buy or watch stuff by creators they don't like.

I heard Lindelof's doing his own version of the Left Behind stories with The Leftovers on HBO. It sounds like a combo of many things that bug me, one of them the threat that it will be Lost redux in the plotlines determined by dice rolls department. So I'm going to exercise my right to not watch it, because I don't have the time to waste.

But I'm not going to hurl shit at him on Twitter for it, because I don't have the time to waste for that either, and neither should you.

If you don't like something, think clearly about it, then write clearly about it. Name calling accomplishes nothing constructive.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1075: This Time As Farce

New Line, a subsidiary of the Warner Empire, has announced a sequel to their comedy Horrible Bosses to be released Thanksgiving 2014. 

Horrible Bosses cost about $35 million to make, and about the same amount was spent on P&A, and it pulled in about $117 million domestic, and about another $92 million internationally for a total take of around $209 million. The makers are hoping to repeat what their mother studio did with the Hangover franchise, or what they would like you to think what Warner Bros. did with the Hangover franchise.

What will most likely happen will be a repeat of what really happened to The Hangover franchise.

What really happened to The Hangover franchise was a bad case of flogging a dead horse and missing what could have been a good opportunity. The first film, like Horrible Bosses, cost only $35 million to make, and about the same to put in theatres, but exploded with audiences to make $277 million domestically. Having such a hugely profitable phenomenon on their hands Warner Brothers ground out a sequel as soon as they could.

That sequel, The Hangover Part 2, cost over $80 million to make, had about the same amount spent in prints and advertising, and pulled in about $254 million domestically. Not a bad return, a little bit less than the first, but not bad.

It's success was based mostly on those who saw the first in the theatres and still felt a lot of goodwill towards the franchise, people who saw it on home video & wanted to catch some of the exuberance expressed by those who saw the first on the big screen. However, after seeing the film, most expressed dissatisfaction, viewing the movie as a simply an exaggerated rehash of the first movie just in a different location.

The third and final flick, The Hangover Part 3 cost well over $100 million to make, about another $100 on prints and advertising, and only made about $112 million domestically. Which is a huge loss. That's because the goodwill the audience had for the people involved in the franchise was mostly spent on the unsatisfactory second rehash film. 

Now you could point to the international grosses and say: "Look, they made a lot overseas, that should make things okay."

Not really.

You see, the studio gets about 50% of the ticket price for domestic releases. Overseas however, they get, depending on the deal for that territory, anywhere between 20%-25% of the ticket price. That's if they're distributing the film themselves and didn't sell the rights to a local distributor to help cover the production costs. Also remember that the distributor needs to pay for prints, advertising and operational overhead in each territory, which can be very expensive.

So overseas ticket sales really determine whether a film makes a good profit and a great profit, or a bad loss and a horrendous loss. Without good sales in North America, foreign sales cannot turn a loss into a profit.

So what we saw with The Hangover was a studio clawing at a shot at repeating the profitability of the first one by spending more and more on sequels for diminishing returns.

Which will probably happen to Horrible Bosses, but probably quicker due to the audience already being jaded by The Hangover.

What could have been done?

One thing most agree is that the people who participated in the Hangover franchise behind and in front of the cameras had good working chemistry.

In the old days when movie-people had good working chemistry they didn't always jump straight to sequels. That was because sequels tended to suffer from diminishing returns, so they only went whole hog if they were pretty sure it could be done affordably and make a good profit.

But if there was a good team, especially in the tough world of comedy, they would try to get them to work again, but doing something different. That's because good comic chemistry is hard to find, and can't be forced. But doing direct sequels ran the risk of tarnishing the team, because audiences will judge it, possibly unfairly, against the giddy thrill of discovery they had with the original.

So they would get them new characters, a new situation, and a new plot. Since most Golden Age stars were under contract and worked for salaries, they didn't have to worry much about exploding star pay affecting their budgets.

This could still work today, since actors tend to offer lower up-front quotes for original films over sequels, and burn more creative calories for original material. If you toss in some reasonable profit participation you might be able to drive down the costs even further.

So if they were to use the team of performers and filmmakers behind a successful comedy movie to make a different movie, they might be able to create a franchise based not on a single title, but on audience trust, which is lacking these days. Manage it well, and it go well beyond three movies before you start flogging the dead horse.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1074: Commissioner Gordon- The Series?

The Fox Network has inked a series commitment deal with DC/Warner Television for Gotham, a series set in the titular fictional city made famous by a certain dark knight named Batman.

Now the series, developed by Mentalist creator Bruno Heller, won't feature Batman. But will centre on a detective James Gordon as he and other cops battle the city's assorted madmen and masked villains and rise up the ranks to the post of Commissioner.

Both DC and Fox TV are hoping to cash in the hype surrounding rival Marvel's Agents of SHIELD which premiered last night. So let's take a minute to look at the PROS & CONS!!

PROS:

1. COMMISSIONER GORDON: Jim Gordon was often relegated as just the exposition guy, telling Batman where there was trouble and who was behind it. However since the 1980s he's been given more of a backstory, and became a more interesting and human character.

2. DRAMATIC POTENTIAL: Gotham is a great setting with great potential. It's a great city besieged by crime, both normal and abnormal, as well gangsterism and public corruption. It's a city beset with moral malaise where decent men have to struggle to maintain their humanity.

3. DRAMATIS PERSONAE: Gotham also has a wealth of interesting characters from the comics that aren't super villains. From bad/good cop Harvey Bullock, police officer Renee Montoya, District Attorney Harvey Dent, and the characters from the cult comic Gotham Central. 

If the people running the show know and appreciate these creations, they can use them and bring their potential to the screen.

CONS:

1. NO BATMAN: Some may hold not having Batman in the show against it and won't give the show a chance, regardless of quality.

2. NEED BATMAN?: Let's say the show does succeed. It runs seven years where Gordon and his associates successfully fights off the fiends both normal and freakish from destroying the city. Where does this leave Batman, will the city still need him? Will the writers contrive a horrible setback suffered by Gordon and his team that makes Batman necessary?

3. NETWORK & STUDIO: While the show has great potential, it also has tremendous potential to get screwed royally by the network and the studio. You never know what management will do and having a comic book company, a major studio and a network involved creates such pitfalls by the power of three. They might forbid the show from using ANY of the villains, or supporting characters from the Gotham/Batman canon, they could cast a completely inappropriate vapid pretty-boy for the lead, or a million other things you can't imagine because you're not a Hollywood executive with a compelling need to meddle.

Those are the pros and cons I thought of, what pros and cons can you think of?

Hollywood Babble On & On #1073: TV Tidbits

The new fall TV season is starting, and I've manage to catch a couple of the new shows. The first ones I saw were the new Fox sitcoms Dads and Brooklyn 9-9. While B9-9 showed some potential as long as they find the right way to present Andy Samberg's man-child detective. 

Dads however is a different story. It has a good cast, and the people behind the show are supposed to have some sort of comic pedigree, but I found it offensive. Not for its use of negative Asian stereotypes and politically incorrect language for laughs, but because I laughed harder at funerals.

Funerals of people I liked.

The film was a mash of hackneyed plot-lines, cardboard characters, and dialogue that would have been exponentially better if they just set up a camera and let the actors improvise.

It reminded me of the sort of sitcoms Fox made in its early days when it kept trying to rip off its own hit Married With Children, but failed.

My theory behind the show is that the people behind it thought they were being subversive and "meta" by being so hackneyed, but did it without the sort of manic energy and imagination to make being subversive and meta work.

Sleepy Hollow showed a nice bit of bat-shit imagination in its premiere. An intriguing central plot of Ichabod Crane and a modern police Lieutenant battling monsters to stave off doomsday, but runs the risk of slipping into the realm of Lost when they start pulling monsters and mysteries out their ass once folks get bored with the headless horseman.

I'm actually eagerly curious over Marvel's Agents of SHIELD, since I was a Joss Whedon fan since the dawn of the Buffyverse, and would like to see what he does working in the Marvel Universe and what he's allowed to do with it.

I'm also curious to see what happens on the returning Person of Interest, the series that shows how to do continuing mystery-box story-lines right.

Though I must admit that I watch very little network television.

What do you folks think about the new TV season?

Hollywood Babble On & On #1072: Dear Jerry...

AN OPEN LETTER TO JERRY BRUCKHEIMER

Dear Jerry.

I can call you Jerry right?

Okay, Mister Bruckheimer it is.

Anyway, I just heard that Disney won't renew your 'first look' deal when it ends in 2014.

In case you might have amnesia due to a freak accident involving a cast iron skillet and a misplaced roller skate I'll do a little explaining. A 'first look' deal is between a major producer, like yourself and a major studio, like Disney, and basically involves you taking projects to Disney first. If Disney passes, you're then free to take those projects to other studios.

It was a sweet deal, giving you a home with the Disney media empire while also giving you the freedom to do projects with other studios.

But now it's over.

Need a hug?

Okay, I'll keep my distance. All the better to give this situation a little dispassionate analysis.

Let's begin with the reasons Disney is giving for dropping you like a hot potato.

Disney says that your projects don't fit in with their new strategy of sucking the life out of the franchises they can squeeze from Star Wars, Marvel Comics, and Pixar. And that you want to do more "mature" projects that don't fit the Disney brand.

Ain't that just a nice little plate of horse-shit.

We both know the real reason Disney dropped you.

It's money.

Or to be more specific the fact that you spend WAY TOO MUCH MONEY.

You spent $300 million to make the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Sure, it made over a billion at the box office, but once you deduct the theatre's nut, the back end shares, and the costs of marketing and distribution, the film would have broken even only if Disney was very lucky.

And that's your problem.

You've been making big blockbuster movies since the 1980s, and a lot of them have broken records.

But not all of them have broken records, and with your budgets having a rate of inflation not seen outside of Weimar Germany, they increasingly need to break records just to break even.

That's not a good business model.

A business needs profits so it can stay in business.

The bigger the profits the better. Because bigger profits means happy shareholders and happy shareholders means a healthy and growing company.

Even when your films do "make money" the margins are usually so thin, you can see through them.

Yes, the movies do get revenues from home video and television releases. But it takes years for that money to come in, especially in the amounts needed to cover the mega-losses that flicks like The Lone Ranger racked up. Plus, you can't rely on people wanting see a movie on TV or on home video, especially when the film has so much negativity attached to it.

All that risk and loss can be mitigated if you had practised a wee bit of self control when it came to the spending.

You know, the sort of thing a producer is supposed to be doing.

Do you see what I'm getting at?

Even your former go-to guy Michael Bay has shown the ability to operate within a reasonable budget as he did with Pain & Gain. Sure, it didn't break any records at the box office, but it didn't have to.

Can you do something like that?

Because you might have to. Studios might be a little hesitant making the sort of deal you had with Disney if they're going to see a lot more money going out than going in. The days of easy cash and a complacent audience is long gone. This may be the age of the blockbuster, but it's also the age of the shrinking audience.

People are staying at home enjoying a golden age of television storytelling. They're becoming more and more selective of the movies they choose to pay money to see, and even family movies can't rely on the repetitive viewing habits of children. Money's a lot tighter in the real world, and you're going to have to show that you can be tighter than two coats of paint to survive in this environment.

I hope you find this helpful.

Sincerely  --  

Furious D.

Hollywood Babble On & On #1071: The Art Of Wrapping Up...

The Fall TV season is just beginning, news shows are starting, but online everyone is talking about a show reaching its end.

Breaking Bad, one of the flagship dramas on the AMC channel, is coming to an end. Unlike a lot of shows it's ending by the choice and design of its creator Vince Gilligan. 

People are eagerly anticipating the show's finale and ratings are going up because the viewers aren't content to let it wait in their DVRs and are watching it live.

Artist's Conception of Vince Gilligan

If Mr. Gilligan's work lives up to expectations, which are high, his show could go down in history as one of television's groundbreaking crime epics. If he fails, it could be a stain on his career that fans may find hard to forgive.

Remember The Sopranos? One of the most honoured and revered shows in TV history. However, the show's deliberately obscure, just stops, finale? Not so much. The only people who defend it are either the people behind it, or folks scared of being thought stupid for not "getting it."

So let's do a little thought experiment.

Imagine that you are the creator-showrunner of a critically acclaimed hit TV show. It's had a great run, but you've decided that now is the time to wrap it up.

But how?

Before you fire up the old Final Draft on your laptop you're going to need to ask yourself these questions:

WHERE DID YOUR CHARACTERS COME FROM & WHERE ARE THEY GOING?

Every show these days has some sort of an arc for its characters. Even television's most rigidly structured procedural dramas feature characters that change and evolve over time.

When it comes time to wrap up a show, and you have a chance to do it properly, you have to look at how they started, how they changed, and where do you think they should end up.

WHAT THEMES ARE ESSENTIAL TO THE SHOW?

Some shows are built around friendship, family, and thus should end on a note that enforces that theme. Some are built around less positive themes, and cry out for a darker ending.

WHAT COURSE BRINGS THE CHARACTERS & THEMES TOGETHER IN THE MOST SATISFYING WAY?

Are your characters on the road to hell or redemption? Are they being brought together, or torn apart? You need to work out how your characters and overarching themes work together to create the most satisfying conclusion.

And let's not forget...

IT'S NOT THE AUDIENCE'S JOB TO 'GET IT' IT'S YOU'RE JOB TO GET THEM.

A thing that annoys me about some conclusions is that when people expressed dissatisfaction the people behind them said variations of: "You just don't get it."

As an artist if you ever feel the urge to say "You just don't get it," slap yourself instead.

Because if you've got the urge to say that it means you've failed as an artist, and are at risk for failing as a human being.

Art is a form of communication that goes beyond the simple definitions of the words being said. If people don't understand what you're saying, and you have to toss a lot of academic sounding baffle-gab to explain why they don't understand what you're saying, then you probably aren't sure what you wanted to say in the first place.

You might think that your art is for you, but without the audience you're not an artist, you're just a dingus writing stuff no one enjoys. You need to make that vital emotional/intellectual connection with the audience, and satisfying them is a sign that you're doing it right.

That's what I think, tell me what you think in the comments...

Hollywood Babble On & On #1070: Little Budgets Need Big Ambitions

I like low budget movies.

Or to be precise, I like good low budget movies.

I also respect low budget movies with ambition. Even if they're not my particular cup of tea in style, subject matter, or even fail utterly creatively, I can at least respect their attempt to step beyond the constraints of their finances, genre, or talents of the filmmakers.

Take the people behind the Insidious franchise. The first one had a production budget of about $1.5 million, and made about $97 million at the box office, and the sequel Insidious: Chapter 2 has made over $41 million on its opening weekend and judging from audience reaction could at least repeat, if not better the first film's performance. 

It doesn't matter if I like the films or not, I haven't seen them, so I can't judge them, but it does mean that I can respect the ambition and hard work behind them and their success.

However, what I find hard to respect is the trend for making "deliberately bad" cinema as some sort of post-modern ironic form of anti-entertainment.

I can't appreciate such films which the makers see as a license for laziness in almost every aspect. The premises are composed via Mad Libs, you're lucky if the dialogue even went through a first draft, some "I can't believe they hired them" stunt-casting, and loads of shitty CGI special effects that can out-done by an adolescent and their home computer.

There's very little imagination, and very few calories burned to make these films.

So I end this mini-rant with a plea.

Please stop supporting, or promoting deliberately bad movies. There are more than enough inadvertently bad movies released every year, we don't need anymore. Support and promote movies where it looks like some effort was put into the production. Even if they fail, at least respect that they tried.