Hollywood Babble On & On #86: Switching The Channels

Oy, the media world is getting confusing.

I guess to explain this story I have to start at the beginning.

In the beginning, there was Sumner Redstone. He was the majority shareholder and chairman of Viacom, who owned Paramount Pictures, MTV Networks, CBS, Showtime, and other media holdings.

One day. for various reasons, it was decided that Paramount and some of the channels split from CBS who held onto Showtime and some of the other channels, with the Viacom corporation being the majority shareholder of both.

Les Moonves was put in charge of the CBS company, and it was assumed that the CBS company would have good relations with the Paramount company.

Well you know what they say about assuming things?

When you ASSUME, all you do is make an ASS out of U and ME.

According to the oft cited Nikke Finke, Les Moonves the pupil in the CBS eye immediately started playing hardball over what Showtime would pay for the right to air Paramount movies.

Now Moonves has a point. Movies aren't all that big a draw for pay cable with their easy availability on DVD and upcoming download services, but I guess the folks at Paramount thought Moonves went a little too far, because they decided to start their own channel.

Paramount touched base with other disgruntled content providers MGM/UA and Lionsgate and recruited them to be junior partners in this new channel. The exact nature and content of this channel is all up in the air right now, but there are promises of new original programming.

Excuse me if I get a little wee bit cynical here.

There are a lot of channels out there, and a grievous drought of content for these channels, adding another one can only exacerbate the problem unless the companies involved boost their output exponentially and be patient enough to ride through the first few shaky years.

And this also does not bode well for Moonves.

It takes a rare gift to alienate one of Hollywood's more incestuous corporate relationships, and the loss of the movies and TV shows these companies produce is going to hurt CBS and Showtime. But I can see why Moonves decided to view Paramount as an rival than a relative, they were no longer part of the CBS family, and were outside the prevailing theory of media consolidation.

The theory of media consolidation is to do all creative endeavours in-house, to the barring of any outside involvement, to maximize profits, but that theory is essentially flawed.

All industry, television especially, requires competition, and the regular infusion of fresh people and ideas. When you consolidate everything in-house, you are essentially transferring creativity to internal corporate bureaucracies. Bureaucrats aren't interested in taking the sort of creative risks that bring in rich returns, they are interested only in maintaining their position with a minimum of risk or effort.

Under this mindset you get barraged with remakes, spin-offs, and rip-offs of older material, and the cheap reality shows that are themselves remakes, spin-offs, and rip-offs. As things progress quality suffers, quantity suffers, as productions are cut back, and then everything comes to the point of collapse.

Which is why I'm cynical of this new channel. Paramount's just as ossified as CBS, so there's the temptation to go the easy route and create yet another channel re-running The Hunt for Red October, and making low-rent reality shows staffed by washed up celebs working for food and a hammock behind the equipment truck.

I hope, and yes, hope springs eternal, that the folks behind this new channel take this as an opportunity to break the calcified mindset of modern media and take a chance for a change.

______________________________________

CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE TRANSLATION GAME

And it that ain't your bag...

Gotta question?

Then CLICK HERE and ask me, I'll either answer it, or fake it.

Fun & Games: The Translation Game 2

Hello it's time once again to play....

Today we have some real toughies for all you players out there.

The rules are simple. I've taken some lines and speeches from some famous films, and run them through the Babel Fish translator, some several times, until they are linguistic linguine. You have to identify what movies they come from to win a FABULOUS STUPENDOUS PRIZE!*

And there's a bonus game, all these quotes have something in common. Spot that commonality and win another FABULOUS STUPENDOUS PRIZE!**

So let's play the game!

1. What makes? It goes behind man! That is to say to kill me at once that bad which can prove!

2. Reality is that we do not wash our own laundry - it receive more dirtily right.

3. They have it with the original forces of nature, Mr Beale geeinmischt, and I do not have it. It is it free? They think that you stopped only one business agreement? That is not the case. The Arabs took billion dollars of this country, and now they must place it return. It is a low tide and a river, of tide revolved. It is an ecological balance. They are an old man who thinks expressed in the nations and the people. Do not give nations; do not give people. Do not give Russians. Do not give Arabs. There is no Third World. There is no west. There is only holistic one system of the systems; who, influencing is closely dependent, one on the other considerable one, multivaried, multinational capacity the dollar.

4. I made money sufficiently to satisfer my necessities and mine whims. I only make examination of such cases that keep while I interest, and I am legalizing, my interest for its in case that that he is, uh... that he diminishes.

5. That what I would have to make are, they strike the fat bastard over the head with those macis here, then they bury it in a enough large hole in order to repair its bloat and then they transmit small its masterpiece outside under mine just name.

So get working on it now.

HINT ALERT-HINT ALERT

Since you folks seem to be really suffering out there, I'm going to tell you what these quotes all have in common to make your task a little easier.

They all come from films directed by SYDNEY LUMET.

Now you can show your stuff!

___________________________

And if you have a question about movies, the movie business, or pop culture in general, CLICK HERE and leave your name and question, before next Thursday at Midnight, and I will answer it (or fake my way through it) next Friday!

*Fabulous stupendous prize does not exist.

**Neither does this one.

Ask Me A Question!

Since there seems to be a minor drought in Hollywood business-related idiocy lately, I've decided to let you ask me questions about movies, the movie business, or anything related to pop culture, and the business behind it.

Ask me anything, I'm a raging smug know-it-all, and I will either answer your question accurately, or I'll fake that I know what I'm talking about!

I'll be collecting questions all week and will be answering them sometime next Friday.

So get asking!

Addendum: When you leave a question, leave a name, even if it's a fake one, hell, some of my answers are going to be fake, so I won't be too picky. I just don't like calling everyone Anonymous.

Hollywood Babble On & On #85: Patriot Games

The conservative film/news site Libertas put up a post today bemoaning the rather thin roster of celebrities volunteering to work for the USO entertaining American military personnel at home and overseas. In fact, Gary Sinise of CSI: NY seems to be carrying the bulk of it on his own back, and appearances from starlets like Scarlett Johansson* are few and far between.

Now the knee-jerk reaction is to say that Hollywood actors are just being left-wing yahoos, and there's a certain amount of truth to that theory. There are a lot of very vocal members of the Hollywood community who, if George W. Bush announced that he personally discovered a cure for cancer, would immediately form a "Coalition for Tumour Rights," and start waving signs declaring "Bush Lied Cancer Cells Died."

But that's not the whole story.

I think the main reason is a combination of fear and ignorance, and that combination is born from what I call the Great Divide.

The Great Divide is that ever growing space between the world of celebrity, where movie stars and media figures dwell, and the real world, where everyone else lives. The people in Hollywood have been growing increasingly isolated from the mainstream, mostly due to a siege mentality created by the 24/7 bottomless media chum bucket. They honestly don't know what the average moviegoer thinks and feels, and have forgotten that it is the audience that is the foundation of their industry.

They honestly believe that the media people who don't pay for their own movie tickets have more sway over the course of their career, than the people who actually pay the bills. And to a certain extent they're right. An actor's career can be temporarily hurt by negative media reaction to them, because the media and their management is just as isolated as they are, but it doesn't last, because if the audience likes an actor, they will break through.

But the average actor doesn't know that. They don't know that audience goodwill can keep their career alive, no matter if they get "red-listed" as a Republican by the chattering classes, and it scares the crap out of them.

Which brings me to a reason why they should be doing USO work.

Even if you absolutely hate President Bush, the Iraq War, or the entire American nation, and all you care about is your own career, volunteering for the USO is the smart thing to do. A celebrity's career is based on the goodwill of the audience, not the fawning attention of the corporate media elite.

There is no audience in the history of this planet more appreciative than a military audience far from home and stuck in a war zone. They remember the people who go out of their way to entertain them, and they repay loyalty with loyalty.

Look at the career of comedy legend Bob Hope, it literally lasted generations. He worked hard and made a lot of personal sacrifices to bring some lightness and laughter to the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines in hell holes around the world, during conflicts that make the current ones in Iraq and Afghanistan look like garden parties. He went above and beyond the call of an entertainer's duty because he loved and respected the soldiers as people and they repaid him with enough goodwill to power his career for decades.

But thanks to Hollywood's isolation from common people and common sense, fear of being snubbed by Sean Penn at the Oscar after-party, is outweighing not only their latent patriotism, but even their baser venality. And it's not only hurting the soldiers overseas, it's hurting Hollywood too.

_______________________________________
*Yes, I know I put up a picture of Scarlett Johansson over the hardworking Gary Sinise, but I like to think that Gary Sinise would prefer seeing Scarlett Johansson.

All About Me: The Music Edition...

Now I know you all come to this site to partake of my vast wisdom and knowledge about the film industry, but I don't really talk much about myself. And since this is a blog and prone to the whims of my immense ego, I've decided to talk about something that really matters. Me.

This time, I'm going to talk my career in music.

Yes, I did have a career in music, a long one, and this is my fascinating story of a life in music.

It begins in the late 1950s. I had just lost my job as a badger rancher when I realized that badgers do not make good pets, what with the psychopathic violence and all, and I needed a new career.

I got my start playing piano at the Leaky Tiki Lounge, a Hawaiian themed bar renowned for the fact that it had the leakiest roof in the Poconos. My music was considered perfect for bars and lounges because it seemed to drive people to drink.

One night I was discovered by a liquor company executive who envisioned my liver burning brand of smooth experimental jazz playing in every bar in the world. He financed my first album.
The album sold well to bars all over the world, though the staff did require to wear earplugs, for fear of drinking the profits, and it won the coveted Silver Liver Sliver at the International Wine & Spirits Convention in the Catskills.

That went on for a few years. But my music was overshadowed by the prevalence of Rock & Roll.

And since I've always been willing to whore myself, artistically that is, I jumped right into it feet first.

Then I realized that you need to play the guitar with your hands, not feet. And I released my first rock & roll album: Wanna Pluck My Twanger?

That album earned me a Tin record and a spot in the record books for the most times a performer has been slapped, punched or kicked when asked the title of his album. In fact, it's been credited with inspiring the British Invasion. John Lennon and Paul McCartney heard it and were inspired to form their own band. I think the exact term they used was: "We could do better than this shit." Which I think is his way of expressing his admiration.

Rock and roll changed and I changed with it. Looking for a new challenged I joined a group of trippy acid dropping toke-smoking hippie musicians named Psychedelicatessen out of the lesser known Haight-Ashbury neighbourhood of Moncton.Our self-titled debut album premiered at #76 on the Bulgarian pop-charts. Apparently all copies were purchased by interrogators with the Secret Police, but hey a sale is a sale.

Sadly, after our attempt to play Woodstock ended in a brawl, and drummer Gunther Farfignuggen getting his ass kicked by Joni Mitchell, I left the band...

....left, fired... it's all really the same. I was itching to try new things, and it was probably that itch that made me tell Joni that Gunther thought she was fat.

I joined a pair of struggling folk musicians named Crosby and Nash to experiment with a new sound I called "Gangsta Folk."Our cowardly record label rejected my proposed album title of Folk All You Motherfolkers, and just called it after the band. It was soon after the album's release that I realized that David Crosby and Bing Crosby were two completely different people.

Disappointed I decided to go solo again.
I've always considered The Wet Album my masterpiece. It's unique blend of free jazz, seagull squawks, and white noise was praised by the American Psychiatric Association as a more human alternative to lobotomies.

This record of my performance of at the Blue Ballroom at the Lake Flaccid Motor Lodge at Intercourse, Pennsylvania, has the unique distinction of not only being condemned by critics, but also every major religion, political party, and social organisation.
My next solo album Can I Borrow A Feelin'? had a more relaxed country sound due to my being deeply relaxed, thanks to my addiction to valium, percodan, percoset, novocaine, aspirin, bennies (as in Hill & Hana), quaaludes, alcohol, fire, ice cream, and toad licking.

In fact, I needed to borrow a feeling, because I had completely lost my sense of touch, smell, and taste, especially in groupies, and even more so in music as seen by this now forgotten funk album from 1972...
For some reason people didn't want to partake in a funky dance that involved giving your partner the plague. Excuse me for being scientifically accurate.

But I hadn't hit rock bottom yet.

My albums were still selling well in countries with low levels of English comprehension and high levels of tone-deafness. So my fame was seen as the shot in the arm that my old associates at Psychedelicatessen needed.
The band was re-formed as Furious D featuring Psychedelicatessen, and our album Funky See-Funky Do, hit Gold in Kazakhstan.

But things were about to take a turn for the worst....
I sort of feel responsible for the deaths of my old friends in Psychedelicatessen, partly because I cut the brake line on their tour bus when they fired me again, but mostly because I never told them how I really felt about them, mostly loathing. Still, it gave me a great album of what I call memorial disco that went platinum in Burma.
I went back to my experimental jazz-lounge roots, and melding it with disco, and although the album didn't sell very well, I did get an award from the Sweaty Hirsute Fetishists Society of Pomona.

Disco had died, and I took a moment from my narcotic haze to form a new band with the new sound of New Wave.Too bad it was 1986 and New Wave was dead too.

I was no longer making trends, but following them, long after they were dead and buried.

Now I had figuratively hit rock bottom.

I later hit rock bottom literally when I fell down a well, but that's another story.

When I got out of rehab and physiotherapy I tried to rebuild my shattered career, with a new album, a new sound, and a new look.
Sales of my blend of Latin beats and German industrial music were poor, selling only to radical church groups who claimed to use the cover picture to "cure" Gay men straight.
Awful by name, awful by nature, the less said about this album the better.

But a new sound had caught my ear, and it nested in there like a parasitic insect laying eggs in my brain. That music was rap. I was briefly a member of NWA, but the label made them drop me, because they thought a white man playing the bagpipes wasn't "street" enough. So I went solo...
Hip-Vibe Magazine voted me the "Whitest Rapper of All Time." Take that Vanilla Ice you punk-ass imitator. I was back on top of the charts again in Papua-New Guinea, Outer Mongolia, Inner Mongolia and Slightly to the Left Mongolia.

I decided to spread some of this success around, not in my usual form of STDs and paternity lawsuit payoffs, but by helping other untalented white rappers make it. So I formed a new group, the 2 Cool 4 U Crew with Eugene "White Chocolate" Olaffson, 5th wife Hildegarde "Ho In One" Hassenfeffer, and author, MC, DJ, and ukulele maestro John "Uke 'til U Puke" Updike.
Despite the success of the 2 Cool 4 U Crew in Cambodia, and our wildly popular tour of Lichtenstein, I had reached the limits rap could do and wanted to get back to basics. Plus Hildegarde got custody of Updike and White Chocolate in the divorce. It was time to get back to rock and roll.
I formed a new band with 7th wife Imogene Popanfresh, the former Miss Dental Hygiene UK, and bassist and drummer brothers Clyde and Otis Tubthumper to start the Furious D Band.

While Seattle was going Grunge, we went in a new direction called Sponge Rock. It was a clean looking band with filthy lyrics lying beneath the soft squishy music like fecal coliform bacteria on a kitchen sponge.

Folks, Imogene included, didn't really get the sound, or noise as most described it and she left me for the Tubthumper Brothers and formed a new band without me called The Smashing Pumpkins. But they got sued by another, already famous, band with the same name.

It was then that I realized that the music biz was just a horrible bitch goddess that ate souls for breakfast, lunch and supper, so I decided to look into a business where they treat people right.

The movie business.

Are Sci-Fi Fans The Best Fans?

A blogger for The Guardian seems to think so.

Read it, absorb it, and let me know what you think.

I only managed to attend one small "con" so I can't be an accurate judge, but I did meet a comic book store clerk who bore an eerie resemblance to Vampirella.

So leave your thoughts in the comments.

Hollywood Babble On & On #84: No New Line No Never No More

Looks like New Line Cinema, the company that I tried to save for the past few months is well and truly sunk. First came some massive layoffs, and it looks like there are more on the way.

Well, I must say that it's a shame, and if anyone from Time Warner is reading this, and I know you're out there, I think it's a mistake.

Yes, some heads had to roll, but I think that the only heads that really needed rolling, were the heads of the company.

Does that make any sense to you?

I've always advocated that the company be spun off. Get some desperately needed new managerial blood, new investment partners, and set it up as an independent producer and domestic distributor with Warner Bros. retaining 30-40% ownership to guarantee a first-look / first-refusal deal for foreign distribution and television rights.

But, judging from the way the axe is swinging I guess nobody's listening to this voice in the wilderness.

Now there are folks who are wondering if it's good business to literally create a competitor.

Well, it is when you're in the movie business.

The core of the film business is the making and marketing of movies and television shows for profit. However, in the age of media consolidation the core business for these companies have become acquiring more companies, especially media outlets, while reducing the output of content for these outlets.

There's something I call the Law of Consolidation. Each film studio, no matter how big, can only produce so much original content, and each studio has its own mindset concerning what kind of content that is. So when a bunch of smaller companies get swallowed by the bigger one, suddenly the amount of fresh content produce plummets.

That's why I can't turn on TBS/Peachtree TV without seeing the Austin -frikkin'- Powers trilogy playing on a pretty much weekly basis. I enjoyed the first two films, now I won't even look at the third one, because their constant presence on TV has made me sick of the whole franchise.

The immense size of these corporations also make them slow to react to changing trends and times. There's nothing more pathetic than seeing a movie, constructed from focus groups, trying to cash in on a trend that was over 6 months before the film was even given the green-light.

That's not healthy for the movie business.

It's not healthy for any business.

Hollywood Babble On & On #83: D-Sop's Fables...

There's a lot of chatter and debate going on about the turf battles between the performer unions SAG, and AFTRA, and within SAG itself over the "qualified voting" issue. Now I'm not going to pass judgements on the merits or demerits of any side, I'll leave that to people on the inside of the issue.

However, I have composed a happy little fable to offer my opinion on the divisions itself.

A short time ago in the relatively close Kingdom of Egonia Two brothers, Jack and Zack were going to the town of Narsissa to earn money to buy food, but to get to town they needed to cross Piranha Pond.

Now they had crossed treacherous Piranha Pond many times, using their rowboat. However, they're boat wasn't very well designed. It needed both of them to get it into the water, and once on the water, on had to steer from the back of the boat, while the other rowed and looked out for floating logs ridden by ill tempered feces hurling monkeys.

Normally Zack steered, while Jack rowed and watched out for trouble, but today, as they stood on the shore of the pond, Jack decided that he wanted to steer instead.

Zack was about to agree when a piranha poked its head out of the water and whispered: "What kind of a crap idea is that? You're the best steerer."

Another piranha poked its head out of the water and whispered to Jack: "Don't take any crap from Zack, he thinks you're too dumb to steer."

Suddenly, what could have been a civilized discussion ended up in a big brouhaha. Insults were exchanged, feces were thrown, and then came the punching.

"That's it," declared Jack, his nose bloody, "you can row and steer the boat yourself, I'm going to swim across the pond!"

"Oh yeah," said Zack, his nose just as bloody as his brother's, "Betcha I can swim across faster."

Both brothers dove into Piranha Pond, and were promptly eaten. Their now empty skulls floated to the surface, where they were retrieved by log riding monkeys who used them for target practise until they were buried under a mound of dung as high as a Malibu beach-house.

And the lesson is, don't fight in front of the piranhas or you're both going to be eaten alive and in deep shit.

Thus endeth the lesson.

Fun & Games: The Translation Game

It's time to play!Here are the rules.

I've taken some classic movie quotes and run them through the Babel-Fish translator into foreign languages and then back to English, mangling them thoroughly.

Identify the movie the quote came from in the comments, be sure to leave a name for yourself, and you will win a MASSIVE INCREDIBLE PRIZE*!!

SO LET'S PLAY THE GAME!

1. "Fixed yours seatbelts. It is going to be one irregular night ."

2. "Round raising those upward usual suspected."

3. "Which we here have. is to be been located to disturbance in connection."

4. "I will introduce one proposed that it cannot refuse."

5. "When you must draw, to draw. You do not communicate."

_____________________________
*Prize does not exist.

UPDATE: WE HAVE A WINNER

Dark Eden handily won the first round of The Translation Game and won our glorious non-existent prize with these answers!

1. "Fixed yours seatbelts. It is going to be one irregular night ."

Fasten your seatbelts. Its going to be a bumpy night. - - All About Eve

2. "Round raising those upward usual suspected."

Round up the usual Suspects - Casablanca

3. "Which we here have. is to be been located to disturbance in connection."

What we have here is a failure to communicate. -- Cool Hand Luke

4. "I will introduce one proposed that it cannot refuse."

I'll make him an offer he can't refuse. - Godfather

5. "When you must draw, to draw. You do not communicate."

When you have to shoot, shoot. Don't talk. -- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Give a round of applause for Dark Eden!

And be sure to check out next Sunday with more obscure quotes that have been run through the translation wringer!

Hollywood Babble On & On #82: Live Nude Girls / Dead Movie Career

The gossip and movie sites are all abuzz about Lindsay Lohan's insistence on doing a nude scene in an independent film thinking it would revive her stagnant career and get her "respect" as an mature actress.

The question: Will the nude scene jump-start her career?

The answer: No.

Now some may ask: Jodie Foster did nudity in The Accused, and it boosted her career from former child star to mature movie star and won her an Academy Award, so why not Lohan?

Because Jodie Foster already had an Academy Award nomination under her belt, as well as a reputation from her days as a child star as a hard worker who did what she believes best for the part. Also, the film was a gritty drama about sexual violence, not a cheap attempt at trading titillation for publicity.

Lohan on the other hand has a reputation for unreliability, addictive behaviour, and shameless pandering for media attention.

See the difference?

Plus, the prurient attraction of an actress doing a nude scene that actually is intended to titillate is an element of erotic mystery on the part of the actress.

Thanks to Lohan's questionable fashion / lifestyle choices and the internet, there is no mystery to anyone on this planet except for a Kazakhstani goatherd named Ughash who is too cheap to upgrade from his dial-up connection to DSL.

There's a second question...

Okay, so she's been to rehab, Robert Downey Jr. had a terrible drug problem and not only is he still working, he's on the verge of a jump to the A-List this summer, why not Lohan?

It all boils down to what I think Hollywood is not paying enough attention to.

Goodwill.

I don't recall hearing anything about Robert Downey Jr. behaving badly on set, or being anything other than as professional a man in his condition could be. He didn't get a reputation for being spoiled, troublesome brat who would show up late for work, if at all, endangering the schedule, and thus the livelihoods of cast-mates and crew because he was partying all night.

His problems were destroying him all right, but he wasn't actively trying to take everyone else down with him.

And his struggle to get clean, and get back to work was positively heroic. When completion bond companies gave him grief, he didn't whine about it, he accepted the things that he could not change, and changed the things he could by working like a mule. That dedication to his health and his work won him a hell of a lot of goodwill not only with his Hollywood colleagues, but with the audience as well. People rooted for him, and now it seems that he's going to have one hell of a summer, and folks feel he deserves it, because he earned it.

Lohan on the other hand, seems to want things quick and easy. She thinks that constant attention will keep her a star, when it was the constant attention of her obnoxious antics was what ruined her career in the first place.

What could Lohan do to revive her career?

First, sell everything, the houses, cars, anything for a cash nest-egg.

Get the hell out of the greater Los Angeles area.

Get clean, for real, and give up partying.

Give up the skanky public behaviour that made her a tabloid darling.

Find a place where she could study acting, out of the public eye. Maybe do off-Broadway theatre, indie films, and work, work, work like that proverbial mule.

It's the only way to beat the image she has an unreliable, addled, party skank.

And she has to commit to it, 110%.

No half measures, because real stardom, where the audience loves them for being a star, not for the bitchy schadenfreude of watching their fall, is something that has to be earned the hard way.

It's the only way.