Hollywood Babble On & On #233: A Match Made In....?

Hollywood is abuzz over rumours about a possible merger between the super-sized talent reps William Morris Agency, and the Endeavor Agency to form a super-duper-mega-agency.

Now those in the know are saying that it actually could be a good match. WMA has a powerhouse music division repping a good chunk of the Top 40 at any given moment, but it's movie division has been weakened by defections to other agencies, Endeavor being one of them. Endeavor has a killer movie/tv department, but doesn't have all that much of a presence in the music world.

Both could do very well from this merger.

And they could do very badly.

You see both agencies are run by powerful, Type-A, alpha-dog types. I mean you have to be in order to survive and thrive in the shark tank we call Hollywood, and there is the great potential for a massive clash of egos that could kill the merger before it happens, or destroy whatever form the mega-agency takes after the merger.

Because there's a problem with business in Hollywood. It's letting the ego drive beat out the money drive in decision making. I know I'm sounding like the next crackpot on Oprah's reading list, but I'm not talking about eliminating the ego drive, because it can be a useful tool. Nor am I saying it should be all about money, because that leads to greed, and greed leads to stupidity. Both the desire to boost ego and income should work together, seeking success for the company as a whole.

My advice to both agencies. Take a look at the situation, right down to the brass tacks, and if it really looks like you could both profit from this deal, then go for it.

However, after the merger, you must remember that now you must all work together. While competition, even internal competition, is good and healthy, remember that the key is to win, not to make the other player lose.

And by winning I mean getting the best clients, and the best deals for these clients you can get. But backstabbing has to go, or everyone can end up a loser in the end.

So I would like to see something in Hollywood run well, just once, and if the folks at these agencies are as smart and shrewd as I think they have to be, they might pull it off.

But then I can sometimes be a cock-eyed optimist.

Hollywood Babble On & On #232: Confessions of a

Is it just me, or is there a problem with romantic comedies these days?

And I'm not just talking about the relative box-office under-performance of Confessions of a Shopaholic in the face of the remake of Friday The 13th, but about the genre in general.

There was a time when romantic comedies appealed to both women and men. Okay, it appealed more to women, but at least men could sit through them. The point was that they could truly be date movies, with romance for the women, comedy, sometimes slapstick, for the men, and everyone was happy.

Lately I've noticed a trend in romantic comedies to veer away from comedy and become consumerist fantasies, more about shilling expensive shoes than the quest for true love in a complicated world.

Now I suspect there are different reasons for this. One is that the elements of hazard that fueled the humorous misunderstandings in romantic comedies, like scandals over infidelity, divorce, or even deviancy, don't really have the weight they used to. There was a time in certain levels of polite society when such things could really wreck a person's life. Nowadays, if it was particularly extreme, such scandals could get you a reality show deal.

Plus, the production code forced the filmmakers of the Golden Age to be subtle in their sexuality. They couldn't have people hope into bed before marriage, and even after marriage they couldn't show it, so they had to do all the foreplay verbally via witty repartee.

But I think the biggest reason was demographic market research, or as I call it, Satan's Fun-Box. This research showed that the majority of American women did most of the buying in American households. So a new mindset seemed to take over Hollywood, if you were making a picture geared towards women, then make it an orgy of product placement.

So you get movies designed more to sell clothes, shoes, and accessories rather than tell an entertaining story.

And it's hurting the genre. There was a time when romantic comedies were talked about, their best lines became pop-culture catchphrases. (People still talk about the deli-orgasm scene in When Harry Met Sally) Nowadays, while some still might do well in ticket sales, they are usually quickly forgotten about five minutes after people leave the theater.

Another thing that's hurting the genre is the portrayal of women in what's supposed to be a women's genre. In the golden age the leading ladies of romantic comedies were intelligent, sometimes eccentric women, who were more than the match of any man they dealt with. They had their own minds and their own lives, love often came as an inconvenience, that led to the sort of romantic complications and misunderstandings that fuelled the comedy.

But now, in this supposedly liberated age, I see romantic comedies playing and the characters seem to fit into basic stereotypes, the emotionally needy doormat, the frosty business bitch, the gratingly vapid fashionista, or a combination thereof. You'd never see Katherine Hepburn or Barbara Stanwyck play these types. And when you realise that someone who posted a cheesecake shot of Shopaholic's Isla Fisher at the beginning of this post is concerned about the image of women in movies, you know it's a serious problem.

Now I'd like to know what you think about the current state of romantic comedies.

Saturday Silliness Cinema: Bob Newhart.

I know, you were probably expecting something themed with Valentine's Day, but since massacring gangsters in a Chicago garage isn't considered comedy by most I decided to just go with Don Rickles' best friend, comedy legend Bob Newhart.

Bob Newhart began his career as an accountant, and while working for a Chicago TV producer used to record mock telephone calls with a co-worker that they'd send to a local radio station. When the co-worker quit, Newhart kept on, developing his trademark one sided phone call. These were little one-person sketches where someone politely tries to navigate out of a bizarre situation, only to dig themselves in deeper, as seen in this sketch where a very special customer contacts his dry cleaner...



His first album The Buttoned Down Mind of Bob Newhart became an overnight sensation, and Newhart soon found himself playing the top clubs around the country, and getting tapped by show-biz legend and fan Dean Martin to appear on his hit variety show.



After starring in a variety show that only lasted one season but won both the Emmy and Peabody Award, and a string of guest appearances, he landed his own sitcom The Bob Newhart Show, where he played a mild mannered psychiatrist dealing with a crazy world that became one of the classic sitcoms of the 70s, and followed that up with Newhart, a subtly increasing surreal comedy about an author trying his hand at running a inn in a quaint, but eccentric town in Vermont.

But this isn't about sitcoms, this is about comedy. So I'll close today's show with Newhart being uncharacteristically mean, albeit in a nice way, at the roast of his best friend Don Rickles.

Update:

Sorry no blog today, I was working on a chapter summarizing the history of war movies, but I will have a fresh Saturday Silliness Cinema tomorrow.

Hollywood Babble On & On #231: Pulling Over Push?

Well, one thing is for certain, some lawyers are going to get paid, though I don't know where Harvey Weinstein is going to get the money for it.

Maybe I should explain for those folks too lazy to click this link.

You see, during the recent Sundance Festival a film called Push (not the one with the psychic Dakota Fanning) won awards, critical praise, and the endorsement of Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry. The Weinstein Company wanted it, Lionsgate wanted it, and a company called Cinetic was contracted to broker some sort of deal where either one would land the film, or they would share it.

Weinstein claims that Cinetic sent him an e-mail claiming that they had agreed to go with TWC, but then signed a contract with Lionsgate. Now Harvey Weinstein is suing everybody, and Lionsgate is suing back.

Since we're talking about an urban drama that the people who liked it described as extremely well made, but bleak, depressing and a very hard sell to ticketbuyers, the only folks that will probably make money on Push will be the lawyers.

But it does raise a question.

Why was The Weinstein Company even in the running?

Think about it for a second.

TWC doesn't have MGM to distribute their films anymore, there were just too many jokers in that deck, and that's just counting the films that TWC actually released. The company is notorious for sitting on movies, sometimes for years, or dumping it in one theatre through their 3rd Rail distribution arm. Even Harvey's pet project, the pederast Nazi Oscar-bait flick The Reader has made around the same amount in ticket sales in its entire pre-Oscar run that Paul Blart: Mall Cop made in its opening weekend.

It seems obvious to me that TWC was more interested in winning the movie than in actually winning with the movie.

Does that make any sense?

Allow me to explain.

You see, TWC is almost completely driven by the Ego Drive. Back in the glory days of Miramax, there was some balance between the Ego Drive and the Money Drive, leading to profitable, and award winning movies, but now Ego's in the driver's seat, while Money doesn't even seem to be in the car anymore. Probably because it was other people's money anyway.

I believe that Harvey Weinstein is more interested in adding another Sundance Award winner notch on his cinematic bedpost, than doing anything with the film that might reward the filmmakers and the investors who actually made the damn thing. And any filmmaker who doesn't know that by now, probably shouldn't be in the movie biz.

At least Lionsgate will at least try to make something from the film, they don't have a choice right now, it's a matter of survival for them.

I guess you can figure out who I'm rooting for right in this fight. I'm rooting for the people who made Push, and hope their film gets the release they deserve.

Hollywood Babble On & On #230: When You A Little Guy

Yesterday I commented on the troubles Lionsgate Entertainment is going through, a string of expensive bombs, a stumbling stock price, unhappy shareholders, and the possibility of a major management shake up.

Well, I'd like to take this post to offer something a little different than my usual sarcasm and try to be positive, and offer advice to what a smaller company can do to survive, and hopefully thrive in these times.

1. Know your limits. This should be self-explanatory, but a lot of people in show-biz need to be reminded. Every company has limits to what it can afford to do, and what it can afford to lose. Learn them, know them, and figure out the best way to expand them and turn them into strengths.

2. Study what the majors are doing, and do the opposite. Okay, maybe I'm being a bit glib here, but there is some truth in it. The majors are going through a production contraction, reducing their production slates, and centering mostly on big blockbusters like comic book adaptations and Oscar bait. Look where there are gaps in the market that need filling, and respond accordingly.

3. Land a horror franchise. Horror franchises are bread and butter to a small company. They're usually cheap, sell well, and make a decent profit. However, they can also be a trap if you get lazy, so you must also...

4. Know when to end a horror franchise. Horror films usually enter the realm of self-parody around the 4th movie, and then you're just flogging an undead horse. Plan ahead with the creators to see how long you can play that pony, and when to send it to the glue factory. This goes hand in hand with having at least two or three potential replacement franchises waiting in the wings. (Note: never let any two franchises running at the same time be too similar. Divide them between supernatural thrillers, sci-fi monster flicks, and traditional crowd pleasing slasher flicks.)

5. Maintain good relations with talent. When the talent gets pissy, prices go up. It's a fact of life in the movie biz, and as a smaller company you can't really afford to pay those kinds of prices. Be fair, be open, be honest, and you'll find that people will be more willing to take less money up front. It's the first rule of tre capitalism, when both sides of a deal are happy, then many more happy-making deals are in the offing.

6. Getting big is good, but pace yourself. As your film company succeeds, the temptation will come to "go big" and make expensive blockbusters like the big boys in an attempt to find "legitimacy." And while blockbusters do have the potential for great reward, they also come with humongous risks. Which is why you have to pace yourself, never letting your movies get too big too fast, or you might just burst something and start hemorrhaging more money than you can afford. This goes hand in hand with knowing your limits.

7. Never let ego or money drive alone. I've said before that the two driving forces behind decision making in Hollywood is the Money Drive and the Ego Drive. The Money Drive craves commercial success, the Ego Drive craves awards, prestige, and personal glory. Alone, they can quickly destroy a company, but together, in the proper balance, they can make a company succeed.

I'll end with a cautionary note. There was a company, it had a profitable niche, made a lot of money, and even made an Oscar winning blockbuster trilogy. However, they didn't follow my advice, and...



...we all know what happened to them in the end.

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

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

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

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

And that's where the trouble started.

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

Which leads me to the lesson of this piece.

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

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

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

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

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

You can't blame me for trying.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Do you see the problem inherent in this conspiracy?

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

The conspiracy doesn't make any sense.

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

What do you do?

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

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

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

Can you imagine the board meetings at EvilCo Inc.?

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

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

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

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

"How are they controlled?"

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

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

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

Do you see what I'm getting at here?

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

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

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

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

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

Hollywood Babble On & On #227: Rourke VS Penn

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

WHY THEY WOULD WIN:

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

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

WHY THEY WON'T WIN:

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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