Hollywood Babble On & On #655: Random Drippings From My Brain Pan

Welcome to the show folks....

Wasted too much time playing Angry Birds today, so instead of anything deep, here are a few little business/show-biz related bits to assuage your hunger for my particular brand of crankiness.

WHY DO I HEAR A BANJO PLAYING?

The 10th Doctor, David Tennant, is engaged to marry Georgia Moffett, the daughter of the 5th Doctor, Peter Davison, who played his clone "daughter" in an episode of Doctor Who.

Now I know that they are not really related, and I wish them both the best, but I just can't shake the vision of a British version of the kid from Deliverance playing the banjo on the front step of BBC headquarters in London.

NOW THIS IS INDECENT

An appeals court has tossed out a 2008 $1.4 million fine from the FCC over a 2003 episode of NYPD Blue where the backside of actress Charlotte Ross was apparently exposed for all the world to see.

Think about for a second.

The butt baring occurred in 2003, the FCC finally decided to get around to acting against this crime against all that is pure in the world and used their vaguely worded rules and regulations to fine ABC and its affiliates $1.4 million, only to have it tossed in this, the year 2011.

Almost 8 years, and Xenu knows how many millions of dollars paying lawyers, judges, and bureaucrats were wasted on this case. The FCC seems to exist solely to be a nuisance that never actually accomplishes anything except give a mail drop to the small cluster of people who actually write letters of complaint about fleeting glimpses of buttocks or suspicions that certain cartoon characters might be homosexual.

Now Dennis Franz's bare ass, that's a prison offense, Charlotte Ross, not even a fine.

The FCC's rules are too vague, and reach too far. Fears that broadcast television would be overrun with hardcore pornography without it are deeply unfounded, because guess what, NYPD Blue is gone, long gone, and who else on broadcast television drops trow the way that show used to do?

People can get nudity on the FCC free cable channels if they want it, and can get whatever fetish gets their freak-on on the internet. And even there, shows that feature nudity, foul language and violence don't get as many viewers as most mainstream network shows that don't. Market forces are way better enforcer than the FCC or the MPAA could ever be.

Now that I think about it, Charlotte Ross' backside isn't the only ass in this story.

GET READY

The Weinstein Company have bought a 25% stake in Starz Media, the home of Anchor Bay Home Video and a cluster of cable channels.

Let's look at the pros and cons...

PROS:

1. The Weinstein Co. gets cable TV/home video outlets for their movies.

2. Starz gets a company supplying their cable TV/home video outlets with content.

CONS:

1. Having sold the TWC library to save the company from collapsing the content they provide consists of The King's Speech and ....

2. Most relationships with the Weinsteins tend to end in anger, litigation, and lots of money going to lawyers.

Will this relationship be any different? We have to wait and see.

Pete Postlethwaite R.I.P.

I hope it's not the sign of a coming trend that my first post of 2011 is to bring this sad news. Actor Pete Postlethwaite passed away at the age of 64 after a long battle with cancer.

He was nominated for an Oscar for his role in the movie In The Name Of The Father where he played an innocent man imprisoned for terrorism by British authorities, and as the enigmatic lawyer Kobayashi in The Usual Suspects. However he really shone as a character actor when he played the villainous, lecherous, and sadistic Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill, opposite Sean Bean in the popular Sharpe series.

He was one of the best actors of his generation, and he and his talent will be greatly missed.

Hollywood Babble On & On #654: Will Success Spoil Your Career?

Welcome to the show folks...

Recently I wrote a piece about the failure of James L. Brooks latest film How Do You Know, and how a romantic comedy with a small cast ended up costing Columbia Pictures over $120 million just to make. That post set a fire under my commenters and some theorized that it's all just another Hollywood money shell game. Of course if that were true, there wouldn't be rumors of Columbia execs having conniptions behind closed doors, and other rumors that James L. Brooks may never make another film after this debacle.

I've also written critically of the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, where I've royally shat upon just about everything associated with it. I've griped on the songs, the costumes, the script, the stream of injuries, and especially the record breaking $65 million budget, which will no doubt get bigger after the injury lawsuits, both here on my blog, and at my Twitter.

Why were both projects given the green-light even though both had "boondoggle" written on them in big neon letters bright enough to outshine Vegas?

Well, I talked about it a bit in the other blog, but I'll re-state my point here to fill space:

Well, you've heard the term "Too big to fail" when it comes to justifying massive taxpayer funded bailouts. In show business there is something called "Too big to deny." Hollywood is like a small town high school, and Brooks, thanks to his Oscar wins, nominations, and Simpsons money fountain, is the equivalent of a member of the football team. Maybe not a captain, but definitely someone on the starting line-up.

In the high-school-with-money world of Hollywood, that person usually gets what they want, when they want it, and it would take the equivalent of blowing the State Championship, like pissing away $120+ million on a failed movie that should have cost 1/6 as much.

The same goes with the Spider-Man musical. It's being put together by Julie Taymor, who has more Tonies than Southern Italy, and has music by Bono & The Edge of the rock band U2. We are talking about exponentially bigger fish, in an exponentially smaller pond otherwise known as Broadway. You don't say no to these people unless you wish to be a complete outcast next summer at the Hamptons.

Now that I've got that out of the way, I can explain how the artist can do this to themselves, and possibly damage their career.

It's all about freedom.

When you get a certain amount of power and prestige in show business, you get a certain amount of artistic freedom to go with it.

Now artistic freedom is great, but as my regular commenter Gary T. Burnaska pointed out, you need to temper your freedom with a certain amount of discipline.

You see it's great that you can do whatever you want, but sometimes what you want to do is bad for you. That's why you need someone, a proverbial angel on your shoulder, who can tell you that just because it dripped out of your particularly successful brain-pan doesn't mean that it's going to be greatest creation since the sliced bread slicer.

Knowing that you don't know everything is the first step toward true wisdom. The sort of wisdom that tells you that $120 million on a romantic comedy is a recipe for disaster, the sort of wisdom that tells you that your latest idea for a musical sounds like something out of a comedy sketch about a disastrous Broadway musical. It's the sort of wisdom that keeps you from committing the sort of epic scale pooch screw that could sink your career.

This is one of the reasons I admire Clint Eastwood as a filmmaker. I don't like every one of his films, but I don't have to.

Do you see my point?

Eastwood's secret is that when it comes to costs, his films seem tiny in comparison to films made by other filmmakers of similar stature. That leaves the studio suits out of his hair, and it gives him a safety cushion to take artistic risks. If a film fails at the box office, it's no biggie, literally. No one is going to lose their job for giving him the green light on a project, because it wasn't a great financial loss, and could probably earn back the investment in future home video and television sales in the long term.

So I guess the point I'm making is that it's great to be the big fish in the small pond, but if you're not careful, you just might end up hooked by your own ego and chopped up as shark bait for all your enemies and rivals.

Hollywood Babble On & On #653: Spider-Man: Turn Off The Money

Welcome to the show folks...

The slow news time continues, but I am not without material with which to amaze and annoy you. Okay, maybe just annoy you.

Those Taiwanese animators sure can sum things, like this report on the continuing boondoggle over the Spider-Man musical.

Hollywood Babble On & On #652: Snark Attack!

Welcome to the show folks...

This being the interregnum between the love and fellowship of Christmas and the drunken revelry/debauchery of New Year's, it's slow for the sort of pop culture business news that I like to rant and rave about. So here are a few random snarks to entertain you until something interesting happens.

1. Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is reportedly inking some lucrative book and movie deals. I wonder how much he's going to freak out when his galleys and script get leaked on the internet.

2. Hugh Hefner has gotten engaged, again, this time to a 24 year old Playboy Playmate. Now before you pass judgment, I have to say that this relationship is not about sex. It's because this young lady is Hef's perfect match. That's a beautiful thing, because he's really going to need that kidney.

Anyway, his proposal was so romantic. The moon was in the sky, soft music was playing, Hef looked deep into her eyes and said those three little words: "Who are you?"

Even at his age, it's pretty much guaranteed that Hefner will have her screaming during the honeymoon. Too bad it will be things like: "IS HE BREATHING? IS HE BREATHING?"

3. Actor Richard Chamberlain, who is openly gay, said that it's probably better for gay actors pursuing leading man roles should stay in the closet.

Personally, I think all actors should be in the closet, whether they are gay or straight.

Why?

Because I'm sick and tired of the constant coverage of celebrity's personal lives. Maybe a nice moratorium on such coverage will help stars get their own lives in order, and teach the world not to waste their time caring about who anyone is sleeping with.

Of course, if that happened I wouldn't be able to do these snarky filler posts.

A Merry Xmas Message

Welcome to the show folks...

The holidays are upon us, and I will be too busy to post anything for the rest of the week. Until then enjoy these little presents I've left under this digital tree for you, like a malevolent Santa Claus.

MERRY XMAS!

Hollywood Babble On & On #651: Random Drippings From My Brain Pan!

Welcome to the show folks...

With the Xmas season starting my posting may become a tad erratic, until after Boxing Day. Please be patient if I'm not up every day, it's a busy time of the year for me, and a slow time for the sort of news that gets my dander up.

So here's some little bits to fill the great void the sits in the middle of your soul....

I AM SHOCKED AND APPALLED!

Not that a major Hollywood conglomerate like Disney/ABC would put the screws to a business partner in the way they are accused of screwing the creators of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. I am shocked and appalled that the court has rejected their first round of appeals of the $300+ million judgment.

All is not lost for Disney/ABC, there are still appeals to be filed, ensuring that the winners of the lawsuit will be getting their pension checks before they get one from Disney.

I AM SHOCKED AND APPALLED PART DEUX!

Lucasfilm has settled a civil action brought by the Justice Department over their little hiring scheme that they hatched with neighbor, and supposed competitor Pixar. The deal was that if one had laid claim to a potential employee, the other would not compete, and that they wouldn't try to poach each others animators or techinicians.

Now at first glance you might think that they're just being civil, but the real reason they did this is to SUPPRESS SALARIES.

You see when competitors compete, they compete on all levels. They compete for audiences in the theaters, and they compete for the sort of talent that puts bums in those theater seats. That means spending money to outbid each other for the best and brightest.

That's the natural order of things, and it is called capitalism.

However, when alleged competitors work together, they can keep salaries artificially low. That is called COLLUSION, and it is a twee bit illegal.

Sounds like Lucas and Pixar were both dabbling in the dark side.

THE BEST JOKE HE'S EVER DONE

Comedian and talk show host George Lopez has announced that he's running for mayor of Los Angeles. Let's look at his resume and compare to that of current LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (AKA Tony Vilar).

GEORGE LOPEZ is a comedian.

ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA is considered a joke.

GEORGE LOPEZ took his wife's kidney, then they got divorced.

ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA took his wife's last name, then got caught tapping an anchorwoman and got divorced.

GEORGE LOPEZ has worked in comedy clubs, then a sitcom, and currently a late night talk show.

ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA can't practice law because he can't pass the bar exam, so his career has been spent between working for government employee unions, activist groups, and elected offices.

My advice- Lopez's campaign slogan should be: "I can't be any worse."

Hollywood Babble On & On #650: Everything That's Wrong In Hollywood

Welcome to the show folks...

The latest James L. Brooks comedy How Do You Know did rather grimly at the box office in its opening weekend pulling in an estimate $7.6 million in around 2,500 theaters for 8th place.

Now you're probably thinking that it's not so bad an opening since it's a romantic comedy and not some huge sci-fi spectacular.

Well, you'd be wrong, wrong, wrong. Stop being so wrong and get on the first bus out of Wrongsville, population: You.

It seems that this flick, with no big special effects or epic battle scenes cost $120,000,000 to make.

No, you did not have a stroke and saw a bunch of extra zeroes. Conservative estimates put the film's production budget at one hundred and twenty million dollars. When you toss in the prints and advertising, the whole thing probably cost anywhere between $200-250 million.

This pretty much makes the film the symbol of just about everything that is wrong in modern Hollywood.

Let's look at just what went wrong.

#1. THE COST: How the hell did a romantic comedy end up costing $120,000,000 to produce? Well three answers, stars, time, and more time.

The combined salaries of the four leads added up to around $50 million, with the cheapest being Paul Rudd at $3 million, and Jack Nicholson getting $12 million for what appears to be the "buddy-sidekick" part. Then came James L. Brooks' $10 million fee, coupled with his normally glacial shooting schedule, and then, according to reports, they had to re-shoot great swathes of the film to make Reese Witherspoon's character likable.

All this happened because of a complete failure of...

#2. THE CONTROLS: Studio executives have these tiny devices implanted in their heads that I call "Meddle Detectors." They basically tell executives to ask questions, give notes, and otherwise meddle in the making of films that cost above a certain amount. These machines are supposed to be able to detect an unlikable female lead in a romantic comedy before tens of millions of dollars are spent shooting almost an entire feature film. This is especially true when the writer-director's last film Spanglish, tanked at the box office, and was criticized heavily for having an unlikable major female character.

They should have said things like: "You should do these rewrites before shooting." and "We need you to not waste time on this, because you should know that a comedy that skews to an older audience is a big risk these days," and etc., etc....

However, they didn't do any of that. Why? Because....

#3. NO ONE COULD SAY NO WHEN THEY HAD TO: If anyone tried to do that with James L. Brooks, the man in question would have gone straight to the studio CEO, complain about how he's being "held down" by an ignorant studio suit, how he's the man behind the Oscar winning Terms of Endearment and The Simpsons, and that executive who dared to be so impertinent would be unemployed very quickly. It's best to not bother and let the guy upstairs who gave the greenlight take the spray-back when it all hits the fan.

Brooks however has been drifting away from audience appeal, and toward appealing to his fellow citizens of the Axis of Ego in the hope that it will get him another Academy Award. This means that everything he has to be must be "important" over fun, and be built around some sort of important "award worthy" theme and to try to cram story, characters, and humor into that theme, instead of the more organic approach of creating a story and characters and seeing what themes come out of it. Sometimes it works in winning both audience and critics/awards voters with films like As Good As It Gets, sometimes it fails completely, as in Spanglish and I'll Do Anything, and other times it produces great critical success with mediocre box office returns, like Broadcast News.

Why did he do it, why did he spend so much time and money on his movie? I'm no shrink, but there are two theories:

1. IRRATIONAL SENSE OF INADEQUACY: Brooks is plagued by a terrible sense of inadequacy, seeing himself as a lowly "sitcom" guy who fluked into an Oscar for Terms of Endearment. So he has to be constantly playing the "important auteur." How does one do that? Spending massive amounts of money is a pretty quick way to do it. What makes the irrationality behind this theory so irrational is that he did great work on great sitcoms, and there's nothing really to be ashamed about there. However, this is Hollywood we're talking about, rationality rarely plays a role in decision making.

Or it all could be a case of...

2. I'M (FIRST NAME) FUCKING (LAST NAME) SYNDROME: He's got awards from his movies and truckloads of money from The Simpsons. This makes him a big fish in a small town. No one dares challenge you for fear of you declaring that you are (First Name) Fucking (Last Name) and that no one dares challenge them in that way without fear of bloody reprisal. That can twist anyone's brain, and make them do things like waste immense amounts of time and money making what should be an inexpensive and quickly made film. A responsible filmmaker shouldn't even have wanted to spend that much money on making the movie. Because big budgets raise the bar in ways that are extremely hard to meet. However when you have this syndrome you somehow feel entitled to spending massive amounts of other people's money because you think that you are just too damn big to deny anything to, the film is your playground to do with as you please, and especially when you already got your $10 million up-front fee in the bank, so to hell with everything else.

Despite the awards and the praise, his inconsistent box office record doesn't really justify a $120 million budget for a romantic comedy. Someone should have brought this up during pre-production, and the fact that no one did, including Brooks' himself, shows that there is something really, really wrong with how Hollywood does business.

Saturday Silliness Cinema: Merry Xmas Part 3

Welcome to the show folks...

Today I'm extending my usual break from ranting about pop culture and the business behind it for a little laugh. If you survived the ear-splitting caroling of the Doctor Who cast that I posted yesterday, then you can sit back, relax, and enjoy this lecture from a very angry squirrel about people who don't like Xmas and don't want anyone else to like it either.

(NSFW for Language-Rage)

Countdown To Xmas!

Welcome to the show folks...

It's Friday, the news is a little slow today, it's snowing outside, and I'm feeling lazy. So to get all of you in the Christmas spirit, here is the cast of Doctor Who singing a Christmas song.... badly. Enjoy.

I suspect that spirits other than those of the Xmas season were involved in the making of this video.