Hollywood Babble On & On #626: Thank You Jimmy McGovern, You Just Proved My Point

Welcome to the show folks...

Jimmy McGovern is a British writer from Liverpool who is responsible for the original British version of Cracker starring Robbie Coltrane, which was one of the best crime dramas in the history of TV.

It also looks like he is so full of shit I'm surprised it's not leaking out his ears.

I owe a tip of my jaunty fedora to Matthew @MonasticProds whose spleen venting tweets alerted me to Mr. McGovern's very public bout of foot-in-mouth-head-in-ass syndrome.

For those too lazy to click the link Mr. McGovern decided to piss away decades of goodwill from writers all over the world by taking some column inches in the Observer to declare that anyone who doesn't write exactly like him is not worthy of being television drama because it "doesn't matter."

If McGovern ruled the world all television drama would be strictly of the social realist school and only be about telling the world just how shitty life is in cities like Liverpool and how it's all Margaret Thatcher's fault. There would be no fantasy, science-fiction, or imagination of any kind beyond figuring out what sort of grim urban despair and/or depravity you can heap upon your downtrodden characters.

Anyone who doesn't do what McGovern does, exactly the way McGovern does it, is "irrelevant" and "not serious" in the eyes of Mr. McGovern.

Really Jimmy?

Were you drinking or smoking something you shouldn't have when you made those statements?

Because I can't see any writer "serious" or "relevant" writer making that kind of statement without goose-stepping while they're talking.

Sure 90% of TV is crap that's not worth the tape it's recorded on.

But here's a little factoid that I'm pretty sure Mr. McGovern doesn't know, because if he did, he wouldn't be talking out of his ass like that.

90% of all creative endeavors are crap.

Even the sort of "relevant" social-realist-kitchen-sink-it's-bloody-grim-up-north-type dramas that Mr. McGovern seems to think are uber-alles are 90% crap. They can easily slip into tedious preaching that is more about reinforcing the writer's own already bloated sense of self-importance and worthiness than making any lasting socio-political point that connects emotionally and intellectually with the audience.

One can't contain the whole of the human experience, imagination, and the other things that "matter" within the narrow confines of a single style or sub-genre. Think of creativity as an orchestra made up of thousands of people, each playing their own instrument, or playing no instrument at all, just their own personal voices. The players are the creators, and their instruments are their genres of choice, and the music they create are the stories they tell.

They all have their role to play in the great cacophonous, and occasionally discordant, symphony of creativity. Each section, or even individual players, can be listened to or ignored depending on the personal tastes of the members of the audience. No one has the right to condemn an entire section of the orchestra to the dustbin of history simply because they don't think their instruments are worthy of being played.

If you don't like that section, go play your own tune, on your own instrument, on your own time, to your own audience. To demand that others must fit into some narrow and utterly subjective definition of worthiness, created by you, is to declare yourself the enemy not just of creativity, but of free expression.

Of course, this self-righteous, patronizing priggishness on the part of Mr. McGovern may all be just staged to generate publicity for his new BBC legal/crime drama Accused. If true, then he is as destructively narcissistic and fame-whoring as any reality-TV skank. Which makes this whole incident shameful no matter how you look at it.

Which brings me to my other point....

Shortly after Halloween I wrote a piece about how making a horror film should be mandatory for all new filmmakers whether they have any interest in the genre or not. One of the reasons I gave is that it teaches the filmmaker in question humility. McGovern's work has been pretty much all in the one genre he does very well, and he's been rightfully praised for that work, but all that praise has apparently gone to his head. I think an early dose of doing work in an unfamiliar genre, that is guaranteed to get absolutely no mainstream critical praise or awards, no matter how well it's done, is a good learning experience for all who do it.

Because then you will have the humility to know that your importance does not spare you from putting your foot in it like a blind man following overfed elephants in a parade.

Hollywood Babble On & On #626: Will Legendary Pictures Create Legendary Comics?

Welcome to the show folks...

Well the movies and comics world got just a little bigger today with the announcement that big money film-financier and producer Legendary Pictures is starting Legendary Comics.

I can see why Legendary would want to get into the comics biz. They regularly co-produce big budget blockbusters with Warner Brothers. They see how much their partner makes on films like The Dark Knight and want some of those sweet comic book greenbacks for themselves with properties where they have a serious ownership stake.

Their plan is for former IDW Comics editor Bob Schreck to work with some big name creators to produce between four to six graphic novels a year, sell them to the geeks, and then use their success with the geeks to sell these same properties to Hollywood as movies or television shows.

In theory it sounds like a wonderful new business model that will revitalize the troubled comics business that is coping with sales shrinking in inverse proportion to their cultural influence.

Remember, I said those magic words: In theory.

In theory, communism works, as a wise man once said.

You see, they've got a wonderful new model for making comics, and good luck with all that, but there's no real plan to sell those comics.

You see, the past is literally littered with dead comic book companies that tried to create a new business model when it came to making comics, but no solution to the industry's most fundamental problem.

KIDS DON'T READ COMICS ANYMORE.

Sure, they'll go to see the movie, or watch the cartoon on television, but to go out and buy an actual copy of a comic book just isn't done by enough kids to bode well for the future of the medium.

I know I'm probably going to be repeating myself here, but it looks like I have to if anyone's going to learn anything. The reason the kids aren't getting into comics is because COMICS ARE TOO DAMN HARD.

Now allow me to explain that rash generalization...

1. Comics are hard to get. To get new readers you have to get the books out there, on store shelves to catch the eye of curious kids. When I was a kid, you could get comics in almost every store on tall metal spinner racks. Nowadays you have to go and find a specialty comics store. The problem is that those kinds of stores aren't as easy to find as they used to be. The nearest one to me is about 3 hours away.

2. Comics are hard to stock. Mainstream stores don't like to carry the monthly issues. They don't fit in among the larger format magazines, they damage easily and the profit margin per issue is too thin to make it worth their while. The bigger collected editions and graphic novels are easier to stock, but they cost too much to woo a kid, who would rather spend that sort of major-to-a-kid money for two or three graphic novels on one big ass video game.

3. Comics are too hard to get into. Ever pick up a comic book character that you haven't read in a long while? It's like trying to translate a Sanskrit text that phonetically written in Cuneiform, even if you're familiar with either the language or the alphabet in question, unless you're an expert on both you're still not going to have a clue what the hell is going on. the major comic companies literally have decades of convoluted continuity that even they don't understand anymore, so how can they expect new readers to do it.

I guess a telling illustration was this recently passed Halloween. I had three kids come to my door dressed as the Marvel comics character Wolverine. I'd say something like: "Look, it's Wolverine," and the kids would look at me as if I started speaking in tongues, not having a clue who I was talking about. They either just grabbed the outfit because it was colorful and crazy looking with plastic claws, or their parent slapped it on them.

Now you're probably wondering why I'm putting so much emphasis on getting kids to read comics, well the answer is simple.

The audience for comics is getting older, getting smaller, and pretty much already taken. They have their favorite publisher's, characters, and titles, and many of them just ignore interlopers like the upcoming Legendary Comics as just another short lived attempt at sucking money out of them.

Those old fans are not going to get invested in characters and stories that the fans know will be unceremoniously cut down the millisecond they look like their going to cost their parent company any serious coin.

For a new publisher to make it beyond a few short term projects, they need to find a way to attract new readers. To do that they need to woo the kids away from their gadgets and games and shell out some coin for an affordable entertainment alternative that will set fire to their imaginations, and make them want to be the fans of tomorrow.

Because if they don't, then they, and the rest of the industry, are not going to see that tomorrow.

Hollywood Babble On & On #625: Purely Random Snark Attack!!!

Welcome to the show folks....

It's a bit slow for the sort of news stories that get me, and this blog seething with the white hot rage of a thousands suns, so here's some more of my random snark.

NBC ISN'T OUT OF THE WATER YET

Zucker may be in the midst of his long goodbye but I don't think it's resurrection is going to be easy. It's just dropped its green-light on a sitcom based on the 20 something life of Chelsea Handler.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Ms. Handler, she has a talk-show on the Comcast owned E Channel, and is a stand-up comedian whose entire act can be summed up with: "Got drunk, performed a sexual act with some guy, made fun of his genitals, got drunk again, and did it all over again with someone else."

To me, she's the female Russell Brand, all cleavage image and not much else. Oh, she has her fans, about half a million who watch her show and buy her books religiously, but she just leaves me and a lot of other people cold. Which makes me wonder why she's got yet another TV deal with a company that being taken over by Comcast, when she used to date a high ranking Comcast executive.

Maybe I should just drop this topic, it's making me sound like Perez Hilton.

OH MPAA, YOU SO CRAZY

The King's Speech is a movie about King George VI, his wife Queen Elizabeth (aka The Queen Mum), and the Australian speech therapist who helped cure his speech impediments so he could rally his nation to fight the Nazis in World War 2.

It sounds like the sort of sincere historical drama that gets Oscar nominations, critical praise, and a PG rating.

Goes to show what you know.

The King's Speech was recently rated "R" by the MPAA. That means that anyone under 17 can't see the film without being accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Which makes me want to ask the MPAA ratings people: What the hell are you smoking?

The film has been judged the moral equal of Saw 3D. Which makes you wonder if the film has graphic scenes of King George VI giving his Queen Consort the Royal Scepter, or a scene where the Speech Therapist takes a chainsaw to some unsuspecting victims, but no.

Apparently there's a scene where the King's speech therapy involves using a torrent of swear words.

Seriously.

The MPAA really has it's priorities mixed up.

The MPAA ratings system are supposed to give ticket-buyers an idea of what they're going to get.

PG: A little mature subject matter.

PG-13: Some strong language, some non-gory violence, and a little more mature subject matter.

R: Sex and/or gory violence, or to sum it up "Boobies &/Or Blood."

Now, folks are going to buy their ticket and see an Englishman unleash some Received Pronunciation F-Bombs.

That makes the whole system a case of blatant false advertising.

I suggest that the MPAA get its head out of its PG rated ass and use a little logic from now on.

Don't make me scold you even more!

THIS IS NOT A GOOD SIGN

Steven Spielberg's proposed TV series Terra Nova has laid off its writing staff. Now they're saying that they're doing that because they had to delay production, yadda-yadda-yadda, but I suspect that there are some deeper problems with this production.

The concept strikes me as being more befitting of a movie, or a mini-series, and not an open ended series. So I won't get my hopes up about it, because I don't want to be disappointed. Maybe it's because I can still remember Seaquest DSV and remember that Spielberg doesn't have as much luck with TV as you think he would.

24 DOES BROADWAY

Kiefer Sutherland has been cast in a revival of the play That Championship Season. It's about former star high-school athletes dealing with their disappointing middle age during an emotional reunion with their bullying coach.

Let me tell you something. I caught a rehearsal, and the scene that Kiefer improvised where he savagely tortures his former coach to find the location of the bomb, is truly heart breaking.

Cinemaniacal: The Necessity of Horror?

Welcome to the show folks....

After two and half hours of handing treats out to hordes of goblins, ghouls, and ghosts I sat down to vegetate a little in front of the boob tube. Now if there's one thing Canadian cable channels are good at, it's being absolutely terrible at programming appropriate for the channel's genre, or appropriate for the time of year. The classic example being our "Mystery" channel scheduling a Christmas themed romantic comedy in AUGUST.

So you can imagine my surprise when one of these channels scheduled some Halloween appropriate material for Halloween night. To be specific it was a show about the making of John Carpenter's Halloween, and it made me set a record for the number of times I've said Halloween in a single paragraph.

One of the things that struck me about the story behind the film was how negative was the reaction to Carpenter's little movie at Carpenter's alma mater. The film school students reacted with the wrong kind of horror to the film, and one even openly decried Carpenter for making "that kind of movie."

That attitude, though not as virulent, was still simmering under the surface when I was a film school rat in the 1990s. There was a certain amount of condescension to the genre, thinking of it as a strictly commercial enterprise only to be done for a quick buck that would be beneath burning any serious calories on.

Well, I tend to disagree. You see I think making a low budget horror film should be mandatory for anyone who wants to make movies.

Now if you think that I want mandatory horror film-making because I'm a horror fan, you'd be wrong. While I do enjoy a good horror movie, or a really bad one, in their own way, I'm not a rabid horror fanatic who obsessively sees every film in the genre. In fact, I managed to completely skip the torture porn fad, and I'm glad I did.

Here are my reasons:

1. You Can Only Fake It So Far, So To Speak: Let's face facts, a director of a domestic drama or a comedy can coast on a good script and a talented cast without burning many creative calories. However, if you're making a horror film, you have to be in complete control of the look, the sound, the editing, and the performances, or else your film will end up looking ridiculous.

Now some films may coast on a certain amount of novelty, gore, or novel amounts of gore, but those films are usually either quickly forgotten, or thought of only on the level of camp, and not quality. A well crafted and suspenseful horror film can show what a filmmaker can do beyond the surface elements, if you are willing to look.

2. It Promotes Realism, Not On The Screen, But In Real Life: There is nothing worse for a filmmaker than getting a truckload of critical praise and awards for their first feature film. It's bad because it sets up unreal expectations on the part of the filmmaker, and those expectations are unreal because those critics and awards committees have agendas of their own, and many times these agendas have nothing to do with the actual quality of the film in question.

Horror films have and always will be the red-headed stepchild of the smart set who dole out the praise and prizes. They consider it trivial, nonsensical, and beneath their dignity to even consider, if not completely contemptible.

It's best to make your first feature knowing full well that your budget is low, your resources are limited, and that you will never win any mainstream awards, or get blown by any critics for it. It's strictly a vehicle for displaying your talents as a story-teller capable of meeting the specific goal of scaring the pants off your audience.

Also the stress level on horror films is way lower than the other genres, and will put some problem solving experience under a filmmaker's belt before they move on to dealing with the bigger problems associated with bigger films.

3. Risk: Let's face it, horror is cheap to make and easy to sell. It travels well around the world. This means that there is a lot less risk involved than giving a $100 million budget to some guy who only has a couple of music videos and a handful of commercials to their credit. This way a producer can see if a filmmaker can tell a decent story with limited resources and how well they can use their imagination to tell that story over just throwing money at a problem.

That's my opinion, what's yours.

Hollywood Babble On & On #624: The Curse of Expectations

Welcome to the show folks...

Today we're going to talk about expectations, and how they can hurt or help, but mostly hurt.

CHARLIE SHEEN

Well, you've all heard about his recent antics involving nudity, bat-shit behavior, and a hooker porn star in a trashed hotel room, and now there are reports that after his brief psychiatric examination, he's gone on the binge to end all binges.

This isn't the first time his fondness for mood altering chemicals, conspiracy theories, and women who treat sex in purely professional manner has put him in the news. Yet he remains the highest paid star currently on TV, and there hasn't been any move to unseat him from his hit sitcom.

There was a time when such behavior could sink someone's career, and in many cases, it's still that time, yet Charlie Sheen remains immunized from the professional self destruction that normally follows personal self-destruction.

Why?

Expectations.

Nobody has any for Charlie Sheen.

Think about it for a second.

When Robert Downey Jr. was imploding from his addictions people were disappointed and saddened, because the expectations created by his talent, and charisma could all be lost because of his emotional - psychological issues and chemical dependency. When he finally started to overcome his demons, the audience rooted for him to succeed, not just because he was starting to fulfill his expectations of being a good actor, he was exceeding them by working his ass off to become a full fledged movie star.

The audience is annoyed at Lindsey Lohan, because they're seeing yet another child star living out another child star cliche, and not being bright enough to see that she has become a cliche. They expected something to come out from the promise they saw in her early work, and when they saw her piss it all away for some evanescent "good times" found in the company of douche-bags and drug dealers. Lohan can't even get arrested in Hollywood, and that goes beyond her not getting work beyond being a novelty cameo, she can't even get arrested for violating the law. She's just not considered worth it anymore.

Mel Gibson created a whole bunch of expectations with his supposed dedication to his family, and his faith, which he amped up exponentially with his film The Passion of the Christ. Then he went and broke all those expectations by leaving the mother of his 20+ children, taking up with that Russian chick, and then leaving her in a flurry of racial slurs, foul language, and other bugshit crazy behavior. Now he can't even get a cameo in the sequel to a movie that was literally all about R-Rated debauchery.

There is only one expectation of Charlie Sheen, that he shows up and in the best of circumstances, is wearing pants, but they're not going to get their hopes up about that. When his movie career stalled and he did a TV sitcom, no one was expecting much. When he showed some comic chops in the old fashioned sitcom style people were pleasantly surprised, but otherwise, they weren't going to put any faith in him not doing something to screw it up.

To put it simply, he coasts on by. No one expects much, he doesn't deliver much, because he never really promised all that much to begin with.

KEVIN SMITH

This bit is all about falling expectations and how to use them to hopefully advance your own career.

When Kevin Smith burst out onto the indie film scene with Clerks people were wowed by his raunchy sense of humor, his clever dialogue, and sense of the 90s 20something zeitgeist. He followed that up with some hits (Chasing Amy) and the occasional miss (Mallrats), and some controversy with Dogma, a comedy about religion.

However, since Dogma, his work's been uneven, either bombing outright, like Jersey Girl, or failing to match the hype that preceded it like Clerks II. His last film Cop Out was a disaster both critically and commercially and left his career as a director in a precarious position.

So what can you do in this situation.

Well, if you work in Hollywood you can use failure to your advantage.

First you pick a film that can only fail, but fail in a way that you can blame on the "stupidity" of the general public. Something that will get people mad, get the fringe to be loud and obnoxious, but won't put any of the people behind it in any real danger.

With that criteria in mind you announce that your next film will be about how Christians being psychopathic killers because of their religion, and you're going to call it Red State, which is a shot at everyone who has ever voted for the Republican Party.

To add a little spice to your already stinky brew you then declare that you want to do to Christianity what Hollywood did to Satanism in 1970s and make it the villain of "exploitation horror."

Now the USA is 70%+ Christian, and judging from recent polls, and a sizable portion of the population is also either a registered member of the Republican Party or sympathetic to some Republican policies. Even the percentage that isn't Christian or Republican will tend to avoid a film based solely on insulting those people for two reasons:

1. They consider such material to be rude and insulting to the people they live and work alongside every day.

2. Deep down they know that most films like that are usually really bad.

Smith has even raised a good chunk of the $20 million budget by begging donations from his fans. They are called "donations" and not "investments" because everyone knows that the film will not make a dime in the USA.

That's why the Weinsteins, who backed the bulk of Smith's career, won't produce the film, they don't have the money to waste on what would be the equivalent of making a film slandering Hindus and releasing it in India. In fact, make such a film about any other religious, or ethnic community, would get you declared racist and run out of Hollywood on a rail, with Kevin Smith himself in the crowd, waving a torch and screaming for your balls on a platter.

This movie is not for any audience outside of the West Coast Axis of Ego but it will be immunized from any negative criticism for fear of the critic being declared sympathetic to Christians and Republicans which rate lower than Roman Polanski in Hollywood. Anyone who does work up the energy to protest the film will be used as "proof" of how right the film is, no matter how far-on-the-fringe-dwelling they might be, and the film's failure at the box office will also be declared proof of how superior the denizens of the Axis of Ego are to the great unwashed masses who actually buy movie tickets.

Smith will get pats on the back for "courage" and "speaking truth to power" and a shot at making more films, no matter how financially or creatively weak this film really is. They expect failure, in fact, they want failure, and will reward the filmmakers for failing, because it such failure will justify their own prejudices.

Personally, I'd rather they use their time, and investor's money on making something that someone might actually pay to see, rather than just burn money away on projects like this.

Saturday Silliness Cinema: MONSTER CHILLER HORROR THEATER!!!

Welcome to my spoooooooooky show folks.

It's Saturday, time to take my usual break from ranting about pop culture and the business behind it, to have a laugh, or to be specific A SCARY LAUGH! Wooooooo!

Today, with Halloween coming tomorrow, I present one of the scaaaaaaaariest videos to ever come across the internets. I'm talking about SCTV's Monster Chiller Horror Theater, and it's broadcast of the terrifying fright fest Dr. Tongue's 3D House of Stewardesses, in 3D!!!

Watch it, if you dare! Muah-hah-hah-hah!

Hollywood Babble On & On #623: File This Story Under "W"

Welcome to the show folks....

Okay, here's the story.

Carl Icahn, a billionaire corporate raider and shareholder rights activist, has been trying to take over Lionsgate Pictures for so long, I can really remember when it started anymore.

The management of Lionsgate, and some key shareholders, don't want Icahn to take over, because that would mean the management would be shown the door.

However Lionsgate's management were coveting the troubled and debt-addled MGM Pictures for a takeover of their own.

Icahn spent the longest time saying "Nay Nay" on the takeover, saying it would cost Lionsgate too much for too little.

Then Icahn had an amazing change of heart.

Suddenly, Icahn stopped opposing the MGM-Lionsgate merger and declared that he was all in favor of it now and would do anything to help, which included repeatedly trying to buy up all the MGM debt he could get his hands on.

Lionsgate Management was all giddy about this change, and for a while it looked like everything was going to be sunshine and unicorns from now one.

Then things changed again.... right back to where they started.

Lionsgate filed suit against Icahn, claiming he was playing a "double game" with his machinations during the merger discussions.

Really?

Wow, let me put this in the file under "W" for "Well d'uh!"

Sheesh, I had posited my own theories of what Lionsgate would call a "double game" almost 20 days ago when the change of heart first broke. And they're only just seeing the potential for it this week?

I know I'm a genius of staggering proportions. ("ego" is just another word for "intelligence" isn't it?) but I shouldn't have been the only one that saw something like this coming.

When Icahn had his change of heart, I asked myself: "What does Carl Icahn really want?"

There were three possible answers to this question:

A. Own or control a motion picture company capable of producing and distributing feature films.

B. Make a quick profit from the various high finance machinations surrounding Lionsgate and MGM.

C. All of the above.

Then you have to ask yourself: "How does such a sudden change in attitude and actions get Icahn what he wants?"

Add water, stir, and figure it out for yourself.

I'm not saying that you can't trust anyone when you're doing this level of big business. I'm just saying that you should probably follow the old Cold War dictum of "Trust, but verify" before you make any major moves.

It's called strategy.

Cinemaniacal: Title This Post Please

Welcome to the show folks....

Titles are hard.

Why do you think I categorize my posts with things like Hollywood Babble On & On, Cinemaniacal, or some other inanity because it's because coming with a clever, snappy, title, is hard work. So I distract you with standardized titles and numbers, and some piece of sarcasm to tell you what it's about.

Movie titles are in the news lately, especially the titles for the third Christopher Nolan Batman movie Dark Knight Rises, and just today Paramount announced the title of their next Tom Cruise spy vehicle, the grammatically enigmatic Mission: Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol.

Really: That's: Paramount's: Title: For: Their: Movie?

Well lets look at the pros and cons of each title.

DARK KNIGHT RISES PROS

1. It creates an immediate connection to Nolan's Dark Knight, which people are still talking about for it's masterful elevation of the superhero movie into the crime epic.

DARK KNIGHT RISES CONS

1. It's sparked a lot of naughty and saucy comments all over the internet, including at this very blog. Yes, I admit it, I'm weak.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4: GHOST PROTOCOL PROS

1. The name and number reminds people that it's yet another installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise starring Tom Cruise.

2. Ghost Protocol sounds all mysterious, and possibly high tech.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 4: GHOST PROTOCOL CONS

1. The name and number reminds people that it's yet another installment of the Mission: Impossible franchise starring Tom Cruise. That franchise has been very uneven, and often disappointing, and subject to the wild ebbs and flows of Mr. Cruise's ego.

2. Ghost Protocol doesn't exactly trip off the tongue. In fact, it sounds like a rejected title from a rejected script for a James Bond movie. (Which I will get to in a second)

Like I said, coming up with good titles is a hard job. Especially in this day of sequels, franchises, reboots, remakes, and their sequels. The old days of just slapping a number onto a title just isn't enough anymore. No doubt the studio marketing people are justifying their existence by telling their masters that they need something to make each film stand apart that doesn't involve roman numerals.

Interesting enough, the first sequel that I could find to use a number in the title was Quatermass 2, the sequel to the British sci-fi classic The Quatermass Xperiment. The practice didn't catch on in Hollywood until Francis Coppola slapped "Part II" at the end of the title for his sequel to The Godfather.

Nowadays, having just a number screams repetition, no thanks to over-flogged horror sequels like the Saw franchise.

The James Bond franchise predated the number trend coming to Hollywood, but they had the great resource of Ian Fleming, whose skill as a writer was matched only by his knack for catchy, stylish titles. One of his best tricks was to take an old cliche, and tweak it into something like Live & Let Die, or You Only Live Twice.

The movie franchise has continuously dipped into the Ian Fleming title canon, stripping them off the novels, short stories, and even the name of Ian Fleming's house for Goldeneye. The times where they tried to come up with titles of their own, they got Die Another Day & License To Kill, which were more imitation Fleming and without his linguistic playfulness.

I'm sure Fleming would have been happier if all he had to do was slap a number after James Bond's name. It's a lot less work.

This is where I'd like your opinions. What do you think makes a good title?

Hollywood Babble On & On #622: Season Of The Snark

Welcome to the show folks...

Bit of a slow time for the "big news" that blows up my kilt and fills it with rage so I'm just going to snark a little for tonight.

BATMAN 3 HAS A TITLE & IT ISN'T BATMAN 3.

Instead Christopher Nolan is going to call it DARK KNIGHT RISING.

Ooh.

The Dark Knight is rising, that can only mean that Catwoman's in town. Rawr.

JAMES CAMERON MAKES A DECISION

James Cameron has announced that his next two films will be Avatar 2 and Avatar 3.

He was apparently convinced to do the films after Fox made a fat donation to his environmental charity, which makes the charity able to pay for him to fly his private Airbus 380 around the world to tell people to stop wasting resources.

There is no story for the sequels, but that hasn't stopped him before.

Okay, I tease. He is in fact hard at work at coming up with a story for the sequels. I understand he will go through every movie, and old sci-fi TV show until he finds one.

Maybe he can have his hero find a gateway through time where he falls in love with a Na'Vi woman during a time of poverty on Pandora, a great depression you could call it, only to have to let her die to save the planet.

What do you think?

I smell a hit.

I also smell a fat cash settlement for Harlan Ellison too.

I say go for it!

CELEBRITIES DRUGS & THE OBVIOUS

Charlie Sheen mussed up his hotel room and went into full batshit mode the other day, due to what his publicist says was an "allergic reaction to medication."

Sure, and in five years people aren't going to look at Taylor Momsen and say: "Damn Courtney Love has really let herself go."

The only people surprised at this sort of news about Sheen are the people who had a different date in the betting pool. It's only a matter of time before he's found leaping off the roof of his mansion screaming: "I am the lizard king! Zardoz commands me to fly!" (My money's on that happening on Wednesday January 2, 2013.)

Please stop blaming it on mythical medications and allergies, and admit that there is definitely a screw loose. Because denial of an obvious problem like that can only lead to trouble. Just ask Disney, who only just now found out that Keith Richards used drugs.

Hollywood Babble On & On #621: Paramount.... What Did You Just Do?

Welcome to the show folks....

Remember Insurge Pictures?

I wrote about this company in the past, you can crawl through my archives for the full story, but I'll give you a quick recap.

Hot off the success of the micro-budget flick Paranormal Activity Paramount announced $1 million to make 10 micro-budget films for $100,000 each. Paranormal Activity 2 came out, had a hellacious opening weekend, so many, me included, expected a great future for Insurge.

Then we saw the trailer for the first Insurge release.

Yep.

Instead of a tightly made micro-budget thriller, or comedy, from a bright new filmmaker we got an over-sized, overpriced cinematic celebration of a hair-style slapped on top of a non-threatening nasal voice that manages to sound more mechanized than Twiki from the old Buck Rogers TV Show.

Back when I first heard about it, I offered some advice to Paramount over this, so let's look and see if they followed my advice, skipping the silly bits.

THE ADVICE: I suggested that they do not call it "Paramount Atomic." My advice was to avoid officially labeling it as yet another subdivision of a massive multi-national conglomerate , and avoid sticking it with the names of Paramount and MTV.

DID THEY TAKE IT? They partially followed that advice, leaving out the name, but slapping the Paramount mountain on top of their logo, and had the names of Paramount and MTV alongside it at the opening of the trailer. This makes it seem more like "sub-Paramount" in the minds of fans than a serious label of its own.

THE ADVICE: I suggested not to look for another Paranormal Activity. This does not mean that they shouldn't have made the sequel. That's a separate kettle of fish. What I suggested was not making every Insurge production a Paranormal Blair Witch imitator with that whole "found footage" schtick. I advised that they should broaden their horizons, look at horror films, sure, but also be open to comedies, crime films, and anything else that could be done for $100,000 or less.

DID THEY TAKE IT? Not yet, judging from their first major release.

THE ADVICE: I suggested avoiding treating it like Paramount Vantage. Paramount Vantage went from being an attempt to cash in on the popularity of indie films to more of a "let's get our friends some Oscars" factory. They need to pursue fresh blood, I suggested going to film-making co-ops and groups and actively look for people who can do a lot with very little.

DID THEY TAKE IT? Not yet, and I doubt they ever will.

Right now I'm beginning to fear that when they came up with this idea at Paramount HQ they said: "Great idea! We'll make a fortune!" and stuff like that, only to find themselves without a single scintilla of a clue about how exactly they were going to do it.

So what do they do?

They slap the name on a flick for tween girls that's already being "co-produced" by two other divisions of the Viacom/Paramount empire, so they can boondoggle up the bookkeeping and keep more of those tween's cash for themselves.

And the sad part of this story is that this is probably the best that Paramount is capable of doing.