Ten years later, the 'Kids' are definitely not alright (Hollywood downward spiral continues)

Variety ^ | Jan. 30/05 | Todd McCarthy

[HangFire]

...completely out of control.

Which is worse, Hollywood or the teacher's union???

[WorkingClassFilth]

"Look what happened to Mel (vis a vis Hollywood). Not everyone's got the 35mil to give 'em the big F-U. ('Cause, so far, nothing beats film.)"

I didn't mean that you simply finance a new Hollywood. The idea I'm advancing is that employed by social movements across time. At some point, segments of a lounged alienated population (maybe minorities or just those out of power) will turn from ineffectual efforts to 'change' or 'reform' the larger institutions or culture and turn toward alternative means to meet needs.

Isn't the 'Sundance Film Festival' itself a product of revolution started by explicitly political elements in Hollywood? I remember reading a Playboy interview with Donald Sutherland as a lad (yes, I both read the magazine and looked at the pictures). He said that he and Jane Fonda had long thrashed about the revolutionary impetus in their work to have meaning for the cause. He felt, at times, that a movie was just a movie. Jane, OTOH, had different ideas.

The post-60's world was exactly about this process. After the failure of the expected revolution, the New Left in this country went full bore into 'counter-culture' pursuits. As a result, the birth of alternative choices to the hated mainstream began in earnest. As these choices graduated from craft workers and potters, the sub-culture economy also took root. After a time, with the maturation of the boomers, their ideas and values permeated the 'mainstream' and mass consumption products began to take the stamp of their ideology and values. Today, of course, you can buy explicitly counter-culture products in the grocery store or high-toned boutiques and the Marxian ideals are infused throughout the mass pop culture.

The web, talk-radio, FR, your sorely missed program and a host of other venues compose the nucleus of a new media wave. The greater challenged will be to inspire and support others to develop alternatives so that the momentum can be sustained. IMHO, the boatload of cash Mel took in is pretty damn inspiring. He, or others, will continue moving toward the eternal ideals, despite the patrician arrogance of the entrenched elite. That's the key - to keep moving. Popular culture is dynamic and always moving and the goal is to be in the driver's seat.

Along the road, though, conditions sometimes lead to the loss of control. We're in that place today. In the last few years Robert Redford has lamented the violent films shown at his own step-child, and tried to reform his vision. Good luck. We all know that when the moral absolutes are gone, it's any body's game. The moral chaos is simply the noise created by corruption trying to fill the vacuum left by the absence of substance.

Well, I'm sorry to bore you with stuff I'm sure you already know, but it's just that I think despair over conditions in toilets like Hollywood is akin to looking at a compost heap and feeling sorry that last night's dinner scraps are wasted and spoiling in the ferment. I look at it as the makings of rich, black loam that will feed tomorrow's feast.

[Feiny]

You forgot about Kevin BAcon playing the pedophile in THE WOODSMAN.

[WorkingClassFilth]

"...segments of a lounged alienated population..."

Should read: [segments of a long alienated population]

"The greater challenged will be to inspire..."

Should read: [The greater challenge will be to inspire...]

Something's up with FR's spell checker. Everytime I use that sucker it blenderizes the post. Of course, I make hack out enough mistakes to keep it busy so maybe it gets distracted.

[Hildy]

My friend produced the Squid and the Whale and I really wouldn't put it in the same category as the others.

[kittymyrib]

It sounds utterly repulsive. Your friend must really need the money to be a part of this degrading project. Parents need to cut off the money to teens who support filth for entertainment.

[WorkingClassFilth]

Doesn't exactly sound like family fare to me. Is there a larger moral message to the film?

[Hildy]

Yes, actually. It's about the effect of divorce on teenage children. The Father, who wants to date the student, is not portrayed in a very good light. I haven't seen it, but I know the Producer, and he does quality work. Plus, I've been following the Festival obsessively, because of this film, and it has received nothing but rave reviews. It stars Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Anna Pacquin and a Baldwin (I don't know which one...if it's not Alec, they all look the same to me!)

[WorkingClassFilth]

Well, to me, the Hollywood compulsion to include all the juicy details is what smears their work and stains their claims of moral legitimacy. Most any adult can imagine the needed details in any kind of situation. The artistry in telling a story is to engage a viewer by accessing the active mind. Simply spraying an audience with graphic details is the work of the pornographer or the artless dolt. In this film (admitting I haven't seen it), such detail is without merit - IMHO.

[Hildy]

I agree with you, but it is what it is right now and I try to look past it if the movie is a good story anyhow.

[AnnaZ]

They're looking for ways to convince other people--and mainly to convince themselves--that their own perverted lives and views are normal.

That's what I'm starting to think as well, that Agenda has trumped Ca$h as the Golden Calf.

[AnnaZ]

Otherwise, I may never visit the cinema again after Revenge of the Sith arrives.

What? And miss out on the upcoming screen versions of such classics as The A-Team, Baywatch, Dukes of Hazzard, Miami Vice, and Knight Rider? I cannot imagine why.

[MadIvan]

I beg your pardon? Please tell me they are not actually going to make those!

Regards, Ivan

[AnnaZ]

The ever-popular Robert Redford as the sponsor of the event. He loves putting out smut.

And all this time I thought it was just the Commies that he loved.

 

(Greetings to you in APOland, BTW... hope the weather's good!)

[AnnaZ]

I beg your pardon? Please tell me they are not actually going to make those!

I'm really, really not kidding. I think Dukes is in the can, Colin Farrell stars as "Don Johnson" in the "new" Vice, and Mr. I-Have-Gold-Records-in-Germany-Hassellhoff is producing his small(1)-screen(2) starrers.

 

There's little excuse for any of them, but there is no excuse for the A-Team.

 

*sigh*

 

It's depressing me.

[AnnaZ]

Which is worse, Hollywood or the teacher's union???

Perhaps we can think of it as a multi-pronged attack.

[AnnaZ]

Thank you for your great contribution to the topic. And you are absolutely right. And, yes, we's a-workin' on it... help just might be on the way.

[AnnaZ]

You forgot about Kevin BAcon playing the pedophile in THE WOODSMAN.

Oh, yes, of course, you're right. Silly me. (Too much depravity, too little time.)

[AnnaZ]

My friend produced the Squid and the Whale and I really wouldn't put it in the same category as the others.

Perhaps not, but Variety did. (The shocker of this article is that it is not from [e.g.] Focus on the Family.)

 

My biggest issue with these (types of) movies is not, ultimately, that they are made ("How did a fool and his money get together in the first place?"), but that they have real children acting in them. How old is the actor that they cast to play the (ugh! masturbating) 11-year-old, for example?

 

The issues with the flick Birth was that a real child played opposite Kidman. The movie Happiness sent a very worldly friend of mine screaming from the theater when an 8-year-old character asked his pedophile father if 'he wanted to f--- him'.

 

I consider it child abuse. Out here in the real world, so does law enforcement.

[Killborn]

"Independent filmmakers are forever looking for ways to push the envelope, to give their work that extra edge that will attract buyers and viewers hungry for something new." They want edge? Something new? Try making a film so patriotic, so conservative, so Red-America that it will make all the Commieweird people run and hide like rats. A film that will make "The Passion" look like Fahrenheit 9/11 to the feelm criteeks infesting the MSM. No need to thank me when you make a billion dollars, when your film is forever recognized as one of the greats.