Posted on 01/11/2008 1:45:42 PM PST by bahblahbah
Longtime Hollywood publicist Julian Myers will turn 90 soon. And he worries the end may be near ... for Hollywood.
Myers frets that the WGA stalemate -- with all of its acrimony, vitriol and job losses -- is a harbinger of ill things for the industry.
"The strike impasse is speeding the end of Hollywood filmmaking and television production," says Myers, who has been working in the biz since 1939 and is still an IATSE member. "There are more union contracts coming up for renewal, and already unionists are crossing union lines. IATSE is urging its members to go right on through. Insults are being exchanged, faces will be bashed and fatalities are a possibility."
Myers, of course, remembers when such confrontations were more common. He recalls participating in a 1946 strike in which 900 unionists were arrested in front of Warner Bros. Studios and bussed off to a Burbank jail.
Now, with tensions again running high, Myers worries that the town might be consumed.
"Does a dying Hollywood need a civil war today to hasten its erosion?" he asks.
You know,I get paid once for doing my job with no residuals.The idea that someone should be able to do just one heroic deed or whatever and the goof off for the rest of his life ,goes clear back to the ancient Greeks.I thought they were scornful of those "resting on their laurels".
Have gun, will hire.......call me
It’s kind of eerie how quiet China is. With all their new economy and brains and all that space program they ought to be producing some music and stuff to sell to the rest of the world. But it’s completely silent. Do they prohibit music and singing?
Hong Kong had a vibrant film industry until the 1997 Communist takeover.
Directors like John Woo, Tsui Hark, and others left for America and actors like Jackie Chan, Chow Yun Fat, and Jet Li came to America (where they had less success than before). They were cast in big films but needed to share the billing with some kind of American star. And the films were dumbed down.
Jackie Chan continues to make films for the rest of the world that never get released in America (I think Disney throws them in a vault, they’ve also been known to butcher the films they do release to home video).
I think some of it is deliberate sabotage because they are more entertaining action films than what America has turned out for the past 20 years. The stunts are too awesome (there is risk, and Hollywood plays it safe using more and more computer “stunts”).
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