No More Movies for You, America

If the writers' strike continues for a few more months, a world without new movies could become a reality. Based on the fact that Meet the Spartans was the highest-grossing movie in the country last weekend, that is a reality that this country richly deserves.

SIMPLY ACKNOWLEDGING THE EXISTENCE OF A POP CULTURE FACET DOES NOT QUALIFY AS A PARODY, SPOOF OR SATIRE OF SAID FACET. Simply ticking off a list of pop culture facets does not qualify as a movie of any kind. An individual who pays good money to witness said list be presented and accepts it as "comedy" does not qualify as a human being, but rather as a sheep dressed like a monkey.*

The argument that a person "just wanted some mindless laughs" is not a defense for having seen Meet the Spartans (or Epic Movie, Date Movie, or any film from the "here's-something-out-of-context-that-you- recognize-isn't-that-hilarious?" genre--which was essentially invented by Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, who modestly only consider themselves screenwriters and directors, ignoring their much grander collective title of The Two Unfunniest People On The Face Of The Earth). Beyond the fact that there are no laughs in Meet the Spartans, "mindless" and "laughs" are not mutually inclusive terms, even in the realm of spoof. Anyone who spent 90 minutes of their weekend staring at that complete and total waste of all applicable resources could have used that time to watch Airplane! or The Naked Gun or any of Mel Brooks' early films and emerged a better person for it.

You know what movie I saw over the weekend? Rambo. While I am certainly not going to try to tell you that the film is an artistically meritorious piece of cinema (or even, on the whole, a particularly good movie)...I can hold my head up high for having contributed my $14 (damn your above-average-cost quality, ArcLight) to the country's second-highest grosser of the weekend. My conscience is clear not just because Sylvester Stallone is an old man who will need all the money he can amass for nursing care, legal fees and human growth hormone in his rapidly-advancing years, but because choosing Rambo was the American thing to do, god dammit. If more of my countrymen had made the same choice, it would have sent a message to the makers of dreck like Meet the Spartans that when it comes to movies, Americans will swallow a lot of crap (for example, Rambo)...but not that much.

Alas, Americans have announced loudly and clearly that they will swallow that much crap--and then some--with grateful smiles on their gap-toothed faces. Now that the financial success of Meet the Spartans has validated its creators' extremely low opinion of the filmgoing audience, thus emboldening them to puke up less of the same, we can all look forward to Ass: The Movie [link NSFW]...which, at this rate, should be in theaters by around 2015.


[*Not only was that joke more original than anything in Meet the Spartans, it didn't cost you $11.]

Golden Globe Awards Canceled; Streets To Be Choked With Blood of AMPTP Negotiators

Now you've gone and done it, Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.

It's no secret that you don't give a rat's ass about the needs of the hardworking men and women who write the films and television shows that stuff your bottomless coffers with unimaginable amounts of cash; otherwise, the Writers' Guild of America would never have been forced to go on strike to begin with--or, at the very least, the work stoppage would be over by now instead of at nine weeks and counting. You've all but spit on the reasonable demands put forth by the WGA since day one, mockingly forgoing counter-offers in the name of jousting gay porn stars and cruel sociological experiments that test the limit of how unfunny a human being can possibly be (as well as some things that aren't on NBC), growing ever more confident in your belief that television--the medium more immediately impacted by the strike--doesn't need writers, that the world will lap up whatever regurgitated gruel you serve it with a smile on its face. (As for movies, you likely figured you wouldn't have to worry about those until the end of the summer.)

You almost got away with it, too...but you failed to consider the impact of the strike on a product near and dear to the consumers of popular entertainment: awards shows. Now that the official stance of the Screen Actors' Guild to not cross WGA picket has led to the cancellation of the Golden Globe Awards ceremony, your goose is cooked.

There's a lot that the masses will do without by way of entertainment (quality, logic, any sign of effort)...but if the AMPTP thinks it can take away their "famous people getting dressed up to stand on red carpets and talk about what they're wearing" and not face repercussions, it is in for a very rude--possibly violent--awakening.

I predict that, following a series of bloody protests enacted by average citizens against the AMPTP that will cost many lives, the writers' strike will be over by next Friday.

The Internet? Never Heard Of It.

If there is one upside for me personally to the Writers' Guild of America Strike (currently at eight days and counting), it's that it has given me a perfectly reasonable-looking excuse for not updating this blog. It's a phony excuse, sure, but it's reasonable-looking nonetheless.

In lieu of any original content (unless you're counting this paragraph and the one previous), enjoy the above video from unitedhollywood.com, which quietly suggests that the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers maybe are being something less than completely honest with their claims to the WGA that there is no money to be made from online content.