Tag: woke hollywood

Burn Hollywood, Burn: My Hot Take On The ‘Death Of Movies’ Discourse


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

There’s a lot of buzz of late about the “death of movies.” And, sadly, I fear some of it may be right. American culture is facing something of an existential crisis because the very idea of any sort of “mainstream” is now beginning to melt away. Identity politics is now so absolute that the legitimacy of any heteronormative story is up for debate in the overwrought conversations of Twitter.

I know I sound a little too Joe Rogan with the above, but it comes from a place of love — a love of movies as an art form.

You know it.

Here’s what I think is going to happen — movies are going to continue to drift into culture insignificance until one of a few things happen. If we stop being force fed movies about people running around in capes, then, maybe people might sit up and take notice. But this is unlikely to happen because you can make a shit ton of money with movies like that, so, lulz.

Another way to “fix Hollywood” would be to end “Woke Hollywood.” Instead of trying to make us more woke, tell us a good story. Don’t worry about identity politics — tell a good story. I want less Beanie Feldstein screeching about lesbian sex positions to a Plain Jane lead in Book Smart and more, I don’t know anything. I only keep ranting about how much I fucking hated Book Smart because I was shamed into seeing it by my center-Left echo chamber and the movie is the epitome of preaching to the audience about how being woke is so important.

But, as I always say whenever Book Smart is brought up — I wasn’t the audience. So if you’re a bi-curious high school girl in the suburbs of LA, you probably loved that movie.

Yet another way that movies may come roaring back is because of technology. It could be that once we fully transition to MX (VR and AR) or, hell, even some sort of Strange Days-like MindCap technology, that movies will, like vinyl, make a big comeback as young people grow disillusioned with immersive media.

The crux of the Hollywood’s current problem is a combination of industry dynamics and the need for it to suck its own cock when it comes to there being a “message” in movies. America is so tightly wound at the moment, that a huge segment of the potential viewing audience is turned off with Woke Hollywood, hence the popularity of message-free MCU movies.

I only get a little upset about this specific issue because I love movies. It’s not that hard to tell a great story in a movie. Hell, *I* want to tell a few of those great stories so bad that I recently bought Final Draft. So, lulz.

But are movies dead? Yes, in the short term. Long term, however, I believe they’ll turn out just fine. We just need a New Era of story telling that harkens back to the early 70s.

A Modest Proposal: End The Superhero & Woke Hollywood Movie Era


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Movies are a reflection of our collective fears and hopes. As such, the last 20 years — a whole generation — of movies has been dominated by the superhero trope. The general consensus, it seems, is the rise of superhero movies is a response to the tragic events of 9/11: as part of the grieving process we all want to believe that 9/11 could have been prevented if superheroes were real.

But it’s been 20 years, guys, give it a rest.

It’s time for us to move on. We need to stop having two options when we go to the movie theatre: a big budget superhero movie or a “woke” movie that preaches to us.

We need to start thinking about telling human stories like we did between say, Midnight Cowboy to about The Shawshank Redemption. We need to turn the page on superhero movies and start telling stories that don’t involve people running around in capes.

Now, it’s possible this is just not possible anymore because of issues with the marketplace and not the audience — all the types of stories I want to see are now on a streamer. Or, more ominously, it could be that just like rock and pop music are no longer one and the same, audience tastes have changed for whatever reason and this is The New Normal.

We’re never going to have another God Father, or Dear Hunter or Deliverance or whatever. From here on out, we’re stuck with Woke Hollywood that alienates audiences with strained efforts to cram a liberal-progressive agenda down our throats.

It could be possible that audiences from here on out will be subjected to movies like Book Smart where unattractive people screech about lesbian sex positions and that will be that. Once traditional Hollywood stars like Tom Cruise shuffle off this mortal coil, we’ll just have Woke Hollywood producing preachy movies that only serve to alienate us into Blue and Red echo chambers.

Do I have any hope that I’m wrong? Nope. Rock is dead and, so, too, it could be that, in a sense, Hollywood is dead too.

New Scifi Franchise Idea: Reboot ‘Timebandits’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As I’ve said before, all the major Hollywood movie franchises are either dead from being creatively strip-mined or so bloated as to be unwatchable. It seems to me there’s room for a new franchise because of this and the perfect movie for it would be the classic 80s comedy Timebandits.

The thing about Hollywood is, “Nobody knows nothing,” as the old saying goes. Everyone — even the best — are simply thrashing around, looking for the next big hit.

All I’m saying is, it’s within the realm of possibility that if you gave Timebandits the Star Wars treatment that there might be a pretty big audience. What Star Wars did for space travel, a Timebandits franchise could do for time travel. Or something.

This is an example of how Hollywood has lost its way. It’s so busy sucking it’s own cock via “woke” movies that it totally misses the point of what they’re supposed to be doing — making money telling great stories.

I think some of all of this is an indication of the economic dynamic of modern filmmaking. Either you make a huge tentpole superhero movie in the context of a franchise, or you make a small “woke” movie that nobody watches.

It’s possible that whatever dynamic is causing modern pop music to suck is also at play with Hollywood.

Zendaya & A Rebooting Of The ‘Alien’ Franchise


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

As it stands, almost all the major Hollywood franchises are either bloated or dead in the water from being stripped mined. We’re reaching a moment when a reboot for any of the major scifi franchises could happen and enough people would be young enough that it wouldn’t be seen as the sacrilege that it actually was.

This brings us to the Alien franchise.

What I would do is, be ambitious. I would completely reboot the franchise from the beginning, giving all the principles a three picture deal. That would be one way to assure consistency of tone. The actress I feel would be perfect to play the new Ripley would be Zendaya. She’s tall like Sigourney Weaver and it would take the franchise into the modern world to have a POC like Zendaya playing the heroine.

I would grab a good horror director and be on my way. The new Alien and Aliens would be simply modern reinterpretations of the originals, while the third movie would be what we were promised at the very end of Aliens — it would be set on earth.

The point of all of this is it seems to me that Hollywood is so wrapped up in trying to stop 9/11 via superhero movies that they are growing more and more disconnected from their audiences and what they want. People don’t want “woke” movies and they’re growing tired of superhero movies.

It’s time Hollywood went back to basics and told good stories with mass appeal.

The Fatal Flaw Of The Star Wars Franchise


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’ve written about this before, but I thought I would mention it again because it’s on my mind for some reason. I can pinpoint for you the moment the Star Wars franchise was dealt a mortal blow — when Lando Calrissian is introduced as a man in Empire Strikes Back.

That’s the moment when the whole Star Wars universe met its doom.

The reason — it’s natural for characters to pair off as a franchise matures. As such, Leia and Han pair off…leaving Luke Skywalker with nothing (or no one) to do. Just think, if Lando was a woman, you open the first movie of the new trilogy with a brown Ray.

Ta-da, you have a whole new avenue for the Skywalker family to go down.

But, obviously, that can’t happen now.

I honestly don’t know what happens with Star Wars now. I guess they just keep selling toys and blowing up bigger and bigger Deathstars until the sun goes dark or something.

Of #Hollywood, #Acting & The #Novel I’m Developing

Some thoughts.