Tag: Burn Hollywood Burn

Hollywood, Australia?


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m a nobody in the rural part of a fly over state. I don’t know anything about anything. But in my travels around the world over the years, I have noticed that people from Perth, Australia are some of the most unique in the world. They’re very interesting, creative people.

So, whenever my mind wander into what might happen to some of the deeper Blue portions of America like Hollywood, I think of Perth. If the movie industry were to, en mass flee autocratic America, they would do worse than to go to Perth. Now, Perth is in the middle of nowhere. It’s pretty much a long ways away from everywhere.

But the weather is decent and it would be a great place for all the Deep Blue Hollywood types to live once Hollywood is finally consumed by Immersive Media. I have to note, in passing how annoyed I am at how many center-Left people already have one foot out the door when it comes to the United States. I mean, come on, people, you don’t have the gumption to stand and fight for the freedoms that have made you so wealthy?

Ugh. Fuck that and fuck them.

But anyway, the issue is — we all have to prepare for some severe turbulence in the United States between now and no later than January 2025. Everyone is going to have to pick a side based on what they believe. It’s just sad that so many Twitter liberals who could otherwise help the cause of saving freedom and democracy in the United States are cowards and would rather run away than help defend the idea that the America really is the land of the free, home of the brave.

Or put another way — just because Trump was too stupid and lazy to “not lose” the 2020 election, doesn’t mean he won’t be able to “not lose” the 2024 election. We’re totally fucked no matter what. We’re just not going to muddle through this crisis like we have with other major events in our history in the past.

The years 2024 – 2025 will be the biggest political crisis in American domestic history since the secession crisis of 1860 – 1861. Either you’re prepared for it when it happens, or you’re not.

Good luck.

Hollywood’s Generational Reboot



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now, this may all happen in the context of America pulling itself out of the ruble of a Second American Civil War, but Hollywood is ripe for a massive series of reboots of existing IP.

I say this because all of the major franchises at the moment are pretty much dead in the water. They’ve been strip mined to the point that audiences — or at least the audiences that grew up with them, are worn out. As such, there is going to come a tipping point when studio execs realize that there is a whole generation or two ripe to re-introduce franchise after franchise to.

Our new Ripley?

There will be much waling and gnashing of teeth by Baby Boomers and GenX, but in the end, we’re all going to see ourselves throwing down $20 at a streamer showing us a start-from-scratch reboot of Alien, Blade Runner, Die Hard, The Terminator and maybe even The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

Just take Alien, for instance. I could very easily see Zendaya play a totally new Ripley in a totally new version of Alien that would start the whole franchise fresh. Give her a three picture deal and finally sort that particular franchise clusterfuck out once and for all. You get a hip horror director a three picture deal as well when you do this and you’ve just made yourself half a billion dollars.

What’s interesting is the James Bond franchise is, as of this moment, doing fairly well. It seems to me Henry Cavill — despite some unsettling blind items that allegedly are about him — would be the perfect new James Bond. He’s definitely who I think of when I think of “James Bond for the 2020s.” He’s got the Right Stuff for the role.

James Bond For the 2020s.

Anyway, I guess what I’m pointing out is, we’re just about to see a generational changing of the guard. This happens every once in a while, when people too young to remember The Good Olde Days, discover The Beatles, or whatever. This time, it will be Hollywood and it’s going to be pretty lit. A lot of the strip minding errors of Hollywood’s past should be fixed (I hope) because the studios know they have great IP on their hands and all they have to do is give the new versions of these beloved franchises some forethought before they roll them out to Xennials.

A ‘Don’t Look Up’ Best Picture Win Would Be The Ultimate Triumph of ‘Woke Hollywood’



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Let me be clear — I’m very much willing to bend over backwards to give Don’t Look Up good press. It’s message is dear to my heart. The problem is, the movie itself sucks.

And, yet, here I am, listening to Vanity Fair’s Oscar podcast and they’re saying that Don’t Look Up could very well be in the running to win Best Picture. I get it. It makes sense. But, God, on a storytelling basis did that move suck. And, no, I haven’t gotten around to watching is all the way through yet.

I think some of that comes from how out of synch my expectations for the movie was. I went into it blind and I had some vague notion that it might be a modern day Network dealing with global climate change. But it just seemed way too busy sucking its own cock to be a Network-level movie. It was just annoying and irritating and I totally agree with its message.

What I saw of it was just too over the top. It seems to be trying too hard. It was too eager to make A Statement that it lost sight of telling a cogent, great story. If Don’t Look Up was a modern day Blue State Network, then I would love it and defend it against the slings and arrows of MAGA dipshits.

But, sadly, Don’t Look Up was just A Bad Movie on a storytelling level. It’s just irritating on a storytelling basis. It was all over the place, to the point that I didn’t care about the characters and didn’t want to watch it to the end despite being very receptive to its message. If it gets Best Picture despite that, then Woke Culture will really have flexed its power to the point that it will make me roll my eyes.

The thing about Network is it’s timeless. It’s such a great story that you could release it today and it would still be popular. Anyway, as I keep saying, I’m going to at least try to watch the movie all the way through and then re-reevaluate it.

Logically, Disney Will Hand The Simpsons Over To Pixar


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

We are fast approaching a moment when the first Mikey Mouse shorts will be in the public domain. I think 2024 will be it. So, logically, it would make a lot of sense for The House Of Mouse to become The House Of Simpsons.

No one listens to me.

What they should do is move all their Simpsons IP over to Pixar. The show should have been canceled a long, long, long time ago and Disney should bite the bullet and do just that. Then, after maybe five years, come back hard with a planned series of Pixar-produced Simpsons movies.

The Simpsons would be updated using the best of Pixar’s computer animation and storytelling. Then, every two years or so, there would be a Simpsons movie that would fuse the greatness of the Simpsons with the equal greatness of Pixar.

But, alas, absolutely no one listens to me.

A Movie Concept Dedicated To Bringing Fun Back To The Theatres



by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I have a lot — A LOT — of movie ideas rolling around in my mind. One concept that I think someone, somewhere should do is kind of like “Battlestar Galactica 1980” meets Star Wars: A New Hope. The story would go something like this — it’s the modern day, when out of the blue a rag-tag group of space aliens fighting some sort of Galactic government swoop in and settle on the planet.

You would have all the archetypes of Star Wars, only set in the modern world with our modern technology. You would have all these exotic space aliens doing their thing among humans, all along with idea that the Galactic government might at any moment attack earth.

lulz. meh

And, if you really wanted to make things interesting, you do all of this in context of Red and Blue America, with Red America doubting everything and Blue American embracing all the aliens and preparing for a fight. Or something. Something like that.

But the point would be it there would be fun aliens and just an interesting story. No “woke” effort to sell a message or toys to little kids. Just a story about an Iowa farmboy who wants to save his girlfriend who is kidnapped and is now on the other end of the galaxy. Or something. You get the picture.

Absolutely no one listens to me, though. I can’t even get a 1,000 unique views for this site. So, meh.

My Hot Take On Why ‘Don’t Look Up’ Was A Storytelling Disaster


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I keep ranting about this because, much like Olivia Wilde’s Booksmart, I was in the sweetspot for its intended audience. But, as with Booksmart, I bounced just about at the inciting incident. I fucking hate Booksmart for reasons similar to why I feel Don’t Look Up was a real missed opportunity.

While Booksmart was fucking preachy and caused me to feel attacked simply for being a “CIS white male,” Don’t Look Up was so hysterical and frantic in its desire to bang its message over my head that I just could not continue to watch it. This is not to say I won’t try to watch it again. Now that I know what I’m getting into, I may very well give it another go.

But let’s talk about why, despite such a great start, I found myself giving up on Don’t Look Up.

First, the movie seemed like liberal-progressive wish fulfillment. But, at the same time, it tried to hide this by couching everything in extreme bothsiderism. The POTUS in the movie seemed to be the some freakish Frankenstein’s Monster of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. This was done in to such a extreme manner as to cause me to first roll my eyes then later grow so frustrated that I gave up watching.

There was just too much going on with Don’t Look Up. It seemed a mish-mash of competing storytelling agendas. Was it supposed to be a political and climate change Mars Attacks or a modern day Network? Was it meant to scare the shit out of us about how we’re not doing anything about global climate change or was it just supposed to be an long SNL skit with better production values.

Here’s how I would have fixed it. I would given the movie a far more serious tone, something on a par with Arrival. I would shock the audience by how blase everyone was behaving about the end of the world until someone flipped out about it Howard Beale style.

Or, put another way, there was a Network-style drama to be had in Don’t Look Up. Not that there wouldn’t be humor in such a different interpretation of the concept, it’s just I would have preferred a mixture of Arrival, a Paul Thomas Anderson movie and, maybe Wes Anderson movie.

Something about how over-the-top and forced Don’t Look up in its humor I found very grating to the nerves. There was also just way too much screaming. I mean, cool it, folks.

Anyway. I’m going to try again to watch this movie. Maybe I can stand it more on a second go.

Looking Down On ‘Don’t Look Up’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I did not finish watching the movie “Don’t Look Up.” But that has caused me to have strong opinions about it what I did see. The thing that bothers me so much about the movie is it could have been a modern day Network, but it totally blew its chance.

At the core of that failure was it’s social commentary was way too heavy handed and preachy. It was like a very long SNL skit, only the writers were hysterical about global climate change. Sometimes, less is more. Or, put another way, I would have made the movie more of a drama that was funny at times than a heavy handed, ham fisted extended SNL skit that swerved between comedy and dramas as it served the purposes of the plot.

There came a point, at least for me, when I didn’t care if anyone lived or died. After a great beginning, it just seemed like the movie became Mars Attacks, only about a comet-which-was-really-global-climate-change. I just didn’t care about the characters when they started screaming at each other. So, I stopped watching.

But there was a much better movie crying to come out of what was there. Like I said, I would have really tried to make the movie a modern day Network. In fact, I might even have started the movie much later than it was. Why not start the movie about where we are right now with global climate change — we all know it’s real and we’re not doing anything about it?

So, instead of going through the rote process of meeting POTUS, you start with a Network-like freak out by our Hero on TV. But, and this is the key issue, you play it for drama, not forced laughs. Then the rest of the movie would be about how everyone simply refuses to take the coming end of the world seriously. What I saw of Don’t Look Up had the air of liberal-progressive wish fulfillment, in the sense that I felt the producer really wants to scream his frustration live on TV (specifically Morning Joe.)

Anyway, no one listens to me.

Let’s Fix ‘Don’t Look Up’


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m embarrassed to say that I was not able — so far — to finish “Don’t Look Up.” So, you have every reason not to listen to me if I can’t even finish the movie I’m writing about. But this post isn’t really about the movie itself but rather how it could have been made so I was able to finish it.

First, I have to praise the movie for some subtle touches. What I saw was interesting in how it was able to indict both Blue and Red for not giving the crisis enough weight. And, yet, at the same time, it was just around that moment when the movie started to lose me. Don’t Look Up was really, really good up until about the moment they met POTUS.

It was all down hill from there.

How would I fix the movie, though? I think I would have not been so “wet” in my humor. The movie grows more and more hysterical to the point of it being both depressing, preachy and excretable. All it did was remind me of how global climate change is real and we’re doing jack shit to stop it.

I think if the writers had studied Network a little bit more closely, I could have finished watching it. I really liked Being The Ricardos and I think that vibe is closer to how I would have produced the movie. I would have laid off on the preachy, heavy handed social commentary and maybe found humor in how everyday life was being changed as it grew more and more clear the end of the world was coming.

Now, I did not finish the movie so, lulz, I don’t know how it ended. So maybe the movie turned out a lot better than it was at about the midpoint. I cared a lot for the characters in the first 15 minutes and then all that good will was promptly squandered by everyone screeching at each other.

I may try again to watch Don’t Look Up, but I’m going to have to think about it some before going into it this time.

Of ‘Lost In Space,’ The Singularity & Human Space Travel In Fiction


by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I generally believe that there will, in fact, be a Singularity at some point in the 21 Century. As such, how humanity’s future in space is depicted in fiction really needs an upgrade.

Two things seem very possible to me — most life in the universe is probably machine in nature and it’s very possible that we haven’t gotten contacted by aliens because they just don’t care. They’re dreaming a deep, eternal sleep in planet-size computers and fuck you.

As such, it’s growing more and more difficult to watch tripe like “Lost In Space” which using the traditional humans-in-space tropes of spaceships and aliens. Ugh. Why not do some updating? Like, instead of a spaceship, humans are just zapped from solar system to solar system.

You could do a whole franchise where humans have to interact with planet-sized machine minds. This grows even more interesting if you flipped the script and said the “Galactic Empire” is really just a bunch of planet-sized machine minds that talk to each other and occasionally take a biological intelligence like humanity under their wing.

Or, put another way, Hollywood really needs to be a tiny bit more creative when it comes to how it imagines humanity’s future in space. They’re so busy strip mining 60 year old IP that that they are really letting the audience down. But the only way this is going to get fixed is someone product a Matrix-level flip-the-scrip style movie, only set in space, or something.

And, then, it would have to be really, really popular.

So, I suppose nothing as fun-interesting as this will ever happen anytime soon.

Fixing Star Wars

A lot of ink has been spilled by people complaining about Disney’s handling of the Star Wars franchise. They’re slowly getting better, but that improvement has come largely on the edges. The main franchise continues to be a shit show of half-measures and muddled movies that seem to be just crap put together in a hap-hazarded way.

The last few franchise movies have been so God-awful that I have simply walked out of them. The issue is not Kathleen Kennedy being “woke,” is that apparently Disney on an institutional level is not fans of the franchise and have no idea what to do with them.

For me, Disney has not one, but several existential problems they have to fix with the main franchise of Star Wars. All of these are extremely difficult to fix because of what Star Wars has become as a cultural and, most importantly financial standpoint.

Off the top of my head, the biggest problem of Star Wars is what you might call the “Bloatware Problem” Disney looks at Star Wars and sees dollah bills — selling toys — and also an opportunity to sell the “woke” agenda to a fan base of mostly center-Right men. Disney has done this to the point that the whole thing is unwatchable now.

But it gets worse.

Star Wars has always been camp for little kids. Despite the best efforts of middle-aged fanboys, Star Wars has no internal logic that functions. Things just happen for no fucking reason. They have begun to try to fix this problem by using the rubric “A Star Wars Movie” for some of the darker films, but Disney wants to sell toys, so it’s difficult to have sex or gore in a Star Wars movie.

There are no ready fixes to these problems.

I do think if they just would cool it with do ANY Star Wars movies for a few years, it might help to clear the air. Then I would really lean into using the massive universe that Star Wars has and explore the stories of lesser known characters.

Go to a planet that doesn’t have just one type of climate, for instance. Anyway, whatever. Until Star Wars gets its act together, I’m going to try to make my own interesting worlds for people to play in.