Dean's World

That would be "fewer" movies....

Right on.

Just saw "No Country For Old Men" and it's a couple of hours well spent. Pure genius--I loved the audience reaction when the credits started to roll. I'll say no more, so as not to spoil it.

Although a little less nudity and sexuality wouldn't kill them, either.

I think the real problem is that Hollywood mistakenly and actually thinks it's an Art Town and not an entrainment town.

Maybe one film in a hundred (if it is that many) is really a piece of art, in the widest sense, or has anything really worth saying about much of anything outside of art.

The rest of what Hollywood produces is more or less merely escapist entertainment.

Like most video games, only on film, or these days, on CGI mediums.
Okay, so they are video games on film. Sorta.

Anyway Hollywood, and the people in that particular orbit of the world, like to think of themselves as " modern artists." Why anyone would wanna do that I got no idea, but they do, I've met a few and I'm not rally joking. I wish I were, but I'm not.

Actors think they are artists. They're only real job is to imitate the behavior of others, to imitate the behavior of real people, or imagined people. To them this is art. Imitation, not achievement. Or to be more brutally honest, imitation as achievement. If they imitate well then they consider themselves more or less successful, if they imitate poorly or ineffectively, more or less failures. But it rarely strikes them, or the people they work with, including directors, producers, etc. that their medium is imitative. And that's about the limit of it, the full range of capability and creativity and originality. Good imitation. Even worse actors (especially the enlightened ones, the ones who have dreamed of being nothing but actors since middle school and that pretty much encompasses their range of experience and ambition, and the assumptions they make about what they think they know) often become directors and producers and so forth, and I think you can see where that might lead. I mean the industry already has enough problems as it is.

Now because deep down inside many of them know there is little really artistic about this (not that art is the greatest of human achievements, but on rare occasion it can be quite impressive and even useful), that is, they are really the lowest form of art possible, and so they often overcompensate by trying to "inject meaning and sophistication" into their works. Most of which is crap and it doesn't matter how you gild the stinkweed, it's still just stinkweed.

Anywho since so little real art is involved, and since most of it is the lowest form of art possible, by interjecting "serious issues," like deep contemporary and controversial political ideas and so forth they suspect that they can fool the viewers into thinking they've produced real art. And truth be told they often do, or maybe, the audience just wants some escapism and so don't really care. But no, I've heard enough movie buffs to understand they think the movies and the real world is the same thing. they think movie politics or movie science or movie history or movie this or that is reality. They can't tell their real shit from just plain ole shit, or even the fake kind.

But fake crap is no substitute for real crap. And when you mix the two you still don't have much better.

So it's kind of like a substitution for substance. Film doesn't invent anything (except fiction), doesn't solve any problems, doesn't really create (in the standard sense, it merely reproduces), rarely produces anything worth having (useable things that is, rather than just opinion and entertainment about opinion and entertainment), and is an imitation art (and art itself is just a kind of larger imitation in most cases anyway).

That is, film is the lowest form of art and 90% or more of what it produces is crap, (of course 90% of most everything is crap, if it wasn't then progress would be unnecessary) but it entertains and kills the time that people want to kill by being entertained. And most of the time, at least 90% of the time it is trying to take itself seriously and really say something, it is saying something most people either don't care to hear or don't agree with.

So to compensate film tries to work itself up into a "meaningful medium," which most of the time it ain't, and even when it is a meaningful medium, often times it doesn't work out so well.

When it does work it does work very well, I'll give it that, but truth be told, that's not very often.

But more often times than not film works best when it doesn't have anything to prove about how brilliant it is so it can get over it's own delusions about how bloody great and important it is, cause it ain't, and can instead concentrate on the story it is telling, which might or might not be important. But in either case when film tries to be meaningful, intentionally sets out to be artistic and deep, it is usually very much more similar to the kinda deep that results from a protracted colon cleanse than the kinda deep that results from a useful discovery while sitting in your bubble bath.

So my advice to Hollywood is this, and I don't expect them to take it, they never have and I'm hardly the first to notice that the place is all blow and no sail, just remember you are the lowest form of art, and the vast majority of what you do is crap, and for God's sake don't think that because most of your modern actors have nowadays actually finished High School, and most of your screenwriters have finished junior college with a degree in ver-bage and coed college campus rallies, that you know anything worth a damn about the real world, how it operates, what goes on in it, or what that even means.

You're just actors and screenwriters and producers and that's all the majority of you are ever gonna be as long as you stay in that industry.

If the entire sum of your life is that you're an actor, or a producer, or a writer, or something like that, then I hate to break it to ya, modern self-delusional proclivities and object worship aside, you're just not that big a deal. History won't bother mentioning you, you got nothing to teach most people, and you're really just there to entertain and distract. So, try doing your job more often.

You're there for fun.
You're not an education and most of you have nothing even approximating one, you're medium has severe limitations and so do most of you, idiots are easily deluded into mistaking you for reality, and yet you're never gonna be reality, no matter how you try. (And for goodness sake, try a little harder, will ya?)

As best you're art, and that's all, at worst, and this is most of the time, you're not even that. You don't cure cancer, you're not going to the Alpha Centauri. Most of ya don't know what the hell that even means.

But you are in a business.

So at least try and figure out what people wanna see and why.
As for all the other kindsa figurin, leave that to the professionals. Which you're definitely not.

You just entertain little fellas.
You just entertain.

Thanks In Advance, Paul.

Not as far as I know Jay.

But then, would I know?

Jack,

Maybe I’m too cynical, but I don’t think they see themselves as an “Art Town” so much as a “Money Town”.

Its all about keeping themselves gainfully employed as long as possible with the minimum amount of effort. I’ve seen it happen in many businesses. It can work for 10-20-30 years, depending on the particular environment, and how much control the players can maintain over the process.

Hollywood’s trump card recently has been their control of the means of distribution. Most likely, that’s about to come tumbling down. Keep your eye on the music industry, and see how that pans out. I expect the film industry will follow in its foot steps.

Having had a TIA, TallDave, let me say that you would know.

It's that part about your vision going wonky, and your balance, and the realization that you haven't been drinking, nor had a drink in the past few days...

That part scares you, or ought to.

With respect to Da movies, let me agree with Jack G. Getting the 'truth' from people who make their living as lies seems to be a bit odd to me.

Its all about keeping themselves gainfully employed as long as possible with the minimum amount of effort.

You've said far more than you know...

Its all about keeping themselves gainfully employed as long as possible with the minimum amount of effort.

You've said far more than you know...

That was a joke by the way, for those who get it.

As you'd expect, 300 was very popular with the Marines. However, we also noticed an uptick at the library of the books on the period being read in-house and checked out by Marines who wanted the rest of the story.