The recent attempt to rouse Hollywood from it's anti-American stupor is gathering momentum:
LOOKING OVER HOLLYWOOD
*Welcome Big Hollywood readers, check out the rest of Word Around the Net while you're here, and take a few moments to read some of the weekend essays if you get a chance!
There's a new mega-blog out there. The same guy who helped set up the Drudge Report and Huffington Post is at it again, creating another instant sensation. With the kind of money and publicity Andrew Breitbart can bring to bear, he can make a new blog and within days it is getting tens or hundreds of thousands of hits. To help the process along with Huffington and this new blog Big Hollywood, he used the idea of celebrity posts. At first, Huffington Post's "celebrities" were a list of never-beens and cousins of someone you heard of, but now they've stepped up to has-beens and near-celebrities with an occasional major name.
Big Hollywood has had started out the same way, with minor names and personalities you might know if you were a Hollywood insider, but so far Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have not chimed in yet. And they aren't likely to. This is a conservative and libertarian blog that has as its stated purpose an attempt to shift culture and especially entertainment culture to the right, away from the far left extreme it has lurched into.
Yet it is premature to say there are no big names posting at Big Hollywood yet. There are several people posting their thoughts who are anonymous, with pseudonyms and a generic silhouette for a picture. You know, the kind of thing the press uses when they interview someone in fear for their lives or who doesn't want to be recognized because it would go ill for them to be known.
Why, you might ask? This isn't for dramatic effect, and it is certainly not becuase the people are shy. These are people in the movie business who realize that being known as a conservative and voicing their opinion will damage their career and make them outcasts. So they post anonymously, in the hopes that over time, perhaps the entertainment culture can change to actually be as inclusive, diverse, and multicultural as they claim to be.
I wanted to give a plug for this blog because it gives a little different perspective on Hollywood and says things that you won't generally get on celebrity and movie sites. For example I like the Movie Blog, but it is violently anti-Bush and far left. It also is preening and supportive of Hollywood to get contacts and keep their status up for scoops and attention - and the originator of the Move Blog is a budding director. It's like schmoozing, you act like you like people, avoid the things they don't like, and they might be nice to you. Big Hollywood doesn't do that. It isn't deliberately offensive or confrontational, it just doesn't avoid the things that the powers in Hollywood want avoided.
For example, Bert Preluksy uses a bit of history to clarify some myths about the McCarthy era and the blacklist, then bemoans a modern "graylist" that is in effect:
These days, there is another blacklist taking place, but they’re calling it a graylist because the victims are scriptwriters who made the stupid career decision of allowing themselves to become gray-haired or, in some distinguished cases, even bald.
Back in 1999, a class action suit was initiated by about 150 of us. Today, there are over 600 aging writers who are plaintiffs suing the various studios, networks and major talent agencies, for conspiring to blacklist WGA members on no other basis than age.
Some people might find it ironic that Hollywood’s liberals, who are still inflamed over a blacklist that took place 60 years ago, not only condone it in America, but practice it every day of their lives.
From the Hollywood point of view, young is hip and now and happening: always young, always new. From the quality point of view, a good writer remains a good writer until they demonstrate they are doing a poor job. Their age and appearance is irrelevant, and the older a writer gets, the less likely they are to fall prey to trendy phrases, overused cliches and youthful naivete. Old actors tend to get the same treatment: if you were a big star once but get a little old, well you are shuffled to the sidelines and have to fight to get movies. Only very powerful and established folks like Clint Eastwood can have a hope of getting regular work, and only because he directs his own movies.
Elsewhere, Andrew Breitbart himself writes about Mickey Rourke's daring and shocking defense of President Bush as a good president - only daring and shocking because of his career and who he works with, and two different writers examine the recent Soderberg movie Che which turns the murdering monster into a glowing, heroic figure. One points out how historically wrong the movie is and how the horrific brutality and evil of Che is portrayed as heroism. The other points out that while this is all true, Soderberg did a good job with the movie and it is a well-filmed product. He also points out that in a just world, China Syndrome would have been laughed out of the theater and rememberered with such movies as Gigli and Heaven's Gate.
I'm curious to see how this blog does, whether it will take off as well as Breitbart's two previous efforts, and whether it will have any positive impact on Hollywood, which frankly needs all the help it can get. Go take a look, it's a pretty good read and updated constantly.
1:54 PM, January 14, 2009
Christopher Taylor said...
You're right, as a suspense movie it was pretty well done[China Syndrome]; in terms of factual content, science, and logic it was atrocious.
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