I love movies. I love
to enter a dark cave and get lost in a good story. Though I would never admit it, I even like
sentimental movies, Capraesque tear jerkers filled with enough emotional tugs
as to dissolve testosterone into a pool of salty tears. I do not have very high standards all I ask
is that the two hours or so spent in this pursuit doesn't cause a migraine or
insult my intelligence. Yet even with my
low standards for entertainment, I find I am unable to go to many movies. Why?
Well, here is the reason. The
money grubbing investors have brought their collective idiocy to the entertainment
industry. That’s right, it is an
industry, and the tycoons have shown that money can buy influence;
unfortunately, it can’t buy taste.
Seduced and Abandoned, a movie by James
Toback, delved into the shallow world of the financiers of movies who have the wherewithal
to fund projects. Unfortunately, rather
than just investing, they add their two cents to the project. The result is artistry has been jettison. Art is not the theme but how they can turn a
dollar. They, like their counterparts in
the food industry, are not concerned with quality just crap that sells. The
fact that these titans of capital can dictate what is produced reduces movies
to the equivalent of commercial junk food.
Their productions lay on the mind like a double bacon cheese burger.
Torback
does an excellent job of exposing these two bit capitalists for what they
are. They are junk peddlers who haven’t
a clue what a good movie is. They throw
out the names of stars that they will back not even comprehending that the
names they are spewing are folks who learned a craft and got their name through
their talent in solid pieces. They haven’t
a clue of how to be innovative or impactful.
They look at balance sheets and deduce opportunities. Thus good actors, in need of work and a
payday, are reduced to roles that defy even the basic standards of art. I often wondered about that. How a star would accept a role that is
clearly little more than nonsense? Yet
the money is there because some bloated financier sees a way of exploiting
talent and filling his pockets. Does he
care about movies? I doubt it. He is too shallow to appreciate anything
beyond his limited imagination and his ability to make more money.
Then
when you think about what it takes to actually make a movie, you can see all
the folks forced into productions to make a movie. Scripts must be generated by gnomes with little
or no idea of what to say. Clichés spew
forth from their pens and packaged in a fashion that a pea brained backer can
relate to. Of course, these titans are
looking at demographics and seeing how computer generated scenes can enhance their
movies without the expense of building sets, and bam, every movie has computer
generated scenes. Let’s not forget the
noise and the fights and the car chases and deaths and bullets, and car crashes
and pedestrians scurrying about. It is a
formula destined to repeat over and over again without a scintilla of
creativity. So release after release
come forward with the same old crap.
Yes, art
has been taken over by the money people.
From porn to big budget movies, from records to television shows, we
live in an era of moneyed people, people who are dictating entertainment. They dominated with their money and produce
crap. Their sick and pathetic ideas
dominate mass media. They are small
people who possess no morals, no principles, and no ideas. They are profiteers who crowd out talent,
bastardized it, reduce it to simplistic perceptions. Capitalists have taken control of
entertainment and just like they did with the government they are running it
into the ground.
So,
rather than running off to the movies, I sift through the fare choosing to not
enrich those who have zero interest in the product their backing only looking
for the ticket I purchase. I have discovered
frame for frame, the indies are the place to look for entertainment.
