Mark Gill, former President of Miramx films, and current CEO of the The Film Department, delivers some sobering but hopeful advice on the state and future of independent film at an LA Film Fest Conference. In short, make fewer better films:

In the most reductionist fashion: tere's the holy trinity of structure, character and dialogue, of course; the crucial if more ephemeral notions of authenticity, voice, theme, and tone; and the imperative for originality of utterance and perception.

In the end, all of this has to add up (seamlessly if possible) to something that moves us-- to the quality of the emotional content. It doesn't matter if we're talking about thrills, laughs, tears, or an adrenaline rush. What matters is that we are engaged and, ideally, emotionally transformed and satisfied.

In a world increasingly dominated by numbers--financial, technological and most importantly the finite number of hours in a day, our very human desire for contact, meaning and emotional transformation isn't going away. It's growing. Those who remember that will survive and most probably win.

Everyone should be able to make a film if they want. Of course. But don't expect for your film to a success if its no good, despite the tons of marketing you might throw at it. Brutal but true.

Funny (let's call it funny anyway) but true. How to explain how Vanity Fair went so far with the tweenie-bopper?  Steven Rybicki nails it

I had a great time laughing at the news of Miley Cyrus' spread in Vanity Fair. Annie Liebovitz's portrait hit Drudge and at 7am Monday morning Hannah Montana went from "tweenie-bopper" to "tworn-star."

And that's precisely the point where some of that basic, good, old-fashioned Marxist thinking about the "commodity" is helpful and can explain what the hell happened. This dust-up points to the fact that Miley Cyrus' body is a commodity that is controlled by two different sets of interests and agendas: those of Disney and those of her family.

Talk about a Battle Royale!

Anyone who is an independent contractor-ESL teacher, stair builder, grip- will know how important other sub-contractors can be to thier livelihoods and..health.  Yes, there is never a guarantee in business but when it goes down like this, it really pisses Peggy Archer , indie filmmaker and industry pro, off:

Today’s LA Times hit me like a hammer*, and it wasn’t so much of a surprise as it was a confirmation in my not having much faith in humanity these days:

Go Here and Here

Of course the suits looted the company. Of course.

You know, if I lose my health insurance** and pension qualifying hours and have to double pay taxes because one of these mother****ers wanted a tacky $100,000 car and a mostly plastic bimbo, I’m going to scour the earth to find the guy.

This is when it hits home.

"There's this whole school of thought that movies are always so great when you're 10 or 12 years old, and the reality of it is, when you're 10 or 12 years old, you've only seen 100 stories. By the time you get to be 25, you've seen 3,000," Fincher says. "You've seen every permutation of every dramatic arc. And when somebody takes that and stands it on its head, that can be exciting."  - David Fincher, Director, in a Variety article by Justin Chang.

So true even a chimp is shouting for new material presented in new ways.

Don't go one-over-the-nines with the folks or  the bar room denizens, which or where ever you find yourself this Thanksgiving. Hey! Be like Ann Frank. Despite it all there is lots to be thankful for. Or you can say f*** it, I'm going to drink fermented ketchup alone in my room and watch a KTLA marathon of classic television dramas and sit-coms.

Apologies for this blog being more cut-and-paste than usual. I wish I could offer a legitimate reason but I don't really have one. I have been reading a lot lately, trying to work on a full-length screenplay, and sheperding our web serial Masher along; that and laying around on the couch and staring at the ceiling.

In the words of the legendary Withnail, "I feel..unusual." I know I should be working hard but I just don't know exactly what I should be working hard on. Me of little faith, I know. Somedays it is harder than others to keep a smile on your face as you go about one rote task after another (bone-crushingly sober I might add)

One thing I do know is that I am getting very tired of the barage of the same media day-after-day. Blogging, movies, television, books, news..Jumping Jupiter, it just goes..on..like a bad day job you know has got to come to an end sooner rather than later. "I can't go on. I go on." Our friend Mr. Beckett indeed. Etc., etc.,..

"And while I have had many suits in many forms over the years tell me to figuratively **** off as they mangled my screenplays, it is not til you see that actual finger from an actual person do you realize how few times in your adult life someone has actually told you, to quote the great Arnold Schwartzenegger in Terminator: FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE."

After a long hiatus, Josh is back with a post about his first day on the strike.

                                                              Let's say you're not a writer, a producer, or that you have anything to do with the studio production of any kind of entertainment/media. Do you think the person who comes up with the idea-or puts the idea in words- should be paid well?

The writers want more money from the sale of DVDs and a share of revenue generated by the sale of TV shows and films over the Internet. The studios say the demands are unreasonable and will hamper attempts to experiment with new media.

Come on folks, this is not unreasonable. Of course you do! Yea, because of this strike there is going to be collateral damage and folks who do not have a ferret in this fight are gonna get hit in the pocketbook. This is unavoidable unfortunately. But look at the big picture: This strike could define, in one way or another ,the future of new media and how it is doled out to you, the public.

Cracked.com has a pretty good list of (in their opinion) the worst twist endings in Movies ever.

Ever since The Sixth Sense, Hollywood producers have been trying to capitalize on its success by distributing horribly illogical twist endings, hoping desperately to recapture what made the film such a surprise hit. And fail as they might, that certainly hasn't stopped them from continuing to try.

What do you think are the worst? I'm thinking Signs, the M. Knight Shayamalan-Mel Gibson flick about aliens in the heartland.

"No matter what you do in L.A., your behavior is appropriate for the city. Los Angeles has no assumed correct mode of use. You can have fake breasts and drive a Ford Mustang – or you can grow a beard, weigh 300 pounds, and read Christian science fiction novels. Either way, you're fine: that's just how it works. You can watch Cops all day or you can be a porn star or you can be a Caltech physicist. You can listen to Carcass – or you can listen to Pat Robertson. Or both.

L.A. is the apocalypse: it's you and a bunch of parking lots. No one's going to save you; no one's looking out for you. It's the only city I know where that's the explicit premise of living there – that's the deal you make when you move to L.A.The city, ironically, is emotionally authentic.
It says: no one loves you; you're the least important person in the room; get over it.
What matters is what you do there."  (BLDGBLOG)

True, so true. Havoc for those of us needing gobs and gobs of unconditonal love alas.

Michael Hirschon has a good article in The Atlantic  about the overuse of quirk in such vehicles as This American Life and Flight of the Conchords to name a few

Quirk, loosed from its moorings, quickly becomes exhausting. It’s easy for David Cross’s character on Arrested Development to cover himself in paint for a Blue Man Group audition, or for the New Zealand duo on Flight of the Conchords to make a spectacularly cheesy sci-fi video about the future while wearing low-rent robot costumes. But the pleasures are passing. Like the proliferation of meta-humor that followed David Letterman and Jerry Seinfeld in the ’90s, quirk is everywhere because quirkiness is so easy to achieve: Just be odd … but endearing. It becomes a kind of psychographic marker, like wearing laceless Chuck Taylors or ironic facial hair—a self-satisfied pose that stands for nothing and doesn’t require you to take creative responsibility. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

I equate this with Youth really. Once you grow up-creatively- you find that the quirk quickly loses its importance and you find yourself going back in time to the classics. Hirschon makes a good point in that folks who embrace quirk really are just setting themselves apart from folks who embrace American Idol; it's the being in-the-now of pop culture but being cooler, deeper, while doing so.

JD brings up an interesting point in his comments over at HE  about the merits of the soon-to-open film Juno penned by blogger (The Pussy Ranch)and memorist (about her work as a stripper) Diablo Cody.

Juno is nowhere near as good as Sideways or Little Miss Sunshine, both of which were written with far more care, nuance, depth, and sensitivity. As for Thank You for Smoking, there was elegance to the writing in that film (which I largely credit to Christopher Buckley), whereas Juno is just a bunch of bitter one-liners that reminded me more of an Andrew Dice Clay routine than any of the other references being evoked. The problem with Juno's script -- and the concept of blogger screenwriting, in general -- is that it exhibits no understanding of cinematic storytelling. For better or worse, Diablo Cody is the female Kevin Smith. Her writing would play better as a radio show, blog entry or stand-up comedy routine. And the movie is not supremely hip, as some people suggest. Not only does Cody make fun of Sonic Youth (a supremely un-hip move, in my opinion), but the soundtrack is full of songs by Belle & Sebastian, a terrific band that you'd be ahead-of-the-curve to use in a movie, oh, somewhere around the time High Fidelity came out.

I agree and disagree. Many bloggers I read are elegant, talented writers and/but  yes, there are those like me who are rushed hacks who happen to write screenplays as well. However, just because one blogs does not necassarily mean that that's the way one will write screenplays as well. Sure one's unique voice might be the same but I hope most blogger/screenwriters will be able to write in the voice of their respective characters as well.

"Many times I have been in the jaws of death, starving, footsore, and weary; for days and days I had no food, and often could walk no farther; I would sink down under a tree, and life would seem to be ebbing away. I could not speak, I could scarcely think, but at last the mind reverted to the idea: "I have no fear nor death; never was I born, never did I die; I never hunger or thirst. I am It! I am It! The whole of nature cannot crush me; it is my servant. Assert thy strength, thou Lord of lords and God of gods! Regain thy lost empire! Arise and walk and stop not!" And I would rise up, reinvigorated; and here I am today, living! Thus, whenever darkness comes, assert the reality and everything adverse must vanish. For after all, it is but a dream. Mountain-high though the difficulties appear, terrible and gloomy though all things seem, they are but Maya. Fear not, and it is banished. Crush it, and it vanishes. Stamp upon it, and it dies."

Peter Bart, columinist for trade rag Variety, and a host of other old-man-still-in-the-game gigs, takes aim at Matt Damon for..being "private and boring."

In your GQ interview, you suggest that if your public knew much about your background and personal life, they might have a difficult time accepting you as a tough guy -- indeed, a killer -- in your "Bourne" movies. Should you be that defensive about your privileged background? Humphrey Bogart and Lee Marvin both played tough guys yet came from prep school backgrounds, and I don't remember them apologizing about it.

Living in denial seems mildly pathological, Matt. In a recent interview, Christian Bale, another charter member of the give-me-privacy club, acknowledged that he routinely lies to reporters on those rare occasions when he is cornered. Asked by The Los Angeles Times why he does so, he replied, "I have no desire for people to get their facts right about me." Does Bale have such a riveting story to hide? I doubt it.

I'll give you this, Matt: Amid the media onslaught, it has become much more difficult for stars (or public figures in general) to maintain their dignity -- or their integrity. Would much of the media be downright thrilled if you had a few too many and launched into a public rant against some minority group? Damn right they would. A forced trip to rehab under a police escort would make a good piece on "Extra."

Still, there's got to be a middle ground between the Life of Lohan and "boring and elusive." I'd like to think you can stake out a piece of that ground, Matt, and look like you're enjoying yourself a little more.

Look at Clooney: The Limbaughs of the hard right have made him a whipping boy, but he still seems to be out there, having a great time and making some meaningful movies.

Think Clooney, Matt. Brando is so not today's role model, either in terms of behavior or heft.

This is what's wrong with the entertainment machine. If you don't have a melt-down or like to go to Starbucks to grab a coffee without having your pictures taken, you are boring. If you don't shill for various political and world problems publicly, then you are wasting your valuable celebrity time. In short, feed the whole machine, not just the film unit.

Billshit.

If Clooney and those like him feel compelled to public activism, fine. There is no rule that says you have to go along as well or be branded an eccentric recluse if you do not.  Private is better, Mr. Bart. But how will you sale newspapers ads if Hollywood's top star is..private and boring? Do like the LA Times does. Sale sex  ads. More $$$$ in it.

Masher and team wish you folks a fine holiday weekend. We here at HIT recco grilled chops, turnips, field peas, baked potato with mulled creme, and a very big bottle of Dry Chablis. Whether you stay or you stray, cool the jets and be safe.

Sometimes, when I've had too much to drink, I find myself cursing Hollywood, and those yuppie freaks who do not know who I am, and the hired lawyers waiting for me in the dark, and even the bloggers, lost in glory or utterly unknown, but then I relax and I can't help laughing.

You have to live your life; that's a fact. A drunk I met one time in North Carolina told me so.

Hollywood is crap

British author Bidisha goes off on the fourth estate:

"The media that deal in pop freakouts don't report these stories so much as create them," she says. "If Britney Spears has had any kind of meltdown, who can blame her? She is followed wherever she goes by stalker-violators: some have cameras and call themselves paparazzi; some have notebooks and call themselves journalists; some have vaginas and call themselves concerned women of the world. All relish the harassment that they perpetrate.

"It is women (writers and readers) who are enjoying and encouraging the exposure of Lohan's drink and drugs hell or Spears's identity crisis, while saving space for a snide comment about their outfits. It is women who are getting off on other women's difficulties, while men in power carouse, abuse (and self-abuse) with impunity.

"Who are the real 'bad girls'? Not Lohan or Spears. The gossip magazines may be as punchy as a dose of Splenda, but they offer evidence that women have obediently taken on the values of a woman-hating world. We must recognise the part women play in the degradation of women: the ultimate betrayal."

Fuckin A, I thought it was just me!

I never tire of Robert Evans stories no matter how short. Nikki Finke has one for Deadline Hollywood:

 I was waiting to interview a Paramount mogul who was 45 minutes late, so I started chatting up the secretaries in the office. And one of them leaned over to me and whispered, "I have a question maybe you can answer. There's this guy with long stringy hair and weird dirty clothes who stops by from time to time. Someone told us he used to run Paramount." I thought hard for a half a second, and then I brightened. "Oh, it's Bob Evans. Yeah, he ran production at the studio. Got convicted for cocaine. And then was implicated in a murder. Welcome to Hollywood." The secretary's eyes went wide. 

If you have never seen The Kid Stays in the Picture, a biopic about the Lizard himself, do.

Richard Schickel, writing for the LA Times  fires a barrage at  "lazy-minded, word-addicted 'reviewers.'" He has a point:

Let me put this bluntly, in language even a busy blogger can understand: Criticism — and its humble cousin, reviewing — is not a democratic activity. It is, or should be, an elite enterprise, ideally undertaken by individuals who bring something to the party beyond their hasty, instinctive opinions of a book (or any other cultural object). It is work that requires disciplined taste, historical and theoretical knowledge and a fairly deep sense of the author's (or filmmaker's or painter's) entire body of work, among other qualities.

Hmmm..but maybe it's just folks knowing their audience? Birds of a feather? I dunno. My minds' tired.