FOX NEWS: Hollywood vs. America (tonight 2/20 9pm EST host John Gibson - Ben Stein will be a guest)

FOX NEWS ^ | February 17, 2005 | FOX NEWS

[Keith in Iowa]

Time for a post-card blitz - send a post-card to:

Jack Valenti
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
15503 Ventura Blvd.
Encino, California 91436

Dear Jack: Saw you on John Gibson's FoxNews special. You don't get it.

Sincerely,
A Red-State American.

[armymarinemom]

bump for later

[Vision Thing]

Political relasionships are part of success in any business. I'm not just talking about acting. Just being an investor. Or director for that matter More conservatives should go to film school! I used to work in one and didn't meet a single one!

I read somewhere that many people who enter the field get their first break in low-level agency jobs. The majority of these are being doled out to conservative-leaning boys and gals just out of Business school.

These low-level jobs are the same ones that gave the start to many of the current power brokers in Hollywood, including Effin Geffen. So if this is where Effin Geffen started, and conservatives are now taking up these spots, it's just a matter of time when the Effin Geffens drop dead like flies.

So, I'm optimistic. The seeds are planted, and the industry stands to turn the right way someday soon.

[Borges]

I wish the philistine businessmen had less power and the filmmakers were given the reins. That's the way it was in the 1970s and it was a great time for American movies.

[Boiling point]

Even in Farris Beuller, Ben Stein's character as a high school history teacher, is giving a lesson on the great depression, with emphasis on the Republican plan that "didn't work" then cuts to the next scene. Bet that really galled Ben.

[Darkwolf377]

In the humble opinion of someone who's friends consider him a movie nut, The Passion was the most powerful and moving film I have ever seen. Period. By any standard by which most films are judged, acting, direction, cinematography, art, costume, etc. it is a masterpiece.

OK, that's fine, but it's your personal opinion. As someone who has been paid to write about film...I have no opinion because i didn't see it! :D (I've heard the score, which is laughably derivative of Gabriel's Last Temptation and also of Gladiator.)

"Respectfully, your comparisons with other high grossing films that the AAMPAS failed to recognize just doesn't fly."

Why not? Are you saying the Oscars always go to movies you personally feel are the best in cinematography, etc? I don't quite understand what you're saying--all the best movies are always nominated? By whose standards? You're acting as if there is one single standard for these things. I'm saying, lots of movies that are box office hits don't get nominated. And I happen to be right about that. I'll bow to you on the quality of the movie, but I could make a list as long as my arm of movies I thought were better than anything nominated, but weren't.

I just don't see the pertinence of one's personal opinion on this matter, because it's THEIR opinion that matters, and if I'm not mistake The Passion got nominated for music and photography.

So I guess I just don't understand why my comparisons with other high grossing films don't fly. Why don't they?

[Vision Thing]

Did you just hear the guy in the show?

"Hollywood has to realize it's not a political party. It's a business."

Although I agree with you that filmmakers should regain some control, the fact is that Hollywood is mainly an entertainment machine, a business.

A lot of money is at stake.

Besides, it's still possible for a filmmaker to become a powerbroker. Look at Speilberg. He was a filmmaker first only to become co-head of a studio. He wields a lot of power, but no longer as a filmmaker, but as a studio head.

[Borges]

I should also mention that the reason the filmmakers LOST control is because of big budget flops like 'Heaven's Gate'. In the 80s it became much more about making sfe commerical films that appeal to as wide an audicen as possible. A movie like 'The Godfather' would never get financed today and it did it would be an arthouse film as opposed to the all around box office smash it was in 1972.

[RayChuang88]

I should also mention that the reason the filmmakers LOST control is because of big budget flops like 'Heaven's Gate'.

Interestingly enough, we almost had a repeat of that situation with Titanic. If Titanic had failed (the production costs were somewhere north of US$200 million! ), it would have essentially finished off the very idea of an epic film for many years to come. Thank G*d it became one of the biggest hits of all time, and that paved the way for Peter Jackson to do the three Lord of the Rings movies, arguably the most ambitious project ever put on film (at a cost of around US$360 million for all three movies, and that's even with the lower production costs in New Zealand!).

[Paul Atreides]

Isn't it funny how one can forget about the Oscars, until someone brings it up?

I choose my movies very carefully. I don't mind seeing a movie staring a lib, if that lib expresses his views in a civilized manner. I do not, however, care to see movies with mouthy, soapbox psychopaths who think they are God's gift to humanity. Case in point: I always liked the movie "What's Up, Doc?", starring Blabba Streisand. That was before she started going off the deep end. Now, I couldn't stomach watching the film.

[Borges]

I think Streisand would think she was 'God's gift to humanity' even if she were a conservative. She just radiates 'LOOK AT ME'-ness.

[Borges]

That sounds about right. Titanic was a wonderful movie. It's very hip to dislike. Phooey.

[Paul Atreides]

One of those I-have-a-creative-talent-which-makes-me-better-than-you types.

[CitizenM]

EST - runs again at 12:00 am, not 11:00 pm.

[Colonel_Flagg]

Young movie maker, Evan Maloney is already being called a "Conservative Michael Moore"

Poor kid. I wouldn't consider that a compliment.

[Borges]

The Oscars aren't a film festival though. It's a celebration of all American film making. And Best Picture winners tned to be on the conservative side with an exception here and there.

[RockAgainsttheLeft04]

Ben Stein is certainly a helluva guy, but if I hear one more word about the so-called "snubbing" of the Passion of the Christ or nonsensical talk about a "culture war" with Hollywood, I'll puke. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was THE best, most original, most touching, and just plain BRILLIANT movie of last year, and I'm not getting up on my high horse and declaring some kind of cultural jihad against Hollywood because it didn't get a Best Picture nomination.

That kind of behavior is just plain childish and the kind of paranoid, ignorant anti-Hollywood rhetoric espoused by the special tonight was beneath Fox and beneath conservatives in general.

[Full disclosure for fellow FReepers: I DID love the Passion, but it wasn't the be all and end all of great filmmaking in the strong and eclectic year that was 2004. Of the other films mentioned above, thought that "Kinsey" was a pretty damn good movie, but can't speak for Vera Drake as I have not seen it]

Good luck to this Evan Maloney, however. We do need a conservative version of Michael Moore to represent us Bushies, and I hope that he can master the art of documentary filmaking at least as well as that famous gasbag has (and hopefully Maloney's films will avoid the tendency towards mindless polemics and preaching to the crowd that MM's left-wing films have tended towards ever since Roger and Me).

[MarkL]

It seems I'm out of touch with Hollywood too...

Other than the Harry Potter and LOTR movies, the only movies I've seen recently on DVD or cable are "Waking Up in Reno," and the two "Blue Collar Comedy Tour" DVDs!

I guess Hollywood thinks I'm Whiskey Tango.

Mark

[Former Military Chick]

thank you for the clariification I live in central time .. thus the wrong time.

12am EST!