Hollywood needs an exorcism
Posted on February 21, 2005 at 06:37:30 PM by Eagle

http://www.catholicleague.org/05press_releases/quarter|01/050217_constantine.htm

February 17, 2005

HOLLYWOOD NEEDS AN EXORCISM

Catholic League president William Donohue commented today on the new Warner Brothers film, “Constantine,” which opens tomorrow:

“Those who like Marilyn Manson and professional wrestling should be drawn to ‘Constantine.’ The movie is not only spiritual junk food for religious illiterates, it’s another example of the way Hollywood rips off Catholicism.

“The plot centers on a chain-smoking, bummed out, demon-hunting detective who’s been to hell and back. Constantine’s pursuit of demons is not, however, altruistically driven: because he once tried to kill himself, he thinks he’s doomed to go to hell unless he can earn enough chips to get into heaven. Lucky for him, he becomes adept at performing exorcisms. Along the way he meets a policewoman who’s determined to prove that her deceased Catholic sister didn’t commit suicide, and thus can be given a Christian burial. And, of course, he meets a priest, who just happens to be an Irish drunk.

“We hate to spoil the party, but the Catholic Church does not teach that everyone who commits suicide is destined to go to hell. Nor does it teach that those who do so must be denied a Christian burial. (It did at one time, on the grounds that suicide violated the Fifth Commandment.)

“So what does this tell us about Hollywood? First, the fact that the producers of this trash literally tried to induce evangelical Protestants to market this movie for them tells us volumes about the way these guys view Christians. Also telling is the answer that Francis Lawrence, the director, gave to the question of his own faith: ‘I’m a skeptic, myself. For all I know, you die and rot in a box and that’s it.’ Either that or you rot someplace else.

“It looks like Hollywood could use an exorcism of its own. Maybe they can find a sober Irish priest willing to do it.”

Through Their Cinema
Posted on February 24, 2005 at 05:56:34 PM by Adrien Arcand

"Through their (Jew's) international news agencies, they mold your minds and have you see the world not as it is, but as they want you to see it. Through their cinema, they are the educators of our youth - and with just one film in two hours, can wipe out of a child's brain what he has learned in six months in the home, the church or the school."

Re(1): Through Their Cinema
Posted on February 25, 2005 at 05:36:10 AM by Mitchell Levine

Why are you so mindlessly anti-Semite? Why don't you try to make something of your life, you pathetic little Jew-hater? No-one wants to be bothered with your Nazi obsession, so please get lost.

Re(2): Through Their Cinema
Posted on February 28, 2005 at 06:51:35 AM by Heebie Jeebie

>Why are you so mindlessly anti-Semite? Why don't you try to make something of your life, you pathetic little Jew-hater? No-one wants to be bothered with your Nazi obsession, so please get lost.


>>>>>>>>This has a wonderfully "All your base are belong to us" quality.

sexualized racism
Posted on February 24, 2005 at 07:42:43 PM by saurturion

Was race an issue in ‘Hitch’ casting?

Will Smith says moviemakers were afraid to cast him in love with either an African-American or a white woman, so selected Cuban actress Eva Mendes.

By Jeannette Walls
MSNBC
Updated: 2:48 a.m. ET Feb. 24, 2005
Eva Mendes was given the role opposite Smith because the moviemakers were worried about the public’s reaction if the part was given to a white or an African American actress, according to Smith. The actor is saying that it was feared that a black couple would have put off worldwide audiences whereas a white/African American combo would have offended viewers in the U.S.
“There’s sort of an accepted myth that if you have two black actors, a male and a female, in the lead of a romantic comedy, that people around the world don’t want to see it,” Smith told the British paper, the Birmingham Post while promoting the flick overseas. “We spend $50-something million making this movie and the studio would think that was tough on their investment. So the idea of a black actor and a white actress comes up — that’ll work around the world, but it’s a problem in the U.S.”
Eva Mendes — who is of Cuban descent — was seen as a solution because apparently, the black/Latina combination is not considered taboo.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7019342/

which is what I was saying to Levine. Certain couples are acceptable, like the Asian female/European male couple in Hitched but an African couple or an African male with an European female is taboo. Levine says that it is diversity' to show Asian females with non-Asian males and it is 'bigoted' to show Asian couples.

Obviously, it is not bigoted to show certain people being miscegenated. While I haven't seen Hitched, I have heard that the Asian woman is sexually charged (a la I want white man, sucky f****, me love u long time)

Of course, Levine will dismiss this with a wave of the hand, an act of neurosis on my part and then he will whine about Jewish persecution from bigoted anti-semitic board members. Ah, well.

sexualized racism

Re(1): sexualized racism
Posted on February 25, 2005 at 02:15:48 PM by Mitchell Levine

which is what I was saying to Levine. Certain couples are acceptable, like the Asian female/European male couple in Hitched but an African couple or an African male with an European female is taboo. Levine says that it is diversity' to show Asian females with non-Asian males and it is 'bigoted' to show Asian couples.
- I never said it was "bigoted"; I said Asian actresses like Margaret Cho and Ming Na had said they wanted to avoid racial stereotypes by partnering with non-Asian men, which they did.

Obviously, it is not bigoted to show certain people being miscegenated. While I haven't seen Hitched, I have heard that the Asian woman is sexually charged (a la I want white man, sucky f****, me love u long time)

Of course, Levine will dismiss this with a wave of the hand, an act of neurosis on my part and then he will whine about Jewish persecution from bigoted anti-semitic board members. Ah, well.
- How is partnering him with a Cuban actress "avoid miscegenation," and why are you blaming Hollywood instead of the ticketbuyers that will complain of "race mixing?"

And most of all, why do you seem to think that the most important civil rights issue of our time is seeing guys of your ethnicity boinking A-list actresses???

Are you 15 years old???

Hollywood's "isms"
Posted on March 1, 2005 at 12:30:08 PM by John Cones

Now that (after more than 100 years), Hollywood has finally honored a young African-American as best actor (Jamie Foxx), an older African-American as best supporting actor (Morgan Freeman) and another older actor/director as best director (Clint Eastwood), many among the Hollywood establishment like to pat themselves on the back, taking the position that a couple of the “isms” that have plagued Hollywood for years (“ageism” and “racism”) have now been put behind them. Of course, actors and directors do not run Hollywood, there still exists a great deal of the traditional “isms” including “racism”, “ageism”,
“favoritism”, “nepotism”, “cronyism” and other forms of discrimination in the suites of the studio executives, in the talent agent and management ranks and among entertainment attorneys. That’s where the power is and it won’t be given up without a fight. The glamour of the Academy Awards may fool most of the people, but it's mostly for show. Real diversity in Hollywood doesn't happen until the levels noted above are open to all on a fair and equal basis.

John Cones

Re(1): No PASSION from Oscar
Posted on February 28, 2005 at 07:40:35 PM by Mitchell Levine

No, because, in the opinion of most critics, it wasn't a well-made movie, and I agree.

If Chris Rock's straw poll was accurate, the film best-liked by the public was White Chicks. Does that mean the Academy was supposed to honor that too?

Re(2): No PASSION from Oscar
Posted on February 28, 2005 at 11:28:06 PM by Silvertstein

"Most" movie critics are Jews. They detest Christianity and Christ the Jewish blashphemer.

Re(3): No PASSION from Oscar
Posted on March 1, 2005 at 02:31:16 PM by Mitchell Levine

A) The idea that most Jews "detest" Christianity exists in the minds of bigots only. I've never met anyone Jewish that told me they disliked Christianity or Christian.

B) Pleny of Gentile critics gave The Passion an F, and stated that they felt it was poorly directed and written.

Re(5): No PASSION from Oscar
Posted on March 11, 2005 at 02:00:59 PM by Mitchell Levine

Uh, Jim, I work in Hollywood now, and I've certainly worked in it in the past.

I'm just finishing up getting my last project sold.

Re(4): No PASSION from Oscar
Posted on March 1, 2005 at 10:51:02 AM by Heebie Jeebie

But you have to admit: Abe Foxman of the ADL did a bang-up job promoting "The Passion."

There's no way Mel could have afforded all the PR he ultimately received.

Re(5): No PASSION from Oscar
Posted on March 1, 2005 at 03:58:57 PM by Mitchell Levine

I suspect that was all part of Mel's master plan.

Asian Pacific Islanders in Hollywood
Posted on March 3, 2005 at 00:48:39 AM by saurturion

Hollywood’s 25 Worst APA Blunders


By Philip W. Chung, Feb 25, 2005

So how does one come up with and rank the top 25 Hollywood blunders on this list? In the past, I’ve presented lists of the most influential Asian Pacific Americans in Hollywood and the best APA film moments. Coming up with those lists of the “best” was difficult. Compared with that, making a list of the “worst” was much easier. Why?

Partly, I think it’s human nature to be able to more readily see the bad things in life. We may not appreciate all the good things we have, but we seem to have no problem bringing up the bad.

Before compiling my previous lists, I sought opinions from friends and colleagues about what I should or shouldn’t include, but this time, no such consultations were necessary. I sat down and just started a list of all the awful or embarrassing things Hollywood has done when it comes to APAs.

I remembered movies like Breakfast at Tiffany’s and how awful I felt watching Mickey Rooney’s stereotypical “yellowface” performance. I remembered moments like the 1987 Academy Awards when The Last Emperor received numerous nominations but none for the talented APA cast.

Before I knew it, I had my list.

Why is it important to document these “negative” moments? Because by remembering them, we can take stock of where we’ve come from, where we are and how much further we need to go (which by the looks of this list is still a long way).

So here it is — a walk down the memory path filled with weeds and potholes ...

25. TWIN TRAGEDY

Over the years, a number of Asian-themed film projects have come close to receiving a green light only to be derailed at the last minute, including bio-pics of acting legend Sessue Hayakawa (to have starred John Lone) and 1920s Korean American gangster Jason Lee. But in the late ’80s, Hollywood was ready to undertake arguably the most interesting Asian film biography: the story of real-life conjoined twins Chang and Eng. A script was ready to go, and Mr. Spock himself, Leonard Nimoy, signed on to direct what he called his “dream project” (at the time, Nimoy was an in-demand director after the successes of Star Trek IV and Three Men and a Baby). But Hollywood got cold feet, and even Spock, who got himself successfully returned from the dead, could not rescue these twins from development hell.

24. THE CURTAIN FALLS ON CEDAR

After the success of his film Shine, director Scott Hicks turned his attention to David Guterson’s best-selling novel Snow Falling on Cedars as his follow-up. The book told a story of a Japanese American fisherman on trial for murder and his wife’s past relationship with the Caucasian reporter who may hold the key to the case. Although the story’s characters are American-born, Hicks hired Japanese actress Youki Kudoh for the lead. Kudoh’s “foreignness” betrayed the character’s “Americanness” despite some fine acting and underlined the notion that Hollywood can’t tell the difference between Asians and Asian Americans. Making matters worse was the casting of model Rick Yune as the man on trial. Yune’s lack of experience was evident in the numerous scenes he shared with acting legend Max Von Sydow.

23. NO SENSE OR SENSIBILITY FROM OSCAR

In 1995, Ang Lee’s adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility was a critical and commercial hit and earned Oscar nominations in most major categories, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Emma Thompson), Best Supporting Actress (Kate Winslet) and Best Screenplay (Thompson again, who won). But notably missing was a nod for Lee, who did no less than direct the whole venture. This wasn’t the first time the Academy snubbed the APA guy while honoring almost everyone else associated with the project (see #1icon_cool.gif. Apparently, the Academy tried to make amends five years later by awarding Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon multiple awards.

22. THE SEED GIVES BIRTH TO A BOMB

Katharine Hepburn is a Hollywood legend and one of the greatest actors to have ever graced the silver screen, but even the best artist bombs on occasion. Hepburn hit her artistic low with the 1944 film adaptation of Pearl Buck’s Dragon Seed. Playing Jade, a Chinese woman fighting the Japanese occupation during World War II, Hepburn falls prey to every stereotype from the taped-back eyes to the thick, ching-chong-y accent. Other great actors have arguably had their biggest misfires playing Asian characters (check out Marlon Brando in The Teahouse of the August Moon, or better yet, don’t) so maybe the lesson here is to leave the “yellowface” to the real “yellow” brothers and sisters.

21. SULU VERSUS KIRK

After years of lobbying, actor George Takei was finally going to see his character, U.S.S. Enterprise helmsman Sulu, promoted to captain of his own ship in a scene where Captain Kirk (William Shatner) breaks the good news to him in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. But as Takei explained in his autobiography, To The Stars, when it came time to shoot the scene, Shatner became uncooperative. “Bill played it ... disinterested,” he wrote. “No eye contact. No emotion. No relationship. Nothing.” Takei was disappointed but not surprised when the scene he fought so hard for was cut from the film. Sulu finally got his promotion four films later in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

20. NOT PICTURE PERFECT

Japanese American filmmaker Kayo Hatta made a splash with audiences at Sundance with her 1994 debut feature Picture Bride, prompting indie powerhouse Miramax Films to purchase and release Hatta’s sensitive story about a Japanese picture bride who comes to Hawai‘i in the early 1900s. Miramax’s marketing campaign for the video release tried to “sex up” the film with artwork on the package emphasizing the back of a nude Asian woman — something which had nothing to do with the film itself. Asian American critics, including Hatta herself, cried foul at the blatant misrepresentation, but the brothers Weinstein refused to budge.

19. VAN DAMMIT!

By the time director John Woo arrived in the United States in 1993 to helm his first American film, Hard Target, he was already an internationally acclaimed filmmaker thanks to high-octane action flicks like The Killer. Used to having creative control in his native Hong Kong, Woo instead found a Hollywood studio system that was unwilling to let John Woo have the freedom to be ... well, John Woo. Studio executives, producers and star Jean-Claude Van Damme all kept tight reins on the director (it was rumored that Woo was even barred from the editing room), which resulted in a film that showed signs of Woo’s distinct touch but overall was an artistic disappointment. Fortunately for us, Woo learned to work the system and later produced films more worthy of his talent including Broken Arrow and Face Off.

18. THE EMPEROR GETS SNUBBED

In 1987, Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci’s epic The Last Emperor swept the Academy Awards with nine wins (including for Best Picture and Best Director) and became one of the most critically acclaimed films of the 1980s. But none of the Oscars — and not even a single nomination — went to any of the (Asian American) actors. Anchored by brilliant, career-defining performances by John Lone as the emperor Pu Yi and Joan Chen as his opium-addicted wife Wan Jung, the cast (also including Dennis Dun and Maggie Han) was uniformly praised by audiences and critics alike, but unfortunately that didn’t translate into recognition by the Academy, which continued to see right through APA actors.

17. SATURDAY NIGHT IS NOT ALRIGHT FOR ASIANS

Some TV sketch-comedy shows have made at least a token attempt to feature APA performers: Bobby Lee on MAD TV and Steve Park in In Living Color (see #15). But the granddaddy of all comedy shows, Saturday Night Live, has yet to feature an APA cast member, even though the late-night show has had no problem featuring Caucasian actors in “yellowface” — still one of the few shows to continue to do so. Sometimes the portrayals aren’t necessarily racially offensive and are even inspired (John Belushi’s Samurai and Jimmy Fallon’s William Hung), but more often than not, the humor skews toward characters and skits like Dana Carvey’s chicken-loving Asian merchant or the fortune-cookie factory that would be right at home next to the old Fu Manchu and Charlie Chan flicks (more below).

16. KUNG PHOOEY

In the late ’60s, Bruce Lee made waves as the butt-kicking Kato, sidekick to the titular hero of the Green Hornet TV series. Although the show lasted only one season, Lee made enough of an impression that producers proposed an idea for a new series entitled Kung Fu. The series would star the martial-arts actor as a Shaolin monk wandering the Old West and imparting life lessons while getting medieval on the bad guys. The show eventually made it on the air and became a big hit — but without Lee. Instead, conservative TV executives cast Caucasian non-martial-artist David Carradine. Tired of Hollywood’s racism, Lee left for Hong Kong and turned himself into a legend in films like The Chinese Connection and Enter the Dragon. Hollywood’s loss turned out to be the world’s gain.

15. ‘IN LIVING COLOR’ LOSES SOME COLOR

Actor Steve Park (Do The Right Thing) made TV history in 1991 by becoming the first APA to be cast in a network sketch-comedy show on Fox’s immensely popular series In Living Color alongside future stars like Jim Carrey and Jamie Foxx. Working on a primarily black American show during the height of black-Korean tensions, Park at times felt uncomfortable but knew his presence on the show could have a positive effect. But despite assurances from the producers that he would be back for a second season, Park was quietly fired without explanation. After a few more years of frustration, Park wrote and distributed a personal mission statement calling Hollywood out on its racism and turned his back on the business. Now living in New York, Park recently returned to acting, and we look forward to seeing more of him.

14. GOOD-BYE SAIGON

In the late ’70s through the ’80s, Hollywood discovered that Vietnam War films were box-office gold. While these films often portrayed the experience of the American soldier with understanding and depth, the Vietnamese were mostly relegated to “extra” status or got screen time as caricatures. Whether they were painted as dangerous psychotics (Full Metal Jacket, The Deer Hunter) or just the faceless enemy (Platoon, Apocalypse Now), Hollywood seemed reluctant to show audiences the humanity of the Vietnamese involved in the conflict. It wasn’t until 1993 that a studio film, Oliver Stone’s Heaven and Earth, explored the subject of the war from the perspective of those most directly involved.

13. BUGS BUNNY’S LESSON IN PATRIOTISM

Cartoons, like live-action films, are very much a product of their times. So it’s no wonder that during World War II, when many movies portrayed the Japanese as subhuman, animation followed the lead of live-action films. The most offensive production may be a short cartoon released at the height of the Second World War entitled Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips, which found our heroic wabbit fighting a “Jap” soldier on a deserted South Pacific island. Of course, Bugs triumphs in the end but not before introducing his audience (most of whom were children) to some of the worst stereotyping of the Japanese since ... actually, there was no precedent for anything this offensive in the world of children’s cartoons.

12. BLACK KOREA

During the late ’80s and early ’90s, Korean Americans weren’t seeing much love after the Latasha Harlins shooting, the L.A. riots and other well-publicized incidents involving allegedly rude and sometimes violent Korean merchants in the inner city. Hollywood jumped on the bandwagon and added to an already tense environment by featuring a disproportionate amount of negative portrayals of urban Korean merchants in films ranging from It Could Happen To You to Menace II Society to Falling Down. We must note that Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing is a notable exception.

11. THE BIRTH OF THE YELLOW PERIL

Movies were only in their infancy when Cecil B. DeMille’s 1915 silent film The Cheat set the template for how Hollywood would portray Asians for years to come. The film starred Japanese-born Sessue Hayakawa as an inscrutable Asian man who chases after a married Caucasian woman. Though Hayakawa gives a charismatic performance that made him a star, The Cheat was the first major Hollywood film to embrace a stereotypical view of Asians as the “Yellow Peril.” Others quickly followed suit, including The Yellow Menace (1916), The Exploits of Elaine (1916) and The Perils of Pauline (1919), where villainous Asians lusted after the pure Caucasian heroines. Almost 100 years later, things haven’t improved much.

Next week: The worst 10 flicks.

Philip W. Chung is a writer and co-artistic director of Lodestone Theatre Ensemble.


http://news.asianweek.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=c9059dadeb244fc3bc5ca2c0e3248e2a

Re(1): Asian Pacific Islanders in Hollywood
Posted on March 3, 2005 at 05:36:15 PM by John Cones

Philip:

Most of such instances come about because of a lack of diversity at the top in Hollywood. That lack of diversity trickles down through many of the biased decisions that are made relating to the production, financing and distribution of films. It has always been less than fruitful, however, for a single interest group to criticize Hollywood for it's lack of diversity. I have long advocated that all of the Hollywood outsiders come together in a single organization and work towards bringing about more diveristy at the top in Hollywood for the benefit of everyone.

John Cones

Re(2): Asian Pacific Islanders in Hollywood
Posted on March 3, 2005 at 09:52:52 PM by saurturion

yes a concerted effort would be better than one group going it alone. The problem is that all minorities or affected groups are only concerned with their welfare and as such their voices will continually be ignored

Re(3): Asian Pacific Islanders in Hollywood
Posted on March 3, 2005 at 10:27:00 PM by John Cones

Well, we can put the idea out there and let it percolate around. Who knows, maybe the various groups that have been complaining for years about the lack of diversity in Hollywood, will eventually come together for more effective action.

John Cones

Here's An Idea!
Posted on March 4, 2005 at 12:09:29 PM by John Cones

Maybe the various and many organizations that have complained over the years about how Hollywood films consistently depict their members should each extend their own projects relating to the film industry to include (1) liaison with other similarly situated groups, (2) share research regarding Hollywood motion picture bias, (3) agree to join with these other groups in promoting consumer boycotts (within the limits of the law) of major studio/distributor releases that continue such patterns of bias.

John Cones

Re(1): Here's An Idea!
Posted on March 4, 2005 at 11:49:37 PM by saurturion

great idea but our laissez faire mentality will retard progress

However, as you previously stated, the idea needs to be out there and the interest groups motivated. This may take a while but it's either that or everlasting complaining with little or no change

Re(2): Here's An Idea!
Posted on March 5, 2005 at 00:10:27 AM by John Cones

Each interest group ought to create a movie review organization something like the MovieGuide created by Ted Baehr and The Christian Film & Television Commission. If each group would then commit to boycott MPAA films if one group considered the film offensive, that would impact the MPAA companies where it hurts. They may scream "First Amendment", but the truth is that they have abused their right to free speech by using this powerful medium for communicating ideas as their own propaganda tool, and forcing it on unsuspecting moviegoers by force feeding with massive advertising and promotion. It's time, the rest of the film industry, the independents, had a shot. That would be real free speech.

John Cones

Re(3): Here's An Idea!
Posted on March 7, 2005 at 05:31:04 PM by Mitchell Levine

Since when are boycotts imposed by private citizens a "free speech" issue in the first place?

Re(4): Here's An Idea!
Posted on March 7, 2005 at 08:02:23 PM by saurturion

so you find Hollywood 100% perfect?

boycotts are (and have always been) an expression of the freedon of speech

Re(5): Here's An Idea!
Posted on March 7, 2005 at 08:25:32 PM by Mitchell Levine

That doesn't answer my question: in what way are boycotts a violation of the 1st Amendment rights of the studios in the first place?

The 1st Amendment protects you from criminal prosecution, not rejection by consumers.

Re(6): Here's An Idea!
Posted on March 8, 2005 at 11:19:37 PM by saurturion

You asked: "Since when are boycotts imposed by private citizens a "free speech" issue in the first place?"

Answer: When my free speech allows me to protest

Then you asked: "in what way are boycotts a violation of the 1st Amendment rights of the studios in the first place?"

Which seems to be another question.

The original post is : "Each interest group ought to create a movie review organization something like the MovieGuide created by Ted Baehr and The Christian Film & Television Commission. If each group would then commit to boycott MPAA films if one group considered the film offensive, that would impact the MPAA companies where it hurts. They may scream "First Amendment", but the truth is that they have abused their right to free speech by using this powerful medium for communicating ideas as their own propaganda tool, and forcing it on unsuspecting moviegoers by force feeding with massive advertising and promotion. It's time, the rest of the film industry, the independents, had a shot. That would be real free speech. "

which simply means that the 'freedom of speech' line used by studios to protect themselves from criticism should not prevent others from protesting if they want to. What so hard to understand in that?

Your questions are unwarranted and seem to be putting 'word in the mouth' of someone when none of those words were uttered

Q & A With Sharon Waxman
Posted on March 5, 2005 at 10:48:09 PM by Hia

I've read that "Spike Jonze" is Jewish or half Jewish...

I assumed Steven Soderbergh was Jewish...

Gould (née Elliott Goldstein), who committed a Tischkoff-like faux paswhen he asked if director Steven Soderbergh was Jewish. "He said, 'No, I'm Swedish,' and I said, 'Well, you know, Swedish is a nationality,while Jewish is a way of life,'" Gould recalls. Soderbergh looked nonplused. "Hey, it's OK with me," the actor quickly added. "I hope I haven't blown the job."well...???

2005-03-04
Q & A With Sharon Waxman
by Amy Klein, Managing Editor
http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=13728

If you loved movies like "Pulp Fiction," "Fight Club," "Traffic,""Being John Malkovitch," "Boogie Nights" and "Three Kings," then you
should probably read Sharon Waxman's new book, "Rebels on the Backlot: Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Studio System"
(HarperEntertainment 2005).

Waxman has covered Hollywood for The New York Times for a year and for The Washington Post for eight, and in her eminently readable and well-researched book, she encapsulates the 1990s through the breakout films of six young directors: Quentin Tarantino, Steven Soderbergh, David Fincher, Paul Thomas Anderson, David. O. Russell and Spike Jonze: Waxman, 41, talks to The Journal about filmmaking, about being an observer to "this foreign country" of Hollywood and about the biggest taboo subject of all: Being Jewish in Hollywood.

JJ: What do these filmmakers have in common?
SW: I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that [they] are all extremely driven, that they're extremely individualistic, that they are wedded to their ideas, to what they want to create as filmmakers, and that they don't want to budge from that. They're egotistical — but I don't think they're more egotistical than anyone I come across in Hollywood, not more egotistical than the average Hollywood director (egotistical not in a bad sense). Directors (and
screenwriters) are the most interesting people you meet in Hollywood because they're very different. To be a great director requires so
many different talents...

JJ: How else are they similar?
SW: All of them are guys, they're all white, from an upper-middle-class environment, all had broken homes and tortured
relationships with their mothers and fathers. The common point is that they were driven from a very young age to make movies.

JJ: Are any of them Jewish?
SW: No. Except David O. Russell is half Jewish. (His father was Bernard Markovski, the name of the main character in "I (Heart)
Huckabees.")

JJ: If you read histories of Hollywood or look at the old studio system and the people who were making movies, it really did seem as if
the Jews were running the system. But none of your book's main characters are Jewish.
SW: The directors aren't Jewish, but the executives are still more often than not. There's a very large Jewish presence in Hollywood. Maybe it's a bit less than it was at the studios — I guess it's no longer 100 percent. But there are a large number of Jewish people in powerful positions.

JJ: Yet, no one wants to talk about being Jewish in Hollywood...
SW: The Jewish question in Hollywood is the most taboo subject in Hollywood.

JJ: Why?
SW: There's a reluctance to highlight the fact that there are a large number of Jews in Hollywood, because there's a concern that people will take that to mean there's some kind of Jewish influence or cabal, and people don't want to feed into false negative stereotypes.

JJ: Does being Jewish have any value in Hollywood?
SW: I think that it's just part of the culture of Hollywood. In "A Mighty Wind," Christopher Guest plays this Swedish music producer who
speaks in Yiddish the whole time, [saying] "he's so meshuggene" — and it's so hilarious, it's a gentle satire that there is a Jewish
character to Hollywood. Here's a Swedish character who can throw in Yiddish [because that's the] tone of the culture that he's living in.
That's a reality.

JJ: Does it help to be Jewish in Hollywood?
SW: Just like if you are from Detroit, and you want to get a job in
the auto industry, and you have relatives at the Ford Motor Co., so
you have that connection; from that standpoint [if you're Jewish in
Hollywood] you might have that advantage going for you, if you grow up
in a connected Jewish community then there might be someone in the
system you could reach out to...

JJ: Is that a sensitive point for you?
SW: I think that it's a sensitive question that deserves a sensitive answer, because I wouldn't deny that there are a lot of Jews in Hollywood. I am not "The Jews of Hollywood," I am just one person, I am a reporter. I think there's a desire to not be lumped together and
not be a target, but at the same time I would never deny that there's a lot of Jews in Hollywood and there is a certain Jewish
characteristic to the industry.

JJ: How is it to be part of the Hollywood community and the Jewish
community?
SW: I'm observing Hollywood as a reporter. The day that I become "part" of Hollywood is the day I should stop covering Hollywood. I'm
an observer, I'm not a joiner. I'm not part of synagogues and denominations or any of that stuff. I think that the challenges to me
personally in the job that I have and in the Jewish community that I live are personal challenges. Similar to the way every parent here does, my husband and I are trying to raise our [three] children with good values in a very materialistic and often superficial place that is wealthy Los Angeles.

Re(1): Q & A With Sharon Waxman
Posted on March 7, 2005 at 08:30:55 PM by Chicago

"There's a reluctance to highlight the fact that there are a large number of Jews in Hollywood, because there's a concern that people will take that to mean there's some kind of Jewish influence or cabal, and people don't want to feed into false negative stereotypes."

False negative stereotypes???? Please!!!!!

Yeah, how absurd! It would be completely crazy to conclude that a large number of Jews in powerful positions would mean that Jews had any real influence!!!

Re(2): Q & A With Sharon Waxman
Posted on March 8, 2005 at 05:11:45 PM by Mitchell Levine

It also doesn't "prove" that Hollywood is a giant Jewish conspiracy either.

Re(1): Q & A With Sharon Waxman
Posted on March 6, 2005 at 08:44:49 PM by Frankie

Waxman the "outsider" to Hollywood? She is Jewish. She has worked as a journalist for the New York Times and Washington Post. The Sulzbergers that own the Times are Jewish. The Grahams that own the Post had a Jewish father. Both papers are top-heavy with Jews in editorial positions. Ms. Waxman got the job to cover Hollywood with no experience in that particular field.

African-American Stereotypes
Posted on March 7, 2005 at 04:48:47 PM by John Cones

The following article from Black Enterprise magazine is posted in its entirety as an illustration of the continuing bias of Hollywood motion pictures:

A Picture of Black Entreprneurship?
by Earl G. Graves, Sr.

The MGM/United Artists film Soul Plane - a comedy about what happens when a black man uses a $100 million civil judgement to start an airline - presents some of the worst, most racist depictions of African Americans in recent memory. It's a sign of the persistence of racism in the film industry that, in 2004, studios continue to resist investing money in quality films about black life. Instead, they finance movies, such as Soul Plane, that perpetuate the same false, damaging, and dangerous stereotypes of African Americans promoted by the notorious Ku Klux Klan propaganda film Birth of A Nation nearly a century ago. Soul Plane's depiction of the black entrepreneur as irresponsible, incompetent, and unqualified can be all too believable to people unfamiliar with the reality of black entrepreneurship.

Nashawn Wade, the protagonist played by actor Kevin Hart in the MGM/United Artists film Soul Plane, says, "I'm an entrepreneur. I'm going to do something I can be proud of."

Unfortunately, that sentiment is the only thing in the film that is true to the legacy of black entrepreneurship. The remaining hour and 25 minutes of the film-a comedy about what happens when a black man uses a $100 million civil judgement to start an airline-goes on to present some of the worst, most racist depictions of African Americans in recent memory. The film runs the gamut of stereotypes, presenting black people as foul-mouthed, fried chicken-loving, sex-obsessed, shuckin' and jivin' hoochies, hustlers, and buffoons.

It's a sign of the persistence of racism in the film industry that, in 2004, studios continue to resist investing money in quality films about black life. Instead, they finance movies, such as Soul Plane, that perpetuate the same false, damaging, and dangerous stereotypes of African Americans promoted by the notorious Ku Klux Klan propaganda film Birth of A Nation nearly a century ago. In fact, there is not one positive portrayal of a black person in the entire movie. And perhaps the most damaging stereotype of all is that of Wade himself, who, as the CEO of the airline (he allows an unqualified, drug-abusing ex-convict to pilot his plane), portrays black entrepreneurs and black-owned businesses in the worst possible light.

"What's the problem?" you may ask. "It's a comedy. Everybody knows that the characters in the film don't represent all black people." The problem is that too many people learn most of what they know about black people from images promoted in film, television, music videos, and even video games. Those distorted and often racist images are then exported to countries around the globe to be consumed by people who become convinced that the images they see are completely accurate representations of African American people and culture. Although Soul Plane was a flop in U.S. theaters (fortunately, the film was roundly panned for being truly unfunny, as well as racist), the fact remains that it will be promoted heavily in movie theaters in foreign markets, via DVD/video rental, pay-per-view, and home video. :

Soul Planes depiction of the black entrepreneur as irresponsible, incompetent, and unqualified can be all too believable to people unfamiliar with the reality of black entrepreneurship. Such negative portrayals can have a chilling effect on the efforts of black entrepreneurs to raise $100 million in capital in the real world, or deal with people (including those who decide what films will or will not be financed) already unwilling or unable to see past the stereotypes.

While funny, irreverent, and honest movies that portray black-owned enterprises are painfully rare, we know they can be made. For example, Eddie Murphy's 1992 film Boomerangwas set against the backdrop of a polished, chic, and successful black cosmetics firm, not unlike the types of businesses that can be found among the be 100s. And O'Shea "Ice Cube" Jackson's 2002 film Barbershop perfectly captured the important connection between black-owned businesses and the communities they serve. It's no coincidence that both films were box office hits-and not just with African American audiences.

As we celebrate the 34th anniversary of the publication of the first issue of BLACK ENTERPRISE, eradicating , false and negative stereotypes of the black entrepreneur and black-owned enterprises remains at the core of our mission. Our commitment to our readers is to produce honest and accurate portrayals of black entrepreneurs and their businesses. Whether our stories are fictionalized or factually reported, our black business legacy requires us all to do something of which we can be proud.

“A Picture of Black Entreprneurship?”, Earl G. Graves, Sr., Black Enterprise, Aug. 2004, Vol. 35, Issue 1, page 12

Re(1): African-American Stereotypes
Posted on March 7, 2005 at 06:00:34 PM by Mitchell Levine

Someone should tell Hollywood African Americans like Chuck Wilson of Soul Plane and Keenan Ivory Wayans and Martin Lawrence to stop making cliched, offensive films.

Re(2): African-American Stereotypes
Posted on March 7, 2005 at 08:06:55 PM by saurturion

wouldn't a boycott be better?

Re(3): African-American Stereotypes
Posted on March 7, 2005 at 08:26:06 PM by Mitchell Levine

Probably, because the largest ticketbuyers of such films are typically African Americans.

Re(4): African-American Stereotypes
Posted on March 8, 2005 at 11:07:35 PM by saurturion

exactly, they're brainwashed into accepting racism as progression for their 'race'

much like Asians

Asian Pacific Islanders in Hollywood II
Posted on March 7, 2005 at 07:57:49 PM by saurturion

Hollywood's 25 Worst APA Blunders
Second of Two Parts

By Philip W. Chung, Mar 04, 2005

Hollywood has often been referred to as the “dream factory.” But dreams can also turn into nightmares, and for Asian Pacific Americans struggling to make a mark, those nightmares are oftentimes more common than not. This week, we count down the top 10 most embarrassing moments in Hollywood history with regards to its depiction of APAs. They are the biggest blunders and mistakes that have been made on the big and small screens. Some of them are harmless mistakes or minor offenses, while others had more tragic consequences. But all show that throughout its long history, Hollywood has often just been downright clueless.
And now, to paraphrase Alice Cooper, “Welcome to our nightmare ... ”
10. SLAYING THE DRAGON
When director Michael Cimino and writer Oliver Stone joined creative forces to make 1985’s Year of the Dragon, a film about a Caucasian cop (Mickey Rourke) who wages war against Asian gangsters in New York’s Chinatown, APAs came together for the largest organized protest against a film that the community had undertaken up to that point. The protest showed that APAs were no longer going to silently let Hollywood walk over them. The community didn’t forget its collective power born from that experience and continued to effectively rally against future offenses including the Broadway play Miss Saigon and Hollywood’s xenophobic take on Michael Crichton’s Japan-bashing novel Rising Sun.
9. CHAN BAN
Between 1926 and 1949, Hollywood produced a series of successful films based on Earl Derr Biggers’ most famous character — the Chinese detective Charlie Chan. Chan may have been prone to spouting fortune-cookie wisdom, but for the most part, he wasn’t as negative a creation as his contemporary Fu Manchu was (see next entry). But as with Manchu, no actor of Asian descent was ever allowed to play the most popular fictional Asian character in American cinema. Everyone from Warner Oland to Peter Ustinov (in an awful 1981 attempt to revive the series) got a shot at the part. And though there are constant rumors of another cinematic attempt that would finally right this wrong (everyone from B.D. Wong to Chow Yun-Fat to, most recently, Lucy Liu has been mentioned as reviving the franchise), nothing has yet to materialize.
8. FU MANCHU
Along with Charlie Chan, Fu Manchu may be the most recognizable Asian character in the annals of American pop culture. But while Chan represented the well-behaved-Asian stereotype, Manchu was evil to the core and took the “Yellow Peril” threat to new heights. The portrayal began with the 1929 thriller The Mysterious Fu Manchu, starring Warner Oland, who became so good at playing Asian that he gained fame as Chan. The character was then played by Boris Karloff (he gained fame playing Frankenstein), Christopher Lee (the evil wizard in The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and, most recently, the great Peter Sellers in a truly awful 1980 revival. As with Chan, there are continuing rumors that Hollywood will resurrect the character. And I’m sure APAs all across the country are anxiously awaiting this possibility with baited breath.
7. NOT WELL HUNG
When William Hung became the break-out star of last season’s reality TV show American Idol for all the wrong reasons, America was introduced to the biggest racist joke about APAs since Mickey Rooney donned yellowface for Breakfast at Tiffany’s (see No. 2). Hung personified every negative stereotype of the Asian male and parlayed that into his own 15 minutes of fame, releasing an album that made Milli Vanilli sound like the Beatles and even shooting a movie in Hong Kong. Hung plans on releasing a second album and says he would like to star in more movies but only wants to play the good-guy roles. William, if you really want to be the good guy, please just go away.
6. ALL-AMERICAN GRUEL
Ten years ago, Margaret Cho was one of the hottest comedians around, so ABC naturally gave her a sitcom, All-American Girl. So far, so good. But then the network and the show’s producers stripped the series of Cho’s original, funny and raunchy voice to offer viewers a watered-down version of a family sitcom instead — a move that made about as much sense as sticking Chris Rock into the cast of Leave It To Beaver. So it wasn’t surprising when the show turned out to be a critical and commercial disappointment and drew the ire of the APA community. But Cho got the last laugh years later, when she hilariously skewered the All-American Girl experience in her tour-de-force one-woman show I’m The One That I Want.
5. THE WONG DECISION
In 1937, Anna May Wong was the biggest APA star in Hollywood, so it seemed logical to think she would be a shoo-in for the part of the loving wife O-Lan in MGM’s film adaptation of Pearl Buck’s The Good Earth. But Hollywood thought non-Asian Luise Rainer could do a better job, and indeed she went on to win an Academy Award for her performance. Legend has it that producer Irving Thalberg offered Wong the much smaller part of Lotus, but Wong turned it down, refusing to take a supporting role in a movie about her own people while Caucasian actors in yellowface played the leads.
4. THE DONGER NEED RESPECT
If you’re an APA male of a certain age (20s to 30s), it’s very likely that you were subject to racist schoolyard taunts of “The Donger need food!” and “Whass happenin,’ hot stuff?” after the 1984 John Hughes teen comedy Sixteen Candles hit the screen. That film introduced audiences to arguably the most infamous APA character in contemporary pop culture — Gedde Watanabe’s hard-partying, foreign exchange student Long Duk Dong. At the time of its release, APAs cried racism, but 20 years later, it’s easier to appreciate Watanabe’s comic gem of a performance, which is on a par with other classic teen portrayals like John Belushi’s slob in Animal House and Sean Penn’s stoned-out surfer in Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
3. HOWE DO YOU EXPLAIN THIS?
Chinese American cinematographer James Wong Howe is a Hollywood legend: He won two Academy Awards, pioneered innovative camera techniques and inspired countless filmmakers who came after him. But being one of the best in his field was no protection against the racism in Tinseltown during its Golden Era. He was passed over for jobs; not allowed to sit at the same table in restaurants with his Caucasian wife, Sanora Babb; and was mistaken for a janitor during a Life magazine photo shoot of Hollywood’s top cameramen. Once when a newspaper photographer came to shoot photos for the opening of Howe’s café, Howe offered advice on what lens to use to help the novice photographer. “Just stick to your chop suey,” the photographer replied, unaware of whom he was speaking to, “and let me take the pictures.”
2. THE BREAKFAST FLUB
At the top of the list of otherwise near-perfect films marred by racism (Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind also come to mind), you’re sure to find Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Considered by many to be the quintessential romantic film, Breakfast at Tiffany’s does seem to have everything going for it: a luminous performance by Audrey Hepburn, the light-on-its-feet directing touch of Blake Edwards and Henry Mancini’s unforgettable score (including the standard “Moon River”). Unfortunately, the film also boasts Mickey Rooney’s offensive yellowface take on the Japanese landlord. Arguably the most stereotypical portrayal of an APA character ever captured on celluloid, which begs the question: What the hell were they thinking?
1. DEATH ON THE SET
In the early morning hours of July 23, 1982, director John Landis was shooting the climactic Vietnamese-village scene for his segment of Twilight Zone: The Movie. The scene would involve actor Vic Morrow carrying two Vietnamese children (played by Renee Chen and Myca Dinh Le) across a river while pyrotechnics went off around them. But tragedy ensued when a helicopter being used in the shot went out of control and killed Morrow and the two children. Despite evidence that filmmakers had created an “unsafe” atmosphere on the set, Landis and his crew were eventually cleared of any wrongdoing. But the incident still remains one of the most horrific in Hollywood history — all the more tragic because two young children had to die so that audiences could once again be entertained by the magic of the movies.

http://news.asianweek.com/news/view_article.html?article_id=44fbf077526c5c7cc4921d19516fa2d5



sian Pacific Islanders in Hollywood II

Re(1): Asian Pacific Islanders in Hollywood II
Posted on March 8, 2005 at 12:18:59 PM by John Cones

Thanks for the post. These are the sorts of things that inevitably occur when any particular group filters the stories of other cultural groups through the filter of their own perspective. For such purposes, it doesn't matter who the control group is, the fact is that an important medium like film cannot be dominated by any single group, no matter how defined if we want to maintain a strong democracy. After all, our democracy is supposed to be based on a vigorous free marketplace of ideas. But if any narrowly defined Hollywood control group is consistently disseminating films that mostly provide their cultural perspective and not the perspective of other people who are Hollywood outsiders, that's just one group's propaganda, and the rest of us are tired of putting up with it!

The examples posted above of the Hollywood film indignities suffered by Asian Pacific Islanders are representative of the same sorts of indignities suffered by every other racial, cultural, religious, national and regional group that is not fairly represented in the ranks of Hollywood's top management.

John Cones

Re(2): Asian Pacific Islanders in Hollywood II
Posted on March 8, 2005 at 11:08:23 PM by saurturion

you're welcome Mr. Cones

Control Group?
Posted on March 14, 2005 at 11:19:27 AM by a cheap date

So, is the film industry (and communications in general) largely controlled by people of one religious persuasion or not?

Re(1): Control Group?
Posted on March 14, 2005 at 12:24:03 PM by John Cones


1. PATTERNS OF BIAS--Hollywood movies (those produced and/or released by the Hollywood-based major studio/distributors) have long contained blatant patterns of bias. They consistently portray whole populations of our diverse society in a negative or stereotypical manner (such portrayals in varying degrees include Arabs and Muslims, Latinos, African-Americans, women, Italian-Americans, Christians and regional populations such as Whites from the American South.

2. BIASED BIOPICS--Hollywood movies contain biased biopics, examples of historical revisionism and favoritism in movie portrayals displayed toward a single, narrowly-defined interest group of which the Hollywood control group primarily draws its members.

3. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES–The biases in Hollywood movies also show up with respect to political and social issues, for example, Hollywood movies tend to be anti-government, anti-parent, anti-authority, anti-religion, pro-environment, pro-abortion, pro-violence, pro-smoking, pro-foul language, highly sexual and so forth.

4. SIGNIFICANT MEDIUM--The motion picture is a significant medium for the communication of ideas (see the 1952 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Burstyn v. Wilson).

5. IDEAS--Throughout the history of civilization, ideas have always and will always be an important basis for human beliefs and source of motivation for human conduct.

6. INFLUENCE--Thus, it can be proven by pure logic alone, that movies influence human conduct. After all, movies communicate ideas, ideas motivate human behavior, therefore movies must motivate some human behavior.

7. PREJUDICIAL THINKING--During a significant segment of many individual lives (particularly those who are relatively young, uneducated or unsophisticated), repeatedly watching hundreds of powerful motion picture images that consistently portray whole populations of our diverse society in a negative or stereotypical manner can contribute to prejudicial thinking, which in turn, is often the basis of real-life discriminatory behavior.

8. NOT SOLUTION--Thus, at minimum we must concede, movies that consistently portray certain people in a negative or stereotypical manner and/or movies that tend to emphasize certain positions with respect to political and social issues are clearly not helping us solve our society's problems, but more likely, making them worse.

9. MOVIES MIRROR–With respect to why the above-described phenomena are occurring, movies to a large extent, tend to mirror the values, interests, cultural perspectives and prejudices of their makers.

10. MAJOR STUDIOS--The motion picture industry is dominated by a small group of so-called major studio/distributors. The studio releases are the movies seen by more than 95% of the domestic moviegoing audience, and a significant percentage of most foreign audiences.

11. STUDIO EXECUTIVES–Aside from the fact that various creative people including: screen writers, directors, producers and actors contribute to the content of individual motion pictures, the people in Hollywood who have the power to decide which movies are produced and released, to determine who gets to work in the key positions on such movies and to approve of the screenplays serving as the basis for these movies are the three top studio executives at the major studio distributors.

12. SHARED BACKGROUNDS–In the spirit of similar diversity surveys of their members, conducted on a periodic basis by the Director’s Guild of America and the Screenwriter’s Guild, similar surveys of diversity at the top in Hollywood must be regularly conducted. Preliminary evidence demonstrates that a clear majority of these executives throughout the term of existence of these vertically-integrated, distributor-dominated major studios share a common background (i.e., they are politically liberal, not very religious, Jewish males of European heritage), a factual observation which tends to raise protest from certain segments of the so-called Hollywood apologist community, including false accusations of anti-Semitism.


13. CREATIVE CONTROL--The major studio/distributors through various approval rights are able to determine to a great extent which movies are produced and to some extent the content of those movies.

14. LESS DIVERSITY–One result of such control residing in the hands of such a narrowly-defined group is a severe limit on creativity in movie-making and a more narrow selection of motion pictures which tend to range (in a commercial sense) from hoped-for blockbusters and lowest common denominator movies to exploitation fare.

15. EXCLUSION–Long-time and ongoing control of the major studio/distributors also excludes large segments of our multi-cultural society from the movie-making process (i.e., such excluded populations tend to be inaccurately portrayed through the perspective of another cultural group and their positions on many important issues are overlooked).

16. MOVIES ARE PROPAGANDA–All mass communications media including movies that are controlled by any narrowly-defined group and used over an extended period of time to consistently communicate ideas favored by that control group can fairly be described as propaganda. Motion picture propaganda is particularly effective since it is disguised and promoted as “entertainment”.

17. BUSINESS PRACTICES--The Hollywood control group gained and has maintained its power through the use of several hundred specifically identifiable unfair, unethical, unconscionable, anti-competitive, predatory and illegal business practices, including massive employment discrimination and antitrust law violations.

18. GOVERNMENT INFLUENCE--The Hollywood control group gets away with its "proclivity for wrongful conduct" (language of various judicial and legal officials who have reviewed such conduct) by routing huge political contributions to presidential candidates and key members of Congress through excessively overpaid studio executives, their spouses and multiple political action committees, so as to discourage vigorous enforcement of the employment discrimination, antitrust and other laws in the Hollywood-based U.S. film industry.

19. GOVERNMENT POLICY--Federal government policy, specifically, the federal government's anti-trust law enforcement policy currently contributes to the ability of the major studio distributors to control and dominate the marketplace.

20. INDEPENDENT FILM--A motion picture industry made up of independent producers, independent distributors and independent exhibitors would result in greater creativity in movie-making and create greater opportunities for a significantly larger number of interest groups within out multi-cultural society to participate at a meaningful level in the film-making process.

21. FREE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS–Our democracy is partly based on the concept of a free marketplace of ideas (i.e., to the extent that our society is able to vigorously and openly discuss the pros and cons of all important issues we should be better able to come up with the best decisions with respect to such issues for our society in general).

22. DEMOCRACY IS FLAWED–To the extent that any significant medium for the communication of ideas, such as the motion picture, is dominated and/or controlled by any narrowly-defined group who consistently uses such medium to communicate ideas preferred by that group, our free marketplace of ideas is diminished and our democracy is weakened. In a democracy, no important communications medium, including film, should be controlled or dominated by any single, narrowly-defined group. Government policy should therefore be changed to ensure a more vigorous discussion of view points in all media including motion pictures (i.e., that all segments of our diverse society have an equal and fair opportunity to tell their stories and promote ideas of interest to them through these important communications media).

Re(2): Control Group?
Posted on March 14, 2005 at 05:16:38 PM by a cheap date

Not according to your pal Mitch Levine. None of this is true in his universe. Just the ramblings of a conspiracy nut...

Re(3): Control Group?
Posted on March 14, 2005 at 08:09:08 PM by Mitchell Levine

We all have the right to our opinions.

Re(4): Control Group?
Posted on March 15, 2005 at 04:33:33 PM by a cheap date

Do you agree with the information in John's reply---mainly, that Hollywood and motion pictures are controlled by Jewish males and that the content we see is tightly controlled based on what they deem fit to fund and produce?

Or do you not believe this to be the case at all--that there is no control group and that even though it could be shown that most of the execs in the industry are Jewish, that it has no effect on the types of movies produced and their content?

I've tried to read through the posts here and you guys seem to go back and forth on all kinds of stuff. This is a pretty basic set of questions though.

Re(5): Control Group?
Posted on March 15, 2005 at 07:02:18 PM by Mitchell Levine

Do you agree with the information in John's reply---mainly, that Hollywood and motion pictures are controlled by Jewish males and that the content we see is tightly controlled based on what they deem fit to fund and produce?
- I agree in some aspects and not others.

For one, what "controls" what we see is primarily what people buy tickets to see and what they wish to buy tickets to see.

Also, while it's true that Jewish males are predominantly CEOs, there are many non-Jewish executives, producers and directors at lower levels, and it's not the CEOs of the studios that are primarily choosing what films get made.

For example, there's certainly no evidence that non-Jewish Faye Vincent's tenure at Columbia radically altered the output of that studio.

Also, it's NOT true that members of a particular ethnic group expressing their opinions or just telling stories constitutes "propaganda," because that refers to intentional misinformation.

However, I'm NOT saying that more diversity wouldn't be a good thing or a desirable goal. What will achieve it will be time.

Or do you not believe this to be the case at all--that there is no control group and that even though it could be shown that most of the execs in the industry are Jewish, that it has no effect on the types of movies produced and their content?
- It's not necessarily true that most of the execs in the business are Jewish - John's only claiming that the CEOs are primarily Jewish, which is true.

And the real "control group," I believe, is the ticketbuying audience. If the executives at the studios financed just what they want to see, we'd see a lot fewer films starring extreme sports stars and rappers.

Conversely, if the public stopped wanting to see films about the Holocaust and didn't buy tickets, they'd stop being made.

Re(2): Control Group?
Posted on March 14, 2005 at 05:09:36 PM by a cheap date

Why is Hollywood such a central spot if there are so many people to reach in the marketplace and so much unrealized creativity out there? I guess I'm wondering why there aren't more centers for movie-making that are better or that put out higher quality products?

There seems to be a lot of money in filmmaking. Technology abounds and barriers to entry appear to be small (a la Blair Witch). So, where are the entrepreneurs that are willing to jump into the industry to collect on the returns that are there? How much has Mel's film made so far? It can be done, how come there aren't more Mels?

Movies have become myopic and almost commoditized. In short, they're predictable. I did a little survey of some people I work with and they generally agreed that only about 10% of all films made are worth sitting through. Only 10% of those are 'great' films. Maybe I'm not asking the right questions, but is this perception because of THE control group or simply A control group?

My opinion is that it doesn't really matter who the control group is, but that ANY control group can only diminish the arts. As soon as a group of people can begin to monopolize something, it starts to 'jump the shark' as Howard Stern would say. Movies have jumped the shark. So have the news, pop culture, magazines, even certain genre's of books. 15 minutes of fame mean everything, content means nothing.

Re(3): Control Group?
Posted on March 17, 2005 at 08:25:52 PM by Joe Wiz

:Why is Hollywood such a central spot if there are so many people to reach in the marketplace and so much unrealized creativity out there? I guess I'm wondering why there aren't more centers for movie-making that are better or that put out higher quality products?

Because the studios monopolize the distribution channels idiot!!!!

Joe

Empty Argument
Posted on March 17, 2005 at 12:53:37 PM by John Cones

So much of the pro-Hollywood argument posted on this site is simply without merit. For example, for someone to suggest that the FIRM position has ever been that Hollywood is "tightly controlled" is just plain wrong. No such position has ever been expressed. Thus, arguing about such a non-existent position is a waste of time.

In addition, suggesting as the Hollywood apologists have for years, that audiences really determine the kind of movies that are made, simply runs counter to the reality that hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year by the major studio/distributors in advertising, marketing and promoting their films,using the most sophisticated of techniques, while more often than not, blatantly misleading prospecitve audiences about the nature of an upcoming film. Most recent example, Million Dollar Baby. If Hollywood films were really being made to meet the needs of audiences, there would be no need to spend so much money on their marketing, and it would not be necessary to mislead the public.

John Cones

Re(1): Empty Argument
Posted on March 17, 2005 at 03:16:15 PM by saurturion

what is OBVIOUS to you is not to the ones who want to 'play in the dark recesses of their minds' such that truth becomes lies and lies, truth

The Ripples Are Working
Posted on March 17, 2005 at 02:34:17 PM by John Cones

Part of the FIRM mission is to raise issues that no one else seems willing to raise and to stimulate reasonable and meaningful discussion of those issues. Some of that discussion may not even take place on this forum. This may be referred to as the ripple effect of an idea. Evidence that the ripple effect is working appears in the form of an article entitled "Will Mega-Media Mergers Destroy Hollywood and Democracy?" written by James Talbott and published in the Entertainment and Sports Lawyer in the Spring of 2000. Mr. Talbott took a more politically correct approach to the relationship between lack of diversity at the top in Hollywood and our democracy than in my essay "Hollywood's Threat to Democracy", but nonetheless the idea is percolating. It is also satisfying that Mr. Talbott cited my "Chronological History of Movies and Antitrust" which appears in my self-published book "Politics, Movies and the Role of Government".

John Cones

Arguments of the Hollywood Apologists
Posted on March 24, 2005 at 04:04:31 PM by John Cones

The FIRM film industry observations were first published in 1995 and have appeared continuously online at the Film Industry Reform Movement site under “Film Industry Observations” (http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/observe.htm). Interestingly, the accuracy of such observations has never been challenged with any credible evidence. The tactic of the Hollywood apologists instead, has been to attempt to distract attention from the accuracy of these observations by putting forth the following false arguments:

▪ the historical argument – we were discriminated against first therefore it’s ok for us to do what we are doing in Hollywood today – 100 years later (but that’s the old two wrongs don’t make a right argument);

▪ the “you can’t prove discrimination therefore it does not exist” argument -- (when discrimination is always difficult to prove, victims of discrimination in Hollywood know that if they complain their career is over and the lack of diversity at the top in Hollywood is sufficient evidence to reveal the problem);

▪ the tokenism argument -- one or two exceptions to a long established pattern of bias in motion picture content or continued patterns of favoritism, cronyism, nepotism and other forms of discrimination demonstrate that such patterns no longer exist – which is like reasoning from a representative sampling of one);

▪ the name-calling argument – nobody would make such observations unless they were prejudice, therefore you must be antisemitic when simply observing and reporting the facts.

John Cones

The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid
Posted on March 27, 2005 at 07:22:44 PM by Kev

Ukraine tycoon funds documentary about Holocaust

KIEV, Ukraine: A Ukrainian tycoon will team up with Steven Spielberg to produce a documentary about Holocaust victims in Ukraine, an official from a Holocaust foundation said Tuesday.

Viktor Pinchuk, a coal and steel magnate, and Spielberg will be co-executive producers of a documentary about the Holocaust in Ukraine based on more than 3,000 videotaped interviews of survivors and witnesses, said Douglas Greenberg, the director of the Shoah Visual History Foundation based in Los Angeles.

Re(1): The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid
Posted on June 24, 2005 at 01:36:46 PM by Enough already

Jewish swim team makes its watermark on life

By ROBERT W. BUTLER The Kansas City Star

“Watermarks” is ostensibly about Hakoah Vienna, the Austrian Jewish sports club that from 1909 until the eve of World War II was a major force in European athletics and dominated women's swimming.

But what this documentary is really about is growing old with dignity and defiance.

Israeli director Yaron Zilberman tracked down members of Hakoah's final women's swim team, women now in their 80s who escaped the Holocaust and live all over the world.

He conducted interviews with these bright, opinionated and vibrant individuals and invited them to return to Vienna for one last lap in the pool where they spent so much of their youth.

“Watermarks” starts a one-week run today at the Tivoli as part of that theater's Film Forum series. The film covers Hakoah's history, from its founding at the turn of the century (because Christian sports clubs refused to admit Jews) to its three decades of winning ways. With 3,000 members, Hakoah was the world's largest sports club, sending numerous athletes to the Olympic Games to represent Austria.

Winning was fun, certainly, but Hakoah's athletes were doing something more: defying the stereotype of the physically weak Jewish bookworm.

Zilberman puts to good use an impressive collection of films and photographs of Hakoah athletes at work and play, alternates them with talking-head footage of his subjects, and ties it together with some nifty editing and sound tricks that impart a bit of pizzazz to materials that in other hands might seem uncinematic.

But the film's real power comes from the women's personalities. Their prescient coach, who spirited the women swimmers out of the country after the German annexation of Austria in 1938, spared them the grim fate of so many of their Jewish countrymen.

As a result “Watermarks” isn't a “Holocaust movie.” It's about a way of approaching life and death, of living in the moment. Separated from their families, the city they had grown up in and the culture that had nourished them, these women created new, fulfilling lives.

These are not nice little grandma types. They are college professors and a world-class psychologist. One woman figuratively goes to the mat with director Zilberman to receive his assurances that while wearing a swimsuit she be filmed only in the pool.

The trip to Vienna is the film's climax. The sights remind the women of the last months in the city, when anti-Semitism was on the rise. A cabaret performer sings the compositions of famed Jewish composer Herman Leopoldi, including “The Buchenwald March,” a tune the Nazis forced Leopoldi to write while in that notorious concentration camp.

The husband of one of the Hakoah women thinks the singer has “gone too far,” that the song is in bad taste.

His wife, though, disagrees. It's life, she says. You've got to take the bad with the good.

Re(1): The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid
Posted on April 4, 2005 at 11:09:42 PM by Imaginary Witness

Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust
2004 - USA - Biography/Military & War/Social History/Race & Ethnicity/Film & Television History

PLOT DESCRIPTION
The American film industry took it upon itself to act as a cheerleader for United States and Allied military interests during World War II, but Hollywood was initially reluctant to directly condemn Nazi anti-Semitism, and it wasn't until years after the war ended that American filmmakers began offering a realistic, dramatic look at the horrible toll of Hitler's "final solution." Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust is a documentary which examines how filmmakers reacted to German scapegoating of Jews before, during, and after the war, ranging from the boldness of Confessions of a Nazi Spy and The Mortal Storm (both of which were produced before America entered the war) to more oblique statements during the war itself, and then finally leading to an honest portrayal of the full consequences of the Holocaust beginning in the '50s.

Produced for the cable television network American Movie Classics, Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust was premiered at the 2004 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Re(1): The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid
Posted on March 29, 2005 at 00:34:39 AM by if the shoe fits

Another holocaust movie? Spielberg is fixated. The list of movies like this from Steve is getting really long, and in a slew of other movies he's made there are references to the holocaust and nazis and the like.

Guess continual reminders of the inhumanity are necessary, but they don't seem to be having much effect on the frequency of repetition. Darfur, Rwanda, Chechnya, Bosnia--still happening a lot. Depending upon where your sitting, you could add Iraq, China, Indonesia and few other places to the list. Steve has made movies about all kinds of genocide. Amistad was about the slave trade. He has a new TV series called "Into the West" about the extermination of the American Indian. Guy is fascinated with suffering.

Is film really the best way to reach people about death camps and genocide? If the point of making these types of films is to alert the viewing public or to remind them of the horrors men inflict on one another, then I suppose they've worked. If this awareness is supposed to prevent current and future holocausts, then they are a dismal failure. Of course, anyone that makes films is a marketeer of their interpretation. Maybe it's that Spielberg understands that we all need a periodic does of our own inhumanity? A few billion dollars later, he get's an "A" for that skill.

Re(2): The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid
Posted on March 29, 2005 at 12:57:11 PM by Mitchell Levine

Guy is fascinated with suffering.
- So is virtually everyone else: it's dramatic.

If the point of making these types of films is to alert the viewing public or to remind them of the horrors men inflict on one another, then I suppose they've worked.
- That's been an important theme in art throughout all of history.

Re(1): The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid
Posted on March 28, 2005 at 09:39:51 PM by Mitchell Levine

I hardly think that's the ONLY serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid.

Look how Million Dollar Baby dealt with the very serious and suddenly topical question of euthanasia.

Re(2): The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid
Posted on March 29, 2005 at 03:15:37 PM by saurturion

I hardly think that's the ONLY serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid

quite right

it also avoids showing that Americans have raped the Third World blind

it also doesn't avoid shows that are revisionist (re: Pearl Harbor) or where the Americans save the world and are the only ones capable of protecting earth (re: Armageddon)

Re(3): The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid
Posted on March 29, 2005 at 03:41:10 PM by Mitchell Levine

For better or for worse, American film will tend to depict America as America wishes to be seen, much the same way as Japanese history textbooks refuse to discuss the Rape of Nanking.

There will be some exceptions to that rule, but that's primarily what American ticketbuyers want to pay to see.

Re(4): The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid
Posted on March 30, 2005 at 01:26:47 AM by saurturion

yes you folks want to live in la la land

More Illogical Arguments
Posted on March 30, 2005 at 07:07:57 PM by John Cones

More Illogical Arguments

FIRM has conducted years of research covering tens of thousands of motion pictures and demonstrating that patterns of bias exit in Hollywood movies. Those multiple patterns of bias are set forth at the FIRM site as excerpts from the books: Patterns of Bias in Motion Picture Content, Motion Picture Biographies – The Hollywood Spin on Historical Figures and A Study in Motion Picture Propaganda – Hollywood’s Preferred Movie Messages. Only one of several of those preferred messages is the constant and continuing promotion of messages through film relating to the so-called Jewish Holocaust of WWII in lieu of other ongoing and continuing more contemporary tragedies. Thus, it is not FIRM’s position that the so-called Jewish Holocaust of WWII is “the one serious subject that Hollywood does not avoid”, but that it is one of many subjects Hollywood prefers (to the exclusion of others), and since the subject is so inextricably intertwined with the Hollywood insiders (i.e., those who have the power to determine which movies are made and released by the major studio/distributors), the constant repetition of such subjects in movies rises to the status of propaganda.

At this discussion forum, the exaggerated statement that the Jewish Holocaust of WWII is “the one serious subject that Hollywood does not avoid” prompts a mere semantical response from the Hollywood apologist community. In other words, the focus of the counter-argument is merely about whether this subject is the one subject that Hollywood does not avoid. The truth is in between these two arguments – the subject is one of many subjects that Hollywood propagandists prefer to communicate through this powerful medium for the communication of ideas.

Further, it is laughable that a single movie like Million Dollar Baby would be trotted out as an example of Hollywood’s willingness to address serious subjects in their movies. Such an argument is merely another example of the false argument that to it is fair and appropriate to argue from a so-called “reasonable representative sampling of one” As pointed out by Claude Brodesser in his Variety article (“Million' not an easy sell – 'Baby' wasn't always a sure thing” Variety, February 27, 2005) “Like many great films, Clint Eastwood's ‘Million Dollar Baby’ nearly wasn't born. Over the years, it lurched between existing and nothingness and several times nearly wound up as something else altogether: An Anjelica Huston indie. An HBO miniseries. A Robert Benton picture toplining Sandra Bullock.”

Brodesser goes on to point out that “ . . . Warner Bros. initially didn't want to take a risk on the script (too dark), especially with its $30 million budget (too high).” And that “ . . . Warner Bros., where Eastwood hangs his shingle . . . offered . . .” the film’s producers “ . . .the opportunity to take it elsewhere, (but) they met similarly cool reactions at other studios.” Eventually, with a non-Hollywood major “ . . .Lakeshore aboard to handle foreign distribution and Warners’ exposure limited to $15 million . . .” the film was made. And, after all that, some would come forward to use Million Dollars Baby as an example of how willing Hollywood is to address serious topics other than the Jewish Holocaust of WWII in its films. What rubbish!

And, of course, while this very discussion is occurring, the independent distributor ThinkFilm has picked up Protocols of Zion, Marc Levin's feature documentary exploring a perceived trend of resurgent anti-Semitism in the wake of 9/11. The movie was screened this year at both the Sundance and Berlin film fests and ThinkFilm is planning a fall release. Levin and Steve Kalafer produced the film, along with co-producer Jennifer Tuft, in association with HBO/Cinemax Documentary Films. (Source: “Exex Think Highly of Pic – Indie Banner Follows ‘Protocols’”, Ian Mohr, Variety, March 17, 2005).

The argument being made by FIRM is not intended to limit the rights of such persons to make such films, but to allow others to have an equal opportunity to make serious films relating to topics of concern to them. That is what’s missing in the Hollywood-based film industry, and it is intellectually dishonest to make semantical arguments about what is so obviously true, even if not always stated here on the FIRM discussion forum by others in a technically accurate manner. Control of Hollywood results in more movies that appeal to the interests of the Hollywood insiders being made and released. Thus, there needs to be more diversity at the top in the film community – after all – movies tend, to a large extent, to mirror the values, interests, cultural perspectives and prejudices of their makers.

John Cones

Re(1): More Illogical Arguments
Posted on March 31, 2005 at 07:49:51 PM by Joe Wiz

Excellent post!

Deleted Posts
Posted on April 7, 2005 at 04:53:41 PM by John Cones

For some time here at the FIRM Discussion Forum we have had to endure name-calling by people who would choose to defend what is going on in Hollywood. On the other hand, it tells us all we need to know about such persons that they think that "name-calling" is actually an argument of any kind. We are quite comfortable in our opinion that "name-calling" is not an argument, that it adds nothing of substance to the arguments being made here and that such posts are of no value to this site. For these reasons, they are regularly and routinely deleted, and in some, cases the people who consistently substitute "name-calling" for real argument are simply ignored. The same is true for their attempts to sabotage this site with their postings of porn links and other spam. All of this merely points out to me that FIRM's research and observations about Hollywood are confirmed. People who cannot make credible arguments, who cannot refute FIRM's studies and statistics with better studies and statistics and/or continully hide behind their anonymity, seeking only to distract attention from the truthfulness of the FIRM statements, are simply demonstrating that they are incapable of dealing with serious issues in a responsible manner. We at FIRM have no obligation to retain such posts at this Discussion Forum.

Best wishes

John Cones

Re(1): Deleted Posts
Posted on April 23, 2005 at 10:07:56 PM by manofthestreet

It's easy to draw parallels between the FIRM's "mission" and the mission of the national socialist party of 1930's Germany. Anyone that can't see them isn't looking. Someone actually pointing them out is, admittedly, a waste of time. Thank god you guys will never amount to anything but self-aggrandizing, malingering blips fading to black.

Re(2): Deleted Posts
Posted on April 24, 2005 at 07:40:01 AM by LEL_is_the_internet

--It's easy to draw parallels between the FIRM's "mission" and the mission of the national socialist party of 1930's Germany.--

Yes, because telling lies and making shit up is easy. And 'easy' is all you can manage. Because you're a pathetic loser, chum.

Re(3): Deleted Posts
Posted on April 24, 2005 at 01:51:51 PM by Mitchell Levine

Flaming is all you're capable of.

Re(4): Deleted Posts
Posted on April 24, 2005 at 09:15:31 PM by manofthestreet

Making shit up? Like what? That this 'site' has anything important to say? You fellas act as if this is your only outlet to rail against anti-semitism, like it MATTERS. Paaallleeease. Talk about pathetic. My point is that this 'site' is just more of the same. How many times does the world need to be shown how stupid sites like this are? Everyone arguing about everything. "i know more about hollywood than you" and 'I know more about judaism than you" and " native americans should be directors" and "we need to have more diversity in film making." What a load of crap. John and Jim and friends would all get hard-ons if a group of commandos raided hollywood tomorrow and physically removed every Jewish executive in town--they know they would and you guys do too. Maybe that's the draw for you fools.

Flaming? I just stopped by here. From the history of posts, you zipperheads can't stay away. Pathetic loser? You'll be back tomorrow--I won't.

Re(5): Deleted Posts
Posted on April 25, 2005 at 00:30:28 AM by Mitchell Levine

I wasn't referring to you - I was referring to the poster flaming YOU.

Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 13, 2005 at 01:20:30 PM by saurturion

Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Apr 4th, 2005
By Ted Baehr, Publisher of MOVIEGUIDE®

There are a lot of myth conceptions circulating in the media. One of the most prevalent is that protests and boycotts don’t work. Well, the protest of the PASSION OF THE CHIRST did not work, but the protest over Janet Jackson’s baring her breast got the FCC to change its policy toward fining television stations, the protest against the stilted docudrama on Ronald Reagan got it pulled from CBS Television, and the protest against THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST made it lose at least $52 million at the box office.

Several people will say, “What! We thought THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST made money because of the protests!” Well, go to boxofficemojo.com, look up the movie, and you will see that it made a pathetic $8,373,585 at the box office in the USA. During its opening weekend, it made an even more pathetic $401,000. At $8 million, that means that it sold just under two million tickets at the box office. Considering that at that time there were 272 million people in the United States, this figure is truly pathetic.

Why people perpetuate this protest myth is confusing. The entertainment industry, of course, wants you to think that movies are protest-proof, but Christians should know better, and they should check the facts.

http://www.movieguide.org/index.php?s=articles&id=47

Re(1): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 13, 2005 at 10:19:22 PM by Mitchell Levine

the protest against THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST made it lose at least $52 million at the box office.
- I'd love to know how he calculated this!

Just to begin with, with a $5 million budget for Scorsese's vanity project, an $8 million return is probably much more than the studio was expecting.

It also earned several Oscar nominations, and was loved by critics, which was worth much more to the producers than the several million in profits the film returned.

It was HARDLY anticipated to be a blockbuster - it was a labor of love on the part of Scorsese, who then followed up with Goodfellas as compensation to the studio.

The controversy over the obscure film probably doubled the sales of tickets.

Re(2): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 14, 2005 at 06:38:11 PM by sayrturion

contact the folks at movieguide if you want to know how they computed their stats

http://www.movieguide.org/index.php?s=contactus

Re(3): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 14, 2005 at 09:36:13 PM by Mitchell Levine

They don't mention the "stat' I discussed: the amount of money Last Temptation lost due to the protest.

I'd be intrigued to see their calculation.

Re(4): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 16, 2005 at 03:40:33 AM by saurturion

I take it you still haven't emailed them

use their email link, let them explain their 'bumbled' stats

Re(5): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 18, 2005 at 02:41:16 PM by Mitchell Levine

I really don't have the time. If you wish to do so, go right ahead.

Re(6): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 19, 2005 at 01:52:32 PM by saurturion

- I really don't have the time. If you wish to do so, go right ahead.

spoken like a true cop out

Re(7): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 19, 2005 at 03:24:49 PM by Mitchell Levine

Why am I obligated to email them?

If you want to, and post the results, go right ahead.

Re(8): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 20, 2005 at 12:44:13 PM by saurturion

you are the one who wants to question their methodology, not me

it would behoove you (as a good liberal who wants to censor conservative lies) to email them

Re(9): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 20, 2005 at 01:29:49 PM by Mitchell Levine

Quite simply, it was their responsibility to validate their claims in their statement. They failed to do so.

They may be accurate, but I didn't say they weren't - just that I'd like to see them verify them.

However, they didn't, and that was a failure of credibility on its own.

If you want to email them and post the results, go right ahead.

Re(2): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 14, 2005 at 06:35:09 PM by saurturion

Last Temptation: A Financial Loss

12/88

TUPELO, MI (EP) - Christian activists who protested the movie "The Last Temptation of Christ" won a tremendous victory, according to the American Family Association (AFA). The AFA says Universal Pictures suffered a humiliating financial loss of $10-13 million because of successful boycott efforts.

About one percent of the roughly 13,000 theaters in the country have shown the movie, and so far Universal has reportedly recovered less than $4 million of their $15-l7 million investment.

"The Christian community has won a tremendous victory," claims Rev. Donald E. Wildmon, executive director of the AFA. "We joined hands and worked together and accomplished what appeared to be impossible. Against tremendous odds - millions of dollars in promotion by MCA/Universal, all the support MCA/Universal could rally in the Hollywood community, and hundreds of articles and broadcasts praising the movie and criticizing those who protested - the Christian community succeeded. It shows what we can be accomplished when we join together in a common effort."

Wildmon, a United Methodist Minister, says it was hypocritical of MCA/Universal to defend the release of the movie as an exercise of First Amendment rights when they had put a "gag rule" in effect for their theater managers, forbidding them to speak about the movie to the media, and thus denying their own employees the same First Amendment rights they claimed to be protecting.

"AFA joined other Christian organizations - broadcasters, para-church ministries, denominations, etc. - in protesting the movie," notes Wildmon. "The secular critics, and many Christian media, reported that the protest ensured success. 'Christians should have said nothing about the movie,' the critics said. 'All the protest did was help ensure the movie's success.' But it didn't happen.

"AFA distributed radio spots to about 900 Christian radio stations and most stations used the spots repeatedly. AFA also produced a television special which was shown on more than 50 Christian TV stations. Thousands of pastors in local churches called their people to action, and the members responded. Millions of Christians signed petitions and sent them to their local theaters, and hundreds of thousands of others called and wrote. Their efforts were successful."

AFA expects that "Last Temptation" will be nominated for some Oscar awards. "That is one way Hollywood has of rewarding its own," explains Wildmon. "Just remember that all the nominations and voting are done by people in the industry, people who for the most part want to help MCA/Universal save face."

http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0048_Last_Temptation.html

Re(3): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 14, 2005 at 09:38:33 PM by Mitchell Levine

AFA expects that "Last Temptation" will be nominated for some Oscar awards. "That is one way Hollywood has of rewarding its own," explains Wildmon. "Just remember that all the nominations and voting are done by people in the industry, people who for the most part want to help MCA/Universal save face."

- Why would competing studios want to help MCA/Universal save face???

That seems counter-intuitive.

Did all the critics that praised it as one of that year's best films also simply wish to do damage control for the studio?

Re(4): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 16, 2005 at 03:40:27 AM by saurturion

- Why would competing studios want to help MCA/Universal save face???

--while not properly stated above, the crux of the matter (as I see it) is that one studio may compete against another and still work with the other.

Case in point - where I live has many fabric stores located right next to or very near to each other. The owners are all Arabs from Syria and Lebanon (i.e. they're family) who form a fabric cartel while successfully competing for sales and 'fooling' people that they actually have a choice of stores to choose from. At the end of the day, ALL the Arabs are happy - and they should be.

Re(5): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 18, 2005 at 02:43:34 PM by Mitchell Levine

Uh, the record doesn't suggest that the studios "work together" - they bitterly compete for the slightest advantage, and do anything they can to take each other out, as in United Artists and Orion Pictures.

Re(2): Don't Buy the Lie--Protests Work
Posted on April 14, 2005 at 06:19:05 PM by saurturion

"THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST"

The 1988 release of the film "The Last Temptation of Christ" illustrates much of Hollywood’s attitude towards Christianity and Jesus Christ. Many evangelicals, as well as Roman Catholics, expressed their offense and asked Universal Films to withdraw the film.

It is hard to imagine a movie creating more controversy than was caused by "The Last Temptation of Christ." Christian leaders publicly attacked the movie and called for a strong public Christian reaction. Roman Catholic bishops urged their parishioners to boycott the movie. Campus Crusade leader Bill Bright offered to raise $10 million (an estimate of the production costs) to give Universal in exchange for all the copies of the film. They refused.

The movie "The Last Temptation of Christ" was based upon a fictional novel of the same name by Nikos Kazantzakis. This novel was a major factor in his being censured by the Greek Orthodox Church. The screenplay was written by Paul Schrader, and the movie was produced by Martin Scorsese (who once wanted to be a Roman Catholic priest).

This movie presents a most unorthodox interpretation of the nature, life, and ministry of Jesus Christ and was an unveiled attack upon the Saviour. The Lord Jesus was presented as a lustful, adulterous, unstable revolutionary, the apostle Paul was a liar and a hypocrite, while Judas Iscariot is set forth as the hero. Even secular media commented on the extremely unorthodox portrayals in the movie. Patrick O’Driscoll of USA Today called it, "Scorsese’s cinematic vision of a sometimes weak, doubting, even lustful Jesus." He quotes the producers’ aim as creating "a psychological portrait of Jesus as a man learning to accept his divinity." The August 15, 1998 issue of Time magazine contained an article entitled "A Holy Furor" in which the blasphemy was described. Time concluded, "Such an approach to explaining Christ goes beyond even films such as ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ and ‘Godspell,’ which offended believing Christians."

Many critics accused believing Christians of being "afraid" that this film would destroy the faith of Christians. They completely misunderstood the issue. Presenting Christ as a mentally incompetent, unsure religious reformer, overwhelmed by dreams of lust and adultery is insulting to those who know Jesus Christ as the sinless Son of God and who place their faith in Him as their personal Saviour.

We would not react calmly if someone produced such vicious attacks on the character of anyone that we love. Evangelicals are especially incensed when such misrepresentation is made towards Jesus Christ.

Telling the story of Christ apart from the historical and theological truth has no possible value. It would be the same with ordinary human beings. Such stories would tell you a lot about the fantasies of those who wrote and produced such stories.

Scorsese spent 16 years trying to get this film to the public. He was given a copy of the novel in 1972 by Barbara Hershey who played Mary Magdalene in the film. He says that the movie "is my way of getting closer to God."

Amidst the furor caused by their insistence upon releasing the controversial film, Universal Studios responded by attacking those who said they were offended and aggressively releasing and promoting the film. When everything was said and done, they ended up losing $10 million on the project.

The role of modern rock music, movies, and (increasingly) television in promoting moral impurity, mocking the traditional family, promoting illegitimacy, focusing on the bizarre and perverted, and glorifying irresponsibility is well known. Even Hollywood insider Steve Allen (a clear liberal in most areas) said the following:

Humans can do without roller skates or TV but they literally cannot long survive, as a rational, emotionally healthy species, without a secure family structure.

The reason, to belabor the obvious, is that the family is the soil in which each year’s new crop of humans grow. It is mostly the failed human family therefore, which has produced our present millions of prison inmates, rapists, drug addicts, burglars, muggers, sexual psychopaths ....

It is no wonder that so many parents are concerned about the message of television.

Dr. Phil Stringer is Executive Vice President at Landmark Baptist College, Haines City, Florida.


http://www.usiap.org/Viewpoints/Culture/Media/EntertainmentMedia.html

Here We Go Again!
Posted on April 14, 2005 at 12:01:04 PM by John Cones

THE PROBE OF THE CENTURY
Chain investigated for possible antitrust violations

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer is investigating the booking practices of Century Theaters for possible antitrust violations.
Prosecutors haven't disclosed the details of their investigation, but sources said the question at issue is whether Century is using its circuit clout in negotiations with distribs to get clearance over independent theaters. (From Variety.com, Headline News, April 12, 2005). For background see

http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/bginfo.
htm

or
http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/excerpts.htm


John Cones

MINDS, MORALS & MOVIES
Posted on April 14, 2005 at 06:44:29 PM by saurturion

Gregory Peck commented: “Generally, my characters were dignified and brave men who did their duty stoically. Today, the heroes are the anti-heroes of yesterday. They're motivated by hatred, greed and violence. They are rude, vulgar, ill-educated and incapable of making an effort because they are totally selfish and devoid of morals.” (The Cognac Film Festival, 1996).
And why are so many films so vulgar and crude? Studies have found that typically less than 7% of people curse on the job and only 12% curse in their leisure time. Yet many Hollywood scriptwriters would have us believe that normal people use profanity and obscenity in regular conversation. The famous Marxist professor Marcuse, of Sorbonne, advocated the use of foul language as a weapon with which to attack bourgeois society. Marcuse inspired many of the most renowned communist revolutionaries of the Twentieth Century. Even Jane Fonda studied under him. (Media-Wise Family)
Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci was a co-founder of the Italian Communist Party. Gramsci declared that to capture the Christian West one needed to “Marxise the inner man . . . to alter the Christian mind to turn it into its opposite in all its details so that it would become not merely a non-Christian mind but an anti-Christian mind.” This meant getting individuals to think about life's problems without reference to Christianity and the laws of God. Gramsci advocated a quiet revolution: “Everything must be done in the name of man's dignity and rights, and in the name of his autonomy and freedom from outside restraint. From the claims and constraints of Christianity above all.” Gramsci's slogan was “Capture the Culture!” And many Marxists in Hollywood continue their “long march through the institutions of the West” using art to influence politics. (Capturing the Culture: Film, Art and Politics by Richard Grenier)

Oliver Stone, who directed Platoon, Salvador, JFK and Nixon always inserts his political bias into his movies. Stone bluntly declared: “America has to bleed. I think the corpses have to pile up. I think American boys have to die again. Let the mothers weep and mourn.” (New American, Jan. 92)
Similarly actress Jane Fonda (Agnes of God) and director Costa-Gravras (Betrayed and The Music Box) design their films to attack Christianity and/or to promote atheism or even communism.
Martin Scorsese (Director of The Last Temptation of Christ and Cape Fear) and Paul Schrader (Scriptwriter of The Last Temptation and Showgirls) both used to be theological students. Scorsese is an apostate whose intense hatred for Christianity is vented in his vile films.
But, of course, most films aren't that blatant. Most scriptwriters, directors and actors don't have such an obsessive anti-Christian axe to grind. Most are far more subtle, but they still have a message.
Nor can one rely upon age restrictions as a reliable guide. Even “all ages” family films can contain an anti-Christian message. In a blatant distortion of history, Disney twisted the story of Pocahontas to promote new age paganism. In fact, the main reason Pocahontas is famous, is because she was the first Indian convert to Christianity to be baptised in North America. Not that anyone seeing the Disney film would realise that.
Many Disney animated films are full of witches, demons, sorcerers, spells, genies and goblins but there is scarcely a mention of God. If prayer is depicted then invariably it's not to God but to “wish upon a star!”

MINDS, MORALS & MOVIES
by Peter Hammond

http://www.frontline.org.za/articles/morals_movies.htm

Re(1): MINDS, MORALS & MOVIES
Posted on April 14, 2005 at 09:44:09 PM by Mitchell Levine

And why are so many films so vulgar and crude? Studies have found that typically less than 7% of people curse on the job and only 12% curse in their leisure time. Yet many Hollywood scriptwriters would have us believe that normal people use profanity and obscenity in regular conversation. The famous Marxist professor Marcuse, of Sorbonne, advocated the use of foul language as a weapon with which to attack bourgeois society. Marcuse inspired many of the most renowned communist revolutionaries of the Twentieth Century. Even Jane Fonda studied under him. (Media-Wise Family)

- What could be sillier in 2005 than accusing the movies of promioting Communism?

Even “all ages” family films can contain an anti-Christian message. In a blatant distortion of history, Disney twisted the story of Pocahontas to promote new age paganism. In fact, the main reason Pocahontas is famous, is because she was the first Indian convert to Christianity to be baptised in North America. Not that anyone seeing the Disney film would realise that.

- The suggestion that this was "anti-Christian," as if simply portraying a spiritual orientation OTHER than Christianity was somehow an attack on it, is equally laughable.

Re(2): MINDS, MORALS & MOVIES
Posted on April 16, 2005 at 03:40:41 AM by saurturion

Then we can simply say that the film was anti-history because it gave the patented "Squaw fall in love with pale face at first sight while rejecting pompous Injun" meme and disregarded the Christian conversion of Pocahantas for one where she speaks to the trees and animals

The suggestion that this was "anti-Christian," as if simply portraying a spiritual orientation OTHER than Christianity was somehow an attack on it, is equally laughable.

-- Feeding Christians to the lions is anti-Christian and starving them to death is also (e.g. Sudan) BUT portraying a Christian convert as a pagan is ANTI-CHRISTIAN as well because we will almost never see the opposite occuring (unless of course, Levine the Divine can give some examples)

The definition of exclusivity w.r.t. Christianity seems far above your head. While granted, many Christians balk at everything they perceive Hollywood is doing wrong, that does not mean that hollywood is not anti-Christian, anti-God and anti-morals. Just because they have theologically ecumenical 'Seventh Heaven' and other non-big studio produced programs, does that mean that Hollywood is a God fearing crew who want to help the family structure and make society better by cleaner programming. What is laughable is that you sound quite educated but don't know that Christian theology is such that ALL things non-Christian are seen as anti-Christian. That said, I probably know more about Judaism than you - which would be a shame.

Re(3): MINDS, MORALS & MOVIES
Posted on April 18, 2005 at 02:40:21 PM by Mitchell Levine

-- Feeding Christians to the lions is anti-Christian and starving them to death is also (e.g. Sudan) BUT portraying a Christian convert as a pagan is ANTI-CHRISTIAN as well because we will almost never see the opposite occuring (unless of course, Levine the Divine can give some examples)
- Bullshit - the point of the film wasn't to relate history at all!

It was tell a story, and in presenting the Indian spirtuality aspects of the title character, it was to teach about Native Americans.

The point wasn't to deride Christians at all.

What is laughable is that you sound quite educated but don't know that Christian theology is such that ALL things non-Christian are seen as anti-Christian.
- Unfortunately, this is the attitude that led to the Crusades. It's slightly less than tolerant.

If you adopt this definition of "anti-Christian," then the media is ALWAYS going to be "anti-Christian," because most people, Christians included, aren't going to want things run according to the sensibilities of fundamentalist Christians.

And you want to make a bet about knowing more about Judaism than I do.

Re(4): MINDS, MORALS & MOVIES
Posted on April 20, 2005 at 12:46:02 PM by saurturion

- Bullshit - the point of the film wasn't to relate history at all!

It was tell a story, and in presenting the Indian spirtuality aspects of the title character, it was to teach about Native Americans.

The point wasn't to deride Christians at all.

--rubbish, it was to rehash the usual mystic Native stereotype while denying the Christian mesage of Pocahontas. We do not need to know about stereotypical Natives (which non-religious Jewish directors helped to form) or stereotypical handsome Nordics who are better for the Native women than their own men. Where are the Native men and European women? Stuck in romance novels written by women wanting "savage love" (i.e. bestial Natives) while having obviously European males as natives or "half-breeds" on the book covers.

What is laughable is that you sound quite educated but don't know that Christian theology is such that ALL things non-Christian are seen as anti-Christian.
- Unfortunately, this is the attitude that led to the Crusades. It's slightly less than tolerant.

--Christianity teaches spiritual violence and not physical violence unless authorized by God. The Crusades were authorized by a pope and not God.

If you adopt this definition of "anti-Christian," then the media is ALWAYS going to be "anti-Christian," because most people, Christians included, aren't going to want things run according to the sensibilities of fundamentalist Christians.

And you want to make a bet about knowing more about Judaism than I do.

--Well said but that is the heart of Christian (fundamentalist) theology. I don't want to bet. I said (and you could refer to the original post, that I MAY know more about Judaism than you since from previous posts you seem to know little about Christianity, including the differences in forms. At least fundamentalist Christianity, with it's lineage from Judaism (granted, which you may not accept) could afford me with more knowledge of Judaism than you. I will state, however, that Pocahontas is a racist Disney film masquerading as history and that Jews have no right to be educating anyone about Natives when there are Native who could easily do that. I'll BET that there aren't 10 Native directors, producers or Middle Managers employed at Disney.

addendum:

Disney's version of this episode in Native American history, is, of course, historically inaccurate. Though Disney does not claim its animated feature is factual, many children will not know the historical version. In our semi-literate, visual-stimulation-centered culture, media representation plays a similar role to that of oral history in other societies. In other words, media representation is not to be taken lightly when it comes to shaping social awareness. Disney should have put a disclaimer about artistic license similar to that in Dreamworks' Prince of Egypt. (http://www.colorq.com)

In the Fall 1998 issue of Red Ink magazine, Maura M. Little lists some of the problems with Pocahontas. These problems include:

The movie's Eurocentric focus, beginning with John Smith heroically setting sail from England.
The Englishmen's repeated use of the term "savages," which has a subconscious effect even if people spoke that way.
Pocahontas's Barbie doll figure and form-fitting dress.
Pocahontas's love for John Smith, not conscious decision-making, controlling her actions.
Smith, not Pocahontas, instigating the peace-making between the Indians and colonists.
Pocahontas's choosing only between a confining marriage to Kocoum or a free-spirited romance with Smith.
Smith's selfless act to save the chief from a bullet overshadowing Pocahontas's selfish act to save Smith for herself.
The message, as Little concludes, is that "Once again, the white male wins and proves his superiority over women and his status as protector of Indian people."


Disney's 'Politically Correct' Pocahontas
(Race in Contemporary American Cinema: Part 5) by Jacquelyn Kilpatrick Cineaste v21, n4 (Fall, 1995):36

In an interview with The New York Times, Eric Goldberg, the film's codirector (with Mike Gabriel), said, "We've gone from being accused of being too white bread to being accused of racism in Aladdin to being accused of being too politically correct in Pocahontas. That's progress to me." As much as I wanted to like Disney's production, I must disagree with Goldberg. Instead of progress in depicting Native Americans, this film takes a step backwards - a very dangerous step because it is so carefully glossed as "authentic" and "respectful."

According to the film's producer, James Pentecost, all this talk about historical accuracy is somewhat irrelevant. He believes that "Nobody should go to an animated film hoping to get an accurate depiction of history." Okay, I'll buy that, as long as you're talking about The Lion King, but Pocahontas was real, and most people have heard her name even if they know nothing about her reality. Most of the adults who view this film, however, will not have the background to judge whether it is accurate or not, and since the hype has been toward the 'political correctness' of the film, I would think they'd be more apt to trust it than not. And those are the adults. What about the children? As Linda Woolverton, screenwriter for Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King said, "When you take on a Disney animated feature, you know you're going to be affecting entire generations of human minds." In this case, the effect is one more misconception advertised in the guise of authenticity and respect for Native American values.

Racism on the Set
Posted on April 21, 2005 at 02:52:46 PM by John Cones

Racism on the Set

"Blade: Trinity" star Wesley Snipes recently sued New Line Cinema, the film’s writer/director David Goyer and its executive producer Toby Emmerich alleging, among other things, racism on the set. Snipes claims that in contrast to the first two "Blade" films, in which efforts were made to select a multiracial cast and crew, the defendants intentionally hired only white people, leading to feelings of isolation and exclusion by Snipes. He also claims that Goyer made racially motivated statements about Snipes being unprofessional and difficult to work with, and that Goyer refused to discipline a crew member who wore a racially discriminatory T-shirt on the set.[Source: “Snipes Throwing Legal Blade at ‘Trinity’ Team”, Janet Shprintz, Variety.com, April 20, 2005]

John Cones

Re(1): Racism on the Set
Posted on April 22, 2005 at 00:22:17 AM by saurturion

Blade Trinity

first Asian male gets killed
second Asian vamp gets killed
3 Asian female vamps, one with one speaking line
another 2 Asian men get beaten up
2 other Asian male vamps die

I'd say that he's getting what he has sown

using disposable Asians is not racist?

granted he may be justified in his claims

NYT: Hollywood's New (Jewish) Old Girls' Network
Posted on April 24, 2005 at 01:54:44 PM by Setal

Four of the six major studios have women in the top creative decision-making roles, as Ms. Berman joins Stacey Snider, chairman of Universal; Amy Pascal, chairman of Sony Pictures; and Nina Jacobson, president of Walt Disney Company's Buena Vista Motion Pictures Group.

Donna Langley and Laurie MacDonald are mentioned, but the rest are predominately Jewish...

Re(1): NYT: Hollywood's New (Jewish) Old Girls' Network
Posted on April 24, 2005 at 04:31:38 PM by Brad

Lucy Fisher, a producer, said one reason that the two women were allowed to rise was Hollywood's "immigrant, outsider ethos."

Re(2): NYT: Hollywood's New (Jewish) Old Girls' Network
Posted on April 24, 2005 at 04:54:34 PM by Setal

So striking is the change that some now see Hollywood as a gender-balanced model for the rest of corporate America. "It's astonishing," said Elizabeth Daley, dean of the film school at the University of Southern California. "You don't see that kind of progress in any other industry."

How about ethnic change?

Re(4): NYT: Hollywood's New (Jewish) Old Girls' Network
Posted on May 4, 2005 at 09:21:19 PM by Mitchell Levine

All that needs to happen is for non-Jews to produce candidates as successful and competent as the current leadership.

Re(5): NYT: Hollywood's New (Jewish) Old Girls' Network
Posted on May 4, 2005 at 09:29:48 PM by saurturion

who decides success in Hollywood?

who is making remakes of Japanese films? The French? The Germans?

Re(6): NYT: Hollywood's New (Jewish) Old Girls' Network
Posted on May 5, 2005 at 00:50:17 AM by Mitchell Levine

The bean-counters at the accounting firms, that's who.

Re(7): NYT: Hollywood's New (Jewish) Old Girls' Network
Posted on May 5, 2005 at 03:15:03 PM by saurturion

are the bean counters Jewish?

Re(8): NYT: Hollywood's New (Jewish) Old Girls' Network
Posted on May 6, 2005 at 00:12:21 AM by Mitchell Levine

I don't know - accounting firms don't generally print statistics concerning the ethnicities of their employees.

Re(9): NYT: Hollywood's New (Jewish) Old Girls' Network
Posted on May 9, 2005 at 05:38:45 PM by saurturion

good for them, huh?

Re(10): NYT: Hollywood's New (Jewish) Old Girls' Network
Posted on May 11, 2005 at 09:20:49 PM by Mitchell Levine

Only if you can explain why it would be "bad" for them otherwise.

Fruits of Non-Diversity
Posted on May 6, 2005 at 07:13:08 PM by James Jaeger

2510-G Las Posas Road, #502, Camarillo, CA 93010 (805) 383-2000 www.movieguide.org

PRESS RELEASE, May 6, 2005

New NC-17 Movie Reaches New Low in Depravity, Christian Film Historians Warn

Leading film historians at MOVIEGUIDE®, the oldest Christian movie review website on the Internet, are sending out an urgent word of alarm regarding a new film about pedophilia and homosexual prostitution.

“The film, MYSTERIOUS SKIN, reaches a new low in depravity,” said Dr. Ted Baehr, founder and publisher at MOVIEGUIDE®, who graduated with high distinction in Comparative Literature and as a Rufus Choate Scholar from Dartmouth College and served as Director of the Television Center at the City University of New York in the late 1970s.

Baehr said the movie, which opens today in New York and May 27 in Los Angeles, contains graphic scenes of homosexual prostitution and homosexual rape, scenes of a homosexual pedophile seducing a young boy and a graphic description of the homosexual abuse of two little boys.

MOVIEGUIDE®’s review of the movie, written by Dr. Tom Snyder, who has a Ph.D. in film studies at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. and taught film history at National University in Southern California, says that the graphic sex scenes in the movie “are just shy of the hardest hardcore pornography you can ever find.”

The review also notes that the movie “tries to justify the graphic nature of its scenes and descriptions of homosexual pedophilia and homosexual prostitution by tacking on artistically directed scenes of sadness, pain and humor.”

Dr. Baehr, who also has a law degree from New York University School of Law and worked for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New York, warned, “This film clearly violates the child pornography statutes written by Congress and most state legislatures. We urge the authorities to take action and investigate.”

For interviews with Dr. Baehr, please call Sandra Bell at 1-800-577-6684.

Re(1): Fruits of Non-Diversity
Posted on May 7, 2005 at 12:38:54 PM by John Cones

Good point James. However, It does not appear that most people, including filmmakers, moviegoers and news reporters understand the rather simple principle being promoted by FIRM, that if we had greater diversity in the film industry power positions (i.e., those positions that have the power to determine which films are going to be produced and released) we would quite naturally have more diversity in content. That would not entirely solve the problem of content that is offensive to many, but it would certainly reduce the percentage to a level that is much more easily managed and/or avoided by those who so choose. In addition, right now we have the rather absurd situation that the film industry screams "censorshhip" whenever anyone talks about possible ways to prevent their children from being exposed to media trash, while at the same time these folks fail to understand the connection between the industry's 100 year history of blatant nepotism, favoritsm, cronyism and discrimination which effectively prevents diversity at the top. Most people seem to be fighting the wrong battle. Instead of trying to restrict what the Hollywood community communicates through this powerful communication medium, instead we should focus our efforts on insuring that every segment of our multi-cultural society has a fair and equal opportunity to work in those limited positions of power -- those people who can determine the images and messages that are communicated.

John Cones

Age/Race Discrimination
Posted on May 18, 2005 at 01:37:18 PM by Charles Mathews

What a great website! Prior to becoming a lawyer I worked in the entertainment business as a writer, producer and director primarily in television. That was in the late 60's and early 70's. Racism was rampant then and is only marginally better now. Age discrimination has become more prevalent as the industry has come of age in a young oriented marketplace.

A year ago we tried a case against Universal Studios for age and gender discrimination involving a woman who worked her way up in the ranks at Universal to be the equivalent of a vice president, but they wouldn't give her the title or the pay to go with the position. Then they "laid her off" and replaced her with a younger male. The public record will show that a jury awarded her $2.5 million dollars. Herbst v. Universal.

Now, I've got a case against Universal involving outright racism against one of the most celebrated black cameramen in the industry. This stuff will continue until the industry learns that forcing litigation shouldn't be the way business gets done. Its legally wrong, morally wrong and bad for business.

ted@mathewsrager.com

Re(1): Age/Race Discrimination
Posted on May 19, 2005 at 11:49:28 AM by John Cones

Charles:

Great post! What other kinds of favoritism, cronyism, nepotism and/or discrimination have you seen in Hollywood?

John Cones

Da Vinci Code on a Screen Near You
Posted on May 21, 2005 at 01:14:24 PM by John Cones

Sure enough, a major studio is attempting to ride the wave of controversy stirred by Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ” to box office success by coming out next year with another anti-Christian movie. This one takes issue with some core Catholic beliefs saying Jesus isn’t divine and that the Church is basically evil. It’s Columbia Pictures' adaptation of “The Da Vinci Code” with a script written by Akiva Goldsman (produced by Brian Grazer). “While Catholic groups, and even the new pope, could come out strongly against Sony’s ‘The Da Vinci Code’ next year, the studio seems poised to rebuff and even capitalize on the furor.” “Among many other lessons provided by Mel Gibson’s ‘The Passion of the Christ,’ nothing remains as pronounced as the realization that America’s religious community is a great, if relatively untapped, potential audience.” [Source: “Breaking the Da Vinci Code”, Steven Kotler, Vlife (A Variety Publication) June/JUuly 2005, page 65]

John Cones

Latinos and Hollywood
Posted on May 28, 2005 at 04:10:56 PM by saurturion

http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/2001/fyi/lesson.plans/09/10/bel.hernandez


Bel Hernandez is co-founder of LATINHEAT, the only Latino entertainment industry trade publication with a focus on highlighting Latinos in all aspects of the industry. Ms. Hernandez began her career in entertainment as an actor on stage, screen and television. She made her transition into publishing in 1992, serving as Publisher and Editor-In-Chief of LATINHEAT, and is the driving force behind the current success of the publication .

CNNfyi: Why has it been so difficult for Latinos to gain fair representation in the entertainment industry? What are some good ways for educators to teach students how to analyze cultural representation in the media?

Bel Hernandez: The entertainment industry is a closed industry with few opportunities to gain access. Many who manage an entrance do so by taking internships at studios, networks and production companies, etc. These opportunities are given to young adults known to persons already within the industry -- usually to their acquaintances, family and friends. Since there are few Latinos in the industry, the opportunities given to them are rare.

As far as images seen on the screen, people write about what they know. Since there are only a sprinkling of Latino writers being produced, the Latino image with a Latino perspective is rarely seen. Instead, what you see are non-Latinos' ideas of what a Latino is. Often, this image comes from the negative stereotypes writers have seen in film and on TV, or the news, or from Latinos they know, most of whom are their waiters, maids, gardeners or nannies. You consistently see the same negative Latino characters written into plots over and over again. Even when there is a positive role, it is usually that of a nonprofessional. Rarely do you see a Latino doctor, private investigator, stock broker, company CEO or astronaut.

Latinos and Hollywood

Re(1): Latinos and Hollywood
Posted on May 28, 2005 at 05:40:00 PM by John Cones

I don't disagree with Bel's analysis, but I'd go one step beyond. These programs that allow minorities to learn about the film industry and that are supposed help deal with the lack of diversity in the film industry are, in my opinion, too little and too late. In addition, they don't result in more diversity at the top, where it really matters. These individuals, no matter their qualifications get bumped or weeded out from the top level studio executive positions before they have real opportunities to influence choices relating to scripts, characters and roles. In my opinion, as stated before, it is time for all of the Hollywood outsiders, Latinos, African Americans, Native Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, Christians including Catholics and Mormons, Arabs and Arab Americans, Muslims, women, Whites from the American South, Asians and Asian Americans and the groups that represent them to come together in an umbrella organization created for the sole purpose of organizing and encouraging a boycott of all major studio/distributor product. Once you deal a devastating economic blow to the major studio/distributors, then it would be appropriate for independent production companies and independent distributors with top level executives from all of those Hollywood outsider groups to produce and distribute the films they want in a free and open marketplace. This way, their films won't be squeezed off the screens by major studio/distributor using anti-competitive tactics. That seems to me to be the only way to deal with 100 years of abuse and exploitation perpetrated by the Hollywood insiders on the rest of us.

John Cones

Alternatives to Hollywood
Posted on May 31, 2005 at 10:08:41 PM by James Jaeger

If you are getting tired or board with movies from the major (MPAA) studios -- try NETFLIX and open up a world of fresh, creative, independently-produced films for yourself.

One of the best ways to send a message that studio-made/distributed films aren't the only game in town is to simply discover and patronage the vast untapped library of non-studio titles.

I have to admit, I never realized how many incredible little movies there are out there that have extremely original stories and very interesting characters. It's a gold mine.

NETFLIX can have their AI computers analyze what you like and then refer you to an endless list of independent films that you will probably like.

If you discover all this at NETFLIX and tell your friends to stop renting/buying studio fare -- and they tell THEIR friends to do the same -- an exponential wave of word-of-mouth could literally put the studios out of business within 10 to 20 years. People no longer patronage the major TV networks that much; the same can happen with the major studios.

And as the Internet gets faster, and movies can be downloaded and streamed all over the world with greater ease, companies like COMCAST won't even bother programming movies -- they'll just sell you a TCP/IP signal and you will be able to buy programming from tens of thousands of independent producers all over the world -- with no distributor or exhibitor involved. Gone are the days of the vampire middlemen. Gone are the days of the brick and mortar video store with limited shelf space, hence limited selection. Gone are the days of analog broadcasting with limited channels. Gone are the days of even the MOVIE THEATRE when 52-inch, HD screens and 6:1 surround sound home theaters can and do "exhibit" features with more impact, clarity and convenience than Hollywood's bowling-alley movie theaters can even dream of. All this is happening now. And NO, people won’t still go out just for the theatrical experience. Not at $8 a ticket to wade through crows of bubblegum-chewing teenagers . . . and no refrigerator, couch or PAUSE button anywhere in sight. You can now have 10 times the QUOTE -- theatrical going experience -- right in your house. Plus you can invite a bunch of guests over and party while you movie. Given all this the COMCASTs of the world won't care what they deliver so long as you pay their monthly cable bill -- and the theaters will be turned into parking lots and supermarkets.

Thus the bloated, hackneyed, violence-ridden MPAA studio features with the same old boring and predictable "name talents" (a.k.a. stars) faces will all be replaced by original independent features, written, directed and acted out by the hundreds of thousands of creative filmmakers all over the world. These filmmakers will soon have inexpensive HD cameras that rival the ones George Lucas used for Episode II and III. They will also have the special FX software as prices come down, thus, soon you will be able to literally have a DIGITAL STAR in any one of your movies.

As all the above happens, the Internet, which is the new distribution/exhibition pipeline, will replace Hollywood’s job of distributing movies. Hollywood used to be the center of production AND distribution. But now it is experiencing massive “runaway production.” Some say it is, in fact, no longer the production center of the world, that there IS no production center, especially when places like Quebec already have special FX sound stages/facilities that are actually more state-of-the-art than anything in Hollywood. Like production, Hollywood will soon succumb to distribution as well. Only while it happens to be the distribution center of the world is Hollywood able to preempt the cash flow that comes off film releases and use this to sucker millions of starving artists into the talent-trap, bull pen. But as distribution relentlessly dries up -- so will the money. When the money dries up so will the talent that traveled to Hollywoodland -- leaving their families in shock and sadness -- FOR that promised, but even now seldom delivered, money.

Yep, MPAA-infested Hollywood will soon be like those old steel mills that sit around the country as vacant, crumbling lots of rotting metal. So if you're tired of Hollywood movies, there are alternatives available. There are also alternatives to independently financing, shooting and distributing features that never existed before.

Quite frankly, with the way the stock market still is today and the over-priced real estate bubble -- investors are totally CRAZY not to invest in features. Independent features will eventually be distributable to global markets on the BROADBAND Internet. These markets will be over 300 million strong by the end of 2005 and over a billion strong by the end of the decade. Count on it. The actual market is already bigger than the entire population of the United States, the largest market in the world, and the potential market shrinks the U.S. to insignificance.

In this arriving environment, imagine owning $500,000 worth of equity in a feature and then watching that feature get distributed to even 1-percent of the broadband market of say 500 million for $1 a pop. That’s a cool $5 million back on an investment of each $500,000 or a return on investment of 10 to 1. Where can one get THAT kind of money in any other “prudent man” investment?

They can't.

James Jaeger

Blond Bad Guys—Hollywood’s Other Obsession
Posted on June 19, 2005 at 10:45:27 PM by Thea

Blond Bad Guys—Hollywood’s Other Obsession

By Steve Sailer

After finishing last week's column about Hollywood's obsession with fair-skinned actresses, I went to see Batman Begins, which has been positioned as a "more realistic comic book movie."

Obviously, there's something oxymoronic about that phrase, but Batman Begins is reasonably refreshing for a summer blockbuster. It puts a lot of effort into explaining where Bruce Wayne gets all his Bat Gear (the Batmobile and the rest are high tech military prototypes invented by Wayne Enterprises' top scientist, played by Morgan Freeman), and into detailing why he becomes an avenging angel of the night: when he was a lad, his saintly parents were gunned down in front of him by a mugger.

Gotham City looks evocatively like Chicago, where some of the movie was filmed.

But, as an old Chicagoan, I can assure you that one aspect of Batman Begins is standard-issue Hollywood hokum: the murderous mugger is blond.

Blond bad guys are a lot more common in movies and television than in real life.

For example, in Batman Begins, you can tell that Mr. Earle, the executive in charge of Wayne Enterprises, is up to no good because he is played by Rutger Hauer—the blond Dutchman who made his American debut in 1981's Nighthawks as a terrorist chased by heroic NYPD cops Sylvester Stallone and Billy Dee Williams. Hauer was subsequently cast as Albert Speer in the TV movie Inside the Third Reich, and eventually received his best-known role as a homicidal android in Blade Runner.

No typecasting there!

And speaking of blond terrorists being chased by NYPD cops, who can forget Alan Rickman in Bruce Willis's Die Hard? No wonder President Bush cracked down on ethnic profiling of Arabs by airport security in the months before 9/11: all the terrorists in movies are either Germans or English aristocrats!

Exactly why Hollywood hates blond men almost as much as it loves blond women is not clear. Some have suggested complicated combinations of resentment and longing in regard to WASPs and/or Nordics.

This prejudice against blond men would seem to be on a collision course with the tendency of movie moguls, such as Steven Spielberg, to marry blonde women, such as Kate Capshaw. This means the industry's hereditary elite will tend to become blonder over the generations. No doubt it will cause no end of father-son conflicts, keeping Beverly Hills psychiatrists prosperous for the rest of the century.

A more general question is why in movies and television, murderers are far more likely to be white (whether blond or brunette) than African-American—even though, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics: "Blacks were 7 times more likely than whites to commit homicide in 2002."

One of my readers recently pointed out that with non-Hispanic whites accounting for only about ten percent of the violent crime in New York City, the three Law & Order television shows were likely to feature more fictional white New York murderers in 2005 than there will be actual white murderers in real life!

Another reader pointed out:

"In the first 24 episodes of Law & Order: Criminal Intentthere's only one black murderer, and she is a corrupt police office. Make of that what you will…"

Racial activist organizations like the NAACP constantly complain that minority actors have a hard time getting roles. For some reason, though, the NAACP never brings up the most obvious ways to increase the casting of blacks and Hispanics—by making the ethnic make-up of screen criminals more realistic.

There are unintended consequences to all these good intentions. Villains provide excellent roles that actors can sink their teeth into. But minorities seldom get those great Hannibal the Cannibal-type parts.

Unfortunately, African-American actors have long been held back by what's known as Ben Stein's Law. The mordant law professor, economist, screenwriter and game show host made an in-depth study in 1979 that revealed that in any Hollywood whodunit, the whitest, richest and most respectable character usually turns out to be the bad guy.

In Rush Hour 2, Chris Tucker updated Ben Stein's Law with his "Law of Criminal Investigation: Always follow the rich white man."

It appeared that the ice was breaking when Denzel Washington won the Oscar for playing the heavy in 2001's Training Day, a role based on Rafael Perez, the affirmative action-hire rogue cop whose criminality set off the LAPD's Rampart Scandal.

But little progress has been made since. Morgan Freeman, for example, first broke through to public notice playing a vicious pimp in 1987's Street Smart. However, he continues to get cast as the embodiment of saintliness, what Richard Brookhiser calls the "Numinous Negro"—as in Freeman's Oscar-winning but embarrassing role as the holy janitor in Million Dollar Baby.

In Batman Begins, Freeman portrays an inventor—another weird Hollywood racial cliché. Just as judges are so often played by black women, Hollywood has decided that technogeeks must be portrayed by black men, the more improbable the better, as in burly Ving Rhames being the computer nerd in the "Mission Impossible" movies.

Clearly, political correctness damages black actors' careers. Because it would be “racist" for movies to show blacks as killers, since that would support the "stereotype" that blacks commit more homicides than whites, they are denied the good roles as bad guys.

And to counter the "stereotype" that black men aren't as interested as other races in computers, they get force-fed into playing nerds.

From a career standpoint, that's a disastrous trade-off for any actor.

And from a political and cultural standpoint, Hollywood’s blond-bashing isn’t that great either.

[Steve Sailer [email him], is founder of the Human Biodiversity Institute and movie critic for The American Conservative. His website www.iSteve.com features site-exclusive commentaries.]

Nice Work Folks!
Posted on June 21, 2005 at 12:25:08 PM by John Cones

As we approach the middle point of the year, the movie industry has seen a string of 17 weekends that haven't measured up to last year. In addition, the summer season, is off to its worst start in four years. Keep the focus of the boycott on major studio releases. They major studios are the ones that have been disciminating for years against Hollywood outsiders, have been paying Hollywood insiders obscene salaries, overpaying star talent to keep them under control and allowing Hollywood insider agents to reap the benefits of such excessive compensation. The only way the power of the major studios can be diminished in relation to the independent filmmakers is to diminish their financial return. Keep up the good work.

John Cones

Re(1): Nice Work Folks!
Posted on June 22, 2005 at 03:40:26 PM by Joe MovieBuff

I recently heard that a new survey indicates an increasing number of people prefer staying at home to watch movies on their big-screen TV.

I will try to post the source if I can later.

Not Very Religious
Posted on June 22, 2005 at 12:49:29 PM by James Jaeger

In his many books and at the FIRM site, author John Cones has observed that the Hollywood-based MPAA studio/distributors are dominated by "politically liberal, not very religious, Jewish males of European heritage."

Here's another example that this dominating demographic is alive and well.

MPAA member company, Paramount Pictures, has recently released a movie entitled, COACH CARTER, starring Samuel L. Jackson. A fine picture, however, it appears that the green-lighting Gods at Paramount omitted the two lines in Nelson Mandela's 1994 Inaugural Speech that mention God. In fact, they went so far as to actually re-write a line in Mandela's speech in order to AVOID a mention of God -- not very religious of them.

Here's exactly what the Paramount actor, Rick Gonzalez, playing the part of Timo Cruz, says on-screen in the third act of the picture:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our Darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the World; there is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. WE WERE ALL MEANT TO SHINE AS CHILDREN DO. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

Here's what Mandela actually said:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our Darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you NOT to be? YOU ARE A CHILD OF GOD. Your playing small does not serve the World; there is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. WE WERE BORN TO MAKE MANIFEST THE GLORY OF GOD THAT IS WRITTEN WITHIN US. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our sun Light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."(1)

So long as the major studios are dominated by a narrowly defined control group, you can be assured that "alternative views" (from the views of this control group) will never see the Light of day.

James Jaeger

-------------------
(1) Conveniently, Mandela isn't even mentioned as the author of these words. Maybe he should sue Paramount and VIACOM for altering and bastardizing his words as well as failing to grant him any credit. I wonder if he even knows this has happened. I know his daughter, so I may inform her.

Re(1): Not Very Religious
Posted on August 12, 2007 at 02:00:37 PM by Steve

VERY INTERESTING

Fargo: revenge for growing up Jewish in the Midwest
Posted on June 27, 2005 at 12:16:40 PM by LAX

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=11053
Franken was born in New Jersey but raised in Minnesota. (He recently bought a place in Minneapolis and there’s talk he might move the show there.)

“It’s not really difficult being a Jew in Minnesota,” he said. “When we first moved there, we lived in southern Minnesota. I was so young I wasn’t quite aware of the minuscule Jewish community there. We had to go to a different town to go to temple.”

Despite the Hormel gag, Franken seems to have a more benign view of his Jewish upbringing in Minnesota than, say, the Coen brothers, the innovative filmmakers behind the bitingly satiric “Fargo,” which they have said was their revenge for growing up Jewish in the Midwest.

Eventually the Frankens moved to Minneapolis, which had a large Jewish community but, Franken said, “a history of anti-Semitism” dating back to the 1940s when “Jewish mobsters engendered a lot of anti-Semitism.”

Re(1): Fargo: revenge for growing up Jewish in the Midwest
Posted on June 27, 2005 at 01:18:29 PM by John Cones

Once again we are reminded of why it is important for the country that our film industry be populated at all levels with people of diverse backgrounds. After all, if the people who control the film industry can admittedly use one or more films to impose their revenge on a region of the country, shouldn't all religious, ethnic, cultural and/or racial groups have the same opportunity to tell their important stories through this significant medium for the communication of ideas?

John Cones

Hollywood's Litigation Strategy
Posted on June 30, 2005 at 11:10:57 AM by John Cones

Thirty-one years later, Warner Bros. Pictures has finally agreed to pay a Georgia-based producer by the name of Clark at least $17.5 million for infringing on the copyright to his 1974 United Artists film, "Moonrunners," which became the basis of the Warners TV series, "The Dukes of Hazzard." Hollywood has a long history of taking what it wants, and if you sue, you don't get to work in the industry anymore, and in order to prevail in such litigation you have to wait for years for the process to work its way through the courts. For further discussion of this Hollywood strategy see "Sue Us -- Hollywood's Litigation Strategy" in "How the Movie Wars Were Won".

John Cones

22 Reasons to Boycott MPAA Movies
Posted on June 30, 2005 at 01:01:20 PM by John Cones


1. PATTERNS OF BIAS--Hollywood movies (those produced and/or released by the Hollywood-based major studio/distributors) have long contained blatant patterns of bias. They consistently portray whole populations of our diverse society in a negative or stereotypical manner (such portrayals in varying degrees include Arabs and Muslims, Latinos, African-Americans, women, Italian-Americans, Christians and regional populations such as Whites from the American South.

2. BIASED BIOPICS--Hollywood movies contain biased biopics, examples of historical revisionism and favoritism in movie portrayals displayed toward a single, narrowly-defined interest group of which the Hollywood control group primarily draws its members.

3. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL ISSUES–The biases in Hollywood movies also show up with respect to political and social issues, for example, Hollywood movies tend to be anti-government, anti-parent, anti-authority, anti-religion, pro-environment, pro-abortion, pro-violence, pro-smoking, pro-foul language, highly sexual and so forth.

4. SIGNIFICANT MEDIUM--The motion picture is a significant medium for the communication of ideas (see the 1952 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Burstyn v. Wilson).

5. IDEAS--Throughout the history of civilization, ideas have always and will always be an important basis for human beliefs and source of motivation for human conduct.

6. INFLUENCE--Thus, it can be proven by pure logic alone, that movies influence human conduct. After all, movies communicate ideas, ideas motivate human behavior, therefore movies must motivate some human behavior.

7. PREJUDICIAL THINKING--During a significant segment of many individual lives (particularly those who are relatively young, uneducated or unsophisticated), repeatedly watching hundreds of powerful motion picture images that consistently portray whole populations of our diverse society in a negative or stereotypical manner can contribute to prejudicial thinking, which in turn, is often the basis of real-life discriminatory behavior.

8. NOT SOLUTION--Thus, at minimum we must concede, movies that consistently portray certain people in a negative or stereotypical manner and/or movies that tend to emphasize certain positions with respect to political and social issues are clearly not helping us solve our society's problems, but more likely, making them worse.

9. MOVIES MIRROR–With respect to why the above-described phenomena are occurring, movies to a large extent, tend to mirror the values, interests, cultural perspectives and prejudices of their makers.

10. MAJOR STUDIOS--The motion picture industry is dominated by a small group of so-called major studio/distributors. The studio releases are the movies seen by more than 95% of the domestic moviegoing audience, and a significant percentage of most foreign audiences.

11. STUDIO EXECUTIVES–Aside from the fact that various creative people including: screen writers, directors, producers and actors contribute to the content of individual motion pictures, the people in Hollywood who have the power to decide which movies are produced and released, to determine who gets to work in the key positions on such movies and to approve of the screenplays serving as the basis for these movies are the three top studio executives at the major studio distributors.

12. SHARED BACKGROUNDS–In the spirit of similar diversity surveys of their members, conducted on a periodic basis by the Director’s Guild of America and the Screenwriter’s Guild, similar surveys of diversity at the top in Hollywood must be regularly conducted. Preliminary evidence demonstrates that a clear majority of these executives throughout the term of existence of these vertically-integrated, distributor-dominated major studios share a common background (i.e., they are politically liberal, not very religious, Jewish males of European heritage), a factual observation which tends to raise protest from certain segments of the so-called Hollywood apologist community, including false accusations of anti-Semitism.


13. CREATIVE CONTROL--The major studio/distributors through various approval rights are able to determine to a great extent which movies are produced and to some extent the content of those movies.

14. LESS DIVERSITY–One result of such control residing in the hands of such a narrowly-defined group is a severe limit on creativity in movie-making and a more narrow selection of motion pictures which tend to range (in a commercial sense) from hoped-for blockbusters and lowest common denominator movies to exploitation fare.

15. EXCLUSION–Long-time and ongoing control of the major studio/distributors also excludes large segments of our multi-cultural society from the movie-making process (i.e., such excluded populations tend to be inaccurately portrayed through the perspective of another cultural group and their positions on many important issues are overlooked).

16. MOVIES ARE PROPAGANDA–All mass communications media including movies that are controlled by any narrowly-defined group and used over an extended period of time to consistently communicate ideas favored by that control group can fairly be described as propaganda. Motion picture propaganda is particularly effective since it is disguised and promoted as “entertainment”.

17. BUSINESS PRACTICES--The Hollywood control group gained and has maintained its power through the use of several hundred specifically identifiable unfair, unethical, unconscionable, anti-competitive, predatory and illegal business practices, including massive employment discrimination and antitrust law violations.

18. GOVERNMENT INFLUENCE--The Hollywood control group gets away with its "proclivity for wrongful conduct" (language of various judicial and legal officials who have reviewed such conduct) by routing huge political contributions to presidential candidates and key members of Congress through excessively overpaid studio executives, their spouses and multiple political action committees, so as to discourage vigorous enforcement of the employment discrimination, antitrust and other laws in the Hollywood-based U.S. film industry.

19. GOVERNMENT POLICY--Federal government policy, specifically, the federal government's anti-trust law enforcement policy currently contributes to the ability of the major studio distributors to control and dominate the marketplace.

20. INDEPENDENT FILM--A motion picture industry made up of independent producers, independent distributors and independent exhibitors would result in greater creativity in movie-making and create greater opportunities for a significantly larger number of interest groups within out multi-cultural society to participate at a meaningful level in the film-making process.

21. FREE MARKETPLACE OF IDEAS–Our democracy is partly based on the concept of a free marketplace of ideas (i.e., to the extent that our society is able to vigorously and openly discuss the pros and cons of all important issues we should be better able to come up with the best decisions with respect to such issues for our society in general).

22. DEMOCRACY IS FLAWED–To the extent that any significant medium for the communication of ideas, such as the motion picture, is dominated and/or controlled by any narrowly-defined group who consistently uses such medium to communicate ideas preferred by that group, our free marketplace of ideas is diminished and our democracy is weakened. In a democracy, no important communications medium, including film, should be controlled or dominated by any single, narrowly-defined group. Government policy should therefore be changed to ensure a more vigorous discussion of view points in all media including motion pictures (i.e., that all segments of our diverse society have an equal and fair opportunity to tell their stories and promote ideas of interest to them through these important communications media).

--o0o–

Re(1): 22 Reasons to Boycott MPAA Movies
Posted on August 29, 2005 at 10:39:15 AM by Heebie Jeebie

First, we boycott their movies.

Then their stores.

Then, we kill 'em all!

Hollywood Advances 'Soft Assult'
Posted on July 27, 2005 at 06:53:10 PM by Green & Campbell

HOLLYWOOD
ADVANCES 'SOFT ASSAULT' ON CHRISTIAN IMAGERY

Subliminal propaganda radiates from Big Screen


By Mark Green and Wendy Campbell
April 20, 2005



"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people in gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." -James Madison, 1788



Edison may have invented the 'motion picture', but Jewish immigrants from Europe "invented Hollywood". Remarkably, in the century since Meyer, the Warner brothers and a handful of other Ashkenazi Jewish immigrants began the "studio system", Hollywood still maintains a distinctly Yiddish accent. Some critics, however, posit that Hollywood doesn't play fair, since it employs the mesmerizing power of cinema to manipulate the mindset of complacent viewers. How? By relentlessly injecting sordid scenarios and denigrating images of once respected American archetypes and institutions. Latest targets: the Catholic Church and, as usual, Arabs.

One very recent example (out of many) is the comic-book-styled action flick "Sin City". In it we witness numerous oddball villains, many adorned with multiple layers of crucifixion crosses (a symbol revered by many Christians) as they go about their merry, murderous ways. Indeed, the film's arch-villain turns out to be nothing less than a satanic, cannibalistic Catholic cardinal! OK, this is fictional entertainment, but Hollywood knows that these scenarios have a visceral, even subliminal, impact. That's basically why we don't see any Hollywood-fabricated demons sporting Stars of David (a symbol revered by many Jews) nor do we see any 'rabid rabbis' dished up for popular entertainment.

The unspoken code of Hollywood is this: Jewish archetypes and religious sensitivities are to be respected. Others may be casually smeared.

Although Catholics and Arabs are expected to survive this non-lethal onslaught, when one considers the laudatory treatment Hollywood grants Jewish and Israeli characters, it's becoming an insult. How is it that Jews, Arabs and Christians receive such different treatment under Hollywood's gaze?

In polite terms, the Jewish presence in American film and media is "without peer".

In many ways, Hollywood is an "insider" kind of business. While talent is essential, there is a political element to success in Hollywood. One must pass muster with the specifically Jewish dictates of political correctness. Otherwise, one may find oneself very unemployed. It took an actor/producer with the stature of Mel Gibson to buck this kosher Hollywood code and produce his controversial, but wildly successful film, "The Passion". Even Gibson however had to endure a tidal wave of organized Jewish protest, including death threats to his family.

To no one's surprise, Bob and Harvey Weinstein of Miramax Films declined to distribute Gibson's "The Passion", in no small part because it offended many Jews and was accused of stoking the "eternal flames" of anti-Semitism. On the other hand, the Weinstein brothers did distribute "Sin City" as well as Michael Moore¹s much ballyhooed "Fahrenheit 9/11". Why? Both films respected the unwritten kosher code: vilification of Arab and/or Christians is acceptable, but one must never --- even in the context of analyzing terrorism or U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East--- demonize Israel or Zionism.

Indeed, in "Fahrenheit 9/11", Michael Moore's controversial "expose" actually managed to keep Israel, Zionism (and even neo-conservatism) completely off the cinematic radar. Moore did provide acceptable doses of Saudi-bashing as well as enough innuendo to bolster the Leftist, politically correct view that U.S. Mid East policies are "ALL about oil". He's been the darling of liberal Hollywood circles ever since.

With that in mind, it's important that the aspiring film-maker should remember these three things:

One: Jews tend to occupy the top of the Hollywood food chain.

Two: They intend to remain there.

Three: Don¹t forget those first two things.

Like it or not, the "gatekeepers" of American mass media are disproportionately 'Israeli-American'. Though Tinseltown famously disdains "white (non-Jewish) racism", prevailing Hollywood customs affirm industry-wide Jewish networking. The results are nothing less than astounding.

America, many now acknowledge, has come to "think Jewish", as attitudes have magically shifted on matters such as race, "minority rights", school prayer, "abortion rights", celebrating "the holidays", and "promoting our nation's values" via militant democracy-building in all Mid-East countries except Israel. OK, Israel may qualify as a "democracy" in the same way that white, apartheid South Africa did, but there's one huge difference: concerted intervention from around the world finally brought the segregated, apartheid system to its knees. White racial discrimination has been declared "evil". Significantly, Jewish activists played a decisive role in the anti-apartheid movement. Yet Israel suffers no similar opprobrium. Pressures on the Jewish state to abandon its commitment to legally sanctioned segregation are also virtually non-existent. Israel is in a class by itself.

Further, it is no accident that Israeli "security" is now the centerpiece of U.S. foreign policy.

How are the highly placed "friends of Israel" able to bamboozle so much of the world? ---Through a complicated but interconnected array of propaganda, political pressure, complex legalisms, victim identity (see: The Holocaust) and raw political muscle. In today¹s America, just an allegation of "anti-Semitism" can damage the career of any public figure. And to sustain this perspective, Americans are supplied a daily dose of Holocaust lore. As a sidebar, here¹s an additional fact that would be funny if only it wasn¹t true: Holocaust "experts" are virtually all Jewish. Does their collective obsession produce scholarship--or a license to propagandize?

In any case, for the latest Holocaust news, one needs simply to turn on the TV or pick up any major newspaper. Yet an accurate telling of the Jewish experience in America would spotlight not suffering or persecution, but success, acceptance, privilege and influence. Jews are America's preeminent success story.

Although reportedly less than 3% of our population, Jewish per capita income is unsurpassed, as is their presence at our nation's top universities and think tanks. As noted, American Jews make up a majority of Hollywood's ruling class and beyond that, Jewish "over-representation" is an accomplished fact in law, journalism, and publishing. This is no small matter. With the average American watching over four hours of TV or film every day (and perusing mainstream newspapers and magazines, too) these figures are evidence of a profound ethnic imbalance in the management and dissemination of news and information. For America's Jewish community, this translates into unrivaled political power.

The enduring fact remains that who ever owns and manages the media, can also leverage public opinion, and from there, government policies.

Indeed, Jewish media mavens have the means to easily advance their particular view of history, with far-reaching consequences. And with the Jewish state of Israel embroiled perpetual conflict since its founding in 1948, the question must be posed: might many of our country's most accomplished producers, editors and story-tellers have at least a minor conflict of interest?

Put another way: how can they NOT?

After all, Israeli "security" remains the essential focus of organized Jewry. Countless pro-Israel organizations famously apply incessant pressure on government officials, political parties, candidates, journalists and fellow 'tribe-members' to lobby on Israel¹s behalf, assuring an uninterrupted flow of billions of dollars annually in U.S. aid to the Jewish state.

Consequently, maintaining a public willingness to favor America’s present interventionist, (pro-Israel/anti-Arab) foreign policy is an essential component in any scenario culminating in the Final Zionist Triumph. It's essential therefore that American gentiles "think correctly" on key Jewish issues. Thus, many complex political issues are "dumbed down" for mass consumption. Good and evil are drawn neatly in back and white, so that American consumers of news and entertainment can easily draw the proper conclusion. Arabs (particularly Palestinians resisting Israeli occupation) are therefore "terrorists", Nazi demonology is a growth industry, and Holocaust Revisionism (widely misrepresented as "Holocaust Denial") is peddled as a veritable threat to world order.

It's a staggering fact that in numerous "free, Western democracies" (such as Germany, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, and others) it's a crime to question the official Jewish death toll figures or the gas chamber story in the events now called The Holocaust. Penalties include fines and actual imprisonment!

Holocaust heretic Ernst Zundel was deported from the U.S. to Canada where he spent two years in solitary confinement. Now he sits in a German prison. Who's next?

A balanced, accurate view of history matters, yet when the facts don¹t fit, the media gatekeepers can purposefully misinterpret, obfuscate or simply overlook them. This may explain why, for instance, there is so little media interest in the annihilation of 20 million anti-Bolshevik Russians preceding WWII. After all, 20 million Russians KILLED BY THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT is the all-time tsunami of war crimes. Who were the perpetrators? Where are they now? Did they receive American cover? Do they still?

In addition, the average American simply knows nothing about the 'over-represented’ Jewish role in Communism's insidious rise. This too is no accident.

Considering that some 275 million people have perished in wars during the past century, America's nurtured obsession with, and elevation of, Jewish suffering in Europe during WWII might be seen as a peculiar idiosyncrasy. Indeed, many have concluded that the American Mind is under Israeli management. The irony of our nation¹s preoccupation with Jewish war causalities 55 years after the fact becomes even more unpleasant when we consider the horrendous, ONGOING persecution of Palestinians in the Holy Land under Jewish occupation. The fundamental Palestinian crime: residing in Israel without proper Jewish DNA.

As for American cinema, there has been a sea of changes in the past generation. There¹s now a multicultural array of celebrities, including many Jewish ones. On the other hand, Christianity doesn't get the kind of coverage it enjoyed when Frank Capra was directing. Thus, we are treated to seeing an array of stock Christian mobsters, whores and charlatans. As for Arabs, they're still welcome to play terrorist schemers or religious fanatics. This is the mean side to American film that goes unacknowledged and unchallenged.

Recently, after reading numerous glowing reviews, we succumbed to seeing the afore-mentioned over-praised, action-revenge flick, "Sin City". Directed by Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez (with "special guest director" Quentin Tarantino), "Sin City" is a gritty, sexy and surrealistic foray into a violent post-modern metropolis. By contemporary standards, this film delivers more than its share of violence, though there¹s certainly worse in circulation. In "Sin City", the denigration of Christian icons, however, approaches new highs (lows?), something that was also very evident in Tarantino's previous "Kill Bill" movies. "Sin City" even manages to associate blue eyes with depravity, although for Hollywood that's nothing new.

The film¹s two heroic characters (and they were not wearing any Christian symbols) were portrayed by Mickey Rourke and Bruce Willis. It's Willis who finally manages to kill the evil Catholic priest. It was designed to be a stirring moment.

At any rate, we can rest assured that Hollywood will refrain from depicting Jews in such negative fashion. As for the rest of us, we're supposed to buy tickets, eat popcorn and not complain. In fact, we're not even supposed to NOTICE, since it might suggest racial loyalty which, for (non-Jewish) white Americans, is a modern sin.

These very real double standards speak volumes about who holds real power in contemporary America.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some suggestions: Create your own narrative. Recognize subversive imagery. Reject double standards. Establish new media. Break new grounds. Question taboos. Eschew passivity. Take action!


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mark Green and Wendy Campbell practice what they preach. For more
information about their views and their taboo-shattering documentaries,
please visit www.marwenmedia.com.

Re(1): Hollywood Advances 'Soft Assult'
Posted on July 30, 2005 at 06:26:19 AM by nouseforaname

In today¹s America, just an allegation of "anti-Semitism" can damage the career of any public figure.

Funny, Hilary Clinton seems to have survived her 'fucking Jew bastard' comment.

Back to Ethnic Activism
Posted on July 18, 2005 at 09:44:42 PM by LAX

from Guardian UK
Spielberg's film, Vengeance, is intriguing, since one of the side dramas is his continuing wrangle with his ancestry. It will deal with the revenge assassinations by Mossad squads following the murder at the 1972 Munich Olympics of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists. What responsibilities does the world's most famous Jewish director, albeit one raised in the Protestant suburbs, have to his people?

This week it was reported that he was stirred by his Judaism into making Vengeance, as he had been in making Schindler's List in 1993. But even there, one's doubts flare up: if Schindler's List was not a feelgood Holocaust movie then it was insufficiently feel bad, since its box office success was assured by means of a narrative about a gentile saving Jews from the gas chambers. Lanzmann's Shoah or Ophuls's The Sorrow and the Pity, more truthful though they were to the Holocaust's horror, could never do such good box office.

Re(1): Back to Ethnic Activism
Posted on August 29, 2005 at 10:37:28 AM by Heebie Jeebie

You can cool your jets.

Spielberg chose anti-Zionist Jew Tony Kushner to write the screenplay, so you can rest assured: The Arabs will be portrayed in the most sympathetic light, while the Jews will be vilified.

That should make you happy.

Hollywood: Creatively Bankrupt?
Posted on July 28, 2005 at 07:18:02 PM by Bruce Campbell

B-movie actor Campbell pokes fun at Hollywood
CTV.ca News Staff

Bruce Campbell may not be an A-list actor but he can tell you why movie ticket sales are so sluggish this summer: Hollywood is simply out of ideas.

"The A-movies are not taking any chances anymore," the self-described B-movie actor told Canada AM.

Though Campbell is not exactly a household name, he's spent years working in Hollywood. Growing up in Michigan, he became friends with future director Sam Raimi, with whom he eventually co-produced the 1982 cult horror hit Evil Dead, in which Campbell starred and gained a certain pseudo-celebrity.


"Movies are getting more and more expensive to make and so to hedge their bets, they want to come up with a name, a product, something that's familiar. So you're remaking the Stepford Wives, the Manchurian Candidate, they remade Psycho shot for shot.

"Why is this happening? I think they have been creatively bankrupt."

Campbell says the perfect illustration of Hollywood's dearth of ideas is seen in the fact that the studios are trolling through B-movie concepts and trying to turn them into blockbusters.

"Now all A-movies are B-movies. If you get bitten by a radioactive spider (Spider-Man), that's a B-movie. If aliens invade the earth (War of the Worlds), that's a B-movie. Tom Cruise can jump up on Oprah's couch all day long, but it's still a B-movie. If you dress up like a bat and fire on Gotham City (Batman Begins), that's a B-movie.

"So the B-movies are really kind of the only breeding ground for new ideas. The A-movies are going to rip them off as soon as the B-movies attempt to do it."

Balance of article at
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1122303590064_117712790

Re(1): Hollywood: Creatively Bankrupt?
Posted on July 28, 2005 at 07:19:07 PM by James Jaeger

Bruce Campbell is basically right in what he says, (in his article at
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1122303590064_117712790)
but he hasn't cut to the core of the issue: WHY is Hollywood creatively
bankrupt?

There are basically five reasons WHY Hollywood is failing and why it will
eventually cease to be the movie capital of the world. These reasons, not
necessarily in any order, are as follows:

A. Inexpensive access to DVD rentals through Netflix and BlockBuster
B. Cheaper 52-inch LCD screens and 6:1 sound
C. Interactive games on X-BOX and the Net
D. Audiences recognize political and cultural bias in the movies
E. Industry consolidation
F. Internet distribution of movies



A. Now that people can pay between $14 and $26 per month and rent all the
Hollywood movies they want, they are able to almost exhaust the more recent
MPAA inventory. As one watches even one or two MPAA movies every day or
two, they soon will have watched between 300 and 600 movies over the course
of 1 to 2 years. I have personally done this. In doing this -- if my
experience is anything like I believe others experience will be -- I have
noted that I am getting exceedingly board with the Hollywood MPAA product.
I notice that I can now almost ALWAYS guess how the movie will progress and
wrap up. I can guess who will turn out to be the psycho killer, who will
fall in love with who, who the bad guys are and how they will get caught,
how the protagonist will get into trouble and get out of trouble, etc.
Other than story and plot, I can painfully distinguish lines of dialog and
actor jesters that were used in other MPAA movies, in full or in part. This
especially applies to words and terms but extends to attitudes and the
overall socio-political biases of the pictures. In short, most everything
looks like it came off an assembly line with basically the same workers
screwing in the same parts to different chassis made by the same people.
There are exceptions, but increasingly fewer. Netflix and BlockBuster
all-you-can-rent deals are helping to display Hollywood's product as it is:
formulaic, boring, hackneyed, violence oriented -- creatively bankrupt.

B. Given the facts of A above, and cheaper 52-inch LCD screens with 6:1
sound, why would anyone want to pay between $7 and $12 to see a movie in a
theater, when the theatrical version isn't even as good. The prices for
movies are too high to justify seeing a formulaic, boring, hackneyed,
violence oriented that is creatively bankrupt.

C. Interactive games on X-BOX and the Net are preempting the movie dollar.
This is particularly true with the younger crowd. As games migrate to the
broadband Internet, offer the opportunity to use and win real Federal
Reserve Notes and as full immersion technology with haptics takes hold, you
can kiss movies goodbye.

D. Because industry observers, such as John Cones, and incidents such as
Mel Gibson's ordeal with THE PASSION have been demonstrating the political
and cultural bias in movies, audiences are starting to curb their support
for MPAA fare. Why shouldn't they, they also have reasons A - C above.

E. As I have posted many times, the product from Hollywood is being
greenlit by an increasingly narrow demographic, both corporate and personal.
Ted Turner and the authors of IT'S THE MEDIA, STUPID have extensively
commented on how the studios are owned by fewer than 10 multi national
corporations whereas just 10 years ago they were owned by more than 50.
John Cones has documented extensively that the top three positions of the
MPAA studios distributors are dominated by liberal, secular Jewish males of
European heritage. This lack of diversity at the corporate and personal
levels greatly contribute to the fact that so much of the MPAA Hollywood
product looks and feels the same. See
http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/bginfo.htm

F. There will be over 200 million broadband cable users on the Internet
worldwide by the end of 2005 and this doesn't even count DSL users. Movies
delivered at a data rate of 360,000 bits per second (360K) look like NTSC TV
and movies delivered at 700K look almost like DVDs. Thus, Hollywood's bread
and butter function of distributing movies is being eroded. Soon Hollywood,
led by the MPAA studio/distributors, will have no purpose. Thus it will
have no money and soon to follow will be a mass exodus of talent. Hollywood
will then go back to being a peaceful desert with perhaps a porn shoot here
and there.

So, these are the reasons Hollywood is creatively bankrupt.

Look to the independents who are able to make low-budget features that are
unique and creative, such as FLYWHEEL, made for $15,000. But I bet you
won't hear about THAT one over the studios' propaganda machines, such as
ACCESS HOLLYWOOD and ET. See http://www.moviepubs.net for more information
as well as more positive views on how you can navigate a film career in and
around Hollywood.

James Jaeger


Bruce Campbell's article at:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1122303590064_117712790

Re(2): Hollywood: Creatively Bankrupt?
Posted on August 1, 2005 at 05:21:36 PM by Pilgrim

With movies now fully sponsored by corporate advertising (I actually enjoyed previews, Wal-Mart/McDonald's, not so much), I don't understand why theatres still charge $10 a ticket. Most people I know avoid the theatre simply because of the pricetag.

A recent report, coincidentally on CTV, stated that theatres take in 80% of their profits in on-screen advertising.

This would appear to be an issue of Greed overpowering "The Market" ability to move product. Then again, I guess if you're being paid to run movies, you don't really care if people watch them.

Re(2): Hollywood: Creatively Bankrupt?
Posted on July 29, 2005 at 06:00:28 PM by saurturion

AND, because they have got into the rot of stereotyping everyone (even librarians) so that people are fed up

MPAA Box Office Down . . . Again!
Posted on August 3, 2005 at 05:29:15 PM by James Jaeger

Hollywood shivers as chill hits box office Dan Glaister in Los Angeles
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,154137 7,00.html

Re(1): MPAA Box Office Down . . . Again!
Posted on August 3, 2005 at 05:31:22 PM by James Jaeger

>Hollywood shivers as chill hits box office
>Dan Glaister in Los Angeles, Wednesday August 3, 2005 The Guardian

>The figures made gloomy reading for movie executives. . . Last weekend, like almost every weekend this year, box office income was down on the same period last year.

Because of the reasons I gave in the above post.

>The latest underachiever at the box office is Stealth, a hi-tech version of Top Gun that managed to take $13.5m (£7.6m) on its opening weekend despite being the only high-profile release. It cost $138m to make.

The figure of $138,000,000 -- which is cited as the "cost" to make STEALTH -- is totally bogus. This figure is the production COST and the cost to MARKET the film. A marketing cost is NOT a cost to MAKE something. As soon as Hollywood executives actually learn something about ACCOUNTING as opposed to CREATIVE accounting, maybe they will start adding things up. But don't hold your breath that any of these idiots morons and scum will ever see the light of day -- too many drugs and nymphomaniac-actresses keeping their minds pre-occupied.

>Its poor showing contributed to a 22% drop in box office income compared with the same weekend last year.

And BO will continue into the pit unless much changes. But it won't. As the money dries up -- the talent will move elsewhere.

>Before Stealth, there was The Island. Starring Ewan McGregor and directed by Michael Bay at a cost of $125m,

$125 million. Here we go again. The reason the studio execs cite these compound bogus "costs" is so they can piss away as much money on advertising as they want and thus create the "rolling breakeven" horizons so that a) their net profit participants never have to be paid a piece of the dwindling pie; b) more accounting games can be played with larger overall numbers, c) cross collateralization becomes easier; d) the figures seem more impressive to the public. All of these items are a part of the new "creative accounting" schemes Hollywood dreams up while sitting in hot tubs.

After this, the author of this article, bozo style, then descends into an off topic-discussion of the future of DVD as if DVD or HD-DVD or any other medium will save Hollywood when, in fact, there has been a paradigm shift in the entire entertainment industry -- i.e., entertainment is PERSONAL, not MASS. Hollywood is geared up for MASS; independents are geared up for PERSONAL. Good art is always personal. But finally, motion picture art is gaining the technological means to be created at reasonable prices (not the psychotic 100-million "cost" of dinosaur-Hollywood "art") with digital cameras and Non Linear Edit systems, etc, by filmmakers that actually CARE about what they are saying -- not just saying it for MONEY as the exec-pigs in Hollywood do.

James Jaeger

Re(1): MPAA Box Office Down . . . Again!
Posted on August 3, 2005 at 05:30:06 PM by Mars22

who would have thought $7 tickets and $5 sodas and $4 candy and $6 popcorn,all for a shitty ''formula'movie, would make people not want to go to the movies?

and now we have imax,all other theaters are usless now.

More of What's Wrong
Posted on August 4, 2005 at 12:09:50 PM by John Cones

This latest report adds to the long list of what's wrong with Hollywood.
Apparently, Sony Studios created a fake critic to praise Sony titles. Fortunately, the studio was caught and as a result of litigation is now being ordered by a court to pay $1.5 million to film fans misled by the false advertising. It appears that the Hollywood establishment will do anything to manipulate the public and if they are not caught, it just keeps getting worse (see "337 Business Practices of the Major Studio/Distributors".

John Cones

Breaking into the Big Time
Posted on August 5, 2005 at 04:15:36 PM by Joe Producer

When the New York Times, Washington Post, and USA Today write major features on the Christian marketplace without the snide remarks that used to accompany such articles, you know that the Christian media marketplace has hit the Big Time.

At the Christian Booksellers' Convention held recently in Denver, Colo., the major entertainment companies made an expensive, significant push to reach Christian audiences. Time Warner had a big booth. Disney, in conjunction with Zondervan, held a reception for THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. Fox screened two movies exclusively for the Christian members of the Christian Booksellers' Association, and all this was just the tip of the iceberg.

Christian producers who have long labored on the fringes of the entertainment industry now have three-, four-, and five-picture deals with major movie studios. Not to be outdone, Christian publishers are releasing a flood of products tied to movies from major companies. The biggest movie at the convention was, of course, THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. Every publisher had a C. S. Lewis or CHRONICLES OF NARNIA tie-in – 167 books in all. One C.S. Lewis society ranked these books and said that Broadman-Holman's were at the top of the list. Their four, coming out in November, include my book NARNIA BECKONS.

Of course, there were also books tied in to Harry Potter and even THE DA VINCI CODE. The NY Times pointed out that one of the major Christian marketing companies has been hired to promote the DA VINCI CODE movie to the church. Even our friends at Christianity Today are doing a whole issue about Christian history as it relates to THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE.

This is big business. As the newspaper articles note, Christians buy books, music, and movies, and, whereas some people steal music and movies, most Christians seek to honor the commandment “Thou shalt not steal.” Therefore, while most of the publishing industry is going soft, USA Today points out that Christian publishing is strong, with "Wal-Mart and other big bookstore chains covering the top titles."

This leads us to our Media-Wise Moment.

Some of these products that arrive in stores will be very faithful and good; some will be antithetical to the Gospel. THE DA VINCI CODE stands out in this respect. It is a total and complete attack on the person of Jesus and His Body, the Church. Most products, however, will be somewhere in the middle, and we need Christians to bring their discernment and wisdom to their consumption of media products.

We're all hoping that THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE will be a great movie, but no matter how great it is, it may not capture the full resonance of C. S. Lewis's classic novel. For example, the visual nature of film may distort the novel's Christian message. If the battle scenes are more fun and exciting than Aslan's resurrection, viewers may think that the battle is ours, instead of understanding that the battle was won by Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Another scene that could be lost in translation is that in which the children put on the fur coats. Lewis saw this act as not only putting on royal robes, which the children would grow into as they became the kings and queens of Narnia, but also as putting on Christ, which every Christian is called to do. Another opportunity comes at the banquet with Father Christmas, a scene that recalls Paul's letter to the Corinthians. It was here that the communion table, which was in fact a regular banquet at the early church, became a place where the gifts and fruit of the Spirit were dispensed.

If the book’s message is weakened, it will not be because the filmmakers intentionally diminished it. That process is a consequence of film visualization, and it’s the very reason that C. S. Lewis said he didn't want the book to be turned into a movie. Even so, I worked on the TV version, and it was a great success. We applaud the making of the movie.

Therefore, to fully understand the movie version, one needs a guide, which we hope will include pastors, teachers, and the many books coming out on the subject, especially NARNIA BECKONS, which has been ranked in the top four out of 167 books on the topic by the prestigious Bulletin of the New York C.S. Lewis Society, July/August, 2005, Vol. 36, No. 4, whole number 408.

The caveat is biblical: Get wisdom, get understanding, get knowledge, and don't get taken for a ride by the massive marketing of so-called spiritual products.

While we rejoice in the transformation of the mass media, we pray for the Body of Christ, the parents and children who are presented with many great opportunities to go deeper into the truth, as well as the many chances to be deceived.

Note: For more information, or to arrange an interview with Dr. Ted Baehr, founder of CFTVC and author of THE MEDIA-WISE FAMILY, WHAT CAN WE WATCH TONIGHT?, and many other books, please call 1-800-577-6684.

http://www.movieguide.org

Films produce Southern discomfort
Posted on August 5, 2005 at 05:05:45 PM by Setal

Films produce Southern discomfort
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
Published August 5, 2005

Being white, male, Protestant and straight doesn't prevent me from being offended by some movies. Yet people of color, women, Jews and Muslims, and homosexuals have been more successful, if not completely, than my particular culture in correcting how their lives are portrayed in films.

I am a Southerner, and today's nationwide release of The Dukes of Hazzard is another undeserved slap in the face for millions like me.

Now parts of the nation that aren't below the Mason-Dixon line have another reason to believe all Southerners paint Confederate flags on their muscle cars with horns that play Dixie. That rich ones are crooked and poor ones spend their time chasing skirts and skirting the law. That our best women are sex objects and our elders ran whatever moonshine was left after tastings. That we believe "grammar" is just a mispronounced family endearment and Yankees are evil.

Well, maybe some baseball fans would agree with the last one.

Southern stereotypes certainly aren't as destructive as ones protested by other cultures. Nobody gets charged with hate crimes for demeaning our lives because the offenses are more comical than beatings and burning crosses. I'm not shy to admit that, like many stereotypes, some of us - more likely our ancestors - brought them upon ourselves with outrageous behaviors. But we haven't cornered the American market on stupidity, bigotry, corruption and regional bias.

If you think about it, some non-Southerners talk funny, too. Aside from an occasional bad Brooklyn, Boston or New Jersey accent, you wouldn't know it from the movies.

I was born in Virginia, moved young to Dade City when it could be mistaken for Hazzard County, and grew up in 1960s Alabama while the civil rights issue raged. That may surprise some non-Southerners who read my admiring, empathetic reviews for numerous black-themed films, most recently Hustle & Flow. In cattier moments, they might feign surprise that I can even write at all.

That's the backward Southern image that Hollywood helped create as far back as Ma and Pa Kettle's comedies, and perpetuates today with stereotypical films such as The Dukes of Hazzard, Where the Heart Is, Crazy in Alabama and Sweet Home Alabama. And the movies don't have to be as mediocre as those; masterpieces such as Deliverance, Nashville, Forrest Gump and Monster's Ball also damaged perceptions of the South along the way.

Yet, like every other group stereotyped in movies, Southerners aren't supposed to complain. There's always someone brushing them off as whiners, as I learned after my 2002 review of Sweet Home Alabama, including this paragraph:

"Not all true Southerners keep a coonhound on the porch or bologna cake in the icebox. We don't all talk slow like Forrest Gump or shifty like Boss Hogg. Only a relative few of us dress in Confederate uniforms and pine for a different finish to the Civil War. Double-wide trailers aren't standard issue. We don't always have names like Pooter and Lurlynn, or IQs too low to spell them. I never heard anyone invoke "Ya-Ya" or "Towanda" for spiritual guidance until the movies suggested that we do."

The review inspired one "gentleman" - since courtesy is a Southern tradition - to send a hastily handwritten fax with advice:

"Get over yourself and (double underlined) get a real job. You don't like it (no punctuation) too bad (still no punctuation)"

The reader illegibly scribbled his name and "Hernando, FL" as his place of residence, adding "Brooklyn, N.Y.", possibly as the origin of his objections. I wondered why he moved south, if that's the impression of Southern living he brought with him. Even the misplaced Northern state that Florida has become sustains pockets of its Southern past.

Honestly, much of that past isn't pretty, and filmmakers have obligations to remind of us about our dreadful mistakes, especially in regard to race relations in feature films such as Rosewood, Mississippi Burning and Ghosts of Mississippi. But those are dramatic films based on fact, not the imagination of filmmakers, many of whom are only familiar with the South through childhoods spent watching the cornpone cliches of Hee Haw, The Beverly Hillbillies and, yes, The Dukes of Hazzard on TV.

And it's true that some Southerners are involved front and center with these stereotypes; Billy Bob Thornton and Burt Reynolds have played Southern buffoons, and the Hee Haw gang called the shots on their variety show. But that's the inclusiveness factor that many cultures employ: It's okay for us to make fun of each other, when the same jokes might offend coming from outsiders. And besides, self-deprecation is part of our charm.

Hollywood does fine conveying Southern atmosphere: the mossy grandeur of Savannah, Ga., in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the magnetic decadence of New Orleans in numerous films, and magnolia-lined gentility in Driving Miss Daisy and Fried Green Tomatoes flashbacks. That's artifice, and that's where Hollywood excels. Yet the people inhabiting these southern settings often aren't Southern, or only in the monolithic way most cultures wish to avoid.

Southern men aren't all studly GED dropouts, fat mechanics or crazy old coots. Southern women aren't all sniping steel magnolias, drawling vixens and elderly saints. We have our share, but don't all cultures? Not according to the movies. I'd declare that the South will rise again in Hollywood, but it's so long since Gone with the Wind that anything higher is probably impossible.

Re(1): Films produce Southern discomfort
Posted on August 5, 2005 at 05:30:00 PM by LAX

Network TV keeps groping to win over an America it despises — a viewing public it sees as a blurry, fat, brainless blob of uninsured, Hemi-powered, God-fearing Wal-Mart clerks. I'm paid to entertain them. Former ''Seinfeld'' scribe -- Peter Mehlman

Re(2): Films produce Southern discomfort
Posted on August 8, 2005 at 11:55:02 AM by John Cones

For additional background relating to how Hollywood movies have consistently portrayed White Southerners see "Hollywood's Rape of the South" at

http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/south.htm

John Cones

Hollywood Business Practices
Posted on August 10, 2005 at 12:26:46 PM by John Cones

It appears that the common practice of stealing the ideas of others continues in Hollywood. As if the grosses for "The Island" weren't bad enough, DreamWorks and Warner Bros. must now contend with legal woes related to the movie. The producers of 1979 indie pic "Parts: The Clonus Horror" filed suit Monday in federal court in Gotham alleging "The Island" was based on their film.

http://email.variety.com/cgi-bin7/DM/y/ehNh0IwNUJ0Oe403DG0ES

For additional background on Hollywood business practices see "337 Business Practices of the Major Studio/Distributors".

John Cones

Shindler's Dilemma alive today
Posted on August 14, 2005 at 12:15:18 PM by Pat R.

Most would argue that few films transcend the ability to grasp the "human condition" as well as Shindler's list as a means of calculating the distinctions of importance between humans with souls of salvation and those without. The mercy-less anxiety of Shindler shown in the film for not being able to rescue more humans was a particularly insightful and intense feature of the film, and highlights the dilemma that all mankind faces (in war, or in peace) at equating the human and the inhuman criteria that is often lost in deliberative decision-making in many contexts. Industrial relations management is often the context which best expresses the context because of the ability to blur the success of humans with the success of profits, and purely "human" criteria are often lost in that obscurity. Equating corporate success with human success was the bridge Shindler struggled with that was so brilliantly exposed by his dilemma of lives lost rather than those saved, and today the same dilemma remains in such things as allowing corporate rights the same Constitutional protection as human rights. Doing so subjects mankind to a constant repetition of the anxiety Shindler suffered by allowing the two equal status, knowing that by ignoring the size, power and strength of Goliath, we assure the failure of David in most human contexts. The glorification of Darwinian ethics fails to serve the human needs of mankind in such circumstances, and given license to prevail, will surely end in the extinction of human rights by such negligence.

Ricky Gervais under fire for ‘trivializing’ the Holocaust in his new sitcom Extras.
Posted on August 17, 2005 at 09:38:53 PM by LAX

In the debut episode of "Extras," a new fall comedy series from the makers of the beloved BBC sitcom "The Office," four-time Oscar nominee Kate Winslet guest-stars as Kate Winslet, four-time Oscar nominee and lead actress in a movie about the Holocaust. During a pause in shooting, she explains to a pair of astonished extras why she took the role: to ensure her fifth nomination and, more to the point, her first victory. "The whole world is going 'Why hasn't Winslet won one?' " The extras, played by Ricky Gervais and Ashley Jensen, just nod politely. " 'Schindler's' bloody 'List,' 'The Pianist'—Oscars coming out their arse."

Playing the Hollywood Game
Posted on August 25, 2005 at 07:18:59 PM by James Jaeger

>why she took the role: to ensure her fifth nomination and, more to the point, her first victory. "The whole world is going 'Why hasn't Winslet won one?' " The extras, played by Ricky Gervais and Ashley Jensen, just nod politely. " 'Schindler's' bloody 'List,' 'The Pianist'—Oscars coming out their arse."

Seems like Winslet is aware that movies that attract the favorable interest of politically liberal, not very religious Jewish males get awards.

Did Whoopie Goldberg change her name to attract interest? Probably.

James Jaeger

Re(1): Playing the Hollywood Game
Posted on August 28, 2005 at 04:58:23 PM by LAX

Actually, it seems like Gervais is aware that movies that attract the favorable interest of politically liberal, not very religious Jewish males get awards

Hackneyed Hollywood
Posted on September 20, 2005 at 07:17:38 PM by James Jaeger

Find me a Hollywood-based, or Hollywood-influenced, feature where the main character had a GREAT dad.

Find me one where the chick isn't allowed to hit the guy.

Find me one where the women aren't disgusting aliens.

Find me a bad guy that doesn't blame it all on his horrible dad.

Find me a movie where divorce isn't depicted as the norm.

Find me one where homosexuality is portrayed as an aberration.

Find me a Jewish bad guy.

Find me a decent Arab or Muslim.

Find me a romance where one of the protagonists aren't rich or famous.

Find me a thriller were the guns and/or knives don't come out sooner or later.

Find me a Hollywood movie where the Holocaust and Israel aren't held above criticism or sacrosanct.

Find me a totally ORIGINAL Hollywood movie, a movie that doesn't reek of birth in the insipid writers' soup that has become synonymous with Hollywood product, especially MPAA-infested product.

James Jaeger

Re(1): Hackneyed Hollywood
Posted on January 6, 2006 at 02:52:03 PM by itsworsethanyouthink

Find me one where they present anything approaching reality concerning the 20th century.

alternative to hollywood - homegrown films made by real people
Posted on September 21, 2005 at 03:15:58 PM by aisling

If you are sick of the plastic, cookie-cutter style that is the "hollywood blockbuster" check out the film movement online - more and more films/video/media are being made for the web, and by real people who have something to say, and want to participate in our media culture, and have something to say in their own way. You can watch on CitizenSHIFT, http://citizen.nfb.ca and in french on http://citoyen.onf.ca . also look into getting on the internet TV train, and look up DTV at http://participatoryculture.org/
there are tons of places to see non-Hollywood, American propaganda, platic films, and now we can all get involved in shaping our culture.
aisling

check out CitizenSHIFT and look for the RSS/XML feed for your autonomous viewing pleasure

Kingsley’s ‘Twist’ on a Dickens Thief
Posted on September 24, 2005 at 01:54:21 PM by LAX

http://www.jewishjournal.com/home/preview.php?id=14662

2005-09-23
Kingsley’s ‘Twist’ on a Dickens Thief
by Tom Tugend, Contributing Editor



Time-honored Jewish stereotypes and caricatures have fallen on hard times in recent movies.

Al Pacino’s complex and heart-wrenching portrayal of Shylock in “The Merchant of Venice” put a human face on the vengeful moneylender. And in the German film “The Ninth Day,” Judas is exalted for enabling Jesus to fulfill his divine mission.
Now comes Ben Kingsley in a new movie version of Charles Dickens’ “Oliver Twist,” where he endows Fagin, the trainer of young thieves, with some notably redeeming features.

For one thing, in contrast to stage and screen predecessors, the film’s Fagin is not identified or depicted as a Jew, a far cry from the “very old, shriveled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face was obscured by a quantity of matted hair,” created by Dickens nearly 170 years ago.

Director Roman Polanski, last triumphant in the Oscar-winning “The Pianist,” follows the original story, while managing to reshape Fagin through some judicious editing.
Orphan boy Oliver Twist, brought up in a hellish workhouse for the poor, escapes his indentured service with an undertaker and is recruited by the Artful Dodger into a ring of juvenile thieves, exploited and mothered by the said Fagin.

As for Fagin, could it be that having a Jewish director (Polanski) and a Jewish screenwriter (Ronald Harwood, who also wrote “The Pianist”) tilted the film, perhaps subconsciously, toward a more humanized Fagin? Kingsley himself has a Jewish grandparent on his mother’s side.

Kingsley wouldn’t go that way, although Harwood suggested that Polanski, who survived the Holocaust in the Krakow ghetto and in hiding, identifies with the lost childhood of Oliver, through whose eyes the story unfolds.

Polanski, rather than Steven Spielberg, was first considered as the director of “Schindler’s List,” but declined because the subject was still cut too close to his own childhood experiences, Kingsley related.

Kingsley, for has part, has committed a substantial portion of his career to reminding the world of that great evil.

“I have played Simon Wiesenthal, Anne Frank’s father and Itzhak Stern in ‘Schindler’s List,’ Kingsley said. “These films are part of my consciousness and I am passionately committed to.”

As for his Fagin, Kingsley said he did not set out to counter previous stereotypes of unmitigated Jewish villainy, but rather used two thespian devices to get into the role. One was to evoke the figure of a junk dealer Kingsley knew as a 9-year-old in Manchester, who “had teeth like a horse, green hands from handling metal, a stooped walk, high-pitched voice, and was always wearing at least three layers of overcoats.”
The actor also created his own “backstory” for Fagin’s character, in which the young Fagin was orphaned early in life and raised by his immigrant Russian Jewish grandparents, who spoke no English.

“My Fagin had to fend for himself, lived on the streets and decided to become the most adept street kid he could,” said the Academy Award-winning actor.

From a historical perspective, the Fagin created by Polanski and Kingsley can perhaps be best understood by considering the evolution of Jewish portrayals in films over the past 100 years. In the early silent movie era, the Jew, along with the Irish and blacks, was generally pictured as a buffoon, although he sometimes appears as a nasty moneylender.
In those days, as now, the movies reflected the racial attitudes of American society. We must remember that America evolved into a truly pluralistic society only recently,” said cultural critic Neal Gabler, author of “An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood” (Random House, 1990)


Since then, the “Jewish” and Holocaust film has become a genre almost unto itself, confident (or, say the critics, self-hating) enough to portray its Jewish characters, warts and all.

By the 1990s, a Hollywood observer could say, tongue in cheek, that “In the old days, all Jews had to be Americans. Now all Americans have to be Jews.” To underline this thesis, Gabler cited the character of George Constanza of “Seinfeld” fame.

“George is supposed to be Greek, but he is obviously Jewish,” Gabler said.
“Now Jewish ethnicity is not only celebrated but is the standard,” he added, and barring a major upheaval, he sees little foreseeable change.

“The movies sometime precede, but generally reflect, society’s standards,” he said. “Such standards change at a geological pace and, despite the current upswing in conservatism and nativism, I don’t think there will be any turning back of the clock.”

Re(1): Kingsley’s ‘Twist’ on a Dickens Thief
Posted on October 5, 2005 at 11:52:30 AM by John Cones

This sort of special and favorable treatment for film portrayals of people who share similar backgrounds with the Hollywood insiders has been commonly occurring for the past 100 years. See "A Study in Motion Picture Propaganda -- Hollywood's Preferred Movie Messages" at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/study.htm

John Cones

Re(2): Kingsley’s ‘Twist’ on a Dickens Thief
Posted on October 5, 2005 at 11:58:32 AM by John Cones

The book can also be seen at the FIRM site under "Background Information" and "A Study in Motion Picture Propaganda".

John Cones

100 Years of Discrimination Continues
Posted on October 12, 2005 at 11:52:42 AM by John Cones

100 Years of Hollywood Discrimination Continues Among Writers

A recently released Writers Guild of America study demonstrates that Hollywood's female and minority writers have seen little progress in job opportunities during the past seven years and remain underrepresented. A story about the report appears in Variety at

http://email.variety.com/cgi-bin7/DM/y/eibb0IwNUJ0Oe405cE0EE

John Cones

You Must Be Kidding, Mr. Glickman
Posted on November 17, 2005 at 11:24:25 AM by John Cones

In response to the recent vote by 191 member countries of UNESCO to protect their local film businesses from encroachments on their cultural identity (i.e., Hollywood movies) the MPAA's Chairman/CEO Dan Glickman stated: "The MPAA believes strongly in the value of diversity." You must be kidding, Mr. Glickman. If the MPAA believed in diversity there would be more African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Italian Americans, Irish Americans, White Southerners, Women, Christians (including Catholics, Mormons and Southern Baptists) Muslims and others, in the executive suites at the MPAA companies. The 100 year history of MPAA company discrimination and lack of diversity at the top in Hollywood is disgusting and that record makes Glickman appear to be less than sincere when he makes such ridiculous representations.

John Cones

Spike Lee on Holocaust Docs
Posted on December 2, 2005 at 08:13:54 PM by LAX

Slate: Of course, I was particularly interested in what you have to say about the situation of blacks in Hollywood. But also in your statements about the Holocaust. You pretty much said that any movie about the Holocaust is going to carry all the prizes.

Lee: Whoa, whoa! What I was speaking of specifically was the feature-length documentary branch of the academy. I mean, there was a time—you could do the research, I don't have the chart in front of me—but for a period of over 10 years, almost every film that won best feature-length documentary was about the Holocaust.

Re(1): Spike Lee on Holocaust Docs
Posted on December 3, 2005 at 04:16:38 PM by Kamandi

Mr. Lee is exagerrating: in the 23 year period between 1981 and 2004, exactly five Holocaust films won Best Documentary.

1. Genocide

2. The Life and Times of Klaus Barbie

3. Anne Frank Remembered

4. The Last Days

5. In the Arms of Strangers: True Stories of the Kindertransport.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academy_Award_for_Documentary_Feature

You might say 1999's One Day in September, the story of the assassination of 11 Israeli athletes at the '72 Olympics in Munich, was related.

In no ten year period was almost every film about the Holocaust.

Re(2): Spike Lee on Holocaust Docs
Posted on December 3, 2005 at 09:56:52 PM by Brady

Kamandi : Can you blame him for feeling that way? What about The Long Way Home? (Plot Outline: The story of the post World War II Jewish refugee situation from liberation to the establishment of the modern state of Israel.) It won the year Lee’s 4 Little Girls was nominated.
From 1995 thru 2000 5 out of 6 films dealt with the Holocaust/Jewish themes…

1995 - Anne Frank Remembered 1996 - When We Were Kings 1997 - The Long Way Home 1998 - The Last Days 1999 - One Day in September 2000 - Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport

Re(3): Spike Lee on Holocaust Docs
Posted on December 4, 2005 at 01:06:44 AM by Kamandi



To be honest, few critics reviewed 4 Little Girls anywhere near as well as The Long Way Home.

It was his first documentary film, and it was a bit unrealistic of him to think it would take home an Oscar.

It's a bit dodgy to tell the Academy that it's not entitled to choose whatever films it believes to be the best.

The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid
Posted on December 4, 2005 at 12:15:00 PM by LAX

How many have been made since 2002?

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1122/p13s01-almo.html
from the November 22, 2002 edition

The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid

More than 170 films about the Holocaust have been made since 1989. Six more are out this fall.

Re(1): The one serious subject Hollywood doesn't avoid
Posted on December 4, 2005 at 02:09:07 PM by Kamandi

I'm not sure why you'd say that it's the only "serious topic" Hollywood deals with, because I can think of many. What people want is entertainment, so it deals with them in an entertaining way.

Really, if people want to continue seeing Holocaust movies, that's what will get made. Spike's movies keep getting released as well, so I don't see any reason for him to complain.

Merry Christmas
Posted on December 5, 2005 at 08:46:59 PM by James Jaeger

>I'm not sure why you'd say that it's the only "serious topic" Hollywood deals with, because I can think of many.

And which ones are those?

>What people want is entertainment,

So movies are just mere entertainment?

>Really, if people want to continue seeing Holocaust movies, that's what will get made.

Oldest myth in the book, that the public drives what Hollywood makes.

The public only drives PART of what Hollywood makes. I would place that "part" at between 90 and 95 percent. In otherwords, 10% to 15% of what Hollywood makes is pure, unabashed propaganda in more or less blatant disguise.

The deluge of Holocaust films are, of course, Jewish propaganda films designed to keep the "anti-Semitic" (prone) public at bay and thus provide some degree of relief to the paranoid Jewish lobby led by Abraham Foxman of the ADL.

The current "Christmas bashing" we see in the mainstream media is a function of the Secular Agenda to wipe out religion in America, particularly the Christian religion, which is viewed by the same paranoiacs mentioned above as overwhelming and/or threatening. Although it's not the vast majority in the Jewish community that's behind this paranoia or agenda, the relatively few "commercial Jews" that dominate the media and Hollywood-based motion picture studios have been indoctrinating the public for decades with anti-Christian, anti-religious screed.

It's thus only a matter of time before the public connects the dots and descends on the studio and media executives that are promoting this with their releases and through various front groups such as the ADL and ACLU.

Of course, those that have been following the dialogs here at FIRM have known all this for years. See http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/bginfo.htm

James Jaeger

Re(1): Merry Christmas
Posted on December 5, 2005 at 09:39:18 PM by Kamandi

> And which ones are those?

McCartyism, euthanasia, the impact of oil in the Mideast, Big Tobacco's antisocial greed, & schizophrenia, right off the top of my head.

> So movies are just mere entertainment?

No, they can be many things. However, the major incentive for attending movies on the part of the public is primarily entertainment.

> Oldest myth in the book, that the public drives what Hollywood makes.

Of course the public drives what Hollywood makes. I don't see them making more Stuart Smalley or Paulie Shore movies.

That doesn't mean that movies aren't also reflections of the interests of filmmakers.

> The deluge of Holocaust films are, of course, Jewish propaganda films designed to keep the "anti-Semitic" (prone) public at bay and thus provide some degree of relief to the paranoid Jewish lobby led by Abraham Foxman of the ADL.

If they stop selling tickets, they'll stop making them.

> The current "Christmas bashing" we see in the mainstream media is a function of the Secular Agenda to wipe out religion in America, particularly the Christian religion, which is viewed by the same paranoiacs mentioned above as overwhelming and/or threatening. Although it's not the vast majority in the Jewish community that's behind this paranoia or agenda, the relatively few "commercial Jews" that dominate the media and Hollywood-based motion picture studios have been indoctrinating the public for decades with anti-Christian, anti-religious screed.

I don't see all this "anti-Christian" stuff you're discussing. I think you'd have to strain pretty hard to find it, too.

> It's thus only a matter of time before the public connects the dots and descends on the studio and media executives that are promoting this with their releases and through various front groups such as the ADL and ACLU.

ADL & ACLU are "front groups" for Hollywood? Sounds a bit conspiratorial to me.

Re(2): Merry Christmas
Posted on December 15, 2005 at 10:19:55 PM by James Jaeger

> And which ones are those?

McCartyism, euthanasia, the impact of oil in the Mideast, Big Tobacco's antisocial greed, & schizophrenia, right off the top of my head.

Okay, good points. And actually, I HAPPEN to agree with 80% of the issues Hollywood studios propagandize about, however it STILL disconcerts me when they have an agenda, ANY agenda -- in this case an anti-Christian, secularization agenda, which really targets ALL religions. And I'm saying that from the point of view of an armature scientist.

>> So movies are just mere entertainment?

No, they can be many things.

Well not according to Jack Valenti, formerly with the MPAA.

>However, the major incentive for attending movies on the part of the public is primarily entertainment.

As I said: "the public only drives PART of what Hollywood makes. I would place that "part" at between 90 and 95 percent. BUT 10% to 15% of what Hollywood makes is pure, unabashed propaganda in more or less blatant disguise."

>> Oldest myth in the book, that the public drives what Hollywood makes.

>Of course the public drives what Hollywood makes. I don't see them making more Stuart Smalley or Paulie Shore movies.

No, the public only drives between 90 and 95 percent with 10% to 15% servicing Hollywood's liberal-secular-homosexual agenda.

>That doesn't mean that movies aren't also reflections of the interests of filmmakers.

Not at all, so long as said filmmakers fall into the above percentiles.

>> The deluge of Holocaust films are, of course, Jewish propaganda films designed to keep the "anti-Semitic" (prone) public at bay and thus provide some degree of relief to the paranoid Jewish lobby led by Abraham Foxman of the ADL.

>If they stop selling tickets, they'll stop making them.

False. That would never happen. To substantiate my point, let's look at a microcosm of your assertion: When Steven Spielberg produced SHINDLER'S LIST he stated in national magazines that he didn't care if it made money or not. Further, in this issue of TIME mag he states the same thing about his current film. Ticket sales are NOT the sole criteria for Hollywood thinking -- at least at the top where you find the Steven Spielbergs of the industry.

>> The current "Christmas bashing" we see in the mainstream media is a function of the Secular Agenda to wipe out religion in America, particularly the Christian religion, which is viewed by the same paranoiacs mentioned above as overwhelming and/or threatening. Although it's not the vast majority in the Jewish community that's behind this paranoia or agenda, the relatively few "commercial Jews" that dominate the media and Hollywood-based motion picture studios have been indoctrinating the public for decades with anti-Christian, anti-religious screed.

>I don't see all this "anti-Christian" stuff you're discussing. I think you'd have to strain pretty hard to find it, too.

Are you a practicing Christian?

>> It's thus only a matter of time before the public connects the dots and descends on the studio and media executives that are promoting this with their releases and through various front groups such as the ADL and ACLU.

>ADL & ACLU are "front groups" for Hollywood? Sounds a bit conspiratorial to me.

They absolutely are. Read all about it in my article "HOLLYWOOD'S TRUE AGENDA - Mel Gibson and the Culture War" at http://www.mecfilms.com/universe/articles/culture.htm

I would definitely allege that Hollywood reacts to the ADL's advice. I'm not saying that there's a deliberating body or ownership of the MPAA studios' stock by the ADL, directly or indirectly, but their actions correlate when issues effecting the Jewish community or Jewish lobby are concerned.

And BTW, the word "conspiracy" doesn't effect me in the least. Check out BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY and you will not only find this word defined, but used in connection with many other definitions, such as fraud and cartels. So conspiracies are acknowledged in law as existing and defined as requiring only "two or more persons. . ." Thus, if Abe Foxman talked to even one (1) MPAA studio executive at FOX (making it 2 people involved) and advised/ordered them to avoid financing and/or distributing THE PASSION and FOX acted on this, it would be conspiracy if, at the same time, some illegal act was involved. Such illegal act could possibly be any number of things, such as a restraint of trade, Foxman acting beyond the authorization of ADL policy, libel and/or slander committed by FOX or the ADL that may have resulted in hardship or loss to Mr. Gibson. After all, the intent of the ADL and the apologists for the Jewish lobby was to inhibit or destroy any widespread appeal of the film, and this would, of course, translate into significant loss and hardship for Mr. Gibson, since his personal money was at risk. Fortunately for Mel, this ADL/MPAA strategy backfired and THE PASSION was wildly successful, proving once again that Hollywood doesn't always green-light features just because of their marketability when their agenda is put in jeopardy. See my article for more details. So, conspiracies DO exist and BLACK's thinks so too.

James Jaeger

Re(2): Merry Christmas
Posted on December 7, 2005 at 10:49:23 PM by saurturion

"I don't see all this "anti-Christian" stuff you're discussing. I think you'd have to strain pretty hard to find it, too. "

-- really, try Persecution by Limbaugh

Spike Lee on Gatekeepers
Posted on December 2, 2005 at 08:18:15 PM by LAX

Slate: That is an issue, right? It's followed you throughout your career, the relationship between blacks and Jews.

Lee: It's not an issue for me.

Slate: No, it's an issue for everyone else.

Lee: I have nothing to do with that. But I remember thinking when we were nominated for 4 Little Girls and then finding out that a rabbi was a producer for the other one: We're not gonna win.

Slate: Next time you have to get a minister.

Lee: I don't think we'll need it.

Slate: You know, I go to a Clint Eastwood movie, and I see that time after time, Morgan Freeman is playing Clint Eastwood's sidekick. Everyone loves these movies; they always win awards. But nobody complains about that. There's no black group that complains and asks, "Why can't Clint Eastwood be Morgan Freeman's sidekick?" Would you like to see a black uproar over that?

Lee: Oh, man. We have more things to have an uproar about than Morgan Freeman. But the point that you make is true, that we just don't have the lobbying power that other groups have, and it has to do with political and financial clout. So, that's that.

Slate: You've said that things will change when there are more black producers.

Lee: I used the word gatekeepers. I said that I really want to see a wider, more sweeping change in the breadth of subject matter and stuff, which is only going to come when we get those locked positions of the gatekeepers.

Slate: But then you look at a lot of these movies that make so much money: Barbershop, Beauty Shop, and Marci X, which I know is not a big favorite of yours.

Lee: Marci X didn't make any money.

Slate: OK. But can you be so sure that if the gatekeepers were African-American they would promote films that are in the social or aesthetic interests of black audiences?

Lee: Look, you get into that position and you know that first of all your films have to make money no matter who you are. But I can confidently say that if there had been a gatekeeper at MGM, I don't think Soul Plane could have gotten made. I'm confident in saying that.

Slate: So, if you were the head of one of these studios for example—

Lee: No, that's not something I want to be or aspire to be.

Slate: But if you were, you wouldn't give a green light to projects like that.

Lee: Well, all I'm saying is that there would be more variety and diversity as far as subject matter. And I would hopefully see a greater picture of African-Americans' experience vs. one that's limited to comedies and hip-hop, drug, gangsta, shoot 'em up films.

Box Office Slump
Posted on January 3, 2006 at 04:53:41 PM by John Cones

The earliest tabulations (per Variety.com) for total domestic box office in the just completed year of 2005 were $8.75 billion, down from $9.2 billion in 2004. The rising trend in ticket prices help to obscure an ever steeper drop in theatrical admissions which came in 11% lower than the previous year (1.32 billion, down from the 1.48 billion of 2004). In addition, 527 films were released domestically in 2005, compared with 507 in 2004, meaning that Hollywood films did less business with more films (Source: Variety.com Box Office News, December 30, 2005).

What are the reasons for this decline? Here are some of the possibilities:

1. Movie content just was not as compelling in 2005.

2. The competition for Americans' leisure time is now even greater, especially in the form of videogames, the Internet and other digital options.

3. Audiences are increasingly willing to wait for the DVD.

4. Too many feature films are being produced and competing for the limited number of release slots.

5. There are too many film schools turning out too many film graduates, many of whom want to and do make films.

6. There are too many film commissions at various levels of government all across the country feverishly competing to attract production to their locales and leaning on government to offer tax-payer subsidized tax incentives to production companies, thus encouraging more production when the market is saturated with too many films. Does anyone look at the big picture?

7. More and more potential moviegoers are coming to realize that Hollywood is not a merit system, that Hollywood is controlled by a small, narrowly-defined group of insiders who share a fairly similar background, that they routinely and regularly discriminate against outsiders at all levels of the industry, that this cronyism, nepotism, favoritism and other forms of discrimination result in patterns of bias in motion picture content and that this lack of diversity in motion picture content does not serve the interests of potential moviegoing audiences.

John Cones

Re(1): Box Office Slump
Posted on January 30, 2006 at 04:18:46 PM by Joe Producer

>What are the reasons for this decline? Here are some of the possibilities:

>1. Movie content just was not as compelling in 2005.

Probably true, but most of the MPAA product is becoming less compelling as time goes on and they continue to use the same old formulas with the same old tired faces and filmmaking styles.

>2. The competition for Americans' leisure time is now even greater, especially in the form of videogames, the Internet and other digital options.

Very possible reason. Many people are discovering XBOX and other interactive games.

>3. Audiences are increasingly willing to wait for the DVD.

Unless the picture is a must-see in the theaters, such as WAR OF THE WORLDS and STAR TREK III. The high, if not outrageous, price of tickets makes people all the more selective about what movies they will see in theatres.

>4. Too many feature films are being produced and competing for the limited number of release slots.

I don't think there can EVER be "too many feature films" provided the feature films are original in storyline, have compelling characters (don't just rely on "stars"), have decent production values (don't just rely on whiz bang special Fxs and violence), and have a good ending.
There is thus a potential for an UNLIMITED number of features, PROVIDED they are ART, not just made for COMMERCE.

>5. There are too many film schools turning out too many film graduates, many of whom want to and do make films.

Film schools don't make filmmakers. Filmmakers are a special breed of human being that is JUST BORN. Filmmakers have an inner passion and love of film that's almost impossible to explain to NON-filmmakers. The world is truly divided into two (2) groups: filmmakers and non-filmmakers. Unfortunately, the way Hollywood and the studio/star system is set up, 80% of the world's finest filmmakers aren't given a chance to develop their craft and/or express their unique visions. As soon as a) the MPAA studios are gone, b) the broadband Internet is ubiquitous and c) film equipment/computers are cheap and of significant quality, you will see emerge a creative wave of original INDEPENDENT films similar to the wave of original MUSIC created by the BabyBoomers operating in the 1960s.

>6. There are too many film commissions at various levels of government all across the country feverishly competing to attract production to their locales and leaning on government to offer tax-payer subsidized tax incentives to production companies, thus encouraging more production when the market is saturated with too many films. Does anyone look at the big picture?

Again, it's only possible to "saturate" a market with crap. There is no such thing as saturation when you are talking about original quality product. I for one have seen almost every movie made and so, for me, it's a great challenge to find "original" product. This problem certainly doesn't exist for people under 25 who have only seen a fraction of the product out there. For these people, differentiating what's original from what is crap is much more difficult. And of course, Hollywood being the money whore it is, exploits this out of laziness and disrespect for art.

>7. More and more potential moviegoers are coming to realize that Hollywood is not a merit system,

Absolutely true.

>that Hollywood is controlled by a small, narrowly-defined group of insiders who share a fairly similar background,

Absolutely true.

>that they routinely and regularly discriminate against outsiders at all levels of the industry,

Without a doubt.

> that this cronyism, nepotism, favoritism and other forms of discrimination result in patterns of bias in motion picture content and that this lack of diversity in motion picture content does not serve the interests of potential movie going audiences.

If you had to pick one reason Box Office revenues have been dropping off, it is probably more than 75% this reason.

Joe Producer


>John Cones

HDTVs Preempt BO Revenues
Posted on January 26, 2006 at 08:50:22 PM by James Jaeger

A number of years back I suggested that the major manufacturers of large screen HDTV screens (such as SONY, also owner of a major studio and member of the MPAA), had withheld HDTV technology at reasonable prices. I suggested that, were the public able to purchase large-screen HDTVs at reasonable prices, BOX OFFICE ADMISSION OF MOVIES WOULD FALL DRAMATICALLY. Of course this is what's happening now (and this was vehemently rejected by one Mitchell Levine, a Hollywood apologist, who used to troll this site).

Since I now own a 52-inch HDTV with 5:1 surround sound -- purchased for a reasonable price -- I rarely go to the movies. Why? Because MY movie theater is BETTER than the sticky, popcorn-ridden movie theatres stocked by the MPAA studio-distributors. MY movie theatre not only has a CLEARER picture and BETTER sound, with much more presence and dynamics, but it serves drinks. I can also get sushi and have a bath while watching movies in MY movie theatre. Movies play all hours of the day and night in MY movie theatre and there are ZERO commercials and other rude people present. I have naked women dancing around my living room and I can throw confetti all over the place when ever I want. In MY movie theatre no one to tells me to be quiet or watch my step. I can also answer my cell phone as much as I want and even STOP the movie while talking OUT LOUD in MY movie theatre. And when the movie goes past some point that can't be understood (due to shoddy sound mixing or stupid screenwriting), I can REPLAY it in MY movie theatre as much as I want.

So, maybe the studios, led by SONY, were right in suppressing these big-screen HDTVs for over a decade. Since they can no longer do this, because CHINA is pumping them out with abandon, many others have movie theatres just like MY theatre in THEIR homes. Is it really a surprise the box-office has fallen off: or a long-PREDICTED inevitability?

NEXT PREDICTION: As soon as Google puts into place the business plan essentially postulated by Matrixx Internet Distribution,(1) it will make downloads of all movies possible for reasonable prices on a global High Def system that potentially will have higher resolution than analog movie theatres and even standard or bluetooth DVDs. This GLOBAL TV over the broadband net will, of course, eventually put the studios out of business -- similar to the TV networks. Hey don't look now, but WB and Paramount are merging. Not enough market for their hackneyed crap I guess.

James Jaeger


---------------
(1) http://www.mecfilms.com/mid/plan

Re(1): Box Office Slump
Posted on January 6, 2006 at 02:47:39 PM by itsworsethanyouthink

This guy (see below) has laid out a pretty nice sketch of a blockbuster of a movie. I don't know if it's ever been tried, but if it has, it's probably been squashed in some way. Maybe Michael Moore could head this up? The point is that this kind of stuff, whether true or not, makes for a great film--there are epic events intertwined with evil men conspiring under secret societies to take over the world. Throw in a few healines, a few trophy wives and the suggestion that it continues to this day and poof, you have a blockbuster.

http://www.sweetliberty.org/issues/israel/freedman.htm

Has Anyone Seen This Film?
Posted on February 3, 2006 at 08:19:37 AM by OU812

LOOSE CHANGE

http://harmony.gnn.tv/blogs/11723/watch_loose_change_a_9_11_documentary

Definitely the type of film the "control group" would never make or want made.

The "control group" exists not just in film and media, but in our own government. It's been at work for a long time and it gets what it wants.

Oprah's Not Alone
Posted on February 3, 2006 at 01:48:43 PM by John Cones

Oprah Winfrey is not the only person having to deal with books filled with false and misleading information. Recently, a friend provided me with a copy of The Producer's Business Handbook and asked me what I thought of it. I went through the book and was appalled at what I found. The entire memorandum setting forth my comments, observations and questions relating to this book are posted here at the FIRM site under "Background Information" and the sub-heading "The Producer's Business Handbook" (http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/pbhmemo.htm). In my law practice, I have to deal with this kind of inaccurate information every day when answering questions about film finance from independent producers. So, this book review might as well be posted online so all independent producers can see for themselves. There is too much false and inaccurate information being provided to independent producers in this area of film finance, particularly when film finance consultants step off into the more technical areas relating to law and securities. Such persons also seem oblivious to their responsibilities to use statistics that are reliable and that can be confirmed.

Enjoy!

John Cones

Palestinian foreign film
Posted on February 15, 2006 at 07:18:01 AM by simpleton

Oscar organizers deny pressure on Palestinian film

By Arthur Spiegelman Tue Feb 14, 3:27 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Oscar organizers said on Tuesday they have not yet decided how to designate a film about suicide bombers in the
West Bank but denied they were being pressed by
Israel to say the movie came from the
Palestinian Authority rather than Palestine.
ADVERTISEMENT

John Pavlik, a spokesman for the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, said no decision has yet been made on how to designate the film "Paradise Now" even though the March 5
Oscars were only about three weeks away.

But he added that neither the Israeli government nor American Jewish groups had been in contact with Academy officials over how to label "Paradise Now," one of five movies nominated for a best foreign film Oscar.

The issue of whether to designate the film as coming from Palestine or the Palestinian Authority has vexed Israeli officials and U.S. Jewish groups who maintain that since there is no Palestinian state, the designation of "Palestine" does not exist.

An Israel diplomat on Sunday told Reuters in Jerusalem that Israel and U.S. Jewish groups were lobbying the Academy not to present "Paradise Now" as coming from "Palestine."

Pavlik said the Academy had received no communication either from the Israeli government, its Los Angeles consulate or from U.S. groups on how to designate the film.

"Some individuals have discussed the question with the president of the Academy," he said.

When Oscar nominations were announced on Jan 31, the film was described as being submitted by the Palestinian Authority. But the film is listed as coming from Palestine on the Academy's Web site.

The Israeli diplomat said he expected the film to be described as coming from the "Palestinian Authority" during the awards ceremony.

"Both the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles and several concerned Jewish groups pointed out that no one, not even the Palestinians themselves, have declared the formal creation of 'Palestine' yet, and thus the label would be inaccurate," the diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Palestinians seeking independence in the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel captured in a 1967 war, won limited self-rule under interim accords that formed the Palestinian Authority.

Cones Message
Posted on March 6, 2006 at 08:31:38 PM by Dennis

Well CRASH won the best picture oscar - so if his message was/is hate mail then why can't he be brought up on hate mail charges, I'm sure the idiot feds would love to talk to him in a court of law.

After all it's ONLY a movie and not a film, right boys. = LOL

Hollywood Window Dressing
Posted on March 8, 2006 at 06:59:51 PM by James Jaeger

One of Hollywood's favorite tricks to hide its bigotry in the studio executive echelons is to heap praise on films and filmmakers of diverse ethnic backgrounds. Don't be fooled: this is just WINDOW DRESSING. Films like BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, CRASH and the Oscars of 2004 (when the Black community was being heavily awarded) are mostly window dressing in an attempt to "show" the public that Hollywood, its studios and award machinery are NOT bigots, and by implication, are not dominated by a control group of any specific nature, especially Jewish.

Jon Stweart, who stated he was Jewish while hosting the recent Oscars, made one of the usual jokes about Jews running Hollywood. This is a running technique of counter-programming used knowingly or subtly by agents and apologists for the Hollywood Establishment. As you watch Hollywood output in the media, take note how often this technique comes up. Note how often a Jay Leno and other entertainers/comedians make "Jews running Hollywood" a joke. If it's a JOKE, it couldn't possibly be true. Right? Or if it's a "joke" -- who cares. Here's a perfect example of what Ted Turner calls "Big Media" being used to indoctrinate the American public into submission to the Hollywood control group's agenda of socialization. As L. Ron Hubbard put it, "reality is the agreed upon aparency of existence." Applied here, it means that, if it's said or implied enough times, that "Jews running Hollywood" is just a "joke," it becomes true. Thus anyone that fails to agree with this "truth" must be unreal or "mental" or, taken to an extreme: an anti-Semite or a bigot.

Thus, all this propaganda and joking is happening to simply diffuse the subject with the public. This is standard operating procedure (SOP) for the Hollywood insiders' PR spin control. The reality is: the feature motion picture is arguably the most powerful instrument of propaganda and cultural influence ever devised. Who controls WHAT features are made and WHO gets to make is not a joke. And when any narrowly defined demographic has that control, to the exclusion of others, we have a serious situation.

Thus, any challenge to the status quo -- i.e., the control group that dominates the MPAA studio/distributors -- will be met with counter spin tactics and quickly "handled." FIRM, since 1997, has been representing a challenge to the status quo -- and this is why its founders and associates have occasionally been attacked. This is also why John Cones has not yet been given any awards for HIS research on bigotry in the Hollywood control group whereas Paul Haggis has been awarded several Oscars for HIS movie on bigotry in the Hollywood streets. When put into perspective, CRASH covers the subject of bigotry in a very superficial manner. If executives in the studio/distributors were not so bigoted themselves, we would not have so many movies being produced that stir up violence and endlessly use Arabs, Blacks, Christians, Whites from the American South, Latinos, Iranians, Asians and Persians (but seldom Jews) as the bad guys.

When we see the demographics of the 7 MPAA studio/distributors move from liberal, not very religious, Jewish males of European heritage, to a balance of other ethnic, religious and socio-political groups, then, and only then, will we be able to trust that Hollywood is earnestly rewarding those who were once but window dressing to conceal the control group's influence and political agenda.

James Jaeger

Internet Distribution
Posted on April 3, 2006 at 03:53:29 PM by Stan Nugit

Once, again Jaeger is years ahead of the mainstream... See article at
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060403.gtmoviesapr3/EmailBNStory/Technology/


Hollywood studios to sell movies on-line
GARY GENTILE

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Hollywood studios will start selling digital versions of films such as Brokeback Mountain and King Kong on the Internet this week, the first time major movies have been available on-line to own.

The films can't be burned onto a disc for viewing on a DVD player. Still, the move is seen as a step toward full digital distribution of movies over the Internet.

Six studios said they would announce Monday that sales will begin through the download website Movielink. The site is jointly owned by five of the seven major studios.

Warner Bros., Universal Pictures, Sony Pictures, Paramount Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox and MGM will offer some first-run and older titles on Movielink. New films will be priced similar to DVDs — between $20 (U.S.) and $30 — while older titles will sell for $10 to $20.

In a separate announcement, Sony and Lionsgate said they will sell films through the CinemaNow site.

Only films from The Walt Disney Co. will not be available, although both services say talks are ongoing.

"Digital delivery hasn't arrived until the major studios allow home ownership, and now they have and now digital delivery is very real," said Jim Ramo, Movielink's chief executive.

Studios will sell some new films on-line the same day they become available on DVD. Most films will be made available within 45 days.

Studios began renting films on-line several years ago as a way to combat illegal downloading. Movies have been available through the Internet 30 to 45 days after hitting video stores, with rentals lasting just 24 hours for viewing primarily on computer screens.

Digital delivery of video grew rapidly after Apple Computer Inc. began selling episodes of TV shows through its iTunes on-line store last October.

This year, devices powered by new Intel computer chips and TV service delivered over the Internet will allow more consumers to watch Web video on their TVs instead of their computer screens, a key factor in downloading to own, analysts said.

Studios are being cautious about selling films on-line in part because DVD sales produce more profit than box office receipts.

But studios are also preparing for the day when major retailers such as Wal-Mart and Amazon.com begin offering their own movie download services.

"The important thing is to embrace the future, respect the economics of DVD but move forward into digital delivery," said Ben Feingold, president of Worldwide Home Entertainment at Sony Pictures.

The films available on Movielink can be stored indefinitely on a computer hard drive or transferred to as many as two other computers. The movies can be played on a TV if the computer is part of a home network.

A copy can be burned to a DVD as a backup. Discs can be played on up three PCs authorized by Movielink but cannot be viewed on a standard DVD player because of special security coding.

Consumers will not be able to transfer the films from a PC or laptop to a handheld portable viewing device. But that capability should be available sometime within the next year, Ramo said.

Films on CinemaNow will be playable on just one computer. The company said it eventually expects studios to allow consumers to burn movies on DVD and transfer them to portable devices.

More Hollywood Religious Bias
Posted on May 12, 2006 at 11:36:11 AM by John Cones

Hollywood movies have a long history of religious bias. Placed in that historical context, the upcoming "DaVinci Code" movie is merely a continuation of that history and bias. See the "Religious Bias" excerpt from the book "Patterns of Bias in Motion Picture Contents" posted in the "Background Information" section of the FIRM site.

[http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/]

John Cones

PAYBACK for THE PASSION
Posted on June 4, 2006 at 00:32:08 AM by James Jaeger

When Mel Gibson asked Hollywood if they would help him with his movie, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, a movie depicting his personal view of Christianity, (as Steven Spielberg depicted HIS personal view of the Holocaust in SHINDLER'S LIST), Hollywood not only said "no," but tried to get the film banned.

After THE PASSION got financed and distributed (through the personal efforts of Gibson) it went on to earn hundreds of millions of dollars -- money the studios said would never materialize because 'people aren't interested in Christian themes'.

Well, it seems people ARE interested in Christian themes. But being the money whore that Hollywood is, she was presented with a "troubling" dilemma: how to cash in on Christian themes, yet still deliver destructive and biased blows to the Christian religion. Then, a year or so ago a Hollywood studio executive got the answer: THE DaVINCI CODE. This picture would be designed to not only exploit the Christian theme and disparage Christianity, but it would be PAYBACK for Mel Gibson having the gall to tell his HIS personal view of the Christian religion in THE PASSION, non-studio approved and politically incorrect movie in Hollywood.

For more information on Hollywood's religious bias and socio-political agenda, see "RELIGIOUS BIAS" c/o http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/bginfo.htm and HOLLYWOOD'S TRUE AGENDA at http://www.mecfilms.com/universe/articles/agenda.htm, respectively.

James Jaeger

Re(1): PAYBACK for THE PASSION
Posted on July 30, 2006 at 11:49:49 PM by For shame, ABC

For shame, ABC
Read More: Culture

A New York Times story reports that ABC is working on a Holocaust miniseries from Mel Gibson, whose father denies the Holocaust and who has been accused by many — me included — of antisemitic portrayals in his Passion of the Christ. And then there is this:

But Quinn Taylor, ABC’s senior vice president for movies for television, acknowledged that the attention-getting value of having Mr. Gibson attached to a Holocaust project was a factor.

“Controversy’s publicity, and vice versa,” Mr. Taylor said.

That is a singuluarly cynical and disgusting act of media.

Elie Wiesel says that we must not bring theater to Auschwitz or Auschwitz to theater — that is, we must not exploit the emotions of the Holocaust for the sake of drama or think that drama can adequately tell the story.

But bringing crass TV flackery to the Holocaust is much more deeply disgusting.

Re(1): PAYBACK for THE PASSION
Posted on July 10, 2006 at 11:10:31 PM by Mudd

James Jaeger is proving he is a Jew hating idiot. Mel Gibson piched his film to be in Aramaic without subtitls. Thus who the hell would see it!!

Jaeger sounds like a German name. Gee and he is anti-Jewish? Shocking!

Guess what, Jews have the highest IQ's in the world. That's why Jews are a disproportionate number in Hollywood. It's called high IQ's and the free market.

Jaeger is a socialist

Re(1): PAYBACK for THE PASSION
Posted on June 4, 2006 at 11:08:56 PM by JW

James,

Now this is far more interesting than your kooky global warming
treatise. Down through the ages the earth heats up and then it
cools. This has been going on long before man entered the picture.
For anyone to believe that man is significant enough to alter the
weather, I urge them to stop a hurricane or an earthquake. We are
like ants on this giant earth, and while we can build dams and alter
rivers, in the long run we really do not have any more influence on
the weather than the ants to. I seem to recall along about 1974
these same people were screaming about an ice age coming soon. Good
Heavens my boy, get a grip on yourself and devote more time to Tesla.
By the way, the link to the Mel Gibson controversy does not work, but
you probably already know this.

As regards the da Vinci Code movie, it is just fiction and I'm not
bothered or offended. My religious convictions are strong, and no
damn fiction movie about religion will bother me any more than man
has the ability to alter patterns in the earth's weather.

I'll be at Carnegie Mellon U. June 20 to speak and install our bust.
Sometime later this summer or early fall I'll be at Columbia to do
the same thing.

John

Re(1): PAYBACK for THE PASSION
Posted on June 4, 2006 at 10:07:40 PM by K. Rodriguez

Hmmm... and Jewish controlled Hollywood thinks we movie goers aren't intelligent enough to realize this is exactly what they are doing - trying to one-up "The Passion". The only films that have anything whatsoever to do with Christ, that they will actually stand behind are are few (shallow and silly) select Christmas films they feed us each year. And if you haven't noticed, they always seem to be comedies where the main concentration is on family gatherings, gift giving, a "lonely at Christmas" storyline, etc. There's plenty of mention of Santa Claus, but virtually no acknowledgement of Christ's birth in the Christmas films Hollywood "approves". Christians are usually portrayed as flakes or fanatics too, in the rare event a Christian themed film makes the cut. How convenient. I think I'll go vomit now.

Katrina Rodriguez
www.katrinarodriguez.cjb.net

Re(1): PAYBACK for THE PASSION
Posted on June 4, 2006 at 10:05:11 PM by D. Huffman

So what's your point for such a non issue and whether the Christians are right or wrong in which they are
not because they weren't there, they just found an undergrond cave that has life forms in it that is a self sustaining ecosystem and also a skull in a rock that is several hundred MILLION years old - the story
of Jesus is only 2000 years old. So the Christians are not right and they are not Christian.

Jewish groups call for hate-crime probe on Mel Gibson
Posted on July 30, 2006 at 11:46:55 PM by Totti

This is a bit scary...

CRAIG HOWIE IN LOS ANGELES
JEWISH groups have demanded Mel Gibson be investigated for hate crimes after the Hollywood star allegedly made anti-Semitic comments to US police officers when he was stopped on suspicion of drink-driving and speeding.

Gibson's reported criticism of Jews, contained in a leaked police report detailing his arrest early on Friday morning, included the phrase: "F*****g Jews. The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."

He has since apologised for his actions, saying they were "despicable", but community Jewish leaders called for Gibson to be ostracised from Hollywood, where the A-list actor is considered an industry powerbroker.

Calling for a criminal investigation into the Oscar-winning actor and director's remarks, Abraham Foxman, the national director of the US Jewish Anti-Defamation League, said: "We believe there should be consequences to bigots and bigotry."

Gibson, 50, was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence after deputies clocked his Lexus sports car speeding at 87mph in a 45mph zone at 2:36am on Friday in Malibu, sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

The actor was later found to have a blood-alcohol ratio of 0.12.The legal limit in California is 0.08, according to the police records.

After Gibson was pulled over, a bizarre melee ensued that apparently involved Gibson trying to escape, his alleged propositioning of an arresting officer with lurid, explicit suggestions and claims that, while handcuffed in the back of a police car, Gibson threatened a deputy, saying he "owns Malibu" and will spend all of his money to "get even" with the officer.

He also allegedly asked an arresting officer if he was Jewish.
Gibson was taken to a police station in Malibu, where he allegedly threatened an officer, smashed a payphone and attempted to urinate in a cell.

He was released after about five hours in custody, on $6,600 (�3,550) bail. Police will decide this week whether to charge him.

Controversy now surrounds the police report into the incident, with claims emerging that it was rewritten because senior officers considered it to be "too inflammatory" and feared that it could incite a lot of "Jewish hatred".

Gibson has in the past angered Jewish groups over his portrayal of the role of the Jews in the crucifixion of Jesus in his largely self-funded movie, The Passion of the Christ, which went on to take $611 million (�328 million) at the box office.

Now, many in the industry are asking how Gibson can reconcile his comments with his position as one of Hollywood's most powerful players.

Nikki Finke, a columnist for LA Weekly and prominent chronicler of Hollywood, pointed out the "the overwhelmingly negative response" among Jewish audiences to The Passion of the Christ.

She also said several top Jewish executives have pledged privately never again to work with Gibson as a result.
However, Ms Finke said that in his daily schedule Gibson "works closely with many Jewish VIPs at talent agencies, law firms, and at the studio".

But she questioned whether a factual TV mini-series about the Holocaust that Gibson announced he was developing late last year would now be "too hot to handle".

Gibson, a Christian fundamentalist, has in past refused to criticise his father, Hutton, who has been labelled a Holocaust denier over comments claiming the Holocaust was "mostly" fiction.

The Australian actor has released an apology for his actions.
"After drinking alcohol on Thursday night, I did a number of things that were very wrong and for which I am ashamed," he said.

"I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested, and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable.

"I am deeply ashamed of everything I said.

"I have battled with the disease of alcoholism for all of my adult life and profoundly regret my horrific relapse."

Hollywood Watchdogs Bite Mel's Butt
Posted on August 1, 2006 at 08:29:57 PM by James Jaeger

Are any of us really surprised that Hollywood-apologist watchdogs, such as Harvey Levin (In the Zone) and Abe Foxman (anti-Defamation League, a.k.a. the ADL) have been hoping and praying that, since THE PASSION, Mel Gibson would sometime commit even the tiniest transgression so they could pounce on him with the full force of the media?

Even though there is no excuse for driving under the influence, nor verbally abusing a police officer, Mel Gibson has every right to feel the way he feels about Jews. No one in this world is automatically entitled to being admired, respected, trusted and/or loved by mere reason of existing. Admiration, respect, trust and love are earned. By the same token -- just as a person has the right to admire, respect, trust and/or love -- they also have the right to disdain, disrespect, fear and/or hate if given cause. This applies to Jews, as well as any other person, ethnic group, company, nation or religion. By saying this I am not advocating anyone has the right to make war on a person, ethnic group, company, nation or religion because they disdain, disrespect, fear and/or hate them. I am simply saying that all people have the right to feel as they do about others. They also have the right to express those feelings under the freedom of speech doctrine without fear of reprisal from government, employers or an industry dominated by people that have different opinions.

If Mel Gibson disdains, disrespects, fears and/or hates Jews: that's his right. If you're the owner of a private company, an you don't like this, you don't have to hire him. But the MPAA studio/distributors are NOT private companies. They are public companies, owned by thousands of diverse people across the U.S. and world. The fact that these publicly-owned studios are dominated by liberal, secular, Jewish males of European heritage in a significant percentage of the top executive posts, does not give them the right to reprimand or punish Mel Gibson for exercising his right to express his private feelings about Jews or any other subject. Thus, any action to blackball Mel Gibson from employment with Hollywood studios is an abuse of power because it cannot be a prerequisite that one not be anti-Semitic in order to work in a public corporation. Put bluntly: anti-Semites have a right to work in Hollywood studios as much as anti-Muslims, anti-Christians and even anti-Scientologists. Executives in publicly-held Hollywood studios cannot discriminate because they disagree with someone's feelings or opinions, or even because that person is a bigot. I do not condone bigotry, but even bigots must be tolerated for to not tolerate a bigot, MAKES one a bigot, ipso facto.

Thus Mel Gibson should NOT feel he has to make any apologies about his private feelings or comments in connection with Jews. Instead, what he might consider doing is explaining WHY he feels as he does. Such explanation could be given in the true spirit of seeking to reach a better understanding and acceptance of Jews. If Mel were to lead the way in explaining why he may disdain, disrespect, fear and/or hate Jews, Jews could then explain why they may disdain, disrespect, fear and/or hate Mel (and/or his movies or that which they view he represents). The goal should be an honest dialog where any differences and/or animosity could be vented in a civilized manner. If both carefully LISTENED to the other's comments and complaints, perhaps both could modify their behaviors to some acceptable standard. In this event, I see no reason admiration, respect, trust and/or love could not be engendered. If Mel Gibson were to do this and Jewish leaders (both inside Hollywood and in the larger Jewish community) were to do this, I believe they could set a healthy example of how human beings can work together to iron out their differences. Who knows, such a dialog could establish a model by which peace might more easily be reached in the Middle East.

Those that finance, manage, supply or fight any war, for any country or group, directly or indirectly, are guilty of doing violence to people, ethnic groups, companies, nations and religions because they have allowed their disdain, disrespect, fear and/or hate to override their sense of judgment and rational behavior. In short, any meat-head can start or fight a war; it takes real genius and rational action to avoid and stop wars. Thus it is unwise for the studios and Hollywood apologists to use, or seek to use, Mel's personal and private comments to exact revenge on him for producing THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. By taking Mel's alleged comments public, they are themselves potentially inciting meat-head hatred towards the Jews at this most critical time when conflict in the Middle East is in high boil. Again, now is not the time for the MPAA studio executives, and other Jewish-dominated media, agencies and/or apologist organizations, to seek revenge on Mel Gibson. Now is not the time for them to attempt to satisfy their disdain, disrespect, fear and/or hatred for Mel Gibson.

Executives, major talents and opinion leaders who work in Hollywood, as well as the mass media (no matter what their ethnic background or religious beliefs) have a grave responsibility to leave the global movie-going public with a sense of well-being and a preponderant feeling that the future holds promise. Maybe film executives and filmmakers don't feel this in their hearts, but I believe they are capable changing this feeling by seeking out what's good about civilization. By more often asking the question -- how is the glass half full? -- this could be accomplished. Unfortunately, the past four decades I have worked in the film industry, I have witnessed the Hollywood Establishment and mainstream media depicting and postulating a future of chaos and doom, respectively. In movie themes, there has been far too much violence, hatred, pessimism, disrespect and hopelessness. I once made the comment: 'what can you expect from executives that green-light multi-million dollar movies when many of them, or their families, lived through, or were killed in the Holocaust.' This may be an insensitive comment, but none the less I still feel it's true. If Hollywood is over-represented by Jews, it's only natural that they will want to tell stories that are real to them, and unfortunately this reality contains a lot of violence and hate, violence and hate that has been done to them. But I call on Jewish studio executives to rise above this. Curtail movies that continually dramatize experiences with violence and hate, for this just breeds more of the same, including more violence and hate towards Jews.

To the degree the movie-going global public is perpetually exposed to violence and hate, it becomes apathetic to solutions for reducing it. In this way the world becomes increasingly tolerant of a chaotic and disorderly culture. If it is true that Hollywood studios are dominated by secular, liberal Jews -- many of them dramatizing violence and hate done to them, or their families -- then it is true that they are probably responsible for propagating violence and hate to the world through the Hollywood-based U.S. motion picture industry and the mass media. Just as Jihad crusaders train their youth to hate Jews, are not the Hollywood Jews training OUR youth to hate Arabs? In the cartoon, POPEYE, who is Popeye always fighting? Arabs. Who is so often depicted in Hollywood movies as the bad guys? Arabs. Muslims. People with dark skin. So, while we Americans sit back and judge the indoctrination practices taking place in the Arab world, are we not guilty of doing exactly the same thing by allowing the Hollywood-based U.S. motion picture industry to imbue our children with attitudes of violence and hate towards people that we should have no quarrel with? By allowing the movie industry and media to continuously indoctrinate Americans with the hatred Jews seem to feel towards Arabs and Muslims, we have become biased against Arabs and this bias is creating enemies for us where once there were only peaceful, friendly desert tribes that gave us endless amounts of inexpensive oil.

Behind any conflict, there is always an undisclosed third party (i.e., person, group, country or other entity) actively promoting that conflict. Given the above is true, the conflict that is brewing between so-called (fundamentalist) American Christians and so-called (radical) Arab Muslims is being actively promoted by Jewish executives that dominate the MPAA studio/distributors. If movies green-lit for production by these power brokers constantly depict Arabs as the bad guys, they may very well be the undisclosed third party that is causing conflicts were there once were none. Because the Hollywood-based U.S. motion picture industry is dominated by Jewish ideals and politics, the American electorate may have allowed Bush II to take us to war against Arab states and Arab people without due cause. After all, movies have taught us to believe that Arabs are the bad guys from childhood.

In physics, ENTROPY is a measure of disorder. All systems, whether they be a company, an industry, a nation, world or person tend towards greater entropy. Everything in the universe tends towards greater entropy, greater disorder. Greater chaos. This is the "natural" state of any system, simple or complex and it's why things seem to always need repair and maintenance. Why things rust, break down. Only prudently allocated energy, in other words, rational intelligence, can reverse the universal tendency of entropy. Humans, by their very nature, are capable of reversing entropy. Maybe not for the universe as a whole, but in their local domains. Since Filmmakers are humans, they need to get to work and stop allowing those with violence and hate in their blood and memories to influence them, or employ them. They need to stop making movies that allow entropy to proceed at an accelerated pace.

Unfortunately there are people in the world that DO hate. This hate is real. Often this hate has been caused by war. Wars kill loved ones. How can one not hate that person or that country that killed their loved one? It goes on and on -- sometimes for hundreds or thousands of years. There is evidence for the thesis that all wars are but a continuation of the same original war. The haters bred by these wars have valid reasons to hate -- from their perspective -- so to simply not-is their hate or make them wrong for how they feel is totally unworkable. They hate for a reason, a reason they have justified in their minds. Nothing can change this -- but open communication CAN de-intensify it. Hate can thus be reduced by granting people the freedom to express their emotions and allowing them the opportunity to get off "charge" without judgment or retaliation. If they are not allowed the opportunity to do this, often times this hatred will express itself in violence or war. It's high time all people acknowledge the fact that each of us hates someone or some thing. If you didn't hate someone or some thing you wouldn't be here on Earth. This hatred is real, but there are real solutions for discharging it. Theses solutions involve honest and intense communication and/or counseling. If Mel Gibson has a hatred of Jews, he should not be hung out on a cross, punished or criticized -- for those that do this cannot then claim they are free from hatred as well. The solution is for Hollywood leaders to sit down and communicate their feelings to each other. If Hollywood Jews have a hatred of Mel Gibson (or what he represents), they should sit down and communicate this to Mel and no one should judge or punish them but accept the fact that their feelings are real to them and caused by some real event. It is folly to believe that those who are hated do not also harbor hatred for the haters. It's a psycho, vicious circle of entropy-accelerating emotion.

According to an MSNBC news report interviewing Harvey Levin on 31 July 2006, the ADL is calling on Hollywood to "distance" themselves from Mel Gibson. Excuse me? Is this the same ADL that represents Jews in general? So Jews in general are poking their nose into Hollywood business as if they have some sort of divine right to dictate WHO the publicly-owned studios should do business with. This is not okay, because to the degree Jews in general (i.e., non-Hollywood Jews) allow their representative organizations to dictate Hollywood studio policies, they commingle themselves with Hollywood's liabilities to the nation and World as above discussed. Such liabilities center in part around the questions: "Is Hollywood controlled by Jews?" OR "Do Jews control Hollywood?" - two entirely DIFFERENT questions, the answer of which is: No, Jews do NOT control Hollywood BUT, Hollywood IS controlled by Jews. Nevertheless, to the degree Jews (in general) allow organizations that represent them in general (such as the ADL) to influence or dictate Hollywood studio hiring policies, the later statement becomes equivalent to the former, and vice versa.

If Jews in general thus take an active role in interpreting and influencing the activities of the Hollywood-based U.S. motion industry's seven major studios (the MPAA studio/distributors), then Jews in general will have to take greater responsibilities for the unethical, predatory, discriminatory and often illegal actions of the studios -- just as Christians in general will have to take greater responsibilities for the unethical, unwise and illegal activities of the Bush Administration in perpetrating, not only the War in Iraq, but the chaos this is now creating in the Middle East. In a way, Americans deserve what they get for watching so many indoctrinating movies and allowing their kids to be babysat by so many TVs with negative covert messages.

The U.S. Empire in many ways sets the political, economic and cultural standards for the world. The world looks to us for security, guidance and peace, but most of all it looks to us for a hopeful, optimistic, can-do attitude. The Hollywood-based, U.S. motion picture industry and its echo media, should remember this. Hope is given by acting ethically, maturely and responsibly both in GOVERNMENT and in the MOVIES. I dare say the movies are as, or more powerful, than the government. Years of time spent in top government brought Al Gore no closer to an address of Global Warming than his one quick film project, AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, now out. This one-year movie project has caused Congress to start a series of serious hearings on Global Warming (now called Climate Change) more quickly than 8-years in government. Thus, MOVIES probably are more powerful than GOVERNMENTS.

If movies are more powerful than governments: those that control or dominate the movies need to really have their act together. They need to be informed, fair, positive, diverse, caring, concerned, efficient, speedy and effective. Not monolithic and paranoid, like the current Hollywood Establishment. And just because they ARE powerful they should not dominate the conversation, whether in America or the World. Arabs/Muslims around the world do NOT like listening endlessly to Jews/Zionists in the media giving "fair and balanced" reports to the American public on issues concerning THEM, avowed "enemies." This is a serious conflict of interest and a source of frustration to Arabs and Muslins. Americans also deserve to get the balanced truth about what's happening in the world from sources that are truly diversified -- not sources dominated by Jewish/Zionist apologists.

Accordingly, the U.S. government, dominated by conservative Christians at this time, has no right to impose its values on Hollywood, America or the World. This means it has no right, or mandate, to impose "freedom" or "democracy" on any other country in the world, including Iraq. It also has no right to ask others to disarm unless IT disarms pro rata. It has no right to ask terrorists to stop with THEIR terrorism of innocent men, women and children until and unless it at least apologizes to people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima for ITS terrorism in dropping atomic bombs on hundreds of thousands of THEIR innocent men, women and children. In order to elect appropriate government officials, people must have a free, diverse and unbiased media and film industry. Such an industry will lead to a free, diverse and unbiased government, thus issues and problems facing society can be routinely aired, accurately debated and rationally resolved without sudden blow ups - sudden blow ups like the current war between Israel and Hezballah. How can the American People properly evaluate this situation, a war essentially between Jews and Arabs, when they have been indoctrinated by a media dominated by Jews for 90-some years? They can't. Thus we should get out of the Middle East, stop providing Israel with foreign aid and stop buying oil from Arabs.

The current issue with Mel Gibson and the Hollywood Establishment's mission to brand him anti-Semitic and thus "justify" a policy of "distancing" themselves from him is another sudden blow up. Blackballing and discrimination have been going on in Hollywood for many decades. The anti-Semitic Sword has also been used by Hollywood apologists for many decades to consolidate power into the hands of a narrowly defined control group and to thwart even legitimate inquiry into Jewish dominance of the industry. Again, these activities have caused the news and entertainment industries to be seriously biased. This bias inhibits the free flow of information to the public and distorts government policies. Government policies are often distorted because candidates and elected officials are often afraid of crossing the media because they depend on it to get and stay in office. Thus our elected officials play along with the Jewish control group's view of reality, even to the point of attempting to suppress Christian messages, such as THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST and now Mel Gibson for expressing his personal views. Who can blame Mel Gibson for disdaining, or even hating Jews, when certain Hollywood Jews worked so hard to suppress and invalidate his movie and religion?

John Cones and I, at the Film Industry Reform Movement (http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM), have worked for many years to point out how and why the Hollywood-based U.S. motion picture, arguably the most powerful communications channel yet devised, should not be dominated by ANY narrowly definable demographic. We are not targeting Jews. Were Hollywood dominated by any other (ethnic) group, our argument would stand firm. In the on-going saga of Mel Gibson and his film project, THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, one can see a microcosm of what has been going on in Hollywood for 90-some years: a few get to tell their stories, most do not. At some point the American people, filmmakers and movie-goers that patronize the major studio/distributors need to put a leash on Hollywood, as well as its insipid watchdogs.

James Jaeger

Re(1): Hollywood Watchdogs Bite Mel's Butt
Posted on August 5, 2006 at 07:32:49 PM by John Cones

James:

I just got back from a conference in San Francisco. Boy, when you stir the pot, some of these guys jump to conclusions don't they! I haven't even participated in this latest Mel Gibson discussion and they are cursing me too. It seems some of them are doing the same thing they are accusing you of, lumping people together and not treating people as individuals who can each think independently. Isn't that amazing!

John Cones

Re(1): Hollywood Watchdogs Bite Mel's Butt
Posted on August 4, 2006 at 01:33:00 PM by Kamandi

Jim, while it's certainly true that Mel has the right to feel and say what he wishes about Jews, others are equally entitled to not like it.

Where did you get the idea that because the studios are publically traded companies, they're obligated to hire Gibson and finance his films if they feel he has poor character - like, say, a history of drunkenness and bigotry?

Re(2): Hollywood Watchdogs Bite Mel's Butt
Posted on August 7, 2006 at 06:24:42 PM by James Jaeger

>Jim, while it's certainly true that Mel has the right to feel and say what he wishes about Jews, others are equally entitled to not like it.

Agreed.

>Where did you get the idea that because the studios are publically traded companies, they're obligated to hire Gibson and finance his films if they feel he has poor character - like, say, a history of drunkenness and bigotry?

Where did I use the word "obligated" in my post? You're spinning what I said. I said: "If you're the owner of a private company, an you don't like this, you don't have to hire him. But the MPAA studio/distributors are NOT private companies. They are public companies, owned by thousands of diverse people across the U.S. and world. The fact that these publicly-owned studios are dominated by liberal, secular, Jewish males of European heritage in a significant percentage of the top executive posts, does not give them the right to reprimand or punish Mel Gibson for exercising his right to express his private feelings about Jews or any other subject. Thus, any action to blackball Mel Gibson from employment with Hollywood studios is an abuse of power because it cannot be a prerequisite that one not be anti-Semitic in order to work in a public corporation. Put bluntly: anti-Semites have a right to work in Hollywood studios as much as anti-Muslims, anti-Christians and even anti-Scientologists. Executives in publicly-held Hollywood studios cannot discriminate because they disagree with someone's feelings or opinions, or even because that person is a bigot. I do not condone bigotry, but even bigots must be tolerated for to not tolerate a bigot, MAKES one a bigot, ipso facto."

James Jaeger

Re(3): Hollywood Watchdogs Bite Mel's Butt
Posted on August 7, 2006 at 09:34:50 PM by Kamandi

This is not true: publically traded companies are not branches of the gov't despite equity ownership.

Under the Civil Rights Act of '64, it's permissible for businesses to fire or refuse to hire on the basis of strictly political beliefs.

They can legally refuse to hire him on the basis of his antisemitism, which is certainly a political belief, let alone his criminal record of DWI.

Re(1): Hollywood Watchdogs Bite Mel's Butt
Posted on August 6, 2006 at 12:49:45 PM by RUoverityet?

10 MOVIES SPIELBERG WILL NEVER MAKE


1. King David Hotel: The bombing of the King David Hotel, which served as headquarters of the British administration in Palestine, killed 91 Arabs, Jews, and Brits in 1946. Two future Prime Ministers of Israel, David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin, masterminded the attack. Disguised as Arabs, members of Begin's Irgun placed 350kg of explosives inside the building. In this action-packed thriller, David (Pierce Brosnan) � a British officer ordered to hunt down the killers � falls for Margaret (Uma Thurman), an American journalist working for Life Magazine. But is Margaret really in love or is she a secret Zionist assassin out to stop David in his tracks?

2. Nakba: A story of innocent love in a time of war and tragedy. Layla (Penelope Cruz) & Salam (Orlando Bloom) are a Romeo & Juliet against the backdrop of the 1948 Nakba, the Palestinian national catastrophe. During the Nakba, over 700,000 Palestinians fled � voluntarily & involuntarily � their homes. Can their love survive conflict?

3. USS Liberty: When Israeli boats and fighter jets attack the US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty in the middle of the 1967 Six Day War, 34 US servicemen are killed and 173 are wounded. The official word from Washington and Tel Aviv is that the attack was a mistake. But Brad Pitt & Tom Cruise, who play surviving officers from the Liberty, swear vengeance after discovering that the attack was actually part of a plot to start World War III.

4. Sabra & Shatila: It's 1982 and the war in Lebanon rages on. British war correspondent Robert Fisk (Star Wars star Ewan MacGregor) hides in the camps of Sabra & Shatilla, while a Lebanese militia aided and abetted by Israel slaughters thousands of Palestinian refugees. Sahar (Sandra Bullock) is a Palestinian mother determined to protect her family at any cost.

5. Vanunu: A political thriller set in Israel, Australia, Thailand, England, and Italy. "Syriana" star George Clooney plays Mordechai Vanunu, the nuclear technician who exposes Israel's nuclear weapons program and pays the ultimate price. Nicole Kidman plays Cheryl Bentov, the American Mossad agent who seduces and kidnaps him.

6. Hebron: A story of tragedy and torn loyalties. In 1994, Brooklyn Jewish doctor Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslim worshippers in Hebron, killing 29. Palestinian American Mazen Khalili (Tom Hanks), a State Department official assigned to investigate the massacre, struggles with his job responsibilities and his roots. Leah Rabinowitz (Meg Ryan) is a Jewish American journalist who discovers a dark family secret that will change her life forever.

7. Qana: On April 18, 1996, Israeli shelling of a UN Compound that shelters Lebanese refugees kills more than 100 & injures over 300 men, women, and children. Jessica (Angelina Jolie) is a UN worker determined to let the world know what happened after witnessing the atrocity. Yossi (Robert De Niro) is a Mossad agent assigned to kill Jolie.

8. Gaza: Chris Hedges (Harrison Ford), a New York Times correspondent in Jerusalem, files stories from his hotel room. Hedges reaches a turning point when he witnesses Israeli soldiers killing young Palestinian boys for sport, then defies his editors by writing stories that humanize Palestinians. David Schwimmer & Sarah Jessica Parker make cameo appearances as the parents of Muhammad al-Durra, the 12 year old Palestinian boy killed by Israeli troops in 2000.

9. Rachel: Rachel Corrie (Gwyneth Paltrow) is the idealistic young American activist crushed to death by the Israeli army with a Caterpillar bulldozer. Sally Field, well-known for her role in "Not Without My Daughter", plays Rachel's mother.

10. Refuseniks: When a fellow soldier commits suicide after killing an unarmed pregnant Palestinian woman (played by Natalie Portman) in cold blood, two young Israeli soldiers (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) decide that the occupation and the killing of Palestinians is immoral and unjust.

Re(1): Hollywood Watchdogs Bite Mel's Butt
Posted on August 6, 2006 at 12:49:45 PM by RUoverityet?

10 MOVIES SPIELBERG WILL NEVER MAKE


1. King David Hotel: The bombing of the King David Hotel, which served as headquarters of the British administration in Palestine, killed 91 Arabs, Jews, and Brits in 1946. Two future Prime Ministers of Israel, David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin, masterminded the attack. Disguised as Arabs, members of Begin's Irgun placed 350kg of explosives inside the building. In this action-packed thriller, David (Pierce Brosnan) � a British officer ordered to hunt down the killers � falls for Margaret (Uma Thurman), an American journalist working for Life Magazine. But is Margaret really in love or is she a secret Zionist assassin out to stop David in his tracks?

2. Nakba: A story of innocent love in a time of war and tragedy. Layla (Penelope Cruz) & Salam (Orlando Bloom) are a Romeo & Juliet against the backdrop of the 1948 Nakba, the Palestinian national catastrophe. During the Nakba, over 700,000 Palestinians fled � voluntarily & involuntarily � their homes. Can their love survive conflict?

3. USS Liberty: When Israeli boats and fighter jets attack the US Navy intelligence ship USS Liberty in the middle of the 1967 Six Day War, 34 US servicemen are killed and 173 are wounded. The official word from Washington and Tel Aviv is that the attack was a mistake. But Brad Pitt & Tom Cruise, who play surviving officers from the Liberty, swear vengeance after discovering that the attack was actually part of a plot to start World War III.

4. Sabra & Shatila: It's 1982 and the war in Lebanon rages on. British war correspondent Robert Fisk (Star Wars star Ewan MacGregor) hides in the camps of Sabra & Shatilla, while a Lebanese militia aided and abetted by Israel slaughters thousands of Palestinian refugees. Sahar (Sandra Bullock) is a Palestinian mother determined to protect her family at any cost.

5. Vanunu: A political thriller set in Israel, Australia, Thailand, England, and Italy. "Syriana" star George Clooney plays Mordechai Vanunu, the nuclear technician who exposes Israel's nuclear weapons program and pays the ultimate price. Nicole Kidman plays Cheryl Bentov, the American Mossad agent who seduces and kidnaps him.

6. Hebron: A story of tragedy and torn loyalties. In 1994, Brooklyn Jewish doctor Baruch Goldstein opened fire on Muslim worshippers in Hebron, killing 29. Palestinian American Mazen Khalili (Tom Hanks), a State Department official assigned to investigate the massacre, struggles with his job responsibilities and his roots. Leah Rabinowitz (Meg Ryan) is a Jewish American journalist who discovers a dark family secret that will change her life forever.

7. Qana: On April 18, 1996, Israeli shelling of a UN Compound that shelters Lebanese refugees kills more than 100 & injures over 300 men, women, and children. Jessica (Angelina Jolie) is a UN worker determined to let the world know what happened after witnessing the atrocity. Yossi (Robert De Niro) is a Mossad agent assigned to kill Jolie.

8. Gaza: Chris Hedges (Harrison Ford), a New York Times correspondent in Jerusalem, files stories from his hotel room. Hedges reaches a turning point when he witnesses Israeli soldiers killing young Palestinian boys for sport, then defies his editors by writing stories that humanize Palestinians. David Schwimmer & Sarah Jessica Parker make cameo appearances as the parents of Muhammad al-Durra, the 12 year old Palestinian boy killed by Israeli troops in 2000.

9. Rachel: Rachel Corrie (Gwyneth Paltrow) is the idealistic young American activist crushed to death by the Israeli army with a Caterpillar bulldozer. Sally Field, well-known for her role in "Not Without My Daughter", plays Rachel's mother.

10. Refuseniks: When a fellow soldier commits suicide after killing an unarmed pregnant Palestinian woman (played by Natalie Portman) in cold blood, two young Israeli soldiers (Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) decide that the occupation and the killing of Palestinians is immoral and unjust.

Hollywood Dark Ages
Posted on August 1, 2006 at 10:49:10 PM by JL

August 1, 2006
THE BIG PICTURE

For Hollywood, It's the Dark Age The talk among agents, managers and producers is glum as studios' corporate parents look for less risk and more return on their investments.

It's the Dark Age
By Patrick Goldstein, Times Staff Writer

If Hollywood had a suicide prevention hotline for despondent agents, managers and producers, the switchboard would be swamped. In the last few weeks every industry insider I've had lunch with has been morose, sullen or depressed — one poor guy actually rushed off to see his therapist right after we got the check.

To hear the talk, the dark ages are upon us. Producers are glum because studios are killing their deals left and right. The agents and managers are bummed because after untold years of actor and filmmaker salaries heading in only one direction — up — studios are putting the squeeze on talent, having recently killed a series of costly star-driven movies in favor of more manageable genre pictures and family films.

With Jim Carrey essentially out of work (having seen two consecutive projects fall apart), Tom Cruise's Paramount production deal in jeopardy and Brad Pitt taking steep pay cuts to get a pair of ambitious films made, you know we're in a new man-overboard stage of the business. U.S. movie attendance has been flat for a decade (grosses are up largely because of increased ticket prices), while DVD sales are leveling off after a lengthy boom.

So the media conglomerates that own today's studios are demanding less risk and more return. Everyone is doing some sort of cost cutting, reacting to Hollywood's core inconvenient truth: At most media companies, the movie studio is the least-profitable, slowest-growing and most cash-intensive division, making it a drag on corporate profits, not to mention a tempting target for job slashing.

The big news has been at Disney, which to save up to $100 million a year in overhead costs has axed 650 employees, most notably Nina Jacobson, its respected head of production. Her replacement, Oren Aviv, the studio's marketing chief, was given the job by studio chief Dick Cook because, as Cook told the New York Times, Aviv "knows how to sell something. He knows what works and what doesn't."

Coming not long after Universal installed Marc Shmuger, a former marketing chief, as studio chairman, Disney's move was taken as a not-so-subtle hint that the era of studio filmmaking that gave us Irving Thalberg, Darryl Zanuck, Robert Evans and John Calley is finally over. Disney has essentially gone from being a movie studio to a family entertainment company, making 10 Disney-branded films a year, all pictures that will be easily exploitable by one of Disney's other businesses. It's telling that the upcoming Disney slate is dominated by more sequels ("Pirates 3" and a new installment of "The Chronicles of Narnia"), animation pictures and family fare like "Meet the Robinsons."

In the New Hollywood, the power has shifted from production to marketing. And why not? When your aim is to make a franchise picture aimed at the whole family, the person you want at the helm is a brand-management expert, not a filmmaker-friendly production chief. Next summer is already jammed with another slew of sequels, including new installments in the "Harry Potter," "Spider-Man," "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Shrek," "Fantastic Four," "Rush Hour," "Bourne" and "Ocean's Eleven" series. These are consumer products, not cinema.

At studio after studio, the production chief who used to say "We're going to make this film" now has to share clout with an ever-expanding green-light committee, with the studio marketing guru having the biggest vote. The mantra is: Don't make a movie you don't know how to sell. It's only a matter of time before a studio marketing chief hands some poor filmmaker a 90-second spot, saying, "Here, we've cut the trailer. Now go out and make a movie just like it."

For someone who's made a living as a creative filmmaker, this marketing-driven approach is maddening. "It's folly for studios to say we're only going to make a movie we know how to market," says producer Michael Shamberg, who made the Oscar-nominated "Erin Brock-ovich" as well as the new Oliver Stone film, "World Trade Center." "The problem with marketing is that it's based on what's worked in the past. But audiences want freshness and new ideas, which is all about the future. If a studio is unwilling to be a home for fresh ideas or daring films, they're ultimately not going to be competitive, because the top talent is going to go somewhere else."

Dick Cook insists that promoting Aviv doesn't mean Disney will become a movie-studio version of McDonald's. "We picked Oren because he's talented and talent trumps everything else," he told me last week. "It's like putting together a good ball team — you draft for talent. Agents have been successful running studios. Babe Ruth started out as a pitcher before he became a home-run hitter. When talent surfaces, you reach out and grab it."

Apparently, executive talent is one thing, creative talent another. Lost in the hoopla over Jacobson's departure was the news that Disney also let go of J.J. Abrams, creator of "Lost," director of "Mission: Impossible III" and perhaps today's hottest writer-producer. It's telling that Abrams didn't walk away from Disney. Disney walked away from him. To hear the agents talk, the studios have declared war on talent, intent on grinding down their fees after years of free-market spending, not unlike the way that major league baseball owners cracked down on free-agent spending in the 1980s. No one's saying the studios are colluding, as the baseball owners did — after all, the studios can't even agree on a new DVD format. But they are clearly taking back much of the power that had been ceded to star-packed agencies like CAA.

The talent is feeling the crunch because many studios believe it's crazy to give away 25% of the back-end profits to talent who can no longer guarantee they can open a movie. Of the four films generally considered to be this year's most profitable big hits — "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," "Ice Age: The Meltdown," "Cars" and "Over the Hedge" — only one has a movie star. In fact, three of the four don't have any actors at all.

Ask any studio boss. Animation is the most profitable segment of today's business, in part because talent costs are so low. This is no fluke. None of last year's top-three grossing films — "Star Wars Episode III," "The Chronicles of Narnia" and "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" — were driven by a movie star either.

On the other hand, in today's franchise-crazed world, the last place a serious actor would go for good material is to a studio. With development slates being slashed everywhere, most studios have little to offer top stars, unless they want to be in a broad comedy or action-filled thriller. All the movies featuring best actor nominees at last year's Oscars were either independently financed or made by studio specialty divisions. Likewise for virtually all of the movies that spawned best actress and supporting role nominations.

Top filmmakers can always get a job at a big studio — if they're willing to sex up some franchise material, as Steven Soderbergh has done with the "Ocean's Eleven" series and Michael Mann has done with "Miami Vice." This is the new Hollywood: Everyone works for peanuts on Oscar fare like "Crash" while the cash spigot is wide open for "Rush Hour 3."

Playing an increasingly minor role at most media conglomerates, movie studios have had to adapt to the culture of their corporate parent. At General Electric-owned Universal Pictures, Shmuger fits neatly into the formula for a good GE division manager. He can create and sell a new piece of product. The rub, of course, is that movies aren't just a piece of product. If there is one immutable law in the film business, it's that only risk brings reward. From "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "The Godfather" to "Lord of the Rings," "Crash" and "March of the Penguins," movies that seemed like longshot gambles ended up helping to transform the culture, thanks to a bold risk-taker saying, "Count me in."

Maybe I'm too much of an optimist, but I'm betting that Hollywood's latest effort to bean-count its way to profit will be short-lived. After all, who wants to work in a business whose motto is "Count me out"? Even a GE loyalist like Shmuger, who once cut such a good trailer for Mike Nichols that Nichols told him he should give up marketing for filmmaking, can't resist green-lighting a movie like "Charlie Wilson's War," an ambitious new film Nichols is directing at Universal from a script by Aaron Sorkin.

GE needs good lightbulbs to prosper, but Hollywood needs great artists to survive. Give the public more sequels with cheap talent and maybe you'll improve your profit margin. But you'll take even more of the magic and surprise out of the business, turning it into one giant, suffocating rerun machine, driving fans to more involving entertainment alternatives. Magic and surprise may not add up to much on a corporate balance sheet, but on a movie screen they mean just about everything.

Mel Gibson: Set Up/Provoked?
Posted on August 6, 2006 at 03:04:59 PM by John Cones

Mel Gibson Set Up/Provoked?

So much information about the Mel Gibson scandal came out so fast that at this point, I have more questions or sets of questions than answers.

First Set of Questions–What are the names of the young ladies who appeared in the photo that was reported over the news where they were shown with their arms around Mel Gibson, presumably at the Moon Shadows restaurant and bar on the night of his DUI arrest? Did they just happen to be in the bar that night and ask for the opportunity to be in a photo with the well-known star, or did someone else suggest or encourage them to have the photo taken with Mel Gibson? Who took the photo and how did it get on the news so quickly?

Second Set of Questions–Was someone following Mel Gibson that night and other nights since his film “The Passion of the Christ” came out? And is that the reason he was speeding away from Moon Shadows after he left the Malibu restaurant/bar? After all, there are some segments of that small, tight-knit Hollywood Jewish community that were convinced after that movie came out that Mel Gibson was anti-Semitic, while others were willing to withhold their judgment on the issue? That means that there may have been some of the more pro-active members of the Hollywood Jewish community who had a motive to prove beyond a doubt that Mel Gibson was anti-Semitic since it is clear that just making a movie containing a scene considered by some to be anti-Semitic is not all that persuasive for others. After all, a majority of those politically liberal, not very religions, Jewish males of European heritage who have the power in Hollywood to determine which movies are made and the content of those movies have often and consistently portrayed certain populations in our diverse society in a negative manner. Does that make them prejudice in the same way that Mel Gibson’s film allegedly makes him prejudice? Some of these same folks, of course, believe that since Mel Gibson’s father is apparently anti-Semitic, that the son is very likely to have similar attitudes. That’s the one count against Mel Gibson, not a certainty to more reasonable minds, but a possible indication. Then when “The Passion” came out with its decidedly negative portrayal of a small group of Jews, being specifically portrayed as partly responsible for the death of Christ (clearly a hot button issue for many Jews), some of those more pro-active members of the Hollywood Jewish community, not withstanding the inconsistency of not applying the same standard to their fellows in Hollywood, may have had all the evidence they needed. In their view, Mel Gibson was clearly anti-Semitic. But, if others in the Hollywood Jewish community needed more convincing (after all, Mel Gibson had made a lot of money for them over the years with many of his movies, and if his image could be repaired and/or his “attitude” changed he could continue to make money for them). Under such circumstances, it is reasonable to speculate that some of those more pro-active and already convinced members of the Hollywood Jewish community might have set out to find or furnish more convincing evidence of Mel Gibson’s guilt. So, initially, the questions Mel Gibson’s attorney may want to pursue is: “Was Mel Gibson being followed that night? If so, by whom? And, had he been followed in the weeks prior to this latest incident? In other words, was Mel Gibson aware that he was being followed and was that part of the reason he made the mistake in judgment that caused him to be pulled over for speeding?”

Third Set of Questions–What is the name of the Jewish deputy Sheriff (or whatever his title was) who apparently (according to news reports) was on the scene the night Mel Gibson was stopped for speeding and arrested for DUI? How many Jewish deputy Sheriffs are there in LA County? (Probably not too many). What are the odds that one of the few Jewish deputy Sheriffs in LA County would be on duty this particular night and specifically assigned to traffic duty on PCH? Was this particular deputy Sheriff actually on duty? Or was he off-duty? Was he the individual that was following Mel Gibson (if that turns out to be the case)? Did this Jewish deputy Sheriff have any direct contact with Mel Gibson during the confrontation with Gibson after he was stopped? Did the Jewish deputy Sheriff say anything to Mel Gibson, that may have provoked someone like Mel Gibson, who had been drinking to blurt out something as stupid as the words that apparently came out of Mel Gibson’s mouth? Did the Jewish deputy Sheriff say anything to Mel Gibson about Mel Gibson’s father? Did he say anything else to Mel Gibson prior to Mel Gibson’s so-called tirade? Did this Jewish deputy Sheriff or the other deputies involved already know that Mel Gibson had been drinking that night before he was stopped? In other words, had they already been tipped off that Mel Gibson was in Moon Shadows drinking and about to get into his car and head home on PCH? If so, who tipped them off? Or was the stop of Mel Gibson merely part of a routine drunk driving stop in which the deputies had no idea who was driving? Assuming there was a Jewish deputy Sheriff on hand during the stop and arrest (again, as news reports indicate), which deputy Sheriff made the written report about the incident containing the anti-Semitic slur? Is it the policy of the Sheriff Department that arresting officers write down statements that otherwise have nothing to do with speeding and/or driving while drunk? Was there some law enforcement reason for writing down such utterances? Does such an utterance actually rise to the level of a hate crime? Or was there a reasonable question in the mind of the deputy filling out his report so that he felt it was reasonable to include the offending utterance in the report? Or was there another reason to include such apparently extraneous language in the report? In other words, was someone there on the scene urging that such words be included in the report, because their interest was in getting that information out about Mel Gibson as opposed to the actual law breaking (speeding and drunk driving)?

Fourth Set of Questions–Then, of course, we come to the questions about the person who apparently broke the story in the media, Harvey Levin – who tipped off TMZ.com’s Harvey Levin about the Mel Gibson utterance? Did it not appear to anyone else that Harvey Levin was exceedingly vicious in his reporting on the Mel Gibson incident? Didn’t he seem personally involved and a bit over the top in that reporting? Didn’t he seem to be much more interested in the anti-Semitic part of the allegations than the speeding and drunk driving? Is it not true that Harvey Levin was formerly a television legal correspondent and that when blogging came into fashion, he went out on his own for the purpose of working as an independent investigative reporter focusing on law related matters (thus creating and promoting his TMZ.com blog site)? Doesn’t this give Harvey Levin a motive to break a big story about a well-known celebrity being an anti-Semite and thereby promoting his relatively new career as an independent investigative journalist and at the same time, become a hero to those in the Jewish community who were already convinced that Mel Gibson was anti-Semitic? Is it not possible that Harvey Levin had a hand in making this all happen? That he was one of the more pro-active members of the Hollywood Jewish community that was already convinced that Mel Gibson was anti-Semitic and was actively looking for additional proof in order to convince everyone else? Maybe Harvey Levin had arranged for Mel Gibson to be followed that night and other nights, so that he would have a shot at breaking such a story – after all, this is Hollywood, where paparazzi regularly follow celebrities to get photos of their late night activities? Or, is it possible that a paparazzi, personally known to Harvey Levin was the person at Moon Shadows that night who took the photo of Mel Gibson and the ladies, then tipped off Harvey Levin that Mel Gibson was leaving Moon Shadows after having had a few drinks? And, then Harvey Levin contacted either the Sheriff’s Department, a friend in the Sheriff’s Department or even the Jewish deputy Sheriff who was supposedly on the scene that night? How did this all happen? And, who was involved? We clearly do not have all of the story and we cannot rely on Harvey Levin to give us all of the story. He seems to be interested in only one part of the story – the part that could destroy Mel Gibson’s career (i.e., take away his livelihood).

Fifth Set of Questions–Has enough evidence actually been developed to prove that Mel Gibson is anti-Semitic? We’ve already noted the first and second elements of the case against Mel Gibson (1) apparently his father is anti-Semitic, so in the eyes of some that at least makes Mel Gibson suspect; and (2) he made a movie with one scene not only depicting Jews in a negative manner but as “Christ-killers”, one of the most offensive things non-Jews can do (at least in the view of some Jews). On the other hand, it could be argued that Mel Gibson, apparently a sincere Catholic and devout believer, was merely presenting as accurate a portrait of the death of Christ as he could, based on the only available evidence of the incident – The Bible. Once again, many Jewish filmmakers have from time to time portrayed non-Jewish people in a negative manner in motion pictures (see my book “Patterns of Bias in Motion Picture Content”). Would it be reasonable for anyone to assume that such Jewish filmmakers were deeply prejudiced just because of such negative portrayals of non-Jews in a powerful communications medium like film? Such a principle at least needs to be applied evenly across the board, if that is the case. And, the truth is that many more negative portrayals of non-Jews appear in Hollywood films as compared to negative portrayals of Jews, thus, such an accounting could not reflect favorably on Jewish filmmakers (i.e., it would have to be admitted that they are deeply prejudiced). The apparent third element in the case against Mel Gibson is his reported blurting out that “Jews are responsible for all wars” or something to that effect on the night of his arrest. Other than being false and absurd on its face, we have to wonder why Mel Gibson would blurt something like that out in the context of his DUI arrest, even if he believed it? That’s where the previously raised question as to whether Mel Gibson was provoked comes in. It would make more sense if Mel Gibson was somewhat drunk (apparently an undisputed fact) and simply responding in kind to someone who provoked him with a similarly offensive and stupid statement, something like two junior high school kids arguing with each other and he was responding with what he thought was a witty comeback at the time, without realizing that taken out of context, some people would believe he actually believed what he said. Under these circumstances (1) the man was drunk, (2) he’s been under a lot of pressure lately, (3) all of the major Hollywood studios had refused to help him finance and produce his movie (“The Passion”), (4) once he found a small distributor with little clout for collecting from exhibitors to distribute his move, he had to sue the largest exhibitor (Regal) who allegedly refused to remit some $40 million dollars of the film’s earnings that were due to be paid; (5) thus he had some anger, but in addition to drinking and driving that night, he apparently made the intellectual error of directing that anger toward a broader group than the Hollywood insiders who he felt he had good reason to be angry with, not because of their status as Jews, but because of their shabby treatment of him. So, the people who are assuming that a person who’s drunk always tells the truth and we therefore know the real Mel Gibson are on rather shaky ground. We really don’t know whether Mel Gibson really meant what he allegedly said that night or whether he was provoked, whether he was just making a stupid comeback or whether he was just being drunk and stupid. This element combined with the other two elements of the case against Mel Gibson does not sound like a very convincing case for anti-Semitism. Yet, some in the Hollywood Jewish community would destroy his career over this incident. Fair? Appropriate?

Sixth Set of Questions–Is the remedy being urged by some in the Hollywood Jewish community (i.e., let’s not every work with this “jerk” again) the appropriate remedy? As we have seen, the evidence that Mel Gibson is actually an anti-Semite is somewhat weak, yet for some it’s all that’s needed to blackball the actor/director. Of course, one of the reasons why some have jumped on the bandwagon to blackball Mel Gibson is that there is a nearly one hundred year history in Hollywood of blacklisting or blackballing outsiders and others whenever the Hollywood insider community feels it is necessary or in their interest. In other words, one of the reasons why such calls are being made is that it has been done in the past and it works. As confirmed in my book “Who Really Controls Hollywood” the Hollywood-based U.S. film business is controlled by a small group of politically liberal, not very religious Jewish males of European heritage and this Hollywood insiders group has often discriminated against Hollywood outsiders during the 100 year history of Hollywood (see the chapter on “The Hollywood Outsiders” in my upcoming book “Hollywood Wars – How Hollywood Insiders Gained and Maintain Illegitimate Control Over the Film Industry”). In fact, many other Hollywood outsiders have been called anti-Semitic because such an allegation makes it more difficult for the outsider to work in the Hollywood community (see discussions relating to the treatment of D.W.Griffith, Joseph Kennedy, William Randolph Hearst, Orson Welles, Howard Hughes and Kirk Kerkorian. Mel Gibson is just another Hollywood outsider being attacked for the same reasons – he did something that offended the Hollywood insider community. Never mind that there should not even be an “insider” community for an important and powerful communications industry such as film and the fact that there is detracts from the effectiveness of our nation’s democracy (see “Hollywood’s Disdain for Democracy”) but if Mel Gibson was actually accused of a “hate crime” he would at least get a trial with a jury of his peers and an opportunity to defend himself. In this instance, the narrowly-defined Hollywood insider community is acting as the judge and jury (or lynch mob) and seeking to destroy the man’s career (i.e., take away his livelihood) without any of our country’s constitutional protections against injustice. That is a shameful act. Even if convicted of a hate crime the remedy would not be as devastating.

Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to recognize that anti-Semitism, if in fact it exists in the mind of Mel Gibson, in most instances is not an incurable disease and that if the more moderate members of the Hollywood film community reached out to Mel Gibson, maybe whatever wrong thinking is there could be corrected with education and reason. And, then Mel Gibson could rejoin the Hollywood film community, we could have all learned a great lesson and Mel Gibson could continue to make films – that would be good for him, all of those in the Hollywood film community who benefit from that and all of the rest of us. Wouldn’t that be better than trying to crucify him?

These are just some of the questions I have. I hope these get answered in the days ahead.

John Cones

Re(2): Mel Gibson: Set Up/Provoked?
Posted on October 8, 2006 at 03:49:42 PM by Libre

I have not been at this forum for a while but would like to make a comment on this post. I started having the same questions as John Cones when Mel was arrested and his incident promoted as anti-semitic so blatantly by some. The question I have for Mr. Cones is what to do if Mr. Gibson or anyone else is consistently and in the long term dealing with people who make unfairness and inappropriateness their modus operandi, who have no regard for ethical ways of doing things? Do you think they will ever listen to reason and morality? If not, the solutions will be much more difficult it would seem. Maybe you have answered this question elsewhere, but in this article I did not see it.

Jackie Mason Defends Mel Gibson
Posted on August 7, 2006 at 04:02:15 PM by John Cones

Jackie Mason defends Mel Gibson also questioning the contention that being drunk acts like a truth serum

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gct84oE5DEE


http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

John Cones

Joel Stein Attacks Mel Gibson
Posted on August 11, 2006 at 06:51:28 PM by James Jaeger

>TIME MAGAZINE
>Maybe We Should Just Make Mel Happy
Attacking anti-Semitism hasn't got us far in 3,000 years. It's time for some changes
>By JOEL STEIN

Joel Stein Wrote:
>Most times, when someone spouts off about how awful the Jews are, I blow it off as ignorance. If the guy just got to know us, he would totally dig us. We're funny and warm and smart and totally self-effacing. We send Ben Stiller to Iran for a few weeks, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will be opening up Noah's bagel shops in all the strip malls in Tehran. The only problem is that with just 0.02% of the world's population, we can't do nearly as many personal appearances as we'd like. That's why we took over the media.


James Jaeger wrote:
At first one would think it's now politically correct to have the gall to state this. But is it only PC if you're a Jew. Anyone else that says it is an anti-Semite.

>But Mel Gibson knows us--personally. He's been in Hollywood for more than 20 years, virtually surrounded by Jews. If Mel doesn't like us, maybe it's finally time to stop blaming everyone else for the bigotry and scapegoating and start to look at ourselves.

This starts out being a good idea, given the fact that no one's perfect and it takes two to tango. But read on . . .

> As the saying goes, If people hate you for 1,000 years, you can blame them; if you're persecuted for 2,000 years, maybe you're unlucky; but if they still want to kill you after 3,000 years, you have to ask yourself if you're doing something wrong.

Ha ha ha. Take the argument to extremism ad absurdum so no one pays any attention to material such as that found at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/bginfo.htm
This is SOP on how Hollywood's watchdogs' "handle" black PR.

>So we Jews are going to have to make some slight adjustments to get on the world's good side.

Maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea if many did this.

>No more smiting our enslavers with locusts or refusing to convert during Inquisitions or giving ourselves Oscars for Holocaust documentaries.

Ha ha ha. I don't know about the former, but everyone's tired of Holocaust movies and documentaries, especially the ones that don't bother to mention the other 8 million people that were killed but just mention the 6 million Jews, endlessly.

>We've got to up our likability, get on people's good sides.

Well doing the above would be a start.

>The first thing we have to do is drop the Chosen People™ marketing bit.

Yes, that would be a good idea Joel.

>It's not working. Not only is it not scaring people off as it was designed to do, but it comes off as sort of arrogant.

Let's just say it comes off as arrogant.

>I'm suggesting we change our official slogan to Just One of the Guys™ or the People Who Believe in Most of Your Bible™ or even the People Who, If History Is a Guide, Are Not Among God's Favorites.™ We'll need to get Karl Rove involved.

Sounds good to me Joel.

>You know how a lot of Jewish performers change their names so they don't offend anyone with all that Jewishness? Emmanuel Goldberg changed his name to Edward G. Robinson, and Jonathan Leibowitz threw us all off the trail with Jon Stewart. How about if all the rest of the Jews do that too? I'm considering Joe Crockett. I also like the sound of Johnny Slayer. Plus, coming up with 14 million new names will be a kind of WPA project for all the Jewish writers. Because we have to back off the controlling-the-media thing a tad.

Most of the people I know are thinking about changing their names TO Jewish names so they have a chance of getting employment in Hollywood.

>We could do ourselves a lot of good by stopping our whole Protocols of the Elders of Zion plan. It's been more than 100 years since the book has been out, and we have yet to come close to our goal of (I'm using the Iranian translation here) "extracting from the hands of the Lord many stars and galaxies." In fact, we have to yet to extract one single star or galaxy. Let's drop it! One of our methods of controlling the universe, according to the book, was to get people hooked on alcohol. And look how that backfired last week.

Well if this plan is so bogus, how come the show, CONSPIRACIES, or whatever it's called, has done de-bunking segments on just about every known conspiracy yet conveniently omits this one?

>Also, we need to stop killing other people's messiahs. O.K., it was actually the Romans who killed Jesus, but we were there.

Doing what? According to Mel's movie THE PASSION, you were egging the Romans on.

>And even if it had been us, you'd think the Catholics would thank us, since otherwise they'd have churches today full of statues of a bald old guy clutching his heart in hospice care, and who's showing up every Sunday for that?

Huh?

>But still, it's better if we stay far away from any messiahs. Even if a guy clearly isn't the Messiah but is just saying he is--walk away. There's nothing to gain there.

Cute.

>Until Gibson told his arresting officers that "the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world," I didn't realize that was our thing. If it is, let's drop it.

I though the title of this article was making Mel HAPPY?

>I would have thought that the guy who made Braveheart, The Patriot, Gallipoli and When We Were Soldiers and has directed some of the most violent, angry scenes in cinema would love war.
But I guess he doesn't.

Well that's WHY he loves the Jews he's surrounded by: they start so many of them.

>And most of all, we have to stop this finger wagging at Gibson. Endeavor agent Ari Emanuel has written that no studio should work with him anymore. Bad call. We don't want to get in a battle here. In a popularity contest between Mel Gibson and Jews, it doesn't look good for the Jews.

I wouldn't say that, the MPAA studio/distributors dominate over 90% of the distribution channels.

>Better we laugh this off, maybe respond with a gibe at the Australians, like how they make simplistic, overly fruit-forward red wines. Then we all have a chuckle and subtly suggest another dead language for him to teach himself for his next movie. We've got to give that guy as much busywork as possible.

Sounds like you have given yourself a lot of busy work as well Joel: writing covertly anti-Christian article for the media which you "took over."

James Jaeger

Source of TIME article:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1223357,00.html

Re(1): Joel Stein Attacks Mel Gibson
Posted on October 8, 2006 at 05:40:28 PM by Libre

Reading Stein's monologue for the first time I have to say that aside from being radical mockery and avoiding any honest discussion of the issues (meaning it is profoundly dishonest), ultimately it is a piece of deep cynicism, providing no scope at all for people with genuine questions about these issues to get any answers or solace.

Re(1): Joel Stein Attacks Mel Gibson
Posted on August 12, 2006 at 05:47:30 PM by Kamandi

So are you suggesting that the Old Testament be re-written so that the Jews AREN'T the Chosen People?

But wouldn't that imply that Christ isn't the Messiah, Jim?

Overall, it doesn't sound like a very reasonable request.

I notice that no one's asking Christians to reconfigure their ideology such that everyone who not in agreement with them doesn't burn eternally.

Spike Lee
Posted on August 14, 2006 at 09:00:27 PM by LAX

From The Angriest Auteur
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/movies/profiles/19144/index.html

Even when he is the aggressor, he is the victim.

Lee says there is "a law you cannot have any Jewish person who is not a hundred percent honest" in a film, "because if they are not, you're anti- Semitic and perpetuating stereotypes."

There is, however, a fair amount of ground between a hundred percent honest and the moneygrubbing, fast- talking caricatures Mo and Josh Flatbush, the villains of Lee's Mo' Better Blues, who got Lee on the shit list of various critics and Jewish organizations. "B'nai Brith and the Anti- Defamation League, they were on my ass," he says. "You don't know what it is for someone to get on your ass until B'nai Brith and Anti- Defamation League … You know that shit, when they're on you, you know it."

Eventually Lee placated his persecutors by writing an op-ed piece for the Times, but the whole thing still makes him mad when he thinks about it. And the truth is, he's not sorry about portraying Mo and Josh Flatbush as Jewish bloodsuckers, feeding off the talents of black musicians. "Here's the thing, though: It's more than being a stereotype," says Lee. "In the history of American music, there have not been Jewish people exploiting black musicians? In the history of music? How is that being stereotypical? For me, that's like saying, like the NBA is predominantly black. Now, if that makes me anti-Semitic ..." For a minute, he actually engages and sort of laughs. "I'm not writing any more op-ed pieces," he says. "I did it once. I'm not doing it again. Seriously. I'm not doing it again."

Jewtopia: Conspiracy Theory #1: Jews Control Hollywood
Posted on August 24, 2006 at 03:31:56 PM by LAX

The myth put out by the Jewish-dominated studios is always that Jews are the good guys, Arabs or Christians are the bad guys. Jews don't control anything, WASPS control everything. But even as the truth leaks out -- that Jews do in fact dominate almost every aspect of Hollywood from the top -- one can watch with amusement how the industry's defense machinery moves into "handle" the PR situation. It does this almost automatically by secreting apologist entertainers and comedians (many of them Jewish) to dismiss the whole idea as a joke. Their strategy is: make a joke out of "Jewish domination of Hollywood" and the public will eventually a) laugh-off and devalue the issue, b) reject the reality and eventually, c) become bored of the entire subject, leaving Hollywood, once again, free to vilify other ethnic groups and continue with its overt or covert social and political agenda. Social and political agenda?! Nonsense, say the Hollywood apologists such as Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, "movies are merely entertainment.

Check out this classic example...

http://www.jewtopiabook.com/index2.html
http://www.jewtopiabook.com/preview/login.asp?pic=8

Yes, we do control the Movie Studios. All Jews please report to the World Conspiracy Headquarters immediately (don’t forget to bring your pass code.)

Re(1): Jewtopia: Conspiracy Theory #1: Jews Control Hollywood
Posted on September 3, 2006 at 08:52:00 PM by James Jaeger

I did indeed write the below statement, however my remarks have been misinterpreted by LAX, partly due to my own poor wording.(1)

First of all John Cones is entirely correct: Jews (in general) do NOT control Hollywood. I fully agree with this observable fact and always have. My statement: "But even as the truth leaks out -- that Jews do in fact dominate almost every aspect of Hollywood from the top" should not be construed to mean that I feel Jews IN GENERAL dominate or control Hollywood. Again, in re-reading this sentence I can see that I didn't make myself very clear because my use of the word "Jews" IS too broad and I'm sorry. What I should have said, and what I hereby revise this sentence to be is the following:

But even as the truth leaks out -- that almost every aspect of Hollywood is in fact dominated by liberal Jewish males who occupy most of the top posts of the studios -- one can watch with amusement how the industry's defense machinery moves into "handle" the PR situation.

I maintain that the following two sentences are entirely different:

1. Jews control Hollywood.
2. Hollywood is controlled by Jews.

In sentence number 1, we have a false situation because Jews do NOT control Hollywood. That is, the word Jews implies all Jews or Jews in general. They do NOT control Hollywood

But in sentence number 2, Hollywood is controlled by Jews, we have truth. In this case, the usage of the word Jews is not a BROAD use but a NARROW use. If one were to walk into any of the studios and look in the top executive offices they would see Jews sitting in there at desks. There might be 21 Jews sitting in the top positions of the 7 MPAA studios. But this is a FAR cry from the idea that there are 14,000,000 Jews (the Jewish population of the world) sitting in there or in some other way dictating control of the studios or dominating Hollywood.

Thus the sentence Hollywood is dominated by Jews is correct but not Jews control Hollywood. When Hollywood is the subject and Jews are just a modifying participle, the sentence is correct, however when we try and make JEWS the SUBJECT, and Hollywood a modifying participle, we get into trouble because then we are trying to make a statement about JEWS, not a statement about HOLLYWOOD. Neither John Cones or I, nor FIRM are interested in addressing the broad SUBJECT of Jews. What Jews in general do or don't do, is not an issue nor is it a subject of FIRM.

There IS another aspect to this issue of whether the broader Jewish community through organizations such as the ADL have any control or domination over studios or Hollywood and I will address this later.

I hope this clarifies things once and for all.

James Jaeger


-------------------
(1) "The myth put out by the Jewish-dominated studios is always that Jews are the good guys, Arabs or Christians are the bad guys. Jews don't control anything, WASPS control everything. But even as the truth leaks out -- that Jews do in fact dominate almost every aspect of Hollywood from the top -- one can watch with amusement how the industry's defense machinery moves into "handle" the PR situation. It does this almost automatically by secreting apologist entertainers and comedians (many of them Jewish) to dismiss the whole idea as a joke. Their strategy is: make a joke out of "Jewish domination of Hollywood" and the public will eventually a) laugh-off and devalue the issue, b) reject the reality and eventually, c) become bored of the entire subject, leaving Hollywood, once again, free to vilify other ethnic groups and continue with its overt or covert social and political agenda. Social and political agenda?! Nonsense, say the Hollywood apologists such as Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, "movies are merely entertainment."

Re(1): Jewtopia: Conspiracy Theory #1: Jews Control Hollywood
Posted on August 25, 2006 at 12:59:16 PM by John Cones

To whomever is posting at this site under the pseudonym "LAX":

I've worked for many years to make what I consider an important distinction about who really controls Hollywood and your post ignores that distinction. The truth is that Hollywood is controlled by a small group of politically liberal, not very religious Jewish males of European heritage, not Jews generally. No where in my writings about Hollywood control do I make any reference to "Jews" in the more general sense. And no where in my writing do I state, suggest or imply that the small group that really does control Hollywood engage in the hundreds of unfair, unethical, unconscionable, anti-competitive, predatory and illegal business practices because they are Jewish. These distinctions are important because (1) based on my research, this is a more accurate and therefore more truthful statement than that being posted at this site by you and (2) making such a distinction helps make it clear that the entire Jewish community is not being lumped together for purposes of criticizing the business practices of a few. In other words, most thoughtful people will recognize that my statement is clearly not anti-Semitic, whereas your statement is at least ambiguous in that regard. That makes your statement, whether in an attention-grabbing headline or in the text of the materials you cite, inflammatory. It is not our intention here to inflame unreasonable reactions and if that's not your intention, please revise your postings to more accurately represent the truth.

Thanks,

John Cones

Re(2): Jewtopia: Conspiracy Theory #1: Jews Control Hollywood
Posted on August 26, 2006 at 12:26:29 PM by LAX

I think you missed the point of the post, as usual.

I believe this is a James Jaeger quote...

The myth put out by the Jewish-dominated studios is always that Jews are the good guys, Arabs or Christians are the bad guys. Jews don't control anything, WASPS control everything. But even as the truth leaks out -- that Jews do in fact dominate almost every aspect of Hollywood from the top -- one can watch with amusement how the industry's defense machinery moves into "handle" the PR situation. It does this almost automatically by secreting apologist entertainers and comedians (many of them Jewish) to dismiss the whole idea as a joke. Their strategy is: make a joke out of "Jewish domination of Hollywood" and the public will eventually a) laugh-off and devalue the issue, b) reject the reality and eventually, c) become bored of the entire subject, leaving Hollywood, once again, free to vilify other ethnic groups and continue with its overt or covert social and political agenda. Social and political agenda?! Nonsense, say the Hollywood apologists such as Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, "movies are merely entertainment.

Personal Insults and False Statements
Posted on August 27, 2006 at 12:12:23 PM by John Cones

To the individual who neither has the courage to use his real name or to avoid resorting to personal insults:

When someone makes a post on this site, it is very likely that they will make more than a single point. The author may have an overall "point" that is of most interest to him or her, but readers may choose to focus on one or more other points contained in the same statement. That's exactly what happened here. You had an overall "point" that was of most interest to you. I chose on the other hand to focus my response on one of your sub-points that I thought was both false and misleading (i.e., that "Jews control Hollywood"). Again, in my view that sub-point is false and misleading because it indicates that Jews generally are somehow involved in and have influence in Hollywood. That is simply not true. There are millions of Jewish men and women throughout the world who have little, if any, interest or influence in Hollywood, thus it is false and misleading to state, suggest or imply that Jews generally are in any way responsible for what happens in Hollywood. The people who are primarily responsible for much of what happens in Hollywood form a very small group of politically liberal, not very religious Jewish males of European heritage. Their behavior in no way is typical of nor representative of the much broader Jewish community. My focus on one of your points, that I believe to be false and misleading, for the above stated reasons, does not mean as you suggest that I missed any of your other points including your main "point" ("the point") as you called it. You are free to try to focus people's attention on a broader perspective if you like. But you can't come to this site and make a false and misleading statement about Hollywood and expect not to be called out on it.

Best wishes,

John Cones

Client Film Wins Awards
Posted on September 1, 2006 at 04:35:06 PM by John Cones

Client Film Wins Awards

One of my client films (“The Keeper”) portraying the life and times of the 11th Century Persian Poet/Mathematician/Philosopher Omar Khayyam, and investor financed through a member-managed LLC offering, has won two awards from the World Academy of Arts, Literature and Media. One is for Best Directing of an Independent Film and another for Costume design. The awards will be handed out on October 27th , 2006 in Budapest, Hungary. The film’s theatrical run ended in movie theaters in 14 cities six months ago. The film’s Special Edition DVD will now be available for sale through 2600 Walmart Superstores across the US starting Tuesday, September 5th. It can also be rented after September 5th at Hollywood Video Stores (www.hollywoodvideo.com), Blockbuster Video Stores (www.blockbuster.com), and online at (www.Netflix.com). Additionally, the Music Soundtrack CD is exclusively available on line through our the production company’s official website at www.keepermovie.com. The film’s producer/director is Kayvan Mashayekh.

John Cones

Anti-Semitism still America's dark secret
Posted on September 7, 2006 at 01:00:51 PM by Steve

Anti-Semitism still America's dark secret

By Steven Alan Carr

Gibson

Just as news was breaking of Mel Gibson's Tequila-induced tirade against the Jews during his drunken-driving arrest, as fate would have such moments, Variety was publishing a full-page ad from Comedy Central lauding an Emmy nomination for the controversial animated series South Park.

"C'mon Jews, the ad urges. Show them who really runs Hollywood." But rather than allude to the series' controversial episode, "The Passion of the Jew", which satirizes Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ", the ad refers to "Trapped in the Closet", another controversial episode satirizing Scientology. Earlier this year, Comedy Central canceled a scheduled rerun of the Scientology episode, purportedly under duress from actor and Scientologist Tom Cruise.

The two incidents both reveal and replenish the ongoing storehouse of a distinctly American obsession: allegations of Jewish control over Hollywood. Of course, the Variety ad makes an ironic reference to such allegations. And the Gibson incident does not so much reveal a belief in Jewish control over Hollywood as it shows how someone prominent in Hollywood still believes in Jewish world domination.

In "Hollywood and Anti-Semitism: A Cultural History Up to World War II", published in 2001, I coined the term "Hollywood Question" to describe this storehouse of statements, ideas and half-truths concerning Jews. "Hollywood Question" is derivative of the earlier, arcane, though better known "Jewish Question", which interrogated important matters at the turn of the last century like whether Jews should have the right to vote or own land. The born-again Hollywood version politely asks whether Jews should wield such enormous control over the emergent and powerful apparatuses of mass influence, given their supposed penchant for acting as, well, Jews.

In "Hollywood and Anti-Semitism", I documented just a few iterations of the Hollywood Question. And Mel Gibson is hardly alone in modern Hollywood. As recently as 1988, when MCA/Universal released Martin Scorsese's film "The Last Temptation of Christ", the Rev. Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association wrote a letter of protest to the company asking, "How many Christians are in the top positions of MCA/Universal?"

Dolly Parton once explained a failed TV series about a gospel singer as a result of having to face people in Hollywood who are Jewish. And it's a frightening thing for them to promote Christianity." After learning that the Riverside Police Department had visited a Rodney King-style beating upon Mexican migrant workers, Marlon Brando blamed the incident on Hollywood Jews who perpetuated the ethnic stereotypes that led to this violence.

Thus, when conservative columnist Cal Thomas weighs in on the Gibson affair (Journal Gazette, Aug. 4), he apparently remains oblivious to this history, even in the face of Gibson's being slated to produce a miniseries on the Holocaust for ABC, an off again-on again arrangement for the network. Instead, Thomas minimizes the significance of these remarks, noting that "no honest person can say he or she has never felt bigotry against a person or group of people," and wondering aloud why commentators care more about Gibson's slurs against Jews than the "offense to his wife and children" for carousing in a bar until 2 a.m. The incident then becomes a pretext for Thomas to rail about Hollywood's bigotry toward "Catholics and conservative Protestants."

The allegation of Jewish control, of course, is bunk. That Jews always act as Jews in a secular context has as much to do with Jewish religious identity as Mel Gibson's driving drunk has to do with Traditional Catholicism. The latter sect rejects modern reforms to Catholicism implemented by the Second Vatican Council beginning in the 1960s, and it is the version of Catholicism with which Gibson reportedly identifies.

Yet the question of whether Jews can behave themselves within secular society persists because of a mind-bending combination of historical anti-Semitism; both legitimate and irrational unease with an emergent modern society; and, of course, in a culture in which Protestantism appears transparently natural and normal, the ease with which the American image of the Jew provides a convenient palimpsest for Christian and non-Christian alike to inscribe upon their deepest fears and worries.

If Jews maintain a higher profile within Hollywood than other groups, that is because the film industry, in its infancy at the early 20th century, was one of the few places where Jews could find employment while they were being barred from such fields as law, finance, top-flight universities or even from getting a room at a hotel.

Instead of acknowledging the shameful tolerance for anti-Semitism that existed within the U.S. before the end of World War II, some prominent Americans even today prefer to hide their persistent ambivalence toward both Jews and popular culture (in some quarters, a redundant distinction) by cloaking their Hollywood Question within the more polite and acceptable view of Christianity victimized by both the commerce and liberal politics of Hollywood.

The rigidly literal correctness of this position fails to consider an alternative: That while alcohol-induced fogs might bring upon politically incorrect views of Jewish intent, a preponderance of evidence would suggest that if one is anti-Semitic, one is much more likely to act as an anti-Semite. In producing the highest-grossing independent film in history, Gibson relied upon a discredited and anti-Semitic retelling of the story of Jesus. He adheres to an ultraconservative religious sect that rejects the Second Vatican Council's call to not hold Jews responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.

And while one cannot hold Gibson responsible for the views of his father, the fact that Gibson never fully distanced himself from the blatant Holocaust denial of his father Hutton Gibson has been cause for concern among many Jews.

Like others before him, Gibson already has embarked down the predictable trail of apologies and redemptive theatrics. The incident will soon be forgotten. A history of genocide already has shown that anti-Semitism goes way beyond any one person's individual weakness or failing. Meanwhile, the Hollywood Question will continue to churn, occasionally surfacing for the next brouhaha, but mostly submerged beneath a history that many Americans while sober seem content to forget.
Steven Alan Carr is an associate professor and director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Communication at Indiana University-Purdue University, Fort Wayne. He is author of "Hollywood and Anti-Semitism: A Cultural History Up to World War II". He wrote this for The Journal Gazette.

Re(1): Anti-Semitism still America's dark secret
Posted on September 10, 2006 at 01:10:44 PM by John Cones

I'm assuming that the author of this article did not post the article at this site, but that it was posted by someone else. In any case, it is interesting that someone like the author would take a handful of instances scattered out over a signficant period of years and assume from those few instances that there is a "distintly American obsession (with) allegations of Jewish control over Hollywood". This is particularly interesting for those of us at this site who have for years maintained that "Jews do not control Hollywood", that control is vested in the hands of a very small group of politically liberal, not very religious, Jewish males of European heritage". This latter description of the Hollywood control group makes clear that there is no allegation relating to Jews generally being made. Thus, the assumption being made by the article's author that someone is alleging that "Jews can't behave themselves" is misdirected. No one here at FIRM has ever said such a thing, so there's no sense in arguing with someone's straw man. Further, the definition of the Hollywood control group used by FIRM also does not state, suggest or imply that the people who control Hollywood engage in the business practices they choose to engage in because they are Jewish. That false connection is not part of our writing either. Thus, this author is talking about someone else, and is simply revealing the fact that he is unaware of our more accurate description of what is really going on in Hollywood.

Finally, by stating, however, that "If Jews maintain a higher profile within Hollywood than other gorups, that is because the film industry, in its infancy at the early 20th century, was one of the few place where Jews could find employment..." is, in fact, an admission that FIRM's position is correct, and a logically false argument based on the assumption that two wrongs make a right. In other words, this author is arguing that since some people about 100 years ago, discriminated against some other people of Jewish descent, then it is ok, 100 years later, for persons of Jewish descent, working at high levels in the film industry partly due to nepotism, to discriminate against all non-Jews today. That is a very specious argument. The ugly flip side of that argument is that since it apparently is ok for some Jews to discriminate against all non-Jews in the Hollywood-based film industry, then it must be ok for non-Jews in other industries to discriminate against Jews elsewhere. I don't beileve that is what is appropriate. All discrimination where ever it occurs needs to stop. I happen to work in the film industry, thus I am concerned about what I observe in this industry. And, what I see here is that a small segment of a national minority has discriminated against all others for more than 100 years in the film industry. That's wrong!

John Cones

More Excessive Salaries
Posted on September 29, 2006 at 12:07:07 PM by John Cones

The Hollywood-based U.S. film industry has a long history of paying excessive salaries and other forms of compensation to top studio executives who are Hollywood insiders. That history is traced from the early years in the upcoming book "Hollywood Wars -- How Insiders Gained and Maintain Illegitimate Control Over the Film Industry" excerpts of which have been previously posted here at the FIRM site. The most recent example is the $29.3 million in salary and bonus for fiscal 2006 given to Peter Chernin at 20th Century Fox (see Variety.com, September 28, 2006). The investor Advisory service Proxy Governance, Inc. stated that "The compensation paid to Chernin is out of line relative to that paid to peer executives." On the other hand, this sort of thing is not new in the "winner-takes-most" economic system rampant in Hollywood.

John Cones

Our Violent, Drugged "Society"
Posted on October 7, 2006 at 01:42:14 AM by James Jaeger

I don't know how many times I have posted something like this post over the years, but here I go again - reminded of the culture of violence we live in that has produced yet three (3) MORE killings in our nation's schools in just one (1) week! Abominable!

I maintain that the endless violence and dysfunctional situations portrayed in Hollywood-based feature motion pictures since I was a kid – the 1950s and 1960s – to the present has escalated so horrendously that most kids today are experiencing an increasingly blurred line between what’s moral and what’s not. Human life, as portrayed in the movies, is little more to some of them than protoplasm to be blown away in an action picture. Hollywood studios, producers and writers have so inundated the culture with violence and gun play, it’s not only adulterating the kids’ ethics, but restimulating the population of the mentally insane/unstable who now wander the nation’s streets or quietly live next door.

My father used to be a psychiatrist in charge of the violent male building at the Norristown State Mental Hospital. In the late 1950’s there were thousands of mental cases institutionalized and under his watch. Today, if you visit Norristown, and I have, there are only a few hundred under care. Where are all now? Most of them are out on the streets (or living next door) doped up on Fluoxetine, Prozac or Phenobarb and watching violent Hollywood movies. If you ask me, this is a recipe for disaster, an explosive combination -- and it’s no wonder we are now experiencing what’s happening in society.

I would be very interested in seeing a medical report on the past 100 school shootings to ascertain what percentage of the killers, whether adults or children, were on pharmaceuticals when they went on their rampage. I will bet the percentage is significant. But note the media doesn’t come anywhere close to reporting on this aspect of the situation because so much of their advertising revenue comes from the multi-billion pharmaceutical companies.

I don’t know what the solution is as far as the mentally ill, but the movie industry isn’t helping the situation by endlessly exploiting violence just to make a buck. In my book this is grossly irresponsible and they should be held accountable for some part of the culture of violence they are helping create.

At this point, after some 100 school shootings and over 250 kids ruthlessly murdered, I have to seriously question whether a parent really loves their child if they permit him or her to watch too much TV or movies. I will also go so far as to say I seriously wonder how much they love their children when they are willing to take the risk of sending them to public school, or even private school when the home schooling alternative is available. Or look at it this way: home schooling is the ONLY way to go, if one is too “busy” or lazy to continue to do nothing about the movie industry’s irresponsibility or the media’s conflict of interest with the drug companies and the child-killers that use their products.

James Jaeger

Tube Disease - the Cure
Posted on October 24, 2006 at 04:22:37 PM by James Jaeger

Here's what I am doing to control and prevent TUBE DISEASE - our childrens' addiction to insipid and violent movies, games and TV shows imbued with hostile and obstreperous attitudes, attitudes that can only be conceived of by alcohol-drug-sex addicted writers and idiots that pervade Hollywood.

Yesterday I removed two TVs from our house and placed them in the trash. They were GONE this morning. My only regret is that I didn't SMASH them before placing them in the trash. As soon as the new ARTS & CRAFTS ROOM in the house is done and outfitted with work areas and hobby supplies, the X-Box will be placed in the trash as well -- this time it will be SMASHED first. X-Box and video games are often far worse than the movies because they systematically train kids to kill. Look at the violence in the schools.

I had my Internet service provider change the passcode for access thus there can be NO Internet unless kids specifically get the passcode from a parent.

Lastly, the crass and obstreperous product that spews from DISNEY CHANNEL, NICKELODEON, CARTOON CHANNEL and WB-type outlets, as well as other child-targeted crap, will soon be replaced with a library of classic and contemporary films. Films which I will include in this library are films I have personally screened over the years and which I have been steadily purchasing legal copies of in anticipation of this day. I already have installed a HUGE bookshelf in the ARTS & CRAFTS ROOM and I am in the process of stocking it with wholesome, good movies that relate VALUES and MORALS to kids and/or teach some valuable lesson about life and/or people and/or the Universe in which we live. I have about 300 of these films and there are thousands more out there, NOT necessiarily MPAA studio product, but thousands of independent or niche films that never got proper distribution by the majors because they HAD a moral or religious message and/or because they didn't have enough sex/blood/violence or "exploitable elements" -- as studio/distributors and development executives call them -- in them.

I have also subscribed to BlockBuster Online and am thus able to locate the above mentioned niche films in an almost infinite flow to supplement my personal library.

Trips to the regular library 2 or 3 times a week are also valuable because many libraries rent features and other docs for about $1 each. And let's not mention the lost sport of READING. Libraries have books to READ, thus given the above, the deal is: for every hour kids either READ or WRITE they can earn the OK to watch a movie for one hour. That's the deal in my house.

The goal of all this is to DISCONNECT kids from the insane, crass, crap that is spewing out of Hollywood and the crime/war/sex-media from the J-tube. When the dust settles, there will be one TV in the Jaeger household under passcode protection and filtered through a TiVo for exclusive use to view specific, scheduled shows, such as a weekly news summary on something like FACE THE NATION and selected HISTORY CHANNEL shows, NOVA, DISCOVERY and PBS channel-type docs that are of educational value or channels that have emergency broadcasts. ALL the other of CRAP from the J-tube and X-Box does not exist in my house. Newspapers, which disseminate the ongoing negative sex/blood/violence propaganda created by govenments, do not exist in my house either.

Tube addiction should be countered by forcing it to compete with reading, writing, playing music, sports, attending plays, concerts, operas and attending social events, parties and other healthy endeavors.

In fact, one healthy social event I am planning as soon as I can organize it is a TV BURNING PARTY. As I pilot all the above, I will be better able to prepare for a media event that focuses on attenuating bad aspects of the media while promoting any good aspects. To do this I will enlist my good friend that has a 250 acre farm near suburban Valley Forge/Devon/Wayne and we'll invite between 500 and 5,000 parents to show up with their TVs. The day's entertainment will then consist of tossing all these TVs into a huge pile and then lighting the pile on fire. I plan on having all proper permits and doing everything safely.(1)

I also plan on alerting the media about the event by CERTIFIED MAIL RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED. In the event they don't show up, I will thus be prepared by hiring my own camera crew and photographers to cover the TV BURNING PARTY. This footage, which will be edited to include close up shots of the signed CERTIFIED MAIL RETURN RECEIPTS from "responsible" media outlets that burried their heads in the sand, will then be broadcast all over the Internet (and whatever media WILL pick it up) to illustrate the fact that the MEDIA does NOT cover socially responsible news when such news involves themselves in any sort of a critical manner. To better explain this phenomenon of irresponsible media to the public, we will invite authors of books like, BIAS, WHAT"S REALLY GOING ON IN HOLLYWOOD and IT'S THE MEDIA, STUPID to attend and speak at the TV BURNING PARTY.

I am going to have some fun with this, and concerned mothers and fathers and other responsible citizens/media/authors/opinion leaders who attend thes "tube burners" will also have some fun. We, who are fed up with the endless CRASS and excessive crap in the media, movies, gaming industry and TV, will be able to make a statement -- but more importantly, provide a FORMULA for systematically ridding the society of its addiction to the violence-oriented crap that emanates from Hollywood/New York films and mass media.(2)

-----------------------
(1) If the local township does not allow us to burn the TVs (because of toxic chemicals, plastic, etc.), I will hire some actors, or other professionals, and dress them up as executioners, complete with black hoods and axes or sledge hammers. These Tube Executioners will then systematically destroy the TVs in the pile. Another variation might be to take each TV up onto a "chopping block" on stage and have it smashed in the background as authors, opinion leaders, mothers, fathers, kids and other victims, get up and deliver talks, reports, anecdotes and success stories in the foreground.

(2) If you are fed up with how the trash on TV, in the movies and in such games as X-Box, is negatively impacting your kids, why not organize a TUBE BURNER in your area?

Re(1): Tube Disease - the Cure
Posted on October 24, 2006 at 04:25:17 PM by Mark


>I couldn't agree with you more, James. I began to notice the increase in trash several years back, starting with the so-called "reality" shows, and the incredible degradation of content on the talk shows, all scaled toward the bottom rung of society. Rather than uplifting the masses by producing better programming (Woody Allen once suggested this as a suitable role for television), they went the other way into depravity by catering to the lowest common denominator.

Yes, the reality shows appeal to network execs because they're cheap to produce.

>Although I'm not at a stage where I could willingly sacrifice my TV set, partly because I'm not affluent enough to replace it, I salute your initiative.

Well the idea behind my initiative is: YOU DON'T REPLACE IT. That costs you nothing.

>I agree that the media is guided by total self-interest, has lost all objectivity (if it ever really had any), and reports nothing of value or interest at all. I get all of my news off the Internet because it's the only place were independent news that deals with reality can be found, while CNN and other networks continue to report the party line, never daring to criticize or to reveal the other side of subjects that have become so sacrosanct, such as the war in Iraq, that nobody at the risk of losing his or her job dares to confront. (At least one commentator, finally, has made a stand, however - good for him - and of all places, on MSNBC. That's Keith Oberman commenting on the Military Commissions Act.) I, myself, have found an increase in commercial time on the only stations I personally watch, which are the specialty channels - history, National Geographic, Discovery, etc. I wish that my cable provider would allow me to choose just those channels and drop the rest of the garbage, but they won't. You can only get the specialty channels in piggy-back fashion,

Doesn't this sound like the practice of BLOCK BOOKING that the theaters used to partake in before the Sherman anti-Trust suits? Maybe a similar case could be made against the cable companies for block booking.

>which shows that the cable companies are part of the problem. I decry this constantly increasing pervasiveness of in-your-face advertising. It's everywhere: in public washrooms, displayed on your telephone, on subway platforms, and now on city buses, with the aid of digital display monitors. I used to laugh at the idea that in Britain, years back now, they would pay a yearly license fee to get television into their homes. Now I wonder if subscription isn't such a bad idea after all.

People and corporations are on such a treadmill because the purchasing power of the dollar is being bled so much. You see all this desperate advertising and the production of useless products as a result. See our film, FIAT EMPIRE, c/o http://www.mecfilms.com/fiat for the details. For higher quality version go to confidential URL of http://www.mecfilms.com/mid/movies/fiat3.wmv

>Best of luck with your bonfire!

Thanks

James Jaeger

>Mike.

P.S. I sent this email out to about 200 people and you and one other person are all that responded. Guess that shows us that the average person is part of the problem.

HOW THE MOVIE WARS WERE WON by JOHN CONES excerpt related claim
Posted on November 21, 2006 at 06:57:52 PM by Lynch

The excerpt that I read from 'How The Movie Wars Were Won' by John Cones seemed, for the most part, to be pretty accurate as far as detailing Hollywood's methods for stealing profits and controlling the biz....but a few of the statements made, in the numbered section on the bottom of the page(1 thru 100+), about the things that have been learned about Hollywood were down right ridiculous...the most ridiculous statement made being the one that insinuated that Hollywood falsely places the blame for children's and young people's bad behavior on their parents. If anyone, including this John Cones character, thinks that Hollywood is more to blame for the fast-growing trend of really bad behavior by young people than parents are, they need their heads examined. NO ONE is more responsible for the behavior of their children than the parents,PERIOD Too many of today's parents don't disipline their kids at all, let alone enough. To try and blame Hollywood for this bad behavior is down right ignorant, and just another example of people trying to shun their own responsibilities and place the blame for their mistakes and failures on someboby else. The actions of today's youngsters are a direct result of the inaction by, incompetence of, and utter lack of disipline meted out by, the parents. Far too many parents are not supervising their children, not punishing them, and instead too many of today's kids are simply left with little or no guidance from a parent or guardian. Parents feeling guilty that they have let their children down raising them are making the matter worse by showering their kids with guilt-driven gifts of money, video games, and anything that the parents think will get the kids to like them better, even though the parents are neglecting their duties, or worse, are never present. Every 'bad' kid I've ever known was a direct result of lousy parenting...just as every 'good' kid I've ever known was a direct result of good parenting. Of course there are ALWAYS going to be exceptions to any rule, but the lion's share of the blame for bad kids should always fall on the parents...and to blame Hollywood, or any other outside factor, for children's bad behavior is patently ridiculous.

Re(1): HOW THE MOVIE WARS WERE WON by JOHN CONES excerpt related claim
Posted on August 12, 2007 at 02:41:56 PM by Steve

Lynch writes: "NO ONE is more responsible for the behavior of their children than the parents,PERIOD"

Well, that's true, but so is John Cones charges that the negative influence of Hollywood is largely to blame. Yes, parents are ultimately responsible, but parents are too busy working nowadays - both in many instances - and everyone knows that, even you surely know this, Lynch.

I loved the comment made by a U.S. Congressman a few years ago when he said something to the effect that the media industry claims on the one hand that a TWO HOUR FILM does not influence people's behavior. Yet this same media industry sells 30-second commercial spots during the Super Bowl to corporate America - who readily pays a million dollars to - do what? Influence people's behavior.

So - a 30 second spot changes people's behavior.

But a two hour movie doesn't?

What are we, stupid?

Re(1): HOW THE MOVIE WARS WERE WON by JOHN CONES excerpt related claim
Posted on December 3, 2006 at 11:43:10 AM by John Cones

Lynch:

Your reaction to this part of the book appears to be just another one of those knee-jerk reactions that tends to polarize the available options. I don't blame Hollywood more than parents for the behavior of children, I merely suggest that Hollywood movies are a contributing factor and that Hollywood is the party attempting to shift blame to parents while avoiding any responsibility. That's a much different position than what you have falsely ascribed to me.

Best wishes,

John Cones

Re(1): HOW THE MOVIE WARS WERE WON by JOHN CONES excerpt related claim
Posted on December 2, 2006 at 07:38:36 AM by James Jaeger

>The excerpt that I read from 'How The Movie Wars Were Won' by John Cones seemed, for the most part, to be pretty accurate as far as detailing Hollywood's methods for stealing profits and controlling the biz....but a few of the statements made, in the numbered section on the bottom of the page(1 thru 100+), about the things that have been learned about Hollywood were down right ridiculous...

Why don’t you read the entire book so you can get an overview of the subject. There is a history of litigation section that summarizes all the suits brought over the past many decades and it is very revealing.(1)

>the most ridiculous statement made being the one that insinuated that Hollywood falsely places the blame for children's and young people's bad behavior on their parents. If anyone, including this John Cones character, thinks that Hollywood is more to blame for the fast-growing trend of really bad behavior by young people than parents are, they need their heads examined. NO ONE is more responsible for the behavior of their children than the parents,PERIOD Too many of today's parents don't disipline their kids at all, let alone enough. To try and blame Hollywood for this bad behavior is down right ignorant, and just another example of people trying to shun their own responsibilities and place the blame for their mistakes and failures on someboby else. The actions of today's youngsters are a direct result of the inaction by, incompetence of, and utter lack of disipline meted out by, the parents. Far too many parents are not supervising their children, not punishing them, and instead too many of today's kids are simply left with little or no guidance from a parent or guardian. Parents feeling guilty that they have let their children down raising them are making the matter worse by showering their kids with guilt-driven gifts of money, video games, and anything that the parents think will get the kids to like them better, even though the parents are neglecting their duties, or worse, are never present. Every 'bad' kid I've ever known was a direct result of lousy parenting...just as every 'good' kid I've ever known was a direct result of good parenting. Of course there are ALWAYS going to be exceptions to any rule, but the lion's share of the blame for bad kids should always fall on the parents...and to blame Hollywood, or any other outside factor, for children's bad behavior is patently ridiculous.

I wholeheartedly agree with your that the ultimate responsibility does reside with the parents and they in many cases aren’t doing their jobs properly. But part of parenting is to guide and supervise a child’s education in culture and art. Unfortunately, increasingly this guidance and supervision means steering kids AWAY from gross and insipid TV programming and motion picture releases. I find that as I’m flipping through 50 or so channels when kids are in the room, gross and insipid violence-saturated material bleeds into my living room and into my kids’ awareness no matter how responsible of a parent I am trying to be. Now THIS encroachment on me and my kids IS Hollywood’s fault. I am doing my best to guide and avoid it, but Hollywood is doing ITS best to push and pervade. THIS IS NOT OKAY. I don’t want the violence-saturated, bad-attitude stuff in my universe, but Hollywood and the cable channels are BLOCK BOOKING it into my home theater. Block booking is ILLEGAL.

I have no choice. I have to wade THROUGH all this stuff to get to the programs I authorize for child viewing. Thus you CANNOT blame all this on parents. At least 50% of it should be BLAMED on the Hollywood output and the TV programmers. For you to attempt to hold Hollywood harmless is as ridiculous as me attempting to hold parents harmless.

Go, now that we have agreed that Hollywood output is responsible for at least 50% of the problem, the question becomes: why aren’t the parents properly parenting? And the reason to this is because:

A. THERE HAS BEEN A BREAKDOWN IN THE NUCULAR FAMILY UNIT.
B. THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM’S POLICY OF ISSUING FIAT MONETY AND MONITIZING DEBT HAS PARENTS ON SUCH A FINANCIAL TREADMILL BOTH PARENTS ARE FORCED TO BE OUT WORKING INSTEAD OF GUIDING AND SUPERVISING THEIR KIDS.

I should add, at least 50% of the breakdown of the family unit has been abetted by Hollywood motion pictures. If you watch as many movies as I do (approximately 5-10 a week), you will note that in almost all cases, a) the family portrayed has a deadbeat father and/or b) the protagonist is divorced, and/or getting divorced, c) the female protagonist is out working instead of supervision and raising the kids and/or the women are portrayed as hard-ass aliens who hit, smack or cuss out men with impunity and/or the children are obstreperous and disrespectful of adults and especially parents. These one-sided themes can ONLY result from an industry that is highly dominated by a very small clique of insiders that control the parameters of the programming. This is what HOLLYWOOD WARS by John Cones is thus all about. WHY it has become this bad, not only in Hollywood, but in America.

Lastly I might add, you emphasis that the parents are incompetent and undisciplined. I would suggest that they too are subject to the dehumanizing effects of Hollywood movies with their relentless dose of extreme violence, perverted sex, abusive language, vitriol, intolerance of moral values and hateful attitudes, etc. Also, all parents WERE once children, children influence by TV and movies, mere entertainment, as Jack Valenti, former head of the MPAA, always used to like to say.

James Jaeger



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(1) SPECIAL PREPUBLICATION DISCOUNT - 33% OFF THE LIST PRICE ($27.00) go to: http://www.marquettebooks.com/massmediabooks/hollywoodwars.html

Screen Actors Guild Discriminates Against Minority Employees
Posted on December 27, 2006 at 04:52:18 PM by Shawn

Screen Actor Guild Discriminates Against Minority Employees

SAG an affiliate of the AFL-CIO, who gave Ruby and Ossie Davis the SAG Lifetime Acheivement Award, prides itself on a long history of affirmative action and diversity, has settled seven discrimination lawsuits by minority employees since 2001. Valerie Quetel, an African-American who worked as a benefits administrator and recruiter in the SAG's human resources department, alleged a "pattern and practice" of discrimination by SAG. Quetel filed suit in L.A. Superior Court alleging 22 causes of action. Quetel, was a 12-year employee of SAG, filed a wrongful termination-racial discrimination lawsuit. This case was settled by SAG.
SAG’s record of dismissing minority staff members is significant.

SAG sees 8th suit over firing

Source: Variety Date: Apr 13, 2003

...has reached settlements in five of the suits but remains in litigation with former affirmative action director Patricia Heisser Metoyer. SAG spokeswoman Ilyanne Kichaven said, "Mr. Chavez was a short-term employee of SAG and we regret that things...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117884565
SAG boots Latino exec

Source: Variety Date: Jan 21, 2003

...has reached settlements in five of the suits but remains in litigation with former affirmative action director Patricia Heisser Metoyer, who accused the guild of firing her in 2001 on bogus grounds after she accused SAG execs of discrimination and...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117879265


SAG recruiter files lawsuit over firing

Source: Variety Date: Dec 8, 2002

...Peter Nguyen, who is Asian American. However, SAG remains in litigation with former affirmative action director Patricia Heisser Metoyer, who accused the guild of firing her in 2001 on bogus grounds after she accused SAG execs of discrimination and...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117877073
SAG ups vet N.Y. exec

Source: Variety Date: Oct 2, 2002

...who has been serving as senior New York exec. SAG remains in litigation with former affirmative action director Patricia Heisser Metoyer, who accused the guild of firing her in 2001 on bogus grounds after she accused SAG execs of discrimination and...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117873678
SAG settles 4th bias lawsuit

Source: Variety Date: Aug 19, 2002

...Peter Nguyen, who is Asian-American. However, SAG remains in litigation with former affirmative action director Patricia Heisser Metoyer, who accused the guild of firing her in 2001 on bogus grounds after she accused SAG execs of discrimination and...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117871516?categoryid=18&cs=1
SAG responds to suit

Source: Variety Date: Apr 24, 2002

...former affirmative action director Patricia Heisser Metoyer, in response to her suit alleging...negligence during the three years that Metoyer served in her post. The five causes...PricewaterhouseCoopers, that found Metoyer had allegedly authorized questionable...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117865984
SAG taps Ellis topper of human resources

Source: Variety Date: Apr 1, 2002

...wrongful-termination actions. It still faces similar wrongful termination suits from former affirmative action chief Patricia Heisser Metoyer and ex-contracts administrator Kelley Langford.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117864732
SAG settles bias suit out of court

Source: Variety Date: Mar 4, 2002

...guild still faces wrongful termination suits alleging racial discrimination from former affirmative action chief Patricia Heisser Metoyer and ex-contracts administrator Kelley Langford. SAG's two top execs within its human resources department also...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117861819
SAG settles suit filed by minority exec Baiz

Source: Variety Date: Feb 11, 2002

...terminated from his job as assistant administrator after Patricia Heisser Metoyer was tapped to replace Avila. The settlement is the...settlement with the guild over his termination in 2001. Metoyer, who was placed on leave the same day Nguyen was...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117860569
Former exec files suit against SAG

Source: Variety Date: Apr 26, 2001

...promotion." SAG had no response to the action, which comes two weeks after suspended affirmative action chief Patricia Heisser Metoyer sued SAG and alleged she was placed on leave over her complaints about falsified statistics on the racial make-...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117797880
Daniels blasts exex over disciplinary action

Source: Variety Date: Mar 29, 2001

...department. On Friday, McGuire placed Patricia Heisser Metoyer, the department's exec administrator...details of the accusations against Metoyer and Nguyen beyond saying, "The...dedicated service to the guild." Metoyer has not commented but Nguyen has...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117796126
SAG axes minority heads

Source: Variety Date: Mar 26, 2001

...Friday with no explanation and no successors tapped. Patricia Heisser Metoyer, the department's exec administrator for the past...weekend's national board meeting in Los Angeles. Metoyer had no comment but Nguyen said the firing stemmed...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117795884
Mixed casting call

Source: Variety Date: Dec 21, 2000

...at all levels. The nets now contend they have made significant progress but admit they still need to improve, Patricia Heisser Metoyer, SAG's execexec administrator for affirmative action, said, "Simply put, the changing face of American society...
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117790853?categoryid=18&cs=1
SAG study to examine ageism in primetime

Source: Variety Date: Oct 24, 2000

...42% of Americans are 40 and over. It also found that nearly 90% of roles for women went to those under 46. Dr. Patricia Heisser Metoyer, execexec administrator of SAG affirmative action programs, will also be involved in the study.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117788161

SAG Problem
Posted on March 14, 2007 at 08:15:34 PM by John Cones

Screen Actors Guild Aids Department Of Homeland Security In Patriot Act Violations, Reports Citizens Committee for Constitutional Protection


Think medical records are private? Think again. Screen Actors Guild and Screen Actors Guild Pension and Health Plans improperly disclose protected medical information to the Department of Homeland Security and to the organized crime associates.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PALM SPRINGS, California / PR FREE / Mar 14 2007 --
Screen Actors Guild and Screen Actors Guild Pension and Health Plans have been implicated in disclosing protected health information pertaining to Producer/Director BJ Davis, Screenwriter Julia Davis, their relatives and dependents to the Department of Homeland Security. Under the guise of protecting homeland security, Internal Affairs Agents of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Jeffrey J. Deal and Herbert P. Kaufer have requested and obtained medical, insurance and identification information pertaining to BJ and Julia Davis and their family members, whereby SAG/SAG PHP disclosed to Kaufer and Deal medical information pertaining to a total of eleven (11) persons.

Julia Davis is a former Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officer, who made serious whistleblowing disclosures involving national security. Agents Kaufer and Deal have been instrumental in the series of unprecedented actions by the Department of Homeland Security, designed to discredit Julia Davis in an attempt to invalidate her terrorism-related protected disclosures, as reflected in the recently published book “Unsafe At Any Altitude” by Pulitzer Prize nominated investigative journalists Joe and Susan Trento.

The disclosure of highly private medical and insurance records by the Screen Actors Guild is the latest in the already long list of unconstitutional actions against BJ and Julia Davis by the Department of Homeland Security. In 2005, ICE and CBP misused government’s anti-terrorism funding to conduct a Blackhawk helicopter raid of the Davis’ residence, complete with twenty seven (27) Special Response Team (SRT) Agents armed with assault weapons, after subjecting BJ and Julia Davis to two years of warrantless surveillance, conducting warrantless searches and falsely declaring Julia Davis to be a “domestic terrorist” and a “murderer.” The DHS was instrumental in organizing two malicious prosecutions and two false imprisonments of BJ and Julia Davis, although all charges against them were subsequently dismissed, BJ and Julia Davis were declared factually innocent, their arrest records were ordered sealed and destroyed and the government was ordered to return proceeds of both warrantless searches. Julia Davis won a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security, which the agency is still refusing to honor.

Producer/Director BJ Davis is a thirty year signatory member with the Screen Actors Guild. In addition to releasing protected medical records to the DHS, SAG unlawfully released payroll, tax, medical, insurance and other information pertaining to BJ and Julia Davis to a group of actors formerly employed by Producer/Director BJ Davis in his latest award-winning film.

These and other related events are currently being investigated by the Citizens Committee for Constitutional Protection (CCCP), with a recent request for an official congressional inquiry. In an official statement, CCCP Chairman B. Harris stated: “There is a growing concern amongst American citizens as to the Law enforcement officials’ misuse of the tools designed for fighting terrorism that are instead being utilized to compromise the constitutional rights and violate the right to privacy of all Americans.”

"Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin
Learn more at http://www.DepartmentofHomelandSecurityExposed.com, http://www.unsafeatanyaltitude.com and
http://www.storiesthatmatter.org

MPAA Ratings System
Posted on April 9, 2007 at 02:22:22 PM by John Cones

The MPAA ratings system still does not work! I recently went with a friend to see "Blades of Glory" which was rated "PG-13", but the theatre was half filled with children under the age of 13. The film itself was filled with more pee pee, poo poo, dick, ball and sex jokes, that could only possibly be funny to 10 year olds, that the rest of the movie, some of which was quite funny, was overwhelmed. Hollywood just can't seem to get it right.

John Cones

Re(1): MPAA Ratings System
Posted on August 12, 2007 at 01:12:25 AM by Steve

Agreed. I'm sitting here right now watching Turner Classic Movies (on cable) in large part because most all of the new films are so predictably crude as to be beyond annoying, they are quite simply very boring. The vulgarity may have been shocking once. But how many times can the "F" word be used before it sinks to the level of someone repeating the old cliche "you know?" with every sentence?

Hollywood knows better. R rated films make less money at the box office than G rated films. They know this, as Michael Medved points out, the statistics are unmistakeable and public.

So the only answer is that Hollywood clearly has another agenda at work. The question is - what is it?

Re(2): MPAA Ratings System
Posted on August 13, 2007 at 10:52:28 AM by John Cones

In my view, it is not a single "agenda". The concept is better expressed in the statement that movies tend to mirror the values, interests, cultural perspectives and prejudices of the filmmakers. But, the filmmakers in this instance are the top three executives at the major studio/distributors in the sense that they are the ones who have the power to approve of the movies produced and/or released by these vertically integrated entities. These are the movies seen by the vast majority of Americans and others around the world. Thus, the patterns of bias seen in Hollywood movies give us an indication of the kinds of values, interests, cultural perspectives and prejudices held by this small group of studio executives at the top, along with the others who make significant contributions to these films, many of whom were hired because of the widespread nepotism, cronyism, favoritism and other forms of discrimination in Hollywood.

John Cones

Re(3): MPAA Ratings System
Posted on August 13, 2007 at 10:23:31 PM by Steve

When you say the top three executives at the major studios and distributors - which companies are thinking of?

Another Shooting
Posted on April 16, 2007 at 03:09:23 PM by James Jaeger

To me it's clear: extreme violence in today's movies and video games are predisposing a certain percentage of our youth to go on shooting rampages. The one that happened just 4 hours ago in Virginia with 32 dead is the latest and worst example to date.

I don't know about you, but I just cut in half the following X-Box games:

HALO - Combat Evolved
HALO 2
CALL OF DUTY
BATMAN - Rise of Sin Tzu
MATRIX - Path of Neo
OO7 - Agent Under Fire

The above games, products of Microsoft and spin offs of MPAA studio motion picture productions are just the tip of the iceberg.

IN the Columbine massacre, it has now become a known fact that Klebold, one of the child-killers, literally trained up on the video game, DOOM.

I'm all for FREE SPEECH and the right to OWN GUNS, but the entertainment industry must take greater responsibility for these outrages and stop blaming it all on the parents.

James Jaeger

Hairspray Hypocrisy
Posted on July 23, 2007 at 10:45:55 AM by John Cones

Once again with the John Travolta movie Hairspray, Hollywood has released another movie featuring one of Hollywood's favored themes: discrimination (set at another time and in another place). Unfortunately, Hollywood continues its one hundred history of discimination at all levels in the film industry itself. SAG, DGA and my own study of the top studio executives confirms that discrimination is alive and well in Hollywood and will continue to be so until America and the world wakes up to Hollywood's hypocrisy, and it's continued use of this most powerful of communications media as a propaganda vehicle.

John Cones

Re(1): Hairspray Hypocrisy
Posted on August 12, 2007 at 01:18:40 AM by Steve

One curious thing about Hairspray is that it's about Baltimore. Now, it's based on an old independent film by indie filmmaker John Waters, who is from Baltimore and wrote it with Baltimore as the original setting. So Hairspray comes by its Baltimore setting honestly.

But having said that, it seems that when Hollywood portrays New York and Miami, it often does so with great romance and drama. Picture the soaring skyline of New York, or the thrilling fly-in scenes of Miami Vice that swing over the ocean to the stylish South Beach area of Miami.

Compare that to the way Baltimore is portrayed on the TV show "Homicide", and in the movie "Hairspray". Trash trucks, graffiti, garbage, rats. That's what you see of Baltimore. No scenes of the Inner Harbor. No views of the dramatic Belvedere or Bromo-Seltzer towers, the World Trade Center at the harbor. No Pier 7, no Phillips pavillion, none of the beauty of Camden Yards. Just trash, garbage, rats, graffiti.

That's Hollywood's portrayal of Baltimore.

Curious. Not a conclusion. Just an observation.

Re(2): Hairspray Hypocrisy
Posted on August 12, 2007 at 11:18:56 AM by John Cones

Steve:

I'm in accord with your observation. My theory of Hollywood is that the movies the institution produces and release tend to mirror the values, interests, cultural perspectives and prejudices of the Hollywood control group. Such predjudices include cities and regions of the country. So, if you look at the reviews of thousands of movies over a period of several decades as I did to research and write "Patterns of Bias in Motion Picture Content" the consistent negative or stereotypical portrayal of certain peoples and regions of the country tend to appear quite clearly. The ultimate solution is to demand more diversity at the top in Hollywood.

John Cones

Re(3): Hairspray Hypocrisy
Posted on August 12, 2007 at 12:08:07 PM by Steve

John -

You wrote: "The ultimate solution is to demand more diversity at the top in Hollywood."

Do you think they would listen? Is diversity really the key?

What do you think is motivating this - for want of a better expression - this condescending hostility?

- Steve

Re(4): Hairspray Hypocrisy
Posted on August 13, 2007 at 10:56:01 AM by John Cones

No, they won't listen. This won't be a volutary transfer of power. It will involved a long and difficult struggle. And, it won't happen until more people become aware of the problem, how important movies are in communicating ideas and how most segments of our diverse society are routinely excluded from putting their ideas on the screen. My new book "Hollywood Wars -- How Insiders Gained and Maintain Illegitimate Control Over the Film Industry" traces the history of this control, how it came about and how it manifests itself.

John Cones

Re(3): Hairspray Hypocrisy
Posted on August 12, 2007 at 12:05:42 PM by Steve

John -

I agree with you. The South, for example, is often depicted as stupid and backwards, and sometimes even - evil. Either way, it's always negative.

I remember the film "The Fifth Element" which was a sci-fi starring Bruce Willis. The setting was supposed to be NYC in the future. The bad guy - "Jean-Baptiste Emmanuel" - a curiously Christian name - also somehow managed to have a Southern accent - even though he was in New York City. And of course he's the only one with a Southern accent, and of course he's a psycho.

And in the film "Primal Fear" starring Richard Gere, the psycho on trial for murder is portrayed by Edward Norton. The film makes it a point of saying this character grew up in Chicago. In spite of his Northern upbringing, somehow he manages to have a Southern accent, the only character in the film to have one. And of course he's the psycho.

In the past 15 years I've watched every film with the question of who is making it and what is there treatment of Southerners and certain other ethnic groups. This bias is much more consistent than I ever imagined.

And this has apparently been going on for a while. For the last three days, I've been watching Turner Classic Movies for three days and nights, almost non-stop. I've only caught one Southern accent in these three days of round-the-clock movies, it was a 1961 film called "Lover Come Back" in which an ad executive tricks a "stupid" girl into sleeping with him by falsely promising to put her into commercials. She of course has a Southern accent, and is shown being duped by her own greed for fame and fortune, used and abused, made fun of through ignorance and selfishness so that she's easily taken advantage of by a predatory ad executive. She's a relatively minor role, but - the only Southern accent I remember in three days worth of movies.

I once believed these were random accidents or incidental occurrences. I don't anymore. Someone is doing this deliberately and consistently. Given the frequency and consistency of occurence, it would be foolish to believe otherwise.

A refreshing difference - Reese Witherspoon and her films. "Sweet Home Alabama", for example, is a radical departures from the routine attack on Southerners. So I don't believe Hollywood is necessarily under the total control of some anti-Southern cabal.

But a film like that is a very, very rare exception in my observation. So while I don't believe Hollywood is under a controlling power, I do believe the majority - perhaps the vast majority - of Hollywood power is either anti-Southern, or against some demographic that includes the South.

- Steve

Re(4): Hairspray Hypocrisy
Posted on August 13, 2007 at 10:45:55 AM by John Cones

Yes, in my book "Patterns of Bias in Motion Picture Content" there is an entire chapter devoted to "Hollywood's Rape of the South". And, I agree, this prejudice appearing in movies may not even be something that occurs consciously. That's the way prejudice works.

John Cones

Re(5): Hairspray Hypocrisy
Posted on August 13, 2007 at 10:22:56 PM by Steve

I wasn't saying that it doesn't happen consciously, if I did then I mistyped. The more I look at it, the more that I think it's very deliberate.

Re(6): Hairspray Hypocrisy
Posted on August 13, 2007 at 11:37:59 PM by John Cones

Demonstrating the action or its consequences is one thing, but demonstrating someone's motives is another. I haven't worried too much about the latter.

John Cones

337 Studio Business Practices
Posted on November 28, 2007 at 08:34:46 PM by Layne

John,

At one of your lectures I heard you mention a monograph that you once published entitled "337 Business Practices of the Major Studio/Distributors", which helps to explain how studios have gained and maintain control over the Hollywood-based film industry. How can I get a copy of that?

Re(1): 337 Studio Business Practices
Posted on November 28, 2007 at 10:46:22 PM by John Cones

Layne:

The monograph is no longer available, but its contents have been incorporated into the newly revised dictionary relating to film finance and distribution. The slightly revised title is "Dictionary of Film Finance and Distribution -- A Guide for Independent Filmmakers". It is now published by Marquette Books, LLC out of Spokane Washington. In the forepart of the book, I've listed the aforementioned 337 business practices of the major studio distributors and then each business practice can be found by looking at the individual entries in the dictionary, which, of course, is organized alphabetically. Additional information relating to the new book (containing the definitions and discussion re 4,000 terms altogether)can be requested by writing to service@marquettebooks.com. The other new book "Hollywood Wars -- How Insiders Gained and Maintain Illegitimate Control Over the Film Industry" is also published by the same publisher.

Thanks for asking.

John Cones

Studios' Role as Middlemen in Question
Posted on January 3, 2008 at 04:49:17 PM by James Jaeger

The below is an interesting article on the Writers' strike and the MPAA studios. Of particular interest is the following statement from the below article:

"Flash forward to the current debate, in which studios claim that digital media are too new for them to commit to a particular payment structure. Their response is based on a fear that's haunted them since the arrival of the Internet: "disintermediation." This is cyber-speak for cutting out the middleman. In such an environment, the studios' role (as managers of content) is reduced to nonexistence."

We have been discussing and predicting the effect of the Internet on the movie industry at FIRM for about 10 years now (see the FIRM Archives at http://www.homevideo.net/FIRM/archives.htm and/or watch me on MONEY MATTERS where I discuss this at http://www.mecfilms.com/mid/movies/mm_jrj2.wmv).

Many of the Hollywood apologists argued with me at length that the digital era was similar to the advent of TV, cable and homevideo, but in fact it's a paradigm shift because Hollywood studios' CENTRAL role -- that of MIDDLEMAN distributor -- is now being challenged by DE-centralized Internet Distribution. It's time for the studios to start re-thinking their MOs or they will soon be history. The STAR talent will then migrate to where ever production is happening, even if that production is happening in Iowa.

James Jaeger

Source of below Article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-taylor3jan03,0,2812372.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail


From the Los Angeles Times
A sequel with the same ending

As they did in the '88 writers strike,
the studios are pushing themselves out of the picture.

By Thom Taylor

January 3, 2008

The writers guild keeps saying that its strike against the studios is about the future, but one need only look back to the 1988 strike to see that in key ways it is a repeat of the past. Nearly 20 years ago, when the writers asked for a bigger slice of the pie, the studios shrugged and Hollywood sank into a malaise. But out of that emerged new ways of doing business, a scenario that's happening again.

During the 1988 strike, writers worked independently on "spec scripts" (written on the speculation that they would eventually sell them) and a pipeline-dry studio system snapped them up. TV producers also sought alternatives to traditional, high-cost scripted series. The strike resulted in the 1990s' spec script boom and reality television -- two new business models.

It's not strikers' demands but the work stoppage itself that creates a new paradigm. By fighting the writers over the new-media issues today, the studios are effectively creating what they fear most: a major tectonic shift in the entertainment business that will reduce the role of the studios even further.

Generally speaking, before 1988, movie studios -- which then housed genuinely creative executives -- used to "develop" movies starting from source material such as a book, play, life story or pitch and hire a writer to nurture it into a screenplay. They would pay the writer usually a five-figure sum, maybe more, and both sides would see the project through to completion.

In the decade after the '88 strike, studios more often bought fully written "specs," and millions of dollars were thrown at ready-to-shoot scripts. The role of the executive was less creative and more business. The prices for specs escalated to obscene amounts even as studios, in essence, discovered that they were buying only "an idea" and then hiring even more writers to revise, rework and polish it. The process was often financially wasteful and ushered in concept-driven, amusement-park-ride movies. The money's been good, but studios largely relinquished the creation of heartfelt, character-driven films to the independent art-house world.

Flash forward to the current debate, in which studios claim that digital media are too new for them to commit to a particular payment structure. Their response is based on a fear that's haunted them since the arrival of the Internet: "disintermediation." This is cyber-speak for cutting out the middleman. In such an environment, the studios' role (as managers of content) is reduced to nonexistence. Sound a bit like what's been happening to the music industry?

The studios balked at writers' request for a 2.5% sliver of the digital media revenues, and the current strike began. Immediately, many writers emigrated to the Internet, at first generating short videos to virally market their labor messages and now to give creative outlet to their talent. The studios have maintained a misguided "talk to the hand" strategy, so the writers have sensibly picked up their toys and gone to play somewhere else.

The transition to making money from the new paradigm will naturally take time. Right now, anybody with a computer connection can create an overnight sensation on YouTube -- but that's not enough to quit your day job. Yet the Internet is on its way to becoming the public's preferred mass distribution system -- and that means Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple and telephone companies will compete with traditional networks by piping broadband content into home theaters. This sea change has the potential to turn the studios as we know them on their heads.

This evolution is progressing with the creation of every Break, Heavy, FunnyOrDie and MyDamnChannel: sites that give writers total creative control and up to 50% of revenue. Of course, these outlets are tiny compared with the networks' reach -- and nobody thinks the studios will disappear -- but they represent the first step toward the new paradigm that the studios fear.

Even before the strike began, many writers were wondering, "Why are we fighting for only 2.5% of a studio process that's so invariably inefficient?" And now the creative genie is out of the bottle. The longer the strike lasts, the more accelerated the disruptive technology becomes.

The companies will likely make a deal with the WGA in the coming months because all reality, all the time is a losing proposition. (Remember when ABC ran "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" every night and destroyed its prime-time viewership?) If the deal is as bad for writers as the studios' original proposal, the companies will feel that they have won the war. But the writers will have effectively won the most important battle: Their role as the creative center of the new entertainment business model has been confirmed.

The studios could have learned a lesson from the U.S. auto industry, which didn't adapt when it faced more efficient Japanese competitors. The car companies forgot that it all starts with innovation. Somehow the studios have forgotten that it all starts with the word.

Thom Taylor wrote "The Big Deal: Hollywood's Million-Dollar Script Market" about how the 1988 strike altered the movie business. He works at a global investment bank.