Hollywood slump

Everybody's talking about the box office slump and giving their particular wisdom on why the movie industry is going through it.

Hit and Run takes a run at it after noting a piece by Tammy Bruce here.

But the most accurate assessment I have seen so far is at the new LA Alternative site here.

Having said that, as I commented on Tammy's site:

The problem with films today isn't only that they are out of touch, the problem is that they aren't very good. I'll choose an out of touch, ideologically naive thriller that's made well over a mainstream piece of crap any day. I've had a great time with films that entertain me but don't stand up logically to scrutiny later. There have been plenty of exciting movies based on a paranoid's worst nightmare.

The problem has been a convergence of crap with out of touch, ideologically naive subject matter that results in crappy, crap, crapfests that nobody gives a crap about.

Hollywood keeps trying to catch that new hot trend when the only trend they really need too focus on is "quality". Sure, there are plenty of bad movies that make money but if you want to play it safe, stick with a decent script and all the other elements that lead to a good movie.

And tell Sean Penn that he's just turning into a creep who's getting more and more difficult to watch. Anybody see his performance in "The Interpreter"? He looked like he was channeling Foster Brooks' unfunny brother.

I had an acquaintance once who kept trying to figure out the secret to scoring with women. He'd get lucky sometimes but overall he was quite unsuccessful. He read all the books (can't believe he told me) and learned all the secrets but never understood that in spite of all the strategies he was employing, they were sabotaged because basically he was just an asshole.