Post: #26

On this general theme, the following "film" looks like it's going to be a very enticing and appetizing pile of steaming turd pancakes:

Post: #27

Having spent a little time in these circles, let me share why I think talent has died across all mediums.

Have you noticed that there are no more stars in nearly any entertainment profession? No more up and coming big names? No actors that ooze charisma and compel the audience?

Tom Hanks, Mel Gibson, Eddie Murphy, Hoffman, Cruise, Etc

Musicians-the lead singer is gone, bad ass rapper gone, etc. Buh bye 50 cent and Lil Wayne esque career arcs.

Now why?

Well, Entertainment starts with narrative and story arc’s. The writers room is staffed by NARP, pseudo intellectuals. Their ideas are supposed to be fused with fantasy but they’re actually based off ideology. Comedy-so long!

Somewhat expected. Execs don’t care about their customers or product, just narrative spraying.

But why and how is talent is weakened

Multiple filters.

Financial filter. All good ops are in very expensive cities. COL prevents you from being able to dedicate 100% of your energy to your craft. Student debt prevents people from the luxury of a throwaway job while doing what they enjoy.

So you end up with rich kids being able to pursue these long endeavors which may or may not eventually prove fruitful.

Guess who has zero fire in the belly? Minimal charisma and panache?

Rich kids.

Then you have the ideological filter

You will be bombarded by progressive ideology. If you try to ignore and be apolitical, it will still be pushed and injected into everything. That slowly erodes your focus and headspace for performing. ESP for live performances, zero margin for error. Your inner comedic flow is slightly hesitant when the judges of your comedy competition are comprised of two gay guys and a marxist with a transgendered child in transition.

Now you inject narrative and demographic preference from the writers. Tick the box or hit the road.

You think Bruce Willis, Kevin Costner, Danny Glover, Harrison Ford, or Patrick Swayze would be casted today?

Nope and nope.

Eddie Murphy’s approach would get him tossed in two seconds, now,

Donald Glover is talented but he does not have the range of Eddie Murphy, and it’s not even close. Yet he’s the gold standard of stars today. Channing Tatum is talented but generally his characters are mentally shallow with minimal range, this is by design. Bradley Cooper and Chris Pratt are probably some of the last remaining "stars" with range across comedic, action, and drama.

So you have financial filter, demographic filter, political scope, and narrative steering. What’s that leave you with? A small, segment who ticks all those boxes first and foremost, with talent being a 5th or further consideration. It used to be talent, story, craft, demographic, narrative. Now its flipped to narrative/ideology, demographic, story, craft, and then talent.

So I touched upon more than just comedy but comedy is only second to music in terms of influence and importance.

In today's environment, Bill Murray would never get near SNL which is a shell of its former self. It takes a shit ton of trial and error to perfect comedic craft and you have no margin to hone it.

The sanitized, corporatized art right now creates a huge vacuum. Those who control the water nozzle do have power but if that water looks, smells, and tastes like it was sourced in Flint, MI then a new market is ready.

Comedy is separate from movies because the distribution channels are different. Hollywood has the production, editing, writing, casting, and promotional channels on lock. The truest form of comedy, aside from promotion, doesn't need any of that. You could open a no frills comedy club in Chicago or NYC that caters to the crowd who yearns for raw, incisive truth and within a year or two, have a very nice business. Shit someone could probably make a nice 5 year run of lampooning hollywood's idiocy. And if it proves successful, unencumbered studios would be popping up soon thereafter.

Talent has been suffocated but someone in the moneyed alt lite will scratch this itch within a decade.

Post: #28

< Interesting point. I think that it is very possible for Hollywood to pick specially charisma-less male actors. That is why the casting of Alden Ehrenreich was so lackluster. They don't want big male stars - it even extends to black actors. The ones they push must look as if bathing in soy like Donald Glover.

Post: #29

I know this is about comedy but another thing I've noticed is that the casting rosters (at least for men) is stocked with imports from the UK and europe. Christian Bale has played more americans with a fake american accent than he has brits to the point where it's hard to remember the guy isn't american. Henry Cavill, Superman, symbol of adopted americana in the corn-belt, a brit. I could go on and on. So there's definitely a gap when it comes to male leading men.

Post: #30

+1 on Greekgod's post. Have a look at how polished and manufactured the music industry is and it's even worse than the movies. The book The Song Machine details the entire process from soup to nuts. The whole thing is engineered and put together like a canned soft drink. They use professional riff writers, algorithms, committees, focus groups and the usual demographic and socio-political checks and balances too.

Long gone are the days of young outstanding musicians allowed to grow into matured artists while their fans watched, listened and either approved or disapproved. That model is just too risky for the financiers nowadays, and attention spans are far too short anyway. Probably makes sense to do it this way, economically - I guess I can't blame the money men, but it is sad.

It's kind of like that fake art you see hanging on hotel room walls, only at least that "art" might have been done by some actual Chinese guy for a few cents before it was mass produced for nationwide distribution.

Post: #31

Questor70 the current "hit song formula" is so obvious im gonna throw a few together for kicks i don't have the (((financial backing and connections))) or the desire to suck decrepit old Jew dick to make them pop off however.

Post: #32

(06-28-2018 10:26 AM)greekgod Wrote:  Comedy is separate from movies because the distribution channels are different. Hollywood has the production, editing, writing, casting, and promotional channels on lock. The truest form of comedy, aside from promotion, doesn't need any of that. You could open a no frills comedy club in Chicago or NYC that caters to the crowd who yearns for raw, incisive truth and within a year or two, have a very nice business. Shit someone could probably make a nice 5 year run of lampooning hollywood's idiocy. And if it proves successful, unencumbered studios would be popping up soon thereafter.
Talent has been suffocated but someone in the moneyed alt lite will scratch this itch within a decade.

I think your analysis is spot on... however... liberal audiences are insanely liberal. 44% of America is so liberal that it's absolutely crazy, and they all agree on nearly everything. It is functioning like a religion. Most of these people congregate in big cities.

In a city like Chicago, or NYC, there are not enough normal people to make a standard comedy club profitable. Maybe if you generated enough outrage it would get free publicity and then could be profitable for a time as people came to check out what all the fuss was about.

Normal people, and conservatives are not all jammed up in big cities. You would have to create a comedy tour and go through playing cities like Huntsville, Alabama. This would require a lot more work to gain some kind of fame or status... and once you did... what would you do with it? You would be booed or protested off stage in any big city, and no movie studio would touch you.

Essentially if normal people want to splinter off and create their own entertainment industries... it's doable, but would require massive effort and heavy funding to start.

Post: #33

I honestly can't remember what was the last movie, comedy or not, that made me laugh out loud and not just in an "heh, that was kinda funny" internal thought kind of way. Wolf of Wall Street? I think Death of Stalin was also straying into "heh it's funny cause it's true" thought territory. I think a legit funny thing I saw recently was mostly documentaries. "Finders Keepers" is about some trashy guy buying a trailer and finding a mummified amputed leg there and not wanting to give it back to its original owner. Another one is "Operation Odessa" which is a true story about latino and russian criminals wanting to smuggle and resell a Russian submarine on the black market after the collapse of the iron curtain. More of an absurd comedic situation, but legit funny. I'll always like the TV series/movie "Fargo" because of its quirkiness, but again it's more of a comedy that tickles my "heh that's funny" bone rather that outright has me in stitches.

Post: #34

(06-28-2018 10:37 PM)SlickyBoy Wrote:  +1 on Greekgod's post. Have a look at how polished and manufactured the music industry is and it's even worse than the movies. The book The Song Machine details the entire process from soup to nuts. The whole thing is engineered and put together like a canned soft drink. They use professional riff writers, algorithms, committees, focus groups and the usual demographic and socio-political checks and balances too.

Long gone are the days of young outstanding musicians allowed to grow into matured artists while their fans watched, listened and either approved or disapproved. That model is just too risky for the financiers nowadays, and attention spans are far too short anyway. Probably makes sense to do it this way, economically - I guess I can't blame the money men, but it is sad.

It's kind of like that fake art you see hanging on hotel room walls, only at least that "art" might have been done by some actual Chinese guy for a few cents before it was mass produced for nationwide distribution.

I don't think that it is so much economics now. It's more like:

"We need to put in soooo much propaganda. How far can we go while still making a profit?"

And even then it seems as if they barely care anymore. Hollywood is actually a very small business relative to the reach. It's possible that it might run on a loss like newspapers in the future. The trillionaires should just call it Ministry of Propaganda Studio 1 and be done with it.

Post: #35

The actor, Simon Pegg, a few years ago suggested and I'm paraphrasing what he said "that civilization can't sustain itself solely on dumbed down sci-fi and comic books films"

and he was piled on for it , people accusing him getting rich and famous off just such entertainment, in a way they're right....but it really stung people for him to suggest it. He was having a realization himself.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/peopl...reddit.com

Post: #36

(06-28-2018 10:37 PM)SlickyBoy Wrote:  +1 on Greekgod's post. Have a look at how polished and manufactured the music industry is and it's even worse than the movies. The book The Song Machine details the entire process from soup to nuts. The whole thing is engineered and put together like a canned soft drink. They use professional riff writers, algorithms, committees, focus groups and the usual demographic and socio-political checks and balances too.

Long gone are the days of young outstanding musicians allowed to grow into matured artists while their fans watched, listened and either approved or disapproved. That model is just too risky for the financiers nowadays, and attention spans are far too short anyway. Probably makes sense to do it this way, economically - I guess I can't blame the money men, but it is sad.

It's kind of like that fake art you see hanging on hotel room walls, only at least that "art" might have been done by some actual Chinese guy for a few cents before it was mass produced for nationwide distribution.

Came across this a few months ago. Some compelling ideas. Mostly rings true. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=oVME_l4IwII

I also remember watching a documentary on MJ and all the artist were astounded at the musical genius behind don’t stop til you get enough which was produced by Quincy Jones iirc. Basically saying you couldn’t even replicate that sound with all the computers and algorithms today.

Post: #37

It's a threat to any system to have people, men or women, to rise to prominence who are self assured, with independent thought, charisma, and the ability to influence people. Comedy is in fact a great way to draw attention to issues in a subtle or direct way by pointing out the absurdity of things. Hollywood doesn't want charismatic leading men, comedian or otherwise, nor do the political parties or the military for that matter.

It's hard to imagine any one rising and holding sway like Charlie Chaplin, Clark Gable, Errol Flynn and the like who did during the golden age of Hollywood. Let along have most of the leading men of Hollywood give up acting for a time to join the military during a war. Clark Gable was a bomber pilot over Europe during WW2, Errol Flynn tried to join but had medical disqualifications.

Music has become a formula business, they don't want people who experiment ad push music forward, they want people who are sure to make them money and not rock the boat. Not to mention it is a lot harder to break into the mainstream with smaller record labels comparatively to older generations of musicians. A lot of Classic Rock artists of the 60's and 70's started with followings in big and middle sized cities and worked their asses off touring and releasing albums until they broke into the popular conciseness. Nowadays as long as you can be auto tuned, follow the formula, and bend over to the music industry you to can sell out a stadium.

Comedy, like so many other things, has been infiltrated and co-opted so that instead of the cream rising to the top, only the people who will fit a certain mold will be given time on stage or film. It's a symptom of the environment that we are operating in. Instead of Joan Rivers you get Amy Schemer, instead of Chevy Chase and Bill Murray you get the current SNL crop, instead of Johnny Carson you have Stephen Colbert.

Some of these guys are still funny, or have the ability to be, when their bits aren't injected with politics and thinly veiled contempt.

Comedy at in it's highest form can challenge and draw attention to serious subjects. It can be a welcomed and needed distraction at the end of the day. It can be a simply laugh or make you think long after the curtains have closed. Like so many other things culturally today it seems that something akin to a soul is missing from a lot of it.

Post: #38

(06-29-2018 12:45 AM)EndsExpect Wrote:  

(06-28-2018 10:26 AM)greekgod Wrote:  Comedy is separate from movies because the distribution channels are different. Hollywood has the production, editing, writing, casting, and promotional channels on lock. The truest form of comedy, aside from promotion, doesn't need any of that. You could open a no frills comedy club in Chicago or NYC that caters to the crowd who yearns for raw, incisive truth and within a year or two, have a very nice business. Shit someone could probably make a nice 5 year run of lampooning hollywood's idiocy. And if it proves successful, unencumbered studios would be popping up soon thereafter.
Talent has been suffocated but someone in the moneyed alt lite will scratch this itch within a decade.

I think your analysis is spot on... however... liberal audiences are insanely liberal. 44% of America is so liberal that it's absolutely crazy, and they all agree on nearly everything. It is functioning like a religion. Most of these people congregate in big cities.

In a city like Chicago, or NYC, there are not enough normal people to make a standard comedy club profitable. Maybe if you generated enough outrage it would get free publicity and then could be profitable for a time as people came to check out what all the fuss was about.

Normal people, and conservatives are not all jammed up in big cities. You would have to create a comedy tour and go through playing cities like Huntsville, Alabama. This would require a lot more work to gain some kind of fame or status... and once you did... what would you do with it? You would be booed or protested off stage in any big city, and no movie studio would touch you.

Essentially if normal people want to splinter off and create their own entertainment industries... it's doable, but would require massive effort and heavy funding to start.

You're thinking with the millennial "liberal lens" which is really progs and only comprise like 30-40% of the "liberal population".

I didn't mention anything about the comedy club being conservative, just no frills.
Huge difference. Conservatives have their own limiting problems. Comedy is 360 degrees. Prog comedy is 45-90 degrees based around identity, bodily functions, and snark. Conservative comedy is highlighting liberal hypocrisy, cognitive dissonance and arrested development, 180 at best.

The aim isn't for a big studio to be attracted to you, its a forum to practice unfettered comedy and test what works.

Post: #39

(06-29-2018 08:37 AM)Syberpunk Wrote:  The actor, Simon Pegg, a few years ago suggested and I'm paraphrasing what he said "that civilization can't sustain itself solely on dumbed down sci-fi and comic books films"

Yep. Simon cashes the check to do M:I and (modern, dumbed-down, SJW gay sulu) Star Trek movies. Plus he also came out recently to say that his comedies were produced under a constant alcoholic haze. So he's probably not the guy who should be proselytizing.

Post: #40

Wtf is up with Simon Pegg? He surely has the ability to make more incredible comedy movies like Hot Fuzz but has instead sunk into mediocrity.

Post: #41

Quote:Melissa McCarthy’s “Life of the Party,” has grossed $52 million, her lowest-grossing comedy ever. Amy Schumer’s “I Feel Pretty” is finishing its box office run with $49 million, less than half of her debut hit “Trainwreck.”

And they are surprised about this? Why would any red blooded male waste his hard earned money to watch fat ugly she-beasts boss around men and pull lame ass predictable jokes for 80 minutes plus?

How fucking stupid do they think we are? Don't answer that.

Post: #42

(06-29-2018 10:19 AM)DChambers Wrote:  Music has become a formula business, they don't want people who experiment ad push music forward, they want people who are sure to make them money and not rock the boat. Not to mention it is a lot harder to break into the mainstream with smaller record labels comparatively to older generations of musicians. A lot of Classic Rock artists of the 60's and 70's started with followings in big and middle sized cities and worked their asses off touring and releasing albums until they broke into the popular conciseness. Nowadays as long as you can be auto tuned, follow the formula, and bend over to the music industry you to can sell out a stadium.

Watch this and weep: