Hollywood Yesterday and (to)Day

Hollywood motion pictures and television have been taking a beating lately. Between the writer's strike, tanking ratings for the Oscars, drops in network ratings, the consolidation of media corporations and frankly, something of a boom in anti-audience (or perhaps postmodern "audience neutral") fare, on the surface, it seems as if Hollywood has come unglued from its former lifeblood: the paying customer. I'm not talking about cashflow, necessarily. I'm talking about relevance and warm bodies and pairs of eyes.

Of course, there are exceptions to this, but many of those exceptions seem to come as a surprise to the industry. While the studios trumpet George Clooney (whom I love as Danny Ocean and Everett in O Brother) as the next Cary Grant, there are times when I'm not even sure he is as good as the last George Clooney.

There are still some stalwarts: Will Smith consistently delivers major blockbusters, and is incredibly smart about the non-major films he chooses. Tom Hanks has shifted a lot of focus to production of documentaries and historic dramas, but will still draw folks in from across the audience spectrum.

However, often the success of 300, of Tyler Perry films, of no-budget smashes like My Big Fat Greek Wedding (which, incidentally, wouldn't have gotten off the ground without Hanks' and Rita Wilson's bankrolling) and the The Passion of the Christ often come despite Hollywood's low expectations.

As budgets for films continue to bloat while receipts fall, there are legitimate complaints that Hollywood doesn't get it. I thought this the other day as I set foot in a Blockbuster for the first time in six months (and not to rent a movie. It was next door to the Papa Murphy's and I was waiting for a pizza. You don't think I keep my cinderblock-and-gristle figure on a diet of yams, do you?)

As I browsed the aisles, I noticed an awful lot of bloody axes, a bunch of obviously boring political movies, and one animated (you know, the kind that change depending on the angle you see it at) cover of a barfing zombie. Now, as a self respecting troll, I'm all about the barfing zombie: we use their natural projectile acid reflux as a household cleaner...but my type is a somewhat narrow demographic. And who wants to watch a movie about dirty bathrooms, anyhow?

Anyway, what I noticed even more than the cheap sequels of remakes of remakes, the talkfests, the hashbrown horror movies, and the really exhausting "sex" "comedies" was something more significant: an absence.

There wasn't a single cover of a DVD, not a single new release, that inspired me. No saber-wielding Luke, no steadfast Queen Gorgo, no dashing Indy, no Joan of Arc (no Joan Wilder, either), no Frodo, no Ripley, no Titanic, even. No heroes (heck, not even any anti-heroes!), no complicated women, no orignial concepts.

Just zombie barf and the impossibly long legs of presumably topless girls.

So Hollywood has fallen, yes?

I'm not so sure.

Even as an atheist, I knew Moses. Sure, he looked a lot like Charlton Heston, and with his passing I am reminded of how one talented bloke can take a run-of-the-mill "cast of thousands" bible epic and create a deep and meaningful story - one that might even contribute in some small way to a viewer's transformation.

Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Bill Cobbs proved that a trio of septagenarian lifelong actors can together contribute a critical component to the depth and storytelling of a movie like A Night at the Museum.

The half-mad and oft-scorned Orson Welles single-handedly challenged the Hollywood mindset to get great work (like Touch of Evil) to an audience. Sure he paid dearly for his ambition/arrogance, but you can't argue with the resulting masterworks. He wasn't the only one to do it either.

Heck, even the late great Colleen Moore proved you can change things with the right haircut, (or change a child's life with the right dollhouse.)

So I know it can be done. The question is: is it?

I think yes, but not necessarily where we expect it, and probably not always from the people we expect.

For one, the John Adams mini-series airing right now on HBO is the greatest mini-series in the history of the world. Paul Giamatti vanishes as the lead role into the perfectly constructed world of Colonial and Revolutionary America.

For two, one of my favorite short film series, as you well know, is Fear of Girls, starring Scott Jorgenson and Tom Lommel. This has been produced and made free for consumption by obsessive little monsters like myself.

For three, I do think that there is some good old-fashioned, un-"ironic" (although i notice that the cool "irony" kids these days, like Fezzini's ignorant use of "inconceivable" in Princess Bride, are unaware of what "irony" really means. Which would be ironic if that's what ironic meant. Which it doesn't.) entertainment available on television and in theaters. Yes, I said it. There are still good movies and good t.v. shows to be found. Perhaps nothing attaining the greatness of Candleshoe or Quincy, M.E. respectively, but, we just need to deal with the fact that God needed those blessed diversions more than we did. I believe St. Augustine wrote about this in City of God.

For four, there are strange, geeky talents like Wil Wheaton who have somehow developed into some sort of income-generating single-employee metaentertainment megacorporation.

But probably the best example for what I see as the new rise of Hollywood is The Guild and its writer and co-producer Felicia Day. It may not be the first to have done it, nor the most widely known - but this is an ongoing short webisode series that knows its target audience (and, importantly, doesn't insult them) and operates on donations. Right now, the actors are doing it for free, hoping to raise enough money to keep things going. You know, kind of like Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, putting on a show. And, despite all the challenges they faced, it worked for Rooney and Garland every time. Although life is less certain than the movies, The Guild has won numerous awards, and seems to have a growing fan base, and, one can hope, a donor base to match.

Performing for the people, and asking for our pennies.

That, my (imaginary) friend, is Hollywood.

James Cagney, Bette Davis, Lauren Bacall, Clark Gable, Anthony Perkins, Ann Margaret, Boris Karloff, Christopher Walken, Kathleen Turner, Orson Welles, Katharine Hepburn, Danny Kaye, Sally Field, Faye Dunaway...

...and Felicia Day?

Yeah. Yeah, I think so.