Father Geek here with a look at TITUS from Executive Man, one of our highest ranking operatives in the Front Offices. He goes on a bit of a rant, but we forgive him, it comes with the territory...
-----------Executive Man Speaks Again-----------
A Sort-Of Review of TITUS and a Call To Arms
When you walk through the chilly halls and bungalows of the Studios, treading on immaculate sidewalks, passing shrubbery that receives more care than most Third World children, you never really realize that the vines, blinds, and stucco are all hiding something.
You're distracted. Be it murals on soundstages or posters (one-sheets, for those in the know) on interior walls, you're inundated with movie imagery from days past, movies that were more than movies, more than just entertainment. They were Films. They were Art. They were the dreams we all shared. They were inspiration. They were the precious minutes we spent in theaters as children, having all sorts of dreams and visions implanted. They were the movies that became a part of us, supplying our spirits with special and immeasurable heartbeats, giving our dreams the breath of life. They were the images and stories that transformed a dark theatre into the most perfect confessional, where we could see our own fears and failures, find redemption and hope, and all without uttering a word.
And not anywhere, not on any lot, is there a single image of a movie made in the past twenty years.
Sure, there are big paper banners overlooking Gower and Sunset on the exterior of Paramount. There are huge badly-painted murals hanging over Barham from the Warner Bros. soundstage exteriors and on both sides of the overly cold and corporate Glass Building. Fox has one huge billboard and three small ones staring out over the Pico and Motor intersection. Universal has it's marquee looming over Lankersheim Boulevard. Other studios have their billboards, but they are all disposable images. They keep whatever movie or TV show up until Mr. Neilsen or Mr. Boxoffice says the image no longer has any cache. Then they are torn down and thrown outŠ not even recycled.
For recycling, you see, Hollywood saves only white copier paper, plots, and characters.
The images on the walls and halls of the Studios are there for a few reasons. First, to impress entrants, to humble them as they walk into the Suits' offices to ask for money for their script or their time on a set. Second, so those same Suits can buy themselves some legitimacy, so those Suits can give the illusion they know what they are doing, to buy some cache for themselves simply because they work within the shadow of a 40-foot Lawrence Oliver or Luke Skywalker. Those murals are the biggest falsified resume imaginable.
There are only three types of Suits in Hollywood. I don't mean Miami Vice Pastel, Double-Breasted, and Tuxedo. I mean the people inhabiting those suits. There are only three character archetypes inhabiting those cotton-wool blends.
The first is The Copycat. He or She looks up at those murals and gigantic icons and thinks "I want to do something just like that, only with a (insert the current decade here) sensibility." They are the people who give us "Wild Wild West."
The second type is The Friend. He or She looks up to those murals and gigantic icons and thinks "I want to be just like the people who made those images." They don't care about content, context, or cost. They just want to be able to stand next to a celeb or have their name on the cc list of every memo or contract the Studio issues. They are the people who create the people who give us "Wild Wild West."
The third type is The Liar. He or She looks up at those images and doesn't think anything, but as soon as someone walks by, will tap the person on the shoulder and say "Hey, without me, that wouldn't be there. Aren't I an important person?" They are the people who read the script for "Wild Wild West" and said it was great if their friend Will Smith (whether or not they ever met the man) wanted to star in it. They are also the people who told everyone it was a horrible movie that "they" made three days after release. The Liar is scared of two things: expressing an opinion of their own and being asked direct questions.
Copycats, Friends, and Liars. That is the Studio of today.
How do I know? Because I am one of them.
Which am I? I'm the worst kind.
A little of each.
It's made me a lot of money. I get really good tables on zero notice at the best restaurants in town. I paid cash for my SUV so that I can have the same car that every other executive in this business has. I get to go to the parties and line my office with pics of myself with whatever celeb is popular that week. I get to not return dozens of phone calls a day and not suffer for it. I get to fire minions on a whim. I have assistants wash my car and do my laundry. I get to have aspiring actresses (and a few actors) offer me blowjobs just to get an audition appointment. I get to lie to people and call it "just business". I get to alternate between jeans and $1000 suits at work. I haven't had to pay for a movie ticket in four years, and I've seen everything.
That's the problem. I don't have to pay for movies. None of us suits do. We have no basis for valuation. We haven't a clue what it takes to earn $9 for a movie. We haven't a clue as to what people expect for $9. So we only serve you what we want: tight clothes, beautiful people, explosions, and a closing credit song you can hum on your way out.
The rest of the stuff - plot, character, logic, meaningfulness, self-respect - we have no use for. We're too busy shouting loud to care about what we're shouting.
And you know what? It's only going to get worse. See, people like me get to work with an institution run exclusively by The Liars. It's called the Marketing Department.
They don't care about anything. The entire mission of the Marketing Department is to lie to people, to make them think that a movie is great based on a preview or a TV spot. We get to make cool movie posters that can go on sale on eBay.
The more they spend on magazine ads, the better the movie must be. The more they spend on TV commercials during "ER", the more The Masses want to go see something. See, all that matters is impression. Quality doesn't mean a damn thing, and it means less with every newly-installed executive.
Why? Look at the Trades, the Hollywood Reporter and Daily Variety. Read the "Executive Shuffle". See who is taking over the studios. It's all Marketing People. They are the ones being put in all the top spots, the ones who get to say "Yes" or "No" to every new project.
With The Liars/Marketers in charge, they won't make anything that doesn't fit into an established pattern of media buying and newsprint placement and publicity servicing - it's a pattern, dictated by things like "points" and "penetration" and "impression" graphs. If they get a subject they can't get a grip on, they give up and shuffle it off to cable or video. But when they have the Green-Light power, those movies don't ever get made.
If theses people were in charge, movies like "To Kill A Mockingbird", "Casablanca", "12 Angry Men", or even "Star Wars" would never have gotten made. (Yes, I said "Star Wars". Alan Ladd Jr. had to fight with everyone at Fox to get them to make that because at the time, Marketers said that "Sci-Fi is dead".) None of these fit the moldŠ yet these are the movies that are now murals on the lots, intimidating and impressing onlookers for years.
Twenty years from now, no one will be looking at a "The Waterboy" mural. No one will stop and red light and have three seconds of awe by looking up at a 40-foot "Charlie's Angels" image.
Now, if you're still reading, why am I writing this, why am I airing these dirty industry truths?
Because last week, I saw one of the best trailers I've ever seen. Big stars, big budget, timeless story. The trailer for "Titus", with Anthony Hopkins and Jessica Lange, is incredible. It's beautiful, it's engaging, it's intense, it looks like an incredible film.
And with another invitation from someone sucking up to me, a day later I saw the film. I've been trying to fitfully describe this movie, trying to find the words to express the emotions it stirred in me. After days of soul-searching, I finally found those wordsŠ
THE MOVIE TOTALLY SUCKS.
I could go on about how the anachronisms don't work and are distracting, I could talk about the bizarre, silly, and unmotivated visual dynamics the director Julie Taimor used. I could talk about how only Lange's and Hopkins' performances were adequate without being persuasive, and everyone else is just out of place and characters are inconsistent and dull. I could talk about how disjoint the story was as adapted.
Instead, I'll just say that after an hour, I walked out, went up the street to the Fox Commissary, got a Sprite, used by ubiquitous cell phone until the "battery low" warning came on, then went back to my seat an hour later and nothing at all in the movie had changed. And the movie still had an hour to go.
That last hour, I spent wondering how many buxom interns I could sleep with, and in what positions, before my studio stopped letting me expense my condom purchases. Then I spent some time realizing that this was the movie that motivated Hopkins to disgust and to give up acting altogether.
But that's just my opinion on the movie. Others could see it differently. I doubt it, but it is possible.
But this movie has evidence on just how bad it is. And all you do is need to sit through the credits. The version I saw didn't have credits; I read them in the press release about the movie on my Sprite walk.
Lots of names of the cast and production companies and producers are listedŠ but the only name you need to see is the Executive ProducerŠ Paul Allen.
Yes, THAT Paul Allen. Mr. Microsoft, Jr. Mr. "I'm only worth $60 billion". The same guy who on a lark, invested hundreds of millions of dollars to form his own studioŠ He is the money behind DreamWorks.
And this movie of such quality that his own studio won't release it. No description, no critique, no analysis of all the things wrong with the movie could ever be as convincing as that little logical step. "Titus" is a movie so bad, the studio the producer owns won't even release it.
But what the hellŠ it's got a great trailer and pretty posters.
And that's all Fox needs. The movie will fit some pattern they lifted from some other movie. The studio that ruined the marketing of great films like "Fight Club" and "Boys Don't Cry", the studio that got away with "Never Been Kissed" and "Anywhere But Here", will get to toy with you people again.
But there is hope.
You can be an activist. You can stand up and say "no". You can make a difference.
There is a little-known clause in almost all movie exhibitor contracts that says that audience members who walk out on a movie before a certain point (usually halfway) will get a full refund if they complain to the manager.
That's it. Walk out. On "Titus", on "End Of Days", on whatever movie you don't like, on any movie you've been duped into seeing by great trailers and pretty posters.
If you just get up and leave, we Executives don't care. We have your money, and that's all that matters. We don't give a shit one way or another if you were entertained or not. We have your money, and our mission is accomplished and we retire to coatrooms for blowjobs from interns overeager to develop buck teeth.
If you go to a restaurant and get a Caesar Salad that tastes like goat piss, you send it back and don't pay for it. If you buy a car that falls apart halfway through your first trip, you get your money back. If your new suit loses it's stitching the first time you sit, you get your money back. But if you get fooled into seeing a horrible movie, the joke's on you because you don't know any better.
But if you get your money back, well, that's fewer business trips to Hawaii and a smaller SUV for us. That, we pay attention to. Money talks, and losing it will tell all the Executives and the Marketing People that you're not going to put up with our shit anymore.
Because until you say that loud and clear, we're going to be tricking you again and again.
And in twenty years, not one new mural will be added to any wall on any studio.
Executive Man
