Oh My! Aren't We Edgy! We're Willing To Lampoon Ourselves!

The best way for me to explain to you how I feel about this article is to paint you a mental picture, if I may.

Let's say that you have a lovely home. Let's say that the house is very large, very modern, and people from all over come and see it because it's just that damn fine. There is marble everywhere and the crown molding is perfect. The bathrooms have those goofy doohickeys that clean your butt off for you when you are done doing your business. The front door is rounded, like the doorways in The Simpsons. And there are lovely plants and sculptures throughout.

Oh, and there is a dead, rotting dog in the middle of the kitchen.

Don't make any mistake about it: the kitchen is all stainless steel and the counter tops are granite, but there's also a 200-pound dead St. Bernard on the floor. He's been there for weeks and he's bloated and gray and there is a nest of mice living in what used to be the dog's ass.

That's not the entire portrait I need to paint for you, but it's a start. The point of the portrait is that there is a family who lives in that house and accepts visitors from all over the world to enjoy it and be entertained by that house, but for some reason... even though the smell of the big dead rotting dog makes people gag and hork... nobody mentions it or even refers to it being there when they walk through the house!

Then suddenly... with no warning or explanation as to why... the owner of the house walks into the kitchen one day... a kitchen that he has been walking through for years... and without any sort of logic behind it he suddenly slaps his palms on his cheeks and his eyes bug out and he says "Oh my god! There's a dead dog in here!"

It annoys the shit out of me when Hollywood seems to come across as if they don't know that they are a shallow, self-obsessed, money-hungry, condescending entity with little to no regard for anything that is NOT superficial or trite.

It annoys m even more when they act like it's news.

Make no mistake: CNN isn't digging into this investigation because they have stumbled across a soon-to-be-released feature film that satirizes Hollywood. This "Oh My, Aren't We Edgy" news was spoon-fed to them by the studio releasing this thing. And that makes it worse because what they are trying to do is drum up business for a movie that otherwise won't make money based on its' merits as a film.

Condescending self-awareness in the face of the obvious is a terrible trait that rarely does any real good. Think back to the mid 90's when Johnathan Demme shat out the steaming turd that was PHILADELPHIA. The movie sucked balls. The screenplay was pandering and arthritic, and the focus of the whole thing was to make you feel sorry for people with AIDS. Which you shouldn't have to depend on a movie to do anyway.

On a side note, I can recall sitting in a packed movie theater watching a rail-thin Tom Hanks collapse out of the witness chair and unintentionally letting out a snorting guffaw of amazement that a 'major studio release' had the gall to stoop that low. I was treated to a stern "You must be Satan" gaze from the blue-haired Jewish lady in front of me for that one. Sorry.

A movie shouldn't try to drum up press for itself for being controversial unless it actually IS a controversial movie. And in that case, the studio doesn't need to do the work because some other useless organization that wants attention will step in to field that. For every AMERICAN PSYCHO and KITE RUNNER (both had ad campaigns and publicity junkets that claimed that the studio itself is worried about the effects of it's impending release upon the general public) there are SCADS of legitimately good films that will draw flack from controversy for simply being (see: THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE).

But to be so self-effacing and gregarious as to try to drum up wobbly controversy regarding a Hollywood movie that might... heaven forbid... poke fun at Hollywood movies... and to act as if that might be a sin in the eyes of the system... as if nobody would have ever noticed that The Industry might have more than a few exploitable flaws... as if THIS is the movie that is going to open one's eyes to the self-absorbed underbelly that IS 'Hollywood'...

Pathetic.

Quick game for you to try playing: Come up with some big studio movies about making movies that don't make cartoon characters out of its' stars. Come up with some independent movies about making movies that don't come across as bitter and angry with how Hollywood treats itself. I get as close as SUNSET BLVD before I give up. And that movie is 60 years old.