Showing posts with label Hollywood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hollywood. Show all posts

Friday, 22 May 2009

Life and Other Discomforts




Ideas For Television Shows, that are quite unlikely to ever get picked up, really. Shame.

The Pitch: Ashton Kutcher travels through the U.S. visiting different cities and their unsuspecting inhabitants. In a fashion similar to that of Kutcher's previous series Punk'd, the presenter would surprise random women by punching them in the crotch whilst yelling the programme's catchphrase: "You've Been Cunted!" Needless to say, the name of the show would be spelt with the iconic apostrophe that made Kutcher's seminal masterwork such an international success.

Name of the Show: Cunt'd! (Pronounced "Cunted!")

The Pitch: A special episode of Wife Swap involving O.J. Simpson and some couple. Some poor fella spends a week in a damp crypt in a cemetery in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, his wife has been raped and murdered by a man whose only redeeming quality was a small role in the Naked Gun series. On the last day of the exchange, O.J. denies all charges repeatedly saying: "I didn't do it... but if I had..."

Name of the Show: Wife Swab

The Pitch: A Christmas Edition of Come Dine With Me, featuring Beth Ditto.

Name of the Show: The Huge L-Word

Friday, 27 March 2009

Hostile Makeover



Children's Literature + Hollywood = many an appallingly written, poorly directed, incompetently acted piss-poor excuse for a film.

The Ruffalo

The life-story of American actor Mark Ruffalo synchronized to the plot and story of Julia Donaldson/Axel Scheffler's unforgettable The Gruffalo. The monster becomes an incompetent actor and acts in a string of flops.

Where The Wilde Things Are

Part Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are, part bio-pic describing the troubled life and troubled times of literary mammoth Oscar Wilde. It would almost certainly include monsters, betrayal, sodomy and pederasty.

The Chronicles Of Arnie

The Chronicles Of Narnia meets Arnold Schwarzenegger. Need I say more? Maybe I need, I suppose. Why, I hear you ask? Why not? For the money, of course. Why else, right? C.S. Lewis, but with no moral message and -instead- a bunch cars blowing up, buildings burning, and dudes getting shot. Maybe we'll squeeze some robots, some time-travel, some sex, and lotsa, lotsa violence. Yeah!

Monday, 16 March 2009

Plump Fiction



Pulped Fiction, bits and pieces from the Hollywood Archives. An assortment of film script leftovers.


Honey Bunny [About to rob a diner]: I love you, Pumpkin.
Pumpkin: I love you, Honey Bunny. [Standing up with a gun in his hand] All right, everybody be Rob, this is a coolery!
Honey Bunny: Any of you fucking pricks move, and I'll execute every motherfucking last one of... [Turning to Pumpkin] What did you just say?
Pumpkin [Clearly embarrassed]: Not now, Honey Bunny... Not now...


[from a private conversation between Quentin Tarantino and Ving Rhames]

Ving Rhames: But why Marsellus Wallace, Q-man? You are making my character sound like a pimp, and you know how I feel about stereograms...
Quentin Tarantino [henceforth referred to as Q-man and/or the Q-man]: ...types. Stereotypes.
Ving Rhames: What?
The Q-Man: Stereotypes. Stereotypes are widely held, fixed, oversimplified images of someone or something. Like saying "Canada is like the U.S., but filled with nice people," or "blondes have more fun, but less brain." Stereograms are optical illusions of depth created from flat, two-dimensional pictures. You know, those images you stare at for a while before you get them...
Ving Rhame: Oh, yeah... I dig 'em.
The Q-Man: Your point being...?
Ving Rhame: Why can't my character be nice. A nice, friendly black man. Without a name like "Marsellus Wallace," Q-Man. It sounds threatening, you know? Why can't the character be called something like "Wally Marseille" or "Marcel Wallaby," instead?


[from the Original, Unrevised, Unedited Screenplay for the film]

Jules: What does Marcellus Wallace look like?
Brett: What?
Jules: What country you from?
Brett: What?
Jules: What ain't no country I ever heard of! They speak English in What?
Brett: What?
Jules: English, motherfucker! Do. You. Speak. It?
Brett: What?
Jules: Sphincter says what?
Brett: What?
Jules: Ha, you're the sphincter, dude. Now, seriously, English, motherfucker! Do. You. Speak. It?
Brett: Yes!
Jules: Then you know what I'm saying!
Brett: Yes!
Jules: Describe what Marcellus Wallace looks like!
Brett: What, I-?
Jules: [Pointing his gun at him] Say what again. Say. That. Again! I dare you, I double dare you, motherfucker. Say what one more goddamn time.
Brett: He is b-b-b-black...
Jules: Go on.
Brett: He's b-b-b-bald...
Jules: Does he look like a bitch?
Brett [Breaking into song in a husky Louis-Armstrong-type voice]: What a won - der - ful world... And I think to myself...
Jules: Does he look like a bitch?
Brett [Again, breaking into song and attempting a choreography]: What if God was one of us...?
Jules: Man... Not Joan Osbourne, I hate that bitch! Joan Osbourne and Melissa Etheridge are out of bounds. It's in my contract, man. [Jules shoots Brett in shoulder] Entirely unacceptable. [Looking at Vincent] D'you know where the Q-man is? I need to sort some shit out.

Monday, 18 August 2008

Better talkies and celluloid, bitter talk and cellulite...



Simon Says, and the rest of us simply repeat what he says, like the mindless morons we are...

Hollywood taught us that teenage pregnancy can be a lot of fun. And that jocks that get schoolgirls pregnant are cute. [Juno]

Hollywood explained to us that rich people needn't believe in God, but poor fellas pretty much have to. [There Will Be Blood]

Hollywood demonstrated to us that if you want your film to be a blockbuster hit, you should make sure one of the lead actors dies for the film's release. [Dark Knight]

Hollywood showed us that -as long as you are a minor- you can accuse innocent men of rape and get away with it. Maybe even write a best-selling semi-autobiographical novel about it. [Atonement]

Hollywood revealed to us that it is perfectly acceptable to be a psychotic assassin as long as you are thorough and you follow a strict -yet somewhat dubious- code of conduct. Thoroughly. [No Country For Old Men]

Hollywood proved to us that the works of Gabriel García Márquez are as dull and insipid in book form as they are on the big screen. [Love in the Time of Cholera]

Only in Hollywood.

Wednesday, 16 January 2008

Like Father, Like Son




Nepotism in Hollywood, a long-standing tradition of favouritism for the untalented and the inept...


The Coppola family, what's that all about?


Ok, after George Bush was president of the U.S.A., people may have wondered whether his son might be able to perform an acceptable role wearing his same shoes. The answer is: obviously not. If Daddy was a fool, what made anyone think that Sonny would be any better? It is clearly not a family of geniuses, the way some might regard the Bach family. A similar theory can apply to the Coppola family, I believe. Francis Ford Coppola, I take my hat for you. The Godfather Trilogy, The Conversation and Apocalypse Now are all very compelling pieces of audio-visual story-telling. No complaints there. Now, Sofia and Roman: either stop making films or grow some personality. What you are doing makes the word bland mitself seem fairly insipid. Virgin Suicides was the film equivalent of toothless dog, whilst Lost In Translation was amazingly overhyped for an incredible underachievement. CQ was simply bad. Nicholas Cage? Well, at least he had the decency to show some shame and change his family name into the "Cage" stage moniker. I respect that, even if his filmography does include some very dubious titles. Marc Coppola, on the other hand, probably thinks that he must be able to act, since everyone else at home is doing it... Shameless. What about Jason Schwartzman, I hear you ask. Well, let's put it bluntly: he's a drummer. He is but a drummer.

An afterthought: And Christopher Coppola... well, no-one's heard of him, even though he has been directing for a while. Is that not a hint? Maybe he should take up gardening, or open a Petrol Station somewhere in Iowa.

The Paltrows? What the fuck?!?!?

When did the Paltrow family become such a big deal in Hollywood? Gwyneth is adorable, I admit, and she has won an Oscar. But what is an Oscar these days but a much devalued figurine one can buy on Ebay? The Academy Awards are being bought and sold in the meat market, and no-one seems to care anymore. After all, David Lynch has never won one, and he is one the most important directors of the last twenty years. Same thing with Fritz Lang and Stanley Kubrick. Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Robert Altman and Michelangelo Antonioni only got Honorary Awards (the Academy's piss-poor excuse for a consolation prize, the equivalent of an unsigned note that reads: We're sorry, we really fucked up, didn't we?) Yet, Gwyneth wins an Oscar and gets to shove her little brother into the Industry. Jake (the brother) directed the appalling -yet accurately named- The Good Night, which sent more than one theatre full of people to sleep. Why? Good Lord, why are we being punished? Gwyneth and Jake's parents were both in the Film Industry, their mother an actress, their father a director, but neither produced anything of special relevance. So, I ask again, why? Why?

An afterthought: The Coldplay connection makes me want to puke into a pint glass and drink it slowly, savouring every single moment.

Spelling S - P - E - L - L - I - N - G

Aaron Spelling, clearly a man with a vision, regardless of whether we find that vision horrific and a distortion of everything that is good on Earth, has a daughter named Victoria "Tori" Spelling who -sorry about what I am about to say, but it is definitely true- is neither attractive to the eye nor a good actress. How -then- has she managed to appear so often on the TV screen, creating -as it were- a new form of visual pollution so strong and damaging that makes the Greenhouse Effect seem pitiable? Read this paragraph again and you should have little difficulty in finding the answer that question. Honestly, sometimes I wonder.

An afterthought: It is not that Tori is not very attractive. I believe it is the exact opposite: she is very unattractive. Surgery, anyone?