More From The Trenches

To build on what William Goldman so eloquently put it “no one knows anything” mantra, you only have to read a few reviews on IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes to realize how vastly different our tastes are. To try to chase the trend is…well, ridiculous. There is so much fear in the movie industry. More than when it began. So when someone offers corners to cut, of course they snatch the opportunity. Things like lowering quality of origination. We are at “it’s good enough” believe it or not.

I was listening to John Cusack on The Nerdist podcast recently, and he talked about Joe Roth. He was a bigwig at a major studio. And he LOVED movies. He really supported good material, even if it meant putting his head in a noose. A nickel and dime show, low budget flick that an actor can jump on, means more in the long run. IF it hits. The guy is a genius. If it fails, it’s not a huge loss. I would say this is equivalent of playing slot machines. You don’t put in too much, have your fun, and the loss isn’t too great. Joe Roth helped get “High Fidelity” made. A decent flick. Made little money. Anyway, Roth was always on the Premiere magazine top 100 power players in Hollywood. Most of the general public had no idea who these people were, but they ran the movie business. Let’s not be crazy though. Roth would also push summer blockbusters.

Conversely, you have Amy Pascal. Anyone who is in movies, or even just moderately interested knew about her fiasco with the Sony leaks. Now a notorious email about how little she understood or cared about “Aloha.” That movie was a $40 million budget. A large enough budget. But with names like Bradley Cooper, Bill Murray, Emma Stone an Rachel McAdams, and directed by Cameron “Jerry Maguire” Crowe, hardly a gamble. You can sense from her emails that it was an all or nothing sensibility. One email (to paraphrase) basically questioned her choices of greenlighting a project she didn’t understand. Tell that to the Wachowskis and “The Matrix.” Anyway, she lamented about the story, and how nothing worked in it. You felt nothing for anyone. But she gave it a go anyway. To me, that is massive balls. The type of balls that requires a movie like this to be made, to possibly open the doors for similar flicks. Though it is seen as a colossal failure, I felt the movie wasn’t as bad as people made it out to be. However, I don’t greenlight movies. Nor do I have a mortgage. So all this is moot, if you do all the above.

I just get really sad sometimes. That I like the process of putting it together. When it comes together. The support from my hometown…I miss the most. In rural Ohio, people love to help. With no return. They are generous friendly people. Recently, George Clooney returned to Augusta, Kentucky with his new bride. She was clearly out of her element with the homespun people. They eat a lot of gravy. But she rolled with it. It's hard to dislike people from that part of the country. They’re hardworking friendly people. When Hollywood comes around, they only embrace him. The town will always love him. He’s one of us. No matter if he’s had failures. We don’t care about that. Los Angeles only cares about what you’re doing next. It takes a while to understand this type of mindset. And it's what creates the paranoia prevalent in people who work in movies. We only hear the success stories. More should be said of the failures.