…in real life, filmmakers routinely outsource their productions to places… where they can avoid paying union premiums…when the Writers Guild struck last year, we saw studio liberals turn into corporate hard-guys in the blink of an eye…

Klavan’s accurate take on wealthy and powerful “liberals” needs to be continually repeated. These obscene posers represent a dominating class that controls (and continually degrades) American culture.

What screen writers experienced with the studios last year was experienced more brutally decades ago by editors, book designers and production people when they attempted to unionize the publishing industry. Macmillan, as I recall, was particularly vicious but Random House, S&S and others were little better. And this was before the German takeover of American book publishing.

That political films fail is only natural. Satire requires audacity, brilliance and genuine sophistication, each individually rare. And satire doesn’t allow for partial success. Satire either succeeds brilliantly or it flops miserably. The writer is either a genius or a jackass.

That’s why writers who advertise themselves as satirists—Christopher Buckley comes to mind—are inevitably mediocrities trafficking in insider sneers and arch chuckles to the politically like-minded. Christopher Guest’s spoofs beginning with This Is Spinal Tap have been consistently amusing but what else is there? The only great film satires that come to mind are John Huston’s, The Man Who Would Be King on British imperialism (from Kipling) and Preston Sturgiss’s, The Great McGinty on American politics.

What amazes me is that an industry which can’t manage to produce one worthwhile drama or one genuinely funny comedy a year would even attempt satire.

Lack of good scripts, the oft heard excuse, is just that and nothing more. Hollywood blows it even when supplied the best of print sources. Consider the reverse alchemy–gold to lead–performed on Tom Wolfe’s, Bonfire of the Vanities. (Incidentally, the only novel that could have predicted the rise of a Barack Obama to the presidency.)

Klavan thinks a regime change is in order. Funny notion. What’s required is a revolution. Pitchforks and torches. Hanging ropes and firing squads.

The Kingdom made ~45% of its box overseas. For a total box of $86.6 million.

Alexander made ~79% of its box overseas, for a total of $167.3 million.

Neither The Kingdom nor Alexander made even $20 million box over their production costs (Rendition’s production cost isn’t listed).

Hollywood’s propaganda movies aren’t even a financial success overseas.

Iron Man, however, boxed $571.8 million, with ~44% of that coming overseas. With a production budget of $140 million.

And The Dark Knight’s gross is $990 million, ~47% from overseas.

The theory that Hollywood can blow off the US audience and live off of overseas audiences, doesn’t hold up. Too often a movie that dies here, dies overseas too. Conversely, a movie that succeeds here will usually be a success overseas as well.

Further, I’m not sure that the Christmas Carol format lent itself well to a comedy vehicle. The whole point is to convince someone of the error of their ways, but so much of what was presented was as stereotypicl of the left as the left uses against the right.

Second point: whoever did the distribution deal for aAC did a piss-poor job. I live in a city of about 150,000, with a surrounding metro area of about 600,000. There were, I think, 2 theaters in town showing the film, and three out of town (the nearest of those being 10 miles away) showing it, While “Beverly Hills Chihuahua” was on countless screens in town as well as out. So, in that situation, of course aAC isn’t going to do very well. (Compare it with “Body of Lies,” which had a much better distribution, and you begin to see that aAC didn’t do very badly…)

Bottm line: if we want alternative media to work, we have to give it support, it needs better distribution, and the material has to be better.

I am most interested in how ‘W’ does. It is kind of sad, as the trailers made me aware, that one could actually tell a really interesting and compelling story, warts included, about GWB and his Presidency, but the idea that Oliver Stone could ever be that someone is absurd. So every one of us, from conservatives to drooling Michael Moore groupies, knows what to expect, and will be right. I think conservatives will not spend dime one on ‘W’ obviously, and Bush-haters have other things on their minds right now (Bush is so passe).

Also, let us watch for that cute thing of people going to OTHER movies that weekend, being sold tickets to ‘W’ and told “Oh, don’t worry, it doesn’t matter, just go to the theater you want”.

Yeah, real cute, people. Watch for it.

Consider that Hollywood types are some of the loudest wailers and teeth-gnashers over how Bush et al has “terribly damged our ‘image’ in the world”, how ” people don’t love us any more”, etc etc.

Confront them with the strange and bizarre idea that maybe THEY have as much of a role to play in that being the case as Bush, IF NOT MORE, given so much of their work. Watch them then look at you as if you are some sort of bug that started speaking all of a sudden.

They “mean well”, thus can do no wrong. Bush’s fault, Bush’s fault, Bush’s fault.

Putzes.

Eagle Eye and the implied threat that the government is watching and controlling everything (or may be capable of working toward that point) has a more anti-government point of view. On the other hand, it also showed heroic people stopping the rogue computer to save the sitting government. So… not too bad.

Oh, and I think “W” will do well in Europe.