Dear Hollywood: An Open Letter to the Movie Industry

Dear Hollywood,

Jonathan King here – long time fan, first time writer. How are you? That’s good to hear. How are the kids? Ha ha ha ha *wipes tear away* well they are a handful at that age. Well, now that we have the formalities out of the way, I just have a couple of questions that I’m hoping you might be able to answer.

Normally I’d just let you go about your business, blowing things up and overhyping the next Twilight film and such, but I just have this nagging feeling that…well…you have no fucking clue what you’re doing.

But fear not! You see, I have some suggestions that I think you’ll find will immediately solve a lot of your problems as well as help restore the sanity of the movie-obsessed everywhere. For your consideration:

1. Stop giving Tim Burton every halfway-creepy project

Yes, we get it. Tim Burton is creepy. He’s the prince of darkness, despite looking like the lovechild of Bono and a mop. That does not mean that every vaguely weird story needs to involve dead things and star Johnny Depp. I mean, I liked The Nightmare Before Christmas too, but would it kill you to give new projects to different people? Even Burton seems to be running on empty. The once original filmmaker seems to be creating his latest projects in a paint-by-numbers fashion. As scattershot as the humour is, I think this clip sums the Burton formula up pretty nicely.

2. If the film title is, “_____ Movie”, shut production down ASAP

Scary Movie, Disaster Movie, Epic Movie…it doesn’t really matter what it’s called. All of these box office monstrosities are making the masses dumber simply by existing, and it needs to stop now. These poor excuses for parody do nothing except make for an angry Jonathan. If I see either of the series’ co-creators, Jason Friedberg or Aaron Seltzer, walking along the sidewalk, I’m giving them 35 million slaps to the face: one for every worldwide dollar Disaster Movie took in.

Friedberg. Seltzer. Consider yourselves warned.

3. Jennifer Aniston should be unemployed and useless instead of just useless

Friends ended a long time ago people, I think it’s time to move on. Jennifer Aniston has built a film “career” out of the success of that show and her haircut, but it’s time for the madness to stop. Every role she’s been given has been exactly the same, and if every movie she’s ever made hasn’t convinced everyone of how one-note and awful she is, recent entry, The Bounty Hunter, should. For the record, Hollywood, she didn’t do any damage in Office Space, but that had more to do with the sheer awesomeness of that film than any performance she could have come up with. I like to call it the “Keanu-effect” (as seen in The Matrix): when a movie’s so good, it doesn’t matter if the lead isn’t.

4. Put an end to the commercial punishment

I absolutely understand why companies would want to advertise in theatres. The prospect of a captive audience all staring at your commercial brilliance in full surround sound is pretty hard to pass up. Here’s the thing though: audiences shouldn’t have to put up with it. We paid our $10-15 already. We don’t need to “pay” for the movie we’re about to watch by viewing a few “words from our sponsor”. Television operates under a similar system, and in case you’re wondering, I also think paying for cable should equate watching commercial-free programming as well.

Don’t make me spitefully avoid your products because you delayed me thirty seconds from watching Kick-Ass. I’ll do it. I’m crazy.

5. Please stop creating trailers that treat us like dogs

I’ve got to thank James at cinemassacre.com for this one, because if he hadn’t pointed it out, I probably still would be blissfully watching trailers – unaware of the mind-trickery at work. Now I can’t not notice it.

Typically used in comedy trailers, whenever you want us to laugh, you use a marketing device. The trailers cut the music out from the clip and then deliver some version of a punchline. This cueing is the equivalent of training a dog, and it’s manipulative at worst and insulting at best.

Not sure what I’m talking about? See for yourself in the trailers for MacGruber and Fool’s Gold.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of being treated like one of Pavlov’s dogs.

Anyway, Hollywood, I’m sure you’ve got important things to do. I mean, those Paris Hilton movies aren’t going to make themselves! But at least consider my ideas. Please. For all of us.

Sincerely,

Jonathan King