Well, I think I’ve set WordPress up to post an alert to Facebook each time I post a blog…We’ll see how that works out for us when I finish this morning…

I know I said yesterday that I would start posting some of the source images that I’m wanting to use for the tattoo that Rob Jarrett from 2 Ton will begin planning today, but your humble narrator was a little busier yesterday than he had anticipated and neglected to upload the photos to photobucket so I could link to them from my in-laws’ place. Lame, I know, but we’re going to roll with what we got, which is, nothing related to that tattoo.

Something that has been on my mind lately is how anti-hollywood I’m becoming. Over the years I’ve noticed more and more how hollywood owns us in many ways, making us go week in and week out to see their shitty little big budgeted films. Posters are everywhere, all the reviewers are gaga over a lot of them, they pop up all over the TV…You just cannot get away from them. It has infected us so bad, that it’s not an uncommon thing to hear someone say that a movie stinks, just because it didn’t have a big budget, or it didn’t have a big named actor in it, or, in a round about way, it forced them to think. One of my biggest gripes is the overuse of computer graphics in a film. Sure they’re really impressive and I have all the respect in the world for the people who produce them, but in film making, I think it’s really lazy…We need the world to explode? Sure, let’s just hop on the computer and create the world exploding…That simple. There’s none of the hardcore creativity that made folks like William Castle and Ed Wood the legends they are today! The big budgeted acts rely heavily on the faces of their popular actors, the 1/2 of the budget that is used on marketing, their dumbed down content and their computer graphics abilities to create their “vision” and it usually turns into a steaming pile of crap.

Now I’m not saying that big named actors shouldn’t get paid, nor am I saying that you shouldn’t put so much money into your ad campaign, because like it or not, that’s what gets your movie in front of people’s faces…I’m also not saying that every movie has to be a thinker and I’m certainly not saying all studios should abandon the computer graphics aspect that is so popular and more and more affordable nowadays…What I’m really trying to say, and stick with me here…Is I…*gulp* LOVE Hollywood…There, I said it. I love ’em. But maybe not for the same reasons you think I do…

I love gore, blood, guts, tits, violence and exploitation of them all in film. I hate censorship. I love films that don’t have anyone telling them what they can and cannot show. I hate studios that have forced their film makers to cut things based on the initial rating they received. I love kids movies. I hate the rating system. I love most all Disney movies, their parks…and iCarley…and the impact both have had on my life…I hate the Disney corporation.

The big corporations and studios dominate theater screens all over the world, filling us with the mindless, boring, cookie-cutter crap that please most brain dead Americans and puts their asses in the theater seats. It kills me that because of this, talented, deserving and most of all PASSIONATE film makers get ignored based on the reasons I’ve stated above. A vast majority of the world doesn’t get to see a lot of the masterpieces that are created all over the world simply because Hollywood shuns them. Up and coming directors, producers and actors don’t get the credit or the time they deserve, because Hollywood shuns them.

“But Justin, I thought you said you loved Hollywood?” and I do, oh my brothers and only friends, I do. I’ve realized, be it only recently, that without Hollywood, these hard working indies wouldn’t exist in the state they do right now. I love the passion, I love the guerilla marketing, I love being part of an elite group that knows what art truly is. Without Hollywood, then that defiant 1000 mile wide wall that separates us from the big budgeted no-brainers wouldn’t exist. You wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Avatar and the Mislead Romance of Cannibal Girl and Incest Boy…Is this a good thing? In some ways, yes, but I vote no because without Hollywood, this type of art simply wouldn’t have as much power as it actually does have. Just like without jocks, there would be no punks…Just like without republicans, there would be no one to be smarter than…Without Hollywood, the independent film maker and his (or her) crew would just be another couple of Joes playing a Johnny Cash song on guitar in Nashville.

Real artists…Real because Hollywood hates them.

Enjoy today’s haiku:

Well, I hope this works
Posting to Facebook comes next
After this haiku