A cable channel all about movies.

As interesting as that sounds on the surface, there’s a part of me going, “Trailers and talkshows and reviewers and websites and the TVGuide channel and fastfood licensing and print ads aren’t enough?” I have the feeling it’s going to be too much like the Home Shopping Network for me to like it; I don’t care what *they* think is a good movie, I care what I and my friends and family think is a good movie, and *they* rarely agree with *us.*

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately, and I’ve come to the conclusion that Hollywood is full of idiots who only know one thing: marketing. They don’t know math, they don’t know science, and they don’t even really know good storytelling! The only thing they manage to do well is marketing, because they beat the public to death with those ads: pulse-pounding music, big explosions, romantic kisses, attractive people running around like chickens with their heads cut off…

Yeah, they make it look exciting, and people go to see it, and only later, when the emotional high has worn off, do we stop and notice (well, most of us, anyway - some notice in the middle;) that the plot really hinged on some nonsensical devices that couldn’t work in the real world. I mean, really, Batman Begins? It’s fun and angsty, but come on, a giant microwave that can boil water in pipes hundreds of feet below without harming the two men wrestling in the monorail car *right next to it*? Oh, and of course, the waterworks employees who didn’t know about pressure valves? Nobody could go open a fire hydrant to release the pressure?

How about Armageddon? It got pretty roundly trashed for the spinning space station with the floor on the wrong surface. Centrifugal force isn’t that complicated, guys. Also, apparently in October Sky the real Homer Hickham noticed a math error in the “figuring out where the rocket went” scene. They told him not to worry about it, since no one will see that part - it goes by too fast. The storytelling, too - if Hollywood was full of insightful productions, they wouldn’t be following every sudden “trend” and they certainly wouldn’t be losing audiences the way they are. Everyone wants a good story, so if the films are good stories, they’ll find an audience. They’re *guessing* on almost every movie, because they really have no idea why people like one movie over another, but like many ignorant people, they cover up their failings with bluster about how we ordinary people just don’t understand filmmaking and we should leave all the thinking to them because they’ve got it covered. NOT!