Count

4/04/2010

Bad entertainment...

I'm waiting for TFs call to see if she got on the plane to Hong Kong alright (WOOHOO! Finally!)... so I resorted to watching movies on TV to pass time.

Assault on Precinct 13: someone asked me the other day, why do good actors make bad movies? Well, I say cus they really aren't that good. Great actors and actresses look at the script and has the intellect to say no to bad ones. So count Laurence Fishburne, Ethan Hawk, and Gabriel Byrne out of the "good actor" list. How can a movie about 10-20 cops trying to storm an old police station in a snow storm to kill the mob boss who is going to rat them out and are deterred by a "I've made decisions that killed my team members so I'm going to drink and drug myself to oblivion" cop be successful? (Yes, that was all in one sentence)

Nope. Not successful at all. Highly not recommended.

Super Crunchers: say this about Freakenomics - they really pioneered the "let's put some interesting research on a book and dumb it down so people understand what academics/business people do" genre. Now there's a flood of books that say the similar things. Hey guess what? Data can tell you a lot of things! REALLY!? Noooo way. Yeah, really. It can.

And yet I'm still fascinated on how Harrah's comps a person their room when they loose a lot on the tables to keep the customer "happy". Yup, just that part. I'll recommend flipping through the book, finding a few headlines that interest you, and read those sections only.

(Hey, a book review, how about that!?)

3 comments:

The Pretender said...

Did you make her get you an iPad before getting on the plane?

Justin said...

"Everybody needs money. That's why they call it money." --Danny DeVito in David Mamet's Heist

Good actors participate in bad movies because they, like everyone else, need a paycheck. A good decision would be to make a bad, yet unmemorable movie ala Assault on Precinct 13. The movie is forgettable, so give it a couple months, and no one will even remember you were in it. Plus, you've got two other decent actors to shoulder the blame with you, making it a no-brainer. A poor decision would be to make a catastrophic career ending movie (read: Gigli), or a slew of bad movies (read: Ben Affleck). A well paying bad movie sandwiched between two decent movies is a good career move.

Josekin said...

Justin, so true.