VF: Hollywood’s Top 40 Moneymakers

Sorry, forgot you need the scare quotes to post links. http://bit.ly/schuringa http://scifiwire.com/2009/11/5-best-things-2012s-...

I'll say one thing for Michael Bay, he's great to have on your resume, but for all the wrong reasons. Producers, directors and U.P.M. will hire you because they figure if you can put up with Michael's yelling and screaming, you can put up with anything.

I dropped Netflix, I watch little TV, I stopped buying–or even watching–DVDs, I don't go to the movies anymore since I've become aware of how intolerant liberal Hollywood is. They hate conservative values, they hate capitalism–even though it has made them rich, they hate the military, they hate middle America, they hate Christianity, they hate the Constitution, and they hate freedom of speech,, unless it is their freedom of speech. Everything that makes our nation great, they hate even though they have benefited from it greatly.

Plenty of great movies are made outside of Hollywood, both independents and foreign ones. Also 90% of Hollywood movies are apolitical though the ones that aren't tend to be liberal. Plus there is the classics.

Uh…Emma Watson's #14, but your point is nonetheless valid. . .

What this tells me is there does not seem to be a great connection between money total and quality. Tom Hanks has been a very entertaining actor throughout his career, but he gets $19 million from Angel's & Demons. Emma Watson, good for you!

Suck it Cameron.
Michael and his 'troop worship' still kicked you big, blue butt.

Yeah, except if the government distributes the money 99% of the 99% that they taxed from Hollywood would "disappear".

As Morpheus said to Neo "Welcome to the real world".

Now you know what the rest of country lives, reality is a *itch!!!!

All the way to #19 before we find a woman? Where's the "equal opportunity" Hollywood?

Actually I don;t think this is good news at all. I read an article about five years go explaining the big push that a musician had to have #1 songs to be profitable. The story was basically that due to the increased illegal downloading if you were not top of the list then you did not make enough earnings.

If you think about it a band such as Led Zepplin might never have made it in this environment. I believe they have only ever had one top 40 song on the pop charts. The less money for the industry means that there are less opportunities for the littler folks. Not sure how much this affects DVD sales revenues or if it applies to what is going on here in the motion picture indiustry. 'Course these guys are still all liberal hacks! That's a given. I do wish Clint Eastwood was higher on the list. Great Actor, Great Director.

Look at these obscene profits! With so many people out of work, how can these money grubbers greedily accept this filthy lucre? Why isn't this money given to the poor, for AIDS research, for education?

Oh…that's right…these people are from Hollywood, not Halliburton. They wear ribbons and have telethons and raise awareness. They have the right to hector the private sector business world. They are special!!

Sounds like it's time to spread that wealth around.

Emma only makes the list because the final book is two movies. Her 2010 earnings are going to be minuscule by comparison.

Ben Stiller makes that kind of money? Good God, that's absurd. He sucks and blows simultaneously. The sound of his voice makes me want to end it all.

Also Michael Bay – paradox creator – movies that are terrible and awesome at the same time. Gulity pleasures: Michael Bay movies.

As I have said before and these guys don't get yet is "Dictators have no friends; only sacrifices".

Well, for starters, I generally give a lot of leeway to creative types since, I believe, by definition, they are often a standard deviation or two off the mean of the general populace. I enjoy creative people and the creative process. I've been a huge fan of movies since I could watch and begin to understand them. I like original screenplays, performances, and absorbing stories. I love the variety of character actors and have many favorites. Quirky behavior, generally left political positions, oddball antics, self-absorption, insecurity, et al, come with the territory in that cohort, so I've tried to be tolerant, but as much as I may try, Lotus Land keeps disappointing me.

Allowing for a lot of zany behavior off-screen, and for the fact that people are human, I start getting obstinate when they decide it is important to get into my face and serve as spokespersons for political positions I find impractical and destructive or rubber-stamping the positions of groups I find offensive – Code Pink, for example. Whelping a series of children out of wedlock and then acting as if that is the new normal is another big minus since I think that sort of behavior serves to legitimize destruction of the institution of holy matrimony, a trend I think undermines the core of our society, the nuclear family with moral and legal commitments to the union. Impressionable youngsters look up to successful actors and I think, just like successful athletes and other celebrities, that they have a responsibility to serve as role models, up to a point.

Shrill, gratuitous, ad hominem attacks against key political figures (on either side of the spectrum), IMHO, are no-no's when the issues at stake are the real concern. (Here, read: Janeane Garafalo and her ilk.)

I'm well-versed, professionally, in our Constitution and the evolving processes that have served our country well. I'm well plugged-in over here on the right coast and know a thing or two about what's really going on within our government. I get steamed when all of the above are misrepresented and attacked by people whose success in entertainment is allowed to translate by themselves and the MSM into some kind of authority on the various subjects.

Those are the kinds of criteria I use to make my decisions. ON the other hand, a hard lefty or a right wing type who does a lot of volunteer work, for example, and lives a moral life, also commands my respect. I disagreed completely with Paul Newman's political positions but I think he was not only a hell of an actor, but an outstandingly fine and compassionate human being – Newman's Own are products I go out of my way to buy. When he spoke on issues, he did so with caveats that he was an actor first and was speaking only as a citizen.

It's more subjective than objective, I'll admit, but if people want to put themselves forward for critique on issues having nothing to do with their profession, or use their celebrity and/or medium to diss things I believe in, then I'm free to decide if I think they are full of it. Many of my opinions on such people are formed not only on their positions, but how they choose to represent them. If civilly, then fine. If not, then to hell with them.

When Hollywood decided to begin dissing me and my buddies returning from Viet Nam as all potentially mindless killers, mostly suffering from PTSD and likely to go off at any minute, they lost me. After that and what seems to me to have been a continuous drift to the hard left by so many of the industry, I just begin my decision process by assuming guilt until proven innocent.

That approach works well nine out of ten times. I suppose you could say that depicting me, my Father, Uncles, Cousins, my lifelong friends, and the other comrades with whom I served and still do, as deeply flawed for having donned the uniform and having put our butts on the line in harm's way to protect our country radicalized me towards Tinseltown, and towards a good portion of my self-absorbed, "entitled" Baby Boom generation as well.

If that's not rational in anyone's book, well, TS. I'm free to react and I'm doing so. It gives me a little psychic comfort to know that I'm not lining the pocketbooks of people who offend me with my hard-earned jing.

Well, for starters, I generally give a lot of leeway to creative types since, I believe, by definition, they are often a standard deviation or two off the mean of the general populace. I enjoy creative people and the creative process. I've been a huge fan of movies since I could watch and begin to understand them. I like original screenplays, performances, and absorbing stories. I love the variety of character actors and have many favorites. Quirky behavior, generally left political positions, oddball antics, self-absorption, insecurity, et al, come with the territory in that cohort, so I've tried to be tolerant, but as much as I may try, Lotus Land keeps disappointing me.

Allowing for a lot of zany behavior off-screen, and for the fact that people are human, I start getting obstinate when they decide it is important to get into my face and serve as spokespersons for political positions I find impractical and destructive or rubber-stamping the positions of groups I find offensive – Code Pink, for example. Whelping a series of children out of wedlock and then acting as if that is the new normal is another big minus since I think that sort of behavior serves to legitimize destruction of the institution of holy matrimony, a trend I think undermines the core of our society, the nuclear family with moral and legal commitments to the union. Impressionable youngsters look up to successful actors and I think, just like successful athletes and other celebrities, that they have a responsibility to serve as role models, up to a point.

Shrill, gratuitous, ad hominem attacks against key political figures (on either side of the spectrum), IMHO, are no-no's when the issues at stake are the real concern. (Here, read: Janeane Garafalo and her ilk.)

I'm well-versed, professionally, in our Constitution and the evolving processes that have served our country well. I'm well plugged-in over here on the right coast and know a thing or two about what's really going on within our government. I get steamed when all of the above are misrepresented and attacked by people whose success in entertainment is allowed to translate by themselves and the MSM into some kind of authority on the various subjects.

Those are the kinds of criteria I use to make my decisions. ON the other hand, a hard lefty or a right wing type who does a lot of volunteer work, for example, and lives a moral life, also commands my respect. I disagreed completely with Paul Newman's political positions but I think he was not only a hell of an actor, but an outstandingly fine and compassionate human being – Newman's Own are products I go out of my way to buy. When he spoke on issues, he did so with caveats that he was an actor first and was speaking only as a citizen.

It's more subjective than objective, I'll admit, but if people want to put themselves forward for critique on issues having nothing to do with their profession, or use their celebrity and/or medium to diss things I believe in, then I'm free to decide if I think they are full of it. Many of my opinions on such people are formed not only on their positions, but how they choose to represent them. If civilly, then fine. If not, then to hell with them.

When Hollywood decided to begin dissing me and my buddies returning from Viet Nam as all potentially mindless killers, mostly suffering from PTSD and likely to go off at any minute, they lost me. After that and what seems to me to have been a continuous drift to the hard left by so many of the industry, I just begin my decision process by assuming guilt until proven innocent.

That approach works well nine out of ten times. I suppose you could say that depicting me, my Father, Uncles, Cousins, my lifelong friends, and the other comrades with whom I served and still do, as deeply flawed for having donned the uniform and having put our butts on the line in harm's way to protect our country radicalized me towards Tinseltown, and towards a good portion of my self-absorbed, "entitled" Baby Boom generation as well.

If that's not rational in anyone's book, well, TS. I'm free to react and I'm doing so. It gives me a little psychic comfort to know that I'm not lining the pocketbooks of people who offend me with my hard-earned jing.