A Mission Statement to Creative Film Artists

Many of you know the story of Jerry Maguire, the agent with a conscience. Ya, I know. It’s only a movie. But sometimes movies can be great moral guideposts. Ironic that I should use one of Hollywood’s finest morality plays to illustrate how Tinseltown should operate at its most basic level.

In Jerry Maguire, the key conflict was Jerry’s realization that he was putting a pretty facade on the moral deterioration within his profession, and was in fact complicit in it. It took an injured hockey player’s young son telling him to fuck off and a bad dream for Maguire to realize the true ugliness of who and what he had become, especially when measured against the high standards of his idol and mentor, agent Dicky Fox. Those troubling events created in Maguire a perfect storm of revulsion, introspection and a commitment to reaffirm the basic principles of his profession, which he laid out in his memo “The Things We Think and Do Not Say.” In truth, he had me at hello. Tom’s a hottie! (more…)

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Tags: "Jerry Maguire", ben hur, blacklist, Cameron Crowe, Cuba Gooding Jr.
Posted Dec 14th 2009 at 11:22 am in Books and Literature, Obama, Uncategorized | 27590647 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/jtsimpson/2009/12/14/a-mission-statement-to-creative-film-artists/A+Mission+Statement+to+Creative+Film+Artists2009-12-14+19%3A22%3A57John+T.+Simpson

The Shattered Glass of Celebrity

The Hollywood star system: Rest in Peace.

Nowadays, when I trawl through Blockbuster aisles, I find films with major stars that never saw the dark light of a theater. I’ve never even heard of some films. And I wonder about the parallel between society and film. History may be defined as the intersection of amazing events with amazing people. Will Mallory make the climb up the cliffs of Navarone? People created history by their choices, hesitations, fears, desires, whimsy, obsessions and visions.  Will the Colonel give in to Saito’s brutality? Great films, anchored by magnetic personalities, cast wide nets across our consciousness. Will Lawrence survive the Devil’s Anvil?

“Epic,”film producer Frank McCarthy (”Patton”) once told me, “is defined as a man who changes himself, his community and his world.”  In short, all the great character arcs in a movie script have driven the creation of events and epics which, in turn, are pushpins in World History. A noted script consultant, Chris Vogler,  distilled and explained the work of Joseph Campbell, an expert on tribal storytelling and myth. Vogler explains the hero’s journey through the Ordinary World, the Call to Adventure, the Refusal of the Call, Mentor, Threshold, Tests by Allies and Enemies, Approach, Ordeal, Reward and The Road Back. (more…)

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Tags: "JCVD", blockbuster, blogs, Blue Ray, celebrity
Posted Aug 24th 2009 at 5:03 am in Art, Celebrity News, Film | 19372641 Commentshttp://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mmandaville/2009/08/24/the-shattered-glass-of-celebrity/The+Shattered+Glass+of+Celebrity2009-08-24+12%3A03%3A54Michael+Mandaville