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…)

“My role in life is to be a burr under the saddle. I didn’t pick that for myself, it just happens that’s the way I am. I wish I could be one of the really sweet guys, but for me nobody has a good word. That’s because my allegiance is to art, to the work. I have no allegiance to magazines, producers, studios, networks or anything. The work is what counts.” – Harlan Ellison, on writing in Hollywood.

For those of you here at Big Hollywood who think you are playing a whole new game in taking on the Tinseltown establishment in force, I have news for you. Scribe Extraordinaire and futurist iconoclast Harlan Ellison beat you all to the punch by about forty-five years. And if you don’t know who Harlan Ellison is, shame on you! He is a living legend with more Hugos and Nebulas than I care to count, as well as four WGA Awards and an Emmy nod. And all that’s just for starters. (more…)