Why Not Brenda Starr?

August 24th, 2004 · No Comments
by Booksquare

To understand Hollywood, you must spend some time here. Not on the Walk of Fame, but in the offices of the motion picture studios. You can try the record industry, sure, but the perks are better in the movies. Pay is better, too.

Hollywood is the epitome of two-faced society. You’ll never know how your best friend really feels about you, which is fine because you’ll never be honest with your therapist. Spies, you know. By the way, we’re not talking about the talent — we’re talking studio executives. There is something terrifying about watching a man graduate from poorly fitted off-the-rack suits to tailored jackets. You can almost see the smarminess increase as the honesty plummets. This is why we remember with such fondness the day our boss’s boss asked us to spy on her. We were told it would help us achieve our goals. By our goals, we mean his goals. We didn’t particularly care about them.

This is why Nikki Finke makes us laugh. The point of the industry is spin, spin, spin. It is sometimes amazing to watch. What could be a fairly good film undergoes an ego-stroking process that resembles an unstarted jigasw puzzle, only without the cohesiveness. The worse it gets, the deeper the lies get, until eventually they become rather bizarre truths. If you can’t honestly state that you’ve spent $100 million, and still made a piece of crap, then you can’t tell the truth about the last time you had carbs for breakfast. This makes you the ideal studio executive. Just remember it’s not an easy life — those people you can’t trust? They want your job.

  • Hollywood Confidential: Equal parts scourge and high-wire act, the L.A. Weekly’s Nikki Finke gives the industry what it deserves (Note: Read fast, it doesn’t look like this link is dedicated to this story)

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