Classic…
The self-marketing element of the WGA Strike is now in full force.
Nikki Finke has become The Blog Of Choice for people who want to get their story out… and well she should. She run anything that anyone tells her, offering no perspective but plenty of humorous bile. It’s ironic that she is the darling of the writers while all the while she continues to acquire the ideas and stories of others and tagging them as “exclusive” or selling her “innovative” thoughts that she found elsewhere. But such is life.
Today, it’s one of Nikki’s masters, Bryan Lourd, starring as…Lord of the Strike Dance. In days past, it’s tons of drama about backdoor negotiations when, in reality, the choice to come back to the table by the AMPTP has always been tied to waiting long enough for the studios to reap the fiscal benefits of a strike, i.e. force majeuring deals out of existence. There was the bullshit about Eddie Murphy walking off a production because of the strike. There was the bullshit about the Teamsters supporting the WGA by not crossing lines. There was endless hype about the guy who got hit by a car on Day One of the strike… which amazingly has not become a story about the strike as weeks and police reports have passed.
My personal favorite remains the excitement over a site that pirates music putting together a list of great songs to strike by. So… the union that is fighting to get paid for the use of their material is supposed to be pleased and amused by stealing the work of singers and songwriters? Excellent! How singularly myopic can you be? (Hint: The world record is being pushed every day in this town.)
You know… it’s all just more gossip under the bridge. The writers are ANGRY and Nikki is happy to burn bridges – all the while secure that those who feed/run her column will keep doing so as long as she licks their faces like an eager lapdog when they get home from work, through off their shoes, and deeply breathe in the scent from their feet, which never stink – so it’s a marriage made in heaven… and hell. Hyperbole doesn’t settle strikes. But then again, words are not really the issue here. Money is. Always has been. Always will be.
Some writers I respect feel that the public relations effort in this war can play a major part in it. And indeed, if the WGA just disappeared into the woodwork, it would be easier for the studios to make it all seem like it wasn’t happening and that Dave and Jay were just in reruns like usual.
Thing is, as things shake out… as real people in the WGA lower middle class and who work hard at the studios and who start having a hard time covering rent with tips, etc, etc… as things get rougher… and as the strike gets quieter and quieter… the self-promotion rises to the top. And to me, selling yourself off of the real misery of others is a great sin.
But this is Hollywood… where great sin is par for the course. We can hardly claim gossips are in a league of their own. Today, the NY Times decided to run a months-old story about DreamWorks’ overtures to Universal
I’m not sure why Nikki F seems to want this strike to end. I mean, it’s made her website ridiculously popular.
The AMPTP coming back to table means nothing. They’ll offer the same crappy deal and the writers will keep striking — Counter and company are just doing this to stop the onslaught of bad PR they’ve been getting.
The whole thing is a disaster.
It is no small thing that S, K, and G are heading towards retirement age themselves.
I had to read this sentence twice, and then a third time, to really appreciate it. Steven Spielberg will indeed turn 61 this year. That means he’s only three years younger than John Huston was — and just a decade younger than Alfred Hitchcock was — when I completed my first year of college. I wonder if SS seems as old to contemporary college students as Hitchcock and Huston did to me way back then? And does Francis Coppola (68) seem positively ancient to them?
Sometimes I think we should make a LOLDavid icon that says “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.” We could post it for almost every single blog entry.
Also,
“Anyway
It’s an interesting consideration… and God knows, agism is brutal in his town.
To me, it’s more of an issue of how a man wants to spend his 60s. I think the standalone DreamWorks experience was harder than the guys imagined… and starting that again, bigger, in their 60s… well, maybe there is a reason why Sumner is so cranky.
And MASON – The reason she is anxious for it to end is that she has to take that position to maintain her position. I risk a nasty comment from Drew, but it is the same AICN problem… that site has to maintain outsider cred to keep its audience, but is now an insider site. Nikki needs to remain pro-writer, anti-the studios (and execs within studios) who don’t feed her, and maintain the illusion that she is scooping, rather than scooping up, to keep her place… at least in her mind.
The fear of losing something you have earned – and Nikki has earned her success on the web, whether I respect her utter indeency or no – is one of the huge problems of being a web player. The NYT can fuck up a million times and maintain its institutional arrogance…. which isn’t all bad… you need to be a bit arrogant to lead in journalism. But on the web, you know how quickly your audience can go. We have all seen what catches and what doesn’t and what fades.
And in the end, I think Nikki instinctually knows that as intense as the personal relationship to this strike is to WGA members, like all bright burning moments, they pass, rightly or wrongly. How many weeks in a row can she keep juggling? How many weeks will her energy hold out? Who really wants to be on a beat that will be the only one that keeps being a story through the holidays if the strike isn’t settled? And you must know that Nikki’s main sources are on the money side, not the labor side. If this thing goes on, it will get really ugly and Nikki will actually need to take sides. If you think she has the fortitude to put herself in a position where Ron Meyer and Amy Pascal and “Bryan” stop talking to her… well…
Uh, JL… do you think I am saying that about The Writers?
YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.
Uh, no. I thought you were saying that S, K and G are heading toward retirement age. And that got me to thinking that, yeah, Stevie ain’t a Boy Wonder anymore. But does he seem THAT old to people in college? That’s all.
I’m no longer in college, but Spielberg doesn’t seem like a man who would have to buy senior tickets to his own movies. I wonder if it’s perhaps that he has stayed a relevant filmmaker while most folks his age or older no longer remain so. Even Lumet feels younger to me than someone like Woody, who seems to have lost touch with kids today. I think it’s all about the spirit of their films; Bunuel was in his seventies when he made some of his best work and it was playful and energetic, whereas Bergman seemed like an old man when he was young because of the languid pace of his films. I think it has more to do with the work they churn out than anything else.
Joe, the JL DP was referring to was James Leer, about the latter’s comment that Dave’s anti-writer bias was showing in his remark about planes being fuelled and Botox being injected.
Oh. Never mind.
Noah,
Languid pacing has nothing to do with how old or young a filmmaker is. It is the CONTENT of the film that makes it languid not the pacing. It is the CONTENT that makes it compelling… (I showed High Noon to a bunch of 16 year olds last year… and believe it or not, they were riveted). The Godfather and sequel have “languid pacing” but the content is compelling. Bergman’s work is STILL compelling because he examined the human spirit. And it is the content that keeps a film interesting NOT THE TECHNIQUE. Technique dates a film more than the content. And if you do not agree with me, consider this. Why do people still read Shakespeare and The Illiad?
Pope, I think you misunderstood what I was saying. I did not use languid as a dirty word and I didn’t mention it as dating Bergman’s films. I simply was making an observation that because of his wisdom, pacing and technique, it seems like he was always an “old man.” Same with Shakespeare, who I can’t really picture as the twenty-something who wrote his first plays. The original question was whether Spielberg seemed “old” and to me he doesn’t and I think it’s because of the types of films he makes at his age.
Acually, Blackcloud, Joe was responding correctly… and the rest was about JL, who still hasn’t apologized for accusing me of something not unlike racism in the current environment because he ASSumes with ill intent.
But aside from JL, a pretty civil discussion. No animus towards Joe at all.
And over at Variety, Anne Thompson is espousing the wrongheaded notion that DreamWorks made a mistake going to Paramount. Firstly, she is putting too much faith in the NYT story. Secondly, DreamWorks had no choice. They were the walking dead and got Paramount to allow them to rape Viacom. It was one of the greatest deals in history on the DW side and one of the dumbest by Viacom. And now, thanks to Viacom’s stupidity, they are healthy enough to move on to Universal, either as a production company with marketing or as the new owner of the studio. That is no mistake. $600 million in the hole to positive cash flow in less than three years in no mistake.
And notice… no one is mentioning the library… which was vastly overpriced – the price Universal would NEVER have paid – and is still not actually owned by anyone who wants to own it longterm. That “bill” is coming due soon and watch Paramount eat hundreds of millions AND let the library go back to DreamWorks with Par exploitation rights for a deade or so.
This reads like majorly sour grapes. Nikki has been kicking ass for two weeks now, and here…?
Nothing much.
All anyone can ever say is “sour grapes,” or “jealous” or whatever such bullshit they can imagine when they disagree. Zzzzzzzzz…..
“I mean, it’s made her website ridiculously popular.”
You mean, as opposed to a time when her site WASN’T popular?
Sorry…. No offend.
However, Soros had bought the Dreamworks library(the rights of 59 films); I don’t see why they need to sell it back to Dreamworks.
But I agree that DreamWorks/Paramount deal is one of the greatest deals in history on the Dreamworks side.
I don’t think it is a bad deal for Paramount/Viacom, though. (Paramount had no choices; if Paramount didn’t buy Dreamowkrs, there would be very few movies on their slate. )
As best I know, Marychan, Soros has no intention of holding onto the DreamWorks library. It was always expected to be a short term investment… more a loan than an investment.
Yes, BiP… she has probably 10 times the audience she actually had before since the strike stuff started. She probably isn’t getting the number of hits from box office at Drudge because she has been hit and miss in the last few weeks. But yes, she is read much more aggressively right now than ever… and will likely see a major drop in readership the day all this ends… which is not so much a reflection on Nikki as it is on how the web works. Right now, I would guess she has 20,000 – 25,000 or so people with an interest in the strike clicking on that site at least 10 times a day. She never had anything close to that before all this. When this ends, expect it to be about 5000 people clicking 3 times a day, plus the Drudge traffic.
Of course, traffic is not what gets Nikki excited. It is believing she has power… which she thinks she does in spades right now… positively giddy…
David – she DOES have it in spades right now. Regardless of what she is, what she says, who she says it for, etc etc. After this strike is over she will still maintain a portion of her dominance simply b/c of the appearance that she was the finger on the pulse during this strike. And appearance is everything, especially in this town, no? As for whether or not she’ll have a drop… sure she will. But if she maintains a small % of the hits, it’ll be more than she had before.
We all know that your site, Hollywood Elsewhere, and others have their built-in fans, but she WILL have the new fans after all this is said and done, and knowing her, she will gloat and be more than happy with that. Isn’t this how new blog sites are born?
I don’t disagree, Aris… except perhaps on the amount of traffic that holds.
Whoa! I love how every time someone disagrees with DP (the self-appointed ombudsman of movie journalism) he threatens to take his marbles and go away. He can attack any journalist you please, but when someone attacks him, it’s either ZZZ, or a so-ridiculous-I-can’t-event-fathom-I’m-responding accusation of racism. You got that from me HOW?!
And how exactly is it uncivil for me to accuse you of being anti-writer? You have, since even before the strike, failed to grasp that this was TV-driven. You proposed that the writers strike in May, when they’d have the absolute least effect on television. You cherry-picked an Eva Longoria press release to post in an attempt to paste the writers’ efforts as embarrassing or grasping, ignoring the press releases and news stories about how almost every single major television star was out on the picket lines in the support of the WGA. The only blog post you made in favor of the WGA was restating a blog comment made by someone else when commenters pointed out how tilted your coverage was.
I understand that you feel you are in support of the writers, and I would certainly not veto your ability to dissent, to claim that their negotiation is mishandled, etc. But why no blog entires highlighting the Youtube efforts of United Hollywood, for instance? Why only blog entires where you state how the writers are hypocrites, and not the AMPTP? It’s a little bit odd. Again, this is a TELEVISION-DRIVEN STRIKE. Your coverage of the topic should reflect that. Is Focus Features running “Atonement” for free online with Budweiser advertising (and not paying Joe Wright or Chris McKewan a cent)? No, but ABC, NBC, et al are doing that very thing. Is that not worth a blog entry, or does it not bother you one iota? Lay aside the “I Would Have Done it Different,” does the idea give you no pause at all?
David – don’t shoot the messenger:
Everybody in LA that I talk to that is familiar with your site DEFINITELY feels that you’re anti-writer. I’m not going to name names because many are colleageus of both of ours, but that is the feeling around town in the circles I travel in.
People in TV are not loving you right now…
Then again, many that are familiar with you also believe you’re anti writer because you tend to be non-conformist with other film/tv/media journalists – just to be non-conformist. The punk rocker of your beat, if you will. So that is also a shared sentiment and kinda helping you out in a way…
Again, this is not my opinion, just what those in the industry that I know, are saying about you… (that know of you)
[Ducks and covers from Dave’s gun sights…]