I think Society has Failed…

[Cy/MiG]

I just wasted two hours of my life watching the clichéd action movie Battle:LA. Before watching it and for some unexplained reason, I did what I promised long ago that I wouldn’t: I expected something. In this case, I expected that the movie wouldn’t be bad. After not more than 20 minutes of the movie, I was filled with instant regret.

Battle: LA is/was not a terrible film, action junkies will probably (and understandably) like it and I don’t know why it draws my ire so… but for reasons beyond me I looked up what it cost to make this piece of shit film and had an epiphany.

According to various ‘sources’ (imdb and Wikipedia) it cost $70,000,000 to make Battle: LA. I let that fact soak in for a few minutes, then I really thought about it and then I decided to seriously dwell on it.

I’m 24 and in a good year, after taxes, I make $40,000. It would take me 1,750 years to earn $70 million or, to put it another way, 1,750 people could have worked a full year and provided for themselves and/or their families for the amount of money Battle: LA used to fund a 116 minute predictably bad piece of ‘entertainment’…

Normally I could still forgive this, if I wasn’t living in a country where there are 400,000,000+ inhabitants and, in the midst of a very real recession, 10% (or 40,000,000) of them are unemployed and struggling to survive… or if there weren’t a slew of even more shitty looking movies which no doubt cost just as much, and in some cases two or three times as much to make; movies such as: Fast Five, Rio, Bad Teacher, Priest, Conan, Pirates of The Caribbean IV, Transformers III, Green Lantern and Thor…

Although I do not have exact figures on all of those films’ budgets, I think it’s safe to assume that the combined budget on all of those films is well above $1 billion… that’s NINE zeroes, or roughly the equivalent of 25,000 people (American’s/Europeans) earning the livable salary of $40,000 a year… that’s the Gross Domestic Product of any number of third world countries (if not combined)… that’s countless hours of medical and/or scientific research that could cure disease or find new and renewable sources of energy…

But hey, I supposed spending billions of dollars on predictable piece of shit films where the majority of profit goes to a select few producers/directors/actors while millions of citizens are fighting for their very livelihood and the national debt continues to rise makes tons of sense.

Congratulations America, I think you have effectively fulfilled Karl Marx’s prophecies. Give yourselves a HUGE pat on the back, for you have found a way to entertain yourselves in the midst of a continually chaotic reality. Keep on dancing and laughing while countless millions, if not billions, suffer… and keep on laughing on your way to the hell around you which you ignore.

Now, I don’t want to say anything patently crazy like ‘Ted Kaczynski was right’, but… let’s just say that I think that I’ve come around and have begun to see his side of things a little and I don’t think I want to be a part of ‘society’ anymore…

Because, from every perspective I see and despite what most of us think, I do not believe that humans have ‘evolved’ much from their caveman days and it might be a good thing if society reverted back to the Stone Age. At least cave people had justifiable excuses for being for fucking stupid.

I sincerely apologize for wasting anybody’s time with this rant. If you still are reading this, I wish you nothing but peace and joy from this moment forward and hope you have many meaningful and fulfilling experiences to offset me having wasted your precious time. And if I somehow still have your attention, please allow me channel my inner Howard Beale and very seriously suggest that you turn of your phones, TV’s, computers and step away from your technology and social medias, because I do not think there is or that you will find any existential meaning in any of them.

I don’t know much, but I do know that if there is a ‘meaning of life’, that ‘entertainment’ and technology couldn’t have less to do with it. I know this because the human race has existed for thousand, if not millions of years, and so a countless number of lives would be rendered obsolete if the opposite were true and that is a plain and outright ridiculous notion.

Okay, that’s it. I’m done.

I will now return to my regularly scheduled useless life.

v/r

 

[Jagermeistered]

This was a great meaningful rant... The new Pirates of the Carribean almost made me forget about Japan. That is the beauty of the entertainment business. I am sure every primtime comedian avoided it like the plague.

Their is more too life than reality... It's better to live and view it in a digital output. This is the future of humanity...

 

[C.A.B.]

I will now return to my regularly scheduled useless life.

this might need addressed first

 

[Jagermeistered]

this might need addressed first

Why don't you address it first?

 

[Cosmo_ac]

Cosmo_ac approves this rant. That is all.

 

[socktickler86]

As much as I agree that it is almost sickening to think of how much money is spent on entertainment in the country, you do have to realize how many jobs this stupid industry creates. Sure there are a couple of actors who will make $10-$20million just to show up in a movie and read off some lines, but there are thousands of actors who make $10-$20 per hour on those same movies! Then think about these entertainment companies - by themselves, they are huge and employ a lot of people.

Then there are the tens of thousands of people employed by theaters and distribution and marketing and all that jazz. So what you just have to realize (and it's something I find hard to deal with) is that the entertainment industry employs a tremendous number of people. You also have to realize that every industry has it's flops. Sure you have a ton of awful (and let's be honest, everyone has their own taste) movies, but they still employ people, and in the end would we really live in a better world if the entertainment industry were to never have existed and we didn't have movies like The Shawshank Redemption and......... well, I'm sure other good movies exist, but you get my point.

The Tom Hanks and Tom Cruises and Steven Speilbergs and all these overpaid morons make up a small fraction of the money spread throughout the entertainment industry. You actually should be happy about Battle: LA because as far as I know, no high paid actors were really in that movie. The movies with the big names have budgets >$200,000,000 at times. I think Avatar cost what, $250 million? What a crock that movie was.

Then there is the argument (which I'm not sure I totally buy but I think i'm 95% sold on it) that the Tom Cruises of the world, when they're not giving their fortunes to Scientology, eventually spread their money around the economy as well. Trust me, few of these big actors are big on savings....

 

[mabus]

Not only that, but when film productions come into states that are away from Hollywood (that demand productions over $1.1 million, I believe...which are almost all studio movies) join unions, pay the high union wages to folks like,the teamsters, who do little work for a lot of money..... never mind high taxes, etc.

When they come to like, Louisiana, they pump millions into local economies - every penny they spend, from going make a copy of a piece of paper, to renting local hotel rooms, to eating at local restaurants, to going to the local strip clubs and bars to get in fights! all pumps money into the local economy. It adds up, fast.

I'm in agreement on the point tat actors shouldn't make millions....while towing the cliche liberal line about the "rich" giving back.
And if you believe the rich need to give their money to the poor, fine, I won't argue that here.
But when some rich, spoiled actor surrounded by yes-men, start moaning about the "rich" giving all their money "back," but the rich actors NOT DOING THIS THEMSELVES.....come on!

And for those who get depressed from watching the news, never forget - the media will only follow stories about the denegenerate scandal monger, not the generous, well behaved famous or not famous people.

Charlie Sheen is in the news because he's lost his mind. All the famous men who are faithful to their wives and take care of their children and tip the waitress generously....they'll NEVER get the coverage that ole' Charlie and Lindsey Lohan, etc. will receive!

 

[Bugman]

I'm in agreement on the point that actors shouldn't make millions....

They make millions of dollars because people are willing to shell out multi-millions of dollars to watch them preform. Just like many professional athletes. The free market at work. Fame and success in these fields can be short. That old here today, gone tomorrow thing. I can't fault them too much for getting what they can when they can. I suspect most of us would do the same.

 

[socktickler86]

They make millions of dollars because people are willing to shell out multi-millions of dollars to watch them preform. Just like many professional athletes. The free market at work. Fame and success in these fields can be short. That old here today, gone tomorrow thing. I can't fault them too much for getting what they can when they can. I suspect most of us would do the same.

Yes! And actually, in my opinion, this makes the entertainment industry even better than professional athletics. There really is no middle ground between multimillion dollar athlete and guy on the street who has another actual day job. In acting, you do have vast numbers of people who are in the middle, on their way up, getting roles here and there.

I like the free market in this manner. If actor A will increase your gross by $100 million while actor B will only increase your gross by $50 million, spending $10 million extra on actor A makes total sense. The entertainment industry knows that people will pay $12 a ticket to see certain people but will pay $0 to see certain other people so it's a matter of getting the most expensive actors that will fill the most seats. It's not so much getting an "okay" actor and people will "kinda" go see the movie. When Friday rolls around, people will either go see your movie or someone elses movie.

 

[herts tickler]

im loving the passion but leave pirates of the carribean alone!

 

[Jagermeistered]

im loving the passion but leave pirates of the carribean alone!

I liked his role in the "Ninth Gate" better...