The In-Crank-rial Revolution

Man is born free, and everywhere he is in a three-picture deal with points off the domestic gross

by Peter Fenzel
October 7th, 2009

The Great Migrations

In search of these In-Crank-rial jobs, thousands of aspiring heroes and heels have also left their ancestral backlot studios and migrated to new concentrated populations – leaving their old plywood ghost towns looking like plywood ghost towns. New Zealand, Vancouver, Hong Kong – even places like Boston, Massachusetts – a Hellhole to an action star, what with its bland, salty food, creamy fish soups and a subway that closes at 12:30 – become the home of more loose cannons with every passing day.

We're not in Hollywood anymore, Toto.

Hollywood Cinema is no longer a thing of Hollywood – and the generations who rolled in those hills may soon see them less as the center of the entertainment world and more as the subject of pastorale – eclogues of shepherds tending to their flocks by transforming suburban dads into shaggy dogs.

In one extreme example, 400,000 orcs and mummified skeletons have taken up mutual residence in a single silicone tenement at Industrial Light & Magic roughly the size of a shoebox.

The Factory Farms

Certainly, past periods of innovation and upheaval have led to new ways to “feed the beast.” The old serials, Tarzan, the studio system – each were improvements on how the work done by human beings provided food for the all-consuming moviewatcher.

And certainly now, with our minute segmentation, extreme focus grouping, remaking, reshooting, rebooting and sequel after sequel – where new movies are but old movies meeting other old movies – where performances are on the verge of being generated from stock footage and AutoCad – where risk aversion has heightened to such a degree that the boldest, most surprising hit of the summer was an expansion/remake produced by the director of some of history’s highest-grossing big budget tentpoles, and its second most surprising hit was the third sequel to a franchise that has always been commercially viable – that these were surprises, shocks – certainly the Hollywood monoculture offers yield, certainly it provides a new magnitude of nourishment, but might it not have unforseen effects on nutrition? Might its product be less satisfying?

And think of what it does to the poor beasts who munch away on cereals and antibiotics, their stomachs bloated, confined to tiny boxes with nothing to do all day but fart, grunt, chew and hope to not get an infection as their stomachs fill with acid and their legs become useless . . .

. . . think of the poor Hollywood screenwriters!