It stunk

Several years ago, Jack Nicholson was making the rounds in Europe promoting his latest movie. (It's telling that these days, movies seem to "belong" to actors rather than directors.) As is customary these days, he was put in a hotel room and visited by a number of journalists who all asked roughly the same questions in the ten minutes that were allotted to them.
Then, one rebellious journalist dared to respond to Nicholson's standard "How did you like the movie?" by saying that he thought it was crap. Not only did the movie star spend the entire interview having an interesting conversation with the reporter, he also waved the studio executive away who came in after the ten minutes were up.

The lesson here is: conflict makes for interesting copy. And in that vein, I would like to propose that some established entertainment journalist, the kind that the big media conglomerates simply can't ignore, create a show called "It Stunk" in which he invites directors, musicians, and movie stars to defend their work. The show would not be limited to box office bombs, nor would the host necessarily always be in the right. But at least there would be disagreement.

There is just one tiny flaw in my plan: any entertainment journalist that the big media conglomerates simply can't ignore, is today owned by the big media conglomerates.
Ah well.

Posted by cronopio at 01:32 PM, April 05, 2005