In Response to Mr. Ebert, Part 2, but not really...

First things first: this was on the NY Times website this week:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/movies/09scot.html?_r=1&ref=movies

Sound familiar?

I'm not going to talk about elitist critics. I like Roger Ebert a lot, even if I find that article to be arrogant.

Instead, I'm going to agree, in part, with A.O. Scott, who believes Hollywood is being lazy. And explain why it's their fault, not ours as moviegoers. We will go see movies as long as something is playing in the theaters. That is a tried and true fact. However, Hollywood is struggling to make anything right now, let alone content that is new and exciting and interesting. So, even though I probably won't see District 9 or enjoy it as much as most critics and fans, congrats to its filmmakers for making something interesting, intelligent, and still flashy for just $30 million. You're awesome.
But to Mr. Bay who insulted me by showing up to Transformers 2, to the good people at Fox who raped Wolverine like they wanted their own Southpark Episode, and to Jerry Bruckheimer for going 3-D with nothing but GUINEA PIGS, I give you...

MY PROVERBIAL MIDDLE FINGER.

I loved you all at one point. Some of you still have my love, but you've got your heads too far up your respective butts to care.

The real problem, my friends, is this: the idea that people in Los Angeles are making movies for the rest of us is about as crazy as a schizophrenic on shrooms trying to give someone sane directions through a haunted forest at night. They are so disconnected from reality that they have only strategy and business, not creativity, to govern their movie-making sensibilities. And honestly, the film business model is so screwy that even that is unreliable (a la Terminator, thank you Mr. A.O. Scott).
Producers and writers are put through a fraternity system before being allowed to make anything for audiences that by the time they have their chance, they are nothing but jaded shells of the creative, bright people they once were. How can we expect a 35-year-old man who has spent the past 10 years of his life acting as someone's bitch from behind a desk to be making movies that are relevant or beautiful?
I know this is my own youth and arrogance showing, but I WANT MY CHANCE NOW, DAMN IT.
Hollywood isn't rocket science, and I'm bored. If I take their path, I will continue to be bored until I cannot create anything but the same trite and true formulaic crap like Transformers 2 that currently dominates the film scene.

If we as audiences, as young film makers, as creative minds oppressed by capitalistic cultural forces (wow, I'm sounding like a crazy hipster kid now), do not step up, then we are to blame. So let's act now before people like Mr. Ebert and Mr. Scott are correct. Let's do the Dylan thing and kill our idols (NOT LITERALLY, of course).
Let's take back the film industry designed for us! Let's become Spielbergs and jump the walls instead of drowning in agencies!
Let's dispel the Hollywood hierarchies that these fatty producers fought so hard when they first came to town.

Remember, film is a mass medium. It's ours to control. It is a democracy, much like the theater used to be. And remember, Mr. Shakespeare wrote for the masses to become immortal. Not for the elite. Let's write for our own people, for our own generation. Let's make the movies we want to see instead of just going to see what the boring, jaded, disconnected folks in Hollywood are making.