World Trade Center is a classic case. Easy to pitch (but only to profiteers) and easier to shrug off when it doesn’t “take” — any number of excuses will free the director from blame. But where Stone can’t seize on immediate events, he picks the most controversial ticket-sellers he can. JFK was this. Platoon was this — and I take particular offense at Platoon for being the last in a string of period war films at that time, meaning his pitch was either so bad that producers wouldn’t sign off until they’d seen promised return on every other war film of the decade, or more likely he jumped on the bandwagon and cited those films and their profits as support his own project. (See Alexander for the same, at the tail end of the ’90-’00s period war rash.) That Platoon won awards has only given him reason to plunder the Vietnam well each time he’s out of ideas — Born on the 4th, Heaven and Earth, and hey! Remember what he was working on before the Writer’s Strike?

Even Natural Born Killers, one of Stone’s “greats”, was marketed as a Tarantino-ain’t-got-nothing “new school” copycat simultaneously attempting to discredit the style, the sort of cheap entertainment usually reserved for bottom-rung wrestlers and street rappers.

It’s funny Stone talks about Network in pitching W. — I believe he’s played that card before, in 1988, to seize the rights to the popular and proven book/play moneymaker, Talk Radio. The reality is that W. is a quick written exploit, consistent with Stone’s practices of picking money-maker controversies before they deserve to be filmed, and having the next project ready before the last one’s corpse is cold.

He scripted W. himself when the writer’s guild wasn’t writing anymore — and no surprise that until then, his project was the My Lai massacre — going back to suckle the Vietnam tit again, are we Oliver? After Alexander and World Trade Center couldn’t turn a profit, must be scary going into those lunch meetings.

Salesman. Not filmmaker.

World Trade Center is a classic case. Easy to pitch (but only to profiteers) and easier to shrug off when it doesn’t “take” — any number of excuses will free the director from blame. But where Stone can’t seize on immediate events, he picks the most controversial ticket-sellers he can. JFK was this. Platoon was this — and I take particular offense at Platoon for being the last in a string of period war films at that time, meaning his pitch was either so bad that producers wouldn’t sign off until they’d seen promised return on every other war film of the decade, or more likely he jumped on the bandwagon and cited those films and their profits as support his own project. (See Alexander for the same, at the tail end of the ’90-’00s period war rash.) That Platoon won awards has only given him reason to plunder the Vietnam well each time he’s out of ideas — Born on the 4th, Heaven and Earth, and hey! Remember what he was working on before the Writer’s Strike?

Even Natural Born Killers, one of Stone’s “greats”, was marketed as a Tarantino-ain’t-got-nothing “new school” copycat simultaneously attempting to discredit the style, the sort of cheap entertainment usually reserved for bottom-rung wrestlers and street rappers.

It’s funny Stone talks about Network in pitching W. — I believe he’s played that card before, in 1988, to seize the rights to the popular and proven book/play moneymaker, Talk Radio. The reality is that W. is a quick written exploit, consistent with Stone’s practices of picking money-maker controversies before they deserve to be filmed, and having the next project ready before the last one’s corpse is cold.

He scripted W. himself when the writer’s guild wasn’t writing anymore — and no surprise that until then, his project was the My Lai massacre — going back to suckle the Vietnam tit again, are we Oliver? After Alexander and World Trade Center couldn’t turn a profit, must be scary going into those lunch meetings.

Salesman. Not filmmaker.

HAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHA

Waitaminute. Oh, man. Whew. I, uh….

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAAAHA

HAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHAHAHA

Waitaminute. Oh, man. Whew. I, uh….

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHAAAHA

i dont’ know about the rest of america, but i’m ready and aching to stick it to hollywood and pull the republican lever this year. yes, i’m looking forward to voting for someone with actual integrity come election time.

we have a seperation of church and state in this country…how about a seperation of entertainment and state since movies dictate how people remember history better than holy books these days and since it seems entertainers in general can’t seem to keep their freaking mouths shut and…you know…entertain us instead of preaching to us about politics more than preachers preach to us about religion.

movies like this are dangerous. you poor weak willed people. only we, the few elitists, who refuse to capitalize words while making comments on web sites stand a chance in this new media age of free thought.

enjoy your labotomy and castration, white america, when obama wins…i’ll vote for the war veteran, as i don’t really see anything i’d like to “change” about the world.

look back. Bush did this country wonders. verily, he did wonders for the entire world. if you’re too shortsighted to see this, don’t worry. you were in the minority who didn’t vote for him anyway and i’ll never convince you. But that’s also ok because you have failed, after 8 years of bitching and complaining about how you supposedly won the election that you can’t remember as well as i can, to pursuade me that George W. Bush is hitler reincarnated and looking to eat my young.

i dont’ know about the rest of america, but i’m ready and aching to stick it to hollywood and pull the republican lever this year. yes, i’m looking forward to voting for someone with actual integrity come election time.

we have a seperation of church and state in this country…how about a seperation of entertainment and state since movies dictate how people remember history better than holy books these days and since it seems entertainers in general can’t seem to keep their freaking mouths shut and…you know…entertain us instead of preaching to us about politics more than preachers preach to us about religion.

movies like this are dangerous. you poor weak willed people. only we, the few elitists, who refuse to capitalize words while making comments on web sites stand a chance in this new media age of free thought.

enjoy your labotomy and castration, white america, when obama wins…i’ll vote for the war veteran, as i don’t really see anything i’d like to “change” about the world.

look back. Bush did this country wonders. verily, he did wonders for the entire world. if you’re too shortsighted to see this, don’t worry. you were in the minority who didn’t vote for him anyway and i’ll never convince you. But that’s also ok because you have failed, after 8 years of bitching and complaining about how you supposedly won the election that you can’t remember as well as i can, to pursuade me that George W. Bush is hitler reincarnated and looking to eat my young.

Thoughts?

Thoughts?