Curiouser and curiouser.

“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story. – Michael Moore

Over a shockingly short period of time, Hollywood intentionally abandoned a one-hundred-year-old system for making, releasing and profiting from the theatrical distribution of motion pictures that had served it and its audiences very well.

This was a system that generated billions of dollars, created an army of jobs and ancillary businesses, exported American cultural soft power across the world and made a lot of people extremely wealthy… and it was abandoned, all for a technological pipe dream of captured audiences mindlessly pressing “renew” on their subscriptions with the glassy eyes of the permanently zombified.

Now that the chips of that capricious decision have begun to land where they may, it has become clear that the new streaming model is a failure in almost every way. An ocean of ink has been spilled analyzing why streaming is bad business, but I want to approach the problem from a different perspective.

“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.” – Michael Moore.

The Acolyte will not return for season two, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. Lucasfilm has opted not to continue the Disney+ Star Wars series, which aired its season one finale last month.

The Leslye Headland-created show earned respectable reviews from critics, but was panned by audiences, with only 18 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. The show was review-bombed from some quarters who perceived it as “woke,” with certain corners of the internet going after Headland, who is a member of the LGBTQ+ community, as well as the series’ diverse group of actors.

“Honestly, I feel sad that people would think that if something were gay, that that would be bad,” Headland told THR in June. “It makes me feel sad that a bunch of people on the internet would somehow dismantle what I consider to be the most important piece of art that I’ve ever made.”

“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.“. – Michael Moore.

I could draw a lot of parallels between where Star Wars is at now, and where Doctor Who is at as a franchise. It’s that feeling of the game is almost up, we’re running out of time, running out of money, and it’s just like, we’re into pure “f*** you mode” now. We know you don’t like what we’re making, and we just say f*** you, we’re just going to put everything in that we want to put in: All the sociopolitical messaging, all of our own personal hang-ups, all of our own personal politics, all of it. It’s just going to get rammed down your throat, because we know we’re in The Last Chance Saloon right now, so why not? Why not just throw all the s*** up a wall and see what sticks, and Doctor Who’s exactly the same way.

“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.” – Michael Moore

Universe 25;

At the risk of engaging in “get off my lawnism”, it seems to me that over the last two decades, society and the culture have shifted significantly and are now promising the citizenry an existence free of misery, suffering, stress and anxiety… the great password in modern America has become “safety first.” This promise of total safety and security is impossible to deliver, of course, but even if it were not, I would use the word “existence” very deliberately. The world we are creating feels less and less like one inhabited by proud human strivers and more like a world filled with prey animals afraid of their own shadows.

What comes next? Maybe this…

Related: Hollywood stares into another cruel summer…

What Happened to Movie Stars?

I don’t care about the characters. You have a jaded war correspondent. And another jaded war correspondent. And a third jaded war correspondent. And a fourth war correspondent who’s young and isn’t quite jaded yet but who gets jaded at the end. That’s not interesting, and that’s not what I’m trying to buy when I throw down nearly 20 bucks for a ticket to a movie called “Civil War.”

“Democrats need to embrace Hollywood because this is where they need to come to learn how to tell a story.” – Michael Moore.

…lack of originality, along with wokeness, the red ink carnage of the streaming wars, and the lingering effects of the most recent strikes, has led to a deep recession in Hollywood, so much so that Deadline has a regular Hollywood Contraction feature.