The Hollywood Stupid Tax

I've said elsewhere that I believe the death of the Star Trek franchise was due to the Hollywood Stupid Tax, a fact I realized when I saw the Enterprise from the evil-parallel Spock-with-a-goatee universe and noted that those were the only episodes that didn't suck of the entire Enterprise series.

The Hollywood Stupid Tax came to mind again yesterday when I turned on the old-movie-channel and saw the last 5 minutes of "The Dirty Dozen." That movie rocks in a way that only someone who thinks "300" was homoerotic cannot understand. There's a writers' strike on in Hollywood. So, there's an EXCUSE for the plots of all the stories being tired, derivative and repetitive. And what could the American viewing public go to see over Veterans day weekend? Anti-war sermons consisting of 87 minutes of famous-name actors giving speeches to one another. How's the box-office on your latest flick, Mr. Redford?

There's more to it than just further alienating people who already think Hollywood types suck. There's "opportunity cost." Opportunity stands rapping on the door with huge boat-loads of cash in a valise saying, "open up and this money is yours."

Just imagine what a remake of "The Dirty Dozen" would bring in in terms of box-office. Set the thing in Afghanistan and select a dozen guys in federal prison for a suicide mission to someplace in the Afghan mountains. Make them heterosexual, white, male Christians who don't sort their recyclables. Use lots of CGI and roll out an accompanying videogame that plays a lot like Halo. It's a license to make tons of money.

Now, i don't own any stock in any of the big movie companies. But if I did, I'd seriously question the financial stewardship of current management.