Another post about being a dev exec in h town

because i ankled. sort of.

i used to work with this guy from this country that is below sea level. very nice guy, but could be...difficult? he had a close friend with whom he had worked for several years (in a slightly different capacity), another director, and the two of them would bitch and moan about how hollywood was screwing them, how evil it was, how much better things were in the old days back home in clogville. or wherever.

these two guys have quotes of probably over 10 million dollars, between the two of them. they've been responsible for some of the worst (and, in my opinion, some of the best) hollywood action movies of the past 20 years. they've managed to get themselves studio deals with all the trimmings. they've bought houses in the hills. they've got budgets of over 100 million approved. their exquisitely stupid notes have been swallowed by many of the very people they bemoan.

if hollywood were a tit, they have sucked a DD cup down to about an A.

and yet. here it is, 1999 or thereabouts, with between them two of the biggest flops in the history of htown behind them, and still they bitch about the assholes who pay them their massive checks. and to be clear, in my humble, they are both genuises, and in both of their cases, have genuinely been fucked over by the process.

and yet.

gigantic checks cleared and cashed. the opportunity to make movies that so few can even dream of. my sympathy is limited.

my...friend...at some other blog is indeed one of the very best of the best. he's seen the shortest end of the stick one could imagine in our town. like so many others. william faulkner, for instance. kurt fucking weill and bertolt fucking brecht before him.

but still, the checks do clear, and the houses are nice.

i'm just saying.