I love the heat of Southern California. I love the sun. It rejuvenates me; I’m like a solar cell. Heat itself, I love. George Hamilton turned me on to the curative properties of saunas. He learned it from a Native American shaman named Lizard’s Dance. George and I would have some peyote and enter Lizard’s Dances’ sweat lodge. For a long time we both thought Lizard’s Dance was female, but on entering the sweat lodge on one occasion, we were presented with a naked Lizard’s Dance, and found that despite the long hair, breasts, and feminine curves, the wise shaman had been born with one important piece of the male anatomy. I never let George forget that one.
But I digress, what I really wanted to talk about was heat. It’s hot in Hollywood this summer, and it’s getting hotter with a SAG-AFTRA strike looming on the horizon.
This industry is changing; the town is different. It was changing when my dad’s studio was going out of business. It’s always changing. This is the way of the biz; but also the way of the world.
If you would have told me 20 years ago that A-List actors opening a picture didn’t really matter anymore, I would have also told you to take a hike. There will always be a new crop of A-List stars, regardless of their actual talent, I would have said then. In ‘88 I would have extolled the merits of Kevin Costner, Tom Cruise, Tom Hanks, maybe even the future ‘Govenator’ of my fair state, as the A-List, or at least the future stars of such a list. I would have shown you the numbers and told you that stars carry pictures.
But it’s 20 years later, and I’m not quite sure that the star factory works the same way, kiddies. Certainly the A-List of 20 years ago is invalid, but 20 years is a long time. Who, then, is the new A-List? Who are the new actors who can carry a movie on their Olympian shoulders, the New Gods of the Silver screen?
I hear crickets, babies. The BO doesn’t show it. In 2007 we have Spiderman 3, Shrek 3, and Transformers, leading the pack. Sure, fine acting talents in all three, but stars? The stars in each are the computer effects, the action sequences, the spectacles, not the actors. Of course this is not new. Who saw Jaws(1975) for Roy Scheider, A or B list? The gradual changes have taken the industry to a new place.
The actors threatening to strike are bargaining from a position of weakness in my opinion. The writers were certainly in a similar situation, but from what I understand you still need writers on these so-called ‘reality shows,’ so those fellows had a trump card. But you actors, I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t think a strike is in anyone’s best interest, especially when I know 3 or 4 waiters who are just as good an actor as that Shia LaBeouf kid I saw in the Indiana Jones picture.
But again, I digress. Perhaps the best answer, in these tumultuous times is to look to the example of Lizard’s Dance. First, enjoy the heat. Second, things are not always as they seem.
Ciao.
Don’t get me wrong. Harrison Ford…or at least Indiana Jones (and Space Indy, Han Solo) were my first childhood crush(es). I’m fairly certain that his characters affected, at least physically, the type of man I am attracted to as an adult: Scruffy looking (who’s scruffy lookin’?!) fellows with a perpetual 5:00 shadow, glistening with sweat and a bit of chest hair poking out the top of an unkempt dress shirt. A dry wit and a bit of an ego don’t hurt either. Especially if they can save your ass from Nazis or voodoo and sweep you off your feet. Ah…Venice.
