Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we set out to deceive, but then, as we get better at it, we become quite successful! All we need is: special FX, CGS, camera angles, stunt men, stunt doubles, a publicist, a filter on the lens, scripts honed by response researchers to help us give the public what it wants, teams of lawyers, and casting agents who make and break careers. Thus We created Hollywood replete with the movie moguls whom are sub-texted here as two leaders of competing monolithic consumer product corps.
Then it turns out poor little Julia Roberts and Clive Owen are like… the typical actor and actress played by these studio bosses who wind up with most of the winnings while the exploited thespians are stuck with a lifestyle they are hooked on but can barely afford. Unless they keep acting out the roles assigned to them.
And so it is… we got into the State of Play we’re in today where these movie moguls who set out to make a profit wound up creating films that are prophetic inadvertently.
If there is no way the actors and actresses can ever take over the business, well: maybe this is what Tropic of Thunder was about. If in playing a film producer Tom Cruise inadvertently played himself.
“Actor, actor, sitting on a tractor, down went Valkyrie, down went Cruise!”
After years of observing her environment Julia Roberts figured out that if she as a creative person can’t change the way things are she can at least choose who profits at her expense. The lesser of two evils; the greater of two fools: we take our pic. Pun intended.
Since actors and actresses are meant to play their roles this has been giving them the excuse for decades to say: ”well I’m just me. Who you see up there on the screen is just a product I created: doing what they told me to.” Right, I see: the future’s not everything it was cracked up to be, either.
Therefore the next film we need after Proof of Life, State of Play, Deception, and Duplicity is…
Stalled for Time.
