Whip It Good

Shorten out-of-control credits. Contracts that call for credits are the studios’ problem, not the audience’s. One producer. No one cares who the drivers were. Less is more. (Except for those two increasingly crucial credits: the crystal meth dealer and the plastic surgeon in the starlet’s entourage.)

Make a new and honest ratings system. If either video stores or the MPAA wanted to actually help people, the ratings should be (in alphabetical order):

AC — Alleged Comedy

DSIB — Depressing Self-Indulgent Bombast

ML — Mindless

SM — Smug

UR — Unreal.

(I’ll add another:YWTTHOYLB — You’ll Want Those Two Hours of Your Life Back.)

No more deals peddled on the notion that there are only five people who can open a movie worldwide. Allot a greater percentage of annual budgets to developing new and unknown talent. (Isn’t this déjà vu all over again? “Just sign on the dotted line of this seven-year slave, er, studio, contract, Miss Johansson...”)

Return to the days of double features and selected short subjects (including Mickey Mouse), with an admission price of 25 cents. (I’d pay $25 to see Mikey Eisner get a few pies in the face while reading from his stinker book,Camp, about his learning those early life skills that helped him become one of the most hated CEOs in America.)

Good riddance to theaters. The experience of going to them sucks. They’re full of teens on cell phones. Who could watch? Fuck ’em. (What, and miss all the carnal knowledge going on in the row in front of me?)

Keep it simple, stupid. Slash bureaucratic overhead by 60 percent. Reduce meetings by 75 percent. Root out yes people and every brownnoser who can be found. Limit the maximum salary for any executive, including all perks and office redecoration, to $3 million a year. (Just wondering if Gelson’s or Whole Foods takes food stamps...)

Make cold calls on good colleges with creative-writing schools. Tell the students nobody is publishing novels anymore. (I can’t wait until grads from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop script the sequel toMy Own Private Idaho.)

Take meetings with writers who have proven themselves in other mediums i.e. the bloggers on sites such as televisionwithoutpity.com, or the new writers featured in Zoetrope magazine, or the off-off-off Broadway playwrights. All are innovative thinkers and in many cases, damn funny. (Note to the Defamer guy, Mark Lisanti: Enough with the Ari Emanuel pic. But a photo of Kevin Huvane getting wasted would be a laugh riot.)

Redefine the role of creative execs. They should function more as book editors. It would weed out many of the idiots whose daily reading list consists only of their e-mails sent to and from one another on their Blackberrys and Treos while lunching at Maple Drive. (Hollywood definition of a book: Object used for shelf decoration.)

Eliminate the apprehension executives face each day that one bad summer opening weekend might lead to a mass firing. We need to assure them that their jobs are not constantly on the brink of being filled by the next dipshit high school dropout looking for easy money. Do us a favor and stay on Wall Street, you illiterate pricks. (Congrats — you’re my first hire. Because you’re too naive to last long in this business.)

Email at deadlinehollywood@gmail.com