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FROM THE PHONE BOOTH: The Smallest Space in  Hollywood

	FINEFROCK

Food For Thought!
Thought For Food?
by Steve Finefrock - Hollywood Forum [scriptwriter] 4/25/08

The lieutenant is a smart man. Successful. Informed. Educated. Not inclined to leftwing leanings. And he has an advantage over many Hollywood players: he’s got li’l ole me to keep him leaning toward the right, and informed on critical issues in the core of conservative thought.
 
Yet, “An Inconvenient Truth” [IT] worked its magic. Weaseled its way into his reasoning. As IT did for America – or much of this nation’s citizens awaiting ‘information’ on these climate issues.  And now, we belatedly learn of deceptive CG-generated Styrofoam glaciers, melting and collapsing by the thousands of tons!

Computer-generated [CG] glaciers were adapted from film of specially-shaped Styrofoam for the TV movie “The Day After” which gave dramatic license to the leftwing theme of impending disaster.  “Inconvenient Truth” then borrowed that footage to ‘illustrate’ the seriousness of the supposedly true, yet inconvenient, theme of Al Gore’s Oscar-winning ‘documentary’ film.
 
Now, that movie magic’s sheen of factuality is tarnished. One by one, the unchallenged and highly heralded themes of IT are coming under increasing siege. We’d love to have shot down IT with a salvo of large-caliber intellectual artillery, akin to the ginormous cinematic caliber of IT; but we will have to be satisfied with a resounding string of small-arms fire. And the bullets are blazing.
 
The use of Styrofoam to represent glaciers is suitable to the issue’s symbolism, as the two-plus decades of affection for corn-based ethanol is getting tired, like an old marriage worn by the belatedly revealed truth of the partner’s lesser charms. And the latest temperature calibration on global warming? Looks like the data was a wee bit skewed. Careful examination of the last year’s data are resulting in ‘corrected’ readings this year.
 
As with the ‘unanimous’ nature of the thousands of ‘experts’ cited by IT: growing numbers of highly-credentialed climatologists are speaking boldly, challenging the so-called science, as is a founder of Greenpeace.  These are part of a fusillade of small-arms attacks on the Big Bertha of cultural artillery, IT – a polished film produced by documentarians who used the film skill of two generations and the financial support of an e-Bay founder to make political hay, and publicly grind down our case to the nub.
 
Among these foamy emblems is Costco’s rationing of ever-higher-priced rice, in its California stores!  As energy policy by goo-goo [good government] enviros urged many to burn our corn as fuel in place of petroleum, we’ve driven food prices further upward, due to these manipulations by well-meaning lefties. Costco considering rationing? Maybe only rumors, but they are driven by worldwide shortages of various cereal grains. Making biofuel out of cereal means higher prices for the less plentiful food which is grown on the remaining farmland.
 
Which brings a theme of economics to IT lovers, as long ago asserted by Ray Bradbury regarding ecology: THERE AIN’T NO FREE LUNCH.  And when you burn your lunch to drive your car, which could be powered by petrofuel [which ain’t too tasty a substitute for food served on your breakfast table], you’re tampering with primal forces of nature.  And it’s not nice to fool muthah nature. That muthah will get you in the shorts, and the dining table.
 
And the good lieutenant?  He’s getting the growing evidence, by my e-mails of these stories, and slowly will see what IT failed – indeed, refused, to ‘reveal’ to him and the others in the millions who viewed its agitprop. That’s agitation and propaganda for those who are unfamiliar with the Soviet methods so beloved, or overlooked, by Gore’s Gang in earlier eras.
 
The shame is this, as constantly advanced by the Forum: WE CAN PRODUCE A COUNTERPOINT TO ‘IT’ with boodles of talent of conservative stripe, already existing and earning in Hollywood.  ‘IT’ got by us? It caught conservatives in business and industry and the national advocacies by surprise? Not hardly – Hollywood conservatives saw it coming, and found there were no takers for the funding to get into the cinematic contest of modern political argument.
 
Thus ‘IT’ found an open field of battle, unchallenged by our nonexistent artillery, thus charging its troops across level ground with no obstacles. They advanced their ‘Battle of the Bulge’ by catching us off-guard, gaining massive millions of minds among the vote-casting American audience of its exceptionally well-produced images and ‘facts’ and speaking advocacy. Now it’s time to turn the ‘bulge’ around.
 
To date, it will be achieved only with small-arms fire; no big-guns yet in the offing. A shame, for the public is softened by repeated exposure to small, belated realizations, such as: compact fluorescents ain’t so cheap to purchase as Gore has claimed, and not too nifty if you break ‘em [your home becomes a Superfund hazmat site]; ethanol deflects food from poor people tables; ethanol is one-third less energy in your tank, taking you into the station more frequently for that fill-up, and actually costing more per mile driven.
 
These realizations can be made into an anti-IT.  There are plenty of talented filmmakers of right-leaning persuasion to do the job. Where’s the cash? IT had a leftwinger billionaire to fund their exceptional talent [no, there’s no free lunch in making movies, either, my fellow conservatives must realize], including a soundstage at Paramount to build the lecture ‘hall’ and recruiting the talent, hiring the camera crew, etc.
 
Had there been an anti-IT last year, perhaps the lieutenant would have absorbed two well-produced visual viewpoints. Instead, he had only one conservative friend with a life’s informed reading on these issues – however: I may be smarter than the average bear, but I ain’t no friggin’ big-screen, Hollywood-produced extravaganza movie.  
 
The power of film?
 
Yep, it still retains and enforces the lieutenant’s eager enthusiasm, though fading bit-by-bit.  The anti-IT would make cinematic persuasion of these counter-arguments, and present them in the same convincing fashion as Al Gore’s selective ‘facts’ persuaded so many who were eager and waiting to be so persuaded. But also persuaded the lieutenant, an emblem of millions who were not pre-convinced, but had no ‘alternative’ vision on the Big Screen.
 
And we wouldn’t have to use Styrofoam glaciers in our counterpoint film adventure. The truth is well enough to make our case, IF WE CAN GET IT ON THE BIG SCREEN. Then the next batch of lieutenants won’t need to be pelted with e-mail counterpoints over two years’ effort. The counter-truth will have entered the fray before the concrete sets in so many millions of minds who believe, If it’s not The Truth, how can they make a movie about it?

Food for thought – before we erroneously make more massively stupid decisions, derived at least in part from a movie that was unchallenged when it was scooping up vulnerable minds.
 
Eat ethanol and die. Serve it from a Styrofoam cup. And enjoy the lie, which continues to circle the globe, unchallenged since IT served its mendacity on the big screen. Once before, this scenario played out – with better support, if belated in its timing: “Celsius 41.11” received conservative-angel funding in mid-summer of ’04, but a bit late to match the massive late-spring national release of Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 911.” This led “Celsius” producer Lionel Chetwynd to observe to liberal PBS host Tavis Smiley, that when it comes to cultural warfare in movies, “Liberals are on the cutting edge, and conservatives are on the ragged edge, falling off.”
 
Funny in 2004. Pathetic in 2008.
 
At least “Celsius” got made, with marginal but effective opportunity at matching Moore’s mendacity. IT went unchallenged, and now we have only small-arms fire to bring the balance to the debate. Lock and load? Sure, for now – but wouldn’t it be immensely wiser to have better cinematic combat armament than small-bore rifles and a few hand grenades?
 
So the next platoon of voting-age lieutenants won’t be so easily persuaded.

ExileStreet

copyright 2008 Steve Finefrock

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