Rhymes With Socksmuckers

Regardless of which side you're on--although if you're with the AMPTP, I'm not sure why you'd be reading this--I think we can all agree that "We're not going to negotiate until you abandon all of your demands" isn't a viable bargaining strategy. When a bully on the playground tells you to give him your toy or eat a fresh fist sandwich, he's not negotiating with you. And so I'm finding it pretty tough to write anything about the strike without dipping into my usual vocabulary. (See: headline. Or any Sam Kinison show where he's too coked out to be creative.)

Really, it's the worst kind of ultimatum because of how decisively it backs the Negotiating Team into a corner. There's no way they can acquiesce without looking utterly weakened or beaten in the process. Which is too bad, because as Craig Mazin eloquently points out here, several of these demands DESERVE to be abandoned.

I was at the Freemantle rally last Friday, and like Craig, I was sort of dumbfounded to hear Verone talk about solidarity between the striking writers and the reality show writers who--this can't be stressed enough--aren't striking with us. While we're going without Christmas presents and eating Ramen noodles twice a day, they've never been busier.

And the programs they're creating right now to plug the gaps in the Spring schedule are the very thing that's going to allow the studios to batten down the hatches indefinitely. Of course it hurts to lose new episodes of C.S.I. But when you can eke out five or six primetime hours of Big Brother every week, it sure hurts a hell of a lot less.

It sounds uncomfortably Bushian to say that if you're not with us, you're against us. But when your actions are hurting us and helping them, I'm not sure there's any other way to phrase the situation. When reality writers put their pencils down, then we can talk about "brothers in solidarity." Until then, I'm not sure why we're apparently prepared to take a bullet for the same guys who keep sticking their dicks in our asses.

So the idea of dropping the reality and animation provisions and the what-the-fuck-were-they-even-thinking "sympathy strike" provision makes a lot of sense. But now that the AMPTP has backed us into a corner over these issues, what should have been cut and dried has become a public dick waggling contest. We can't drop the demands that are actively hurting us without looking weak in the process, and the AMPTP can't withdraw their reckless ultimatum for the same reason.

In short, everybody's fucked. Happy holidays.

In other, better news...

SCORE made this year's industry blacklist! Considering that the script wasn't sent to that many people, I'm amazed and humbled that it got included. So many thanks to the folks who voted for me, whoever you are.

As for movies I saw this week:

THERE WILL BE BLOOD: A genuine, no-foolin' masterpiece. I need to see this again--like, now--but it has already edged out JESSE JAMES and NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN as the best film I've seen all year. I saw it almost a week ago and I still can't stop thinking about it. Just an amazing achievement.

ATONEMENT: It's certainly polished and well-made, but it never really came alive for me. It's worth seeing for the beach scene alone, but in a year of great films, "good" simply doesn't cut it. But Keira Knightley was at the Q&A, and I'm happy to report that the most beautiful woman in the world is, believe it or not, pretty goddamn attractive in real life too. Shocking, right?

THE KITE RUNNER: A really good script that kind of goes nowhere because Marc Forster couldn't direct piss into a toilet bowl. Poor David Benioff deserves better, and in the right hands, this could have been a great film instead of simply a pretty good one.

JUNO: I was worried that Diablo Cody's heralded quirkiness and hyperstylized slang would overpower the film. And for the first ten minutes, it nearly does. ("Honest to blog"? Yeesh.) But Cody quickly finds the sweet spot between honesty and cleverness, and the result is a really fun movie that's surprisingly sweet. It's not my favorite comedy of the year, but it's much better than I was expecting.

THE WRIGHT STUFF: Shane Black was on hand this weekend to introduce THE LAST BOY SCOUT and KISS KISS BANG BANG. And tonight brings John Landis and AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF and the gang behind TREMORS. And if those names don't make you jealous...well, good. That'll probably make it easier for me to get tickets tonight.