In an interview earlier today on an LA radio show Kevin & Bean Christian Bale offered an apology and the reason for his actions on the set of “Terminator 4” last summer.
“So many people have opinions on this, but none of them were there. Now, we’re making Terminator… Sarah Connor is in an insane asylum. I play John Connor, Sarah Connor’s son. Now, on the day that all of this happened, the scene that we were doing, I was trying to show a little of that in the blood craziness. You know what? It went very wrong and for reasons that myself, and Shane… and every crewmember who was in that hanger at Kirkland Air Space (in Washington) that day, they know the reasons, I got annoyed and then what happened, I made it ugly, and that was awful of me. I took it way too far and completely mixed up fact and fiction, I’m half John Connor, half Christian Bale and we’ve heard what happened.”
Bale insists he and Hurlburt have not let the incident affect their professional relationship: “I’ve not only talked with him, we resolved this completely that very day. We kept working for a number of hours. Listen, when I’m saying I’m not coming back on that set if he’s still there, you know what? It’s hot air. I don’t believe that. I had no intention of getting anybody fired. I absolutely believed in Shane’s capability, he’s done a wonderful job on that movie. Everything is resolved between us, there is no problem whatsoever. I’ve seen a cut of the movie and he has done a wonderful professional job, and I don’t want anyone to have a misunderstanding about that.”
Read the whole deal here:
http://www.imdb.com/news/ni0671530/
”The secret about reality TV isn’t that it’s scripted, which it is; the secret is that reality TV is a 21-century telecommunications industry sweatshop.” (WGA West president Daniel Petrie Jr., back in 2005)
With all the recent WGA wrangling over residuals and its threat to go on strike, there has also been the guild’s recent efforts to bring reality television producers into the club, with the argument that most reality shows are to some effect scripted:
As Variety’s Brian Lowry reports:
”Certainly, the WGA’s fiery rhetoric is rooted in reality. Anybody paying the slightest bit of attention can see how staged most reality programs are, even without the little scandals that periodically arise—once greeted with shock, now mostly dismissed with yawns—whether it’s re-shooting sequences on MTV’s “The Hills” or the nature-loving host of Discovery’s “Man vs. Wild” bunking in posh hotels.”
He continues to note the complications and other reasons for the WGA in wanting to bring in reality TV, but one fact that is indisputable is that such shows work their staff into the ground.
Even the New York Times was in on the act with their discreet production of profitable reality shows back in 2001. Until their editors got unionized by the Editors Union that is:
From the Village Voice back in 2001:
It’s been widely reported that the New York Times Company produces highbrow documentaries and dreams of launching its own cable channel. But, the Voice has learned, NYT Television quietly operates three production studios in downtown Manhattan, where a mostly freelance staff works long hours with no overtime pay, churning out lots of lowbrow TV.
The rewards of reality TV are so great that the Times Company has been tempted to trade in its commitment to quality journalism and fair labor practices. Indeed, deadlines for reality TV have gotten so tight lately that the head of a local union accused NYT-TV of running “sweatshops,” and on December 4, the staff voted to bring in the union.
While union editors tend to receive $2000 for a 40-hour week, NYT-TV negotiates rates with each editor, often paying them between $1500 and $1800 for what stretches into a 50- to 70-hour week. With few exceptions, editors and assistants are paid a flat weekly rate, with no health insurance or overtime.
Whether reality television folks belong in the Writers Guild or another union, one fact is without a doubt, that they are exploited (like most of the subjects in the shows). Sure, it is a stepping stone into other career paths and many independent filmmakers in NYC use it as their bread and butter, but to work on highly profitable shows for corporations while doing absurd amounts of overtime with no health insurance or other benefits, that is just obscene and demands a reality check in itself.
”Many years ago, it would have been vulgar to print box-office grosses in the paper. Now The New York Times does it, and it’s the big story for people interested in arts and entertainment on Monday. Which is why emphasis has shifted away from filmmakers and fallen on movie stars and business people.”
Actor Willem Dafoe in an interview in The Onion AV Club about his varied career in blockbusters and small films that struggle to find audiences.
The Reeler‘s S.T. VanAirsdale offers his take on the work of horror film director Eli Roth:
Indignation will only get you so far when it comes to discussing the films of Eli Roth. Now officially a canon with the one-two punch of his Thanksgiving trailer during Grindhouse and this week’s release of Hostel: Part II, Roth’s work is cruel, vicious, exploitive, shallow, unimaginative and, occasionally, amusing in a dog-walking-into-the-screen-door kind of way that runs warm with the afterburn of pity.
At the MOMA earlier this week, while viewing Andy Warhol’s “Golden Marilyn,” a thirtysomething male patron said (very unironically) to his female friend:
”Wow, just like Anna Nicole.”
Sigh.
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