THE END OF THE WEEK AS WE KNOW IT

I lied, unintentionally.  (The best kind.)  My Jerry Lewis opus will have to wait as I sip fruitjuice on an undisclosed beach for the next week.  And I promise– It is worth the wait!

Til then:

Variety’s Peter Bart reports

Agents tell me they’ve never had a tougher time negotiating paydays for their top stars. Upfront salaries are shrinking along with percentage slices on the back end.

Whoo-hoo!  Ya know, a lot of people in the industry say that it was the star salaries (and first dollar back-end grosses) that revealed the first major cracks in the American cinematic floor. (That and the lawyers!)

Jeffrey Wells over at Hollywood-Elsewhere (among others) takes the once-were-funny Zuckers to task for turning their talents to right-wing propaganda…

Speaking of which, I came up with a new way to frame the oil debate.

Oil is to the planet like blood is to the human body.  Take too much blood out of someone and what happens? They get the sweats, then the shivers then die.  It’s not “foreign” oil that we must ween ourselves from…  It’s OIL, period.

Try it on one of your wild-eyed pseudo-religious Cuncles at this year’s Labor Day beef ‘n beer.  Explain that Jimmy Carter tried his best by installing solar-panels on the White House roof, but caved and took them down when the wrong-wing freaked out that oil companies would get their feelings (and 70’s style record profits) hurt. Then they killed the electric car. Is it any wonder we’re in the mess we’re in? You’d think us “don’t take no crap” Americans would actually stand up to pressure by evil people. Nah. Well, at least at the same time all this is happening, technology has brought us to the point where we can all work from home (or that deserted island) anyway. Funny how things work out like that.  Thanks, God!