Hollywood Bets It All on Stupid

Nowhere is the continual stupidity of Hollywood more visible than in the LAT's section "the Big Picture" by Patrick Goldstein. Goldstein swallows whole the lunacy that Hollywood is following: trying to make money by producing (mostly) American financed/starring movies designed to appeal to foreign audiences. This is self-evidently stupid policy, because "explosive growth" audiences don't have money, don't respect intellectual property (piracy), don't pay for films, and don't really like "American" content much. Meanwhile it is pretty easy for locals to create their own content.

Hollywood is betting it all on stupid, because they simply cannot make movies that appeal to American audiences. Hollywood can't make films that Americans feel like paying for to see in a theater, so the fantasy of magical thinking is that the studios can make movies for foreigners who will lap up anything and everything.


To see how stupid this is, just look at China. China is filled with film piracy, and just recently the ban on "Westernized" entertainment on TV and movies pulled many programs and films off the air or theaters.

When Chinese leader Hu Jintao recently warned his nation's ruling Communist Party of an imminent risk from the West, he wasn't talking about the United States boosting its military capabilities in East Asia. He was alluding to things such as video games.
"International hostile forces" use thought and culture "to Westernize and split" China, Hu stated in a speech publicized in January in the party magazine Seeking Truth..
At least China's embattled youth can strike back at the West come May when Glorious Mission, a civilian version of the Chinese army's first training simulation game, goes on sale, according to the state-run China Daily newspaper. Co-developed by the People's Liberation Army, the online, first-person shooter game allows players to destroy enemies that resemble U.S. forces.
Glorious Mission and other "serious games" supported by Chinese authorities form one front in Beijing's multi-headed cultural offensive, launched last fall. There's been fighting talk from Hu's likely successor, Xi Jinping.
China's universities are "a key ideological front to equip our youth with the core values of socialism," he told the country's deans last week . Xi, 58, is likely to succeed Hu, 69, as party general secretary this year.
Through massive investment, and countless censors, the Communist Party aims to boost China's "soft power," or cultural influence, abroad and shore up "cultural security" at home by reinforcing state control of the sector and guiding audiences back to "socialist core values." Neither goal will come easily.
...
State censors launch regular crackdowns, sometimes with bizarre targets: Last year, authorities restricted time-travel TV dramas and banned downloading of certain foreign pop songs, including The Backstreet Boys' seemingly non-political 1999 hit I Want It That Way.
In recent weeks, the government has stripped two-thirds of entertainment programs, mostly talent, talk and dating shows, from the schedules of China's popular satellite stations. Citing "excessive entertainment and a trend toward low taste," regulators have forced satellite channels to switch to programs promoting "traditional virtues and socialist core values," the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

I don't know about you. But my money is on China exerting more control over entertainment, and basically banning Western stuff out of Hollywood in favor of their own domestic stuff. What does it take to make movies in China? Not much. China does not care about Hollywood, they don't make money off Kung Fu Panda, so guaranteed they'll close that down, dole out their own movie-making patronage, and be happy to run off pirated copies of Kung Fu Panda 10 like hotcakes.

South Korea, Russia, and Brazil all have their own burgeoning film industry, which will assuredly demand protection from Hollywood. Eager to win patronage and screw over foreigners, local leaders will happily oblige. Already foreign film distributors are taking baths, many exiting, because it is hard to make money distributing Hollywood films. So much piracy, so much theft, so many theaters not paying the full amount of admissions they are supposed to pay. After all, law in most of these places doesn't exist. Unless the distributor has paid off the government and has enough juice to get guys with guns to visit the offices of the distributors, reality is that they will get only what the exhibitor feels like paying.

Goldstein swallows whole the following fantasy:

This focus on foreign markets is clearly changing the way studios assemble their feature film slates. Nowhere is this more evident than at Paramount Pictures, Hollywood's market-share leader in 2011 with 19.2% of the overall business. In 2007, when the studio also had the largest share of the market, Paramount did roughly the same amount of business in the U.S. as it did overseas — $1.5 billion domestic versus $1.6 billion international. In 2011, the studio's films grossed $1.9 billion in the U.S. But they made a whopping $3.2 billion overseas.

If you believe those numbers, let me interest you in an outstanding investment opportunity with John Corzine and MF Global, in European bonds. Does anyone think Paramount ACTUALLY did that amount of business overseas. Or is that just a number "booked" from a distributor, of which they will get something like 30-40%?

Hollywood studios want people to believe (they are called suckers er investors) that they have some magic formula. Don't worry, they say, even though AMERICANS have decided that "the Hangover 2" or "New Year's Eve" can wait till next year as a Redbox or Netflix rental, or streaming, foreigners are stupid, moronic gits who can't tie their own shoes, and will reliably stream into movie houses at full price. Like poor people in India, China, Pakistan, Brazil, and Russia (that's most of the population) will be paying $15 a person (in their local currencies equivalent) to see "Mission Impossible 7" or "Xenu's Revenge" or what have you.

Meanwhile the studios claim, their magic formula involves making movies aimed at hipsters ("Young Adult") and tweens (Justin Bieber's movie) and such. Yep, that's their strategy: stupid foreigners paying full price, and hipsters and Bieber fans.

Does that sound like a plan? Or mutually assisted suicide?

This situation seems to echo the late 1960's and early 70's, when Hollywood could only get people into to see movies like "Towering Inferno" or "Earthquake" or "the Sting" until Star Wars and Jaws came along, and showed how to make movies everyone would enjoy.

Movies are still a MASS medium. To make money off them, lots of people need to enjoy them and pay top dollar to see them. Crummy movies aimed at small slices like tweens or hipsters will never be cheap enough, NEVER to cover Hollywood's fixed costs. Very rapidly now, Hollywood will start to fail. Like GM at the end, there is not enough real payoff to fund their capital needs.

Hollywood's model, like that of Blue States, is one that is self-destructive. As long as there was money being made selling off library/catalog on DVDs, and good times had customers buying, Hollywood could afford the reality that most of their current movies sucked, and badly at that. With little popularity and their few blockbusters requiring hideous amounts of capital, with many failing. Rather than go back to the drawing board, and make movies everyone could enjoy, Hollywood doubled down on stupidity and arrogance, figuring foreigners will bail them out.

Matthew Yglesias on Slate boasts that Hollywood still has more cultural reach than China, while Business Insider notes:

"A recently implemented rule has effectively curbed the ‘excessive entertainment’ trend as two-thirds of the entertainment programs on China's 34 satellite channels have been cut, according to the country's top broadcasting watchdog.  ‘The total number of entertainment shows airing during primetime every week has been reduced to 38 from 126 at the end of 2011, marking a 69 percent plunge as the new rule came into effect on Jan. 1,’ said a statement issued Tuesday (3 January) by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT).
"According to an SARFT directive last October, each of the country's satellite channels would be limited to broadcasting two entertainment programs each week and a maximum of 90 minutes of content defined as entertainment every day during primetime -- 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m.  The directive also required channels to broadcast at least two hours of news programming. Between 6 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., they must each broadcast at least two 30-minute news programs.
"The restricted programs on the SARFT list include dating shows, talent contests, talk shows as well as emotional stories that were deemed 'excessive entertainment' and of 'low taste.'  However, popular dating shows like ‘If You Are the One,’ produced by Jiangsu Satellite TV, and soap operas, such as ‘Li Yuan Chun,’ presented by Henan Satellite TV, will still be aired during weekend primetime hours, according to the statement.
"It said that the satellite channels have started to broadcast programs that promote traditional virtues and socialist core values.  The newly-added programs among the satellites' revised broadcasting schedules are documentaries as well as cultural and educational programs, it added.  The SARFT believes that the move to cut entertainment programming is crucial in improving cultural services for the public by offering high quality programming."

Contrast that with the fatuous stupidity of Yglesias at Slate:

This is one area where the rise of the Chinese manufacturing juggernaut hasn't impaired America's leading role at all. If anything, the reverse as a more prosperous China serves as an increasingly lucrative market for American firms. But Chinese President Hu Jintao is none too happy about it, kicking off the New Year with a magazine article complaining that "[i]nternational forces are trying to Westernize and divide us by using ideology and culture."
The talk coincides with the implementation of a regulation announced in October that aims to clean up Chinese television by restricting networks to offering no more than two "overly entertaining and vulgar" programs per week. That kind of strategy strikes me as unlikely to succeed, but I would welcome more robust efforts by the PRC to strengthen the quantity of cultural outputs that are up to international standards. I really enjoyed Red Cliff, for example, but we just don't see that many Chinese war epics.

PC makes you stupid. And stupidity kills. Even, eventually in Hollywood.

I believe none other than that great philosopher Charlie Sheen called it "Winning."







...Read more

Big Bite of Stupid 2: Joss Whedon to Direct the Avengers Movie

Marvel has announced that Joss Whedon will direct the Avengers movie, as well as re-writing the Captain America movie. This is perhaps the most stupid move Marvel has yet made, worse than any of the Punisher movies, or Ben Affleck as Daredevil, or Ed Norton or Angst Lee involved in the Hulk.

Joss Whedon has his talents. Arch, camp, sort of gay, stuff like "Dr. Horrible's Sing A Long," or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Angel, or inside Hollywood stories like "Serenity" or "Firefly" (about a Hollywood rebel who did it his way, as a space cowboy captain), are certainly within Whedon's power. Arch, camp, gay, popular culture snappy dialog, are things Whedon can do in his sleep. If one were to remake "Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist" only with an Alpha, thuggish asshole that women love, instead of Michael Cera, with a few rape scenes (for shock value) and even more hipsterism, well Whedon's your guy.


For a comic book movie like "the Avengers" or Captain America, its is disaster to have him involved. Both the Avengers and Captain America depend on the lead character, Captain America, who is the exact opposite of everything that Whedon can do. Having him write and direct is like asking Terrell Owens, a man not without skills even as he ages, to be an offensive lineman instead of a wide receiver. He just can't do it.

Whedon's specialty is feminism, pop culture quips, shock for the sake of shock, campy and gay singing and dancing, and more feminism. He has an appeal to gay men and women (and GLAAD awards to prove it), and a small cult following of some geeky omega guys, plus a few women. That's it. That's all he's got. His male characters are either flamingly gay, neutered drones, or Alpha assholes repellent to most men. He's never been able to write for a male audience, and his stint on Marvel's "Amazing X-Men" only made all his camp, gay, and feminist tendencies worse. Comic books dirty little secret is they don't make much money or have many readers. It is not uncommon to have some titles with readership in the 12,000 range. Comic books today, are written by and for a small group of hipster-geek fanboys in their forties. Piggybacking on creative work done nearly 70 years ago, in some cases. No comic book since the late 1970's has created a character that has lasted, or captured the imagination. The Punisher being the last character with any staying power. Quick, who is "Speedball," or "Night Thrasher," or "Geist," or "Loose Cannon," or "Argus?"

Nothing speaks to comic books total creative bankruptcy than the failure to create compelling new characters. Comic book characters use powers as an amplification of their character, not the character themselves. The record of comic book writers, for the most part, is absolute failure. The exceptions being Jim Shooter (at Valiant), and a few writers at Dark Horse and Malibu comics, who created new and interesting characters based on well, character not powers, as well as consistently interesting inter-related universes.

Joss Whedon writing Captain America and directing The Avengers will be predictably stupid. Let us predict the failures:

First, feminism. Just ask him, Joss Whedon is a feminist. This means his female characters get passes for bad things they do, based on being pretty. Most of them are prostitutes or semi-prostitutes. A number of them get raped, by bad boys they love. Many of them consider suicide, because the world is too tragic for their power. Many of them are lesbians or bisexual. His female characters consider men based solely on their ability to be the most brutal and physically dominant man in the group, i.e. the biggest biker thug. All other men are there to be flamingly gay idiots, or sexless supportive drones.

Moreover, as typical for feminist writers, his female characters are weak but idiotically strong. Waify, weighing about 90 pounds, they have physical powers to beat up guys, but have no intelligence, strength of character, sexual self-control (around Asshole Alpha males), ability to plan and think, and are prey to their own emotions and weaknesses (for Asshole Alpha males). None are really two dimensional, with interests outside men they are sexually interested in, hobbies, family issues, and human weaknesses (greed, envy, substance abuse, parental issues, etc.) that they guard against. The female characters are all boring, blank canvases with boring superpowers, having boring sex with boring Alpha males.

Another feminist theme is the normalization of whores. Whores show up in Whedon's stuff all the time, from Inara, to Anya, to the theme of Dollhouse (the female and male characters are in a sense prostitutes). How can anyone care about Captain Mal and Inara when the latter is a whore? Nothing means anything, not with Inara, or Faith, or Echo, or Anya. Yes, feminists insist that women having lots of sex with different men is a "double standard" (and it is, so is the female one about men being geeks or Alphas). But who dreams of Ashley Dupree or Rachel Uchitel, among young men? They might find notoriety and fame among women, but I have not seen the wedding announcement for Monica Lewinsky. To put it mildly.

His male characters, as typical for feminists, are even worse. Any hint of geeky enthusiasm or intelligence, is made "gay." Male characters are gay and useless geeks, sexless drones who exist only to support hot chicks with boring superpowers, or Alpha Assholes who humiliate other guys all the time. And indeed, "lead" because they beat up or humiliate other guys (a woman's idea of a leader of men). A more toxic combination of male characters could not be imagined.

Superman was and is the hero of 11 year old boys because he is NOT a bully. An intimidator. He's so strong that bad guys fighting against him is useless, he's a force of nature. An actual, intelligent, career-driven woman falls in love with him because he is often geeky, awkward, boy-scoutish, and decent. Note, while Lois Lane is independent, she is not a whore, nor does she have a parade of men through her bed. Superman is just the costume the real Clark Kent puts on. Needless to say, Superman does not rape and torture people, nor do women find that sort of thing appealing (as they do in Whedon's stuff). Superman's fathers are not sexless drones, but men who teach him the meaning of manhood. Both Pa Kent and Jor-El are very important to Clark Kent. You find this pattern in Batman (endlessly avenging his parents death without being a monster himself), Spider-Man (a geek at heart who lets his inner WWII GI wise-ass out in fights), and most other lasting superheroes.

This is particularly true for Captain America, a hero with minor powers who's ability to lead others is his real power. Ability not by intimidation (Thor, Iron Man, and the Hulk are all far stronger) but by example, courage, sacrifice, humor, and intelligence. Yes, Captain America is akin to Ed Winters (the real man and the character in Band of Brothers). With minor super-powers. He is, after all, a geek who remains one at heart. Unlike Angel, or Spike, or Captain Mal, Captain America never humiliates or beats up friends and allies just to show who is boss. Nor does he embark on violent, degrading S&M bondage relationships with women.

Like Superman, Captain America is what every normal, well adjusted, 11 year old boy would wish to become. Predictably, both the Avengers and Captain America movies will have a Buffy-Faith-Echo-Serenity type kick-ass waif in love with a brutal thug, with icky violent/domination overtones, and of course an asshole not a hero for the lead. Captain America will predictably punk out and degrade other men, because that is what Whedon male leads do. Of course, there will be flamingly gay geeks (message to geeky young boys and men: you are a loser, give up).

Secondly, Whedon cannot write group dynamics, for men. Predictably, the group will fall apart, only to be intimidated into last-minute unity by asshole-dom by the lead. Or simply, a deus ex-machina. Serenity, Dollhouse, and Firefly all failed for a reason -- they could not attract a male audience. Which loves stories about war, and sports, where men from many different backgrounds come together under a tough but fair older man, and an immediate boss, who is funny and decent and the natural leader. Friday Night Lights (the series), Major League, Band of Brothers, all touch on this repeatedly. It takes the ability to imagine being both a follower and a leader to write this stuff, which is why most of Hollywood, populated by Alpha Assholes not too different from Angel or Spike or Captain Mal, cannot do it most of the time.

The core audience for the Avengers and Captain America, is boys 11 year old and up, and men up through their thirties. Who find stories about heroism and leadership, in moral constraints, fascinating and entertaining. This audience is guaranteed to be turned off by rampant assholery and jerkiness, extolled as virtues not flaws. Major League's "Roger Dorn" (played well by Corbin Bernson) would be the "hero" not asshole needing correcting by Tom Berenger's "Jake Taylor."

Thirdly, patriotism. As is the rule for feminists, and Hollywood liberals, Whedon has shown a distinct lack of patriotism, love of country, or indeed identification with homely, home-y, ordinary values and people in everything he has written or produced. Instead, his characters and situations express contempt for ordinary people, their lives, and indeed their values. A great deal of what motivates Captain America, from conception in 1940 onward (when America was still neutral, and Britain might well lose), is an intense devotion to nation and country. Patriotism. But not a patriotism of "uber-alles," rather an intense LOVE. Love of baseball, apple pie, American traditions, songs, folkways, music, language, literature, culture, of all the smallness and hominess and coziness of Americana and America.

He's Captain America. And Joss Whedon will turn him into Captain Post-Modern.

Fourthly, villains. Frank Miller, perhaps one of the only original and creative comic book writers today, noted, Captain America and Superman EXIST to punch out villains. This is what Captain America is all about:



He's there to punch out Hitler. And in the Avengers, set in the modern day, punch out Osama bin Laden. Miller wanted to have Batman punch out Osama, but DC would not let him. Cringing PC is self-defeating. Neither Superman nor Captain America, nor any hero featuring Americana or devotion to America, will do well overseas. Like anti-Semitism, anti-Americanism is a disease rampant and unstoppable throughout the world. With many of the same motivations. Neutering all that makes Captain America (or Superman) is like taking the apples out of Apple Pie and substituting dried bananas. You could do it, but it would not be any good.

Young men today know who the enemies are not. They are not the corporate guys who approve or cut Whedon's budget. They are not rival directors or writers. They are not the people who fund his movies and TV shows to the tunes of millions of dollars. They are not conservatives, Republicans, Christians, or George W. Bush. Young men might or might not like the politics of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, or Sarah Palin, but they don't find them threatening or credible current villains. Young men in America do not find the US troops villains, nor their military commanders, though doubtless they do not approve of everything they do, or every single policy. They do find Osama bin Laden, and Ayman Al-Zawahari, alien, polygamous, and mass murderers who would kill them in a heartbeat, to be their real, true, and threatening enemies.

Joss Whedon, predictably, will have Captain America replicate this cover, only punch out Sarah Palin (feminists hate her), or Dick Cheney, or someone like them (conservative, White, Republican). The "real villain" will be someone who vetoed his project at Fox or Universal. Maybe even a demonic law firm (now there's a threat, as Mohammed Atta is coming at ya, in a jet liner aimed at your skyscraper). This is entirely predictable, and will go over like a lead balloon. Complete with popular culture quips, coming from someone from the "Greatest Generation."

In short, everything about Whedon's strengths and weaknesses, will make both movies utter disaster zones. Pop culture quips out of "the First Avenger," the primal superhero from the 1940's. Rampant Assholery as "leadership" and bullying as qualities to be emulated. Because it is, in Hollywood. Promiscuous women as a feminine ideal, along with emotionally and intellectually weak waifs who kick ass, and the promise that "nerd equals gay" that turns off most young boys (who have yet to hit puberty) and the 90% of men not Alpha. There will be shock "deaths" that can be predicted by plot points or story beats, at least one rape by the "hero" of one of the female characters, and America and ordinary people presented as disgusting and worthless, along with the political beliefs of half the audience. The villain will be someone out of Hollywood's legal or executive suite. This is all perfectly predictable.

Yet why is Marvel doing this?

Because they are stupid.

DVD revenues are plunging 14%, in the first quarter, as $1 Redbox rentals become the norm. Blu-Ray is only in the low teens of home entertainment purchases and rentals, and this on top of big declines in purchases of home entertainment (DVD and Blu-Ray). No one is going to be spending much for 3-D TV in a nation with likely, 25% real unemployment (including those long-term discouraged from jobseeking). Mass is where its at, and the niche appeal of Joss Whedon is a recipe for revenue somewhere between Dollhouse and Serenity.

Executives read this. They know it. But they believe in stupidity. In feminism, that millions of young men secretly yearn to be either assholes or gay, that they find whores or wispy waifs with empty brains and spirits, kicking ass, exciting. That the vast audience finds Fox News (the most popular news network) a threat bigger than Osama bin Laden.

Even when the entire future of Marvel Entertainment, in making the big cross-over event designed to make them (and parent Disney) lots of money, the executive suite took a second bite out of stupid. Remind me again why most men have abandoned entertainment?
...Read more

The Big Bite of Stupid: Elite Failure Everywhere

The recent week has provided evidence that the elites, who run Wall Street, politics, and Entertainment are failures. Incompetents. People pursuing policies so massively stupid, that failure is inevitable, because the Elites buy their own hype and (wrong) conventional wisdom. Given the global collapse of wages and employment, it cannot be long before an overwhelming urge to replace an obvious incompetent group of Elites gathers steam and is successful.


First, Wall Street. Citi chose to buy lots of CDO's just as the market was cratering, and blamed the consultants, who it hired at considerable expense, for bad advice:


Last week, the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was told by Chuck Prince, former chief executive of Citigroup, that “everyone” from banks to rating agencies and regulators thought that triple-A tranches of collateralised debt obligations were safe investments, and that all were flabbergasted when the values collapsed.
This week, a Senate committee grilled Kerry Killinger, the former chief executive of Washington Mutual, one of the biggest mortgage lenders before regulators seized and sold it to JPMorgan Chase in September 2008. He insisted that WaMu’s foray into subprime, spurred by Wall Street and by government-backed entities such as Fannie Mae, was an anomaly.

Magnetar, the fund in question, did not pretend to be engaged in something socially useful by trading subprime securities. It was simply making money for its partners and investors by examining closely the shaky foundations of the mortgage mania, and undermining them.
In that sense, it was like Michael Burry, the investor who realised that many CDOs were over-rated and over-valued, and whose fund Scion Capital was one of the first to short them. Mr Burry is the central figure in – and hero of – Michael Lewis’s book about the crisis, The Big Short.

Political leaders from Greece to Iceland borrowed recklessly with the idea that paying the money back would be someone else's problem. Iceland, a place known previously for sober, small government, let banks run wild, borrow from themselves, and grow 20 times over in size over a space of few years, with political leaders and regulators accused of negligence.

The commission criticised regulators for failing to rein in the banks – Landsbanki, Glitnir and Kaupthing – as they grew 20-fold in size between 2001 and 2008 until their liabilities far exceeded the country’s ability to bail them out.

Goldman Sachs, figuring its many alumni in Obama's Administration (and folks in the Democratic Party, and Congress) would protect it found itself the focus of fraud charges by the SEC. This was predictably stupid, since the biggest chumps were politically connected folks like the Royal Bank of Scotland, and German and Dutch state banks, who could be absolutely predicted to sue and pursue political remedies against a Wall Street firm like Goldman Sachs. Not even Barney Frank is defending them, again utterly predictably. Smart deal making only screws over people who have no ability to retaliate.

ESPN meanwhile, is making one of the stupidest bets possible. ESPN plans to spend many millions of dollars, promoting the World Cup (of Soccer).

ESPN, the sports broadcaster, is making its largest marketing investment in a single sporting event in its 30-year history as it looks to use the World Cup to transform the audience for football in the US.
…
“We’re pulling out all the stops to make sure people pay attention to the game, because we’re convinced that when they pay attention they’re going to fall in love with the game,” said John Skipper, ESPN’s executive vice-president for content.

ESPN expects to see ratings for the tournament that opens in South Africa in June to improve by about 25 to 50 per cent over the audience figures it saw four years ago in Germany, despite a time difference that means games will be played at 7am, 9.30am and 2pm east coast time.

Artie Bulgrin, ESPN’s head of research and analytics, said the broadcaster had been encouraged by research from TNS suggesting the number of “avid” football fans had grown in the past four years from 6 per cent of the US population to 10 per cent.
…
Hispanic viewers will make up about one-third of ESPN’s World Cup audience, Mr Bulgrin estimated, adding that advertisers were attracted by the young and affluent nature of US football audiences.

ESPN has exclusive US domestic rights, with the exception of Spanish language broadcasts, for the first time and is planning a multimedia blitz, from live online streaming to radio broadcasts, mobile applications and special editions of ESPN Magazine.

Seth Ader, senior director of sports marketing, said ESPN was planning two months of “respectful education” about the sport and the host country before the first game on June 11.

Hmm … ESPN has the exclusive rights to the World Cup in North America, except for Spanish Language broadcasts. WHAT could go possibly wrong with this plan? After all, it is well known that Hispanics in North America prefer to watch English Language Broadcasts. Oh wait, they don't!.

Top Ten (Week April 5) Broadcast Television (all races) [Rating/Viewers in 000's]:

1. CBS NCAA BSKBL CHAMPSHIPS(S) CBS 14.2 23,944


2. DANCING WITH THE STARS ABC 13.3 21,209


3. AMERICAN IDOL-TUESDAY FOX 11.9 20,836


4. AMERICAN IDOL-WEDNESDAY FOX 11.6 20,168


5. NCIS CBS 10.2 16,448


6. MENTALIST, THE CBS 10.2 16,318


7. 60 MINUTES CBS 9.7 15,033


8. CSI CBS 9.3 14,968


9. NCIS: LOS ANGELES CBS 8.6 13,785


10. UNDERCOVER BOSS CBS 8.6 14,676

Top Ten (Week April 5) Broadcast Television (Hispanic) [Rating/Viewers in 000's]

1. HASTA DINERO SEPARE THU-04/08/2010 UNI 19.4 4,390


2. HASTA DINERO SEPARE WED-04/07/2010 UNI 19.4 4,478


3. HASTA DINERO SEPARE MON-04/05/2010 UNI 19.2 4,219


4. HASTA DINERO SEPARE TUE-04/06/2010 UNI 19.2 4,428


5. HASTA DINERO SEPARE FRI-04/09/2010 UNI 18.4 4,336


6. CORAZON SALVAJE MON-04/05/2010 UNI 16.0 3,395


7. CORAZON SALVAJE THU-04/08/2010 UNI 15.6 3,405


8. CORAZON SALVAJE WED-04/07/2010 UNI 15.6 3,364


9. CORAZON SALVAJE TUE-04/06/2010 UNI 15.1 3,175


10. CORAZON SALVAJE FRI-04/09/2010 UNI 14.4 3,033

Only someone who believes PC hype could make this call, investing tens of millions of dollars in the World Cup for what is sure to be a failure. It took me all of five minutes to find this information on Nielsen's site.

Meanwhile, utterly predictably, the movie "Kick-Ass" didn't at the box office. An R-rated movie, based on an obscure comic book with almost no sales, no visibility, and no real appeal to a broad audience, featuring a foul-mouthed 11 year old girl killing people? THAT is supposed to be the next Batman movie? In a later post, I'll discuss WHY comic book movies, being simple, are hard to do correctly. But even the most cursory examination of the movie would show that it had almost no potential to make money. None.

Marvel is betting it all on stupid. Joss Whedon will direct the Avengers movie, as well as re-writing the Captain America movie. Meanwhile, we learn that the NYT is reporting that Obama has no plan to deal with a nuclear Iran. None at all.

No other conclusion can be reached. Our elites, in every field, are uniformly stupid and need to be replaced.







...Read more