Billy Bob Blames Games for the Sorry State of Hollywood

Andy Chalk

One Flag, One Fleet, One Cat
Nov 12, 2002
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Billy Bob Blames Games for the Sorry State of Hollywood


Oscar-winning actor Billy Bob Thorton [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000671/] blames "the videogame generation" for the sad state of Hollywood and the low-quality movies it churns out these days.

It's hard to deny that Hollywood cranks out a lot of garbage. Specific definitions of "garbage" may vary but I think most of us can agree that no matter how you look at it, there's a lot of it. What isn't so clear is precisely why that is. Is it because of the famous Shakespearean limit on the number of stories there are to tell? Or has the movie industry simply realized that it can phone everything in and still rake in bazillions of dollars year after year?

Billy Bob Thorton, the star of films like Telegraph [http://www.amazon.com/Eagle-Eye-Blu-ray-Shia-LaBeouf/dp/B001L57ZZ6/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1290634530&sr=1-2]. "They're geared toward the videogame-playing generation. And these videogames, which I'm on my son about constantly, these games are people killing for fun, and I think traditionally in movies, there's always been some kind of lesson in the violent movies."

Thorton's latest movie is called Dwayne Johnson [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1433108/], who's "on a bloody quest for revenge against the people who set him up." It sounds like a fairly straightforward Hollywood action vehicle but Thorton claimed there's a lot more to it.

"This movie doesn't say, 'Oh, here's this fun guy and we're going to do this tongue-in-cheek character right out of a videogame who likes to destroy things' and all this kind of thing," he continued. "This movie actually shows what prisons create, what murder creates. It shows this perpetual, violent string of events."

I'm inclined to agree that the attention span of mainstream entertainment consumers isn't what it used to be, but I think Billy Bob is making the same mistake that a great many other people have: confusing the medium with the message. It's the equivalent of watching Freddy vs. Jason [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0329101/] and declaring that the film industry is all about, well, "people killing for fun." Hollywood may be a crap factory, but that's Hollywood's problem.

via: Twitter [http://twitter.com/KyleOrl/status/7492706288795649]


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Danpascooch

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Apr 16, 2009
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So....the person who is saying this made "Bad Santa"?

Wow, that's cute, not only does he make terrible movies, but then calls the rest of Hollywood terrible, and blames it all on something else entirely.

EDIT: "Faster" has a Metacritic score of 41, ROFL!
 

Booze Zombie

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Dec 8, 2007
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Oh Billy, I like you but I think you're more wrong than sex in a crib.
Why? I'll tell you!
Shit movies have always existed, do you think movies started up, there was this silent period and then Casablanca and Citizen Kane suddenly appeared?
No, there was tonnes and tonnes of crap, always has and there always will be.

Works of great and powerful genius are rare and there's nothing a generation can do to change that.
 

HK_01

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Jun 1, 2009
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Should I laugh or cry at such ridiculous comments? I guess I'll go with laughing.
 

Diligent

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Dec 20, 2009
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Just watch this interview with Billy Bob if you haven't already, and tell me you can take anything that comes out of his mouth remotely seriously.
 

Fiend Dragon

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Apr 7, 2010
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Annnnnd another celebrity to add to the list of fools that speak up about things that they know very little about. It doesn't so much bother me that any particular person does this, more so that people think that their ignorant ramblings mean something.
 

StriderShinryu

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Dec 8, 2009
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Yeah, seeing as how the most common story in your typical action game is also one based on the main character getting revenge for being the victim of violence too. In a vague sense I do understand what he's saying but it's not videogames he should be blaming, it's the generally vacuous mass market that gets to dictate what pretty much every media form caters to these days.
 

AvsJoe

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May 28, 2009
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So says the guy who directed All the Pretty Horses.

Go back to any time in history and watch a few Hollywood films. They've always been a "crap factory". This is because we only remember the good films from the past, whereas people only seem to be focusing on the crap films made today. Hollywood is just as good at making a great film today as it was 71 years ago; see, for example, There Will Be Blood or Up.
 

Zechnophobe

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Feb 4, 2010
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People really aren't changing, it is simply the world we live in that changes, that lets us express ourselves in different ways.

People, animals of all types even, have chronically short attention spans. We just now have the ability to keep up with them better.
 

rsvp42

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Jan 15, 2010
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But bad movies have existed next to good ones forever. The fact that more people are getting their senseless violence fix from video games instead of movies these days (is this even true? Maybe.) shouldn't have any impact. You can blame video games, you can blame other bad movies, you can blame the people who pay for them, but it's really no excuse. There's always going to be some "low" entertainment out there making a lot of money. It's still no excuse for making bad films. It'd be like if developers all decided to make nothing but crappy shooters and then said "it's Call of Duty's fault."
 

lewism247

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Aug 1, 2009
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BILLY NO!!!!!

I really like him due to Slingblade but it's not gaming's fault that hollywood is as it is.
The Rascal King said:
Listen to him, he had sex with Angelina Jolie. Listen to him.

Angelina Jolie, dammit.
and WHAT!?
 

emeraldrafael

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Jul 17, 2010
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Its nice that he can justify a movie he's in thats solely about a man killing other men by saying its social commentary. There are plenty of movies where you could say are good because of its social commentary. Most movies are about revenge of some kind, so you could say how revenge helps no one and only leads to more hurt. Then they;re good movies with a social commentary.

Besides that, Hollywood made horrible movies long before Video games. Are we going to blame the Civil Rights Movement next for the horrible Blacxpoitation movies (no, i dont know how to spell, just sound it out. if you know what i'm talking about, you'll know what i mean)? should we say, oh, you darn black americans. if you didnt have those silly marches for personal freedoms, we would have had a great age in movies.

DISCLAIMER: I dont feel that way, and I fully support the idea of the Civil Rights Movements.


Billy, i like you. you do have some good movies, really, you do. But try not to be so hypocritical next time you decide to do something like talking out of your ass.
 

Imp Poster

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Sep 16, 2010
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The Rascal King said:
Listen to him, he had sex with Angelina Jolie. Listen to him.

Angelina Jolie, dammit.
And he did Halle Berry(on screen), doggie style even. His ego is definitely, blinding.
 

zidine100

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Mar 19, 2009
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alright, using video games as a scapegoat for violence is at least plausible, but come on now saying that there making bad movies because of video games is just plain stupid.

i mean come on look back, back to a time were video games weren't prevalent in society or hell even existed, there was still alot of crappy made films then and alot of action bang bang pew pew kind of films as well.


and yes IM MAD, IM TOTALY MAD SON. (jk if you dont understand)
 

Mr. Omega

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Jul 1, 2010
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Andy Chalk said:
Hollywood may be a crap factory, but that's Hollywood's problem.
You, good sir, have just summed up my entire response to this man's comment into a 10-word sentence. Thank you.
 

subject_87

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Jul 2, 2010
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Really now? I could name at least a half-dozen recent films that are quite good of the top of my head: District 9, Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Moon, The Dark Knight, and anything from Pixar. All were made while videogames were popular, and all are quite good.
 

rsvp42

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AvsJoe said:
So says the guy who directed All the Pretty Horses.

Go back to any time in history and watch a few Hollywood films. They've always been a "crap factory". This is because we only remember the good films from the past, whereas people only seem to be focusing on the crap films made today. Hollywood is just as good at making a great film today as it was 71 years ago; see, for example, There Will Be Blood or Up.
Exactly. My parents showed me an old newspaper once with movie listings. I think Star Wars was on it, but everything else sounded terrible by name alone. People in 2050 will be saying this same thing, dreaming of the naughts and wondering what happened to "good films."