Conservatives and movies and James Woods...

I love the movies. I love a well-made film with an engaging story. Who doesn't?

I also love learning about movies and, more specifically, acting, from watching the show, Inside the Actor's Studio. James Lipton does a great job of allowing us to take a glimpse into what makes a particular actor tick. Getting to hear people like Clint Eastwood talk about their career and their approach to movies is fascinating.

James Woods has been a guest on the show and was recently interviewed by Zap2It. In his interview he has some very interesting views/opinions about the Hollywood institution:

"I'd really decided I don't want to act anymore," Woods says. "People say 'Why?' and I go, 'Have you been to the movies lately?' They're just horrible, as everybody knows now. They've gotten so bad..."

He continues, without pause, "If you ran any other business this way, you'd be out of business in 10 minutes. It's like, 'How about I make 100 cars and 98 of them stink and crash and blow up on the highway and two are like OK and they give us enough revenue.' Do you know how hard it is to get five nominees for the Oscars? They go, 'Are you kidding with that movie?' Well there's no other movies. The other 595 stink..."

"I've been on movies where the money that's spent is so profligate that it's mindboggling," he says. "I'm not a big liberal, but I have to say, the first thing you think of is 'You could feed a nation with the money you're wasting on this movie, with people's vanity...'"

"In this politically correct era, the middle-aged heterosexual white guy gets to play one part, he gets to play the asshole in the suit," Woods grouses. "That's the only part they make anymore. That's the only part there is for a white heterosexual guy. Sorry, but it's the truth. Even when he's the hero now: Like Tom Cruise in 'War of the Worlds,' he's the hero, right? Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, H.G. Wells, how do you top that? They do a remarkable job of how the make the movie and so on, but he has to be a father who's a lousy parent, a terrible ex-husband, blah blah blah."

After the desire for oxygen temporarily kicks in: "You can't be a heterosexual white guy and be a hero anymore. You've gotta be really flawed and really bad and a piece of crap. Otherwise, the marketing department says, 'You can't have white guys be decent people. They're the enemy. They only put a man on the Moon and wrote 'Hamlet.' Why should we let them have any cred?'"

You can read the entire Zap2It article here.