“Walk Hard:” The Dewey Cox Writers Strike Story

With renewed talks between writers and producers scheduled to begin, as we’ve previously noted, next Monday, and the holiday week truncating strikers’ walking-the-picket-line activities, there’s still plenty of strike updates:

* Turns out that television production isn’t the only thing affected by the strike: Two movies have had to push back their start dates, if they’ll ever get made at all. But, since they’re movies I likely wouldn’t see, even on a bet – the sequel to “The Da Vinci Code;” an Oliver Stone movie starring Bruce Willis – I’m not all that broken up about this.

On the other hand, Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to “Borat,” “Bruno: Silly Gay Character Humiliates Unwitting Imbecilic Fashion Designers For To Make Americans More Antipathy to German Eurotrash,” may also be affected. Some of this story's reportage seems disingenuous, however, as rumors strongly suggest the film has already been filming for quite some time now, and the anonymous producer’s bluster – “I will write and fix it” – sounds too idiotic too be taken seriously.

* Discoursing on the stagehand strike that has darkened the lights (and stages) of Broadway, the New York Times offers this taunt in the direction of the writers: Ha-ha, the pen may be mightier than the sword, but the stagehand is actually mightier than the pen:

“(T)he stagehands, who began striking almost a week after the writers, are most likely the ones who will be heading back to work first. The writers still confront the stalemate over distribution of revenues from digital content. So how will 400 or so (mostly) beefy guys in Manhattan accomplish what currently seems beyond the reach of the 12,000 members of the writers’ guild?

“Begin with the fact that the stagehands have actual leverage — the ability to shut down moneymaking entertainment that occurs at a specific time and place. Writers are increasingly part of a digital economy, where entertainment comes from every direction, and shutting off the spigot is next to impossible.”

Meow. Well, good point, I guess, but what would these stage hands be doing if someone hadn’t actually gone to the trouble of writing those plays and musicals gracing 42nd Street?

* Years of effortless charming has apparently not taught Ellen DeGenerous how not to step into a deep wide swatch of crap: She opined to the Daily News’ Greg Hernandez, of her decision to cross the strike line to continue her talk-show, “It’s just the hardest thing in the world to drive on this lot.”

I’ll try to not let having watched a documentary on the genocide in Darfur Sunday evening color my response to DeGeneres’s “It’s all about me” comment, but will note that it might be just a smidgen harder for writers who make a whole lot less than she and are sacrificing their relative long-term financial comfort in order to get their fair share of the Entertainment-Industrial Complex’s financial pie.

* Sarah Silverman offers her quite diplomatic thoughts on the producers’ stance on the strike, which will no doubt assuage the AMPTP when they resume talks: “My instinct is that they’re douchebags. … These are people who have families and kids and jets.”

* Strike or no strike, ABC has thrown down with “Dirty Sexy Money,” giving it a (fairly meaningless, at this point) full-season pickup, and since the show is so clearly lacking in sexual chicanery, is adding Lolita Davidovich to the cast as yet another potential mistress.

As we’ve noted, it’s a bit of a mystery as to why this show isn’t doing better, but it’s heartening that ABC likes it enough to extend this ephemeral ray of hope.

* This blog’s latest favorite new movie, “Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium” (which just has to be the most desperate-sounding title ever), pretty much tanked at the box office this weekend, suggesting that only certain writers should go on strike for months and months on end. Just think how much better this film would’ve been if Anton Chigurh of “No Country for Old Men” (which is really this blog’s favorite new movie) had been allowed to roam free through it, laying to utter waste the bland banalities that cluttered the production.

* To justify the “Walk Hard” headline, here’s a “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” clip with enough d!ck puns to sustain you for the entire week.