Public Radio Snobs??

Sylvia Saint
Originally uploaded by Phalanx.

Why do NPR listeners have an aura of being snobs? I listen to it quite a bit, because I like the coverage and the interviews. And is there any other type of news radio? Besides the shit on AM that carries the likes of Larry Elder and Sean Hannity? I don't think you can call that news, more like propaganda and hang-wringing.

Although, NPR listeners probably lament the most that most entertainment outlets cater to the strictly under 25 set -- but they're the ones who are kind of responsible for that. If people over the age of 30 went to see more intelligent movies, bought less overly manufactured pop music and supported music artists who have trully worked on their craft or watched the kind of TV that wasn't so the MTV/WB/CW target demographic, then maybe the

Oh, another thing about NPR. I heard a story today stating that George Lucas gave USC's cinema school a $175 million grant, but then he said that LucasFilm was getting out of the film business and getting into the TV business! Citing that movies are too expensive to make and the risk is too large. Well, if you're looking to continue "making" the utter BULLSHIT that he's been turning out since the Raiders of the Lost Ark (arguably everything after that has been cheap rehash of the same idea -- Episodes V and VI of the first Star Wars, the yak-shit of the second trilogy, the underwealming Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, the recycled Willow, the weak 2nd through 4th installments of the Indianan Jones films, oh and who can forget Howard the Duck and Radioland Murders; never mind the so-called updating of the effects in the Star Wars movies), all the while driving up the costs of cutting edge special effects so the video game division of Lucas's empire can doublebill the development expense... then sure movies are too fucking expensive and wildly out of control gambles.

Truth be told George Lucas isn't a very dramaturgical creative person, he was just someone who jumped into the film game at a time when the space age was filtering all of its advances to the consumer world and he figured why not bring computers to film production. Just look at his output since he was seduced by silicon and binary code -- shody at best.

But it seems to me that movies can be made for half the price of the original Star Wars flim and still be damn good. There was a Russian film that came out called "NIGHT WATCH", which supposedly cost $4million and the effects work rivaled anything Industrial Light & Magic has done for ten times the budget (by that I mean the effects budget).

I fail to see how a show like "Battlestar Galatica" at $10mil an episode is less risky and more captivating than a film like CITY OF GOD with its barely $3million budget... truth be told budgets are relative. It's marketing costs, and the one thing Lucas did very well was learn how to create a brand that sells product as interesting as rotten chicken gizzards, and the public laps it up like it was the best French ice cream.

Every filmmaking center OUTSIDE of the United States can make highly entertaining AND smart films the cost of Tom Hanks' salary on a project. Although, maybe you wouldn't know about that if you only got your news and free-thinking expression for big media controlled outlets...