Spinal Tap vs. Hollywood | Hacker News Reader

Spinal Tap vs. Hollywood

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121 pointswell_i_never22 comments

The video game has a parallel.

Voice actors or visual actors in the ever-increasing hollywood-ized titles get a royalty paycheck every time a box of software is sold at retail or on Steam. They may be paid royalties for a decade or more, with a successful A title.

Meanwhile the artists who generate content are paid only while doing their work, and the programmers who bring that content to life are paid a salary only while doing their work. There is typically no lasting financial commitment after the weekly paycheck. The could be laid off the week after release, and when the $$$ rolls into the studio, the team is home sleeping, fixing bugs, or looking for a new job. Starting anew.

The difference? Unionization.

That and voice actors are usually famous already and have bargaining power individually.

Relevant quote: “The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side.”

As someone who spent about 20 years of my life in the music business, and also happens to be an ardent Hunter S. Thompson fan who is frustrated with this clunky and inelegant quote being attributed to him, I feel compelled to correct this.

The original line, from Generation Of Swine, is as follows:

"The TV business is uglier than most things. It is normally perceived as some kind of cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason. Which is more or less true. For the most part, they are dirty little animals with huge brains and no pulse."

Granted, you did not attribute the quote to anyone in particular, and by definition it is a quote from someone, somwhere, but it seems worth correcting nonetheless.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, various songs have been recorded about how soulless and money-grubbing the music industry is. Examples include Pink Floyd's "Have a Cigar", Billy Squier's "The Stroke", and Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Workin' for MCA".

Billy Joel - "The Entertainer", Recently Sylvan Esso - "Radio" (Exactly 3m:30s long).

Sex Pistols "E.M.I." and "Liar"

Let's not forget the Sex Pistols' "EMI"

One of my favorite movies, and favorite one of the genre by far. If anyone who loves this movie hasn't seen the commentary track on the DVD, get it immediately. The actors present on the commentary are all in character so it sort of feels like a second movie.

I've heard rumours that, in contrast, the laserdisc release had the actors' commentary au naturale -- it's almost worth trying to hunt down a player and a copy, as I've never seen a rip published.

I have a copy of all three commentaries, including the in-character, as actors, and also the commentary with Rob Reiner, producer Karen Murphy, and editors Robert Leighton and Kent Beyda.

Feel free to email me if you'd like an MP3 you can mux in. It's a shame they didn't include this with the Criterion release.

Which one would you recommend? I don't have time to hunt down and watch all 3 haha.

Spinal Tap doing the commentary on Spinal Tap is by far the best.

Thanks, I'll check it out