There is entirely too much love for “the fat suit,” in Hollywood, these days. Seriously if you’re a really bad film/TV comedy writer you aren’t helping your cause, by writing a fat suit plotline, into whatever it is you’re working on. And yes, I understand what you’re trying do. I get that Meg Ryan and that chick from Friends are rail thin, and that Ryan Reynolds is in really good shape… there’s nothing comedic about you dressing these people up in fat suits and suggesting that they were overweight, and couldn’t get dates, ten years ago. What happened to actors like Christian Bale who actually gained/lost weight for roles, instead of relying on a stupid suit to do his job for him? Has anyone seen the Machinist? If not, watch that movie.

And why must bad movies, and stupid TV shows recycle the same crappy plotlines? How many writers does it take to sit around a table and say “Hey, you know what would be really funny? A romantic comedy about a supermodel that was fat in high school! Yeah! She could run into her former best friend, some guy, whom she’d always had a crush on, but could never confront about it, due to her self-esteem issues,” before someone replies with a “Wow! Brilliant idea Chet! Did you just think that up yourself, or did you watch a plethora of shitty movies, written by eight of the other nine guys here, to help inspire your grossly overdone film-idea?” How do such stupid people keep getting money? Isn’t there someone around to say “You sir, are a dumbass.” That’s all they need to say… it’s like five words. Five little words could save a lot of people, a whole lot of time and money.

But back to the fat suit… it’s like CGI for the 21^st century. Except, this time, George Lucas isn’t the one overusing the suit. Remember when the new Star Wars movies came out and they were chalked full of unnecessary CGI characters and pointless action scenes that existed solely for the purpose of creating weird little CGI robot-men and making a bunch of random shit explode? I do… and I remember thinking about how much I missed the old days, when movies dressed people up in Sasquatch costumes, or little remote-control-garbage-can-outfits, or amorphous-blob-fat-suits instead of relying exclusively on, not particularly convincing, computer graphics to alter characters. Well it seems as though the RBRCWG (Really Bad Romantic Comedy Writers Guild) has developed a device that can read my mind… because, ever since Star Wars Episode I, they’ve been milking fat-suits worse than a prostitute milks old-man prostate. If you had told me, eight-ish years ago, that I’d watch a movie, and actually wish to see 11 different breeds of CGI robot replace a character in a fat-suit, I’d have called you crazy… but, at this point, I think I’d rather see an army of stupid robots blow up a Best Buy, to the detriment of the plot of the film, than I would a skinny celebrity wearing a fat suit for fifteen painfully awkward, unfunny minutes.

How do such fruitless minds end up, comfortably, paying the bills on the merits of their creative writing? I know a bunch of creative, competent writers who are stuck working regular, average-paying, day jobs because the people in charge of finding good scripts/funding film projects are useless tools.

I think I’m going to write a script, about how dim-witted most of the people behind Hollywood are, that will end up getting picked up by the studio with the most incompetent guy running it… but he’ll end up hiring some shitty director who will ruin my movie by making the main character a CGI dude in a fat suit.

Recap:
Excessive fat-suit-use in film = bad;
Excessive CGI in film = bad;
Majority of successful Film/TV writers = bad;
Me = angry.

Tell your friends you’re going to lose 60 pounds so that they will like you more.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 25th, 2008 at 5:39 pm. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.