We notice with complete lack of surprise that any number of bloggers who stepped all over their wedding tackle with football cleats times without counting over the Baldwin case, who gave us endless rations of shit and bile over our concisely and exhaustively pointing out the actual facts of the case, and who got served a Jurassic park-sized portion of shitburger with yesterday's announcement that all criminal charges have been dropped against Baldwin, and have since then owned up to their errors with even a fraction of the diligence they displayed in making them, can be counted, to date, on our thumbs. And that the story is about as well-covered by the right side of the blogosphere since it broke with almost as much diligence as the MSM has covered Hunter Biden's laptop.
[Pro Tip: If you're just as bad as the Leftards, don't stare off into space wondering how on earth you always manage to get represented in politics by people just as bad as the Leftards. It's not that much of a mystery, is it...?]
Take your lumps and own them, kids. We all know who you are. Everyone knows who you are. Don't be chickenshits about it, or get dug out of your pillboxes with flamethrowers and pitchforks. Just issue your mea culpas and Page B87 retractions, resolve to think with your big head instead of your little one next time, and move on with your lives with a slight stinging sensation in the back of your neck to remind you why thinks are better than feelz as a system of jurisprudence.
Instead of silent butthurt, you should be rejoicing that the criminal justice system, at least in Santa Fe, has at least one prosecutor who can tell their ass from a hole in the ground, can read the cards of a recockulous indictment without having to play that hand, riding their retarded boss' flaming trainwreck over the cliff, and railroading an innocent man in the process. And relax; Baldwin's still just as much of a flaming asshole today as he was two years ago, so you don't have to like him to admit reality. Delusion is the last refuge of a psychotic. C'mon back over to the side of sanity. The water's fine.
This is especially true when you consider that some D.A.'s posse may be coming for one of you next time something goes down. At that point, the rule of law is a better option than the Two Minutes' Hate, don'tcha think?
8 comments:
Aesop,
You nailed it!
It is, unfortunately, the fact that the human condition is what it is. The Left is populated with retards who believe that at the center of every issue, Trump is somehow related.
With the same sort of "clarity," there are conservatives who are so blinded by their politics that they cannot separate their adversary's politics from their view of right and wrong. Nor can they separate in their mind culpability from pure bad luck. To prove that point, notice how few of these people even bothered to even MENTION the incompetent armorer while screaming about Baldwin's handling of the firearm and his failure to check the ammunition.
I have no interest in carrying water for the likes of Alec Baldwin, but for conservatives to attempt to crucify Baldwin on these facts puts them at the base of the guillotine's platform along with the mob that was shouting, "Off with his head!" That's not the sort of company most rational (and dare I say, moral) people want to find themselves.
Again, well done, Aesop. Take your victory lap.
Tangentially-related question: the last few times I've watched movies with plenty of gunfire in them (most recently, the Coens' "No Country for Old Men"), I've sat through the ending credits to see who is credited as "armorer." Kind of wondered if it tends to be the same few people, again and again. Didn't see such a credit. Would the custodian of firearms be credited as "prop master" (something that I do see in the credits)? Just curious.
@Jim W.,
1) Credit is at the discretion of a motion picture's producer(s).
I've worked on a couple of hundred films and TV shows.
I've got about half a dozen IMDb credits for that work.
Mostly, though, that's because I was only picking up day-work; in most (but not all) cases where I worked the majority of a film, I got credited.
Generally, the lack is due to shoddy back-office work, rather than any producer(s)' spitefulness. But getting paid for a gig ≠ getting screen credit for the gig you did.
2) There is no requirement that any show have a separate armorer.
3) Even if they do, there's no requirement to credit them as such.
4) As a general rule, propmasters are the de facto armorer on any show, unless recognizing the crushing need for someone to do just that, they, the production staff, or both, jointly, request or demand that one be hired.
5) That being said, while most experienced propmasters can function as fully competent armorers, they generally would rather do all the other propage (think a 53' semi-trailer prop truck loaded with everything from pencils to personal electronics, which is the average prop shop on most productions for going on years), and let subject-matter experts deal with just the bangsticks.
6) The club of people, worldwide, with the skills to do the job at the top tier and access to or possession of the items needed is a very, very small club. Kind of like the number of helicopter pilots that work the movie industry. Both are very narrow skill sets.
7) The is due in no small part because the major prop weapons houses worldwide (fewer and fewer of those every year too) have a short list of people to whom they'll entrust their weapons props to, particularly when you get into Class II-capable items. And, in 2A-unfriendly states like CA and NFY, the only people besides bona fide Class II dealers who may possess Class II items legally, hold an FFL specifically in regard to their use for motion picture production, which tends to narrow the field of possible choices down with laser precision.
Which keeps the wannabees and riff-raff out.
Once it becomes an overseas project, it's even worse than that.
(A lot of turd world countries, like Mexico, don't need any shooting irons leaving the reservation for any reason.) A missing prop could mean someone's going to prison by way of apology.
If no separate armorer was listed in a film's credits, the job was probably done by the show's propmaster, assisted by their prop assistants.
But that means they did all the other props on the project too.
(cont.)
(cont.)
BUT:
On non-union cheapskate fly-by-night p.o.s. productions like Rust, all bets are off.
That's how you get weapons-incompetent "weapon handler"s like Hannah Gutierrez Reed, who didn't even have the bare minimum days on union shoots (that would be 30) to get a prop card, trying to pimp her geriatric daddy's legit bona fides into her own rice bowl, and killing people due to gross criminal incompetence, assisted by weapon-fondler wannabes like 1st AD Halls, who, by custom and practice, not only should never be involved in touching or assisting in any way with weapons on set by virtue of his position as 1st AD - making him the de facto safety supervisor of the whole movie - but also because he had prior history of f**king up by the numbers on prior shows, exactly for finger-banging prop weapons, totally outside his training, expertise, or purview as an A.D.
And as in this case, just like before, he knew just enough to be dangerous, which helped kill the D.P and shoot the director.
The Hollywood guild system isn't perfect, but when the rules are observed, they have prevented the exact cock-up and manslaughter that totally ignoring the safety rules got with this sorry incident.
Runaway productions ducking union payrolls kill people through exactly this sort of negligence and incompetence every year, and Halyna Hutchins is just one of the latest victims.
But she won't be the last one.
One thing that will probably happen: None of the major prop weapon houses will rent anything to anyone without at least an IATSE weapon handler or propmaster card, purely from liability reasons.
Better still will be the blood-sucking lawyers at the completion bond companies, who won't issue a bond unless any weapons work is done by a guild-certified card-holder.
Without the bond, the pic doesn't get financed. Which will hopefully keep the next generation of Reed/Halls incompetents outside the fence, looking in, in perpetuity.
Think about how bad and totally unsafe it must've been for the entire union camera department - the highest-paid people on any production set - to walk off the production the day before. (This would be like the airline pilot of your flight walking off the plane and up the jetway before takeoff, and refusing to fly the bucket of bolts you were strapped into). And then get vindicated when exactly what they were afraid would happen came to pass, and the DP dead.
I greatly appreciate the breakdown you did when it was still a recent happening; you explained thoroughly what the situation was, and as someone with no concept of the rules and regs of hollywood, I would have been right there with those calling favoritism right now if not for your posts.
Thank you for a generously lengthy and detailed reply. Fascinating world, that movie industry.
Aesop; you called it from the git-go, and were able to back it up all the way to legal. BRAVO! Hollywood is full of f--k ups and imbeciles, but there ARE adults at the periphery. It is what keeps the whole thing from imploding. And once in awhile, someone with a brilliant idea gets their movie made.
I greatly appreciate the breakdown you did when it was still a recent happening; you explained thoroughly what the situation was, and as someone with no concept of the rules and regs of hollywood, I would have been right there with those calling favoritism right now if not for your posts.
Post a Comment