An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (1997)
POSTED BY: 6IXSTRINGJACK
UPDATED: Wednesday, January 15, 2025 22:20
VIEWED: 5362
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Critics HATED this movie. Most people never heard about it. Those that saw it, generally seemed to hate it.
Rotten Tomatoes Scores
Critics: 8% / Audience: 14%
I went into it completely blind, and I'd rather not say any more about it to anybody else than I knew going into it. I'll try to do that here:
PLOT: Alan Smithee, if you didn't already know, is the fake director who's name was used on any film that the director of a movie would refuse to put his name on after he or she felt that they lost complete creative control.
But what happens when your directing a movie you've lost complete creative control of the feature and your name already is Alan Smithee?
You probably have seen at least a hand full of Smithee flicks in your life and not even been aware of it.
ACTORS: Eric Idle is Alan Smithee. Richard Jeni and Ryan O'Neil play my two favorite characters... Hollywood Producers. I have vague recollections of seeing the late Jeni in some minor acting roles when I was a kid and I remember enjoying his standup. I loved him in this flick.
"Special Guest Stars" are the billing given to Sylvester Stallone, Whoopi Goldberg and Jackie Chan.
But I think the REAL special guest star for the movie is a young-ish Harvey Weinstein as the Private Detective. Honestly, I didn't even know that was him (quite a bit skinnier back in '97), but I do remember thinking to myself "Poor guy has Harvey Weinstien face". But that thought was buried immediately since you really have to be paying attention to the dialog in this movie when it's being thrown at you at a lightning fast pace.
The rest of the cast is littered with a whole bunch of people you probably saw a lot in the late 90's and early 2000's and haven't given much thought to since then.
Other than my personal thoughts and rating, I won't say any more about the movie for now, in hopes that maybe a few of you who have never seen it or likely never even heard about it give it a watch and let me know what you'd think. I'd love to discuss this film and I'm even open to watching it again and maybe even doing some analysis of the film itself, why it was destroyed in the box office and how come nobody has really ever heard of it before.
My spoiler free personal thoughts?
I loved every minute of it. Though comedy is subjective, I think perhaps it wasn't as side-splittingly funny as it was supposed to be, but there were quite a few moments where I laughed out loud to myself.
It was one of the more engaging movies I remember seeing. It's probably a movie that you should watch alone, at least for the first viewing. You really can't have any distractions going on. If you like beer or weed, I'd recommend passing on that before firing this flick up too. You're going to want a clear head for it.
I really can't see why it gets such abysmal reviews. Even IMDB has it only at 3.5/10. I did notice in the reviews that several people from the UK seem to think that Americans don't get the irony of the flick and the reason the movie failed and didn't even make it anywhere internationally is because the US audience is dumb. Maybe there's truth to that? (They probably only even know about it because of Eric Idle).
I also can't really talk about the way it was filmed without ruining part of the experience either, but I have to say I think it was just ahead of its time. If you think back to 97 when watching this you'll realize that even though we've seen this quite a bit since then, it was fairly novel for the time.
I think in the post Me-Too movement, and after having watched Hollywood go full SJW for a few years before the Plandemic all but tore Hollywood down, this movie should be due for a revival.
My call: 9 out of 10; Would recommend, would watch again.
22 years is a long time. Maybe the audience has grown up a little
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Never seen this, might give it a watch, seems to be a so bad its crap not 'So Bad its Good' but sometimes I do enjoy a trash film or B-movie
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Let me know if you see it. I rather enjoyed it. I didn't think it was a bad flick, so bad it's good or otherwise. I'm SURE it's not for everybody though.
I can see why critics hated it. It really was a massive turd on the entire industry.
A lot of things that come up in the movie are things you'd take for granted knowing about Hollywood in 2021, but in 1997 before most people even had internet in their homes and social media wasn't even a term, I think it was pretty on the nose.
You can even get a taste of how a lot of the mainstream woke bullshit that just swamps everything was already brewing in Hollywood 30 years ago. and just how self-serving those with the supposed beliefs really were.
There are so many small jokes within it that I'm sure if I were to watch it again I'd pick up all sorts of things I missed the first time. They really fire the dialogue at you like a machine gun and they're constantly bouncing from person to person and scene to scene.
It's like the scenes from the TV show The Office when they were interviewing one of the workers candidly, but that's basically the entire movie with all of Tinseltown as the backdrop instead of a single office in a building.
Definitely ahead of its time by quite a bit. I think if it came out now and wasn't "wokified" it would have played a lot better than it did in 1997.
In fact, I think it's one of those rare movies that is going to POP one day and become something that is regarded as a great flick that went entirely unnoticed when it originally came out. You'd just need the right people to see it and promote it.
My circle of influence is far too small for that. But I think one day it will happen.
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Vaccinated People: "You need to get muh vaccination shots that don't work because I got muh vaccination shots that don't work and I'm afraid of people that didn't get muh vaccination shots that don't work because muh vaccination shots that don't work don't work."
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I had to go to a download streaming site to find this one
Somthing very wrong with this movie, maybe it should have been done like 'The Office' or 'Spinal Tap' or 'Trailer Park'
or maybe it should have been done more serious like some drama documentary like Surviving Jeffrey Epstein Behind Façade of Filthy Rich or Hemingway or One of those Narcos shows or Reasonable Doubt A Tale of Two Kidnappings or Tiger Kings Murder, Mayhem and Madness...for whatever reasons it does not work for me.
The woirst crime of this film is while it uses the film medium there is nothing of visual interest to me in this movie, during the entire 'Smithee Film Burn Hollywood Burn' I was bored...it is incredibly boring as a visual spectacle...that does not mean you have to spend billions on special fx, a simple movie can still be great. Some very old films from the silent era and old eras of film could make movie master pieces just by the way they were shot and edited, Locke a recent movie with Tom Hardy is an incredible psychological drama film filmed inside a car but is driven by a good story . This film also is too absurb, it is badly cut and full of Surreal humour without any true creative direction to be good, it also kinda tries to be at times to be a little serious in its comedy and witty and provoking but without an audience knowing which actor or scandal or director they are talking about most of the humor is beyond me...maybe they are joking about no person or everyone or some jokes might be going over my head.... maybe its all an inside joke for people on the insides of Hollyweirdo
Clinton Years
Agree that Hollywood should be laughed at not with, it sucks, it is a sleaze crap place with no imagination and its a shithole but... I can't finish this film, if it is to be done well the concept should be remade
Gave it 30 or 40 mins before I quit
I think they used the wrong medium and should have made it a cartoon or animation or something... you could even keep Weinstein's nasty face and mixed animation and real life film and just made a new 'Roger Rabbit' or 'Cool World' or Happy! TV series or something?
An adult cartoon thing, remake it into an animation, Surreal absurdist humour might be best
Even the most insane crazy comedy idea of a film can work if done correctly for example 'Airplane!' or 'Run Lola Run' or '. Pirates of the Caribbean' or 'Fantastic Planet 'or 'Fitzcarraldo' or the 'Scary Movie' spoofs or National Lampoons or '2046' or 'Wild at Heart' or 'Oldboy' or 'Mars Attacks!' or 'Daisies' or 'Beetlejuice' or 'Kung Fu Hustle' or 'Ready Player One' or 'Delicatessen' or 'Godzillia' the series of 'Naked Gun' or 'Police Academy' or 'Brazil' or 'Rocky Horror' Dr. Strangelove aka How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'
the issue with this film however is it seems to be directionless
I feel this is a concept that never become a real finished film. There is an unrealized good creation of movie in here, a good film buried some where inside this 'mess' it can be good but at the same time it sucks! its true this movie is just bad, there are 'moments' yet
it is not a good movie. Joe Eszterhas is known for trashy sexpoiltauion spoof comedy movies in tinseltown like Flashdance, Showgirls or Basic Instinct, Arthur Hiller the writer is simply from a different era of film making like 'See No Evil, Hear No Evil' or 'Love Story'.
I did hear the term 'Burn Hollywood Burn' many times in other shows and radio, in pop songs I think the punk rocker John Lydon of Sex Pistols did a weird techno song screaming out Burn Hollywood in some 'Leftfield' electronic album and the guys “Burn Hollywood Burn,” on Public Enem
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Jennifer Aniston reveals how she protected herself during Harvey Weinstein encounter on movie set
https://metro.co.uk/2023/08/22/jennifer-aniston-details-encounter-with
-harvey-weinstein-on-movie-set-19377376/?ico=mosaic_entertainment
the trailer but they don't show the younger Harvey Weinstein
the disgraced Harvey Weinstein had a role as Sam Rizzo
An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn
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I did not realize that you had watched the movie. Somehow your reply from 2021 escaped me until now.
I'm sad that you didn't care for it, but I did say that it wasn't a movie I could recommend to everyone. Yeah... They had Spinal-Tap to reference, but The Office wouldn't be a thing for at least another decade. The movie was definitely experimental.
Did you watch it with subtitles? I don't remember if I recommended that you should or not. I don't make that a regular habit to do unless I'm watching an action or sci-fi movie with my dad who has some trouble hearing dialog with a lot of background noise, but about 3 minutes into Burn Hollywood Burn I had to turn subtitles on, just because the dialog was coming at such a rapid-fire pace.
I'm curious? Did you ever watch the TV series Arrested Development and did you not like it?
I kind of have a theory that Burn Hollywood Burn was made for people who loved Arrested Development AND hate Hollywood. But if you tell me that you loved Arrested Development (the original FOX run, not the Netflix crap), then that theory is shot.
I think the idea of an animated version of this movie is a really good one.
In 2023, I'd love to see somebody do all the animation with AI. I'd watch it again. 
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How you do anything is how you do everything.
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Chuck D tells fans to stop using Public Enemy's 'Burn Hollywood Burn' in videos depicting L.A. wildfires
https://ew.com/chuck-d-tells-fans-stop-using-public-enemy-burn-hollywo
od-burn-amid-la-fires-8773079
Quote:
Originally posted by 6ixStringJack:
I'm curious? Did you ever watch the TV series Arrested Development and did you not like it?
guess that's the risk of that type of comedy, people might not get it culturally or it gets 'dated'
I would almost say 'Never' seen Arrested Development but I know the faces. I forget names after a while but I don't forget faces, all of the cast look very very familiar but maybe only seen some mins of a single random episode, never really one for sitcoms or soaps, I've watched US comedies, Canadian comedy, British comedy, Aus comedy, the Latin American version of Ugly Betty, even wacko stuff in Asia...seen teen soap dramas Buffy, Freaks and Geeks, My So Called Life that kinda stuff.
I still watch Documentary reality tv drama stuff with ironic or humor moments but mostly reality tv moments Edge of Alaska, Gold Rush Hunters, the odd stupid UFO documentary, Deadliest Catch etc
recently seen scifi fantasy escapism
Dark Matter 2024 TV the series you recommended maybe I got it youtube or dailymotion channel or vimeo, but I think it was on a streaming site not sure if legal
mostly fantasy science fiction tv bunch of scifi the Star Treks, the Stargates, Farscape, Firefly
The last time I watched Sitcoms I think maybe tv show Seinfeld, Friends, Cosby re-runs, Fresh Prince, Cheers, Frasier, Roseanne Barr was on the tv
and that was a channel that would rerun stuff, its probably 2 decades now since I watched that type of show.
you need to know other shows to get the humor?
if so I expect the jokes would have gone over my head
as for Harvey Weinstein
How Harvey Weinstein's British former wife stepped out of his monstrous shadow - into the arms of another Oscar winner
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14272277/Harvey-Weinstein-Bri
tish-former-wife-Oscar-winner.html
Tinsel-town a small circle
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It's been so long since I saw Arrested Development, but I don't think you'd not be able to enjoy it today because of any dated references. That's not to say they didn't make any of their episodes to account for major things that were happening in the world at the time. I think they needed to have that in there for believability that these rich people existed in a real world.
That being said, I don't think it would be loaded up with a bunch of American idioms and pop culture references either.
It was a very good show. (While it was on FOX... I'd say skip the Netflix stuff, even if you really, really liked the original episodes).
Arrested Development ruined all other sitcoms for me. The fact that they didn't use a laugh track and tell you when you were supposed to laugh was a huge plus. And that's not hyperbolic either. The second I hear a laugh track it feels like scratching nails on a chalkboard, and it has ever since.
The only thing you'd really need to do while watching is actually pay attention to episodes. Rather than using a bunch of external pop culture references that are immediately dated, the show used itself and put easter eggs everywhere. Stuff that was just a throwaway line in season 1 that you forgot about 3 years ago can all the sudden be a major plot point of an episode.
And they knew it was ending for a very long time. I remember being on this site back then and trying to save the show when it was happening. And damn if they didn't make a fantastically satisfying conclusion. Something even the best shows that get a full release never manage to pull off.
But then the Netflix crap came out a few years later... *yawn*
I see you beat me back to this thread though. I only thought of bumping it this morning and you already brought it back to the front 2 days ago.
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"I don't find this stuff amusing anymore." ~Paul Simon
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