Kinda dumb.

A chain-smoking former statistics professor named Vinny Bruzzese — “the reigning mad scientist of Hollywood,” in the words of one studio customer — has started to aggressively pitch a service he calls script evaluation. For as much as $20,000 per script, Mr. Bruzzese and a team of analysts compare the story structure and genre of a draft script with those of released movies, looking for clues to box-office success. His company, Worldwide Motion Picture Group, also digs into an extensive database of focus group results for similar films and surveys 1,500 potential moviegoers. What do you like? What should be changed?

“Demons in horror movies can target people or be summoned,” Mr. Bruzzese said in a gravelly voice, by way of example. “If it’s a targeting demon, you are likely to have much higher opening-weekend sales than if it’s summoned. So get rid of that Ouija Board scene.”

Bowling scenes tend to pop up in films that fizzle, Mr. Bruzzese, 39, continued. Therefore it is statistically unwise to include one in your script. “A cursed superhero never sells as well as a guardian superhero,” one like Superman who acts as a protector, he added.

His recommendations, delivered in a 20- to 30-page report, might range from minor tightening to substantial rewrites: more people would relate to this character if she had a sympathetic sidekick, for instance.

This is so dumb, except for one thing:

This is already how scripts get changed. A producer says "Put in a dog, make it a Labradoodle, my girlfriend just got a Labradoodle and everyone loves it." The female lead wants her character to have a Kaballah subplot because she just got into that. The director's now really into smoke and wants to put in a smoky nightclub. A dozen studio executives offer glib "notes" based on barely-remembered bullet points from Lew Hunter's or Syd Field's screenwriting guides: "Give it more of an arc." "Make the hero more relatable." Etc.

I don't see the difference here. It's all mostly stupid. Most people have no idea what the hell they're talking about, and that's especially true in Hollywood. This guy has no idea what he's talking about either, but neither did the people who paid for his services.

I suppose there could be some actual data to be mined here: Maybe people just don't like Cursed Superheros-- if they want the Fantasy, they want the Full Fantasy, not some kind of halfway measure where it's all weighed down by Angst.

And who knows, maybe people have some secret preference for Self-Willed Demons over Summoned Demons.*

I guess in very bottom-of-the-barrel cash-play exploitation films such things might be helpful. Sort of.

All's I know is that Hollywood doesn't have enough Talking Labradoodles in its films.

Detective Doodle--
He's got a Nose for Crime!!!

Pay me.

via @filmladd

* Actually, I just thought of why an audience might actually preferred a self-willed demon over a summoned one: In summoned demon stories, the hero is always part of the summoning, usually a minor participant, but still involved. So then that character naturally is drawn as one in some kind of moral darkness. Maybe just a touch, but it's there.

But the Self-Willed Demon ("Targeting Demon," this guy says) just appears and attacks. So the hero there doesn't necessarily have any moral darkness and may be Totally Upright. Who knows, maybe that's why he's selected.

So this may just be a disguised way of saying, "In very simplistic cash-play films, don't clutter the hero with any kind of negative characteristics. Just make it Monster Hunts Hero."

Posted by: Ace at 01:24 PM | Comments (315)
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Via Twitchy.

Terrible thing. Ten years of their lives gone to kidnappers, and up to five deliberate abortions-by-beating.

You can't get the death penalty for kidnapping.

However, in Ohio, if I'm reading this right, you can be charged with aggravated murder for the unlawful termination of a pregnancy, and aggravated murder opens the possibility of the death penalty.

If anyone is an Ohio lawyer, or just a lawyer generally, please let me know if I'm reading that right or wrong. My problem is that I expected to say that a murder plus the termination of a pregnancy would result in an aggravated murder charge-- that is, the murder of a pregnant woman serves as the underlying murder charge, and the death of the fetus then becomes the aggravation of that murder into a possible capital offense.

But as I read it -- which I think is probably an erroneous reading -- it seems to say instead that the termination of a pregnancy without the death of the mother is aggravated murder, which doesn't sound right to me. It sounds like too big a "win" on the point for the pro-life people; it sounds like the sort of thing we'd never hear the end of from the left, were this the case.

Nice Family: The main perp's daughter was jailed for 25 years for the attempted murder of her 11 month old baby.

On the Law: Allah reads it the way I do, and so does this guy:

So it does appear that if those bodies are found (or even if they're not-- witness testimony can establish the deaths) these guys may get the needle.

Posted by: Ace at 11:51 AM | Comments (414)
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Now it's time for a new political witch-hunt. We have to keep making up phony-baloney panics to keep the public snake-fascinated and panic-stupid, or else we just might lose our phony-baloney jobs.

So long as they keep throwing right-bashing chum to a media intensely interested in discussing anything except that, they can avoid discussing the actual problems.

Update: Lindsay Graham guesses that the "dam is about to break on Benghazi."

I say "guesses" because he precedes that with "I think that...," which I take to mean he's speculating, not giving us inside information on a solid prediction.

A few weeks back someone said I shouldn't say "I think..." before stating what I think. I don't agree. I think "I think" is a useful tag to note uncertainty or speculation.

I wouldn't say "I think the Framers warned us against tyranny." I know they did that. Thus, no "I think..." preceding the statement. (The only time I would say that is if I was playing dumb for the sake of a joke, pretending to be unsure of something I wasn't unsure of at all.)

Posted by: Ace at 11:27 AM | Comments (136)
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The answer isn't as obvious as you might think. Or, rather, it's exactly as obvious as you think, but the left will of course attempt to claim that any number of persons might have given this order and we'll never know who they were so oh well let's move on to something else.

In fact, as Kerry Pickett reports, a source tells her only the president or someone directly conveying his order could give such an instruction.

A source with intimate information about the events that happened on the ground in Benghazi the night the U.S. Consulate and the CIA annex was attacked by terrorists told Breitbart News that, ultimately, only the President of the United States, or someone acting on his authority, could have prevented Special Forces either on the ground or nearby from helping those Americans who were under deadly assault.

According to the source, when the attack on the Consulate occurred, a specific chain of command to gain verbal permission to move special-forces in must have occurred. SOCAFRICA commander Lieutenant Col. Gibson would have contacted a desk officer at the time, asking for that permission.

Posted by: Ace at 10:44 AM | Comments (319)
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I guess that makes them worryworts.

When I linked this story yesterday I really thought it required a chapter-and-verse quotation from the Founders on the topic of tyranny and government's tendency to aggrandize itself at the expense of the citizen. Conservative Intel has compiled a those citations.

I suppose Obama chooses to overlook Madison's warning about an executive who says he needs the power to make law himself, because he "can't wait" for Congress to do so:

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

Does this supposed genius have any knowledge of history? His own quotation suggests he has never even read these very well-known statements. Had he any inkling what they said, you'd imagine he would have alluded to them, defensively, if only to then say "But that's not what's going on today."

But he just speaks as if he has absolutely no knowledge that the architects of our democracy greatly feared tyranny, and sought to limit the government so as to forestall it from coming to America.

Posted by: Ace at 09:10 AM | Comments (388)
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He says it's for health reasons, not political ones.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie secretly underwent lap-band stomach surgery to aggressively slim down for the sake of his wife and kids, he revealed to The Post last night.

The Garden State governor agreed to the operation at the urging of family and friends after turning 50 last September.

He told The Post he was thinking of his four kids and how it was time to start improving his health when he decided to have the procedure.

“I’ve struggled with this issue for 20 years,” he said. “For me, this is about turning 50 and looking at my children and wanting to be there for them.”

He says he's already lost 40 pounds but it's a bit drop-in-the-bucket. I don't think anyone noticed he was losing weight. I haven't seen anyone asking "Is Christie losing weight?"

I suppose it may begin to show. He had the surgery on February 16.

Posted by: Ace at 08:29 AM | Comments (262)
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Buckling under the backlash.

Here's a question: I opposed Toomey-Manchin primarily due to the trap-language in it, the blessing of a regime in which you could have your second amendment rights taken away via an evidence- and standard-free claim of mental defect, the backdooring of a national gun registry.

But what if the bill were clean? What if it just expanded background checks to cover most but not all private sales?

I actually thought the bill had a neat way to exclude truly private sales to friends and family members from private sales to strangers: I believe it specified the background check would only be required if the seller had advertised the gun via print or electronic communication (i.e., newspaper, Craigslist). If a gun is being sold from friend to friend, or father to son, or coworker to coworker, obviously such publicization is unnecessary.

That sort of approach would make many private gun sales -- which are actually private -- not subject to background check, whereas sales to strangers -- and if you've advertised broadly via print or electronic medium, you're selling to a stranger -- would be.

I think it's workable, or at least not egregious. The pushback on this notion comes from people who say, basically, "It's nobody's business what I do with my gun." Well, yes, but in a sale, you are specifically making Your Gun into Someone Else's Gun.

Another argument is that this "wouldn't have prevented the shootings in Newtown," which is... absolutely true. Still, it's a fair question, to me at least, why this isn't done anyway. Everyone needs to pass a background check to buy a gun from an licensed dealer, thus ensuring the gun isn't passing into the hands of a felon or maniac; but once that gun is sold once -- once it has one Clean Buyer -- it can be resold to anyone, no questions asked.

Which leads to the third objection: We just refuse any further regulation of guns, on principle, and because of the Slippery Slope. This regulation will lead to the next one. This restriction may or may not impact the core right, but the next restriction might be more deadly. We stop this one to forestall the next one.

I'm never really sure if that's true -- it may be true. But it might not be. After all, once a meaningless bill is passed on this, Obama declares Political Victory and has a Photo Op, which is what he wants. Baby wants his bottle. I'm not sure he'd have the guts for another fight.

But I do keep going back to the second point: I'm really not sure why gun owners, who themselves have passed a background check, and who themselves are law-abiding people with clean backgrounds, and who generally support law and order over the alternative, are resistant to making an Unknown Stranger similarly pass a background check when he wants to buy a gun from another stranger.

I suppose the argument might be something like, "Gun owners are responsible and wouldn't sell to a criminal." Well, look, that's absurd. You can't say all gun owners are responsible. They're not. Some are every bit as flaky and corrupt as anyone.

Beyond that, how can you tell if someone has a criminal background, criminal intent, or history of stalking or some mental disorder simply by viewing them for ten or fifteen minutes in a completely impersonal sale of an object? Who has such a finely-tuned ability to probe the character of a stranger? Especially during such a non-intimate, impersonal, arms-length, brief transaction?

Who the hell's scanning someone's psychological profile in a quick money-for-goods transaction?

No one is. No one could if they tried.

Anyway, just an argument. I don't suppose it will find much appreciation.

But I do have to say that on this issue, I am one of the people who Just Doesn't Get the argument It's My Gun, I Have a Right to Do With It Whatever I Like, Even If I Want to a Likely Felon argument. It's just not a strong argument.

Alternate Possibility: I don't know if there's any liability that can attach to a seller of a gun to a criminal. I assume there must be, given anyone can be sued for anything.

Perhaps it's the Authoritarianism of the law that rankles. Perhaps this could be gotten around by making a background check voluntary: Say, if the seller voluntarily requests a background check, and the buyer passes, his liability for whatever the buyer does with the gun is sharply reduced or he's completely immunized. (I offer the latter as a possibility but you know the anti-gun, pro-lawsuit left would never buy into full immunity.)

Perhaps that's a half-a-loaf compromise that could satisfy.

Posted by: Ace at 07:39 AM | Comments (440)
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Yesterday's report from the Heritage Foundation on the costs of amnesty has proponents worried. Today they are out in full force trying to discredit the report.

Greg Sargent calls this Washington Post editorial attacking Heritage "brutal" to the anti-amnesty case. Personally, I'd sum it up as "Heritage is right but we don't care".

The Heritage paper, chock-full of assumptions that most economists dispute, is a blatant attempt to twist the immigration debate. It concludes that newly legalized immigrants would cost $6.3 trillion more in benefits over their lifetime than they would pay in taxes. (ThatÂ’s $5.3 trillion more than they would cost without legalization, the think tank said.) The study updates a similar one by Heritage in 2007, which pegged the fiscal cost of amnesty at that time at a mere $2.6 trillion.

There’s no question that granting the full range of government benefits to illegal immigrants — even if they become eligible for citizenship 13 or 15 years from now — will impose long-range fiscal costs. However, most economists say the costs of illegal immigration would be far outweighed by the benefits of legalization for overall economic activity,growth,business start-ups and labor market efficiency.

Ah, so the costs Heritage outlines are real but they'll be offset by some mythical benefits from flooding the legal labor market with low skilled workers.

(Yes, this is a case of role-reversal. Conservatives generally support "dynamic scoring" and liberals oppose it. Unlike scoring tax cuts thought there's no history to rely on when it comes to gauging mass amnesty of low skied workers in a depressed economy.)

If low skill workers are the key to prosperity, why do we spend hundreds of billions dollars a year on educations and training programs? Shouldn't we just let people make their way with crappy public education and let the good times roll?

The Washington Post has one more ace up their sleeve in attacking Heritage's "political document"..."the CBO is likely to make clear when it publishes what is certain to be its more dispassionate, and less political, assessment of the proposed legislation."

The CBO? The same organization that swore up and down that ObamaCare was going to cut the deficit? Yeah, let's trust them on the cost and benefits of amnesty. What could go wrong?

Pro amnesty group American Action Forum, led by by a Republican former head of the CBO Douglas Holtz-Eakin says amnesty will be good for the economy because it will lead to "labor force
growth"

That would be a good argument if you thought our labor force problem was one of insufficient population and not a lack of jobs. Even the AP doesn't buy that.

After a recession, an improving economy is supposed to bring people back into the job market.

Instead, the number of Americans in the labor force — those who have a job or are looking for one — fell by nearly half a million people from February to March, the government said Friday. And the percentage of working-age adults in the labor force — what's called the participation rate — fell to 63.3 percent last month. It's the lowest such figure since May 1979.

It was one thing to do amnesty during the white hot Reagan economy of the mid to late 80s. It's quite another to do it in the midst of the Obama depression.

But maybe things aren't as bad as they seem for those opposed to amnesty. According to the terms of the bill, nearly one-third of illegals here will be ineligible for amnesty and will be deported.

Last month, Rubio’s office put out a press release stating: “FACT: If the proposed immigration bill does pass, hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants who do not qualify for temporary legal status will be subject to deportation. The legislation also provides for enhanced punishment as well as increased funding for deportation of future illegal immigrants. … Even for illegal immigrants who attain temporary status, that temporary status can be revoked if they commit a serious crime or if they fail to comply with the employment requirement, the public charge requirement (which goes hand-in-hand with the employment requirement), their tax obligations and their physical presence obligations. They will then be subject to deportation.” (Emphasis added.)

The “public charge” requirement stipulates no immigrant can obtain a green card unless they can verify that they are earning at least 25 percent above the poverty level. But as today’s Heritage Foundation study points out, more than one-third of unlawful immigrant households have incomes below the federal poverty level. That is about 4 million people.

Now personally I'm opposed to mass round ups and deportations but if that's what Rubio, Schumer and the rest of Team Amnesty say they are going to do, well they wouldn't lie. Would they?

Posted by: DrewM at 06:06 AM | Comments (352)
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Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:24 AM | Comments (146)
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Happy Tuesday.

Head Start, the taxpayer-funded daycare program of dubious outcomes, has a new problem: Obamacare. The Daily Caller's Neil Munro notes that Head Start programs are preparing for year-over-year cost increases due to the President's healthcare law. I'm really enjoying all these Democratic constituencies who're just now discovering that raising the price of labor isn't really a great idea.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's mother wants her son's body sent back to Russia for burial.

Gov. Christie had lap-band surgery back in February. Good for him. He told only his family and his chief of staff. The rest of his staff found out yesterday.

Senators are talking about revising the 9/11 AUMF. If authorized the use of the Armed Forces against those who "planned, authorized, committed or aided" the September 11th attacks, or who harbored them. The armed forces are still proceeding under the 9/11 AUMF today.

And, on a lighter note, I'm really looking forward to both the Man of Steel movie and Hans Zimmer's score for it. Here's a taste from the soundtrack, which will be released June 11.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:48 AM | Comments (443)
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