Snakes in the Machine

Apparently, Hollywood is very proud of itself for finally getting hep to those wacky Internet kids. In today's LA Times, the producers of Snakes on a Plane discuss the fact that they have trawled various blogs and message boards and have decided, per the chatter, to give the peeps what they want - more excreta, Cobra entrails, Wonderbras, whatever. Ramp up the coagulated plasma, it's showtime.

I ask you - how is this any different than the same bet-hedging stratagems that Hollywood has leaned on so hard for so many years - so hard, in fact, that it's fucked up the movies? Just because Hollywood, after much resistance, has pricked up its ears towards the loud din of bloggerheia, doesn't mean that this interfacing somehow symbolizes an evolution in the way studios go about their business. Filmmaking should be an autonomous art. It doesn't matter if it's mallrats in West Covina or html rats in West Hollywood; micromanagement-by-committee has no place in artistic endeavor. And yes, rattlers slithering around Business class can constitute creative endeavor.