Oliver Stone no likey the internets!

[Batutta]

Oliver ranting about what the internet has done to his craft. I must be getting old and crochety because I agree with much of what he's saying. I guess it's just his tone that is a bit too angry and defensive for people--

http://guanabee.com/2009/10/oliver-stone-terra-internet/

[mcgeedigital]

Sounds like a Luddite.

[Batutta]

I think he feels that the skills he's taken decades to develop are becoming marginalized, and he's somewhat justified in feeling that. The fact that his last few films have been huge flops probably adds fuel to his frustration.

[Mark Harris]

It’s jerking off in front of the camera...


Seriously? From Oliver Stone?

[Nektonic]

I'm with Batutta on this one. However, this rant reminds me of the Josh Olson "I will not read your fucking script" tirade. There is logic and true thought behind it, but it just comes out the wrong way when the person presenting it seems so pissy. Maybe Stone should throw together a YouTube video titled "I will not watch your shitty YouTube videos" or something along those lines.

One thing that Mr. Stone's rant reminds me of, something I've been mulling over the past couple years, is all the DVD special features that give away so much of the "movie magic". So many of these behind-the-scenes features give away too much, whilst also giving the impression that filmmaking is this big party where you can make millions by yelling action. Many of these featurettes paints the wrong picture of what the craft of filmmaking really is, and personally I feel it undermines a lot of the hard work done by all the talented and hardworking people in the industry. It also kinda spoils some of the magic. The whole suspension of disbelief thing is shattered sometimes when I know too much about a film's behind the camera world.

Recently though, I've kinda stopped viewing a lot of this extra material on DVD's and Blu-rays. I understand that these extra features are designed for the general public, and not filmmakers, so I've come to know what to expect with most of it. I also harbor no anger towards the studios on this matter, because I completely understand that they have to appease the masses and are not focused on teaching us film students how to make movies.

Now, on the other hand, as an aspiring writer/director these featurettes and commentaries have been a great learning tool, once every so often. Sometimes a DVD will come out with a very deep set of extras that is more in line with what a filmmaker wants to see in this type of material. Look at the extensive and academically oriented extras on David Fincher's films, or the exhaustive Lord of the Rings Extended Editions. Those are great examples of valuable extra features that don't half ass it when it comes to really getting into the nitty gritty of the filmmaking process. It's just too bad that more filmmakers/studios don't adopt this approach to their extra DVD content, because it can be entertaining and informative at the same time, even for the average joe.

I suppose one comes to a point where there is only so much info that can be absorbed from DVD commentaries and extras that it becomes more beneficial to learn using other methods.

[Dingos8mybaby]

For the record, there are only about 1.67 billion (hardly "six billion") people ****ing off for the internet. (LINK (http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm))

I'd assume that since roughly half of these people are males... :D

(No offense to anybody)

EDIT: For clarity's sake, the link is for internetworldstats.com. I don't know how accurate their information is.

[J.R. Hudson]

As much as I love his work (older work) ...

Shut up Ollie and stop generalizing about the content we see online everyday.