Project Greenlight from 2015

I wouldn't last half a day in Hollywood with all that hugging.

I got a 7-day HBO free trial and binge-watched the last season of Project Greenlight. It was terribly controversial five years ago. I'm only watching it now and I feel stupid for writing about it at this late date, and I feel stupid for hating or at least for feeling sympathetic frustration with Jason Mann. I don't know if he was really the villain or if they edited the thing to make him look that way.

A sad story all around. Jason Mann won a contest. It should have been a dream come true but it became a reality show nightmare. Matt Damon humiliated himself and had to publicly apologize. Effie Brown worked tirelessly for an unappreciative director, all to make a movie that nobody liked.

These people are awfully sensitive. Matt Damon and Ben Afleck said that the last time they did the show it ended their friendship. After a slight disagreement with Effie Brown, the Farrelly Brothers stomped off in a huff. None of those guys had much to do with the making of the movie. They wandered in now and then and acted like big shots then left.

It made me feel like making a movie was an incredibly stupid thing to want to do.

There was a slight recurring theme. A couple of people praised Mann for not giving in to anything too quickly, for wanting something and sticking to it. And when Mann wanted to do a "scriptment" instead of a completed script, Effie Brown was troubled that the people in charge gave into it too quickly without any real discussion. If you're too flexible people will wonder why you wanted something in the first place.

I'm glad I didn't pay for HBO. I had watched some clips from the show on YouTube and watching the show itself added very little.

I turned on the movie they made, The Leisure Class, but being in isolation from the pandemic has thrown my sleep patterns off and I slept through most of it.

Don't act like an auteur until you see how your movie turns out.

And never be a flaming jackass.