The summer bomb?

The debate currently raging around Hollywood is what will be that one big summer movie that just bombs... the absolute turkey that hits the theatres like a Lead Zeppelin...

It's actually a fun discussion because for the most part, the big summer movies this year have appeared review-proof. SPIDERMAN 3, SHREK 3, AND PIRATES 3 all got mediocre to bad reviews, and yet they all made what we in the industry refer to as "an assload of money."

So what will it be?

My best guess is OCEAN'S 13... what do you think?

UPDATE: As a back-up guess (since OCEAN'S 13 was really the guess of a colleague of mine), I'll say that I wouldn't be surprised if DIE HARD 4 underperformed... I think it will probably do fine, I'm just saying I won't be shocked if it doesn't.

UPDATE: A reader responds with "FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE CGI GUY"... nice one!

E-Mail reminder

Don't forget... it's often hard to give advice when you don't know what people don't know. So if you're looking to get a question answered, rather than logging on every day to see if I've finally gotten around to it on my own, send me an e-mail at Commandrshears@yahoo.com and let me know what you don't know.

Cheers from Shears!

UPDATE: I like to use readers' names... so if you'd rather remain anonymous, let me know in your e-mail and I will refer to you only as "A Reader."

Book recommendation

I was reminded of EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS by Peter Biskind last weekend when I saw it sitting in a bookshelf while helping my sister move into a new house. I first read ERRG back when it first came out in hardcover because the reviews were so stellar, and because I was a big Hollywood geek at the time (I've since gotten much cooler and don't read books about Hollywood history unless really fancy directors recommend them to me personally).

I bring it up now... I read it long before I started blogging about Hollywood... (and yes I realize that pretty much anything I did before last Tuesday, was something I did before I started blogging about Hollywood... so shutit!) because it reminded me of a Hollywood observation that's been rolling around in my head ever since I said the following, to a colleague, 5 or 6 years ago...

"Man, I miss those days in Hollywood when you could get rich just walking behind Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer, picking up the dollars bills that fell out of their pockets."

Nowadays, the studios are owned by corporate giants and so the basic concepts behind why movies get made or don't have been radically altered. Does a company like Time Warner or Viacom get excited when a 20 million dollar movie makes 40 million dollars? Not really... that's like 5 minutes of gross income on light bulbs for GE. Corporations want big potential franchise movies that result in HUGE grosses, follwed by fast food kid's meal tie-ins, big toy sales, massive DVD runs with the potential for "Special Edition" re-releases years later, big Pay-Per-View sales, gargantuan network TV license sales, and, if all goes well, a new ride at DisneyLand. They want PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN and SPIDERMAN, not LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE or RUSHMORE... which is why you can't get anyone to read that script about a troubled poet in Soho slowing dying of AIDS you've been rewriting for ten years.

Now I'm not making any judgements here because movies like LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE and RUSHMORE still get made, they just don't get made by the studios anymore. I'm just interested in pointing out how different things are now from the way they were when Hollywood was controlled by the artists, who often only had to convince one guy (a Frank Yablans or Robert Evans) that a movie was a good idea, rather than navigate a massive corporate strategy full of words like "product pipeline" and "ancillary markets."

I remember being struck by Biskind's story of Steven Spielberg lounging around an artist colony in Malibu trading "points" on JAWS for snippets of dialogue from John Milius and Margot Kidder. Can't do THAT anymore. If you're lucky enough to even GET points, and few are, they're pre-negotiated within an inch of their lives well in advance.

Anyway, this is starting to sound like a "things were much better when..." screed, which I don't want it to be. Things are as they are and that's the way it is. Besides, the only way we could ever get back to the 70's version of Hollywood would be if the bottom completely fell out of the movie business and all the big money left town... and no one wants that.

Long story short, pick up a copy of EASY RIDERS, RAGING BULLS... it's a great Hollywood history lesson and a fun read.

A quick dialogue note...

If something horrific happens to one of your characters... he gets shot, or burned, or attacked with the Anal Intruder 2000*... there is no need to create a line of dialogue for the resulting scream. Just write "he screams in pain" in your stage description.

Writing something like....

OUR HERO

Aahhhhhh!!!!!!!

...is 500 pounds of silly, a tremendous waste of space, and will annoy the crap out of anyone who reads it.

That is all.

* (see: TOP SECRET!)

What makes a reader respond to a script?

A reader asks: Lots of movies are fairly derivative, either of each other or other ideas floating around. What is it about a concept that can make you, as a reader, think "damn that's cool!" rather than "damn this sucks"? Does the subject matter have to appeal to you personally before you'll recommend a script?

Well the writing has to be top notch, first of all. That's almost always the difference. Everyone who's spent any time at all in Hollywood has read so many scripts over the course of their career that they can identify a talented writer even if they don't think the script will sell, or if it happens to be written in a genre that doesn't get them excited.

Everyone has certain genres of movie they prefer. I think most people in Hollywood, though they may not admit it in public, have genres they either hate or simply don't get at all. I'm like that, too. I don't really get broad comedies. I know it's totally my problem... if I'm the only one sitting in the theatre with a scowl on his face as the other 500 patrons howl with laughter at TALLADEGA NIGHTS, then I'm the one with the problem, not the 500 people having a good time.

But it does mean that if you're looking for someone to give you an opinion on your new grossout comedy about a D.A. who is cursed by a gypsie and finds he can't say the words "I Object" without letting loose a volley of what the Onion once described as "high pressure jets of frothy liquid feces"... well then I'm probably not your man.

However, if I'm the ONLY guy you know in Hollywood and it's either ask me to read it, or go unread... then your hope is that I will recognize the writing as competent and the idea as being big and appealing enough that I'll be motivated to pass it on to one of the people I know who loves that kind of thing.

It works the other way too... most of my best friends in the business know I respond to action movies, big historical dramas (particularly war movies), and good solid history. (I love WATCHING horror movies but I'm not sure what makes a good horror script... haven't figured that one out yet...too much depends on direction, I think...). And every now and then I get a call from someone saying something like "hey I read this Western... the idea is really cool, but I don't really get Westerns... can you read it and tell me what you think?"

That might sound counter-intuitive... in a competitive business, why would someone want to send a potentially hot new script to someone else? The answer is pretty simple... if someone sends me a great script that they think I'm better equiped to take advantage of than they are, it increases the chances that I will return the favor when that new young comedy writer sends me DISTRICT ASS-TORNEY...

Writers don't believe me when I tell them this... probably because most of them are having trouble getting read when I tell them... but the truth about Hollywood is that there are so many people reading so many scripts looking for the next hot thing, that if you've written a great screenplay... sooner or later, someone will find you.

UPDATE: Do readers take into account the budget of a screenplay they are reading?

Yes, because it affects the potential saleability of the screenplay. Think about two movies made by the same people, the Wachowski brothers. THE MATRIX was a huge 100 million dollar sci-fi action movie. In the vast majority of cases, a movie like that can only be made through the studio system where it can be released on 3,000 or more screens. And there are only a handful of producers that the studios trust to handle a movie like that. Joel Silver at WB, Imagine at Universal, Lorenzo DiBonaventura at Paramount, Bruckheimer at Disney... maybe a few others... but the point is that the number of outlets for a movie like that is greatly reduced. Most people feel more comfortable with a script like BOUND (Also by the Wachowskis). In Hollywood slang, BOUND is a "contained thriller." Few effects, not many sets, doesn't need stars, and can be released on a limited number of screens and allowed to build an audience. Those kind of movies don't have to be done through the studio system at all, they can be made and distributed by independently financed mini-studios like Summit or 2929.

Of course everyone wants to find that sure-thing 300 million dollar hit, but they are few and far between and it's always difficult to get this business to lay down a bet on that kind of a film. They'll do it, but it ain't easy. So of course, that reality gets reflected in the way people evaluate scripts.

Shears review: DISTURBIA

See this movie for Shia LeBeouf... the kid is fantastic and makes the movie worth watching.

Don't get me wrong, it's a fun diversion and the writing is solid, but there's not one single surprise in the movie. If you've seen REAR WINDOW, or even the Episode of THE SIMPSONS where Bart with a broken leg becomes convinced Flanders murdered Maude, then you've seen this movie... right down to the scene where the villain buries something that turns out not to be a body.

But Shia... man that kid is good. Take special note of the opening scene. It's very well written and the acting between Shia and his father is so superb that when the scene takes its necessarily tragic turn I was hit with an unexpected wave of emotion... particularly interesting given that at that point I'd spent all of 60 seconds with these characters.

But Shia is funny when he can be, moody when he should be, and deadly serious when he needs to be... he's all around fun to watch. And young Sarah Roemer is pretty hot too.

Psychs me up for TRANSFORMERS, now.

100

Great little movie quote compilation.

I can't think of too many great movies they left out... BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID is just about the only one.

Indoctrinate U

I've met Evan Coyne Maloney a few times. Really smart guy and I think that were it not for his politics, he'd be a huge star in the documentary world. As it happens, he WILL be a star, it's just going to take some time and a lot of hard work.

Here's an article on his new feature length documentary INDOCTRINATE U. I've seen a good bit of the film and it's brilliant...

Great Concept or Great Writing?

A reader asks:

"Is it more important to have a great concept/idea or a well-written screenplay?"

The easy, and most obnoxious answer, is you need both.

But that's just me being a jerk.

But it does seem a little weird to advise you as to whether you should pursue a good concept or great writing since the two are not mutually exclusive and, obviously, if your goal is to sell a script, the bigger your idea and the better executed it is, the better your chances of a sale. And anyway who wakes up one the morning and thinks "wow, I just had a great idea for a movie, I'm going to sit down and write the shittiest screenplay the world has ever seen!"?

So I'll approach this answer by telling you how the town generally responds to a great idea as opposed to great writing.

The sad truth is that in the short term, Hollywood wants the big idea. Here's the way they look at it. There are a million great writers in town... but very few really good ideas. So if a great idea falls into Hollywood's lap, no matter how poorly executed it is, someone will probably buy it. That's the upside... the downside is that they won't buy it for much money (probably the WGA minimum), and the original writer be immediately kicked off the project in favor of another writer that the buyer thinks can better execute the concept.

As an example, I spoke to a producer friend of mine the other day who told me she was looking for a writer to attach to a script she'd bought. It was a great idea, she said, but a horrible script. So they paid the original writer off and now they intend to bring in a new writer to develop the idea. Once the expanded concept is in better shape, the producer will take the writer out on a series of meetings to "pitch" it to the studios. If one of the studios sparks to the pitch, they will make a deal with the writer to do a certain number of drafts and/or rewrites of the script for a pre-negotiated amount of money.

So where does that leave you as the original writer? Well, you've sold your idea and made a bit of money, which is nice. But you're also back to square one. You've been cut out of the process and you're back at your desk facing the herculean task of coming up with another great idea. Maybe that will happen and maybe it won't. But even if it does, and you sell another great-but-poorly-executed idea... what then? Now you've begun to develop a reputation around town as a great idea guy who can't execute a draft.

That's bad.

It's bad because in order to be a working writer in Hollywood long-term you have got to be able to get writing jobs every couple of months. Jobs adapting books, rewriting existing scripts, or doing first drafts of other people's ideas. That's the day-to-day business of a working writer. No writer can survive writing nothing but specs. The spec market sucks. It seems like fewer and fewer of them sell every year, and frankly, they're just not an efficient use of your time as a business person.

Think about it this way, what's more cost effective, spending three months or more writing a spec that may or may not sell? Or spending a few hours coming up with a great way to rewrite a script or adapt a book, articulating that vision in a pitch meeting, and then getting the job based on that few hours work?

I can tell you how an agent would answer that question. No agent wants to represent a writer who can't get studio jobs. Agents are looking for writers who will one day command million dollar quotes and be in the "incoming call" business. That means the writer has gotten such a sterling reputation that studios and producers call their agents to offer them every new job that pops up, rather than the other way around. Brian Helgeland, Peter Morgan, Bob Gordon, Paul Attanasio, Bill Monahan, Charlie Kaufman, David Benioff, Billy Ray... these are the guys in the incoming call business in today's Hollywood. I've seen agents turn down clients who had very saleable spec scripts that were ready to go out to the town simply because they didn't think the writer was talented enough to have a long-term career... Why? Because whether that spec sells or doesn't sell, that writer will still be on your phone sheet every day asking "what's next?"

So, what about "great writing"? If I had to choose a fate for a writer, this is the one I'd choose because it suggests the potential for career longevity, even when it sacrifices the opportunity for short-term financial gain. Everyone loves great writing, and everyone wants to meet, talk to, and get to know great writers. If you're a great writer, even if you weren't quite able to write a script that everyone wanted to buy, Hollywood figures it's only a matter of time before your talent slams face-first into the perfect idea and magic happens.

You can always tell when Hollywood thinks a new spec script is "well-written", because even as producers and executives are calling the agent to pass on the script, they are ending the conversation by saying "but I'd love to meet the writer." If your script is not going to sell, especially if you're a newer or unknown writer, this is the best possible fall-back position because in this business, longevity, whether it's as a writer, director, producer, or agent, is about maintaining great relationships, and to do that you have to be able to get in rooms.

Great writing will get you into every room in this town. To me, that sounds like a pretty good start to a potentially long and lucrative career.

Read your dialogue out loud! (Part 2: Who's who?)

Movies depend on well-drawn, distinctive, and interesting characters to fuel their stories. As a writer you really only have two tools with which to get that job done... Stage direction, and dialogue.

But stage direction can only take you so far. Let's say you want to show that one of your characters is a prankster. You can accomplish that by having him loosen the top of the salt shaker as he walks out of a diner. But what if you want the audience to know WHY he's a prankster... what is it about his past that makes him want to play pranks on people? You wouldn't bother to make him a prankster unless it was vital to his character and to the way the story will play itself out, so you're going to need to make the reasons behind his pranksterism clearly understood.

For that you're going to need outstanding dialogue.

The problem with a lot of the scripts I see is that, while the dialogue may do a good job of driving the story and keeping the action moving, it doesn't do enough to clearly draw and define the characters as flesh-and-blood individuals that I'm going to be asked to spend two hours caring about. In short, plot and action become the focus and the characters all begin to sound the same.

Reading dialogue out loud can help solve this problem as well... but you're going to need a trusted assistant. Try reading a few scenes to a friend. If your friend can't tell who's who... you might have a dialogue problem.

To give you a more concrete example of what I mean, let's look at some examples from my all-time favorite flick RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK.

First, here's the scene where Marcus tells Indy he has approval from the University to go after the Ark:

-------------------------------------------
Indy: "You did it, didn't you?"
Marcus: They want you to go for it!
Indy: "Oh, Marcus!"
Marcus: "They want you to get ahold of the Ark before the Nazis do, and they're prepared to pay handsomely for it!"
Indy: "And the museum...the museum gets the Ark when we're finished?"
Marcus: "Oh, Yes!"
Indy: "Ohhh....the Ark of the Covenant."
Marcus: "Nothing else has come close!"
Indy: "That thing represents everything we got into archaeology for in the first place!"
Marcus: "You know five years ago I would have gone after it myself. I'm really rather envious!"
Indy: "I've got to locate Abner...I think I know where to start. Do you suppose she'll still be with him?"
Marcus: "Possibly...Marion's the least of your worries right now, believe me, Indy!"
Indy: "What do you mean?"
Marcus: "Well, I mean that for nearly 3,000 years, man has been searching for the Lost Ark. It's not something to be taken lightly...no one knows its secrets! It's like nothing you've ever gone after before!"
Indy: "Oooh, Marcus....what are you tryin' to do, scare me? You sound like my mother! We've known each other for a long time, I don't believe in magic, a lot of superstitious hocus pocus! I'm going after a find of incredible historical significance, you're talking about the boogey-man! Besides, you know what a *cautious* fellow I am!"
--------------------

There's a lot going on in this exchange... the idea of a person named "Marion" who may or may not be a source of potential trouble for Indy, for one thing... but I'm more interested in how this exchange serves to clearly define Indy's character and use the aspects of his character that are clearly different from Marcus to tell us a little bit about what makes him tick.

So what do we know about these two men after this scene?

Well we know that Marcus is slightly older and has the seasoned look-before-you-leap attitude of a wiser older man. We also know he's the more politic of the two men. If you need someone to go before the board of directors and make an argument, you send Marcus Brody. But if you need someone to punch a Nazi in the neck, you call Indy.

We also get a sense of how long these two men have pursued this passion. Indy says the Ark is "everything we got into archaeology for in the first place." In fact, these two men will expound on this idea later, in the third installment of the trilogy. After Indy hands Marcus the cross of Coronado he asks "do you know how long I've been looking for that?"... Marcus replies with a semi-rhetorical "all your life?" Archaeology may seem like a dry subject for a man like Indiana Jones to dedicate his life to, but here we get a sense of how ancient artifacts can stir our hero's passions. We also get a sense of how a man who's seen so much, who just five minutes ago barely escaped alive from an ancient temple full of booby-traps with a ten pound golden idol in his hands, can still be wowed by something. Just a few clever lines of dialogue let the audience know that if the Ark of the Covenant can be the culmination of a dream for a man like Indiana Jones, well then it must be one hell of a treasure.

We also get a sense of melancholy over lost youth from Marcus, who seems sad that he can no longer join Indy on these kinds of adventures, perhaps remembering when he was the young buck with a whip and a mission. Though it's interesting to note that Indy never reacts to that line... perhaps Kasdan was trying to point out something about the tendencies of young men and women to be oblivious to the fact that they won't always be young, good looking, and full of piss and vinegar.

But the last four lines are by far the most important of the scene.

One of the most important elements of Indiana Jones' character is his inability, even in the face of the fantastic, to accept anything beyond what he can see and touch. His character is devoid of a capacity for wonder. In a sense, Indiana has lost the ability to really connect with what he does... his life in archaeology is all about the chase. The objects themselves have lost most of their value beyond the notches they represent on his belt. Indy wants to be the one who FOUND the Ark... not the one who studies it. So when Marcus interrupts his reverie to remind him that this isn't a matter of simply going down to the store to pick up a bottle of milk, that for thousands of years, people have believed the Ark capable of incredible violence, he laughs it off, throws a loaded pistol into his suitcase, and gives his wiser older mentor a condescending look.

A more powerful set-up for a hero's journey you will not find in the movies.

But good character moments are not a do-it-once-and-forget-about-it kind of thing, and Kasdan wisely continues to come back to this theme over and over again.

Later, Indy has this conversation with Salah:

----------------------------------------
Sallah: The Germans have a great advantage over us.They are near to discovering the Well of Souls.
Indy: Well, they're not going to find it without this.Who can tell us about these markings?
Sallah: Perhaps a man I know can help us. Indy, there's something that troubles me.
Indy: What is it?
Sallah: The Ark. If it is there at Tanis, then it is something that Man was not meant to disturb. Death has always surrounded it. It is not of this earth.
----------------------------------------

Again note that the dialogue clearly defines the characters who are speaking. Ever-practical Indy ignores the craziness of Salah's family and his mischevous monkey and cuts to the chase... where can we get the markings on this headpiece decoded? Salah the Egyptian mystic is worried about the danger that the Ark's ancient magic might pose for his friend, and says so. What's interesting about this moment though, is that this time our agnostic hero is not so quick to dismiss a warning about the supernatural. Is this an example of a developing character arc? I like to think so.

Incidentally, all this character development does not happen in a vacuum. If your character development does not service the story, what good is it? In the case of RAIDERS, the writer is slowly setting us up for Indy's final heroic moment. Trapped on the island, tied to a post with his girlfriend, with 2,000 years of theological wrath bearing down on him, Indy is desperate for a way out. He can't fight his way out, he can't shoot anything, and his whip is somewhere back on that Nazi U-boat. All he's got left is his mind... his knowledge of ancient theology... and what he comes up with (we must not look upon the face of god or be destroyed), is so at odds with everything we know about this man up to this instant, that it creates an enduring moment of drama and the culmination of what we call in Hollywood, Indiana Jones' "character arc"... the moment where he abandons reason and finally gives in to belief.

"DON'T LOOK AT IT MARION, KEEP YOUR EYES SHUT!!!"

Goddamn that's an awesome scene!

And the payoff comes a few minutes later when we finally see something that would have seemed impossible two hours earlier... Indiana Jones on the other side of the argument. Joining with Marcus Brody to to plead with those "bureaucratic fools" that "the Ark is a source of unspeakable power and it HAS to be RESEARCHED!"

That's character development ladies and gentleman... all done brilliantly, and subtly, with dialogue that clearly differentiates and defines each character as an individual.

If you've failed to clearly define your characters, reading your dialogue out loud is the best shot you have of discovering your mistake before a studio executive discovers it for you.

Delta Farce represents Hollywood Evolution...

No really...

From the review in Variety:

"DELTA FARCE is instructive. For one thing, it shows the evolution of Hollywood's relationship to the Iraq War through various movies, from support to critique to outright derision."

Gee... guess I musta slept through phase one.

Read your dialogue out loud! (Part 1: "You see, it seems that")

I had a conversation with a couple of prospective writers last week that bears repeating in a larger context.

What the point boils down to is "READ YOUR DIALOGUE OUT LOUD."

Until you've done that, your screenplay is not "done."

I read a LOT of screenplays, many of them bad... a few of them very bad. And one of the problems I see most often is that the dialogue just does NOT sound like words ever spoken by an actual human being.

I'll call the two recurring attrocities that annoy me the most, "You see... it seems that." As in...

"You see.... what no one realizes is..."

Or...

"It seems that... someone in this room is...

"Real humans just don't talk this way, and yet I see those phrases repeated in script after script and movie after movie. It's like the half-word "um"... would you ever actually type "um" into your dialogue? Of course not. It's a hiccup... a pause your brain takes before it decides what it wants to say next.

And that's what "You see, It seems that" is.

Worse, it's often the hallmark of that most objectionable refuge of the lazy writer... the talking villain. You know the scene, A vaguely European bad guy has his gun at the hero's head and says something like "Before I kill you in an uneccessarily complicated way, I'll do you the favor of putting all the puzzle pieces together and tell you both how and why I did it... you see, it seems that..."

GAH!!!

No movie character should ever say "You see... it seems that" unless they're wearing a long black duster, a black top hat, a handlebar mustache that they can't stop twirling, and the movie is set in 1890.

Don't believe me? Say the lines out loud with and without those phrases. Isn't it obvious? That, my friends, is the value of reading one's dialogue out loud. If it doesn't sound natural, like an actual human beaing speaking, reading it out loud will save you from that mistake, and your screenplays will be better for it.

Seriously, If I can stop even one writer from forcing their characters to start sentences with "you see... it seems that", my efforts will have been worthwhile, and I will die a happy man.

Rubber chicken, with a side order of Hypocrisy

So as part of my job, I'm often required to attend these bizarre charity functions where five hundred or so Hollywood types are forced to sit around tables full of pre-made, sun-lamp warmed, dinner theatre-style entrees so that some organization or another can hit them up for donations while providing "entertainment" of varying quality. They usually last about three hours and you can hear the groans up-and-down the hallways when the call goes out that attendees are needed to fill the company table.

I don't really mind going to these. Once you get past the 45-minute valet line (I street park whenever possible), what's to complain about when it comes to a free meal and a few glasses of wine with the occassional interesting performance thrown in?Last night, for instance, Robin Williams did a chaotic but funny 30 minute set that had the audience rolling. And I once saw Jessica Simpson, Christopher Cross, and Randy Newman on the same bill... which is about as fantastic a mis-match as I've seen outside the casting of FREEJACK (go look it up).

But here's what annoyed me. One of the sponsors of the event was the National Resource Defense Council... and so, much of the night included platitudes from the likes of Leonardo Di Caprio, who assured us that we were all "good citizens of the planet" for supporting such a worthy cause.

Fine.

Come on out to the valet line with me Leo, and let's take a few minutes to watch the parade of Hummers, Ferraris, and Lotus lethal weapons zooming by on their way to this or that 10,000 square foot mansion.

I mean really, can't we have SOME level of self-awareness in this town?

What did Hollywood think were the root causes of Terrorism before 9/11

Not that I think movies ought to influence our foreign policy, but amongst those who know me best, I'm a well-known fan of Ed Zwick's movie THE SIEGE and I enjoy watching it to see what Hollywood thought about terorrism before 9/11.

Watching it last night I was struck by the motives of the main villain, who reveals himself as the leader of the terrorist cell in New York City in the final scene.

What's his beef? I'll let him tell it in his own words...

"You left us there, in Iraq, like a piece of shit!"

This was set up earlier... Annette Bening points out that she was working for the CIA during Gulf War 1, where she was in charge of training and supporting the rebels we'd hoped would take out Saddam after we left Kuwait.

Well, it didn't happen that way, and they were slaughtered after we withdrew our support, and those who survived were pretty pissed off about it.

We're facing that in a much less dramatic way in Iraq today, with much of the moderate populace afraid to step up and assist the coalition because they were left hanging back in 1991, and are afraid it will happen again this time.

I'm surprised that now one seems to think that leaving them to hang again 16 years later, won't result in a much nastier long-term affect this time around.

Hollywood certainly seemed to think so when they made THE SIEGE.

I wonder what they think has changed since then?