The Story Of Burn Hollywood Burn: An Alan Smithee Film

An Alan Smithee Film: Burn Hollywood Burn (stylized on-screen as Burn Hollywood Burn) is a 1997 American mockumentary black comedy film directed by Arthur Hiller, written by Joe Eszterhas and starring Eric Idle as a director unfortunately named Alan Smithee, a traditional pseudonym used in Hollywood for directors disowning a project. The film follows Smithee as he steals the negatives to his latest film and goes on the run.
My Etsy Shop:
www.etsy.com/u...
My Walking Play (Romance On The Thames):
walkingplays.com/
I'm Making A Movie Facebook:
www.facebook.c...
I'm Making A Movie Instagram:
/ immakingamovie
I'm Making A Movie Twitter:
/ iammakingamovie

[@44Gulick]

Well done vid man. I remember reading about the existence of this movie on wikipedia and was always curious to see a deeper dive into it.

[@immakingamovie1379]

Thanks for watching. Hope you enjoyed it

[@Theomite]

It's got some sweet moments, but it is a strange film because of the talent involved and the lack of it in the finished result.

[@salvagemonster3612]

I totally forgot about this film for 25 years

[@anubusx]

I love that the recruitment video for the nuclear power plant in The Simpsons was directed by Alan Smithee.

[@niriop]

For Jade (1995) Eszterhas got paid $1.5 million for a *two page outline*. Christ-I thank the gods when an ezine editor grants me a penny a word on a short story.

[@jimisi7424]

I spend 2-10 days doing a very professional, often satirical portrait for beans. A so called artist swings a few paint cans on a ten foot canvas on youtube and sells it for many thousands.

[@andrewstraub131]

Jade was one of a couple films that we we had at my hunting cabin it is an uproariously funny self serious trash fest

[@BetaBuild]

Great production value, liked and subscribed

[@immakingamovie1379]

Thank you. I hope you enjoy my other videos too

[@RataStuey]

Great video 👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@rhyspatterson679]

Mike ovitz was not quite house hold name but I was a kid in the 90;s and heard it often and never in anyway someone wanted their name used. It’s largely why he is forgotten. People would mention he is on the project and people would fall over themselves yelling “not it”

[@Theomite]

I have a weakness for movies with strange casts and a warped/mischievous sense of humor. This movie has both, so I don't find it as insufferable as everybody else does. Yes it's bad, but there's MORTDECAI bad (skilled people failing) and then there's THE ROOM bad (inept morons in the kitchen). And for some reason people love the shit out of the latter, but have no love for the former. I'd rather watch this than BIRDEMIC. In fact, if Shout! Factory releases it, I'll buy it.

[@immakingamovie1379]

I rather enjoyed Mortdecai!

[@Theomite]

@@immakingamovie1379 I'm just saying the cinematography didn't work for the gags they had in it. But you get what I'm saying! People were talking about MORTDECAI as if it was the second coming of HUDSON HAWK. And HUDSON HAWK didn't suck at all!

[@ueno1]

Ezterhas should have written this as Cordwainer Bird, Harlan Ellison's pen name for his works that were tampered with.

[@OuterGalaxyLounge]

You buying a script freely available on the internet is your Alan Smithee moment, lol. Otherwise, you got good mileage out of this. Burn Hollywood Burn is the strangest kind of meta work about exactly what it turned out to be. It used to be readily available at video stores across the United States and I rented and watched it and to this day remember almost nothing about watching it.

[@immakingamovie1379]

Ha ha, yeah. I felt such a fool after buying that script and getting it imported from Australia the only way I could justify it was to tell everyone about it! Its funny in the UK the movie went straight to rental. But never got a home purchase release, so when Blockbusters got rid of all their copies it was next to impossible to get here.

[@anthonydileonardo8156]

Joe Eszterhas wrote this BOMB and after this and SHOWGIRLS, his career was over

[@immakingamovie1379]

I think Showgirls was taken far more seriously than it was intended to be. Paul Verhoeven’s films are normally considered quite satirical.

[@anthonydileonardo8156]

@@immakingamovie1379 I thought it was pretty wild for an R movie, but halfway through I checked the cover and saw NC-17...lol.... I've had access to many of Joe's scripts { he even forwarded me a political movie he wrote called CHARISMA } and all I can say the only ones that really had potential were BLAZE OF GLORY and PLATINUM.....the others Hollyweird paid through the nose for were B movies at best and Tinseltown got hosed.....and then blamed Joe...that's show biz

[@monsterguyx]

When you set out to make a satire of bad movies and you just end up making a bad movie... 🤣 I have one movie in my DVD collection which was actually credited to Alan Smithee: the 1996 horror sequel Hellraiser: Bloodline. Ironically, while this movie is definitely flawed, it was far from the worst of the many infamously bad sequels to Hellraiser. I enjoyed this video and look forward to watching more of your work. Liked & subbed.

[@immakingamovie1379]

Thanks for watching

[@peteytwofinger]

really tough to understand the voice over

[@immakingamovie1379]

Why so?

[@MrScaryLemonHead]

This ran on cable for a while.

[@immakingamovie1379]

Did you like it?

[@charlessamuelpenn9374]

​@@immakingamovie1379hell yeah I like the movie, I imagine it ran on Showtime mid afternoon. Roomate used to have a VHS screener.

[@Xsiondu]

This was a refreshing film to watch. Subscribed i did I'll tell you.

[@immakingamovie1379]

Thank you

[@jimisi7424]

Really nicely done. This one was new to me. Shouldn't be surprised. Anything eric idle does out of python has been pretty awful

[@immakingamovie1379]

Thanks for watching my video and not the film

[@jimisi7424]

​@@immakingamovie1379hee hee. Subbed

[@jimisi7424]

​@@immakingamovie1379Brazil. My near 40 year obsession

[@FrazFlub-n1p]

Casper was good.

[@NewSonyWonderHappyMadisonFan]

@@FrazFlub-n1p Based Casper enjoyer.

[@DanielS2001]

I actually own this film on DVD. And I agree with your assessment. There seems like a better movie that was under the surface, but when the studio pulled the movie away from the director, they just wanted to send it to the theaters so that it could die and they could make it a tax writeoff. The funny thing is that I came across someone who said Trio, the film-within-a-film, would have been a better film to make because it had Stallone, Goldberg and Chan in the roles. However, this person missed the point: the premise of that film wasn't ever explained, and just going off the casting alone doesn't mean that story idea would work (in fact, it was part of the point of the film also).

[@immakingamovie1379]

Its funny in editing these videos you have to watch the movie a lot, and you end up finding things you like in films you don't, and things you hate in movies you like. i ended up thinking if you gave me the raw footage I could make a good film out of this mess.

[@DanielS2001]

@@immakingamovie1379 I do believe it could be possible. But, who knows where the raw footage is now, or if it even exists anymore (because of the film not doing well at the box office, it probably had all footage destroyed or trashed).

[@wastoois]

the orban shirt???

[@Studeb]

Nice video, but the static at the sides makes it grating to watch for long.

[@immakingamovie1379]

It is there to avoid automated copyright strikes. I did put it out to my followers if I should get rid of it or not. The consensus was keep it. Thanks for watching

[@geoffhoutman1557]

George Rockall Schmidt?

[@immakingamovie1379]

Has he done a video on this film too?

[@geoffhoutman1557]

@@immakingamovie1379 No, when it was just your voice, before you showed up mid vid, I could have sworn it was Georg's voice. More likely you both come from the same area and have the same accent. Or I'm terrible at guessing accents

[@FranzSanchez-ky9up]

I haven't seen Burn Hollywood Burn since renting it on VHS in 1999, but I remember it being terrible. It's essentially a one-joke movie... the director has the same name as the pseudonym for directors who want their name taken off films.... Repeat. It's also too in-jokey for it's own good and there's a smug, self-satisfaction which feels out of place in a film that is going for scathing Hollywood satire. It reminds me a little bit of Last Action Hero ; it's too much apart of the same world that it's attempting to make fun of. Sounds like the Arthur Hiller cut wasn't too bad, but the wrong people had their way.

[@immakingamovie1379]

Last Action Hero is a good comparison

[@LoganWood121]

Except Last Action Hero rules

[@immakingamovie1379]

@@LoganWood121 it has its moments

[@reeyees50]

Not a bad film, hollyweird got butthurt thats why it got its reputation

[@immakingamovie1379]

It’s funny, in editing these videos you often find things you like after watching the movie and over

[@rbarnett3200]

I imagine (if you were bored) that the film was deliberately made as a terrible Alan Smithee film as a meta joke. That is to say, it satirised itself by creating a satire. It’s like anti-comedy. It’s still not funny but it’s trying to make a joke about how unfunny it is that you’re supposed to recognise as being that attempt but still not laugh at. Personally I just think it’s a shit film.

[@immakingamovie1379]

Hahah, what ever the reason, trash is trash.

[@kali3665]

Have to admit that Eric Idle's career outside the Python-sphere have been mostly wasted (Casper) and terrible (THIS!). I really didn't like this film, and I usually love when Hollywood takes potshots at itself. Gene Siskel was convinced that Joe Eszterhas simply had an agenda and then forgot to give us an interesting film with interesting characters to sell that agenda. I cannot deny that at all. It was just a mindless attack on a Hollywood system that had burned Eszterhas previously, and that wasn't fun to watch. That said, Burn Hollywood Burn COULD have worked if a) someone else produced it, b) someone else directed it, c) another studio released it, and d) Eric Idle actually WROTE it! Idle just seemed totally lost in the film, and the film itself was lost by its very concept. No one had a clue where to take the film, and no one acts like a normal human being does. More disturbing by today's standard, having a major part in Alan Smithee is Harvey Weinstein doing his "best" Jack Webb impersonation. It's insane that people actually PRAISED his "performance" at the time. It's almost sad that we don't have Alan Smithee to kick around anymore. Of course, the film is also flawed for other reasons: If there WAS a real director named "Alan Smithee," the Directors Guild would have quickly retired the name. Also, it was not a director's ONLY option. He could choose the Smithee cover (on the Guild's approval) or chose any other pseudonym acceptable to the Guild. Tony Kaye tried to get a director's credit of "Humpty Dumpty" for American History X, but the Guild rejected that out of hand. And you still have to prove that the resulting film was no longer your work thanks to interference from the studio or the producer. From what I've heard, Arthur Hiller really didn't do that, and a lot of critics were convinced it had to be a scam intended to sell the film. If so, that failed, and the Guild nevertheless retired the name shortly afterwards anyway. Smithee had become an unwelcome joke in the industry, and no one would ever take it seriously again.

[@immakingamovie1379]

Thanks. I like an in-depth comment.

[@blairmulholland]

I'm very fond of Nuns on the Run...

[@NewSonyWonderHappyMadisonFan]

The first live-action Casper movie was peak stfu.

[@NewSonyWonderHappyMadisonFan]

The first live-action Casper movie was peak. What are you on?

[@kali3665]

@@NewSonyWonderHappyMadisonFan I didn't like Eric Idle's role in it. He was badly misused. As for the film itself, it's fine. I've always liked Christina Ricci, and I admit that I watched the film because she was in it. My main objection to the film is the Universal roller coaster ride segment which looked like the advertising it probably was.

[@norahjaneeast5450]

Harvey Weinstein does such a great Jack Webb

[@immakingamovie1379]

Yes, it's very "Dragnet" isn't it?