An Aussie Writer Walks the Picket Line in LA

by Matthew Reilly

MR on the picket line in Los Angeles

An Ode to Olga Kurylenko’s Ass

I can’t stop thinking about Olga Kurylenko’s ass.
Seriously, it is burned into my consciousness.
Now it’s a lovely butt, to be sure.
Shapely. Gravity-defying. Athletic. No doubt the product of many hours of aerobics, a Stairmaster, yoga, pilates or maybe all of the above.
So why am I fixated on it?
Perhaps it’s because, this morning, every 45 seconds, I would come face-to-face with it.
Since I arrived in LA last week, I’ve been fulfilling my picketing obligations at Fox. When you walk a picket line, you trudge along a fifty-yard stretch of pavement, turn around, trudge back again, and go thusly back and forth over and over again.
At Fox, my “picket line turning point” is perfectly aligned with some billboards at the entrance to the lot, one of which is for the movie, Hitman, starring Timothy Olyphant and the shapely Ms Kurylenko. So every time I reach the end of my walk and turn, roughly every 45 seconds, I see this billboard.
In it, Mr Olyphant looks suitably dark and deadly, holding a very big gun in his outstretched hand, while the lovely Olga, with her back to the viewer, drapes a sexy elbow on his shoulder. Ms Kurylenko wears a see-through negligee—a very see-through negligee—which only serves to highlight the tiny thong (Australian translation: G-string) she’s got on under it.
I kid you not. Every 45 seconds.

There are other billboards there, but I’ll be damned if I can remember them

Reilly's POV: The "Hitman" Poster at Fox

MR Commits Sacrilege?

It haunts me that my picketing takes place within sight of the Die Hard building (which in real life Fox uses as an office tower).
Having watched Die Hard about a million times, I have to admit it played a huge part in inspiring me to write action stories in the first place.

But then, the picket at Fox is within walking distance from my hotel and nothing is ever within walking distance in LA, so what’re you gonna do?

Is it wrong to picket in view of the Die Hard building?

Writer-spotting

Okay, this is totally film-geek stuff, especially since I’m one of only ten people in the world who would recognize these people, but what the hell.
Which top Hollwood writers did I picket alongside today?
Well, first off: the great Joss Whedon (Buffy, Firefly. Serenity, Toy Story, Alien Resurrection and Speed, where he was denied screen credit). Dead-set legend. I’d love to have got his autograph for a friend of mine and her son who are the biggest Joss fans in the world, but the circumstances just didn’t seem right. I figure I’m supposed to be a professional. (Eagle-eyed fans will be able to see him in the self-taken photo at the start of this blog; he’s in the background behind me, wearing the maroon cap and cream jacket!)
Dottie Zicklin (Dharma & Greg) was there—she’s my showrunner on Literary Superstars,and is teaching me heaps about working in the Hollywood system.
Bill Lawrence (Scrubs, Spin City) is taller than you’d think. I’m a huge Scrubs fan.
I briefly got to meet Tim Long (The Simpsons) last week. He was really nice—I’d like to talk with him some more about what it’s like to write for The Simpsons. Chuck Lorre (Dharma & Greg, Two and a Half Men) also said hello when I was walking with Dottie. Check out his end-of-credit “vanity cards” on his website, they’re fantastic!
So, I hear you ask, how do I know what all these people look like?
Easy.
I watch the Special Features on the DVDs of their shows.

 

The Writers Strike…Back

The danger in antagonizing professional screen and TV writers is that they will soon use their considerable talents against you…on the Internet.
Witness “Writers Strike 101—Why We Fight” at www.UnitedHollywood.com, a masterpiece of educational comedy (plus the background music and the 80s throwbacks are awesome!!). Just watch it.
Or Paul Haggis’ Speechless, where he brought in a whole bunch of actors (Martin Sheen, Demi Moore, Jenna Elfman and others) to read from a script…only every page of the script is blank. He directs them from offscreen, “Go with that!” “That’s it! Give me more of that!”
So what’s the strike about?
I have been a WGA member for all of six months (I had to join when I sold Literary Superstars to Sony), so my knowledge of the history of the dispute is not great. But essentially, it’s about “New Media”, which really just means: the moment your TV set goes permanently online (which isn’t far off).
The question is: how much will writers get paid when their shows/movies are played online. Currently, it’s deemed “promotional”, so writers get nothing. But when TV goes online 24/7, is it still “TV”, or is it “the Internet”, and thus is every airing of a show then “promotional” and thus not worthy of payment to the writer?
Complicated? Yes.
Important? Yes.
Going to end soon? No-one knows.

Signing off from Los Angeles…