Remember when your parents would snap and announce a whole bunch of new rules?

So far it has been a long, cold winter for the free-spending Hollywonks.  After last year's disastrous box office plummet I was thinking that someone would speak up.  Some lowly understudy production assistant would throw down the slate and shout "Sweet Holy Mother, conjuring this crap will condemn us all!"  And from there a revolution would begin.  After a mostly bloodless battle of metrosexuals and prima donnas hurtling insults through the tabloids, a new set of rules would be established.  The reformation would inspire the following:

1.   The previews must accurately reflect the movie it's previewing.  Sounds easy, almost common sensical.  Movies like The New World and Freedomland would require disclaimers reading "This movie is a desperate attempt at an Academy Award.  In this effort expect the painful overuse of artistic license, needless dramatic dialogue with weeping and quick shots of creepy tribal masks."   Any comedy would have to give you a percentage of how much of the movie's funny you have already witnessed in the trailer.  For example, a preview of Big Momma's House would congratulate you on seeing the film in its entirety.

2.   The Steve Martin Rule.  For every Cheaper by the Dozen or unnecessary Pink Panther you make you must write, direct and star in a Shopgirl.  "Shopgirl" would become showbiz lingo for 'decent movie not out to make a quick buck in its first weekend while generally disappointing and further dumbing down the stupid, insulting the intelligent, inciting the insurgency and, in general, giving angry Islamic Fundamentalists any more reasons to want to kill usl'.  The immediate enacting of this code would mean that Keanu Reeves would be executed and Vin Diesel banished.  Al Pacino would owe us a 'Shopgirl' for that awful betting movie and Billy Crystal several 'Shopgirls' for everything he's done since 'When Harry Met Sally'. 

3.  The Audit.  This might sound extreme but The Audit is entirely necessary.  Auditers, eunuchs unphased by sexiness, would read through every script about to be put into production.  If it were, say, the rambling mess that eventually became Running Scared, then production would halt and the entire budget be donated to public education.   Many actors and directors, as in the unfortunate case of Kevin Kostner, where his debt to society is too huge to actually fiscally reimburse, would be sent to the Pakistani mountains to fight the Taliban.

4.  Any movie  (Fast and the Furious, Faster and Furiouser II) that features idiots in cars would require one of the handsome, hich-school-idol stars be brutally mangled in a Mitsubishi so as to dampen the spirit of those impressionable teenagers wanting to emulate the movie by driving like morons.

 5.  No more Tim Allen movies ever.  ("Raise the Woof!"  Are you flipping kidding me?)

6.  No more sap from Robin Williams and no more Renee Zellweger scrunchy face. 

7.  Any actor making over one million dollars per movie can only make one per year.  Any after that and all earnings go to developing new talent.   

8.  Any actor or actress pretending to be indignant over the paparazzi and the tabloids that incessantly promote their miserable career will be immediately ignored and forced to tour the Up With People circuit.  This punishment will last until James Frey is finished with their biography.

9.  Any company, personality or reviewer that either places products in, actively promotes or knowingly overhypes any bad movie will be forced to change their name to that of the offensive film.  For example, Diane Sawyer is now known as Passion of the Christ.   And you'll go to Attack of the Clones to get a Whopper.   These changes can also be formatic.  The tonight show with Jay Leno will be shortened to a New York Minute.

10.  Everybody must at least once a year view The Big Lebowski.