Interview With TV’s Mike Nelson

Do you have to move to Los Angeles to write for the entertainment business, or can you stay where live took you so far and still be that same writer?

Michael J. Nelson would probably suggest the latter as he's enjoyed a successful, busy career while never giving up his midwestern roots. He is an author, comedian, essayist, commentator, TV writer and generally far too clever for the likes of Hollywood. According to his bio, he grew up in lovely Geneva, Illinois, but his parents moved to rural Wisconsin when he was 12 because "they wanted to make a more desolate life for him."

When the comedy circuit exploded in the mid-1980s, Nelson was quick to jump on that bandwagon, performing at clubs and colleges throughout the midwest. Some friends from the stand -up circuit asked him to "do some typing" for their show, Mystery Science Theater 3000. Nelson accepted, staying on for ten years, "talking to plastic puppets on a daily basis."

His first book, Mike Nelson's Movie Mega Cheese takes several Hollywood efforts to task - laying waste to them with laughter and a little good-natured rage. He was a natural choice to go after such sinkers when you consider what he'd spent the previous 10 years doing at the office.

In the year's since MST3K hung up its satellite, Nelson has remained in the show's hometown of Minneapolis, MN with his wife and children - turning down the occasional offer to defect to Hollywood. But, he is still in demand in the movie criticism business, providing funny commentary tracks on several classic DVDs, such as House on Haunted Hill, Plan 9 from Outer Space and Reefer Madness.

Hollywood came calling for Nelson's services more than once, but Nelson never regretted staying in the midwest: "I had no desire to move out there. I don't regret it all. I still work on the occasional thing with Hollywood here and there."

Nelson cited a negative experience working on the MST3K feature film for keeping Hollywood at a safe distance: "Making the MST film was not a smooth ride. We went from having total creative control that we earned by building a show up through an audience to taking silly orders from people who thought they knew our jobs better than we did. When it went to the movie stage they said we had no knowledge how to make a show. It was very hard to market that. It was a tough go. They wear you down throughout the development process and take a lot of the joy out of the experience."

Turning his attention to the Hollywood efforts of the last few years, Nelson noted the decline of the big Hollywood blockbuster and lauded it as a positive turn of events.

"I have only recently begin to think that there's a glimmer of hope for the movie business these days because several blockbusters have not done well - as if movies audiences are sending a message. They don't care if Hollywood wants to make big spectacle movies for foreign audiences that can sell in different markets. Maybe audiences are saying that films are below our intelligence and we don't want to spend $10 to sit through them anymore."

"People have been burned too many times in theaters. They're more cautious now. Nobody wants to waste their money on another Michael Bay film with a ridiculous story that doesn't involve an audience. So, I'm feeling a little bit of optimism that movie fans are rejecting the same old films that Hollywood is telling them to like."

"Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with big blockbusters. If they're done well, I enjoy them. But, the formula is so tired that they're rarely done well anymore."

"There's so much exhausting hype for every movie because each film has to open huge right away, first weekend - and, they have to be successful right away or they're considered failures. There are plenty of smaller movies being made, and I might be a little more drawn to them because there's less of a storm swirling around those movies - and, there's a better sense of creative control behind them with the writers and filmmakers."

While Nelson is the first to admit that he's hardly a film industry insider, he confessed to a little speculation and agreed with the popular theory that corporate management, branding and over-marketing hurt many films before, during and after production.

"It seems to me that the tightening down of corporations on the money behind these films is taking them away from the writers and directors who would be best able to make them - and make them work. I don't want to use cliche terms like "the suits" or anything like that, but I don't think the corporate people leave the writers and filmmakers alone enough to allow them to make good movies."

But, Nelson never ruthlessly blames the writers or filmmakers for the end results finding their way to the screen, "Even though the concept behind the film might have been a commercial formula, somebody had to sit down and type the words. It's very difficult, lonely work - and once it's on the page, anything can become of it during production and everyone can attack it."

"Bad movies come from a lack of originality. There's a big mechanism out there for making movies, TV and books. That said, I don't understand this fever for some hook - any hook - to build a story around. That's why we're being bombarded with remakes. Studios are looking to make movies with the least amount of risk possible."

"I don't know how you fix it. Maybe the studios should give a little more control to the writers and directors - unless they screw it up, too. Then I don't know where that leaves us."

I do hope that writers out there keep working to offer stories they enjoy - whether or not Hollywood thinks they're worthy of that hype.

Jordan Williams is the owner of eWeb TV World, giving you the inside scoop on todays hottest TV shows. You can get insider news, reviews, and more at:
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