I figure I can't do much wrong in a monkey cage, so I will post here, should be harmless enough... On the other hand I am becoming a little nervous now that I start visualizing myself inside a monkey cage. With or without monkeys, it's a disturbing thought. Anyway here it comes:


THE FUTURE OF PORN-VALLEY Any parallels with Vegas?

“Before I ever ran a casino or got myself blown up, Ace Rothstein was a hell of a handicapper, I can tell you that. I was so good, that whenever I bet, I could change the odds for every bookmaker in the country. I'm serious. I had it down so cold that I was given paradise on earth.

I was given one of the biggest casinos in Las Vegas to run, the Tangiers by the only kind of guys that can actually get you that kind of money: sixty-two million, seven-hundred thousand dollars. I don't know all the details.

Matter of fact... nobody knew all the details, but it should'a been perfect. I mean, he had me, Nicky Santoro, his best friend, watching his ass and he had Ginger, the woman he loved, on his arm.

But in the end... we fucked it all up. It should'a been so sweet, too. But it turned out to be the last time that street guys like us were ever given anything that fuckin' valuable again.

The town will never be the same. After the Tangiers, the big corporations took it all over. Today it looks like Disneyland. And while the kids play cardboard pirates, Mommy and Daddy drop the house payments and Junior's college money on the poker slots.

In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played. Today, it's like checkin' into an airport. And if you order room service, you're lucky if you get it by Thursday.

Today, it's all gone. You get a whale show up with four million in a suitcase, and some twenty-five-year-old hotel school kid is gonna want his Social Security Number.

After the Teamsters got knocked out of the box, the corporations tore down practically every one of the old casinos. And where did the money come from to rebuild the pyramids? Junk bonds.”



Source: Excerpts from the “Casino” script by Nicholas Pileggi & Martin Scorsese. This image is of a film poster, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by either the publisher of the film or the studio which produced the film in question. It is believed that the use of scaled-down, low-resolution images of film posters to illustrate the film in question or to provide critical analysis of the poster content or artwork on this discussion forum qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law. Any other uses of this image may be copyright infringement.

one of the dumber things i have ever read

There are certain parallels--the buying up of various outfits by LFP--but the porn industry is way more accessible than legal gambling and will be that way until legislation decides otherwise.

Low cost cameras mean that the consumer has become the producer and increasingly is shooting what he or she wants to see, rather than what the market requires. That's why we're seeing wholesale unit prices of six bucks and enough porn released every month to build a new Hoover dam.

Once delivery methods move away from 'hard' to 'soft' and IPTV takes over, things might change. But don't hold your breath.

One of the main issues is with expectation of profit. The business has boomed over the last two decades and right down the line from production house, producer, talent, wholesale and retail, everyone expects to earn the same or more than they did last quarter.

When profits dip, companies chase those dollars in unimaginative ways, such as putting out more product to retain shelf space at a retail level. Streamlining happens, but only in the bigger companies. Since there are so many independent producers touting product from company to company, cost-cutting isn't an option for them.

The cheapest way of shooting is gonzo, so we see a proliferation of gonzo titles, each one pushing the envelope to try and make a name and generate sales. As the scenes get harder, talent demands more money. Producers accede to this because they know that hiring cheaper girls means hiring uglier girls which in turn impacts sales.

The whole thing is a self-perpetuating crap fest, but the problem remains that what was once an exclusive industry has become far too accessible to anyone with a camera. You mention GM in your reply. Consider the impact on domestic car sales if you or I could build the latest GM or Ford in our garage with no real skills or knowledge? And I'm not talking about kit cars here, but something which has all the hallmarks of a production line car.

The auto industry would be in turmoil.

Don't ask me why I am doing this. I got home this afternoon from my business class only to read that what I wrote is one "of the dumber things I ever read"...

thats because you didnt write anything, you qouted casino and then made a bad comparison and provided no arguement

therefore one the dumber things i have ever read

Right, what I am saying is that there is too much low end product, and that no professional will be able to make a living from that for much longer. It's amateur porn (the equivalent of the kit car you mention), the sooner you put it up on the net for free download the better, so that it can disappear into oblivion and we can all move on. I feel sorry for everybody who has been making a living from it in the past - it just won't be happening any more. Once we are through this painful period, hopefully we will be making better cars again, I mean better porn, not cars.

friends till the end vanesssa?