what, you've never gone to a video store and picked a nights' viewing strictly on the cover art?

blonde models in tin foil with a title like the women who took over the earth or something cheesy like that sounded like a great 'B' sci-fi movie...we ended up MST3King it (too easy)...lots of caffeine and laughter...good times.

"Why did Dukes of Hazzard cost more than $3 million to make?"

didn't Jessica get most of that $$ !!! ....

well you see in general hollywood really doesn't know what will be a hit or a dud !! so they tend to COPY and recycle and package what they think the general public wants to see ( oh and that general public is 12-23year olds and most of that is BOYS) based on past hits ... so if Joe Smith had a hit directing BIG $$$ movie - they pay him whatever he wants and they tend to let him do whatever because he knows how to make a HIT ... when they cast the movie like dukes they cast jessica because they think she'll put allot of paying 13-18year male old BUTTS in the seats . remember she is on many teen magazine covers and she gets allot of air time on entertainment type TV shows ..

most of the time they figure if they throw enough $$$$$$$$ at it -it will be a hit ... so from their POV a 3million movie stands a good chance to be a dud and a 50million movie stands a pretty good chance to be a hit ...

Yeah, I've had a great laughing experience once too with one... but that's too much off topic right now ;-)

There must be hills involved for there to be hillbillies friends. The term was cooked up to describe the folks of Kentucky and West Virginia to be exact. Specifically it came about when the NY press was covering the Hatfield / McCoy fued which was fought across the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy river which is the border between WV and KY. Don't you guys remember your mass media class in college? :)

Speaking as an actual "bona fide" Kentucky hillbilly I can assure you guys - it's yeeehaw. That's straight from the Mountain Standard Dictionary. I have never heard an implied "y" in that term. Hmmm... I guess I wouldn't at that. But trust me it's supposed to be there.

BTW the Dukes were Georgia hillbillies. There are mountains in north Georgia which technically are in the same mountain range as the KY and WV hills that spawned the Hatfield / McCoy clans.

Actually a Hollywood film raked in huge numbers of old folks including men not too long ago. It was something that most of Hollywood shunned like it was a death blow to their whole industry. It was The Passion Of The Christ that brought in huge numbers of older people and it brought in their money too.

But Hollywood has no interest in producing movies of this nature despite the money made from it. The main reason they don't want to make these movies is because they don't appeal to that under 25 demographic. Those under 25's think they will live forever so they don't worry about such things.

Some of us remember the exact moment Hollywood ditched the old folks market btw. It was decided that advertisers wanted to appeal to a young audience because they were open to their messages and they would be customers for products for decades to come. It was 1971 and tv shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, and Andy Griffith were the top shows in the ratings. But CBS dumped all 3 and more at once because all 3 appealed to older audiences and very few young people were watching them. The young folks were watching Easy Rider. From that point on we've been seeing a whole lot of rebellion pictures. Some things seem to never change.

On hillbillies. There is a Simpsons episode where Dr. Hibbard says: "this is a case of Siamese twins."

and Lisa says: "I think they prefer to be called conjoined twins."

Hibbard replies: "and hillbillies prefer to be called sons of the soil, but it aint going to happen."