Giving credit where credit isn't due

The next time that you go to see a movie, when the movie is over, watch the credits. The credits begin with, of course, the actors in the movie. Sometimes they come in order of appearance, other times, the bigger stars go first. Fine. After the actors, you will start to see things like the director, editor and sound guys. Great. Then start to come things like “microphone boom operator” and “makeup artist.” OK. Towards the end, you get the things like “assistant to Mr. Hopkins” and even “caterer” and “caterer’s assistant.” Enough! Do I really need to know who the caterer’s assistant is? Did that fact that Ed Jablonski carried the food platters from the van to the table in the studio make any difference in the quality of the movie at all? In fact, that could have been the crappiest meal in history and it wouldn’t make one bit of difference. What next? Are we going to start seeing credits for things like “pizza delivery guy” or “guy that washed the shit stains out of Mr. Freeman’s underwear?” Give me a break! Let me establish the line for who should be credited in the movie or not. If you were a person that was on screen, we should see your name. After that, we should only see your name if the movie would have been different if you had not been there. In other words, if you are the director and by you leaving the movie, things would have been different in the movie, I want to see your name. If, however, you were something like the star’s driver and you could have been replaced by a trained monkey, I don’t need your name. Is this agreeable to everyone? Let’s stop this foolishness now. The next time someone around the set runs to Burger King for a few Whoppers, I don’t want to see his name in the credits…

Also, credits should be at the end of the movie, not the beginning. I don’t want to be twelve and a half minutes into a movie and still see names popping up on the screen for directors and production companies. You know, that stupid opening “scene” of most movies where the main character is doing something mundane like driving his car around, getting coffee (and probably spilling it on his shirt) and stepping in dog shit and all the while credits are popping up on the screen , maybe on the side of the mailbox, perhaps on his dry cleaning ticket. Let’s make a rule; if opening credits are absolutely necessary, 3 minutes tops. I don’t want to be half way through a movie to see words still popping up on the screen. And what’s with the twelve production companies per movie? Who produced and distributed it? About four different names come up in succession before the first scene starts only to be repeated in that zany opening skit. I feel violated like I would if the guy in the theater behind me talked through the majority of the film. Just SHUT UP already!