There’s an old joke about a guy who goes to the doctor because his hand hurts when he moves it. “It hurts when I do this,” he says to the doctor.
“Then don’t do this,” the doctor answers. Which is, when you think about it, excellent advice for a lot of things.
It’s traditional, at this time of year, to make plans for the next 11 months, to lock your eyes onto the future.
“Never look back,” is what some people say as they set New Year’s goals and plan for a rich and lucky new year. That’s a very smart and emotionally healthy way to prepare for what’s to come, which is probably why I don’t do it.
I like looking back. I get a certain unhealthy pleasure in totalling up the (many) things I did in the previous 12 months that may have been foolish and which I intend never to do again. Some people have a “To Do” list. I have a “To Don’t” list.
For me, the trick to living well is following the joke doctor’s rule: if something hurts, stop doing it.
Aside from a few hilariously stupid things I did in 2014 – like climbing a ladder in my socks to change a light bulb, then slipping at the top and thumping to the floor while hitting each rung with my head – most of my most idiotic feats of the past year are best kept to myself.
There have been, on the other hand, some spectacular mistakes committed within the entertainment industry that may be useful to review.
For instance, many famous young leading men refused to consider portraying Peter Quill in Marvel Studios’ summertime smash hit Guardians of the Galaxy.
Near-unknown Chris Pratt got the role and turned it into a career-making moment. Why did so many bigger stars turn the part down? Maybe because the movie is a little bit silly and a little bit light, or because the budget didn’t allow for a mega-star’s salary. Either way, there are a few famous young actors who are kicking themselves now, and one more actor now in the upper levels of movie stardom for them to compete with.
The executives at Marvel Studios are probably swanning carefree into their new year without any regrets. The executives at the Warner Bros-owned DC Comics studio aren’t so lucky.
Last year, it was revealed that the studio had issued a creative edict for all of its comic-based and superhero movies: no jokes allowed.
When the DC executives gather in screening rooms to review their upcoming pictures, there will presumably be some kind of “funny alarm” that goes off whenever a joke or joke-adjacent piece of dialogue is uttered. But following the smashing success of their rival’s Guardians of the Galaxy, this is a rule they’re going to regret.
Of course, there are lots of people in Hollywood reflecting on their biggest mistakes of 2014.
If, that is, people in Hollywood were the reflective type. We’re not, which is why the 2014 television season was a baffling and disaster-filled event.
Shows that everyone knew would fail did, in fact, fail – shows about rich young people having romantic entanglements in New York city managed, somehow, to fail on three separate networks, and a couple of dark and depressing dramas also died quick deaths.
This may have been a surprise to the executives and marketers who decide which shows to put on and which to cancel, but anyone paying attention would remember that shows about rich young people in Manhattan and depressing dramas also failed last year. And the year before that. As the doctor in the joke says, if it hurts when you do something, stop doing it.
That’s probably no comfort to the executives at Sony Pictures Entertainment, whose free-spirited and blunt emails were hacked out of company servers and released publicly.
But the person who should be consumed by regret is North Korean dictator Kim Jung-Un.
For weeks it was assumed by everyone that the cyber-raid was orchestrated by the North Korean intelligence services, in retaliation for the anti-Kim spoof The Interview.
Kim Jong-Un and his North Korean henchmen, however, denied having any part of the hacking.
Whether they did or didn’t is irrelevant. This is Hollywood. And the first rule of surviving here is, always take the credit. Always.
Mr Kim and his ruling clan should have appeared together in hipster tech outfits – something along the lines of Steve Jobs’ iconic blue jeans and turtleneck uniform, though for the young Kim perhaps something more slimming – arms folded across their chests, smirks firmly in place. You can’t, as we say in this business, buy that kind of publicity.
Probably the biggest entertainment industry blunder of 2014 was committed by a North Korean dictator, proving once again that we’re living in interesting times.
Rob Long is a writer and producer based in Hollywood
On Twitter: @rcbl
