Bruce Willis acting-career

Werewolf said:
The "traditional" money laundering via films thing is basically you make a film very cheaply but cost everything much higher* so you rinse it in one go, or you make the film then basically massively inflate the sales figures via friendly outlets.
IE back in the days of small cinemas you might say that there were far more people going to watch it than there really were, so you get the money from "ticket sales" that might be 10-100 times (or more) what they really were as it is hard to prove otherwise, or you'd say you rented it out on tape thousands of times with a high number of "late" fees. From memory the "packed theatre" and "high rentals" were a favourite of organised crime in the US in the 70's and 80's as they often had an "interest" in the theatres and the rental locations.


*This lives on in spirit with "hollywood accounting" where you double/triple/quad bill as much as you can for things like advertising (IE you take out a full page advert for 4 films, and bill all four for the full cost of the advert). The result is that a film that cost 100 million to make might never officially make a profit as far as the actors residuals are concerned even if it does sales of a billion or more. IIRC the Star Wars films have largely not made a profit according to the royalties/residuals most of the actors are meant to get, which is why if you can you make sure your contract states royalties are based on gross income, not the net.
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Hehehe cheers )
 
moonlighting, I remember when it was on thinking it was THE best pacey comedy I'd ever seen with all those looks into the camera etc, and he was a big part of that.

And he carried that right into Die Hard, even though apparently he was far from the first choice.

Sad that instead of people remember THAT bruce Willis, we will now tend to remember THIS bruce willis.
 
theone8181 said:
What's scary to me is when you hear of rich people suffering, how are us common folk going to manage if we get the same illness?
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I don't think you'll notice.

If you're the one with dementia rotting your brain and eventually killing you, your memory and ability to think is draining away every day. You'll die surrounded by strangers that knew you their whole life but you won't know them anymore. Your money can't do anything about that.

On the other hand everyone around you sees you draining away and they're the ones with a working brain to feel the emotions of seeing you confused and increasingly difficult to communicate with. May have to manhandle you to get you through the day.

For everyone around you, having money can help with the care required to keep you alive and safe and reduce the stress. Stress that comes with literally watching you 24h a day and increasingly treating you like an adult sized baby. Anyone thinking they can do that easily has not in fact done anything of the sort.

If you have no money then the burden of dealing with you falls on whatever family you have and the council.
 
Hotwired said:
I don't think you'll notice.

If you're the one with dementia rotting your brain and eventually killing you, your memory and ability to think is draining away every day. You'll die surrounded by strangers that knew you their whole life but you won't know them anymore. Your money can't do anything about that.

On the other hand everyone around you sees you draining away and they're the ones with a working brain to feel the emotions of seeing you confused and increasingly difficult to communicate with. May have to manhandle you to get you through the day.

For everyone around you, having money can help with the care required to keep you alive and safe and reduce the stress. Stress that comes with literally watching you 24h a day and increasingly treating you like an adult sized baby. Anyone thinking they can do that easily has not in fact done anything of the sort.

If you have no money then the burden of dealing with you falls on whatever family you have and the council.
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Sorry that's more what I was thinking. Must be very hard on family.
 
I know somebody whose mother had this specific type of dementia in her late 50's

She very rapidly went downhill and was dead within 12 months. Eventually she couldn't swallow food and was being tube fed.

Awful.
 
It's beyond grim.

You watch your relative die a little bit more each day, until the pain in their eyes is the only means of communication left for them.

I hope his and his families suffering is kept to a minimum.

Never felt reading a news story could trigger me, but I've posted this in floods of tears remembering what I saw of my grandfather's deterioration a few years ago. Their brains die, who they are is gone, then their bodies are kept running for far too long, what I saw was inhumane.
 
Yeah I would definitely sanction right to die laws for those with dementia (obviously you would have to put it in your will before you were diagnosed)

I wouldn't want to live with it or have to see loved ones go through it. Just a body with no mind
 
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My Mum was "FTD type Alzheimer's" as the consultant put it, and she was a real paranoid handful in the early years, bless her. Not that a description helps. It's not like the drugs or treatment or "support" is different... it's all equally useless.

I've said before that I wouldn't wish dementia on anyone, even the most despicable human beings I can think of. Despite the modern trend towards accentuating the positive, "living well with dementia" and not using the expression "suffering from dementia" it's all well intentioned tosh. We've got really good at curing or managing age-related illnesses, only to push a million or so -- in this country alone -- into dementia. Which is why the NHS & councils are in permanent crisis. Yes, there are other factors assisting, but dementia sucks up hospital beds, carers, families and money (including Council Tax) at an increasingly society-sapping rate. We're paying a massive societal "rent" to keep folk with dementia going long, long, long after the vast majority would wish for.

And yet... by the time Mum died in my arms last November, a complete helpless cabbage, I'd also have done anything to keep her going. It's such a complicated, emotionally self-destructive way to die. It's like losing a child at the end, not a parent.

I could have given her a lethal injection years ago, because I know without a shadow of a doubt that's what she'd have wanted. But keeping her comfortable and out of the NHS system (they really can't care for folk with dementia in hospital... I saw shocking things three years ago when Mum broke her leg) became an overwhelming desire that warped my ability to let her go. It's a cruel variation on Stockholm Syndrome, I suspect!

In the end though they lose the ability to swallow, and there was no way I'd have allowed her to be tube fed, even if it had been offered, despite my emotional mess. Mum had 5 weeks of visiting carers from the local hospice, who were wonderful. But what she needed was Harold Shipman. He was clearly out of control. But in "the old days" family doctors had less supervision and more... control over dignity. For better usually but, sadly, not always. Hopefully Bruce's well earned money will at least allow him doctors who can skate very close close to the edge of what's legally allowable over there.

Die Hard? Sadly, yes. I'm praying the law changes soon so I can sign up to be given a lethal injection when I lose the ability to manage my own affairs or wipe my bum. I have plans to try to avoid that being necessary, but having seen how Mum's paranoia stole logic away from her, I've little faith I'll know when the time comes.

Sorry, I appear to have turned this into a rant. My mood isn't helped by the fact I visited Mum's grave on Thursday (a complicated bus journey & walk, only 30 miles but 3 hours away) to find that the field on one side of the graveyard that she, her Mum, Grandma, two uncles & an aunt are buried in is now a building site for what looks like a large house, judging by the footings. This final indignity will at least be one Bruce is spared. May his final years be as kind to him as possible.
 
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