Sunday, July 26, 2009

It keeps my airways clear to help me breathe better all day long. And it's not a steroid.

It keeps my airways clear to help me breathe better all day long. And it's not a steroid. It keeps my airways clear to help me breathe better all day long and it's not a steroid. It keeps my airways clear to help me breathe better all day long and it's not a steroid. It keeps my airways clear to help me breathe better all day long and it's not a steroid...
Damn! I hate when that happens. Happens every time I watch CNN with the Mute on during the commercials. But let us leave behind the world of news, as we turn to the only news worth reading about: what happened at the U.S. Box Office this weekend. Or should I say... squeek-end? Never mind. And good ol' Disney, once again they prove that with about 40 million in TV advertising, they can still sell a PG movie to America's youth, as their latest, G-Force, hits the... G-spot? Sorry, I just wanted to try and beat the hipsters over at The Onion or The Village Voice to the proverbial punch. Go, Team Wibberley! And Team Elliot/Rossio and Firth/Yeatman. Dang! That's a lot of screenwriters to split the spoils of war, guys. Well, the Wibberleys are still on probation, I suppose. I'll try to check it out for you, Davy Jones. No, really, they wanted you for the part. Besides, Bruce Greenwood was unavailable, busy working on Racing Stripes 2.
Meanwhile, Harry Parter Pot 6 keeps chugging along at #2... I mean, casting its spell over an enthralled audience... worldwide in addition to the U.S., I would imagine! Let me try to stir up some arbitrage here... why, I think it's doing even better than Transformers! Making money wand over fist just about as quickly, but with more critical acclaim and less headache-inducing editing. Not that Transformers won't sweep the Oscars for editing and sound effects, of course. No one's questioning that. But all the mathematical modeling seems to suggest that Potter's going to last longer and claim more money than Tr2. I'm just saying... I'm just throwing that out there.
On the other hand, they don't have Megan Fox. Or Katherine Heigl at #3 with the latest shot fired in the Battle of the Sexes. And The Ugly Truth is finally released amidst thunderous applause. I thought July 24th would never come! Some are already saying this is the best homage to When Harry Met Sally of the season yet. Well, I hope you're happy, all of you out there drawing that comparison. You've made Gloria Steinem cry! Happy now? Can't you differentiate between two movies anymore? Clearly we've gone from the smart, erudite woman interrupting proceedings at a diner because she CHOSE to, to prove an intellectual point... to what is clearly a scene of date rape. And GANG date rape at that. And you all stood by and let it happen, throwing each other puzzled looks out of shame. Oh, what sad, barbaric, unenlightened times we live in. It makes me sad to be a blogger in this day and age.
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Damn it, man. Pull yourself together, Movie Hooligan. Think... Next on the list at #4 is Orphan, or the latest horror flick from what SHOULD have been The Big Five. What happened, guys? I thought you were a team! Well, Donner's been busy with the X-Men series, and just generally enjoying his emeritus years before Mel Gibson ruins them completely. And Zemeckis, well, he's still descending into (the mouth of) Mo-Cap Madness; it's a bottomless pit, I tells ya! Come back to us, Bob! Walter Hill seems to be in a neck-and-neck race with John Milius to see whose career can end the soonest. HBO, you gotta stop coddling these guys with all these so-called TV shows! Stop the insanity. And finally, David Giler, well, the Alien gravy train pulled into the station a long, long time ago. Could it be time for a Myra Breckinridge reboot? Ask Vidal. And try to get a good director this time, maybe an Antoine Fuqua or a Quentin Tarantino. Get Rosario Dawson to play the lead this time! See? It writes itself!
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No, the only one of the Big Five still remaining is Mr. Matrix himself, Joel Silver. A little older, a little wiser, a little less cocky, clinging to that dream with the last of fingernails. I see that Leonardo DiCaprio is a producer on this as well... oh, I get it now. The orphan girl's supposed to be Gisele Bundchen, right? tee hee hee...
And finally, rounding out the Top 5 is the latest installment of Ice Age. Oh, please. We truly are living in that era when every fifteen year old kid with a laptop can create the next Lawrence of Arabia. Or so we wish. Meantime, we're stuck with things like Ice Age 3. And poor Denis Leary, forced to tone down his act because of all the underage fans of Ice Age. Take a page from Patton Oswalt: make it an opportunity for fake maturation like he did with Ratatouille.
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As for the rest, well, it's just too damn depressing to contemplate. Bruno's bombing far too quickly for my taste. Borat was clearly more beloved by audience member and studio exec alike. Public Enemies has just about paid off the cost of the digital video tape used to store it, and The Hangover's just getting greedy now. And director Todd Phillips may be biting off more than even Steven Soderbergh could chew. ELEVEN in-development credits? You know, some of them may be fighting against each other at the box office soon enough. It's only a few tall trees that get all the sunshine in that forest, if I may use an awkward metaphor from my new-fangled education! ¶ Is it just me, or does Sandra Bullock look like an action figure? She's got Michael Jackson's last good nose, for one. And her business suit in The Proposal is certainly Barbie-worthy. I only mention it because all the toys you grew up with are getting their cinematic due. Transformers now, and the upcoming G.I. Joe a little later. What next? Lincoln Logs: The Motion Picture? Michael Bay's Hot Wheels? (2013) Maybe Disney could make a movie out of Hungry Hungry Hippos. That'd be good. Or Jenga. Personally, I'd like to see a revival of Pound Puppies and the Legend of Big Paw. But that's just me. I better go...

1 comment:

SinglesServingSingles said...

I'm an engineer at CNN. Thanks for helping to document the problem we were having with our closed captioning. I was working on the problem, trying to find the commercial responsible for the random captions. I did a google search and found your blog. I included it in my work log.

We had to reboot our main commercial server to flush out the errant captions. Hopefully you won't see the problem again. Thanks for being a volunteer Quality Control intern!