Sunday, January 22, 2017

Today We Say Goodbye to a Living Legend....

We here at The Movie Hooligan just don't understand it.  America was looking fine just yesterday, and showed up as scheduled to the premiere of xXx: The Return of Xander Cage with that hot young Russian mail-order bride on its arm.  But then they found this note, talking about depression, suicidal thoughts, and running off with this older, orange double-agent gentleman that's... apparently going to be their new president?
Yeah, fiction's fun.  Now I'm growing as weary of The Facebook as the next Facebook user is (they still have "poke"s?  Really?  Seriously?), but guys!  PUH-LEEZE!  Whoever's putting up the money for this continued plague of fake obituaries... it's OVER!  I, for one, have been mentally vaccinated against it already!  The trend is finished trending!  I get it!  Fake obituaries are fun!  Okay, okay, you can keep doing the Mark Wahlberg ones; maybe it'll motivate him to try doing more Oscar-worthy fare than his usual starring role.
Meanwhile, Agent Orange is now in the White House... let the resistance begin.  For starters, I hope Sen. Schumer holds fast to his promise of keeping the Supreme Court at eight judges.  You know, the Biden Rule and what not.  I mean, hey!  Maybe the Biden Rule can be applied to a Russian-sponsored American presidential election.  I don't know, I'm not a political guy!  You tell me!  Also, it's nice to see smaller crowds at the inauguration.  I mean, the one on the LEFT?  Ick!  Looks like my neighbour's awful gravel driveway!  I don't wanna drive on that!  Maybe there's a nail hiding in there, just waiting to make love to my car's tires.  I'm already in hock up to my ... my neck!  I wanna hold off buying new tires for a while, okay?
Anyway, let's get back to the real news.  M. Night Shamalamadingdong is back where he belongs, back in Box Office Baby's arms.  I understand that, just to be safe, his hometown in India just banned filmmaking as a hobby for all their town's residents.  "Follow a path less destructive, ANYTHING!  Become a child soldier, distribute anti-freedom propaganda, poison the water well... anything.  Bring pride back to our once humble, normal village," the town elders purportedly said.  But you can't argue with results, the kind of results that Will Smith was hoping for with After Earth.  M. Night's #1 project is called Split, and apparently he bastardized that Hollywood project floating around from producer's desk to producer's desk, in mothballs for 20 years, that James Cameron and John Cusack were once attached to, about a dude with 23 personalities.  M. Night's contribution?  A 24th personality that decides to become a kidnapper.  Genius.  Not Drumpf-level genius, of course, nothing could even dream of becoming asymptotically close to that, but genius nonetheless.
Meanwhile, at #2, there's a new Xander Cage movie out.  Vin Diesel's back in the role now, which I guess means Ice Cube's officially chopped liver... at least, for that role.  Maybe he can do a sequel to Are We There Yet?  Fill out the trilogy kind of deal, sell it at Costco, make another mint.  Personally, I think Vin Diesel got confused and thought he was doing another Fast and Furious sequel, but its poor performance at the box office should be telling.  Apparently, a Fast and Furious sequel is still a guaranteed #1 at the box office, and NBC is willing to put its full weight behind it, with MTV-style concerts in its honor.  You know, just kinda casually getting the word out.  Nothing serious, unless you want to fall out of favour with your cool, douchebag friends.  It's a full-time job.  Meantime, a dream deferred is a dream denied, every day Diesel doesn't get to work on his Cleopatra, an epic about Hannibal Barca... and with REAL elephants, not those bad, first-generation Jumanji animated ones!
There was one other debut this week, and that's The Founder, about McDonald's CEO Ray Kroc.  It kinda figures that film director John Lee Hancock would want to be a part of this particular project.  With projects under his belt like The Alamo and The Blind Side (yecch), what could be more American than a story about the Golden Asymptotes?... I mean Arches?  It was released in time for this year's Oscar consideration... but I kinda hope it gets snubbed, if only a little.  The Oscars like to pay tribute to the craftsmen and women of film, not their sponsors.

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