Sunday, October 22, 2017

Halloween 2017 - Insert Title Here

Here's something to file under the "How Sad is That" Dept. at Mad Magazine: I was somehow looking at a sampling of customer reviews at Amazon, and I couldn't help but think to myself... hey!  Why isn't MINE in there?  Then I realized that I put no effort into what I write for those.  I usually just give the bastards five stars and move on.  Believe it or not, there were some other things I wanted to do with my life... but as I sit here in front of the computer, none of them are coming to me.  Oh well.
Well, arguably and perhaps even technically all Madea movies are sequels... you might notice a special Madea subsection in the Electronics department at your local Wal-Mart even... Tyler Perry was nevertheless rejuvenated with last year's Halloween movie.  So much so, that a sequel to it was clearly in order.  But in the wake of a new spate of post-Weinstein sexual assault and or abuse allegations, something tells me that she's going to be speaking up soon... just sayin'.  Ain't no Uggos getting any action.  They say that Camryn Manheim is outspoken, so where is she in all of this?  Didn't Michael Ovitz make a pass or two at her at some point?  Nothing but celebrity inbreeding in the bubble!  You venture outside the bubble at your own peril.  Anyway, congratulations to Tyler Perry for another fine payday.  A writer-director writes/directs!  Always!
Our second debut this week is an attempt by former Roland Emmerich producer Dean Devlin to do two things: 1) make a Roland Emmerich-type vehicle, and 2) wrap up the Gerard Butler "Has Fallen" trilogy... in the meantime, he came up with something called Geostorm.  I hate to be so glib, but it is past my bedtime, so let me just say that The Day After Tomorrow called...
Our third debut coming in at #5 is called Only the Brave.  I hate to be repetitious, but the same thing happened to Only the Strong.  People saw that title and said, "Well, I'm not strong, so I obviously can't go."  In the case of Only the Brave, well... I can't help but think of Hereafter.  They hesitated to release it in Japan because of the tsunami sequence, and the recent tsunami that hit in Japan, which devastated much of the coastline, and a little bit of Gilbert Gottfried's career.  Only the Brave is about an elite group of firefighters, and lately the fires seem to be winning.  Take Santa Rosa, for example.  I think these California communities under siege from such wildfires need to take more preventative measures.  First of all, they need to surround their community with wetlands.  A large buffer of wetlands.  I guess a mere moat might not do it.  Maybe test out different ideas!  A wall, some artificial hills, but I'm still smitten by the idea of a wetland... something that might slow the fire down a little bit.  I'm thinking the insurance companies are going to weasel out of payments, probably take care of the bigger Anaheim estates first that also recently burned down.  Or just move to Washington state!  We're not growing fast enough.  We can't build these McMansions next to state parks quickly enough.  Buy a few of them!  Come on up, the party's just getting started.  I'm 40 years ahead of the trend myself.  My problem is I didn't bring a BMW and a ponytail with me, so of what use am I?
And finally, at #8 is The Snowman.  Produced by Martin Scorsese and starring Michael Fassbender... they'll get him to play Walter White in the final season of "Better Call Saul."  Alas, The Snowman didn't make a lot of money, and probably didn't bring in many X-Men fans either.  They're never interested in X-Men actors in non-X-Men movies.  Except for Mother!, of course.  Somehow this movie treads that fine line between Fargo and one of these new PG-13 rated horror movies.  Someone's probably come up with a good subgenre name for them, but I don't have kids so I have no idea what that terminology would be.  I feel sorry for parents these days.  They gotta plunk down hundreds of dollars for a Sony Playstation or a Microsoft X-Box, then shell out 50 bucks a pop for the games.  Better to just develop your child's friend-making skills, really.  Get them to find a rich kid to siphon off their entertainment needs from.

No comments: