A Good Bead on Things

Still getting used to my new high speed internet!  Oh, it's terrific.  My hard drive will be clogged with YouTube stuff in no time.  I guess the squeaky wheel really does get the grease sometimes!  It all started because of a bad phone call.  One of those new-fangled scam type deals.  And now, one new phone number later, here we are.  Apparently the scam is the person on the other line asks you "Can you hear me?"  If you answer "Yes," well... apparently, all bets are off.  The scammer has a recording of you saying "yes" and, in some corners of the world, it's the magic key that opens all doors.  See, this is why I'll never make anything of myself in life, in Donald Drumpf's 'Murica... oh, crap, don't even get me started on that.  Did you see Sarah Palin's white dress that she wore to Drumpf's White House?  I gotta say, it was pretty trashy even for her.  But kudos; she wore a shoulderless dress and not a strapped bra.  Bad combo.
But let's try to get to some news here.  "Better Call Saul" is back, and better than ever.  It's the triumphant return that EVERYONE is talking about... that's right, Saul's assistant and downright co-conspirator Francesca has returned!  And the same actress, no less!  We finally have her origin story... oh, right, and this other guy.  He seemed a little down or something.  Maybe they should've waited a few more episodes to reintroduce him.  What's the big hurry, guys?  Are the hardcore fans threatening a big revolt or something?
But enough TV.  Back to the multiplex, where it's still where it's at.  A lot of new debuts this week.  Sadly, the destructive power of the latest Fast and Furious movie has quickly waned.  Four new saplings got a lot of sunlight this weekend.  First up, another triumph for Disneynature.  Its latest, Born in China, debuts at #4 which, for a nature documentary, it's probably as close to #1 as you'll get.  They ain't going to spend the big bucks for a big ad campaign.  And you're probably not going to have pandas going on Colbert and Fallon to promote the movie.  Jimmy Kimmel, on the other hand, might devote some time to doing a comedy piece.  ABC's part of the big, dysfunctional Disney family these days, right?  As for David Fowler, well... I think it's time to call your agent.  Time to do some renegotiating.  It's all crappenin', man.  His The Circle is also coming out this year... oh, wait, never mind.  It's not the big Tom Hanks one.
Next, longtime Tim Burton producer Denise Di Novi has finally had enough.  I mean, even the best of those who've worked with Tim Burton have just found themselves taking a long hard look at that guy and thinking to themselves... really?  Seriously?  I don't see it.  They called him a wunderkind and a genius and all that... but that was, like, twenty to thirty years ago.  Time to hang it up, man!  Give someone else a chance to put their fat asses in that strangely humble director's chair.  And so, we get 1996's Unforgettable... I'm sorry, it's 2017's Unforgettable.  But hey!  Look at that!  On the 1996's Unforgettable official IMDb page, look at the "Videos and Photos" section.  LOOK AT IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here, I'm posting a screen grab before they change it.  Getting their wires crossed again, no?  Lol.  Ah, visual typos are the best.  Anyway, just going out on a limb here... Best Actress in a Leading Role Oscar (TM) (R) for the long-suffering Rosario Dawson?  Just putting that out there.  Of course, as with how Jeremy Irons won the Oscar for Reversal of Fortune for his performance in Dead Ringers, I mean, really, this will be the Oscar that Dawson should've won for The Adventures of Pluto Nash.  Everyone knows that.  Any Jimmy Hollywood will tell you that.
Our third debut this week is called The Promise.  And no, not the Nicholas Sparks one.  Seems like the ad campaign for this The Promise has been going on longer than the 2016 presidential campaign!  But it's finally over, and it's failed, and we can move on to the next big future Oscar(R)(TM) contender.  This one's called "The Erotic Awakening of S"... I'm sorry, I mean it's called The Lost City of Z.  Now, Amazon's got about a million online exclusive series, or wherever you go to see them... but theatrical releases?  I guess this is a first.  Not that I'm a student of what Jeff Bezos is up to or anything.  But I can't help but ask... Will Sucess Spoil Jeff Bezos?  Will the Oscar community rebel?  I think they will.  There's SIX major studios, buddy!  Six.  Six and only six.  Amazon can't be a movie studio.  Where's that stuff I ordered, BTW?  As soon as that arrives, okay.  Go and be a movie studio.
Oh, here's the best part.  What's The Lost City of Z about?  A guy who ventures into... THE AMAZON!  Synchronicity achieved.
And now, here's the part where I talk about Drumpf.  Well, the only thing I got so far is this whole Putin guy... wait, let me go check my hit count.  See what the Russians do.  Now, that disastrous Citizens United decision by our Supreme Court turned money into free speech, thereby tilting our elections more towards money.  Money tends to favor Republicans still, no matter how icky they get.  But the Koch brothers are simple billionaires.  They just want to be part of PBS, because they watch it and they see all the times people on there say... well, they'll give a list of a couple dozen names, and end by saying "And by contributions from people like you.  Thank you."  Now, who wouldn't like that?  Everybody likes that.  Gives you a nice warm feeling inside.  Well, the billionaire Koch brothers wanted in.  Eventually, they'll destroy PBS somehow, just to show that government doesn't work, and that it never has and it never will.
But Vladimir Putin, not to be outdone, wants some skin in the game.  Take France's opposition party leader, Marine Le Pen, for example... seriously, take her away, will you?  She wants France to leave the EU, wants to be the Trump of France.  "Frexit," I guess you'd call it.  Here's a picture of her meeting with Putin.  And I'm thinking to myself, dude!  Can you not be so brazen about it?  If you're meeting with Putin, you're in on the big con job.
So, Putin's got his fingers in many pies all over the world, because he also wants to prove that governments don't work.  They never have, and they never will, and we should all just go back to being peasants working for the king, forking over tax money... but this time, there's not going to be any of this Robin Hood bullshit.  They've got military intelligence now!  And guns!  That'll put a stop to any Robin Hoods.  So I guess, for those of us in America, we have to turn to the Trump supporters for leadership.  I saw a poll a while ago that showed that many of Drumpf's supporters don't like Putin.  A lot.  And then it occurred to me that the only thing holding Putin back in America is our American values.  And one of our values is still to respectfully disagree with our political opponents.  Putin, on the other hand, well... forget drawing pictures of a certain prophet, this is our First Amendment at work right here.  But it might not be for long.  This is a list of Putin's critics that have either been assassinated or jailed.  Now, I know that Hillary is "much worse, folks" and all that, but Putin's got a rather impressive track record of his own, if I may dare say.  He's got a lot of dead opponents on his hands.  Americans don't like people with a lot of dead opponents on their hands.  Take O.J. Simpson, for example.  And he's not even a politician!  Not yet, anyhow.  Maybe they have a PTA in prison, who knows.
But if this is the new normal, then so be it!  Where's the revolt within the Republican party?  They don't like the State Department anymore?  Don't they care about freedom?  What about the freedom to refer to illegal immigrants as "filth"?  Setting the bar and moving the goalposts is an important part of what Republicans do, man!  And what about all those "Never Trump" people slash RINOs, and why are they still alive?  Shouldn't they be killed in a drive-by, and their deaths refered to as "sad attempts to try and tarnish Trump's presidency"?  I guess the only thing that still matters so far is the annual Easter celebration at the White House.  He'll still do that.  I gotta go.
...ooh!  Just remembered.  One last thing.  You may have thought of yourself as an iconoclast on occasion... you know, the social belief in the importance of the destruction of icons, either religious or political.  In America, typically celebrity-related ones.  Then I saw a bit of an ad for something about Albert Einstein called "Genius."  Now, I love Geoffrey Rush as much as the next, um... what would you call it?  Thespian-o-phile?  Still, something within me died a little bit when I saw an ad for it, and Einstein (Rush) was shown having... um, engaging in sexual intercourse.  Tastefully done, of course, for being in an ad and all that, but still... I guess I'm just too sensitive or something.  I guess it's more commonplace in the EU.  People still complain about that, right?  About how America's becoming like Europe?  Too much like Europe?  Well, take comfort, 'Muricans, because our diet seems to be winning!  Cheese is making people overweight all over the world as we speak.  Think of the ending of the David Cronenberg classic, Scanners.  We'll have the sensitivity of Cameron Vale, but the handsomeness of Darryl Revok.  Close enough, right?