A Handle on the Moment

Another missed deadline.  This is why I never get anywhere, either in life or in my career.  But another box office has come and gone already, and is it just me or is the fare getting a little more violent these days?  I'm a pretty regular user of the IMDb, and these violent yet strangely seductive ads for a Heathers reboot on something calling itself "The Paramount Network" is/am/are/was/were all over the place... they're not trying to make cannibalism sexy, are they?  Then there's this other thing called ... nope, forgot the title already, but it's one of Anton Yelchin's last last movies.  Hollywood lags behind the working dead like that sometimes... John Candy, for example, only when you get a death like John Candy's, a fight breaks out over which one is his last last movie.  Haven't seen the likes of that for a while.  Thoroughbreds, that's it!  A pretty strongly advertised first feature from someone making a debut of sorts on the world stage!  Then we've got this week's top debut at the Box Office: Jason Bateman's Latest... I mean, it's called Game Night.  And with returns like this it will no doubt spawn a few sequels, probably a Netflix / Amazon spin-off / prequel series or two, maybe a couple co-branding deals with Milton Bradley, Hasbro and or the Parker Brothers.  And of course, whoever's behind that douche-y Cranium game.  That's the best one.  Cards Against Humanity hasn't gone mainstream yet... at least, not that mainstream.  All the cool people know and love it, of course.  A little bloodshed; that's all they want out of their entertainment.
Meanwhile, in second place, it's something called Annihilation.  Again with the promise of bloodshed!  Almost makes me wish that Kirk Cameron was making a sequel to Saving Christmas.  Sure, it would be ridiculous as a February release, but man!  Gimme one glimmer of hope here!  Anyway, Annihilation is the story of a wife whose husband goes missing, so she has to go looking for him, and... oh, I've probably given away too much already.  So does the plot description.  For those of you cynics out there like me, it's also the story of Natalie Portman not having the strength of a franchise like Resident Evil or Underworld to fall back upon in, especially in the lean times like this.  Ouch!
And finally, debuting at the wrong end of the box office, it's something called Every Day.  Here's the one-line plot description: "A shy teenager falls for someone who transforms into another person every day."  Now, sure, you're thinking Groundhog Day or 50 First Dates or something like that, and why couldn't this be as popular as those movies were... on the other hand, people forget their high school years sometimes.  Ever find yourself hanging with the wrong people?  Or seeking out people that didn't seem as boring as the people in the Chess Club?  All while trying to manage your own internal turmoil... exciting times!  Not to mention finding either a) yourself having to move because of the Army or because of the nature of your parents' douche-y corporate jobs, or b) your best friend under those circumstances.  I think that's what the filmmakers were going after, but also trying to siphon off of the magic of The Spectacular Now... the good parts, not all that boring stuff where even the people in the focus groups fell asleep.  A little emotional bloodshed; that's all they want out of their nonfiction-based entertainment...
Which brings me in a roundabout way to this week's civil rights march.  I'm going to pick up a couple of scraps that "The Daily Show" left for me, because it seems that the NRA is losing some of its hard-fought institutional "rights"... maybe more like perks or privileges.  See, there were a bunch of companies that would give NRA members certain discounts on services and what not.  Airlines, for one.  But they showed a picture of a bunch of corporate logos, and I couldn't help but notice a large amount of car rental companies that gave such NRA discounts.  Makes me think of that line about "speedy trials," for some reason.  Because NRA members deserve to have a speedy getaway car that's practically untraceable.  Just be careful with it; don't get stupid on us.  Don't leave fingerprints or spatters of blood after using our rental cars or anything, please.  Unfortunately, the Parkland students have to go back to their lives to try and rebuild.  They're heading back to school, which the people over at Fox News are surely relieved about.  They don't care for high school students that achieve national celebrity in general, but especially not ones fighting against the Second Amendment.  As for me, I'm doing my part by posting cinematic images of gun nuts in movies going off the rails.  This first one, of course, is from what is perhaps Todd Solondz's masterpiece, Happiness... although you might not know it from the composed music.  This is, of course, from a dream sequence, being described to a psychologist, no less!  I was pleasantly surprised that my local hippie-esque video store even had it; I don't get to drive to Seattle as much as I used to... well, I used to live in Seattle, but that was a different era completely.  DVDs were still being made, even VHS was still available to an extent in stores.  Oh, but there I go again!  Glennis would have to leave me... That's my new favorite line this year.