1941

Normally, I'm supposed to... pardon FORGIVE me.  This blob blurp is brought to you by The Debt.  I mean, as long as it's not them that has to pay, no one really minds The Debt.  Similarly brought to you by the Wall.  I mean, as long as it's not him that has to pay, Putin's Puppet in the White House currently doesn't really mind who's paying for the Wall.  A campaign promise deferred is a campaign promise denied, Mr. President!  It was a two-parter, if memory serves, and I guess yours doesn't.  Anyway, normally I'm supposed to kiss the ass of the #1 movie this week in terms of attached pic, but if it's really got legs, it'll be #1 next week as well, so I'll just do it then instead.  But apparently one of the big-time million dollar directors I grew up with, as David Letterman might say, has fallen on hard times yet again.  I suppose Allied and Flight were salvaged by the critics, but The Walk got a 'meh' from both the general public at large and from the critics at larger and larger every day.  I mean, the critics are technically a subset of the general public... but are they any more?  I can't vouch for how Amazon Prime works... sorry, I can't vouch for how "The Prime" works, but with Netflix you get this menu, and you spend your days scrolling past movies in icon form.  If you're using your TV remote to do it, it could take a while.  If you use your thumb on your SmartPhone, you run the risk of Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, as well as eyestrain in general.  And this turns the average computer user into a critic, as they go "Nope, nope, nope, nope" as they browse past title after title after title.  Someday we'll get the data on that.  You know, male users using Netflix (TM) (C) (R), or FeatureFlix if you're a "Ray Donovan" watcher, will spend an average of 3.1 seconds hovering over a title tile... and slightly longer if there's cleavage in the picture, you get the idea.  Which is why I try to support Scarecrow Video.  That's Scarecrow Video!  The greatest video store on the West Coast... okay, outside of Hollywood.  Sure, they don't have everything yet.  They don't have Tishbites by the Cocteau Twins; they don't have The Flim-Flam Man, as it's lower on their to-do list, right under "Keep Our Non-Profit Status Alive Somehow."  Alas, Paul Allen passed on before he could make it one of his businesses that seem to do nothing but lose money.
But on the bright side of things, that new Aquaman money has gained some money!  Sure, not much for the weekend before Christmas, but still.  James Cameron can't direct everything, but he did help to make the underwater more feasible, mostly by staying in it for so long.  But they did get James Wan to do it instead.  You know, the Saw guy!  Which explains the many extensive waterboarding sequences.  A little dark for what's supposed to be family fare, but whatever.  They seem to know what they're doing over at DC Comics.  Jason Momoa is the new Aquaman... and I know what you're thinking.  Really?  Keegan from Bullet to the Head?  But you gotta dig a little deeper to see that he's paid a few dues to get here.  I mean, he was on the original "Baywatch," for God's sake!  Who else has gotten so far afterwards?  I mean, without an extensive rap sheet?  I gotta hand it to any 20-year overnight success story.
Which brings us to Mary Poppins Returns, which is a sequel to the 1964 original.  It's an actual sequel, not a reboot or some kind of prequel or anything.  An actual sequel.  Mary apparently hasn't aged a day, and she can fly.  Take that, Highlander!  Yes, London's own Emily Blunt is America's sweetheart, even if all of her work doesn't quite reflect that.  I did like her in The Devil Wears Prada... so bitchy!  Anyway, speaking of Hollywood losing money on advertising, Bumblebee debuts at a mere #3, but Spielberg and Michael Bay weren't prepared to put too much effort into advertising.  Meanwhile, Hailee Steinfeld continues to try and undo all the untold damage that True Grit did to her career.
Whew.  Halfway to the summit.  But I guess, it's more like we're climbing down into the Grand Canyon, as there's two more debuts to climb down to.  At #7, the American dream takes another big miss, as something called Second Act makes a disappointing, inauspicious debut.  Sorry, director Peter Segal, but it looks like 1995's Tommy Boy is still going to be your best work, as fraught with problems and delays as that production was.  But it is off of your IMDb Top 4!  Hope that helps!  I mean, if that's what you want.  The IMDb Top 4 is probably out of your hands anyway.  But I would like to take this time to analyze the IMDb's numbering system for movies.  For example, Second Act's number is 2126357.  Aquaman's number is actually lower, at 1477834.  I think these things were in development for a while, and something generic like Second Act probably languished a lot longer.  Mary Poppins 2's number is 5028340.  Bumblebee is 4701182.  Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is 4633694.  Holmes & Watson is coming out next week, and its number is 1255919.  Clint Eastwood's latest, The Mule, is 7959026!  Well, he likes to get these things over with quickly, and clearly gets the newest, freshest projects to pick from.  For reference, we seem to be at about 9473016 as of this writing.  Well, it's a big world out there, and the IMDb wants to include everything and everybody.  They're even including all the fun 1980s music videos!  You know, from MTV's Golden Era, when their mandate as a cable network seemed to be showing music videos.  Now it's reality shows, reality TV... sorry, "reality" in quotes.  Incidentally, MTV is brought to you by douchebags.  Douchebags!  Fun to look at on TV, bad to be next to in real life.
...where was I?  Lost my place.  Oh, right.  Just one more thought about Second Act.  As you can see from its IMDb plot description... which I'll cut and paste here for you.. "A big box store worker reinvents her life and her life-story and shows Madison Avenue what street smarts can do."  In reality, Madison Avenue already uses street smarts, it just might not seem like it.  You want a story about street smarts as the fish out of water?  Try ... what's it called... generic title, post-GoodFellas Joe Pesci plays a bum on a college campus, With Honors.  That's it!  It was originally called "The Homeless Bum Who Saved Boxing Day," but it was transposed to modern day America and rewritten by someone other than Norm MacDonald.  I guess there's no point in showing Harvard and Yale what street smarts can do, at least not on the silver screen these days.
And finally, debuting at #9, and not because it's an indie pic with early Oscar buzz, but because it's a massive Hollywood bomb, it's the latest from Bob Zemeckis called Welcome to Marwen.  Well, Bob's playing a different game than most of us.  I mean, it's an original premise, right?  Sure, the story of the real guy's more interesting and all, but... ah, skip it.  No one wants to dream anymore, and seeking love is creepy.  Except when I do it, of course.  But don't worry about ol' Bob, as he's already hard at work on his next: something called The King about King Kamehameha who united the Hawaiian Islands.  Ooh!  Its number is 8917520, so it's pretty hot off the press.  On the other hand, it's from a Randall Wallace script.  Yeesh.  Okay, so he may not know that much about Hawaii, but he does know about kings, and he likes the power they have.