Bezos The Clown

Brought to you by Concord Management.  Concord Management!  They came, they saw, they Concord.  Well, the ad blitz is over, and the latest new variation on RoboCop has once again triumphed at the Box Office to placate our desire for mad nunchuck skills and our desire for a little more permanence in our lives.  This one's called ... the TV show "Dark Angel"... I'm sorry, that's not right.  One of the web spiders in my employ seems to have gotten it all wrong.  It's actually the TV show "Alias" and... no, it's not that one either.  But the picture's kinda similar!  No, it's called Alita: Battle Angel.  You may have seen an ad or two for it.  When I saw the junkyard in the clip they've been showing on the film's main IMDb page, I couldn't help but think of the first half of Wall-E.  It's a little something to encourage all those women and girls out there who are pretty, but they still want to go for that plastic surgery that makes them look like a living Barbie doll.  The film was directed by Robert Rodriguez, who went through a period there where he seemed to be directing a film every year.  Poor box office returns slowed him down a little bit, so he decided to spend a little more time on this one.  I mean, hey, sometimes it's just not enough to love the idea of Machete 3.  You need the capital and the resources to get it made as well.
Meanwhile, back at the lab... the latest Rebel Wilson vehicle gets the second-most table scraps at the box office this week, and it's called Isn't It Ironic, Dont'cha Think... sorry, that's Alanis Morrisette lyrics.  My mind's wandering again.  No, it's called Isn't It Romantic, and it seems to be a meta-comedy, even if that's not apparent from the TV adverts.  The premise?  A woman finds herself trapped inside a Romantic Comedy.  It's from writer and all-around Hollywood Sweetie Pie Dana Fox, the brains and beauty behind such hits as The Wedding Date, for which she got some nice publicity for herself, Couples Retreat, which was the beginning of the end for Vince Vaughn, and How to Be Single, in which Rebel Wilson says "Reading is for losers," if memory serves.  But so many things are for losers these days, in addition to reading.  But it is kinda nice to not be staring at a buzzing screen once in a while.  Pardon me while I have an '80s flashback, and continually flog myself for squandering time not on my studies, but on going to high school dances... ah, it was worth it.  Well, sometimes you gotta have a well-rounded education, you know?  But I will once again say that, with over seven billion of us on the planet now, and climate change becoming dangerously close to irreversibility... we might have to put the art of romance on hold for a while.  I mean, as a species.  Can we still do that thing where we sprinkle a little sulphuric acid on top of all the CO2?  I've heard that that might work.  Sure, we might have to do that for the rest of forever, but hey.  Small price to pay for being able to live, right?  But the old Romantic relics from the previous couple generations continue to tumble and fall.  I mean, take the Everly Brothers' song "Dream," for instance... sorry, it's called "All I Have To Do Is Dream."  I tell you darlings, standards continue to slip.  But take the following lyric: "Whenever I Want You, All I Have to Do is Dream."  I mean, for God's sake!  Isn't that a little too rape-y?  Entitlement much?  More White Privilege on the side?  In this era!  In the era of #MeToo, for God's sake.  The era of #TimesUp. 
Our last debut this week is apparently a sequel, but wanting to still put a Prince-ish twist on the title.  It's called Happy Death Day 2U.  Now, I know you're thinking, but Movie Hooligan!  It's only a PG-13 rated horror pic!  Why should I bother?  And you'd probably be right.  But the local news still has to cover it anyway, because that's what they do.  They talk about the Top 5 movies at the box office, so there's no shame in coming in fifth.  But don't pooh-pooh the PG-13 rating, my friends!  There's a lot you can do with it.  Hollywood's still tinkering with it, really, when you get right down to it.  But these days it definitely means only one "F" word.  (Dreamscape had three)  Why, you almost wait for it in J. J. Abrams productions!  Not Star Wars, though... probably not.  Not even in the Solo one... and it could've used some more cursing!  But enough about swearing, what about the violence?  Oh, the kids know.  Computers have made things so awesome these days.  Morphing, seamless editing, and ultra-violent violence.  I'm still kinda reeling from the season finale of "Ray Donovan, Season 6" myself.  Maybe because of the long Steadi-Cam shot.  Well, cast and crew like a challenge sometimes.  Smitty is the audience's heart, carrying the emotional brunt of it all for the uninitiated.  Sorry, SPOILER ALERT.  Anyway, go see Happy Death Day 2U, because they like the Chucky movies as well.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to changing all my old hyperlinks.  As you may know, I cite the Internet Movie Database a lot.  It's a consistently reliable database about movies that's on the internet... but they do go through a lot of changes.  Which brings me to my latest installment of John Hyland Watch... nope, still a problem!  I mean, this guy must be the Highlander or something!  How do you explain going from acting in 1916's Love's Crucible to being a sound recordist on 2000's "A Hard Look" and the 2005 episode of "Favouritism" called "Boy George's Queerest TV Moments"?  Well, being a Highlander's one way!  As for the change I have to make, well... the old hyperlinks used to be "us.imdb.com" for a time.  Now they don't work.  Now the browser goes into full-on Panic Mode, exclaiming "UNSECURE SITE.  PHISHERS AND SCAMMERS AND NIGERIAN PRINCES, OH MY!!!"  Computers are kinda dumb sometimes, ya know?  Year Zero, My Ass!!!!!