Judge, Jury and Exhibitionist

Brought to you by Good News. Good News! Seems like the world's so down, I need a couple obituaries to cheer me up. But they did just announce last night that lung and colorectal cancer are all but gone! Hey, we can ALL take up smoking now... right? Also, the previous President of the United States has a lifetime ban from SAG-AFTRA (the Screen Actor's Union), and his trial in the Senate hasn't even started yet! You give 'em Hell, Andrea Zuckerman-Vasquez! Whelp, never send the Senate to do a union job, as the old adage goes. Also brought to you by Head-Scratching Slogans. Head-Scratching Slogans! Like the one that you and I got in our email this weekend, from an online retailer we all love and that we all wish we could support more than we do, but for several reasons, just can't. The email was titled "You Are Worthy of Self Love." That's not what my parole officer says! Drumroll... seriously, folks, I do have a good idea. It's for all the Q-Anon types... is that even what they're called? I don't know! But for those of you who aren't going to Q-Anon Anon to get deprogrammed for re-entry back into secular, normal HUMAN society, here's what you need to do. Get someone to fund your own tribunal building. Putin would totally be down for that. And you have your own official Q-Anon Courthouse, where you begin the long process of convicting all those so-called Q followers who DIDN'T storm the capitol building on January 6! You know, prosecute all those QINOs out there who didn't trust in the plan, and help storm the U.S. Capitol like a true Anti-Patriot. Marjorie Taylor Greene can be judge, jury and executioner, even though she had to declare on the floor of the House of Representatives that she suddenly doesn't believe in all that stuff that got her elected. Shyeah, right. Nice try. That's just what C-Span WANTS you to believe! Anywho, no debuts at the Box Office this week, but due to yet another IMDb error, some film from 2001 came in tenth place, thereby qualifying it as a debut. Something called... The Fellowship of the Ring. Ooh! That thing about the deadly videotape? Clearly it needs to be updated for a viral video; something like Baby Shark which, like the Twins on last night's Weekend Update, I heard a snippet of for the first time. And just like when I listen to the radio these days, it's the greatest song ever written... 'til the next one comes on. But I guess I would like to give a shout-out to Dirty Grandpa... I'm sorry, it's called The War with Grandpa. Eighteen weeks! Eighteen weeks in the Coronavirus Top 10! No small feat. I mean, that Croods sequel/reboot is only at 11, so... I think we're going to be hearing a lot more from this De Niro kid. Mucho dinero for De Niro!

So I don't have to do my usual guessing game this week, but I don't want to leave my myriad fans hanging, so the following came to mind. Fortunately, I can't remember why, but in my ill-spent mid-twenties I recall this spate of TV movies with the subtitles "In the Line of Duty" and "A Moment of Truth Movie." Well, sometimes you need more conformity in your life; I guess that was the thinking behind that spate of TV movies. This was before everything became a TV movie, with Netflix (TM) (R) (C) Series dreams. To be fair, TV's the new multiplex, if only technologically. But I was going to admonish the IMDb for not having a "Connections" section for these "In the Line of Duty" and "A Moment of Truth Movie" movies. Is this not a story worth telling? What TV executive genius came up with the concept? And why are the Tom and Jerry "Connection" sections so full? Take Cue Ball Cat, for example. Well, I guess it's sorta helpful; they do actually have a dividing line between what preceded it and what followed it, based on release dates, one can only assume. But really? I mean, how about the Looney Tunes / Merrie Melodies? I have to wait five minutes again. The ghost of Realtek HD Audio Driver is haunting my machine anew... nope! The "Connections" page for Wabbit Twouble, for example, has lots of useful information! For example, in 2020, someone or something called Big Chungus makes an appearance in this 1941 cartoon. My, how almost 80 years flies. A more fitting tribute I cannot imagine; that's why I'm just a mere reviewer. Sorry, "reviewer."

But back to the main focus. Point, The Movie Hooligan, point. I gotta hurry before my machine freezes up on me again. But not to worry, IMDb Connections, for I did the hard work and figured out the connections. All the "Moment of Truth Movie" movies were produced by someone named Lawrence Horowitz, and all the "In the Line of Duty" movies were produced by someone named Kenneth Kaufman. And hey, #Metoo #Timesup movements, can you imagine trying to green light a movie today called "The Best Legs in Eighth Grade"? Me neither. But I did want to close by saying that our family watched one of those "In the Line of Duty" movies way back when: the one with Dabney Coleman as a kidnapper. And thank God the cops were slow in that movie because if Dabney had to run away from them, the movie would've been over in five minutes! Oh, but Dabney Coleman can't be the bad guy! Not Slap Maxwell! Not Burt Simpson in Short Time! But that's actors for you. Sure, they'll play the good guy or the lovable rogue, but they want to flex their range and play the bad guy sometimes too. The Ted Levines of the world are rare: start your career with a Bad Guy, then stick with the Good Guy roles. The Ralph Fiennes-es are even rarer: announce your career to the world as an Oscar-nominated Nazi, then try to play good guys... then give up and take that high-paying gig as Voldemort; very rare. Those Voldemort roles come along once in a lifetime.