The limited braintrust of Hollywood.
I was meandering around The New York Times online this morning, and after getting disgruntled over the $700 billion buyout of the idiots on Wall Street, I ended up looking at an interactive graph of movie revenue from 1986 to 2008, adjusted for inflation.
The layout is what the vagina of a jellyfish might look like if it were sectioned and splayed out for study, or if turned vertically would look like a historical timeline of civilizations and their relative weight and longevity in the overall scheme of the world.
While the usability of the graphic is quite cool and enticing, in the end you learn absolutely nothing.
Actually, one thing I stumbled away with was the thought that the movie going public is as stupid and suggestive as the voting populace—and unfortunately these two entities are one and the same. Every so often Hollywood churns out regurgitated chum because there are no new ideas, and the pundits and critics and now bloggers complain about the dried up brain crust. Series like Naked Gun, Lethal Weapon, Beverly Hills Cop, and flippin’ Police Academy? My god, what were we thinking as a movie going public?
Now we have Governor Sarah Palin, infinitely likable because you just want to smoodge her face in the palm of your hand and make her say “snoopy,” who is apparently quite capable of creating her own chum for the salmon filled waters and moose populated plains of Alaska. She’s plus or minus 3 percentage points from sitting as vice president. If potato-faced McCain wins, it will be the end of our empire.
Let’s hope the Nascar loving, gun toting, big truck driving populace drinks one too many Buds on voting day, otherwise our timeline in history will come to an end, even if it’s adjusted for inflation.
Sing it, brother!
Although imagine how easy life will be for political journalists and analysts if McCreep and Pablum win. Writers for National Review and such can just insert the loglines from abovementioned movies into the spaces where their columns used to go, with minimal revision:
“A group of good-hearted but incompotent misfits enter the police academy [strike "police academy" - insert "White House"], but the instructors there [strike "instructors there" - insert "rest of the world"] are not going to put up with their pranks!”
What about “History is about to be rewritten by two guys [strike "guys" - insert "people"] who can’t spell!” Tagline for “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” or next month’s headline from the New York Times? Eeeerieeeeeeeee…..
We should get jobs as political analysts now, and just ride the gravy train, I guess.
(Despite that get-rich-quick plan, I still can’t seem to shake this feeling that we’re screwed.)