Posted 12:57 PM by Gene

Soon the table pounding will start in earnest. It will be muted at first, with USAOKAY!!!!! asking and hoping, "Is Hollywood back?" By Memorial Day the newsrags will take up the chant, and so will the uber-sycophant GRAYDON, and by July it will be a full-bore no-holds-barred irritant: "HOLLYWOOD IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!" We note that the biz is helped by favorable comparisons to last year, and we fear they'll continue, and most of the "back" owes to ONE FLICK, but the reason we expect to be mad is that with the news hacks assuring the artistes that their place of employment is "BACK" (in a matter of speaking; it certainly isn't back compared to THE WAR, nor ever will it be) even the most microscopic hope of improving the product is gone; that now THE CONSPIRACY and its enablers and apologists can make and sell schlock until hell freezes over, with the soupcon of arthouse junk for the ad-blurbists. When the scribblers go into their REALTOR® mode we always expect them to sell us a Potemkin house.

P. S. We jumped the gun a little bit; the biz was down sizably from last week, but it's still up the kind of percentage that will get USAOKAY!!!!! and its ilk to hope, "Is Hollywood back?"