Posted 3:13 PM by Gene

In fairness to THE CONSPIRACY, its co-conspirators are merely playing to a very weak strong suit. Which would you rather see: Cary Grant or some non-entity in an electronic suit portraying a CGI superhero? Sophia Loren or -- I forgot, there are no Sophia Lorens anymore. Nor Cary Grants, nor Ernst Lubitsches, nor Herman Mankiewiczs, and maybe that's the point: with no Cary Grants or Sophia Lorens the biz has to put something on the screen, just for self-preservation, though it be a pile of horseleavings; and the ever-improving technology guarantees it will be nothing but comic books, and its ever-improvement makes the horseleavings ever more aromatic. That doesn't mean we have to play an AD-BLURBIST like A.O. and pretend they smell like roses. What always strikes us about the stupid movie audience and the effete snobs is how they stand so religiously close to the piles and breathe deep. Their behavior primes us for ever-increased disgust; if the chances for show-biz' product improving is zero, these zeros make the chances less-than.

We've issued variations on this flat, tiresome theme again and again, which certainly doesn't ameliorate our disgust.

Even the table-pounding advertorial writers had to admit attendance was down markedly this week, and they can make a zillion excuses, and it won't be that way next week with another cartoon coming on, but this trend may not be short-term, and we would like to believe some outliers among the movie morons have finally gotten the message.