Snow job
Critics unfairly harsh on coming apocalypse
Before we get waisthigh (that’s "waist-high," Webster, not a sloppy abbrev. of the bawdy philosophical quandary, "What is thigh?") in squeaky-clean laffs, let’s hear from the peanut gallery:
"People say Mr. Smutty lost its ‘teeth’ years ago, that it’s driving on fumes, just an aging hack piecing together junk e-mails & passing it off as ‘comedy,’ only useful if yer housetraining a puppy, etc. etc. But not me! For sev’ral vague, noncommittal reasons, I think it’s the Best Thing Ever! And it just keeps getting more bester! Yessiree, brace yerself for the summer’s hottest column! Another winner from the team that brought you ‘G8 Is Gee-Great’ and ‘That’s My Bosnia’!"
No, the above praise isn’t excerpted from the hundreds of cards & letters received ev’ry week c/o this very publication (most of those begin, "Sir, you have sickened me 47 ways from Sunday..." and sign off w/ a cheery "Step on a rake." And the envelopes smell of lavender). The above gushery comes courtesy of the fabulous (and fabricated) critic David Manning of Connecticut’s Ridgefield Press. Manning, as you may recall, was created in the backwoods flack-labs of S_ny P_ct_res, a faux reviewer sent forth to shamelessly hype crummy summer movies. Since the guy isn’t flesh/blood in the 1st place, what’s stopping me from conscriptin’ the fictitious ringer to do my evil bidding? Sweet tweet, that’s what.
("An excellent idea! A winner! You’re a genius!" — David Manning, Ridgefield Press.)
(Thanx kindly, Manning m’man!)
But D.Manning is just the beginning of Hollywood’s desperate bid to conceal substandard product. Now P_r_am__nt Pi__ures is bullying publications into running only positive reviews – if a reviewer doesn’t like a movie, she/he may find herself/himself banned from future media screenings. ("Media screenings" are when a buncha lonely individuals [read: movie reviewers] gather in a deserted theatre on, say, a sunny Tuesday a.m., to watch a film b’fore it’s released to the public. Lemme tell ya, screening a flick w/ a half-dozen jaded shlubs hunkered over notepads & lukewarm coffee is the ultimate cinema experience. Glamourous? And how.) The studio’s tactic is to prevent negative reviews from hitting the streets before that all-important opening weekend, meaning that some piece o’ crud can gross a zillion dollars before John Q. Popcorn reads the horrible truth & makes other plans.
The Media is all-powerful. If, for e.g., I were to casually mention how the new Planet of the Apes flick kinda, shall we say, licks gibbon, you would immediately make other plans. "Garsh," you’d mumble in an accent befitting an impressionable hick, "I really wanted to see that thar moving-picture show, but if this guy – who prob’ly has his own Web site & everything – didn’t like it, I’m a-gonna pass." B/c of such unfair cause/effect, studio executives are forced to rent lousy basement apartments, and most movie-stars are a paycheque away from the Sally Ann.
But negative advance word isn’t just ruining Hollywood. It’s like this so-called North Atlantic "water pump," the warm convection current responsible for Northern Europe’s relatively balmy climes. The critics are all "Oh no, global-warming has wrecked the ‘pump,’ and now Europe will be plunged into an ice-age! How terrible!" Please.
Uh, hellooooo? Like, has anyone even seen this new ice-age? Allow me to play David Manning for a minute and suggest it’ll be "Totally Awesome!" and maybe even "The Summer’s Hottest Catastrophe!" (Heck, Iceland is all the cultural rage right now, w/ that pop group everyone’s raving about – "Sigur Jónes," izzit? – so why wouldn’t we want another land of ice? Or five.) Like mom sez, how do y’know you don’t like uninhabitable frozen wastelands if you’ve never tried ’em? Grow the fug up.
Next week: Don’t let bitter critics ruin yr deep-freeze fun – tear the ozone a new one today! |
