J.K. Rowling, Bruno Mars Under Fire

Articles written by George Stefano Pallas.  Excessive quotations, run-on sentences, bad pop-culture references, and failure to get to the point in a timely manner expressed by the author are his alone and do not necessarily reflect nor should be construed as those of the Author.

Fans Tell J.K. Rowling To Silencio On Potter

Rowling says, “Now that’s just wrong.”

We muggles have a bad habit of becoming inextricably, hopelessly devoted to our favorite fictional characters.  Often times, the most devoted among us are the same ones who gave these characters life in the first place.  The question that continues to plague and divide literary critics is whether creation is tantamount to ownership.  The vast majority of casual readers tend to answer in the negative, a tendency that’s reflected in the consumer response to J.K. Rowling’s most recent revisionist comments concerning her best-selling Harry Potter series and what its heroes could have or should have been.

Username “Savy Russ Snape” spoke to The Author’s Files as an official delegate of TheLeakyCauldron.org, a fan-maintained website that’s been struggling to draw traffic in the absence of yearly film events and the effective substitution of fantasy epics with half-baked dystopian romance rip-offs.  “Between this latest statement, too much information on Dumbledore’s sex life, the fake name, and the whole Pottermore hype that turned out to be nothing more than a stupid e-book we’ve already read a dozen times on physical paper, we can only implore J.K. Rowling to renounce writing altogether and take up a different line of work.  There’s a fine line between sharing pertinent or interesting details about the characters one has given birth to through words and being a witchy, overbearing a-hole dead set on correcting all the imperfections in characters one has already raised to adulthood.”

The Sunday Times released a preview last Sunday of a forthcoming interview with Rowling directed by Emma Watson, who nobly tried to portray Hermione Granger in the film adaptations.  In it, Rowling expressed remorse over her selfish and unrealistic decision to get Hermione hitched with Ron Weasley, lamenting her inability to time-turn back and revise that faulty plot point. “I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of wish fulfillment.  For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione ended up with Ron.  In a moment of weakness and blind adherence to my imagination, I sacrificed credible storytelling on the altar of my personal fantasies.”

She quickly backpedaled and offered a weak apology to her fan base.  “I know, I’m sorry, I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but… it was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility.  Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this?  I hope not.”

Too late for that, lady.  A Facebook page entitled Invisibility Cloak For Rowling has amassed approximately 1.7 million likes from Harry Potter readers over just the last 36 hours.  Their three requests of the author are as follows:

“Hands off your books.”

“Cease and desist from writing novels.”

“Just shut the ____ up.”

Older followers of Harry’s adventures have drawn scornful comparisons between Rowling’s constant changes to her text and George Lucas’ desperate strides to “fix” the original Star Wars trilogy with the latest and greatest computer effects.  Those who remembered watching the theatrical cuts in their youth and film preservations alike decried Lucas’ CG additions and other edits to his creations, ultimately forcing him into retirement over a particularly radical alteration that completely changed scoundrel smuggler Han Solo’s character and arguably ruined the film that started it all.

Lucas still stands by his fateful decision to make alien bounty hunter Greedo shoot first in the Mos Eisley cantina, explaining, “What I did was try to clean up the confusion, and there’s quite a lot, I would say.  Obviously it upset people because they wanted Solo to be a cold-blooded killer, but he actually isn’t.  He’s really a merciful pacifist at heart.”  So too does he refuse to back from his assertion that he “always thought Ben Kenobi was gay”, which parents found gratuitous and inappropriate, kids found dull and irrelevant, and everybody generally found idiotic and wholly unsupported.

More than just friends at last.

Film scholar Robert Edgars debunked the claim by alluding to the climactic Mustafar duel of Revenge of the Sith.  “When Obi-Wan exits Padme Amidala’s starship and confronts his former apprentice, Anakin instinctively senses that the older Jedi has perpetrated an affair with his secret wife, accosting her violently, ‘You’re with him!  You brought him here to kill me!’ and following that with the now famous accusation: ‘You turned her against me!’  Anyone who contends that Ben Kenobi is gay must dismiss undeniable evidence that he was sorely attracted to Padme, willing to risk his own life in order to save hers, even cutting down his closest friend for her sake.”

“Furthermore,” he continued, as if this much proof wasn’t sufficient, “Ben addresses Anakin as a brother in what seems their last encounter.  This word, apart from implying a purely fraternal and asexual relationship, is significant especially in that it suggests Kenobi’s yearning for a sibling instead of a lover.  Clearly he has never harbored romantic feelings towards Skywalker, or any other man for that matter.”

Edgar’s critical essay went viral on the internet, being read by thousands of infuriated nerds who can’t or don’t normally read, including Lucas himself.  Thus his thesis unfortunately backfired, inspiring the director to rewrite and re-record the pivotal scene for the Blu-ray re-release so as to more clearly convey his idea: “You were like a partner to me!”

Regardless of how old Ben wields his Force and whom Hermione is really snogging in her dreams, other writers have articulated steadfast opposition to the techniques of both these fantasy authors.  None more esteemed than Ray Bradbury himself said, “I let [my characters] speak.  I don’t control them; I simply give them a podium and let them talk to me.  All my good stories are told to me by the characters.  I don’t write my stories.  They write me.”

Pretty astute words from a dead, white, industrious male.  With the feedback they’ve been getting lately, Rowling and Lucas might profit to stop obsessively manipulating their characters like puppets and property.  Or just obliviate them for a while, Jedi mind-melding them away from their consciousnesses.  Something along those lines.

Super Bowl scandal: FCC not to press “fleeting homosexuality” case

For many casual viewers, the most shockingly abhorrent spectacle of last Sunday’s 48th Super Bowl wasn’t Peyton Manning’s intentional throws to Seahawks receivers, an overabundance of kicking scores, the enormously unexpected appearance of New Jersey Governor and rising Republican star Chris Christie at the opening ceremonies, the onslaught of racy or confusing commercials that had nothing to do with their advertised products, or even the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ rowdy, scantily clad performance alongside 28-year-old pop star Bruno Mars, but a seemingly innocent and beautiful gesture of love in the middle of the halftime show.

This is far from the first time that the show has stirred the raging tides of controversy, but some advocates for propriety in family television are determined to make it the last.  The influential Parents Television Council formally asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on Monday to fine both Fox Network and the headlining entertainer for violating laws prohibiting “indecent” or “profane” material in the hours that the game was aired.

Robert Philson, founder and current vice-president of the family-owned non-profit, delivered the official statement. “What happened to us?  Where did we go wrong?  Everywhere we look on TV there’s adultery, idolatry, greed, drunkenness, sin, slander.  I mean, start with homosexuality and basically morph out from there.  Soon enough they’re going to be marrying people to animals on the big game telecast.  It isn’t logical, man.”

Apparently, what isn’t logical is that Mars officiated 30 actual weddings live at the Met Life Stadium, tying the knot for a culturally diverse set of couples young and old, black and white, straight and gay.  Scores of approving young spectators pumped their fists enthusiastically and screamed unintelligible words of excitement as Mars compassionately sang his touching hit “Marry You” from Doo-Wops and Hooligans, which garnered numerous accolades including “Best Song To Propose To” at the People’s Choice Awards of 2012 and conversely “Most Unimaginative Song To Propose To” at the same year’s Golden Raspberry awards.

The PTC aren’t alone in their agenda to censor or penalize events like this that occur during the typically raunchy halftime show, being joined by entertainment watchdog publications like Plugged In and EvangelicalWeekly as well as by radio talking heads like Rush Limbaugh, an avid follower of the football industry who pointed to the incident as another sign of a liberal conspiracy to “chickify” the traditionally masculine sport.  Much to the disappointment of them all, though, the FCC issued a notice late Monday night declaring that they would not pursue charges against any parties involved in the on-screen weddings.

“The Commission already has its hands so full enforcing legitimate censorship, upholding fairness in public discourse, encouraging diversity of thought on broadcast networks, and generally protecting 1st amendment freedoms that it would be very ill advised to divert resources and funds away from its duties with minor offenses by Bruno Mars and other artists, including Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis, Beyonce, Bono, M.I.A., and Lindsey Stirling.  If we were to pursue relatively trivial cases like these, then we might miss an opportunity to prevent or quickly respond to a true national emergency – for instance, someone having a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ and flashing a human breast on national television for half a second.”

The disclosure also stated that to levy fines against Fox for the unforeseen display would fall outside the FCC’s legal jurisdiction, as the Supreme Court has formerly ruled that officiating same-sex marriages on live, primetime television is behavior protected explicitly under the constitution.  In an additional slap to all the families who filed complaints, they argued: “Although we sympathize with the many viewers who took offense at this Super Bowl’s halftime show, we also extend our sympathies to those in the gay community who have endured far steeper offenses and so long felt like they’ve been locked out of heaven.”

The news comes as a victory to proponents of LGBT rights and free speech activists.  George Soros of Media Matters said that, “This episode illustrates a key distinction between supporters of democracy and the far-right.  When a liberal doesn’t like a show, he changes the channel.  When a conservative, for example Rush Limbaugh, doesn’t like a show, he tries to shut it down and silence it.”

In a series of tweets, Arianna Huffington, creator of the consumer-ranked most popular liberal blog and 66th most popular blog behind The Files and other notable publications, praised the announcement and the socially conscious move on the part of Mars and the NFL.

“#BrunoMarsHalftime will go down one of most amazing and unforgettable ever.  @BrunoMars right up there at the top with @Madonna, @Beyonce, @Janet Jackson, and The Who.”

“So happy to see @Bruno Mars using his fame to affect [sic] #progress and tolerance.  No matter who you love, love yourself #JustTheWayYouAre.”

“Don’t worry, Bruno.  #Hatersgonnahate.  You’ll be on #therightsideofhistory someday.”

As a fellow icon in modern American journalism, the Author immediately contacted Ms. Huffington by email to ask if Fox and the NFL sent mixed and/or logically contradictory messages by playing a U2 commercial promoting the “fight” against AIDS right before playing a Bruno Mars commercial promoting the “fight” for homosexual unions.  He’s still waiting for her reply.



Update: Huffington responded by asking if the Author was aware that the U2-sponsored (Red) Project is mainly about preventing the transmission of AIDS from infected mothers to newborn children, which he was not.  99% of the time, he’s right all of the time.  It’s the 1% that proves his human fallibility.






Staff postscript: Before you all start hating on George and complaining about how he hijacked this website, take comfort in knowing that the next post will be written by the Author.

Author’s postscript: And, yes, to all you snarky, smartalecky readers, I am aware that Lindsey Stirling made a Bruno Mars video.  How unspeakably foolish of you to think otherwise or assume that I forgot about it.  Don’t you know I would give her all I have even if she tossed it in the trash – yeah, I would die for her, baby!

The Author's Playlist – The Youtube Edition

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The Piano Guys have at least two factors conspiring against their success from the very get-go.  For one, they make no pretenses about the five of them being anything other than piano Guys, and not in the gender-ambiguous Five Guys Burgers And Fries sense but in the Drink Beer With The Guys sense (not that any of them likely drink, as I think they’re all fairly conservative Mormons).  Older men – boring.  Secondly, all their instruments of choice are way too bulky to play and dance with in inclement weather at the same time, which puts their music channel at a severe competitive disadvantage against some other unnamed, hypothetical person who might try to implement this crazy, hypothetical idea of playing a classical instrument while dancing in the rain, snow, wind, or fire.  In fact, such are the drawbacks of the piano and cello that their performers have little liberty even to stand vertically while playing them.  Sitting – boring.  Fortunately Youtube doesn’t censor videos for being boring (only for being offensive and politically incorrect), as the Piano Guys’ music is brimming with passionate force and offers an infectious blend of music new and old that we’d probably never have heard if not for the internet and the opportunities it grants to the self-made artist.

Both of the Piano Guys’ albums (excepting the Christmas one they recently released, which I haven’t bought because I’d only listen it one month and then shelve it the rest of the year) feature songs from a wide array of genres and time periods, but the premise of their work is mostly consistent throughout.  Steven Sharp Nelson plays the cello – acoustic, electric, steel, and every other variety – Jon Schmidt plays the piano – acoustic and, eh, just that – Al van der Beek plays the arranger, and Paul Anderson plays the camera; together they write original music and produce uniquely classical covers of film scores and of occasionally crappy Top 40 tunes (*coughOne Directioncough*), often synthesizing the contemporary song with an obscure but somewhat similar composition by Beethoven, Bach, or another of the greats.  It’s a curious idea that usually works pretty well in execution, not the least because the Guys understand how to convey the joy and energy that runs through popular music without soiling the melodies by annoying vocals.  I used to think that many of the songs treated herein are fundamentally and irredeemably obnoxious, but the truth is that they just needed a better artist to perform them.

The most impressive staple of Nelson’s and Schmidt’s style is that they so flawlessly replicate the sound of a full band or even orchestra using just two instruments and minimal vocal backup; you could hardly guess it merely from hearing the songs alone, but all the percussion elements of the group’s music are produced by Nelson’s rhythmic tapping against the chassis of his cello, sometimes in conjunction with a small kick drum.  Certain commenters have accused the Guys of “molesting a piano” in order to achieve a similar effect for some of their videos, a comparison that’s not too inadequate considering the almost intimate bond they share with their tools of trade.  Whether scratching, plucking, strumming, drumming, bowing, or doing a combination of them all by utility of numerous recordings and overlays, Nelson consistently draws a diverse and entrancing range of sound from his strings, and Schmidt’s achievement with the piano is just as impressive, pulling off both fast-paced and spirited compositions like the Charlie Brown Medley or his own All Of Me and slower, more somber songs, the ilk of which is represented by A Thousand Years and Just The Way You Are.

Actually, that last title is one of the few problems with both albums, which is that a couple of the tracks are unduly sluggish and boring.  I found this nuisance to be slightly more prominent on the second CD than on the first, in part because I personally think the Guys’ covers are more intriguing than their originals and in part because songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star should have been thrown in the trash bin of ideas from the very start.  There’s only so much one can do with something so structurally simple.

Regardless of some occasional tedium, the Piano Guys have nonetheless turned out two thematically rich and universally appealing albums that encompass nearly the whole spectrum of music classical to present.  They may not number among the most skilled artisans of their craft, but one can easily count them among the most original, creative, and eclectic.  And that’s what makes them beautiful.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, that was a really corny close.

Been here, seen this.

Easily the finest of their videos – maybe even of their songs – and yet I have no idea what the two of them are trying to accomplish.  I kind of want to bow-slap that one-eyed villain at the end, though.

But this one has the most views.  Oh well.

Dramatic Song – Recommended informally by the Middle Dude

Some singles are so obvious by nature that one doesn’t even need to hear them in order to accurately predict their subject matter or arrangement.  The indie cult classic Roar is a prime example of these songs, leaving such an impression by its very title that the perceptive listener can foretell exactly what singer Katy Perry is going to do in it without hearing a note.  Likewise, the Grammy-nominated country hit This Ain’t A Love Song from up-and-coming band Bon Jovi is so self-explanatory that it makes all efforts at critical description seem redundant and silly.  And so the dice roll with Toby Turner’s viral music video Dramatic Song, a ballad that’s suitably if disappointingly dramatic and does a pretty impeccable job of translating itself for my convenience, not that I will allow it to do so.

Toby, A.K.A. Tobuscus, is known chiefly for cutting through the platitudes and theatrics of self-serious media trailers to spell out in clear, direct English what’s literally happening on-screen, the unveiling of which is usually laughable next to the heroics suggested by the editing and music.  Here he applies a slight twist on that principle to the platitudes and theatrics of self-serious pop songs, by spelling out not what the artists are singing but how.  The problem is that while Toby thoroughly understands the history and science of the emo music genre, he doesn’t quite have the performance aspect of it down pat, being quite clearly a comedian by occupation rather than a tragedian.  Listening to his strained efforts at real drama is about as uncomfortable as watching gunphobic funny man Jim Carrey in the philosophically and politically provocative Truman Show; you know he shouldn’t be doing this stuff, but it’s hard to avert your eyes all the same.  Try as he might, Toby can’t belt out a chorus that “sounds like Coldplaaaaay” and only the most musically starving of foreign grandmas would love this song.

With all the heart and personal experience they poured into this soul-jerking single, Team Tobuscus would probably go far writing a whole album of Dramatic Songs, but in the future they should leave the production and lead vocals to more experienced emo singers.  I would literally buy many more of these, provided they got some emo violinists to play backup parts.  Or just do the whole thing.  Dramatically.

The Fox (What Does The Fox Say?) –

Aside from Cee Lo Green’s Forget You and Beyonce’s Single Ladies/Shoulda Put A Ring On It, there aren’t many high-profile songs that go by more than one name.  For Ylvis’ runaway electronic smash, it’s only appropriate that The Fox have a subtitle because its nature is such that people will observe it through one of two lenses, either uncomprehending indignation or conscious adulation.  Having listened to and watched the video a dozen times, I think I prefer the latter perspective.

I was one of the first couple million to hear the controversial tune, encountering it on talk radio about two or three days after it launched its storm of the Youtube.  Of course, the full method of the song’s madness didn’t reveal itself to me until I watched the video, which is populated with all manners of challenging and ethereal imagery, from the dancing CG fox and reading grandpa to the parade of grotesquely distorted two-legs at the beginning.  Many cultural commentators instinctively compared the absurdity of The Fox to the prior year’s oddball phenomenon Gangnam Style, but the two have virtually nothing in common upon closer introspection.  Whereas Gangnam Style was begotten of genuine, accidental stupidity and a puerile obsession with adult anatomical functions, The Fox is a consummation of deliberate, gloriously satirical stupidity and a sharp awareness of electronica’s artistic and intellectual defects.  The point of the song, that catchy beats and flashy visuals can easily lull people to overlook even the most inane and nonsensical words, has only acquired new significance after Daft Punk’s entrancing but mind-numbingly idiotic Get Lucky won them a fistful of Grammys.

The truth may be an ancient mystery to these guys, but I will proudly admit to knowing WTFox says in its entirety.  What Ylvis’ somewhat more profane and politically tinged Massachusetts video is saying will probably baffle me until the end of my days.  If you haven’t found it yet, don’t; if you have, please share any theories you might have to its meaning in the comment box below.

Wrecking Ball by EdBassmaster – Suggested by Aaden

Actually, it’s a Miley Cyrus song, but you couldn’t infer that by watching this because it’s way better than the original.  When Miley tries to forcibly inject feeling and sexiness into her music videos, they emerge as something definitively not so, but everything this guy sings is raw, natural, and believable, like a wrecking ball to my emotional gut, so harshly beautiful it wrenches tears from my eyes.  Auto-tune and ballstialty be damned.

The $#*! that people do for attention.

I had initially planned on including more artists in this issue, but jamming so many talented people into one post would compel me to either far exceed my 3-4 videos/post cap or cut the Piano Guys and everybody else short by stealing just one video from each of their channels.  Part 2 will follow the next two posts of the Author’s Playlist.

Anyway, one of these four three reviews is trolling you to a dramatic extent, which means you have at minimum a 33-67 shot at busting the troll even if you’re hopelessly daft.  Correctly identify it and that means you’re not a total idiot.  Oh, and I guess it means you can recommend something from your own playlist.  Incorrectly identify the mock review and that makes you… not the sharpest pencil in the stack.

Postscript apology: I may have spoken a little out of line on the Piano Guys’ videos.  Only a couple of them are totally boring and I actually had some difficulty narrowing my sample picks down to three.  In spite of Mission Impossible, Cello Wars, Rockelbel’s Canon, and Me And My Cello being the only ones so far that have anything resembling action or a plot, the Guys have actually transported their instruments to some visually incredible stages.  The deluxe edition of each album includes a DVD that collects the CD tracks’ associated videos, which is a pretty cool exhibit to go through once, although I’d probably indulge it more often had some other unnamed, hypothetical Youtube artist done the same thing.

No Same Love For White Rap From President

Obama pops Mackelmore’s tags in most emotional SOTUA yet

Article written by George Stefano Pallas.  Views, bad writing, and horrible rap allusions expressed by the author are his alone and do not necessarily reflect nor should be construed as those of the Author, unless they’re directly attributed to him, in which case he accepts full responsibility for his transgressions and apologizes for being acquainted enough with the subject to make them in the first place.

In his annual state of the union address, President Barack Obama touched on many pressing issues that still face America in the wake of the preceding administration, from creating a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, closing the economically troubling wealth gap, making universal access to health care a reality, ensuring that all workers can receive a living wage, and taking firm action against climate change, but possibly the most unexpected and impassioned highlight of his speech came when he broached the racial controversy over white privilege in contemporary rap culture.

He has been called the first hip-hop president by many political analysts, having fondly spoken of the genre’s prevalence on his iPod and utilized the sway of acclaimed rappers like Ludacris, Jay-Z, and Kanye West to his advantage in the historic 2008 election, but Obama nonetheless insists that recent events have demonstrated an upsetting trend in the industry away from its colored roots.  “Hip-hop has always been an African-American art form,” said the President Tuesday night.  “Trying to just cut out the cultural background of this music as though that identity never existed is like trying to erase the discrimination and hate endured by millions of African-Americans prior to the civil rights movement; it doesn’t work and it only fosters ignorance.”

The President’s remarks appear to have been formed directly in response to Seattle-based hip-hop duo Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis’ sweeping victory at the 56th Grammy Awards last weekend.  Both artists are white and picked up all the awards in traditionally black-dominated categories, winning Best Rap Song for their hit take on “Thrift Shop”, beating out Jay-Z, Drake, Kanye West, and Kendrick Lamar for Best Rap Album, and even triumphing over the final rapper for the highly coveted Best New Artist prize.

The outcome immediately provoked furious rants on the internet about the ramifications of honoring white performers for black artistry, rounded off with accusations that the judging committee made “the safe choice” by favoring the Caucasian group.  Even with the rise of Eminem, white hip-hop has always borne a social stigma for its perceived degradation of ebonics and the fact that the “N-word” factors so heavily into its beats, and the Grammys has only exacerbated animosity towards the genre.

Mackelmore himself, who once wrote a song lamenting that the white face could so readily appropriate the black genre, issued an open apology to Lamar on Instagram for exploiting his pale complexion to cheat the “good kid, m.A.A.d city” rapper out of his rightful distinction.  “Sorry for being white, man.  You got robbed.”  Last year, the progressive singer confessed to Rolling Stones that his skin color has played a key factor in his success, saying, “If you’re going to be a white dude and do this (unprintable), I think you have to take some level of accountability… I do think we have benefited from being white and the media grabbing on to something… even though I’m cussing my (unprintable) off in the song – the fact that I’m a white guy – parents feel safe.  They let their six-year-olds listen to it…”  But sometimes even the most heartfelt apology isn’t sufficient to make amends, as the case has proven with Obama and white rappers at large.

The President contended that hip-hop poseurs “recall all the most hateful and disgusting aspects of blackface and should be renounced by anyone who, like myself, supports love and equality for all people, no matter what their skin color is, what god they worship, or who they love.  Professor Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis are clearly smart men and good guys whose music is having a positive impact on a lot of young people, but, as an African-American, it pains me especially that they would strive to spread a message of tolerance with the gay community by demeaning the black community.  Obviously I’m disappointed in them; I’m even more disappointed in those who would reward such an insensitive delivery for such an important message.”

Mr. Mackelmore and Mr. Lewis weren’t the only white musicians that Obama targeted yesterday evening.  Although he didn’t specifically enumerate anyone else in his emotionally charged monologue, the 6-year incumbent later went on air with his old pal Jimmy Fallon to take aim at Eminem, who has claimed front stage in a number of performances with the ethnically ambiguous Rihanna, the now retired Beastie Boys who started the whole affair, and Pitbull.

Obama didn’t settle to rebuke Mackelmore and his relatives merely for usurping the trade of his black brothers and sisters, lambasting them also for assuming a guise of public commitment while privately amassing vast sums of wealth through their divisive music.  “For a guy who’s only got $20 in his pocket, Mr. Haggerty has profited immensely from preaching antipathy to those who are not like him,” said the first black president of the United States, segueing into a plea for economic justice.

“This is exactly why I support raising the minimum wage for hard-working Americans, so that no one has to live in poverty while fat-cat rappers bring in millions of dollars that they don’t need.  As members of the American family, we often assume the ceiling can’t hold us, that we can rise as high as we want by our own initiative, but eventually enough is enough.  People like myself and Haggerty and Lewis don’t need another tax break, and I remain committed to making sure that everybody gets a fair shake and does a fair share.”

Although half of the assembly present and John Boehner rose to their feet in deafening applause at this point, it remains to be seen whether Obama’s fiery speech will rekindle his waning influence among the traditional hip-hop singers who fueled his campaign for office, along with notable figures like Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton, and Samuel Jackson.  Kanye West in particular has had a kind of falling-out with his former idol, using an industry simile to illustrate their current relationship.  “Obama was supposed to be the coolest person on the planet – now he gotta say our names to be cool.  It’s like a feature; we feature in his interviews right now. They need a feature from us to get relevant.”

One of Obama’s top supporters.  “I’mma let you finish, but Beyonce had the best music video of ALL TIME!”

This comes shortly after Obama declared Kanye’s music “outstanding” and complimented him for bringing awareness to minority oppression with the anti-Illuminati protest song “New Slaves” (“Yeah they confuse us with bull____ / Like the New World Order / Meanwhile the DEA / Teamed up with the CCA / They tryna lock n_____s up / They tryna make new slaves) and to sexual assault with the now famous pro-women’s rights music video “Bound 2”,  in which he and Kim Kardashian lay their true love bare on a motorcycle for all to see.

Another one of Obama’s top supporters, and his wife.  This was the only photo from their Grammys ‘performance’ that passed muster under our PG-13 test.

One of the President’s biggest celebrity representatives, Jay-Z also criticized Obama’s reaction. “Me and Obama, we’re really tight, like we text each other all through the damn night.  He’ll say this and I’m like, ‘Word, brother.’  But he took it way too far this time, muh_____.  They say imitation the sincerest form of flattery.  Mackelmore, Lewis, they ain’t mocking me.  Ball so hard.  This ____ crazy, uh!”

The American Civil Liberties Union immediately leapt to the defense of card-carrying (literally) member Mackelmore, decrying Obama’s rhetoric as a verbal assault on his right to free expression.  White House press secretary Jay Carney defused these claims with the explanation that, “President Obama fully respects the right of artists to sing about social issues that concern them, just as he respects the right of anti-Islamic indie filmmakers to make whatever crude, disgusting, or offensive slanders they please.  There’s no doubt that there’s some folks who just really dislike Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis because they don’t like the idea of a white rapper.  Now, the flip side of it is there are some black folks and maybe some white folks who really like Mackelmore and Ryan Lewis and give them the benefit of the doubt precisely because they’re white rappers.”

The Author declined to watch the Grammys in full or part on the basis that they’re fast deteriorating into “kiddie porn” and “GLAAD-tailored propaganda”, but he too had an abundance of critical words for M&RL.  “Granted that we disagree on about 99% of public debates, there’s a certain satisfaction in being able to meet with Obama that 1% of the time.  Kanye West is a jackass, white gangster rap is utterly disrespectful and obscene, and Mackelmore is the dumbest, most inarticulate pile of Truther manure left of… well, left of everybody really.  The dope’s a broken keyboard, reeking of R. Kelly’s sheets, arraying himself in better artists’ clothes that he picked up for 99 cents: even his closest followers acknowledge that his top single is just a lame, profanity-laced cover of a vastly superior Tyler Ward/Lindsey Stirling title.  Hey, Mac – go officiate some ‘gay weddings’ and leave the music to those who can play a real instrument.  Or, you know, sing.  Or, you know, look increeeedible…”

[InsertobligatoryLindseyStirlingThriftShopvideohere]

Addendum by the Author: Just kidding.  If I plugged Lindsey into every single post, it would quickly cease to be very funny or attractive, unlike… well, yeah.  Look, it’d be reaaaally awkward, is what I’m trying to say.  No worries, though.  I have at least three more topical plugs waiting in the wings.

Correction from the editing staff: Even though Obama did single Pitbull out as a “white rapper” on the Late-Night Show, the “Timber” artist is actually a Cuban-American who incidentally has a light skin hue; we should have reported this distinction as such in the original version of the article.  The staff of the Files apologizes on behalf of George Pallas for any confusion this error might have wrought.

Notice to concerned parties: Yes, the Author did survive the State of the Union drinking game last night, though he was only barely able to get this article up afterwards.  George Pallas abstained because he had to attentively observe and record the address live from the Capitol floor.

Just watched it again.  On reconsideration, this is too good not to plug.  And she sings/raps in it.  *Swoon*

3 Stinkers – Hi Yo Silver, Away With Thee

Mainstream movie critics had an abundance of harsh words to say about Disney’s 2013 reboot of the Lone Ranger franchise, but their three main contentions essentially boiled down to these: “The Lone Ranger is racist and intolerant of differing cultures”, “The Lone Ranger is overlong”, and “The Lone Ranger features way too much shooting, killing, stabbing, and cannibalizing for its PG-13 rating and family-friendly source material”.  In a rare convergence of opinion, I would like to second these shrewd observations and offer the sincerest of compliments to those normally tasteless commentators who so often lead gullible moviegoers astray.  The Lone Ranger is a deeply racist and vile propaganda piece brimming with resentment and cynicism, directed not so much against Native-American tribes as against “the white man” and Christianity.  At two and a half hours in length, The Lone Ranger is a disgrace to all epic westerns that preceded it, not because it has a daunting run time but because the writers can’t think of anything meaningful, exciting, or even humorous to put in it.  More so than Man of Steel, the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, and just about every other supposedly kid-friendly movie that turned out not to be, The Lone Ranger is needlessly gruesome, takes itself so seriously as to be painful, and has an exorbitantly high body count, which isn’t inherently bad when the director knows what kind of movie he’s making but really rubs viewers the wrong way when he clumsily tries to alternate between moments of cartoony comedy, FX-driven adventure, and revenge drama.  All these complaints are legitimate and damning in themselves, but I feel compelled to add a fourth, namely that The Lone Ranger is gravely and unforgivably insulting to my intelligence, a stupid movie produced by a cast, crew, and studio who arrogantly assume that I’m stupid enough to accept even the lowest trash as entertainment.

The Lone Ranger employs a story-within-a-story device that should be all too familiar to anyone who has seen The Princess Bride or Life of Pi; in this case the audience is a little boy dressed as a ranger of ye old westerns and the narrator is an elderly Indian museum dummy who just magically springs to life upon the boy’s examination and claims to be “the Tonto”.  Yeah right, the young actor scoffs in an expression that I think is disbelief, and so the makeup-smothered Johnny Depp proceeds to recount an origin story of good men, bad men, sword fights, monsters, true (adulterous) love, and the rest, but we’ll get to that last bit later.  Of at least three problems with this framework, the first is that the kid who plays the boy can’t act, rendering his intrusive scenes opposite an even-weirder-than-usual Depp all the more intolerable.  Secondly, for those few wary movie connoisseurs who do look into this garbage, the storytelling old-timer refrain does little but stir distracting memories of those aforementioned masterpieces, thereby inviting mental juxtapositions of a truly contrived and shallow relationship with truly endearing and memorable ones (at least in Princess Bride; I myself didn’t care much for the trick in Life of Pi).  By setting itself up for comparison to such giants of romance and adventure, The Lone Ranger only makes its shortfalls all the more blatant.  Finally, giving Tonto – or Depp, as I shall henceforth call him out of respect for the character – free rein to direct the movie’s events however his unstable mind imagines they happened essentially gives the screenwriters a license to disregard all rules of plausibility, realism, and credibility in their narrative, a license which they exploit to the fullest.

Subpoint a) Chained together by one of many really bad guys in the movie, Depp and the future lone ranger race across one of many runaway trains in the movie to be violently ejected from the top when it derails.  Somehow they survive the initial explosion and potentially bone-fracturing collision with the ground, coming unscathed to a stop against a wall, but they’re still bound and one of the carriages is hurtling towards them at high speed.  Fortunately, a spinning metal beam falls right out of the sky and penetrates the dirt directly between the two, conveniently smashing the chain restraining them and forcing the train car to halt a couple feet from the invincible heroes.  Phew!  For a second there I thought the poster characters were going to die in the first 20 minutes of the feature.

Subpoint b) The lone ranger gets shot and comes back to life, because he’s that good.

Subpoint c) The lone ranger runs into the plain sight of three hostile gunmen and tries to talk them out of a fight, at which point they fire in unison at the open door that frames him not ten yards away.  Naturally, being bad guys, they all miss.

Subpoint d) A pack of mutated CG rabbits gather around a campfire at night to devour one of their own with razor-sharp teeth.

Subpoint e) A woman climbs around the outer side of a train moving at high velocity, then later gets thrown halfway out of another train by a bad guy, but her dress catches on something and saves her life, much to the ranger’s relief.

Subpoint f) For the sake of time and pixels, let’s just say that all the train sequences in this movie depict physically impossible stunts and ask the viewer to suspend disbelief to a level that’s not even funny.  Take the most ridiculous fight in POTC, the duel on the revolving wheel in the jungle for instance, double the absurdity, remove the witty and likeable characters, and you have The Lone Ranger from start to finish.

Subpoint g) Silver the stallion opens and imbibes a bottle of beer, gallops across a flaming roof, literally flying over obstacles, and stands upright on a tree branch some 15 feet above the ground.  “Something very wrong with that horse,” intones Depp.  More like, “something very wrong with this movie.”  The grave error of setting such an unreliable, mentally off-kilter, and, um, dead a narrator loose to exaggerate the truth however he wilt – to “season the truth with little lies”, as Mr. Eugene Krabs would have it – is that the reality of the story’s events must become so twisted and indistinct in the eyes of viewers that none can invest the slightest care in the characters’ outcomes.

Perhaps I should summarize the plot.  Armie Hammer from Aaron Sorkin’s Facebook Movie and Clint Eastwood’s J. Edgar Was Gay plays John Reid, a pathetically unmanly and physically hapless lawyer who eschews the Bible in favor of John Locke’s Treatises on Government (two completely unrelated and mostly irreligious documents by a philosopher who was anything but an Atheist) and is ever trying to catch up to his older brother, a hardened ranger with a hottie of a wife.  If you’ve ever seen the movie Twins, then you can think of the elder Reid as Arnold Schwarzennager and the younger as Danny DeVito.  The former got all the good blood while the latter got stuck with whatever undesirable stuff was left over, or so it initially appears.  As it turns out, John – or Hammer, as I shall also continue to call him out of respect for the character – is a “spirit walker”, meaning he’s a great warrior who literally cannot die in battle, which is overall a nice asset to possess in a big-budget summer flop where one’s life is perpetually endangered by gunfire and various exploding or crashing things.  The Reid brothers’ competition is brought to a premature conclusion when a brutal villain named Butch Cavendish ambushes the two in a canyon, putting an end to the one who can actually brandish a gun and giving the one who can’t a motive to learn how.

In fact, Butch has shot and butchered countless people throughout his life, all for the sake of securing enough money to get a replacement set of teeth, or so I infer, as he’s not exactly the handsomest hunk to roam the wild west.  That he has a hankering for eating the hearts of his victims doesn’t do much to compliment his already sordid reputation.  Verily, we can only recoil in disgust with Hammer as he beholds the animal utilizing his still living brother as an opportunity to practice his carving skills, which would be a emotionally poignant moment if the rest of the movie weren’t so pervasively comic and weightless in tone and if the writers had taken any pains for basic character development.  After an obligatory pep talk with Johnny Depp, Hammer becomes obsessed with bringing Cavendish to justice, and he’ll never tire of verbally reminding us so, just as all the other characters never grow weary of calling him “the wrong brother”, noting that the hot widow’s scarf matches her eyes, or pontificating about the significance of a singular silver bullet within western mythology.  Even when it isn’t alluding to or just copying scenes from A Fistful of Dollars, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, Batman Begins, or the director/writer team’s previous collaborations in POTC (especially At World’s End), Lone Ranger so frequently beats its audience over the head with symbols and motifs as to be egregiously condescending.

Possibly the greatest point of difference between the original radio/TV drama and this revisionist drivel is that the lone ranger and Tonto were actually good guys back in the day.  Having seen only a handful of the old episodes, I can nonetheless aver that the two always stood up for the weak and defenseless, respected women, fought valiantly for peace and justice, scorned personal temptations such as taking vengeance against their enemies, and in brief did all things that befitted a man of chivalry and honor.  Rugged virility and the clash between good and evil men have ever been common themes of the western genre, and The Lone Ranger show largely reflected that tradition, whether or not it did so very professionally.  Elliot/Rossio/Verbinski, on the other hand, thought it would be more interesting to weave a story of good guys who are only marginally less loathsome than the bad guys, wherein Depp’s Tonto is a recognized client of a seedy whorehouse who plots to avenge his Comanche tribe over the blood of the wendigo white man and Hammer’s ranger lusts after his brother’s wife, eventually winning a kiss from her after he majestically rides in on a green screen to save the day.  Even the brothel-attending Indian can tell that’s perverted.

The most offensive thing about Tonto’s portrayal in the picture has nothing to do with ‘whitewashed’ casting or the dead bird crowning his head, which is partially the result of a rather traumatic childhood and partially a reminder of the debt he owes his people, but that the writers draw him as a stupid and unprincipled savage.  Likewise, the worst thing about this incarnation of the lone ranger isn’t Hammer’s inability to act or to maintain a fake cowboyish accent consistently but that he typifies the metrosexual archetype that liberal Hollywood is gradually coming to embrace as a worthy substitute for the man of muscle and action.  At the apparent ‘climax’, Tonto makes a rare display of inner wisdom, confronting Reid’s cowardice with this forceful condemnation: “You are not a man.”  Never was a word uttered more true in this sorry picture of broken masculinity, and what a miserable truth it is that Helena Bonham Carter outmans the lone ranger tenfold.  She plays a prostitute for about five minutes on-screen and was apparently hired for the sole purpose of shooting at an overly pushy guy with her boot gun and yelling, “No free ‘rides’, gentleman!”  Ha ha.  I get it.  That was almost as funny as Sofia Vergara’s boob gun in Machete 2, which critics loved if only because it appealed more directly to their sophomoric mentalities and because she’s a HispanicLatinoSomething star in their favorite gay propaganda show.

I could ramble on about all the cheap potshots Lone Ranger takes at Christianity, Caucasians, and American exceptionalism, but others have already documented these things at length and I won’t do the movie any favors by restating old findings about the bitter contempt it exudes for this country.  One can only wonder if the screenwriters saw or heard a single episode of the source before taking up their pens.   Just in the nick of time before the credits roll, Hammer delivers a much needed nod to the classic series in the way of a hearty Hi Yo, Silver, to which Depp retorts in deadpan horror, “Never do that again,” before limping off into the horizon as a drunken old man – an image that could easily be interpreted as a symbolic stand-in for the movie.

I agree with Tonto.  Never do this again, Disney/Bruckheimer.  You have produced probably the most abhorrent, insensitive, ill-mannered, pointless, and thematically confused Utah/Arizona/California/New Mexico/Texas travel brochure in the history of film.  All those states deserve and have received far better treatments from the Coen Brothers, John Ford, George Ray Hill, and a bunch of Youtubers who have nowhere near $250M to burn.  Would that I had some new Lindsey Stirling and Piano Guys music videos to cleanse my mind of this train wreck, but alas, I have completely run out of both*.  Oh well.  Unlike Tonto, his Kemosabe, Butch Cavendish, and pretty much every other character in this visual bloodbath, watching listening to the following performances for the 6th time never killed anybody.

Depp: “Good shot.” [referring to a fatal ricocheting bullet chain reaction pulled by the ranger, the like of which is only possible in stupid action movies that defy the laws of physics]

Hammer: “That was meant to be a warning shot.”

Depp: “In that case, not so good.”

Grade rating: C-.  About as funny and charming as Butch’s cross-dressing right-hand bandit.  “I just like them pretty things.”

22,450,000 views and 263,000 likes.  That means this sold about twice as many plane tickets to the great southwest as The Lone Ranger.

No, there aren’t any sweeping Utah mountainscapes in Assassin's Creed III, nor did the redcoats ever come close to setting foot in Utah, but who cares about accuracy when the video has Lindsey Stirling in it?  Only 12,000,000 views for this one but probably thrice as many plane tickets.

*OK, I haven’t completely run out of Piano Guys videos.

Unrelated side-comment: I’m rooting for the team that isn’t from the People’s Republic of Seattle.

Another unrelated side-comment: And the Grammy should go to… good grief, this is the very best you elites you could scavenge out of last year’s musical treasure chest?  Daft Punk?  Who’s running this charade?  Whatever… give it to Sara Bareilles, then.  Mumblegrumblesostupid.

3 Stinkers – So Tall A Word For So Small A Movie

In his own words, WTF?!

One of the many prerequisites for a functional animated movie is a story that would hold up without animation.  This is not to say that all live-action films are necessarily superior to animated ones, nor to insinuate that all stories are more suited to live-action than animation, but only to point out that bright colors and buoyant characters alone are hardly sufficient props to support a motion picture.  Another basic rule governing animated and traditional movies alike is that they must retain even a semblance of logical coherency, no matter how fantastical their setting or incredible their heroics.  Blue Sky Studios’ Epic violates both of these rules with ease and commits so many cinematic infractions on the side that it will tire all but the most impressionable of children.  The reason why someone elected to tell a story of animated humans who live in animated homes next to an animated forest wherein dwell animated leaf people who ride animated hummingbirds and fight animated “boggons” is that the very idea of tiny nature people sharing the same planet with us lumbering, massive “stompers” is, for lack of a better word, a stupid premise, so stupid that it couldn’t possibly stand on its own without pretty CGI to mask all the faults behind its all too familiar plot.  I was already predisposed to hate this pile of three-legged dog crap just because it’s another issue in a long series of anti-capitalist, man-hating kiddie propaganda, but the blatant Environmentalist undertones of Epic are surprisingly the least of its offenses – the greatest being that it’s just dumb.

Epic’s origins are hard for me to pinpoint precisely without more thorough research on the creators’ sources, but if I had to speculate blindly I would guess that it stemmed from the drunken hangover of some guy who watched either Alice in Wonderland or James Cameron’s Avatar a few too many times.  Like a lot of lazy movies, it opens with a voiceover from the protagonist laying out in plain terms the subject matter of this particular kid flick.  We’ve all heard the cliché that “Mother Earth” is a living, breathing, evolving organism, arguably more alive than the good stewards who tend to it.  Epic conjectures that this cliché is literal fact: the forces of nature are embroiled in a mythic war of arbitrary good and evil whose outcome will ultimately determine the fate of all mankind, hence the movie’s assertive and by no means accurate title.  On one side of the conflict we have the noble, peace-loving insects, amphibians and leaves – everything that actually exists –, and on the other we have the bark-like, bat-riding boggons, who are bent on the total destruction of the world’s woodlands for no particular reason other than that they’re bad guys.

Scratch the sentence written a few arguments previously; the opening voiceover and rest of the movie never explain in plain terms what the heck a boggon is except to show they’re mean and ugly, nor does it illustrate how a certain Mr. Toad peacefully coexists with a certain mosquito confidante, nor does it articulate how a glowing, flowery “Pod” (it should have been called a Bud) that’s prized by the good guys can shrink a full-size human down to miniscule-size in a matter of seconds, nor does it establish a very scientific link between the tree critters’ destiny and man’s own, but we’ll get to all the other non-clarities in this mystery of a movie later.

“M.K.” looks like a student of college age who has no more urgent matters to attend to than visiting her loony single dad (is he divorced, widowed, or what?), who busies himself by maintaining a network of cameras so as to document an invisible civilization that lies deep within the beautiful and completely tranquil wilderness beyond his abode (The Village, this is not; Beowulf, this is not).  Her father lives as any paranoid, research-obsessed Hollywood-scientist who abandons his family to focus on work might be expected to, alone with nobody to comfort or amuse him but a three-legged dog which, like his office, his backyard, his car, his daughter, and all his surroundings, is completely computer-generated because the director was too dull-witted to consider that many real-world things don’t need to be animated and are better shot as is.  Take, for example, James and the Giant Peach, an admittedly forgettable movie that nevertheless mixed live-action photography with stop-motion animation to strong effect, or perhaps The Miracle Maker, which is entirely animated but intertwines stop-motion with more traditional, hand-drawn scenes to artistically distinguish Jesus’ parables from his own life.  But I digress.

One day our generic Hollywood heroine decides to go for a cathartic stroll in the forest, where she happens upon a little fairy (voiced by Beyonce of all the people who can talk into a microphone) who has been pierced in the chest by an arrow and now extends to her a magical shrinking flower that practically hollers Smell Me.  Disregarding that this is clearly an evolutionary offshoot of magical shrinking Eat Me cakes, M.K. smells the flower as it entreats her and immediately gets miniaturized into a realm of green-clad merry men.  For some reason, it takes her an incredibly long time to process this unfortunate development, even though the bushes and trees tower above her like the giant landmarks of Pandora and she is immediately taken into the custody of bird-mounting cavaliers and vaguely black, anthropomorphic slugs who evoke Star Wars’ dreaded Gungans in communicating with unmistakably inner-city accents and dialects.  Granting the filmmakers the benefit of the doubt, I’ll assume these worthless slimeballs were just a well intentioned but woefully counterproductive effort by the producers to inject racial ‘diversity’ into the cast by any means.

I started writing this review right around the movie’s halfway point before convincing myself to shelve it for two months before steeling myself to take it up again this Newyear, so the finer details of the plot are currently a little foggy in my mind, but I seem to recollect something about the bad guys wanting to steal the Pod for their nefarious purposes and the good guys having to stop them.  Along the way M.K. learns the profound Moral of the Story, that “just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t real”, and gets twitterpated with an obligatory romantic interest unlike any she’s met before.  “Let’s just say that men of his stature are in, hm, short supply.  A ha ha!”  Wrong fairy tale movie.  Cue Beyonce end credits song.

Speaking of Beyonce, she can’t play a computer-animated character, nor can any other member of the ensemble, which consists largely of B-list stars who have no prior experience in voice acting.  Unlike Jack Black, Mike Myers & Eddie Murphy, Patrick Warburton, Andy Serkis, Stephen Fry, Diedrich Bader, and a host of other actors whose voices have vividly defined and distinguished their animated roles, none of Epic’s cast members remotely stand out in their vocal presence, nor do I comprehend why any of them were sought out to work on a movie that’s ostensibly aimed at young children.  How many kiddies know who Steven Tyler, Pitbull, or Beyonce are, anyway?  How many ought to know?

Really.  Who was the ******* **** who thought this was a ******* good idea?

The cinematography camera work direction storyboarding is just as bland as the performances.  Some animators have harnessed the freedom of digital software to simulate camera movements so sweeping and complex that they would be effectively impossible in real life.  Exhibit A) of this kind is Dreamwork’s Kung Fu Panda, with How To Train Your Dragon trailing close behind; both films featured several spectacular tracking and spinning shots that wouldn’t be easily achievable with real camera gear.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, you have animators who deliberately try to minimize the impression of software upon their project’s cinematography.  Surf’s Up cleverly satirized documentary filmmaking by mimicking the handheld camera bobs and jerks that permeate the genre, while Rango paid homage to spaghetti westerns with its emphasis on still shots, broad landscape profiles, and dramatic framing.  Epic doesn’t faithfully observe either of these techniques, nor does it carve out a unique and interesting style to call its own other than a jarring preeminence of Anti-Physics.  In a home invasion sequence initiated by mini M.K. and her new mini pals, the filmmakers repeatedly demonstrate the Theory of Sizeist Relativity, which holds that bigger things always move slower than smaller things regardless of their actual velocities in respect to a common point. So what if the dog by virtue of its superior strength and length of stride would easily outrun the tiny leaf people?  Viewers don’t want to see a massive dog charge into its diminutive targets at high speed because that would be unexpected, and viewers generally buy tickets to see their expectations fulfilled, not to see realism.  Hence the dog running in slow-motion while all the microscopic heroes flee at normal speed. Again we witness the controversial Theory in numerous conversations held between toads, caterpillars, fruit flies, and gastropods that are all animated at roughly the same height and width but pale in comparison to the towering, carnivorous mice which prowl the wilder regions of the woods.

Actually, that part just makes no sense, kind of like all the energy I’ve expended by now to deconstructing the plotline and physics of a children’s cartoon, and a really lousy one at that.  For all its masquerading as an original film (based loosely on a literary masterpiece entitled “The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs”) in a deluge of uninspired sequels, Epic still felt like the same insipid CG fare I had gorged way too often throughout my youth, having some Tale of Despereaux here, some Lorax there, and some Bug’s Life and Thor (giant becomes small, fights little people’s battles, falls in love with a little person, kisses little person goodbye, returns to the giants’ world, and starts searching for a way back) spilled haphazardly all over the place, but never adding up to anything.  So derivative is the script that it even stoops to plagiarizing jokes from more adult-oriented pictures, viz. The Descendants.

“Your friend’s completely retarded, you know that?”

“Hey, I have a little brother who’s retarded/squashed by a stomper.  Don’t use that word in derogatory fashion.”

[A moment of awkward silence]

“I’m just kidding, I don’t have a retarded/squashed brother!”

Too bad a stomper didn’t, eh, stomp on this tripe before some boggon studio got a handle on it.

Grade rating: C