guilty, guilty laughter
Monday 7 March 2005 | I like a cookie
So, I really should feel bad for laughing myself ill, and I mean tearily ill, over of all things Roger Ebert’s review of Constantine, which includes random penguin references (presumably because he saw the emperor penguin doc at Sundance). To be honest I don’t think Roger really wrote it—he uses the word “like” in the first paragraph which is to me a tip-off that he’s dead and, as with Russian premieres, the Chicago Sun-Times is trying to conceal this fact from us by having clever young Cintra wannabes write his reviews for him. You’re guaranteed to choke on your kettle corn when you read, “Since he was a child, he has been able to see that not all who walk among us are human. Some are penguins. Sorry about that. Some are half-angels and half-devils.” It’s worth living, to read such prose. If not to write it.
I find all this face-achingly hilarious, to say nothing of the creepy ads at the bottom of that same page:
Disturbing Ghost Footage
Warning: very freaky scary
crucifies.com
The Good News About Hell
No one goes to hell forever! Jesus Christ is saving All souls.
seejesuschrist.net
Constantine
A disturbing, yet provocative look at religion and spirituality.
explorefaith.org
Google thus almost give one the impression that Constantine may be doing as much for conversion as the newly recut The Passion of the Mel, which will probably earn another $370 million without too much difficulty, particularly as Mom and Dad can take the tots this time around to watch Jesus have his skin removed, one painstakingly incarnadined particle at a time (don’t forget those Academy Award nominations for cinematography and makeup!). I received an unusually annoying press release about all this last week, from which I must excerpt—note the gratingly familiar first-name-basis-dropping:
“We received many requests to re-release the film around the Easter holiday,” says Bruce Davey [president of Icon Productions]. “Mel (Gibson) decided he wanted to recut a version that appealed to a broader audience without compromising the integrity of the original film one bit.” “With THE PASSION RECUT, Mel has succeeded in creating an experience just as emotionally riveting and powerful as before,” says Bob Berney [president of Newmarket Films]. “The goal was to try and reach toward a PG-13 level, but the MPAA felt it still was an R due to the overall intensity of the film, so we are going out unrated and perhaps it’s ultimately somewhere in between. The end result is a shift in tone and balance that makes the film more accessible to a wider audience, particularly those that had concerns about some of the extreme moments in the original version.”
The urge to annotate and/or restate all this in non-euphemistic English is nearly irresistable, but I leave it to the reader’s imagination. Holy crucifixion—such tastelessness is hair-raising.
Despite Mel, despite Romanoffs, despite it all—today I love my job! Love it I tell you! Even though I got four hours sleep, fell asleep weeping all over N. at three a.m. (he, sound asleep, still holding on to me tightly though breathing in a way which the uncharitable might describe as snoring) and got up at seven to finish the Fear and Trembling review. Then crawled back into bed and cowered there (cf. Stupeur et tremblements, above) from 8:30 until 10:30, when N. waved cinnamon-dusted tortillas at me and I dressed and dragged my carcass into work, here to read the funniest review I’ve ever read by Roger Ebert.
Even though I don’t think he wrote it. I think he was briefly possessed by penguins. Or the ghost of Gene Siskel, putting in one last appearance.
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