Everyone knows about the phony newspaper called The Onion. I've always been a fan of their outrageously silly headlines and their political satire... at least until the "real" newspapers took their cue and then schooled them on the business of funny. Yes, ever since 911, this publication has stood by and allowed the mainstream media, not to mention the President himself, get all the laughs. When The Onion stopped being effectively satirical, it suddenly found itself on the wrong end of an irony. The laughter ended. Moisture began to form and trickle down the cheeks of The Lincoln Memorial, The Statue Of Liberty, and two of the faces on Mount Rushmore. Thanks a lot, The Onion.
Now, the latter part of the newspaper is a non-satirical entertainment section called The A.V. Club that features not only interviews, but reviews of various newly-released media, most notably - FILM REVIEWS!!! Serious film reviews by super-serious film reviewers. Boy did they drop the comedy ball there. Read this cold open from contributing Onion peel Nathan Rabin. It's from his review of the much anticipated and prematurely acclaimed "Once."
"John Carney's sadly beautiful Once is a musical for people who only think they hate musicals, and not just because it boasts virtues seldom associated with the genre, such as realism, intimacy, and low-key verisimilitude."Holy Thesaurus-busters! And does he really think that the "I hate musicals, but this one is different" line is going to wash with Irish indie-folk? This guy either wants to get laid or get discovered by the editor of another free paper. Who wants to get laid by a Frames groupie or by someone who buys their clothes at Whole Foods? Why doesn't he just scour the personal columns in the serious section of his own paper if he so desperately needs to get his rocks off? Jesus.
Note to Nathan: You're a pseudo-intellectual film critic. Under no circumstances, anywhere, anytime, will you ever be considered cool to any of these idiots. So, stop trying to please them. Let them smoke under the bleachers. You stay on the other side of the playground where you belong, playing Tetherball by yourself like the rest of us.
For some equally annoying cinema stoogery, let us turn to The Onion's Tasha Robinson and her opening. Minds out of the gutter, I was referring to the beginning of her Ratatouille review.
"Toward the end of Ratatouille, Pixar's latest animated romp, writer-director Brad Bird mounts such a cogent, feeling, pained deconstruction of professional criticism that viewers might almost suspect he's had problems with persnickety critics in the past."Okay, so they're not all super-serious over there at The Wacky Gazette. I mean, attributing the flawlessness of what might be the greatest animated masterpiece of the last year and a half to the ramblings of a grotesquely narcissistic group of lowlifes who have built their careers on a foundation of subjectivity? Now, that's funny!
Take note, The Onion. I will now engage the comedy rule of threes. To complete the hat-trick, I will go into raffle-mode, put my hand in the bowl of poopies, and pull out the name... drum roll, please... (drum roll)... Scott Tobias.
