Cheap Trick

 

Whatever happened to all this season’s
Losers of the year
Every time I got to thinking
Where’d they disappear

Seriously, doesn’t Rick Nielsen remind you of “Howling Mad” Murdock? Am I alone on that? Probably. (He was actually emulating Huntz Hall, of the Bowery Boys.)

With the Hollywood Harassacre now claiming John Lasseter, I have decided to permanently break from Pixar’s efforts. It’s easy; they don’t make movies for me. They make movies for emotionally-stunted children and the parents tired of raising them. Just like Disney. Grown adults, second-guessing what children love based on their own arrested sexuality. Sorry, Coco. Your parents are too fucked up for me to pay you any mind whatsoever. Too bad you didn’t come out twenty years ago, when the studios weren’t yet overrun with the slime of humanity.

Remember how insanely popular The Matrix was?

Then it got two sequels, which literally almost no one liked.

Then its directors, the Wachowski Brothers, became the Wachowski Sisters.

Hey, great for them. That’s cool that they had the gross income to afford gender reassignment surgery, which no one else does. I mean, that’s what you do, right? When you become a successful movie director, you put your money into something that benefits you, and no one else. You know, the money you earned as a director. Why direct more and better movies? You got what you needed (read: wanted). How dare anyone accuse you of pushing an agenda with your movies? How dare they criticize you on any level?

Remember when Pixar was the “smart alternative” to Disney? I sure as fuck do.

I saw Toy Story on Christmas 1995, when a friend who worked at the Eisenhower cinemas let me theater-hop all day for free. I had just gotten divorced, and he was trying to keep me from walking in front of a train. I had been married for three and a half years, when my wife basically said “BTW I’m a lesbian, G2G”.

You know, 1995. Ellen DeGeneris “came out”, to feigned surprise. Kevin Smith deified “lipstick lesbians” with Chasing Amy. On NBC’s hit sitcom Friends, David Schwimmer’s girlfriend married a woman. So how could my ex-wife NOT treat the experience like a massive party; it clearly was, thanks to the media.

Here’s where you start devising reasons that I deserved it. I must have been in the wrong, yes? I’m the man. The same sex that created just about everything you use on a daily basis. I obviously earned aloneness on Christmas, watching movies in an empty theater to take my mind off the lie that I’d apparently lived for over three years.

Hey, maybe you’ll go so far as to track down and badger my ex-wife, to get all the dirty details on how I drove her to Sappho. That’s how sick you are. That’s the kind of thing you’d do to destroy me. That’s an accepted modus operandi in 2017. There was a divorce; clearly the man was at fault. Right? Isn’t that how you think?

If it is, kill yourself, so we can all have a good laugh.

I used to think Oliver Stone’s Platoon was a great movie. Now all I can think of is Charlie Sheen balls-deep in Corey Haim’s ass, plowing away. Corey allegedly liked it, and was shut out by Sheen when he came back for more. After that, Haim spiraled into drug abuse and insanity, and Sheen drowned any legacy he had with “tiger blood” and HIV. In ten years both actors will be forgotten.

Zach Galifianakis barred Mel Gibson from making a cameo in The Hangover sequels due to Mel’s anti-Semitic remarks while drunk. Zach was fine working with Louis CK, who as it turns out has been jacking off in front of women for years. Now that the awful truth is out, Zach’s show Baskets has been sacked. This is a shame, because Louie Anderson is terrific in it… as Zach’s zaftig mother.

In 1997, Louis Anderson was blackmailed by a crook who claimed Louie propositioned him for sex in a casino four years prior. Twenty years is apparently all America needs to forget things. See also: anyone who actually defends Hillary Clinton.

Back to Louis CK. I used to watch him all the time. I considered him the best comedian currently working. I quoted him. I recommended his comedy specials to friends.

I liked having him “on my side”. It was a good feeling. So much for all that.

Who’s the reptile now?

For years, I have disliked The TODAY Show’s Matt Lauer. I could not deduce the reason why. Turns out Lauer is so repulsive, he had a button that locked women in his office. This is why Jimmy Kimmel is acting like a saint. He’s waiting for that 20-year atom bomb, when someone in the media gets to his ex-wife or kids. He’s seen the writing on the wall, and knows that something from his tenure on The Man Show will be used against him.

This is why television always goes Puritanical. People are allowed to be openly sexual, so it can be used against them in the future. Especially if they plan to run for office. “Sir; did you or did you not force young women to jump on trampolines, causing their breasts to bounce suggestively, for money?”

It’s a cheap trick, but it works. Every time.

Is an actor, comedian, director or producer a powerful man? Then they can be destroyed, utterly, in the court of public opinion. Even without proof. Even before Louis CK admitted to his crimes, Tig Notaro vaguely alluded that he was a sexual predator, kicking the whole fiasco off. What incredible timing! Louis CK is a deeply flawed man who strove for understanding in his stand-up, through humor. He’s so smart and funny you don’t want to believe he’s a pervert who flashes his genitals at unwilling women.

Tig Notaro’s comedy routine entails flashing the unwitting audience her double-mastectomy scars, where her breasts once were. Crowd reactions are filmed, in case anyone needs to be “shamed” for showing disgust when laughter was expected/paid for. If you wanted to hear Tig’s “Taylor Dayne” bit, be sure to mask your disappointment. If you’re grossed out by major surgery or amputation, you’re clearly masking your blatant misogyny and disrespect. How dare you expect a comedian to make you laugh!

I like the movie Extract. It was produced by Miramax, a studio named after Miriam and Max, the parents of a serial rapist. It stars Ben Affleck, who’s been exposed as a groper to draw heat away from Harvey Weinstein. The most popular movie in the world will become dust against these kind of tricks.

Remember Amber Heard? She has a role in Justice League. She was the hottest thing going. Then she was a lesbian, to ward off male admirers. Then she married Johnny Depp. Then she faked a beating, complete with make-up black eye, to divorce him and take him for all he’s worth. Then it was all okay. Now she’s in Justice League.

You’re full of shit if you say you’d let a man get away with that. How about Kevin Spacey? How’s that creep doing right now? Oh, but Amber Heard’s so pretty, she has to be forgiven. Fuck you. DC and Warner Bros. have made billions off of Batman, a character whose true creator (Bill Finger) was only acknowledged mere years ago. Bob Kane was a talentless, ugly cock of an opportunist. God forbid we leave a lying slattern out of our Justice League flick.

Go ahead. Defend Pixar and John Lasseter. You’re only doing it because they’re familiar to you. Convenient to acquire. You don’t give a fuck about the nearly-dead art of animation. That’s why you know nothing about Rock & Rule. 

Rock & Rule (known as Ring of Power outside North America) is a 1983 Canadian adult animated musical science fiction fantasy film from the animation studio Nelvana, marking the first time the company has made an animated production for adults. It was produced and directed by the company’s founders, Michael Hirsh, Patrick Loubert, and Clive A. Smith. The film features the voices of Don Francks, Greg Salata, and Susan Roman. It was the studio’s first feature film and the first English language one produced entirely within Canada. [Wikipedia]

Before they were annihilated as a culture by their stooge prime minister, Canada was the nation to beat in animation. Each principal character in Rock & Rule has their own animator. As a result, each character has a personal, vivid aesthetic. Villain “Mok Swagger” has the most expressive lips in cartoon history, courtesy of Robin Budd. Chief protagonist Omar was rendered by Frank Nissen. Computers, still primitive in 1983, were only used to create special effects. That’s why no other animated film resonates like Rock & Rule, despite its arguable flaws in plot. The only way it promoted its studio was in its considerable display of talent. Behold: