-By Warner Todd Huston
I was tooling about the Internets looking for movie reviews and came across a hilarious example of “stupid is as stupid does” that I just couldn’t resist fisking here. It is on a flashy, kitchy site called ioncinema, presumably where the cool kids meet to find out about all that’s new in cinema and run by bunches and bunches of 20 somethings. There we see a featured post by one Eric Lavallee (apparently the site’s main honcho) that is so filled with grammatical errors and misspellings that it had me chuckling. But, the really hilarious thing is that the posting is one that attacks George W. Bush for being stupid. We can only assume that Eric the reviewer thinks he is smarter than W, but his horribly garbled writing sure doesn’t help us prove his superiority.
The posting is supposed to be a report of the upcoming Oliver Stone debacle “W,” a film that by all accounts badly mischaracterizes the presidency of George W. Bush. Naturally, our young Mister Lavallee takes the position that Bush was a “person who should stray [sic] away from big metaphors” and who “has trouble picking up after himself.”
Now, I don’t claim to be the king of grammar, but I try to clean up my work before it’s posted. But, well, this film site posting is so riddled with errors that, just for fun, I have to detail each one. And I probably missed a few myself.
[My corrections will be in brackets, by the way…]
Dub-ya: A Tragedy of Words to be Played out on the Big Screen
By Eric Lavallee
The heavy weight bout to take place on the 4th of November finally has its pair of marquee names confirmed. Hopefully, during the forthcoming six months-worth of trash talk between the Obama/McCain camps, the media won’t lose sight of the person who’ll be giving up the oval office seat .
[The “oval office seat”? That’s pretty clumsy. Most people just say “the Oval Office.” AND the “Oval Office” should be capitalized.]
What these two candidates are fighting for is someone else’s huge mess and come October, Oliver Stone’s already highly publicized W. will remind the world on the type of person who had trouble picking up after himself.
[That was just badly written. Also, the film is titled “W” and doesn’t need the period as Mr. Lavallee had it.]
Written by Stanley Weiser, this focuses on the life and presidency of George W. Bush and how he went from ‘being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world’.
[Period belongs inside the ending quotes.]
This shows Bush’s eventful life —
[“eventful”? Yeesh!]
his struggles and triumphs, how he found both his wife and his faith, and of course the critical days leading up to Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.
[This one is funny. Lavallee says “his” in each portion until he comes to “the critical days leading up to Bush’s decision to invade Iraq.” Why the “his” everywhere else in the sentence then the “Bush’s” at the end? Bad structure.]
Josh Brolin stars as George W. Bush, Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush, James Cromwell as father Bush, Ellen Burstyn as Barbara Bush, Thandie Newton as Condoleezza Rice, Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld, and Ioan Gruffud as Tony Blair.
[Sorry, Eric but the you misspelled poor Ioan’s name. It’s Gruffudd, not Gruffud. Two “d’s,” man, two. So much with your familiarity with up and coming actors. Does not speak well for your film authority my friend.]
Dick Cheney will be played by the recently announced Richard Dreyfuss.
[Um, “the recently announced Richard Dreyfuss”? Was he not Richard Dreyfuss before? Maybe it was only recently announced that he is Richard Dreyfuss? This line should have read “It was recently announced that Richard Dreyfuss will play Dick Cheney.”]
Rookie production company QED International (who financed the portrait of a man who cares very little about his legacy) showed up at the Cannes market with a film that made many people intially bulked at, but they found a domestic release partner in Lionsgate Films who might have something to cheer about in end October, this would be well-received news especially after the recent news of an ugly quarterly report.
[This is actually the line that had me look closer at this badly written posting: “…a film that made many people intially bulked at,” What the heck was that? Aside from the two misspellings , it’s initially and balked at not “intially” and “bulked,” what is with that mangled wording? “…in end October”? How about “in the end OF October,” Eric?]
Below we have some Cannes teaser artwork with many “Bush-isms” – a list of actual quotations that are indicative of the type of person who should stray away from big metaphors and should never stray away from the usage of cue cards.
[I am now convinced this guy does not know anything about English. “Stray away”? No, Mr. Lavallee, you mean stay away. At least he is consistently wrong because he says it twice.]
Ah, that was fun. I just love it when people attack Bush for being stupid by displaying their own stupidity!
Like I said, I am no grammar ace, but, sheese. This one takes the cake for finger pointing without cleaning up his own act first! Makes young Eric look the hypocrite claiming Bush is stupid when he can’t even write a simple Internet posting without a ton of errors, for sure.
Now, looking into Mr. Lavalle’s background, it seems he is a Canadian from Montreal. Perhaps he grew up with the sort of mangled French language spoken there and English is his second language? That might explain a few things. Still, it is awfully amusing to see someone present themselves so badly while trying to raise questions of someone else’s intelligence, isn’t it?
And one piece of advice from me to anyone out there that is conversant in more than one language. Stick with the one you are best at when making fun of others.
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Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer, has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and is featured on many websites such as newsbusters.org, townhall.com, New Media Journal, Men’s News Daily and the New Media Alliance among many, many others. Additionally, he has been a frequent guest on talk-radio programs to discuss his opinion editorials and current events. He has also written for several history magazines and appears in the new book “Americans on Politics, Policy and Pop Culture” which can be purchased on amazon.com. He is also the owner and operator of publiusforum.com. Feel free to contact him with any comments or questions : EMAIL Warner Todd Huston