Hornswaggler | The culture, the humor, a bit of the sports, not so much the politics, and the workplace distraction

Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" --

"I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!"

Hornswaggler
Culture, Humor, Sports
Workplace Distraction

Tuesday, October 29, 2002

Film Notes: "Death to Smoochy" has some good jokes in it ("They're the most ruthless of all the charities."), mostly in the third act and courtesy of Robin Williams, but on the whole this piece of satire by Danny Devito is plagued by any number of problems. I was disappointed to see that Catherine Keener had trouble delivering some of her lines. She seemed to stumble over them, uttering them without the bite or conviction they required, given her character's initially ultra-sour demeanor. Deveets swerves into dark and fantastical territory, portraying a world where children's shows are subject to kickbacks to mob figures, and ultimately the satire is adversely affected by this decision. To my mind the jokes would have worked better in a tighter set-up where the the plot was more securely moored to reality.

.: posted by hornswaggler 1:11 PM


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