| News Lampoon | Macho Man's Mountain of Bullshit | |||
| Sean
Penn--the Ed Wood of writing By Rick Bishop
I also admire Macho Man for being the first
to tap Madonna, or maybe I
It's no secret that in addition to being a world-class actor and bully, Macho Man has for years used his celebrity as a built-in platform to air his leftist opinions, a la Rosie O'Donnell, Michael Moore, George Clooney, and the aforementioned Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins. It's easy enough to dismiss this buffoonish behavior. It's just celebritics as usual. Mostly these out-of-touch-with-reality celebriticians are bores. No one really listens to them. Does anyone with half a brain really care what they think about world events? But Macho Man has finally gone too far. He now thinks he's a journalist, and he's getting away with it. He's now being encouraged by the folks at Huffington Post, Time, the San Francisco Chronicle, and The Nation. I hadn't been aware of this until recently when I read an article in reasononline, aptly entitled "Dumb Man Talking," exposing Macho Man's misadventures in Venezuela and Cuba with Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro. (Be sure to follow the link to The Nation contributing editor Marc Cooper's personal blog, where he calls Macho Man's story, among other things, "horribly embarrassing.") Unable to help myself, I followed the link to this piece (of shit), imaginatively entitled "Conversations with Chavez and Castro," at TheNation.com. I won't go into the content, what bad "journalism" it is--you can see for yourself --but the writing, sentence by sentence, is some of the worst I've seen anywhere. The adapted and, mercifully, edited version appearing in The Nation made me laugh out loud. Then I had to go to the Huffington Post to read the unedited version, in two parts, no less, entitled "Mountain of Snakes." Oh my God! I had to post a comment, which the Huffington "moderators" (actually censors) promptly rejected, but it went something like this: This is the worst piece of crap I've ever read. An average English composition student could have done much better. Hey, Sean, regarding commas: "When in doubt, leave them out." Did anyone at The Post read it before you put it out there? What about editing? Proofreading? You're a hell of an actor, and you should stick to it. This "piece" is the equivalent of a "B" movie--poorly done and unintentionally funny. You should have called it "Mountain of . . ." well, you can guess the rest. I'm a fan of "B" movies.
They make me laugh. But the actors, directors, |
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December
15, 2008--I suppose I should say that I respect Oscar-winner and macho
man Sean Penn's acting ability, though I think his taste in scripts mostly
stinks. I did like the one with Al Pacino where Macho Man played a
curly-haired, coke-sniffing lawyer and the one with Timothy Hutton where
he played a straight-haired, coke-sniffing loser who trades government
secrets to the Russians. Oh, and then there's Mystic River.
He was great in that. I also liked him in Dead Man Walking,
but Susan Sarandon--playing a nun, of all things--ruined it for me.
She usually does. Same as her celebritician husband, Tim Robbins,
though I liked him in Bob Roberts.
should say the first famous person to tap her. I doubt that
she was a virgin when he got hold of her, and she still had those big,
bushy mustaches masquerading as eyebrows back then. Still, Macho Man
can always say he was the first, and who's going to argue with him?
Less
admirable but still entertaining to watch has been Macho Man's penchant
for bullying paparazzi. Wouldn't it be funny if one of these geeky
photogs delivered a De Niro-style, on-the-pavement shit kicking to Macho
Man? It could happen. He's not as young as he used to be.
We can only hope.
and producers of them are usually trying their best to produce something
good, something "serious." They're oblivious to their folly (see
Ed
Wood). Roger Corman is the most notable exception. He knew
exactly what he was doing. He purposely created "B" movies. When it
comes to writing, Macho Man isn't like
Roger Corman at all because Macho Man has no idea what he's doing.
When it comes to writing, Sean Penn is Ed Wood.