South Park, "Taming Strange"

So, the most stinging barb against the glitchy Obamacare website comes not from any politician, pundit, reporter, or even the general public, but South Park. And it’s by far the funniest piece of comedy on the topic since the site’s bungled launch (besting even fellow Comedy Central stalwarts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, whose jokes about it have been as tired as the non-comedy media covering it ad nauseam).

Putting the allegorical stand-in program in the hands of guidance counselor Mr. Mackey, the show’s mumbling pinnacle of educational ineptitude, made for a funny gag from the get-go. It almost seemed like just a throwaway joke at first, a little timely touch they squeezed in to date the episode in the now. But it keeps up alongside the main plot—that being Kyle’s adopted Canadian brother Ike hitting early puberty—and instead of getting repeated to the point that the joke is killed, it’s written into the main story. And it comes together superbly.

So does the rest of the episode, taking on Miley Cyrus’ overexposure by way of a certain kids show (though both are more caught in the crossfire while HealthCare.gov is the primary target), while also continuing the show's strange, humorous running depiction of Canadians. Other episodes have likewise combined so many elements, and have been funny if a bit nebulous as a whole. But the way this one connects all the elements into a flawlessly cohesive narrative is brilliant. This is probably the best written episode, as well as the most culturally aware and sharp one, since “Best Friends Forever,” the 2005 Emmy-winner that substituted Kenny for Terri Schiavo.

Even if the Obamacare website snafu similarly turns out to be only a minor political footnote, this episode could have more staying power than “Best Friends Forever” because it might be even funnier. The points about digital bureaucracy are made in typical unsubtle South Park fashion, depicting people of importance and power as fast-talking, hysterically incompetent fools. But the bread and butter is the toilet humor, which is equally rich (I forgot to mention a great takedown of Tom Brady that’s randomly thrown into the fray; not as mean as what they had him drink last year, but still disgustingly hilarious). Yet in spite of a reputation for grossing us out by depicting dirty things directly, the show surprisingly decides to hold back in this one, and lets its plot points involving a cuddly children’s character doing naughty things happen offscreen. And it actually benefits the joke that way.

The Counselor

The Counselor lost me when Cameron Diaz had sex with a car.

No, that’s not a typo or a joke. That actually happens in the movie. Such contact with an inanimate object didn’t surprise me in a certain other release this weekend, but I did not expect it from something with this much top-level talent involved.

Indeed, just by the people on both sides of the camera alone, The Counselor seems like a movie that can’t fail. It’s written by the guy who wrote No Country for Old Men. Its director is Ridley Scott, who I don’t have to elaborate on to film buffs (for those I do need to, his résumé includes Alien, Gladiator, and Black Hawk Down, to name a few). And the cast is the kind most productions would only dream of.

Like No Country, scribe Cormac McCarthy contemporizes the Western genre, spinning a bleak, violent yarn set amidst the drug trade on the U.S.-Mexico border. Michael Fassbender plays the protagonist, a lawyer only referred to as “The Counselor” (playing off the Western trope of the nameless lead character, perhaps). He’s got it pretty good, with a nice house, expensive clothes, and a beautiful fiancé (Penélope Cruz). But stupidly, he decides to get involved in the drug trafficking via one of his clients (Javier Bardem), a hard-living drug lord, to make a big payday. Things go south for him and everyone around him very quickly.

McCarthy’s works as an author are relatively sparse in their prose, with minimal dialogue that’s blended into the text instead of separated by quotation marks. In film adaptations, the characterization is instead more in the characters’ faces and actions, as well as the desolate but picturesque scenery that sets the mood. But here, in his first produced original screenplay, the writer goes heavy on the dialogue. Lots of it. There’s some pretty scenery and a few bursts of bloody violence, but much more time is spent on the main players talking away. A lot of it is quite compelling, delivered with great poise and energy by the cast, and speaking volumes about their characters.

But it gets to a point where there’s too much dialogue, where the endless chatter pushes so much of the major events off screen that it’s hard to tell what’s going on. There are also some not-so-good exchanges, the nadir of which is the car scene I already described. It doesn’t show the action too explicitly, but it's clear enough, and intercut with graphic narration from Bardem that borders on aroused and horrified. It’s so sophomoric, so crass, so unsexy and unnecessary that it’s actually hilarious to witness in a bad way (unfortunate, because otherwise, Diaz’s character goes from looking like merely an exotic sex kitten at first to the most interesting one in the picture).

That kind of says it all about the movie: flashy visuals and stylized, testosterone-fueled dialogue is the focus, and the plot is secondary. Which is too bad, because the story turns out to be a well-crafted spider web of double-crosses and confusion that’s fun to solve. At least, until you actually solve it; when I did (at least I think I’ve got it figured out), I realized the narrative forgot about the title character completely. It’s never quite made clear what exactly Fassbender’s role in the whole criminal plot was. He willingly enters the drug trade, but he acts like a meek bystander the second half of the movie, crying and unraveling like a victim in an anti-drug PSA. Not exactly a compelling protagonist.

In all, the film is like an amateurish attempt to emulate Quentin Tarantino—with tons of dialogue and gratuitous excess just for the hell of it and recycled archetypes we’ve seen before—that somehow managed to lure several big stars. That’d be bad enough from any hackneyed filmmaker, but from longtime masters of their craft like Scott and McCarthy, it’s especially disappointing.

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa

There’s not a whole lot to say about a movie like this. Films consisting solely of practical jokes have no plot to speak of except prank setups, no acting save for the people in on the joke keeping a straight face. So really, it just comes down to whether or not the pranks are funny.

Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa actually does have a small plot: dirty old man Irving Zisman (really Jackass ringleader Johnny Knoxville in makeup) traveling across the country to take his grandson (Jackson Nicoll) to live with his father. But like Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat, this is just a way to tie together sequences of the two pulling real pranks (some physical, some bodily or scatological, some just conversational, all very juvenile) on unsuspecting bystanders. It’s actually significantly less structured and produced than Borat, as the scenes setting up and carrying on the story are also pranks.

And most of it is very funny. A few sequences go on a bit too long, a few reactions are a little less outrageous that the film was clearly hoping for, and at least one scene involving a charity biker gang falls completely flat (not because of any offensiveness, but due to the reactions simply not being that funny). But the majority of the time, I was laughing. This is as much due to the reactions as the people eliciting them. Knoxville has all but perfected his provocateur skills, and knows how to make a situation funny when he’s not getting his desired response. Nicoll isn’t quite as good on his own as his veteran counterpart, but together the two have some hilarious scenes. And thankfully, the movie doesn’t go to some of the more the painful and disgusting lengths (or depths maybe?) that Jackass is known for.

One complaint is that some of the better gags were already revealed in the previews, and are still funny onscreen but not as much as they would have been seeing them for the first time (the exception being an extended sequence with a giant plaster penguin, which for some reason gets funnier the longer it goes and stupider it gets). I also had the thought cross my mind that, in the era of YouTube and online short series, the concept of many pranks strung together into a movie seems a little obsolete. But these little gripes come off as just fishing for something to criticize. I’ll do no more of that, and just admit I had a good, stupid time.

South Park, "Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers"

Due to events beyond the series’ control, they had more time than their usual six-day schedule to work on this episode. We’ll never know exactly how or if that extra week altered the final product (I entertained the idea that the intro, specially tailored for this episode, might have been added in the extra time). But if there were any changes, they were nothing too spectacular, as this one’s pretty average.

The plot all but ignores the usual gang and focuses on South Park’s four sparsely-seen goth kids (I’d list their names, but since they appear so rarely on the show, not to mention the fact I can’t even remember them after just watching them, I don’t feel like there’s much of a point; the show itself doesn’t even seem that interested in their background). Three of them find out to their horror that one went away to a rehabilitation camp and came back an emo kid, in an Invasion of the Body Snatchers-like plot for emos to take over the world. Since the world at large can’t tell the difference between the two cliques, the goths must do the unthinkable (in their eyes) to fight the emo influence: team up with the vampire kids they crossed paths with before.

All in all, “average” is a pretty apt description. I mean, I laughed at a number of the gags, but not exceptionally hard at any.  And the whole concept didn’t strike me as terribly funny. I think it’s because emo has been around for a while, so they're targeting old news. Then again, there have been several episodes I didn’t find particularly funny on my first viewing, but they ended up growing on me after watching them again. “The Ungroundable,” the last goth-centric storyline, was such an episode, so I won’t rule out coming around on this one, too.

Except for the twist ending, which I won’t give away, but I will say is 1) not funny, 2) very dumb, and 3) was a plot point already used on The Simpsons. Yes, I know the show long ago wrote off stealing from the show as no big deal, but that doesn’t make the joke any less tired, especially when it wasn’t even that funny when The Simpsons did it.

Captain Phillips

Paul Greengrass directed the latter two entries in the Bourne trilogy, both very entertaining. But his other famous movie, and arguably his most acclaimed one, was United 93, the dramatization of the events on the doomed flight that crashed in Pennsylvania on September 11, 2001. The recreation was so realistic that it didn’t even really have any narrative or structure like a normal film; it was like watching the events unfold as they happened. And it was hard to watch.

The quality of that picture makes Greengrass the ideal filmmaker to tell the story of another hijacking incident, one less seminal in world history but still a major news story: the 2009 capture of the Maersk Alabama by Somali pirates. But instead of just a straight depiction of the events like United 93, the resulting Captain Phillips finds a solid medium between historical document and thriller.

The recreation is similarly vivid in its details. Everything onscreen looks real and unadorned (I admittedly know little about sailing, but it was convincingly real to me). There are no stylized action set pieces, even at the more realistic level of Greengrass’ Bourne movies. Everything onscreen happens as it did during the real incident, though sped up a bit from real time to fit into a normal movie length. And in addition to giving Tom Hanks’ Captain Richard Phillips a short prologue, the film makes sure to show us the plight of the pirates in their homeland. It doesn’t quite make us feel sympathy, but we at least understand them a little instead of just brushing them off as movie bad guys.

But the way the events are depicted is very exemplary of the thriller genre. Perfect editing and pacing make things like jargon-filled nautical tactics and close quarters conflict very exciting. Much of the action takes place in the ship’s cramped lifeboat with Phillips and the four pirates as the Navy resolves the situation outside (as in real life), but even in this tiny enclosure, the film keeps us on edge. Even as the sequence becomes drawn out and excruciating, it’s never boring and never loses a bit of tension. Hanks converses and tries to find some understanding with his captors, but it never devolves into empty Hollywood “we’re all more alike than we realize” sentiment; rather, it’s more like Hanks is keeping them talking, trying to throw them off guard like a textbook hostage situation tactic. Even though we know what's eventually going to happen, the sense of dread keeps deepening right up to the end.

A lot of this can be attributed to Greengrass’ skills as a director, but it’s equally thanks to some great acting. Tom Hanks—an everyman actor in the true sense of the word, one who sinks completely and believably into any role—embodies the title character very convincingly. He’s a veteran trying to do the best he can in a situation beyond his experience, thinking on his feet and protecting his crew, but he clearly feels great fear the whole time. In other words, much more realistic than a typical movie hero.

Also very good are the four playing the pirates: Barkhad Abdirahman, Faysal Ahmed, Mahat M. Ali, and especially Barkhad Abdi as the leader. They aren’t one-sided borderline racist depictions seen all too often in movies taking place in Africa; they’re real people, and the aforementioned prologue gives us a peek at their lives. Nor are they almost comically inept like so many action movie villains whose plans fall apart. Rather, they exude an aura that’s quite threatening, that they have experience in this type of violence. But hardened though they may be, they’re far from professional killers, and as their situation becomes more hopeless and desperate, they become more unhinged. Believably unhinged, which makes them seem more dangerous and keeps the viewer’s heart racing.

Unlike the press at the time, Captain Phillips doesn’t partake in U.S. military superiority jingoism, and just ends merely with text describing what happened afterward. But the film builds to such a level of tension up until then that that’s actually enough. It's a very good recreation of a true story, but that wasn’t what stuck with me when the credits rolled. The thought going through my head was, “Why can’t more thrillers be like this?”

Carrie

I’m pretty sure I don’t need to say that Stephen King’s first novel was already made into a movie nearly four decades ago (if you didn’t know that, well, it was). So seeing it adapted again arouses that eye-rolling “not another remake” feeling we get all too often. But actually giving the picture that label would be a mistake.

It’s the same story—a bullied high school girl discovers she has telekinetic powers—with all the same major plot points. But director Kimberly Peirce’s adaptation takes a different approach to the narrative in several ways. For one, it’s obviously been updated from the 1970s to the present day. As such, the cars and fashion aren’t distractingly dated, and a camera phone and viral video come into play in the infamous gym shower menstruation scene. The film also offers some more spectacular demonstrations of the title character’s power, thanks to modern effects. And beyond the aesthetics, the tone and characterization are drastically different. Not for the better, unfortunately.

Chloë Grace Moretz’s Carrie White is not the waifish, almost creature-like outcast of King’s original story. Nor is she so spiritually beaten down by her religious fanatic mother (played here by Julianne Moore) that even when she discovers her powers, she only meekly pushes back. From the start, Moretz is a much more assured Carrie, less submissive recipient of abuse than loving child trying desperately to care for her mentally ill mother. When she uses her powers against Moore, it seems out of exasperation, not revenge. To her credit, Moretz plays this role well, and it might have been heartwarming in a different movie about mental illness. Here, though, it doesn’t fit, because no matter what Moore does onscreen—and she’s much more unstable than previous depictions, abusing herself as well as her daughter—she never seems like a strong antagonist because her daughter still loves her. She arouses more pity than hatred.

That’s Carrie at home. At school, aside from telekinesis, she seems like a rather normal high schooler. Shy and socially awkward perhaps, but still pretty well-adjusted (the shower scene notwithstanding). Considering the amount of bullying she’s subjected to, it’s entirely understandable that she’s so introverted. The cast of meaner students creates a believably hostile school environment, pointlessly cruel just for its own sake, not based on some clichéd Hollywood system of cliques versus other cliques or people who are different. It’s almost a little too cruel to swallow, as some of the abuse lobbed Carrie’s way seems rather exaggerated. Then again, the aforementioned added technological element in one scene conjures up thoughts of real cyberbullying cases from today’s headlines (though the movie doesn’t really try to say much on this issue, just utilizes it for effect).

After dealing with all that for much of the picture’s runtime, there is some base, bloody satisfaction when the film gets to the famous climax on prom night (although diehard horror fans might be disappointed that the gore factor is nothing too eye-popping). Up until that point (and during it, really), the picture isn’t very scary. I’m not saying that because I already knew what happens, but because it’s more of a high school drama than a horror flick. In addition to the aforementioned bully stuff, there are all the soapy, schmaltzy montages of people getting ready for the prom, and the pervading feeling that it’s the biggest moment of everyone’s life. Not only does this jarringly contrast with the darker elements, and even some of the meaner tormenting Carrie suffers, but it supersedes them. When the movie ended, I felt like the prevailing sentiment wasn’t a shaken feeling from the carnage, or fear after a dark, supernatural experience, or even sadness at the tragedy of Carrie’s story. No, it was the overhyped sensation so many teen movies bestow on the senior prom. I didn’t particularly buy into that even when I was in high school, and it certainly wasn’t what I was looking for from something purported to be a horror movie.

At best, this Carrie is merely a high school revenge fantasy. King’s book and Brian De Palm’s screen version both had that element as well, but they were also very good horror stories. This tale is better told that way.

Don Jon

Don Jon stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who also writes and directs) as the title character, a New Jersey twentysomething who hooks up with beautiful women every weekend but can’t make an emotional connection with the opposite sex. This might be because he has a regular Internet porn habit, which he claims to enjoy more than actual sex. His sexual habits get put to the test when he tries to start an actual relationship with Barbara (Scarlet Johansson), who wants everything in her life to be just so.

Sound like a comedy? Maybe, maybe not. The film's certainly been marketed as a bawdy modern sex comedy. But, the actual movie? I'd say no.

That's not to say it doesn't have comedic moments, though the film fails in most instances where it's clearly aiming for comedy. Jon’s narration on sex and porn-watching travels into territory already mined by many a standup comic over the years. Actually seeing it played out, rather than just described in a zany stage persona, is grating and uncomfortable (and I’d imagine quite sexist from a female perspective). Scenes out of his bedroom featuring his parents, with Tony Danza and Glenne Headly essentially playing Jersey Shore stereotypes recast as sitcom geriatrics, get old fast. The few parts that do seem funny are comical in a feel-bad way, like seeing a drunk person make a fool of themselves. You might laugh, but it’s actually kind of sad. The movie makes it a little easier to laugh at its protagonist by using flashy and stylish film techniques, but I still couldn’t shake this sense of pity at the behavior I was seeing.

But to me, the film makes it clear early that it’s looking to examine its chosen themes of fantasy and sex, instead of just make us laugh. And after it establishes that, I really thought it might explore them in some intriguing fashion. But it quickly loses its way trying to explore these subjects, and offers only simple explanations for complicated issues.

The movie shows Jon having a very rigid routine he never deviates from without losing his cool. He's also shown to be hotheaded and not very good with human interaction on any level. Maybe his porn fixation is just part of another problem. But the picture says no, it's just the porn. The film's overall attitude toward sex is equally simplistic, and rather puritanical. Which is ironic, because the movie’s full of real Internet porn videos that seem to cut off at the last possible second allowed for an R rating.

This is Gordon-Levitt’s first feature as a screenwriter and director, and his inexperience as a writer shows in these and other ways. The formula and structure are rather repetitive. Much of the dialogue sounds stilted and overwritten instead of natural. But most of all, it tries to do so much at once, and doesn’t do any of it very well.

The intent seems to be to deconstruct the romantic comedy genre, while also offering insight to how our fantasies (namely porn in Jon’s case) conflict with the reality of life and love. The script sets up the romcom character archetypes in Gordon-Levitt, Johansson, and a third character played by Julianne Moore, but from there, it doesn’t seem like it knows what to say. It reaches some rather generic and obvious conclusions: that porn is bad, or at the very least not at all like real sex, and that relationships are a two-way street. I think that much is pretty obvious to the adult demographic the film is made for (at least I hope so). And the narrative doesn't even navigate to these points convincingly.

Gordon-Levitt’s still a good actor, and he and Johansson do what they can with the picture, like any good actors mired in a bad production. There are even a few moments where the two have chemistry that seems very real, and very hot. But these scenes are fleeting, as romance and joy are abandoned in favor of impotent insights and dirty sex talk that's not very sexy. I guess Gordon-Levitt deserves credit for that, as it conveys the gaping emptiness of his character's sexuality, but it's not fun to watch.

South Park, "World War Zimmerman"

Much can be said about the way South Park satirizes a subject or issue by reversing the roles, letting one side experience the other side’s view. Or how Matt Stone and Trey Parker come up with such strange, surreal, frequently dirty metaphors that are nevertheless crystal clear in what they’re talking about. But I think the show’s most effective when it dives into its target directly, unmercifully, with the subtlety of a sledgehammer and complete indifference to who will get offended.

When you’re addressing a subject that arouses as much fervor as the whole George Zimmerman affair, there’s really no better way.

As usual, Eric Cartman is the everyman voice of the indefensible position, in this case fearful, subconsciously prejudiced white America. The episode finds the little hell-raiser treating the town’s lone black boy Token, often the recipient of racism from Cartman both implied and outright, with uncharacteristic respect. No, he hasn’t learned tolerance; he’s actually trying too hard to keep his classmate from rioting in reaction to Zimmerman’s not guilty verdict (yeah, about that...). When his overzealous friendliness becomes insulting and prompts Token to respond, Cartman causes widespread panic across the country, though everyone else seems to think his imaginary race war is a zombie apocalypse (or at least most of them; some I’m not so sure).

Very direct, and even though Zimmerman’s trial ended months ago, the satirical sting is not diluted one bit. The spoof of World War Z is funny and well integrated into the story, as the show’s parodies usually are. But trappings aside, it’s just astounding how this show can make a point so strong, sometimes so painfully and uncomfortably true, and yet also make us crack up at what we’re seeing. And the episode does that for Zimmerman and stand-you-ground laws, better than any other piece of comedy I’ve seen that ventured into this territory. Zimmerman himself even appears, in a turn of events that’s glorious. Absolutely glorious.

This is one of this season’s gems, a great and memorable episode of which there are a couple each season, which a few years from now fans will look back upon as a classic of this point in time.

Gravity

Films taking place in space rarely seem to capture what’s it’s like above the atmosphere. Spaceships move around more like aircraft on Earth, turning and maneuvering with ease instead of flying off into the unknown by their sheer momentum. Spacewalks and zero gravity scenes always seem to have some sort of anchor point the people onscreen gravitate towards. And, of course, all the movie sound effects we’re used to wouldn’t exist in a vacuum.

Scientific accuracy isn’t necessarily a hindrance to making an exciting outer space film, however. One picture that comes to mind is Apollo 13, which turned a true story into a captivating thriller based solely on solving each challenge with real science. Gravity depicts a fictional space disaster, but with a similarly high (though by no means perfect) level of accuracy. Only Gravity goes even further, utilizing excellent filmmaking techniques and amazing special effects that let us not only watch the film, but feel it, too.

The very first scene is incredibly tense, and nothing even is going wrong, yet. As we in the audience hear radio chatter and a space shuttle floats into view, it feels like if we even move a tiny bit in our seats, we’re going to float away. But everything onscreen is going smoothly, as Sandra Bullock, a medical doctor on her first mission (pretty unrealistic maybe, but it works because her fear and inexperience makes the protagonist much more relatable to the viewer), works on the Hubble Telescope. Veteran astronaut George Clooney jokes around with Mission Control, and we gradually relax and get used to watching them in zero gravity.

That’s when the bad things start. Namely, debris from an old Russian satellite collides with the shuttle, sending Clooney and Bullock tumbling off into space. Battling increasingly depleting oxygen and the vacuum of space, the two attempt to make it back to their shuttle, or any other save haven that could help them get back to Earth. And the debris cloud is still out there, orbiting the Earth like a hail of bullets.

Director Alfonso Cuarón’s penchant for long, unbroken shots is masterfully suited for this picture. Extended sequences that don’t cut away for several minutes take us from up close on the actors’ faces, to wide looks at spaces stations or just the great maw of space, to point-of-view shots that almost put us in an astronaut’s helmet. It’s like the camera’s floating in zero-g, capturing everything as it happens. And Bullock, Clooney, and everything around them look convincing. Feels that way, too, as their terror at possibly drifting off to their death and desperation of clinging to anything for dear life is as palpable as if we’re experiencing it with them. It also trades the lack of sound effects for just ominous music combined with subtle visual cues, which arguably builds more tension.

Things slow down a little between bursts of conflict, and the overall tension somewhat dissipates in the final third. But the movie never ceases to be engrossing even in its more tranquil moments. There are many mesmerizing things to look at, from small elements like liquid or fire floating freely without gravity, to giant, awe-inspiring views of Earth. Lots of those. It also captures a quiet, almost dreamlike state of peace in residing in the Heavens. For all the intensity the film throws at us, it also makes space seem like it wouldn’t be so bad.

I usually don’t choose to see a movie in IMAX or 3D if I have the option of just a regular screen, as I mostly forget about the difference in format after about ten minutes. There are exceptions, though, where these formats actually do enrich the viewing. Gravity is definitely one. It’s not just a film you simply watch, but one you experience. At the very least it requires some sort of big screen to get that experience, for its effect, its awe, and its often high intensity will probably be lost in home viewing.

South Park, "Informative Murder Porn"

Believe it or not, I’ve never played the popular, apparently extremely addictive computer game Minecraft. But even if I had, I’m not so sure it would have made this episode any better.

That’s disappointing, because the issue addressed—the idea that kids become violent from exposure to violent media—had potential. Only in this case, it was the kids of South Park blocking violent TV shows from the adults (once again, the classic “South Park reversal" I always talk about), specifically the crime reenactment shows of Investigation Discovery (the episode’s title being the show’s label for such programming).

But everything derails when an okay throwaway joke about Minecraft (the parent-blocking feature is guarded not by a password but a question about the game, which no adult can answer at first) grows into a major element. The show has juggled and combined several unrelated things successfully before, but not this time. The joke isn’t funny, the way it’s integrated into the plot makes no sense even by the show’s sometimes surreal standards, and if there was supposed to be any point, I couldn’t discern even a molecule of it.

In the non-Minecraft moments, the satire is pretty clear. It’s obvious Trey Parker and Matt Stone feel it’s a load of garbage to assume violent entertainment makes youngsters into killers any more than serious “documentary” crime shows effect mature adults’ behavior (even the title is almost a rebuttal to the label of “torture porn,” a genre that's also aroused controversy). One line aimed pretty directly at the idea of cable choice would have gotten a fist pump out of me if I weren’t so bored. Unfortunately, bored I was, as the episode is almost all soapbox. The only real gag that comes to mind is a running one depicting cable company workers as nipple-stroking sadists. It wasn’t very funny from moment one.

Worse yet, the satire seems stale. At this point, the idea that violent media makes violent people seems to have lost steam. The latest Grand Theft Auto, once the worst nightmare of parents everywhere, has been met with more awe than outrage. This episode would have been more biting had it aired a decade ago when this debate was still being had, or back in the show’s earliest days when itself caused public outcry. Seeing it now is like watching an older episode, where you get the joke if you remember the events parodied, but if not, it means nothing to you. But even if you do get this joke, the episode around it falls apart completely before the midpoint, and just slowly ekes about until the half-hour's up.