THE DUKE ON
SHATTERED GLASS
SHATTERED GLASS
Journalists, man. Who knows what crazy shit they’re gonna get
up to next. If they’re not tryin’ to convince everyone to go
see Chicago, then they’re making up a loada kooky bullshit for
to make their petty little scribblings half-way readable.
Crouching over their iMac’s or Big Mac’s or Personal PC’s or
whatever it is they use, rolled up cigarettes hanging from
their unshaven skeletal faces, writing their incisive crap
about something or other.
Who doesn’t love them? Who wouldn’t wanna maybe hang out with,
say, seven or nine of them for an evening’s chat? Hardly
anyone, is what The Duke would imagine. Probably they get
stopped in the street at all hours, can’t even buy a pint of
semi-skimmed without some motherfucker shoving a pen and paper
into their faces. “Sign this for me, man, and also, thanks for
all those great things you wrote, or maybe it was somebody
else, I don’t know, I never looked at the motherfucking thing.”
What the feature movie by the name of Shattered Glass concerns
itself with, is Anakin Skywalker plays Stephen Glass, a fella
who thought, perhaps understandably, that reading a load of
toss about some knob-end or other you never heard of would be
all the more interesting if he threw some bullshit in there.
Turns out that it wasn’t really earth-shattering, though, the
bullshit. I don’t know that a story about you can buy Monica
Lewisnki condoms is all that interesting, whether it’s true or
not. Why would you even bother making that shit up? Why not
write that maybe Prince Charles has invaded Poland with a
couple fucking Eskimos he met in a brothel. Why bother
inventing stories about some computer hacker got a big job. Who
the hell cares? What difference does it make? Half the shit I
read in a day I couldn’t give a fuck if it’s made up or not. It
doesn’t make a damn bit of difference one way or the other.
Somebody got drunk. Who cares? Next time, Glass, invent
something with some fucking cyborgs and I might pay attention.
Anyhow, some folks thought this was a terrible thing to be
happening. This magazine Glass writes for, apparently it’s the
official magazine of Air Force One. I don’t know that I’d be so
happy about that kinda fact, I mean let’s face it, that flick
was a loada horseshit, but they seem all the proud in the world.
If it’d been the official magazine of, say, Air America, then
maybe I’d find it all more shocking.
“You mean they’re trying to fool Mel Gibson into believing that
you can get condoms with Monica Lewinski’s picture on the box?
Well holy shit, that’s just outta line. That crosses the line,
in fact. The line has been breached. Quick, somebody throw a
rope round those sons a bitches and get them back to this
motherfucking line, would you ever, before Gibson sniffs the
damn thing. I hear he’s off his face on the crack as it is.”
Please note that Mel Gibson probably never took any form of
crack, and if he did, it was probably in a nice hotel off of
some hookers, and not on the set of a film about aviation.
There’s irresponsible and then there’s just fucking selfish.
For shame, Gibson.
Anyway, Anakin gets a job at The New Republic, and sets about
concocting crap after crap. Hank Azaria likes him, though, and
so doesn’t assume that he’s a lying little son of a bitch,
since look at him, he’s all sweet, and also, he might take your
damn head off with a lightsaber if you get on the wrong side of
him.
He’s a sweet kid. Not like sand, which, I hear, is very very
coarse.
Shattered Glass feels a bit slight at times, but it’s never
less than entertaining. Sometimes it even becomes genuinely
exciting, like when Anakin concocts some shitty website to try
and fool everyone into thinking some shitty company exists.
Really, the colours were much too garish, and his use of the
word “motherfuck” was far too gratuitous for the website to be
taken seriously.
As folks start realising that, wait a minute, this Jedi cat
ain't half as innocent as he pretends, Anakin’s world of
fraudulent toss starts crumbling. A bit like some glass
shattering, which is fitting, actually, since the name of the
film is Shattered Glass.
I bet they didn’t even think of that. Probably it took until
the DVD was released before they realised his name was Glass,
too. How lucky was that?
Luckier than poor Anakin, that’s for sure, since he gets
rumbled and has to be content with a Law School degree and a
six-figure payment for his first novel. The depths he tumbled,
man. From working for crusty toss scraped off of the toilet
floor to becoming a millionaire novelist invited onto every TV
show in the land for to talk about his lies.
You can’t help but feel sorry for him.
Anakin is actually pretty good here, it’s gotta be mentioned.
It’s fairly difficult to act someone lying, is what. He can’t
just say stuff, since that’s what everyone else is doing. He
has to say stuff and make it that little bit suspect, but not
too suspect, since then you’d be saying about who the hell
would have believed that shit, anyhow?
Everyone, in fact, is pretty good. Peter Sarsgaard is excellent
as Chuck Lane, looking like he’s on the verge of bursting into
tears all the time. The real Chuck Lane has a cameo, too, so as
you can point it out loudly to folks in the room.
“What you mean you never heard of Chuck Lane? Hello, writer for
The Washington Post is all he is. Jeez, I don’t think MENSA’ll
be shitting themselves to get your number. Ha ha. You folks are
so thick it makes me laugh till I wanna puke all over your
stupid thicko heads.”
And so on and so forth. You might wanna improvise a bit.
What The Duke would do is recommend Shattered Glass, since it’s
one of the good journalism flicks, like that one with somebody
off of the TV, and the one about Watergate or something. It’s
good in it’s own right too, though, and certainly there are
worse ways you can spend an hour and a half, like maybe eating
your knees, or going to the beach, on account of its full of
sand.
I hate sand. It’s so rough and course and gets in your eyes.
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line
up to next. If they’re not tryin’ to convince everyone to go
see Chicago, then they’re making up a loada kooky bullshit for
to make their petty little scribblings half-way readable.
Crouching over their iMac’s or Big Mac’s or Personal PC’s or
whatever it is they use, rolled up cigarettes hanging from
their unshaven skeletal faces, writing their incisive crap
about something or other.
Who doesn’t love them? Who wouldn’t wanna maybe hang out with,
say, seven or nine of them for an evening’s chat? Hardly
anyone, is what The Duke would imagine. Probably they get
stopped in the street at all hours, can’t even buy a pint of
semi-skimmed without some motherfucker shoving a pen and paper
into their faces. “Sign this for me, man, and also, thanks for
all those great things you wrote, or maybe it was somebody
else, I don’t know, I never looked at the motherfucking thing.”
What the feature movie by the name of Shattered Glass concerns
itself with, is Anakin Skywalker plays Stephen Glass, a fella
who thought, perhaps understandably, that reading a load of
toss about some knob-end or other you never heard of would be
all the more interesting if he threw some bullshit in there.
Turns out that it wasn’t really earth-shattering, though, the
bullshit. I don’t know that a story about you can buy Monica
Lewisnki condoms is all that interesting, whether it’s true or
not. Why would you even bother making that shit up? Why not
write that maybe Prince Charles has invaded Poland with a
couple fucking Eskimos he met in a brothel. Why bother
inventing stories about some computer hacker got a big job. Who
the hell cares? What difference does it make? Half the shit I
read in a day I couldn’t give a fuck if it’s made up or not. It
doesn’t make a damn bit of difference one way or the other.
Somebody got drunk. Who cares? Next time, Glass, invent
something with some fucking cyborgs and I might pay attention.
Anyhow, some folks thought this was a terrible thing to be
happening. This magazine Glass writes for, apparently it’s the
official magazine of Air Force One. I don’t know that I’d be so
happy about that kinda fact, I mean let’s face it, that flick
was a loada horseshit, but they seem all the proud in the world.
If it’d been the official magazine of, say, Air America, then
maybe I’d find it all more shocking.
“You mean they’re trying to fool Mel Gibson into believing that
you can get condoms with Monica Lewinski’s picture on the box?
Well holy shit, that’s just outta line. That crosses the line,
in fact. The line has been breached. Quick, somebody throw a
rope round those sons a bitches and get them back to this
motherfucking line, would you ever, before Gibson sniffs the
damn thing. I hear he’s off his face on the crack as it is.”
Please note that Mel Gibson probably never took any form of
crack, and if he did, it was probably in a nice hotel off of
some hookers, and not on the set of a film about aviation.
There’s irresponsible and then there’s just fucking selfish.
For shame, Gibson.
Anyway, Anakin gets a job at The New Republic, and sets about
concocting crap after crap. Hank Azaria likes him, though, and
so doesn’t assume that he’s a lying little son of a bitch,
since look at him, he’s all sweet, and also, he might take your
damn head off with a lightsaber if you get on the wrong side of
him.
He’s a sweet kid. Not like sand, which, I hear, is very very
coarse.
Shattered Glass feels a bit slight at times, but it’s never
less than entertaining. Sometimes it even becomes genuinely
exciting, like when Anakin concocts some shitty website to try
and fool everyone into thinking some shitty company exists.
Really, the colours were much too garish, and his use of the
word “motherfuck” was far too gratuitous for the website to be
taken seriously.
As folks start realising that, wait a minute, this Jedi cat
ain't half as innocent as he pretends, Anakin’s world of
fraudulent toss starts crumbling. A bit like some glass
shattering, which is fitting, actually, since the name of the
film is Shattered Glass.
I bet they didn’t even think of that. Probably it took until
the DVD was released before they realised his name was Glass,
too. How lucky was that?
Luckier than poor Anakin, that’s for sure, since he gets
rumbled and has to be content with a Law School degree and a
six-figure payment for his first novel. The depths he tumbled,
man. From working for crusty toss scraped off of the toilet
floor to becoming a millionaire novelist invited onto every TV
show in the land for to talk about his lies.
You can’t help but feel sorry for him.
Anakin is actually pretty good here, it’s gotta be mentioned.
It’s fairly difficult to act someone lying, is what. He can’t
just say stuff, since that’s what everyone else is doing. He
has to say stuff and make it that little bit suspect, but not
too suspect, since then you’d be saying about who the hell
would have believed that shit, anyhow?
Everyone, in fact, is pretty good. Peter Sarsgaard is excellent
as Chuck Lane, looking like he’s on the verge of bursting into
tears all the time. The real Chuck Lane has a cameo, too, so as
you can point it out loudly to folks in the room.
“What you mean you never heard of Chuck Lane? Hello, writer for
The Washington Post is all he is. Jeez, I don’t think MENSA’ll
be shitting themselves to get your number. Ha ha. You folks are
so thick it makes me laugh till I wanna puke all over your
stupid thicko heads.”
And so on and so forth. You might wanna improvise a bit.
What The Duke would do is recommend Shattered Glass, since it’s
one of the good journalism flicks, like that one with somebody
off of the TV, and the one about Watergate or something. It’s
good in it’s own right too, though, and certainly there are
worse ways you can spend an hour and a half, like maybe eating
your knees, or going to the beach, on account of its full of
sand.
I hate sand. It’s so rough and course and gets in your eyes.
Thanks folks.
Drop The Duke A Line
