Your Daily Dose Of Irony

This week John Alan Schwartz, director of the infamous Faces Of Death franchise, passed away. Hey, we all gotta go sometime, but his death makes for an ironic headline.

1978's Faces Of Death became one of the most infamous "movies" of all time. The film was basically a clip show, featuring footage of actual human and animal deaths. Fun!

While a few of the segments were indeed real, many of them were staged and featured elaborate makeup and special effects. For some reason, Schwartz directed the movie under the stage name Conan le Cilaire. Schwartz also appears in several of the segments in the film.

The posters often proudly proclaimed that the movie was banned in over forty countries. This was a lie as well, as only FIVE countries (Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Norway and the U.K) officially banned it.

The movie was made for a shockingly low $450,000, and went on to gross $35 million, making it one of the most profitable films of all time. After the massive success of the original, Schwartz went on to direct Faces of Death II, Faces of Death III, The Worst of Faces of Death (which I assume was a compilation film?), Faces of Death IV, Faces of Death V, Faces of Death VI and Faces of Death: Fact or Fiction?

Schwartz definitely had death on the brain, as in 2004 he penned My Faces Of Death: A Deadly Memior.

Now THAT'S Irony!

Earlier this week on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, Kimmel opened his show with a touching and heartfelt tribute to his good friend and colleague, the late Don Rickles (who died April 6, 2017 at age ninety). 

Kimmel told the story of how the two of them met, how Rickles would give him useful career and life advice and how they would visit one another's homes and families. 

He finished up his tribute to Rickles by saying that ninety years was far too little time to have him around. Kimmel stated that Don Rickles was a true comedy legend, and we'd never see the like of him again.

Kimmel then said, "Thank you, Don. We'll be right back with Adam Sandler!"

Wow. Way to drive home your point there, Jimmy!

Who's Setting Off The Irony-O-Meter This Week: Brett Ratner

This week film director Brett Ratner lashed out at aggregate movie review site Rotten Tomatoes, saying it was destroying Hollywood. Uh-oh. The Irony-O-Meter's starting to beep!

In an interview at the Sun Valley Film Festival, Ratner said that he had the utmost respect for traditional film critics, but complained that sites like Rotten Tomatoes reduce a film to nothing more than a score. Said Ratner:

"The worst thing that we have in today’s movie culture is Rotten Tomatoes. I think it’s the destruction of our business. I have such respect and admiration for film criticism. When I was growing up film criticism was a real art. And there was intellect that went into that. And you would read Pauline Kael’s reviews, or some others, and that doesn’t exist anymore. Now it’s about a number. A compounded number of how many positives vs. negatives. Now it’s about, ‘What’s your Rotten Tomatoes score?’ And that’s sad, because the Rotten Tomatoes score was so low on Batman V Superman I think it put a cloud over a movie that was incredibly successful.”

Ah. So there we have the reason for Mr. Ratner's outrage. His film company, RatPac Entertainment (oy gevalt!) co-financed the debacle that was Batman V Superman. The 2016 movie grossed almost $900 million worldwide, but only got a 27% "Fresh" score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Apparently Ratner's butt-hurt that the movie he helped finance made a huge profit, but wasn't universally beloved. Big deal! He made his money back and more, so what the hell does he care if people don't like it? He had nothing to do with making it, other than writing a check! The Irony-O-Meter's in the red!

Ratner went on to say:

"People don’t realize what goes into making a movie like that. It’s mind-blowing. It’s just insane, it’s hurting the business, it’s getting people to not see a movie. In Middle America it’s, ‘Oh, it’s a low Rotten Tomatoes score so I’m not going to go see it because it must suck."

Wait... is Ratner saying Batman V Superman was good because a lot of people but a ton of effort into making it? Jesus Christ! That doesn't mean anything! I could spend twenty years painting a canvas with my foot, but it would still look like crap when I was done. Having a large film crew doesn't automatically make a movie great.

And a few sentences ago he praised Pauline Kael and the art of movie criticism, which informed people whether a film was worth seeing or not. But then he denounces Rotten Tomatoes for doing the exact same thing. Sure, Kael and her ilk may have done it with more style and finesse, but they provided the same service.

I guess it's never occurred to Mr. Ratner that some movies are just bad, and it's OK to point it out.

I'm not sure Ratner is the best person to be speaking out against something ruining the movie business. Brett Ratner is the "visionary" filmmaker who gave us cinematic gems such as Money Talks, Rush Hour, The Family Man, Rush Hour 2, Red Dragon, After The Sunset, X-Men: The Last Stand (widely regarded as the worst film in the series), Rush Hour 3, Tower Heist, Movie 43 (the Happy Birthday segment) and Hercules (the one starring the Rock).

With an "impressive" resume like that, you can see why Brett Ratner accusing something of destroying Hollywood is the very definition of irony. It's like Donald Trump calling someone else a fat, bloated liar. Uh-oh! The Irony-O-Meter's gonna blow! Ratner just made it explode!

Citation Needed

This week Wikipedia announced it's no longer accepting articles or links from the Daily Mail, because its stories and reporting are "too unreliable."

Wikipedia of course is a popular online encyclopedia that's editable by scholars and casual readers alike. The Daily Mail is a British daily tabloid newspaper that's been published in London since 1896.

In a statement released by Wikipedia, they stated that the Daily Mail was "generally unreliable, and their use is to be generally prohibited, especially when other, more reliable sources exist." They went on to say that the tabloid has "a reputation for poor fact checking, sensationalism and flat-out fabrication."

You know, I'm pretty sure Spock once said something like this to an android to make its head explode.

What's Setting Off The Irony-O-Meter This Week?

This week inexplicably best-selling author Nicholas Sparks announced he and his wife are separating after twenty five years of marriage. Whoops! The Irony-O-Meter's beeping!

Sparks is the author of many treacly love stories that cause women to reach for the tissues and men to scramble for the exit, such as The Notebook, The Best Of Me, The Last Song, Nights In Rodanthe, Safe Haven (the one with the ghost) and A Walk To Remember. Uh-oh! Now the Irony-O-Meter's in the red!

According to Sparks, he met his wife Cathy in college and told her he'd marry her someday after just one date. She was also the inspiration for many of the female characters in his works. Apparently Sparks doesn't practice what he preaches in his novels. Yikes! Look at that! The Iron-O-Meter just exploded!

In light of this news, I wonder if Sparks will be issuing refunds to everyone who paid to read or watch his maudlin, hollow love stories? Do they come with some sort of guarantee?