> netslackers <

-- Thursday, March 11, 2004 --

The Red Balloon is widely considered a work of art without equal. Actually, I could be making that up. I’ve never heard anyone say one way or the other whether they like the film. I’m just assuming someone out there enjoyed it because it has been shown in schools across the country roughly eight billion times. Or so I’m told. Again, I don’t really know. I don’t actually look these things up. I enjoy pulling big, juicy facts directly out of my ass and plopping them down right here on this webpage for everyone to marvel at. Don’t question my motivation; research is for the uncreative.

So, as I was saying, The Red Balloon was one totally bitchin’ flick. I was moved to tears when the balloon was ritualistically killed by samurai assassins at the end. It ranks right up there on the tear-jerker list with the moving death row scene in Old Yeller when the dog is put down via lethal injection for a murder he didn’t commit.

If you haven’t seen this action-packed drama before, let me give you a summary. There’s a boy. He finds a red balloon. The boy walks around with the balloon. Then, in a move hailed by art critics as an act of God, the boy proceeds to run with the balloon. To keep the audience from becoming over stimulated and to prevent seizures caused by sheer excitement, the boy goes back to walking around with the balloon. Then he starts talking to the balloon because the director was injecting himself with heroin and smoking two joints with his nostrils while on the set. A bunch of stuff no one really cares about happens and the balloon begins to stalk the boy all around France while remaining just out of his reach. Some more stuff happens and then everyone decides it would be a good idea to attack the boy repeatedly because, well, he’s always got that fucking red balloon and frankly it’s starting to piss people off. Long story short, the balloon gets popped and the boy looks really sad until something magical happens: a whole shit-load of balloons swarm around him, apparently angry he let their friend die. He decides the prudent course of action would be to grab a hold of the dozens of helium-filled balloons and ends up rocketing into the sky whereupon he presumably suffocates while in orbit above Earth.

Yes, a lovely movie to be sure. However, I still feel I should point out a few things the director goofed up on.

1. Balloons do not follow people.
2. Balloons do not travel in packs except when held by a vendor.
3. Balloons are not known to be cunning and rarely purposefully avoid being grabbed.
4. The actors spoke French or possibly gibberish. I’m not sure which.
5. The children wore disturbingly short shorts. This is immoral and also really dorky looking.
6. The boy kept having discussions with strangers and following them home. This sends the wrong message to our youngsters.
7. The director forgot to tell us what the fuck the point of the movie was.

Do I really need to have a meaningful conclusion for this? Probably, but I don’t care because I’m lazy. Yep, no motivational issues here.


> KC 8:46 PM [107905596156621316]
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