Richard Corliss Is A Dumbass or Observe And Be Stupid

When I wrote yesterday's award winning review of Observe and Report, I said there was more to be written about this movie. Much more, in fact, about one scene in particular.

To recap, Seth Rogen's Ronnie has a crush on Anna Faris's Brandi. Ronnie is a delusional, bipolar security guard who thinks he's awesome while Brandi is a superficial party girl who thinks he's pathetic. Ronnie nags and harasses her (in what he perceives as being done in a very good natured way) until she agrees to go out with him so that he'll let her get into her car. Brandi sort of warms up to Ronnie after he buys her copious amounts of alcohol, amounts which she is clearly used to drinking, and really warms up to him when she sees him popping klonazapem, a tranquilizer he takes to keep his mood swings he check. This puts Brandi into a very compliant state or, to be more succinct, she's in a state where, after she pukes, she has no idea why her mouth tastes like puke. This all leads to the already infamous Date Rape Scene.

I will say that they way this has been described is somewhat inaccurate. After Ronnie gets her into her house, we cut to them in bed in the middle of Ronnie grinding away on top of an unconscious Brandi. Many have described Ronnie as suddenly stopping due to a moment of conscience which causes Brandi to mumble, "Why'd you stop, motherfucker?" thus sending the message that chicks love it when you screw them when they're passed out. I don't know why I was the only one to see this but, in the context of the scene, it was obvious to me that she was awake when they started and passed out in the middle. Ronnie was happily thrusting away until he looked up and noticed that not only was Brandi not reacting but that she was literally drooling puke. He stopped and said, "Brandi? BRANDI?" That was when she said, "Why'd you stop, motherfucker?"

So, no date rape, right? WRONG! Oh, Ronnie would never be prosecuted and, with his penchant for seeing the world the way he wants to see it, probably thought his actions were just fine, but they weren't. Brandi was certainly in no shape to give consent at that point and in fact wasn't in shape to give consent since she downed several of Ronnie's pills with four straight shots of tequila. If you're the kind of guy who thinks this was perfectly fine then you are most likely like Ronnie, a pathetic nut case whose view of the world is warped and can't get a girl into bed unless she's so intoxicated that a dog could mount her and she wouldn't say anything. At least Ronnie can blame his actions on a chemical imbalance with which he was born. What's your excuse, Richard Corliss?

Yeah, I've spent enough time burying the lede. Richard Corliss, film critic for Time Magazine, absolutely loved that scene. He loved it so much that he opened his review by gushing about his undying love for the greatest scene in movie history. Think I'm joking?

Here's a scene to frighten the horses. About an hour into Observe and Report, mall cop Ronnie Barnhardt (Seth Rogen) has finally achieved his dream and taken the blonde, egotistical, doltish perfume saleslady Brandi (Anna Faris) to bed, basically by getting her drunk. Problem is, she's pretty much passed out, her puke staining the pillow, as Ronnie happily, obliviously churns away. He pauses for a moment to notice her comatose state, and without opening her eyes, Brandi mutters, "Why'd you stop, malefactor?" Or a 12-letter word to that effect.

Now that's character comedy, I mean tragedy, I mean tromedy, of the highest, I mean lowest, I mean high-lowest order. Beyond the weirdness, if you can get there, is a quick portrait of trailer-park America pursuing its urges by any means necessary. It's clear that Ronnie, no babe magnet, will take what he can get on this night of nights, even if it's not quite the exalted ecstasy he had hoped for; and that Brandi, who's been in this position once or twice before, wants the sexual exercise, even if she's not awake to take an active role in it — somewhere in her stupor, she's feeling a rote rumble of pleasure. The scene achieves what few American movies even attempt: to pinpoint the grim compromise, the desperation, that can attend the sex act. Don't call it love; don't call it grand; but whatever it is, don't stop.

That minute or so is the finest thing in Observe and Report, and if it doesn't strike you as funny-peculiar, you may as well stop reading now.

Will do, Richard.

Did you ever talk to someone who says something he or she thinks is perfectly normal but disturbs the rest of the world? Something like, "I gotta say, the smell of piss has always turned me on," or, "How many times do you have to be whipped before you can achieve orgasm?" If this has never happened to you before, you can say it has now after reading Richard Corliss. I'm not sure whether to start with the misogyny, classism or the perverted world view. Hell, why not tackle all three at once?

I imagine Corliss has waited years to write those paragraphs. He's probably had most of that stored in some obscure little folder in Microsoft Word for years trying with every review to figure out a way to use them. I can imagine him hoping against hope that Monsters Vs. Aliens would have a drunken date rape scene and leaving the theater once again disappointed that his freak flag could not be allowed to fly. Until now, that is.

After viewing Observe and Report, Corliss must have tried desperately to hide one of the grandest erections of his life, simultaneously energized by feelings of lust and filled with loathing for the fact he was turned on so easily. The fact that he knew his views were strange and potentially disgusting is right there in the article. That's why he included this sentence:

Beyond the weirdness, if you can get there, is a quick portrait of trailer-park America pursuing its urges by any means necessary.

Yes, only the lower classes would find this pleasing, not one of the country's top critics and if he did get turned on, well, blame the dregs of society for whom this scene was made. When Corliss watched that scene, he knew it was wrong but he also knew how it made him feel and he just couldn't reconcile those two facts in his mind. Part of the blame goes to the filmmakers who wanted Ronnie to be both repulsive and likable so you get a guy screwing a passed out girl who manages to rouse herself from her stupor just long enough to beg the guy to keep going. Thus, we have a review in which a slutty woman is at fault for her own rape but hey, it's all cool cause it wasn't really a rape even though she was totally wasted but maybe not totally wasted cause she did eventually give consent even though she wasn't at that time capable of doing so and OH MY GOD WHO CARES MY FANTASY HAS FINALLY BEEN FILMED AND THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE THAT MY PENIS HAS GOTTEN LONGER THAN THREE INCHES SO DON'T YOU DARE TAKE THIS AWAY FROM ME YOU P.C. BASTARDS!

And that, folks, is why Richard Corliss is a pervert freak woman hating weirdo but, ultimately, he's a dumbass for letting us know all this. In the end, he has no one to blame but himself.