Smokin' Cracked

When I was but a wee lad I would accompany me dad to the corner shop on Saturday morns. Well, I went with my dad to the store, but didn't it sound so much more charming the first way? While I'm not sure if "accompany" is the proper verb choice for the imagery, or "morns" the correct colloquial pluralization (I'm quite certain they do celebrate "Saturday" across the pond, though), I can only wonder how different my adulthood would have developed if I had been raised in such an idyllic setting. Would I now be an Exchequer? A Beefeater? David Beckham? A proper gentleman, at the least, and not the...the...American that I turned out to be. Alas, lass.

So, when I was a kid I went with my dad to the store on Saturday mornings. He worked a lot, so this was one of the small windows of time we had together. Naturally, I used this as a chance to get stuff. While he would buy his Italian newspaper and cigarettes (hmm, perhaps I actually did miss a chance to be Europeanized), I would tack on a little something for myself: baseball cards, baseball stickers, or a magazine. Usually, it was a wrestling magazine, and preferably Pro Wrestling Illustrated, which looking back was a pretty terrific read. But sometimes I'd switch gears and go for the funny and of course that meant Mad. How big was Mad? Big enough that there was another magazine that was exactly the same. Well, except for not being as good. And the title: Cracked.

Basically, you bought Cracked if they didn't have Mad. And while it was an inferior product, obvious even to my less than discerning juvenile tastes, it still did the job. That job being to entertain me. Flash forward a few years (or decades if you want to be cruel) and older, more mature me came across an interesting site while mindlessly surfing the Web in what passes for entertainment in this dystopian present. That site: Cracked. And for my money it is one of the best ways to kill time online for free.

How's this for a brilliant, outside-of-the-box game plan: they replaced their terribly outdated general audience pop culture parodies with clever and incredibly well-researched articles that not only make you laugh, but--in all seriousness--make you think. Ok, before I scare you back to Farmville, by articles I mean lists--lists!--that look at fun things like movies and music and ninjas from a different angle. For example, and also as a treat for those of you who hung around while I finally got to the point of this post, they recently ran "The Five Most Wildly Illegal Court Rulings in Movie History." 

I should warn you, or warned you if you already clicked on the above link, that the article might skew your take on some favorite movies. It's hard to un-know something, especially something that hits your hindsight square between the eyes. Keep in mind that these aren't some nit-picky legal technicalities. These are examples of glaring ridiculousness. So, how did we miss them?

Well, that's easy. It's called poetic licence and as much as we like to think we're so smart, we have no problem smudging logic if it, that's right, entertains us. Don't interrupt a good story with killjoy facts. Now, if the movie's crap to begin with, then the filmmaker has waived his immunity. If Independence Day was written as well as, say, Aliens, we would have been too lost in the story to care that Goldblum hacked an intergalactic spaceship with a PowerBook (also covered by Cracked). It wasn't. It sucked. But how do these 5 movies pass the test:

The Untouchables: We all wanted Al Capone to go down and not with the historical accuracy of a tax evasion verdict, but with a bravura to match the monster of DeNiro's performance.

Primal Fear: Even more than a good story, who wants common sense to get in the way of a good twist ending. And this is one of the best. What happened to Ed Norton? Oh, right.

A Time to Kill: I admit, I got caught up in McConaughey's closing argument (or maybe it was his dreamy eyes. Or his gigantic head). It's just cheap emotion, a Joel Schumacher specialty, but it works when it works.

12 Angry Men: Since this is regarded as a classic, you probably just assumed there wouldn't be so many ludicrous plot holes. Thank god for great acting.

Miracle on 34th Street: This is one of those movies I must have seen, but I can't tell if I have or if I just know it from all the references and clips over the years. Explanation for this one? People really like Santa Claus. Ho, ho, boom!

And what about Mad's web presence? See for yourself. They're still clinging to their print edition. Score one for Sylvester P. Smythe.