Editor’s note: This article was initially written in 1997 in the tiny little video store where MCFTR was born. It has never seen the light of day on MCFTR proper until eight years after it was written. It’s riddled with out of date references and is generally irrelevant today. But it’s raw, crude, and still pretty funny, so enjoy it. Oh, and to explain a couple of things, we used to often make references to nonexistent essays by other MCFTRers and liked to work in a reference to Richard Donner being a pussy in everything we wrote.

THE MOVIE CRITICISMS FOR RETARDS ABOUT RETARDS BY A RETARD TRILOGY
by Chad J. Shonk

I. FORREST GUMP: GOING DOWN OLD HIGHWAY 21

Oh, how to approach this ultimate valentine to the mentally handicapped? I think I’ll go through it, character by character, to illustrate how everyone in this movie is really a retard, not just Tom “I’ll take that second Oscar, thank you very much” Hanks.

1) Bubba (Mykelti Williamson) – Alright, so he likes shrimp. WE FUCKING GET IT! Jesus Christ. How can you make so much food out of such a little fish? First off, we got a BLACK guy named Bubba. That’s pretty fucking retarded. I kept waiting for the scene when the big ole redneck comes in and beats the shit out of him and says “Give me back my name!” Or something like that. And what was the deal with his lip? Talk about overplaying a racial stereotype. Why not give him a big ol’ watermelon to suck on through the Vietnam segments? And maybe some collard greens. And some pig feet. I love pig feet! (See Friday: African-American Clerks or just plain funny?)

2) Lieutenant Dan (Gary Sinise) – Does he have a last name? In the movie we only know him as “Lieutenant Dan.” That’s pretty retarded. I’m not gonna make fun of the fact that he’s handicapped. That’s mean and uncalled for. I’m just gonna make fun of how retarded he is. I figure retards are open game. They don’t really know that you’re making fun of them, anyway. Kinda like the amish. You can make fun of them on TV cause they’re never gonna know. And, as a retard, I can make fun of them. Kinda like black guys and the word “nigga”, you know. It’s supposedly an empowerment thing.

So Lieutenant Dan Something gets shot up in the jungles of Vietnam. But he gets pissed when Tom “I apologize for Joe Versus the Volcano” Hanks comes and saves him. Dumbass. “It was my destiny to die out there.” Who’s the real retard? At least Forrest had the brains to high-tail his narrow ass out of there!

3) Chris Farley – He wasn’t in this movie; he’s just retarded.

4) Jenny (Robin Wright) – Okay, Robin Wright’s pretty cute. She was Princess Buttercup for crying out loud! Actually, her character’s not retarded. She’s fucked up. She’s on drugs a lot and she’s abused by her father and she dies of AIDS. That’s not retarded. That’s kinda sad. But what’s really sad is that Robin Wright is married to Sean “Trying to get over that Mr. Madonna thing” Penn. I know that Chris Penn is fat and Michael Penn is a lousy singer, but did she have to marry Sean? He’s real talented and all, but isn’t he supposed to be a dick? And even if he isn’t,why’s she wasting her time on a guy like him when she could have me? I mean what does Sean “Dead Indian Running” Penn have that I don’t besides looks and money and shitloads of talent? I can smoke three packs a day. I can beat up paparazzi. Please, Robin, I’m begging you. Choose me. I love you. So Jenny’s really not retarded. I’m just a lonely, lonely guy.

5) Forrest, Forrest Gump (Tom “Everyone Keeps Calling Me the Next Jimmy Stewart But I Don’t See It” Hanks) – Okay, Forrest is pretty damn stupid. And he has the dumbest dialogue in the movie. Yeah, life is like a Winston Groom metaphor: It don’t make a damn bit of sense. But is he really that dumb? He’s the only character in the movie to graduate college. Of course, they never tell you what he studied, but he graduated. In Vietnam, he was the only one to run like hell when the shit hit the fan. As soon as those tracers were flying, he took off runninG. He makes a shitload of money in the shrimpin’ bizness, and he gets to sleep with Robin Wright. Where’s the downside to his life? Sure, his mama is Sally Field, but we can’t have everything. Did you know that in Punch Line, Sally plays Tom’s girlfriend? That’s kinda weird, huh? Not retarded, just kinda creepy. So even though Forrest is dumber than dirt and retarded and all he still has a pretty good life. And I think that’s the moral of our story. It’s not brains; it’s heart. Heart is what gets you through life. As long as you’re true to yourself, you’ll be okay. As a certified genius, I think this is complete horseshit. But the sentiment is not lost on me. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad to be retarded. It doesn’t make life meaningless. Plus, it could be worse. You could be Richard Donner (didn’t think I’d get it in there, did ya?)

II: RAIN MAN : K-MART IS RETARDED

I would just like to start off by saying that Barry Levinson is a good director. Good Morning, Vietnam kicks ass. Avalon, The Natural, and Sleepers were good flicks. I heard that Diner was good (it has Kevin Bacon in it, how bad can it be?) We’ll have to forgive and forget when it comes to Toys. I know that’s hard to do with a movie that was capable of making Robin Williams NOT funny and that had LL Cool J in it. But be kind to Mr. Levinson. It could be worse (See my upcoming four volume series JOEL SCHUMACHER SHOULD DIE OF SYPHILLIS AND ROT IN FUCKING HELL, RICHARD DONNER IS A MOTHERFUCKING PUSSY, PAUL VERHOVEN IS A COCKSUCKING DUTCH HACK, and RENNY HARLIN COULDN’T DIRECT HIS WAY OUT OF A FUCKING PAPER BAG.)

On to the retard. Dustin Hoffman’s Raymond is probably the best retard to ever grace the silver screen unless you count Quentin Tarantino. And I do. I really don’t remember what affliction Hoffman was imitating, but he does it with startling accuracy. I guess. Okay, confession time. I know very few retards. I know I sound like an expert, but I’m not. I’m a fraud. I don’t know what ailment Hoffman was portraying, okay? I’ve never met
anyone with it. I’m sorry. But I do know movies. And I know retard movies. And I know what I like. Raymond repeats everything he says and freaks out whenever he farts. If
I did that I’d be in a constant state of insanity. He only gets his underwear from one place and he thinks that everything costs a hundred dollars. That sounds like retarded. He answers questions a couple of hours after they’re asked and always responds “yeah.” Definitely retarded. He insists on being home every day in time for People’s Court. That’s pretty cool. I mean, his fascination for Judge Wapner is a bit misguided, for we all know that Rusty the Baliff is the true star of the show, but at least he has a taste for high quality televison programming. Raymond can also count really fucking fast and later uses this skill to count cards at blackjack. If that’s being retarded, sign me up! You may be stupid but you can make a ‘lot of dough. Dustin Hoffman is a good actor. It’s just to bad he isn’t a box office draw anymore. Tootsie. All the President’s Men. The Graduate. Midnight Cowboy. Ishtar. Good stuff, all of it. Except for maybe that last one. Rain Man is the best performance of his career. Raymond is the spokesperson for the keepers of chromosome 21. He is just as easily exploited for other’s gains just the same as anyone else. That is the true message of the movie. Equality. Retards are people too. And that lesson is worth more than an Oscar, more than Time’s 1988 Retard of the Year award. It’s worth at least a hundred dollars, yeah.

III. SLING BLADE : COCKSUCKERS AND RETARDS

1) I’ve been a Billy Bob Thorton fan for a long while. While I liked Karl, he was a vast departure from the ugly beer swilling foul mouthed mean ass gun toting rednecks that he played in Tombstone, One False Move, and Dead Man. When I go and see a Billy Bob Thornton movie, I’m not expecting sensitive mentally handicapped shit. I want vulgarity!

2) Karl kills Doyle. Not that he didn’t deserve it. He was a real asshole and he was mean to Frank and his mom and he played lousy music and he didn’t like cocksuckers or retards and he didn’t like the Bible (well, that’s okay) and he drank too much and he didn’t like Karl. But did Karl have to kill him? Because, really, Doyle was awesome because he was a real asshole and he was mean to Frank and his mom and he played lousy music and he didn’t like cocksuckers or retards and he didn’t like the Bible and he drank too much. I think Doyle ruled. (Not to be confused with “O’DOYLE RULES!: A Critical Analyis of the Works of Tamra Davis” by Gnoll.)

3) Sling Blade ended. It’s already a long movie, but I didn’t want it to end ever. I wanted it to keep going until Karl died
from eating too many French fried potaters. I want a spinoff movie starring J.T. Walsh called THE QUEST FOR THE BIG BUSH and a situation comedy called FUNNY QUEER. Imagine it. John Ritter’s return to television. It would be glorious! I also think we should have Doyle’s early years and we’ll call it REDNECK. It’ll have to be on HBO or Showtime because Doyle says fuck and cocksucker a lot. Maybe Richard Donner will direct. He’ll probably need the work after Assassins flopped hard core at the box office. These are really empty complaints. Billy Bob was really good in this movie and Doyle really deserved to die and the movie was just about the right length (though imagine the licensing possibilities for a QUEST FOR THE BIG BUSH action figure line). When I think about it, Karl is a much better retard than Tom “I was in Splash goddamn it” Hanks and Dustin “It was Warren Beatty’s idea to make that fucking camel movie” Hoffman ever could be. He kills people (See OF MICE AND MEN: ENOUGH WITH THE GODDAMN RABBITS ALREADY!). He’s a really nice guy. He puts mustard on everything. And his dad is Robert “I ain’t got no boy” Duvall. I reckon that makes Karl the superior of this triumverate of the mentally challenged. Mmm-hmm.

All right then.

And the most important thing about this is… I don’t know anyone that shops at K-Mart.

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