The Critic's Remote - Commentary Track

Additional commentary for the movie review website, "The Critic's Remote."

[criticsremote]

Old guys don't format

Daniel:

The running joke with Mike in Breaking Bad is that he keeps destroying cellphones and laptops when he's done with them. I thought it was a character quirk until I saw Frank Devereaux, a character on Supernatural, pull the same stunt when he first meets Sam Winchester and slams his laptop against a desk. Both these guys are supposed to know better; destroying a computer is no guarantee that the data is inaccessible.

This trope is another one of these things about computers that show up in movies and TV because the real thing is much less exciting. Can you imagine Mike or Frank going, 'I need to Gutmann-wipe this drive, it'll take an hour'?

Yeah, me neither.

[criticsremote]

The New Directions ruin a perfect moment

Daniel: 

In my recent discussion of Glee's season one episode Hairography, I mentioned that I considered that the New Directions torpedoed the amazing performance by the Haverbrook Deaf Choir of John Lennon's Imagine. If you don’t understand why New Directions ruined the performance, hear me out.

First of all, the kid in front of the deaf choir was not singing; he was translating the signed lyrics for the benefit of the hearing audience. The choir is actually singing in American Sign Language. Now, let’s say that New Directions had put together their own performance of Imagine, with someone up front signing in ASL for the benefit of the deaf kids.

Imagine if the deaf kids, upon seeing the crappy ASL translation, were moved by the performance, and decided to join New Directions. They’d be up there signing the lyrics in ASL, but also singing the song itself horribly by trying to mimic the hearing kids. That’s exactly what New Directions did, getting on stage and trying to follow the ASL signing. They’re ruining a song in sign language by thinking they can learn to express nuance and complexity in ASL just by imitating the deaf choir.

The respectful thing would have been to remain seated, and applaud with enthusiasm once the performance was over.