Think About It. Adults Only. Serious subjects currently crowd my thoughts. We need to think about the ongoing failure of government to run anything as vital as VA hospitals. The economic alliance of the world’s two largest totalitarian governments, China and Russia, wait for Sage Thyme attention. There are certainly questions about the strange prisoner exchange. But another event has arrested my attention.
By now you know I love the language and the use of words. Please pass the salt as I prepare to eat some from a recent blog. The most recent addition to the long list of Seth MacFarlane’s lauded talents brought me more bursts of uncontrolled laughter than I can remember. The volcanic spewing of words used only by allusion in our Language Coarse provided for me what psychologists are currently fond of calling a cognitive dissonance. How do I justify disgust for the vulgate with being entertained by the most vulgar use of what can be our beautiful English language. Thank goodness foolish consistency has been called “the hobgoblin of little minds.” And thank you Ralph Waldo Emerson. Now I have to look up hobgoblin.
The dialogue itself happily mixes it’s 1882 setting with contemporary psychobabble and the lowest gutter language with clinical words for body parts. Maybe boring in small amounts, the nonstop exercise of every pratfall, banana peel and vaudeville-tested trick in unbridled excess added up to a relief of stress I didn’t even know I had.
If willing to enter this theatrical den of iniquity, you may be bored, disgusted, shocked or appalled at the film and my positive response. That would certainly be no surprise. Maybe my fondness for the talents of Neil Patrick Harris and Charlize Theron helped. This gross film even added the sincere evil of Liam Neeson, disarmingly open prostitute portrayal by Sarah Silverman and bits by Bill Maher, Gilbert Goddfried, Christopher Lloyd and Jamie Foxx. If a hatful of scatological humor is not your cup of tea, you and yours may signal a box office failure for a low in grossness.
Or perhaps you’ll enjoy the therapeutic release that only laughter can provide. Unless you are now depressed in ways that only more meds or professional help can mitigate, you will agree, A Million Ways to Die in the West certainly earns its R rating and just may just be the tasteless tonic that you too need. Please, however, do recall I told you it is for Adults Only. Think About It.
Post Publication Post Script. Early readers may miss what I failed to mention. There are indeed more ways to suddenly expire than your wildest nightmare ever had. Enjoy.