By Gunter Hausman
NEW YORK CITY— Roger Lumenick, film critic from the New York Times, tried his best to fight his most recent assignment but ultimately failed. As a result, he ended up in a 6:30 showing of Furry Vengeance (Rated PG) last Friday night. Lumenick was the only adult in the theater and was reportedly made “quite uncomfortable” by the situation.
Furry Vengeance is a film about a real estate developer who tries to build a new development on an Oregon forest. The animals fight back. It’s man versus nature and the fur is gonna fly! “I swear I was only there because I’m a film critic,” said Lumenick.
The movie stars Brandon Fraser, Angela Kinsey, and Matt Prokop. Who were those last two? Good question. Evidently, these actors’ performances were not quite good enough to attract just one adult to see the film, or even accompany their children to it. “I have kids,” said Lumenick. “I mean I am their father.”
Lumenick sat in the back row of the theater. One of the moviegoers, Tommy Jackson, 7, went to the ticket counter to alert the theater of a suspicious man. The theater manager prided Tommy on his mastery of the principles of stranger-danger and proceeded to Theater 4 to see the man for himself.
The manager saw Lumenick nervously taking notes and had a look at his notes to make sure Lumenick wasn’t a threat. His notes said the following:
Why are those kids looking at me? I’m just trying to do my job…Wow. This movie is awful. Is the title a pun or something? I wish I could give half stars… I went to the Northwestern School Journalism. I don’t need this… Seriously? No parents decided to stay with their kids?
Lumenick sat through the whole movie for the sole reason that “Brook Shields is still kind of hot.” Regardless, he gave the movie only one star and a scathing review. “Furry Vengeance was terrible. The hour and half film was 90 minutes too long. It was a thin premise stretched far beyond reason- able length. By the way, I was only there because I’m a film critic. I would never have gone to see Furry Vengeance if I had the choice. Consider it a blessing that you do.”
Luckily for Lumenick, the animals don’t talk in this movie. If they did, he would have seemed a lot more out of place there. Still, being the only one old enough to drive or even get into a PG-13 movie was plenty creepy for the film critic.
The moral of this story, unlike the moral of Furry Vengeance which was some crap about ecological balance, is that Brandan Fraser is a sorry excuse for an actor.
