Meet Thom Fowler

I feel kinda bad for this. This is my first post in this blog, besides the manifesto at the bottom of this page… and I'm already breaking a rule. Sort of.

I just discovered this critic today. Thom Fowler. He might actually be the worst critic we've found yet, and we’ve been following this game for days. The problem is, he's been out of commission for a couple years; his last review on the hot bellwether site Hollywood Bitchslap was posted in April 2006, and it isn't really that bad. But he seemed to virtually stop reviewing for "The 'chslap" (as Variety calls them) in 2003, only posting one review a year after that until 2k6, and hopefully improving with each try. He is Rotten Tomatoes-certified, but his last review there is from '04. But still… his 180+ reviews for HollyBitch remain in RT's archives, and they shouldn't be.

Let's start with his review of Monsters, Inc. As you read, please keep in mind that, according to his info, Thom Fowler was thirty-two years old when he wrote this.

Monsters, Inc.
By Thom

Oh wow. This movie is totally funny and even kind of sad at times.

These are his first two lines: notice how he begins with "Oh wow," as if his mother was playing peek-a-boo and surprised him with a DVD of Monsters, Inc. Now remember everything you can about it, Thom! (I REMEBER SILLY + CRYING)

I love the stuff about the doors. No, not the late sixties, early seventies psychedelic rock band led by the legendary Jim Morrison.

Aww, you just walked right into that one, Thom!

I tell you one thing, I don't think Jim Morrison is the role model those Disney folks are trying to make him out to be.

I don't understand this? Am I missing context? I don't know? I'm having so much fun!

My favorite monster is the big hairy blue guy. I asked the Disney/Pixar rep for one of the big cardboard blue guys they had in theatres but he said they didn't get any.

I'm seriously gonna have to take this sentence-by-sentence, aren’t I? Firstly, "the Disney/Pixar rep"? Is this implying that Thom saw the film at a critics' screening? Thom circa 2002, member of the Celebrity Bitchslap Blog? I can't see it. I'm guessing he was talking to an usher. Seriously.

I normally don't collect movie memorabilia because, guess what?, I just don't care that much about movies.

Oh!! Then I don't feel bad about this anymore!!

But that blue guy, I don't know, there is just something about him. His voice is done by John Goodman who played not only the husband of popular sitcom queen Roseanne Barr on the hit show Roseanne, but he also played a really nasty pig of a man in a Coen Brothers film called O Brother Where Art Thou . That movie was a far cry from their cult favorite Raising Arizona. That seems to be their thing, making cult favorites, because all their films are so unique. For more about the new Coen Brothers film, The Man Who Wasn't There, use the search function! Its [sic] fun!

what just happened

At the end of this unsuccessful attempt at a recreation of a passage of Catcher in the Rye, Thom seems to grow aware of the sheer silliness of his paragraph. He does not grow aware of the backspace key.

Anyway, the blue guy is the loveable, good hearted oaf who just happens to get himself into a fix because of his equally good hearted but somewhat smarmy friend, the one eyed green guy.

Is he actually trying to give a review from the perspective of a six year-old who just left the theater? Thom, is that you?

The Monsters have normal people names because they live in this reverse human world that looks a lot like Sesame Street on 'shrooms.

Aw, nevermind.

I really hope Thom Fowler isn't dead. That would actually make me feel bad about this.

The blue guy is named James P. Sullivan. How dignified is that? And the one eyed green fellow, who is voiced by Billy Crystal, from the popular seventies sitcom, Soap, where, he incidentally, played the very first openly gay character on television. That was a milestone in popular culture!

So now he's a rambling old man. Thom Fowler, master of disguise!

I can see what he's doing now. He's trying to mimic those horrible Pitchfork album reviews that would read from the perspective of fictional characters created by the critics. You needed to give them silly names, Thom! That's why they never caught on!

The worst part is how he teases us with one name, and then tricks us into thinking we'll get the equally important name of the second lead character. Instead, we get chapter 1 of the official "How to Misunderstand Commas and Clauses" guidebook.

Sorry: Instead, we get, chapter 1 of, the official "How to, Misunderstand Commas, and Clauses" guide,book.

See, in this parallel world, the electrical company is actually the scream company! The monsters scaring children at night work for this big power company and they catch the screams and that is their electricity!

Thom! You're reviewing a children's movie! You gave it four stars! You don't have to summarize it with a dickish sarcasm! Unless you're actually this excited about the movie! In that case I guess you're okay!

It becomes a moral dilemma when a little girl accidently [sic] walks through the closet door and into the monsters [sic] world. Normally, a decontamination unit would come in and KILL THE CHILD! This is way too much like Auschwitz for a jew [sic] like Crystal to have any part of this project.

What the fuck are you talking about?

What?

What?

Some other films Billy Crystal notoriously passed on:
-Silence of the Lambs. Buffalo Bill kind of reminded him of Pharoah.
-Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Aliens at the end reminded him of the bunks of Dachau.
-Die Hard. Felt Alan Rickman was "too Hitlery"
-Chariots of Fire. Please, for the love of God, don’t make Billy Crystal think of the fire…

It gets better though, like in A Christmas Carol.

This sentence directly follows the Auschwitz statement. This, in turn, is followed by:

The blue guy and the one eyed guy, named Mike Wazowski, figure out pretty quik [sic] that the touch of a child won't kill them like they are led to believe.

First off, everyone thank Thom for finally naming the other main character only two paragraphs after he originally promised.

Secondly, if you can figure out the Christmas Carol sentence, you'll be the very first person to win a prize from Fire Lisa Schwarzbaum! You'll have to think: is A Christmas Carol, like… the best-known example of a story starting out troublesomely and getting better in the end? Is it the only other story Thom knows that follows that structure? Or is he talking about his appreciation for A Christmas Carol, saying that he really hates it until the end? It's up to you!

To make it worse, there's a bad monster, voiced by Steve Buscemi, who everyone cheered when his name on the credits rolled, named Randall, who wants to be the number one scarer but its [sic] worse. much [sic] much worse.

Chapter 2 of "How, To Misunderstand, Commas Clauses Guidebook and Parentheses Too!"

There's a conspiracy afoot to extract the screams of children in the most horrible way possible, making scarers like Mike and James irrelevant and probably unemployed. And then the greedy owner of the power company can sit on a pile of gold while the rest of the populace starves and dies. See, there is only one company in the Monster world. And that's the scream factory. It's a weird economy. There is, however, a restaurant, so I guess you can work there if you don't want to work with the scarers.

It's been a while since I've seen the movie, but I'm pretty sure this is all wrong.

And, oh, Thom (critic for "VH1's Celebreality Donkey Punch Blog") circa 2002, I've got a question. When are you going to review the film?

Oh. Here it is.

It seems really bad at first, but it gets good. The bad guy gets it right in the ass in the end by the furry blue guy who really digs it! The one eyed green guy is hetero though and he gets busy with another one-eyer who has snakes for hair. And all her snakes have serious attitude. The little girl finally makes it back home and the evil, greedy, power hungry industrialist gets SO BUSTED. In the end, its [sic] all good.

I didn't make any of that up.

Thom Fowler lived on this planet for thirty-two years before coming up with this paragraph.

Just think about that for a bit, okay? I need some rest.