Letter of Complaint (Evan Almighty [3])

Here's the final letter of complaint against the makers of Evan Almighty that I've found online. Apparently it was written on a large stone tablet. Surely by the time this turned up some major warning bells would have been sounding.

Dear Tom Shadyac and Steve Oedekerk,

Re: your recent ode to banality Evan Almighty, I wish to lodge a complaint about how you have interpreted the events surrounding a flood I unleashed upon the heathen scum populating the earth several hundred years before my son was born. In your movie you had this way dumb scene with me talking to Steve Carell, during which I explain that I hit Earth with a huge flood in order to bring Noah's family closer together. I guess you can take that one of two ways; the Bible is a bunch of self-help metaphors and not the Word of Me, which is blasphemous enough to tick me off, or that I'm a total wuss. Well, congratulations, because your efforts to portray me as a cuddly-wuddly My Little Deity have incurred my wrath even unto the ending of the Earth!!!

I didn't create a flood to help a family bond. What am I, Dr. Phil? I hit planet Earth with a billion billion billion extra gallons of water to punish the heathens for their sins. Why wouldn't I? You're just an ant farm with the odd good book by Philip Roth to distinguish you from the rest of the beasts. You'd better believe it. You've only seen what happened back then by watching Cecil B. DeMille's excellent documentaries about the period, but even those didn't show the extent to which humanity had screwed the pooch, with the fornication and idolatry and whatnot. You don't do that on my watch and not force me to bring the thunder, and I brung it. Brought it. Ugh, stupid English. Why isn't everyone speaking French by now? It's a much nicer language.

So yeah, Humanity 1.0 had so many glitches I had to hit Ctrl-Alt-Flood, so you better believe I did the do in order to kill a whole mess o' peeps. I'm the Old Testament God! It's what I do! I tell guys to kill their kids and send nasty plagues down just the fun of it. And believe me, Humanity 2.0 had better start taking a good look at itself, or this asteroid I'm holding is getting aimed right at the Midwest, and Bruce Willis and William Fichtner ain't gonna save your asses this time.

That fluffy-God crap annoyed me more than the fact that the laughs really dried up in the final act of your stupid movie, and that you totally wasted Lauren Graham. Why did you bother casting someone as spunky as her if you're just going to make her the boring wifey who gets mad at her husband? Between this, having noisy sex with Billy Bob Thornton in Bad Santa (or, as we call it up here in Heaven HQ, Bad Film!!!), and spending eight years being the only non-sucky thing on that P-O-S show Gilmore Girls, she just can't seem to catch a break. Time for an Eleventh Commandment; Thou Shalt Not Waste Lauren Graham's Talent.

Oh, and re: casting Morgan Freeman to play me. Nice work! Who doesn't like Morgan Freeman? He can even make penguins seem noble and interesting. I couldn't even manage that, and I spent .000054 picoseconds longer designing them than I did humans. Those were some frustrating little ice-birds. So yeah, that casting was the one thing I liked about your movie, and that's why I only made the stupid thing tank instead of having you covered with boils and locusts and stuff. You got lucky, jerkoffs. Now make another Ace Ventura film, and I might reconsider letting Lucifer nab your souls. I really loved that pet detective.

Yours sincerely,

Da Old Testament God, yo!

Letter of Complaint (Evan Almighty [2])

Here's more indignation aimed at the makers of the soul-freezing entertainment void that was Evan Almighty, a film that made Bruce Almighty look like The Producers (original flavour).

Dear Evan Almighty creators,

I am writing in protest about your use of the acronym ARK at the end of the movie known as Evan Almighty (EA). Kindness Dissemination Technologies appreciates the efforts of Universal Pictures and the numerous production companies to distance the movie from the generosity generation meme popularly referred to as Random Acts of Kindness, which, as you will know following the correspondence between our lawyers, is a registered trademark of KDT.

However, despite our legal threats, we (KDT) feel not enough was done to differentiate between the two memes, and as such the final scene with the deity referred to as God exhorting the lead character to practice Acts of Random Kindness, which has been a bone of contention between us for a period of months, remains problematic. KDT holds copyright on this meme, and is unwilling to cede intellectual ownership of this meme to a deity, be it fictional or actual.

KDT is also worried that the popularisation of this altered meme will lead to confusion about the dissemination of such generosity, a potentially damaging distortion of our concept and, potentially, ruinous to the public reputation of our company. Random Acts of Kindness denote acts of kindness that are actualised randomly. Examples of such include:

Paying for the coffee of a stranger

Cleaning the windows of a neighbour's house when they are on holiday

Purchasing a computer for a school

Regrettably, altering the name of the meme to Acts of Random Kindness, in its attempt to distance your meme from that of KDT's, renders it unusable. It instead refers to acts of kindness that are random in nature, not randomly enacted. Here are some examples:

Paying a toll for a car-less tramp

Purchasing coffee for a cat

Mowing 50% of your neighbour's lawn

Literal enactment of this modified meme would render the concept meaningless, which could negatively impact upon the share value of KDT. Such an outcome is unacceptable. While we regret to involve our lawyers again after our previous round of ill-tempered debate, KDT feels it has no choice but to begin further legal action in order to clarify how kindness is to be disseminated throughout the world. Any efforts on the art of the makers of Evan Almighty to jeopardise the random purchasing of coffee or payment of toll charges is seen as an act of corporate hostility, and will be met with the full force of our legal powers. Consider this the beginning of a new legal battle. Keep the example of Pay It Forward, and the subsequent careers of its three leads in mind. Our legal resources are more formidable than you can possibly imagine.

Hugs!

Ben E. Volence - CEO Kindness Dissemination Technologies (legal letter redeemable for free coffee at all participating Starbucks, coffee must be handed to nearest indigent)

Final letter to come on Friday.

Letter of Complaint (Evan Almighty [1])

A couple of weeks ago we endured some pretty shoddy movies, and by that I don't mean amusingly dreadful like Cassandra's Dream or The Happening, but just flat-out godawful movies that made us mad. One of them was Dreamgirls, which made me froth at the mouth (those weak, repetitive Motown/Stax pastiches were an insult to the original work), and the other was Evan Almighty, which failed on every conceivable level, but most importantly, failed from the moment of conception.

I would have complained, but thanks to some internet sleuthing, I found out that far more impressive and forceful letters were sent by people with more clout. With their permission, this week I shall reprint my favourites here. I have no idea whether the makers of Evan Almighty ever responded.

Dear the makers of Evan Almighty,

I recently had the unfortunate experience of watching the movie Evan Almighty, starring the former Daily Show correspondent and, I assume from that, member of the Communist Party Steven Carell. Though the casting of someone as gallingly liberal as that would normally deter me from watching such a movie, I was swayed by the thought of a Hollywood project featuring a man of God working within government to better the world through the expansion of housing developments into areas of wildlife protected by those tree-hugging, pagan, sun-worshipping, eco-fascist Wiccan welfare scum who make the otherwise pleasurable job of acquiring billions of dollars such an uphill struggle. At last, the liberal hankie-fluttering nancys of Hollywood seemed willing to show the benefits of combining Church and State into one Holy Temple of Might, Money and Morality, and seemed to be so eager to do so that it dropped a significant amount of dollarage into the project (well, almost as much as a deposit on a Bilderberg Group membership, but a sizable amount for a movie).

So you can imagine my disgust when the Congressmen in the movie are not affiliated with any political party. What were you thinking? That man from King Ralph was obviously playing a Republican like myself. Did you decide against naming his colours because his actions would offend the righteous American heroes of the Republican party? As a Republican, I would be proud to put my name on such a brave housing bill. But oh boo hoo! The animals might die! Do animals vote? No. So what's the problem?

Even worse, Congressman Evan Almighty is put in conflict with Congressman King Ralph over the fates of the bunnies or whatever it was. This would never happen. Republicans never fight against each other, not while there are terrorist-worshipping Dummycrats around. And yes, you didn't say that Congressman Evan Almighty was a Republican either, but God talks to him, so it's obvious. The Republican God I worship doesn't talk to Democrats. He makes jokes about their weaknesses and spits on them. That's what rain is. Why do you think we refer to them as "wet"? No Republican has ever been caught in a rainstorm. That's a fact hidden from common knowledge by the liberal media, knowing that their own, inherently treacherous kind would flock to our banner just to stay dry.

So, if you go ahead with making a sequel, maybe one featuring that Molly Shannon lady like it seemed you were hinting at (Yeah, we caught that she was called Eve!), please be sure to give flag lapel pins to the Righteouslicans and have them properly labelled as God-fearing pro-dollar heroes. We deserve the credit for our endeavours, you deviant Commie schmucks.

Yours in frothing indignation,

Quintus "The Moneyman" Zirkman, CEO Dollar Absorption Incorporated (a subsidiary of SoulAnnex plc.).

More to come on Wednesday.