A Bastardly Guide to How to Draw Good!

Theme: Art Decade - David Bowie

As the debut of Thinking Barbarian followup series Last of the Amazons draws nigh, I figured I might share my TOP TIPS for How to Draw Good when, like your humble blogìste, you don't actually have any talent, but still want to draw cool things like mastodon riders fighting Aztec cavemen, Voodoo bike gangs with tommy guns chasing our heroes through neon-lit streets, and goth girls fighting Baywatch babes in gladiatorial combat, because you're an arrested 12-y/o.

1. Get Some Perspective!

You're supposed to do this every time you draw a simple building.

Perspective is HARD and BORING. Swerve it by setting most of your action in forests and caves, so you can draw irregular shapes instead of buildings. Drawing trees and shit is EASY, but is also BORING, so you can cheat by using photographs for your backgrounds. This leads us nicely to...

2. My Sketchy Background!

If your background is too detailed, noone knows where the fuck to look! Blurring your backgrounds helps direct the reader's eye toward the main event occurring in the foreground, which is where you put your characters.

Then again, like me, you might prefer to use distraction to conceal your comical ineptitude at anatomy.

3. Go Figure!

Most of what you will draw will be the human figure. Like perspective, anatomy is HARD, but unlike perspective, it's also NOT BORING, so I suggest you study anatomy. One way to do this is by dissecting cadavers; these can be found at your local morgue or cemetery. Should this prove too difficult, copy your poses from better artists, which should at least get you in the ballpark, and when hall monitors CATCH you in the ACT, don a beret and call it an "homage". On the other hand:

4. Colour Me Shocked!

Learning basic colour theory takes five seconds: red goes with green, blue goes with orange, purple goes with yellow (but this last one is used pretty seldom). This is because these are opposites on the colour wheel.

In "The Fell Civil War" I had the red and green wizards fight each other and the orange and blue ones fight each other for this very reason. IDK who invented the colour wheel OK but it just works, just trust me on this.

ALSO: don't give one character too much colours; give them two main ones and a third one that's more of a highlight on details of their costume such as belts and straps. Let me expostulate...

5. My Dark Designs!

Besides incorporating colour theory, another rule of thumb I learned for character designs is that you take some visual motif and repeat it in a bunch of places on the character. One character can have two or three of these motifs but they have to be spaced out somewhat intelligently.

Helga has a black widow hourglass motif on her lips and kneepads, sometimes over her eyes, and a square "face" motif on her shoulderpad and shield. She also has the same type of feathers on her shoulderpad and trident. This simple approach creates unity and balance in the character design. Later I switched that random semicircle on her belt for another square face, which works better.

Now you've mastered character design, make like an embalmer and start...

6. Managing de composition!

Advanced composition is HARD, but simple composition that works is as EASY as the rule of thirds and shapes. Place a strong line on each third. You can just do this with the vertical or horizontal thirds or you can do it with both. Having characters with spears, or interiors with pillars, gives you easy things to use for these strong lines. The rule of thirds is such an easy hack for composition that it should be BANNED in competitive drawfaggotry, but is INVALUABLE for bastards like you and me!

Yeah, I eyeballed all my thirds, but it's an art, not a science. The thirds police aren't going to come knocking at your door.

Shapes are another good simple way to do composition good: arrange the components of your mise-en-scène into a triangle, a square or a circle. When you GIT GUD at art, you can combine several shapes more smartly, or so I am told.

Circle.

Square.

Triangle AND circle. Illuminati confirmed!!!

7. Most importantly, have fun!

Because one day you'll die and be forgotten.

8. Outsource to AI!

If you get stuck, remember that learning to draw is a complete waste of time and I only do it because it brings me joy, and if you just want to skip straight to the end point, you can just ask one of many AI programmes to create your picture for you. The Art Community might throw a bitchfit, but who cares what insane people think? For myself, I'm content to draw the old-fashioned way, but more out of quaint Amishness than any pretense toward punkish Luddism. If you want to cheat on your homework by having the smart kid do it for you, knock yourself out. For my full thoughts on the implications of AI technology for mankind, see: it's way too early to tell.

Now you know everything I do and more! Tune in next week for IDK, you decide.

The Best of Pat Bastard and the Spurious 5!!1

Because my bl☺g is now over a decade old and I forgot about the anniversary like a husband in a sitcom (but more importantly because I'm lazy), here's a trip down memory lane in lieu of anything new:

How Do I Get a Restraining Order?

Vic and Eddy

Everyone Loves Ants Too Much

Travel Broadens the Mind (Warrington Kills It)

Where's Wallie in the Garden of Earthly Delights

Academia is Carving Out New Frontiers in Flimflam and Chicanery

This is What Disney Princesses Would Look Like as a Horse

Neon Maniacs!

Sweet Dreams: A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy's Revenge!!!

Thank God It's Friday the 13th: Friday the 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan!!?

The Real Slim Stayvun

The Stayvun, by Edgar Allen Poe

Jimbo: The Thinking Barbarian - 12. The Caves of Chicomoztoc!

Greatest Movie of All Time of the Week: Screaming Mimi!

Greatest Movie of All Time of the Week: The Miraculous Virgin!

Greatest Movie of All Time of the Week: The Hot Spot!

RANKED: The Greatest Sideshow Stars of All Time!!!

RANKED: The Top 10 Animals!!!

Pulping in the 90s: The Shadow and The Phantom!

"But Pat, isn't this basically your entire blôgg?" Yes, gentle reader, but I cannot tell a lie.

Bastard role models: Tezcatlipoca

Tezcatlipoca was the troll god of the Aztecs and would periodically destroy the world, mostly by trolling other gods so hard they deleted fucking everything. In other words, the hero we deserve and need.

>ywn be as /fa/ as tezchadlipoca

Tezcatlipoca was so dedicated to trolling, he created the world by using his foot as bait to lure in Cipactli, a giant fucking crocodile fish space monster, which was then rekt and turned into the world by the combined gods of the Aztecs. He gave up his own foot just to make a Sims game he would then spend the rest of eternity fucking with and destroying, like a cross between a Bond villain and God.

One time, Tezcatlipoca thotpatrolled Chalchiuhtlicue, goddess of water, making her cry so much it flooded the world, forcing everyone to turn into fish in order to survive. No reason, he just liked doing things like that.

Tezcatlipoca in The Warriors (1979, colourised)

The other thing Tezcatlipoca is known for is that every year a Chad tier Aztec would be elected to LARP as him for one year leading up to his feast day, when he would be ritually killed and his heart offered up to the troll god. During this year he would get mad puss. Considering the alternative was to be a peasant til you dropped, this was a pretty sweet deal.

007 Dreams: Goldfinger

Is Goldfinger the best Bondkino? Because I am a gay nerd I ran the numbers and it's pretty much a three-way (snicker) contest between this one, You Only Live Twice and The Spy Who Loved Me, although Live And Let Die, The Living Daylights and Tomorrow Never Dies are also personal favourites.

Let us consider how Goldfinger is the best Bond: in the first place, it has the best villains. While many will argue that Blofeld is the definitive Bond enemy on the strength of his first three appearances, his batting average is let down by On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Diamonds Are Forever, in which he falls prey to bad writing and ends his run a tiresome buffoon. What's more, none of his henchmen were half as good as Oddjob*.

I think Oddjob is the only henchman to get his own musical theme, which is pretty based.

One of the rare joys of Goldfinger is that the beef between Bond and his archenemies is developed thoroughly over the film's runtime, with Bond and Goldfinger each gaining the upper hand at one time or another, rather like John McClane and Hans in Die Hard, lending their eventual reckoning a certain pleasing weight. Compare and contrast the SPECTRE agent from From Russia With Love who seems to have an entirely one-way hate-on for Bond in his talking-killer train scene. Hipsters love From Russia With Love for the wrong reasons, but plebs and patricians alike love Goldfinger for the right ones.

>tfw no solid gold gf

Moreover Goldfinger is a fantastically eccentric villain who takes such special delight in his evildoing that you sort of want him to succeed at least a little bit. The mutant organ in my chest cavity can't help but inflate with approval at a villain who, at the first sight of US Army troops approaching him, immediately sheds his outer garments to reveal a military uniform and guns down the accomplice nearest to him, effectively switching sides just long enough to get behind the real troops and gun then down in turn.

Your villain may be evil, but is he stolen valour in the middle of a heist evil?

It's such an ingeniously rotten contingency plan it makes me smile everytime. That this occurs just seconds after he locks his loyal manservant in a vault with Bond and a nuclear bomb just makes it even funnier. If Goldfinger had been in that Guns and Roses video where that guy dives through the wedding cake to get away from the rain, Goldfinger would have thrown him through it, hidden himself under a replica bridal veil, shot three bridesmaids and pissed in a homeless man's cap on the way out. A patrician bastard!

This will never not be funny to me.

Dullards have taken to complaining about this filmographeme because Bond doesn't do anything after being captured, but this is precisely why it is great: his efforts to escape or get word out to Felix Leiter are consistently foiled up until he finally manages to flip Pussy Galore (snicker), which demonstrates the effectiveness of Goldfinger's containment methods. So ingenious is Goldfinger he even assigns Pussy (snicker) to watch over Bond because she is a lesbian (confirmed in the b**k and implied in the kino), little realising that there are no such things as lesbians where Bond's BBC (Big British Cocc) is concerned.

The name's Bond. Chad Bond.

This raises (snicker) the other objection dullards have about the film, which is that Bond raeps Pussy (snicker), because how else can their play fighting in the barn be interpreted, except in any other way than that because that's fucking weird and nasty, what the fuck dullards? Have you never play fought with your partner prior to (or during) secks? If you raeped your partner, do you think that would have the effect of making them more likely to help you, or less? If you answered more, I think you are a danger to society.

ppl who call bond a raepist be liek ↑

Because I am not a creepy soyman, only one thing used to bug me about Goldfinger: the plot holes, which are both abundant and egregious. One is that you don't die from body paint, which makes the offscreen scene in which Oddjob methodically paints Jill Masterson gold even more ridiculous than it would otherwise be. The other is that Bond only finds out about Goldfinger's masterplan by overhearing him briefing a room full of hoods who he then immediately kills, making a major plot point hinge on a completely pointless exercise.

I like to think he spent many an evening playing out Op Grand Slam with toy soldiers on this board.

Both these objections, however, also crumble when exposed to not being a neckbeard for a few moments. In the first place, the skin suffocation is symbolic of the suffocating grasp of the possessive and vindictive Goldfinger, and the gold paint is an iconic calling card reflective of the superior art direction that has gold and goldish colour saturate the picture, right down to the uniform blondeness of Pussy's (snicker) squad of pilots, and Goldfinger's elaborate briefing is just another outlet for his prodigious ego. He wants his peers to appreciate his supreme artistry in the field of crime. You know, like he says he does.

The revolving plates covering her mouth are a nicely creepy touch. Of course she isn't saying anything - she's dead.

Another nice touch is that the pre-title sequence has nothing whatsoever to do with the main plot of the film. While it's often mistakenly believed that this is a common thread in the James Bond films, nearly all of them tie into the main plot in some way, but not this one. It's like the cartoons they used to show before the main feature back in the days when people went to cinemas because they used to show good movies. It's very pleasing, daydream stuff.

I'd watch these movies just for the sets 2bh my fams.

*The Spy Who Loved Me has the opposite problem with a great henchman in Jaws but a relatively underwhelming mastermind in Stromberg, although fun fact: he was originally meant to be Blofeld before the McClory lolsuit put a stop to it.

Doctor Bastard: now a major You Tube creepypasta reading with a cast of thousands

Doctor Bastard is now available to make house calls in video format.

The original pasta can be found here on this very blogge.

Happy April Fool's Day!

April Fool's Day is an ancient tradition in which people fuck with one another in the most mean-spirited ways possible. It is like every other day, except that when you get found out, you can plaster on a shit-eating grin and say "Aaapril Foool's!" and everyone will laugh despite the blood and tears.

You might think that April Fool's Day would be right up my alley, as I am a thoroughly despicable person. That's not a very nice thing to think though. It's judgemental, and that makes you as bad as me, if not worse. Probably worse, actually, because you're a good person. You should know better.

Everyone with horrible friends will of course be on the lookout for the pranksters and vagabonds among their ranks, and some friends employ a strategy of mutually assured destruction to ensure that any pranking going on will be met with excessive retaliation and the probable dissolution of the, in any case, inexplicable friendship.

This provides a good opportunity for you to exploit as a third party. Say you have a friend who has a friend you hate. You can frame the hated party for a prank on your good buddy, causing them to go to war and end their friendship. Be creative.

Another thing you can do is not prank people all April Fool's Day for years, making you look like a saint, and then offload with great brutality one year when nobody expects it. Note, however, that this will result in a loss of trust, so only do it when you've grown bored of your current circle of friends.

I was going to review the great slasher movie April Fool's Day (not the remake, of course), but I didn't because I was busy. Slaughter High is also set on April Fool's Day and invokes the Britbong tradition by which it runs out at midday. Remember this if you are ever in Bongesia, because if someone pranks you after midday the joke is on them, even though the tar and feathers may be on you.

Let's solve Jack the Ripper!

As you know, I am a fan of Jack the Ripper and associated mythology. I read The Final Solution (which is the one about how the Freemasons did 9/11 to prevent Bongland from finding out the royal family are degenerates), and became fascinated by the stories of Saucy Jacky and his poor spelling.

In this article I will give a token gesture to srs study by omitting the stupidest theories, like Alice in Wonderland author Lewis Carroll did it.

The Crimes

I will be using the "canonical" murders as the only ones that count, those being the murders of Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes (the double event), and Mary Jane Kelly. Some people like to think Jack started with Martha Tabram, only later developing his signature style. Others consider Kelly to be someone else's kill due to certain variations on the old MO. Still others contest whether the Ripper was responsible for both parts of the double event, since Stride was not gutted nor strangled. Jack's body count may then be as low as three, if Stride and Kelly were each killed by someone else. Dropping three bodies would only just make Jack count as a serial killer, but in defence of his reputation, I think someone else doing a murder like ten minutes' walk away from his on the same night seems like a pretty big coincidence, and if his alleged correspondence is to be credited, he did tell his dear old boss that he'd do two in one. The objection to Kelly's inclusion is plausible but would require us to identify the copycat as well, and the method of murder bears enough similarities given the difference in location and time available that we can call it Jack's if we want to.

The Usual Suspects

William Henry Bury

Suspected for similarities between the stab wounds found on Polly Nichols and the ones he put in his wife. "Jack Ripper is in this sellar (sic)" was also found written on his door. Hilariously, after turning himself in, and before they hanged him, he would make sulky innuendos to the effect that he was the Ripper, but stopped short of saying it outright, just to spite them.

David Cohen aka The Leather Apron aka Nathan Kaminsky

According to this theory Nathan Kaminsky was mixed up with formerly confirmed Ripper Aaron Kosminski, who was just a window-licker, and was briefly committed to an asylum under the name David Cohen, which was at the time like "John Doe" for Jews. This is a plausible story, but not much seems to be known about Kaminsky otherwise.

Aaron Kosminski

Still a popular subject, Kosminski was institutionalised at the right time for when the murders stopped. He was sometimes said to be violent, and was definitely schizophrenic, because he thought voices were telling him not to eat food that people gave him, and eat bread from the gutters instead. This has nothing to do with his ripping or otherwise, but it does prove one of history's first accounts of someone trolling himself.

Michael Ostrog

Generally ruled out these days, Ostrog was arrested about once a week for petty theft. Such a congenital fuckup was unlikely to avoid capture for the more srs crime of murder.

Nichols

A Midwife Did It

This theory, apparently raised by Inspector Abberline himself* postulates that a midwife could have done the killings as she would have been trusted by the victims, have a reason to be out late at night, and be able to explain blood on her clothes due to her work. This is a cool ass theory, but there's no direct evidence.

Francis Tumblety

Chiefly suspected for the size and sharpness of his moustache, Tumblety was a quack with a perhaps apocryphal affection for collecting uteri and a sizeable case of unwarranted self-importance. It was said that he might have sought revenge on prostitutes because he found out that his wife had been one, which is a fine origin story, but of debatable veracity. He was in England at the time of the murders but fled to America after the end of the canonical murders, and liked to use aliases like a villain in a Sherlock Holmes story.

Dr John Williams

A doctor who seems to have crossed paths with a Mary Kelly and possibly other victims in a professional capacity. He had a knife that matched the description of the murder weapon and was generally a bit of a dick. This is all circumstantial though. It probably wasn't him.

Francis Thompson

A poet who was homeless by the time his work became popular, Francis Thompson studied medicine and liked to write about murdering women, and is thought to have been in Whitechapel at the time of the murders. A great deal of circumstantial detail makes him seem a plausible suspect, but he was left-handed, whereas the Ripper is understood to have been right-handed.

Chapman

Alois Szemeredy

Implicated due to his commission of a similar crime in Buenos Aires, Szemeredy was convicted and committed to a loony bin. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any evidence that he was in London at the time of the murders.

Robert D'Onston Stephenson

A much-travelled former surgeon hospitalised in Whitechapel at the time of the murders, Stephenson wrote about his own Ripper theories involving killing in a cruciform pattern for black magic purposes, and spoke at such length and in such detail on the killings that people started to suspect him. This theory does require him to have sneaked out of the hospital where he was faking illness, which is farcically absurd and therefore stupid.

James Maybrick

Allegedly wrote a diary all about being the Ripper, which is generally agreed to be a hoax but makes him to this day one of the most discussed suspects. No one will remember you for anything.

Jacob Levy

A Jewish butcher and formerly committed nutter, Levy fit some of the details of the police profile, and may have been observed with Catherine Eddowes by his neighbour Joseph Levy shortly before whacking her. Then again, as we know, the police were useless when it came to keeping track of Jewish names, so maybe it was Joseph that did it. Oy vey.

Stride

Severin Klosowski, or George Chapman

This fuck was named by Abberline himself after he was convicted of poisoning his wives some time pursuant to the five Ripper murders. The problem is that poisoning is a very different way of killing someone as compared to strangling them, slitting their throats and gutting them.

Hyam Hyams

Loopy tune committed to Colney Hatch for stabbing his wife. Few details match eyewitness testimony.

James Kelly

Another cuckoo fruit and nut bar banged up for stabbing his wife, Kelly was sought after the Mary Jane Kelly murder but whether he was even in London is unknown. Rozzers quickly gave up on him and he spent much of the rest of his life waiting around trying to be arrested, and they didn't even bother. That's what you get for being a 19th Century schizoid man.

George Hutchinson

Famous eyewitness who claimed to see Mary Jane Kelly with the Ripper shortly before her death. Some people think he made up his account and some think he did the murders. There's no direct evidence, but people like the character. Claimed to have spent all his money going to Romford, which may be the most suspicious thing about him.

Eddowes (censored for your comfort and convenience)

Carl Feigenbaum

Executed in New York, serial murderer Feigenbaum was connected to the Ripper based on an alleged confession to his lawyer that he suffered from a madness that compelled him "to kill and mutilate the woman that falls in my way". Feigenbaum had been a merchant sailor and the theory goes he would have alighted at the London docks, whacked a hooker or two, and sailed back to Germany, leaving Abberline himself and the rest of the Keystone Kops running round in circles looking for someone who wasn't there. This is a good theory because it's funny, but relies on gaps in the shipping records. Feigenbaum could have been anywhere at the time of the killings, and it's known that the lawyer made up a bunch of bullshit to connect him to other murders around the world that had nothing to do with him or didn't even happen.

Joseph Barnett

Mary Jane Kelly's ex was raised as a suspect on the basis that he resembled eyewitness accounts and might have had access to the room where she was killed. It has been suspected that he may have written the "Dear Boss" letter which introduced the name "Jack the Ripper", and this "trade name" may have referred to his work with fish. Some also believe he only killed Kelly, using the Ripper murders as a cover. This is plausible, particularly as he was observed to be around her in the days immediately prior to her murder. However, this theory still leaves the OG Jack unaccounted for.

Montague John Druitt

Seemingly considered a suspect on the basis of suspicious innuendo, Druitt became an hero shortly after the killings, providing a possible explanation for why they stopped - if it was him. No direct evidence supports him as a suspect.

Someone Else

It is very possible that it was someone else entirely. London is very big and lots of people live there, and Whitechapel at the time was a crowded slum. It may be that the Ripper is someone everyone has overlooked both then and now. This idea isn't taken very seriously by Ripperologists because that would be history cheating, and an unwinnable game is a broken game, and should be scorned.

Kelly (everyone's favourite)

Elimination

I believe out of the suspects presented here, the only likely options are Bury, Kaminsky, Tumblety, Levy, Barnett and Someone Else. The most compelling case against Barnett hinges on his relationship with Kelly, which inclines me to think if he were guilty it would be of the Kelly murder only. If that were the case, Bury, Kaminsky, Tumblety or Levy could have been the original Jack. A lot of the case against Tumblety rests on hearsay, and there is not enough information to confirm the Kaminsky/Kosminski switcherooni, which leaves Bury and Levy the most likely candidates for the original Ripper. Both are good, but Bury closely resembles the FBI profile. He was confirmed out all night every night there was a murder, and he fucked off posthaste as soon as the heat intensified. He even had items reminiscent of trophies taken from the victims, like the rings missing from Chapman. And he had butcher experience, just like Levy.

The cases against Kaminsky and Levy are plausible because of the paucity of detail which surrounds them. Knowing more might implicate them to a greater degree or rule them out entirely. The case against Bury is strong because of positively determined facts. Bury is therefore the most likely Ripper, and the one who shall be starring in my next opus, "Whitechapel!: A Musical Comedy Extravaganza", starring Neil Patrick Harris. Look for it.

Think you know better than me who Jack the Ripper was? Leave a comment, butt head.

*In Ripperology, Abberline is always referred to with "himself", because he was clearly very important despite failing to catch the killer. If you don't call him "himself", you will be excommunicated from Ripperology.

Saws: http://www.casebook.org/suspects/

The Poughkeepsie Tapes!!!

Thought you ran out of good horror movies years ago? Never seen a good found footage movie after The Blair Witch Project? Under 6 feet tall? Then you might just be a disgusting manlet that should be exterminated from the gene pool.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes was never released, lending credence to the conspiracy theory that Hollywood is this bad intentionally and scuppers anything good on purpose because Hollywood hates you. This theory is true, but fortunately you can probably find a copy on line. The first version I saw I immediately realised this was the horror movie I had been missing all these years, but the uploader CUT THE GOD DAMN ENDING OFF. Anyway, it was really good. WATCH IT.

For those of you PEASANTS who don't know, The Poughkeepsie Tapes is about a serial killer in New York State who seems to be loosely based on Ted Bundy (who even gets a shoutout in the movie), the Zodiac Killer and the fictionalised Henry Lee Lucas from Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (like whom he switches up his MO to confuse everyone). He videotapes all his kills (for he is in the 90s, I think), and wears this beaky mask thing just for jolly wouldn't you?

But perhaps the most interesting part of the movie concerns what I'll call his favourite victim. I won't give away what happens to her, but it's quite unlike what happens to most characters in horror movies, and confers a note of poignancy which makes the whole experience more interesting. Watch The Poughkeepsie Tapes, and sort out your life, in either order.

Trolling at the Movies: Pumpkin!!!

Hello friends! You may not have heard of Pumpkin, because no one has. I've never met someone who's seen Pumpkin, and I think it's because everyone tried to bury it. The writer and director team have no more credits after it on IMDb, as if everyone in the industry made sure they never worked again. They tried to forget the movie ever happened, because it trolled them so hard.

The expression of a star beginning to doubt the movie is exactly what it seems.

Pumpkin stars Christina Ricci (Buffalo 66) as a popular blonde sorority sister who, in a twist of fate that would make Shakespeare hang up his tights, falls madly in love with a special kid. The movie asks, Rachel Dolezal-style, a question so absurd as to be unanswerable: can retards love?

Trick question: everyone loves Christina Ricci.

Make no mistake: there is no expectation of an answer behind this. Rather, it is a work of trolling that obliterates the line between the ridiculous and the sublime. If you can get behind a normal person having a relationship with a differently clever person, you're OK with exploitation of the oblivious, but if you can't, you're saying people of slowness don't deserve to find love with hot sorority girls. I'm sorry, that wasn't very PC; "systers of elevated temperature". For people who care deeply about how compassionate and socially aware they look, this is a tortuous dilemma.

Pumpkin is a sensitive young man.

So Christina Ricci has a lark playing the opposite of her character from the Addams Family movies. But her world is turned urpside durn when she's assigned a neuro-atypical citizen to tutor! What ever could ensue????????

Oh.

On finding that she only has eyes for Pumpkin, her erstwhile boyfriend has a tearful breakdown in his car, resulting in the greatest crash ever on film, in which his car bursts into a huge, comet-like tail of fire as soon as it falls off the edge of the cliff, and burns all the way down. It's like a cross between an episode of Invitation to Love and a Jim Steinman song.

As you can see, Pumpkin is great. But I don't think you can appreciate how great it is unless you watch it. I can't even tell if Christina Ricci is complicit in the trolling, or is being trolled, so finely balanced is her performance.

I think she gets it, but won't let on.

It's a shame this movie didn't become more well known, because I would have loved to see people debate these stupid issues like they were real issues, the way people do today. Pumpkin was so ahead of its time it's unreal. Like Rachel Dolezal over a decade later, it revealed that, far from the developmentally disabled, it's the self-important and self-serious that are the true retards.