TRAZALCA'S HOVEL

I've just been HULU'd.

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The grandmother to my lovely wife, being from Coal Miner's Daughter
country, has shared many stories of her fascinating past over the years,
complete with rural jargon that you'd not find anywhere else.
One of my favorites is, "You're not gonna hoodoo me!"
When I first heard it, I had no idea what it meant.
She explained that it was her way of saying "Don't be pulling
my leg" or "Don't be making a fool out of me."
May I submit to you the idea that the definition of hoodoo be applied to HULU.

I say this because of my first movie watching experience over at  
the new video website HULU, brought to you by NBC, who knows what it takes to ruin
television in new and exciting ways. Leave it to NBC to support
a show that sucks (see Bionic Woman), and cancel others that
were genuinely intrigueing and well written (see Journeyman/The Black Donnellys/Surface).

After registering to the site, I perused through the movie list,
and decided to watch a film I had yet to see. The fact that it was
free to watch should have given me a first clue that it was too
good to be true. I watched SIDEWAYS with the excellent Paul Giamatti,
and Thomas Haden Church. Both should have been up for Oscars for
their roles, and deservedly so, but only THC got the nod. 
I haven't laughed so hard from watching a film in a long time. It was brilliant.

However, I was seriously HULU'd.

At the onset of watching the movie, a black screen appears,
notifying me that "the following is intended only for mature
audiences. Viewer discretion advised. Rating: R". I then braced
myself for moments of colorful language and explicit displays of
whatever...

...after the movie was over, I wanted to go back and tell the
NBC-staffed folk for Hulu that there was NO WAY that movie could
have been rated R. PG to PG-13 at best, but not R.  

Scenes of lewd dialogue were badly overdubbed with replacement words.
Asshole was replaced with, of all things, ASHCROFT. The grand
daddy of all curse words, the F word, was replaced with FOOL,
or SCREW. Almost the entire movie was like this. I then looked
down to the reviews left by other Hulu users who HAD seen the film
in theaters, and all of them were livid that so many scenes were cut out.

Therefore, not only was this movie butchered and severely edited,
it was censored to a ridiculous level, making me want to adopt the
word Ashcroft as my new cuss-word to ingrates who fail to use their
turning signals when changing lanes on the highway. (I hate that.)

Bar none. This movie was hilarious. I busted out laughing about
five or six times, with my sides hurting. I also noted that the
film's dramatic moments were spot on, and I found myself identifying
all too easily with the character of Miles, his bouts of doubt
and frustration with being a nobody, and his lack of encouragement
and nurturing from others towards his gifts of writing.

I even loved the way the movie ended: [mini-spoiler]

with a knock on the door, and a grasp at a chance to hope again,
love again, and maybe, be someone special to another that would
regard him as such.

Now I have to see this movie AGAIN, and I'll need to get the DVD
and see it uncut, unbutchered, and in WIDESCREEN.
I detest pan & scan, which was how Hulu chose to deliver this fine film.

Shame on them.

But you want to know something ironic? Though the cursing was
terribly overdubbed with innocuous banter, I found it really fun
and funny to hear, and it didn't take away from the film.
For myself, it was nostalgic, recalling the days of network TV showing
rated R films way back when. For others, I'm sure, it's irritating.

The Hulu reviews listed beneath the Sideways page was all too clear on that point.

Regardless, I honestly felt that I was lied to. It left a bad
taste in my mouth, like an unforgiveable Merlot so sour and dry
I wouldn't dare pour it out over the gravesite of my homey.
It would be insulting.

In short, Hulu has lost my respect for them as quickly as it was
lost for NBC overall. At least now, if I do watch anything on that
below-par knockoff of the superior Youtube, I can be better prepared
that I'll be watching a sub-par offering of a movie/episode.
I'd rather go knowing what I was getting at the start, than be
made a fool of.

And in my view, that makes Hulu the biggest ASHCROFT on the net today.