In honor of Thanksgiving – I present to you something about eating things, because that’s what Thanksgiving is about, right?

Does anyone remember when the Germans went around eating everyone? Remember there were about four decades there after the last big war where this was a real problem and – in true Steven “Hey Man I’m Steven Spielberg” Spielberg style and substance, he brings this terrible story to our screens to once again fulfill his Duties and Obligations of Picture Making to tell us the truth and re-open the scars of history. Scars? Yes! Like when you go swimming and take off your shirt and across your lovely breasts are tattooed the words “PROPERTY OF ERIC NORTHMAN” or when you go tooling around the city you live in that is NOT Chicago and you have a Cubs bumper sticker on the back of your H3.

Indeed, to open, we see a man, sad and his skin appears soggy, ashen; he is humping the tailpipe of his Hummer, he is shamed but we don’t know if it is from this act he is involved in or because he spent money on Cubs paraphernalia. He thrusts, he weeps.

Over the next 3.5 hours Spielberg will show us another face of evil. He is the best at baring atrocity! He can share his visions of monsters and the vile greasiness of the dark humanity. Like no other. Only he! The man, divine, sired from the loins of Directorius Artsus, the first and best Roman to ever live, a true gift of that theater. Tonight we give ourselves to the divinities! Tonight our eyes reach their true potential! Oh how lucky are we!

In the early 50s, so our movie begins, a man named Werner Krause Herman was relaxing and eating small onions somewhere peaceful on his land at Alsace-Lorraine. His fraulein and kinder stew beets inside when they are suddenly, violently and savagely attacked. It is shown that their assassins are French and, after losing his family, in battle, he cries over their unburied corpses that they will not be forgotten and vows to: “EAT EVERY LAST ONE OF THOSE STINKING FRENCH MOTHERFUCKERS AND DEBASE THEM IN THE MOST MISERABLE FASHION THEY DESERVE: TO SHIT OUT THEIR REMAINS.” “That’ll teach them, acht,” he spits.

The second act begins a decade later: he and the surviving villagers have been eating their way through France, Belgium and the Netherlands, leaving nothing but distressing piles of shit in their wake. The heads of Europe have met and even called the United States but they are too busy over in the swamps of Korea to be of any help this time. “What are we going to do, Wellington?” Asks someone from their poofy, pillowed chair. “Croissant en eclair,” remarks someone else, applying a fake mole to his perfumed buttock. “Je M’appelle.”

As the first half closes, Spielberg and his team of fancy special effects folks use their magicks to show a map of the continents and trace the paths of the human-eating devils out of Europe and across the oceans. I’m not some graphic design wizard but, if I remember correctly, it went something like this, overlaid on some sort of old timey map:

I think it’s best to underline and define that (mostly) these weren’t just barbaric pigs eating people off the street or out of the fields and gutters they worked in. We’re talking about fine dining in some cases; freshly prepared meats and sauces, washed vegetables, cured fruits, in steaks and tacos, etc. This wasn’t just some Friday night in Manitoba or Athens, wez’re talking oooh la la fancy pants, wear a jacket type of shit. In fact, and I agree, your grandma and grandpa probably had some of these dinners at some point, lots of people tried new things in the 70s, you may or may not think about. And, I mean, Jesus, maybe your mom ate someone’s calf or something and the guy who gave the spermum did too and one night out at the beach that essence got in to both of them and they were really getting into it, Christ, and then bam out came the jizz and kablow made the connection and then not too long later you were a November baby because that happened to be Valentine’s Day and sure enough you end up an only child getting spanked and grounded all the fucking time or yelled at and you don’t even know why and you don’t really have too many friends because of that only child thing and you listen to a lot of Alan Parsons Project and – yeah – Spielberg covers all of that too.

The second half: Eventually it’s 1990 or so and the leaders of the free world and even that Russian KGB guy attend a summit in Munich to determine the future of mankind, especially when it comes to fine cuisine and the consumption of human meats. “We can’t go on like thees!” declares the Head of Council, a Swiss lady with impeccable hair. “Thees must be stopped!”

“But why?” counters a chancellor from somewhere or another, giving her ankle a good sniff.

It takes almost a full decade and three more hours of film time before any of these people even agree on an after dinner wine and by then everyone is eating trendy Kobe beef or steaming their home grown asparagus anyway so eating your neighbor or your aunt is unfashionable and we all go back to eating other meats or shit like squash because we’re civilized and that’s what’s good for us and no smoking and never tell those grandparents you can’t poop or they’ll make you put a suppository up your butt and don’t talk in church. Spielberg’s Oscar eludes him for something else like one of those movies I hate – maybe something real deep and sad like something about a guy who’s gonna die so he takes a trip and has to tow all of his life’s belongings up some switchback side of a mountain and as he makes those turns at 2 miles per hour in his Hummer H3, his cherished – oh god damn what’s the word I’m looking for – his ephemera starts to gently wisp out the back of his cabin – symbolizing the life he’s left behind and there’s a lot of sappy vignettes and by the time he gets to the top of the mountain he’s happy and pure and can die in the sun.

~FIN~

FILED UNDER: MAN THAT WAS SOME FILM MIASMA EFFLUVIUM RIGHT THERE