
Got a little Johnny joke for you.
This English teacher, right, comes into class with all the English essay
exam papers she's been busy marking over the weekend.
"Who wants to get their marks first?" she says, and scores of
eager hands fly up.
Johnny's up the back waving his hand frantically and calling out: "Pick
me, miss. Pick me!"
She ignores him and turns to a girl in the front row.
"Up to your usual high standard, Suzanne," the teacher says, passing
over the girl's work. "Creative. Imaginative. Eighty-two percent."
"Pick me, miss. Pick me!" yells out little Johnnie as the teacher
studiously ignores him.
"Andrew. Not too bad. 65 percent." "Laura. It was a topic
you obviously felt strongly about. Eighty-three percent."
Finally, she can't ignore little Johnny any longer so walks over and stands
by his desk.
"Long and often laboured," she begins, not trying to cushion the
blow.
Little Johnnie looks crestfallen.
"It is ponderous and indulgently over-long."
And because she knows what he's capable of, she adds: "Its disappointments
seem twice as brutal."
Little Johnnie looks almost in tears as the teacher drops the essay on his
desk.
"Seventy-five percent."
Okay, it's not much of a joke but we thought the Sunday Mail's review of
Eyes Wide Shut was.
All the descriptions of little Johnny's effort above came from the Sunday
Mail review.
Yet despite all that, it gave the film three-and-a-half stars out of five.
That's at least 75 percent, according to our shonky arithmetic. You go figure!