WHEREAS, said franchise is the most lucrative in the history of cinema, having generated nearly $4.3 billion at the box office alone, and

WHEREAS, the creator of said franchise, George Lucas, has established additionally lucrative revenue streams from Star Wars licensing, animated series and his post-production empire at Skywalker Ranch, and

WHEREAS, recent news reports reveal that Lucas plans to re-release said franchise theatrically in 3-D, and

WHEREAS, the terrible second half of the franchise already capitalized on the celebrated phenomenon of the first half, and

WHEREAS, said first half was previously exploited by Lucas's urge to re-release them with bad CGI and boring deleted scenes, and

WHEREAS, said first half was further exploited by more home-video versions than anyone could count, and certainly more than anyone wanted to buy, and

WHEREAS, a 3-D Star Wars re-release further cynically exploits a celebrated phenomenon that was just fine as it was, and

WHEREAS, The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith will always suck no matter how many dimensions they're screened in, and

WHEREAS, Lucas still does not yet have the technology to make his screenwriting multi-dimensional,

WHEREAS, the conversion process will likely cost Lucas at least $15 million per film, with another $30 million of marketing on top of that, and

WHEREAS, we are tired of spending money on George Lucas's old shit, and

WHEREAS, we are tired of Lucas expecting us to spend money on his old shit,

NOW, THEREFORE, LET IT BE RESOLVED BY DEFAMER:

1. George Lucas cease and desist in his threat to re-release any or all of the Star Wars franchise in 3-D, and

2. The Star Wars franchise shall be remanded to protective custody until Lucas is judged fit and modest enough to take care of it, and

3. Lucas serve a five-year probation during which the cash-mongering recycling of old properties is subject to a fine of $5 billion dollars and/or life in prison.

RESOLUTION PASSED this 25th day of July, 2008.

SIGNED,

DEFAMER

[Photo: Getty Images]

WHEREAS, Fraggle Rock was a 1980s-era HBO children's television series developed and produced by the late Muppets creator Jim Henson, and

WHEREAS, The Weinstein Company reportedly will join the Jim Henson Co. in adapting Fraggle Rock as a feature film, and

WHEREAS, Fraggle Rock: The Series is a warmly remembered part of our generation's upbringings, and

WHEREAS, Fraggle Rock: The Movie marks the Weinsteins' latest contribution to a burgeoning family tradition that also includes the Satan-appeasing rehash of Short Circuit and sundry teen slasher films, and

WHEREAS, Harvey Weinstein today tells Variety with a straight face: "One of our main priorities when we first launched the Weinstein Company was to feature a broad range of family-friendly franchises like Fraggle Rock," and

WHEREAS, this is a man who also prioritized buying the Halston fashion label and recently earned $107,435 on a $4 million investment in a John Cusack film, and

WHEREAS, the Weinsteins acquired and/or developed numerous successful, influential films for more than 15 years as the founders of Miramax Films, and

WHEREAS, the Weinsteins in no way, shape or form walked away from Miramax and its struggles with corporate parent Disney in 2005 with the intention of reviving Fraggle Rock and/or any "franchises" like it, and

WHEREAS, Harvey Weinstein watched in horror as Miramax developed (or co-developed) three Best Picture Oscar nominees in the years since the Weinsteins left, winning in 2007 (as well as claiming the Best Foreign-Language Oscar in 2005), and

WHEREAS, Harvey secured his sole Oscar nod in 2007 after threatening to shoot himself if it failed to materialize, and

WHEREAS, the director of Fraggle Rock: The Movie is also the man responsible for Hoodwinked, one of the ugliest animated films in recent memory and, not coincidentally, one of the Weinstein Company's rare successes;

WHEREAS, no living human being of any age, taste or discretion wants to see this film,

WHEREAS, we can no longer idly sit by as the Weinstein Company chases its tail, cannibalizes its imagination, squanders its founders' pioneering legacy, and sputters impotently out of our hearts and into cultural oblivion,

NOW, THEREFORE, LET IT BE RESOLVED BY DEFAMER,

1. The Weinstein Company be put to death by immediate closure and liquidation of its "assets," including but not limited to Fraggle Rock: The Movie, and

2. The Weinsteins' employees be immediately relocated to safe houses in Hollywood and New York for rehabilitation and eventual release back into the industry workforce, and

3. Bob and Harvey Weinstein be banned from future film dealings pending the results of a psychiatric evaluation and two years' community service counseling soul-deadened moviegoers at the multiplexes where their films receive wide release.

RESOLUTION PASSED this 13th day of May, 2008.

SIGNED,

DEFAMER

• Weinsteins roll with 'Fraggle Rock' [Variety]

WHEREAS, said trailer features George Lopez in his archetypally go-to role as Hollywood's default Mexican voice talent, and

WHEREAS, per cosmic law, secondary Mexican voice talent Cheech Marin is also represented, and

WHEREAS, said trailer introduces Papi, the character referred to in the film's title and the descendant of small singing dogs who "fought alongside Aztec warriors," and

WHEREAS, said trailer features Papi leading a garish CGI chihuahua-ganza of cruise-ship music and Busby Berkley-esque showstoppers, and

WHEREAS, said trailer employs the hip-hop refrain, "We're tiny, we're mighty, we're number one / Yo, we're the real hot dogs, so hold the bun," and

WHEREAS, the frame captured at left is an actual image from said trailer, and

WHEREAS, we cannot stop staring at this image in stunned, staggered anticipation, and

WHEREAS, the only thing missing from the otherwise flawless said trailer is a sequence featuring a chihuahua shaman removing a still-beating chihuahua heart; and

WHEREAS, said trailer ends with the unassailably profound tagline, "50% Warrior. 50% Lover. 100% Chihuahua," and

WHEREAS, we are surprised to discover that the film said trailer supports in not of the "straight-to-DVD" variety but rather a full-length feature to be released in theaters Sept. 26 of this year, and

WHEREAS, there is no fucking way we are waiting nearly five months to see this year's tacky, tasteless, post-culture equivalent of Snakes on a Plane,

NOW, THEREFORE, LET IT BE RESOLVED BY DEFAMER,

1. That Disney moves up the release of Beverly Hills Chihuahua to this Friday, May 9 — preferably as a replacement to Speed Racer, which we viewed yesterday and which barely seems finished;

2. That Beverly Hills Chihuahua rename its female lead "Apocalynkerbell" in deference to its studio's previous anthropological foray into extinct Mesoamerican cultures;

3. That said trailer precedes every screening of every film in every theater from now until the date Disney can arrange for the wide release of the full-length feature.

RESOLUTION PASSED this 6th day of May, 2008.

SIGNED,

DEFAMER

• Beverly Hills Chihuahua [Disney]

WHEREAS, Ms. Parker is the star of the Sex and the City, an overpraised television series adapted as an overhyped feature-length film for theatrical distribution later this month; and

WHEREAS, Sex and the City romantically represents contemporary New York City as a sanitized, upper-middle class shrine to culture, taste, privilege and glamor; and

WHEREAS, the real New York City is a class war waiting to happen, as exemplified by Ms. Parker's recollection to the author:

I don't know if you do this with your husband," Parker says. "But say one of us is walking down the street, I'll call him and say, 'You know, the laundromat is closed!' And he'll say, 'What?' I'll be like, 'The laundromat at 11th and West 4th Street is closed!' " and

WHEREAS, Ms. Parker's West Village walking tour is punctuated with other, similar laments, including those for the good old days of public insolvency and that "the city is so affluent, and all the colors, all the shops, the look of a street from block to block is just terribly absent of distinguishing coffee shops, bodegas. All of that stuff that made it possible to live in New York is gone ... I guess there are places in Queens that are affordable," and

WHEREAS, Ms. Parker acknowledges her calculated brand development (e.g. perfume, clothing line) within a half-dozen breaths of complaining about the media attention that reinforces it: "It makes me feel ashamed of my work. And I'm not. But I'm attached to this culture now in a way that, it's kind of vulgar. And I feel cheapened. And I feel like I'm cheapening the school, like I'm bringing dirt, like I'm bad for the neighborhood," and

WHEREAS, Ms. Parker is a confirmed nice person who, along with her nice husband Matthew Broderick, nevertheless symbolizes an urban idyll both contradictory and destructive to her self-proclaimed values, and

WHEREAS, we abhor hypocrisy among the West Village power elite and, more generally, among A-listers promoting their mass-market summer confections in major national publications,

NOW, THEREFORE, LET IT BE RESOLVED BY DEFAMER,

1. That Ms. Parker be censured for her perpetuation of Sex and the City and other utopian myths helping eviscerate New York in both the local and popular consciousness, and

2. That Ms. Parker be further censured for being the latest New Yorker to want things both ways, and

3. That this censure go forth in the form of an official editorial admonition: "Kindly shut the fuck up."

RESOLUTION PASSED this 5th day of May, 2008.

SIGNED,

DEFAMER

• Sarah Jessica Parker Would Like a Few Words With Carrie Bradshaw [NYM]