The #1 Cracked Gist

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What is the Cracked Gist?

The focus of each Cheat Sheet is called The Gist. Think of the concise humor of the Craptions section crossed with our Pop Culture articles. Your goal here is to summarize everything anyone needs to know about the subject of your cheat sheet in one hilarious paragraph (500 character limit).

A few things to keep in mind:

  1. Don’t feel the need to rip every movie that you write a gist for. It’s perfectly fine to have a positive, passionate opinion about a film. OR: You don't have to love the movie, but you don't have to hate it either. Being negative does not mean you are being funny. We are never dismissive in our pop-culture articles.
  2. Focus on contributing to movies you have seen, and thought about.
  3. Avoid using the first joke that pops into your head. We're not looking for you to summarize the jokes other people would make. We're looking for you to make interesting and unique observations about the subject you're summarizing.
  4. Try to keep swearing to a minimum. Sometimes, well-placed profanity can help a joke land. Most of the time, a swear word makes your joke feel forced.
  5. There's no one correct way to write a Gist. If you can summarize everything we need to know about the movie in 10 words, that can be funny. It can also come off as glib. If you're having a tough time figuring out how to strike that balance, go to the movie section of Cracked, and study up.

Here are some samples that should give you a good idea of the wide variety of Gists that can work:
The Dark Knight
Independence Day

  • +2

A chance to go "Wait, this doesn't look like Christopher Guest taking a sideways look at the world of folk music" for around 30 minutes before Daniel Pearl gets decapitated on-screen. Angelina Jolie's portrayal of Pearl's wife proves that the emotional turmoil of this true story is enough to convince any woman to wear her hair in a loose perm for the duration of a movie.

alextannin
Add Your Gist

A Mighty Heart (2007)

Source: TMBDb.org

Information Not Available

Consensus: Angelina Jolie conveys the full emotional range of a woman in a desperate situation in A Mighty Heart, an urgent yet tactful film about a difficult subject.

Overview
  • Rating:
    R (USA)
  • Theatrical Release:
    June 22, 2007
  • Budget:
    $16,000,000
  • Box Office:
    $18,928,871
  • Runtime:
    1 hrs 48 min
  • Produced by:
    Dede Gardner Brad Pitt Andrew Eaton
  • Screenplay by:
    John Orloff
Director
Michael Winterbottom
Cast
Dan Futterman Daniel 'Danny' Pearl
Angelina Jolie Mariane Pearl
Irrfan Khan Captain
Will Patton Randall Bennett
Denis O'Hare John Bussey
Freebase CC-BY
Source: A Mighty Heart on Freebase, licensed under CC-BY
Cracked Gists
500 characters left
  1. A chance to go "Wait, this doesn't look like Christopher Guest taking a sideways look at the world of folk music" for around 30 minutes before Daniel Pearl gets decapitated on-screen. Angelina Jolie's portrayal of Pearl's wife proves that the emotional turmoil of this true story is enough to convince any woman to wear her hair in a loose perm for the duration of a movie.

    alextannin
    • +2
  2. "A Mighty Heart" stars Angelina Jolie as the widow of Daniel Pearl, a journalist who was killed by Al-Qaeda in real-life. Jolie was widely criticized for portraying a non-white person, but it should be obvious she only cared about this material and wanted to bring it to life, and not at the expense of a talented south american actress who could have played the role.

    PitterPatterson
    • +1

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