Hilarious Cable Info-Bar Description Of The Day: Mask

Posted at 5:15 PM Sep 03, 2008

By Kenny Herzog

Welcome to a new daily feature here on NCDSUV. One that's both conducive to my penchant for brevity (read: laziness) and indulges my fascination with cable's always-entertaining attempts to keep archival pace with itself.

The concept is pretty simple. You know when you hit the info bar on your remote and the magical man inside the TV provides a helpful and often bizarrely critical one-sentence synopsis of the current program (unless, of course, you get the dreaded "no data")? And how most of them read like the cable equivalent of dictionary entries written by the dyslexia ward of a hospital? Well, this feature is here to celebrate those digitally delivered moments of succinct anti-insight.

Today's entry is:

Mask
The Actual Story: Eric Stoltz plays a smart, functional high schooler born with a grotesquely enhanced cranium who deals with dwindling life expectancy while forging a bond with his wild mother, played by Cher.
Cable Info-Bar Synopsis: "A teen has a wild mother and a misshapen face."
What Their Description Would Have You Believe: That Mask is actually about a murderous adolescent and his no-good mother, who go on a killing spree to seek vengeance against the local boys who disfigured his face.

For a slightly more thoughtful assessment of the film, check out these two living (well, at least in the case of one of them) info bars: