Short review: Take equal parts Good Will Hunting and The Departed. Filter out Matt Damon and replace with Ben Affleck. Blend into mush. Serve The Town.
Long review: This is a surprisingly well-reviewed film with 94% of critics giving it a fresh rating. The movie was so well reviewed that I felt compelled to re-watch shortly after my first viewing. What had I missed? (spoilers below)
Since my move, I’ve effectively been without television (I’m waiting for the owner to approve the installation of lines in rooms where I actually want to and have put my TV). This is actually not too big of a deal since I haven’t been home much, since there aren’t any important sports on TV right now, and because I have many DVDs plus my roommate just bought the first seasons of Mad Men and Entourage. Plus there’s a mega theater right near by so I was able to see the new Harry Potter over the weekend. Here are some of my thoughts on these three titles.
Entourage: I watched the first disk (the first four episodes) and I nearly gave up on this show. Actually, if there had been anything else to watch I would have given up on it. It’s a show about dumbass assholes who have good things happen to them. Sorry, but that’s just not compelling television to me. Fortunately, the episodes on the second disk were actually well written and entertaining enough that I wasn’t stuck focusing on the dumbassery assholishness.
Mad Men: I’ve already seen a lot of these episodes, so I watched the DVDs to help fill in the gaps. I still like watching it, but right now I’m wondering if the show is actually going anywhere. The 60′s era novelty is likely to wear off, so I hope they make the new season the last one and go ahead and tie up all the loose ends.
Harry Potter: I’m not Mr. Harry Potter fan. I’ve not read the books (although I did end up listening to two of them in audio book format. I have seen several of the movies. What I’m trying to say is that I really don’t know the ins and outs and the tiny details of the series. That also helps to make me a bit less biased, or at least biased in another direction. On that note, the latest movie just isn’t that good as movie. This is not to say it wasn’t fun to watch; I found it to be fairly entertaining. It was good that it strayed a bit from the formula used in the first several movies and that it was a bit less childish. However, and maybe the books don’t reveal this problem, it seems like the creators lost focus, or interest or both. It all felt a bit lazy. Ultimately, once it was over I realized that I just paid to see 2 1/2 hours of, basically, filler material meant only to set people up for the remaining movies.
Despite hearing bad reviews for The Terminal, I obtained a copy anyway. I must say, I was pleasantly surprised.
The common complaints I heard were that it wasn’t that funny and that it was too long. I agree that it wasn’t hilarious, which is probably what some were expecting as I seem to recall the marketing for the movie saying that it was. But it’s a well constructed, smart movie all around.
Was it too long? Perhaps. But this movie kept my attention for its entirety as I watched before bed. This is impressive because I am notoriously prone to falling asleep or getting otherwise completely distracted when watching tv/movies at home.
My biggest complaint was the extremely high level of product placements. I understand that the products fit within the scope of the movie, but I often felt like shots were chosen for no reason other than to include a sign/banner/etc.
Part 1:
and Part 2
These are the kind of movie reviews I love.
Mark Steyn pens and excellent column, a snippet is here for your enjoyment:
In just about his last act as president, George W. Bush has declared Washington, D.C., a federal disaster area.
No, seriously. I’m not setting up some lame-o punchline here…
So what was it? An ice storm? A hurricane?
No, it’s the inauguration of his successor. The inauguration is scheduled to make landfall on Tuesday and wreak havoc all night long, as Category Five conga lines buckle highways round town, and emergency busboy crews find themselves overwhelmed as they struggle to clear drained champagne flutes…
“I don’t know if anybody’s ever done that,” said Dana Perino, the White House press secretary.
Indeed. One reason why nobody’s ever done that before is because a presidential inauguration is not (to be boringly technical about it) an “emergency.” It’s penciled in well in advance – in this case, so well in advance that for years Democrats have been driving around with “1-20-09″ bumper stickers on the back of their Priuses…
The proposition that a new federal administration is itself a federal emergency is almost too perfect an emblem of American government in the 21st century.
In other news, here’s an article which offers a glimpse of the American milk industry, which makes you realize they’re not too different from OPEC. With this little bonus:
WASHINGTON — A stimulus package may be a lifeline for the nation’s economy, but it could be a death sentence for a lot of cows.
Lawmakers are looking for ways to use the forthcoming stimulus bill to help dairy farmers, and the number one priority is to dampen milk supplies and prop up prices. Translation: reduce the nation’s dairy herd.
Yes. The wonderful people in Washington are working their little tails off to stimulate the economy by raising your milk prices. You’re welcome!
Elsewhere, one of my favorite finance-type bloggers offered up the Financial Modelers Manifesto.
It’s a different story with finance and economics, which are concerned with the mental world of monetary value. Financial theory has tried hard to emulate the style and elegance of physics in order to discover its own laws. But markets are made of people, who are influenced by events, by their ephemeral feelings about events and by their expectations of other people’s feelings. The truth is that there are no fundamental laws in finance. And even if there were, there is no way to run repeatable experiments to verify them.
Finally, Doug with a refreshed blog design (I like it) offers up video of The Curious Case Of Benjamin Gump. Errr, Forrest Button. Benrest Gumton? Foramin Bump? It makes me a little glad that I haven’t paid to see that new version yet.
I heard mostly bad reviews about this movie, and most of the reviewers were correct.
This movie, like many football games, is a tale of two halves. The first half builds excitement and draws you in. The second half abruptly changes direction and leaves you shaking your head and wondering what the fuck just happened because it seems impossible for something to start so good and end so horribly.
I recommend this movie for people who really have nothing better to do than watch a bad movie just for sake of fully appreciating how bad it is.
