Rendition

I don't understand how this film could only do 9 million at the box office. Excellently acted, reasonably well-written, I found it riveting; although I can see why lots of people would find it a little slow, it still deserved better than 9 million bucks. People are unhappy with the direction the country is moving in, but few people are willing to go through the self examination that's necessary to start moving in a new direction. In a way, this ties in to my previous post about McCain and Bush being symptoms of a sickness within the body politic itself. We invaded another country for no good reason, fucking that country up royally in the process at the cost to ourselves of a trillion dollars, watched as our rights and traditions were eroded for no good reason, and nobody wants to talk or think about it.

Reese Witherspoon is really something. I didn't like her for a long time, now when she's onscreen all I can do is keep my eyes glued to her to see the next little flick of her eyes or shrug of her shoulders that conveys some subtle emotion. There are so many brilliant, beautiful actresses out there, and so few men who are as good. I wonder if it's a function of the number of women who pursue acting as a career vs the number of men -- the talent pool is deeper -- or if women are just innately better with the whole emotion thing, which shows in their acting. When I think back it's always been this way -- a deep pool of talented, beautiful actresses, matched against the same leading men who aren't as good. The men stay around for decades, while the women are cast aside as they age, although this has been changing a lot in the past decade....