Diary of a Network Geek

BurnAfterReading

Originally uploaded by Network Geek

Okay, so I saw two totally different movies this weekend.

I’m going to review them in reverse order, actually.
Sunday, at the earliest matinee, I saw Burn After Reading. Now, I have to admit, I went into this with pretty high expectations because, after all, it is a Coen Brothers’ film. Also, from the trailers, I was expecting a total comedy. Well, I’ll say this, I was certainly not sad that I went to see this film. And, it was very, very funny. But, it wasn’t really a comedy.

The story, in a nutshell, is this… Osborne Cox, a CIA analyst gets demoted, but quits in protest. His wife, a castrating bitch, is cheating on him, but also wants a divorce. He starts writing a memoir, which she copies to a disk along with a bunch of financial information to bring to her lawyer. Somehow, the disk gets, well, lost and falls into the wrong hands. In this case, the “wrong hands” is the staff at a health club, each of whom are messed up in their own way.
And, that’s just the first thirty minutes, or less, of the film! Oh, and that’s all without any of the subplots that all become hugely important later. It’s very much like Fargo, in all the best ways, even including a lot of the cast from Fargo, in fact.

Well, as always, without revealing any significant plot spoilers, let me say that this was a good movie, albeit complicated, convoluted and quirky. Of course, it is a Coen Brothers’ film, so I guess that’s to be expected.
The thing is, from the advertising and the trailers, I thought this would be mostly a comedy, but it’s not. Really, I’m not sure what it is, outside of being different and good. Well, it is funny, too, it’s just not full-out comedy. I mean, it’s better than that. It’s kind of hard to explain.
Okay, let’s just summarize and let me say that it’s worth paying full price to see this movie, and I almost never pay full price to see a movie any more.

Now, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is an entirely different animal.
As I wrote on Flickr, guys, if you take a date to see this movie and you didn’t get laid? Duder, you are doing something seriously wrong. I am not kidding.

Okay, look, I’ll admit it. I have a secret weakness for romantic comedies that are heavy on the romantic. Nick and Norah is such a film. It may not win any Oscars, but, if I had to pick a must-see movie, behind Dark Knight, of course, this would be it.
Two kids, seniors in different high schools in the greater New York area, have a mutual acquaintance in common. Nick’s ex-girlfriend and Norah’s arch-nemesis. They also share a love of music, which is featured through out the film.
Nick, the only straight member of an otherwise gay band, finds himself dragged out in search of a mythical band “Where’s Fluffy?” as he tries to recover from being dumped. Norah, a nice girl with a couple of self-image issues, gets dragged out to take care of a friend who invariably ends up drunk and, of course, by the lure of finding “Where’s Fluffy?”. Somewhere in the middle, they meet and…

Well, in my fine tradition of not ruining films I review with spoilers, I’m not going to tell you if they actually get together by the end of the film. But, let me reinforce that guys, if you are even the slightest bit nice, kind, sweet, gentlemanly, caring sort of guy that Michael Cera plays? This movie should pretty well make any normal, romantic, sweet, “bring her home to meet the parents” sort of girl you ought to be dating totally melt. As long as it’s your idea first, not hers, and you totally buy into the romance of this flick. You have GOT to believe it, brothers, or it will not fly.
But, uh, yeah, I need to find a date while this movie is still in the damn theaters. Like, pronto.

It’s been a great year for movies so far, and the rest of the year looks pretty good, too.
Stay tuned for more reviews. Oh, and another book review later in the week, too.

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity."
   --Albert Einstein

No, not me. I’ve never been.
Nor is it any of my friends, so you all can breathe a sigh of relief, I haven’t ratted any of you out. No, it’s Frank “Frankie Breeze” Calabrese who, according to this article on ABC7Chicago.com, has been ratted out by his own son, Frank Junior, and his brother, Nick. And, he’s not outside now, though he was supposed to get out next year. Now, that has got to be hard time, being turned in by your own kid and brother.
I mention this because I actually met Mr. Calabrese when I was a kid. I call him “Mister”, incidentally, because I call anyone who can kill me, or have me killed by just pointing at me, “Mister”. My dad did business with one of his fronts, a place called FCL Graphics. They were printers and undercut everyone else in the greater Chicago area when my dad needed printing done for a company he managed. We went to a Christmas party there once and I met the whole gang, if you’ll pardon the pun. (Incidentally, the picture in the link is nothing like I remember Mr. Calabrese. It must have been taken in the late 40’s, when he was just getting his start.) He seemed like a nice, older gentleman. A sort of grandfatherly figure. But, I shook hands with him. I must have been all of eight or nine. Old enough to remember it, but not old enough that it’s a really clear memory. Actually, he’s responsible for my interest in origami. He owned the license on a couple of origami books and he sent some home with my dad once. I’m been folding paper cranes ever since.
I got to that news story by way of this article on Slate about “mobster” nicknames, but this story caught my attention, because he’s almost never in the news. The only other time I remember seeing him in the news was when he got caught back in 1995 or 1996, long after my father had stopped using his business. We were all a little surprised at the time, but, in retrospect, it does make sense. How else could he afford to charge such low prices. I mean, they were just criminal…

Advice from your Uncle Jim:
"The only difference between saints and sinners is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future."
   --Oscar Wilde