WTF.

I’m sure that guy probably had some interesting ideas but they were masked in what basically amounted to incoherent ramblings.

I wanted to give him a chance. I wanted to look past his nasally voice and feel for the person he was, and give his thoughts a chance, but ultimately he just annoyed me to the point that I kept wishing it would end. But it was really hard to take. What can I say, I don’t spend a lot of my time having conversations like this because I don’t really enjoy thinking this far outside the box.

PS: I love and feel totally un-threatened by the grid system, but I think the flatiron building is one of the loveliest in NYC (after the iconic Chrysler building) and it was interesting for me to consider that without the “aberrant” path of Broadway, it wouldn’t exist.

I realised that after reading the book (2+ years ago), I had no real reason to watch the entire movie. It seems to drag on and on in an attempt to incorporate every original detail. An especially pointless endeavour, when I already know what the ending will be.

Points to Jean Reno and Ian McKellen for their performances.

Paul Robeson was delightful, of course.

Large portions of the plot managed to slip by me, however.

”Stop calling me ‘Dad’!”
“Well what am I supposed to call you?”
”I don’t know! Whitey! Honky! Mr. Charlie! Anything, but not ‘Dad’. Not right now. Something I’m gonna have to get used to. Slowly… if ever.”
“Good morning, Whitey! Hi there, Honky! Naw, that’s no way for a boy to talk to his father; it sounds disrespectful.”

A young Denzel is very cute in this and does an excellent job, but I can hardly believe that black people in 1981 were still referred to anywhere as “colored”. (Is it just because we’re dealing with the country club set?) Oh, and the musical score is RIDICULOUS… So much synthesizer.

They otherwise do a decent job of pushing the envelope a bit and questioning assumptions, in a lighthearted ‘80s comedy sort of way.

I officially do not care for David Lynch movies.

Kyle MacLachlan (whom he uses quite often) and Bill Pullman (here) are both such uninspiring faces.

Admittedly, I hate westerns, but John Corbett is a stone fox. As always, he brings exuberance to his role of… I don’t know, “Outlaw with Red Belt”—did his character even have a name?!

Honestly, I can’t believe the director could overlook his rugged good looks and give him such little screen time in favor of casting these other Hollywood pretty boys, unless they just wanted me to hate all of the fancy men from Tombstone. Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer and their manicured eyebrows, pointy little moustaches, and starched shirts… jeez louise, would Doc Holliday just hurry up and die already and stop sweating all over the screen?

And who ever thought Thomas Hayden Church playing an outlaw with a greasy pageboy-haircut was a good idea?

Wow. A really captivating glimpse at these infamous events (to someone born nearly a decade later).

While it does not go much into the history of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, in my opinion it does do a good job of showing what the atmosphere was like at the ‘72 Olympics, how lax the security was, how unprepared the German police were to respond, and how ridiculous it was for the Games to be allowed to continue while this hostage crisis was underway.

The following clip of Press secretary Conrad Ahlers during the confusion following the arrival of the terrorists & hostages at the airport absolutely made my jaw drop: “I’m very glad that, as far as we can see now, this police action was successful. Of course it’s an unfortunate interruption of the Olympic Games, but, I mean, if all that comes out as we hope it will come out, or has come out, I think it will be forgotten after a few weeks.”

Considering that two Israeli team members had already been killed in the Olympic Village, I’m not sure how that would have been possible.

I’m not much for scary movies, so I will admit that I skipped over most of the first half, but John Corbett is sexily awesome and I can’t believe he didn’t get top billing for this one. Big moustache and all.

This movie is incredibly hard to watch due to the depictions of the main character’s struggle with mental health, and the editing thereof. There are long, long stretches of him just freaking out.

The ending was such a cop out. I was kind of rooting for the breakup, hoping to see some sort of a solution out of the mire aside from the usual Hollywood answer of pairing everyone back up by the end of the running time.

Sure, it’s great for them, if she’s the only person he’s ever felt normal around, if they’re really meant to be together, etc, but what if you’ve gone through the heartbreak and come out with the realization that you weren’t meant to spend the rest of your life with the person who you had all those same sorts of experiences with? When picking up the pieces doesn’t come in the form of deciding you want to spend the rest of your life together, this sort of thing just seems contrived. I guess it gives you a chance to sit and meditate on your baggage for a while.

So, it’s not a good choice for the jilted, but maybe everyone likes so much because some of the scenes feel very true-to-life. I credit Favreau for that.

Still, I didn’t like the plot device of Kate’s magazine assignment, and I didn’t really appreciate all the time shifting. So even without my own personal bias, I don’t think I could rate this as highly as everyone else has.