How depressing is it, when you go to a movie that all the critics agree is pretty mediocre, and they're all right? Not only was the movie mediocre, but the critics--those masters of groupthink--also trounce your creative will to find something they missed. You're doubly lame--you chose a waste-of-life movie, and you thought you could play "beat-the-critic" and win.
And I am, unfortunately, triply lame, because I did this twice (or have I got the math wrong?--is it doubly lame, squared? cubed? do I need a quadratic equation for this?). You heard it here: both The Interpreter and Melinda and Melinda are pretty lame excuses for a movie. (By the way, I am pretty sure that W.Allen is not only recycling characters and imposing his nebbish-y line readings on otherwise hilarious actors [W. Ferrell], but he's now recycling actual chunks of dialogue. There's a bit in a scene between Ferrell and Amanda Peet that's pretty much directly taken from Annie Hall--this creates a curious effect of making the current movie feel like an embarassment, but also retrospectively revising your feelings about the earlier, great movie.)
Finally, what does it say about me that, despite the general mediocrity of these films, I am not sorry--not one bit--that I saw them?
It's the end of the semester. I can pretty much rationalize anything that uses less brain power than simple math. I can rationalize watching Elimidate and Access Hollywood, so you should feel like an intellectual for watching anything as highbrow as Woody Allen. Also: Sean Penn needs no rationalization. I watched "Shanghi Surprise" with absolutely no remorse. And it wasn't even close to the end of the semester. But FYI, check out the new "reality" (?) series on PBS, "Spy." When I watch it, I pretend I'm doing research for a novel.
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