Saturday, September 20, 2008

Burn After Reading - a review

Brad Pitt - hilarious. Until... well, until no longer hilarious. Malkovich - characteristically annoying. Clooney - meh. Swinton - characteristically cold. McDormand - also hilarious.

The movie made me think of Seinfeld; a bunch of generally obnoxious people doing stupid things with tepidly amusing results. I didn't care about anyone in the movie, ergo I didn't care much for the movie. (I wasn't a big fan of Seinfeld either, for the same reason.)

Also - DC and surrounding suburbs. Good god. I have the capacity to feel nostalgia about almost anything; generally pleasant experiences, generally unpleasant experiences. Living outside DC is the one thing in my life I have never felt an iota of nostalgia for. The movie was a sort of reminder of the emptiness I felt when I lived there, when I didn't yet quite understand that the chief thing that I was looking for, people to connect with, I was never going to find there. It was wholly alien territory for me. And remains so, on the rare occasions when I return (which, apparently, I will be doing once again for work in the next few months).

Confidential to Percy: I have figured out how to use google analytics, and it is gratifying to see that I am getting hits from Chennai. It gives me the illusion of internationally popularity.

4 comments:

Pat R said...

Brad Pitt can be so funny, as long as he's not taking himself too seriously... i could see how this movie would make good use of his, habitual, spastic arm movements

Squirrel said...

Yes - quite so. His spastic arm movements were certainly used to great advantage here.

Thanks for visiting!

NoRegrets said...

Too bad you didn't like the movie. Didn't you think the end was even a bit funny? And how about that chair??

Man, way to blast my neighborhood...

Squirrel said...

Okay, yes, the chair was pretty funny.

And sorry about blasting your 'hood... it's nothing personal. Just didn't work for me, at all.