BROKEN Flowers
Birthday Boy: "Well, when the cable guy came in to run some cable into the second bedroom, he said that normally rooms aren't this big and he had to charge me another $5 for the extra cable, but I had already gone to WalMart earlier in the day to get heavier gauge cable for my stereo after I had already spent $5 (5 DOLLARS!!!) on regular sound cable, but it was cutting in and out..."
Attendee (silently to self): "Geez, I just asked if the second bedroom was as big as the master bedroom."
And such was the style of conversation at a birthday party JC and I attended last night...Anyways, on to this morning's review.
Broken Flowers - Bill Murray plays an even more depressing version of his Lost in Translation character, as a man who gets a letter from an old girlfriend saying that he fathered a child 20 years ago. But which girlfriend? He sets off on a cross-country trek (I think...all the airport shots seemed to be at Newark) to see his old flames to discretely investigate this son. Each of the old flames, captured in four vignettes, has some quirk to them that makes you chuckle a bit. But which one sent the letter? I'm not going to give away the ending, in case it's on your Netflix list. However, once the credits rolled, JC uttered "That was awful!" I wouldn't say awful, but the movie is dreadfully slooooooooow. I think the only thing that saved the movie was Jeffrey Wright's performance (Angels in America, Syriana). He plays Bill Murray's next-door neighbor, a guy with 3 jobs, 5 kids, and a dream to be a CSI. Overall, I don't recommend the movie. 2/5 stars. That's right, 40%.
We have Constant Gardener and the Walmart documentary on the way, so hopefully this weekend of crappy movies will be put to rest.
posted by ac @ 10:51
3 comments
3 Comments:
How can the Walmart documentary be considered exciting?
The movie calls into question WalMart's ability to keep prices low at the expense of the workers (bad wages, NO benefits). A lot of the same concerns that are brought up in Thomas Friedman's "The World is Flat."
Yes - so is WalMart good or bad for America? I can only imagine that Sam Walton is rolling in his grave - his drive of putting a store in every rural community and driving American business with American built products has been squashed by his kids (what amazes me is how fast it happened).
Macro-economics hails WalMart as king of prosperity and is said to be the most influential factor on keeping inflation in check. That the average American can afford more thanks to WalMart.
Micro-economics crowns WalMart as the leader of the evil empire destroying America from the inside out. Driving good paying manufacturing to foreign shores (particularly China, Inc.) and replacing it with minimum wage stock clerks. Entire rural towns deserted like ghost towns after the gold rush.
I'm watching this happen with Sherri's hometown in rural Indiana. Delta faucet is a major employer in town and they just moved their Kansas factory to China - I believe it's just a matter of time when the move the Indiana factory there as well. There go the good paying jobs where my mother-in-law has been working for 30+ years, raised a family, put her girls through college, etc. But heh - there's a WalMart.
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