January 29th, 2007

It was a few weeks ago, but I went to see The Good Shepherd at the theater.  What could go wrong here, after all, it's a movie about the birth of the CIA....Or so I thought.  It's actually about making a two hour film as boring as possible.

This guy's website is more interesting than The Good Shepherd.  You can watch grass grow in realtime!  A video with something actually happening.  What a concept!

The movie sucks.  It has big name actors and actresses in it, but they don't do anything.  Matt Damon's character is exceedingly boring, and all Angelina Jolie does is complain about how he's never home to spend time with his son.  Robert DeNiro plays a diabetic General that tells Matt Damon that with the war over, OSS will be reborn as the CIA.  That's pretty much the extent of the CIA in this movie.  Matt Damon doesn't even have a gun in the film.  Come on, even Tom Clancy gave Jack Ryan a gun in The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and Clear and Present Danger.   I've seen documentaries that were more interesting than this movie.

(The posters and website make you think that something is going to happen.  Think again!)

On a side note, I'm convinced that Rave Motion Pictures and DLP movie projectors both suck in general.  With about five minutes left in that awful movie, the video goes out, and we have to listen to the ending with nothing but static on the screen.  They gave me a pass to see the movie again, but why bother.  I'll watch something else.

(Rave always starts their movies 17 minutes late.  Always!)                                                              (DLP makes an acceptable HDTV, but let's leave 35mm film in the theater!)

You know what I miss about 35mm films?  The cigarette burns.  Those of you that watched Fight Club know what they are.  Every motion picture is shipped on twenty minute reels, and the projectionist at the theater splices them together.  You see a "cigarette burn" in the upper-right of the screen just before a reel change, and then another a few seconds later.  Then the picture jumps a little and you're in a completely different scene.  They're nice to have because if you count them, you know how far into the movie you are.  Why would you want to know this?  If it's a boring scene, you know if it's worth leaving to go to the restroom or refill that drink you mortgaged your house for.  35mm films at Rave are also brighter and have better contrast than the DLP versions they're showing.