In 2010, I kept a record of all of the movies I watched. I watched 69 movies total, and here’s how they break down across various categories:

Year Released:

Of the movies I watched this year, by far the majority (49) came out in the 00s, and most of those came out in 2009. I watched:

• 5 movies that came out in 2010 (Robin Hood, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Inception, True Grit and The King’s Speech)

• 23 from 2009 (Fantastic Mr. Fox, Up, In the Loop, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Sherlock Holmes, Bright Star, The Invention of Lying, An Education, Broken Embraces, Up In the Air, Whip It, The Informant!, Crazy Heart, A Serious Man, Inglorious Basterds, The Hangover, Coraline, Precious, (500) Days of Summer, Invictus, Adventureland, Nine and A Single Man)

• 5 from 2008 (Synecdoche, NY, The Hurt Locker, Baby Mama, The Happening and Anvil: The Story of Anvil)

• 4 from 2007 (Sweeney Todd, Atonement, Year of the Dog and The Diving Bell & the Butterfly)

• 2 from 2006 (The Fall and Children of Men)

• 4 from 2005 (Me and You and Everyone We Know, Happy Endings, Kingdom of Heaven and Brick)

• 2 from 2004 (The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Melinda & Melinda)

• 2 from 2003 (Visitors and Secondhand Lions)

• 1 from 2002 (Dirty Pretty Things)

• 1 from 2000 (Bring It On)

Otherwise, I watched 20 movies:

• 9 movies that came out in the 90s (Boys Don’t Cry (99), The Truman Show (98), Chasing Amy (97), Dead Man (95), Pulp Fiction, Swimming With Sharks and Heavenly Creatures (all 3 from 94), Strictly Ballroom (92) and Without You I’m Nothing (90))

• 3 movies from the 80s (The Burbs (89), Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown (88) and Ran (85))

• 2 movies from the 70s (All the President’s Men (76) and Maitresse (75))

• 3 movies from the 60s (Vivre Sa Vie and L’Eclisse (both from 62) and Through a Glass Darkly (61))

• 2 movies from the 50s (The Night of the Hunter (55) and A Place In the Sun (51))

• 1 movie from the 30s (Blue Angel (30))

Venue:

This year, I watched 6 movies in the theater (1 by myself and 5 with other people), 14 at other people’s homes, 12 at home with friends or family and 32 at home by myself (well, that’s a little embarrassing to admit).

Bechdel Test:

I define the Bechdel test a little more narrowly than the standard definition. My criteria are not only that the film contain a substantial conversation between two or more women that is not about men, but also that it take place when no male character is on camera. Of the 68 movies I watched (one, Without You I’m Nothing, was exempt from this test because it is a one-woman show), only 10 pass this test unambiguously (Atonement, Heavenly Creatures, Boys Don’t Cry, Whip It, Year Of the Dog, Visitors, Baby Mama, Coraline, Precious and Bring It On). Since the majority of the movies I watched were made and released in the last few years, this is a particularly pathetic number. There are a number of additional movies with strong female leads (True Grit, for example), but there is never not a male character on screen (usually with the movie taking place from his character’s perspective). It’s very rare for movies to be made that do not take place primarily through a male lens – this is because women will obligingly turn out to see movies that deal entirely or mostly with men and/or “male” issues (even if those movies also largely feature women being insulted, beaten, raped and/or shot to bits), but many men are dismissive towards movies featuring women (even if they are not “romcoms” or otherwise “feminine” in subject matter). Apparently, Hollywood thinks that men are so unable to identify with women as their fellow humans that they will be unwilling to attend a movie with a mostly female cast, regardless of subject matter or merit.  Note that movies such as Women On the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown also do not pass the test as I define it, because, while this movie consists of a mostly female cast that often speak to each other when there is no man on camera, they are always talking entirely about their boyfriends (which isn’t to say it’s a bad movie – I liked it, actually, but it still doesn’t pass this test).

Additionally, there are a few movies that I wasn’t sure passed or not, because I wasn’t keeping track of this the entire year, and some movies I couldn’t remember clearly in retrospect. So, I think L’Eclisse kind of passes – there’s one scene where the protagonist and her friends are having a party and it’s all women, but I don’t remember what they talk about. They do dress up and do some sort of bizarre tribal dance to bongos (in blackface!), so, you know, maybe that sort of counts? I can’t remember if there are any conversations between only women in Me and You and Everyone We Know that aren’t about men, but I don’t think there were. The two women in Up In the Air have a conversation that is sort of more about age and opportunity windows than it is about men, but it’s really short and George Clooney is there for it, too, so it doesn’t count. I think there’s a brief conversation in The Night of the Hunter between the woman who takes in orphans and one of her charges about good behavior (mostly, but not entirely, defined by not running around with men). That might sort of count if we’re really reaching. I can’t remember clearly if Vivre Sa Vie, The Bridge of San Luis Rey or Happy Endings have any brief snatch of conversation between two women about something other than men, but I don’t think they do.

For more on the Bechdel test, see this great Twisty post on Toy Story III, and also Geena Davis on the dearth of girls in children’s movies.

Race/Ethnicity:

My breakdown for this is less reliable than the other ones, because I didn’t start keeping track of this until rather late in the year, so I might be forgetting some black, Hispanic or Asian actors, but for the most part, good roles for non-white actors that are not specifically about their race or ethnicity seem to be even slimmer than movies with female protagonists. I don’t really count movies in which the race or ethnicity of a character is essential to the role. So, for example, Precious has an entirely black cast, but the movie is about being poor and black. What I am looking for are nonspecific roles in which the director has cast non-white actors. This almost never happens. For example, the character played by a black actor in Melinda & Melinda is a pianist and a love interest – it’s not essential to the plot (or even mentioned) that he is black, so that movie passes.

Such a casting decision was made only 6 times out of these 69 films: Up (the little boy is Asian and his being Asian is not specific to his character [the actor who voices the part is Japanese-American]), The Hurt Locker (one of the three main stars is black), Broken Embraces (Penelope Cruz), Pulp Fiction (Samuel L. Jackson), Melinda & Melinda (see above) and Nine (Penelope Cruz again). Otherwise, Dirty Pretty Things has a black male lead, but he plays a Nigerian immigrant, so his being black is part of his character; Baby Mama has a black doorman, but he’s a racist caricature; Inglorious Basterds has a black character, but his being black is part of the plot; The Hangover has a horribly racist Chinese character; half the cast of Invictus is black, but it’s about South Africa after apartheid; and Bring It On has a black v. white storyline, which is also racist, although one of the cheerleaders on the “white” team is played by an Asian actor; and I’ve already mentioned Precious. So, even if we counted these movies, that’s still only 13 out of 69 movies with even one non-white actor in a major role (more movies than pass the Bechdel test, but still a pretty poor percentage).

Again, I could really be missing a few, because I thought about this only in hindsight, but I don’t think I’m missing any really principle characters, and the fact that I might have overlooked one or two minor roles in a few films doesn’t really improve the numbers much.  UPDATE: My roommate pointed out that Penelope Cruz should not count, because she is Spanish, so if I count her, I should count Marion Cotillard and other white Western Europeans in American films.  She also pointed out that foreign actors do have this problem, in that, say, Italians are always cast as mobsters, French women as seductive vamps, etc.  But that’s an entirely different issue – my point here is the rare casting of non-white Americans in American films (and non-white Brits in British films, etc.), so Cruz should NOT be counted, so that makes only 4 – 4! – films that pass this test!  I’m not updating the chart below, but those pie slices should be thinner.

Naturally, movies filmed in other countries feature casts almost entirely from their country of origin (for example, Ran is a Japanese movie with a Japanese cast), so they’re not included in this breakdown, though I should mention that as far as I can remember, none of the European movies featured any meaty roles cast with black or Asian actors. Also, there are a few movies that should be exempt from this test, because they are specifically about white people and so couldn’t have been cast with non-white actors (for example, The King’s Speech).

Rating:

Oh, so, did I actually like any of these movies or not? Looking back over the list, here are the ones I definitely really enjoyed (or, with some, didn’t enjoy necessarily, but thought were really very good) and would recommend:

Fantastic Mr. Fox, Atonement, The Hurt Locker, Up, The Fall, Heavenly Creatures, Boys Don’t Cry, Through a Glass Darkly, In the Loop, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Sherlock Holmes, Bright Star, An Education, Whip It, The Night of the Hunter, Exit Through the Gift Shop, Pulp Fiction, The Informant!, Strictly Ballroom, Brick, A Serious Man, The Diving Bell & the Butterfly, Inglorious Basterds, Coraline, Invictus, A Single Man, All the President’s Men and True Grit. (28 out of 69)

Here are the ones that I thought were terrible and would advise you not to watch:

Robin Hood, Year of the Dog, Chasing Amy, Secondhand Lions, The Happening, Precious, The Burbs and Nine. (only 8 out of 69)

The rest are either forgettable; or they’re mostly bad, but have one or two redeeming elements; or I can see that they are objectively good, but I personally couldn’t get into them, or was offended by them in some way; or they were clearly good when they were made, but they maybe don’t really hold up.

While I can’t pick the overall best movie I saw this year, I can state with total confidence that the worst was The Happening (followed very closely by Year of the Dog).

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In the Loop:  I thought this political satire about a bumbling British minister and other government officials with varying interests fighting to control the conversation in the run-up to a US/UK declaration of war was a hoot and a half. (Also, breaking: Anna Chlumsky neither died nor got fat!) Highly recommended.

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Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown:  This Spanish comedy, Pedro Almodovar’s big one, is a speedy crime caper/farce with surrealist undertones. Brightly colored, nutballs, fun all the way through. Recommended.

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The Private Lives of Pippa Lee:  The lengthy chronicle of Pippa Lee, former wild child, current long-suffering wife in a May-December marriage, future cougar. The movie is primarily a Robin Wright Penn vehicle, and the acting is good, but there’s too much cartoon and cliche stuffed into this woman’s life for it to come off as honest. It’s not terrible or anything, but there’s no need to go out of your way to see it. Not recommended.

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Sherlock Holmes: Probably not a winner for die-hard Holmes fans, but a really entertaining movie for the rest of us, in which Robert Downey, Jr. alternately solves crimes, boxes, drinks, bickers adorably with Jude Law, jumps through obstacle courses involving (among other things) scaffolding, barrels and boats, and frequently removes his shirt. As the friend who hosted a screening of this put it, this movie is a lot better than it ought to be. Recommended.

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Bright Star:  This period piece about the doomed love affair between John Keats and Fanny Brawne has been, I think, unfairly overlooked. The performances are lovely, and it’s worth watching for Paul Schneider alone, who’s terrifically smarmy as Keats’s best friend, Charles Brown. It’s a sentimental and overwrought tragic adolescent romance, true, but it ought to be: it’s about Keats. Recommended.

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The Invention of Lying:  I suspect that Ricky Gervais’s original idea for this comedy had a lot more to do with inventing religion (the bit of this left over is clever and pointed) and a lot less to do with wooing Jennifer Garner’s character, but the movie in its finished form is a dumb, formulaic rom com organized around a joke that’s stretched too thin. Not recommended.

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Robin Hood:  How on Earth did the makers of this film manage to turn ‘robbing from the rich and giving to the poor’ into a carrying case for conservative Randian propaganda? Of course, plenty of movies whack you over the head with liberal ideology, and the message would have been forgivable had the film been entertaining at all. Russell Crowe isn’t wasted on such fare, but Cate Blanchett made a serious misstep here. Not recommended.

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An Education:  I expected to be infuriated by this movie, but it’s a well-written piece about a precocious high school senior in London in the 60s who becomes involved with a skeezy older man. The heroin is charming, but the most interesting people in this movie are the various adults with varying motives tugging her in different directions. Particularly outstanding are Alfred Molina as the limited father, and Olivia Williams as the concerned English teacher. Recommended.

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Broken Embraces:  Almodovar again, this time with a much heavier film about an aging, blind filmmaker who is made to relive the doomed love affair that altered the course of his life. I had made an assumption at the beginning of the movie that spoiled what was meant to be a late-revealed twist, but it wasn’t just that that made the movie feel long, slow and largely uninteresting to me. The movie is for film fans, with references aplenty, homages, and clever stylistic choices, and yadda yah, but I’m not smart enough to appreciate all that – to me, the characters were cliches and the story was slow, and I couldn’t get myself to care much about it. Not recommended.

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Maitresse:  First, a bit of explanation: the way in which I select movies and books alike is to keep a very lengthy, running list of titles that came recommended from any number of sources, and to close my eyes and point at random whenever I’m ready for a new one. I like variety and to be surprised, and I don’t usually look into whatever the movie or book is ahead of time. So it comes to pass, occasionally, that I find myself unexpectedly watching a guy get his scrotum nailed to a 2×4, as my roommates try to have their dinner. I do enjoy the French art house flicks, but Maitresse would make Bertolucci blush like a school girl. In addition to the scrote thing, and numerous other kinky sex acts, many featuring the bare-assed Gerard Depardieu and an assortment of anonymous French masochists, I also got to see a live horse actually slaughtered on camera (much more disturbing than the BDSM stuff).

Behind all the kink, Maitresse is a surprisingly simple, even rather sweet love story, and the metaphor of Ariane’s apartment – the peaceful, comforting upstairs apartment occupied by nurturing house-husband Depardieu, contrasting with the hidden, seedy downstairs in which Ariane makes her living by inhabiting a character that thinly veils her own deep fears – is well done. But in the end, the lengthy, indulgent scenes of sexual violence take center-screen here and overwhelm anything of substance the movie might have to offer. Not recommended.

Heavenly Creatures:  Kate Winslet’s first film, directed by Peter Jackson, based on a creepy and perplexing New Zealand murder case in the ’50s.  The movie outed one of the convicted women, who had since been authoring popular murder mysteries under a pseudonym.  The film will make you want to call your mother.  Recommended.

Ran:  I keep trying my damndest to like Kurosawa films, but they bore the shit out of me.  I didn’t finish this samurai adaptation of King Lear, even though I know it’s a masterpiece and all.  Not recommended.

Boys Don’t Cry:  Completely devastating, brutal to watch, and perfectly written and acted.  Highly recommended.

Dead Man:  All that really needs to be said is surreal Western directed by Jim Jarmusch and starring Johnny Depp.  If that doesn’t make you want to see it, I don’t understand you.  Highly recommended.

L’eclisse:  I interpreted this Antonioni film as a Cold War allegory, but I can’t find any criticism to back this theory up.  Beautifully shot, but teeth-grindingly slow and brutally long.  Recommended?

Blue Angel:  Would be a powerful statement about the humiliation and dehumanizing indignity of exploitation, except that I couldn’t get past the fact that this indignity is supposed only to apply to men.  Regardless, recommended.

Me and You and Everyone We Know:  I really want to dislike Miranda July just because, I don’t know, she’s successful and people like her?  This movie was as earnest, naive and by turns as endearing and infuriating as anyone who knows anything about July and her aesthetic would expect.  The kids in it are all really cute and winning, and I liked all the subplots.  Perhaps I’m just too cynical and bitter for this sort of thing, so I will abstain from recommending or not.

Through a Glass Darkly:  I dearly love Bergman films; the first one I ever saw was Saraband, which is certainly not one of his best, but it really struck a chord with me.  His films are so emotionally honest, and they are written and shot like generous, slowly unfolding novels.  Bergman’s characters are the beginning and end of his movies:  he turns his films over entirely to the characters, and perhaps because of this, there is no false note in any of them, no artist’s ego poking out in jarring places, no manipulation, no statements or grudges.  This bleak story of a young woman’s ultimately futile battle with schizophrenia is no exception.  Highly recommended.

Atonement: I’m a fan of the novel, and the movie is a pretty dead-on interpretation. Predictably bleak, gorgeously shot. Recommended.

The Hurt Locker: Worthy of the Oscar? Yes. Live up to the hype? Yes. Dovetails nicely with a book I’m currently reading, An Intimate History of Violence, about which more later. Highly recommended.

Up: A chubby, adenoidal Asian boyscout is the unlikely child hero of this film, which is a refreshing change from the young spry Caucasian boys and girls that normally bounce around in Pixar films. Also, the movie is cute. Talking dogs, cantankerous old people, etc. Highly recommended.

The Fall: Shot on 26 locations in 18 different countries, this movie is worth watching for the cinematography alone. Tarsem Singh, the director, had difficulty getting this film made, so he shot parts of it in various locations, while he was on set for other, financed films. The narrative, however, is solid, and the Catinca Untaru and Lee Pace are terrific. Highly recommended.

Written and directed by Rebecca Miller, the movie is well-acted and beautifully shot, but the plot turns feel forced and the drama often overwrought. Kathleen and her sons are all caricatures, put in solely because they are needed for catalysts. Their thinness is all the more apparent when contrasted with the fascinating characters of Jack and Rose. The biggest problem with The Ballad of Jack and Rose, however, is its out-of-nowhere turning point and abrupt retreat from a realistic and interesting conclusion. Miller seems to shy away from the conflict she’s constructed, and the ending of the film more or less negates everything that came before it.

Personally, I thought the movie seemed like an unfocused, boring, lengthy stretch of navel-gazing, but my mother (who watched it with me) got a lot more out of it, and I now see that Roger Ebert understood it in pretty much the exact same way she did (best film of the decade?!), so I now realize I didn’t get it. Having had it explained to me, though, I still don’t really know why it needed to be a movie. The material was not particularly visual; it seemed like more of a novel. And in fact, it reminded me a lot of Tom McCarthy’s Remainder, which I hated, but which a lot of people really thought was unique and important, so this type of material may just be beyond me.

I loved Fantastic Mr. Fox as a kid, although I can’t remember much of it now – other than the geese, chickens, cider and apples. So, I’m not sure how faithful Anderson’s film adaptation is, but I think Roald Dahl would be happy with it. It’s not surprising that Anderson’s typical mood and style translate well into stop motion animation, and his usual company (headed by guest big names Clooney and Streep) does a great job channeling their understated emotional nuances through a variety of cartoon burrowing animals.

The main thrust of the plot involves Mr. Fox, Fox family patriarch and former chicken thief, attempting to pull one last heist on the three local farming tycoons, without getting his family killed in the process. But the heart of the plot involves Mr. Fox’s short, scruffy, maladjusted teenage son, Ash, whose desperate desire to be admired by his dashing father is compounded by the summertime visit of his athletic, attractive, even-tempered cousin, Kristofferson. The shifting relationship between the Fox cousins is the sort of slow-simmering, internal conflict that Anderson excels at dramatizing; and as his characters are foxes this time, and thus must demonstrate their species’ behavioral tendencies, he has a whole fresh cache of details to play with. The jerky stop motion, along with the mostly orange-and-yellow color scheme, twangy score, and periodic tableaux of burrowing, dancing animals give the movie a vintage feel that is classic Anderson.

Lights up on Average G.I. Joe, in a sleeping drawer from the Fifth Element set, installed in the giant room from The Matrix.

Joe: Damn, I shore have gotten myself in one hell of a mess. Let me explain to ya how it happened. I ain’t no fancy, brainy scientist like my big brother was. I’m just your average military man, but I’ve got a healthy heaping of horse sense, and I’ve got heart. You might even call me…a Real American. (Except that I’m disabled. That’s the groundbreaking, original thing about me as a hero.)

Joe arrives at base camp. Cut to Ripley, arguing with overly muscled, severely bleached, shouty military guy with face scars, so you know he’s a For Serious Dude.

FSD: Now, look Ripley, as I’m always telling you, I’m a military guy. My perspective is very simple – these native peoples want us dead. There’s no negotiating with them; the only way to win is to wipe them off the face of this new planet. Now, you, you’re a scientist. Your motivation is to study and understand their culture. But we both work for that coked-up guy in the suit and glasses over there with the putting strip in his office (srsly), and he’s a businessman. His motivation is to mine the very valuable unobtanium (srsly) that is underneath the native people’s Home Tree (srsly), and he doesn’t much care how he gets it, but he doesn’t want any bad press. Now, you’re conflicted, because you depend on his money to fund your research, and you and I have a lot of conflict because we disagree over how reasonable the native population is.

Ripley: A three hour long movie, and they couldn’t find time to unfold the exposition in any more graceful way than that stilted, ridiculous monologue?

FSD: I know, right? Can you believe they actually paid someone to write this shit, yet Elizabeth Urello can’t get published to save her life?

Businessman: Actually, this screenplay was written by the guy who wrote the text for the original Legend of Kyrandia.

FSD: Wow, that’s quite the reference.

Ripley: God, I look good for my age.

Joe (via his avatar) heads into the jungle.

Joe: Wow. This jungle is really cool-looking.

Ripley: Is it?

Joe: Well, now that I’ve been here a minute, it’s a little garish.

Ripley: And flat, don’t you think? Like our avatars?

Joe: Yeah. It all looks very Vegas.

Ripley: I always think it looks like it was designed by a 14-year-old gamer who just got a blacklight.

Joe: Oh, totally! And likes to go to underage clubs where all the girls wear body glitter.

Ripley: HA!

Joe becomes separated from the group, and meets the chief’s daughter.

Pocahontas: You think you own whatever land you land on. But I know every rock and tree and flower has a life, has a purpose, has a name.

Joe: My favorite thing about you noble savages is how your women wear no tops.

Pocahontas: Plus, we’re really spiritual and quiet and in touch with nature.

Joe: I want to sleep with you. As soon as I’ve earned the right by proving myself to your people.

Pocahontas: Let me introduce you to our ways. Our nature spirit forces tell me that you’re a God sent here to deliver us.

Joe: Well, I am a strapping white guy.

Pocahontas: Good thing, or we’d never be able to defend ourselves against your superior military.

Joe: This is all so tired, even I can barely stay interested.

Pocahontas: Right? And yet, have you read the reviews?

Joe: I know! The reviewers are all on crack.

Joe quickly learns all of the native people’s skills and surpasses them in every way. They worship him as a savior. He saves the native peoples (albeit with many casualties), bangs the chief’s daughter.

Joe: And now, I will live among you always.

Pocahontas: Although you’ve overseen the destruction of my home, and the slaughter of my family and friends, I will now lick your feet in gratitude.

Joe: Damn straight, my little blue trophy.

Pocahontas: Speaking of, wasn’t this whole storyline terribly racist?

Joe: Well, it would have been, except for the computer animation.  That makes it fresh.

Pocahontas: I see. I have to admit, even though I resisted slightly at the outset, I always knew things would turn out like this.

Joe: Well, there’s absolutely nothing in this movie that a moron in a coma couldn’t see coming a mile away.

Pocahontas: Center Stage looks positively groundbreaking by comparison.

Joe: Oh, I forgot about that! You really deserve a good project.

Pocahontas: Srsly.

Wendy Savage is a 30-something aspiring playwright who lives in Manhattan, pretends to work in a cube all day, and occassionally has bad sex with an unattractive married man. Her brother, Jon (Philip Seymour Hoffman), is a lit professor in a small New England town, continually working on an unreadable book on Bertold Brecht. When their father, Lenny’s (Philip Bosco) long-term girlfriend dies and her children throw him out of her house, Wendy and Jon must place Lenny (who has dementia) in a facility. Lenny was abusive, and the Savage children have been estranged from him for decades, but family responsibility trumps all, and they dutifully situate him in a nursing home near Jon’s school, and visit him frequently, trying to make him as comfortable as possible in his new surroundings.

The world in The Savages feels depressingly, hilariously recognizable. Its people are floundering and bored, and their triumphs are small. Wendy continually attempts to make lemonade out of life’s lemons. She decorates her father’s institutional-looking nursing home room with Urban Outfitters throw pillows and lampshades, which details are then ignored by everyone but her; she manages to win a writers’ grant…from FEMA; she doesn’t much like her boyfriend, but she loves his dog. But by the end of the film, her obstinate attempts at reinterpreting her life as something worth living have begun to work out for her, and The Savages ends on as uplifting a note as possible, while sustaining its credibility.

The movie is touching without sentiment, familiar but original, and very funny without being forced. Jenkins underscores her well-drawn characters and simple plot with subtle visual metaphors, and her screenplay is economical – there are no superfluous scenes or bits here, nothing added just for the fun of it. The Savages is so well-written, in fact, that it would have made a fine novella, but happily, it is an even better film.

Edward Wilson aka “Mother” (Matt Damon) is one of the original CIA agents. We first see Edward playing Buttercup in HMS Pinafore in drag with the Yale Whiffenpoofs. He’s a poetry major and Skull & Bones member, who, for whatever reason is recruited as a spy (this reminds me of the opening scenes of Team America: ‘What we need is a really, really great Actor!’). Then, there’s a party and Edward (despite being in love with this deaf woman) has a quick, perfunctory poke with a friend’s sister, Clover (inexplicably played by Angelina Jolie), resulting in her pregnancy and a really resentful marriage. Then, Edward is off to England and Germany and wherever to do spy-y things. He is really suited for spying because, despite the dramatics we briefly viewed in the initial scenes of the movie, he is a stone-faced automaton throughout, who reveals nothing and possibly feels nothing. WWII ends, the Cold War begins, CIA is formed, Edward interacts with a myriad of characters who all seemed indistinguishable to me (Alec Baldwin, William Hurt, a Russian dude who looks just like Alec Baldwin, a couple more Russian dudes, and I think Robert DeNiro is in there somewhere, too), and Angelina Jolie despairs that she can’t ever get Edward’s attention (why the hell would a rich, well-connected, gorgeous woman have to trick somebody she barely knows into marrying her? This is yet another aspect of this movie that makes no sense).

And then somehow Edward’s son who he loves more than anything ends up in Congo, bedding down with a spy for the other team. This is entirely unexplained, but basically, it is what thwarted the Bay of Pigs invasion.

Russian dude to Edward: ‘Now you will have to choose which you love more: your son, or your country.’ Yes, this was actually a line of actual dialogue in the actual movie. For the preview, I suppose, and for those viewers who are stupider than posts. And that’s not at all the only example of such ham-fisted writing. And then, on top of that, Edward doesn’t actually have to choose between his son and his country at all!

Jeez, this was a stupid movie, I’m pretty sure.