[robertsona]

I saw The Men Who Stare at Goats and can vouch for that being a completely awful movie. Self-consciously "quirky," completely directionless, in between being funny and serious in the most awful way possible (I think it's one of those movies that mistakes the "suggestion" of something funny, or a weird concept, for something like an actual joke.) I know I just said that I liked Burn After Reading in spite of its directionlessness, but that movie at least had some sort of momentum, and was funny as hell to boot; Men Who Stare at Goats had neither of those.

I watched Sling Blade for something like five minutes on the recommendation of a family friend and I thought it was a ****ing joke. Billy Bob Thornton came off as so cloying and so fake--hell, they even made a negative stereotype of that kind of "hey look I'm retarded, isn't that touching" performance in Tropic Thunder! I seriously thought it was parody; couldn't believe those overbearing ****ing tics and vocal hums were supposed to actually portray an actually retarded person. Pretty sure it wouldn't have gotten better. So yeah, agree on that.

I liked Scott Pilgrim's use/occasional inversion of the "nerdy guy gets the girl" plot in clever and inventive ways. The movie was funny and full of color and music--very pleasing to me. I was happy all the way through. Good stuff overall.