God is not on anyone's side

My friend Jim Nicholson wrote a rant last week about apocalyptic interpretations of Middle East politics, interesting to me because, among other reasons, it's from a whole set of perspectives I rarely think about.

Confessions of a Dangerous Mind

It's the first movie from a Charlie Kaufman script that I've really liked.

Clooney's style as a director is often just too much. I think he's said something to the effect that, given a shot at directing, he wanted to swing for the bleachers, and yeah, I'd rather he did that than err on the side of caution. But at times the attempt to surprise with every scene transition is just oppressive.

It's fun but distracting to play spot-the-movie-star.

I was frequently the only person in the theater laughing. Sometimes when I wasn't laughing someone else took a turn. Sometimes several of us laughed together. The room wasn't full.