Week 1: The Good Shepherd

Is it just me, or has anyone else had it up to hear with Angelina Jolie? I get it that she's spookily sensual and eerily compelling, but I'm way past the point of being able to believe her in any role. She's so overexposed that I can no longer separate the "my hot husband and I are saving the world" Angeline Jolie from the "I'm a serious actress" one.

I just find her distracting in her performances now. And in the Good Shepherd, it's no different. The movie is moving along swimmingly until she shows up in her demure dress and let's-get-it-on lipstick and the movie is ruined. Well, not ruined exactly, but diverted. While I'm on the subject of weird distractions in this movie, there is no way anyone could believe that Matt Damon has a grown son in the movie. When said grown son makes an appearance more than half-way through, Grant, my husband, literally spit out his wine. I mean, seriously? I bet Matt Damon still gets carded when he tries to buy beer at the Circle K. He looks YOUNG. You're not fooling anybody here, Matty.

Anyway, back to the movie. We both liked this movie, although we had to watch it over three nights because it is so damn long. It tells the story of the creation of the CIA and manages to make it look oddly boring, but in a compelling way, which is tough to accomplish. It's full of double-crossing spies, girls with hearing impairments, and men who are good at their jobs but bad at their lives. Matt Damon is really good at playing a tortured, conflicted man. I love the line where Joe Pesci tells him that Italians have their families, blacks have their music and jews have their traditions before asking Matt Damons what he (a Waspy-Wasp) has. Matt Damon's response is "We have the United States." Ouch. I found myself agreeing with him, although I think the Waspy control of the United States that seems cooly evil in this movie has long since been relegated to the bible-beating evangelicals and their nascar compatriots.

In the end, we were kind of disappointed by this movie because it felt like it was on the verge of being great but settled for being pretty good. We kept expecting a larger, more dramatic plot to unfold but we could pretty much see everything coming a mile away. Maybe we should work for the CIA.

I say rent it but be prepared to roll your eyes at the Angelina Jolie parts.
Grant says Angelina Jolie is hot. Big surprise.