Pitt Killed Less Than Softly

Abysmal

Buddy is seriously pissed at my wife.  Over the past year, since she retired, Buddy has bonded with her, spending most of the day together.  Yesterday my wife cooked up a plan to linkup with a member of the Panamanian mafia to do some Christmas shopping.  She rode into work with me, was picked up by her friend, and promised to be back by the time I was finished at work.  Buddy was consigned to spend the day in his cage (shouldn’t have taken so well to the couch).

I received a call from wife right at quitting time informing me that she was about forty miles of rush hour commuting traffic away.  I took this news well (not an accurate description in any way) and spent an extra hour at work waiting for her arrival.  She was apologetic and launched into a recitation of her day while we took up our own commute home.  I waited about five minutes before I reminded her that Buddy was cooped up and probably crossing his legs in discomfort right about then.  In testament to how much she has bonded with the Wonder Pooch she was immediately horrified and admitted she had forgotten about him in her lack of haste to return. 

She rushed into the house when we arrived and Buddy was completely nonplussed.  He didn’t even want to go the bathroom and was more concerned that I immediately feed him.  He was about halfway through his meal when he realized he hadn’t been outside for nearly half a day and rushed out.  My wife could tell she hadn’t made any friends with her late return (she’s had a lot of practice).  We were just finishing dinner when she presented me with a gourmet chocolate cupcake from her shopping trove with immediately dissipated most ill feelings. Buddy was content with a bone.  What can I say, we’re guys, and we can be bought (fairly cheaply in retrospect).

Last night, being date night, my wife and I were excited to see the latest Brad Pitt movie – Killing Them Softly.  I could not have been more disappointed.  Pitt was solid as always but whoever the director of this disaster was should be taken out and shot.  He seemed to be another Tarrantino wannabe who just doesn’t have the same level of talent.  He was blessed with a fantastic cast and still managed to turn in an almost unwatchable farce. 

There were a couple of very funny moments in the beginning with some extremely stupid criminals knocking over a mob run card game but that was quickly suppressed with the director’s attempts at being cute with his camera shots and clunky dialogue.  For some reason there was an almost obsessive focus on the Obama 2008 election which brought the movie to a screeching halt on a number of occasions.  Who would think a movie that gave Tony Soprano another chance at Johnny Sack would be a disaster but there you have it.  This is just a bad movie that I’m sure the critics will love.

I got the impression that the director was a foreigner because he seemed to want to crow about the descent of America and maybe that’s why I hated this movie.  The strange thing is that most foreigners love Obama and would not want to tie him to a movie that is so anti-America.

Yesterday I also finished my latest foray into the science fiction writing of L.E. Modesitt with Ecolitan Prime.  As with the last book I read this was a combination of two of his earlier novels so it was very long.  It took the same scenario as his earlier novel 400 years later and the hero was a descendant of the hero from the earlier novel.  I always like this tactic but wished he could have spent a little more time letting the reader know what happened with that earlier hero.  The current hero, Nathaniel Whaler, was extremely well written in both of the novels captured in this book. 

Whaler was sent to negotiate a peace treaty with Earth which was still dealing with the aftermath of the devastation caused by his ancestor’s acts in the first series of books.  He had to survive multiple attempts on his life while making his way through an empire’s bureaucracy and even manages to finds the love of his life while he’s at it.

In the second novel Whaler now accompanied by his new love is dispatched to do an economic study which is a cover for an attempt to foment an intergalactic war.  Whaler averts the war but in the process kills tens of millions of the bad guys.  Modesitt is an expert at understatement and focuses on the mundane details of life while his heroes are rushing around accomplishing impossible tasks.  He’s an acquired taste but I truly enjoy reading his adventures and Ecolitan Prime is a great example of an sci fi writer in his prime.

Great Read