Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger decks the halls with Santa(s) in his super-fantastic
Christmas classic, Jingle All The Way.
** TRACK SANTA AROUND THE WORLD. With a little help from NORAD.
** THE GOOD SHEPHERD. This long (2 hours, 40 minutes), deliberately paced film directed by Robert DeNiro, who plays a supporting role as a thinly fictionalized version of OSS spymaster General William Donovan, tries to tell an origin story of the CIA via the fictionalized tale of legendary/notorious CIA counterintelligence chief James Angleton. The famous, or infamous, mole hunter of later years is presented here as “Edward Wilson,” a conveniently central figure in all aspects of the CIA, portrayed by Matt Damon in decidedly non-”Jason Bourne” mode.
Written by Oscar-winning screenwriter Eric Roth, who has dealt with somewhat similar material before in Munich and The Insider, The Good Shepherd is less successful. It follows the arc of the Angleton stand-in’s life from Yale in the 1930s to the immediate aftermath of the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961. (The US, for those not doing the history honor society thing, organized and backed a disastrous invasion of Communist Cuba by Cuban exiles.) The film, incidentally, posits the failure at the Bay of Pigs to a leak to a Soviet agent. Actually, it may have been due more to the fact that it was a completely idiotic plan.
It’s an interesting film, but, unlike Munich and The Insider, an honorable failure. There’s the pacing, which is not brisk. And there’s the central character, played with little affect and little more subtext by the estimable Damon, who is playing the character he’s given. The fictional Angleton figure is something of a cipher, relatively emotionless. His patriotism seems more a function of his emotionally closed off state and desire to please … As a young boy, he covers up the suicide of his high-ranking father, who was about to be disgraced, and as a young man is eager to betray a mentor. He’s a member of the Skull and Bones secret society, like President George W. Bush, which is presented as a founding cabal of the CIA.
He ends up married, through a misadventure that you might guess, to a senator’s daughter played by Angelina Jolie. Who then plays the wildly cast against type role of neglected wife. She’s fine in it, as is most everyone else in their roles in an outstanding cast, but a distraction from the overall gray tone of the film.
While he seemingly bizarrely ignores his spectacular wife — not because she is irritating, but because that’s just the closed off kind of guy he is — Damon’s character is off propagandizing and destabilizing governments. In a direct parallel to the real Angleton, he accepts and benefits from a KGB defector, who seems almost too good to be true. Then another defector emerges, who claims to be the first man.
Failed lie detector tests ensue, with the proferred explanation that Russians usually fail lie detector tests, due to the national soul, or something like that. All of that ends badly. In the murky conclusion of the affair, the name of a real life KGB officer, Yuri Modin, is tossed into the mix. Probably something of a writer’s in joke that no one will get, Modin was the real life controller of the Cambridge Five, famous Soviet double agents in British intelligence.
Chief among them was Kim Philby, who nearly became head of British intelligence (MI6) before being found out. (Yes, that would have made him James Bond’s boss.) Philby used to lunch every week with Angleton, who was apparently none the wiser. Angleton became the great mole hunter of the CIA. Having failed to tumble to Philby (who ended up in a vodka-drenched existence in Moscow, the Soviet honors for his treachery mostly posthumous), he later found moles and Soviet agents everywhere, disappearing down the rabbit hole of brilliant paranoia.
This latter part — in other words, that for which Angleton is famous — is not in the movie. That would make a great movie. This story is interesting, but not nearly so dramatic, notwithstanding its depiction of dramatic events. I think this movie is trying to say that the CIA was the invention of cold WASP elitists, who became utterly ruthless in the manipulation of information and the exercise of power. (And I of course deeply resent this callous stereotyping of my ethnic background.) The film plays stylistically and in terms of some of its tone in the manner of The Godfather II. In fact, at one point Francis Ford Coppola, one of its producers, was going to direct it. But it doesn’t reach anywhere near those heights, constricted as it is by its conception of its central character.
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And what is this?
Testing holiday programming in the NWN environment.
A few minor production glitches, but they look fine.
And now they disappear again, like Brigadoon.
Shouldn’t Schwarzenegger be less of a risk-taker now?
It may be time for Arnold to dial it back a bit.
If you stop taking risks because of injuries from doing the things you love, a large part of your soul dies. I say fix the broken parts and wax those skis. The ski runs are ready and qualified instructors are ready to help get you back on the mountain.
I saw “Night at the Museum”. If you appreciate history and (as I do)love Stiller and Williams, you will love this movie. Great Family movie.:)
If I were close to Arnold’s age, I would have been killed in my little car mishap before the primary. As it was, I was a split second away from utter catastrophe. The reflexes go. Mine have already diminished some, I can tell.
But, but, Rocky Balboa won the heavyweight title again. lol
Hit the weights …slowly. It is the only exercise that works. Lifting weights raises metabolism and gently strengthens those muscles.
I heard the new Rocky movie is great!
I cringe every time I see the trailer.
HEE HEE! The midget gets punched into the next room!
On the heels of the 22/22 tie between Edwards and Obama, an new poll printed in the Concord Monitor has Obama charging from 4th to 2nd (on the publicity of his SRO performance there?).
Clinton: 22Obama: 21Edwards: 19Gore: 10
The number four on this list, Al Gore…
If he doesn’t run, where does that support go? To Clinton out of nostalgia? To Obama, the new darling of the left (who I guess are the ones behind Gore)? To Edwards, whose Katrina announcement and stands on “moral authority” based on economic justice liken to Gore’s discussion of Katrina and “moral authority” based on battling climate change?
Thank you for sharing my movie with everyone while I am in the hospital recovering.
http://www.arnoldspeaks.com/2006/12/arnold-schwarzenegger-breaks-leg-so-you.html
http://www.arnoldspeaks.com/2006/12/i-could-use-new-femur.html
General Cortina, I believe you are referring to the altitude challenged there.
Carole, I will pass on your advice about weightlifting to Arnold.
>Juan Cortina :
HEE HEE! The midget gets punched into the next room!
Dec 24, 2006 11:05 AM
Tommy Boy, I’m not going to take time to look this up on Christmas Eve.
And in the Spirit of Christmas, in answer to your question, let me say this. I don’t know!
Happy Easter!
>Tommy Boy :
On the heels of the 22/22 tie between Edwards and Obama, an new poll printed in the Concord Monitor has Obama charging from 4th to 2nd (on the publicity of his SRO performance there?).
Clinton: 22
Obama: 21
Edwards: 19
Gore: 10
The number four on this list, Al Gore…
If he doesn’t run, where does that support go? To Clinton out of nostalgia? To Obama, the new darling of the left (who I guess are the ones behind Gore)? To Edwards, whose Katrina announcement and stands on “moral authority” based on economic justice liken to Gore’s discussion of Katrina and “moral authority” based on battling climate change?
Dec 24, 2006 01:34 PM
I see that, according to North American Air Defense Command, Santa Claus is presently somewhere over Peru.
He’s getting closer.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all, have a good night!
That movie sounds boring.
It’s engrossing, but not fast-paced.
“While he seemingly bizarrely ignores his spectacular wife ‘
Why “bizarrely”? It was not bizarre. He did not love her. She trapped him into marriage. One of the best scenes is the argument over his son joining the “profession” and he makes it clear he only married her because of his son…there is another scene very early on where he asks her if she is in school…her inability to respond seriously and the fact that he even asked the question shows he understood they were not compatible from the get go..for many men beautiful women are a dime a dozen …he needed more… or maybe he really did not need a woman in his life at all as a permanent fixture…
I liked the film very much…although this very amoral world of espionage is very disturbing, actually very scary to me …precisely because it is amoral, as opposed to immoral…immorality is easier to live with …to understand …to navigate and protect yourself from ….amoral people and environments are much more difficult to survive in and with … I think the film does an excellent job of conveying the amoral ambiance to the world of espionage… it is not fast paced for that purpose…the film conveys its darkness, it secretiveness and its unsettling quietness and isolation of that world.
Well, there are beautiful women, and then there are absolutely spectacular women.
For the casual viewer, the idea of ignoring Angelina Jolie is senseless. I think she was irritating enough to justify his character ignoring her, but that is not the way the story played.
“but that is not the way the story played”
not sure what you mean by that…but anyone trapped in a loveless marriage and/or relationship …and that unfortunately is not so rare …could make sense out of this “dynamic of neglect” in the film…I have read that there will be a sequel…and her part may be written out…the more interesting dynamic in the film was father and son
The way the story played is that he is simply a closed off kind of guy. She was interesting enough to merit a spark or five from the most lifeless man at least early on before it became apparent she was irritating.
well she did merit a spark ….that is how she trapped him…what’s your point? this was not about them or his relationship with any one woman…it was about the world he found himself in…drawn to …and loving…more than any woman …even a spetacular one…I did not see him as closed but very very controlled…he had himself under control all the time and that is why he would hate her all the more because she made him loose control and as a result he was saddled with something he did not want long term…a very “needy woman”…she was not beautiful to him at that point…I think it s a very intruiging and engrossing film …I would see it again but the murder of his son’s girl would be too difficult for me to view a second time…
Oh, he didn’t hate her. He just didn’t care, one way or another.
Mr. Bradley”He just didn’t care, one way or another”
Correct…that is something worse between a man and a woman stuck together for whatever reason than hate…
I don’t understand why to use Angelina Jolie in a role such as that if not to make a point.