i watched half of Burn after Reading

and then I fell asleep.

I will watch the rest, I guess. So far it's okay.

Well with some exceptions.

Brad Pitt is really, really terrible in this.

I'm not saying that because I have a Brad Pitt aversion (which I do) but because he is truly "off" in so many scenes and just embarrassingly bad.

Because I think he does a good job in some movies and I still don't like him.

But that's not the case here.

I get that the character is supposed to be dimwitted and naive and purely comic relief. but no. hell no anyway.

It's really high school spring musical acting from Pitt in some scenes.

Here's the order so far in which I think the actors were earning their paychecks.

1. Tilda Swinton
2. John Malkovich
3. Frances McDormand
4. George Clooney
5. Brad Pitt

Probably even the Coen brothers are afraid of directing Brad Pitt, really.

Maybe they tried an early intervention, realized it wasn't go to work and gave up.

Or maybe they convinced themselves that Brad Pitt is in that category where he can fuck with acting itself, reinvent it with his goofiness.

The answer to that...in case they were wondering...is Fuck No.

Probably 100 years from now Brad Pitt will be one of those WTF celebrities of the latter 20th and early 21st century.

Actually, he's passable as a serious actor in not-great films.

I think it's comedy where he really loses all sense of what is required.

It's that Pitt giddiness, that superfluous extra bit of "love me" that skews the character always.

He's the Richmeister in comedies. He often tries to deliver a line a though he's minting a new catch phrase.

Whereas, if he just did it straight the line would have been funny.

Even in 12 Monkeys, which was such a great film overall, he does this.

I don't find him physically attractive.

But then I realize a billion people or so would disagree with me.

Maybe two billion.

I think he had a brief moment around 25 where he looked good.

He looked good chlorotic and strung-out and wired.

Then he became swank and boring.

You know when he falls off the nookie train with Angelina Jolie he's gonna go south fast.

He should do something to try to save his soul as an actor. Go into an environment where he knows he should die, and try to survive. Like a Mike Leigh or a Stephen Frears film. If he could survive there, he might suddenly evolve.

The Coen Brothers was too easy a pick for Pitt. That's going into your "safe place." That's practically a crib.

I can understand how people see Angelina Jolie as a sort of goddess, though.

Because she is like some sort of living embodiment of a female archetype.

She's weird in the best sense.

Hey, those Odwalla Choco-Walla bars are really good.

But i'm not sure how good they are for you.

I guess it's hard to imagine that much chocolately richness (enhanced with antioxidants, beta-carotene and all that) coming in at 11% of your saturated fat.

But compare a real candy bar. I'm sure it's double that at least.

Today it looks grey, moist and Mesozoic outside.

I expect to see some tiny dinosaurs run across the lawn snapping at butterflies.

Wait, it's too early for butterflies isn't it?

Frances McDormand is funny.

The preview for The Big Lebowski made me realize what a great fucking movie that was.

I miss that.

The Dude lol.

Julianne's hot bohemian twit (I said twit) flying through the air.

Dude getting beat up a lot.

Jeff was perfection in that.

So were a lot of people.

John Goodman found a little slice of perfect pie with his role too.

I so stole that one line of dialogue from that movie...the scene where Jeff refers to some guy as having a "cleft asshole."

The dialogue was so perfect in that movie straight through.

The Coen Brothers are so on when they are on.

And they change so much from movie to movie.

That kind of risk that earns respect.

They got that in superabundance and shitloads.

Fargo.

Sigh.