Film Review - The Informant!

The protagonist of Steven Soderbergh's latest film, The Informant!, is Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) whose bizarre, manic stream of conscious ramblings provide much of the film's narration. The character , played with perfect pitch by Damon, seems incapable of slowing down his mind (and his mouth), often to his own peril. I can only guess that the hyper-prolific Soderbergh's mind is equally restless, but to much greater results. The director manages to harness his overactive, overproductive cinematic mind resulting in some of the most interesting films being made today. The Informant! could also be one of his angriest and most cynical, though you might not notice because of the jester's suit in which he dresses it. 

"The media culture we all consume is just as artificial and toxic as the biochemicals we gobble down in our cereals every morning."

I Miss George W. Bush's Balls

For eight long, disastrous years, we had a President whose dearth of intellectual curiosity and cerebral dexterity was rivaled only by his abundance of unearned confidence and self righteousness. In short, George W. Bush was all balls and no brains. It often seemed that the more wrong-headed and unwelcome his policies, the more steadfastly he defended and even expanded those policies (for examples see the war in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay detention, unlawful domestic wiretapping, the illegal politicization of the justice department, and "enhanced interrogation" aka torture to name only a few.) It will take decades to undo much of this damage, but the lives lost unnecessarily in a misbegotten war can never be replaced. Despite the national tragedy (make that international tragedy) that was the Bush Administration, I find myself missing certain aspects of his presidency. In short, I miss George W. Bush's enormous, hulking balls.