The Informant! review

September has been such a depressing month at your local movie theater. After a summer full of memorable movies (see my top 10), September has been such a drag- Gamer, Sorority Row, All About Steve, Love Happens, and I Can do Bad All by Myself? No thank you.

The Informant! was a ray of hope. Finally, a movie I wanted to see! Matt Damon acting, Steven Soderbergh directing, and the ! promised quirky hilarity in the tradition of Moulin Rouge! But sadly, The Informant did not earn its !

The problem is in the details. Soderbergh chose groovy, funky font for the text transitions, and the music is full of pep, echoing the swinging hi-jinks of the 60s. The whole package was perfected through the poster- looks like a comedy! But the script doesn’t match the style its encased in. The image created by all these little things is so zany that the actual story seems dull and boring and too long.

The Informant is based on a true story and if it had been packaged as a drama, I might have liked it. Play up the idea of a double life, lose the silly music and text, focus on the tension, and it could have been better. OR zany-up the script to match the rest. I get what they were going for, it just didn’t work.

September seems so long….

(out of 5)

Book Season

I love books, and while browsing on Amazon.com, I noticed how many great book releases are happening in September. It’s a great month for book lovers everywhere, no matter what your taste.

The Ones I’m looking forward to: 

1) Audrey Niffenegger, author of one of my all-time favorite novels, The Time Traveler’s Wife, finally releases her first new book in 5 years, Her Fearful Symmetry. (Sept 29.)

2) Craig Ferguson, one of my favorite goofy late night TV personalities wrote a book which is sure to be funny and sad- The host struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction for years. American on Purpose: the Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot hits bookstores Sept 22.

3) I didn’t love The Da Vinci Code. It was okay. Angels and Demons I almost loved.  Sept. 15. Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol, featuring Robert Langdon will be available to the public. Seeing as how the pre-order is the #1 book on Amazon.com, I’m sure it will follow in Da Vinci’s footsteps to become a major success.

4) In college, I stayed up late to read Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz. It was an inspiration to my life. After that I read his Across Painted Deserts and Searching for God Knows What (this one is the best over all).  His next book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years comes out Sept. 29.

5) Catching Fire released Sept 1.

None of those up your alley? Well don’t worry Nicholas Sparks, Alexander McCall Smith, Mitch Albom, Margaret Atwood and Stephen King are releasing new novels while Ted Kennedy’s memoir True Compass gets released on the 14. Glenn Beck’s new book, Arguing with Idiots, also comes out this month- Sept. 22.

Happy Reading.