Quick Review: Salt

Salt is kind of a train wreck.

First of all, Angelina Jolie’s head now officially looks like the Moai on Easter Island. I know she has limited control over how her face looks, but she can at least try not to shrink everything below it until it looks like a stiff wind will knock her over.

Secondly, the interrogation scene you’ve seen in the trailer seems like it’s from a different movie once you see the backstory that produced it.

The big buzz about the film is that the role was originally meant for Tom Cruise. I guess we’re supposed to …

Quick Review: Inception

I think I might have to watch this one again. I left feeling like I missed some of it, despite my rapt attention.

Visually, the movie is all kinds of impressive. The part of the movie that happens in dreamtime is awe-inspiring. If my dreams had that kind of cinematography, I’d spend a lot more time asleep. The real world in Inception has the same sort of chilly color palette as Nolan’s Batman movies, but the dreamworld is vibrant, strange and alive.

There isn’t a lot that I can say about the plot without ruining the experience for you, but …

Possibly the Happiest House I Have Ever Seen

The houses in this part of Mexico are delightful. The architecture is a fascinating mix of traditional and adventuresome. There is a house across the street here that has an onion dome. There is tilework trim on a house down the street that makes the brick structure into some sort of fairy-tale jewelry box. The cheerful face the houses put on is undercut a bit by the bars and razorwire that adorn many of them, but I’m told people find all that extra security both prudent and necessary.

The house in the picture is the most felicitous …