The Hired Hand & L'Atalante

The Hired Hand felt much longer than an hour and a half. Too many long scenes there just for the doubled exposure and dissolves. It feels just like Easy Rider in the west. No trippy graveyard dancing though. I also didn't like the ending at all. I knew it was gonna happen, but that's why I was disappointed. Nothing different really happened in the movie.

L'Atalante is a very episodic film. That, and the very basic plot detract from what is widely considered one of the greatest films ever. I liked it, but I don't entirely see why it is so praised. Plus, is the version I saw the right version? I think so, but what's up with the different versions out there?

The Good Thief & Into the Night

The Good Thief suffers from comparison with Bob le Flambeur, the very excellent Melville film. The Good Thief follows the plot somewhat closely, but I really didn't care for the heroin aspect that was added. Nor did I like the cinematic tricks. Melville's film was a great precursor to French New Wave, and this was something of a mess. However, the ending of this film will always make me happy. Such a freakin' audacious way to end the film. Perfect. So that this movie includes the same twist takes away a little from it, but Nolte does a good job in the movie anyway. Fiennes was a very enjoyable in a small role as well. Basically, I enjoyed the movie, but the changes that were made detracted from the movie.

Into the Night is a dark little ridiculous film. Plus, I never expected to see Michelle Pfieffer taking anything out of her vagina. That was just... weird to see. Not on screen though, for those of you either horrified or very intrigued. Sorry to disappoint/reassure you. There are many other films if you want to see things stuck where they shouldn't be. Jeff Goldblum is very funny, and there is some very dark funny humor in it. And this may have the largest amount of directors with on screen roles of any film ever. And it has Bowie. Is there anything else you need to know when Bowie is in a film? I can't think of any.

Masculin Feminin, Brazil, & Curdled

Masculin Feminin has a kick-ass soundtrack. I need some Chantal Goya. The movie is definitely a mix of Godard's earlier somewhat strange and later insane films, with some strange structural bits (being in "15 acts") and yet it actually follows a sensical plot (as much as Godard ever really does). Definitely a great film. And I also enjoyed the little bit with General Doinel. Yay for Godard giving a little pinch to Truffaut. Heh.

Brazil is one of those cult films that basically is strange almost entirely for the sake of being strange. Then again, it is a Terry Gilliam film. By far the worst part was Kim Greist. It was otherwise an interesting movie. Not quite the brilliant film I've been led to believe, especially after Gilliam's truly brilliant dystopian sci-fi of Twelve Monkeys. Brazil's occasionally absolutely outstanding, and occasionally a complete and total mess. Actually, that describes most of his work. It's just the different amount of mess that makes the difference. I still don't understand how I hadn't seen it yet. Oh well, that's been remedied.

Curdled probably deserved to be forgotten, even if it is a sick little film that made me laugh. Plus, there was a lot about the guillotine. Strange that that appears in two of the movies I watched this weekend, especially since neither was about the French Revolution. This included the almost worst Baldwin. If Stephen Baldwin hadn't gone insane, he'd be the worst one. Too bad Adam Baldwin isn't actually a Baldwin brother. But he's by far my favorite Baldwin.

Darling & Capote

Darling just never really made a connection with me. Maybe it was that it is in the fine tradition of the Angry Young (Wo)Man movies of the 50s and 60s in England, most of which have aged terribly since their release. I can respect the acting, the writing, and the directing, but it all just seems like way too much 60s to be entirely worth watching. Maybe it was the length of the film, and the deliberate pace that made me not think it's brilliant. Or maybe it was just that I just wanted to smack Diana Scott for being a total idiot.

Capote has excellent performances from both Philip Seymour Hoffman and Catherine Keener. It's important, because otherwise, it would suffer immensely from comparisons to In Cold Blood. Robert Blake is much better than Clifton Collins, Jr, though, so that movie still has that bit of acting going for it. Then again, no one plays murderer better than Robert Blake. Maybe O.J. Simpson. Plus, that one was a gorgeous film, while this one suffers in comparison. Hoffman clearly deserved his Oscar, and it's a shame that Keener was against Rachel Weisz, or else she should have won. The movie is excellent, and there is no way that Crash could have been better than this. Or Good Night and Good Luck, or Syriana, or...

Oh Noes!

This is immensely funny. There is nothing else.

Afterlife & The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

Afterlife is another heartbreaking Japanese film. Not quite as heartbreaking as Dolls, as it isn't a continually depressing film, just the entire context of only having one memory for eternity. It's a very interesting idea, and it is very well executed. It is a movie that is designed entirely to make you think about life and death. Plus, you have the concept of films capturing memories, even if the very filming makes them subjective. This is exactly the type of movie I love. A meditation of life, death, memory, and filmmaking. And it's allowed to linger on everything. Don't read the rest of this paragraph unless you've seen this movie, which I honestly can't recommend enough. And the ending of the movie is pretty sad as well, with the final memory being somewhat open to interpretation, but basically that while a character's memory is that he has had an effect on people, with the memory being the filming of his memory, the effect of his being in the purgatory is having on others is very important to them. The idea of only one memory forever depresses me, but maybe because I can't think of one I'd want to keep forever and forget all of the rest. Well, maybe one, even if that one led to one of the worst memories. That always seems to happen to me.

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie has Jeffrey Tambor, Scarlett Johansson, Alec Baldwin, and David Hasselhoff. They're all enjoyable. And the movie is 90 minutes of ridiculous. Enjoyable, in a very immature way. The pirates were also very funny. I love that I'm perfectly happy watching an amazingly powerful movie like Afterlife, and following it up with a ridiculous kids cartoon. I'm a definitely silly person. Yay me!

Dolls, Josie and the Pussycats, & The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada

Dolls is the very melancholy Takeshi Kitano movie about the danger of love. And I was crying for around the last hour or more. Horribly sad. But absolutely beautiful and the Joe Hisaishi score was the same. That it follows perfectly from Kitano's earlier yakuza films is not nearly as surprising as some of the reviews have said. The people need to see more of his movies to have a reason to say that. Or maybe note that instead of having the violent parts, it's just the quiet ones. Mainly, there's a bit of violence. But it's the typical Kitano violence, with almost all of it happening off screen, and occasionally just the dead bodies to show for it. But the stories in this movie, of which there are three, in case you were wondering, are all heartbreaking. People who love beyond all reason, and who love so much that there's nothing left but love, even after losing something very important. And those people are loved by people who end up giving up everything. Everyone seems to do that. Unfortunately, the pop star segment isn't as good as the yakuza and the bound beggars segments. The best part of it is that song which is still stuck in my head.

Josie and the Pussycats was made by the same people who made Can't Hardly Wait, one of the best of the recent teen films. This one has a great soundtrack, with Adam Schlesinger (from the excellent Fountains of Wayne), the lead singer of Letters to Cleo, Matthew Sweet, Babyface, and Bif Naked, you know that there's some serious rock talent behind this movie. That the music is very good makes the somewhat disposable plot much easier to take is an added bonus. Having Parker Posey and Alan Cumming chewing the scenery was also immensely fun. And the boy band, Du Jour, is hilarious (Du Jour means Dr. Zaius was perfect!), and Mr. Moviefone, Carson Daly, Babyface, and Eugene Levy turn in great cameos. Rachel Leigh Cook is supremely hot, Tara Reid is hilariously ditzy, and, unfortunately, Rosario Dawson is by far the weak link in the trio. But the most interesting part of the movie was the bizarrely immense amount of product placements. I do sort of want McDonald's shower curtains and bathroom tiles though. Jerkin! Satire is the new comedy!

The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada was a very strange film. Good, but strange. Plus, characters were from Cincinnati. Woo for the crappy Tri-state area getting a shout-out! It has a very good cast, nice bits of disjointed timeline filmmaking, and looks very good. The humor in it is very dry, with the anti-freeze, the soap opera, and the coffeepot... well, actually the coffeepot isn't all that dry. I can recommend the film to anyone who is interested in a look into an area of the country that doesn't get that much unbiased press. Not an amazing film, but a worthwhile one.

Days of Wine and Roses, Pride and Prejudice, & Bride and Prejudice

Days of Wine and Roses reminds me of a completely serious The Apartment, mixed with a touch of The Lost Weekend. Except just really depressing. I didn't realize that both Requiem for a Heavyweight and this were remakes of live tv dramas. Weird. Just that coincidence, nothing about the movie. Which was just really depressing. I didn't expect it to be this type of movie at all. I have this tendency to forget almost all but the very simplest plot summaries when I watch a movie. Well, especially when it's a movie I put in my queue maybe years ago. It can be years since I put a lot of movies in it. I need to watch more movies more often, clearly. Anyway, the only parts of the movie I didn't care for were the parts at the Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. It doesn't really have a completely non-religious aspect to it. It's all about replacing alcohol with a "higher being". I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but that always annoys me when it's brought up by them. Other than that, it's a very good movie.

Pride and Prejudice was the Mormon version. It's actually not nearly as bad as I was expecting. Probably a result of the not way too much Mormon stuff in it. But it actually had a lot of the same plot points as the book, even if the parents didn't really exist, the Bennett's weren't sisters, and Charlotte Lucas didn't really play a part in it. As much as it wasn't as bad as I was expecting, it wasn't actually a good movie. The use of quotes from Pride and Prejudice to attempt to tie the book to the movie was very distracting. Just accept that anyone who cares will not need to be reminded. It's also not like the movie needs the reminders. Character names are basically right. The lack of adult characters was pretty annoying, as Mrs. Bennett was replaced with a book called The Pink Bible, as annoying as that was. I kept getting this feeling that the entire movie was sort of making fun of feminism, which is really not the point of the book at all.

Bride and Prejudice, on the other hand, sucked ass. The worst of Bollywood along with the worst of remakes. The dancing and singing was... Jesus. How the hell can this sort of movie have been created? How could Naveen Andrews signed on to do this crap? Or more accurately, why does Bollywood exist? I haven't seen one single movie that was remotely good from it. Long bad musicals are about the worst type of movie that exists. Even worse than overlong craptacular Scientologic sci-fi epics. Yeah. At least that just had bad acting and bad editing and bad everything, but was so bad it was enjoyable. There was nothing I enjoyed about Bride and Prejudice. Not even with the very attractive Aishwarya Rai, Indira Varma, or even Alexis Bledel (and what the hell was Ashanti doing in it?). Just two hours of almost constant pain. Maybe if the music weren't so horrendously bad. Why did I watch it? Because I'm an idiot? That's actually not that far off. But I was told it would be bad, and I still watched it. Every time a song started, though, I regretted that decision. The London montage in this wasn't nearly as exciting as the Mormon one. Beh.

Youth of the Beast, Requiem for a Heavyweight, & The Castle of Caglistro

Youth of the Beast is actually somewhat more normal than I was expecting. No crazy scenes based entirely around outstanding colors or insane plots. The plot was crazy, and scenes were insane, but it was actually easy to follow. And there are great scenes like the scene in the club near the beginning with the soundproof one-way mirror, every scene with the drug addicted prostitute, the beating in the dust storm, and the knife-throwing cat fanatic. Plus, there're the couple of black and white with bits of color scenes which were very nice touches. And, of course, Jo Shishido is a total badass, as he is in every film of his I've seen. While it isn't nearly as insane as Suzuki's later films, it messes with the genre cliches and does have more than enough technical skills to make it very worthwhile.

Requiem for a Heavyweight probably would have been somewhat better had I been able to understand more of Anthony Quinn's dialogue. Or if I... I don't know. I can see why this movie was praised, but I don't really like boxing movies. Or boxing. Good movie, but not my kind of movie.

The Castle of Cagliostro is Miyazaki's first hit film, and it's nowhere near as good as his later masterpieces. It's still a very enjoyable romp. Plus, there's the guard who does a bad Schwarzenegger impression. And there was quite a bit more squishing of people than I was expecting. In that there was some. It's a little goofy, gravity is completely ignored, some things clearly needed familiarity with other parts of the manga or other movies, but if you just go with the flow, it's an enjoyable 100 minutes.

The Comedians of Comedy, Reefer Madness, A Fistful of Dynamite, & Thirteen

The Comedians of Comedy is funny. All you need to know is that it has Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, and Zach Gallifinakakisniksaks. Or whatever (it's Galifianakis, but I had to look that up). And Maria Bamford, but I don't entirely care for her comedy. Funny, but not as good as the other three. I was also a little disappointed at the lack of Galifianakis, and also a lack of actual standup. A little too focused on the guys getting naked and/or putting things down their pants. It was sometimes funny, but too often it just went over the top.

And speaking of over to the top, Reefer Madness is horrifically bad. But if I get jonesing from pot addiction like Dave O'Brien did, then maybe I should become a pot head. Or maybe I should just stick to watching terrible movies for their being terrible. Oh, and watch out for that demon jazz, and the way too old people playing teens.

A Fistful of Dynamite wasn't as good as Leone's earlier westerns. Damn shame too, but really, how many movies are as good as Once upon a Time in the West or The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? Very few. Rod Steiger is especially annoying. Eli Wallach would have been outstanding in the role. Coburn's good though, even if his accent is occasionally horrendous. The very political aspect of it (including a Mao quote at the beginning) got a little annoying. Seriously, Mao? In 1971? Wasn't he already ridiculous then?

Thirteen is just 100 minutes of parent scaring claptrap. Woo for a 13 year old writing it? Not really. Eh to it. It's technically skilled and there's some good acting, but there's also that complete and total sense of making a scary movie for parents, plus, I think there's a problem with a slightly jumpy narrative, and why was Evie so evil? Eh, although I do always like to hear Ivanka. Not sure about the ending either. That exploitation feel just makes me think that if there was any attempt to portray the children realistically, some of that, if not all of that, broke down to just have evil little kids doing dirty, dirty things. Dirty, dirty.

Mona Lisa, The Sopranos, & Big Love

Mona Lisa is actually much more similar to The Crying Game than I was expecting. Not that there were IRA members or transsexuals, but just the movie felt like an extended part of the relationship between Fergus and Dil. The black prostitute having a sexually ambiguous relationship with a criminal going straight is a little similar, but that would be selling both movies woefully short, as both are outstanding films. Bob Hoskins, Cathy Tyson, Michael Caine, and Robbie Coltrane all give very good performances. And that Hoskins didn't win the Oscar for this role is a travesty. Also, I love the bunny. Such a bizarre little touch. Plus, I want to thank George Harrison for this movie. Good for him. He is responsible for some very good movies. And some crap, I guess, but I've never seen Shanghai Surprise. About the only bad thing about the movie was the use of that Genesis song. What was up with that? Well, that, and I was sort of disappointed by the ending, but listening to the commentary on the DVD, it's clear that the ending was because Neil Jordan loved George so much. I really just enjoyed the little epilogue, even if I would have preferred a slightly different ending to the main plot.

New Sopranos and Big Love? Definitely worth watching. What a great cast in Big Love, with two of the smaller roles from Veronica Mars with Amanda Seyfried and Tina Majorino. And how about the last couple scenes of the Sopranos? Wow.

The Virgin Spring & The Texas Chainsaw Massacre

The Virgin Spring is an outstanding movie. Except for the final bit of the movie. Ugh. Why did Bergman keep the ending? The horrible religious aspect of the message was so terribly bad that I got extremely frustrated. Everything else about it is excellent. Makes me think less of Wes Craven for the unoriginal aspect of Last House on the Left, but then again, at least he ripped off a really good movie, and got rid of the worst part of it. But then he replaced it with gratuitous violence and nudity. Woot? Strange that Bergman won for this. Why not for his other, much, much better films? I haven't seen Fanny and Alexander, but this and Through a Glass Darkly are nowhere near his best films. Barghle! Stupid Academy.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre suffers from not only being a terrible movie, but that there are no suprises at all in it. Anyone who has seen the original knows what's going to happen to everyone. Or, more accurately, anyone who's seen the original doesn't need to see the remake because it sucks ass. Why remake a film that works because it feels real with one that has recognizable actors and actresses? Plus, after seeing the original on the big screen, I don't see the point of watching this remake on the small screen. Too bad I have this perverse need to watch this. Just to be able to say that it is definitely sucktacular rather than just guessing at the craperrificness. Which is on plentiful supply in this movie, by the way.

The Crimson Rivers, Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow, & The Ring Two

The Crimson Rivers is basically a French terrible serial killer movie. Or maybe it's a terrible French serial killer, there's really not much difference. About the only enjoyment I got out of it was that the DVD played the dubbed English and the English subtitles at the same time, and the subtitles didn't match the dubbing on some numerical issues that don't seem to have any relevance to anything. Plus, the idioms were different. Who did that, and why did I bother to see this?

Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow was a tremendous waste of money. It occasionally looked very good, but no actors were good in it. None. Waste of Bai Ling too, since she spent most of her screen time with most of her face covered. The use of Laurence Olivier's archive footage didn't make any sense either. As technically proficient as the movie was, it was pretty darn clear that Kerry Conran has no business directing a movie.

The Ring Two is terrible. The first one at least was somewhat effective, even if not as good as the original, which, in itself, wasn't anything too special, but this one doesn't make any sense at all. It had a couple of somewhat remotely scary scenes, but most of the "scares" were just blah. Blah all around. I just hope there isn't a third, so I don't have to feel like I should see that one as well. Damn. Why couldn't I have watched at least one non-bad movie? Probably to balance out the last couple of very good movies I saw. Damn regression to the mean.

Dave Chappelle's Block Party & Pickup on South Street

Dave Chappelle's Block Party is just about the most fun you're going to have at a movie this year. Full of great music (and I couldn't even tell you who were some of the acts until names were mentioned), hilarious Chappelle-isms, and just a sense of enjoyment that breaks down any and all reservations. Lots and lots of fun. Made me wish I were one of the 19 whites at the concert.

Pickup on South Street is supposed to be Samuel Fuller's most conventional film, and it is fairly straightforward. It is, however, a very striking little film, very short, but full of the typical Fullerisms of brutal violence and outstanding economy of filmmaking. Scorsese loves Fuller's films, and after watching a movie like this, you really have to wonder why he isn't more famous than he is. Then again, it's precisely because of movies like this that he's not more famous: glamorizing criminals and stool pigeons, demonizing federal agents, and not portraying the commies as planning on eating our precious babies all point to a movie that isn't actually about the plot, it's about how the characters, particularly Skip, Candy, and Moe, interact. Well, that, and about how Fuller knows how to edit an opening scene. The pickpocketing on the subway in the first scene had me hooked, and it didn't have any dialogue. Just some intense staring. Very intense staring. And a pitch perfect performance from Thelma Ritter, someone who also doesn't get her due, but this was the fourth straight supporting actress nomination for her, and she deserved it.

How Green Was My Valley

How Green Was My Valley is exactly what you'd expect from the title: mawkish sentimental crap. One of the greatest travesties in Oscar history. Seriously, the amount of child actors that aren't terrible is so small as to be completely irrelevant. But that number was actually zero, as far as I've been able to tell off the top of my head before sometime in the 1960s or so. Roddy McDowall was so earnest that it hurt my teeth. I certainly wouldn't have nearly such a violent reaction to the treacly aspects of the film if it weren't for the fact that it's vastly inferior to Citizen Kane. In every way. The movie's plot is just so relentlessly mediocre that I dislike it more than it probably deserves. Then again, I don't care. I don't like it.

Stage Door

Stage Door suffers from a pre-feminist Hollywood version of strong women, who never seem to do anything without having a man behind them. Hepburn is the only one of a large cast of women who really isn't a pretty little unsuccessful flower. She is her typically strong empowered female, and is also the only three-dimensional character in the movie. Shame that this movie didn't do much for me, since I'm such a big fan of Katharine Hepburn. Ginger Rogers was not too bad, either, but her best scenes were playing off her rivalry with Hepburn. Lucille Ball was almost unrecognizable since she wasn't stuffing her face with candies from an assembly line. The use of overlapping dialogue was nice to see in a non-Hawks or Altman film, even if it was actually too overlapping to be completely clear.

Tenebrae & Sweet Sixteen

Tenebrae is typical Dario Argento: too loud soundtrack, too ornate murder setpieces, too confusing of a plot, and too bad dubbing. However, it's also typically Argento in the fact that that doesn't matter, it's very interesting and fun anyway. Plus, I have that soft spot for John Saxon, since he actually introduced himself to me. So that was really cool, and I will always have respect for him for that. He was also the best thing in this movie. Anyway, the movie is an interesting dissertation on violence and it's effect upon people. No, just kidding, it's basically just an excuse for Argento's normally sadistic murders, gratuitous nudity, and perversions. It's always weird to see his films, because they so blatantly rip of Hitchcock in many ways, and so I should hate them, since I hate De Palma for the same reason, but I can't really hate his movies. The joyously trashy way he occasionally is serious, and mainly is just interested in making a serious horror film, just goes straight to my interests and breaks down all of my reservations. Plus, that plot, while it may not have made complete sense, was a twisty plot that really had me confused throughout as to who was doing the killing. That always helps.

Sweet Sixteen was a depressing Ken Loach film about a young kid in Scotland who's trying to deal with not having a family unit to bring him up. Martin Compston was excellent, I think. I really don't know about the dialogue, since it was very Scottish, and IFC put subtitles up (and Ebert says it should be subtitled). I agree it needed that, because sometimes the words didn't match what I was hearing. The huge amount of cursing, however, got through. Lots and lots of very bad words. It's also my first Ken Loach film. I'm still interested in seeing more. It's a very good film.

Ordinary People, My Dinner with Andre, Two-Lane Blacktop, Assault on Precinct 13, & Kinsey

Ordinary People had a strong performance from everyone in it, but it seemed way too calculatingly made to be an Oscar winner to have deserved the Oscar. Raging Bull? Empire Strikes Back? Kagemusha? The Last Metro? All vastly superior movies. Really, this is just Oscar Bait. I'm pretty sure that had someone besides Robert Redford directed it, it would not have won the Best Picture Oscar. People love them some Redford. Probably also has a lot to do with the fact that Redford hadn't won an Oscar for any of his performances. Overall, a good film, but was not as good as the Academy said it was. Which is basically just a normal reaction to a good movie. They can't actually reward the best film. They have to reward people for careers in less than stellar movies. I think I just object to the completely irrational aspects of it, because, as I said, the movie itself was very good, but the Academy screwed up royally that year.

My Dinner with Andre is one of the worst DVDs I've watched. No subtitles, it doesn't go to the menu, the audio and video were muddled, and, worst of all, it doesn't show the time elapsed. Who puts out a crappy DVD like that? That's a shame, for it actually distracts from what it a very interesting conversation. And I want my My Dinner with Andre Action Figures!

Two-Lane Blacktop kept making me think of Easy Rider and Vanishing Point. I'm pretty sure that Vanishing Point couldn't have made much of an impact on this film, since it only came out six months earlier. Still, the James Taylor and Dennis Weaver pairing was an interesting choice. It definitely was a movie of its time.

Assault on Precinct 13 was bad. Really, why was it remade? And, especially, why bother trying to give characters reasons to exist and the like? And why change it to cops instead of gangs? This movie suffers from an insanely high budget for the movie. It should have been made with much less than a twentieth of the budget and no names. Oh, wait, that was the original one. Or it could have been moved out west. Oh, wait, that was Rio Bravo. Why the hell are movies like this remade? Why is there so much money to waste on craptacular movies? About the only good thing I can say for it, is that it doesn't pull any punches.

Kinsey is a movie that is made for people who have never grown up to have them giggle through most of it. I, unfortunately, giggled. It's too frequently, however, not able to be interesting from any standpoint. Two hours of hectoring about sex being normal is not needed today, at least for normal people, and the people who need it aren't going to watch this movie. They're going to boycott it and saw that everyone who sees it is going to hell or something. The sin of this movie is that it's boring, not that it deals with sex. Had it been more consistently interesting, I would have been very happy, but there are seriously frustrating problems with the film being alternately boring and somewhat worthwhile. Also, I really didn't know that was Timothy Hutton (even after having just seen Ordinary People), I thought it was Fred Armisen. He really looks like him, and every time I saw him, I kept thinking of Armisen. I'm just keeding!

Scream 2

I've finally seen Scream 2. I enjoyed the first one enough to make the effort only 9 or so years later to watch it. This one wasn't as good, but it was still somewhat enjoyable. I was, of course, pissed that Randy got it. How could Dewey have survived while Randy got it? How, exactly can these people be in a self-aware horror movie when they are so unaware? Why didn't the cop shoot? Why am I complaining about a teen horror movie's plot problems? And it's still sad to see Buffy be a weak little girl. It was bad in The Grudge and it was bad in I Know What You Did Last Summer and it was bad here. Actually, she's been pretty bad in just about everything she's been in. Well, she wasn't too bad in Harvard Man.