This article from ABC News gives a short glimpse into the troubles leading up to this death.

It’s a good thing that Redbox is kind to my wallet; If I had purchased these two films simply on the buzz they have received, I would have ended up being really pissed off for having wasted the money. One of them I really wanted to like since it was nominated for an Academy Award, but both ended up boring me to tears. You can sit there shaking your head as you read this and assume that I have no taste, but this isn’t a matter of likes and dislikes.

This is a matter of being boring.

“The Help” which is supposed to be an Uncle Tom’s Cabin-esque story about a white woman exposing the terrible racism that black maids deal with in Jackson, MS, takes it’s time without really going anywhere. A controversial period where blacks were only seen as servants should be given better treatment given that there is such a polarizing attitude about Hollywood covering such a subject (even when it’s partly farcical). The fact that Hollywood even gets bored with it’s usual staple of controversial films seems to send the signal that the film industry is living on life support and making stories as if there’s no life left.

“I Will Follow”, while not nearly as controversial, was equally boring. It had nice scenery in it and lots of scenes where people are not saying what they really are feeling kind of moments, but it everyone in it felt like they wanted to be somewhere else. That’s very strange considering this is supposed to be about family tensions after a family member passes away.

I’m sure the former will win some accolades when the Oscars air eventually, but I personally don’t see why it should have even been nominated. The other film, which is more of an indie film, will probably disappear into the black hole that is the urban film industry eventually. On the other hand the director is already putting together another film as we speak.

What do I know?

Sometimes we end up in heaven by pure accident.

I make xtranormal cartoons as well.

Perhaps the best movie of Brad Pitt's career

I never looked at Brad Pitt as being an actor. For a long time even in a movie such as  Seven where Morgan Freeman basically ate him alive, I always considered him the other Robert Redford; tall, attractive, but rather bland in the personality department. Call me dull, but I don’t consider Fight Club to be his most solid attempt at acting (his character was a pure brute, what acting does it take to do that?).

Moneyball, despite it’s rather video game sounding title, is the best movie of Brad Pitt’s career and the best performance Brad Pitt has ever given.

The movie is based on Michael Lewis’s book which covered how Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane (along with statistican Paul DePodesta) used math to find the most suitable players for it’s team back in the early 2000′s. The mathmatics formula for success often clashed with the Hollywood approach to finding baseball players for a team, but it meant that fewer dollars had to be spent. Let’s face it: The Oakland A’s have Jay-Z money, while The New York Yankees have James Cameron money. 

Brad Pitt as Bill Beane

This could have easily been a long movie that could have been an episode of CBS’ Numbers, but writers Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin understood that the audience perhaps wouldn’t fully understand or want too much time devoted to the scientific aspects of what Beane and DePodesta were doing. Baseball invovles emotional commitment, not simply moving chess pieces around. I believe that’s why it was so easy for Brad Pitt to find the turmoil within the Billy Beane character.

Jonah Hill as Peter Brand (aka Paul DePodesta)

Escaping the shadow of Superbad and perhaps the upcoming bomb of a film known as 21 Jump Street, Jonah Hill plays human calculator with a soul statistican Peter Brand (who is based loosely on the real Paul DePodesta, who worked with Beane in real life). They could have easily stuck in the corner and made him simply a means of discussing the forumla that would change Baseball teams forever, but the script actually takes the character along Billy’s emotional journey. He keeps the film from being a complete angst fest.

Another reason this film works…

Wally Pfister

He’s noted for his work on Christopher Nolan’s Batman films, which I don’t really care for. Here, he dims the lights when necessary to showcase the dark side of human emotions, but he knows how to turn the lights on when things get too bleak. He also takes some incredible wide shots strategically to also present the notion that Baseball is bigger than the people who love it. My personal favorite of them all is when Jonah Hill enters the Oakland A’s stadium for the first time.

All in all this film deserves a ton of Oscar nominations and more respect than it got on it’s initial release.

Shaun Evans as a younger Morse in the 1960s

When I heard that ITV wanted to bring back Colin Dexter’s sullen yet brilliant Inspector Morse character back as a prequel, I wanted to punch the wall. In addition to no one being able to replace John Thaw as Morse, there is already a spin-off featuring his former partner Lewis (played by Kevin Whately). I took a gander at it and wound up sitting through the two hours actually enjoying it.

Since the history of Morse was only lightly touched upon in the course of the original series, it was up to John Thaw to display through Morse’s emotions a sense of the kind of life he had as a youth. Shaun Evans, who is relatively new to me, takes this younger Morse the same way Chris Evans (no relation) took the younger Captain Kirk in the last Star Trek film; take the basics of the character and go from there. Morse liked puzzles, gracing the world of the rich and powerful (which sometimes led to Oxford) and engaging in tragic romances with suspects during his cases. Shaun Evans touches upon these future characteristics as more of what will become of his life as opposed to what is his life.

The mystery itself really isn’t all that important in the Morse universe. If anything what makes watching the original series, and this prequel, very addictive television are the lush settings and a main character who is fascinating and yet constantly distant in the world. Sometimes I almost think Wallander (a swedish detective created by Henning Mankell with similar traits) and Morse would have made an interesting bromance.

Since it was a smash hit in the ratings, largely perhaps because of the attachment to the earlier series, it is rumored that a full-series will be made with Evans as Morse. I will probably watch to see where Shaun Evans takes the Morse character, although I hope they don’t reveal so much that he becomes more of a bore than a mysterious genius.

Let us hope ITV doesn’t disgrace the original series.