Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Review

[Note: I am going to try to avoid too many spoilers in this review, despite what the next paragraph will say]

Here's what I would have to say about the new version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: watch it twice, or go and read the plot summary before you watch it. As with certain other forms of art (opera, Shakespeare, sporting events), TTSS can't really be appreciated on the first go-round unless you know what is going on.

The Best the Americans Have to Offer Us, Part TWO: the Movies!

The actors/actresses I left off the list last time because I'm a moron:

Laura Linney, who is enough of a background actress that I wrote "Laura Dern" (also an excellent actress), despite her great performances in Mystic River, Breach, and even Lorenzo's Oil.
Chris Cooper, who quite capably stands in for the type of "menacing heavyweight" performances we would lazily shorthand someone in for, like Gene Hackman or Brian Cox.
Amy Adams, who is on this list despite winning an Academy Award,  deserves to be here because of two thankless roles she played, as the naive teenage nurse in Catch Me If You Can, and Mary the Wet Blanket Girlfriend in the Muppets. Both parts were written by the screenwriters to be as torturously awful for a performer as possible, and she came out looking pretty sharp in both of them. Oh, and apparently she was in some Catholic melodrama or something.

New Year's Resolutions (DRAFT)

So here's a list of things I'd like to do differently next year:

1) Stop starting business meetings by introducing myself as "Hi, I'm a new hire on the IS Core Team, and [jump on table and wrap cape around self dramatically] I'M BATMAN!!!"

2) Stop going to work in a cape and Batman mask.

3) Blog once a day week month more often than I have in the past I get done watching "How I Met Your Mother"

4) Finish "How I Met Your Mother"

5) Build a cave under my house.

6) Learn how to program VBA make pretty graphs in Excel.

7) Stop reading liberal-propaganda websites written by trolls, and Reddit.

8) Run for President, if only to steal enough of Ron Paul's votes so he doesn't win.

9) Save Gotham City. Again.

10) Eat more vegetables (by going to Chipotle more often)

The Best the Americans Have to Offer Us, Part One

Coming out this winter is Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, a film based on the seminal spy novel by John le Carre. While purists and old-timers will point to the seven-part BBC miniseries as the only "true" version of the le Carre story, I'm quite excited to see it, based on the trailer (which uses Danny Elfman's "Wolf Suite" from the Wolfman to excellent effect) and of course, the cast list:

The Monkey Parable
(as told by a CoWorker)

There once were some scientists, who, in the time before the ASPCA, decided to test some monkeys.

They set up a large cage with a very long ramp on one end that winded all the way along the sides, to reach the top of a "peak", on which they put a basket of juicy, sweet fruit.

They then put a monkey in the cage. The monkey sniffed, smelled the fruit, and climbed all the way up to the top. When he got there, he reached out for the fruit, and the researchers hit him with a blast of ice-cold water that knocked him off the peak.

Confused, he climbed the ramp again, reached out again, and got knocked around by the ice-cold jet spray again. The monkey was smart; he only needed to be shown twice that going to the top of the peak would result in him being attacked.

They then introduced a second monkey. The first monkey sat placidly and watched while the second one climbed to the top. The second monkey reached for the fruit, and the researchers blasted him with water, but they also blasted the first monkey, who hadn't done anything. It was repeated a second time, and the second monkey learned not to go to the top of the ramp, and the first one learned that if ANYONE went to the top he would get attacked.

Third monkey introduced, third monkey goes to the top, and this time, all three are blasted with water. When third monkey decides to go up to the ramp again, the first and second monkeys beat him up. The third monkey realizes if he goes up the ramp, the other two will beat him up.

Monkey #1 is removed, and #2 and #3 see #4 enter and try to go up the ramp. They beat up #4 to keep him from going up the ramp.

Monkey #4 is confused, but then when #2 is taken away, he helps #3 beat up #5 to keep him from going up the ramp, even though the researchers put away the hose. And so on it goes, with each subsequent monkey helping keep other monkeys from going up the ramp, without ever knowing why.

Moral of the story: think about what we do sometimes. Are we monkeys?

(Some people think so)