Stuff, mostly incidental

First, I'm really annoyed by the idea of "wip" as a word. You hear writers use it when they're talking about their "work in progress." "I might try that idea in my wip." "I'm having serious problems with my wip." Ugh. Not a word, people.

Second - can we please, just for a little while, lay off the historical writers? Maybe readers could spend a little time gutting contemporaries featuring cops that sleep with suspects/witnesses/victims/anything that moves, cops that let oh-so-sexy complete strangers into crime scenes and ask for their assistance in cases, doctors that never doctor, "successful entrepreneurs" who never work, chefs who never cook, restauranteurs who never restaurant, actors who never act, web designers who never design, and marketing executives who never market, though everyone owns a big house in a small town? Really, you can go back to beating up the historical writers later. Just give them five minutes, OK?

On to more important things:

American Gangster is an excellent movie - I could go on and on about the writing and the filmmaking and all the awesome themes in it, but I won't. Instead, I will lament how utterly horrid the clothes were in the 1970s, so awful it's amazing the human race managed to propagate itself into the 1980's. This isn't so bad for Denzel Washington, who somehow managed to look good. Russell Crowe, however, despite the promise of the poster:




always looked something like this:





Actually, that was probably his best-looking scene. It was a crying shame. In one scene he wore some kind of baseball (?) shirt that made his torso look comically bigger than his legs. I had to close my eyes during that part. Russell Crowe should not look that bad, ever, even in the 1970's.

Mr. Crowe, please make another Western. You looked awesome in a cowboy hat.

Another fine movie, also unsatisfying on certain fronts, was The Golden Compass. Sure, the story was interesting, the effects were good, and the girl who played Lyra was amazing. But it needed more Eva Green. And what's wrong with this picture?




Spotted it right away, didn't you? That's right - Daniel Craig is wearing far, far too many clothes. I'm not sure what he got paid for this movie, but he 1) set up some of the plot, 2) got captured by somebody, 3) shaved. All wearing scads of clothing. Wrong, just wrong.

Mr. Craig, please pack your bathing suit for the next Bond movie. We liked it.