Let's Go Out to the Lobby

My God, is this movie bad. After doing my UUST class homework and all but three squares of the Saturday puzzle (curse you, three squares!), I decided to relax by watching the telly. IFC had a movie starting at 5:10, so I flipped on Roman Polanski's "The Ninth Gate." Wow. The movie stars Johnny Depp and Frank Langella in what have to be their least believable, most overaffected/underworked performances ever. Johnny trades in rare books, and he's hopping around Europe looking to authenticate a particular copy of "The Nine Gates"—one of three possibly in existence, estimated value: $1M. I can't get over the fact that he regularly just flips through this book with his bare hands, hands it to other people to flip through, carries it through the rain in his messenger bag, and, yes, smokes while he reads it. WTF!?, as the kids say. At Beinecke, I couldn't read a Jonathan Swift ripoff from 1726 (The Sixpenny miscellany, or, A Dissertation upon pissing...a great read, to be sure) without getting out the foam bookstands and page turners and blah di blah di blah. And this guy's schlepping around a million dollar edition? Christ a'mighty.

I did much better with this week's double feature of movies where Will Smith plays a ridiculously smart, motivated, and charming poor guy who has to fit in with rich, white people as part of getting what he wants. Name the movies and win...nothing. Ah, well.