One blog. Two opinions. One zillion films.

Tammy, are you ever coming back? Is your Floridan-baked self suddenly too good for our continually dank Spring weather? Are you mocking your fellow J-holers?

Anyway, back to work. There is impetus. We finished an edit of Killpecker! to submit to Wyoming Tourism’s short film contest. We decided to keep the funniest clips under wraps for now, hawking the more Wyo-centric stuff. If we don’t win the 25 grand, it may be because of we imply that women from Savageton and Pleasantdale (real Wyoming towns a few miles apart) got into fistfights over who was the center of Wyoming’s huge hasps industry (probably not true).

We named this cut Killpecker: Origins. Because we are nothing if not with-it.

Just checked Google Analytics. Our yappy blog is growing, hit-wise. Gone are the days when the bulk of the hits came from either of us trying to post. Now to pepper sites like Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB with our very existence.

Oh. A movie. Surely you’ve seen State of Play by now. I mean, you’re a writer. This movie is about how a dogged journalist works hard to throw the light of day onto corruption involving a United States senator and billions in defense monies. To quote Stephen Colbert, “You know. Fiction.”

It’s actually a pretty good movie. Credit a decidely un-vain Russell Crowe and a most intelligent director, Kevin Macdonald. He directed the finest mountaineering feature yet, Touching the Void, and the extraordinary Last King of Scotland. Macdonald keeps the movie’s many moving plot parts in sync, and I must admit the swan-song tone — is investigative journalism dead? — got to me. Doubt if David Gregory’s tweets will make up for the loss.

If I made ads for State of Play, I’d place a yellow starburst in the upper right corner reading: 25% MORE DECEPTION THAN MOST LEADING THRILLERS! It’s, um, layered. Not that it’s bad; it just starts to sag toward the end. Luckily, Jason Bateman shows up as a greasy fixer and shocks the thing back to life. I’m still laughing at his “garage” line (I won’t give it away, it’s worth the price of admission.) Wonder if the line was ad-libbed. A movie journalist should investigate that.