Salon.com > The Informant!

Pick of the week: Can Matt Damon outrun God?

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 02:01:00 +0000

Here's the thing about "The Adjustment Bureau," which is a science-fiction romance featuring Matt Damon and English actress Emily Blunt as a couple on the run from mysterious men with hats. It's a somewhat awkward blend of ingredients, but not in the usual Hollywood fashion, where it often appears that nobody involved really gave a crap, or even bothered to watch the whole thing all the way through. Instead, "The Adjustment Bureau" is distinctly the work of one guy, and not a guy with Spielbergian or Scorsesean clout, either: Writer-director-producer George Nolfi is known in the industry as the writer of "The Bourne Ultimatum" and "Ocean's Twelve," but has never made a movie on his own before.

Films of the decade: “Adaptation”

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 15:01:00 +0000

I have decided to use my memory to answer this and not the Internet -- my memory can't be trusted with where my keys and wallet are, so it may fail me here as well. But if memory is supposed to keep track of what things mean and how much, then mine says go with "Adaptation" from 2002. I remember sitting in the dark being both moved and jealous of what Charlie Kaufman and Spike Jonze accomplished -- I wanted to give up writing because it seemed like they had taken everything I had ever wanted to say and said it better, funnier and faster.

“The Informant!” Funny! Weird! Not all there!

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 10:18:00 +0000

If the exclamation point doesn't clue you in, then the curlicue-serif '70s-style typeface of the opening credits and the soundtrack music by Marvin Hamlisch will. Steven Soderbergh's new movie, "The Informant!," is a deliberately arch and goofy affair, an exercise in neo-retro geek chic. It stars Matt Damon, clad in early-'90s guywear, chunky eyeglasses and a couple dozen extra pounds of pudge, in the way-strange-but-mostly-true story of Mark Whitacre, a high-level corporate whistle-blower who exposed an enormous price-fixing scheme at Archer Daniels Midland, the massive agribusiness conglomerate.