The MacGuffin

In honor of the release of Pain & Gain, Spencer and Greg discuss Ed Harris.

Among the rules of life if you are a character in a movie is: always be nice to the office freak. This person is about 5000% more likely than other characters to either go on a killing spree or become incredibly successful, by my scientific estimation. Either way, you want to be on their good side. I’m pretty sure the title of Cindy Sherman’s 1997 horror comedy Office Killer gives away which situation we’re in this time.

Tabloid

When I heard a new Errol Morris documentary was coming out, I squealed, which confused my husband, because I don’t normally make that noise. I remember seeing The Thin Blue Line on PBS back in 1988 and being amazed at how different it was than anything else I had seen before. Morris had used interviews, reenactments, and a Philip Glass score to tell the story of Randall Adams, a man who claimed that he was wrongly convicted of killing a police officer. The composition of the film was so unusual I had some difficulty wrapping my mind around it—and then promptly watched it again as soon as I could. Also, in my mind, Morris’s The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara is one of the most engrossing films ever made. So yeah, I may have squealed.