Tuesday, March 30, 2010
true customer tales
lady on phone fishing for pricing information:
lady: So, would you be interested in a copy of My Life by Bill Clinton?
me: No.
lady: Why not?
me: It isn't that saleable and there are copies all over the place- it's not the kind of book we need to pay for.
lady: But if you WERE going to buy it, what would you pay?
me: I wouldn't. It's a book we could get from a thrift store for a quarter, so I wouldn't pay anything for it.
lady: But suppose it was a book you wanted to buy, that cost $35, then what would you pay for it?
me, laughing: Then it would be a different book, and I'd have to take a look at it. Cover price has nothing to do with what we pay for a title, we work off what we can sell it for.
lady: So, you'd pay half the cover price for it?
me, with more laughing: No. No we wouldn't. Have a nice day!
lady: So, would you be interested in a copy of My Life by Bill Clinton?
me: No.
lady: Why not?
me: It isn't that saleable and there are copies all over the place- it's not the kind of book we need to pay for.
lady: But if you WERE going to buy it, what would you pay?
me: I wouldn't. It's a book we could get from a thrift store for a quarter, so I wouldn't pay anything for it.
lady: But suppose it was a book you wanted to buy, that cost $35, then what would you pay for it?
me, laughing: Then it would be a different book, and I'd have to take a look at it. Cover price has nothing to do with what we pay for a title, we work off what we can sell it for.
lady: So, you'd pay half the cover price for it?
me, with more laughing: No. No we wouldn't. Have a nice day!
Monday, March 29, 2010
We will, we will.....ROKU.
So, we've been entirely free of broadcast teevee since moving to the El Oh after mom died. Being a malformed Creature of the Internet I barely noticed, but television formed one layer of the Wife's psychic armor growing up and going cold turkey was tough, even with the sweet, sweet methadone of Netflix.
We had a grand total of three channels at our old place, two more than in my pre-cable childhood, but living within walking distance of The Insomniac (where, during a short stint behind the counter, The Wife accumulated a stock of True Customer Tales that make my meager offerings sound tamer than the official minutes of a Junior League conference) meant we never lacked for visual stimulation.
When the internet finally ended Bob's run we signed up with The Great Oppressor, an ethically distasteful necessity- transitioning from the cinematic oasis of The Insomniac to a cultural abattoir like Blockbuster would've been like replacing the Musée d'Orsay with a Thomas Kincaide gallery.
Like most modern retailers, Netflix substitutes shelf space for discernment- who needs taste when you can just stock one of everything? Which works fine in this context since the 'movie as object' lacks emotional weight- tapes and DVDs are naked solutions to engineering problems, not objects d'art garlanded with cultural mythology.
Which brings me, via back roads and detours, to my point:
Roku is the best thing ever.
It's like teevee without the endless, screeching advertising and scheduling problems. It's like DVDs without the moronic accusatory FBI warnings (which amuse the pirates and annoy the honest), endless boring previews and irritating, badly designed menus. In short, it's a dream, a Utopian idyll in a digital oasis where invisible, many limbed underlings attending to your every casual whim almost before you're aware they exist.
So, you ask (cynical child of Capitalism that you are), where's the catch?
The catch is the magic box which inflates this gossamer pavilion of wonderment runs $80-130, requires a network for sustenance and lives on 'instant' content from Netflix, so you want the 'unlimited streaming' account (3 DVDs out, $16.99 a month).
I picked up a basic wireless router from Netgear and was amazed and relieved by how painless the install was.
Hooked up the router, plugged in the Roku, configured my Netflix account, started watching stuff. As an unexpected bonus, it also works with Pandora, so now we can pump our favorite stations through the main stereo instead of my crummy computer speakers.
It isn't perfect, which early adopters have to expect. I usually wait on these things until they've been out for years and other poor suckers have worked out all the kinks for me.
The selection is comparatively piebald- Netflix has catalog of 100,000-ish DVDs, but only 17,000 streaming titles.
"Only" is enough to keep me busy for the next 20 years, assuming zero growth...and since streaming is THE FUTURE, at some point the big studios will adjust to reality and stop pressuring them to restrict availability. And then...what larks, Pip, what larks!
My only other complaint is the somewhat clunky selection menu.
Right now I've got 85 items in my Netflix 'instant' queue and scrolling through them in a line is somewhat tedious. I'm sure its fine for folk who use it as a supplement to their regular teevee diet and have a couple of things loaded up at any given time.
For the rest of us, some sort of a thumbnail grid system would be fantastic.
Load times are minimal, certainly less than the rigmarole imposed by current DVDs (the aforementioned ads, moral admonishments not to pirate, longwinded menues). Picture quality is excellent, which surprised me given the paucity of my internet connection. We switch to DSL from cable when we moved and it pretty much sucks, but Roku doesn't seem to mind. And I can download stuff or play games or whatever while The Wife immerses herself season 1 of LA Ink with no performance hit, so bandwidth isn't a problem.
TL;DR, it's fantastic, I have nothing bad to say about it, everyone should get one tomorrow. The limited streaming options still deliver riches beyond the dreams of avarice and the inevitable death of broadcast television means those options will only expand with time.
We had a grand total of three channels at our old place, two more than in my pre-cable childhood, but living within walking distance of The Insomniac (where, during a short stint behind the counter, The Wife accumulated a stock of True Customer Tales that make my meager offerings sound tamer than the official minutes of a Junior League conference) meant we never lacked for visual stimulation.
When the internet finally ended Bob's run we signed up with The Great Oppressor, an ethically distasteful necessity- transitioning from the cinematic oasis of The Insomniac to a cultural abattoir like Blockbuster would've been like replacing the Musée d'Orsay with a Thomas Kincaide gallery.
Like most modern retailers, Netflix substitutes shelf space for discernment- who needs taste when you can just stock one of everything? Which works fine in this context since the 'movie as object' lacks emotional weight- tapes and DVDs are naked solutions to engineering problems, not objects d'art garlanded with cultural mythology.
Which brings me, via back roads and detours, to my point:
Roku is the best thing ever.
It's like teevee without the endless, screeching advertising and scheduling problems. It's like DVDs without the moronic accusatory FBI warnings (which amuse the pirates and annoy the honest), endless boring previews and irritating, badly designed menus. In short, it's a dream, a Utopian idyll in a digital oasis where invisible, many limbed underlings attending to your every casual whim almost before you're aware they exist.
So, you ask (cynical child of Capitalism that you are), where's the catch?
The catch is the magic box which inflates this gossamer pavilion of wonderment runs $80-130, requires a network for sustenance and lives on 'instant' content from Netflix, so you want the 'unlimited streaming' account (3 DVDs out, $16.99 a month).
I picked up a basic wireless router from Netgear and was amazed and relieved by how painless the install was.
Hooked up the router, plugged in the Roku, configured my Netflix account, started watching stuff. As an unexpected bonus, it also works with Pandora, so now we can pump our favorite stations through the main stereo instead of my crummy computer speakers.
It isn't perfect, which early adopters have to expect. I usually wait on these things until they've been out for years and other poor suckers have worked out all the kinks for me.
The selection is comparatively piebald- Netflix has catalog of 100,000-ish DVDs, but only 17,000 streaming titles.
"Only" is enough to keep me busy for the next 20 years, assuming zero growth...and since streaming is THE FUTURE, at some point the big studios will adjust to reality and stop pressuring them to restrict availability. And then...what larks, Pip, what larks!
My only other complaint is the somewhat clunky selection menu.
Right now I've got 85 items in my Netflix 'instant' queue and scrolling through them in a line is somewhat tedious. I'm sure its fine for folk who use it as a supplement to their regular teevee diet and have a couple of things loaded up at any given time.
For the rest of us, some sort of a thumbnail grid system would be fantastic.
Load times are minimal, certainly less than the rigmarole imposed by current DVDs (the aforementioned ads, moral admonishments not to pirate, longwinded menues). Picture quality is excellent, which surprised me given the paucity of my internet connection. We switch to DSL from cable when we moved and it pretty much sucks, but Roku doesn't seem to mind. And I can download stuff or play games or whatever while The Wife immerses herself season 1 of LA Ink with no performance hit, so bandwidth isn't a problem.
TL;DR, it's fantastic, I have nothing bad to say about it, everyone should get one tomorrow. The limited streaming options still deliver riches beyond the dreams of avarice and the inevitable death of broadcast television means those options will only expand with time.
Friday, March 26, 2010
wordy rappinghood
Fuss has busted out with his first two sentences (two words counts, right?)
Yesterday while he was roaming the craft store with mama he spotted a giant stuffed ape, pointed and exclaimed
"Big Ooooh-OOoooh!"
Which is Fuss lingo for monkey.
This morning, after I responded in the affirmative to his Godfather-style message (stomping into the bedroom, shouting "MO!" and then hurling the box for his new Curious George dvd at our heads), he sat on the couch chortling happily, pointing at the teevee and exclaiming
"Eeeeeaye Oooh-ooooh!"
Eeeeeeaye is Fuss lingo for there it is.
I fully expect to be awakened by declamations of the Bard's deathless prose any morning now...
Yesterday while he was roaming the craft store with mama he spotted a giant stuffed ape, pointed and exclaimed
"Big Ooooh-OOoooh!"
Which is Fuss lingo for monkey.
This morning, after I responded in the affirmative to his Godfather-style message (stomping into the bedroom, shouting "MO!" and then hurling the box for his new Curious George dvd at our heads), he sat on the couch chortling happily, pointing at the teevee and exclaiming
"Eeeeeaye Oooh-ooooh!"
Eeeeeeaye is Fuss lingo for there it is.
I fully expect to be awakened by declamations of the Bard's deathless prose any morning now...
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
The Answer to Life's Mysteries
Teething.
At least according to the nurse lady who visits Fuss every couple of weeks.
She ascribed his recent uptick in fussiness to a conga line of approaching teeth.
Which makes sense, because he's acting exactly like he did a while back when a bunch of teeth were coming in. You think we'd notice that, but parenting the little man often has more in common with trench warfare than traditional visions of childrearing. When navigating stacked catastrophes moment by moment, perspective is a luxury. The nurse swinging by every few weeks to give us the long view has been really helpful.
This morning's disaster crept up under cover of another shocking event- Fuss sleeping in until 8:30. I'm so programmed by his schedule I usually wake up a bit before he does for my early morning bathroom break. This morning I thought I was being really crafty by eschewing a return to the bed and lying down on the couch.
What I expected to be a ten minute nap ended up stretching for several hours- I eventually woke to the sounds of Fuss chortling and cooing while he played with his train table in the bedroom. The clock read a quarter to 9, which is completely unprecedented.
I sat up and, hearing movement, Fuss came a-running, his blankie in tow (he calls it "Boowen-eee", with an almost but not quite silent W). The next 20 minutes or so spooled out like one of those slow motion nightmares where a seemingly tranquil domestic scene unravels beginning with the discovery of one incongruous minor detail. This morning it was finding several damp brown spots on Boowen-ee.
"Is that....." I sniffed suspiciously and received a snoot-full of ordure.
"OH no!"
I sprang from the couch, scooping him up and hoisting him gingerly down the hall to the changing table, which he took about as well as you'd expect.
So another side effect of teething is, ah, less than solid bowel movements. In this case I was confronted with an epic blowout resulting from comprehensive & absolute diaper failure.
With Fuss yowling and lashing out like a cat espying the approach of a soapy washtub I wrestled him out of his now-camo patterened pyjamas, sheepishly useless diaper and waded in with handfuls of disposable wipes.
Triumph, while inevitable, was far from pleasant and called loudly for a shower.
Then it was off to work, down the stairs and out into the still air in my white shirt, unlocking the car while the birds sang counterpoint.
At least according to the nurse lady who visits Fuss every couple of weeks.
She ascribed his recent uptick in fussiness to a conga line of approaching teeth.
Which makes sense, because he's acting exactly like he did a while back when a bunch of teeth were coming in. You think we'd notice that, but parenting the little man often has more in common with trench warfare than traditional visions of childrearing. When navigating stacked catastrophes moment by moment, perspective is a luxury. The nurse swinging by every few weeks to give us the long view has been really helpful.
This morning's disaster crept up under cover of another shocking event- Fuss sleeping in until 8:30. I'm so programmed by his schedule I usually wake up a bit before he does for my early morning bathroom break. This morning I thought I was being really crafty by eschewing a return to the bed and lying down on the couch.
What I expected to be a ten minute nap ended up stretching for several hours- I eventually woke to the sounds of Fuss chortling and cooing while he played with his train table in the bedroom. The clock read a quarter to 9, which is completely unprecedented.
I sat up and, hearing movement, Fuss came a-running, his blankie in tow (he calls it "Boowen-eee", with an almost but not quite silent W). The next 20 minutes or so spooled out like one of those slow motion nightmares where a seemingly tranquil domestic scene unravels beginning with the discovery of one incongruous minor detail. This morning it was finding several damp brown spots on Boowen-ee.
"Is that....." I sniffed suspiciously and received a snoot-full of ordure.
"OH no!"
I sprang from the couch, scooping him up and hoisting him gingerly down the hall to the changing table, which he took about as well as you'd expect.
So another side effect of teething is, ah, less than solid bowel movements. In this case I was confronted with an epic blowout resulting from comprehensive & absolute diaper failure.
With Fuss yowling and lashing out like a cat espying the approach of a soapy washtub I wrestled him out of his now-camo patterened pyjamas, sheepishly useless diaper and waded in with handfuls of disposable wipes.
Triumph, while inevitable, was far from pleasant and called loudly for a shower.
Then it was off to work, down the stairs and out into the still air in my white shirt, unlocking the car while the birds sang counterpoint.
Monday, March 22, 2010
true customer tales
older gal, to her husband standing outside:
gal: What are you doing?
guy: *mumble mumble*
gal, exasperated: How can you be done, there's a whole BOOKSTORE here!
gal: What are you doing?
guy: *mumble mumble*
gal, exasperated: How can you be done, there's a whole BOOKSTORE here!
The Unquiet Night
A period of relative truce with the Fuss ended in a shrieking, red-faced heap around 3am this morning. The usual drill is he wakes up a few times, is placated and falls back to sleep fairly quickly. For some unknowable reason this particular wakeup escalated to the realm of Opera, starring Fuss as the Caruso of hysterics.
It was a vivid flashback to the Bad Old Days, when inconsolable wailing was the norm and exhaustion our inevitable reward. Except now he's much bigger and thus louder.
We, of course, tried everything. I'd like to paint our exertions in the mature, muted tones of stoic fatalism, along the lines of Rothko's chapel paintings but the reality tended more toward Jackson Pollock working with neon poster paint.
There are many facets of parenting that are simply un-learnable, that you never get better at however many opportunities your child hands you. Like 3am screaming fits, or changing a poopy diaper while they're frantically trying to grab a handful.
You just get through it however you can and hope nobody was grading your performance.
It was a vivid flashback to the Bad Old Days, when inconsolable wailing was the norm and exhaustion our inevitable reward. Except now he's much bigger and thus louder.
We, of course, tried everything. I'd like to paint our exertions in the mature, muted tones of stoic fatalism, along the lines of Rothko's chapel paintings but the reality tended more toward Jackson Pollock working with neon poster paint.
There are many facets of parenting that are simply un-learnable, that you never get better at however many opportunities your child hands you. Like 3am screaming fits, or changing a poopy diaper while they're frantically trying to grab a handful.
You just get through it however you can and hope nobody was grading your performance.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
bookselling meta-chat
A lot of people sell a lot of books on Amazon that I wouldn't bother to list, but I can usually suss out their angle.
People listing pocket books for 1 cent, for example.
Assuming you get the book from a thrift store for a quarter, you can still turn a profit on Amazon's shipping reimbursement. Amazon kicks down $3.99, a small padded mailer will run you around a quarter, and postage is roughly $1.35. So you're clearing $2.15 on that 1 cent book.
Which doesn't sound bad, until you factor in labor. That book doesn't find itself, or list itself, or shelve itself, or pack itself, or drive itself to the post, or wait in that long ass line.
But if you're moving enough units, why not? If you're packing and mailing 20 books a day, that pocket book is just a note in the symphony.
It's nothing I'd bother with, but I can see why someone else might.
This particular book, though, I don't understand at all.
International shipping is a huge pain in the butt.
It's tremendously expensive, and Amazon's seller credit ($12.99) doesn't cover the cost of anything bigger than a trade paperback- the only titles I make available for international orders are pocket books. And if for any reason there's a problem, you're completely hosed. Let's say they don't like the book- you're on the hook for a refund, and if you want the book back you're on the hook for return shipping. Books shipped internationally also tend to go missing, whether due to post office mishaps or buyer malfeasance who knows. But again, you're on the hook for a refund and are expected to eat the postage (not only does the buyer get their $$$ back, Amazon also takes back their shipping credit).
So these guys confuse me.
I paid $1.49 for the book, which as noted above can make sense if you're operating on a large enough scale. But, even though it shipped airmail from the UK the bookstore only charged for domestic shipping, meaning they were reimbursed $3.99. I'm not up on currency exchange or the Royal Mail's shipping rates, but I don't see the financial logic of a UK store airmailing me a hardcover book for less than the cost of a decent hamburger.
And it's basically a new book- I've seen much rougher copies on the shelves of B&N.
I suppose I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but I don't see how books being this commodified & devalued is a good thing.
People listing pocket books for 1 cent, for example.
Assuming you get the book from a thrift store for a quarter, you can still turn a profit on Amazon's shipping reimbursement. Amazon kicks down $3.99, a small padded mailer will run you around a quarter, and postage is roughly $1.35. So you're clearing $2.15 on that 1 cent book.
Which doesn't sound bad, until you factor in labor. That book doesn't find itself, or list itself, or shelve itself, or pack itself, or drive itself to the post, or wait in that long ass line.
But if you're moving enough units, why not? If you're packing and mailing 20 books a day, that pocket book is just a note in the symphony.
It's nothing I'd bother with, but I can see why someone else might.
This particular book, though, I don't understand at all.
International shipping is a huge pain in the butt.
It's tremendously expensive, and Amazon's seller credit ($12.99) doesn't cover the cost of anything bigger than a trade paperback- the only titles I make available for international orders are pocket books. And if for any reason there's a problem, you're completely hosed. Let's say they don't like the book- you're on the hook for a refund, and if you want the book back you're on the hook for return shipping. Books shipped internationally also tend to go missing, whether due to post office mishaps or buyer malfeasance who knows. But again, you're on the hook for a refund and are expected to eat the postage (not only does the buyer get their $$$ back, Amazon also takes back their shipping credit).
So these guys confuse me.
I paid $1.49 for the book, which as noted above can make sense if you're operating on a large enough scale. But, even though it shipped airmail from the UK the bookstore only charged for domestic shipping, meaning they were reimbursed $3.99. I'm not up on currency exchange or the Royal Mail's shipping rates, but I don't see the financial logic of a UK store airmailing me a hardcover book for less than the cost of a decent hamburger.
And it's basically a new book- I've seen much rougher copies on the shelves of B&N.
I suppose I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, but I don't see how books being this commodified & devalued is a good thing.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
true customer tales
couple standing in doorway:
guy: Well, it SMELLS like books!
gal: that's good.
guy, reading off a flyer in the window: "Medical Marijuana chapter forming"
gal, angrily: What's THAT supposed to mean?
guy: Well, it SMELLS like books!
gal: that's good.
guy, reading off a flyer in the window: "Medical Marijuana chapter forming"
gal, angrily: What's THAT supposed to mean?
true customer tales
two couples walk in.
guy: What are you doin' in here? You don't even READ! You don't even read English!
gals: *teehee teehee*
other guy: Uh, well, maybe they got pictures?
guy: What are you doin' in here? You don't even READ! You don't even read English!
gals: *teehee teehee*
other guy: Uh, well, maybe they got pictures?
Saturday, March 13, 2010
True Customer Tales
people who yell into their cell phone edition:
I'm never going to another movie with you, you just took off, I bought the ticket and you just took off. I wasted money on a ticket.
You saw me...you're a liar, you stopped and looked at me...you looked at me twice and then walked away. I told you to stay on the bench, LIAR. Well I'm at the car. I'm never seeing another movie with you. Goodbye.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Oscar follow up
I was happy Hurt Locker got best picture and Bigelow got best director, and that both awards stuck it in the neck of that insufferable blowhard James Cameron and his tribe of computer animated alien hippies. The fact that he's her ex made it all the sweeter.
That the genius behind this under-appreciated gem walked away with a statue almost compensated for the gristly spectacle of Sandra Bullock, Best Actress.
Prowling the internets in the wake of this abortion of justice (worse than a miscarriage!) the general consensus seems to be that she deserves the award because she's so nice, and that the movie was so uplifting, and that anyway Meryl Streep already has too many awards.
Which put me in mind of the untranslatable Russian word Poshlost, (here described by Vladimir Nabokov). It's a fellow traveller of the American anti-intellectualism that's been rampantly ascendant for most of my adult life.
Maybe countries get the Best Actresses they deserve in the same way they get the government they deserve?
That the genius behind this under-appreciated gem walked away with a statue almost compensated for the gristly spectacle of Sandra Bullock, Best Actress.
Prowling the internets in the wake of this abortion of justice (worse than a miscarriage!) the general consensus seems to be that she deserves the award because she's so nice, and that the movie was so uplifting, and that anyway Meryl Streep already has too many awards.
Which put me in mind of the untranslatable Russian word Poshlost, (here described by Vladimir Nabokov). It's a fellow traveller of the American anti-intellectualism that's been rampantly ascendant for most of my adult life.
Maybe countries get the Best Actresses they deserve in the same way they get the government they deserve?
true customer tales
A couple came in with a self-published book they wanted us to stock, which happens sometimes.
I explained that we weren't in the market, being a used bookstore, and pointed them towards the the last surviving non-chain store in town.
They were chipper and energetic, as self-promoters must be, and after I'd directed them to their best bet for a sale the fellow in the funny hat looked around the store, then gestured wide with both arms and said,
"So....what's the story here?"
I gaped for a moment, as I will when confronted with non sequiturs, eventually replying
"Um....we're a used bookstore...that's the story."
"Oh...HA HA HA HA!"
And off they went.
I explained that we weren't in the market, being a used bookstore, and pointed them towards the the last surviving non-chain store in town.
They were chipper and energetic, as self-promoters must be, and after I'd directed them to their best bet for a sale the fellow in the funny hat looked around the store, then gestured wide with both arms and said,
"So....what's the story here?"
I gaped for a moment, as I will when confronted with non sequiturs, eventually replying
"Um....we're a used bookstore...that's the story."
"Oh...HA HA HA HA!"
And off they went.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Rawscars
Sandra Bullock?
Really?
That's all you've got for us?
FU, Hollywood.
Hopefully it'll poison her career the same way it did for Helen Hunt.
Really?
That's all you've got for us?
FU, Hollywood.
Hopefully it'll poison her career the same way it did for Helen Hunt.
Monday, March 1, 2010
film: Public Enemy
Handsomely mounted, beautifully shot, and not very good.
Mann's strengths as a director didn't mesh very well with this Robin Hood-ish tale of a popular bandit navigating a hardscrabble Depression America. The casting was up and down- Billy Crudup was a surprising and excellent choice for J. Edger Hoover, but Marion Cotillard was distracting and annoying as the love interest (what was that mess of an accent she was using? It sounded like a beginning ESL student who learned 30's slang from dubbed Jimmy Cagney gangster flicks).
And about 3/4ths of the way through the fact that the whole philosophical foundation of the movie (wayward individuals vs increasingly mechanized, regimented society) was already done a thousand times better in Bonnie & Clyde. Which wouldn't be a problem if Mann were making a straight gangster picture, but he so desperately wants it to be a BIG SERIOUS PICTURE you can't help comparing it with its famous (and vastly more successful) predecessor.
There are also some heavy handed parallels between the formative years of the FBI and our current Great War On Terror that don't really work- the end result is a stale muddle, a movie with too many conflicting impulses and directions to reconcile.
Johnny Depp is tremendously appealing but oddly de-emphasized in a cinematic landscape happy to shift focus between several other less interesting, compelling characters. Christian Bale seems to have been cast mainly for his cheekbones, his acting limited to displaying a fixed rictus of righteous determination. Billy Crudup does a bang up job as noted- paring the story down to a face-off between Depp and Crudup, with Bale's Purvis reduced to a catspaw, would've eliminated a lot of the distracting clutter.
There's a good, lean gangster story buried under the muck here, but Mann wasn't the guy to excavate it.
Mann's strengths as a director didn't mesh very well with this Robin Hood-ish tale of a popular bandit navigating a hardscrabble Depression America. The casting was up and down- Billy Crudup was a surprising and excellent choice for J. Edger Hoover, but Marion Cotillard was distracting and annoying as the love interest (what was that mess of an accent she was using? It sounded like a beginning ESL student who learned 30's slang from dubbed Jimmy Cagney gangster flicks).
And about 3/4ths of the way through the fact that the whole philosophical foundation of the movie (wayward individuals vs increasingly mechanized, regimented society) was already done a thousand times better in Bonnie & Clyde. Which wouldn't be a problem if Mann were making a straight gangster picture, but he so desperately wants it to be a BIG SERIOUS PICTURE you can't help comparing it with its famous (and vastly more successful) predecessor.
There are also some heavy handed parallels between the formative years of the FBI and our current Great War On Terror that don't really work- the end result is a stale muddle, a movie with too many conflicting impulses and directions to reconcile.
Johnny Depp is tremendously appealing but oddly de-emphasized in a cinematic landscape happy to shift focus between several other less interesting, compelling characters. Christian Bale seems to have been cast mainly for his cheekbones, his acting limited to displaying a fixed rictus of righteous determination. Billy Crudup does a bang up job as noted- paring the story down to a face-off between Depp and Crudup, with Bale's Purvis reduced to a catspaw, would've eliminated a lot of the distracting clutter.
There's a good, lean gangster story buried under the muck here, but Mann wasn't the guy to excavate it.
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