If you know anything about summer events in Seattle, you know that the Blue Angels perform to great redneck fanfare during Seafair's hydroplane races. Think NASCAR on the water with very low-flying fighter jets buzzing the crowd to feed the boatrace passion absent from everyone's daily lives otherwise. Fun in the sun, unless you're trying to cross the bridges over Lake Washington. But instead of joining in on the dockside partying, I got the chance to take some time out yesterday afternoon to join a surprisingly big crowd seeing an utterly antithetical entertainment choice indoors. The movie "In the Loop" is a British satire that features whipsmart writing and a pitch-perfect dissection of the ridiculous run-up to the Iraq War - here fictionalized to never mention Iraq but everyone knows what it's based on. It starts smart, gets bogged down in its own cartwheels and ends up feeling like a movie that was made for TV but somehow got released in theatres. Anyone that knows where BBC America is on their cable spectrum will love it. Anyone that thinks certain NPR shows are overexposed will love it. Anyone that can pick out frisee from a Whole Foods produce section without looking at the signs will love it. But, oddly enough, I didn't love it. Maybe it was the often too-ribald laughter of certain of the professorial and hemp-garmented surrounding me that made me leave the theatre saying that it was smart, perfectly cast, yet utterly unimportant. My rating - B-minus. Wait for the rental, but surely check it out then.
One personal new web fave - The Daily Beast's "The Week in Culture" is Tina Brown boiled down into a spreadable paste. If you're looking to spin through 10-20 quick hits on what you should know according to the smarter-than-you NY intelligensia that surely hates our freedom, here you must go each weekend. Me likey.
Hope your own Sunday is also a long list of things "done" off the "to do" list with still a chunk of day left to enjoy. Rock on.
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