Bourne Free

I apologize for the bad pun in the title-I couldn't help myself. Apparently last weekend was Joan Allen movie day, as she was in both the movie I went to see and my netflix movie. First up: The Bourne Ultimatum. I liked it. Yes, it's an action movie and yes there's a lot of violence, but as these sorts of movies go, it's intelligent-and Matt Damon does a great job of carrying the part. The interesting thing about this installment is the not-so-subtext. Jason Bourne turns out to be a government experiment in breaking down a personality and turning that person into an entirely different person-one that's willing to do whatever the government tells him/her to do. And what are the methods used to break someone down? Well, they involve hoods, waterboarding and other methods of torture. Think this isn't a comment on the Bush administration? I found the subversive commentary fascinating-how interesting is it that Bourne volunteered for the torture to become someone new? Everyone was good-Matt Damon, David Straithairn (a great villain) and Joan Allen (who didn't have much to do besides look worried). My only quibble was with Julia Stiles who was so wooden that she could have caught fire if had gotten too close to a match and played her part like a someone pretending to be an agent. Did she not go through any training at the CIA? I was embarrassed for her as an agent and I don't even work there.



My other movie was Off The Map-and I wasn't really looking forward to it. Joan Allen and Sam Elliot play a couple who have moved to the New Mexico desert in the early 70's-many people did this to "get back to the land" and drop out of a society they disliked. They grow their own food, trade for the things they need and keep to themselves. mostly. Their 12 year-old daughter tells their story their story. Her father is depressed, so he mostly sits around doing nothing-sometimes he cries. Her mother grows fruits and vegetables, keeps bees and works very hard to keep everything together. And their daughter Bo...Bo sees everything. She cares for her family, but she also has the eye of a disinterested observer who watches events as they occur. And into their lives comes the IRS, in the form of William Gibbs. It seems that they haven't filed income tax returns in many years and now there's a problem-years of unpaid taxes will do that to you.

This story doesn't turn out quite like you think it will-at least not quite the way I thought it would. Yes, I thought the IRS guy would become enchanted with their way of life, but I didn't think he would choose to live with them. Yes, I knew Bo would go away to school I didn't think she would really return to see her parents, but she did. This movie is full of small observations of a way of life and of the people living it-it was funny and touching without being sentimental or sticky-it was good.