{"id":153,"date":"2009-04-21T06:31:11","date_gmt":"2009-04-21T12:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/?p=153"},"modified":"2009-04-21T06:31:11","modified_gmt":"2009-04-21T12:31:11","slug":"bad-reading-material","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/2009\/04\/bad-reading-material\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Reading Material"},"content":{"rendered":"

I saw the movie The Reader <\/a>this past weekend.\u00a0 <\/span>This movie was notable for two reasons: 1) lending further credence to my theory that Kate Winslet loves to take her clothes off for the camera; and 2) its completely idiotic premise.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The tagline for the movie is \u201chow far would you go to protect a secret?\u201d and while that\u2019s an intriguing question, it helps if the secret is one worthy of protecting.\u00a0 <\/span>In watching this movie, I was reminded of another movie built upon the same premise:\u00a0 <\/span>Sommersby<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, Sommersby contains an equally absurd plot point (i.e., the woman can\u2019t quite tell if this imposter is her husband or not), but the secret is at least a noble one.\u00a0 <\/span>In it, the title character is, well, not the title character.\u00a0 <\/span>He pretends to be Sommersby so that he can live in Sommersby\u2019s house, use his money, his land, and his wife.\u00a0 <\/span>This all comes back to haunt him, however, and in the end, he must make a decision: Should he admit he\u2019s not Sommersby, thereby saving his own life, or continue the ruse, thereby saving the livelihood of all the townsfolk and his \u201cwife\u2019s\u201d honor?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I won\u2019t ruin it for you, but you have to admit, this is quite a quandary.\u00a0 <\/span>But let\u2019s compare this compelling predicament with the absurdity of The Reader.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Reader, Winslet\u2019s character essentially has to choose between two evils.\u00a0 <\/span>Here \u2013 play along \u2013 I\u2019ll set out her two options and you decide which one you\u2019d rather people believed about you:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

1. You were a Nazi who gave the orders for hundreds of women and children to be burned to death.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

2. You were employed by the Nazis and were afraid to go against their orders for fear of your own life.\u00a0 <\/span>Oh, and also you\u2019re illiterate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Wait!\u00a0 <\/span>Before you make your choice, let\u2019s look at these points a little more.\u00a0 <\/span>Suppose that point #1 is not true, and point #2 is true.\u00a0 <\/span>Does that help your decision-making?\u00a0 <\/span>Let\u2019s also suppose that point #1 carries with it a sentence of life in prison, while point #2 carries with it a four-year term.\u00a0 <\/span>Still undecided?\u00a0 <\/span>Don\u2019t worry, this crappy movie will help you sort it all out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Coupling this with confusing editing, a plodding exposition and wholly unnecessary scenes, and you have the worst Kate Winslet movie I\u2019ve ever seen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Bottom line: <\/span><\/p>\n

The Reader: C <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I saw the movie The Reader this past weekend.\u00a0 This movie was notable for two reasons: 1) lending further credence to my theory that Kate Winslet loves to take her clothes off for the camera; and 2) its completely idiotic premise.\u00a0 \u00a0 The tagline for the movie is \u201chow far would you go to protect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-film-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":154,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153\/revisions\/154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zimmerscope.com\/Verbisaurus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}