Oh, so that's what "recurring" means

Yessirree, I'm bringing back one of my recurring features. Ladies and gentlemen, the long-awaited return of Six-word Movie Reviews! (Cue screaming fans.)

I've seen at least a couple of movies, theatrically speaking, since the last SWMR post went up; I guess I just wasn't feelin' it. Plus, if you think about it, summarizing your thoughts about a cinematic experience in a mere half-dozen words is no easy task.

The film: "Burn After Reading" (edited, of course, by the great Roderick Jaynes).
The six-word review: "Fargo's peppier younger cousin; definitely worthwhile."

Oh, the most interesting part of the theatergoing thing was during the pre-preview ads. The National Guard, as you might know, is running a very militaried-up Kid Rock music video (featuring - and I'm not making this up - Dale Earnhardt Jr. driving his stock car) to get people to enlist. As though the reason someone's going to sign up to sacrifice life and limb is that Kid Rock is signing about it. And Dale Jr. is, um, driving his stock car.

The video was at least somewhat more tolerable than the last iteration I saw, which featured one of the bands with a three-word name that also had a number in it, like Three Doors Down or Third Eye Blind or Eight Days Grace or The Fifth Dimension. Actually, I'm pretty sure it wasn't that last one. Whoever it was, I wanted to run out into the lobby and pour that hot butter-related-substance-that-they-use-for-popcorn into my eyes and ears just to make the sights and sounds go away. (Luckily, I never did.) I think the song was called Citizen Soldier, and it actually made me think twice about going to see movies in the theater, for fear of having to sit through the ad. That part is true.

So as Kid Rock's video/enlistment entreaty was ending, a woman in the back of the theater yelled, "That's bullshit!" A few people booed her, but most cheered. Point is, the National Guard might want to rethink playing any version of that ad in greater Los Angeles, or, for that matter, before Coen brothers movies. I don't think that was really their target audience.