Pettiness and Gravity
“While In the Loop is a highly disciplined inquiry into a very serious subject, it is also, line by filthy line, scene by chaotic scene, by far the funniest big-screen satire in recent memory. The hand-held camera work, the hectic jump-cuts and the grubby visuals may resemble television, but the restless pacing and drab appearance serve a clear aesthetic purpose.
“At the end you may feel a little unclean, which is also evidence of director-writer Armando Iannucci‘s satirical rigor. The people in whose hands momentous decisions rest are shown — convincingly and in squirming detail — to be duplicitous, vindictive, small-minded and untrustworthy. But why should they be any different from the rest of us?” — from A.O. Scott‘s N.Y. Times review, which has been posted three days before the 7.31 opening.
Whoziwhatzit? This movie opened last week.
these Obama poster rip-offs are almost getting as stale as the Got (insert anything under then sun here)? ads.
Got an original thought?
It’s a comedy, not a satire.
Every story today says Dunder-Mifflin.
Geez Wells, get some sleep.
For me, to find a comparable film full of verbal vinegar that leaves you feeling engrossed and yet unclean, as Scott says, I’d have to bypass the entire Mamet canon and go all the way back to SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS. I’d like to think somewhere in the spirit realm, Clifford Odets and Alexander Mackendrick are pleased.
Scott’s review was posted Friday (7/42), which is when the movie opened in theaters. It hits IFC’s PPV platform this week.
I liked Scott’s review, particularly as a corrective to Anthony Lane’s review in last week’s New Yorker. He compares it unfavorably to “The West Wing,” and really, I loved that show (at least during the Sorkin years), but this is entirely different, and just as good. (OTOH, I didn’t like Lisa Schwarzbaum trashing the show to praise this movie).