What the Flick

Seems documentaries are this summer's action blockbuster, so I caught a few this past week. The one that really had me riveted featured a bespectacled SecDef (as they call him on JAG) explaining his reasons for going to war; he was the picture of a modern Prep, full of spunk, wry humor, and arrogance despite his receding hairline. As he related his discussions with a smirking Texan president, designed to sell a questionable war to the American people, he was lively and full of quotable tidbits. But the SecDef wasn't Donald Rumsfeld telling W about the known unknowns versus the unknown unknowns. It was Robert S. McNamara recalling his conversations with Lyndon Johnson in 1964 as they backed the US into a war they both worried was going to be darn near impossible to win.

No, not a review of the edited versions of SEX AND THE CITY that have started running on basic cable TBS - though I can testify that the heart of the show is still intact, so if you missed it on HBO, now's your chance to catch up on my favorite fictional NY gals. No, this is a visit with the women of Stepford, Connecticut, brought back to "life" this summer after 30 years on the shelf.

So, I had a chance to see SPIDERMAN 2 the other day, and I was struck by the sheer number of actors in it who were most recently seen on TV shows: there was Claudia, Kiefer's temporary love interest during the Mexico scenes of last season's "24," and the guy who's the psychiatrist on LAW AND ORDER, and the hot Asian actor who was on ANGEL and 24, among others. But that was just a minor and entertaining distraction from the action at hand.

I suppose it's true what they say about beautiful women and they're not needing personalities, and if my supposition is correct, then it's possible some day we'll have an entire consumer line of supermodel robots who will look as good as Gisele Bündchen but not bore us with their effete boyfriends and acting aspirations. Until then, we've got former model Bridget Moynihan to fill all those movie roles based on the equation PRETTY + BRUNETTE (+/- GLASSES) = SMART (see THE SUM OF ALL FEARS, THE RECRUIT).

Okay, after this I promise to only talk about cheesy summer movies that star Oscar-winning actresses acting like cats or involve improbable brainwashing plots or have at least one foot in another century. But for today, I have to tell you about 2 other documentaries that I saw.