In the Loop

This afternoon I caught a matinee of In the Loop, a nasty political satire from BBC Films. It follows the machinations & in-fighting among American & British bureaucrats during the run-up to a declaration of war against an unnamed Middle Eastern country. This is not the England of Masterpiece Theatre. I often had to strain to understand the British dialogue. The action is frantic & consists almost entirely of conversations full of the most outrageous verbal abuse. Each character is more foul-mouthed & bullying than the last. Yet though I laughed at how awful everyone was, I also wished I could talk like that.

As fun as the movie was, I was furious when I got home & read the Civic Center blog. While I was in that darkened movie theater, I missed hordes of T-Mobile sky divers descending upon the city at midday.