Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants (2011)

Writer: Richard LaGavenese (screenplay), Sara Gruen (novel)
Director: Francis Lawrence
Starring: Mr. Sparkle McGlitterpants, Reese Witherspoon, Christoph Waltz

Synopsis
a vet-in-training's parents are killed while he's taking his final exam. instead of finishing school at cornell he leaves town and joins the circus. he falls in love with an elephant and the wife of the tyrannical and wife beating owner/ring master.

The Woman
i don't know what i was expecting for this one. it was just a movie that exists. predictable. shme, shme, shme. it confirms that what's his face sparkle sparkle cedric diggory can't really act. i feel like i watched that one where he plays the bi-curious salvador dali and he didn't do too bad, but maybe i'm wrong. maybe when he's hot for chicks it just doesn't work and he just squinty smiles and all the ladies sigh. i don't get it. eh. serious romance dramaness is not my thing. to me, reese witherspoon's character was just all of a sudden in love with the glitter man. yes. her husband was a horrible human being. yes. i could understand why she would want to escape. but there was no falling in love process. no montage! it was just BAM! i'm attracted to you let's run away together. it wasn't even directed in a spectacular way. i was thinking more of a "carnivale" feel. with the vignettey saturated style. man, that show was awesome. fucking shame. this came off as "the notebook" 1930's circus style. kinda lame.

i find it interesting, just as a side note, that bad guy cristoph waltz was the only character with depth. his character was struggling to make his business survive, and all the stress that entails. he ruled with his fists, but it seems like he did that because it was the only way he knew. the duality of his friendship/tutelage with glitter. the leads were both paper thin. i would like to give a shout out to cristoph waltz for being the best thing about this movie. shocking.

Hamlet 2

Hamlet 2 (2008)

Writer: Pam Brady, Andrew Flemming
Director: Andrew Flemming
Starring: Steve Coogan

Synopsis
An out-of-work, shitty actor has just one more show to prove that the high school drama program he runs must be saved.



The Woman
i went into this with expectation. i've been waiting for this one for awhile. and i told myself as it began you are dumb. don't have expectations. i ruined it for myself a little, i think. damn expectations. i wanted more of the play. although the stuff with steve coogan's character was really funny and the drama kids in their drama kid way was captured perfectly, because those drama kids are ridiculous in real life, i wanted more hamlet 2. instead of the mostly referenced plot and situations. i would have enjoyed just a little set up and the play in its entirety.

i did appreciate what they were trying to do with the whole outrageous and "offensive" play overshadowed by the hoopla its rumor created. that it didn't matter whether it was a piece of crap or not because it should have been allowed to be made because we live in a "free speech" country and all that. and it was protested and shut down even before it had been performed because of the (funny) nonsense it supposedly contained. actually i think that's more idealistic than the movie intended. i think it's more about how if you create shock value and bad crazy publicity, people will go see it in droves. even if it is a piece of crap.

this makes me want to watch gentlemen broncos again. i think that was a funnier movie about awesome ridiculousness.

p.s. elizabeth shue was the bomb in this movie.

MOster
I love me some Steve Coogan.  I don't love me a TON of Steve Coogan; but I love me some Steve Coogan.  This film actually expands his range, specifically into the realm of physical comedy, and that's great. The supporting cast is also quite good; and these guys pulled from quite the pool to get the second string.  Elizabeth Shue OWNED her scenes.  It's my opinion that all her reaction shots during the actual production were genuine.

The story, however, shares a trait with many of Coogan's other projects.  It's much funnier in an outline than in a script. Some of the stuff either went too far or just fell flat.  The relationship with the wife (Catherine Keener, in another excellent performance) should have been more overtly ridiculous, with (e.g.)her fucking the roommate on the couch in front of Coogan's oblivious stare.  Most of the things with which he interacted weren't quite enough.  His level of self-awareness was off compared to the Alan Partridge stuff.

That's a bit of a shame.  A lot of the kid-supporters were quite good; and the actual production of the play was really good.  If they were to make that into a musical it would be worth paying a high school to watch.  The satire (inherent the play - the satire of the ACLU was so rote and weak that I'd practically forgotten about it until I read above) was far funnier and hit much harder than the actual character stuff.

Finally, I totally disagree with my woman about Gentlemen Broncos, but that's not news.

Volcano High

Volcano High (2001)

Writer: Tae-gyun Kim, Dong- heon Seo
Director:Tae-gyun Kim
Starring: Hyuk Jang (Andre 3000)

Synopsis
yet another mtv attempt at uber coolness in the form of a dubbed korean movie about a high schooler with special powers who fights off the dictatorial staff of his newest high school (he's gotten kicked out of 8 other schools because of his rebellious streak and use of said special power). the staff also has special powers, well at least one guy does. bad martial arts choreography, and a boring plot make this a sure pass for most of the population.

MOster
This movie was an extreme disappointment.  The beginning of the opening credits got us amped up for some kind of interesting dream-sequency-thingy about at least one black high school student thinking he was in another world.  And then the dubbing set in.  It's the kind of showcase for hip hop artists; and most of them were clear enough in their speech.  I've seen Snoop walk onto a stage and take the teleprompter and make it sing.  There were lines here that even he couldn't save.

I don't think this movie would have been better if the source material was better; and I'm quite confident that the source material is also a piece of shit.  While it's clear that scenes were edited and re-ordered--one in particular actually reversed chronology in a notable way--that doesn't change the fact that this is just another Harry Potter knockoff; and the whole notion of Harry Potter is nothing more than another iteration of the "geeky kid at school" archetype.


I really, really didn't enjoy watching this.  I didn't even enjoy making fun of it.  I don't want my lack of verbosity here to connote any sort of tacit approval or even dismissal.  This is shit and you should not watch it.  It's insulting to my intelligence and it's far more insulting to the intelligence of the fans of the musicians (or "musicians" in some cases) who it actually attempts to hoodwink.



The Woman
sigh. i feel the description on the netflix site and envelope are deceiving in this instance. it's a korean movie dubbed with the voices of hip hop artists and tracy morgan and pat morita. the dubbing was so distracting and it could NOT be turned off. i guess it was supposed to be like the old school kung fu movies, but it wasn't an old school kung fu movie. it was a korean movie that came off like a live action anime and those, let me tell you, are never successful. i got bored halfway through and stopped paying attention for awhile. it was really draggy from the beginning middle to the end. as discussed on the couch, not even in the original korean would it have been successful. bad. not even in a good way. but i still would have liked to have been able to watch it in it's original form. stupid mtv.

also the actors looked really too old to be in high school. and to be asian and look too old for high school means they must have been in their 50s. what's up with that?

if i had known (assuming i put it on the queue. i probably did, but moster could have with the whole snoop dogg/ pat morita in a movie together thing) it was dubbed it would have been a total pass.

Therese Raquin

Therese Raquin (1953)

Writer: Emile Zola (novel), Marcel Carne & Charles Spaak (film adaptation)
Director: Marcel Carne
Starring: Simone Signoret, Raf Vallone

Synopsis
a bored wife with a snivelly husband and a nagging, horrible, mother-in-law has an affair with a truck driver for her husband's company. they conspire on how to be together. the husband is thrown from a train. murder investigation.

MOster
We've had this problem many times before when watching old movies.  This story is just too old hat for us to take it seriously enough; and that is reason #3 why we will never be more than armchair critics.

If you get away from the story--and el Woman HATES when I talk this way--things were competent if not better.  There's not a single likeable character in this thing; and I think that's intentional.  Characters were also drawn clearly and each had a personal point of view.  Story-editing-wise, the whole third act felt tacked on to an extent; but it shows how much paying attention I was doing that I thought we were going the Double Indemnity route and the husband was in a long con.


This is probably an important part of cinematic history.  Neither do you want to actually live on the Mayflower.


The Woman
maybe in 1953 this was a new plot, but many thousands of movies have been made since with a similar, if not exact replica of this plot. i have to admit i fell asleep while knitting while watching this movie. black and white with subtitles sometimes does that to me. i did only doze for the affair part. i was awake for the murder and subsequent investigation. i don't know. it was all just shme meh to me. i've seen it done so many times before it kind of blends in it's unoriginality, even if it did come earlier. forgettable.

side note: i had a hell of a time finding this on imdb because it's under a different title, but apparently it's been remade a TON. let me go get an exact number. nine. nine times. including one coming next year. starring draco malfoy as the snivelly husband. can we say type cast?

Red Cliff

Red Cliff (2008)
Written by John Woo, Khan Chan, Cheng Kuo, Heyu Sheng, Guanzhong Luo (book)
Directed by John Woo
Starring Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Fengyi Zhang, Special appearance by Mila Teves dressed as an old  chinamen

Synopsis
History-approximating story of two factions battling for independence and dominance in China a few hundred years ago
 
The Woman
i enjoyed our viewing of this movie. it was a little hard to follow in the beginning and the english introduction threw us all kinds of off and we kept trying to put it in mandarin and thought the disc was not working properly, but no, it was all good. it was so distracting, however, that i didn't fully pay attention to it. maybe that's why i had problems following the plot in the beginning. so if you watch this it is not dubbed. i guess the english part is intentional.

there was this great mixture of over the top kung fu movie style blood/fighting, and a believable war epic. strategy stuff intrigues me. i am not a good strategist. i can't think three steps ahead. i can't anticipate others actions because i am to involved in my own brain. sometimes this movie and the direction/ editing got a little too  caught up in itself too. there were parts were i think one if not both of us uttered "ok, we get it" or "that was a little much" but those are my only negative criticisms. the story kept me involved and held my attention. i think i even stopped knitting halfway through to devote my whole focus at what was going on.

i want to know why netflix does not have the sequel available.

MOster
This was kind of exactly worth the time.  It could have been a little more in some places, and a little less in others.

Despite the confused frustration around the language settings, it was a good experience.  It shows that John Woo can still direct a movie and it was nice to see that movie be a Chinese movie about Chinese people and starring Chinese actors.  There are plenty of beautiful shots of idyllic countrysides, most of which end up trodden or mangled by human carnage.  The story is pretty linear, though some of the secondary characters grow; and no character acts contrary to how we think they would.  I was happy that while there was a woman in the story she wasn't the reason for the fighting; she was just one dude's girlfriend / wife.  She was a great spy and tactician in her own right.  There were a few (secondary) female characters like that, which was a nice touch.

I don't know how closely this is supposed to be based on history.  I did have some problems with some of the politicking and some of the battle setups.  The level of complexity rode a wave from "too broad" to "I don't want to try to figure that out," with enough stops closer to the middle of the scale to keep my eyes reading most of the subtitles.  The battles themselves tended to be quite elaborate, and I think that detracted from some of the more personal touches.

I'm rambling; I don't really have a conclusion for this one.  Subtitles, action set pieces, honor and betrayal and Lincoln-esque tactics.  If enough of those keywords resonate in your skull, watch this movie

Mozart's Sister

Mozart's Sister (2010)

Writer: René Féret
Director: René Féret
Starring: Marie Féret

Synopsis
the life of young Maria Anna "nannerl" Mozart....mozart's sister.

The Woman
i don't know that much about the mozarts. but if any of this movie rings true nannerl(wolfgang's sister) had a pretty boring life. yeah, she wanted to compose. yeah she had the musical talent to do it. yeah, there's no option for women back then. yeah, yeah, yeah. she had a vague interaction with the dauphin. ok. nothing ever comes of it. i feel like this movie tried to play that point up. oh, she was sooooo in love with him and he just can't be with her. oh, her heart is smashed into a thousand pieces. so smashed she devotes the rest of her life to her fame hungry father. she's such a martyr for love. whatever.

i wanted something to happen. i kept thinking something was going to happen. i don't know why. but after it was over i thought 2 hours for that? total meh. and now i see that the writer/director is the father of the star. that annoys me.

The Conspirator

The Conspirator (2010)


Writer: James Solomon
Director: Robert Redford
Starring: James McAvoy, Robin Wright

Synopsis
the tale of poor mary suratt, the first woman to be put to death in this wonderful country of ours. she was accused of helping john wilkes booth and the lot of conspiring to kill abraham lincoln, the president made famous by his mistreatment and government sanctioned slaughter of the native americans...i mean winning the civil war single handedly? whatever. back to mary suratt. her son was in on the assasination plot and was the only one to escape for a loooong time, but because she owned the boarding house where the plot was hatched, she was obviously in on it and had a mockery of a trial and was put to death. oh, and this is all told from the point of her attorney/union war hero/eventually disgraced and "traitorous" even though he's totally right attorney.

The Woman
this was really weird. i watched a history channel show on this subject back when the history channel used to play stuff like that and not just pawn stars, american pickers, and hicks with lots of guns, and the crazy thing is that show caught and held my interest and came off more exciting than this dramatization. with well known actors might i add. this was boring and slow. it also came off as weirdly low budget. something was off about it and i can't put my finger on it. like a canadian production for PBS or something. the music was way over bearing and almost laughable at times, and the acting came off like a stage play. then i sit through it all, and it turns out to be a robert redford movie. i thought that guy knew how to make stuff like movies. i guess there's "a river runs through it" which i personally have never made it through i think it's so god awful boring. so i guess there's that. oh. and didn't he make 'the horse whisperer' too?  i've personally never tried that one, but it's famed for being awful and boring, right? maybe he doesn't know after all. huh.

anyway. this is a really interesting subject to me. also kind of timeless issues with the recent ending of war and fear and the government railroading people to make the general public feel safer and vindicated, but little baby jesus in a soft taco shell it just didn't work in this thing.

it also kind of irked me that this was made by the american film blah, blah, blah production company, about a pretty huge event in american history and starred three UK actors in major roles. i guess i'll give you colm meaney because, let's face it, that guy is in EVERYTHING. seriously, turn on any movie you've got, and he's probably in it somewhere.

p.s. that tag line is awful. i don't remember hearing any publicity about this movie. maybe it's because everyone, but me had already recognized that apparently robert redford is not great at making movies....

Submarine

Submarine (2010)

Writer: Richard Ayoade, Joe Dunthorne (novel)
Director: Richard Ayoade
Starring: Craig Roberts

Synopsis
teen angst and romance. set in wales.

The Woman
i enjoyed me some of this. it was quirky and portrayed teen angst well. it wasn't eye roll inducing angst, but the yup,-i-remember-that kind. i wish i was as awesome and off putting as our young protagonist. my young anger was directed at the whole world and with the exception of one rebellious summer of misbehaving, i became a loner shut in, with various bouts of strange dress and fake accents when in public. ah, to reminisce about such things. have i mentioned i liked this movie?

is this a movie review?

have i mentioned my love of the fantasizing about circumstances and outcomes by mr. oliver tate? i totally did. who didn't have those over dramatized fantasies about how things would go? fantastic.

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer's Journey 
Written(-ish?) by Phillip Shane, Justin Weinstein
Directed by Constance Marks
Starring Kevin Clash, NOT Whoopi Goldberg

Synopsis
a documentary following the life and career of kevin clash. the guy behind elmo and so many other muppets.

MOster
I embody some percentage of the stereotypical "gay" characteristics, so I was at varying levels of teariness through this whole endeavor.  It was great to see how Kevin came up and how many of his dreams he's been able to fulfill. I can't imagine what it must have been like for him to actually build a friendship with Jim Henson, or to walk into that workshop for the first time.  I really like how he has taken on the role master in this field.  He's kind of like Anakin Skywalker, except for the part about killing millions of people, and I hope he inspires enough people to continue this tradition for generations to come because I fear that it may be coming to an end.  Watching this made me happy. 

It also left me with some questions, and they come from a lack of certitude around the purpose of the picture.  If this is simply about Clash's rise to Elmo, then it's fine, albeit one sided (except for Whoopi, whose presence was distracting if anything).

If it was supposed to be a wider biopic, then it definitely left some holes to fill.  I'd like to know about his divorce and how it came about and how it impacted his career.  I'd like to know more of his relationship with his daughter than just the couple of clips that we saw.  And I want to know those things not simply out of curiosity, but also out of a desire to understand the level of dedication that the craft required of him, and the sacrifices he had to make.  I think there are unexplored undertones to his success.  I don't think it was as simple as taking crap in high school until he was on TV.

What I want least of all, however, is to end this on a down note.  What is on the screen is quite interesting.  It's shot well.  It's engaging, and I'll say it again:  It made me happy.


The Woman
this was really cute, and grossly heart warming. only grossly because i don't like my heart warmed. i like it as the cold block of ice it is. why is it that anything muppet related really gets to everyone. jim henson was some sort of magic, man. despite it seeming like he his largely responsible for the downfall of sesame street (because it IS piece of crap now. even murray, the coolest new muppet, gets the screen time slash and don't even get me started on the hatred i possess for abby cadaby) since he not only puppeteers elmo, but produces and does stuff behind the scene, i didn't care while watching this movie. he came off like a really cool guy. a guy who knew what he wanted to do really early in his life and just worked to make it happen. i think that level of determination is rare and to have it for something like puppeteering is crazy awesome.

it was great to see the behind the scenes of old school sesame street and labyrinth and other old stuff and that muppet engineer guy, kermit was totally awesome too. a good touch was bringing it full circle as kevin takes an aspiring puppeeter kid around and shows him the muppet studio as kermit once did for him.

if you have a soul and enjoy sesame street or the muppets you should probably check this out. it's on netflix instant. i'm just sayin'.

Bridesmaids

Bridesmaids (2011)

Writer: Kristen Wiig, Annie Mumolo
Director: Paul Feig
Starring: Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne

Synopsis
A well-meaning, down-on-her-luck woman who can't catch a break is confronted by the success of her best friend when asked to be the maid of honor at her wedding.


The Woman
this wasn't bad, but it didn't live up to the hype in my brain. if i hadn't heard how amazingly funny this was, or how it shows women can be funny too (which i find insulting because there are plenty of women in entertainment who are really funny), or how it's "the hangover" woman style (which is totally untrue, in my opinion) i might have come back with a different view of this movie. i felt really bad for poor kristin wiig. that almost overshadowed the "funniness" of it. i did want her to pick herself up by the bootstraps, but i wanted the other characters to realize the depth of depression she felt resulting from her failure to excel in the only thing she was passionate about. what chick (i can only speak for chicks, here) hasn't felt like a total loser in comparison with her friends at times? i wanted maya rudoph's character to defend kristen wiig's character to the rest of the group. i wanted rose byrne's character to get punched in the face several times. i think the melissa mccarthy character had a good idea with the fight club party. she could go all edward norton vs. jared leto on rose byrne.

there were some funny parts to this. we laughed out loud more than a couple times. i don't want to minimize the positive review part, but with all apatow movies there's that big current of seriousness that always throws me off.

MOster
So.

Critically, this is a terrific movie.  There's a plot with some personal development for at least a few of the characters, there is drama, there is humor, there are uncomfortable situations and women having digestive difficulties but only in one scene.  The production value of the film is high, and consistent.  The acting is fine or better.  The direction and camera work are unassuming.  I believe that this film deserved the nominations which it garnered.  My biggest problem from a critical perspective is that the title just doesn't match the story and the marketing campaign bore little resemblance to the actual film.  The movie is about bridesmaids, but it's only pertinent to the acquaintance between two of them.  I spent a minute looking to see if this was written under a different title but I couldn't find anything.  It just seemed to me like we were sold a bill of goods.  What we got wasn't bad, but it wasn't what we were promised.


Personally, it just wasn't all the way there for me.  Some of the antics either didn't go far enough or went too far over the top.  Neither of the rival women has a ton of self respect, and that always bothers me in films about women (when it's there).  There was a lot of growing up, and I appreciated that development and it felt real enough to me.  There's just something untoward about the whole thing, and while that contributes to the comedy it wasn't quite enough for me.

The Informant!

The Informant! (2009)


Written by  Scott Z. Burns, Kurt Eichenwald (book)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Starring Matt Damon, Scott Bakula, Melanie Lynskey, Joel McHale

Synopsis
some dude who is a pathological lier becomes an informant to the FBI for price fixing that was going on in his corn corporation. he is a bad informant because he is a lier and exaggerates. he is a bad informant because he enjoys the intrigue he has created...because he is a lier.

MOster
In order to succeed in watching this movie, the viewer must suspend many things.  These things include, but are not limited to:

1. A sense of time
2. A sense of humor
3. A sense of what Matt Damon looks like

This movie is slow.  It consumes something like three years of the characters' lives and it feels like it's a 1:1 ratio.  The whole thing just drags.  It's not exciting in any way, and you don't get invested in the characters at all.  There is no notion of the stakes for anybody.  Matt Damon starts off as an odd combination of rich and dorky but it's not endearing and you don't really learn how he got there or why it's important to stay that way.  His wife and kid(s? - even this isn't terribly clear) want to fit the stable they just built with horses.  That's nice, but it would also be nice if you ever got the impression that he really gave a shit about them.  If you were to have come away from his meager scenes with them with any sense of love or companionship or even responsibility then you might be able to generate in yourself some conflict about what he does.  Instead you get scene after scene of him being a moron at work, wondering how he got to where he is.  How can one be so successful in business and so utterly naive?

This movie is not funny.  We just watched a really good movie that was quite cerebrally funny without being laugh-a-minute funny, where the punchline was a a large quantity of death.  Here, the only joke is that Matt Damon (whatever the fuck his name is) is an asshole.  He keeps doing the same stupid thing and getting the same results and he pulls along a bunch of FBI people who, while they may have a case somewhere, need to weed through all his bullshit to find it and--is *this* supposed to be funny?--don't take any time to look into his background at all, as if none of these DOJ bigwigs anticipated a scenario in which he would be cross-examined.  Scott Bakula makes a good sad face.  Joel McHale will never be a serious film star.  Neither of those facts contributes to this film's attempts at humor.

The visual aesthetic of this movie is off-putting.  I was alive (fuck, I was almost a grownup) in the 90s, and I don't remember them looking like the settings in the photos of my parents' wedding. Everything is either orange or blue, and while that's a point of view I don't care.  And the makeup was jarring.

Looking at those two photographs it's important to note that he's supposed to be older in the second one.  It's also a good point to make the digression into his acting ability.  The combination of the makeup and the Damon eliminates any path to a good performance.  You just hear him, with his arrogance vibe, as the artificial jowels jiggle.

Ditto his wife (and again, I say that that is not a shirt a rich woman would have worn in 1992).  She looks like she was in a version of Splice starring Winona Rider and Lorraine McFly.

You don't have to suspend your appreciation for how shots are composed, though, so that's something.  And maybe the worst part about this is that we know Soderbergh can do better.  Despite Jennifer Lopez, I really like Out of Sight.  And once you get past the whole notion of completely shitting on the original at least the first Ocean's movie is funny, well-paced, and modern.  What was up here?

That last question is not rhetorical.  I expect that this blog will make it to the executives in charge of the movie and one of them will post their answer in a comment.

The Woman
holy crap, BORING! i slept through the middle 50 minutes of this movie. enough so that when we continued watching this in session 2, after the child had gone to bed. i had wiped all interest of wonder about what was going on. i have not cared less about what the hell was going on in a movie. to make the corn industry exciting by poking fun at how boring it is still doesn't make it interesting. throw the financial end of corporation in there and, yup, there i go. in one ear and out the other. zombie expression aaaaaand sleep.



i would like to point out to moster, publicly, that this movie took place in the midwest, so style is set back about 10 years.

$9.99

$9.99 (2008)

Written by Etgar Keret
Directed by Tatia Rosenthal
Starring Josef Behr, Roy Billing, Tom Budge

Synopsis
In an apartment building in an Australian city, there are a bunch of ambitious people and some odd supernatural occurrences.  You should really just feed the ducks, though.

The Woman
shme to the power of shme. there were some good ideas here, but they just didn't develop any of them. that made me resent sitting through this movie. the animation really bothered me too. it was like a julian schnabel painting come to life and i hate julian schnabel. the only silver lining to this experience was that it was short.

MOster
There's more in this movie to want to like then there is to like.  From the beginning, we were having difficulty keeping the film in the foreground of our attentions, and not because I was getting handsy or anything like that.  The animation was a little strange, but that's nothing new for us and it's not the reason we were outside of our comfort zone. I think it was the low volume of the conversational tone, which didn't change through the entire movie.

The problem here is that the film does nothing to earn the viewer's belief in anything.  It's OK for odd things to just happen, and it's OK for the characters to simply take them as read while we don't.  There were too many odd thing simultaneously, and too many blithely bad characters and too many whingy motherfuckers all at once.  The connecting tissue of the apartment building was much more of a convenience than any kind of actual connection.

It occurs to me that I haven't actually talked about what happens or to whom or why.  It's not because I don't remember--I'll be calling Geoffry Rush's pre-angel character an asshole for a long time, and his post-angel character wasn't any better.  Instead, view these 200 (or whatever) words as an one of those drawn out, "shmeh," kind of squints that you give sometimes.