Make Mine Mike

As the end credits roll for The DaVinci Code…

Mike’s Friend: Man, Tom Hanks’ character was so boring.

Mike: Yeah, well, Robert Langdon had no personality in the book, either.

F: I never read it.

M: So you’re the one.

F: Yeah, just me.

M: You should check it out. It reads faster than a screenplay.

F: Does it read faster than ten scripts? ‘Cause that’s how many I gotta get through this weekend alone.

M: And here you are wasting time at this free screening.

F: Well, it was worth the price of admission. Hanks’ hair was the only notable thing about the character. And he had no connection with the woman.

M: Just like the book.

F: This is kinda like the first Harry Potter movie -- they tried to so be faithful to the best-seller… but to a fault.

M: Well, they added a few things to Langdon’s back story to make the religious stuff resonate more. I don’t know if it worked. And they seemed to go out of their way not to piss off Opus Dei and the Catholic Church.

F: I don’t know if that worked either.

M: But -- even though Opie Cunningham went overboard with the dramatics -- you gotta admit he did a nice job of visually presenting the history and the symbols and the deciphering part.

F: And Ian McKellen was good.

M: So were they right to hate it so much at Cannes?

F: Frenchies. What do they know?

M: They’re probably mad that Audrey Tautou is in an American movie. Amelie got stuck decoding shit with Forrest Gump.

F: Then again, the Cannes Film Festival is prestigious. Pulp Fiction won the Palme d’Or.

M: Big deal. So did Barton Fink.

F: Hey, you liked that movie.

M: Parts of it. It has a great line about Hollywood. They’re in some big entertainment industry hangout, and the agent tells Fink, “Talk to another writer. Jesus, throw a rock in here and you’ll hit one. And do me a favor: Throw it hard.”

F: Maybe we should duck.