[Strangler Lewis]

Watched Michael Clayton last night, which makes me four of five on the Best Picture nominees for the first time in years. Tom Wilkinson was great. Tilda Swinton was great. The script was kind of Networky, but okay. My biggest problem was with the Michael Clayton character. I didn't believe for a second that such a person exists. I thought the loan shark bit and the gambling addiction felt tacked on to give fake grit to an implausible character. The ending left us wondering what he was going to do now not in the good way that moral dilemmas often do, but in the bad way that we had no idea who or what this person was in the first place. That said, I thought George Clooney did well enough, and I cared about his character. Of course, I cared about the characters in The Golden Compass, and none of that made a lick of sense either.