Author: Darren Goodhart

It’s 1882, and the small town of Appaloosa in the New Mexico territory has fallen under prey by a ruthless rancher by the name of Randall Bragg. After Bragg cold-bloodedly kills the sheriff and two deputies while they try to apprehend two of his men for crimes committed against the townspeople, the town is in a state of desperation. They choose to hire two roving peacekeepers, Virgil Cole and Everett Hitch to come in and clean up their town, with one catch: they literally have to turn control of the town over to them. Soon though, a young widow, Allison French, moves into town and further complicates their situation.

Appaloosa is the new movie from star and director Ed Harris based on the novel by Robert Parker (best known for the Spencer series) and it’s just a brilliant movie, another western that joins the likes of 3:10 To Yuma (though I have a bit of an issue with the ending of that film, I still recognize it’s extreme high quality getting there), Open Range and less recently, Unforgiven showing that there’s still life in the classic Western genre in film, if it’s handled just right.

Harris’ film is authentic as can be, shot against some really beautiful landscapes, and looking at the end credits, he’s even hired enough extras to actually be the populace of this town at the time. Everything just feels really right. But where this really excels is in the relationship between Cole and Hitch, a very deep-rooted friendship with both men as a compliment to each other making them a great team for the job they have to do.

Ed Harris plays Cole and Viggo Mortenson plays Hitch, and obviously after working together in a movie like A History of Violence, these guys obviously “get” each other and have chemistry that’s just totally natural. They’re backed up by Jeremy Irons as Bragg and a rougher than normal looking Renee Zellwegger as Allison, who both do really fine work here. Further welcome in the cast is Lance Herikson as a rival gunman to Cole and Hitch, brought in later in the film, Henrikson is just a natural for something like this.

Obviously, I had a great time with this film. It is leisurely paced, but nothing seems out of place or wrong to how everything plays out in the end. It’s easily followed and yet has it’s own complexities as well as some subtle humor. And if you do decide to see this, stay through the end credits. No there’s no extra scene at the end, but through the credits, there’s a little song sung by Ed Harris himself that’s a really nice and knowing end punctuation to the life ahead for his character, Virgil Cole. Appaloosa is just brilliant and of course, highly recommended…

In New York City, a fluff news TV reporter and her cameraman are assigned the task of riding along with a group of firefighters for an evening. As things are looking to be a routine evening, an alarm goes off and the fire crew and the TV people head in, along with a couple of NYC police officers. They go to an apartment building, where a woman has been screaming like she’s being tortured to death. Once there, they discover that something horrifying has happened to the woman, something disgusting that sends her into a flying rage and makes her attack her would-be rescuers, and just as immediately, the building is closed off to everyone, with various law enforcement, military and the CDC on the case, and a night of brutal horror is set to begin…

That’s the premise of Quarantine which itself is a remake of a Spanish horror film called [REC], which unfortunately I’ve not seen, and it also looks to be the big break for a little known director by the name of John Erick Dowdle. And unfortunately, this looks to be a film that I can’t quite give the type of review for that I’d really like to hand out primarily because we saw it with the worst audience that I’ve seen a movie with since Hard Candy from a few years ago. The thing is, it actually seems like the kind of film that is my kind of horror film, and objectively, I can tell you that it is well made and lis quite effective with just one major complaint, and that complaint isn’t due to the film itself but rather it’s marketing.

But first, yeah, our audience was just horrendous for this- primarily mostly composed of late teenagers and know-it-all twentysomethings that were there more to entertain themselves than to see a movie and really just making this the worst movie-going experience that I’ve had in years, and it’s a shame because I do think this can be quite effective under the right circumstances, but so far those circumstances are calling for me to recommend this as something that you wait for on DVD rather than go out to the theatre to see. As I’ve said about audiences like this before, I can only hope there’s a special place in hell reserved just for them for being assholes. It really makes me yearn for the days when ushers would walk the theatre with flashlights, ready to boot out anyone making a disturbance.

Now with that out of the way, the film itself is made the same way as movies like The Blair Witch Project and Cloverfield all done from a handheld video camera operated by one of the cast. So if you’ve already got an aversion to these type of films, then straight up, this won’t be for you. I think this is pretty well told though, considering the circumstances I saw it under, with the camera work being a little more straightforward as the film starts and then getting extremely chaotic as things progress.

The cast is filled with lots of “those guys” who you see in other films as mostly support. It’s headed up by Jennifer Carpenter who was extremely effective in The Exorcism of Emily Rose playing this overly bubbly and annoying, but again I hope I’m being objective enough to say that my own perception could certainly be colored by the conditions I saw this under, and that whole perception might change later on. Other cast members include Steve Harris as her cameraman, Jay Hernandez and Johnathan Schaech as the firefighters she’s assigned to cover, and veteran character guys like Rade Serbedzija and Greg Germann as a couple of the residents of the apartment house. And really everyone does a fine job for this type of movie.

My biggest complaint though, other than that of the a-hole audience we saw it with, is the fact that the marketing of the film blows the final shot of the piece. That shot, and I won’t say what it is, is a key part of the trailer for the film and if you’ve seen it, then once it gets to that point, you’re just waiting for it to happen as opposed to letting it shock you the way it should. And it’s a real shame, because the climax is pretty good here, leading you to an area that I certainly didn’t consider as being the root cause of what has transpired through the film.

So here’s the deal- I certainly do recommend this, but really you just might want to wait until some time has passed and it comes out on DVD, doing that will most certainly let you see it under better conditions. Just wait for this to come home, and turn off all the lights as you watch it and hopefully the trailer won’t be too fresh in mind as everything plays out. And then… then, if you like this type of horror film as I do, then you’ll probably have a great time with this, but for now, avoid this like the plague in the theatre…

In what is an undisclosed city in maybe a near future time period, traffic is stopped as one young man is in his car and all of a sudden finds that he cannot see. This incident begins a chain reaction of events leading to all who come into contact with the young man also getting the affliction. When the eye doctor who has been working with him comes under with the disease, that’s when a movement is begun to quarantine those afflicted. The doctor’s wife, who herself isn’t blind, feigns being blind to be with her husband. Both are brought to a center where they and the few others that are with them are left to fend for themselves within their ward. And from there, events multiply, literally sending the world into chaos.

And that’s the premise of Blindness the new movie from director Fernando Meirelles, who previously gave us the movies, The Constant Gardener (haven’t seen it) and City of God (I have seen this one and it’s one hell of a movie). I was sorta hoping that this movie would be what M. Night Shymalan’s The Happening wasn’t, but instead it devolves to what seems more like contrived film school third world allegory that asks you to swallow a lot in order to follow it.

Where this falls apart is in the idea of the quarantine, because basically these people are thrown into this building with literally no one to watch out for them, other than the military standing guard making certain that no one gets out. It just out and out ignores the idea that these people would be in reality under a microscope to figure out what was causing this, especially as the blindness continues to escalate. Later in the film, another character is brought into the ward who begins to explain what is happening in the outside world, and how the process of investigating the source has broken down, but unfortunately, this process feels like something tacked on later (and according to reports of some re-shoots after an exhibition in Cannes, it very well could be) as an afterthought, but not the point that the director is trying to make.

And that point is basically all it takes is one event to send people who have comfortable lives into a life of utter squalor. Now really, I don’t have a problem with this being the point of the film, it’s just that getting there is incredibly contrived. And through it all, one woman, the doctor’s wife, still has the ability to see, which she’s hiding from everyone, except her husband, and due to the script, she does things that a sighted person just wouldn’t do in this situation.

Meirelles has a good cast at work here, including Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Danny Glover, Gael Garcia Bernal and Alice Braga and they certainly do what’s asked of them, but as I said above, what’s asked is horribly contrived.

This isn’t a movie for the faint-hearted as there is a lot of unpleasantness here- specifically around scenes within the ward- so consider that a warning if you’re planning to see it. The thing is, I’d almost expect that most might be more tempted to walk out halfway through it, I know I certainly was, and not due to it’s unpleasantness, but more to it’s contrived and forced quality to shove a message down my throat. I give Meirelles credit though for a well done first quarter of the film as the outbreak is happening, with some inventive and stylistic camera work, and also by it’s quality there’s really nothing out there quite like this right now. But at the same time, it just doesn’t hold up, and I tend to think that if you want to see something like this that explores some of the same themes, but played out better, maybe re-watching Children of Men is the way to go, or an even better playing out of these themes in Oliver Hershberger’s excellent film The Experiment. Right now, the only way I could even want to see this one again would be just to play Mystery Science Theatre 3000 with it. Not as bad as The Happening but damn near close and certainly outweighing it on the pretentious side…

As our story starts, on the Fourth of July, a kindly old grandfather is sitting down to tell his grandchildren a story during a family picnic- the story is about a filmmaker named Michael Malone, who’s famous for his highly liberal documentaries, to the point where to the grandfather is anti-American. And so this story that the grandfather unweaves is a retelling of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, but with Malone as Scrooge and visited by the ghosts of JFK, George S. Patton, and George Washington…

… and it’s also the latest movie from director David Zucker, best know for being part of the team that gave us Airplane! and The Naked Gun movies and also one of the few Hollywood Conservatives who’s obviously pretty proud of it.

Now I’ll go ahead and tell you right up front that I expect that there’ll be few out there that will really give this too much of an even break- as an admitted conservative my own self (but with some liberal leanings), I had a pretty good time with this, even though I’d also be the first to tell you that this isn’t as funny as the movies mentioned above. If you’re a die-hard liberal, or even a casual one, I seriously doubt that you’ll have too much pleasure with this, though I suppose that could also hinge on the real subject of it’s lampooning, filmmaker Michael Moore.

An American Carol is made with the same abandon that the above films are, obviously more on the side of cartoonish frivolity more than anything else. But Zucker gets his beliefs in there as well, and for that, I have to give him credit anyway on making a movie that bucks the normal Hollywood trend (though, I do think that Moore gets a more harsh lampooning in Parker and Stone’s Team America World Police.

Kevin Farley plays Malone, and he’s pretty much a cartoon character doing it, and that’s fine, that’s what the movie is asking of him. And in other parts, you’ll find other Hollywood conservatives including Leslie Nielsen, Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammer, Dennis Hopper, Robert Davi and country music star Trace Atkins amongst others with just a little sermonizing along the way… but really, not any different from some of the more serious movies that some would see to be carrying a very highly liberal message.

I enjoyed it, I laughed quite a bit at some parts and others just fell flat, but still I had a pretty good time. This is out there pretty much independent of any sort of any major studio release, and as such, we didn’t have a single trailer for any other movie during it, which was surprising. And also surprising was the fact that we had a larger audience for this than I would’ve figured- at best, I was figuring maybe 20 people in to see it, but that number was easily doubled. Like I said above, not for everyone, but I figure if you’ve got conservative leanings and are tired of the normal Hollywood message, you might have a good time with this…

As our movie starts, the U.S. government and military are tracking who they believe to be a Mid-East terrorist mastermind and they have the opportunity to strike, but all intel points that there is only a 51% chance of certainty that this is their man, and worse, he appears to be attending a funeral. The word is given to strike by the President. We then flash to Jerry Shaw, working at a copy store, who just seems like you’re ordinary slacker youth. Jerry is going about his life when he gets a phone call from his mother that his twin brother has died, and on returning from his funeral, he gets home to mysteriously discover that he now has over a three quarters of a million dollars in his bank account and his apartment filled with all the supplies need to start a terrorist revolution. He then receives a mysterious phone call with a female voice urging him to leave his apartment now because the FBI is about to invade his home. Along the way, we’re also introduced to a young single mother, Rachel who has just sent her son off to appear at a major band recital, and Rachel also receives a mysterious phone call from the same voice instructing her on a path that crosses Jerry’s, eventually putting both into a major situation…

… and again, I’m just trying to be as vague as I can be in describing the premise to Eagle Eye the latest movie from director D.J. Caruso and star Shia LaBeouf, who gave us Disturbia before this. Eagle Eye is about the ultimate in Hollywood leftist paranoia as it gets, referencing many a film before it as varied as North By Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Parallax View, The Manchurian Candidate, The Conversation, WarGames, Enemy of the State, Colossus: The Forbin Project and one of the most blatant, and funny at the same time, 2001: A Space Odyssey and unfortunately, it’s all pretty damn convoluted, so much so that it’s pretty hard to take the whole thing to seriously.

At times it seems like it’s the kind of movie that Hollywood makes when they want to make an action movie within a movie, that is feeling like a parody and part of the problem with that is two-fold, at least for me… one, though LaBeouf does a fine enough job with the part, I just don’t care for the character as it is on paper and two, it’s too long and gives you time to think about what’s happening as it’s happening, and it’s just hard to think that anyone could be taking this all that seriously, and the filmmakers, Caruso and producer Steven Spielberg (where reportedly, the whole idea for this comes from him) play this like they want you to take it pretty seriously, in it’s popcorn movie way. Unfortunately, at least for me, I just couldn’t take it seriously for a moment.

The thing is, it’s technically proficient, with some nicely made set pieces, even though they’re highly preposterous. And it’s earnestly acted, not just from it’s lead, but also it’s support including Michelle Monaghan, Billy Bob Thornton, Rosario Dawson and Michael Chiklis (Thornton, Dawson and Chiklis, to me are the best things about the film).

I don’t think my time was wasted with this at all, but at the same time, I really find it hard to recommend this. Caruso is certainly a top-notch filmmaker as such things like The Salton Sea and Two For The Money has shown in the past, and it certainly shows here that he can make your literal big-ass Hollywood action film, it’s just a shame that he didn’t have another idea to work with, one that maybe was just a little more grounded, and with a character that I could’ve given a damn about.

Abel Turner is a police officer, and a single father trying to raise two kids in a world that he knows is tough as hell and on top of this, he’s a black man who’s a racist, but somewhat understandably so, but it’s controlled.. to a point. That point gets raised when in his neighborhood of Lakeview Terrace comes new neighbors into the house next door, a young interracial married couple named Chris and Lisa Mattson, Chris is white and Lisa is black, and slowly Abel starts to see things with the two that he sees as disruptive to his worldview… and vice-versa with the Mattson’s, especially Chris. And trouble between the households starts to erupt…

Lakeview Terrace is the latest movie from director Neil LaBute, a director who’s always out to get a rise from his audience, and he usually does it in each one of his movies. In the Company of Men is still one of my very favorite movies to watch and to talk with people about after they see it, and hell, I’ll go on the record as one of the few who actually does enjoy his version of The Wicker Man. LaBute will continue to get that rise with Lakeview Terrace, a movie with far more meat on it’s bones than it’s simplistic marketing will suggest, and that’s basically that Sam Jackson plays a sociopath cop who’s out to make life hell for two new neighbors, and really there’s just so much more to this than that.

There’s the neighbor respect aspect (and as a homeowner my own self, believe me, there’s things I can relate to here even if in small ways), there’s a heavily racial aspect (and it would be something to imagine this movie if all races were reversed and what sort of outrage that would cause), and even an aspect that raises questions about law enforcement and just what it takes to do the job on a street level- this movie is more “cop on the edge” than something like Rightous Kill could be on it’s best day… and unfortunately, there’s no easy answers and LaBute isn’ts looking to provide any.

Yes, I could certainly see how by the time this movie gets to it’s end, other viewers could look at as entirely ridiculous, but I just see it as using high melodrama theatrics to tell it’s story. If you’ve been with the characters throughout, and are at least trying to come to some understanding with them all as you go, by the time it makes it to it’s end, you should still be questioning if the right things happened to get to that end.

I think this is one of the more challenging major Hollywood theatrical releases of the year, and I give LaBute high marks for how he got there, But will it translate the same for others… that’s extremely hard to say.

As I said above, this movie is nowhere near as simplistic as it’s marketing would imply, and LaBute makes some great choices to make it so, maybe the best of them being opening with getting to know Abel Turner before you get to know anyone else. And on a technical and storytelling level, the music of Jeff and Mychael Danna is nowhere near typical for something that’s marketed as just a thriller, it’s very understated and helps add to the idea of having something to think about here.

Samuel L. Jackson is Abel Turner and he just delivers a brilliant performance here, with a lot of layers built into it, so much so that he’s just not a simplistic “villain” by any means. Patrick Wilson and Kerry Washington play the Mattsons, and their performances are also extremely strong and with all three characters, there’s a lot to chew on here.

I think Lakeview Terrace is just brilliant and challenging filmmaking all around and certainly up there for me with some of the best that I’ve seen this year. But at the same time, I know I can honestly say that it won’t be the same thing for others and it’ll really depend on just how open you are to trying to understand all of these very complex characters.

Two top New York City police detectives, nicknamed Turk and Rooster, are continually frustrated at seeing collars of theirs go free by technicalities, and as the movie starts, one of them is seemingly revealing himself to be a killer, working outside the law to exact his own brand of vigilante justice. Two other detectives are also on the case, and find themselves continually thwarted at nailing who they think the murderer is. And though both Turk and Rooster have their hearts in the right place, all is not as it seems…

And yeah, I’m being as vague as I can possibly be in trying to explain the premise to Righteous Kill the new film from director Jon Avnet that teams two legendary actors together, Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro. This isn’t the first time that both actors have been in the same movie, they’ve both been in The Godfather Part II and Heat and unfortunately, Righteous Kill while enjoyable (to me anyway) isn’t anywhere as monumental as the other two movies.

The problem being that this is a movie with a “twist” and that “twist” is ultimately the downfall of the film. Both actors do their jobs well enough and it is fun to watch them play off of each other, but the “twist” itself seems like a cheat in the end and really just not worthy of the talents that these guys have exhibited in the past.

Personally, I wish they’d just not gone in with the idea of having a twist in the first place and just would’ve made this a straight-up cop film with both guys working the right side of the law and pursuing someone else in the end. I still had a good time with this, but it really could’ve been a lot better.

Pacino and DeNiro are backed up with some impressive supporting talent, including Carla Gugino, Donnie Wahlberg, John Leguizamo and Brian Dennehy and everybody does a fine job here, but it’s the material just really isn’t as worthy of their talents as it should be.

Avnet does a better job here than he did in his previous film (also with Al Pacino), 88 Minutes and does a nice job of moving things along, but again, I just wish they could’ve resisted the urge to have to make a movie with a “twist” in the first place.

If you’ve got time to kill, and want to see these guys together on-screen, Righteous Kill is an OK diversion, but at the same time, I wouldn’t necessarily urge anyone to run right out and see this in the theatre right this minute either. If you want to do something like that, then go see this week’s other big film, Burn After Reading instead…

Osborne Cox is a CIA analyst who’s now quit his job because of the threat of a downgrading, given the excuse of a “drinking problem,” but due to his own explosive nature, we see it’s more than that. His cold-hearted wife, Katie, reacts badly to the news, covertly planning a divorce while carrying on an affair with a U.S. Marshal, Harry Pfarrer. Harry, married and an overachiever in the worst way, in addition to his affair with Katie, is also having affairs with other women as well. Linda Litzke is an employee at a gym who’s starting to feel her age and wants to get several rounds of cosmetic surgery to find her perfect man. Osborne, now at home decides to write his memoirs as a book much to the consternation of his wife, who’s been advised to covertly get all of his financial information to help expedite the divorce process. A CD with Osborne’s information falls into the hand of Linda and her dimwit friend Chad and from there… the literal hijinks ensue.

Confused? Well, don’t be, all comes together in a highly entertaining way in this extremely black comedy from the Coen Brothers, Burn After Reading their sorbet follow-up to last year’s Oscar-winning No Country For Old Men. I say “sorbet” because essentially this is a palette cleanser compared to the grimness that was in their previous movie, but it’s not all happiness and light here either, but still an extremely welcome change of pace from the Coens.

There’s nothing at all out there like this today, basically being this extremely smart black comedy about a bunch of people who could best be described as functioning idiots. And while it’s not the type of movie that’s wall-to-wall laughs, it has it’s moments, and still comes together to just be an extremely good time.

The Coens of course know what they’re doing, and these characters are all very well drawn out. I have to give some special note to their longtime musical collaborator Carter Burwell as well, for delivering a very cool score that of course just runs extremely counter to anything you’d expect in a comedy.

The Coens have a great cast at work here- John Malkovich as Osborne, George Clooney as Harry, Frances McDormand as Linda, Tilda Swinton as Katie and Brad Pitt as Chad all do great work here and they’re all well backed up by folks like David Rasche, the always solid Richard Jenkins, and J.K. Simmons who literally steals the movie in both of the scenes that he’s in.

Burn After Reading is just an extremely good time at the movies, and as I said above, a very welcome change of pace film from the Coens that’s sort of a mix of movies like Hopscotch and A Fish Called Wanda but still comes out in the end to be something all it’s own. I cannot recommend this one enough, it’s just a really good time, and certainly up there with the best that I’ve seen for the year.

In 1978 in Yemen, young Samir Horn sees his father killed in a car-bombing terrorist incident. Flash forward to now, and Samir is trafficking explosives to a terrorist organization. Devout in his Muslim faith, Samir proves to be a valuable asset to the terrorist cell that he’s trying to sell to and is soon brought into it’s inner circle. All the while, he remains a central figure to an FBI terror investigation, though it also appears there’s more to this man than meets the eye.

Traitor is a brilliant and thrilling little film from director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, who also wrote the film, from a story from himself and Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) and it’s just a really cool film giving insight to the terrorist mind, and plays it fair all the way through. It’s extremely well paced with really good, if understated, performances all around.

Really the only thing I thought was wrong with the whole thing was just that the trailer for the film blows the major twist of the film- it’s still entertaining regardless and it’s a fun ride getting to where it’s going, but I can only imagine how much cooler this would’ve been if you’d not known the twist going in.

This movie has a real first rate cast- Don Cheadle again proves that he’s one of our very best actors working today with his role of Samir, he plays this in such a way that you’re never quite sure what he’ll do next. Guy Pearce plays the straight arrow FBI agent who’s on his tail, and it’s very sincere stuff that he’s dealing out here. They’re backed up with solid work from Neal McDonough (Pearce’s partner and one of my favorite character guys to watch today), Said Taghmaoui (as the terrorist who brings Samir into the organization) and Jeff Daniels, as another government official who has a man deep inside the organization.

I really give this one high marks for playing it fair, much like The Kingdom did an for not falling into the standard Hollywood cliche of “we’ve seen the enemy and the enemy is us” and also just for being a real top-notch spy/terrorist thriller. The fact that Steve Martin co-wrote the story just makes this even more impressive. Very cool movie, up there with the best I’ve seen this year, and of course highly recommended…

In the near future, a mercenary based in Russia, Toorop, is contracted to make sure that he gets a mysterious young woman named Aurora from the ravages of a post-apocalyptic Eastern Europe to New York City. He picks the girl up at a Mongolian monastery where she’s accompanied by her guardian, Sister Rebekah. Now the three begin a dangerous cross continental trek to find out what is the true secret of Aurora’s origin.

Babylon A.D. comes to us from director Matthieu Kassovitz, who’s really impressed me in the past with movies like La Haine and The Crimson Rivers and more recently behind a less impressive movie like Gothika. Unfortunately, Babylon A. D. falls into the less impressive category.

It’s hard to fault director Kassovitz entirely for this due to some problems behind his control, the movie fell behind production schedule and was running significantly over-budget and due to that, 20th Century Fox basically took over control of the final cut of the film.

There’s some good ideas at work here, and a nice sense of atmosphere built into the film. But scenes don’t necessarily flow as they should, and some characterizations seem to take a 180 degree turn right between scenes (mostly around Vin Diesel’s character of Toorov). There’s also a little too much asking of this question “What’s going on?” by the character of Aurora played by Melanie Thierry which just seems to stop any flow whatsoever, as if to be there just to make sure the audience is up to speed, making the whole thing come off more as a dumbed down version of Children of Men more than anything else.

I could certainly forgive some of this if it’s final revelation of the origin of Aurora was done in some more interesting and involving way than through fast dialogue in two separate scenes one from Lambert Wilson, who plays her “father” and the other from Charlotte Rampling who plays the leader of a religious sect called the Neolites looking for religious validity. This explanation is just boring especially in light of some of the things that they have Aurora do during the film.

The cast is pretty good executing what’s there on-screen, in addition to the above-mentioned, Michelle Yeoh plays Sister Rebekah and Gerard Depardieu plays Gorsky, the man who contracts Toorov for the job. It’s just that the way it’s all “seamed” together it just never comes through that well.

There’s probably a really good movie somewhere to be found, and maybe that would’ve come about if Kassovitz had entire control and maybe it wouldn’t. So far, much like the similarly-themed Ultraviolet from director Kurt Wimmer (which also had it’s control wrested from it’s director), there doesn’t seem to be any sort of “director’s cut” planned at present. Not awful by any means (there’s good ideas here and some good set pieces), but in no way really good either, and it’s a shame because there is some good talent at work here.