journal features

movie review - The Spy Who Dumped Me

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

St. Catharines, 2018.04.15

A couple of years ago I wrote one of my mini-reviews about "Jupiter Ascending", a Mila Kunis movie that eh, didn't work. I wrote, "Better luck next time", and I'm happy to report that this, the next time, worked.

This is an accidental spy story about two room-mates who find themselves tangled in some bewildering and deadly spy stuff after one friend's charming boyfriend breaks up with her. It's all played semi-seriously but I really enjoyed this for a variety of reasons. It's fun, it's not stupid, and has a semi-original plan. It also has one of the best car chases I've seen in years, which adds to the absurdity. I thought the two leads had plenty of chemistry and that the whole thing was really engaging.

I don't even get why people seem split on this thing.

Recommended. Plus. Recommended plus.

rand()m quote

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

—Michael Crichton