BEFORE: Sticking with a theme, though it's not a particularly rosy one. I've got a Meryl Streep marathon planned for June, but I figured this might fit better here. Linking from last night, Julia Roberts was in "Charlie Wilson's War" with Philip Seymour Hoffman, who was in "Doubt" with Streep (last heard in "Fantastic Mr. Fox")
THE PLOT: The story of Karen Silkwood, a metallurgy worker at a plutonium processing plant who was purposefully contaminated to prevent her from exposing worker safety violations at the plant.
AFTER: Again I face a big discrepancy between how "important" the film is, and how entertaining it is. Since it's a serious subject and a film that got rewarded with Oscar nominations, but man, is it boring. Couldn't they have spiced this up with some car chases, or a shoot-out or something? I'm kidding (mostly).
At my family Christmas party last December, my aunts and uncles were swapping stories, and I found out that my great-grandfather died in an industrial accident, and as compensation, his sons were awarded some high-traffic trucking routes, and this led to the formation of the family business. Also, I recently learned that there was a man with my (rather uncommon) last name who was a mechanic on the Hindenburg. While I don't know how exactly I might have been related to him, it got me wondering if my ancestors have a reputation for being present at famous disasters and industrial accidents.
I was about a block away from the World Trade Center bombing - the first one, not the 9/11/2001 one. I was working in an 8th floor office just south of there, and I heard the explosion and saw crowds running from the site. So hopefully that's as close as I ever come to something like that.
Also starring Cher (last seen in "The Witches of Eastwick"), Kurt Russell (last seen in "Sky High"), Craig T. Nelson (last seen in "All the Right Moves"), Ron Silver (last seen in "Blue Steel"), Fred Ward (last seen in "The Right Stuff"), Bruce McGill (last seen in "Shallow Hal"), with cameos from David Strathairn (last seen in "Mother Night"), M. Emmet Walsh (last seen in "A Time to Kill"), James Rebhorn (last seen in "Scent of a Woman").
RATING: 3 out of 10 geiger counters
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