catapult magazine

I thought someone already talked about this film. If not, I should say that it was much better than The Secretary.

Not. (Man, do I feel baited)

I decided I don’t hate About Schmidt as I once thought, but I still maintain that what it expressed could have been done just as well with a short film of about 1/2 hour’s length.

The Secretary was so amazing! The acting, first of all, was far superior in my book. James Spader has been doing great stuff for a long time, and whatzername (Maggie something?) got rave reviews, and rightly so. I truthfully can’t remember the last time I was so enchanted by a film actress’ performance.

Surely the artistry of the last scene (bath etc.) was more profound than anything in About Schmidt . . ? I found the Secretary engaging, perplexing, mysterious; while Schmidt lulled us to sleep and then woke us up with a little jab at the heart to wake us up in time to leave. The Secretary was a real story, a chain of unexpected causes and effects, where Schmidt was a deliberate, slow series of events loosely related. I’ll give you that the latter style of storytelling has its place, but not above the Secretary.

The humor. Schmidt had some hard-bought funny moments, like the trailer park or the hot tub (ahhhhh!), but the Secretary just plain made me laugh more, and laugh harder—because the humor was character-based more than it was situation-based. And it was weird! Weird’s always funny. About Schmidt was chuckle funny, Secretary was What The Heck? funny.