In Good Company
I recently watched the movie In Good Company and was very impressed. Impressed enough to give it 5 stars on Netflix (which I rarely do). What amazed me is how little press and excitement this movie had. It only made $45 million.
The setup is that a magazine company gets bought by company that is known for its “sexy” business strategy and using words like synergy constantly. The head of the sales department is a man in his early 50’s (played by Dennis Quiad) and he is demoted so that a young 26 year old executive can take over the department and revamp things. This includes increasing revenue by 20% and reducing costs dramatically.
The resulting story, that follows the lives of both the old and new department heads is a great one. It’s not bitter, it’s not sappy, it’s just real and it speaks to one of the greatest failures of our modern society: our companies objectifying employees to be “assets” to be bought and sold.
Watch it! Anyone who’s been stuck in coorporate American will both identify with the story and either learn something or have their beliefs reinforced. (For me it was a little bit of both.)
July 21st, 2005 at 12:05 pm
I do have to say that your 5 star list is rather exclusive! Although I would have to disagree with *most* of the movies on the list. I mean you gave Hotel Rwanda AND Hitch 5 stars… that’s like saying you like Stanford. Do you like Stanford Ken?
July 22nd, 2005 at 2:25 pm
OK sycho boy. There’s nothing wrong with having totally different types of movies rated highly. I also rate things in relation to the genre. Hitch was a great romantic comedy. Hotel Rwanda was a great “injustice” movie. Finding Nemo was a great children’s movie.
A big problem with my list is that it doesn’t have anything I own on it (because I’ve never needed to rent it from Nexflix). Finding Nemo being the exception because we rented it before we bought it. So I really need to add movies like Braveheart, The Passion of the Christ, Forget Paris, Spaceballs, etc..
The only 5 star I’m a little uncomfortable with being on the list is ‘As Good as it Gets’ but I think it good enough to merit staying on the list.
See, now I’m going to have to go through and reanalyze the whole list to make sure I feel good about it.
Thanks Brian.
July 23rd, 2005 at 3:12 pm
so i see the sin of pride still doesn’t include spelling errors?
I do recognize the need for different genres… but Hitch *really* stunk. Not that I saw it or anything…