OT: Early candidate for the worst movie of the year.

Caught "The Sum of All Fears" today. I convinced my girlfriend to go by telling her that a Clancy movie must be, by definition, better than the book. I haven't read SOAF, but this one probably broke that hitherto iron clad rule.

Here's what I learned from the movie. Stop here to avoid possible spoilers.

1. Ben Affleck has an enormous head. This is apparent throughout the whole movie, but there is a scene fairly early in which, although he is sitting behind a character, his head is clearly larger than her entire upper body. It's very scary.

2. If you want to hide your deepest, darkest secret, inscribe its emblem on your watch because nobody will ever look there.

3. You can escape a nuclear explosion in a helicopter a mile from ground zero if your head is big enough.

4. If you work for an arch-villain bent on global domination and you have second thoughts, do not announce your intention to quit and expect him to just shake on it and let you go. (c.f. every Bond movie.)

5. When Chicago and Florida play an NFL game in November, they play in Baltimore so the president can attend.

6. It is believable that within the next 6 months, George Bush will learn what "ascertain" means.

7. Entry level CIA analysts are paid enough to live in impeccably furnished brownstones in Georgetown.

8. The first matinee of the day has the best popcorn.

9. After undergrad, med school, and residency, doctors still look like 21 year old models, however they are brunette so you know they're smart. (I have actually learned this from a lot of movies, but it's nice to be reminded).

I disagree.

I think the Clancy books are much better than the movies. With the exception of Hunt For Red October, but that had Sean Connery working for it.

That Said Sum of All fears was horribly untrue to the book. But I won't get started, I could go on forever. Starting with it all happening in the WRONG city.

I liked the movie version of "Hunt for Red October" quite a lot, though you're right, it was mostly due to Connery's scenery chewing. Haven't read anything by Clancy that I thought was any good, but hey Grisham sells well too.

Greg Berge wrote:

7. Entry level CIA analysts are paid enough to live in impeccably furnished brownstones in Georgetown.

Well, a GS-13 step 3 employee clears about 71k a year in DC.
(http://www.opm.gov/oca/02tables/dcb.htm)

Of course, if Ryan, being a hotshot PhD military historian, is a professional level employee his minimum base pay jumps to 110k a year.
[www.opm.gov]

Given that a Brownstone in Georgetown runs around 400k,
(http://www.martin-jeff.com/listings.shtml#3405) and assuming a 350k mortgage at 7% for 30 years, our buddy Jack would be paying about 2300 a month for his mortgage.

Thus, if he takes home 4300 a month as a GS-13, he has about 2000 a month left after he pays his mortgage.

So if Jack didn't have a high debt load out of grad school, his book on Admiral Halsey was selling well and he lived frugally in other areas of his life, he might just swing the Brownstone, but that still doesn't explain the furniture...

He got most of the furniture from his parents. And the rest at flea markets and estate sales. Never let it be said that Jack Ryan can't spot a bargain.

Gotta love the off-season.

Yup.

Apparently, Ryan wouldn't have any such worries anyway since he was rich by the time he joined the CIA. This from a friend who reads each Clancy book in about 2 hours, and according to whom, they are "getting worse," whatever that means.

Jack is rich... Before he went to Anapolis to become a history professor and author he was a stock broker or invstment banker or some such on Wall Street. So the brownstone would be entirely affordable.

I really enjoyed most of the Clancy books I've read. but I would agree that they have gotten worse. IMO Rainbow Six was pretty bad - just a lot of "terrorists are scum" and "soldiers are heroes".

my friend was in LA visiting, and she wanted to see some movie stars. So we went to hang out at the premiere and ended up getting free tickets.

It was fun to stand by the red carpet although most of the other people were really scary (one girl had a sign that said "Ben, the object of my Afflecktion".

We ended up skipping the movie though, because we figured we had already seen the movie exciting part